Downtime - Mal/Open

[RIVER TAM]

River was wandering the catwalk of Serenity, she could feel something safe in the hum of the engines, the steady pace and calm demeanor the ship had. There were ghosts on the ship but any home had them. Everyone left a piece of themselves on the Serenity. Once you became the ship’s crew you weren’t leaving. Not ever if it could be prevented, River loved Serenity. River let her thoughts go to Mal who may think he was some big tough bad guy but underneath all of that he was a good man, he was a calm man. He’d come back for Simon and herself after they’d been kidnapped. River recalled that day with a strange clarity, she could remember the music and the steps to the dance. River loved dancing she always did love to dance. River was letting her mind try and absorb everything that was going on around her. To feel ever sensation that was corporeal. River’s mind had roamed as her bare feet moved along the cat walk. River could feel the people on the ship, the other members of the crew. The people who made the ship their home, currently there were some of them missing. Inara had left a hole in Serenity upon her departure, which had left everyone feeling an odd sense of loneliness out there in the black. River thought she was stupid for leaving Serenity for leaving a place that she had considered her home. Even with everything happening to River that he didn’t think it had to be though. The other missing resident of the ship was Shepherd Derrial Book, a name that River knew was just an alias but she wasn’t going to blame a man for wanting to do better with himself. Shepherd Book’s absence from the ship was less noticed than Inara’s because though he had been looking at ships Serenity wasn’t his home. All of the minds on the ship were open to River to access she couldn’t help it she couldn’t filter through them. She could feel everything, from their dreams to their nightmares. She was unable to filter through them. River couldn’t sense the dead though, so she didn’t notice them because there was no mind there. There were only two more kinds of people that River couldn’t sense one of them was coma patients, unless they were on the verge of waking River couldn’t sense them. And the reavers, she couldn’t sense them because unlike people reavers didn’t think. For River to know you were there, you needed to think, she needed to be able to feel your mind. They didn’t have much left in the way of a mind to think with. But when they did think it was to kill and then River could sense with a frighteningly high amount of awareness of them. Their faces were mutilated with scars that they’d both put there and had gotten there through other means. They were disfigured creatures covered in scars and rashes from radiation poisoning. The reavers would often crop up out of nowhere and slash someone which was when she could feel them. She could feel the ugliness, the brutality, the nihilism, the sheer, unmitigated, unbridled terror that they produced. This behavior of the reavers made Jayne’s brutality, Wash’s gentleness. Even in River’s unsettled mind she could find Serenity. Serenity was home, it wasn’t like the Tam estate. A place that she had lived but was never home, it wasn’t like the various schools she had gone away to. None of them felt like home to her she always knew she would be leaving. Something about Serenity felt permanent. River let her thoughts wander to her older brother for a while. Simon who was always so tidy, always bathed and groomed holding onto a life, that was no longer his and he was never happy in to begin with. That made Simon stupid if you asked River but he liked Kaylee she could tell from the second the two of them had met Simon had a crush on her. Despite the overwhelming sensations that came with being awoken early, without her amgydala to filter out what was happening. River had become at home in the hum of Serenity the silent signals that it somehow gave Kaylee letting the young mechanic know when it was sick, needing a new part or just some love in general. River was quite alright with this though. She knew that it meant Serenity loved her crew and her crew loved it just as much. There was a lot of love on Serenity, she hoped Simon could feel it like she did. Feel that peacefulness that Serenity offered to them. Away from the Alliance from the Tam Estate that had made both of the Tam children rather unhappy but still pleasant children. River hated sleeping but she was at least comforted in the fact that her dreams weren’t much different from anyone else. They were all chaotic, unfocused and confusing which made River comforted in that there was something normal about her. River let her mind wander more back to when she was just a fourteen year old girl. The girl who wanted to go to the Academy, the girl who’s intelligence exceeded what most universities could offer her and so she was often bored to tears. It was the equivalent of sending chief resident Simon to an undergraduate biology course. The fact that she had been excited about it at all had been reason enough to send her. River was plagued by nightmares of that place. She was always plagued by nightmares. River was growing bored with being alone at the moment her mind darted from one emotion to the next though. Unable to settle unable to decide, she sometimes wondered if she was no better than a reaver. River’s mind was jumpy and frightened just like the man with Stockholm Syndrome who had turned himself into a reaver. He had seen everyone on his crew die to a reaver attack and he survived. River had figured out that was how the reavers were sustaining their numbers. River would do anything to prevent being a reaver someday. Lowering herself to the floor of the catwalk River stretched herself out to her full length. Though she wasn’t very tall River was able to get situated in a way that made her seem longer. One arm outstretched underneath her head, preventing the grates from touching her face much her legs stretched behind her listening to the hum of the ship. River closed her eeys but only for a moment before she realized that Mal was close by. Her mousy brown eyes opened slowly waiting for Mal to speak first rather than terrify the man with the fact she knew his presence was behind her. River grew impatient with his silence but still she waited count : 1187 tags : Mal/Open noted : anything? credited : KBIRD of caution 2.0

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[MAL REYNOLDS]

DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CANNOT DO

DON'T YOU THINK I'VE GOT TO RUN FROM YOU

Life had a habit of being unruly and chaotic for him - for them. It seemed to be something rather ' normal' aboard his ship. Oh, how he missed those simple days, wherein life consisted of smuggling and staying under the radar, but nothing more. Hell, who was he kidding. He missed it insofar that life was slightly less dangerous. He most definitely didn't miss the sometimes mind-numbing boredom that came with it, for one. Or the fact that, as much as he sometimes detested the danger they brought to lurk at their proverbial doorsteps, the Tams had become part of the crew. Part of the family (although he hadn't quite figured out yet what that made Simon). Not his brother, that he could already tell. The man may be a brilliant doctor and indeed a good brother, he also was far too good at working on Mal's nerves. Not that his nerves needed much in that aspect. With the added stress of having two very wanted fugitives aboard, one of which a girl aforementioned doc only knew half of how dangerous she was... Well, let's just say sleeping easy was a thing of the past, more so than it already had been. He could vaguely remember nights on Shadow, with the moons casting enough light to compare to an overcast day, the green prairies gleaming silver under the stars, the soft neighing of horses as good as a lullaby to him.

That were days he missed, back when he could indeed sleep. These days, sleep was a rare commodity. Between worries of the past and the present, the future wasn't gloomy enough to warrant dreams about it too. As much as he hated it, the war still kept him awake. Mal knew it was the case with Zoe too, but she had Wash, and as odd a pairing as it was, it was a good match. He would admit to that, though not easily. It was one of several reasons he was up and awake now, prowling through his ship while the majority of the crew was asleep. All of them, except perhaps River. River was always a wild card, never where you expected her. Even when you tried to expect the unexpected.

Frowning a little at the almost-cryptical sentences his brain spun, he shook his head as if he were a wet dog. Maybe he did need some sleep at some point within the next few hours. Y'know, before his judgment was affected. Funny, it were only a few crew members who actually tried to use that claim. Well, Jayne and Simon, actually. One for lack of understanding, one for medical reasons. Zoe knew just how much sleep he needed to function properly, as he did for her, and Wash followed her lead. Kaylee was too shiny and new to really go against him, trusting him in that way of her that always made his heart feel just a little gooey. Grouchy mean old man that he was, he was touched she tried to, and often saw past that exterior, even if he didn't always give her much cause for it. Shrugging that train of thought off as well, he managed to nearly trip over River. A-ha!

So he was right she wasn't sleeping. "Mei-mei, why are you laying here?"  he asked, a hint of concern in his voice. He never knew how much she could 'read'  and from whom - he really didn't want her to read his mind, and not just to keep his possibly-pervert secrets. It was also to spare her: she'd seen enough terror in her life already, she really didn't need more than that, and even that was already an impossibility with the Reavers pushing in from one side and the Alliance growing stronger on the other.

TAG: RIVER ¬ WORDS: 647 ¬  NOTES: N/A
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[RIVER TAM]

”Too much noise” replied River without glancing at Mal. Unmoving from her spot on the floor despite the fact that he’d nearly tripped over her long limbs. River sometimes found that the most noise occurred when the ship was void of all verbal noise. It was louder in her head when people weren’t speaking when they’d all slipped away to their bunks for the night. River’s even and steady breathing gave away the fact that she wasn’t currently distressed. Which made her pleasant enough to be around, although sometimes she tried to grate at Simon’s nerves just to be the annoying little sister she was. River saw Mal’s memories of Shadow in vivid detail. She could hear the horses, smell and feel their fur, see the moons casting enough light to be compared to an overcast day, the green prairies silver under the moons and stars, River could smell the grass all things that were part of the memory he was laying out in his head. There was a tactile and olfactory component that had said this wasn’t a dream but a memory. Dreams were chaotic, unfocused and confusing faces didn’t always match up with voices in dreams. And dreams weren’t sequential they were random sometimes bouncing from one event to another. No cause, no effect the laws of the universe didn’t apply in dreams like they did outside of her head. River’s dreams had plenty of sights and sounds, but never any other senses. She could tell a dream from a memory. It was a memory that had woken her from her drug induced slumber. There was nothing comforting in her memory like there was in Mal’s. Mal had people who had loved him on Shadow, aside from Simon, River had been basically alone. River felt a varied array of emotions from various people on the ship at all times. Some peoples were easy to decipher who they belonged to. Other times it was clouded and it didn’t make sense. River could sense her older brothers worrying even in his sleep he worried. River could tell he was laying flat on his back stiff as a board. He was shirtless which didn’t surprise her any because he’d been doing that since he was fourteen years old, she’d been four at the time but she went to sleep in his room with bad dreams and not their parents’. Regan and Gabriel Tam treated their children like they were expendable. They were a status symbol, River had sensed that from a very young age. She didn’t tell Simon that she knew that their parents didn’t love them. She knew that their parents cared about them, their well being at least until recent events. But they weren’t exactly loved by the parents who’d brought them into the world. ”Cousin, perhaps nephew, not your brother though, he doesn’t like you well enough for that” answering Mal’s thoughts from a few minutes ago. Mal’s thoughts were easy to decipher his world was pretty black and white. Compared to her own world which was several shades of gray. River caught his thoughts on Wash and Zoe, the mismatched pair who were so in love with one another. River always felt welcomed by Wash, he was friendly and caring. He was playful and open which was the opposite of his wife Zoe, who was cold, calculating and quiet. But Zoe had her soft side a side that offered some warmth to them to Mal, and particularly to Wash. River knew the war still played a role in Mal and Zoe’s personalities it always would. River had sometimes watched Mal’s thoughts and Zoe’s thoughts when something brought the memories front and center. River had often been able to smell the dirt, sweat, gun powder, and blood that made up the battle feels. She could feel the weight of the ground under her feet. River got the briefest glimpse into Jayne’s head it was what she expected it to be. Chaotic, full of fights, women and booze, River didn’t understand how that was all he dreamt about. But it was. Kaylee’s mind was much like her personality cheerful and sweet, open and kind, friendly and playful. River liked to play with Kaylee who was the only member of Serenity’s crew near her age and willing to play when she was feeling good. ”They’re never silent, the verisimilitude of them becoming mute, hushed, uncommunicative is implausible, even as they slumber they still compose symphonies of emotions, thoughts, memories, dreams. It brings no peace no chance of slumber” explained River to Mal. She didn’t know how to make the older man understand what happened in her head. What her brain was even remotely capable of was in itself a mystery to everyone, including her. River’s mind was constantly thirsting for new information to add to it, now that she could feel everything there was no need to thirst any longer. She always had a constant stream of new information, variables. Her mind hopped back to where Simon’s dreams were currently. It was a memory from when they were younger. River was only a child in this memory pestering her older brother to play with her while he was trying to do homework. River looked at Mal before she started rambling again. Repeating something she had said before to Simon, hoping maybe Mal would understand. She had no high hopes of it though because River knew she didn’t always make sense. Her thoughts got jumbled mixed with others mixed and confused. Things she wasn’t supposed to know she knew things she should know she didn’t but none of it could be quantified not truly. ”She took him away from there, she knows she did. He doesn’t think she does, but she gets confused. She remembers everything, remembers too much, and some of it’s made up… and some of it can’t be quantified and… there’s secrets…. But she understands, he gave up everything for her and he found her broken it’s hard for him. He gave up everything he had” rambled River ”And we were lost, lost in the woods, but daddy found us in the woods, but we’re still lost, he tries but she isn’t getting better. I’ll get better… I’ll get better” River was starting to get distressed not severely but enough that she had stopped making a lot of sense to anyone. River liked Mal well enough, he was always kind to her. And he understood she was dangerous. That was something Simon was lacking. An understanding of how dangerous she was and could be, so far the worst she’d done to the crew was slash Jayne with a butcher knife. Which she was still thoroughly convinced was necessary. count : 1120 tags : Mal/Open noted : anything? credited : KBIRD of caution 2.0

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[MAL REYNOLDS]

DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CANNOT DO

DON'T YOU THINK I'VE GOT TO RUN FROM YOU

Mal smiled sadly at her, as always slightly uncomfortable with River. Not so much River in person, but rather what she could be. As he had said before, morbid and creepy-like he could deal with, as long as she did it quiet-like. It was disconcerting what a girl only slightly more than half his age had seen, let alone could do. He wished that Serenity allowed for a more relaxed lifestyle, leaving them with some opportunities for play. This was not a lifestyle suitable for impressionable young girls, nor the place for it. The Border planets were notoriously rough - the law usually was local, not Alliance (which, frankly, was both an advantage and a disadvantage) and the life tough. Sure, some of the more central Border planets had their civilizations, but even that was but a pale shade of what the Core planets offered - of where she had grown up. She should've been able to run and play and be unburdened by life still.

Life wasn't that easy though. Hadn't been before the war, and wouldn't be now either. For a moment, he wished things'd been different. But then again, then he wouldn't have had Serenity or Zoe or any of the others - though he was quite honest: it'd be Zoe he'd miss the most. The dark haired, caramel-skinned woman was not only who had dragged him through the war and the hard years directly after it. A wry smile pulled up a corner of his mouth as he reconsidered that: lots of people still thought he was some disillusioned bitter soldier, an Independent who couldn't fully accept the fact the Alliance won the war. They were wrong, then and now. They had lost, there was no denying it. And now, even if pockets of Browncoats still survived, for him the cause was... Well, not dead per se, but he was no longer personally invested in it. He didn't care if people branded him a coward: he preferred to run now. It was far better to avoid confrontations with the Alliance rather than having to grit your teeth and get through it, fight your way out of it, whether it was a verbal or physical fight.

Not to say that he never appreciates it. Matching wit could be quite fun, but these days there was too much weight behind it. It was always about something important. Fuel, pay for a job, convincing lawmen (legitimate and illegitimate alike) that no, there really weren't fugitives aboard... Huh. Maybe he missed the good ol'  days more than he thought, even if the Tams did up the ante and bring in a bit more excitement. Just a little too much for his taste at certain adrenalin-fueled times. Not that he'd have it any other way: a lot of other ships 'round the black were likely to have either spaced the Tams or turned them in for the reward and that was just wrong. Even if Jayne'd been tempted and, briefly, so briefly, maybe he too, a fleeting thought he squashed as soon as it rose. While he didn't really know what the Alliance did with their hated, precious, dangerous fugitives, he really doubted it was anything good. The girl didn't deserve that: he and his crew would... No, they wouldn't die before they let them take her, for one single good reason: if they were dead, they couldn't break her out or rescue her.

"Brothers aren't always supposed to like each other,"  he confessed with a slight grin. While he had no blood kin anymore, even before Shadow got bombed, some of the ranch hands had had children roughly his age, and for a while they had been a merry band of brothers terrorizing the ranch hands, spooking the cattle and 'stealing'  some of the horses. Great times, then. Although his mama had never been very happy with it, and mama Reynolds was a woman everyone on Shadow feared, especially when ticked off. Grimacing at the thought, he nodded. She was pretty right, he thought. Mostly he was just glad that for once he could follow her conversation, jumpy as her topics of conversation sometimes were.

Of course, that was immediately the moment she spoke up again and had him beyond confused for a bit. _{^{They’re never silent, the verisimilitude of them becoming mute, hushed, uncommunicative is implausible, even as they slumber they still compose symphonies of emotions, thoughts, memories, dreams. It brings no peace no chance of slumber}}. He mulled over her words for a bit, slight frown visible as he put in some effort. Clever as he was, he was far from her range of genius-ness. The first part he didn't get, though it was fairly ominous, but the latter was at least clearer: too much human white noise for her, too little quiet to use to fall asleep. Proud of deciphering at least half of it (well, he thought so anyway) that good mood was blown out of the water again when she spoke again, turning even more cryptic.

"Sssh,"  he tried to comfort her a little. Without thinking it over he sat down next to her, resting a warm hand on her shoulder to offer her some comfort. While he couldn't really follow that tangent of hers, two things he did pick up from it. One being that she was getting (dis)stressed, which was bad, and the second that it was about her. 'He' probably was Simon, but she wasn't sure. "It'll be alright," he told her - not a promise, not a promise he maybe couldn't keep, but it was a conviction of his. He believed it and would do anything in his power to make sure that happened.

   TAG: RIVER ¬ WORDS: 979 ¬  NOTES: N/A
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[RIVER TAM]

River could sense Mal’s discomfort with her, she knew it wasn’t something she could prevent but try to be like everyone but she couldn’t. She tried she tried to be a normal girl who walked with her feet and hear with her ears but she couldn’t do that. She was upside down and backwards, she was tangled in all sorts of manner of tangled that one shouldn’t be in. That wasn’t so say she wasn’t as graceful as ever, but she was mangled and tangled in ways that couldn’t be emulated by anyone who hasn’t been through severe torture. River tilted her head against her arm slightly her eyes watching Mal. River didn’t want a more relaxing life style she liked the way Serenity was run. River was many things young, yes, impressionable she was no longer that person. She was no longer a child, but Simon was trying to keep her as such but that was because he missed his sister and she missed herself in some ways. River was weighed down in life such as Mal was but they were carrying two entirely different burdens. River sometimes dreamed of her life back on Osiris, on the Tam Estate, with its constant parties and its daily affairs from both of her parents. River had had an easy life before Serenity, she had anything and everything she could possibly want from her parents, and she got affection and love from Simon. River knew Mal never had an easy life none of the brown coats, but he didn’t seem to mind the life. She knew he wished for a different life on occasion but River knew he’d miss this boat too much, miss his crew, particularly his first mate Zoe Washburne, formerly Alleyne. River looked at Mal as a wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. She recognized the thoughts about him enjoying to, run now, enjoying being on the run out in the skies. He wasn’t personally invested in the Browncoats cause anymore but he was a brown coat. River knew the Browncoats had lost the war but she didn’t think they should have. The alliance meddled, they were in their homes and in their heads, and they hadn’t the right. They were meddlesome, it was why everything was so closely monitored at the core from who went in to who was leaving. River knew Mal would get into altercations with just about anyone both physical and verbal especially when his crew was at risk. River looked at Mal, she knew he enjoyed matching wits with people from time to time and if she could keep a coherent thought for long she’d win against him easily. Matching wits was like playing chess it was careful consideration of words and how they were used, how the words sounds, the tone, the inflection. River could run circles around Simon in a battle of wits easily because Simon was occasionally known to let himself be convinced he was winning and River would turn it against him. River heard Mal’s thoughts about the bounty on hers and Simon’s heads. She knew Mal wouldn’t turn them in though, he was too good of a person for that. She knew that even though he didn’t know of the tortures she’d been through at the Academy the trauma that he saw was enough to not send her back to them. River smiled briefly at Mal’s thought how they wouldn’t die before they could take her because if they dided they couldn’t rescue her again. ”You’d rescue her even though she doesn’t walk with her feet or hear with her ears, she’s not a girl anymore, she’s different she’s dangerous” rambled River to Mal. Looking at Mal regarding him in a way that she hadn’t regarded him since the day that they’d first met. ”Brothers should at least like each other some of the time, you don’t like Simon much at all, it’s not his fault though he’s a boob” River’s mind was wandering through all the minds in the ship trying to sort her thoughts from theirs, figure out her emotions that had no human filter for anymore. River had a deep need for comfort at the moment. River need a filter a way to decipher her thoughts from theirs and to decipher what she thought compared to what other people thought. River nearly flinched away from Mal’s hand when he rested it on her shoulder. River held back the terror that she sometimes felt for no reason at all. River looked at Mal much like she had at Simon when he broke her out of the academy a mix of terror, emotional instability, and psychic abilities unmatched by any other people in the academy. ”I do not want go back, please don’t make me go back said River River sat up and looked at Mal begging him not to do anything to make her go back to the academy that place scared the living hell out of her. River kept staring at Mal before she started to speak again “And then the beautiful princess got tired of waiting for her handsome prince and tried to escape, but they found her and to punish her they locked her in a smelly, white, cold room where the evil blue demons strapped electrodes to her face and started to shock her. Zap, zap, zap, until she couldn’t stop screaming. Only no one could hear” count : 1120 tags : Mal/Open noted : sorry for the delay credited : KBIRD of caution 2.0

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[MAL REYNOLDS]

DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CANNOT DO

DON'T YOU THINK I'VE GOT TO RUN FROM YOU

"Haven't seen you walk on your hands, though," he quipped, aware that it might be seen as a challenge, but it could've been worse, he supposed. "But we'll keep coming from you, no hun dan purplebelly can keep us from you," he promised her, giving a gentle sqeeuze before removing his hand from her shoulder, aware that physical touch was not something she really cared for much. He did, though, sometimes. Zoe could attest to that: there had been times where he'd been downright clingy, in dire need of some simple physical contact that wasn't aimed at maiming and killing. Zoe had been good with it; strong as she was, she too had that need from time to time. War changed people, and though she now had her husband to take care of it where he had no one, he was still glad for her. He could do without that bit of comfort to see her happy with the mustached pilot. He knew her longer than today, after all, the good and especially the bad. She deserved the happiness he gave her.

Mal smiled at her next words. He never really had real brothers, but he'd had plenty of semi-siblings around his mothers ranch during the summers. He knew how 'brothers' worked and he had to agree with the slip of a girl that was so wise and so childlike at the same time: he and Simon weren't like brothers. He was, as she so eloquently put it, a boob. The man was fairly uppity and all core-like, even with Kaylee's presence in his life and his stay in space for a while now. Sometimes, Mal despaired for the man. Other times, it amused him how unchanging he was. And well, he was a hell of a doctor, which was always good, especially on Serenity with ihs crew. They had a penchant of getting shot and/or stabbed, after all.

He leaned over the railing, elbows securely planted on the metal as he looked over the hardly-lit cargo bay. It was fairly empty right now, and he wasn't too thrilled about it, but at least  there was enough fuel to keep the boat in the air for a while more, and there was enough protein to keep them fed for at least four more weeks, although it wasn't all too tasty. Never was, unless Book was cooking. He could feed people, and he could improvise quite properly with it dirtside, but he was no wizard in the galley. At all. But hell, he was the captain, he could delegate, and that was what he generally did when it came to food. Wasn't really abusing his privileges now, was it?

Mal fell quiet upon her next words, remaining so for a bit until he looked over at her. "You won't have to go back," he promised her solemnly. It wasn't what his crew was for, but they could do, and she was family. Moreso than her brother, but Kaylee'd space him if she knew he had been thinking that. And in all fairness, Simon might be more of an in-law, but family nonetheless. He ignored her disturbing words, filing them away for later consideration.

 TAG: RIVER ¬ WORDS: 551 ¬ NOTES: N/A
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