(no subject)

[mr_gaeta]

"Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
With my three wishes clutched in her hand..."

Simon finally hooked him up to a morpha -- morphine, whatever it's called here -- drip once the nerve block wore off and the supposedly unidentifiable opioid had left his system. Gaeta's half-drowsing, eyes closed in a vain attempt to sleep outright; the pain's still too great, though, and the exhaustion more prominent.

And if he sleeps, that means he can't do the only thing that's worked so far.

"The first that she be spared the pain
That comes from a dark and laughing rain..."

The words are a little roughened with hoarseness, a touch slurred by morpha -- but his voice still rings clear through the infirmary.



[ooc: for continuity's sake, all threads now take place before Boyd's and Simon's.]

Comments

[cbucsrule]

Small frakking universe, man, small frakking universe, but it makes him smile. "Me too. Not River Junction, though. About a half hour outside of Perkinston, harbor town called Ocean Valley. That's before I moved to Queenstown." Probably, Felix doesn't give a good godsdamn about the shit from his past, about his family history or any of that stuff, but it's still nice to talk to a fellow Pican. He almost asks if Felix engaged in either of the national sports there, running or boxing, but that... that's bad form, with the leg thing and all.

"You know the bar here has Picon Ale? The good kind in the green bottles."

More things he never thought he'd have to go around missing, godsdammit.

[mr_gaeta]

He is not going to cry in front of another one of the gods.

(Any more than he already has, anyway.)

Shakily, Gaeta nods. It hurts to move his head too much. Everything hurts.

"I was going to try to meet him here," he explains, pushing out the words through the constriction in his throat. "So we wouldn't be apart the whole two months."

[stilljustandrew]

You're going to be okay, he wants to say.

He has no idea if it's true, and this is not the time for a comforting lie.

[mr_gaeta]

The beep, beep, beep in the background keeps even, steady time, calm and unperturbed.

"Thank you," Gaeta whispers, letting his eyes drift closed once more. Traces of dampness linger at the corners.

[stilljustandrew]

"It's okay."




"Should I let you get some rest?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Picon, originally. 'S the twelfth of the twelve."

His fingers tighten infinitesimally on the bedsheets.

"Been living on a battlestar for a while though. A spaceship."

[mr_gaeta]

I'm not going to rest very much, he thinks, absent and without much concern. (Being concerned about that would be like being concerned that the sky is blue.)

"Maybe, yeah," he mumbles, and shifts a little against the pillows. "I guess I should try again."

[callipygos]

Damn everything, she is not going to cry in front of a mortal.

They'd be tears of frustration, anyway. What a lousy way to treat the first real devotees she's met in ages-- she can't even answer their prayers.

What she assumes are both their prayers, anyway.

"--Oh," she realizes.

"Does he ... does he not know you're here?"

Any here will do, such as Milliways-here, but what 'Dite means specifically is hospital-bed, missing-some-leg-here.

[mr_gaeta]

"Yeah?" The twitch of a smile lingers just a fractional amount longer, this time. "Had a cousin in Queenstown. You ever run into a Joel Gaeta?"

Probably not, he surmises. Queenstown was a pretty big city.

(Gods, listen to him actually making small talk with Anders.)

"And yeah, they've got everything," he goes on, trying to shift to make himself a little more comfortable. "Mostly just stuck with ambrosia and Virgon Brew though."

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh." Very cautious. "Okay."

Yeah, he is way too drugged -- and in too much pain -- to process any of this.

Gaeta closes his eyes for a moment, trying to regroup. "What's your name?"

[mr_gaeta]

Silently, Gaeta shakes his head.





"I just wanted some water," he manages at last. "I got Bound."

[the_cupbearer]

"We...barely have space travel on my world. It's only just been possible to break into orbit," Ganymede says, shaking his head.

[stilljustandrew]

He presses Gaeta's hand one more time and lets go.




"Before I go." Soft. "Something to remember, if you wake up by yourself?"

[mr_gaeta]

His eyes, still overbright, flicker halfway open.

"Hm?"

[stilljustandrew]

"First law of metaphysics," he says.

"Nothing unreal exists."

[mr_gaeta]

A beat goes by.

And then Gaeta smiles -- small, and unsteady, but more genuine than he's smiled in weeks.

"I'll remember that," he whispers. "Thank you."

[stilljustandrew]

"You're welcome."

He gets to his feet.

"Take care, okay?"

[cbucsrule]

Joel Gaeta, Joel Gaeta.

"No, I don't think I know any Joel Gaeta. I only lived in Queenstown for a year, my last year of high school. Pyramid kept me pretty godsdamn busy." Pyramid and that job he took working nights so he could afford the place to live after his parents died, but he isn't gonna go into that now.

But...

"Virgon Brew? I never really developed a taste for it, but ambrosia? I can drink that any time." Had some with Kara just the other day. Maybe when Felix is feeling better, the two of them can sit down together and...

...or maybe not. Yeah. He's getting a little bit ahead of himself with that one, he thinks. Supposedly, he shot this man in the leg. Drinking together? Probably not on the agenda.

[mr_gaeta]

"Yeah. Yeah, you too."

Still smiling just a little, Gaeta closes his eyes.

[mr_gaeta]

"Yeah, I've heard," he says, mouth quirking again. "Seems like everybody I've met's from Earth. They're all impressed I'm in space."

Meanwhile, he's impressed they're living on Earth.

[callipygos]

"Oh, no," she murmurs.

"Well-- didn't the ... doctors, or someone ... want to know who to tell? That you were here? Oh, never mind, you know--"

A slight pause.


"I could try to find him for you. Bring him here. If you'd like."

[simon_doctor]

It's some time after this that Simon Tam comes back to the infirmary to check on his patient.

The lingering scent in the air is what he notices first; herbal, faintly sweet, as though someone's been burning some unfamiliar incense.

[mr_gaeta]

It's surprisingly quiet, too, which has been unusual since Gaeta's arrival. Right now, there's nothing but the beep of his heart monitor.

He'd planned to sleep a little while the pain was at bay, but the shape of the ceiling tiles kept distracting him; it's amazing how well they fit together and how easily the pattern spreads across the whole ceiling. He has no idea how long he's been studying them. The only way he can tell time's passed at all is because his leg has started twinging a little.

Not too badly, though. He's still okay. This is fine.

[the_cupbearer]

"You could come see it," he says easily. "When you can. I live in California, where it's very pretty." But quickly he amends, "If you like. I shouldn't assume everyone does."

Ganymede studies Gaeta for a moment, quiet. "What is it like to live in space?" He has no idea how long it's been since he started saying that, instead of among the stars.

[simon_doctor]

That's the second thing he notices: the slightly-too-fast beep of the heart monitor. It would make sense as a pain reaction, but otherwise he seems to be resting comfortably --

"Mr. Gaeta?" he says quietly, from a few feet away.