Red & Blue -- Prologue
Title: Red & Blue -- Prologue
Series Title: Red & Blue
Author: stolenfairytale
Disclaimer: They all belong to Joss and I've never attempted to fic them before. Don't sue or kill.
Rating: PG/PG-13 this chapter, probably R later.
Author's Note: Prologue is set around the infamous stabbing incident, while the rest of the fic will take place three years after the BDM.
The colours and moods and thoughts of the crew were swirling, and it made her itchy. It was hard to focus on reality with the other miinds around. She couldn't block them out very well. So instead, she tried to shift focus from person to person.
It was a brilliant plan, worthy of her genius, until she hit the Man-Called-Jayne. It was still for a moment, and she was surprised. Not silent, but still. Like the engineered woods on Osiris, meant to be dark and deep -- but unlike those woods -- created by fussy alliance charities full of socialites -- the forest of Jayne's mind was dangerous as well.
There was a movement somewhere, maybe it was her own, and then she had her own thought.
Red. He has to be in red. He'll look better in red.
She moves -- dances-- to cut him, without even thinking about it, because for once, there's only one thought in her mind. It's actually a bit of a relief.
He backhands her and she has to suppress the urge to giggle. even when she's explaining it, she doesn't know why she needs to see him in red. She doesn't understand yet. She ponders over it for awhile, and as she later sits on the cold steel of the infirmary table, telling Simon that not to fix the bruise blooming on her jaw she realises she doesn't have all the variables yet. She cannot solve the equation until she has all the variables. So she tucks it back in a corner of her mind, a deep, shadowy, dangerous corner, like the forest of Jayne's mind, so the equation will be comfortable in similar but different surroundings.
Simon asks something, and her head pops up and tilts slightly. "What?" She asks, having been too distracted to catch what he said, since his thoughts over-rode his words.
"Why don't you want me to heal the bruise?" Simon asks again, patiently, his voice strained in concern. "You don't have to punish yourself, River. You didn't know what you were doing." He wants to believe what h's saying, and River smiles at him, touching the bruise and admiring it in the reflection of the table.
"I look better in blue."
Series Title: Red & Blue
Author: stolenfairytale
Disclaimer: They all belong to Joss and I've never attempted to fic them before. Don't sue or kill.
Rating: PG/PG-13 this chapter, probably R later.
Author's Note: Prologue is set around the infamous stabbing incident, while the rest of the fic will take place three years after the BDM.
The colours and moods and thoughts of the crew were swirling, and it made her itchy. It was hard to focus on reality with the other miinds around. She couldn't block them out very well. So instead, she tried to shift focus from person to person.
It was a brilliant plan, worthy of her genius, until she hit the Man-Called-Jayne. It was still for a moment, and she was surprised. Not silent, but still. Like the engineered woods on Osiris, meant to be dark and deep -- but unlike those woods -- created by fussy alliance charities full of socialites -- the forest of Jayne's mind was dangerous as well.
There was a movement somewhere, maybe it was her own, and then she had her own thought.
Red. He has to be in red. He'll look better in red.
She moves -- dances-- to cut him, without even thinking about it, because for once, there's only one thought in her mind. It's actually a bit of a relief.
He backhands her and she has to suppress the urge to giggle. even when she's explaining it, she doesn't know why she needs to see him in red. She doesn't understand yet. She ponders over it for awhile, and as she later sits on the cold steel of the infirmary table, telling Simon that not to fix the bruise blooming on her jaw she realises she doesn't have all the variables yet. She cannot solve the equation until she has all the variables. So she tucks it back in a corner of her mind, a deep, shadowy, dangerous corner, like the forest of Jayne's mind, so the equation will be comfortable in similar but different surroundings.
Simon asks something, and her head pops up and tilts slightly. "What?" She asks, having been too distracted to catch what he said, since his thoughts over-rode his words.
"Why don't you want me to heal the bruise?" Simon asks again, patiently, his voice strained in concern. "You don't have to punish yourself, River. You didn't know what you were doing." He wants to believe what h's saying, and River smiles at him, touching the bruise and admiring it in the reflection of the table.
"I look better in blue."