Firefly: Incense (The Honey Remix)
Original Fic: Incense, by sophinisba
Remix: Incense (The Honey Remix) [Inara/Kaylee, 300 Words, Rated PG-13], by emmademarais
Once the shuttle's on autopilot it's time for damage control.
Kaylee's staring, seeing nothing, and it's bad - very bad.
Walking past Book, deep in prayer, Inara takes control of Kaylee, guiding her to her chambers. Ignoring Jayne's leer, she closes and locks the door behind them.
"Kaylee, honey..." It doesn't matter what she says; Kaylee hears her voice, not her words. Companions are trained for this: to use the timbre of voice to soothe. She skips the ceremony of tea - Kaylee's beyond appreciating it - and presses a fragrant cup into her hands.
If she had more time she'd have carefully married the incense scent to the tea blend, but impending death tends to alter one's priorities.
The tea only helps a little; she needs something stronger. Inara opens a drawer in her chest of supplies and pulls out a flavor disk: strawberry. Kaylee's favorite.
Tea put aside, she gets Kaylee's face tilted up and is startled into an abrupt halt. The gaze on her wide innocent face is so open, so trusting... But there's also a hint of the real girl in there, the real woman: one begging for Inara to make it all go away, if only for a while.
This she was definitely trained for.
She slips the disk onto her own tongue and it dissolves instantly. She lowers her mouth to Kaylee's and enters, a burst of berries exploding on impact.
She doesn't respond immediately, but Kaylee does: first with lips, then tongue, then hands, then asking with her whole body for Inara to touch, feel, bring her back to life.
*
Months later, after one of their supply stops, Inara finds a tiny box outside her door.
Strawberries from Kaylee.
They're not payment, but she says you're welcome by sharing them.
Remix: Incense (The Honey Remix) [Inara/Kaylee, 300 Words, Rated PG-13], by emmademarais
Once the shuttle's on autopilot it's time for damage control.
Kaylee's staring, seeing nothing, and it's bad - very bad.
Walking past Book, deep in prayer, Inara takes control of Kaylee, guiding her to her chambers. Ignoring Jayne's leer, she closes and locks the door behind them.
"Kaylee, honey..." It doesn't matter what she says; Kaylee hears her voice, not her words. Companions are trained for this: to use the timbre of voice to soothe. She skips the ceremony of tea - Kaylee's beyond appreciating it - and presses a fragrant cup into her hands.
If she had more time she'd have carefully married the incense scent to the tea blend, but impending death tends to alter one's priorities.
The tea only helps a little; she needs something stronger. Inara opens a drawer in her chest of supplies and pulls out a flavor disk: strawberry. Kaylee's favorite.
Tea put aside, she gets Kaylee's face tilted up and is startled into an abrupt halt. The gaze on her wide innocent face is so open, so trusting... But there's also a hint of the real girl in there, the real woman: one begging for Inara to make it all go away, if only for a while.
This she was definitely trained for.
She slips the disk onto her own tongue and it dissolves instantly. She lowers her mouth to Kaylee's and enters, a burst of berries exploding on impact.
She doesn't respond immediately, but Kaylee does: first with lips, then tongue, then hands, then asking with her whole body for Inara to touch, feel, bring her back to life.
*
Months later, after one of their supply stops, Inara finds a tiny box outside her door.
Strawberries from Kaylee.
They're not payment, but she says you're welcome by sharing them.