Title: The Whole Sky's Mine
Fandom: Firefly
Author's Note: Written for 1fandom, but especially for Hireadd. Better late than never, right?
Theme Set: Seventh
Rating: R
Characters: Almost the whole cast
01. Focus
Kaylee's fingers are tangled in Serenity's wiring, and she bits her bottom lip in concentration.
02. Civilization
Inara carries civilization around on her skin.
03. Sink
Simon kissed her, lightly, gently, but his hands betrayed him and sank deep into her hair, winding the soft strands around his fingers, like he'd never let her go.
04. Bullet
Kaylee dreams of getting shot– the punch of lead driving through her belly, hard and cold, so cold, and it was the only time she'd feared anything metal.
05. Count
"I'm counting Serenity's heartbeat," River told him and when her voice stopped Simon started prepping the defibrillator even before Mal rushed into his infirmary with Kaylee in his arms.
06. Mental
Even unconscious River knew the moment the scientist succeeded; her dreams twisted from unholy nightmares into twisted, tangled horrifying images that had implacable, unchangeable meaning behind the madness.
07. Coast
"The coast is clear," Mal said and the sheriff and her men opened fire.
08. Fence
Inara had an epée blade in her shuttle, and when Mal had driven her to such heights of annoyance that even meditation couldn't calm her down, she brought it out and fenced with the air, slashing with the blade and making the candle flames shudder from the disruption of the air.
09. Circle
They seemed to rotate around each other, a set of double stars dancing on the same orbit but never in the same place at the same time.
10. Thin
So many things were worn thin on Serenity; they stood as testament to how well the crew loved her.
11. Room
As a boy, Mal thought Shadow as a roomy place to live, but nothing compared to the Black.
12. Blaze
River dreamed of the sharp prick of needles, of her blood boiling from the drugs, of the excruciating pressure of too many people in her head, of the brilliant blaze of muzzle flash- she craved silence and solitude the way Mal craved freedom.
13. Thought
River loved listening to Kaylee's dreams, they were colored confections of happiness and joy and light, and after Early, when they changed to shaky, panic strewn images; River wanted to sweep away the bounty's hunters existence like fallen leaves.
14. Jealous
Mal was always touching Kaylee, putting a hand on her shoulder, throwing an arm around her and if he'd behaved that way with anyone else, with Zoë or Inara, Simon would have been fine, but Mal only touched Kaylee with such blatant affection, Kaylee was special to her captain's eyes, and it made Simon's throat tight.
15. Sand
On Anubis, the sand was the color of amethysts, and reflected light in a similar way, from the way Kaylee carried on, Mal thought amusedly, you'd think she'd never seen purple before.
16. Doll
When she was eight, Kaylee's daddy got her a doll for her birthday– it was jing tsai, had movable parts and everything; she had it disassembled and had figured out how it worked inside of ten minutes.
17. Curl
"What did you do to your head?" Mal asked without thinking: Inara was on her way to meet a client and unaccountably her hair was hanging down her back in a ruler straight curtain, not a curl in sight.
18. Farewell
It was easier when people just died, Mal thought, then you didn't have to say goodbye, didn't have to smile as they walked off your ship.
19. Story
Simon was a Prince out of a fairy tale, and Kaylee was all too aware that she wasn't a Princess, wasn't that kind of girl; Kaylee wasn't very jealous of Inara, but sometimes she wished the Companion could share her elegance the way she shared her wisdom and her brushes.
20. Soft
Wash had soft eyes, the kind of eyes Zoe'd forgotten people had, and combined with his loud floral shirts, the man made the back of her neck prickle.
21. Pool
Inara walked away from him and the light pooled and gathered in her hair; when she left, she took the brilliance with her.
22. Serpent
Jayne never confused Kaylee; for that alone Simon was as wary of the mercenary as he would be a serpent (the apples didn't help either).
23. Prey
For most of the bounty hunters that the Alliance sent after the Tams, River was the deadliest prey they never got a glimpse of.
24. Friend
Inara brushed Kaylee's hair on her wedding day, and told herself pangs were only natural, and she certainly wasn't jealous; didn't most women feel like crying on wedding days?
25. Still
He knew he'd made the right choice when the engine room started smelling of oil (and was it strawberries?) instead of the small still Bester thought he didn't know about.
26. Exhausted
In the instant between his nightmares and waking, Mal remembered Serenity Valley, remembered it so totally he believed he was back, and he could feel the dragging, aching exhaustion of the war in the marrow of his bones.
27. Bold
He was used to Inara being graceful and coy; how was a man to resist when she put her airs away and stood before him with boldness in her eyes?
28. Hook
"Well, that's a possibility," Mal said, hooking his thumbs under his belt; he wondered when they'd going to get annoyed and shoot him (he was still irritated from his last conversation with Inara, and was hoping they're get a move on.)
29. Attraction
Kaylee swipes at her face, leaving a smudge of grease behind, staring deep into Serenity's heart, and the expression on her face is one Simon would expect to see in Triage.
30. Will
Serenity flies for love of Mal and Kaylee, but during a particularly turbulent descent, Simon half-believes the only thing keeping the ship up is his white-kuckled grip on the infirmary's counter.
31. Bed
Next time, Inara thought drowsily, they'd have to try this in a bed, before realizing that there wouldn't be a next time.
32. Bell
Kaylee's laugh is the most completely joyous sound he had ever heard.
33. Joy
Simon doesn't have nightmares about Early shooting him- he dreams about the look on Kaylee's face before they moved him into the infirmary, while his blood was still dripping on to Serenity's deck plating; she'd looked like she'd never smile again.
34. Decade
It took a decade of learning before Simon received a caduceus pin and a license to save lives, and he'd felt the weight of that time and the hunger for all the things he didn't know; standing at his graduation, he had no idea how easy it was to throw it all away.
35. Test
One of Simon's reoccurring anxiety dreams involved sitting down to a test and discovering his collar was buttoned so tightly he couldn't breath- "well, that's obviously your subconscious telling you that you wear shirts too much," Kaylee said when he told her, and went to work on his buttons.
36. Gentle
Brushing the hair away from her face, his hands were so exquisitely antithetical to what she had grown used to that River wanted to cry harder.
37. Hunger
When she first entered house Madrassa, Inara was more starved for beauty than she was for food; this was not to say she was unfamiliar with the edges of starvation.
38. Mute
Standing in Inara's shuttle after she left, Mal couldn't shake the feeling that something had been forcibly, violently silenced.
39. Quicken
Zoë brushed her fingers along her abdomen after she hosteled her rifle and Mal knew.
40. Absence
River could feel the absences in herself, could trace their trajectories like falling stars, but even all the king's horses (Serenity) or all the king's men (Simon) couldn't put her back together again.
41. Maze
Sometimes Simon's words were a maze to her, and she wished she was the kind of girl (intelligent, elegant, educated) who could walk through what he said without hesitation.
42. Close
"Well, that was close," Mal said bemusedly, looking at the bullet hole in his side.
43. Reign
Inara was a queen, and she reigned over a court composed of the senses– Mal hated when her perfume slipped into the ventilation system; one whiff of spice and smoke and he'd lose track of what he was doing, caught by the visceral fantasy of what she'd taste like (he never quite dared accuse her of adding drugs to her scents).
44. Crush
The pressure in space was 1.322 x 10 to the negative 11th Pascals (essentially zero pressure and enough to pull a body apart) but to River the black had the gentlest touch, as smooth and soft as Simon's hands or Inara's silks.
45. Run
It was supposed to be a milk run, simple, easy, profitable: "Just like always, sir," Zoë commented.
46. Art
Every summer, Simon's mother had taken her children to Osiris' Museum of Modern And Classical Art– it had progressed to the point that Simon had the guides' speech memorized; as an adult he discovered none of it, not even the paintings he loved, were anywhere as beautiful as Kaylee's smile.
47. Pressure
Buying Kaylee fruit felt suspiciously like buying a present for himself; she placed a raspberry in her mouth and closed her eyes in rapture as Simon shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
48. Echo
Drowsy and half-asleep, Simon rested his head on her shoulder and heard her heartbeat as an echo of Serenity's engines.
49. Heal
First, Do No Harm: up until he left Osiris, Simon had felt that Hypocrites set his sights too low.
50. Clear
When Kaylee was happy, she was happy with her whole being, all the way down to her soul, and Simon felt privileged to see so far inside her.
Notes: "Jing tsai" means "brilliant" and "splendid."