Skull and Pearl
TITLE: Skull and Pearl
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: River Tam/Malcolm Reynolds
Theme set: Beta
Rating: R
NOTES: This was written for the 1sentence challenge, which is to write one sentence for each of fifty prompts. The sentences are connected-loosely at first, then more as they continue. I used theme set beta.
1. Walking
She walks like the steps hurt, or like something that had just learned how to walk and wasn't so sure of its knees yet, though there's confidence in her step too; Mal wonders when he started noticing things like that.
2. Waltz
It's a bad idea, dancing with River Tam-Mal just knows she'll make him look all kinds of stupid-but it's her first time allowed out to a public gathering (though masked, as it's a costume party), so when she tugs at his hands, eyes behind the mask bright as the stars in the black, there's no way he can resist.
3. Wishes
He asks her once, jokingly, if she was wishing, when she stared out at the black so hard; she replies in the affirmative, but says no more, though the way she leans against him as he stands beside her might, in fact, be a more complete answer.
4. Wonder
River makes him see the world through different eyes-or perhaps his own, cleaned and tutored by hers, her gaze that finds complexity, magic and wonder in every simple sight.
5. Worry
He isn't supposed to worry about her, except in the most basic sense, like making sure she doesn't drink (who knew what could happen if she did?) or get shot or anything; when he finds that he can't quite limit himself to acceptable worry...well, he can't mind nearly as much as he meant to.
6. Whimsy
He doesn't always understand her, but he tells himself most men couldn't do half as well as he does-Simon can't, for example; he understands when she's unhappy, when she's angry, often even when she's fey-it's only when she goes child-like, dancing about and communing with the plastic dinosaurs that he has to keep himself from snapping at her for touching, it's only then that he can't follow.
7. Wasteland
She whispers at night when the rest of the crew sleeps, whispers, "What was it like, in the first Serenity," and he never answers her, but every now and then, with her eyes intent on him, he wants to.
8. Whiskey and Rum
She's not allowed to drink, absolutely not; Simon set the rule, and Mal upholds it, but she doesn't need liquor to drink with him, to sit there communally with her cup of tea while he downs a little piss-poor whiskey and listen when he'll talk, and listen, he thinks, even when he won't.
9. War
One night, when she asks again, he finally answers, tells her not about the battle of Serenity Valley, but about the aftermath, how they were dehumanized, stripped, shoved in a cell, and she whispers, "I know, I know, Mal, they took our clothes too."
10. Weddings
Simon and Kaylee are talking about being married, and Mal keeps waiting because that can't be easy for River, just can't, but when he asks her about it one day, all she'll say is, "Free, I'll be free," and that's all.
11. Birthday
It's Mal who remembers River's birthday, though Kaylee gets all excited about it and makes a cake with eighteen candles that River blows out with her eyes wide open, gaze locked on Mal's face.
12. Blessing
He's not sure why he lets River drag him into a church except that she hardly ever gets to get off the ship, and if what she wants is to sit in the church and stare around at the stained-glass windows, then it's the least he can do to let her; still, she doesn't know how to act, so Mal has to show her, and when he bows his head for the blessing, she secretly smiles and does the same.
13. Bias
Mal claims he has no bias against Inara's profession, but it’s a lie because he is, in fact, a possessive man, one who wants mysteries all to himself from his womenfolk; Inara seems like mystery, but it's all women's wiles-River is nothing but mystery.
14. Burning
It's their first kiss and probably her first kiss that isn't from her brother, so Mal tries to remember that and go slow, but she burns against him like a million candles, and her hands are reaching, reaching, until there, they find him.
15. Breathing
He can hear her breathing into the kiss, and he forgets how old she is and how old he is, and lets his hands grip her waist just as tightly as he wants to and holds her too close for anything but lustful intentions.
16. Breaking
She's breaking against him, like the china doll that Zoe once compared her to, dashing herself on his rocks, wanting to be inside him and around him and commingling with his every molecule.
17. Belief
Mal doesn't believe in anything, he doesn't, and maybe that's why he can't believe that she's climbing down the hatch to his bunk and looking up at him with eyes full of nothing but promise, promise that he, who believes no promise, cannot help but trust.
18. Balloon
He's floating, that's his first, utterly ridiculous thought as he lies there with her straddling him, with eyes as brave and terrified as they were after she killed what seemed like a hundred Reavers, and all he can think is that he's floating...
19. Balcony
She's the sun, his sun, and as he looks up at her, he's every lovelorn idiot whose every spouted up romantical words at the woman that he loves because she is the sun.
20. Bane
He still can't stand wiles, not in the least, and that's why the utter confusion in River's eyes when she takes his hands and places them on her breasts, her hair falling long and soft around them, then whispers, "Show me," undoes him utterly.
21. Quiet
He expected her to chatter during sex, when he allowed himself to think about it, but she doesn't, she only watches him with eyes that don't close, no matter how passionate her responses grow, and the hot slap of flesh against flesh, like water against the side of a boat lolling in the harbor is the only sound.
22. Quirks
She cries when she comes, and it scares hell out of him this first time because damnit he's just deflowered a crazy girl, and now she's crying, but then she smiles up at him and whispers, "I don't know why," and everything is, if not all right, at least a whole lot less scary.
23. Question
"Do you love me?" she whispers, hours later, when he is torn between sleep and the desire to look at her all night long.
24. Quarrel
He does love her, and he says so, but she pokes his chest and tells him he's scared, and her face is hurt, hurt like he never wants to see again.
25. Quitting
He's always had an out with her, always: he could have left her on Whitefall, left her with the hillfolk, left her with the feds, left her there on the floor...he's tired of outs, and run out of them besides, but now she's the one doing the running.
26. Jump
She jumps a mile the next morning at breakfast when he stoops down to kiss her, but he'll show her who's afraid, and that it isn't him.
27. Jester
She's being funny over the breakfast table, and he can't comprehend that, especially now that he is scared because the idea of his love-making being turned into a joke...well, that's scary.
28. Jousting
He tells her he'd die for her, bleed in the dirt with her favor tied to his lance, but she makes a face and tells him enough people have done that; she doesn't leave much room for romance, but neither does the truth.
29. Jewel
He's planetside on Poseidon when he sees it, a black velvet ribbon from which drops a single, cream-colored pearl, and he thanks his lucky stars they're on a planet where such things are within the reach of his pocket.
30. Just
She looks in the little box, her expression measuring, weighing, as though preparing to hand down his sentence, and damn him if he isn't hanging on her words, just like the kind of man he told himself he'd never again be.
31. Smirk
She lets him put it on her, and he stands behind her to do it; she's silent, but the line of her jaw betrays a little smile: all is well.
32. Sorrow
River is his now, and maybe that's why she spends more time with Zoe, talking to her, telling the secrets that the dinosaurs whisper only to her mind: they're both his.
33. Stupidity
Jayne takes the entire matter as a personal affront and takes to hanging around the ship with his shirt off, flashing his muscles at River; that stops the first time Simon convinces Kaylee to turn all the heat off in the ship.
34. Serenade
They still drink together, and he's bought her bottles of precious sparkling fruit juice (which he can afford, since her brain comes up with some mighty profitable jobs) to drink with him, and every now and then, in the wee small hours, his voice raises in song, for no ears but hers.
35. Sarcasm
"Still love me, darlin'?" he asks every morning, and is always relieved when she says no and gives him the kind of look that means she thinks he needs to be sent to idiot camp.
36. Sordid
Inara makes it feel dirty, and he doesn't know how, when she manages to make her own affairs seem not, but she takes River into her shuttle and gives the girl lectures on safety, and when River comes out, her ears are red from embarrassment, and she says, "If I get pregnant, just shoot me."
37. Soliloquy
Sometimes River speaks to the stars: "I love him, but not so that you can take him away, not so that he can fall down the well and let me drink from his skull, I love him in blood and words and heartbeats, and I'll keep them safe, I will."
38. Sojourn
She tells him she wants to spend a few days planetside, and he decides it's not a bad idea-they're all getting cabin fever-and when they land, she wanders off to look at the moons, and he doesn't dare ask why.
39. Share
She says she won't marry him, then tells him to bow low to the moons and the earth, so they do, and she says that's marriage enough for her, so they are.
40. Solitary
She's still a queer creature, thank God, and some days it feels like nothing in his life has changed because she spends all day in her old quarters drawing, but he never wakes up alone, so he knows that everything has.
41. Nowhere
Being still on the Alliance's most-wanted list doesn't leave them a lot of friendly space, and lately it seems smaller and smaller, and River looks out of the cockpit and whispers, "Nowhere."
42. Neutral
Another war is brewing, and there's a part of Mal that wants to stay back from that, but her eyes are glowing in a way that lights the banked embers of his spirit, and anyway, he never could resist picking a side.
43. Nuance
"It's not the same as before," she tells him severely, "because you aren't a soldier now, you're a man," and he doesn't quite understand how he wasn't before, but that's all right because she knows.
44. Near
Battle lines are drawn, which means it's Mal's tendency to go charging across them, and Serenity takes some hard knocks that year as River flies like one possessed, keeping them one step ahead.
45. Natural
She looks natural in battle, he thinks, then stops himself because it's not true, because the time she looks natural is when she sits naked on a stool and he sponges the blood off her: that's natural.
46. Horizon
"I can see it coming," River whispers, "only it keeps retreating," and he doesn't care to untangle the metaphor.
47. Valiant
He tells her again that he'll die for her, and she slaps him and says something about skulls, so he doesn't mention it again.
48. Virtuous
In the end, much against Mal's inclinations, they end up on the healing side of the service, in a vast wartime hospital, with River an able nurse at Simon's side, and Mal doing what he knows best, which is holding tight to the ones who are scared to go.
49. Victory
Neither of them is at the battle where the war is won; they're all right with that.
50. Defeat
They will never know it. Never.
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: River Tam/Malcolm Reynolds
Theme set: Beta
Rating: R
NOTES: This was written for the 1sentence challenge, which is to write one sentence for each of fifty prompts. The sentences are connected-loosely at first, then more as they continue. I used theme set beta.
1. Walking
She walks like the steps hurt, or like something that had just learned how to walk and wasn't so sure of its knees yet, though there's confidence in her step too; Mal wonders when he started noticing things like that.
2. Waltz
It's a bad idea, dancing with River Tam-Mal just knows she'll make him look all kinds of stupid-but it's her first time allowed out to a public gathering (though masked, as it's a costume party), so when she tugs at his hands, eyes behind the mask bright as the stars in the black, there's no way he can resist.
3. Wishes
He asks her once, jokingly, if she was wishing, when she stared out at the black so hard; she replies in the affirmative, but says no more, though the way she leans against him as he stands beside her might, in fact, be a more complete answer.
4. Wonder
River makes him see the world through different eyes-or perhaps his own, cleaned and tutored by hers, her gaze that finds complexity, magic and wonder in every simple sight.
5. Worry
He isn't supposed to worry about her, except in the most basic sense, like making sure she doesn't drink (who knew what could happen if she did?) or get shot or anything; when he finds that he can't quite limit himself to acceptable worry...well, he can't mind nearly as much as he meant to.
6. Whimsy
He doesn't always understand her, but he tells himself most men couldn't do half as well as he does-Simon can't, for example; he understands when she's unhappy, when she's angry, often even when she's fey-it's only when she goes child-like, dancing about and communing with the plastic dinosaurs that he has to keep himself from snapping at her for touching, it's only then that he can't follow.
7. Wasteland
She whispers at night when the rest of the crew sleeps, whispers, "What was it like, in the first Serenity," and he never answers her, but every now and then, with her eyes intent on him, he wants to.
8. Whiskey and Rum
She's not allowed to drink, absolutely not; Simon set the rule, and Mal upholds it, but she doesn't need liquor to drink with him, to sit there communally with her cup of tea while he downs a little piss-poor whiskey and listen when he'll talk, and listen, he thinks, even when he won't.
9. War
One night, when she asks again, he finally answers, tells her not about the battle of Serenity Valley, but about the aftermath, how they were dehumanized, stripped, shoved in a cell, and she whispers, "I know, I know, Mal, they took our clothes too."
10. Weddings
Simon and Kaylee are talking about being married, and Mal keeps waiting because that can't be easy for River, just can't, but when he asks her about it one day, all she'll say is, "Free, I'll be free," and that's all.
11. Birthday
It's Mal who remembers River's birthday, though Kaylee gets all excited about it and makes a cake with eighteen candles that River blows out with her eyes wide open, gaze locked on Mal's face.
12. Blessing
He's not sure why he lets River drag him into a church except that she hardly ever gets to get off the ship, and if what she wants is to sit in the church and stare around at the stained-glass windows, then it's the least he can do to let her; still, she doesn't know how to act, so Mal has to show her, and when he bows his head for the blessing, she secretly smiles and does the same.
13. Bias
Mal claims he has no bias against Inara's profession, but it’s a lie because he is, in fact, a possessive man, one who wants mysteries all to himself from his womenfolk; Inara seems like mystery, but it's all women's wiles-River is nothing but mystery.
14. Burning
It's their first kiss and probably her first kiss that isn't from her brother, so Mal tries to remember that and go slow, but she burns against him like a million candles, and her hands are reaching, reaching, until there, they find him.
15. Breathing
He can hear her breathing into the kiss, and he forgets how old she is and how old he is, and lets his hands grip her waist just as tightly as he wants to and holds her too close for anything but lustful intentions.
16. Breaking
She's breaking against him, like the china doll that Zoe once compared her to, dashing herself on his rocks, wanting to be inside him and around him and commingling with his every molecule.
17. Belief
Mal doesn't believe in anything, he doesn't, and maybe that's why he can't believe that she's climbing down the hatch to his bunk and looking up at him with eyes full of nothing but promise, promise that he, who believes no promise, cannot help but trust.
18. Balloon
He's floating, that's his first, utterly ridiculous thought as he lies there with her straddling him, with eyes as brave and terrified as they were after she killed what seemed like a hundred Reavers, and all he can think is that he's floating...
19. Balcony
She's the sun, his sun, and as he looks up at her, he's every lovelorn idiot whose every spouted up romantical words at the woman that he loves because she is the sun.
20. Bane
He still can't stand wiles, not in the least, and that's why the utter confusion in River's eyes when she takes his hands and places them on her breasts, her hair falling long and soft around them, then whispers, "Show me," undoes him utterly.
21. Quiet
He expected her to chatter during sex, when he allowed himself to think about it, but she doesn't, she only watches him with eyes that don't close, no matter how passionate her responses grow, and the hot slap of flesh against flesh, like water against the side of a boat lolling in the harbor is the only sound.
22. Quirks
She cries when she comes, and it scares hell out of him this first time because damnit he's just deflowered a crazy girl, and now she's crying, but then she smiles up at him and whispers, "I don't know why," and everything is, if not all right, at least a whole lot less scary.
23. Question
"Do you love me?" she whispers, hours later, when he is torn between sleep and the desire to look at her all night long.
24. Quarrel
He does love her, and he says so, but she pokes his chest and tells him he's scared, and her face is hurt, hurt like he never wants to see again.
25. Quitting
He's always had an out with her, always: he could have left her on Whitefall, left her with the hillfolk, left her with the feds, left her there on the floor...he's tired of outs, and run out of them besides, but now she's the one doing the running.
26. Jump
She jumps a mile the next morning at breakfast when he stoops down to kiss her, but he'll show her who's afraid, and that it isn't him.
27. Jester
She's being funny over the breakfast table, and he can't comprehend that, especially now that he is scared because the idea of his love-making being turned into a joke...well, that's scary.
28. Jousting
He tells her he'd die for her, bleed in the dirt with her favor tied to his lance, but she makes a face and tells him enough people have done that; she doesn't leave much room for romance, but neither does the truth.
29. Jewel
He's planetside on Poseidon when he sees it, a black velvet ribbon from which drops a single, cream-colored pearl, and he thanks his lucky stars they're on a planet where such things are within the reach of his pocket.
30. Just
She looks in the little box, her expression measuring, weighing, as though preparing to hand down his sentence, and damn him if he isn't hanging on her words, just like the kind of man he told himself he'd never again be.
31. Smirk
She lets him put it on her, and he stands behind her to do it; she's silent, but the line of her jaw betrays a little smile: all is well.
32. Sorrow
River is his now, and maybe that's why she spends more time with Zoe, talking to her, telling the secrets that the dinosaurs whisper only to her mind: they're both his.
33. Stupidity
Jayne takes the entire matter as a personal affront and takes to hanging around the ship with his shirt off, flashing his muscles at River; that stops the first time Simon convinces Kaylee to turn all the heat off in the ship.
34. Serenade
They still drink together, and he's bought her bottles of precious sparkling fruit juice (which he can afford, since her brain comes up with some mighty profitable jobs) to drink with him, and every now and then, in the wee small hours, his voice raises in song, for no ears but hers.
35. Sarcasm
"Still love me, darlin'?" he asks every morning, and is always relieved when she says no and gives him the kind of look that means she thinks he needs to be sent to idiot camp.
36. Sordid
Inara makes it feel dirty, and he doesn't know how, when she manages to make her own affairs seem not, but she takes River into her shuttle and gives the girl lectures on safety, and when River comes out, her ears are red from embarrassment, and she says, "If I get pregnant, just shoot me."
37. Soliloquy
Sometimes River speaks to the stars: "I love him, but not so that you can take him away, not so that he can fall down the well and let me drink from his skull, I love him in blood and words and heartbeats, and I'll keep them safe, I will."
38. Sojourn
She tells him she wants to spend a few days planetside, and he decides it's not a bad idea-they're all getting cabin fever-and when they land, she wanders off to look at the moons, and he doesn't dare ask why.
39. Share
She says she won't marry him, then tells him to bow low to the moons and the earth, so they do, and she says that's marriage enough for her, so they are.
40. Solitary
She's still a queer creature, thank God, and some days it feels like nothing in his life has changed because she spends all day in her old quarters drawing, but he never wakes up alone, so he knows that everything has.
41. Nowhere
Being still on the Alliance's most-wanted list doesn't leave them a lot of friendly space, and lately it seems smaller and smaller, and River looks out of the cockpit and whispers, "Nowhere."
42. Neutral
Another war is brewing, and there's a part of Mal that wants to stay back from that, but her eyes are glowing in a way that lights the banked embers of his spirit, and anyway, he never could resist picking a side.
43. Nuance
"It's not the same as before," she tells him severely, "because you aren't a soldier now, you're a man," and he doesn't quite understand how he wasn't before, but that's all right because she knows.
44. Near
Battle lines are drawn, which means it's Mal's tendency to go charging across them, and Serenity takes some hard knocks that year as River flies like one possessed, keeping them one step ahead.
45. Natural
She looks natural in battle, he thinks, then stops himself because it's not true, because the time she looks natural is when she sits naked on a stool and he sponges the blood off her: that's natural.
46. Horizon
"I can see it coming," River whispers, "only it keeps retreating," and he doesn't care to untangle the metaphor.
47. Valiant
He tells her again that he'll die for her, and she slaps him and says something about skulls, so he doesn't mention it again.
48. Virtuous
In the end, much against Mal's inclinations, they end up on the healing side of the service, in a vast wartime hospital, with River an able nurse at Simon's side, and Mal doing what he knows best, which is holding tight to the ones who are scared to go.
49. Victory
Neither of them is at the battle where the war is won; they're all right with that.
50. Defeat
They will never know it. Never.