Fic: Drabbles
In response to my challenge thegranddewru requested 3 drabbles from the song Right Here by StainD. Sadly, I had all three written when my word program decided to shut itself down. And it doesn't recover anything. So I had to rewrite two of these. And they never turn out as good as the first version. *sighs*
More still to come. Perhaps tomorrow though.
Imperfect
I've got some imperfections
But how can you collect them all and throw them in my face
She can feel his gaze on her and she hates it.
Closing her eyes, she takes a soothing breath, and when she opens them again, their depths are calm sea of warmth directed at her client. Stockholm Parish.
He’s rail thin and wiry, the sort that doesn’t normally appeal to her, and his eyes are a blank slate. With barely any thought, she knows what he wants and that she can give it to him.
Will give it to him.
His cold hand slides across her shoulder to cup her neck, his finger tips digging into her sensitive flesh, just tight enough not to leave bruises. It’s in her contract.
No marks.
She leans into him, letting the curves of her body melt against the hard planes of his, forcing heat when all she feels is chilled.
The icy stare from across the room drags across her skin, sharp points digging in and drawing blood. She can feel the hatred and the anger spiking off him from all the way across the room, clouded by the sting of one to many misunderstandings left unexplained.
Without sparing him a glance, she knows that he stands still and silent, cataloguing every touch, every whisper, every coy smile from beneath heavy lashes. He finds fault in every nuance of her performance.
But only because it is perfect.
Once River is safely aboard and Serenity is tucked into the black, far from these monsters with blood on their hands, she’ll feel the lash of Mal’s tongue. Caustic words to burn her, eyes sharp as daggers tipped with poison.
He’ll damage her with words just the same as her client will his fists.
Stockholm Parish and Malcolm Reynolds are truly no different. They lash out with violence, be it emotional or physical, because they cannot withstand the pain within.
So she shall be the one to bear it.
Bend and Not Break
and you're so independent
you just refuse to bend so I keep bending till I break
Zoe sat on the catwalk outside of Inara’s shuttle, her legs dangling over the abyss of the cargo hold, her eyes closed. She didn’t mean to, but she could almost hear Wash’s voice echoing off the walls. There truly was no place within the ship that didn’t carry his memory.
She’d seen many men die before. Hundreds upon thousands of young men and women with so much left undone in their short lives. The life drained from them into obscurity and their names escaped the memories of the living. Those lives should have haunted the living.
They hadn’t and she’d long ceased to believe in ghosts.
“Not a ghost.” River appeared below her in the cargo bay, and Zoe had long since ceased to be surprised at the girl’s ability to materialize out of no where. “Guilt.”
“Learned to bend in the wind, roots went deeper because the wind was stronger.” She glared up at Zoe, hands on hip. “Selfish to think he broke because of you. Loved you first, but loved us all last. Guilt makes brittle what was once strong. He bent to teach you how.”
She disappeared as quickly as she came and Zoe could feel the shadows heavy at her back. Closing her eyes, he leaned into them.
This Kinda Life
I'm willing to bleed for you
Kaylee had seen blood before, living on Serenity going on three years now, weren’t no help for it. Even got shot that one time herself. But she hadn’t ever had to touch the blood. Always before, Mal and Zoe had tended each others wounds, years of battlefield practice honing their skills. And Jayne always managed to come outta their scrapes with barely a nic. Then Simon came along, and seemed like the bleeding came more frequently, but he always patched everyone up near perfect again.
She was used to seeing blood, but there was always someone else to stop it.
Now, there was just her. Just her and Jayne and his blood boiling hot enough to burn her fingers, pressed tight into the gaping wound in his chest. His blood, at the same time sticky and slick, caked her hands and her clothes, the metallic scent hanging in the air between them as she tried to staunch the flow from a bullet meant for her.
“Kaylee…”
She saw red wherever she looked. “Shhh, Jayne, it’s okay. Soon as Simon’s done with the Cap’n, he’ll take care of ya.”
Glancing to the left, a few yards away she could see Simon hunched over the Captain through her tears, Zoe at his side as an impromptu nurse. Just beyond them Wash stood with his hands folded across his chest, as though he were trying to hold himself in. Book just beside them, struggling to hold onto a hysterical River, her mouth open with silent screams.
Jerking her eyes away, she focused on Jayne. She couldn’t bear to watch Simon choose one life over another.
“Always knew it’d happen like this.”
The pounding in her heart matched the gush of blood between her fingers. “Shh, you’ll be fine,” she tried to sound confident. Tried not to hear the gurgling in his chest get louder. “Don’t’ talk. Gotta conserve your energy.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to conserve,” he whispered through lips too pale.
She imagined the flow of blood under her hands was slowing, she feared it was for the wrong reason. “You’ll be fine, Jayne,” she promised, a sob breaking from the ache in her chest. “You’ll be fine. I know it. Simon can…”
He managed to raise his hand just far enough to touch her thigh, his thumb movin’ back and forth over her stained coveralls, attempting to comfort her.
“Ain’t sorry,” he forced his eyes open. While every other part of him was so pale it scared her, his eyes were the most vivid blue she’d ever seen.
His breathing was getting worse, wheezy and labored and she found she couldn’t breathe either. He took his time, making sure his last words came out right. “You’re the only thing in this ‘verse worth bleedin’ for.”