Comment-fic: Star Trek: Get Me Out Of Here
Title: Get Me Out Of Here
Characters: Jim/Bones (+ others)
Rating: PG
Words: 605
Notes: Comment-fic from DCDD on jim_and_bones, 25.09.10. Inspired by these pictures (SFW, members-locked). I keep forgetting to post this here.
It's been four long, hard days and this is the last thing they want to be doing. Making fancy and smiling prettily at all the officials on this self-important little outpost, because they averted yet another disaster.
(Self-centred bastards, who don't stop to think that five men and women, the flesh and blood of the Enterprise, are dead now. Nothing more than empty shells, dry husks where once brilliance set eyes alight.)
There are people waiting on the streets to greet them, to watch them, the wonderful officers of the starship, the heroes in gold and red and blue. (None of them feel like heroes right now, bruised and battered and heart-sore.) There's to be some thank you speech, and a big feast - probably far too festive, given the circumstances, but these people are celebrating the lives they thought doomed.
Jim's at the end of his tether. He knows they mean well with all this pomp and ceremony but he's exhausted, and he's devastated about not-saving so many of his crew. It's in the line of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes; in the stubble he hasn't shaved off. It's in the bruise beginning to colour his left cheek.
McCoy keeps a wary eye on him. He's sure Jim hasn't slept at all since this whole shit-fest started and he's been on the verge of officially ordering Jim to rest half a dozen times, but he understands too well why Jim keeps pushing himself on.
So from afar he watches, his own face tight with tension (because he lost those crewmen too, dammit). He watches as they all walk from the landing zone to the Central Hub: watches the way Jim slightly favours his left leg from an injury he hasn't yet reported; watches the way Chekov whips out a hand to steady Sulu when his weary feet stumble; watches the way Spock walks a little closer to Uhura than necessary.
He watches the way Jim's hand hovers too near to his phaser.
The crowd too - McCoy watches them with scowls. Their cheers, their tears, their life-filled hugs. The way their eyes latch onto Jim in his captain's shirt, and follow him like dogs.
When someone throws something in Jim's path - a token, a gift - Jim stops dead, his knuckles white-tight on the phaser he refused to leave behind. He turns slowly to face the young woman and his tired, pinched face takes on an almost-alien expression. Anger and derision, thick and heavy.
Instinctively, McCoy knows that Jim is seconds away from making the kind of snide comment a starship captain shouldn't. He's at Jim's side like a shot.
'Jim,' he mutters, low in Jim's ear, and wraps his fingers around Jim's elbow. Jim's like an overloaded phaser about to blow. 'Jim.' Spock's hovering behind them, waiting to intervene. The crowd is hushing.
'Captain,' McCoy growls.
Jim's eyes flicker shut for the briefest of moments and he leans into McCoy like he's taking strength from the authority in his CMO's voice. For a split second, it looks like his body's giving in to the exhaustion. But he touches his fingertips to McCoy's hand - a tiny gesture of intimacy - before pulling away completely. He turns his back to the crowd.
'Let's get this over with,' he says to his crew. 'And then we can go home.'
Nobody disagrees. Nobody says anything either, when they watch McCoy fall into step shoulder-close to Jim, as if that way he can shield their captain from the exuberance of the celebrations. (Any of them would do the same.)
Later, Jim will thank him.
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Characters: Jim/Bones (+ others)
Rating: PG
Words: 605
Notes: Comment-fic from DCDD on jim_and_bones, 25.09.10. Inspired by these pictures (SFW, members-locked). I keep forgetting to post this here.
It's been four long, hard days and this is the last thing they want to be doing. Making fancy and smiling prettily at all the officials on this self-important little outpost, because they averted yet another disaster.
(Self-centred bastards, who don't stop to think that five men and women, the flesh and blood of the Enterprise, are dead now. Nothing more than empty shells, dry husks where once brilliance set eyes alight.)
There are people waiting on the streets to greet them, to watch them, the wonderful officers of the starship, the heroes in gold and red and blue. (None of them feel like heroes right now, bruised and battered and heart-sore.) There's to be some thank you speech, and a big feast - probably far too festive, given the circumstances, but these people are celebrating the lives they thought doomed.
Jim's at the end of his tether. He knows they mean well with all this pomp and ceremony but he's exhausted, and he's devastated about not-saving so many of his crew. It's in the line of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes; in the stubble he hasn't shaved off. It's in the bruise beginning to colour his left cheek.
McCoy keeps a wary eye on him. He's sure Jim hasn't slept at all since this whole shit-fest started and he's been on the verge of officially ordering Jim to rest half a dozen times, but he understands too well why Jim keeps pushing himself on.
So from afar he watches, his own face tight with tension (because he lost those crewmen too, dammit). He watches as they all walk from the landing zone to the Central Hub: watches the way Jim slightly favours his left leg from an injury he hasn't yet reported; watches the way Chekov whips out a hand to steady Sulu when his weary feet stumble; watches the way Spock walks a little closer to Uhura than necessary.
He watches the way Jim's hand hovers too near to his phaser.
The crowd too - McCoy watches them with scowls. Their cheers, their tears, their life-filled hugs. The way their eyes latch onto Jim in his captain's shirt, and follow him like dogs.
When someone throws something in Jim's path - a token, a gift - Jim stops dead, his knuckles white-tight on the phaser he refused to leave behind. He turns slowly to face the young woman and his tired, pinched face takes on an almost-alien expression. Anger and derision, thick and heavy.
Instinctively, McCoy knows that Jim is seconds away from making the kind of snide comment a starship captain shouldn't. He's at Jim's side like a shot.
'Jim,' he mutters, low in Jim's ear, and wraps his fingers around Jim's elbow. Jim's like an overloaded phaser about to blow. 'Jim.' Spock's hovering behind them, waiting to intervene. The crowd is hushing.
'Captain,' McCoy growls.
Jim's eyes flicker shut for the briefest of moments and he leans into McCoy like he's taking strength from the authority in his CMO's voice. For a split second, it looks like his body's giving in to the exhaustion. But he touches his fingertips to McCoy's hand - a tiny gesture of intimacy - before pulling away completely. He turns his back to the crowd.
'Let's get this over with,' he says to his crew. 'And then we can go home.'
Nobody disagrees. Nobody says anything either, when they watch McCoy fall into step shoulder-close to Jim, as if that way he can shield their captain from the exuberance of the celebrations. (Any of them would do the same.)
Later, Jim will thank him.
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