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[mr_gaeta]

A bleary-eyed Gaeta has taken up residence in one of the booths, Gogo napping by his foot. There's a pretty impressive array of greasy diner foods in front of him: eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese, all topped off with a mug of coffee the size of three fists.

He had a serious debate with himself whether to spike the coffee and landed on the side of 'why the frak not.' Anything to help his current hangover, including hair of the dog.

(auxiliarySurveyor is also signed on to T-minus. Since Louis got a handheld, Gaeta's been making more of an effort to keep his own device close.)



[open until it scrolls!]

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[veryvorkosigan]

There's motion in his peripheral vision: somebody passing by his booth from behind him, and pausing to step around the tuft of gray feathers that's sticking out a little into the walkway.

"Oh," says a familiar voice, "hi, Felix."

[mr_gaeta]

He blinks, squints up at the equally familiar face, and musters up a wan smile once the image hooks up with the appropriate memory.

"Hey, Cordelia," he says. "How are you?"

[veryvorkosigan]

"I'm all right. -- Is that your giant bird under the table?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh, uh -- "

"Plock?" asks Gogo, sleepily, as he cracks an eye open.

"Yeah," continues Gaeta, bending his head a little ways (ow, ow, not too far) to glance down at Gogo. "Kinda adopted him a few months ago."

[veryvorkosigan]

Her smile is thoroughly charmed, although it flickers slightly with concern at his barely visible wince.

"Good idea," she approves. "Keeping a pet can be very therapeutic."

[mr_gaeta]

"I wasn't intending to, but it's...sort of worked out well." His smile grows, despite the hesitancy to his words. "He's good company."

And pretty much the only thing that gets Gaeta out of his room nowadays.

[veryvorkosigan]

She bends slightly -- carefully; her spinal flexibility isn't quite what it used to be -- to get a better look.

"... is that a dodo?"

[mr_gaeta]

That spurs Gaeta the rest of the way toward a laugh, creaky as it might be.

(Ow.)

"Yeah," he says, half-overlapping with another sleepy plock from Gogo. The dodo's opened both eyes by now, but hasn't stirred from his spot near Gaeta's foot, choosing instead to blink groggily at Cordelia. "You had them where you're from, too?"

[veryvorkosigan]

"Not where I'm from, no. They're one of the extinct species that geneticists on Old Earth have been trying to restore."

(If she's thinking about another particularly responsive pet bird, it doesn't show.)

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh." He picks up a slice of bacon to nibble its corner. "I, ah, think he might be from a place where that actually succeeded. Or where they never went extinct in the first place. He was pretty tame from the start."

[veryvorkosigan]

"Either would be excellent." She smiles again.

And adds, with a nod at the empty seat across from him: "Do you mind if I join you?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh -- sure, go ahead," he says, and drags both plate and coffee mug closer so he isn't sprawling his personal effects all over the booth table. "Sorry. I should've offered."

[veryvorkosigan]

"Thanks," she says, sliding into the seat and setting down her plate -- a small one, bearing a mug of cinnamon-laced coffee and a buttered brillberry muffin.

"And speaking of things we should've said: how are you doing?"

[mr_gaeta]

"Hungover as frak," he admits, wry -- as if it weren't obvious from his appearance -- "but, um. I'm hanging in there, mostly."

[veryvorkosigan]

"I wondered," she says, equally wry, "but didn't like to assume.... How long's it been for you?"

[mr_gaeta]

His brow wrinkles slightly.

(Considering everything going on with Louis, there's more than a little worry there.)

"Since when?"

[veryvorkosigan]

"Since we last talked?" Her gaze reflects that worry, muted down to concern.

[mr_gaeta]

"Oh." Some of the worry fades. "Um."

He rubs his forehead as if trying to massage away the last few creases, struggling to remember when they last saw each other.

"I don't even know," he says after a moment, apologetic. "A while. Probably a few months."

[veryvorkosigan]

"About the same for me," she says.

And adds, cautiously: "I was a little worried about you."

[mr_gaeta]

He polishes off the bacon, reaches for the mug of spiked coffee to take a long sip.

"How come?"

[electro_kinetic]

"I didn't know anyone but broke students actually ate that stuff voluntarily," Noriko says, leaning over the opposing edge of the booth. She hasn't seen the gigantic chicken thing on the floor, which is good. So far. "But hey, nice to be proven wrong."

[mr_gaeta]

"Broke students and the hungover," says Gaeta -- well, croaks, more like, as he manages a self-deprecating twitch of a smile. "Figured I'd just, ah..."

He gestures absently at the food with his fork.

"Throw everything I could think of at it and see what stuck."

[electro_kinetic]

"At that rate you're more likely to end up making yourself sick," says she, leaning onto her elbows as she looks between him and the coffee, and the food.

"I've heard calories are good, but I dunno if that's what they had in mind. I know water or Gatorade works pretty well, as does sleeping. But then I haven't gotten drunk in a long while, since no one gives me booze here or at home." Pesky age limits.

[mr_gaeta]

"Grease and hair of the dog." The fork flicks over to his coffee mug. "Does enough to take the worst off."

He squints up at her.

"How come you can't get booze?"

[electro_kinetic]

"Not old enough. You have to be twenty-one in my world, which is still a year and change off for me. So the bar won't give me any, and people at my school all know I used to be a drug addict, so that's never gonna happen."

Not to mention none of them really need to go screwing with the chemical reactions of their bodies, not while they have the abilities they do. Losing control as a result of being drunk is just a ball of wax no one wants to touch. "I'm kind of used to it by now."