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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"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."

"It's an all right place."

Slow. Meditative.

"Stay out of the desert. I never spent much time at any ocean."

Gaeta pulls a fairly impressive face.

"Desert," he says, the same way other men might say sewage dump. Pointing to Boyd with the joint, "That's not just Louis rubbing off on me, I don't want to be anywhere near a desert anymore. No food, no water. You can't get anything to grow there."

One last draw on the joint, and then, reluctantly, he presses out the tip into the ashtray. His fingers linger on the paper a while longer.

"I never saw the ocean growing up, either, though. How come you didn't?"

Boyd listens to the man's speech -- and at the question, he glances at him again.

"Kentucky's landlocked," is all he says.

If the man continues to press, Boyd figures he can come up with something.

"Oh." His fingers move on to smooth the makeshift ashtray. "I'm sorry."

(And he does sound genuinely sorry, as if he's brought up a topic much more painful than the chance to see open water.)

Another quick glance.

"Got a nice waterfall over near Corbin, though. Folks like to paddle around it in canoes where it's safe."

"That's good, at least. Better than nothing."

Ding: he taps one finger against the side of the pan. Gaeta's eyes widen. He does it again, listening in awe to the way the sound fills the whole room; his whole body, even.

(It's very safe to say that the pain has been long forgotten.)

Boyd watches this with some amusement; it doesn't make it to the surface. At least not very much.

"You doing all right?"

"Huh?" He glances up, as if he'd completely forgotten Boyd was there. "Yeah, I'm okay."

A beat, and Gaeta presses the tips of his fingers to his mouth, fighting off a sudden wave of laughter.

"'S definitely working."

"Looks like," Boyd agrees, with no trace of laughter because he is a kind man. (Or he's trying to be.) "You're just about to where you want to put that out. You feeling okay? Nothing seem off?"

"Nope," he says. "I'm good."

More than good, really. This is nice.