substitution reaction

r | major character death

He tells her that she'd look good with curly hair. River just cocks her head to the side as she lowers herself onto him.

He dreams, every night, but it's always different. Sometimes he never let River stay on the ship in the first place. Sometimes he left them behind on that backwoods planet, and she and her brother burnt to a crisp. Sometimes he left her on the floor of that bar. Sometimes he turned her over to the Operative the first chance he got. Sometimes they never went to Miranda, never ended up crashing on that damn moon. Sometimes they did, but it was Wash who died, in the landing, or Jayne, gutted by a Reaver, or Kaylee, her happy little face sliced in two. Sometimes Inara was injured, but it wasn't quite so bad, just a little scar on her chest.

They're all so vivid and real that when he wakes up, sometimes he reaches out to touch her. The same routine, every time; he cups a breast or skims his hand over her hip, and when he calls her Inara, River doesn't bother to correct him.

She has to know that she's only here because Inara's dead, just as he knows that she's only here because Simon is, too. He's pretty sure that she somehow blames him for that, because Simon wouldn't have been beheaded if he hadn't been standing up, ready to rush over to help Inara. (Inara was beyond helping at that point, according to Wash, and that probably makes it worse.) It's okay, because when he's not being totally rational, he blames her for Inara.

He only tries to control his thoughts when they're actually engaged in the act - and he can't bring himself to call it anything else - although he imagines that's rather silly. It's not like she's un-psychic the rest of the time. She probably knows his dreams better than he does. (And he wonders how she receives them, if she does. Images? Words, sound? Is she in the middle of it, or does it play like a wave?)

She mutters for him to shut up, and he assumes she wasn't referring to his attempts to praise her smooth skin. A moment later, though:

"Sound. No images, but color. Haze. Emotion. It hurts. I wish you'd stop."

"I try," he says, even as he thinks that Inara wouldn't dig her nails into him like River is right now.

"You're trying to fuck her into me." She pauses, stops moving. "Or fuck her out of you. Haven't figured it out yet."

He rolls her over - carefully, as the bed is small - and pins her wrists down with one hand, using the other to cover her mouth.

"Look who's talking," he taunts, although he's not really sure what he means by that. She bites down on a finger, just hard enough to draw blood, and when he snatches his hand away, it leaves a small smear of blood on her chin.

"You're pathetic," she says.

"You're worse," and he thrusts into her one last time, feeling a twinge of regret when she cries out. She pushes him off her, hunts down her nightgown, cursing in Chinese the whole time.

"I'm done with this," she announces, and he almost laughs, because she's said that a dozen times before. In the morning, they'll still be the loneliest people on the ship, and they'll still end up fucking in his quarters tomorrow, because they're still numb and hollow and desperate, and he's certain that she sees Simon in everything that reminds him of Inara.

(fin.)