Welcome to Gaia! ::

He laughed (shy, downcast, tongue caught in the corner of his teeth kind of laugh, barely more than a sudden exhale and quiet, the kind of laugh he was prone to when they were startled out of him but sincere), and he reached across the desk to take them out of her hand. The new furniture arrangement was sadly apropos: she by necessity had to stand across the desk, and he behind it like the world's most thuggish-looking principal. He examined them only briefly before obligingly putting them on, then leaning back and steepling his fingers, also, it must be said, obligingly.

The glasses were startlingly not bad. Subtract the scar and he looked more like an overworked college student in the middle of finals than he did a moribund cancer patient. He needed a sweater. He needed, in fact, the sweater that he almost always wore to sleep in, which always made him look vaguely less horrible than he normally did. Instead he was wearing, in anticipation of her arrival, a collared shirt and a tie. It was a truly horrific tie. He'd left it on. There was a cow on it.

"That's a good look for you," he observed after a long moment to inspect her, "but the tattoo kind of clashes. Nice shoes."

Taym meditated on the many uncomfortable avenues of speculation this little tidbit offered, and then decided firmly not to pursue any of them.

"Crocs are an abomination," is what he settled on, and then, after a tranquil pause during which he did not oblige her also with an appreciative stare either to the view she was giving him by putting her elbows on the desk or to her shoes (although he'd liked to have done either, or both), he added, absently toying with the end of his horrible tie: "What are you going to do if the alarms go off and you're wearing those things? You should wear your hair up more," he added, which might have been unexpected given how much he vocally and loudly admired her hair, but might not have been, given how much he silently but obviously (with his hands, with a way of kissing them that always felt a little like he was laying claim) admired her neck and her shoulders.

He let her, pushing the book he'd been reading aside so that he could lean forward and pull her down towards him, considering what snarky comment of approval he'd make against her mouth about the idea of a second tattoo before he was distracted, shutting down Fiona's restless irritation that he wasn't even trying to resist in favor of gathering America's hair over her shoulder, examining the ends.

"When'd you get a haircut?" he asked, an offhand question delivered in a distracted tone that suggested, along with the fact that he tugged her nearer again, that her answer wasn't going to have much bearing on the immediate future. And of course he noticed: it was like him, and it pleased him to point out that he'd noticed after tormenting her with feigned obliviousness for weeks over her tattoo.

This was normally the point at which she'd find Taym closing the gap for her, restless and impatient and possessive. He didn't do that, but neither did he draw back. Instead he said, carefully toneless: "He did what?"

He was silent, with that sudden tension in his jaw that indicated mounting rage. Not at her, or at least not yet, but enough that he was clearly distracted for a few seconds from resuming, as it were, business. He fanned the ends of her hair in his fingers, running his tongue over his teeth, and his hands, steady up til now, had started that vague trembling again. He pulled the glasses off with his free hand and set them aside.

"I don't ******** care," he said quietly, "how well he can get through rough terrain or what his physical specs are. I don't want to talk about Lawrence," he said, the second time he had to her, and only then did he close the gap, still irritated, hands still shaking.

He did draw back, this time.

"A random question to you about your daily ******** goings-on," he said quietly, "should not have an answer in any way related to Lawrence."

Again the wryly pissed twist of his jaw, again the tongue running over his teeth which he did (always, always) when he was trying to avoid saying something recklessly angry, and then he leaned back and got up. He was pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket and undoubtedly on his way to go smoke by the window (always, always) until the low-level rage had passed, but he abruptly turned by the time he reached the foot of the bed, stopped tamping the pack down on his palm to toss them on top of the dresser and reach for her again, apparently having thought better of the smoke break.

Maybe he wanted to indulge the anger in a productive fashion--he'd always been playful and affectionate and nervey with her and maybe it would be a change of pace. Maybe he hoped that the rage would pass if he had an appropriate distraction. Either way, he was half-apologetic and half-aggressive and all his usual demanding, but not ten seconds later he was drawing away again, this time with frustrated resignation, and he let go of her arms and closed his eyes and said: "Let's not, actually."

Which wasn't how he wanted this conversation to go at all, but at least, he thought dimly, it was happening.