ficpost: "Of Mistletoe and Other Magic" Firefly x Atlantis crossover (various pairings)
Title: "Of Mistletoe And Other Magic"
Fandoms: Firefly x Stargate: Atlantis
Featured Pairings: Wash/Zoe, Kaylee/Inara, Zelenka --> Kaylee UST, Weir/Sheppard/McKay
Other Pairings Mentioned: Mal/Inara UST
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just ever so slightly cracktastic.
Spoilers/Timeline: Set after "Trinity" and "Objects in Space"
Disclaimer: I just borrowed them.
Notes: For azarsuerte in serenity_santa. The fic is set in her serenity_gate 'verse, per her request. I am done! I am done! I am done with secret santas!
Summary: The mistletoe Kaylee and Zelenka spread 'round Atlantis has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Words: 3622
Of Mistletoe And Other Magic
Kaylee's got the mischievous look in her eyes of a girl who's been to the botany lab and's been spreading mistletoe all 'round 'Lantis, and she can't keep the grin off her face when a tiny but extremely peevish mob catches up with her.
"Enjoying your vacation?" Mal asks drily.
"It's nice not to be chased," she says. "And this world could use a little more kissin'."
"Know what Weir said to me? She said she doesn't know how she's going to get any work done with all the kissin' she's been gettin'."
"Don't know how a sprig ended up right over her desk," Kaylee says. "Weren't me."
"You had an accomplice?"
But Kaylee mimes buttoning her lips together, wrinkles her nose at Mal, and disappears. Makes him wonder if maybe her accomplice knows faster ways than he to get from one place to another in the city.
"Don't think everyone minds the kissing," River says a little vaguely. "Gotta start someplace. The whole city's a masquerade, a costume ball. When the costumes are stripped off, the mistletoe will have the answers. Poison plants tell the truth."
"Well, that's true - leastwise, the parts I understood," Mal says, thinking of the look Zoe gets when she finds Wash lingering 'neath the mistletoe. Kaylee coulda pulled a worse prank.
++
Truth is, she didn't mean to do the whole city; she was just hopin' to find a quiet moment in Inara's quarters to surprise her, maybe get a kiss on the cheek that would be worth a week's worth of fantasy, but Inara's locked the door and forbidden companionship; River says she's washing away the crimes of the year and that it'd be fit for all of them to do the same, but Kaylee thinks she'd rather not think about what's gone wrong this year. 'Sides, when Radek caught her with the mistletoe, he had an idea or two and she thought he wasn't all wrong.
Anything that'll make Rodney less cranky in the labs, after all, is definitely a thing worth doin'. So, mistletoe, especially in the places where Elizabeth and Rodney and John tend to be. Mistletoe and kissin' and everyone singing Christmas carols, some of them new, some of them not.
"We all took our songs with us from Earth-that-was. All of us sing 'em, all of us together. One day we'll go back and fix the world with song. Song could fix us, couldn't it?"
"Sure," Kaylee told River, kindly, and now, humming "Deck the Halls," she thinks it could.
"It's working, yes?" Radek asks.
"Cap'n says Dr. Weir's upset," Kaylee says. "Think it's true?"
"Sure she'll be upset a little; after all, she is pretending she has no feelings at all, is she not? But it's impossible to bury feelings forever, even under so much snow."
Kaylee smiles and kisses Radek's cheek. "I wish some folk'd come out of hibernation and see what's waiting for 'em."
"She would be blind not to notice," Radek says.
"Sometimes people are blind on purpose," Kaylee reminds him.
"Which is why mistletoe is such a good idea, yes?"
"Guess so. It'd better work it's magic quick, or everyone'll spend the whole winter feelin' glum."
"That cannot happen. I will promise you, Miss Frye."
++
Elizabeth frowns and tries to read her flagship team's mission report, but she finds the task harder than usual. There's lingering resentment, anger even, that Ford isn't on the team and that she let herself get talked into Ronan joining. That John - Colonel Sheppard - John - can get to her that way is frustrating. Dangerous.
And worse, of course is Rodney. Three fifths of a solar system. She is angry. Furious, even. Guilty, because she knows it's her fault, and terribly sad for Rodney's sake, because - because someone has to feel those emotions for him. Someone has to, because he can't. Rodney can't function if he doesn't believe he's always right.
It doesn't help Elizabeth any to know that the crew of Serenity is running around mostly unsupervised. Letting Kaylee in the labs is fine; it's not her she's worried about. It's Mal, who plays everything so close to the chest, and River, who's definitely not a safe person to have around. But here they are, and there's nothing to do about it because she's not having Rodney destroy another solar system to get them out of her hair.
The mistletoe isn't helping her mood.
"Hey Doc."
"John." She looks up, gladder than she should be to have a distraction, even if the distraction is, well, distracting. "Please don't call me that."
"Elizabeth," he says, more softly. "I see the mistletoe fairies got your office too. There's a regular epidemic of kissing going on in the hallways. I had to chew out a couple of airmen earlier."
"I don't think we're going to get anything done till after the holiday feast," she sighs. "I'm cancelling the rest of the missions and calling the off-world teams back to Atlantis. Spirits are high, which is good, but it's dangerous in combat."
"Good call. But speaking of mistletoe..."
She groans. Some people, Captain Reynolds, for instance, can be counted on not to take the mistletoe seriously. It's not worth hoping that John would be one of them.
"C'mon, Elizabeth. It's Christmas."
"Okay, okay." She rolls her eyes and stands up, and John leans over her desk to kiss her. She thinks it's going to be playful, and at first it is, an exaggerated pucker of lips, but then suddenly it becomes very serious, and this is more to do with her than him. Everything becomes too soft and too focused; feelings she didn't know she had are at the surface, and then feelings she knows she doesn't have. A dark slab of protectiveness settles over her heart, and she can hardly breathe under the weight of desperation. Fragile hope. Love for her. She pulls away, reeling. "What was that?"
John looks just as shell-shocked. And even though they aren't kissing any longer, she can still feel everything. She thinks she's going to be ill. "No idea. Call Beckett."
"Good idea." She switches on her walkie-talkie, feels a sudden coldness that isn't her own. John's fear. "Carson. It's Weir. My office, please. We have a... situation." John slumps into a chair and closes his eyes, and it suddenly comes to her that he must be feeling her feelings, too. "And hurry."
++
Rodney has taken over the lab, which is not atypical but is definitely unwelcome, since Radek brought Kaylee here especially to work with her on Serenity's hyperdrive engine, which is admittedly still a work in progress but which is enjoyable to work on especially, he must admit, when he is working on it with Kaylee.
His plans are now broken in two by Rodney, who shouts at them to get to work right now.
"Rodney, what are you talking about?"
"Fix this!"
"Fix what?" Radek asks patiently.
Rodney glowers at him, which he knows perfectly well means he doesn't want to talk about it. "Just fix it."
Kaylee tries to calm him down - she is not stupid, of course, but she doesn't know yet that this is impossible - by putting a hand on his arm, but Rodney jumps away from her. "I don't know why everyone feels a need to touch me," he snaps. "I'm perfectly happy not having other people's bacteria all over me."
Kaylee moves back, looking a little upset, and Radek wishes that they'd thought to put some mistletoe in the lab, too - though he thinks perhaps it is not quite time for them to experiment with mistletoe, not till he is more certain about whether she returns his feelings. It is very complicated, love. It is very fortunate that someone thought to uncomplicate it a little by forcing lovers to share feelings. Very fortunate, though possibly, based on Rodney's current state, this view is not shared by everyone in the city.
++
Rodney hates lots of people: people who yell at him; lab techs who are more concerned with who's caught who under the mistletoe than with fixing the quantum problem that's causing things as diverse and as annoying as storm systems, the Serenity crew, and a herd of ponies to appear in the sky above Atlantis; the crew of Serenity itself, especially River, whose habit of mind-reading is both annoying and unnerving; ponies; and especially, especially whoever thought it was a bright idea to sprinkle mistletoe around the city. As if they didn't have enough complications without it. As if he needs help in the thinking-about-kissing-all-the-damn-time department. No universe should contain annoyingly perky engineers, mind-readers, Elizabeth Weir and mistletoe. It's too much for him to deal with.
And then this private communiqué from Elizabeth about what happened when she and Sheppard kissed, and she and Sheppard kissed is bad enough without telepathy. Like River wasn't enough; like his life wasn't complicated enough before, like he wants to think about Elizabeth's feelings for John.
He growls; Kaylee backs away further and almost collides with Radek, who stutters more than he should. Great. Additional complications of that nature are just what he needs.
++
Too much data, head explodes. That's an easy equation. Try another: boys and girls and girls and girls, boys and boys and mistletoe. It all equals too much, especially when the mistletoe's not just mistletoe but a truth-teller. No one likes a truth-teller, River least of all. She wants it all to vanish; she wants to vanish herself. Closing her eyes doesn't work, and screaming only hurts everyone's ears which hurts her ears worse. She tries to twist away from it, towards something safer. There's no such thing as safety, not in this 'verse, nor any verse. Wash and Zoe at least are familiarly uncomfortable; she listens to them breathing, feeling, loving squared. Zoe's drowning in it, trying to swim free, but she's caught in the net that's Wash's love for her, and this adventure's turned into skinny-dipping, everything that's Zoe collapsed into one thought: I love you.
A girl. She's just a girl and doesn't want this, nohow.
Don't they know love will show itself if it wants to be shown?
++
Rodney reports to Elizabeth as ordered, listens to her curt, "Fix this."
"That's what I'm best at," he says, more anger in his voice than he intended.
"Rodney," she says, softening her voice, "this isn't about you. Please don't make it - harder." She closes her eyes, struggling with the jealousy that John's sharing suddenly. "John! Stop!"
"I can't exactly control my emotions, you know!"
"I know, John." She feels double anger. "But I need to -." She pauses. What she needs is time alone. She suddenly feels a great sympathy for Cadman, trapped in Rodney's head. She didn't understand then as she does now how essential space is when you're living in close quarters. "I need to get this fixed."
"I understand that," Rodney says, and pulls his chair closer to the cot she's lying on. "But maybe I can't help right now. Maybe, for once, I'm actually not able to save the day. Maybe, for once, I need to focus on my needs."
"Oh sure," John says (feeling antsy, feeling envy, cold prickles of love, hot rage, blackness she can't decipher yet). "And usually self-sacrifice is your strong point."
"Stay out of this," Rodney says.
"'Fraid I'm in this. Stupid mistletoe."
They all look up instinctively, and even though Elizabeth hasn't had much better to do than stare straight ahead for the past half-day, she hadn't noticed before that there's a very large patch of mistletoe right above her bed. Which means -
Rodney backs away but she grabs his arm to stop him. They're in this. It might have started as a prank, but someone overstepped himself, and their predicament isn't childish and the mistletoe no longer seems like immaturity. She sits up, Rodney leans over, too surprised to stop his lips from meeting hers.
The kiss isn't playful and the result is immediate; she didn't expect it to happen at all, not with Rodney. Not with John watching. But it's happening, and it's terrifying - the rising feeling of panic in her throat, the sudden surge of disparate love, the terrible jealousy - there's Rodney's jealousy, and John's and -
"Elizabeth." She turns to John. "What are you...?"
"I don't -" she pauses. "I don't want to feel any of this right now."
"Well I don't either!" It's Rodney but could be either of them.
"Rodney, fix it," she says.
And all three of them feel sudden, absolute assurance that he will do just that.
++
Zoe's breathless; can't hold much more of this, of him. Sex ain't surrender though folk think it is, but it needn't be if you're careful. She is, mostly, 'course - but there's surrender and surrender. And this is different. There's so much here she can't keep out but the worst of it is the feelings she can't keep in. Wash smiles, and Zoe melts a little, and then Wash feels it and smiles wider and they she doesn't think she could love him any more than she does, but somehow, it just keeps building.
When Wash flies everything else is nothing; it's just him and the sky, and it's the same way now, only Zoe's his sky and she's infinite. Everything around them is black and void; it's just them. Zoe. Wash. ZoewashWashzoe.
She tries to look away but can't.
This would be some women's dream, a love you can't look away from, a marriage that's central, but Zoe never wanted this and isn't starting now.
"I'm losing myself in you," she says, but Wash already knows.
++
There's couples everywhere rutting and sighing and mooning at each other; Kaylee knows it's her fault though she never meant things to be like this. Mistletoe would make the winter a little brighter for everyone; that's how things oughta have turned out. But things are never quite like you expect them to be, 'specially not here.
Radek won't help; he keeps staring off into the nowhere and sayin' things didn't work like he 'spected, either, and Kaylee knows he's somehow behind the oddness, but daren't say anything 'cos she's beginning to think she knows why, and it's all too terrible and confusing and unfixable, and the city's too big for them all. If she could she'd ask Rodney to fix it, wheedle and beg till he sent them back. But Elizabeth says no and Elizabeth's the law 'round here, and though they've been skitting 'round the law for the whole time Kaylee's been on-board Serenity, things are different now, so they're staying put and solving this, not running like they always do. And when there's a love mess to be solved, Kaylee knows the first person she's gotta turn to is the gal right now locked in her quarters, cleansing herself.
"'Nara?" she whispers, though Inara can't hear her nohow. "I need your help."
++
It's hard for everyone but hardest for Elizabeth, who's got suddenly not one set of emotions but three forcing her body to break in unexpected ways. She's worse than Rodney at containing anger and tears and hunger and fear; she didn't know how difficult it was to be him till she started experiencing every craving, white waves of desire, inadequacy, lust and doubt and oh, Rodney, it's all too much.
John's like an anchor, and some days that means she leans against him and he'll hold her steady, keep her floating near the mainland, but other days, other moments, he's dragging her down to a place she doesn't want to understand yet. She's past the point where, "Fix this," is enough; there's mistletoe everywhere, and Rodney's lips, and John's, and though they haven't kissed again it feels like they're kissing every moment. John and Rodney glare at each other from either side of her, and in the middle, she holds her head. She's not steady; this isn't easy. Fix it fix it fix it. They're too broken to be bound like this.
When Dr. Zelenka laughs - just a chuckle, under his breath; she wouldn't have noticed if Rodney hadn't - Elizabeth snaps, and turns on him with the anger of three. "That's enough."
"He did it!" Rodney says suddenly, with an accusing finger and the familiar rush of resolution and certainty that's Rodney's trademark.
"I only meant - I meant it to be fun."
Elizabeth's too livid to speak, and hates that Rodney and John must now be livid too. She finally manages, "It wasn't," and leans back into the infirmary bed that's become her home.
++
What Radek really needs, though he will never admit it, is Rodney. Rodney right about now would be an excellent asset to the team, but of course right now Rodney is lying in bed dreaming of Elizabeth and who knows who else, and Radek needs to concoct an antidote himself and is feeling worse by the minute for letting magical telepathic mistletoe loose on the base though he didn't know when he made it that it would spread quite so rapidly as it has or that it would cause quite so much difficulty in the form of incapacitating the three most essential staff members of the city. Elizabeth and Colonel Sheppard and Rodney - and at this juncture he remembers that Captain Reynolds has not been seen in quite some time and is possibly on his ship muttering to himself, which is most often where he can be found. Radek knows Captain Reynolds is an unlikely ally, but perhaps, being uninfected himself, he will be in a position to reason evenly with Radek and provide a useful Socratic sidekick in his quest to figure out what's gone wrong.
++
Mal is more than grateful he managed to avoid the mistletoe, though he has a notion the only people affected are those who had true feelings to start, and it's been a long fortyear since Mal's had anything but the barest quiverings of feelings for another soul. He ain't countin' Inara, just because - because Inara defies all categories and besides which, won't be kissed if he hasn't got the coin. Still, being unkissed means he's up in the rafters with Jayne and Zelenka spotting him, spraying some foul mixture on the beastly plants. His fault, of course - he had to say, "Can't we just kill the damn things?" and he had to be right for once, and it's his duty and privilege to do the honors and wield the spray.
Better this than being kissed, though. Better this than Inara knowing him.
++
River feels it as relief, plunged straight through her head like a dagger of ice. She knows just what she was wont to know, no more, no less.
++
Wash is pressed to Zoe's side, his hand on her hip and his heart in his throat, tasting every quiver as he kisses her, when suddenly his love's all his own again. He can feel the draining of his heart, and now it's just beating for one. It's better and scary, scary as knowing Zoe was at first. He'd thought he'd known her inside-out, thought he'd married her soul, but that's just unrealizable, just unreal. He wouldn't want her all, not...
He would. He does. He's feeling free and floating easy and already wants it back, the intimacy of her aches, the darkness of her memories. With a rueful sigh he breaks the kiss and touches his bride's cheek. Thing is, now they can begin again, and knowing what he knows, he's glad they've got the time.
++
Elizabeth wakes up feeling empty, and knows John and Rodney are long gone - to deal with their issues in constructive, manly ways, probably, with lots of insults and hitting. She sits up, content just for a minute to be alone with her own thoughts, before starting after them. Things have and haven't changed, and she'll still be picking up their messes, but she's got an advantage now, because she knows - she knows - and she's never known anyone so deeply nor loved them so much as she loves her men.
++
Kaylee thinks it's maybe best if she stays out of everyone's hair for a bit - 'twasn't her fault things got so bad, but she still deserves some share of the blame, and most like Elizabeth won't be too scrupulous about who did what. She knows she was naughty, though she only wanted a little more kissin' in the city. She's gotta hide, and the only place for her is the place she's been craving all along, though she's mighty scared to face Inara with what she's done - 'Nara takes love and kissin' serious, businesslike, and Kaylee doesn't want to think - but it's best to knock first and dwell later, so she gathers her courage and pushes her way into Inara's shuttle, breaking the week-long silence that Inara's been swimming in.
"Mei-mei," Inara whispers, and gestures for her to sit. "I've been purifying myself in preparation for the coming year. I'm glad you're here..." Then, in a whisper. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
There's heaps of things, and Kaylee knows Inara knows all of them that matter, but the time's come for speaking of the things you've feared.
She closes her eyes, feels Inara's soft hands in hers, and begins.
Fandoms: Firefly x Stargate: Atlantis
Featured Pairings: Wash/Zoe, Kaylee/Inara, Zelenka --> Kaylee UST, Weir/Sheppard/McKay
Other Pairings Mentioned: Mal/Inara UST
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Just ever so slightly cracktastic.
Spoilers/Timeline: Set after "Trinity" and "Objects in Space"
Disclaimer: I just borrowed them.
Notes: For azarsuerte in serenity_santa. The fic is set in her serenity_gate 'verse, per her request. I am done! I am done! I am done with secret santas!
Summary: The mistletoe Kaylee and Zelenka spread 'round Atlantis has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Words: 3622
Of Mistletoe And Other Magic
Kaylee's got the mischievous look in her eyes of a girl who's been to the botany lab and's been spreading mistletoe all 'round 'Lantis, and she can't keep the grin off her face when a tiny but extremely peevish mob catches up with her.
"Enjoying your vacation?" Mal asks drily.
"It's nice not to be chased," she says. "And this world could use a little more kissin'."
"Know what Weir said to me? She said she doesn't know how she's going to get any work done with all the kissin' she's been gettin'."
"Don't know how a sprig ended up right over her desk," Kaylee says. "Weren't me."
"You had an accomplice?"
But Kaylee mimes buttoning her lips together, wrinkles her nose at Mal, and disappears. Makes him wonder if maybe her accomplice knows faster ways than he to get from one place to another in the city.
"Don't think everyone minds the kissing," River says a little vaguely. "Gotta start someplace. The whole city's a masquerade, a costume ball. When the costumes are stripped off, the mistletoe will have the answers. Poison plants tell the truth."
"Well, that's true - leastwise, the parts I understood," Mal says, thinking of the look Zoe gets when she finds Wash lingering 'neath the mistletoe. Kaylee coulda pulled a worse prank.
++
Truth is, she didn't mean to do the whole city; she was just hopin' to find a quiet moment in Inara's quarters to surprise her, maybe get a kiss on the cheek that would be worth a week's worth of fantasy, but Inara's locked the door and forbidden companionship; River says she's washing away the crimes of the year and that it'd be fit for all of them to do the same, but Kaylee thinks she'd rather not think about what's gone wrong this year. 'Sides, when Radek caught her with the mistletoe, he had an idea or two and she thought he wasn't all wrong.
Anything that'll make Rodney less cranky in the labs, after all, is definitely a thing worth doin'. So, mistletoe, especially in the places where Elizabeth and Rodney and John tend to be. Mistletoe and kissin' and everyone singing Christmas carols, some of them new, some of them not.
"We all took our songs with us from Earth-that-was. All of us sing 'em, all of us together. One day we'll go back and fix the world with song. Song could fix us, couldn't it?"
"Sure," Kaylee told River, kindly, and now, humming "Deck the Halls," she thinks it could.
"It's working, yes?" Radek asks.
"Cap'n says Dr. Weir's upset," Kaylee says. "Think it's true?"
"Sure she'll be upset a little; after all, she is pretending she has no feelings at all, is she not? But it's impossible to bury feelings forever, even under so much snow."
Kaylee smiles and kisses Radek's cheek. "I wish some folk'd come out of hibernation and see what's waiting for 'em."
"She would be blind not to notice," Radek says.
"Sometimes people are blind on purpose," Kaylee reminds him.
"Which is why mistletoe is such a good idea, yes?"
"Guess so. It'd better work it's magic quick, or everyone'll spend the whole winter feelin' glum."
"That cannot happen. I will promise you, Miss Frye."
++
Elizabeth frowns and tries to read her flagship team's mission report, but she finds the task harder than usual. There's lingering resentment, anger even, that Ford isn't on the team and that she let herself get talked into Ronan joining. That John - Colonel Sheppard - John - can get to her that way is frustrating. Dangerous.
And worse, of course is Rodney. Three fifths of a solar system. She is angry. Furious, even. Guilty, because she knows it's her fault, and terribly sad for Rodney's sake, because - because someone has to feel those emotions for him. Someone has to, because he can't. Rodney can't function if he doesn't believe he's always right.
It doesn't help Elizabeth any to know that the crew of Serenity is running around mostly unsupervised. Letting Kaylee in the labs is fine; it's not her she's worried about. It's Mal, who plays everything so close to the chest, and River, who's definitely not a safe person to have around. But here they are, and there's nothing to do about it because she's not having Rodney destroy another solar system to get them out of her hair.
The mistletoe isn't helping her mood.
"Hey Doc."
"John." She looks up, gladder than she should be to have a distraction, even if the distraction is, well, distracting. "Please don't call me that."
"Elizabeth," he says, more softly. "I see the mistletoe fairies got your office too. There's a regular epidemic of kissing going on in the hallways. I had to chew out a couple of airmen earlier."
"I don't think we're going to get anything done till after the holiday feast," she sighs. "I'm cancelling the rest of the missions and calling the off-world teams back to Atlantis. Spirits are high, which is good, but it's dangerous in combat."
"Good call. But speaking of mistletoe..."
She groans. Some people, Captain Reynolds, for instance, can be counted on not to take the mistletoe seriously. It's not worth hoping that John would be one of them.
"C'mon, Elizabeth. It's Christmas."
"Okay, okay." She rolls her eyes and stands up, and John leans over her desk to kiss her. She thinks it's going to be playful, and at first it is, an exaggerated pucker of lips, but then suddenly it becomes very serious, and this is more to do with her than him. Everything becomes too soft and too focused; feelings she didn't know she had are at the surface, and then feelings she knows she doesn't have. A dark slab of protectiveness settles over her heart, and she can hardly breathe under the weight of desperation. Fragile hope. Love for her. She pulls away, reeling. "What was that?"
John looks just as shell-shocked. And even though they aren't kissing any longer, she can still feel everything. She thinks she's going to be ill. "No idea. Call Beckett."
"Good idea." She switches on her walkie-talkie, feels a sudden coldness that isn't her own. John's fear. "Carson. It's Weir. My office, please. We have a... situation." John slumps into a chair and closes his eyes, and it suddenly comes to her that he must be feeling her feelings, too. "And hurry."
++
Rodney has taken over the lab, which is not atypical but is definitely unwelcome, since Radek brought Kaylee here especially to work with her on Serenity's hyperdrive engine, which is admittedly still a work in progress but which is enjoyable to work on especially, he must admit, when he is working on it with Kaylee.
His plans are now broken in two by Rodney, who shouts at them to get to work right now.
"Rodney, what are you talking about?"
"Fix this!"
"Fix what?" Radek asks patiently.
Rodney glowers at him, which he knows perfectly well means he doesn't want to talk about it. "Just fix it."
Kaylee tries to calm him down - she is not stupid, of course, but she doesn't know yet that this is impossible - by putting a hand on his arm, but Rodney jumps away from her. "I don't know why everyone feels a need to touch me," he snaps. "I'm perfectly happy not having other people's bacteria all over me."
Kaylee moves back, looking a little upset, and Radek wishes that they'd thought to put some mistletoe in the lab, too - though he thinks perhaps it is not quite time for them to experiment with mistletoe, not till he is more certain about whether she returns his feelings. It is very complicated, love. It is very fortunate that someone thought to uncomplicate it a little by forcing lovers to share feelings. Very fortunate, though possibly, based on Rodney's current state, this view is not shared by everyone in the city.
++
Rodney hates lots of people: people who yell at him; lab techs who are more concerned with who's caught who under the mistletoe than with fixing the quantum problem that's causing things as diverse and as annoying as storm systems, the Serenity crew, and a herd of ponies to appear in the sky above Atlantis; the crew of Serenity itself, especially River, whose habit of mind-reading is both annoying and unnerving; ponies; and especially, especially whoever thought it was a bright idea to sprinkle mistletoe around the city. As if they didn't have enough complications without it. As if he needs help in the thinking-about-kissing-all-the-damn-time department. No universe should contain annoyingly perky engineers, mind-readers, Elizabeth Weir and mistletoe. It's too much for him to deal with.
And then this private communiqué from Elizabeth about what happened when she and Sheppard kissed, and she and Sheppard kissed is bad enough without telepathy. Like River wasn't enough; like his life wasn't complicated enough before, like he wants to think about Elizabeth's feelings for John.
He growls; Kaylee backs away further and almost collides with Radek, who stutters more than he should. Great. Additional complications of that nature are just what he needs.
++
Too much data, head explodes. That's an easy equation. Try another: boys and girls and girls and girls, boys and boys and mistletoe. It all equals too much, especially when the mistletoe's not just mistletoe but a truth-teller. No one likes a truth-teller, River least of all. She wants it all to vanish; she wants to vanish herself. Closing her eyes doesn't work, and screaming only hurts everyone's ears which hurts her ears worse. She tries to twist away from it, towards something safer. There's no such thing as safety, not in this 'verse, nor any verse. Wash and Zoe at least are familiarly uncomfortable; she listens to them breathing, feeling, loving squared. Zoe's drowning in it, trying to swim free, but she's caught in the net that's Wash's love for her, and this adventure's turned into skinny-dipping, everything that's Zoe collapsed into one thought: I love you.
A girl. She's just a girl and doesn't want this, nohow.
Don't they know love will show itself if it wants to be shown?
++
Rodney reports to Elizabeth as ordered, listens to her curt, "Fix this."
"That's what I'm best at," he says, more anger in his voice than he intended.
"Rodney," she says, softening her voice, "this isn't about you. Please don't make it - harder." She closes her eyes, struggling with the jealousy that John's sharing suddenly. "John! Stop!"
"I can't exactly control my emotions, you know!"
"I know, John." She feels double anger. "But I need to -." She pauses. What she needs is time alone. She suddenly feels a great sympathy for Cadman, trapped in Rodney's head. She didn't understand then as she does now how essential space is when you're living in close quarters. "I need to get this fixed."
"I understand that," Rodney says, and pulls his chair closer to the cot she's lying on. "But maybe I can't help right now. Maybe, for once, I'm actually not able to save the day. Maybe, for once, I need to focus on my needs."
"Oh sure," John says (feeling antsy, feeling envy, cold prickles of love, hot rage, blackness she can't decipher yet). "And usually self-sacrifice is your strong point."
"Stay out of this," Rodney says.
"'Fraid I'm in this. Stupid mistletoe."
They all look up instinctively, and even though Elizabeth hasn't had much better to do than stare straight ahead for the past half-day, she hadn't noticed before that there's a very large patch of mistletoe right above her bed. Which means -
Rodney backs away but she grabs his arm to stop him. They're in this. It might have started as a prank, but someone overstepped himself, and their predicament isn't childish and the mistletoe no longer seems like immaturity. She sits up, Rodney leans over, too surprised to stop his lips from meeting hers.
The kiss isn't playful and the result is immediate; she didn't expect it to happen at all, not with Rodney. Not with John watching. But it's happening, and it's terrifying - the rising feeling of panic in her throat, the sudden surge of disparate love, the terrible jealousy - there's Rodney's jealousy, and John's and -
"Elizabeth." She turns to John. "What are you...?"
"I don't -" she pauses. "I don't want to feel any of this right now."
"Well I don't either!" It's Rodney but could be either of them.
"Rodney, fix it," she says.
And all three of them feel sudden, absolute assurance that he will do just that.
++
Zoe's breathless; can't hold much more of this, of him. Sex ain't surrender though folk think it is, but it needn't be if you're careful. She is, mostly, 'course - but there's surrender and surrender. And this is different. There's so much here she can't keep out but the worst of it is the feelings she can't keep in. Wash smiles, and Zoe melts a little, and then Wash feels it and smiles wider and they she doesn't think she could love him any more than she does, but somehow, it just keeps building.
When Wash flies everything else is nothing; it's just him and the sky, and it's the same way now, only Zoe's his sky and she's infinite. Everything around them is black and void; it's just them. Zoe. Wash. ZoewashWashzoe.
She tries to look away but can't.
This would be some women's dream, a love you can't look away from, a marriage that's central, but Zoe never wanted this and isn't starting now.
"I'm losing myself in you," she says, but Wash already knows.
++
There's couples everywhere rutting and sighing and mooning at each other; Kaylee knows it's her fault though she never meant things to be like this. Mistletoe would make the winter a little brighter for everyone; that's how things oughta have turned out. But things are never quite like you expect them to be, 'specially not here.
Radek won't help; he keeps staring off into the nowhere and sayin' things didn't work like he 'spected, either, and Kaylee knows he's somehow behind the oddness, but daren't say anything 'cos she's beginning to think she knows why, and it's all too terrible and confusing and unfixable, and the city's too big for them all. If she could she'd ask Rodney to fix it, wheedle and beg till he sent them back. But Elizabeth says no and Elizabeth's the law 'round here, and though they've been skitting 'round the law for the whole time Kaylee's been on-board Serenity, things are different now, so they're staying put and solving this, not running like they always do. And when there's a love mess to be solved, Kaylee knows the first person she's gotta turn to is the gal right now locked in her quarters, cleansing herself.
"'Nara?" she whispers, though Inara can't hear her nohow. "I need your help."
++
It's hard for everyone but hardest for Elizabeth, who's got suddenly not one set of emotions but three forcing her body to break in unexpected ways. She's worse than Rodney at containing anger and tears and hunger and fear; she didn't know how difficult it was to be him till she started experiencing every craving, white waves of desire, inadequacy, lust and doubt and oh, Rodney, it's all too much.
John's like an anchor, and some days that means she leans against him and he'll hold her steady, keep her floating near the mainland, but other days, other moments, he's dragging her down to a place she doesn't want to understand yet. She's past the point where, "Fix this," is enough; there's mistletoe everywhere, and Rodney's lips, and John's, and though they haven't kissed again it feels like they're kissing every moment. John and Rodney glare at each other from either side of her, and in the middle, she holds her head. She's not steady; this isn't easy. Fix it fix it fix it. They're too broken to be bound like this.
When Dr. Zelenka laughs - just a chuckle, under his breath; she wouldn't have noticed if Rodney hadn't - Elizabeth snaps, and turns on him with the anger of three. "That's enough."
"He did it!" Rodney says suddenly, with an accusing finger and the familiar rush of resolution and certainty that's Rodney's trademark.
"I only meant - I meant it to be fun."
Elizabeth's too livid to speak, and hates that Rodney and John must now be livid too. She finally manages, "It wasn't," and leans back into the infirmary bed that's become her home.
++
What Radek really needs, though he will never admit it, is Rodney. Rodney right about now would be an excellent asset to the team, but of course right now Rodney is lying in bed dreaming of Elizabeth and who knows who else, and Radek needs to concoct an antidote himself and is feeling worse by the minute for letting magical telepathic mistletoe loose on the base though he didn't know when he made it that it would spread quite so rapidly as it has or that it would cause quite so much difficulty in the form of incapacitating the three most essential staff members of the city. Elizabeth and Colonel Sheppard and Rodney - and at this juncture he remembers that Captain Reynolds has not been seen in quite some time and is possibly on his ship muttering to himself, which is most often where he can be found. Radek knows Captain Reynolds is an unlikely ally, but perhaps, being uninfected himself, he will be in a position to reason evenly with Radek and provide a useful Socratic sidekick in his quest to figure out what's gone wrong.
++
Mal is more than grateful he managed to avoid the mistletoe, though he has a notion the only people affected are those who had true feelings to start, and it's been a long fortyear since Mal's had anything but the barest quiverings of feelings for another soul. He ain't countin' Inara, just because - because Inara defies all categories and besides which, won't be kissed if he hasn't got the coin. Still, being unkissed means he's up in the rafters with Jayne and Zelenka spotting him, spraying some foul mixture on the beastly plants. His fault, of course - he had to say, "Can't we just kill the damn things?" and he had to be right for once, and it's his duty and privilege to do the honors and wield the spray.
Better this than being kissed, though. Better this than Inara knowing him.
++
River feels it as relief, plunged straight through her head like a dagger of ice. She knows just what she was wont to know, no more, no less.
++
Wash is pressed to Zoe's side, his hand on her hip and his heart in his throat, tasting every quiver as he kisses her, when suddenly his love's all his own again. He can feel the draining of his heart, and now it's just beating for one. It's better and scary, scary as knowing Zoe was at first. He'd thought he'd known her inside-out, thought he'd married her soul, but that's just unrealizable, just unreal. He wouldn't want her all, not...
He would. He does. He's feeling free and floating easy and already wants it back, the intimacy of her aches, the darkness of her memories. With a rueful sigh he breaks the kiss and touches his bride's cheek. Thing is, now they can begin again, and knowing what he knows, he's glad they've got the time.
++
Elizabeth wakes up feeling empty, and knows John and Rodney are long gone - to deal with their issues in constructive, manly ways, probably, with lots of insults and hitting. She sits up, content just for a minute to be alone with her own thoughts, before starting after them. Things have and haven't changed, and she'll still be picking up their messes, but she's got an advantage now, because she knows - she knows - and she's never known anyone so deeply nor loved them so much as she loves her men.
++
Kaylee thinks it's maybe best if she stays out of everyone's hair for a bit - 'twasn't her fault things got so bad, but she still deserves some share of the blame, and most like Elizabeth won't be too scrupulous about who did what. She knows she was naughty, though she only wanted a little more kissin' in the city. She's gotta hide, and the only place for her is the place she's been craving all along, though she's mighty scared to face Inara with what she's done - 'Nara takes love and kissin' serious, businesslike, and Kaylee doesn't want to think - but it's best to knock first and dwell later, so she gathers her courage and pushes her way into Inara's shuttle, breaking the week-long silence that Inara's been swimming in.
"Mei-mei," Inara whispers, and gestures for her to sit. "I've been purifying myself in preparation for the coming year. I'm glad you're here..." Then, in a whisper. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
There's heaps of things, and Kaylee knows Inara knows all of them that matter, but the time's come for speaking of the things you've feared.
She closes her eyes, feels Inara's soft hands in hers, and begins.