yankeedoodle_dr | (no subject)

(no subject)

"Damn," says Hawkeye, "damn, damn, damn!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognizes that he has not just stepped into the scrub room, that the piece of furniture he just threw his surgical cap down on wasn't the sink.

(He's in short-sleeved scrubs, red down his front and up his bare arms from the wrist to the elbow. He's moving slow and a little unsteady. His face is lined with the kind of exhaustion that only hits after the second, third, and fourth winds have come and gone.)

One bloody arm wrapped around himself, his head hanging: "Damn."

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"The opposite reaction," he says, "to losing all aggression and finally all volition."

Not meeting Hawkeye's gaze.

"They lost everything but."

He drains his glass.

"They attacked people."

Hawkeye's mouth tips grimly.

"Wonderful. Love this universe."

"They attack mindlessly. Savagely. Beyond savagely."

Simon's gaze is on the table, and there's a whiteness around his lips.

"I think," he says slowly, "I'm going to regret asking this question, but what d's -- what does, 'beyond savagely' mean?"

His throat works for a moment, and then he says flatly: "Indiscriminate rape, dismemberment, elaborate mutilation, and cannibalism."

He reaches for the bottle, and adds with a twist to his mouth, "Not necessarily in that order."

"Hell," Hawkeye says, very quietly.

The neck of the bottle rattles briefly against the edge of the glass, but none of the liquor spills.

"Yes."

"Hell," he says again.

"It -- they attack often?

"Not that it really matters. It sounds like -- once would be enough."

When Simon's finished, Hawkeye is taking that bottle back.

Simon sets down the bottle, slides it toward Hawkeye.

"Often enough. At the edges of civilization. Ships, sometimes."

"Often enough," says Hawkeye; he picks up the bottle in one hand and presses the thumb and forefinger of the other to his forehead, holds his head up. He studies the bottle. "Enough."

He rouses himself with an effort; pours himself more whiskey and puts the bottle down.

"The edges of civilization," he says. His mouth curves, small and dark. "Poetic."

"There was," Simon starts, and stops.

He's looking through the table this time. Through everything, into the black.

"Recently."

"There was civili, civilization recently?"

Hawkeye's beginning to reach the point where he isn't sure how much of this conversation legitimately isn't making sense, and how much isn't making sense because of the whiskey that he's drinking even now (that splashed on the table, when he poured this round, before he found the glass).

"Sorry."

He brings up a hand and rubs his forehead and eyes, hard.

"Was an attack recently. World called Lilac. We were, we were nearby, and ... they needed doctors. After."

His mouth is set in something of a grim line.

"And you're a doctor. Before or after."

"And I'm the doctor," he repeats slowly, nodding, and takes another drink.

"You weren't the only one, were you?" He shifts in his chair; goes a little wobbly in terms of balance, but is in no danger of falling out of the seat. He makes a lackadaisical grab for the edge of the table, rights himself, and continues, head held low in one hand as he gestures with the other (which also happens to be holding his glass). "Always the worst jobs, when there's nobody around to wipe your forehead or pipe in the sound froma Jeanette MacDonald movie, or provprovide the unintentional O.R. entertainment."

The last several words require careful enunciation.

Discovery number -- well, Hawkeye has lost track, but it might be somewhere around ten, of the night: scotch (or whiskey, whatever exactly it is that they're drinking; Hawkeye has lost track of that too, though he hasn't lost appreciation) goes down pretty easily, after a while.

"No," he shakes his head, "not the only one. Not the only doctor. But, but Beyerle was injured himself, and his, one of his assistants was killed, and we, we just...."

Simon trails off, still shaking his head.

"Kaylee was there," he adds, a bit abruptly. "To help."

Kaylee, Hawkeye thinks, is pretty and charming as anything, but she isn't a surgeon.

His mouth twists, wryly. He holds up his glass with an unsteady hand. "To meatball surgery." He considers this; decides he doesn't want to waste a perfectly good toast. He adds: "May it go to Hell sometime sometime in the very near future."

Simon raises his own glass, and clinks it against Hawkeye's.

"I can drink to that."

"What a coincidence," says Hawkeye. "Me too."

And he does.

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