Covered In Ink

Chapter 20|Who's the baby giraffe?

"If that yoga doesn't work out maybe you should join a dance class. Although you don't look like the dancing type..."

The doctor was turning red in the face at this point.

"Let me do my job Mr H-"

"Does your job ever get boring? Like, do you ever wish you became a hot air balloon pilot or a trampoline tester instead of a doctor? Sure, you probably enjoy stabbing people with needles, but don't you ever regret training to be a doctor? Unless you weren't trained...and were sent by the Russian mafia to assassinate me. But then if you were an assassin, you should have killed me already and I'm pretty sure I'm still alive..."

"They should pay me more to do this," the doctor muttered, storming out of the room.

Caleb stared after him, appalled. "What's his problem? I was only trying to make conversation."

"Maybe you offended him?" I suggested.

"Well he can cry himself a river, build a bridge and get over it."

That's one way to put it.

"You're so mean," I said, but a smile was working its way onto my face.

"He wouldn't give me a burger. What did he expect? A warm welcome?"

Jeremy laughed. "So whose turn was it?"

~*~*~*~*~

"This hospital sucks balls," Caleb complained as a nurse changed his dressings. Both Ryan and Jeremy had left the room in search of food, secretly I think they're both squeamish.

"Why's that?" I asked, averting my eyes from the blood and plasma oozing from his wounded shoulder.

"Well they don't have burgers, so that's clearly a let down. It smells like a cat died in here then they left it to ferment for a couple hundred years, and I could shit out a better looking interior than this," He stated, glancing at the yellowing walls and dull furnishings.

"You know, I think you've become even more articulate than before," I said, instead of commenting on his description of the box like hospital room.

"Why thank you little sister. Look out Shakespeare here I come."

"Maybe not quite Shakespeare."

"Aww come on, I can talk proper like Shakesp-ow, fucking shit!" He hissed as the nurse pressed some kind of disinfectant onto his stitches.

"Sorry," she said shyly.

He apologised for swearing.

"You were saying?" I smirked.

"Shut up."

He let his head sink into the white linen covered pillows, wincing in pain every so often.

"I wouldn't recommend getting shot," he said to me. "Totally not worth it."

"Thanks for the heads up. By the way, the guy you saved...how did he only end up with a sprained ankle?"

Caleb rolled his eyes. "I promised him I'd kick his ass if we lived. I'm not one to break a promise. If he wasn't such a stupid ass mother trucker I wouldn't be here. If his stupid ass hadn't tripped on a rock and cried like a baby, I wouldn't have heard him, thought he was seriously injured and carried him like the kind hearted gentleman I am. Then we wouldn't have been shot at and I would be eating a burger right now, not laying on an uncomfortable bed in a crusty hospital room."

"He tripped on a rock? You're kidding," I said in disbelief.

"Totally not kidding. I honestly don't know how that guy passed basic training. He's clumsy, clearly can't follow orders, doesn't have much going on upstairs, and he can't fight or shoot for shit."