RENT/FIREFLY: Sort of Life
Title: Sort of Life
Characters/Pairing: Maureen and River (mention of Roger/Maureen, Roger/April)
Word Count: 378
Rating: G
Summary: A strange girl has an unsettling question for Maureen.
Notes: Written for soscaredtolove for a meme-thing. Maureen's from Here On In verse.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rent or Firefly, nor any of the characters from either.
Maureen hadn't been paying attention to anyone else in the coffee shop, not until out of absolutely nowhere this girl sat down at her table and watched her with dark, luminous eyes, the kind of eyes that saw far more than they ever had any right to. Maureen didn't like people looking at her like that, and she frowned at the girl over her coffee, hands pressed to the sides of her paper coffee cup to warm them because the heating in this place didn't quite work all the time. For a moment she wondered if she ought to either say hello or ask what the girl was doing there, but she didn't have to, because the girl spoke with perfect, steady calm and set aside any need for Maureen to greet her or ask her initial question.
"He's mourning you, you know," the girl said, leaning in earnestly, and her long dark hair fell in her face, shading her eyes in a way that made her seem unreal and otherworldly. "Not her."
Maureen stared at her, disbelieving, because as irrational as it was, there was only one "he" she could think of, and somehow she had no doubt just who the girl was referring to. She pressed her lips together and shifted back in her chair, leaning away from the girl as if putting a little distance between them would make this situation less strange, less baffling. "No one's mourning me," she said, trying to sound sardonic and calm, but it only came out soft and a little lost. "I haven't died."
"You haven't?" the girl asked, and sounded genuinely surprised. But when Maureen didn't answer her, she simply pushed herself away from the table, stood and turned on her heel and walked away out the door, leaving Maureen staring after her, the girl with long black hair and the incongruous combination of a purple dress and combat boots and eyes that saw too much, and Maureen supposed she ought to be wondering where the girl had come from, what she was talking about, or shouldn't she be cold in this weather, dressed like that, but what she was thinking, really, was that come to think of it she didn't feel all that alive after all.
Characters/Pairing: Maureen and River (mention of Roger/Maureen, Roger/April)
Word Count: 378
Rating: G
Summary: A strange girl has an unsettling question for Maureen.
Notes: Written for soscaredtolove for a meme-thing. Maureen's from Here On In verse.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rent or Firefly, nor any of the characters from either.
Maureen hadn't been paying attention to anyone else in the coffee shop, not until out of absolutely nowhere this girl sat down at her table and watched her with dark, luminous eyes, the kind of eyes that saw far more than they ever had any right to. Maureen didn't like people looking at her like that, and she frowned at the girl over her coffee, hands pressed to the sides of her paper coffee cup to warm them because the heating in this place didn't quite work all the time. For a moment she wondered if she ought to either say hello or ask what the girl was doing there, but she didn't have to, because the girl spoke with perfect, steady calm and set aside any need for Maureen to greet her or ask her initial question.
"He's mourning you, you know," the girl said, leaning in earnestly, and her long dark hair fell in her face, shading her eyes in a way that made her seem unreal and otherworldly. "Not her."
Maureen stared at her, disbelieving, because as irrational as it was, there was only one "he" she could think of, and somehow she had no doubt just who the girl was referring to. She pressed her lips together and shifted back in her chair, leaning away from the girl as if putting a little distance between them would make this situation less strange, less baffling. "No one's mourning me," she said, trying to sound sardonic and calm, but it only came out soft and a little lost. "I haven't died."
"You haven't?" the girl asked, and sounded genuinely surprised. But when Maureen didn't answer her, she simply pushed herself away from the table, stood and turned on her heel and walked away out the door, leaving Maureen staring after her, the girl with long black hair and the incongruous combination of a purple dress and combat boots and eyes that saw too much, and Maureen supposed she ought to be wondering where the girl had come from, what she was talking about, or shouldn't she be cold in this weather, dressed like that, but what she was thinking, really, was that come to think of it she didn't feel all that alive after all.