Work Text:
Excess
Prompt: Too Much
People always saw him as the one that brightened up a situation. Other people specialised in ballistics or alien technology or being arrogant asshats; but he specialised in being a 'people person', in making jokes and giving people hugs and giving them something else to think about. He was a little ray of light through the hard times, people said, and wasn't he just a-fucking-dorable? He wished they'd stop pinching his cheek.
Because sometimes he didn't want to be a 'little ray of light'. Every once in a while it got a little too much, and Jamie Markham didn't have the energy to talk about how cool it was that they'd come this far and how for every day they were here it was another day that they'd be working on a way to get them home, back on Earth. He didn't always have the energy to think those things, or even pretend he believed them.
Sometimes, he wanted to throw a tantrum or bitch someone out, or smack some smart-assed bicycle-face in the mouth for treating him like he shared a brain with thirty other guys just because they wore the same outfit to work. Sometimes, he wanted to reach out and take the comfort from someone else. But there was only one person who ever let him. And the more he let Jamie open up, the more that someone else became the 'too much' that he wanted to escape from.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he thought about climbing out of bed and creeping six doors down to slip under his best friend's covers. They would often sit on each other's beds whispering to each other, on Earth, when they shared a room with eight other guys. But now that their rooms were their own, it was all too tempting to try for more than words.
He wondered what Adam would do, if he did; if he would freak out and ruin everything, or if he'd move over and let him sleep where he was. Or if maybe Adam wouldn't freak out, and he wouldn't move over; at least, not away. But he never got out of bed and walked the twenty paces down the hall – although he sometimes made it as far as the door – because if he did, he'd know, and there was a damn good chance that if he knew, he wouldn't feel like cheering anyone up for a while. And who would there be to comfort him, then?