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He was as taut as a guitar string, and he didn't relax at all when she touched him. If anything, the opposite. But he didn't push her away, even though he wanted to. He felt sick, even though she didn't even know the half of it.

It was stupid. He was over-reacting. But he didn't feel that way at all. To him this was a perfectly reasonable response, not theatrical at all.

The fact that she got closer instead of further away was such a relief that it made him angry, and he swallowed hard and tried not to show it. "Good. I told you so," he managed, stupidly. "And you thought they were gonna put you down like a racehorse." And then, abruptly, watery: "Everyone is going to know. But make it a secret anyway."

He was visibly relieved when she let him go, tension draining out of his shoulders as soon as she put space between them. All this, despite a contradictory, simultaneous thought that she'd pulled away out of disgust, surely. A wish that she hadn't, because touching him was validation as much as it was something to hate.

He finally looked at her--he was mostly confident that the worst was over; that he wasn't going to do something more embarrassing than he already had. And he realized he had to keep her from leaving, or she'd think he did it anyway. He desperately wanted to be alone.

"Don't leave," he said roughly. It was a demand, not a request, not that he was in the position to issue any orders.

He hauled himself painfully, creakily to his feet, pushing the remnants of his cleaning binge under the bed to put away later, and deposited himself bonelessly into his chair (because it was impossible to be too close to her, there; it was a forcefield), reaching for the tin he'd just procured from Rep. He opened it, sniffed it, looked to see if he'd been benevolent enough to include zigzags, and was dimly surprised but deeply satisfied to see that he had. His shaking had diminished to the occasional tremble, and he set about deftly and with old habit making use of his hard-won loot.

Flatly, and abruptly: "He pulled his weapon on me. Not this time. Last time."

He glanced at her sideways, during a long pause while his fingers went through movements ingrained in muscle memory. He'd essentially been daring her to say anything, given the conversation they'd just had, and was faintly approving of the fact that she hadn't. But he looked back as he worked. These were not ideal circumstances, but most of Taym's life had not been ideal circumstances for any of the things he had done. He certainly hadn't waited around for fresh gear and sterile rooms ever, when he was doing far worse things than this.

"His ********'--" he hesitated over the word, and it came out thick and choked "--boyfriend broke it up before it got violent. I didn't tell you any of this," he added, interrupting himself to wet the paper with his tongue and eye her warily over the top of it. "Whatever ******** problems we have they're between me and him. He can broadcast whatever s**t he wants but he's not getting the satisfaction of me doing the same. But I wanted you to know why I sent that text. It wasn't so you could rescue me, it was so I could have a ********' witness."

A pause. "He's ********' compensating for something. Probably ten feet long. Like an a*****e in a dualie pickup in the middle of the city." As if Rep had had any say in the form his weapon took. Maybe he did, actually--Taym thought fleetingly of Bix's conversation with him, about the way weapons changed.

"Compensating," he repeated, firmly and with certainty. What this implied about his dinky little dagger he left unsaid.

He reached into the pocket of his coat to find a second book of matches, and after a couple of false starts the stink began to pervade the room, and he forced a cough. "How's things going with uh..." He made a vague motion like someone pulling down the visor of a motorcycle helmet. "Swimmingly, I hope."

He leaned back to put his feet up, and obligingly, he blew her a smoke ring. It looked better than the last time.

He grinned at her, both for the question and for the ensuing blush. "You're so ********' cute," he said. He wouldn't have, if he knew more, but he didn't, so it was exactly the sort of thing he'd have said to his sister, or to Bird (who, god knows, he'd never seen as anything but something slightly more and slightly less than human). "Handy trait. Must come as a huge shock to anyone who gets on the other side of your fists." This was an oblique reference to the tournament, a thing he was still tender enough about that he didn't particularly want to open up to a real conversation.

He extended the joint to her, leaning out of his chair half-backwards with his hair dangling to make the offer.

"Good," he said calmly, withdrawing. Whether that was because he wanted it for himself or because he would have been disappointed with her, he left unsaid.

He let the silence go, as he often did; silences were obviously a comfort to him occasionally, and the fact that he was including her in them so frequently a mark of his acceptance of her, if nothing else. His eyes roamed the wall, and it was obvious--from their movement, from the way his hand hung in the air forgotten between hits--that he was deep in thought. And no wonder, given what they'd just talked about.

Abruptly, he set his jaw and closed his eyes, biting his lip as though to force back an expression he didn't want to make. He looked back over at her, as if suddenly remembering she were there, or maybe just suddenly remembering what he'd told her, and for a half a second Peyton got a look at the face that he'd been so keen to try and hide from her when she'd come in: hurt, and hunted, and scared, and maybe, just a little bit vicious. The keen viciousness of a dog that was hurt and didn't know that the hand reaching for him was trying to help.

And then he smiled at her. It was lopsided and it was awkward and a little sad, and it didn't look at home on his face, but it wasn't a grin or a smirk; no teeth, no twisting lip. It didn't last more than a second before he was back to examining some unseen vista beyond the blank dorm wall. "Sorry. I'm bad company," he said roughly, quietly. More true now, on the heels of his emotionally exhausting day, even than it was normally. "Never was good at carrying on an idle conversation. You can talk, if you want. Better at listening than I am at talking. Tell me about something interesting, if it doesn't make you feel like a performing monkey."

"Eleven," he echoed, slightly incredulous. "Jesus Christ. You weren't kidding when you said you moved a lot." He eyed her sideways, contemplatively, and filled up the quiet by doing another French inhale for her. It was considerably more impressive this time around, with decent smoke behind it.

"That why you got so punchy? Always the new kid, always something to prove?" This was more interesting to him than the places she'd lived. His upbringing had been privileged and stable, but he'd wrecked it enough to have been places that made him jaded. "Kids are cruel as s**t to an outsider."

A twinge--the barest twinge--of guilt. He knew, in retrospect, where he fell in the stereotypical middle school and high school social hierarchy. It wasn't a place he was especially proud of, but at least he'd had some measure of control, back then.