I saw the movie, and ran home to write this. It had to go down on paper.
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Hero.
Roguishly handsome, brave, valiant. A unflinching guardian of the people.
No-one is really a hero, and if you try to be, you're lying to yourself, or at the vary least, lying to the people you're trying to protect.
Joe gulped down another shot of milk of magnesia. It didn't help. It never did.
The phantom pain still rested deep inside of him. It was worse when he was stressed, and the stress was constant these days. The attacks on Gothem and other major cities were getting more frequent, his planes were getting shot down by the dizzyingly superior battle-robots, and they were making no progress in trying to find where these robots were coming from.
In short, nothing was going right.
He couldn't afford to be sick now. This was a critical time and the country needed to be defended. People were depending on him and it would be his fault if people died because he couldn't defeat the pain conjured up by his own mind.
Another shooting pain made him grimace, and he wrapped his arm around his middle. His free arm was braced against the desk as he hunched over slightly, his teeth clenched. Every doctor he had ever visited had said the same thing. There was nothing wrong. The wounds he had received during the months in the Manchurian prison camp had long since healed, but the pain had never receded. Self-medication didn't work, not women, nor booze, not even the powerful prescription drugs could numb the pain. It was always there, ready to catch him when he was stressed, when he was alone.
The door clicked, pushed open shyly. "Captain?" A mild voice said from the doorway. Joe looked up, struggling to put on the calm, slightly hassled expression that he always wore for the public, but he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw who it was. "Dex..."
The young man at the door straightened up and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him as soon as he caught sight of the captain's taught features and grimace of pain. "Joe, you ok?"
The captain didn't answer as another stabbing pain cut though his abdomen, making him gasp. He closed his eyes, not caring if Dex saw him in this condition. The technical genius was the only person who knew his secret.
"Cap' lets get you lying down." He felt Dex' arm go around him, and Joe responded by putting his arm over the young man's shoulders, letting Dex help him stand though he could not suppress an involuntary moan at the movement. They limped over to the couch together and soon Joe was lying on his side, curled up slightly with one arm around his stomach.
Dex' brow was furrowed with worry as he stroked the older man's hair. He was sitting at the edge of the couch, right beside the captain. "You're having another panic attack."
"I know." The captain panted, rolling onto his back and looking up at Dex for a second before another stabbing pain made him flinch.
"You're ok, it's all in your head." He said soothingly. He took Joe's free hand in his own. The palm was sweaty and warm, and Joe gripped him with a desperate strength.
"Then why does it feel so god-damned real?"
"I don't know." Dex said, shaking his head. "Think about something else. It'll go away if you just relax."
"Mnh... I feels just like I'm still ..."
Dex bit his lip, determined not to let his friend slip into remembrances of his harrowing months in the Manchurian prison camp. "Remember a few months back at the unit Christmas party where Ensign Tally got completely plastered? He ended up putting balloons down his shirt and trying to do a strip-tease for the men?"
"It's not working..."
"The men have never forgiven him for that. They still call him 'Mistress Tally'. I had to talk him out of asking for a transfer."
"...A superior officer should never have to see his men in drag."
Dex talked him through it for nearly another half hour before the pain faded enough for the captain to drift into an exhausted but uneasy sleep. He sighed and looked at the clock. He would have to wake the sleeper in 15 minutes. Those were his orders. Joe was on duty and would tolerate nothing but total vigilance from himself, no matter what the cost to his health and mind.
Joe was determined not to let his personal demons get in the way of his duty to the country. To everyone else he was a hero, and being anything less than that would be considered failure.