Destiny - Part 6
Part of the http://zannes.livejournal.com/5304.html John/Illyria 'verse
Rating: R (overall)
Genre: Gen, Het, Supernatural/Angel/Firefly crossover
Pairing: John/Illyria
Characters: Firefly crew
Summary: John and Illyria finally have to deal with the Demon that destroyed his family. Will they be able to save John's descendants from the Demon's wrath? (bad language/sexual situations)
Author's Notes: Thanks to hakirby and lyonie17 for their continued beta-ing prowess. Hakirby is entirely responsible for all the added porn and lyonie17 is responsible for turning my modern-day English into Fireflyese. The Chinese translations are up for grabs. I trusted various websites to get those. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns both Illyria and Firefly. The lovely icon belongs to lyonie17.
Part 6...
They both felt it. Every time Serenity landed, no matter what planet or what time of day, there was that same sense of heavy foreboding in the air. The harmless, and some not-so-harmless, creatures that still survived would cluster on the edge of sight and hearing, seeming to watch and to wait, glittering eyes and gleaming scales twinkling like a suggestion of thought but disappearing with a turn of the head. It had John on edge - Illyria remained as Illyrian as ever, though her eyes ceaselessly scanned the horizon as if looking for a sign of what was to come.
And then the reports started pouring in.
The few scattered cases of strange fires and spontaneous combustions that had drawn them to Serenity in the first place erupted into headline news of men and women slaughtering their families, entire towns burning to the ground, stories of monsters with black eyes ordering and tempting and seducing with promises of power - to purge their towns of evil.
The Alliance militia could find no common thread. They deemed it space sickness, like the Reavers; sometimes, whole towns would be gone in the span of a night at just the hint of trouble, the Alliance flitting in and out like the phantoms John used to shoot with rock salt so long ago.
The collective link the Alliance couldn’t see was the Winchester DNA - a spectral taint so faded in most that only prolonged study could find the tiny sequences of chromosomes that put together in just the right way would paint the same picture. This one was a Winchester. That diluted strain of Hunter, watered down after so many generations away from the Earth-That-Was, that indelible mark of…something…was the target painted on the back of every man, woman and child who dared to be born with a shred of it buried inside them.
There was nothing John could do - no trail to follow, no rhyme or reason to the killings. Before, it had seemed somehow related to the children - those babies left behind with special gifts that had been all but wiped out by circumstance. Now, even the children were dying - burning and bleeding along with their mothers and fathers.
It was spite - a quest for vengeance. John knew that much. Whatever plan the Demon had so long ago had been rendered null with the passage of time. This was something new and John was just as lost as the rest of the universe - if the rest of the universe took time enough to notice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“John?” came Illyria’s strident voice, although softer than her usual clarion call, as if attempting to be soothing when she didn’t quite know how to be.
John tilted his cheerless gaze up to hers, the lines carved deeply around his mouth and eyes. He welcomed her presence beside him, sliding an arm around her waist to pull her closer, resting his cheek against her hair. “I don’t know what to do, Illyria.” He drew in a shaky breath. “Somehow, I thought I’d be more prepared.”
“We do what we can, John. We hunt and we fight. That is all.” She turned her head to gaze off into the distance, noting the tiny figures clustering around Serenity. “It is time to go back. They are waiting.” She tugged him with her, shifting to Fred as they walked side by side.
Within a few steps, John felt her shifting under his hands, and Fred and Illyria flickered back and forth, making him dizzy with the effort of focusing. “Illyria? What’s wrong?”
John grabbed her by the arm, halting her progress and she almost frowned at him, gazing at him steadily.
“Nothing,” she said, her bold blue eyes muddying to an odd mix of brownish-blue for a moment before solidifying into Fred’s mocha gaze through sheer force of will. With her jaw tense and her body stiff beside him, Fred retained her form all the way back to the ship, only relaxing when back in the sanctuary of their quarters. Once safely ensconced, blue spilled over her slight frame in a sudden burst of color as the tan leached from her skin, and she distracted John from his concerns in the way of all females wishing to avoid answering questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We’re settin’ course for Sihnon,” Mal announced off-handedly at dinner, John and Fred still confined in their room.
“We’re pickin’ up Inara?” Kaylee crowed happily. “It’s about time, Cap’n!” She smiled at everyone, glowing with happiness.
“S’been two months already?” Jayne grumbled around a mouthful of food, slouching possessively with his arm around his plate. “Seems like we just left her there yesterday.”
“We dropped her off just before we picked up the Winchesters almost five weeks ago, Jayne. ‘Sides, Inara’s joinin’ us for good this time!” Kaylee reminded him with a smack on the arm. “It’ll be shiny to have our family together again!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The tranquil surface of Sihnon, where Madrassa had its home, filled the pilot’s windshield, bringing a smile to the face of Malcolm Reynolds as he headed in for a landing.
In the mess, Kaylee was trying to explain it to John and Fred. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. “I never seen so much nature in one place before! The rest of the planet is all cities and populated, but it’s so serene around Madrassa.” Kaylee hummed cheerily before giggling, “Cap’n can finally be happy - him and Inara all in love and cozy. It’s like a storybook!”
River glanced up at John and Fred with a mournful expression. “We’ll be too late. First domino falls, knocking the others over one by one.” She made absent clicking sounds with her tongue, her eyes going unfocused.
John blanched, reaching out to grab Fred’s wrist, clinging to it like a lifeline. “Kaylee,” he ordered shortly, “go tell the Captain to hurry.”
Kaylee hesitated before taking one look at his face and bolting when instinct told her with a twist of her gut, Run fast. Run far. It’s coming. She screamed, “Cap’n! Cap’n!” down the passageways, drawing the rest of the crew from their quarters.
John pulled Fred closer, feeling the long line of her body bracing his suddenly weakening form, keeping her near - safe, at his side. “I thought it would be different. I thought I could protect them this time.”
River glanced up at him through the fall of her hair, murmuring, “She was not of our blood. You could not know she was missing. Not your fault.” River curled in on herself in the chair, tucking her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “She was his heart’s secret. Everyone knew, but him…and you.”
She blinked at John, the subtle ferocity burning in her eyes shutting off with that slight movement of her lids, leaving her gaze suddenly open and guileless - the economy of both motion and emotion so reminiscent of Illyria that he shook his head, briefly wondering of the possibility of genetics by osmosis. John closed his eyes, counting his breaths before opening them and snapping, “She’s not past tense, yet, River. Show her more respect.”
River frowned at his sharp tone, turning woeful eyes to Fred, who shrugged, acknowledging River’s choice in terminology before rubbing a hand soothingly along John’s arm. Fred ignored the discomfort of John’s grip grinding the thin bones of her wrist together, his knuckles whitening as unacknowledged panic tightened his hold. Keeping her gaze trained on the small girl now rocking silently across from them, Fred kept up her calming strokes along John’s arm as she murmured soft reassurances, her tone never wavering even as he unwittingly crushed the bones in her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Inara!” Mal yelled, his entire body thrumming with warning as he sprinted up the steps to her room. John, Fred, Jayne, and Zoe tried to keep up as he raced to her, all of them feeling the threat hanging heavily in the air. None of the other Companions had seemed to notice.
Mal burst through her door and found her room empty, the soft, scented breeze blowing the gauzy curtains in billowing folds, making shadows flicker across the walls. The neatly stacked boxes and bags indicated her readiness for departure, as did the light linen wrap thrown carelessly over the chair by the door. “Gorram hwoon dahn. There’s nothin’ wrong.”
Mal shook off his apprehension with a sudden straightening of his shoulders, falling back on the bed with closed eyes and sighing at the comfort of the cool sheets against his back. He heard the heavy footsteps of his compatriots stop at the door, and he commented loudly, eyes still closed as exhaustion crept over him, “Stupid fay-fay duh pee-yen. I’m gonna have to have words with you later.”
John’s voice came, softly commanding, “Captain Reynolds. Keep your eyes closed. Please. Just sit up and walk to me.” Mal’s brow furrowed, but he kept his eyes shut, the lassitude of waning panic making him lazy, when he heard Zoe’s soft intake of breath and Jayne’s muffled curse bitten off as they finally reached the door.
Mal turned his head, readying to open his eyes to see what was wrong, when Zoe’s voice came sharp and clear and smooth. “Captain. Listen to him. Come here now.”
Mal frowned petulantly, ready to argue, when a warm splash hit his forehead - and then another, and another. “S’it rainin’?” he asked, yawning as he rubbed his hand over his face, smearing the sticky dampness on his skin. “Someone close the window.”
Blinking tiredly, his eyes slowly focused on the tiles overhead, sharpening fuzzy shapes into the figure of his beautiful Inara pinned to the ceiling, her stomach nothing more than a large swatch of blood. He stilled, disbelief evident on his face even to those waiting in the doorway, before he screamed soundlessly as flames erupted around her.
Mal felt someone grab his arms, yanking him towards the door as he dug his feet in, unwilling to leave Inara behind. “Malcolm! Go!” John ordered, his bark of command somehow encouraging Mal to finally react as Jayne and Zoe bodily dragged him from the room, his struggles useless against the two of them. John herded them from the room, trusting Fred to follow behind.
Illyria shifted as the flames curled along the walls, her blue-brown hair blowing in the breeze from the open window, the swirling embers and ashes dotting her pale skin. “Illyria,” a soft hiss came from the shadows in the corner. “So nice of you to visit.”
Illyria turned to face the roiling shadows dancing thickly along the wall. “He will kill you. He is stronger than you know.” She blinked, adding, “If he does not, then I will.”
The shadows laughed, sizzling cracks and snaps as of rotted wood in the flames. “You will? The powerless one?” The hissing grew more insistent as the shadows crept closer. “You are no longer a God-King, Illyria. Just a useless shell trapping what remains of your corporeal form - nothing more than dust and smoke on the inside…like me.”
A laugh burbled up through the tarry darkness pooling along the cracks in the floorboards, adding with something like gleeful surprise, “Did you think I would not know? You’ve been busy, Illyria. More time has passed than I realized.”
Illyria felt John loom up behind her, his hands gripping her shoulders as he yanked her backwards from the room. The darkness coalesced, coiling like a serpent about waist high, taunting through the wall of fire separating them, “I’ll see you soon, Illyria. Can you imagine the power? I’m so glad you made me wait!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It was a demon?” Kaylee asked in confusion, still unable to believe it even after being told the story several times.
“You didn’t see it,” Jayne muttered, focusing intently on his weapon as he cleaned it with obsessive interest. Zoe gazed at him wordlessly, wishing she had something to occupy her own hands, twisting nervously in her lap.
Simon exited the medical bay, cleaning his hands on a small rag. “I had to sedate him. He was…upset.” He cast a concerned look at the crew. “You have all been in the black too long. You can’t truly think that demons are real. Fei hua!”
John trained his eyes on the prim doctor, the look in them making the young man step back instinctively. “There are, and you’d better get used to it, because he’s comin’ after you all.”
Simon collapsed on the couch by Kaylee’s side, reaching out to hold her hand. River curled up on the arm beside her brother, demanding, “Again, Grampa. They have to believe.”
“God,” Kaylee said, her voice nearly squeaking. “Grampa Winchester. I ain’t never gonna get used to that idea.” She settled back against Simon’s side, muttering under her breath, “And I thought he was cute - my grampa.”
River explained, “Technically, it’s great-great-great-great….”
John interrupted her smoothly, saying, “It began on the Earth-That-Was….”
TO BE CONTINUED...
Rating: R (overall)
Genre: Gen, Het, Supernatural/Angel/Firefly crossover
Pairing: John/Illyria
Characters: Firefly crew
Summary: John and Illyria finally have to deal with the Demon that destroyed his family. Will they be able to save John's descendants from the Demon's wrath? (bad language/sexual situations)
Author's Notes: Thanks to hakirby and lyonie17 for their continued beta-ing prowess. Hakirby is entirely responsible for all the added porn and lyonie17 is responsible for turning my modern-day English into Fireflyese. The Chinese translations are up for grabs. I trusted various websites to get those. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns both Illyria and Firefly. The lovely icon belongs to lyonie17.
Part 6...
They both felt it. Every time Serenity landed, no matter what planet or what time of day, there was that same sense of heavy foreboding in the air. The harmless, and some not-so-harmless, creatures that still survived would cluster on the edge of sight and hearing, seeming to watch and to wait, glittering eyes and gleaming scales twinkling like a suggestion of thought but disappearing with a turn of the head. It had John on edge - Illyria remained as Illyrian as ever, though her eyes ceaselessly scanned the horizon as if looking for a sign of what was to come.
And then the reports started pouring in.
The few scattered cases of strange fires and spontaneous combustions that had drawn them to Serenity in the first place erupted into headline news of men and women slaughtering their families, entire towns burning to the ground, stories of monsters with black eyes ordering and tempting and seducing with promises of power - to purge their towns of evil.
The Alliance militia could find no common thread. They deemed it space sickness, like the Reavers; sometimes, whole towns would be gone in the span of a night at just the hint of trouble, the Alliance flitting in and out like the phantoms John used to shoot with rock salt so long ago.
The collective link the Alliance couldn’t see was the Winchester DNA - a spectral taint so faded in most that only prolonged study could find the tiny sequences of chromosomes that put together in just the right way would paint the same picture. This one was a Winchester. That diluted strain of Hunter, watered down after so many generations away from the Earth-That-Was, that indelible mark of…something…was the target painted on the back of every man, woman and child who dared to be born with a shred of it buried inside them.
There was nothing John could do - no trail to follow, no rhyme or reason to the killings. Before, it had seemed somehow related to the children - those babies left behind with special gifts that had been all but wiped out by circumstance. Now, even the children were dying - burning and bleeding along with their mothers and fathers.
It was spite - a quest for vengeance. John knew that much. Whatever plan the Demon had so long ago had been rendered null with the passage of time. This was something new and John was just as lost as the rest of the universe - if the rest of the universe took time enough to notice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“John?” came Illyria’s strident voice, although softer than her usual clarion call, as if attempting to be soothing when she didn’t quite know how to be.
John tilted his cheerless gaze up to hers, the lines carved deeply around his mouth and eyes. He welcomed her presence beside him, sliding an arm around her waist to pull her closer, resting his cheek against her hair. “I don’t know what to do, Illyria.” He drew in a shaky breath. “Somehow, I thought I’d be more prepared.”
“We do what we can, John. We hunt and we fight. That is all.” She turned her head to gaze off into the distance, noting the tiny figures clustering around Serenity. “It is time to go back. They are waiting.” She tugged him with her, shifting to Fred as they walked side by side.
Within a few steps, John felt her shifting under his hands, and Fred and Illyria flickered back and forth, making him dizzy with the effort of focusing. “Illyria? What’s wrong?”
John grabbed her by the arm, halting her progress and she almost frowned at him, gazing at him steadily.
“Nothing,” she said, her bold blue eyes muddying to an odd mix of brownish-blue for a moment before solidifying into Fred’s mocha gaze through sheer force of will. With her jaw tense and her body stiff beside him, Fred retained her form all the way back to the ship, only relaxing when back in the sanctuary of their quarters. Once safely ensconced, blue spilled over her slight frame in a sudden burst of color as the tan leached from her skin, and she distracted John from his concerns in the way of all females wishing to avoid answering questions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“We’re settin’ course for Sihnon,” Mal announced off-handedly at dinner, John and Fred still confined in their room.
“We’re pickin’ up Inara?” Kaylee crowed happily. “It’s about time, Cap’n!” She smiled at everyone, glowing with happiness.
“S’been two months already?” Jayne grumbled around a mouthful of food, slouching possessively with his arm around his plate. “Seems like we just left her there yesterday.”
“We dropped her off just before we picked up the Winchesters almost five weeks ago, Jayne. ‘Sides, Inara’s joinin’ us for good this time!” Kaylee reminded him with a smack on the arm. “It’ll be shiny to have our family together again!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The tranquil surface of Sihnon, where Madrassa had its home, filled the pilot’s windshield, bringing a smile to the face of Malcolm Reynolds as he headed in for a landing.
In the mess, Kaylee was trying to explain it to John and Fred. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. “I never seen so much nature in one place before! The rest of the planet is all cities and populated, but it’s so serene around Madrassa.” Kaylee hummed cheerily before giggling, “Cap’n can finally be happy - him and Inara all in love and cozy. It’s like a storybook!”
River glanced up at John and Fred with a mournful expression. “We’ll be too late. First domino falls, knocking the others over one by one.” She made absent clicking sounds with her tongue, her eyes going unfocused.
John blanched, reaching out to grab Fred’s wrist, clinging to it like a lifeline. “Kaylee,” he ordered shortly, “go tell the Captain to hurry.”
Kaylee hesitated before taking one look at his face and bolting when instinct told her with a twist of her gut, Run fast. Run far. It’s coming. She screamed, “Cap’n! Cap’n!” down the passageways, drawing the rest of the crew from their quarters.
John pulled Fred closer, feeling the long line of her body bracing his suddenly weakening form, keeping her near - safe, at his side. “I thought it would be different. I thought I could protect them this time.”
River glanced up at him through the fall of her hair, murmuring, “She was not of our blood. You could not know she was missing. Not your fault.” River curled in on herself in the chair, tucking her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “She was his heart’s secret. Everyone knew, but him…and you.”
She blinked at John, the subtle ferocity burning in her eyes shutting off with that slight movement of her lids, leaving her gaze suddenly open and guileless - the economy of both motion and emotion so reminiscent of Illyria that he shook his head, briefly wondering of the possibility of genetics by osmosis. John closed his eyes, counting his breaths before opening them and snapping, “She’s not past tense, yet, River. Show her more respect.”
River frowned at his sharp tone, turning woeful eyes to Fred, who shrugged, acknowledging River’s choice in terminology before rubbing a hand soothingly along John’s arm. Fred ignored the discomfort of John’s grip grinding the thin bones of her wrist together, his knuckles whitening as unacknowledged panic tightened his hold. Keeping her gaze trained on the small girl now rocking silently across from them, Fred kept up her calming strokes along John’s arm as she murmured soft reassurances, her tone never wavering even as he unwittingly crushed the bones in her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Inara!” Mal yelled, his entire body thrumming with warning as he sprinted up the steps to her room. John, Fred, Jayne, and Zoe tried to keep up as he raced to her, all of them feeling the threat hanging heavily in the air. None of the other Companions had seemed to notice.
Mal burst through her door and found her room empty, the soft, scented breeze blowing the gauzy curtains in billowing folds, making shadows flicker across the walls. The neatly stacked boxes and bags indicated her readiness for departure, as did the light linen wrap thrown carelessly over the chair by the door. “Gorram hwoon dahn. There’s nothin’ wrong.”
Mal shook off his apprehension with a sudden straightening of his shoulders, falling back on the bed with closed eyes and sighing at the comfort of the cool sheets against his back. He heard the heavy footsteps of his compatriots stop at the door, and he commented loudly, eyes still closed as exhaustion crept over him, “Stupid fay-fay duh pee-yen. I’m gonna have to have words with you later.”
John’s voice came, softly commanding, “Captain Reynolds. Keep your eyes closed. Please. Just sit up and walk to me.” Mal’s brow furrowed, but he kept his eyes shut, the lassitude of waning panic making him lazy, when he heard Zoe’s soft intake of breath and Jayne’s muffled curse bitten off as they finally reached the door.
Mal turned his head, readying to open his eyes to see what was wrong, when Zoe’s voice came sharp and clear and smooth. “Captain. Listen to him. Come here now.”
Mal frowned petulantly, ready to argue, when a warm splash hit his forehead - and then another, and another. “S’it rainin’?” he asked, yawning as he rubbed his hand over his face, smearing the sticky dampness on his skin. “Someone close the window.”
Blinking tiredly, his eyes slowly focused on the tiles overhead, sharpening fuzzy shapes into the figure of his beautiful Inara pinned to the ceiling, her stomach nothing more than a large swatch of blood. He stilled, disbelief evident on his face even to those waiting in the doorway, before he screamed soundlessly as flames erupted around her.
Mal felt someone grab his arms, yanking him towards the door as he dug his feet in, unwilling to leave Inara behind. “Malcolm! Go!” John ordered, his bark of command somehow encouraging Mal to finally react as Jayne and Zoe bodily dragged him from the room, his struggles useless against the two of them. John herded them from the room, trusting Fred to follow behind.
Illyria shifted as the flames curled along the walls, her blue-brown hair blowing in the breeze from the open window, the swirling embers and ashes dotting her pale skin. “Illyria,” a soft hiss came from the shadows in the corner. “So nice of you to visit.”
Illyria turned to face the roiling shadows dancing thickly along the wall. “He will kill you. He is stronger than you know.” She blinked, adding, “If he does not, then I will.”
The shadows laughed, sizzling cracks and snaps as of rotted wood in the flames. “You will? The powerless one?” The hissing grew more insistent as the shadows crept closer. “You are no longer a God-King, Illyria. Just a useless shell trapping what remains of your corporeal form - nothing more than dust and smoke on the inside…like me.”
A laugh burbled up through the tarry darkness pooling along the cracks in the floorboards, adding with something like gleeful surprise, “Did you think I would not know? You’ve been busy, Illyria. More time has passed than I realized.”
Illyria felt John loom up behind her, his hands gripping her shoulders as he yanked her backwards from the room. The darkness coalesced, coiling like a serpent about waist high, taunting through the wall of fire separating them, “I’ll see you soon, Illyria. Can you imagine the power? I’m so glad you made me wait!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It was a demon?” Kaylee asked in confusion, still unable to believe it even after being told the story several times.
“You didn’t see it,” Jayne muttered, focusing intently on his weapon as he cleaned it with obsessive interest. Zoe gazed at him wordlessly, wishing she had something to occupy her own hands, twisting nervously in her lap.
Simon exited the medical bay, cleaning his hands on a small rag. “I had to sedate him. He was…upset.” He cast a concerned look at the crew. “You have all been in the black too long. You can’t truly think that demons are real. Fei hua!”
John trained his eyes on the prim doctor, the look in them making the young man step back instinctively. “There are, and you’d better get used to it, because he’s comin’ after you all.”
Simon collapsed on the couch by Kaylee’s side, reaching out to hold her hand. River curled up on the arm beside her brother, demanding, “Again, Grampa. They have to believe.”
“God,” Kaylee said, her voice nearly squeaking. “Grampa Winchester. I ain’t never gonna get used to that idea.” She settled back against Simon’s side, muttering under her breath, “And I thought he was cute - my grampa.”
River explained, “Technically, it’s great-great-great-great….”
John interrupted her smoothly, saying, “It began on the Earth-That-Was….”
TO BE CONTINUED...