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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"Don't say that."

He has to blink hard to clear his eyes, has to swallow to clear his throat.

"Don't believe that. It does matter. It's real."

"To me. Not to anyone else."

He has the dim feeling that he isn't making sense, but can't swing his thoughts together enough to fix the problem.

"Think they call that a frakking hallucination."

"No." Still low, but insistent. "Listen to me. It's not just you."

He has to find somebody else from Gaeta's world. He has to. Even if it isn't Louis, somebody.

Gaeta shuts his eyes again.

A tiny, helpless whimpering noise sneaks out of him, and he tries to readjust his grip on Andrew's hand.

Andrew squeezes back, willing him to believe.

"I promise it's not just you."

"But how can any decision I make mean anything, if it's...?"

(The blurred thought repeats fivefold: I want Louis. Louis would know what to say. He'd be able to explain it.)

"If it's what? If somebody already knows how it's going to end?"

"Yeah."

His throat bobs as he swallows, hard.

He breathes out unhappily.

"Okay. Before I answer that: I've been doing this for a long time now, so can you trust me that I know what I'm talking about?"

A pause; he's waiting to see if Gaeta acknowledges it.

After a moment to think it over, and ensure he's correctly processed what Andrew's asking, Gaeta essays a small nod.

"Okay." Gently.

"Anytime you find out something that's going to happen -- maybe someone's read the story, or comes from the future, or ... I don't know, has a prophetic vision or something --"

(His world has prophecies too, after all.)

"-- sometimes you can change it and sometimes you can't. Or sometimes there are some things that can't change and some that can. You don't know which it is until you try to. Sometimes not even then. That's real life. That's how it works."

Gradually, as Andrew speaks, Gaeta's fingers slacken a little more. The thready beep of the heart monitor steadies, begins to slow.

"How do you know that I'm real?"

By now, though, it doesn't sound quite like a genuine question. It sounds more like someone seeking confirmation.

(until you see that those whom you speak to are no more nor less real than you --)

"Because I'm real." Quiet. "And I'm here talking to you."

He breathes out, long and slow.

"Okay." Distantly, he can feel his eyes starting to sting again. "Yeah. Okay."

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.

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.

"It's okay."

"Should I let you get some rest?"

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."

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

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

His eyes, still overbright, flicker halfway open.

"Hm?"

"First law of metaphysics," he says.

"Nothing unreal exists."

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."

"You're welcome."

He gets to his feet.

"Take care, okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you too."

Still smiling just a little, Gaeta closes his eyes.

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