Prompt:Coughing up a lung (pneumothorax, exotic illness, “definitely just a cold”)
Fandom:Overwatch
Characters:Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) and Jack Morrison (Soldier: 76)
Rating:T
Words:828
Notes:Requested by Anonymous! Hope you see this and enjoy! Mild Language warning
Brilliant light pierced through Gabe’s skull when someone thumbed his eye open. Voices spoke above his head, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Alarms rang somewhere in the distance, or maybe they were close at hand. His body didn’t seem able to distinguish the two. It took him longer than it should have to realize that he couldn’t understand the language washing over him. Panic rippled through his body as he tried to make the scattered pieces fit together.
Consciousness came in waves. Flashes of light, urgent voices, and pain. Gabe opened his mouth to tell the hand running over his stomach to fuck off, but pain shot through his ribs when he drew a breath. Something heavy sat on his chest, compressing it. He couldn’t get enough air despite his desperate gasp. Agony radiated through his left shoulder, sharp and sudden.
I’m having a heart attack, Gabe recognized with a macabre amusement. I’m dying.
The thought was chased by annoyance that the nanites that SEP had pumped Gabe full of wouldn’t prevent such a mundane death. He coughed and couldn’t draw enough oxygen to keep the spots from his vision. He gagged on the lack of air, clawing at his throat. A sidearm cocked beside his head made Gabe shy away. The sound was loud enough to rupture an eardrum, as were the screams that followed. Then, a familiar voice swam through the cacophony. “Do something, or I swear you’re next.”
Jack, Gabe recognized the voice with a start and pieces began to snap back together. They’d been on a mission—he couldn’t summon the memory, only that it was top secret. He’d caught something he thought was just a run of the mill cold, what, two days ago? Three? The timeline dissolved in fever delirium. Heavily accented, broken English washed over Gabe without comprehension, but he clung to Jack’s unwavering voice. “If he dies, you die. Do you understand?”
Gabe never heard an answer, something sharp and hot sent a wave of agony through his chest. It felt like his lung was being suctioned through a tiny hole in his ribs. HIs breathing had been shallow before, now it was impossible. Darkness swallowed the world.
When Gabe opened his eyes again, his first thought was that the afterlife looked a lot like a shoddy hut with the sound of heavy, tropical rain pounding against the thatched roof. A second blink cleared the blurriness to reveal Jack leaning against a wall, gun resting across one thigh. When Gabe painfully cleared his throat, the blond sat bolt upright and trained his weapon on the doorway.
“Jack?” Gabe’s voice came out as a dry croak.
Turning, Jack laid the gun on the mat beside him and held a bottle of something to Gabe’s mouth. Water splashed into Gabe’s throat and ran down the sides of his face to dampen the pillow. Jack brushed a hand over Gabe’s forehead and sighed. “The fever broke. About damn time.”
“What happened,” Gabe asked, trying to push into a sitting position. The room spun, then steadied. He pressed a hand against a prick of pain in his chest that hadn’t been there before. Memories came back. “We were in a hospital. You blew our cover.”
“You were dying,” Jack answered, shaking his head like he could push the memory to the corners of his mind. “And it was a clinic not a hospital. Barely more than a witch doctor really.”
As Gabe digested the words, the memory of a gunshot echoed in his mind. He glanced at the weapon that Jack tucked back into the holster against the left side of his ribcage. Jack blew out a breath and shook his head. “Your little cold turned into an infection that nearly killed you, probably would have if not for the chemicals they pumped us full of. It managed to collapse your lung.” The man paused, then sighed. “I think, anyway. They didn’t speak much English.”
Despite the words, giddy nervousness washed through Gabe. He’d come that close to death and beaten it again. A laughter bubbled through his lips, building into a full laugh that sent pain spiking through his side. He coughed and tried to stop the amusement. Jack glanced over his shoulder and shook his head. “Probably a bad idea. I’m not sure how long that’ll take to heal, but at least another day or two.”
“Yeah,” Gabe answered, making his breath shallower so as not to put any more pressure on the injury. He tipped his head to watch Jack, wondering at the impassive blue eyes. “Thanks.”
Jack nodded, a short, sharp movement of his neck. “You should rest, we’ll have to move soon.”
Gabe watched Jack stand, head nearly brushing the top of their shelter and move toward the door. He considered the emotional cost of the past few days, but didn’t ask about it as Jack stepped into the rain. There would be time for that soon enough.
“But to me the funniest gig was when The Band of Joy played Queen Mary Ballroom in Dudley. One of the cover versions they played was Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were a Carpeneter’. But unlike the original, their version built up steadily into a powerful crescendo, and it was during the final bars of the song, as Robert sang out “Marry me, Marry me” he wrapped his legs round one of the pillars at the side of the stage and emulated, what to all intents and purposes, was a knee trembler. That was the final straw for Mum, who had been watching the show. With her handbag hanging from her arm she approached the stage and above the applause you could hear, ‘John! You get off those drums right now! You’re not playing with that boy, he’s a pervert!’”
- Mick Bonham, from his book John Bonham: the Powerhouse Behind Led Zeppelin
Priceless.
This would make a brilliant scene in a Led Zeppelin biopic.
I remember a young man once, looking in through Mum’s net curtains. Our kid said “I’ve just met this bloke and we’re working together. He’s my new mate, called John, he’s coming round.” He looked a bit cool - he had sideburns, ‘sidies’, and skintight jeans, ‘drainies’. Dad wouldn’t let us have drainies, though our kid found a way to get around that! And I thought, “Whoa, it’s gotta be this John bloke.” That was the first time I met Johnny Moondog, here in this room.
Those two boys had an affinity. I always got on with John, like my brother did, because we all had tragedy in our lives at an early time. We had a natural understanding of what it is like to lose someone at that early age, and we had our own way of expressing it.
– Interview with Mike McCartney for National Trust Magazine (Summer 2022)
Reading about Paul’s time at the Liverpool Institute and wondering why we don’t talk about Paul’s close friend from the ‘Inny’ Ian James more often. Especially considering Ian has provided quotes like:
“What brought us together as soulmates was our love of music.”
And:
“Paul and I would walk to my home from school and sit in the back yard where I taught him his first chords, before he bought his own guitar, and I’d change the strings around so he could practice. I still have the guitar although it’s barely playable now.”
And:
“Immediately following the Skiffle craze, Rock ‘n’ Roll arrived and we couldn’t get enough of it. We’d go to all the travelling fairs where they played it non-stop and where we wore our infamous matching white jackets (with sparkles in the material) and drainies [fancied being the British Everly Brothers].
And:
“Paul and I would visit all the record shops in Liverpool and know all the female staff by name. They would play us all the R ‘n’ R and R & B records that had just been released. I remember the record shop where I bought my first rock record—the double-sider Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog. Paul was with me at the time and he was with me when I bought Lend Me Your Comb by Carl Perkins which I’ve probably still got in the original 78 rpm.
Which decades later resulted in:
“On the last visit to his office I walked up the last flight of stairs and just as I turned the corner into his office I heard the strains of Hound Dog blasting from the juke box he keeps in one corner. A nice thought from an old pal.”
Plus:
Picture of Paul strumming Ian’s guitar in his office at MPL in London. Note the vintage photo of Ian propped up on the guitar – the same photo seen above.
