Remembered Dreamings
[Advisory warning, hidden behind the cut is mildly graphic Simon/River, read at your own risk of sanity]
River woke that morning feeling refreshed, content for the first time since they'd lost Wash. Jayne was being playful again. Mal was slowly coming out of his shell, letting her be near him again. She and Simon had had a few long talks, and Kaylee seemed happier lately. Only Zoe and Inara, each in their own bubbleworlds still, but River could live with that. Her boys were coming back to her, and Simon was making Kaylee happy.
That wasn't what she was so cheerful about, though. She'd been having dreams. Still the sense of impending something, someone like her, and danger... But another dream as well...
She'd been dreaming of Simon. Forbidden dreams, things she wasn't supposed to want, things she wasn't allowed to think about. Dreamed that she went to a cafe and found Simon, played the carving game... A lot of the details after that were fuzzy but, as she moved through her morning habits flashes were coming back to her.
The dream Simon had let her play, let her touch the way the real one never did. Not since...
"Once upon a time, brother-mine... Maybe there was a girl and a boy who loved each other more than the world was capable of understanding. It wasn't something they spoke of or acknowledged, just something they knew. Something each of them understood and recognized in the other."
A pause, a regretful sigh, and then "Until one night, late, they snuck away together, out into the darkness of a warm, full moon night. Silently, without discussing, they stripped naked and slipped into the cool pond, swimming. If there were furtive caresses beneath the water's surface... and if they moved to a hidden recess behind the man-made waterfall... and if there was a promise sealed with a joining of bodies, the breaking of a barrier... spilling of blood..."
She nuzzled his throat, moving to whisper in his opposite ear "If those things happened, and shortly afterward they were separated... the girl sent away to a school and the boy soon to begin his medical career... If they were separated for years, but that promise still existed, somewhere deep within their hearts..."
Had that happened? Had River given herself to Simon long ago, before they were separated by the world? Sometimes she thought so, sometimes she wasn't sure. Knew she wasn't a virgin that first time she climbed into Mal's bed. Knew at the Academy, she'd been trained in ways of pleasing and teasing with her body. Knew it hadn't been taken there, couldn't think of anyone else it could be... but couldn't be sure if it happened, if she dreamed it, if the Crazy in her made her think it went that way... She didn't think it was the Crazy, though. There was more between them than anyone knew, games they played, un-casual touches and glances, un-sister/brotherly interludes. Knew she'd always loved him more than she should, more than was allowed but... Aside from the dream, whether he'd ever been inside her... River couldn't be sure of remembering rightly.
Head was muffled, cotton, thoughts... Still smiling, she'd gone to the shower, dwelling under the hot water and on the flashes of dream that were playing through her mind like a home movie.
Frantic kisses on warm, willing lips. A heated groan in her ear as he gives her permission to do what she dreams. Its only a dream anyway, no consequence, no regret... Mouths meeting, kisses, exploring and claiming. She is on the verge from the very beginning but she won't give in, won't float away, not on so little. More, she needs more, and he allows it, his hands on her. Her hands on him, touching, feeling, tracing. She'd written her name on him, claimed him, he was hers. It was allowed!
Couldn't refuse her, not just because she teased, reminded him he wouldn't have to know later, promised he wouldn't have to remember. Not just because it was safe, in a dream, to take what you couldn't have awake, but because he needed... wanted... She felt his want against her, beneath her... and when the layers of clothing between them were removed, she felt him finally... as she so desperately needed... Felt him within her, moving, filling, claiming what had always been his... Felt him beneath her, the way his muscles shifted under her fingertips, the way he rose to meet her. She wanted to go slow, savor, memorise, but couldn't. Too hungry, starving for him, for this...
"Your Brother is a Fool." he'd said as he told her to take what she wanted, willing with everything that was within him, to give her what she needed... Real Simon might be able to refuse her, but him... the one in the dream... couldn't. They'd shared... heated, hungry, all-consuming kisses. Both before and after. She'd been able to savor that, every moment of touching and feeling him, of being allowed to do so...
But when it came to what she truly needed, what she desired... "Take me, River. Take what you need...I give it, all of it, freely." he'd whispered, allowing her to remove the layers between them, moaning and shuddering as they were joined. Home, she'd thought... They were home, where they belonged... oh Buddha... Wanted to go slow, but needed too much, too badly. Needed to take while she could, what she wanted, before the dream could end without her feeling... So she had, and they'd moved, gasped, moaned, writhed together... In a corner booth of some dream cafe, not noticing or caring if anyone saw. Everything that the Real Simon would never allow, nor even consider.
Mouths locked in kisses, claiming, hungry still. Fevered. Moans and cries muffled, lost in a tangling of breath and tongue, trapped between them. Bodies moving, her on him, his hands on her. Need fulfilled, wishes granted, satisfaction guaren-ruttin-teed as after what seemed both too short and impossibly long a time, they shuddered together. The fever calmed, eventually, and she'd rested her forehead against his after a final kiss, sitting there silently for several moments before she finally rose, letting him slip away from her, and without another word... lest he find thoughts of regret and spoil the mood... she walked away.
Fragments of the dream, all jumbled in together, but... If, as River contemplated and remembered the dream, her shower ran out of hot water and she came out wearing a faint flush and a self-satisfied expression... Well, she was lost in thought, truly happy seeming for the first time in weeks, months possibly... It was to be short lived.
Her hair was barely dry, she was in the kitchen making Tea with intention of taking some to Kaylee and Simon, just as an excuse to see him. Maybe whisper to him about her dream... when suddenly Simon's thoughts called to her and after a blinding flash of pain she couldn't feel him anymore.
And everything had been going so well...