three Firefly drabbles
"If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out"
[Kaylee/Inara. PG. If I were a bell (sing with you, sing with you) For likeadeuce]
Inara's silent. They're falling through the black to homeworld light, and Kaylee's lover's keeping secrets.
"What's wrong? Can I fix it?" Not that she's got half Inara's skill at mending girlfolk, but she's learned habits that can cheer Inara some nights.
"Nothing, Kaylee. Nothing's wrong."
Eyebrow up and hands on hips, come now, ma'am, don't tell me lies when we've flown so far.
Inara sighs as gracefully as she smiles. "I suppose I'm feeling the bitterness of year's end. Sometimes -- memories --"
"But next year."
"Next year?" Yes, Kaylee, what *are* you crazying over?
"We'll sing in it together."
"And If You Want to Be Free, Be Free"
[Simon/River. PG-13. If I were a knight (sing by you, sing by you). For cheshire23]
River (sister), lovely, traces a smile onto Simon's cheeks. "Better, brother?"
He swallows back the retort and also the lingering praise that he would, some worse, more tempting, blustering night, brush against her lips and mind to win her back from whatever's in her blackness. But tonight (or any night, but tonight seems more -- portentious) he can't reduce her smile to sheer hunger, can't name her madness any way that would allow the liberty --
"Simon! You're wandering."
He looks at her sideways, can't see into her brain. She's the best woman he knows.
"And don't change the subject."
"A Million Ways to Be"
[River/Illyria. PG. Death. If I were a madman (sing for you, sing for you.) For yhlee]
Illyria rises this final time in the hull of a girl too broken to salvage, an unusably tiny body, a destroyed world, its name unwritten in the Book of the Dead. Illyria lifts the girl's hands high above her head and uses them to crush understanding into the weak bodies of the girl's mourners. They whisper words, too gifted, before her time, only the good that Illyria recognizes. They are Fred words. Human words.
Illyria recedes to the depths of the shell, where severed connections still throb with life. "You're me now," River says.
"Yes."
"You'll sing for me, then."
... and the rest. In 2008. [actually posted in 2007; proper headers added in '08. We take what we can get.]
[Kaylee/Inara. PG. If I were a bell (sing with you, sing with you) For likeadeuce]
Inara's silent. They're falling through the black to homeworld light, and Kaylee's lover's keeping secrets.
"What's wrong? Can I fix it?" Not that she's got half Inara's skill at mending girlfolk, but she's learned habits that can cheer Inara some nights.
"Nothing, Kaylee. Nothing's wrong."
Eyebrow up and hands on hips, come now, ma'am, don't tell me lies when we've flown so far.
Inara sighs as gracefully as she smiles. "I suppose I'm feeling the bitterness of year's end. Sometimes -- memories --"
"But next year."
"Next year?" Yes, Kaylee, what *are* you crazying over?
"We'll sing in it together."
"And If You Want to Be Free, Be Free"
[Simon/River. PG-13. If I were a knight (sing by you, sing by you). For cheshire23]
River (sister), lovely, traces a smile onto Simon's cheeks. "Better, brother?"
He swallows back the retort and also the lingering praise that he would, some worse, more tempting, blustering night, brush against her lips and mind to win her back from whatever's in her blackness. But tonight (or any night, but tonight seems more -- portentious) he can't reduce her smile to sheer hunger, can't name her madness any way that would allow the liberty --
"Simon! You're wandering."
He looks at her sideways, can't see into her brain. She's the best woman he knows.
"And don't change the subject."
"A Million Ways to Be"
[River/Illyria. PG. Death. If I were a madman (sing for you, sing for you.) For yhlee]
Illyria rises this final time in the hull of a girl too broken to salvage, an unusably tiny body, a destroyed world, its name unwritten in the Book of the Dead. Illyria lifts the girl's hands high above her head and uses them to crush understanding into the weak bodies of the girl's mourners. They whisper words, too gifted, before her time, only the good that Illyria recognizes. They are Fred words. Human words.
Illyria recedes to the depths of the shell, where severed connections still throb with life. "You're me now," River says.
"Yes."
"You'll sing for me, then."
... and the rest. In 2008. [actually posted in 2007; proper headers added in '08. We take what we can get.]