Chapter Text
Title: Higher Ground
Characters: James (OC), Rob (OC)
Summary: James has an accident.
Rating: PG13
A/N: Part of the origfic_bingo prompts
Prompt: Resurrection
James sucked in a breath and sat up, startling his friend and boss, Rob. The first thing he noticed was that he was lying on the hard stone floor in the kitchen. "What happened?" James asked, not fighting when Rob pushed him back down. His head and neck hurt. He brought his hand to his head, noticing the slightly sticky feel to his scalp. "Ow."
"Lie still," Rob ordered. "You slipped and your head hit the table." His voice suddenly choked. "I thought you were dead as there was a loud crack. You stopped breathing and there was no pulse."
"Oh," James said, as there wasn't much he could say to that. He tried to sit up again. He moved his hand to check his pulse. "At least I have a heartbeat this time. I wasn't dead long enough to have the paddles. Those things hurt!"
"John went to call an ambulance. I was going to perform CPR on you."
"How embarrassing," James muttered. "Cause of death: accident in the kitchen."
"Don't even joke about that!" Rob exclaimed. "I thought I had lost one of my best chefs and my friend."
John, the head waiter, rushed back in with the paramedics. "He's in here." He looked down to James. "I see the CPR worked on you. Glad to have you back in the land of the living."
"Yeah, I'm too stubborn to die," James pointed out as he was checked over by the paramedics. "I hope when I do shuffle off the mortal coil, it's not something embarrassing like getting eviscerated by the waste disposal or something. "
"Stop joking about it," Rob said sternly. "And ew!"
"Any pain?" one of the paramedics, a tall slim red headed man, asked, gently running his fingers over James' neck and head.
"I have a headache and my neck hurts," James answered with a growl. He smiled wryly at Rob, deciding to try and lighten the mood a bit. "You still could, you know. Perform CPR on me, I mean."
"I can tell you're feeling better if you're flirting with me."
"I flirt with everyone after I've been killed," James stated with a sly smile. "Seriously, I'll just lie here and play dead."
"You have a possible concussion and a broken neck," the other paramedic said, finishing up his check up.
"Are you sure?" James asked, raising an eyebrow. "I have a slight pain in the neck and a headache but otherwise I feel all right."
"We'll have to take you to the hospital to be x-rayed."
"I can move my feet and everything," James said, demonstrating that he could do that. He saw Rob's look and sighed. "Fine. I'll go."
"Good."
"This is so undignified," James muttered as he was strapped into a backboard and loaded onto a stretcher.
"It's for your own good," Rob said, following the stretcher to the ambulance. "I'm coming with you.... to keep you out of mischief." He lowered his voice. "And we need to discuss some things such as your lack of Deadness."
"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I'm hard to kill," James stated, shifting his eyes to look at Rob. "Now don't go getting ideas."