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Category: angst, action
Archive: anywhere you like, just let me know Spoilers For: Up to and including "War Stories" Characters: They all belong to Joss. They're in good hands.Powder Burns
Back when River was just a zygote in a glass tube, she heard Mamma and Daddy arguing about implanting her. Dad wanted to try again for a boy genius; Mamma said she'd been over the gene profiles thirty times, thirty, and the only thing wrong with Simon's brain is the Y chromo and the testosterone bath in the third trimester.
Of course River didn't speak Chinese or have eardrums at that point so she had to just store the vibrations on her skin as she divided, divided, and drank the royal jelly pumping into Mamma's womb. Then at four months she decoded the archives and did the math (thirty times thirty is nine hundred, Y chromo is a clone-brother) and came to the obvious conclusion.
Until finding SERENITY, she and her all but twin have never been more than someone else's playthings.
Free now--at least the kind of free a toy finds as it gathers dust, missing but lamentably not forgotten under a bed somewhere--River watches the shuttle with Mal and Wash aboard as it drops down through atmo toward Persephone. There's trouble ahead--she can smell scorched gunpowder in the near future--but it doesn't have any putrescine on it so she guesses the men won't quite die. The drugs Simon administered this morning keep her from discerning any more than that, and who would she tell anyway?
Danger skates inside her skull, a two-bladed scrape left scrape right and after she's thrown up on Simon's bed and let him comfort her with yet another needle, she goes looking for a distraction. Something new-leaf green like baby rice shoots to offset the little rills of blood and fear seeping into her mind from faraway.
At first she isn't sure where she is going but passing Jayne's quarters she catches a distinct mental lusthum, tamped by the drugs to a titillating low volume. Thoughts of Inara licking another woman seep through the door like blood through a bandage.
Why not? River thinks.
She descends into Kaylee's room holding an apple she didn't know she'd picked up. The mechanic is curled on her bunk, napping to the sounds of a Chinese symphony. Her chest expands and contracts, and her eyes flutter. She's dreaming.
Poisoned apples, River thinks, recalling a snatch of a tale from Earth that was. No, wrong strand. Sleeping beauty. She knees close to Kaylee, breathing in time with her. The scratching in her head becomes duller, further away. A warm gust of exhaled air blows out from Kaylee's lips. River takes it in, carbon dioxide and all. She breathes into Kaylee as the mechanic inhales, lips ever closer. They recyc their air, and soon she's lightheaded.
Kaylee's eyes close then, and she smiles.
"Thought you didn't tease," she says, voice fusty with sleep.
River doesn't wait for another invitation. Her heartbeat jolts her forward for a peck. Then a fuller kiss, one breath long. Her mind shifts into sensory memorization, and she records everything--Kaylee's apple taste that reminds her of throwing up just an hour before, salt on Kaylee's tongue as it licks up over River's bottom lip, the shock of their teeth clicking together, hard, as they both push forward at once.
Then Kaylee's eyes open, meeting hers and they giggle breathily.
Now Kaylee's hands are on her shoulders, slipping into the sleeves of River's dress. Short, slightly dirty nails graze over her collarbones, so different from antiseptic hurting bluehands and River drives herself into the touch, ablaze as she presses herself closer to Kaylee.
Undressing each other is more giggles. Coveralls and dress fall to the floor with almost no sound and Kaylee is suddenly shy about the fact that she smells like something alive. River kisses her ripe bared throat and breathes deep, until the strong arms come around her again and the tension in Kaylee eases.
Then she slides down and fastens her lips, jubilantly, on the nipple she has been imagining for so many months now.
"The Counselor's sleeping," Inara says, replying to Book's unasked question as she steps into the kitchen, moving as gracefully as always. She is carrying a small tray with six glazed bowls upon it, and as he watches she opens one of her private lockers, pulling out bags of tea leaves and measuring them into the cups.
She puts together several mixtures, one after the other, taking out leaves from a red bag and then leaves from a green. Her moves are purposeful, meditative, almost hypnotic. Watching, Book finds his mind calming, and an unexpected thought slides over his usually guarded tongue: "You ever wonder where Wash was during the war?"
"Nope." It is Jayne who answered his question, coming into the room and almost filling it, as he often does. "Wondered where you were though."
"He grew up in the Core." The Companion says as if there was no interjection. "You'd think the draft must have gotten him."
Book is already regretting having spoken. Monastery habits grabbed him, he guesses. Still, it's fascinating to watch puzzlement work its way through Inara's beautiful face.
"What?" Jayne says.
"Zoe would never have married a Fed veteran," Book explains.
"Aw, Wash ain't no vet, browncoat or fed."
"I agree."
"I think the Alliance frightens him." Inara's voice is thoughtful. "Mal and Zoe hate them, certainly, but Wash--"
"He was jittery when the Feds were aboard not long ago," Book says.
"Hell, Preacher, I was jittery," Jayne says. "Fugitives aboard, remember?"
"You could be right." Book exchanges a glance with the Companion as she finishes compiling her tea leaves and rises.
A deserter, maybe? It makes the most sense, but it doesn't quite ring true.
"'Course I'm right," Jayne grunts, clearly unwilling to expend his limited powers of imagination on someone he considers a known quantity. "You said you wanted to lift weights, Preacher. Or you happy to just work your jaw up and down?"
Naked with Kaylee is finer than suit-floating in space. Moist, warm, callused hands, hands that are strong but also kind, slide over River's skin. Lips that are always smile-bent kiss her, warped with delight.
The bunk is too small for them, and they wind up on the floor in a tumble of all the sheets and blankets they can find. River kneels, her backside and the soles of her feet near Kaylee's shoulder as she scrapes Kaylee everywhere with her teeth, easy little nips and scratches bringing the nerves alive, making her wriggle and gasp. Kaylee's arm is on her back, rubbing down.
It's good, River thinks, to keep her mouth working this way, keep the crazy talk from slipping out. A phrase of Kaylee's from this morning echoes in her mind... no power in the verse can stop us.
Somewhere nearby, Inara is waking the stranger with a kiss and a cup of tea. Elsewhere Jayne and Preacher are engaged with the weights. Silent, sweating, straining.
Zoe, one thin bulkhead away from them, is angry angry. Throwing out all her socks with holes and wishing she could shoot someone. And Simon... as always, her chromoself is a blank. River doesn't even know where he is.
"Kahhh," Kaylee gasps, her mind sparking erratically as River's teeth comb through the hair between her legs. She is stretched out over Kaylee's abdomen now, her own backside rising so that Kaylee's hand can graze the flesh between her buttocks. She snakes out her tongue and nudges the top of Kaylee's clit. Part of her guesses how many capillaries are pump-pushing blood through it, how much fluid in milliliters. The rest just savors Kaylee's next shiver.
The wandering hand pushes a thumb through River's damp labia in a spasm and she lets herself feel all the tingling there, rides back against it to drive it deeper before nudging once again with her tongue and then licking down, between. Over clit folds and between labia, the spit-wetness of her tongue meeting the slick desire of Kaylee. The thumb works its way further into her and they both moan together as far away the aggressive prickliness between Wash and the Captain turns to lemon-cleansery fear.
It's beginning.
River licks more slowly, focusing as hard as she can on the worlds between her teeth and her legs. Waves of pleasure from Kaylee's thumb roll and break through her, and she rocks with them, pressing and pressing her tongue into wetness.
Then they are both crying out and shaking, both coming in small blossoms of fire that unite their minds, Kaylee's and River's, and their cunts, River's and Kaylee's, in a four-part harmony of synaptic glee.
From the second the sharpshooters fire, Wash is opting for denial.
These are not Niska's guys, he tells himself (though they smell like the Skyplex), that isn't a ground-to-station rocket they're dumping us on (they have that same clipped accent) and even if it is a ground-to-station (which it is) there are other places it could be taking us. (Like where?) We are not going to the experiment room (the familiar echoing voices from above and below, the hum of machinery in the station center.)
He even asks Mal what's happening when all his backbrain has the answer and is responding like a banshee or a siren, Waooooh, No No No, Waaaooooh!
And Mal humors him, says he doesn't know.
It occurs to Wash then that Zoe could be the one trapped here. He's able to make a sanity preserver of that for awhile... at least until the blindfold comes off and he sees Niska's face, Niska and his pet torturer at his side.
No amount of 'better me than my beloved' can help Wash then.
But Wash is old news to Niska, who had always wanted Mal in the first place. Not that Wash is left out when the beating them unconscious preliminaries begin. Not that they don't strap Wash to the zap table too, just like Mal. Not that he isn't once again helpless and screaming in the experiment room, as if he never left, reunited with the part of himself that has been screaming his throat raw through mushy lips ever since...
But, oddly, it's not as bad. They leave him his clothes this time. The crazy poet-dictator quotes aren't directed at Wash this time. Niska isn't winding him through with serpent thread (though Wash can see a related torture product, a thing the cortex calls a hydra, warming up across the room).
And he's not alone.
So it's better, yeah, and at the same time it's still horrifying and painful and scary as hell and when Niska does take notice of him it's to whisper in his ear that soon he'll be making a plaything of Wash, that as soon as the pilot loses consciousness once, just once, they will start cutting him up while Mal watches. The snake-hot breath on his ear drowns out the sound of Mal yelling about Zoe. Makes him dizzy, makes him need to faint just when he really shouldn't.
It's only a matter of time before Wash gets to play sacrificial lamb. There's even temptation to surrender to it now. It's inevitable, and almost welcome--the pain and the fear will go away then.
But he doesn't want to leave Mal alone. Alone is so much worse.
As he thinks this, the gratitude returns: thank the verse it isn't Zoe here dying with Mal. Wash has a bright moment of imagining himself safe on the ship, finding out they were both gone, dead, tortured. At least she's safe.
Then his wife walks into the room, carrying a bag in her hand. What's left of Wash's bravery turns to mush like soda crackers in a rainstorm.
Jayne is sitting in his bunk, contemplating a blue box he picked up after Ariel, another of the things he bought with his hospital job loot. Through the walls he hears the sound of weapons being loaded, and he senses Zoe and Wash are trying to get up a rescue of the Captain. Stupid idea. They'll need two teams at least and the dumbass pilot doesn't seem to know that he's gonna fall over on his butt as soon as the adrenaline wears off.
He touches the edge of the box. Let them go, they'll die. Jayne gets the ship. Cash in Simon and River, over Preacher's dead body if necessary... but maybe the old man will take a cut? Cut Inara loose, lie to Kaylee. Start a new life under his own direction. Easy as dying.
With a flick of his fingers, Jayne raises the box lid. Teal silk with gold stitches shines in the glare of the overhead light that is his room's only illumination. It's nestled in matching tissue paper.
Yeah. Lose the command crew, dump the tourists, cash in. That's the plan.
Problem is, he's already reaching for Vera, already loading her up for the suicide mission.
Wash is gone. Zoe bought him back. Ironic, that--when you think about it.
Left alone, Mal is lost. It's harder to focus with nobody to save but himself. He tries to think about his crew, about Inara, but he's helpless to do anything for them so the concepts don't carry a bite.
Things on his left side sound funny. Unfiltered by the curl of his missing ear, they are tinny and too loud.
Niska brandishes a new toy and Mal braces himself for serpent thread. But the old devil must only have had one thread... the one that left the Skyplex laced through Wash's body. This hydra thing isn't quite the same. It has thicker filaments, lots of them. They slide in and out of him freely. It's like being fucked in nine places, none of them equipped with an orifice.
After awhile, his heart stops.
It's nothing any of them planned or expected. Mal knows a second before they do. There's a jolt of pain below his rib, far from the hydra, and he hears it like it's the only sound in the verse. Bump. La bump, la bump, la bububuh... the heart stutters and then says 'oh fuck it,' and Mal's head drops to his chest.
Suddenly the pain is gone.
He's in the black, soaring far above the Skyplex. The stars are chattering. One whispers flavors of ice cream, another is singing a love song. A red dwarf named Washington's Flame is ponderously reciting the body counts for every battle of the war.
Ain't brain death just high-larious, Mal thinks.
Then he realizes the star voices are familiar. They're his platoon, his company, his officers, his friends. They're the dead ranch hands who got shot up on Shadow in the opening skirmishes, the people who died with and near and under him all the long way to Serenity Valley. They're from the million who died there, the ones who stayed after, and the ones who died when the war was officially over because of the government's refusal to send them medics. Not one of the voices is anyone he helped or saved.
Of course not, Mal. They're still alive.
Mal tries to turn away, to not listen, but the accusing stars are everywhere. He's in space without a suit--no propulsion rockets, no movement available. He presses his hands to his ears, noting his left ear is restored--but the babble of the ghosts only rises.
Telling him how he helped them, how he gave them courage up to the moment when he lost them, telling him he tried hard and he didn't give up and they're glad he's lived so long on his wits with his honor intact. His sky--it welcomes him.
It's a punishment. A glib lie. Mal knows the universe isn't that forgiving. Hell, he's not that forgiving.
La bump.
That's when he sees SERENITY, on her way back to the Skyplex.
"No." Mal's words are inaudible--there's no air in space. "Don't come for me."
The stars laugh, try to murmur reassurances. The kindness in their voices makes his chest hurt distantly.
La bump.
"No, Zoe, you--"
La bump, la bump, la bump. Something yanks Mal yard. The chorus of voices dims to a solo, a high sing-song. In time Mal realizes that lone voice is Niska.
Niska brought him back. Saved him, you might almost say.
Mal looks at the torture chamber and feels nothing but relief.
Then his boat hits the Skyplex airlock and all his resolve comes back. Talking sky be damned: he's got a stupid foolhardy crew to save and chasten.
Zoe feels the blowback layers forming on the skin of her hands as she fires her weapon steadily into Niska's oncoming soldiers. Edging their way ever closer to the room where her husband has been tortured not once but twice (really shouldn't be taking him back there), where Mal is being held and so far today she's killed eleven men. The most in a long long time. Jayne, on point, has bagged an even dozen.
Behind her, Wash is shooting people, too.
Zoe isn't sure how she feels about that, about their life having turned Wash into a killer like her. But she needed willing bodies and he needed to come. If Wash has changed, it's Niska's fault. Not hers.
If she gets a chance, she'll be killing that old man.
She lets her mind lick through one last dribble of unease as she reloads, one last sense of something-else wrong. It was back when Wash pushed Simon away from him, after she got him back to the ship. "I'm fine," he said, and it sounded too much like "fuck off." What is it with those two?
But now she's firing again, filling the air with the sound of gunpowder and the smell of burning blood. All Zoe's doubts are shelved for sometime non-combat.
"Free soup," Jayne says, forgetting himself for a second and whapping Mal one on the chest. He sits and slurps, watching the Captain. Mal's sore, of course, but sorta relaxed in a weird post-surgical way. It's a fight, Jayne sees, not to touch the reattached ear. Wants to be sure it's still there, he guesses.
Otherwise Mal seems all right, at least until Jayne's halfway down the bowl and distracted by a thought that maybe Zoe doesn't cook because she can't and shouldn't. Right then out of thin air Mal pulls a line on him: "You ever die, Jayne?"
"Sure, hasn't everyone?" Jayne's gut sparks a little and he squints. "Fell in a lake when I was six. Near froze solid. Flatline upstairs when they got me to medic. They figured even if I recovered I'd be simple and sickly."
Pushing the bowl away he sees something mighty troubled on Mal's face. Then it slides behind the busy Captain face.
"I guess I got a thing or two to do," Mal says.
"Yeah?" Jayne stands, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and getting a reassuring whiff of the gunpowder on his wrist. "Start in my bunk, okay? I got something kinda interesting in there you oughta see."
"What?"
"S'about the last job," Jayne says, and he guesses Mal's too hurting to think that through because he just comes along like they're doing business. He sends the Captain down the ladder to his bunk first, watching how gingerly he moves. Then he follows, closing the portal after them.
"Well, Jayne?"
Careful ain't Jayne's S.O.P. most of the time, but he understands the concept better than most would guess. Now he nudges the box on his bunk and steps behind and beside Mal, giving the Captain a look at the Companion-quality robe he's purchased.
"Jayne..." There's a warning in the voice, but it's got no bite. Jayne lifts the captain's suspenders off his shoulders and lets them fall and dangle. He reaches into a sack on the shelf behind him and pulls out a red-brown wig with a slight curl in the hair, setting it on Mal's head. His finger trails down the nape of Mal's neck as he does it and a small--barely perceptible--shiver comes back in response.
"Straighten that hair out, gal," he murmurs and Mal does, arms drifting up to pull down the wig and tuck in his own hair inside as Jayne reaches around and fingers open the buttons of his shirt, peeling it off easy, tugging it over the many bandages that lay on Mal's chest and back. Weird welts criss-cross his body, under-the-skin bruises like angry strokes of black crayon.
"Pick up the robe," Jayne says, still soft, his hand on Mal's shoulder. After a second Mal bends, shaking it out. They both draw an awed breath. Floor length, delicately embroidered in gold and black, it is just heavy enough to impart a little warmth. It's the sort of thing Jayne imagines Inara wearing.
He takes it now, sliding it up over Mal's right arm, moving to help him into it like a lady into her coat. They end up facing, and Jayne edges his thumb into the waistband of Mal's pants. Unbuttoning, he lets them fall and encircles Mal's hips with his hands.
"These too?" He plucks at the briefs, only just letting his fingers graze the erection under the cotton.
Mal nods, not his usual curt head-bob but something a little hesitant, flirty. His eyes are open wide and Jayne, despite his now-roiling stomach, finds himself hardening too.
"Sit there." He points at the bunk and Mal perches on it gingerly, back straight.
"Did--" His voice has that weird alluring girl-clothes and Mal softness. "Did you hear voices?"
"What? When?"
"When you died."
"I saw Earth-that was," Jayne grunts. He never talks about this. And this is why, the chill he feels at the disappointment on the Captain's face. Like a shallow stab.
"I've heard that's common."
Jayne snaps open the makeup kit and selects a brush. "Yeah. Well, nobody told me there were points for originality."
"I'm sorry," Girl-Mal says. "How did you know it was... hey, what are you fixing to do with that?"
"Pretty you up some more." Jayne slaps an interfering hand away. "I knew it was Earth because later I saw pictures. You never saw a world so wet, Mal. More water'n you ever thought of. He brushes blush onto Mal's cheeks, smudging it with his powder-burnt thumb. Tilts his head to examine his work. "Fell into it like a ship landing, soft and easy. A year later when I saw the old satphotos of the continents, I recognized Africa and somebody told me what I was looking at."
"Earth that was."
"Now close your eyes."
Mal does.
"I came down on a hillside, green pretty hill. Real tall grasses. Soft though. All alone, six years old, frozen damn near solid under that ice and..." He pauses, hearing an ominous noise boil through his gut. "There was zebras. Maybe ten thousand of them, just down that hill. All black and white stripes and weirder looking than you'd ever guess."
Eyeliner. Eyeshadow. His hands are as steady as if he's holding a gun. The shades aren't how he remembers them, but the lady he bought this kit from swears these are the current colors. And Mal is looking pretty, isn't he?
"Then what?" Mal's whisper is pained.
"Then nothing. Hell of a jerk and I got sucked up into the sky and woke up. Hurt all over. Chest worst of all. Spent the next six months recovering in bed with my sisters taking care of me and educating me in finer points of useful shit like how to find a man by painting your face good. Eyes open."
Mal's eyes flick open like shutters, pain-stunned. Jayne doesn't know what to do with that look so he kisses him, soft, on the lips. Mal kisses back, not so soft. Hungry, desperate-like. Their tongues meet and Mal pulls on him hard, drives his tongue deep enough that Jayne's stomach lurches.
He works his lips around to Mal's ear. "Niska kill you then or what?" His breath moves warmly through artificial hair.
Hesitant head-bob.
"No zebras?"
"Just the black," Mal says, and Jayne kisses him one more time before raising the lipstick.
"Do this with your mouth," he says, pooching his lips out, and when Mal copies him he feels his cock jump. He runs the color around his lips, shows him how to blot, and then fluffs the curls slightly before handing over the mirror. "Check yourself out, girl."
It's a thrill of sorts. Mal's jaw drops. His face goes kinda pale.
When he's finally done staring they kiss again, over and over, making out like kids for over an hour. It ends up with Mal lying on Jayne. Their cocks are hard against each other through the layers of Jayne's clothing, two dimmed but strongly pulsing heat-sources.
It doesn't go any further than kissing and petting, though. Mal's too hurt, and Jayne's getting sicker by the minute. After a long time Mal falls asleep on Jayne's chest, his dainty girl face just inches from Jayne's own and it's a terrible shame all he can do in the meanwhile is try like hell not to barf.
"Doc, I need you in Jayne's bunk." Captain's voice is soft and quiet through the comm, and Simon rises. He's as instantly awake as if he was still living the hospital routine--with a move his pants are on, his kit is in hand.
Jayne's room is dark and smells of rancid bile and, strangely, medicine. The big man is thrashing as the Captain tries to hold him down. Jayne's leg kicks out and Mal is just too weak after his ordeal to withstand it; he goes flying just as Simon finds himself in place.
"I need a spoon, something long," he says, and Mal hands him a powder brush. Grabbing Jayne's hair, Simon thrusts the plastic rod down between his teeth, over his tongue, back to where the gag reflex lives and sure enough Jayne heaves--
Simon and Mal barely dodge in time. A wet slap of fluid hits the floor between them, smelling unfortunately familiar, like a certain empty ointment bottle Simon found in River's room just this morning.
Jayne continues to retch but stops spasming. Turning the mercenary on his side, Simon fishes for the right drugs, doping him swiftly. Quivering muscles relax under his grip.
"We need to get him to the infirmary?" Mal asks, and Simon looks down at Jayne as his mind finally registers what the Captain is wearing.
"No. He can sleep it off. Someone should stay with him, though." He manages to find his professional distance, and when he looks at Mal, he's just another family member. Girlfriend of the poisoned.
"Shiny," Mal says.
"I'll go get a mop," Simon offers. He climbs out into the galley, sees a bowl of soup with an ointment scum on it abandoned at the table. He moves it to the sink hurriedly, washing it and the pot. Destroying the evidence.
"He looks better in green," River whispers. She's curled up in the corner, eyes wet. "Money was too good. Have an apple, it'll make everything better."
"Mei mei?"
"Leave me alone."
Simon feels a chill of fear but can't bring himself to tell her--Jayne tried to keep the soup down. He could have died.
But that conversation can only lead to others, conversations that could end up with their getting kicked off SERENITY, so he stifles the knowledge, takes the mop and goes to help Mal with cleanup.
Kaylee washes and folds the sheets on her floor. She can hear Jayne through one bulkhead, retching in time to the Captain and Simon's voices. On the other Zoe and Wash are making love gingerly. Every now and then one of them moans in passion. Sometimes it's Wash yelping in pain, Zoe apologizing, soothing. It doesn't stop them though, and you have to admire that. They've been at it non-stop since suppertime.
At least they aren't yelling at each other.
Usually Kaylee goes to the engine room when she's unhappy or the others are noisy, but it's too open there. She could run into Mal, Mal wanting to thank her for shooting up Niska's men for him when she really just left her backbone on the Skyplex floor. River could turn up, wanting to kiss and flirt and remind her how happy she was this morning when they were here together. She could find Shepherd Book wanting to counsel her guilt over the three fellows they think Kaylee shot. Or Simon could appear, wanting to smile and chat and be gentlemanly and not knowing she's drifting into a different current. Or has she? Wouldn't Simon be the better, wiser choice? Is it necessarily too late?
Did River even know what was happening when we were making love? Kaylee has to wonder, even though part of her knows she's just spooked by what happened.
She wants to go to Inara, but that gauntlet of maybe-River, maybe-Simon keeps her sandwiched here in between Zoe and Wash and sick-Jayne's groans.
Suddenly, Simon is at her door, peering down. He looks haggard, edgy.
"You wouldn't have a batch of that homebrew fermented, would you? I could really use..." His voice trails off and for a second Kaylee thinks he sees River's fingerprints all over her. "I could use a lot of drinks."
She pushes it all down, uses the amygdala thingie that River doesn't have anymore to shove it way way back and gives him her brightest smile. "Coming right up," she says.
Afterward, Wash and Zoe lay beside each other. He's complaining of a slight bellyache. They haven't been this happy in months.
She looks at him, smiling at her, and there's a little burst of comprehension. For a second she thinks she knows how River feels--this sense of stray known things coming together in a lock of complete understanding, except for River it's all of the time.
"You fucked Simon," she says, looking at him across the pillow.
Wash looks at her steadily. Nods. The room suddenly feels more silent than it did a minute ago.
Long startled breath. She looks at the wounds on his body and considers him. It's a little easy to imagine herself having marked him up this way. If she'd had this epiphany before he and Mal went to Persephone...
But it's not as simple as that, is it? He almost died, so she forgives him?
At this very moment, it feels that way. And considering what Wash went through during the war, how little he remembers of it...
"You want me to leave?" he asks. "I can bunk in the passenger dorm."
"Stay," she says.
"I know there's no apology I could make--"
"Best not try then."
"Zoe." He doesn't take his eyes off her.
"Tomorrow Simon looks at you. I don't like the color on these." She lets her fingers slip to the edge of some of the worst injuries.
He laughs, in that nervous way that hides nothing, that she finds so appealing. His humor is so different from Mal's, so much less a defense. "Sometimes I don't know what you... you'll come along?"
"If you need me to."
"Lammytoes," he says. "If you want to cut my throat in the night, let me say now I understand completely."
She turns off the light, leaving them in darkness, and finds the small thread of anger. Discovers it's far more interested in the doctor than in her husband.
Still. "If you think you're getting off that easy you are dreaming."
Strangely, her words calm him; she feels him relax beside her. They lie there in blackness, both awake, bodies happy and minds caught in storms, both struck dumb as the dead. Their hands are touching, just at the fingertips.
Deep in the nightshift, Book walks the corridors of SERENITY. He finds Kaylee and Simon cheerful and drunk on the couches, smells sickness coming from Jayne's room, hears that there's someone in there with him, and moves on. In the galley River glares and throws piece after piece of popcorn at him. Wasteful, dirtying it up like that. He's not wanted there either, clearly.
This is truly a slacker's post for someone of his professional bent.
The bridge is on auto, but Inara is up there, fingering Wash's dinosaurs and watching the stars. Her face is freshly washed and has no makeup at all, a sight Book has never seen before.
"You're upset," he says.
She bites her lip, then releases it with an obvious effort of will. He muses briefly on the physical upkeep Companions must practice. No chewed nails, no relaxation of the dietary regimen that keeps their skin clear and their eyes bright, no stinting on the beauty products and the perfumes. No crying unless you've got days to recover from facial swelling.
"Wash grew up in the Core," she says softly. "Not a wealthy world, but a crowded one. His parents were doing all right; he must have had a relatively comfortable lifestyle--especially when he was a young adult. And they were respectable."
"They have an account in the Companion database?"
She blushes slightly. "That's confidential, of course."
"A Shepherd keeps his confidences."
"The family fell into debt just as the war was heating up. They'd blocked his being drafted... he was falling in with activists who opposed the war. It may be that he offended someone who destroyed his parents' financial safety net. It's happened before."
"Yes. It has," Book says.
"The debtors sued for the children," she says. "Wash tried to get away. He was bound by law and then sold."
"A slave?" This makes sense. The fear of the Feds... if his name is on the runaway list...
"Sold to an officer, it says." She shrugs. "I don't know any more than that. I wish I didn't know that much."
"He did get away.," Book says. "And he entered flight school. And he doesn't seem especially... haunted."
"That makes it all better, I'm sure," Inara says. She sets down the dinosaur and sweeps past him, head high and regal, heading for her shuttle and the back of the ship. She blames him, Book realizes, for having piqued her curiosity.
The dinosaur wobbles, falls, and Book bends to retrieve it, musing about the security on the Companion database, pondering ways to gain access to Inara's shuttle for long enough to find the pilot's given name. A search for the officer might trigger flags in the greater Alliance cortex...
Book turns his back on the stars without really seeing them, caught in a tangled net of thought as he drifts, silently toward the passenger dorm.
--end--
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