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Dat Boot drabble (Rasta Centric) (Supa Strikas)

‘Dat Boot’ – Rasta’s coma if it was somewhat realistic (hurt/comfort, some fluff, angst, etc).

AKA

I drabbled up some scenes (not in chronological order) from Rasta’s perspective as his brain maneuvers through the coma as well as the injuries sustained to it (memory issues/general sort of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) vibes). Not a full story, just some ideas of scenes that could’ve happened during his coma. I wanted to explore coma stuff cause I like brains.

Characters aside from Rasta: Joe, Bo, Coach, Shakes, North, and Tiger. Bo's a primary character (sort of I guess?).

Tws: Suffocation (not actual suffocation, Rasta thinks he’s suffocating, but he’s not), general coma stuff/TBI, memory issues, ventilators, all that kinda jazz.

—

A voice, in his ear.

“–doing so well, brother.” It whispers. A waft of warm air against his cheek. It tickles. “So, so well. We’re right here, okay? We’re all right here. We’re not going anywhere.”

There’s a soft, gentle weight on his arm. Fingers curl around his wrist, squeezing loosely. The pressure grounds him, just a little. He wishes it was stronger. If it was strong enough, it’d help him out of the heavy, cotton-like fog his mind seems to have shoved him into. At least, he thinks it would.

“You’re a tough guy, Rasta.” The voice cracks a little, like a stuttery record. “You know that, right?”

“Want a minute?” Another voice asks softly, from further away. He becomes aware of a weight against his leg. A hand? “I can go, if you want.”

“No, no, I… I’m okay.” It breathes. He can’t feel the warmth on his cheek anymore, but he hears the breath. Trembly and upset. “God, Rasta, you scared the shit out of me.”

“You and me both.” The other voice murmurs. “You and me both, Joe.”

—

He can’t breathe.

There’s something down his throat, and he can’t breathe.

He tries to scream. Nothing but a pitiful suffocated gurgle leaves his mouth. He tries to thrash, to writhe, to bring his hands up to his face. He barely twitches. His arms won’t listen, he can’t move them, why can’t he move them–?!

“Hey, hey– shhh, shhh, Rasta. Easy.” Footsteps stumble forward, shoes screeching against the floor. There’s a hand on his chest. He struggles against it desperately. “It’s alright, it’s alright, shhh. Don’t fight it, don’t fight it.”

Bo, he recognises faintly. A glow of white in the sea of black he’s drowning in. His voice is shaking.

“Wh’t’s goin’ on?” That’s Tiger. Another small glow of white. He sounds disorientated, in a sleepy way. He hears the sound of a weight hitting the floor, and suddenly Tiger’s voice is much closer, but yet so very far away, like he can’t bring himself to come closer. He sounds scared now. “Shit–”

Bo ignores him, instead leaning downwards. Closer. Big hands hold him steady, “Let it breathe for you.” He begs. Somewhere nearby, a machine lets out a shrill, deafening shriek. “Let it, Rasta. Don’t fight it. It’s helping you, okay? It’s there to help.”

His hands twitch. Bo’s own meet them, squeezing tight. So, so very tight. Tight enough that he feels as if he could shatter under the pressure. It’s a welcoming distraction to the feeling of dying.

“Let it.” Bo is still pleading. He sounds so tired. Another machine beeps frantically. “Just let it. Please, Rasta, please.”

There’s yet another voice now. He doesn’t recognise it.

“He woke up– I don’t– I-” Bo chokes. His hands disappear, replaced with colder ones. The sickly smell of antiseptic hits his nose. It only renews his struggle. Another gurgled sound leaves his lips.

Bo lets out a sob. It’s Tiger who asks the next question, voice tiny, “Is this normal?”

The voice rambles some sort of response to that. That it can be, at least that’s the only part he grasps as he struggles for air. This isn’t normal, he’s dying, he can’t– he-

“-pushing propofol, he should be–”

“There you go.” Bo is back now, his voice closer, hovering hesitantly over him. A faint hand settles against his shoulder as his body goes slack. It’s terrifyingly quick how fast the fight leaves his body. He wonders if there even was much of a fight to begin with. “There you go. That’s better, yeah?” Bo’s voice makes a weird crackle. It drops to a whisper, something he finds he has to strain to hear. “Fucking hell. Fucking hell.”

—

He wakes up to something rubbing against the skin of his cheek. It’s soft, and fluffy. It smells dusty. In a good, old, worn way. Familiar. Comforting. If he could move, he’d nuzzle into it.

“-remember this, Cap?”

He’s quick to recognise the voice as Shakes’. Faster than he’s been before, waking up looking at the back of his eyelids.

There’s more fluffy, soft touches against the exposed skin of his neck. It drapes over him like a… a…

Ah. A blanket.

“Found this doing a little cleaning at your place.” Shakes continues on. His voice is so very gentle. Like how a person would speak to a puppy, rather than a man. “Hope you don’t mind that I took it. North was gonna throw it away.”

“I was not.”

“He was. Said it was real ugly too.”

North snorts, “You agreed with me, I mean look at it.”

“He’s not wrong, Rasta,” The darkness brightens a little when he hears Shakes laugh, “this thing’s atrocious. Whose Grandma did you steal this from? Purple polka dots? Seriously?”

It hurts his head a little, but if he focuses enough, he can picture it. He knows which blanket it is now pressed up against him. If he could talk, he’d agree- it was ugly. He’d kept it for a reason, that he’s certain, but trying to think about it only deepens the impending headache knocking against his skull.

So he leaves that thought, for now. He can always remember later, right?

—

Yelling. That’s what wakes him up next.

An argument of sorts. A voice on his left, another on his right, like angels on his shoulders. They don’t seem to be yelling at him… At least he thinks they aren't.

“You can’t say stuff like that, Coach.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Coach sounds venomous. He’s heard him angry before. Many times, even, but this… this is new. It’s scarier. In a raw, feral way. It doesn’t sound like him one bit. “I know you’re thinking the same thing.”

“Don’t you dare say that.” Bo’s voice rises slightly, “Don’t write me off like that. Respectfully, Coach, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You can admit it.” Coach’s voice sounds like a snarl. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit.”

“No– I don’t think for a second that you should be in his place!”

His place?

He wished he could ask what Bo meant. His place? Whose place? Who was… did something happen? Something must’ve happened. He wished he knew what.

“I was in charge. I’m supposed to be there for all of you. I was supposed to go back for him. We’re all thinking it, I’m just voicing it.”

“You think Rasta’s thinking it-?” Bo sounds livid now, in a way that only he can. All low growls and deep mutters, “How do you think he’d feel if he knew you were saying all of this?”

“He’d agree with me!”

“You and I both know he wouldn’t, so don’t lie.” Bo counters, “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing has! I’m being realistic, Bo, that’s what.”

Something started beeping.

Well, no. It was already beeping to begin with. At least, he thinks it was. But this beeping was different. A little louder, a little faster. Enough to catch his attention, if only for a second.

“Listen to me when I say this.” Bo’s voice grew into a low rumble, “I don’t want to say this, but if you ever go around saying shit like that again I’m going to knock you out. And I know for a fact once he’s up he will too.”

“We don’t even know if he’ll ever wake up!”

Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep-

“Why would you say that…?”

Coach lets out a sob. An unnatural noise to hear. He wished he could reach out to wherever he was. Hold his hand or… something. Whatever this was about, Coach didn’t need to be upset. “I don’t know.”

“He’ll wake up.”

“I know.” He croaked, “I’m sorry.”

—

There’s a rubbery hand holding his own.

Rubbery like… like a chicken. The toy chickens, he means. Those ones that squeak if you hold them tight enough. He faintly remembers that he owns one. Not him, but… his dog? His dog owns one. Has. His dog has one…

Does he even have a dog? Or is he thinking of someone else's...?

Regardless, it’s not a hand he recognises, and not a voice he recognises either. His brain doesn’t fill in the blank for him, leaving him to wonder until the hand moves, and there’s a sharp, uncomfortable pinch against one of his nailbeds. He tries to jerk away from it, but all his hand does is twitch. He thinks he might’ve grunted too, but the thick tube in his throat shoves that sound right back down into the bottom of his lungs, silencing him.

“Very good.” The voice comments quietly, “That’s what we like to see. You’re doing good, Rasta.”

See what? What were they seeing? He didn’t do anything– or did he?

Another voice quietly asks something. He faintly recognises it as Tiger, despite not comprehending a single word said. It doesn’t sound like Tiger whatsoever, but he knows it’s him. It sounds raw, and exhausted, but there’s a Tiger-esque something about it that he grasps onto like a lifeline.

“It is.” The voice above him murmurs, “You can come closer, if you want, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

There’s a shuffle, and Tiger is by his side. A slow, trembling hand reaches out to touch his arm. It’s cold.

“Right, so, here-” His other arm is lifted up once more. His fingers are folded between the rubbery ones, “-we do this thing called GSC. It tells us how ‘aware’ he is, so to speak, by making things a little uncomfortable. Watch as I press here…”

His nail is pressed again, painfully so. And again, he tries to jerk away from the touch. He knows he makes a sound this time, too, because it manages to slip up past the tubing. It sounds like nothing he’d intended, all garbled and gurgled, but it’s a sound nonetheless.

“Did you see how he moved slightly? As if to get away? That’s really good.” His arm is lowered back down, and the gross rubbery hand disappears. “And that sound he made too, both are super good signs. Puts him on maybe level four? A good, excellent level, given his case.”

“You hear that, Cap?” Tiger's voice is nothing short of a shaky whisper. His hand is still cold where it’s pressed against his forearm. “You’re doing good.”

—

I was writing up something entirely unrelated to Supa Strikas and thought ‘huh, these scenes, if I reworked them, would work really fucking well for realistic ‘Dat Boot’ segments in which Rasta’s in an accurate/ish coma (all I had to do was remove a lot of swearing and rework a scene or two, cause the OG characters this was for are British, like myself, and swear like sailors, like myself).

And then I realised I could in fact rewrite it and pop out some non-Tiger-Centric Supa Strikas content for a change! Magic, isn’t it?

—

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