Returning to consciousness is not the most pleasant of experiences and as light floods Prior's vision, he squints against the assault like he's expecting the muzzle of a rifle and a bullet behind it.
He's dead. No, there's too much pain for that (and like Hell would be going to a place filled with sunlight and warmth). Beneath him, instead of mud and blood and all manners of muck, is a bed. Soft (but not too soft), warm (but not too warm) — it's the kind of thing that a person should welcome after what he's been through, but Prior is far too used to the setting to find any comfort here.
Sitting up, it's obvious he's still suffering from something, although what eludes him. He remembers moments — bits and glimpses of the ends of lives — and when he closes his eyes, they only get stronger (and for that matter, he swears he sees his own death in the reflections in the water, but that can't be, it can't possibly be...
Pok, pok, whizz—
Maybe an hour has passed and Prior, who hadn't realized he'd slipped back into the arms of sleep, awakens again. The light's changed and this time there's another figure moving about the room. He watches, warily observant, forehead dappled in sweat from restless dreams and what is probably an infection hounding at the bullet hole he barely remember receiving.
"Bloody Christ," he groans, voice nearly devoid of volume. "—this better not be Scotland again..." Fitting, perhaps, that Prior would use his first few words to complain: truth be told, he's so afraid of what's to come he doesn't dare let his mind wander far enough to wonder.
Aching movement is applied as Prior checks against himself. He finds two arms, two legs, and upon cupping his groin area, a cock and balls of familiar enough proportions that he realizes he's well enough in one piece. Thank God for that, he thinks, but there's little real sentiment behind it. For all he cares, God can bugger right off for what he's done and allowed over the past several years of the Great War.
Shoulder bound, he fumbles at the gauze bandage probing for the bullet wound beneath. It's not quite where he expects it and the sear of heat caused by the brush of pressure nearly blanches him. The wound is just north of the heart, so close he can't imagine how he's still alive.
"Are you my nurse?" Even strained and confused and in pain, the urge to snipe against the universe is too strong. It's obvious this man is a doctor but Prior doesn't mind emasculating the uniform beneath the white coat, especially not after he'd just led countless men to their deaths while doctors and politicians and philanthropists stood by smoking their cigars and postulating on anything but actual toll of the war on their brethren.
Well now, this is certainly a departure from the usual. Warrick would know; he’d created ‘usual’, after all. Momentarily disoriented (and God, he'd forgotten how much he'd enjoyed that, in the beginning), he allows himself a few moments before even opening his eyes, those first few deep, steadying breaths and the accompanying flood of information already threatening to overwhelm even his carefully controlled senses.
The smell grabs his attention before anything else. Scents that he ought not to know, but somehow does, and quite a few which he’s sure must be the result of a conflict between memory and data. Curiously, even so, there’s a moment where he— Warrick himself— has to struggle to understand where he is; a novel experience indeed for the man who spends his days assuring disbelieving visitors of the unreality of their surroundings...
It’s all rather thrilling, really, so much so that the all too familiar sounds of an unpleasant awakening are almost a disappointment, pulling him out of his reverie and toward the task now at hand. Oh, well. He’ll have time for all of that later, he supposes.
He studies the dead man impassively for a few beats, well aware that the question had been intended to rile him. Those...quirks, for lack of a better word, had been in the file, of course, among many other things, and Warrick can't help but allow himself a moment of private amusement at the man's expense. It will take more than that, I’m afraid.
And then, mildly:
“I'm afraid not, no. I could fetch one, if you like.” A simple offer, or a challenge? Warrick waits to find out which interpretation the man decides upon, wondering if his hypothesis will be proven correct.
Is this France? It doesn't feel like it. It's certainly no field hospital, which Prior counts as both unlucky and unfortunate; he'd worked so hard to get back to the front and there are only so many times a board will be stupid enough (or desperate enough) to send him again.
But if it's not France, then it's worse — either he's a critical case or he's outlived his usefulness.
Staring passively for longer than polite or necessary, Prior grasps for something — for anything — but gets little more than a whiff of disdain towards himself for his lack of effectiveness in riling this man. He doesn't want a nurse. For that matter, he doesn't want anyone at all (except Rivers, perhaps), and that includes the smooth-faced man standing before him.
"Why don't you fetch me a fag instead?" The sneer is made of both attitude and pain as Prior makes a more concerted effort to sit up and take in his surroundings. Strangely enough, the private room unsettles him all the more after weeks and weeks of sleeping in mud holes along side his men; this reeks of clinically impersonal in a way the trenches never could.
"—Actually," he amends with a soft huff of an exhale, "something for the pain first." He's barely sat up and his muscles tremble with effort while sweat gathers at his furrowed brow. Lucidity doesn't exactly have the same appeal as a Woodbine (although it's truly a close enough call that Prior thinks it rivals the bullet that's brought him here).
Warrick keeps his expression unreadable as Prior forces himself upright, taking stock of the man’s condition. Or rather, his reaction to his condition: sweat darkening the hair at his temples, a shivering, jerky quality to the pull of taut muscle beneath fresh bandages, and beneath that something else, something enticing, intriguing… Dangerous.
Pain, Warrick realizes, allowing the notion to fold into his understanding, to intrude upon the vision he’d had for his perfect creation. Pain in his sim… How had he let it come to this?
Best not to dwell, he reasons firmly, dismissing the thought to focus on the present, immediate, (mostly) concrete request in front of him. It perplexes him for a moment, ‘a fag’, but he recovers quickly as the most probable meaning of the term pushes past the dominating, up-to-date definition; nicotine has been illegal since before Warrick was born, but somehow, distantly, the knowledge is there when he reaches for it. Had it come from something he’d heard or read, or directly from the man before him? Warrick decides to file that question away for later— as intriguing a line of inquiry as it is, it won’t do him much practical good now.
Back to the task at hand.
“Ah, yes,” he says as he moves toward the nearest cabinet which he finds stocked with an assortment of bottles, jars, and other primitive— though still unmistakably medical— paraphernalia. “Of course.”
He selects one of the smaller bottles, narrowing his eyes at it in brief consideration, then strides toward the side of the bed. A glass of water which may or may not have been there a moment ago now sits atop the makeshift nightstand, and Warrick passes both it and the tablets he’d taken from the cabinet to Prior. As he’s learned from vast experience, there’s little sense in calling attention to the minor inconsistencies: the mind is capable of filling in the gaps all on its own, and quite instantaneously to boot.
That ought to cover the sudden-but-not appearance of the chair Warrick settles into as he waits for Prior to take the painkillers, too.
“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?” Best to establish a starting point, and the sooner the better…. Both to preserve the organic quality of the data provided and, naturally, to satisfy Warrick’s own curiosity.
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no subject
He's dead. No, there's too much pain for that (and like Hell would be going to a place filled with sunlight and warmth). Beneath him, instead of mud and blood and all manners of muck, is a bed. Soft (but not too soft), warm (but not too warm) — it's the kind of thing that a person should welcome after what he's been through, but Prior is far too used to the setting to find any comfort here.
Sitting up, it's obvious he's still suffering from something, although what eludes him. He remembers moments — bits and glimpses of the ends of lives — and when he closes his eyes, they only get stronger (and for that matter, he swears he sees his own death in the reflections in the water, but that can't be, it can't possibly be...
Pok, pok, whizz—
Maybe an hour has passed and Prior, who hadn't realized he'd slipped back into the arms of sleep, awakens again. The light's changed and this time there's another figure moving about the room. He watches, warily observant, forehead dappled in sweat from restless dreams and what is probably an infection hounding at the bullet hole he barely remember receiving.
"Bloody Christ," he groans, voice nearly devoid of volume. "—this better not be Scotland again..." Fitting, perhaps, that Prior would use his first few words to complain: truth be told, he's so afraid of what's to come he doesn't dare let his mind wander far enough to wonder.
Aching movement is applied as Prior checks against himself. He finds two arms, two legs, and upon cupping his groin area, a cock and balls of familiar enough proportions that he realizes he's well enough in one piece. Thank God for that, he thinks, but there's little real sentiment behind it. For all he cares, God can bugger right off for what he's done and allowed over the past several years of the Great War.
Shoulder bound, he fumbles at the gauze bandage probing for the bullet wound beneath. It's not quite where he expects it and the sear of heat caused by the brush of pressure nearly blanches him. The wound is just north of the heart, so close he can't imagine how he's still alive.
"Are you my nurse?" Even strained and confused and in pain, the urge to snipe against the universe is too strong. It's obvious this man is a doctor but Prior doesn't mind emasculating the uniform beneath the white coat, especially not after he'd just led countless men to their deaths while doctors and politicians and philanthropists stood by smoking their cigars and postulating on anything but actual toll of the war on their brethren.
no subject
The smell grabs his attention before anything else. Scents that he ought not to know, but somehow does, and quite a few which he’s sure must be the result of a conflict between memory and data. Curiously, even so, there’s a moment where he— Warrick himself— has to struggle to understand where he is; a novel experience indeed for the man who spends his days assuring disbelieving visitors of the unreality of their surroundings...
It’s all rather thrilling, really, so much so that the all too familiar sounds of an unpleasant awakening are almost a disappointment, pulling him out of his reverie and toward the task now at hand. Oh, well. He’ll have time for all of that later, he supposes.
He studies the dead man impassively for a few beats, well aware that the question had been intended to rile him. Those...quirks, for lack of a better word, had been in the file, of course, among many other things, and Warrick can't help but allow himself a moment of private amusement at the man's expense. It will take more than that, I’m afraid.
And then, mildly:
“I'm afraid not, no. I could fetch one, if you like.” A simple offer, or a challenge? Warrick waits to find out which interpretation the man decides upon, wondering if his hypothesis will be proven correct.
no subject
But if it's not France, then it's worse — either he's a critical case or he's outlived his usefulness.
Staring passively for longer than polite or necessary, Prior grasps for something — for anything — but gets little more than a whiff of disdain towards himself for his lack of effectiveness in riling this man. He doesn't want a nurse. For that matter, he doesn't want anyone at all (except Rivers, perhaps), and that includes the smooth-faced man standing before him.
"Why don't you fetch me a fag instead?" The sneer is made of both attitude and pain as Prior makes a more concerted effort to sit up and take in his surroundings. Strangely enough, the private room unsettles him all the more after weeks and weeks of sleeping in mud holes along side his men; this reeks of clinically impersonal in a way the trenches never could.
"—Actually," he amends with a soft huff of an exhale, "something for the pain first." He's barely sat up and his muscles tremble with effort while sweat gathers at his furrowed brow. Lucidity doesn't exactly have the same appeal as a Woodbine (although it's truly a close enough call that Prior thinks it rivals the bullet that's brought him here).
no subject
Pain, Warrick realizes, allowing the notion to fold into his understanding, to intrude upon the vision he’d had for his perfect creation. Pain in his sim… How had he let it come to this?
Best not to dwell, he reasons firmly, dismissing the thought to focus on the present, immediate, (mostly) concrete request in front of him. It perplexes him for a moment, ‘a fag’, but he recovers quickly as the most probable meaning of the term pushes past the dominating, up-to-date definition; nicotine has been illegal since before Warrick was born, but somehow, distantly, the knowledge is there when he reaches for it. Had it come from something he’d heard or read, or directly from the man before him? Warrick decides to file that question away for later— as intriguing a line of inquiry as it is, it won’t do him much practical good now.
Back to the task at hand.
“Ah, yes,” he says as he moves toward the nearest cabinet which he finds stocked with an assortment of bottles, jars, and other primitive— though still unmistakably medical— paraphernalia. “Of course.”
He selects one of the smaller bottles, narrowing his eyes at it in brief consideration, then strides toward the side of the bed. A glass of water which may or may not have been there a moment ago now sits atop the makeshift nightstand, and Warrick passes both it and the tablets he’d taken from the cabinet to Prior. As he’s learned from vast experience, there’s little sense in calling attention to the minor inconsistencies: the mind is capable of filling in the gaps all on its own, and quite instantaneously to boot.
That ought to cover the sudden-but-not appearance of the chair Warrick settles into as he waits for Prior to take the painkillers, too.
“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?” Best to establish a starting point, and the sooner the better…. Both to preserve the organic quality of the data provided and, naturally, to satisfy Warrick’s own curiosity.
Clinically impersonal, indeed.