G is for Glamour
Glamour: a façade, an image overlaid over something else, often to make the object or person more desirable.
River can feel the monsters coming closer, their voices loud and grating. She curls up tighter, her arms wrapping around her legs. Footsteps are echoing, coming closer and closer. Soft breath blows across her neck and she shudders, eyes squeezed shut so tightly that she can see colors exploding.
Something touches her shoulder and she lets out a shriek and draws her legs closer to her chest, ignoring the pain screaming through her muscles.
"River?" It's a panicked voice, and she recognizes it, the cadence filtering through the haze in her brain.
"Simon?" It's a question, but one she already knows the answer to. Simon, because it's Simon and not a monster, breathes out a sigh of relief and releases his hold on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" he asks, hope in his voice. She knows why he's hopeful, why he's so happy that he feels like he'll float away if he's not careful. Thinks he's found the answer, the cure.
She knows it's not, how can it be? He can't fix her, no one can. Words run like whispers run like poison through her and everything is tilting and twisting and the monsters are surrounding her and waiting to tear her apart.
She knows that she can tell the truth, should tell the truth, because she's a good girl and she shouldn't tell lies or they'll come with needles and tear into her brain and rip out the disobedience so that she has to tell them the truth because she's a puppet and they're her puppet masters and they don't care that the strings are worn and broken and she dances lopsidedly because she's theirs and only they can control her.
She wants to tell him, she wants him to make the pain and the dizziness go away so she's fixed and can dance again without worrying about pieces flaking away. She wants to tell him because the obedience is so deeply written in her, because they could always tell when she was lying and she's not sure if he will too or not.
But she can't destroy him twice, tear down his beliefs and walls and systems and grind them into dust. Stomp and tear and rip pieces of his soul away until she's not the only one with broken parts and missing pieces.
"Yes." It comes out as a whisper, her voice hoarse. She flinches automatically, waits for the anger and the blow and the needle, but nothing happens. Simon beams and lets out a laugh and hugs her tightly, something he hasn't done for so long because he's terrified that he'll break her. He can't see her hands curled into fists, the nails digging into her palms.
He pulls away, eyes sparkling, and after several more reassurances he runs away, taking the laughter and happiness with him, away from her and towards the rest of the crew, where he'll spread the news around until it's shiny from being touched and smooth from being handled.
River gets up and follows him, practicing her smile while they pass her around like a shiny new toy, excited that she's better, that she's fixed.
River thinks that Inara can see through her sometimes, can see that the smiles don't reach her eyes and that her palms are scarred from her fingers digging into flesh. After all, Inara's the master of deception, the champion at hiding behind a pretty little mask. But she's fallen into her own trap, eyes seeing only what she wants to see and not perceiving the truth.
So River smiles and laughs and makes sure that she's alone when the monsters catch up to her and the voices become too much and she has to scream. They can't see that she's barely holding herself together, fingertips raw from hanging onto the cliff. It's a fight she losing, and she knows she will have to fall one day.
But for now the crew can be happy and carefree, at least as much as they are able to, and River will laugh and smile and wrap herself in the safety of her glamour.
