A passel of ficlets for the Firefly prompt-a-thon
There is a Firefly Prompt-a-thon happening, and like any insane geek I am powerless to resist a Firefly prompt-a-thon. :)
Title: Freedom
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 788.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Set after Serenity the film.
Characters: Mal/River -- as I always say, the OTP of HOT.
Prompt: Mal/River, "freedom"
It didn't feel like any of the things they'd said it would be. Mal, when she'd first brought up the idea, had just assumed she'd stumbled into some of his "more disturbing" thoughts, and didn't even lay a comforting hand on her shoulder when he advised her to expel them from her mind. Simon had adopted the maddening tone he used to soothe her into taking her meds, and had suggested with wary eyes that perhaps the "stifling environment" of the renegade ship was leaving her "stir-crazy." Kaylee just said she didn't want to see her "hurt."
All that was on River's mind when she strapped two guns to her waist and slipped a knife into the pouch between her shoulder blades. She shrugged away a protein breakfast -- Simon's painkillers were giving her nausea today -- and kissed her brother goodbye, almost to reassure him, before heading off to find Mal.
"These people have always been quick to shoot," the captain mused aloud as each pair of arms grabbed a crate of goods. Once they left the ship, he continued his advice in a low growl: "So you see one of 'em reach for something, you put her down. Got too much blood in the recent past. Don't want to see any more."
River looked up at him, grinning. The rays of desert sun knocked through her features like so much stolen jewelry.
"You like it, don't you?" she asked.
"What's that?" said Mal, scanning the horizon as they walked.
"Telling me things you know I already know, just to feel like you're in charge."
"Quite a lot of jiao qi there, little one," Mal returned. His voice had changed so slightly from distracted to gentle, you almost wouldn't notice it. "I don't recall you using such fightin' words last time I schooled your all-high genius at Murderball."
"I was practicing a new technique," River sulked.
He laughed.
"Come on now," he said, and threw an arm around her shoulders in a quick squeeze. "We're almost there. Put on your negotiating face. You know, the one that scares the hell out of whoever I'm negotiating with."
None of that felt like hurt or disturbing or stir-crazy to River. She stood beside the captain, keeping her lips thin and her eyes fierce as he talked, and thrilled to the knowledge that none of these backwater criminals would try anything with Mal as long as she was there. As soon as they'd turned their backs and headed out of sight, Mal reached for her hand -- but she felt herself sway, and floaters sailed through her vision.
"River?"
Answering him felt like it would be too much effort, but she opened her mouth to show that she wanted to.
"River?"
"Didn't -- have breakfast," she explained, and Mal caught her before she fell. One of his arms wrapped around her back so that she could almost still stand; one of his hands held her head up and so close she could see where he'd cut himself shaving (probably with his old army knife and no soap -- no surprise there, she thought).
"Well, ain't you the stubbornest woman in the 'verse," he murmured. "How'd you get Zoe not to tell me?"
"Simple bribery," River responded, closing her eyes and smiling. The sun felt good, if dizzying -- just epsilon past the amount of heat she could handle.
Mal clucked his tongue. "Even regime-toppling warriors need to eat," he told her.
She leaned her cheek against his shirt. "Warrior," she mumbled. "Your protection."
"Yes," he replied, "and that's why you need to eat this protein bar."
River opened her eyes. His hands -- dusty, warm, large -- were holding a chunk of dark foodstuff to her face. She ate, and licked his fingers, and closed her eyes again. Her head was already less fuzzy.
"River --" he whispered.
"I know," she said. "I should have let you carry the heavy one on the way here." Mal opened his mouth, but one set of her fingers curled around his collar, and he closed it again.
He kissed her forehead. "Yes," he agreed finally, "you should have." Mal studied the empty desert. "Okay now?" he asked, without loosening the arm that held her. "Okay to go back?"
"I'm feeling better," she said slowly, "but let's not go back yet."
She opened her eyes. He was already staring.
When she rose up on the tips of her booted toes to kiss his mouth, it didn't feel hurt or stir-crazy or wrong. It didn't feel disturbing when he shifted his hand to the back of her head again and tightened his grip, pulling her closer for more.
It just felt like freedom.
Title: House Deserters
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 410.
Rating: R.
Spoilers: To know who Nandi is, you just need to have seen 1x13 "Heart of Gold."
Characters: Inara/Nandi (some of my first femmeslash, so let me know how I do!).
Prompt: Inara/Nandi, "learning"
Inara knew she was the star pupil. It was in the way her mistresses looked at her; though discussion of individual performance in a classroom setting was said to be forbidden, they admitted volumes with their eyes.
It made her so angry. She watched time and time again as teachers singled her out, ignoring other girls; she fumed as they failed to see what was actually happening -- who the instructors really were.
Nandi never received a word of praise. It was Nandi's quick wink and slow smile, however, that taught Inara how to play hard-to-get. It was the darkness around Nandi's eyelashes, and the colors in her cheeks, that taught Inara how to be beautiful. Nandi, laughing at her jokes, made Inara realize that the way to make people love you was only to listen.
Their mistresses emphasized coyness, delicacy, a lady's purity -- but Inara knew the highest level of seduction was the blaze of Nandi's wild eyes or the feel of her burning skin. "I've been used a hundred times before," she would say, confirming House rumors of abuse in her youth and brazen affairs with servant boys. "You can't teach me anything new." There was a challenge in her voice, Inara thought, and so she rose to it.
There was something new in Nandi's expression, she was sure, when Inara's fingers skated on her body; she arched back and gasped out and closed her eyes to shield the fire from the world. As Inara's tongue pressed against the soft depths of the other woman's body, she could have sworn they both cried out at once.
Sometimes Nandi took over, holding the younger girl in her arms and whispering thanks, hissing soft encouragement in barely intelligible words. Inara knew that no matter how many decades she worked she could never forget this -- lying safe in the bed of a madwoman turned sweet, kissing until both of them were naked.
Inara knew that doing her job well meant being other people's Nandi. It meant she had to see that mist in their eyes she felt so often herself. When Nandi left, she wouldn't have anything else to go by.
"I'll be fine," Nandi announced, throwing back her hair and letting the jeweled clips fall to the floor like shards of broken dulcimer. "I'll be fine."
"I know," Inara whispered, when Nandi had kissed her on the cheek and vanished like a fantasy.
"I know you will be."
Title: Proof
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandoms: Firefly/The X-Files
Word Count: 323.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: For Serenity the film, ish, but it's set before the events of the movie took place. None really for The X-Files.
Characters: Mulder/River. Yes, I am kinky. But I'm just going along with the spirit of these magnificent prompts!
Prompt: Firefly/The X Files, Any/all characters & pairings, "thief"
"You can't take that," he ordered, with desperate authority. He didn't understand why his brain felt so jostled, or why this apparition was halfway in his lap and still holding him down. "It's the only proof I have."
"Proof," she scoffed, and he felt something sharp brush against his ankle -- was she wearing a machete? How had he gotten trapped in the dark with this creature? How did she have so much hair?
And where the hell was Scully?
"The only proof is in my head," she informed him. "We're very similar that way."
She was running fingers through his hair. It felt good. Mulder wondered if her eyes were as blisteringly crazy as one might imagine, and decided for the eighty-millionth time to trust his gut: she was no psycho killer. Just some unbalanced humanoid from another planet's future. A very strong, attractive, underage humanoid.
"You've got to leave me something. A page," he said. "Don't you have copy machines in the future?"
"We have better guns in the future," she told him, and laughed. The hand on his belt was getting very roamy.
"What --" he asked, and stopped when he felt her breath on his nose. She smelled like cinnamon and engine oil. And soybeans, somehow.
He pitched his voice to a whisper. "What else do you have in the future?"
She leaned into him, breathing across his lips, his cheek, his neck, his earlobe. Clearly they still had seduction in the future.
"We still haven't found anybody," she said sadly. "Just us."
"That's impossible," he replied, and then a gear clicked, and he said his next words like he was kissing her on the cheek. "So why are you stealing this case from me?"
"This X-file is closed," she hissed, and was off like a shot from a better gun than his.
Scully rounded the corner with a flashlight just in time to see nothing at all.
Title: Freedom
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 788.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Set after Serenity the film.
Characters: Mal/River -- as I always say, the OTP of HOT.
Prompt: Mal/River, "freedom"
It didn't feel like any of the things they'd said it would be. Mal, when she'd first brought up the idea, had just assumed she'd stumbled into some of his "more disturbing" thoughts, and didn't even lay a comforting hand on her shoulder when he advised her to expel them from her mind. Simon had adopted the maddening tone he used to soothe her into taking her meds, and had suggested with wary eyes that perhaps the "stifling environment" of the renegade ship was leaving her "stir-crazy." Kaylee just said she didn't want to see her "hurt."
All that was on River's mind when she strapped two guns to her waist and slipped a knife into the pouch between her shoulder blades. She shrugged away a protein breakfast -- Simon's painkillers were giving her nausea today -- and kissed her brother goodbye, almost to reassure him, before heading off to find Mal.
"These people have always been quick to shoot," the captain mused aloud as each pair of arms grabbed a crate of goods. Once they left the ship, he continued his advice in a low growl: "So you see one of 'em reach for something, you put her down. Got too much blood in the recent past. Don't want to see any more."
River looked up at him, grinning. The rays of desert sun knocked through her features like so much stolen jewelry.
"You like it, don't you?" she asked.
"What's that?" said Mal, scanning the horizon as they walked.
"Telling me things you know I already know, just to feel like you're in charge."
"Quite a lot of jiao qi there, little one," Mal returned. His voice had changed so slightly from distracted to gentle, you almost wouldn't notice it. "I don't recall you using such fightin' words last time I schooled your all-high genius at Murderball."
"I was practicing a new technique," River sulked.
He laughed.
"Come on now," he said, and threw an arm around her shoulders in a quick squeeze. "We're almost there. Put on your negotiating face. You know, the one that scares the hell out of whoever I'm negotiating with."
None of that felt like hurt or disturbing or stir-crazy to River. She stood beside the captain, keeping her lips thin and her eyes fierce as he talked, and thrilled to the knowledge that none of these backwater criminals would try anything with Mal as long as she was there. As soon as they'd turned their backs and headed out of sight, Mal reached for her hand -- but she felt herself sway, and floaters sailed through her vision.
"River?"
Answering him felt like it would be too much effort, but she opened her mouth to show that she wanted to.
"River?"
"Didn't -- have breakfast," she explained, and Mal caught her before she fell. One of his arms wrapped around her back so that she could almost still stand; one of his hands held her head up and so close she could see where he'd cut himself shaving (probably with his old army knife and no soap -- no surprise there, she thought).
"Well, ain't you the stubbornest woman in the 'verse," he murmured. "How'd you get Zoe not to tell me?"
"Simple bribery," River responded, closing her eyes and smiling. The sun felt good, if dizzying -- just epsilon past the amount of heat she could handle.
Mal clucked his tongue. "Even regime-toppling warriors need to eat," he told her.
She leaned her cheek against his shirt. "Warrior," she mumbled. "Your protection."
"Yes," he replied, "and that's why you need to eat this protein bar."
River opened her eyes. His hands -- dusty, warm, large -- were holding a chunk of dark foodstuff to her face. She ate, and licked his fingers, and closed her eyes again. Her head was already less fuzzy.
"River --" he whispered.
"I know," she said. "I should have let you carry the heavy one on the way here." Mal opened his mouth, but one set of her fingers curled around his collar, and he closed it again.
He kissed her forehead. "Yes," he agreed finally, "you should have." Mal studied the empty desert. "Okay now?" he asked, without loosening the arm that held her. "Okay to go back?"
"I'm feeling better," she said slowly, "but let's not go back yet."
She opened her eyes. He was already staring.
When she rose up on the tips of her booted toes to kiss his mouth, it didn't feel hurt or stir-crazy or wrong. It didn't feel disturbing when he shifted his hand to the back of her head again and tightened his grip, pulling her closer for more.
It just felt like freedom.
Title: House Deserters
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandom: Firefly
Word Count: 410.
Rating: R.
Spoilers: To know who Nandi is, you just need to have seen 1x13 "Heart of Gold."
Characters: Inara/Nandi (some of my first femmeslash, so let me know how I do!).
Prompt: Inara/Nandi, "learning"
Inara knew she was the star pupil. It was in the way her mistresses looked at her; though discussion of individual performance in a classroom setting was said to be forbidden, they admitted volumes with their eyes.
It made her so angry. She watched time and time again as teachers singled her out, ignoring other girls; she fumed as they failed to see what was actually happening -- who the instructors really were.
Nandi never received a word of praise. It was Nandi's quick wink and slow smile, however, that taught Inara how to play hard-to-get. It was the darkness around Nandi's eyelashes, and the colors in her cheeks, that taught Inara how to be beautiful. Nandi, laughing at her jokes, made Inara realize that the way to make people love you was only to listen.
Their mistresses emphasized coyness, delicacy, a lady's purity -- but Inara knew the highest level of seduction was the blaze of Nandi's wild eyes or the feel of her burning skin. "I've been used a hundred times before," she would say, confirming House rumors of abuse in her youth and brazen affairs with servant boys. "You can't teach me anything new." There was a challenge in her voice, Inara thought, and so she rose to it.
There was something new in Nandi's expression, she was sure, when Inara's fingers skated on her body; she arched back and gasped out and closed her eyes to shield the fire from the world. As Inara's tongue pressed against the soft depths of the other woman's body, she could have sworn they both cried out at once.
Sometimes Nandi took over, holding the younger girl in her arms and whispering thanks, hissing soft encouragement in barely intelligible words. Inara knew that no matter how many decades she worked she could never forget this -- lying safe in the bed of a madwoman turned sweet, kissing until both of them were naked.
Inara knew that doing her job well meant being other people's Nandi. It meant she had to see that mist in their eyes she felt so often herself. When Nandi left, she wouldn't have anything else to go by.
"I'll be fine," Nandi announced, throwing back her hair and letting the jeweled clips fall to the floor like shards of broken dulcimer. "I'll be fine."
"I know," Inara whispered, when Nandi had kissed her on the cheek and vanished like a fantasy.
"I know you will be."
Title: Proof
Author: ninamazing, or Nina
Fandoms: Firefly/The X-Files
Word Count: 323.
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: For Serenity the film, ish, but it's set before the events of the movie took place. None really for The X-Files.
Characters: Mulder/River. Yes, I am kinky. But I'm just going along with the spirit of these magnificent prompts!
Prompt: Firefly/The X Files, Any/all characters & pairings, "thief"
"You can't take that," he ordered, with desperate authority. He didn't understand why his brain felt so jostled, or why this apparition was halfway in his lap and still holding him down. "It's the only proof I have."
"Proof," she scoffed, and he felt something sharp brush against his ankle -- was she wearing a machete? How had he gotten trapped in the dark with this creature? How did she have so much hair?
And where the hell was Scully?
"The only proof is in my head," she informed him. "We're very similar that way."
She was running fingers through his hair. It felt good. Mulder wondered if her eyes were as blisteringly crazy as one might imagine, and decided for the eighty-millionth time to trust his gut: she was no psycho killer. Just some unbalanced humanoid from another planet's future. A very strong, attractive, underage humanoid.
"You've got to leave me something. A page," he said. "Don't you have copy machines in the future?"
"We have better guns in the future," she told him, and laughed. The hand on his belt was getting very roamy.
"What --" he asked, and stopped when he felt her breath on his nose. She smelled like cinnamon and engine oil. And soybeans, somehow.
He pitched his voice to a whisper. "What else do you have in the future?"
She leaned into him, breathing across his lips, his cheek, his neck, his earlobe. Clearly they still had seduction in the future.
"We still haven't found anybody," she said sadly. "Just us."
"That's impossible," he replied, and then a gear clicked, and he said his next words like he was kissing her on the cheek. "So why are you stealing this case from me?"
"This X-file is closed," she hissed, and was off like a shot from a better gun than his.
Scully rounded the corner with a flashlight just in time to see nothing at all.