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
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.
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.
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.
The scent of dried sweat and piss filled the air, accentuated by the coppery undertones of blood. An overhead light flickered on and off, throwing the room into uncertain shadow. Gabe tried to blink the blurriness from his vision, but didn’t manage to change it. HIs left eye was swollen shut, and the right painted the room in a red haze. When he’d first been captured, he’d assumed that his captors would eventually tired of hitting him, or at least give him a reason. But, he’d lost count of how long he’d been here. His initial injuries had developed injuries of their own, though.
“Ready to talk?” The sneered voice gave Gabe a sense of where he was. He tipped his head to the side, watching the masked man without speaking. As he climbed to his knees, a casual backhand knocked him back to the floor. The movement had been obvious, but Gabe hadn’t been fast enough to move away. That wasn’t a good sign.
Fingers tangled in dark hair, lifting Gabe to his feet. He forced a smile through the blood on his busted lip. “About what? My cell’s a bit on the chilly—” The second blow took Gabe by surprise, and he spit a mouthful of pink saliva at the man’s feet.
“Funny,” the man chuckled darkly, taking a sucker punch at Gabe’s kidney. He winced, twisting away from the blow as his second guard tapped the butt of his rifle against the door. For a moment, Gabe entertained the idea of showing the man just how ineffective the long range weapon was in close quarters, but stopped himself. He didn’t plan to die here.
With one last vicious jab at Gabe’s side, the first guard shook out his hand. “Maybe next time, you’ll keep that smart mouth of yours shut.”
“Unlikely,” Gabe answered, letting his voice sound more amused then he felt. The second guard grabbed Gabe and dragged him into a poorly lit hallway. Sucking a shallow breath, he let himself be goaded into an overbright room.
Gabe blinked in confusion at the woman sitting behind a stainless steel table, one knee crossed over the other. Her high heel tapped an impatient rhythm in the air. The crisp business suit looked like it belonged to a different world, one that Gabe hadn’t seen in weeks. Crimson lips pulled into a frown. “So, you’re the Gabriel Reyes that everyone keeps talking about? Huh, I thought you’d be more impressive.”
Smirking in the woman’s direction, Gabe thrust his hips forward. “I’m impressive enough where it matt—”
Pain cut off the rest of Gabe’s words, doubling him over. He knew there would be retribution for the remark, but he’d expected it to stop. Kicks and punches rained down until he couldn’t draw a breath. The woman watched without emotion, lacquered fingernails accentuating the attacks like they’d been planned. Unconsciousness loomed on the horizon by the time she waved away the guards.
Spots danced at the edges of Gabe’s vision, but he clung stubbornly to consciousness. The steady click of heels told him that the woman had approached, but he couldn’t lift his head to meet her gaze. She knelt beside him, and someone dragged Gabriel back up to meet her gaze. The woman’s smile held no warmth. “That’s what they all say. If you cooperate, maybe I’ll let you keep it.”
Gabe arched one eyebrow, but the woman continued before he could think of a reply. “Now, you’re going to tell me everything you know about Overwatch and Jack Morrison. Then, we’re going to destroy them.”
For a moment, confusion swam in Gabe’s chest. He’d assumed he’d pissed someone off on a mission or during SEP. It always came back to Overwatch and Jack. “Do we understand one another?”
Mustering the last bit of moisture in his mouth, Gabe spat in the woman’s direction. The shock on her face was worth the ringing in his ears when a hand cracked against his temple. She wiped the bloody liquid away with a handkerchief and sighed. “I was so hoping that you would cooperate with me. You won’t be the first man I break, nor will you be the last.”
“Bitch, if you—” Gabe’s threat died when something tightened around his throat. The pressure closed off his windpipe, crushing it. Panic arched in his chest as the air swelled in his lungs; his fingers struggled to get a grip on the cord wrapped around his neck. Smirking, ruby lips followed him into the darkness.
Siebren in Overwatch drabble (I can’t think of a name, again)
Contains: Not translated Dutch, emotional turmoil, near death.
The explosions. The cacophony of gunfire. The torturous rumbling of the far too small building, causing parts of the ceiling to crumble and lights to flicker as their fixtures lost integrity. People screamed, ran, and fought with whatever they had outside and inside.
Not Siebren, however.
Rather than stand tall and fight for his life and freedom, he shrunk. He shrunk into a corner of his quarters, his head shielded by hands and knees as tears cascaded down his face, sobs racking his body, eyes squeezed shut. Even his feet crossed over each other in an attempt to make his position as closed as possible, as guarded as possible. He rocked lightly back and forth through uncontrollable trembling. If only he could contort himself into a single atom and be gone from the agonizing chaos that roared around him. Perhaps, then, he’d at last be safe, free from this constant waiting for the rapids the universe continuously thrust him into.
He didn’t want to go back.
Dwing me niet om terug te gaan. Alsjeblieft... Alsjeblieft niet!
“Alsjeblieft,” he begged in a cracked whisper, sliding his hands over the back of his head to bury his face farther away. “Alsjeblieft. Ik wil het niet. Ik wil het niet.”
He would rather feel death's eternal embrace than be forced to return to his last captors and smear yet more innocent blood on his hands. He rather cease to have ever been at all than be subjected to whatever it was Talon had in store for him this time. The universe would answer his pleading with nothing. He wasn’t a man of god, there was nothing he could pray to for protection, and no one on this earthly coil who would suffice. He couldn't… He-
“Ik kan het niet. Ik-” A wail slipped from between his lips.
Yet again, he was hopeless, helpless. Told to stay put and wait for Overwatch to handle this while he remained in the tenuous safety of his quarters, he could only hold so much faith in their small chance for success. It took so long, and he knew what Talon was capable of. Almost all of his being felt ill at the thought of them breaking down the door and dragging him, kicking and screaming until they knocked him out, with them. His stomach twisted into knots, his throat clenched. He clapped a hand over his mouth, one part to silence himself, one part to prevent himself from spitting up. He gulped and swallowed through his shivering, soft whimpers escaping his fragile form.
Then it all stopped.
Disorienting and deafening fear had been cut through by something new, something stronger. Purpose. The noise had lifted. Someone else had taken the helm, but it was still him. A certainty washed over him, like someone firmly gripping his shoulder and speaking directly to his mind, dispelling all but them. He was instantaneously filled with nothing but clarity. All his fractured parts had come together, joined for a singular goal. He was afloat, through the ravaging of his safe haven, his tears still clinging to his skin and mixing with dirt and dust, with but one thought in mind.
Bevecht dit.
Fight this.
He would fight this, tooth and nail, now that, if they were indeed here to steal him away, this time he was able to fight. Their violence would be answered with an opposite reaction built up from years of suffering. If that was what it took, that was what he would do. Their violence would be answered with a violence so exquisite it would shake galaxies. People were dying, and he had been given a gift that could help end that. He had to use it. It was his obligation to.
Overwatch had allowed him to decide whether he wanted to keep the equipment Talon had outfitted him with and let them make various adjustments in their labs. While they assured him there would be no deploying him into a battle, he knew to remain prepared, and he knew where to go.
Siebren always had help equipping his harness. Even in a rush, however, he paid enough attention to know some of the steps. Sharp eyes examined each component. This harness had indeed been altered, though not enough to make it impossible to don alone. It was less crude, far more streamlined, more approachable. He knew putting this on would permanently mark him as Overwatch, but that was scarcely a concern worth keeping. Now, the wires that had to be attached to the base of his skull… They were the same.
He put on the base of his gear, the jumpsuit, the bits and pieces that layered it. Everything, sans shoes. He wouldn't be needing those.
The way the larger and more elaborate torso section hung in the display frame with a screen turned towards it, he could have sworn Overwatch had anticipated this moment just as much as he had. All he needed to do to attach it was turn around, back into it, and connect the primary cerebral cord. The screen popped on, displaying a diagnostic in progress. Automated vertebral alignment. Interesting. It also displayed other changes. His shield generators had been significantly upgraded. No doubt Winston's doing. Good. Hopefully, it would no longer feel as though he was defending his colleagues with a sheet of paper.
He took the time it took for the machine to prepare his first time use to wipe some of the filth from his face. It was getting uncomfortable.
The machine shifted as the diagnostic progressed. There was a soft hiss. Several studs pressed into his back, down the upper portions of his spine, with a painful pressure and a pinch that passed in a mere second. The front connections of his armor clamped on, followed by the shoulders. The wiring that connected to his gloves, he attached himself, flexing his fingers to check the integrity of the connection and the fit of the material around his fingers. His leg braces were secured with a little more effort.
What more was there to equip? A helmet? With an opaque screen? No. No, he wanted Talon to see his face when he destroyed them. He wanted them to see the man they'd turned into their own demise, not just a weapon.
His hyperspheres… They were purely for offensive capability. He couldn’t say for certain if he was quite ready for that, even now, when he moved with such purpose. He would take them, unfolded and neatly stored on the arm of his right glove for if the need to use them arose.
Another check. Everything was in order, well within acceptable margins. Sigma… Siebren ready to deploy.
After making his way through the facility, closed up in a state of emergency but not entirely unbreachable, he found the exit. Sunlight and the screaming of both people and weaponry met him at the doors. He remained unperturbed, gliding his way past several combatants, far in the backline, on his way to the most optimal position, just as he had been made to do in Talon. No one questioned his arrival. No one could. There was no space or time for them to even begin to do so. Their eyes were trained on the skies.
So, Talon had sent gunships? Relatively lightly armored, with weak weaponry, compared to what he knew Talon was well in their ability to deploy. A difficult problem, all the same, but not without a solution. Judging from the chatter of the Overwatch troops around him, they were holding Talon off in anticipation for allied reinforcements. All they required was time, time Siebren could offer. The gunships looked to be preparing a volley of missiles, trained on the entrance of the main building he’d just left, no doubt to cut off an escape. With an outreached hand, Siebren spread his shield, halting the barrage from striking the building. His barrier shattered from the final impact, sending the generator fragments back to him to regenerate. Though his shield had been made both larger and stronger than it had been, the structures to the side were unlucky, struck with bullets and explosions that had passed by Siebren's defenses, but the rubble could still prove useful. The shield, after a brief moment of collective surprise from his new allies, had also offered the Overwatch troops a precious few seconds to retaliate against the enemy. For one ship, this proved fatal.
Siebren couldn't help but feel a small amount of satisfaction at its fall. Another ship found itself ambushed by an old friend. In the confusion Siebren's unannounced arrival had caused, Winston took it upon himself to launch into the opening of one of the Talon vehicles with a masterfully aimed jump. He made short work of it before retreating as the ship came crashing down. Impressive work, but the battle continued.
Guns turned towards Siebren, the Talon troops having recognized him as a threat. Loosing their ammunition on him, however, was more than a waste. In fact, it was a huge mistake. Yet again, he extended a hand, this time to grasp all matter, within a certain mass, that accelerated towards him and convert the energy into a bolstering of his personal shielding. By the time they realized this, it was too late. They needed to reload, giving Siebren time to gather the rubble around him into one collection, using both hands and the pull of gravity they generated. The strain it took was tremendous, and he could feel all the old sensations—the whispers, the muffled feeling in his head—returning. The boulder he had amassed was larger than he'd ever managed during his days with Talon, but he held fast. His mind was set on one thing. The last Talon gunship to not have retreated once things started looking ugly. With one mighty thrust of his hands, accompanied by a laboured grunt, Siebren sent the accumulation of mass flying into the gunship, a gunship with a pilot who only seemed to have gotten the hint that this battle was lost seconds before impact. Like all others, it crashed down, several Talon troops jumping out with their boosters to avoid dying in the ensuing blaze.
Siebren observed the crash and glanced down at his hands. Part of him could feel bad for taking to this so naturally after the time he'd spent out of action, but it felt oddly satisfying using his abilities again, although about as nerve racking as it used to be as well. The adrenaline, the drum of his speeding heart pounding in his chest… he did miss that, unfortunately. At least, some of him did.
Finally, all they had to worry about were the ground troops. Disposing of them would be a simple matter, even without his hyperspheres. He wasn't reliant on those to incapacitate an aggressor. He didn’t need them to kill either, if the need happened to arise. He didn't think it would at this point, not for him. That was, until a new rumbling grew over the horizon.
Siebren's eyes shifted from the ground troops to the air once again. Backup. A lot of backup. Too much backup.
"Get inside," Siebren barked to the Overwatch troops around him. Some relayed his command to their allies on the comm channel and awaited approval. "Fall back, now. Get everyone inside and-"
Oh no. No no no no no!
The new ships prepared another hail of missiles. Siebren projected a barrier, erecting both hands to extend its surface area as wide as he could possibly manage. Oh god. He couldn't stretch it this wide. It couldn’t take this much damage. It would break before he could stop everything. Perhaps… The rubble. He could layer some of the rubble under it, just to be sure he could cover the retreat. He’d stay behind, and perhaps even be buried or captured, but the fight would be far from over. Before half of the impacts had been made, he could feel and see his barrier become unstable.
As everyone ran past him, having gotten an official order to retreat back into the base, Siebren remained put, using all of his effort to form a blanket of rock and metal growing around several singularities, as with his accretion, for as long as he could.
The music… It was growing so loud… The laughing, the echoes, the whispers, the pulled strings of the universe ripping at his mind harder the longer he exerted himself… It was too much. His vision grew tunneled, the sounds of war had been replaced with the sound of his blood rushing, his heart beating, his mind screaming, and muffled chords that still shattered his hearing. Yet, he held. He couldn't do it for much longer, and he could no longer even tell when it would be enough, but he held. It may become the end of him, but he held. He would hold for as long as he had to, longer even. He would hold for as long as he could.
Everything swam around him, swarmed around him, time winding in paths it wasn’t meant to take. Where was reality? Where had the world gone? Everything was a haze of noise, vision, touch, even taste and smell. He couldn't… He couldn’t-
He was snapped out of his daze by a powerful collision, rocketing him towards the facility, away from under the hellfire that would barrel towards him the moment his focus shattered, and knocking the wind from his lungs in the process. Shatter his focus certainly did. The warm dust that rushed through the halls as the building's front section collapsed was blinding, suffocating. His body crashed against the hard ground beneath him, a nearly crushing weight pressing down on him. In the darkness that swallowed him, Siebren wasn’t quite aware if he had just died or not. Death wasn’t supposed to be like this. There should be nothing but the collapsing of time and space as the brain died, but… this wasn’t that. This wasn’t that, at all.
It took a moment for his senses to return after the cacophony that had assaulted his senses and his body. The sounds of coughs and groans among the settling rubble gave some much needed context, and assurance that people had survived. Had he been saved? Was that what the impact had been? Siebren hadn't even the chance to lay eyes on his savior before the entire group he was with got shut into a facility with what seemed to be cut power to light.
Not having had his cranium replaced could have proven useful right now… if only for the small bit of light it may have provided in exchange for the receding hairline he actually rather liked having back. He was certain the troops had lights on them, but they needed time to recover from the shock they'd been subjected to. He, too, could use a moment to catch what little breath the dust let him have. He moved his arm, honestly a little uncertain of where it would end up, until he could feel the inside of his elbow over his mouth. It wouldn't do much, but any little bit of protection for his stinging lungs was good. Maybe that helmet would have been a diligent choice, after all.
Finally, he managed to find the ability to speak once more. “Is… Is everyone alright?” he asked with a pained groan, still looking though nothing but a void ahead of him.
Didn’t this call for more of a head count? Ah… He had never been in the military, and the only one he was close with who would know, had perished in the Omnic Crisis. These troops would do whatever protocol Overwatch knew. Asking if everyone was alright after all that, though? How naive. Of course not everyone was alright. He could hit himself over the head about that later.
a list of Overwatch characters that, regardless of player, will get super fucking competitive with one another and start targeting each other the moment they realize there's a double on the enemy team:
pharmercy doing some shared workouts as part of a small overwatch exchange i took part in last year (mercy has not done any sit ups in like 5 minutes, it’s very obvious,)
