Simon Challenge - "Subtract."
Title: "Subtract."
Challenge: Simon Tam challenge.
Word count: 419.
Summary: It's not the end Simon Tam dreamed of... *Warning: First entry to ff_friday!*
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Prison grey is not a good luck on Simon Tam. His skin already sags from a thousand days of malnutrition and pain, the once peach hue of his skin bleeding into the walls. The grey, hanging off his frame like a corpse, makes his pale skin seem bright white, even in the gloom of the dancing jamjar firelight.
He hunches, his knees tight against his chest, his arms tight around his knees. He can almost pretend he's holding onto River, stopping her from getting hurt, if he shuts his eyes hard enough. Down here, in the borrowed light, pretending is all he has left. He can pretend he's free, that the whistling air that rushes through the silent tunnels is fresh air, even if it's only for a little while.
Only ten minutes until the break is over, then he can pretend that every wall has a face on that he can shatter, to blame for his predicament. The face of the person that is to blame for River's death, for his own incarceration, for the blades that took Mal Reynold's sight, that took the sky from him. Two by two, hands of blue. A muttered fairytale from his broken sister that was no fairytale at all. If anything, they were the stuff of nightmares, with the death they held clenched in their blue fists.
They didn't even have the grace to be fictional, to stay hidden in the realms of under-the-bed demons with the Sandman and the Candy man. They were real. And they had taken his sister, taken her *back*.
Simon scratches at his skin, the pale flaking away under his bloodied fingernails. It comes off easily, like wrapping paper, covering a present that would be found under no Christmas tree. The hands-of-blue took Christmas away, just like River said they would, once upon a time. When they were free, and could believe the end would be a happily-ever-after of sorts, if not the fairytale life they'd always imagined. They took his sister, the tree, the stockings, the lights-
He closes his eyes as the whistle sounds through the underground mine, and reaches for the pick-axe, rhythmically lifting the axe and letting it fall into the chiselled surface. The dust coats his hands, turning white black, but he ignores it.
*They left only coal.*
It's River's words through his head, made manifest in his hands. He lifts up one piece of the coal, and if he squints hard enough he can almost see his own face in it.
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Challenge: Simon Tam challenge.
Word count: 419.
Summary: It's not the end Simon Tam dreamed of... *Warning: First entry to ff_friday!*
-----
Prison grey is not a good luck on Simon Tam. His skin already sags from a thousand days of malnutrition and pain, the once peach hue of his skin bleeding into the walls. The grey, hanging off his frame like a corpse, makes his pale skin seem bright white, even in the gloom of the dancing jamjar firelight.
He hunches, his knees tight against his chest, his arms tight around his knees. He can almost pretend he's holding onto River, stopping her from getting hurt, if he shuts his eyes hard enough. Down here, in the borrowed light, pretending is all he has left. He can pretend he's free, that the whistling air that rushes through the silent tunnels is fresh air, even if it's only for a little while.
Only ten minutes until the break is over, then he can pretend that every wall has a face on that he can shatter, to blame for his predicament. The face of the person that is to blame for River's death, for his own incarceration, for the blades that took Mal Reynold's sight, that took the sky from him. Two by two, hands of blue. A muttered fairytale from his broken sister that was no fairytale at all. If anything, they were the stuff of nightmares, with the death they held clenched in their blue fists.
They didn't even have the grace to be fictional, to stay hidden in the realms of under-the-bed demons with the Sandman and the Candy man. They were real. And they had taken his sister, taken her *back*.
Simon scratches at his skin, the pale flaking away under his bloodied fingernails. It comes off easily, like wrapping paper, covering a present that would be found under no Christmas tree. The hands-of-blue took Christmas away, just like River said they would, once upon a time. When they were free, and could believe the end would be a happily-ever-after of sorts, if not the fairytale life they'd always imagined. They took his sister, the tree, the stockings, the lights-
He closes his eyes as the whistle sounds through the underground mine, and reaches for the pick-axe, rhythmically lifting the axe and letting it fall into the chiselled surface. The dust coats his hands, turning white black, but he ignores it.
*They left only coal.*
It's River's words through his head, made manifest in his hands. He lifts up one piece of the coal, and if he squints hard enough he can almost see his own face in it.
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