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Title: Burn the Flag
Author: seraphcelene
Email: seraphcelene at yahoo dot com
A/N: post-Serenity (movie); inspired by the Hair Challenge at Firefly Friday. Grammar and all other mistakes are mine.
Rating: R for themes
Summary: This is about trust.
“There's too much blood, sir. I can't see.“
“What's to see?”
“Jayne.”
Simon?
What do you say about the color of his hair or the sweetness of his mouth? The easy plunge and withdraw, and you with your hand on his chest. You bit his ear, a gentle tug between your teeth, and he fell.
They come in pairs, two by two, completely ridiculous and totally illogical, biblical. Yet there it is all the same and for less than an instant it had made sense. Metaphor and reality collided, resonated and struck straight through to your heart and out the other side of it. Your heart is a muscle, a machine, part of an engine. Serenity has a heart (impossibly, even Jubal recognized that) and so does your body, a something to be broken, pierced by Cupid's arrow like St. Stephen on the cross.
It makes sense in pairs, two by two. You and Simon are a pair, a matched set like Aunt Mem's antique Salt and Pepper shakers, Silver and Gold, Fear and Love. Inara and Kaylee. Two sets of candy colored lips sugar sweet and honeyed. Their eyes whisper your name, secret, affectionate: meimei, bao bai.
Dark eyes, bright eyes --
"Simon! Open your eyes, boy. You hear me. Open your eyes!"
Simon?
The grate is cold beneath your feet, weft and webbed and biting. It anchors you to this day and this hour, this moment. Time is heavy on your ankles like the manacles Mal keeps in the supply closet, bruising and biting and you focus on the sound of your heart beating and your lungs breathing and you ignore the eightsix other beating hearts and sixteentwelve lungs. Meds help and you count the seconds, ticks on the clock, as the acid burn in your blood wears thin and away and you know the exact moment that Simon will come for you, syringe in hand --
Roll up your sleeve, meimei.
But he does it for you every time as if your hands won'tcan't work out the problem. Your fingers fighting through cloth and he grabs them from one end, guiding them through the opening in your sweater. He pushes back, pushes up bloodagainstyourteeth until the material bunches and you follow the spidery blue of your veins down to the pulse in your elbow, to your wrist.
“Simon?”
He shushes you and slides it in. “It’s okay. Trust me.”
Simon?
Above your head, you wave your arms, back and forth, sometimes near your ears, shoulders, never below your waist except at night alone in your bunk when no one can see your fingers wiggle and your toes curl.
Jayne hit you so hard and while you weren't looking. Jayne hits girls is what you say around the salty tang of blood in your mouth and you raise your arms.
Arms like flowers in the breeze, in the storm. Your girl shape is loose and loosened from the Earth, from Serenity's deck, and there are five extra hours from the time you go to bed and the time that Simon wakes. You walk with your feet on the deck, your body empty except for you and everything is so clear, the sound of dying stars and imploding universes sharp as lobster screams in a pot of boiling water.
A gurgle of sound full up with love and the meaning of your name floats up from the deck, near your feet, and then Zoë shoves you away.
Inara catches you, brushes your hair for you.
You count one hundred strokes, fifty in Chinese and fifty in Russian. You offer to count another hundred, this time in Latin and French, and she says No, my arms are tired. Next time, meimei. Next time. But next time you still only count to her in Chinese and Russian.
A week ago Mal came and watched you, watched Inara's arms and the black lacquered brush handle and thought of Kaylee and that one time with the space monkeys which makes about as much sense as the ark and pairs, two by two. Hands are not blue except when they are dead, but these are not dead hands. They reach and grab and pinch and strike and there it is, all the same and ...
There are no such things as space monkeys, are there? Simon?
His name is on your lips when you dream of yourself in sandals and yards of roughest cotton. Your hair tangles around your shoulders, your nipples peaking through the strands, and someone lays a crown of thorns on your head. Blood drips into your eyes and you can't not see who curses your name. It is, as always, clearer than day. You always hear what they don't say.
Meimei. Bao bai. Fucking Bug Nuts Crazy. Poor Kid. Trouble.
Simon?
Kaylee whispers your name, his name. It's the same in the end, isn't it? The flavor of Simon between you until you kiss it away to find Kaylee underneath.
She confuses, is confused, until she opens her eyes and sees you leaning over her. The deck is cold beneath your feet and you climb into bed while she stutters and rubs away your taste.
Not supposed to be here. Can't. River, don't. No.
You curl up anyway, your back to her, facing the wall and breathe easy for just a moment. Simon buzzes less briskly here, in your head, at night. At least for awhile, and then Kaylee sounds like Simon, thinks of Simon and the flavor is wrong but it's still so insistent and unnerving that you end up curled on the bridge in Wash's chair.
He finds you in the morning, pats your shoulder and smiles at you: Simon is looking for you. Takes your arm and guides you downstairs gently, concerned. It's cold up there on the bridge at night with just the stars for company and he tells you how many times he's fallen asleep staring out into the nothing so full that it's about to pop with all the people, plants and stars littering the 'verse.
You smile back and nod and pray that the fear in his eyes isn't real and he steps back when you reach for him and you feel your smile crack and falter.
Simon?
Wash shakes his head and takes another step back. Fades into the wall, but for a moment he really was there.
Inara wraps her arms around your shoulders, holds you, by the wrists. Arms swaying in the breeze, above the waist.
Inara pulls the blankets back when you steal into her shuttle.
“It's alright, meimei,” she whispers, against your hair and rubs your back. She cuddles around you and it's so quiet here that you are yourself for the first time in three years. You are a real girl and not just the idea of one. Your name is River and your brother is Simon and your fingers and toes belong to you. You like ballet and the cello. Once you wanted to learn to play it, but mother said the violin was more suitable so you mastered that instead.
You learned all of the old folk songs of Earth-That-Was and played them, fiddle music, for Simon when he came home from medical school. Songs about the wind and the rain and a girl named Barbara Allen.
You curl into Inara who brushes your hair one hundred strokes in Chinese and Russian and inhale the sweetness of her breath and strain for the thoughts she doesn't have even in her sleep. Your lips brush hers and your eyes close easily, as if this all weren’t just pretend.
But maybe these are not really her lips, now, pressed against your forehead, burning away the cobwebs. Jubal is so much in your head these days, the snap of his teeth, and his laughter. Somehow you wouldn’t be surprised if the hands cupping your face were his.
Inara's cool hands are manacled around your wrists, her arms around your shoulders. The moments tick by.
Cap'n. He's gone. There was nothing...
Zoe's horrified eyes look straight through you. "There was too much blood. I couldn't see."
Mal never looks at you, staring at the floor, at the mess, at the BODY and suddenly it has a face and you shudder in Inara's gentle grasp. Flinch at Kaylee's muffled sobs escaping through the Shepard's shoulder. But he is about as real as Wash, you realize.
Jayne with his angry jaw and hitting hands stands over you and Inara. A wail rises thin and piercing from your chest.
Everything is so loud and sharp and clear, the screaming verse and the silent deck, the gurgle of blood in Simon's throat. Stars are dying.
That easy plunge and withdraw, and you with your hand on his chest. You bit his ear, a gentle tug between your teeth, and he fell.
Simon?
It makes about as much sense as space monkeys, two by two. Hands are not blue except when they are dead, and still they push and press and steal.
You look at Inara's elegant hands around your wrists, and for a moment it makes sense. Understanding resonates and strikes straight through to your heart and out the other side. Your heart is a muscle, a machine, part of an engine. A something to be broken, burned like Simon on the cross.
Two by two, hands of blue. They reach and grab and pinch and strike and there it is, all the same. Only it isn't because your hands are red.
“What’s to see,” Jayne growls from above you. “She slit his gorram throat.”
Author: seraphcelene
Email: seraphcelene at yahoo dot com
A/N: post-Serenity (movie); inspired by the Hair Challenge at Firefly Friday. Grammar and all other mistakes are mine.
Rating: R for themes
Summary: This is about trust.
“There's too much blood, sir. I can't see.“
“What's to see?”
“Jayne.”
Simon?
What do you say about the color of his hair or the sweetness of his mouth? The easy plunge and withdraw, and you with your hand on his chest. You bit his ear, a gentle tug between your teeth, and he fell.
They come in pairs, two by two, completely ridiculous and totally illogical, biblical. Yet there it is all the same and for less than an instant it had made sense. Metaphor and reality collided, resonated and struck straight through to your heart and out the other side of it. Your heart is a muscle, a machine, part of an engine. Serenity has a heart (impossibly, even Jubal recognized that) and so does your body, a something to be broken, pierced by Cupid's arrow like St. Stephen on the cross.
It makes sense in pairs, two by two. You and Simon are a pair, a matched set like Aunt Mem's antique Salt and Pepper shakers, Silver and Gold, Fear and Love. Inara and Kaylee. Two sets of candy colored lips sugar sweet and honeyed. Their eyes whisper your name, secret, affectionate: meimei, bao bai.
Dark eyes, bright eyes --
"Simon! Open your eyes, boy. You hear me. Open your eyes!"
Simon?
The grate is cold beneath your feet, weft and webbed and biting. It anchors you to this day and this hour, this moment. Time is heavy on your ankles like the manacles Mal keeps in the supply closet, bruising and biting and you focus on the sound of your heart beating and your lungs breathing and you ignore the eightsix other beating hearts and sixteentwelve lungs. Meds help and you count the seconds, ticks on the clock, as the acid burn in your blood wears thin and away and you know the exact moment that Simon will come for you, syringe in hand --
Roll up your sleeve, meimei.
But he does it for you every time as if your hands won'tcan't work out the problem. Your fingers fighting through cloth and he grabs them from one end, guiding them through the opening in your sweater. He pushes back, pushes up bloodagainstyourteeth until the material bunches and you follow the spidery blue of your veins down to the pulse in your elbow, to your wrist.
“Simon?”
He shushes you and slides it in. “It’s okay. Trust me.”
Simon?
Above your head, you wave your arms, back and forth, sometimes near your ears, shoulders, never below your waist except at night alone in your bunk when no one can see your fingers wiggle and your toes curl.
Jayne hit you so hard and while you weren't looking. Jayne hits girls is what you say around the salty tang of blood in your mouth and you raise your arms.
Arms like flowers in the breeze, in the storm. Your girl shape is loose and loosened from the Earth, from Serenity's deck, and there are five extra hours from the time you go to bed and the time that Simon wakes. You walk with your feet on the deck, your body empty except for you and everything is so clear, the sound of dying stars and imploding universes sharp as lobster screams in a pot of boiling water.
A gurgle of sound full up with love and the meaning of your name floats up from the deck, near your feet, and then Zoë shoves you away.
Inara catches you, brushes your hair for you.
You count one hundred strokes, fifty in Chinese and fifty in Russian. You offer to count another hundred, this time in Latin and French, and she says No, my arms are tired. Next time, meimei. Next time. But next time you still only count to her in Chinese and Russian.
A week ago Mal came and watched you, watched Inara's arms and the black lacquered brush handle and thought of Kaylee and that one time with the space monkeys which makes about as much sense as the ark and pairs, two by two. Hands are not blue except when they are dead, but these are not dead hands. They reach and grab and pinch and strike and there it is, all the same and ...
There are no such things as space monkeys, are there? Simon?
His name is on your lips when you dream of yourself in sandals and yards of roughest cotton. Your hair tangles around your shoulders, your nipples peaking through the strands, and someone lays a crown of thorns on your head. Blood drips into your eyes and you can't not see who curses your name. It is, as always, clearer than day. You always hear what they don't say.
Meimei. Bao bai. Fucking Bug Nuts Crazy. Poor Kid. Trouble.
Simon?
Kaylee whispers your name, his name. It's the same in the end, isn't it? The flavor of Simon between you until you kiss it away to find Kaylee underneath.
She confuses, is confused, until she opens her eyes and sees you leaning over her. The deck is cold beneath your feet and you climb into bed while she stutters and rubs away your taste.
Not supposed to be here. Can't. River, don't. No.
You curl up anyway, your back to her, facing the wall and breathe easy for just a moment. Simon buzzes less briskly here, in your head, at night. At least for awhile, and then Kaylee sounds like Simon, thinks of Simon and the flavor is wrong but it's still so insistent and unnerving that you end up curled on the bridge in Wash's chair.
He finds you in the morning, pats your shoulder and smiles at you: Simon is looking for you. Takes your arm and guides you downstairs gently, concerned. It's cold up there on the bridge at night with just the stars for company and he tells you how many times he's fallen asleep staring out into the nothing so full that it's about to pop with all the people, plants and stars littering the 'verse.
You smile back and nod and pray that the fear in his eyes isn't real and he steps back when you reach for him and you feel your smile crack and falter.
Simon?
Wash shakes his head and takes another step back. Fades into the wall, but for a moment he really was there.
Inara wraps her arms around your shoulders, holds you, by the wrists. Arms swaying in the breeze, above the waist.
Inara pulls the blankets back when you steal into her shuttle.
“It's alright, meimei,” she whispers, against your hair and rubs your back. She cuddles around you and it's so quiet here that you are yourself for the first time in three years. You are a real girl and not just the idea of one. Your name is River and your brother is Simon and your fingers and toes belong to you. You like ballet and the cello. Once you wanted to learn to play it, but mother said the violin was more suitable so you mastered that instead.
You learned all of the old folk songs of Earth-That-Was and played them, fiddle music, for Simon when he came home from medical school. Songs about the wind and the rain and a girl named Barbara Allen.
You curl into Inara who brushes your hair one hundred strokes in Chinese and Russian and inhale the sweetness of her breath and strain for the thoughts she doesn't have even in her sleep. Your lips brush hers and your eyes close easily, as if this all weren’t just pretend.
But maybe these are not really her lips, now, pressed against your forehead, burning away the cobwebs. Jubal is so much in your head these days, the snap of his teeth, and his laughter. Somehow you wouldn’t be surprised if the hands cupping your face were his.
Inara's cool hands are manacled around your wrists, her arms around your shoulders. The moments tick by.
Cap'n. He's gone. There was nothing...
Zoe's horrified eyes look straight through you. "There was too much blood. I couldn't see."
Mal never looks at you, staring at the floor, at the mess, at the BODY and suddenly it has a face and you shudder in Inara's gentle grasp. Flinch at Kaylee's muffled sobs escaping through the Shepard's shoulder. But he is about as real as Wash, you realize.
Jayne with his angry jaw and hitting hands stands over you and Inara. A wail rises thin and piercing from your chest.
Everything is so loud and sharp and clear, the screaming verse and the silent deck, the gurgle of blood in Simon's throat. Stars are dying.
That easy plunge and withdraw, and you with your hand on his chest. You bit his ear, a gentle tug between your teeth, and he fell.
Simon?
It makes about as much sense as space monkeys, two by two. Hands are not blue except when they are dead, and still they push and press and steal.
You look at Inara's elegant hands around your wrists, and for a moment it makes sense. Understanding resonates and strikes straight through to your heart and out the other side. Your heart is a muscle, a machine, part of an engine. A something to be broken, burned like Simon on the cross.
Two by two, hands of blue. They reach and grab and pinch and strike and there it is, all the same. Only it isn't because your hands are red.
“What’s to see,” Jayne growls from above you. “She slit his gorram throat.”
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 06:53 pm (UTC)From:Vague thoughts:
So if River and Simon are a matched pair, two by two, does she destroy him because in extreme madness she recognizes he is what anchors her to reality, and she cannot break free without destroying that part of herself? ... Does she wish to become the ship, become one with Serenity, or one with the universe, and Simon, her connection to Simon, maintains that tenuous strand of sanity that blocks her complete freedom, since she feels too much a part of him as well. ... And the closeness is deep enough to be vaguely incestuous, giving it even more of a hold that in her madness she would turn against in the spur of a moment.
(This is all me being an idiot, so don't tell on me. My thoughts could go in a lot of directions with your stories, because one of the wonderful things about them is the ambiguity married with intensity ... they have tremendous emotional impact, but there are so many ways to interpret the meaning behind them. Mostly I don't want to interpret, and just let the words and the feelings wash over me.)