![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegasus_01 Prompt: Exhaustion. Okay, so this isn't so much drabble as just a really, really short story. I actually intended it to be shorter but my love for details overpowered me. There are stages to exhaustion, about four or five, and maybe even levels never heard of. It begins with recognition that's immediately dismissed. Fast breaths, laboring heart, but if you sit down you still have the means to get back up again. Adrenaline drowns it out making it easy to ignore, then forget. Next comes fumes: adrenaline the only reason you're still standing, thinking, and the moment you sit – even so much as slow down – you never get moving again. It morphs into a mechanical existence, turning you into an automaton, a computer running on a backup system, with the subconscious in complete control. You keep going because you have to, bones turning to led, blood to thick mud, and everything fades into a dream you can't wake up from.
There's only so long a body can function, so many stages of exhaustion to be reached. Sheppard has reached them all. The heaviest he calls stage five and it usually lands him in the infirmary. But the worst is stage four.
Stage four makes him long for stage five. In stage four, he's still conscious.
And aware of what he would rather not be aware of.
Carson releases him with instructions to eat and rest, eying him with the indecision of one verging on changing their mind. Sheppard escapes while Beckett's back is turned before that happens. The only way he'll be able to sleep in the infirmary is if Beckett sedates him. Without sedation, he'll just lay awake with only his thoughts to keep him company. And he'd really rather not think right now.
John staggers to his room weighted down by gear and bones that have changed to rock and metal. He smells blood, sweat and old vomit that no one saw him expel. Pushing the limits of stage four had that affect. Stumbling on the gutted remains of marines hadn't helped. Wraith worshipers were vicious little bastards when they wanted to be.
Sheppard stumbles into his room shedding gear and clothes like old skin. His flesh his hot while his body is cold. He's hungry and he's nauseas, numb and in pain. Beckett had cleaned up wounds and made sure there were no broken bones. The minor rise in John's temperature he didn't deem as a worthy enough reason to confine him to an infirmary bed, but it did demand for a follow-up exam tomorrow.
He lurches into the shower and lets mud, blood and sweat slough from his body. He doesn't remember washing or stumbling out, dressing it whatever is available. He simply rides on his stubborn refusal to fall into bed dirty and geared up. He's tired of the discomfort of itching skin and a tac-vest jabbing him in the stomach and ribs. But he's starting to hit stage six; he can tell from having to sit to get his sweat-pants on, then nearly pitching forward when he does. He doesn't bother with the sweat-shirt, cold as he feels. His eyes are already closed as he pulls the blankets back and crawls like a wounded animal beneath them.
His body melts into the mattress, a sigh riding a long exhale that deflates him. Hunger is a cold, bottomless pit in his stomach, prodding him, demanding satisfaction as visions of the four major food groups dance in his head – steak and potatoes the brightest and largest of all. He's survived on nothing but power bars for days, enough to keep him going but not enough to make his body truly happy.
Beckett hadn't been pleased about that. Power Bars never appeased him as a dietary supplement, and he didn't like seeing marines stepping back through the 'gate half the men they were.
“You look like a bloody zombie, colonel,” he had said.
Sheppard would have been glad to remedy that if he could move. Skirting the edges of stage six, his body has rebelled and he can't move. Sleep first, food later. Hunger protests, but unconsciousness wins.
Even in sleep he is exhausted. Voices pierce his dreams trying to pull him from them. He opens heavy eyelids to that in between state that could still be a dream though he doesn't think so. He sees blurred shapes, familiar enough for him to know them without having to really see them. His team, all three, the smallest carrying something in her hands.
“Come on, Sheppard, wake up,” Rodney demands. “We didn't see you at dinner and Carson's been threatening to hook you up to an I.V. packed full of vitamins. What say you forgo the needle and do this the easy way, huh?”
Except John's body is still led and back-up has shut down. But he tries, pulling uncooperative arms beneath him in preparation to push himself up. It's as far as he gets.
It takes Ronon and Rodney to help him sit up and stay sitting up. By then his vision has cleared enough for him to catch Rodney staring at him wide-eyed, absorbing the bruises, cuts, and ribs that usually didn't protrude so vividly.
“What the hell did that mission do to you?” Rodney breathes. He hadn't gone on this one. No reason for him to be there and John had been damn glad of it. McKay didn't need that kind of horror-movie crap burned into his head.
Teyla sets a tray in his lap: soup, bread, and a bowl of vegetables. Maybe not steak but might as well be to his starving gut. He digs in with a trembling hand that he lets Teyla steady because, at this point, it just doesn't matter. Survival instincts encompassed even minor nuances. Had Teyla chosen to spoon-feed him herself, he would have let her as long as it meant food getting to his stomach. He devours everything, emptying both a glass of water and milk. Teyla removes the tray and helps him into a sweater, then Ronon and Rodney get him back beneath the covers.
Again John melts with a sigh. He feels a hand on his shoulder, another on his back, and slender feminine fingers brush his hair back. Sheppard doesn't know if his team leaves or if they hover. This isn't the infirmary, but that doesn't diminish the contentment their presence has brought.
John returns to unconsciousness as the stages of exhaustion reverse themselves.
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 09:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:05 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 12:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 01:00 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 03:27 pm (UTC)From:You're so very mean to John! But then you make it all better, so it's okay. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 05:50 pm (UTC)From:Wraith worshipers were vicious little bastards when they wanted to be.
I love how you can convey exactly what happened with just one sentence. *iz jealous*
And John's contentment with his team's presence is perfect.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:10 pm (UTC)From:It's actually not often I'm able to accomplish that, though I'm always trying. I hate cluttering up a fic with detailed but needless info when it's not all that important to the plot. The fewer words I can use to explain how the team (or just Shep) ended up whumped or in their current mess, the better.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 08:54 pm (UTC)From:gads totally lovely! you could write more of this
(insert sad pleading disney eyes here)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 01:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 09:32 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 01:43 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-12 12:34 am (UTC)From:Awesome line!
You keep going because you have to, bones turning to led, blood to thick mud, and everything fades into a dream you can't wake up from.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 01:45 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-12 02:03 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 01:46 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 02:33 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 03:50 am (UTC)From: