FIC: Rose (A Dust Motes story) (FF/BtVS)
Rose
Dust Motes Part IV
Crossover fandom: Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters: Dawn, River, Jayne, Kaylee, Mal.
Word Count: 947
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns all things Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and all things Firefly. Only the story is my own.
Note: Follows Dance, Screams and Rapture. Fourth in the Dust Motes series.
~*~
Don't like it.
Jayne ran an oiled cloth over the barrel of the dismantled gun, keeping a close eye on their new passenger, who had been hunched over that cooling mug of tea for about half an hour.
She's too clean. Too calm. Girl who'd gone after men with an axe and got cut up like she did should be less steady. Ain't right.
As if on cue, River glided into the kitchen on silent feet. Jayne wanted to shake his head. It was all that crazy girl's fault, them taking on the new passenger. Doc had just let her out of the infirmary an hour ago.
Jayne wasn't sure what she'd said to Mal so as not to drop her off at the nearest planet. He sure hoped there was some coin involved.
Elsewise, going all the goram way to Athens is going to hurt. Her.
River climbed into the chair next to the woman, staring at her as if she was the most important thing in the 'verse. She'd been doing that for over a day now. It was starting to get on Jayne's nerves.
"Hi Jayne!" Kaylee's cheerful voice came loud and clear as the mechanic skipped down the stairs. "Is-- Oh!" She stopped when the woman looked up. "Captain said we was taking you to Athens, right? I'm Kaylee." She scrubbed her greasy hand on her coveralls and held it out.
Jayne could have told her it was no use; woman that clean wasn't shaking no mechanic's hand. But the woman surprised Jayne by sitting up straight and shaking Kaylee's hand with no hesitation. "I'm Dawn," she said clearly.
"Hi," Kaylee said again, sitting down across the table. "Good to see you about." The smile on her face faded slightly. "I hear 'bout your friend. I'm sorry for all that."
The woman, Dawn, tilted her head in some kind of prissy Core way that made Jayne curl his lip. "Thank you," she said as River reached her hand out toward Dawn's long, trailing hair.
A moment later, River jerked her hand back and sprang out of her chair, screaming. Before she even hit the floor, Jayne was on his feet, another gun out of his holster, cocked and pointed at Dawn's head.
"What did you do?" Jayne demanded, arm straight, shot sighted. Dawn looked at him calmly for a long moment, then turned her head to where River was huddled on the floor, Kaylee at her side.
"It's not polite to be poking in other people's heads," Dawn told River.
River struggled to sit up, hands over her face. "What did you do?" Jayne demanded again, taking a step closer.
Dawn didn't flinch. "She was looking in my head, so I showed her what I was thinking about."
"Buffy all screaming and angry and almost falling into the centre of the world!" River shouted, pushing Kaylee's hands off her shoulders. "Dead girls and dead demons and all dead, dead, DEAD!"
"Yes, they are dead," Dawn said. "That's what I was thinking about."
"So stop thinking it!" Jayne barked.
"Jayne." Mal's voice stopped Jayne from whatever he was about to do. "What's happening?"
It was Kaylee who responded. "River started screaming and Jayne gone thinking it was Dawn," she said as she helped River stand.
"Shouldn't have gone looking," River said, tapping her fingers hard against her temple. "Shouldn't look but eyelids cut off, can't help but see!"
Dawn sighed. "Captain Reynolds, is your man going to shoot me?"
"No, he ain't," Mal said, in such a way that made Jayne lower his gun.
"Good." She looked back to River. "Anyone who can see other people's thoughts can learn to block them."
"Not your kind of witch," River pointed out shakily.
"You took out a whole cadre of vampires without so much as a drop of your own blood spilled," Dawn said, turning in her chair and crossing her legs. "You picked out a coherent thought in that mess in my head. You can learn."
"Now wait just a minute," Mal started to say, but the woman cut him off.
"If I speak to River or not on the trip to Athens will not make the trip go any faster, Captain Reynolds, nor will it change the amount of money I am paying you."
So they was being paid after all. One less thing for Jayne to hate about the woman.
"How do you hide thoughts in a thimble?" River asked, going back to right her overturned seat. "Inside a grain of sand?"
"It's not quite like that," Dawn said, tuning out Mal and Jayne. "Have you ever seen a rose?"
River nodded solemnly, sitting and pulling her feet up onto the chair. "Had them on Osiris, big ones. Simon would look for me and I'd hide there and jump out to surprise him."
Dawn smiled tiredly. "Then I want you to imagine a rose, a big one." Obediently, River closed her eyes. "Now put your thought in the middle of that rose."
Jayne picked up all of his gun cleaning gear and dumped it on the counter, away from River and that crazy woman. Mal gave him a look, one he understood well, before going back to the bridge.
Kaylee wandered around the edge of the room until she was beside Jayne. "That wasn't the kind of thing I'd expect to have happen," she said. Jayne grunted. "You know, you did pull that gun awful fast when River started hollering."
Jayne stopped what he was doing and glared at her.
"I'm just sayin'," Kaylee said, wandering away, leaving Jayne to watch over River and that woman and her talk of hiding thoughts inside flowers and other junk.
Still don't like it.
end part