Happy fandom swap, charlotteschaos!
Happy fandom swap, charlotteschaos!
Title: Secrets
Author: rosesanguina
Fandom: Firefly
Summary: River walks alone at night, but she's never alone. River-centric, pairings implied, spoilers for BDM.
Rating: PG-13/R
She watches.
She always watches, eyes-wide seeing what they don't want her to see don't want anyone to see because it's Secret but there are no secrets from her, not anymore, hidden-not-hidden behind faces that speak and eyes that shout shout make-it-stop make her cover her ears to block them out but she can never close her eyes. No sleep, no rest, only images floating like fireflies in the black nothingness of space.
Mind is quiet now, quiet and still, and Miranda sleeps at last curled up tight in the minds of everyone else. So often she steals others' thoughts and makes them her own but they're not her own and she shouldn't have to carry them but she doesn't know how to stop. She sees, and she thinks, and they're there in her head just like that burrowed deep and twisted up and not hers. Can't sleep, can't hide from them, because they come fast and thick and jolt her awake screaming get them out, so she walks, silent-feet and seeing-eyes and at least like this she can see what she chooses and choose what she sees.
And she sees.
Fingers trace lips and down to throat and clench there frustrated and alone and sad. Feelings dizzy, struggling, trapped wings beating against stone fortress, stronger and weaker until they clench into fists and are driven back. She remembers Before, remembers laughter and want in place of splintering ice, remembers his hands trailing down her back, how it felt, to watch them together, to feel them together, hips-straddle and lips-meet and move-arch-moan as one thing, one being, together-forever til-death-do-us-part. Til Death. But which one of them is truly dead?
Palm against metal, not cold but warm, alive, fingers trailing along door, brushing against Z-o-- and stopping as she lets her hand drop, moving onward, floors vibrating beneath her feet and walls whispering secrets into the dark vastness of space. She and Serenity were one once, or so she said, but they're always one, always understanding each other because they always see everything, every movement, every thought, and they speak in tongues, split-twisted words, and listen or you will not comprehend, never comprehend. They are one and the same, broken and remade through love, stronger than they look, and their hearts are not things but people, voices, souls swallowed deep inside and keeping them safe from the blackness, from being alone.
Not-alone-now, she thinks, strength-meets-strength and finds peace at last. She has always wandered, and so has he, nights alone and thoughtful, gun-worn hands brushing metal with love, because he feels safe here, part of his ship and his ship part of him and tangled tied tight with history and understanding. She has seen him walk alone, face blank until he thinks no one is seeing, but she has always seen, how he goes away to finally let himself feel, no longer captain but man, vulnerable only when the hard strength of metal can soothe him. And now he is soothed-not-soothed by the same thing, same person, hard-like-metal and simple-strong, and they understand each other, their places, the way they fit, his command over his wandering loyalty, and his loud voice and big hands quieting the raging turmoil of battles past playing over-and-over across his eyelids and battering away at the hidden depths of his mind.
One complicated, the other not, but together they are whole, ravaged minds and bodies coming together, moving-arching-twisting-moaning and they can share with each other what they can't with anyone else because they trust, each laid out for the other to see, all clear-bare-naked like them, tangled-limbs tangled-tongues and she sees, and understands, even if the others do not. Because she sees them where the others do not, sees where they are broken, sees where they heal each other, fitting together like jagged-edges-made-whole, and she smiles, they both smile, and fingers and metal touch-meet-kiss as she moves on moves past leaves them together-alone.
She sways, eyes-close and hands-touch, smooth skin-against-skin and tangle of long hair. She knows the one, has seen her mouth-open and flesh-bare, like ribbons wound tightly around what she loves most, bare feet pitter-patter on metal like a caress, and she loves to run her fingers protective-possessive over heartthrob of engine like a mother quieting her child. She touches now, not-mother not-protector but protected and loved and held, graceful fingers through thick hair and perfumed cheek against wind-roughened and painted lips against nerve-bitten, the one who knows how and the one who knows why pressed curled curved together and themselves away from the eyes of those who make them other.
Eyelids flicker and breath gasps as she feels, feels her, feels them, tongue-slick and fingers-firm, delicate-strong against breasts and hips and thighs, understanding, knowing, no secrets hidden away and no questions to ask that are not answered in the knowing caress of mouths. The teacher and the student, and here they are one and the same, because they both teach, they both know, and together they are comfort-companion-complete, the language of woman as she rests her head upon her breast and sighs.
Fingers untangle from her skirt as Serenity gives a quiet murmur, urging her on, best-foot-forward and one-in-front-of-the-other. Never sleeps, never stops seeing, silent and strong as she slices through the dark and comes out gleaming on the other side. She is whole now, completion found within her heart, connection and comprehension and purpose-realised. She knows where she belongs.
And as she slips shadow-soft between sheets, breath warm and limbs heavy and familiar and protective and present, she turns to see, habit, even though she does not need to. Because she always sees, inside her mind and inside her heart, and she understands her place amidst the cosmos.
"River?"
She smiles, whisper-gentle and blood-warm against skin that smells like home. Completion and love, and she (and she) moves ever-forward, seeing, understanding, heart-whole and at last at peace.
"I'm all right, Simon. Go back to sleep."
Title: Secrets
Author: rosesanguina
Fandom: Firefly
Summary: River walks alone at night, but she's never alone. River-centric, pairings implied, spoilers for BDM.
Rating: PG-13/R
She watches.
She always watches, eyes-wide seeing what they don't want her to see don't want anyone to see because it's Secret but there are no secrets from her, not anymore, hidden-not-hidden behind faces that speak and eyes that shout shout make-it-stop make her cover her ears to block them out but she can never close her eyes. No sleep, no rest, only images floating like fireflies in the black nothingness of space.
Mind is quiet now, quiet and still, and Miranda sleeps at last curled up tight in the minds of everyone else. So often she steals others' thoughts and makes them her own but they're not her own and she shouldn't have to carry them but she doesn't know how to stop. She sees, and she thinks, and they're there in her head just like that burrowed deep and twisted up and not hers. Can't sleep, can't hide from them, because they come fast and thick and jolt her awake screaming get them out, so she walks, silent-feet and seeing-eyes and at least like this she can see what she chooses and choose what she sees.
And she sees.
Fingers trace lips and down to throat and clench there frustrated and alone and sad. Feelings dizzy, struggling, trapped wings beating against stone fortress, stronger and weaker until they clench into fists and are driven back. She remembers Before, remembers laughter and want in place of splintering ice, remembers his hands trailing down her back, how it felt, to watch them together, to feel them together, hips-straddle and lips-meet and move-arch-moan as one thing, one being, together-forever til-death-do-us-part. Til Death. But which one of them is truly dead?
Palm against metal, not cold but warm, alive, fingers trailing along door, brushing against Z-o-- and stopping as she lets her hand drop, moving onward, floors vibrating beneath her feet and walls whispering secrets into the dark vastness of space. She and Serenity were one once, or so she said, but they're always one, always understanding each other because they always see everything, every movement, every thought, and they speak in tongues, split-twisted words, and listen or you will not comprehend, never comprehend. They are one and the same, broken and remade through love, stronger than they look, and their hearts are not things but people, voices, souls swallowed deep inside and keeping them safe from the blackness, from being alone.
Not-alone-now, she thinks, strength-meets-strength and finds peace at last. She has always wandered, and so has he, nights alone and thoughtful, gun-worn hands brushing metal with love, because he feels safe here, part of his ship and his ship part of him and tangled tied tight with history and understanding. She has seen him walk alone, face blank until he thinks no one is seeing, but she has always seen, how he goes away to finally let himself feel, no longer captain but man, vulnerable only when the hard strength of metal can soothe him. And now he is soothed-not-soothed by the same thing, same person, hard-like-metal and simple-strong, and they understand each other, their places, the way they fit, his command over his wandering loyalty, and his loud voice and big hands quieting the raging turmoil of battles past playing over-and-over across his eyelids and battering away at the hidden depths of his mind.
One complicated, the other not, but together they are whole, ravaged minds and bodies coming together, moving-arching-twisting-moaning and they can share with each other what they can't with anyone else because they trust, each laid out for the other to see, all clear-bare-naked like them, tangled-limbs tangled-tongues and she sees, and understands, even if the others do not. Because she sees them where the others do not, sees where they are broken, sees where they heal each other, fitting together like jagged-edges-made-whole, and she smiles, they both smile, and fingers and metal touch-meet-kiss as she moves on moves past leaves them together-alone.
She sways, eyes-close and hands-touch, smooth skin-against-skin and tangle of long hair. She knows the one, has seen her mouth-open and flesh-bare, like ribbons wound tightly around what she loves most, bare feet pitter-patter on metal like a caress, and she loves to run her fingers protective-possessive over heartthrob of engine like a mother quieting her child. She touches now, not-mother not-protector but protected and loved and held, graceful fingers through thick hair and perfumed cheek against wind-roughened and painted lips against nerve-bitten, the one who knows how and the one who knows why pressed curled curved together and themselves away from the eyes of those who make them other.
Eyelids flicker and breath gasps as she feels, feels her, feels them, tongue-slick and fingers-firm, delicate-strong against breasts and hips and thighs, understanding, knowing, no secrets hidden away and no questions to ask that are not answered in the knowing caress of mouths. The teacher and the student, and here they are one and the same, because they both teach, they both know, and together they are comfort-companion-complete, the language of woman as she rests her head upon her breast and sighs.
Fingers untangle from her skirt as Serenity gives a quiet murmur, urging her on, best-foot-forward and one-in-front-of-the-other. Never sleeps, never stops seeing, silent and strong as she slices through the dark and comes out gleaming on the other side. She is whole now, completion found within her heart, connection and comprehension and purpose-realised. She knows where she belongs.
And as she slips shadow-soft between sheets, breath warm and limbs heavy and familiar and protective and present, she turns to see, habit, even though she does not need to. Because she always sees, inside her mind and inside her heart, and she understands her place amidst the cosmos.
"River?"
She smiles, whisper-gentle and blood-warm against skin that smells like home. Completion and love, and she (and she) moves ever-forward, seeing, understanding, heart-whole and at last at peace.
"I'm all right, Simon. Go back to sleep."