milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The worst part of this, he thinks dully, is that he can't even get a frakking drink or ten and blind himself the way he knows half the crew's doing right now. Not unless he wants to wake up dead; despite it all, he still doesn't want to die.

So Gaeta settles for wringing a shot of morpha out of Cottle under the insistence that his new pain meds aren't doing frak-all, and retreats to Milliways, and sits with an untouched mug of coffee as he turns his face toward the lakeshore windows.

It's so green out there. It's such a frakking crock.

[ooc: not plotlocked, but please PM me before tagging! Gaeta is not in the best mental state right now.]

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"Good," he says, no louder. "Because it looks like the morpha's sufficiently out of your system that alcohol wouldn't be dangerous."

"Oh thank frak."

He doesn't even realize he's said it; Gaeta's already trying to shift in his hospital bed, working against the temporary paralysis from the nerve block with gritted teeth as he tries to grab the bottle.

"Here --" He moves quickly, retrieving the bottle from the counter and handing it to him. "One moment, I'll get you a cup."

"Don't bother, sir."

As soon as the bottle's in his hands, Gaeta's unscrewing the lid. It's nearly as difficult as trying to reach it in the first place; his fingers suddenly feel too weak and unsteady to do much at all.

Of course.

He hesitates, but doesn't say anything.

And pulls a chair a little closer to sit down, near enough to offer a hand if it seems necessary.

Gaeta can still remember the first time he tasted ambrosia: how much it stung on the first swallow, how the sting kept decreasing with every subsequent drink. This time, from the start, he barely feels the bite of the alcohol when he finally gets the bottle open and gulps two large mouthfuls.

If nothing else, it does a good job of breaking up the lump in his throat.

Simon sits there silently, keeping an eye on the monitor, watching for the first slight jump in the readout as the alcohol starts to hit Gaeta's bloodstream.

Another gulp of ambrosia. Gaeta examines the bottle's contents -- it's not a large one, and he's already drained a third of it -- before, just as unsteadily, moving to recap it. He keeps a tight grip on the bottle's neck.

"Seems like I always ask this when I'm in here," he mutters, "but if Louis shows up, let him know I'm around?"

He's not wholly expecting Louis to show up. It's not like he needs to be monitored while downing enough booze to make him useless.

"I'll have a note left for him with the bar," Simon promises.

"Thank you."

He's still for a moment, then, in a decisive wrench, pulls off the cap again for another gulp. Gaeta can already feel his limbs -- well, his arms, at least -- growing heavy as some of the muscles start to unclench. Good. Shouldn't be too long until all of it kicks in.

He won't take away the bottle until he has to.

Low: "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what there is to talk about."

He's gone back to staring at the bottle.

"I didn't see it firsthand anyway. I just processed the reports as they were coming in." A small, bitter huff of laughter. "Like frak were they going to let the crippled guy go on a recon mission."

He tilts his head, not quite a nod.

If Gaeta wants to say anything more, it'll come.

"They sent a lot of other people down there, though," he mumbles. "Louis, Dee. The Admiral. The President. Even got a bunch of Cylons on board."

Both the ones inside and outside of the Fleet, for that matter.

... wait.

"Cylons," he says cautiously.

Didn't they leave them behind on New Caprica?

"Yeah," he says, tapping his thumbnail against the bottle's neck. "Um. Short story is there's been some kind of civil war among them, so some of the models came to the Fleet for help. Honestly, I don't know what the frak's going on with that there."

Half of it happened while he was on the Demetrius, and the other half happened when he had more pressing things to worry about -- like getting his leg to stop hurting.

"Plus, turns out we had four more sleepers in the fleet this whole time. Finding that out was fun."

"Sleepers," he echoes. "Cylons disguised as humans?"

"Mm-hm."

He nods. The room wobbles just a touch; good, he thinks again.

"They didn't do anything on the level as the last sleeper we caught, as far as I know, but -- who knows if more's going to come out later. One of them was our XO."

He breathes out.

"And they're ... aligned with the splinter group? The ones who came to the Fleet?"

"I don't know."

He lifts the bottle again, but only takes a small sip this time. (Maybe he should have asked for a chaser, too.)

"I have no frakking idea how it's going to shake out."

Simon's eye falls on the liquid level in the bottle.

After a moment, he shifts in the chair and leans to reach the stack of cups standing by the sink in the counter behind him.

Gaeta looks up at the movement, blinking a bit owlishly.

After a beat, he holds out the bottle to Simon in offering.

"Oh," he says, "thank you, but no --"

He stretches a little further, to turn the tap on, and fills the cup with water.

"Here." Holding it out. "Alcohol dehydrates. You need the liquid."

"...Oh."

Well, he completely misinterpreted that. Gaeta pulls his hand back, takes a few careful seconds to balance the bottle against his thigh, then reaches out for the water again. "Right. Yeah. Thanks."

He swallows half the glass in one go.

It was a thoughtful offer, but -- the last thing he needs to do right now is take anything that might impair his judgment.

"I'll try some later, maybe," he says. "That's ... ambrosia, you called it?"