milliways_bar | (no subject)

[Not-quite-OOM, just prior: Physical therapy.]

"One more" turns into three more exercises by the time Gaeta departs the infirmary. Awful as he felt, it didn't feel right to leave off after so few; at least this way, he isn't wasting his or Dr. Tam's time with such a brief session.

Whether he'll be able to move from the couch he just collapsed on is another story. After requesting a glass of water from a waitrat, he gulps down three painkillers (the usual dose is two, but frak it, he hurts so much right now) before stretching along the couch's full length. Some minutes later, the same waitrat returns with a silver tray.

Gaeta eyes the tray's contents. "Um."

The rat chitters.

"Sorry for the language, but...what the frak is that?"

Squeak.

In lieu of pointing out that he doesn't speak rat, Gaeta just sighs, scoops up the small -- very colorful -- magazine, and opens it to take a look.

Apparently there's a tie-in comic book series for that famous squopera, Tentacles of Our Waves. Who knew.

[ooc: in and out for a bit, but back for good at 10 PM eastern!]

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"He thought he did," Boyd says, easy. "I think in the end we may have found ourselves at some kind of accord."

(The part where they are in accord about hating each other's faces.)

Gaeta's face clears. "Okay, good," he says. "Still, um -- "

He cycles a hand, vaguely, in search of the words.

"I'm sorry if he gave you any impression you didn't help. You did. A lot."

"He didn't give me that impression, no."

Boyd is very calm about it.

"Matter of fact, he admitted I did."

"Oh." Still sounding more relieved than not. "Okay. I'm glad."

And as long as they reached an understanding after their conversation.

"I suppose it's something to be glad about," Boyd agrees. "Meanwhile -- you need another stash?"

Simon Tam's not here. Boyd Crowder doesn't give a fuck.

Gaeta hesitates.

Slowly, "I might. They're starting to step down my meds, so, ah. It'll probably still be a little while, but it could be good to have on hand once they're done."

Unless Gaeta goes back and begs Cottle for something besides the useless half-strength pills. It remains a distinct possibility.

"I'll look into that, then." Boyd sounds entirely comfortable with that.

"Thank you," he says, grateful. "I really appreciate it."

Maybe he could experiment, see if a lower dose would involve fewer of the vaguely hallucinatory side effects he experienced the first time. If it does, while still killing off the pain...gods. That would be wonderful.

(Not that the side effects weren't enjoyable, but they wouldn't lend themselves well to a shift in the CIC.)

Boyd gives him a sidelong glance.

"Looking into it's the easy part," he says. "You got any plans as to how I can get it to you? On account of it's an illicit substance, you understand, and the logical fellow might want a safe dropoff point."

If Boyd's giving Gaeta weed for free -- which he intends to do -- then Gaeta gets to do the legwork on how he receives it.

(So to speak.)

"Bar won't just let you keep it with her?"

...No, he supposes not. Bar wouldn't even give him morpha without Simon's help, when he tried to gather supplies for New Caprica. (Gods, that feels like three lifetimes ago.)

"Um." He rubs his forehead, trying to think. "Maybe you could put it in one of the rooms upstairs and leave me the key with Bar? Or -- " He glances up. "Have you ever met a man named Louis Hoshi?"

He has, as a matter of fact.

But.

"I'm hoping you won't be offended, Lieutenant, and that you'll understand my reasons for keeping this arrangement strictly between the two of us. No middlemen."

Boyd says this pleasantly, as though it's merely you want fries with that?

"And if I'm your supply, are you prepared to assume the cost of the room?" And the liability.

Boyd's generosity only goes so far.

He wants to push back and insist that Louis is both perfectly trustworthy and perfectly capable of getting the medication to Gaeta, but...it's not worth it, he figures. Better to let Boyd set the rules.

"I am," he says. "Yes."

If the lieutenant wants to let anyone pick it up for him, Boyd figures that's his own business. (If the lieutenant isn't smart enough to think of that himself, Boyd also figures that's his own business.)

"Then you get me a key," Boyd says, "and I can do a drop."

Gaeta nods, then hesitates.

"...right now? Not, um, not the drop," he amends. "But the key?"

"That I figure you can leave with the bar at your leisure," Boyd says, comfortable. "Now, I think it's a logical place to look if you know what you're looking for, but it's as good a place as any. I'll take responsibility for swapping out the Bible in the nightstand."

At least the cover. He can do that much. He's not sure, even now, that he can bring himself to deface what might or might not be the Word of God.

"And it'll be in there."

Gaeta blinks.

"Sorry, the, um..." He rubs at his forehead. "The what in the nightstand?"

Boyd is silent.

"It'll be in the nightstand," he says, finally.

Maybe he'll just take apart a book he doesn't like, since apparently it'll make no difference.

Frak. Apparently, if Boyd's silence is anything to go by, Gaeta didn't ask the right question.

He sounds a bit more tentative when he says, "All right. Thank you."

The thought occurs to him (and breezes past to a to be examined later folder somewhere in the recesses of his magpie brain) that if the good lieutenant isn't aware of the Bible, and yet is by all appearances a well-trained and educated man, growing up with not just ignorance of its contents, but of its very existence -- that was an option.

And Boyd Crowder's awfully curious about what that might have been like. And how, say, he himself would have turned out if his mother and his grandmother hadn't been concerned with eternal salvation.

(Maybe Raylan's right; maybe he'd've done the same thing. Maybe he'd just keep stealing money and blowing shit up. And maybe -- just maybe -- the lives of so many innocent men wouldn't be hanging heavy on his conscience.

But that's for the magpie brain to consider, later.)

"No thanks necessary," Boyd says, smooth, and he is, of course, lying. "We'll call it a display of my continued interest in your maintaining some kind of quality of life."

The quirk to Gaeta's mouth is a little closer to a smile this time.

"Still," he says. "I very much appreciate it, Mr. Crowder."

In his world, quality of life is not quite as important as simply life, sometimes.