milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[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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"Okay," says Steve again, still looking worried--this time about the other invitations he's offered, and if his friends could get trapped in 1943 if they're not careful.

And it seemed to simple to him previously.

Gaeta studies him for a beat.

"Have you ever gone for a while without being able to get to the bar?"

Steve shakes his head. "There's usually a few weeks between visits, but I've never been able to not get here when I wanted to."

"I've heard it can happen to people," he says. "Sort of, um, like the reverse of being Bound, I guess. It happened to me not that long ago."

Gaeta tips his head toward his ruined leg.

"When that happened."

"So I guess being Bound means you can't leave the bar," Steve says flatly.

"I had no idea."

"...Really?"

Gaeta's eyebrows lift in obvious surprise. (And faint chagrin. He would have at least tried to bring up that part a little more gently, had he known Steve hadn't heard it before.)

"Frak, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's, uh, that's a thing too. Your door can disappear or just...not open sometimes."

"But how can that be? It's just a door."

Only a little dryly: "How can the whole rest of the frakking bar even exist in the first place?"

Steve barely chuckles at that.

"True enough."

Gaeta's mouth twitches in a wry smile to match.

"Anyway," he says. "I've heard bringing something from the bar home with you, like...a napkin, or something, helps prevent you from getting locked out. I don't think anybody's figured out how to stop from getting locked in, though. Or how to reverse it once you are locked in."

It just kind of happens.

"Yeah, I heard about that the first time I came here." He hunts in his pocket and takes out a battered matchbook. "I always have this on me."

Edited 2012-08-19 03:19 (UTC)

Gaeta's smile warms toward something a little more genuine at that.

"Well, there you go," he says. "No wonder you never get locked out."

Steve smiles at the little book and puts it back in his pocket.

"I have come here without meaning to once or twice, after the first time. Bar still takes me by surprise."

"Me, too," Gaeta admits. "It's about half and half -- either I'm trying to grab some R&R, or the bar decides to force me to grab it, I guess."

"She's like a cross between a prankster and a protective mom," Steve muses.

"The first time she brought me here I'd just gotten beaten up and needed a place to rest for a while."

Gaeta winces, tries to stifle it, and gives up with a perceptible air of frak it. He's too tired to hold back.

"Glad she was able to give it to you," he says. "First time for me was also my first day at a new job. That was frakking fun."

Yikes.

"Doesn't time stop for you while you're here?"

"Fortunately, yes," he says. "Otherwise I'd be a lot more reluctant to come here."

Like he said: he doesn't want to stray far from his post.

"Then didn't coming here on your first day make it easier? a place to relax a little and unwind?"

Gaeta chuckles, full of self-deprecation.

"I've never been that good at relaxing and unwinding. I was even worse two years ago. Luckily, I have more people encouraging me to do that now."

Edited (boo, typos.) 2012-08-20 02:09 (UTC)

"Good. This is a good place for making friends."

"Yeah." A bit softer.

"Have you ever met Demeter?"

Steve nods, smiling. "She's lovely."

"She is. And..."

He shifts, trying to arrange himself on the couch a little better with the water glass still in hand.

"It's more than that. Where I'm from, she's...we call them the Lords of Kobol, but nobody ever knows what I mean when I say that here. She's one of the actual gods. And."

He's shaking his head: awed, almost baffled, even as his own warm smile lingers.

"She's done so much for me. She's taken care of me and my boyfriend whenever we're here. I've seen Earth because of her, and...she even told me once I'm one of hers."

Steve has to smile at that. Though he's only met Demeter once, it's left an impression.

"She's my--" Argh. He needs to have a "what do we call each other" conversation with Orpheus again, it would appear. "My friend's aunt. She's looked after him well. Me, too, when I really needed it."