Mightier than the Gun
Mightier than the Gun
Firefly/Deathnote
2054 words, PG, crew, gen
Note: This is another one of the promised 'drabbles' in this post. claireoujisama asked for a certain crossover we'd jokingly discussed a few days earlier. It turned out a bit more heavy handed that it could've, but I hope you like it.
I have to disclaim I have never seen Deathnote, and I'm thinking neither have most of you, so here's a primer. There's Gods of Death, and they walk around carrying notebooks into which they writes people's names, and thus control their time and cause of death. Humans can find these notebooks and steal them, and use them just as well. There's a few rules concerning their use, which I found here. I disregarded most, shamelessly broke others, and substantially abused one, which I'll tell you all about at the end of the story. Let's not spoil the fun.
Mightier than the Gun
The package is addressed to 'Doctor S, c/o Captain Harbatkin’ and the brushwork on the characters is so confident that it leaves no doubt on Shepherd Book’s mind as to the sender, when it's his turn to do the mail drop on Boros. Only that the doctor’s not supposed to receive post, because no one’s supposed to know where he’s at, so back on the ship they run it through the infirmary scanner. It’s just cellulose, and ink, and thread and paste, and not a shard of silicon or metal parts, so Simon takes it, but refuses to open it in front of the crew despite Kaylee’s pleads and Jayne’s poorly hidden curiosity; and the Shepherd’s heart gladdens to see the Tams have sent their children some sort of truce, and not the law.
Inside the parcel there are two things. An elegantly typeset letter, printed on rich, thick paper - almost vellum - and a notebook. Simon reads the letter once, twice, in the middle of the night, when River is sleeping a sleep he knows, has made sure, will last hours, and then throws it into the biohazard bag in the infirmary. It’s one of the few things they incinerate and then space, onboard.
He avoids touching the notebook as much as possible as he writes in it, rushing like when he took notes in school and had to keep up with his lecturers, even though he has very few things to write, only twenty eight lines. When he’s finished, he gingerly puts it on one of the infirmary shelves, next to the few medical journals he’s collected on their travels so far, where he hopes he’s never going to have to touch it again. It blends in.
Jayne finds the notebook when he’s looking for something else in the infirmary. It tumbles off the shelf as he gropes blindly for pills, and cracks open to a random, filled page, and because goading the doc’s as good fun as can be had onboard the ruttin’ ship these days, Jayne stuffs it into his pocket alongside some painkillers. Let the prissified boy come to him when he needs it.
He looks it over later, starting at the middle again, and is quite taken aback. He’d never figured the doctor for being half as morbid as all that. Not as creepifying as his sister, he has to admit, but a far sight more sinister in its own way, carrying a list of all these dead people around.
Major Jared Heller, September 13th 22.13: Poisoned by fugu eaten earlier at the DuBois’ spring ball. Swift and painless.
Stephanie Stiglitz December 25th, 15.28: Run over by a hovercraft. Bleeds to death in transit to hospital despite all attempts to staunch blood loss.
Premier Zuyoe Miao: February 27th 6.10: Heart attack. Attempts to resuscitate unsuccessful.
Connecting to the Cortex onboard Serenity is difficult, the link always intermittent as they speed through the darker reaches of the Black. So Inara always finds time to read up on things when she’s planetside, because making conversation is a valuable art, and she knows all about that. There’s always some bit of news that passes her by while they travel, and many have been the times where it pertained to her clients one way or the other. Power is spread narrowly, even in a place as big as the ‘verse, and there’s a small number of people who can afford her services, all of them linked to one another in an unfathomable infinitude of ways.
This time, however, the big news is not so much about a client as about a friend, and the conversation has to wait until she’s back on the ship.
“Simon,” and she stops, not lost for words, but uncomfortable all the same. “Your father is dead, Simon. I’m very sorry. I found his obituary on the Cortex and saved it, in case you-”
“I suspected as much,” he interrupts, coolly. “Thank you, Inara, but I don’t want to read it,” and Inara doesn’t wonder how a man who loves his sister so much can bear the rest of his family such revulsion; she’s also read that Gabriel Tam was not survived by either of his children.
When Wash walks into the kitchen and finds Jayne avidly focused on the notebook in front of him, he has the feeling the world must be coming to an end, and says something precisely to that effect. When Jayne doesn’t raise to the bait, he worries a bit more.
“Alright,” he finally asks. “What exactly are you doing? You’re not actually... reading, are you?”
“Practicing my penmanship,” Jayne replies, picking up a pen and turning the pages until he reaches an empty one. “Incidentally, I’d think twice about making some snide remark around now,” he warns without looking up.
Wash is stunned into silence by that one; Jayne is lavishing the same care on his penstrokes that he usually lavishes on Vera and his myriad other guns. The man oozes affection for the paper in front of him, and that is positively disturbing. And it’s not momentaneous, either; Jayne’s attitude doesn’t change in the time it takes Wash to refill the coffeemaker and wait for it to brew. He keeps on pushing the pen across the page with a focus Wash’s only seem him display when cleaning, or shooting, his weapons.
“Man of hidden depths, our doc,” Jayne mutters, closing the notebook, and Wash is pretty sure he was speaking to himself.
“All these jobs been working out so shiny lately,” says Kaylee between cherries, and she’s right. She’s almost got herself more spare parts than she knows what to do with, from all the times they’ve been actually paid properly, and has moved onto asking Mal to let her buy things she wouldn’t have even thought of mentioning, three months ago. Serenity ain’t ever run so smooth before.
“We do seem to be having an exceptional run of luck lately,” the shepherd agrees, from where he’s chopping meat to throw into a stew.
“I’m not about to deny that,” Mal says as he strolls in, sniffing the air. “How’s that soup coming along, preacher?”
The shepherd tips the meat into the boiling pot, throws in a sprig of some dried herb or another. “It’ll be ready soon.”
Kaylee pops another cherry into her mouth and rolls it around with her tongue, biting into it softly. It’s a little taste of heaven. “Want me to set the table, Shepherd?”
“Thank you, Kaylee,” he says, and she eats yet another cherry before grabbing nine plates from a cupboard. She really can’t remember the last time they had this plenty; maybe after Ariel, but that ran out quickly, followed as it was by Niska and Saffron again.
Wash comes in, Zoe with him. “Wave just in, captain. The Hardy boys’ve died... Smells heavenly in here, Shepherd - we’re never going to let you get off this boat if you keep on surprising us like this.”
“Huh,” Mal says, and Kaylee falters for a second as she’s counting the cutlery. She knows they hadn’t parted on the best of terms - the new scar on Jayne’s arm and the patched holes in the hull testify to that - last time they were in Greenleaf, but still, it ain’t fair, people dying so young.
Zoe’s also been noticing something funny ‘bout their luck for a while now, but hasn’t quite managed to put words to it until Jayne wipes out a notebook in the middle of a job getting steadily sourer by the second.
“Pay up,” he growls. “Give us the cash or your pretty name’s going in here,” he continues, far too menacing for a man armed with naught but paper as far as Zoe’s concerned. And everyone would appear to agree with her, because the hired goons that have them surrounded are staring at him mockingly, and their employer even more so, and Mal, who’d been holding it together quite well despite the circumstances, is suddenly letting worry flicker over his face, to those who know how to read him.
“What the... Jayne, I ain’t paying you to terrorize people with calligraphy. You’re here to shoot ‘em!” But Jayne’s already writing.
“Jayne,” Zoe also reminds him. But he’s looking at that ridiculous pink wristwatch he’s recently taken to wearing, and smirking. Zoe thinks he must’ve borrowed it from Kaylee, and has been trying to decide whether it makes him look ridiculous or more fearsome, although at this precise instant, it’s blatantly the former.
“Jayne,” she says again, with more urgency. “Gun.”
“Hush,” the merc replies, that baffling smirk still in place. “The pen is mightier than the gun.”
His comment only begins to make sense when, two minutes later, their latest employer drops dead right in front of them.
They’ve been arguing the matter since they got back onboard, which they really shouldn’t have been. There should’ve been no argument at all; Mal should’ve ripped the thing out of Jayne’s hands, found whoever was responsible for bringing it on the ship (and once he knows, he realises he should’ve guessed) and spaced them both for being so damned arrogant and dishonest as to kill people like that, with a pen and a bit of trickery.
But Jayne has proven surprisingly stubborn.
“Gorram it, Mal, I aint giving it back. Not to her. ‘Sides, it’s come in plenty useful and you can’t deny that,” he says, pointing to Mal’s bandaged collarbone. “Don’t reckon he would’ve stopped there.”
“Jayne,” Mal warns, his patience having long frayed well beyond what’s healthy.
“It’s not hers,” Simon reminds them for the umpteenth time, “It’s mine.”
Which does indeed remind Mal. “I’m getting to that, doctor. I do dearly want to know how someone who’s all goodly like you gets a hold of one of these... death notes here, and it’s about time you indulge me and explain that.”
Simon sighs, and Mal knows he regrets drawing attention to himself. “Ah, well... My family, we, uh...”
Mal glares, stern as can be, because this aint no laughing matter, and the boy oughta know that. Simon sighs and surrenders, but not completely, because Mal can hear traces of wryness in there. “You don’t think a family like mine gets where it did simply by luck, do you? It’s a family heirloom, I don’t know the full story. My father’s executor sent it, I don’t know how - I suspect it would have found its way to me eventually, no matter what. Captain, I really-”
“I’ll think on it,” Mal lies, grabbing the blasted thing and leaving the mess before anyone can think to stop him. He already knows what he’s gonna do.
“He’s not giving it back,” River says. “He didn’t want two assassins on his ship. One is enough,” she laughs bitterly.
“I figured as much,” Simon tells her, smoothing her hair back. Her bitterness recedes swiftly, as his fingers card through softly. She never tells him, but it’s his touch and nearness, more than the sedatives and endless smoothers that lets her sleep at night. Shattering his illusions of helpfulness would be pointless for all. “He threw it into the engine fan when we were leaving and it got shredded and flew everywhere like deadly snow but the pieces were too small for anyone to see and it melted in the heat so everyone is safe.”
“Well,” Simon says. “I’m sure dad would have been happy to hear that.”
“But he looked through it first. He knows what you did, and he was impressed, although for a second he wanted to throw you out the airlock, before he understood. But something is still bothering him.”
Simon’s smile is full of so many things, so many of them so sad, that River wants to apologise for loving him so much that she can’t stop needing him. “Our names were already there, mei mei,” he answers, although she hasn’t asked the question. “Ye ye put them there. When we were born.” He pushes her hair back one more time, kisses her forehead and wishes her a good night.
“It would’ve all worked out fine, anyhow. Vera was starting to get jealous,” she says to his retreating back, but he’s too far to hear her.
---
Mei mei - little sister
Ye ye - paternal grandfather, or so the internet tells me.
For the curious, or the confused, or those who want to know what the hell Simon was up to (because Jayne is easy enough to figure out), the rule I took most advantage of while writing this was The Death Note will not ever affect a victim whose name has been misspelled four times.
Firefly/Deathnote
2054 words, PG, crew, gen
Note: This is another one of the promised 'drabbles' in this post. claireoujisama asked for a certain crossover we'd jokingly discussed a few days earlier. It turned out a bit more heavy handed that it could've, but I hope you like it.
I have to disclaim I have never seen Deathnote, and I'm thinking neither have most of you, so here's a primer. There's Gods of Death, and they walk around carrying notebooks into which they writes people's names, and thus control their time and cause of death. Humans can find these notebooks and steal them, and use them just as well. There's a few rules concerning their use, which I found here. I disregarded most, shamelessly broke others, and substantially abused one, which I'll tell you all about at the end of the story. Let's not spoil the fun.
Mightier than the Gun
The package is addressed to 'Doctor S, c/o Captain Harbatkin’ and the brushwork on the characters is so confident that it leaves no doubt on Shepherd Book’s mind as to the sender, when it's his turn to do the mail drop on Boros. Only that the doctor’s not supposed to receive post, because no one’s supposed to know where he’s at, so back on the ship they run it through the infirmary scanner. It’s just cellulose, and ink, and thread and paste, and not a shard of silicon or metal parts, so Simon takes it, but refuses to open it in front of the crew despite Kaylee’s pleads and Jayne’s poorly hidden curiosity; and the Shepherd’s heart gladdens to see the Tams have sent their children some sort of truce, and not the law.
Inside the parcel there are two things. An elegantly typeset letter, printed on rich, thick paper - almost vellum - and a notebook. Simon reads the letter once, twice, in the middle of the night, when River is sleeping a sleep he knows, has made sure, will last hours, and then throws it into the biohazard bag in the infirmary. It’s one of the few things they incinerate and then space, onboard.
He avoids touching the notebook as much as possible as he writes in it, rushing like when he took notes in school and had to keep up with his lecturers, even though he has very few things to write, only twenty eight lines. When he’s finished, he gingerly puts it on one of the infirmary shelves, next to the few medical journals he’s collected on their travels so far, where he hopes he’s never going to have to touch it again. It blends in.
Jayne finds the notebook when he’s looking for something else in the infirmary. It tumbles off the shelf as he gropes blindly for pills, and cracks open to a random, filled page, and because goading the doc’s as good fun as can be had onboard the ruttin’ ship these days, Jayne stuffs it into his pocket alongside some painkillers. Let the prissified boy come to him when he needs it.
He looks it over later, starting at the middle again, and is quite taken aback. He’d never figured the doctor for being half as morbid as all that. Not as creepifying as his sister, he has to admit, but a far sight more sinister in its own way, carrying a list of all these dead people around.
Major Jared Heller, September 13th 22.13: Poisoned by fugu eaten earlier at the DuBois’ spring ball. Swift and painless.
Stephanie Stiglitz December 25th, 15.28: Run over by a hovercraft. Bleeds to death in transit to hospital despite all attempts to staunch blood loss.
Premier Zuyoe Miao: February 27th 6.10: Heart attack. Attempts to resuscitate unsuccessful.
Connecting to the Cortex onboard Serenity is difficult, the link always intermittent as they speed through the darker reaches of the Black. So Inara always finds time to read up on things when she’s planetside, because making conversation is a valuable art, and she knows all about that. There’s always some bit of news that passes her by while they travel, and many have been the times where it pertained to her clients one way or the other. Power is spread narrowly, even in a place as big as the ‘verse, and there’s a small number of people who can afford her services, all of them linked to one another in an unfathomable infinitude of ways.
This time, however, the big news is not so much about a client as about a friend, and the conversation has to wait until she’s back on the ship.
“Simon,” and she stops, not lost for words, but uncomfortable all the same. “Your father is dead, Simon. I’m very sorry. I found his obituary on the Cortex and saved it, in case you-”
“I suspected as much,” he interrupts, coolly. “Thank you, Inara, but I don’t want to read it,” and Inara doesn’t wonder how a man who loves his sister so much can bear the rest of his family such revulsion; she’s also read that Gabriel Tam was not survived by either of his children.
When Wash walks into the kitchen and finds Jayne avidly focused on the notebook in front of him, he has the feeling the world must be coming to an end, and says something precisely to that effect. When Jayne doesn’t raise to the bait, he worries a bit more.
“Alright,” he finally asks. “What exactly are you doing? You’re not actually... reading, are you?”
“Practicing my penmanship,” Jayne replies, picking up a pen and turning the pages until he reaches an empty one. “Incidentally, I’d think twice about making some snide remark around now,” he warns without looking up.
Wash is stunned into silence by that one; Jayne is lavishing the same care on his penstrokes that he usually lavishes on Vera and his myriad other guns. The man oozes affection for the paper in front of him, and that is positively disturbing. And it’s not momentaneous, either; Jayne’s attitude doesn’t change in the time it takes Wash to refill the coffeemaker and wait for it to brew. He keeps on pushing the pen across the page with a focus Wash’s only seem him display when cleaning, or shooting, his weapons.
“Man of hidden depths, our doc,” Jayne mutters, closing the notebook, and Wash is pretty sure he was speaking to himself.
“All these jobs been working out so shiny lately,” says Kaylee between cherries, and she’s right. She’s almost got herself more spare parts than she knows what to do with, from all the times they’ve been actually paid properly, and has moved onto asking Mal to let her buy things she wouldn’t have even thought of mentioning, three months ago. Serenity ain’t ever run so smooth before.
“We do seem to be having an exceptional run of luck lately,” the shepherd agrees, from where he’s chopping meat to throw into a stew.
“I’m not about to deny that,” Mal says as he strolls in, sniffing the air. “How’s that soup coming along, preacher?”
The shepherd tips the meat into the boiling pot, throws in a sprig of some dried herb or another. “It’ll be ready soon.”
Kaylee pops another cherry into her mouth and rolls it around with her tongue, biting into it softly. It’s a little taste of heaven. “Want me to set the table, Shepherd?”
“Thank you, Kaylee,” he says, and she eats yet another cherry before grabbing nine plates from a cupboard. She really can’t remember the last time they had this plenty; maybe after Ariel, but that ran out quickly, followed as it was by Niska and Saffron again.
Wash comes in, Zoe with him. “Wave just in, captain. The Hardy boys’ve died... Smells heavenly in here, Shepherd - we’re never going to let you get off this boat if you keep on surprising us like this.”
“Huh,” Mal says, and Kaylee falters for a second as she’s counting the cutlery. She knows they hadn’t parted on the best of terms - the new scar on Jayne’s arm and the patched holes in the hull testify to that - last time they were in Greenleaf, but still, it ain’t fair, people dying so young.
Zoe’s also been noticing something funny ‘bout their luck for a while now, but hasn’t quite managed to put words to it until Jayne wipes out a notebook in the middle of a job getting steadily sourer by the second.
“Pay up,” he growls. “Give us the cash or your pretty name’s going in here,” he continues, far too menacing for a man armed with naught but paper as far as Zoe’s concerned. And everyone would appear to agree with her, because the hired goons that have them surrounded are staring at him mockingly, and their employer even more so, and Mal, who’d been holding it together quite well despite the circumstances, is suddenly letting worry flicker over his face, to those who know how to read him.
“What the... Jayne, I ain’t paying you to terrorize people with calligraphy. You’re here to shoot ‘em!” But Jayne’s already writing.
“Jayne,” Zoe also reminds him. But he’s looking at that ridiculous pink wristwatch he’s recently taken to wearing, and smirking. Zoe thinks he must’ve borrowed it from Kaylee, and has been trying to decide whether it makes him look ridiculous or more fearsome, although at this precise instant, it’s blatantly the former.
“Jayne,” she says again, with more urgency. “Gun.”
“Hush,” the merc replies, that baffling smirk still in place. “The pen is mightier than the gun.”
His comment only begins to make sense when, two minutes later, their latest employer drops dead right in front of them.
They’ve been arguing the matter since they got back onboard, which they really shouldn’t have been. There should’ve been no argument at all; Mal should’ve ripped the thing out of Jayne’s hands, found whoever was responsible for bringing it on the ship (and once he knows, he realises he should’ve guessed) and spaced them both for being so damned arrogant and dishonest as to kill people like that, with a pen and a bit of trickery.
But Jayne has proven surprisingly stubborn.
“Gorram it, Mal, I aint giving it back. Not to her. ‘Sides, it’s come in plenty useful and you can’t deny that,” he says, pointing to Mal’s bandaged collarbone. “Don’t reckon he would’ve stopped there.”
“Jayne,” Mal warns, his patience having long frayed well beyond what’s healthy.
“It’s not hers,” Simon reminds them for the umpteenth time, “It’s mine.”
Which does indeed remind Mal. “I’m getting to that, doctor. I do dearly want to know how someone who’s all goodly like you gets a hold of one of these... death notes here, and it’s about time you indulge me and explain that.”
Simon sighs, and Mal knows he regrets drawing attention to himself. “Ah, well... My family, we, uh...”
Mal glares, stern as can be, because this aint no laughing matter, and the boy oughta know that. Simon sighs and surrenders, but not completely, because Mal can hear traces of wryness in there. “You don’t think a family like mine gets where it did simply by luck, do you? It’s a family heirloom, I don’t know the full story. My father’s executor sent it, I don’t know how - I suspect it would have found its way to me eventually, no matter what. Captain, I really-”
“I’ll think on it,” Mal lies, grabbing the blasted thing and leaving the mess before anyone can think to stop him. He already knows what he’s gonna do.
“He’s not giving it back,” River says. “He didn’t want two assassins on his ship. One is enough,” she laughs bitterly.
“I figured as much,” Simon tells her, smoothing her hair back. Her bitterness recedes swiftly, as his fingers card through softly. She never tells him, but it’s his touch and nearness, more than the sedatives and endless smoothers that lets her sleep at night. Shattering his illusions of helpfulness would be pointless for all. “He threw it into the engine fan when we were leaving and it got shredded and flew everywhere like deadly snow but the pieces were too small for anyone to see and it melted in the heat so everyone is safe.”
“Well,” Simon says. “I’m sure dad would have been happy to hear that.”
“But he looked through it first. He knows what you did, and he was impressed, although for a second he wanted to throw you out the airlock, before he understood. But something is still bothering him.”
Simon’s smile is full of so many things, so many of them so sad, that River wants to apologise for loving him so much that she can’t stop needing him. “Our names were already there, mei mei,” he answers, although she hasn’t asked the question. “Ye ye put them there. When we were born.” He pushes her hair back one more time, kisses her forehead and wishes her a good night.
“It would’ve all worked out fine, anyhow. Vera was starting to get jealous,” she says to his retreating back, but he’s too far to hear her.
---
Mei mei - little sister
Ye ye - paternal grandfather, or so the internet tells me.
For the curious, or the confused, or those who want to know what the hell Simon was up to (because Jayne is easy enough to figure out), the rule I took most advantage of while writing this was The Death Note will not ever affect a victim whose name has been misspelled four times.