Becoming Sleepers (12/14)
Title: Four (Fire and Smoke) (12/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Four (Fire and Smoke) (12/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers.
With a grunt River dug her heels into the ground and threw all her weight into shoving one of the extremely heavy boxes in the Reaver’s mind. Soon, the man - Jayne, she reminded herself- would regain ownership of the mind and body, but for now it still belonged to the Reaver. She sighed and took a moment to catch her breath, as it turns out mental exercise was just as exhausting as physical labor. She used the sliver of quiet time to reflect on the last hour.
The man had taken the name Jayne as his own, though River wasn’t entirely sure that it belonged to him. He had sobbed out the name during his apology for the Reaver’s deeds which seemed to indicate that it more likely belonged to his wife or his son, though she couldn’t be certain. She could here his mournful cry echo in her head, “Oh, God, Jayne. What have I done?” Given his emotional state he very well have been berating himself, talking in the third person as she sometimes did to distance herself from her experiences. She wasn’t sure if knowing the original owner of the name even mattered any more. It was his now.
After the naming they had sat and discussed their next course of action. While he was no longer trapped inside the Reaver and could control his own body for the time being they both knew that there was no way he was strong enough to maintain that restraint over the monstrous part of him that still took up most of his mind. Strangely, it had been Jayne, himself, not River, who had come up with the solution to their problem. If the Reaver parts couldn’t be controlled, they had to be destroyed.
She wasn’t sure how he would react while she was altering the inner workings of his brain, so he had put him back to sleep to get the job done by herself. Though, now she was wishing she had kept him awake long enough to help her move all the boxes first. She had started off with gathering together the boxes she had flung around when she had been digging through his memories and most of them had been small and lightweight, but now that she had to move the bigger boxes, she was having difficulty. The whole stack needed to be moved to an isolated area of his mind where his biological functions and other important elements would remain safe.
The hardest part so far had been picking through his learned behaviors and skills, weeding out the undesirable aspects and keeping the necessary ones. The predilection of eating human flesh had been the first to go and had been carried off quickly to the growing pile in a corner of his mind. While she wanted to get rid of every ruthless urge he had in his body she knew that it was important that he retain some of his callousness. She needed him to be able to kill if it was required, but not for the simple pleasure of it.
Finding the corresponding boxes had been difficult and she wasn’t positive that she had chosen all the correct ones, but it would have to do. If she had doubts about whether a box contained man or reaver functions, she would leave it figuring that if it was from the Reaver and it was left behind she could always come back for it but if it was from the man and it was destroyed, it was gone forever.
River picked herself up from her resting place and returned to slowly moving the large box. It was the last one and once it was in place she could begin the arduous task of destroying the entire pile. All of her energy went into the last heave that would complete the large stack. She stepped back and gazed at the mountain of boxes. Good bye, Reaver, she thought grimly.
She imagined a small wooden match and it appeared in her hand. Striking it against the rough floor she touched the small orange flame to the large box. The fire bloomed across the top of the container and spread quickly to the sides. The flames lifted higher as the fire jumped from box to box, turning them each black in turn until they were a smoldering ashes. Only blackened lumps of smoking matter remained once the fire had died down. It reminded her of the thick smoke that had poured out of the buildings on Miranda and River thought it was the perfect way for the Reaver to die.
< Previous: chapter 11: Six (Introductions) | Next: chapter 13: Two (Bonded)>
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Four (Fire and Smoke) (12/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers.
With a grunt River dug her heels into the ground and threw all her weight into shoving one of the extremely heavy boxes in the Reaver’s mind. Soon, the man - Jayne, she reminded herself- would regain ownership of the mind and body, but for now it still belonged to the Reaver. She sighed and took a moment to catch her breath, as it turns out mental exercise was just as exhausting as physical labor. She used the sliver of quiet time to reflect on the last hour.
The man had taken the name Jayne as his own, though River wasn’t entirely sure that it belonged to him. He had sobbed out the name during his apology for the Reaver’s deeds which seemed to indicate that it more likely belonged to his wife or his son, though she couldn’t be certain. She could here his mournful cry echo in her head, “Oh, God, Jayne. What have I done?” Given his emotional state he very well have been berating himself, talking in the third person as she sometimes did to distance herself from her experiences. She wasn’t sure if knowing the original owner of the name even mattered any more. It was his now.
After the naming they had sat and discussed their next course of action. While he was no longer trapped inside the Reaver and could control his own body for the time being they both knew that there was no way he was strong enough to maintain that restraint over the monstrous part of him that still took up most of his mind. Strangely, it had been Jayne, himself, not River, who had come up with the solution to their problem. If the Reaver parts couldn’t be controlled, they had to be destroyed.
She wasn’t sure how he would react while she was altering the inner workings of his brain, so he had put him back to sleep to get the job done by herself. Though, now she was wishing she had kept him awake long enough to help her move all the boxes first. She had started off with gathering together the boxes she had flung around when she had been digging through his memories and most of them had been small and lightweight, but now that she had to move the bigger boxes, she was having difficulty. The whole stack needed to be moved to an isolated area of his mind where his biological functions and other important elements would remain safe.
The hardest part so far had been picking through his learned behaviors and skills, weeding out the undesirable aspects and keeping the necessary ones. The predilection of eating human flesh had been the first to go and had been carried off quickly to the growing pile in a corner of his mind. While she wanted to get rid of every ruthless urge he had in his body she knew that it was important that he retain some of his callousness. She needed him to be able to kill if it was required, but not for the simple pleasure of it.
Finding the corresponding boxes had been difficult and she wasn’t positive that she had chosen all the correct ones, but it would have to do. If she had doubts about whether a box contained man or reaver functions, she would leave it figuring that if it was from the Reaver and it was left behind she could always come back for it but if it was from the man and it was destroyed, it was gone forever.
River picked herself up from her resting place and returned to slowly moving the large box. It was the last one and once it was in place she could begin the arduous task of destroying the entire pile. All of her energy went into the last heave that would complete the large stack. She stepped back and gazed at the mountain of boxes. Good bye, Reaver, she thought grimly.
She imagined a small wooden match and it appeared in her hand. Striking it against the rough floor she touched the small orange flame to the large box. The fire bloomed across the top of the container and spread quickly to the sides. The flames lifted higher as the fire jumped from box to box, turning them each black in turn until they were a smoldering ashes. Only blackened lumps of smoking matter remained once the fire had died down. It reminded her of the thick smoke that had poured out of the buildings on Miranda and River thought it was the perfect way for the Reaver to die.
< Previous: chapter 11: Six (Introductions) | Next: chapter 13: Two (Bonded)>