Disclaimer: Firefly and all the associated characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not me. I make no profit off of this.
AN: So, I've had this written up for a while and was totally delaying typing and submitting it, but then I saw people had actually read my other story, "River Is" and totally freaked out and had to type this up ASAP. It's another story about River, because I find her very, very interesting. Also I always love the crazies. Tenses may be a little wonky- blame it on River being crazy or something.
The Taste of Madness
Everyone's minds are different. No shit, she would say if she could remain lucid long enough to process the comment. But it isn't just a saying, not to her. Everyone leaves a different taste to match the different thoughts and memories.
Mal, bad in Latin. Captain Daddy. He's broken up inside like she is (but no one is as broken as she is) and he's hidden it under a layer of denial, anger, and protectiveness. Even so, he's rotting inside. He knows that, and tries to cover it up with surface thoughts about whatever job they're on now, Serenity and how he's going to maintain her, Inara (why don't they just tell each other already?), even River sometimes (for a way, way different reason than Inara), annoyance at Book when he's in a preaching mood, and annoyance at Jayne when he does anything, an aching gratefulness for Zoe. Deeper, where she tries not to go, because she knows if she had to deal with his past on top of hers she really will put a bullet in her brain pan, there's pain and fear and always, always Serenity Valley and loss like a missing tooth. Mal's mind tastes like blood, gunpowder and the bitter bitter bitter tang of guilt.
Zoe is calmer on the surface. She dealt with the war better than Mal but sometimes she wakes up sweating from dreams of bullets and bombs and ground soaked with blood. River wakes up with her. Zoe's mind is a lake, too cold against River's, with an undertow that threatens to drag River under and drown her in the feelings Zoe can't express. She has a whole bunch of soft fluffy feelings for Wash and a steel strong bond with Mal. She's never loved Mal the way she does Wash, but she's never loved Wash the way she does Mal. It tears her in two sometimes. Zoe's mind tastes of loss and longing and sometimes fear, in a medley that for some reason reminds River of unripe cantaloupe.
Jayne's mind is uncomplicated. He thinks about booze, fighting, and women, and while it isn't a place she likes to be, it's occasionally refreshing to not have to deal with pretenses and locks. He's afraid of her, a little, and he hates her, a little, but at least he's honest about it, doesn't try to hide it the way the rest of them do. He's a mercenary, didn't have the same stakes in the War of Independence and he doesn't suffer from memories of those whose lives he ended. Instead of denial Jayne buries himself in vices when the memories get too much. Jayne's mind tastes like low quality moonshine and sweat with a tang of blood, and she's always worried that she'll get drunk off his thoughts.
Wash's mind is easier for her to deal with. He's had pain and loss and blood in his life, but nowhere near the amount the Mal, Zoe and Jayne have. When he's flying there's an edge of delirious joy. He loves Zoe almost as much as being a leaf on the wind and the jealousy of Mal is a bitter seed in the cotton candy of his mind. He was never very political, he just wanted to fly, and sometimes Mal and Zoe make him uncomfortable, their hatred of the Alliance is so intense. That tastes salty, like tears in the back of her throat.
Kaylee is all sweetness and light and grinding gears, and of all the minds River likes hers the best (except when Kaylee starts thinking about Simon, then River gets the hell out of dodge). Kaylee is filled with love for for Serenity and all those on her, so sugary sweet River worries about cavities. Under the sugary sweetness is all clicking gears, like the insides of the machines Kaylee loves so much. Kaylee is the soul of the crew and when she was afraid of River, River just wanted to hide in one of the nooks and crannies so abundant on the ship and never come out. River loved Kaylee, loved her mind but Kaylee made River feel even more broken in comparison. At least with Mal and Zoe she's in good company. Kaylee wasn't all sugary sweet, with some memories so deep down they might as well have barbed wire and keep out signs. Kaylee tastes like ripe strawberries
Inara is a zen practitioner and her mind is almost as calm as her exterior. She would take out each thought or feeling and examine it, then categorize it and decide whether or not to act on it. That led to a very neat mind, which River appreciated after the chaos of everyone else. The one thing that really impressed River was that she loved her clients, each and every one, unconditionally, for as long as she was hired. She genuinely did love them, which River supposed was what made her such a good Companion. What made her a bad Companion was her feelings for Mal, which went far deeper than the love for her clients and she couldn't switch them off. Those feelings made River almost as uneasy as Kaylee's feelings for Simon. She viewed Mal in entirely too paternal a way to be comfortable sharing the mind of the woman who loved him. Inara's mind tasted like dark chocolate.
Book's mind is carefully ordered and tamped down, but for a different reason than Inara's. When he's angry he thinks about verses of Scripture, and while River can't understand why he finds it comforting (it doesn't make sense!) he does. He has to remind himself who he is now sometimes, when thoughts he might have thought in his past live rise up. The balance between the two isn't as safely in the direction of religion as he wants it to be. River knows who he is, and what he was and unless his hair comes down she isn't afraid for precisely that reason. Book's mind tastes like incense smoke and cold steel, like she liked the blade of a knife.
Simon is almost a mix between Jayne and Inara. He isn't quite like either of them, but he has the singularity of focus that Jayne has, if for a different reason, and the same calm order that Inara has. His mind used to be different, layered like an onion, thousands of separate thoughts whizzing by but now he's focused on her, getting her better and all the layers melted away. He worries constantly, a thrum against her mind. Occasionally, deep deep deep in his subconscious, so deep he doesn't even realize when he's thought it, there's a spiral of regret and blame. If he hadn't come to save her instead of running on a dirty ship, he'd be a trauma surgeon. So she doesn't begrudge him his closeness with Kaylee, not that she would've anyway, or that it gets that far. His mind tastes like drugs and is almost as calming as the ones he injects into her veins.
River's mind is a place she tries not to go. It's all jagged and sharp like a broken mirror that reflects things that aren't there. Deep down, below herself, and the torture and the insanity and the paranoia is the conditioning of a killer, always trying to figure out how best to get out of where ever she is without taking damage. Above the killer are complicated mathematic equations that don't work out right, hands of blue, nonsense words (itakourem naz-), memories that aren't hers and fear. She is drenched in fear, incapacitated and disoriented bu it. The scars in her brain match the scars in her soul, which has been torn apart and resown so many times that no God would ever want it, no matter what the Shepherd says. Sometimes the mirror fragments come together, show what's really happening and for a short time she's lucid, until they drift apart again.
Almost matching the fear in volume is the blood, hers and others. She is so sick of blood, copper and salt and sweetness on her tongue. Everyone on Serenity has a little, even Kaylee and Inara and especially River. She can't get away from it. For some reason, once she can get past the taste of blood, her mind tastes like pickles. Half sour to be exact. Maybe it's the taste of madness? Or maybe because she is mad, she's made it all up, and none of them taste like anything. Maybe they don't exist, maybe she's still at the Academy, the victim of another cruel trick. River isn't sure. But then, she isn't sure of anything. She just has to have faith, as the Shepherd would say.