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Adam and Patricia were sitting at a table tucked away in the corner of the hospital cafeteria when Adam got the email. The alert dropped down on the screen of his tablet as he read, threatening with its innocuous subject line.
“Jesus,” his startled whisper broke the spell of comfortable silence that had surrounded them through their meal. Patricia looked up from her newspaper, ready to identify and eliminate the problem before it became a problem, despite only being officially released from the hospital that morning.
Adam noticed her apprehension, and immediately flipped the tablet towards her. “Amir’s at it again. Seems he learned from last time.”
The subject line read: OPEN IN PRIVATE (...Noah).
Adam’s face slipped into a frown as the corners of Patricia’s mouth curled upwards.
“I’m sure there are worst things than an entire team of analysts seeing a video on the big screen that shows that their operators are, in fact, human.”
Adam’s frown deepened almost into a pout. “Noah should’ve lied to me.”
“He’s brilliant, but he’s both honest and gullible,” Patricia sighed. “How many of those does Amir have?”
Adam shook his head, staring thoughtfully at the email without opening it. “Couldn’t get it out of him. Though he did show us the one where Jaz and McG were competing to see who could do a shot upside-down.”
“Not McG?” Patricia guessed.
“Not McG,” Adam confirmed, amusement briefly taking over the worry in his eyes that had settled there three days ago and refused to leave. It would remain there as long as the team refused to leave the hospital for more than a shower or change of clothes.
Patricia pointed to the screen, her inner analyst coming out. “Who is it this time?”
Adam tapped at the email and was met with the beginning of a video of a very shirtless, pantless McG. The tagline on top of the video read: For one night and one night only, Joseph and the Dynamos!
Adam choked on the laugh that rose in his throat.
“You’ll see,” he said, standing and gathering their garbage. “Right now, we need to get upstairs before we miss the fun part.”
The opening scene was more than enough to indicate how ridiculous the video was. It featured McG, half-naked and standing on the pool table in the quonset, with an empty jaeger bottle grasped drunkenly in one fist, the other hand in the air ready to disco. Preach and Jaz could both be seen holding emergency flashlights with the beams firmly anchored on McG, the star of the show.
They watched the two minute long video during the wait and ride on the elevator, thankfully empty, and it was only the sinking feeling in his gut that kept Adam from laughing along with Patricia. Because, holy hell, this was good shit.
“Jaz is gonna have a field day with this,” he muttered. Patricia simply laughed more.
The whole team was a mess- Adam could include himself in that- but Jaz and McG were currently disasters. Jaz’s hatred of hospitals and McG’s medical knowledge of Preach’s condition made them both irritable and they were taking it out on each other. It was part of the reason Adam and Patricia had left Preach’s room. After McG had hit Jaz in the head with an empty jello cup for the third time, Jaz had bolted- likely to avoid strangling him- and Adam had suggested food and a chance for McG to be alone with Preach and cool down. Amir had taken Preach’s wife to get tea, a habit that had been formed in the two days since she arrived.
Through the glass wall of the room, Adam could see that everyone had collected again around Preach. Everyone except one. The tablet tucked under Adam’s arm seem to warm as upbeat music drifted from the tablet in Jaz’s hand. She was leaning in the doorway, casually picking at her braid with one hand while wielding the tablet like a weapon in the other. Her eyes were shining when they met Adam’s.
“Fuck.” McG dropped his head and his phone to the small table in the corner of the hospital room where he’d been sitting all afternoon.
“What’s wrong, McGuire?” Patricia asks, the knowing lilt to the question ruining its seriousness. “You have a lovely singing voice.”
“No.” Horror filled his answering whisper because this- this was worse than Dalton’s dog video. He lifted his head slightly to stare at Jaz’s tablet like it was another hidden explosive. Except this time all it could hurt was his dignity.
“Oh hell yes,” Jaz grinned at him, all teeth and eerily reminiscent of McG’s reaction to Dalton’s video.
“Karma’s a bitch, McG,” Adam grinned, “Didn’t you see? Amir was kind enough to include Trisha and the girls in the cc too.”
From the chair beside Preach’s bed, Trisha was smiling for the first time since Jaz had called to give her the news on her husband. It even reached her eyes.
Amir was standing half in a shadow, pride painted across his face at the joy-filled chaos he’d managed to create. Adam didn’t think he’d ever appreciated his invisible man more.
“I did not think McG would know all the words to Man After Midnight,” Trisha grinned echoing Amir’s words from the video, but without the slight awe that had accompanied them.
“My mom loves musicals, okay,” McG groaned, trying to hide his face. The back of his neck looked like it was sunburnt. Adam didn’t doubt his face matched— drunk or embarrassed, McG resembled a bottle of ketchup.
That was when Jaz broke into giggles, clutching the tablet to her chest as it still played the video. “You’re a fucking liar— you love musicals. You know every word to Cell Block Tango.”
“Now what I wouldn’t give to see that on video,” Patricia said, smile sharp.
The laugh tore out of Adam before he could even think, so loud and so brash that Jaz started laughing harder— hard enough that she slid from the doorway to perch on the table and use the wall to keep her upright.
McG’s, “Shut up, Jaz,” only served to make everyone in the room laughed a little louder and a little longer as he buried his face deeper into his arms.
The phone in Trisha’s lap lit up, indicating a FaceTime call. “Oh lord, McG, you’re in for it now. Teenage girls are like piranhas.”
“But I’m the cool uncle,” McG whined, slumping back in his chair.
Jaz snorted. "Not anymore."
“Isn’t it a little past their bedtimes?” Adam smirked, head gesturing at the phone. In California it was well past midnight.
“Mmmhhhmm. I’ll spare you all and take this in the hall,” Trisha said, “but they forget nothing, Joseph. Nothing.”
Trisha drifted out of the room, answering the call. An exuberant, “MOM did you see Uncle McG’s dancing?” echoed into the room and Jaz dissolved into laughter again, like she never wanted to stop. Adam felt the smile tugging at his face at the sound. He snuck into Trisha’s freed seat and Patricia slipped into the last empty chair.
“This is all your fault, Jaz,” McG glared at her.
“My fault?” She scoffed, voice rising in pitch as she pointed accusingly, “Amir shared the video. Hell— Amir took the video!”
“And aren’t we glad I did?” snarked Amir, earning another torn-out chuckle from Adam.
“You were the one who picked the song!” argued McG, reaching out one long arm to poke Jaz hard on the shoulder.
“I didn’t tell you to do a disco sing-along to Man After Midnight on top of the pool table in your underwear!” Jaz spluttered, laughter tearing through the sentence.
“With the empty Jaeger bottle as a microphone,” added Amir smugly. Jaz pointed at him in agreement for the emphasis of such an important detail.
“Gahh!” McG slouched even further in his seat, arms crossed over his chest.
“You know what he’d be saying about this!?” Adam said, shaking his head and gesturing towards Preach. “That you’re all uncultured swine, and that it was ABBA before it was a musical.”
“Then Jaz would snipe something about him being old,” Amir smiled.
“And Top would say something about it not being age— it’s about taste,” Jaz added, never one to be outdone.
“Something Top’d say none of us have,” McG smirked, for once happy the attention was off him.
“How the hell did this get turned around on me?” Adam felt supremely attacked.
“This is the reason he’s going to wake up,” Patricia said decisively, “he can’t leave your poor captain to the wolves undefended.”
“They’re not wolves, they’re hyenas,” scoffed Adam.
Jaz, McG, and Amir gaped, equally offended.
“Rude,” muttered Jaz and McG at the same time. They stared at each other in disgust and Amir snorted before laughter broke out again. No one was ready to stop laughing.
“Wasn’t Preach the reason you were half-naked in the first place?” Adam mused, rubbing absently at his cheek. All eyes drifted to Preach’s still form; the lights blinking on the machines and the tube keeping him breathing.
“Unlike him, my aim doesn’t improve with alcohol,” McG sniped softly. Then he shrugged, “Still- shoulda known better than to accept a dare to streak.”
“Wait— if Preach had lost, was he going to have to streak?” Jaz asked. At McG’s nod, she continued, confused, “He never makes bets like that. Not even after that much booze.”
“We cheated.” Amir said, voice a little thick. “McG was too drunk to remember which shoes he threw so we just... lied. Preach was never going to lose that bet.”
McG swore, the string of words tumbling out almost as musically as his video.
Jaz clapped her hands down on her thighs, delight making her double over in laughter.
“You devious bastard,” Adam said to Preach, eyes brightening. “Now you have to wake up, just to see the shit you caused.”
The words reverberated solemnly, the reason Amir had released the video all too real and apparent. But the hope in them was too pure to be tainted by what ifs. In that moment, the likelihood that Preach would wake up seemed definite, the only possible outcome.
“Did you even watch the video, McG?” Patricia asked, motioning at the tablet Jaz was still clutching.
“I’m never watching that video,” McG grumbled, though a good-natured smile was starting to peek through his pouting.
“Fat chance,” Jaz grinned, “first thing I did was send it to your mom.”
A basketful of emotions shifted over McG’s face in that moment. Anger, embarrassment, horror. A sudden, desperate fear of the vicious teasing that was waiting for him in Montana.
“You are so disinvited to visit me during leave, Jazzycat.”