ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

"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.]

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The infirmary sinks back into quiet, for a brief span.

It isn't long before Gaeta picks up the same tune as before, each note carried by phantom pain as much as melody.

Boyd returns within the limit he set himself, feet silent on the infirmary floor. As he pulls a plastic sandwich bag out of his pocket: "Pretty song."

Gaeta's easy to read, even when morpha hasn't pushed every emotion right to the surface: it's clear from the look on his face that he hasn't even considered whether this counts as pretty.

Aesthetics aren't why he sings.

"Thanks," he ventures, so uncertain it nearly tips into a question.

The other man might be easy to read, but even Boyd Crowder isn't enough of an asshole to use that against him under these circumstances.

He's pulling a joint out of the sandwich bag, anyway. "You know if this room's got a smoke detector?"

A tiny huff of breath. "No godsdamn idea," he says.

If he's going to smoke anything, unhooking the cannula seems wise. Clumsily, Gaeta pulls it from his nose -- it hurts a little, but not nearly as much as other hurts -- and lets it fall to his neck.

Boyd nods, resealing the bag. He tosses it on the bedside table and pulls out a lighter. "We'll get you started, and I'll go look."

The hand-rolled joint is about four inches long. "You want to smoke about half of this at a time. Effects'll wear off in about four hours." Boyd speaks absently as he lights the joint and holds it out. "Get you an ashtray, too. Or something you can put it out on."

"All right," he mumbles, accepting it with shaky fingers. "Thank you, sir."

The smoke's much sweeter-smelling than tobacco, if a little acrid and green at the edges. Gaeta sets the joint to his lips -- his hands tremble badly enough to require a couple of tries -- and draws it in.

The heart monitor beeps a little faster.

Boyd pays attention to the sound without turning around; he's stepping away from the bed to scan the walls.

The taste and heaviness of the smoke throw him off a bit; he coughs, taking a second to chase it out of his lungs with a few shallow breaths. A moment to rest. Another draw on the joint.

This time, he doesn't cough.

"Four's the magic number," Boyd murmurs, having spotted a blinking light up on a dimly-lit wall.

He moves closer to inspect it. "Four-hour high. Try keeping the smoke in you for four seconds. If that's a little too much, that's fine."

Looks like a smoke detector to him. Carefully Boyd reaches up to twist it; it comes off, and he takes out the battery. "Mission accomplished."

"Okay," murmurs Gaeta. It could be in response to the instruction, or the affirmation that the smoke detector's off. Very likely, it's both.

The next drag's a little deeper, and, obligingly, Gaeta counts off the seconds in his head: one, two, three, four. The room starts to swim; quickly, he exhales.

Boyd glances around the infirmary, and sees an aluminum pan -- a clean one -- on a table next to an empty bed.

He picks it up and carries it back over. "Got you an ashtray." He tugs Gaeta's table forward, lowers it some, puts the pan within easy reach. "If that works for you."

"Yeah, that's fine," he says. "Thank you."

The scratchiness to his throat isn't bothering him at all. The bed feels a lot more comfortable all of a sudden, too; Gaeta huffs a tiny, cracking laugh. "Think it might be working," he says, tapping off some of the ash.

"I'll leave the bag and the lighter, if you like."

Boyd eyes the chair next to the bed. "Though if you don't mind, I think I might stay a little bit, make sure you're having the reaction you're supposed to have. If it's working now," he hastens to say, "I don't think it'll go bad for you from here, but leaving you alone till we know for sure seems to me to be a mite irresponsible."

Boyd Crowder is a paragon of responsibility.

The laugh -- the snicker, really -- is a little more solid this time.

"Yeah, maybe," he agrees. A pause to take another drag: the room doesn't quite resettle when he releases the smoke. Gaeta doesn't mind. "And...sure, yeah, if you're okay with leaving it. Thanks."

"My pleasure," Boyd says, and takes a seat.

He seems to be fine with silence.

Yeah, this is...this is definitely better. The tension that's knotted him up for days has begun to slacken; Gaeta's limbs almost feel too loose, but like the gently rolling waves of the room, it's not a bad feeling.

He watches the smoke curl up, dissipating above his bed. "Where're you from?" he asks.

"Harlan." The two syllables are calm and reflective. "Harlan County. How about you?"

It's a beginning gambit; if the other man doesn't take it, Boyd won't press.

"River Junction, on Picon." A bit dreamily, he tips the joint up so he can get a better look at the smoke. "Galactica now."

Boyd's eyes are on the place where the rail meets the bed.

"Name sounds pretty," he says. "River Junction. If there's truth in the name."

"It was." Soft. "I know I'm biased -- "

Another tiny chuckle punctuates that.

"But it was frakking gorgeous there." Gaeta dusts off a few more ashes, takes another pull. He's getting close to the halfway point. "Lots of trees, lots of flowers, and yeah, three big rivers that..."

He gestures, aimlessly, in something that might be an outline of said rivers.

Boyd nods.

"Sounds a little like Harlan. We got mountains, though. Cumberland River flows out of them, down into Tennessee."

Next they'll be talking about the weather. Boyd doesn't mind. It's not the stupidest conversation he's ever had with someone that's high.

"Sounds beautiful."

The dreaminess has started carrying over to Gaeta's voice, nudging aside the worst of the strain. He can picture the scene with surprising vividness, given the sparse language.

"Gods, I'd love to see mountains again." He rubs his thumb over the side of the joint, feeling out the texture. "What part of Earth's Tennessee in? -- It is Earth, right?"

"It's Earth."

Boyd's gaze flicks up to Gaeta's face; not for long, though. If he has to specify it's Earth, then that might explain a little of the language.

But those aren't questions to get into right now.

"North America. United States. Tennessee's in the southern part -- the southeastern part," he amends. "Kentucky sits right on top of it. That's where Harlan is. Mountains in both of them."

Gaeta nods, lets out a small, contented sigh.

"Definitely have to see that when we get there." Whatever kind of rolling paper this is, the texture feels fascinating. He's so close to finishing the required half, but maybe it'll be okay if he just holds it without smoking for a bit. "Right after the tropics. Already promised I'd go there first -- somewhere with a big view of the ocean, a lot of space to sail, things like that."

A brief laugh.

"Wish we'd had a little more luck and made it there three years ago. Hell, a year ago would've been okay."