So-Called Life
Chapter 1: Flatline
Synopsis:
“Never bury your enemies alive.”
The words echoed in his head, lingering in the darkness when everything else faded. Even the pain disappeared, white hot and radiating until it became so much it was just… gone. Warmth, then cold, and finally, numbness.
Everything afterwards came in flashes.
About four months into recovery, Johnny meets someone who might just understand what he's going through. Of course, no one knows the whole story, and it's lonely.
Ao3 link
“Never bury your enemies alive.”
The words echoed in his head, lingering in the darkness when everything else faded. Even the pain disappeared, white hot and radiating until it became so much it was just… gone. Warmth, then cold, and finally, numbness.
Everything afterwards came in flashes.
Muffled voices, the scraping of multiple footfalls, and the slamming of car doors in the distance. Or was it right next to him?
He was aware of his body being moved even when he couldn’t open his eyes. Everything felt so far away. It was hard to notice the hands on him when every jostle sent searing pain through his temple and into his brain. It hurt too much to think. It hurt too much to exist.
The only reprieve was when he felt a soft surface below, giving way under his weight. The crinkle of paper and the beeping of machines barely registered.
“Johnny!”
The shout startled him awake. A sharp, stabbing sensation in the side of his head broke through the fog of his drug-addled mind.
Johnny blinked blearily. The rapid beeping on the monitor next to him betrayed the jolt of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he fought to control his breath, eyes scanning the dim room around him.
It was empty.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
Christ, that’s annoying.
Johnny leaned over to the heart monitor, stretching his hand out and pressing a button he’d seen the nurses use to silence the irritating machinery. His whole world spun on its axis, threatening to dump him from the hospital bed and onto the speckled linoleum.
He only barely managed to save himself from having his brains spill out over the floor — again — by clumsily shooting an arm out to brace against the nearest surface, which was, unfortunately, the IV pole. The thin, flimsy metal pole toppled and crashed into the wall, leaving a scuff mark along the rubbery baseboard and tugging on the line taped to Johnny’s hand. At least if his blood spattered here, there’d be an easier clean up than where he’d nearly bled out on the concrete of the Chunnel.
The Scotsman let out a curse, wincing against the tender new injury just as the door to his room opened.
A now-familiar redhead peeked his way inside. His eyes widened at the scene as he flicked on the lights. He rushed forward to assist, picking the IV off the ground and helping Johnny settle back into the bed.
“Steamin’ Jesus, Sergeant. I thought you had fallen out of bed yourself when I heard the crash,” Carson breathed with a shake of his head.
“Nearly did,” Johnny grumbled as he let the medic take his hand and remove the IV properly.
“Good thing you didn’t. Besides nearly ripping the catheter out of your hand, are you injured at all?”
“Apart from the obvious?” Even Johnny could hear how his attempt at lighthearted humor wavered and fell flat. It came out bitter instead. His brow furrowed, gaze drifting off into the middle distance for what felt like the thousandth time this week.
The scar branching out from his temple throbbed in response, almost as if it could sense Johnny’s growing awareness of it again.
At least Carson had the good nature to chuckle and shake his head fondly. “You need to be careful. We’re dealing with some powerful drugs here. You won’t be as coordinated as you are used to. Press your call button if you need something, okay?”
"I'm coordinated just fine," he insisted, but there was an increasing awareness that he wasn't just fine.
The drugs weren’t the only reason Johnny was off his game, and they both knew that. But apparently, everyone was either too scared to mention the elephant in the room or so clinical that it felt like a slap in the face to be pelted with prognoses that he wouldn’t remember in 15 minutes. It had taken Johnny the better part of a week to remember Carson’s name, and the man had a bloody nametag.
Unperturbed by his silent brooding, Carson continued with business as usual. He brought in a tray of breakfast: all soft foods served with thick-handled utensils for ease of use. Well, easier.
“You’ve got another visit with Faye in physical therapy this morning. Did you want to take your pain medication or go without?”
When the doctors had first started Johnny on intravenous medication — morphine or whatever it was — he hadn’t been very receptive, insisting on going without when he discovered how hard it was to think clearly through the hazy fog in his mind.
Ironically, the fog didn’t improve without the meds. It was just easier to move his arms without feeling so heavy. But it was the intense, unending ache in his skull that had him sheepishly withdrawing his earlier request.
The military had a way of training a ‘ pain is weakness leaving your body’ mentality that was hard to shake. Johnny found it hard to believe that this amount of pain was doing anything other than making him weaker. There was a sour feeling that settled in his stomach whenever he asked for more pain management, so he frequently didn’t ask. As of now, he really only accepted the IV at night so he could sleep, but his dreams were confusing and left him feeling restless, even if the medication pulled him deeper into the nightmares.
The feeling of cold metal warming against his scalp, fingers in a bruising grip on his arm…
Johnny blinked rapidly as Carson gently tapped his arm, drawing him out of the spiral. He inhaled sharply through his nose and tensed against the touch.
What was he supposed to be answering again?
Carson held up the small paper cup with several pills inside, rattling it gently.
Oh, pain meds. Right.
Johnny gently shook his head, trying not to think about the wince he couldn’t hold back.
“Nah. Not today,” he insisted stiffly.
Carson narrowed his eyes a bit, but acquiesced and only handed over the antibiotics with a hum. At least, that’s what Johnny thought they were. It was hard to keep up with everything. So much of the days felt both too slow and too fast simultaneously. He wasn’t even sure how many days had passed yet. Did his blood still stain the grey concrete, or had they hosed it down by now? Would there be an unnoticeable pink stain outside the train windows as it whizzed by in a blur?
So he found himself in a waiting room. Again. Being wheeled around the hospital was both a blessing and a curse. The residual high from his overnight pain meds made coordination difficult, and he imagined that the shock of his feet hitting the hard flooring would hurt his still-tender skull. Not that he could walk even if he wanted to. That was the other side of having to be wheeled around everywhere: there was no control. He couldn’t decide to pop over to the vending machine for a snack without asking. He couldn’t even decide to go to the bathroom by himself. It was humiliating.
A part of him recognized that he’d have been absolutely eating up the attention and excuse to be in a fun wheely chair had this been any other situation, nagging Price to buy him snacks or whining to Ghost to push him around. But it wasn’t like that. And here he was. Alone.
Or as alone as he could be in the circumstances. Hospitals were always full of people. There was no sense of privacy. That was something he was used to, but more and more Johnny just wanted to hide away in the private room behind a solid door and not speak to anyone for the rest of the day.
Carson parked Johnny’s transport chair next to a row of peeling vinyl-cushioned armchairs. Everyone in this place was at least a good 20 years his senior or still in uniform, clearly taking the morning off from some cozy desk job to meet their required medical appointments.
None of it was new anymore, but it also wasn’t familiar enough to feel comfortable. Posters with too much information crammed onto their surfaces, while still attempting to look pleasing, were too hard to read. Johnny couldn’t remember the last time he willingly read something outside of work and he’d be damned if he was going to start with this crap.
A paper calendar on the wall said it was March of 2024. Johnny didn’t even remember the turnover into the new year. He’d probably been asleep or too confused to register the passage of time. Apparently, he’d attacked more than one health professional in his distressed state and even threw his dinner tray at Ghost and Gaz when he didn’t recognize them after waking up from his coma.
Things were still fuzzy, and despite being declared “non-agitated” he sure felt fucking agitated. It was hard to think for more than a few seconds at a time. Annoyingly, it was just long enough to get caught in a spiral of what must be his memories. Everything was taking its sweet time coming back to him, but he wasn’t sure if he could trust the dreams to be the truth. Instead, Johnny had tried to read reports about his last mission, about Makarov, about his task force.
More often than not, he’d ended up needing someone to read them to him, his eyes and brain swimming every time he tried on his own. None of his teammates complained, but there was a vulnerability to it that Johnny didn’t like. Yet again, something he couldn’t control.
“D’you mind if I sit here?”
Johnny fought to pull himself out of staring into space and register that someone had spoken to him. He felt slow and dumb as he blinked open-mouthed up at the new person, his heavy brow furrowed in concentration.
A woman stood before him, leaning on a pair of well-loved crutches that cradled her forearms. Her eyes studied his expression, a look of uncertainty passing over her face before Johnny finally grunted his assent.
She nodded with a tight-lipped smile before lowering herself down into the only open seat in the waiting room: the one directly next to him.
Like him, she was younger than the average age of the crowd here. But, unlike the younger adults present, she didn’t wear a uniform. Instead of fatigues, a dark grey pullover and black jeans stood out in the pale room. Her hair was black, clearly dyed if the centimeter or so of dark blonde hair at the roots was any indication.
“Nice mohawk, by the way.”
Johnny blinked, realizing he was staring off into space again as he studied her. His hand absent-mindedly went up to touch his head, fingers shaking as he traced the shaved sides. The scar ran underneath his palm instead of taking up the entirety of his attention this time.
Gaz had insisted on Johnny keeping his signature haircut, even when he was bedbound and could barely speak. He’d brought in clippers and everything. It’d been months since he’d had a proper shower, but Gaz didn’t care. Admittedly, it did feel more comfortable like this. More familiar.
“Ah, thanks,” he drawled slowly. His tongue tripped over the words as his mouth fought to make the right sounds. Was it always so hard to talk? Maybe Carson was so used to patients babbling nonsense at him that he understood without much fuss. Maybe Johnny just forgot how to speak in the last five minutes. Both could be equally true. “My mate did it for me.”
She smiled, lips stretching around the piercing in the center of her bottom lip. Her hand reached up and ran through her hair, eyes watching as her shaky fingers passed through the length.
“That’s cool of him to do. I miss my shaved head sometimes,” she sighed wistfully. “It was so much easier to take care of.”
It felt like he couldn’t blink as Johnny did his best to retain the conversation in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before blinking stupidly again as he searched for words that did not want to come.
“Did you—did you have—” He settled for pointing at the side of his head, hoping it was the right side where the pinkish scar sat.
Her eyes widened. “Oh! No, I just did it because I wanted to.” She paused. “At least you’ll probably have a gnarly scar. Or the perfect spot for a sick cover-up tattoo.”
Johnny felt his lips tug into a half-smile. “Aye, I hadn’t thought of that.”
The woman’s green eyes lit up as her smile grew to a grin. “You really should consider it! I think it’d look super cool with the mohawk.”
A tattoo on the side of his head? It was hard to believe SAS would allow that, but then again, none of 141 had really followed the uniform rules, had they? For some reason, it was easier to remember his days before becoming a sergeant than the days leading up to his hospitalization.
“Sergeant MacTavish?”
Shit, how long had he been sitting there quietly? His eyes found the nurse who called him. Her eyes scanned the crowd of waiting patients, passing right over him.
When had Carson left? Johnny supposed he had other parts of his job than attending to a grumpy soldier in a wheelchair, but now he was stuck.
“Is that you?” Johnny flinched. He’d completely forgotten about the woman and the conversation they had just had. He’d feel embarrassed if he wasn’t grappling with a strange sense of panic. She must have seen the look on his face because when he nodded, she stood up and called out “Here!” to the nurse.
“Is it alright if I push you?”
Johnny looked down at the transport chair, realizing there was no way to propel himself forward. It felt like fighting through tar to form full thoughts.
“Aye, that’s alright,” he responded quietly. “Thanks, lass.”
She disappeared behind him. “Okay, but you’ll have to carry these for me, then.”
A pair of crutches slowly inched into Johnny’s field of vision from behind him. He was supposed to carry them? Just as slowly as they had appeared, Johnny reached out and wrapped his hands around the scuffed aluminium poles. It took a lot of concentration to control the shake in his fingers enough to maneuver properly, but eventually he got them laid across his lap.
The woman waited patiently for him to settle, unlike the nurse by the doors, who tapped her foot and watched with an irritated expression. As soon as he was settled, the chair lurched forward and glided across the floor.
“Thank you so much for your patience. Alright, lead the way.”
Johnny could hear the faux sweetness and the smile in her voice. A part of him regretted being unable to see it, especially when the nurse clearly had to fight back an eye roll. Instinct told him the grin must have been shit-eating. A smirk tugged at his lips again.
The rest of the walk—or roll, in his case—down the hall was quiet. Even the quiet murmurs of the passed rooms didn’t drown out the gentle thrum of the wheels against the vinyl floors and the footsteps of rubber-bottomed shoes. Something about it was soothing. He could even hear the swishing of cotton jeans from behind him if he focused.
Johnny was practically being lulled to sleep, only catching himself when his head began to drift and fall, startling himself out of the stupor. When did he get so tired?
“Alright, I guess this is you.” The woman reached around Johnny and retrieved the crutches from his lap. “This is where we part ways.”
“You’re not coming?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking, even if he had the mental capacity to recognize that she probably had her own appointment to attend.
She chuckled as she handed his wheelchair off to the grumpy nurse. “No, I’ve got a support group to run. You should stop by sometime. We’re in the rec room on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.”
“Support group…” Johnny parroted. He didn’t confirm or deny, just tried out the words in his mouth to see how they felt. It wasn’t that bad. Maybe he’d say them again.
The click of crutches down the hall drew his attention back to the present as he was wheeled away into another room, the retreating form of… Shit, he forgot to ask her name.
