York (badlocksmith) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-05-01 09:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, agent washington, agent york |
Who: Agent York, Agent Washington
When: Early Mid-April? After Wash wakes from his coma
Where: Hospital
What: Bros
Rating/Warnings: Low/None (nude girls mentioned on a deck of playing cards)
Status: Complete!
Once Wash had proved that he was cognizant enough to speak full comprehendible sentences, he was moved from the ICU to a different wing of the hospital to continue his recovery. He was still hooked up what looked to Wash to be a small bank of machines monitoring his heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels and whatever else the hospital wanted to keep an eye on. The catheter had been removed, for which Wash was extremely grateful. Shortly after, though, he’d discovered that getting up to go to the bathroom was easier said than done. An attempt to do so on his own resulted in getting tangled in his IV cord and the mass of wires connecting him to the machines monitoring him. If it hadn’t been for the nurse who just happened to be walking by and heard him swearing, he probably would have fallen flat on his face.
“Your legs aren’t capable of supporting your weight just yet,” the nurse explained as she helped him shuffle to the bathroom and back again. “And, to be quite frank, there is enough morphine in your drip to make you too high to coordinate them properly anyway.”
Well, Wash couldn’t argue that. He was feeling pretty damn high, which may have been the reason why when the nurse told him to ring the nurse’s station the next time he had to go to the bathroom, he told her he wasn’t a little kid and he could potty on his own, thank you very much.
The nurse gave him a look that was somewhere between annoyed and trying not to laugh. “Mr. Barrow,” she stated in a well-practiced tone, “you are recovering from some very serious injuries and you should not be attempting to move around on your own just yet. If you are too embarrassed to ring for assistance to use the restroom, then I could easily request to have the catheter reinserted for you.”
That shut Wash up pretty quickly and he promised to behave.
“Very good, Mr. Barrow,” the nurse smiled. She adjusted the pillows behind his back and made sure there was water in his cup before turning to go. She was just on her way out when York came into the room.
York smiled at the young nurse, and gave her a once-over when she was on her way out. His brow furrowed a little, and he exhaled. It would have been a wolf whistle if he hadn’t been in a hospital. He turned back to Wash, though, mind back on his friend, and clucked his tongue.
“Now, Mr. Barrow,” he said in a falsetto, impersonating the incredibly hot nurse, “you’d better get back in that bed so I can give you your sponge bath.” Grinning, the one-eyed man slipped into a chair beside the hospital bed and dropped his backpack on the floor at his feet.
“Stop,” Wash groaned. “I’m tired of bein’ called ‘Mr. Barrow’, it makes me feel old.” He laid back against the pillows and looked at York with a critical (although highly stoned) eye. “You were checkin’ out my nurse,” he accused. Then his expression dissolved into a dopy smug grin, “I know who you wanna get a sponge bath from, you dirty ol’ man. Better hope she don’t hear you volunteering to give me a sponge bath. It’ll give’er the wrong idea.”
York laughed at the grin on Wash’s face. It made him feel good--warm and gooey inside--that his friend was back to sort of normal again. He clapped his hands once, and shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think there’s anything I could say or do in this whole damn world that’d convince anyone I’m gay.” He leaned forward to get a good look at Wash. Of course, the pupils were dilated. That was no surprise. The hair, though. He shook his head, tsking. “What has this hospital done to you?”
Wash looked confused for a moment, as if he didn’t quite get York’s joke, despite his teasing tone. It took a little longer than normal before he realized what York was referring to. A doctor – or more likely a nurse – had shaved the back of his head around the crack in his skull in order to keep the injury clean and accessible. Once he was awake, rather than having a bald spot at the back of his head, Wash had asked if they could buzz the rest of his hair as well. That’s what they had done at the VA Hospital the last time and if Wash were being honest, it felt more even this way and less like he had a hole in the back of his head.
Wash raised a hand to rub at his fuzzy scalp, his fingers catching a little on the bandages still wrapped around his head. “It’s just hair,” he said. “It’ll grow back. It did the last time. Wouldn’t have even known.” He paused a moment as if thinking. “Kinda cold, though,” he admitted.
“Jarhead.” York teased. “I’ll bring you a hat. A couple of them. You’ll need a beanie when it’s cold, and a ball cap when you’re incognito… and a fedora for impressing Anna.” He grinned a slightly lopsided grin. Truth was, he’d been really worried about the young girl while Wash was in his coma. But now that Wash was awake and smiling, Anna should be fine again.
“Has she been to see you?” York asked, settling in. He lifted his feet to cross his ankles at the foot of Wash’s bed. “I take it it’s been a parade of dozens of people through here.”
“Ya think Anna’d like me in a fedora?” Wash asked. He didn’t think he looked good in hats. He owned a wool cap for the winter and a baseball hat, but he rarely wore either. There was something about the bill of a baseball hat hiding someone’s eyes that Wash didn’t like. But, Wash was also a man who preferred function over form when it came to his wardrobe, so if a hat would keep his bare head warm, then he’d make do. Still…a fedora? “Aren’t fedoras kind of douchey?” He asked next.
He watched as York settled in and made himself comfortable. At the mention of Anna coming to visit, Wash was grinning again. The morphine made his emotions far more obvious than usual. “She was here first thing,” he said. “I sent out that message I was awake and she was here in like 15 minutes.” The smile faltered. “Carolina said she was here while I was unconscious. I wish she didn’t hafta see me like that. It musta scared her. I know I’d be goin’ outta my mind if it’d been the other way around.” He paused a moment looking at York carefully. “I know I scared Carolina too. She didn’t say so, but I could see it. You too. I’m sorry, York.”
York almost argued in favor of a fedora. Actually, he couldn’t imagine any hat that Wash could wear that Anna wouldn’t like--that girl was ridiculous when it came to Wash--but then his friend used the word douchey and that made York laugh. A full-bodied, highly amused laugh. The kind he hadn’t had reason to use in a while. Not since the worry about Wash kept him perpetually stressed. “No, you’re right. No fedoras. Too douchey.”
The way Wash lit up at the mention of his girl made York’s shoulders relax, and his smile brighten. It was good to see someone so happy, someone so in love. It gave York hope that it was possible for everyone. He nodded, his face growing a little more serious. “Yeah, she was pretty messed up. Terrified, I think. She stayed here a few nights with you. We all did--all three of us. Took turns.” He cleared his throat. “The girls were hit pretty hard. You don’t have to apologize, though, man. It’s not like it was your fault.”
“You stayed here?” Wash asked, “Overnight?”. He tilted his head a little to the side and looked at York carefully. His eyes squinted a little, as if trying to recall something. “You did that before,” he said slowly, as if the memory had slowly clicked into place. “In Nevada. Carolina told me. She told me that you held her back from punchin’ the colonial...and then didn’t really hold her back from punchin’ him.” Wash smirked a little bit. Then it faded. “I didn’t know either one of you were there. No one told me. When I woke up, no one would tell me anythin’.”
“Yeah.” York had a small smirk on his features now, reconnecting with those memories, too. He shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s just say I’ve logged quite a few hours by your bedside.” Beat. “Okay that sounds kinda wrong if taken out of context, but you know what I mean.” He fiddled with the phone in his hands. Normally, when conversations got serious, it was the life or death kind, or the Orange County Madness kind. Not the I love you, man kind. Which was what this was turning into. He shrugged. “I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. But don’t think that means you can put us all through this shit again, mister.”
Wash smiled a little. He wished he could promise that violent Dream bleed throughs were over, but he had no way of knowing. The life of a Space Marine was never certain. All Wash could say was “Yes, sir,” that smile growing a little on his face. “Thank you for being here with me. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I woke up and saw you here. Both of you. And thank you for takin’ care of Carolina and Anna.” The smile turned goofy again. “I’ll put a good word in to my nurse for ya.”
“Yeah?” York asked, breaking into a much brighter smile. Now they were talking about the smoking hot nurse it was easier to handle than the deeper emotions. He glanced back over at the door, then to Wash again. “You know much about her yet?” He added--though it was possible that Wash didn’t. He’d only just woken a little while ago, and they changed shifts a lot… didn’t they? York didn’t know all that much about nurses around these parts… but man, did he want to learn.
Wash didn’t know too much about her, other than she was the same nurse he had in the ICU. If he’d been a little more in control of his faculties he would have thought that a little odd. As far as he knew nurses were assigned specific floors or wings at a hospital and didn’t follow patients from one wing to another. Wash had no way of knowing this particular nurse had been the same nurse who Carolina had threatened the morning he’d been brought in. The nurse was determined to keep her promise either because she still feared Carolina breaking her wrist, or she had actually grown attached to the fiery red-head who had refused to leave her brother’s side while he slept.
Whatever the reason she had followed Wash when he was moved out of the ICU. “I think her name is Emma,” Wash said attempting to recall what her name tag had read, “Emily? Noo, E..liz..a..beth?” He looked over at his friend a little helplessly. His head was still somewhat of a jumbled morphine mess.
York simply snorted. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” He was absolutely going to say hello to the beautiful nurse on his way out. He’d seen her around, he thought, but it was one of those things where his friend was in a coma, and he was trying to deal with his friend’s grieving sister and girlfriend, and keep it together himself. Actually, what York needed was to release some of this stress. Another good reason for him to go speak with this Emma/Emily/Elizabeth nurse lady.
“I brought some cards.” York said, drawing a deck of playing cards from his pocket. He tossed it onto the table next to Wash, where the younger man could see the nude girls on the cover. “I figured you’d probably wanna play solitaire or something.”
“I dunno how to play solitaire,” Wash mused, more to himself than to York. He picked up the deck of cards and looked at them carefully. His brows furrowed together tightly. “There’re naked ladies on these cards,” he stated as if York didn’t already know. “Why’dja get me Naked Lady Cards? Are you tryin’ to get me inta trouble with my girlfriend?”
“Pssh. Anna's no square.” For emphasis, York playfully drew a large box in the air with two index fingers. “I thought you might enjoy something pretty to look at whilst you recuperate.” He waggled his eyebrows for good measure. “But if you'd rather I took them back, I can do that.”
Wash’s eyes followed York’s fingers as he drew the imaginary square. Then he looked around his room. The view out the window was one of the hospital’s parking lots and a few other nearby buildings. Not exactly picture postcard. His eyes then slowly moved towards another little table in the corner, where a green plant Carolina said Kanan had brought at some point had been placed. Something about plants being good for recovery or something that wash hadn’t really understood either. Other than that the room was an average hospital room: white walls, a bank of machines monitoring his vitals and a white polished floor and a drab looking curtain that was pulled around the bed for privacy whenever the doctors or nurses felt it was time to poke at him. Wash decided York had a point. His eyes moved back to the older marine. “I’ll keep’em,” he stated. “Still don’ know how t’ play solitaire. Can play poker, though. What else ya got in that bag?”
“Well, it’s not Mary Poppins’ bag or anything,” York said, turning over to tug the bag up off the floor. He dug around inside for a moment, and pulled out a Sudoku book and a pen. “I wasn’t really prepared. But I’ll bring more next time. You’re here for another few days, right?”
Instantly, Wash pictured York dressed up as Mary Poppins, complete with carpet bag and umbrella, soaring through the sky on his way to repair the relationship of a family struggling to stay together. The thought made him snort back a laugh.
He nodded his head. “Yeah, at least until I can make it to the can on my own again. I think they wanna poke at my head a bit, but, y’know, neural implants, so they really can’t.”
York could absolutely have been Mary Poppins. He wasn’t, but he totally could have been. If he’d been able to see the image in Wash’s head, he would have been very entertained. But he couldn’t. What a shame.
“Yeah.” York nodded. He certainly knew about implants, didn’t he? Dream Gifts, man. “Is there anything I can get for you?”
“Nah,” Wash shook his head. Then he looked at the cards on the table. “Maybe teach me t’ play solitaire?”
“Now, that I can do.” York said, and picked up the cards.