Whedonland 20in20 (Ficlets)
Family
Family was a very narrow term to Simon. It used to be a circle that encompassed himself, River, their parents, and perhaps some family friends.
From there, it only shrunk until it contained only himself and River. That was all. He had no room to allow in others, didn’t have the luxury of trusting them. So, when River took Kaylee’s hand and skipped along the street or flashed a glowing smile in the Captain’s direction, Simon nodded in acceptance but didn’t step into that circle.
He stayed on alert.
He had to.
Simon’s love for family was limited, cautious.
Scared.
Competition
Mom always talked about how things weren’t a competition.
Yeah. Right.
It was always a competition and that was okay. Dawn’s teacher said some healthy competition was good. Dawn was just healthily competitive.
“Look what I did, mom!”
“I aced my math test!”
“I won an award.”
“That’s great, sweetheart,” Mom would say. Then, Buffy would come in.
“I saved the world.”
“I kicked butt.”
“Look at all my cool awesome friends.”
And Dawn so should have won. She should have because she did all her stuff without superpowers! But Mom smiled at Buffy, put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “I’m so proud of you.”
And Dawn looked down at the table, bit her lip, and accepted another defeat. After all, when you had a daughter saving the world, why bother to say how proud you are of a stupid math test?
Beginnings
The flowers were so pretty back home. They were bright and full and they smelled sweet. River collected them. She placed little yellow flowers all around her dark hair like a crown. She smoothed down her blue dress and stood as regally as a seven-year-old could stand.
“I am a princess,” she proclaimed.
Her older brother sighed in exasperation. “We played this yesterday, River,” Simon Tam said. “Come on! I want to play pirates today. You can be a pirate princess!”
River gave him the slanted look that she picked up from her mother. It meant ‘men’. Men and their toys; they were unreasonable. She was a girl and, thus, her idea was better.
Simon rolled his eyes, that gesture he picked up from his father that meant ‘women’.
“I am a princess,” River repeated, “and you are a prince.”
Simon crossed his arms.
River tilted her head up at him. “I am a princess.”
“You are a brat,” Simon corrected.
River stood up straighter. She didn’t want to play pirates and Simon and his stupid wooden sword weren’t going to make her. Simon bit his bottom lip and she crossed her own arms, preparing to battle for this.
“If you’re a princess and I’m a prince,” Simon began, “who will be our guards?”
River frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.
“There are a lot of bad things out there for royalty,” Simon said. “There are and thieves and murderers,” when she didn’t look anymore convinced, he cast his eyes around for a moment before turning back to her triumphantly, “and witches and wizards and dragons!”
River shifted her feet. She was very smart. She knew that. However, Simon was smart too. He knew things, like how to find mom’s secret stash of cookies and how to sneak out of their parent’s dinner parties without being noticed. So, if he said they needed someone to protect them, she had to believe him.
She looked down at his wooden sword. “I am a princess,” she began again, “and you are a dragon-slayer.”
Simon enthusiastically picked up his sword. He held out an arm for River and said, in a deep voice, “Come, princess, there are dragons about.”
River giggled.
Danger
Mal knew these types of trigger-happy gentlemen. More on trigger-happy. Less on gentlemen.
“Now, I understand you all got business you want to get on with: killing and robbing and turning men over to the Alliance like the spacerats you are.” The low-paid and low-mannered bounty hunters shifted angrily and Mal made his next words real clear. “But I can tell you right now, any member of my crew hits the floor, your only stop is gonna be one of those unmarked graves.”
He made that extra clear with a steady hand on a big gun. This here was his crew, even the Doc and Little Miss Crazy.
Humor
Spike had a partner in crime. She was short with a high voice and pig tails but she had a mean pinch and gave vicious kicks to the shin.
She let out a loud squeak, turned around with a teeny bop magazine in her eyes, “He is so cute! Don’t you think he’s cute?”
Bloody hell, he was desperate.
…
Dawn had a partner in crime. He was kind of whiny and, from what Buffy said, impotent but he was a vampire. Fangs and everything. That had to count for something.
“Hurry it up, Bit,” he said. “Passions is on in five bloody minutes.”
God, she was so desperate.
Eyes
“Be in my eyes. Be in me,” she says and they follow her deep inside, past the traps and the monsters and all the bad, noisy people until it’s just them. Then, they stand there and they wait while she stalks around like the big bad man hiding in the shadows, ready to come closer, rip them up and burn them out.
She can make them cry or scream, love her or hate her.
Pretty dreams and ugly nightmares.
Drusilla stalks closer and closer, her eyes locked onto theirs. “Very good. Now pay attention to mommy.”
Two of her fingers dart out, sharp claws extended.
Finale
Dawn hated goodbyes. Really, really hated them. It didn’t matter if they were spoken or unspoken.
“Goodbye, my baby girl,” Hank said the last time he’d been around. “I’ll see you soon okay?”
‘Goodbye, honey. I’m so sorry,’ her mother’s grave whispered to her as she leaned over it and cried.
“Bye, Dawnie,” Tara yelled down the stairs as Dawn left for school. “Have a nice day!”
“Dawn -,” Buffy said, stopping her from leaving so that she could say -.
“No,” Dawn interrupted, turning around. She couldn’t hear that right now, wouldn’t be able to take it when she had to be strong and fight. “Anything you say is just going to sound like goodbye.”
And Dawn hated goodbyes.
Temptation
It would be so damn easy; that’s what Faith thinks every time one of the guards or one of the other chicks gets on her. It would be so damn easy for her to beat the shit out of them. She could snap their neck in a half a second. She could wrap their hands around their throat and just squeeze until their eyes pop out of their head.
She could kill them and nobody could stop her.
Clenching her fists, she throws her arms over her head and lets the guard beat her.
It would be so easy but she deserved hard.
Ship
Xander Harris loved Buffy Summers.
It was stupid and a little sad the first year he was in love with her because, yeah, out of his league.
Seven years later, it ventured into the territory that was just plain pathetic because, yeah, it’s seven years later.
He put his arms around her shoulders and let her tears and snot dirty his new shirt. She’d been in another failed relationship, another big heartbreak, another guy that didn’t even know what he had.
“I love you,” he blurted out.
“I love you too, Xander,” she murmured into his shirt. “You’re the best friend a girl can have.”
“Right.”
Crossover
Sam Winchester was an ex-blood junkie and Faith Lehane was an ex-murderer (and that was only part of the shit they’d done). Both convicts. Both homeless. She smoked a lot. He drank a lot. Both had anger issues, control issues, guilt issues, and - fuck - just issues up the damn ass.
And Sam and Faith were having a baby.
“Great family, huh?” said Faith bleakly.
Sam looked back at her, lost and silent because he knew just as well as she did how fucked up they were.
They stood in a dump hotel room, one of many they’d called home throughout their lives and wondered what cruel son of a bitch inflicted them on an innocent kid.
One Character #1
“I think he’s growing on you, Sir,” Zoe said, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes looking straight ahead and pointedly not looking at her captain.
“No, he ain’t,” Mal argued. “Fact, I got half a mind to throw him off my gorram ship.”
Of course, that had to be right when Simon walked in. “Then, who would reattach your ear the next time you got it cut off? I suppose you could always use Jayne but I’d think you’d want your ear back in its appropriate position.”
“Doc -,” Mal said in warning.
“Then again, I don’t pretend your thought process is at all within my comprehension.” With those last words, Simon walked back out again, leaving Mal with an itching trigger finger.
“Growing on me, you think?”
Zoe held back laughter. “Well, you didn’t shoot him, sir.”
One Character #2
A good ways away from Ariel, Mal asked, “How’d you know all that?”
Simon continued his fiddling with the stolen medicine, quite happy to ignore Mal’s presence like he was always quite happy to ignore Mal’s presence.
Like usual, Mal didn’t let that stop him. He went further into the infirmary. “All that criminal-type talk, who to make friendly with. You knew your way around Ariel’s unsavory side.”
Simon turned to him, face blank but head up. “What’s your point?”
“You ain’t exactly the criminal type, doc.”
“And I have no desire to be,” Simon replied. “You know -.”
“You did good,” Mal interrupted before the doc could get going and destroy all Mal’s good will. “You did real good.”
One Character #3
When Simon was young, he adored his father. Gabriel Tam was smart and dignified. He was everything a young boy needed to be in order to become a man.
“You are my son,” he’d say and Simon would stand straight, proud.
He thought his adoration would never come to an end.
He was wrong.
Because Simon said, “She is your daughter,” and got nothing.
When Simon was older, his little sister was the world to him. She was a gift, everything he needed to be Simon.
River looked up at him and said, “You’re my brother,” and Simon stood straight, proud.
One Character #4
Simon didn’t like hurting people. It went up against all his instincts. He was a doctor. His duty was to heal.
He was supposed to save lives.
However, when the man fell to the ground with a messy hole in his chest, Simon didn’t feel guilt. He only felt relief. There was a wave of relief as he looked at the wide eyes of his little sister and reached out for here. “River?”
She ran around the dead man, slipped her hand in his own and burying her face in his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Simon said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
One Character #5
Simon fired his gun. He didn’t flinch away from the sound the way Kaylee did and didn’t fire more than necessary like Jayne felt the need to. He just didn’t hit anything, missed his target by a good three feet.
It was straight pitiful.
Mal tilted his head to look at the target and then at the bullet hole. “Huh. Shepherd sure wasn’t kidding about that ‘not hitting nothing’ you were doing,” Mal said. He grabbed Simon’s hands, still firmly holding onto the gun, and repositioned them. He then patted Simon on the back. “Now how’s about you try this little thing called ‘aiming’, doc? Think you can do that for me?”
Authors Choice #1
Faith thinks ‘mom’ and sees the lady who pulled her hair and burned cigarettes on her arms.
She knew others. Joyce pops into her mind all bright but hazy at the same time ‘cause it’s from Buffy’s life, where mom’s baked cookies and shit. She might as well have been a star to Faith. Pretty but too fucking far away to be any good.
No, she only really knows one mom and it ain’t any mom she wants to be ‘cause, if anyone hurt her kid like that, she’d slit its fucking throat.
…So, she ain’t gonna be cookies mom.
Authors Choice #2
Dear Diary,
I want to know how Buffy always gets the coolest friends. She brought home another one tonight. Her name is Faith. She’s another slayer but I guess she’s not really Buffy’s friend. Buffy doesn’t seem to like her.
I think it’s because Faith is so much cooler than her. Underline ‘so much’…and ‘cooler’.
And because she stole Buffy’s fries. (Cool, huh?)
I warned Faith. I told her Buffy doesn’t like to share but she winked at me all coolly and took them anyway.
I took some too.
Faith called me a little badass. (Yup, she even cursed.) Isn’t she awesome?
Author Choice #3
“If you don’t let go of me, my sister is going to kill you and - and if she doesn’t, my mom will so do it,” Dawn screeched as she was dragged along by the arm.
She shouldn’t have wandered off. Unable to deal with all the boring talk at Buffy’s parent-teacher day, Dawn had wandered into the science lab to play with the burners. Bad idea! Stupid idea!
“Danger, Will Robinson!” she cried out and heard the snort of laughter before she saw exactly who she was being dragged to.
The really blonde and really ugly guy with really big fangs spoke. “Who’s the midget?”
Authors Choice #4
“Rawr! Rawr! You heathen! How could you do this to your own kind,” Wash demanded, shaking a dinosaur in one hand. He then let that one rest and brought up the second one. “I am evil. Mwua-ha-ha! I am my own kind! I am - hey.” Wash’s little show came to an end as the baby grabbed onto the leg of the closest dinosaur. “Hey, hey, hey. Dino doesn’t like that.” He carefully removed the baby’s fingers.
Zoe crossed her arms. “Wash, would you happen to be taking the toy from our baby?”
“Sweetie, sweetheart, my lovely wife…the dinosaurs are mine.”
Authors Choice #5
River took Serenity slow and steady toward its destination. It had been weeks since they couldn’t see Wash anymore. They hadn’t crash-landed yet even though Jayne was swearing they would.
“You keep letting her pilot this thing, you looking to get us all killed,” he’d insisted to Mal.
“Ah, don’t listen to him. You fly this thing like a pro.”
“You were better,” River responded. She smiled. “Like a leaf in the wind.”
“I think they’d have even more of a problem with me flying than Jayne’s got with you, what with, you know, not being able to see me and everything.”
River shook her head at that silliness. Just ‘cause they couldn’t see Wash didn’t mean he wasn’t there.