Welcome to Gaia! ::

As it turned out her overtook her halfway there because he always walked like he was on a mission and because he was cold and the brisk walking helped. And maybe she would smell his cigarette before she saw him, catlike as he was, because he was smoking one in an effort to soothe down his agitated nerves.

It could not possibly be anything besides awkward. This was his Effort: to not be an a*****e, to work on it, partly because he ached for acceptance and partly because it was feeling more important by the day to try, in his unqualified, inexperienced, stupid way, to be some kind of Example. He had never felt less up to a task in his life.

He had, at least, brought a football. Sort of. There was a soccer ball tucked under his arm. And he, too, was in the clothes he slept in, but it was only because his jeans were swapped for dark green plaid that it qualified as pajamas at all--henley, T-shirt, hoodie. In all honesty the most incongruous note was probably the running shoes--battered, clearly often used despite being rarely seen--where his boots normally were.

"Did you sleep at all?" he asked, dispensing with even an attempt at a greeting.

"This is all I had," he said calmly, "and I somehow suspected you didn't have a football handy."

Taym was not a Sports Person. This was sufficient for him.

"Basically," he said. "I mean, I guess it's more nuanced than that, but we're two people in pajamas on the training fields at like five in the morning." He ground the cigarette out under his heel, dropping the ball and pushing it vaguely in her direction with his toe. "They call it the Beautiful Game but I don't think it really applies in this instance." He paused, clearly on the verge of saying something either self-deprecating or mean about her or both, but he refrained, through some small miracle. "Kick it into the other guy's net is plenty.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I get the distraction thing but caring about people," said Taym flatly, "is a good thing. This isn't a reality show. You don't have to do the not here to make friends thing. If more people around here gave a s**t it probably wouldn't be such a mess."

Taym, by contrast, moved with his usual easy grace--and maybe it would seem strange for someone like him, always agitated, always nervous, except that maybe it was just that hyper-awareness of the ways in which he occupied a space that made his movements so catlike--but also with unthinking practice, not at all expert but certainly familiar. Clearly (another odd thought, maybe) this was a game he played a lot.

He juggled the ball away from her with an easy, tricky movement of his foot, only to punt it back to her seconds after, as if to show her how it was done. There was nothing competitive about it. It had more in common with playing catch than any kind of actual game.

"For what it's worth," he added quietly, sounding like he was forcing every word through his teeth against his will, "Sorry for being one of the assholes."

He shot her a dirty look for sitting down, but he didn't kick the ball at her or again or demand she get up. Instead he started idly juggling the ball back and forth on his feet, a place to put his attention while he paused and, more importantly, while he said something that he desperately didn't want to.

(But that was just it, right? He was trying to be better than his worst instincts, he'd told America. Start here. Start anywhere, but start here because it's convenient and because you have a good reason to.)

"There is a lot about you," he said finally, "that makes me--I don't know. You represent a lot of things I can't ******** stand, I'm not going to lie to you. But they're all trivial s**t or personal s**t, or whatever, or anyway most of it is. I don't have any reason to--to hate you, especially not with the genuinely ******** evil people we have around here." A pause, a tricky little movement of his feet that he didn't quite get right, that sent the ball off before he retrieved it neatly with his toe. "I guess I latch onto you because I need somewhere to put all that douchebag s**t--someone to spit on--and I guess you just seem like you're used to being the one that gets spat on. Which I guess is just a big ******** reason that I should not do that."

It was not a promise he could make with any intention of keeping it. This wasn't generally a reason for him not to make a promise anyway, but just to be safe, this time he didn't.

"Or I could just stop spitting on people at all. Except Rep," he amended. "Or Lawrence, not that he counts as people. And maybe sometimes Marcus, or whoever else is asking for it." A pause. "Actually asking for it," he clarified, sounding distressed. "Anyway, I said I didn't have any reason to hate you, not that I had any reason to like you. Just felt like I ought to make that clear."

"I haven't given you a reason to like me either," he pointed out, not returning it quite yet. "And I'm not telling you this s**t because I like you, I'm telling you this s**t because I--" and the word stuck in his throat, disgusted and disgusting, but he forced it out eventually "--respect you. And I don't know if I've even given you a reason for that, so maybe you win. Like this," he added, demonstrating the tilt of his foot before he sent the ball back at her.