ways_infirmary | (no subject)

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"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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"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.

"Then I might take my leave." Boyd makes to ease himself up out of the chair. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm good," he repeats, earnest. It's a lot easier to smile now. "You already gave me a lot. This is good. Thank you."

Boyd raises his eyebrows.

"Nobody else is here," he says. "You ought to take advantage while you got someone. You sure?"

...Oh. He didn't even think of that.

(But right now it is exceedingly difficult to think of wanting anything else than what he has right now: a soft bed, a nice view of the ceiling, every worry gone, and no pain to be found.)

Gaeta ponders this, wonders if he's let the silence go too long, and finally fills it with, "...I don't know, maybe some water?"

His mouth is kind of dry.

Boyd nods and rises. "Won't take but a moment. I'll move that table so the angle's a little better, too."

"Okay." Amicable. "Thank you."

He thinks he's been saying that an awful lot, but oh, well. It's no less true than the first time he said it.

Boyd does him one better, as he moves about the infirmary nearly silently: he fills up the pitcher and finds the straw. The pitcher goes close enough to the edge of the table so it's in reach. And Boyd finally angles the table so all the man has to do is pull it across to get what he needs.

"You put that thing out, now," Boyd directs. "Save it for later."

Gaeta tips off a salute -- even now, it's crisper than most -- and stifles another round of giggles. "Yes, sir," he says.

Suiting action to works, he picks up the joint and crushes the tip a little harder against the pan, making sure it's completely extinguished this time.

Boyd notes the salute -- but again, not the time to get into it.

Even though it says a little something, if one's a hypothesizing kind of man.

"You take care, now," he says.

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