
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/29390.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Firefly
  Relationship:
      River_Tam/Hoban_Washburne
  Character:
      River_Tam, Hoban_Washburne, Mal_Reynolds, Zoë_Washburne, Kaylee_Frye,
      Shepherd_Book
  Additional Tags:
      Mental_Illness, Crossgen, Community:_dooooooom, poemfic
  Stats:
      Published: 2006-09-22 Words: 1196
****** The Hollow Men ******
by sabinelagrande
Summary
     This is the way the world ends.
Notes
     For
     [[info]]
dooooooom. Italics and River's song all taken from "The Hollow Men" by TS
Eliot, and purposefully used out of order.
                              Between the motion
 
"Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear." River's soft
singing drifts down into the cargo bay. "Here we go round the prickly pear at
five o'clock in the morning."
All manner of strange things go along with living with a girl like River. Like
late-night singing, or catwalks as nap zones, or all manner of wacky fun.
But today, it's noises straight out of cheap, unlicensed Cortex feeds. Wet,
slick noises, almost gurgling sounds. Removed from their context, they sound so
alien, almost mechanical. He's heard Serenity make noises like that more than
once.
He's pretty sure he never heard Serenity moan though.
Wash doesn't want to know what's going on, even though he's pretty sure he
already does. He really, really doesn't. But, he knows too well, flesh being
stabbed makes noises like that too.
 
                                  And the act
 
"Tama de," Wash swears under his breath. He can feel himself gaping, but he
can't stop it.
"Can feel Kaylee doing it," she tells him. "Can feel Serenity. Can feel
everything. Sometimes it's beautiful."
He slaps a hand over his eyes- better late than never, he thinks. "You should,"
he swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry, "you should go on back to your room
to do that."
"No," she says, and it comes out as a breathy moan.
 
                              Between the emotion
 
Is there a place worse than the Special Hell? Maybe they'll lift it up and put
him under it.
He's got this image of her burned into the backs of his eyelids, so that he
can't keep them shut without seeing it.
A mad creeping part of his brain is telling him that she's not so young, that
she doesn't seem to have a problem with it. He's trying to shut it out, because
there're at least six people who're going to have a real big problem with it.
She grabs his wrist, pulling his hand away from his eyes. Treacherous, they
open. River is laid out in front of him, completely bare; and she's not letting
go of his arm no matter how much he struggles.
She pulls him down to the cold grating.
 
                               And the response
 
He keeps thinking- he could move, he should move. He shouldn't lay here- he
isn't supposed to lay here. This has gone far enough. Wash shouldn't be letting
her kiss him, or touch him, or undress him. She yanks down his pants swiftly,
popping the button off his fly. His erection springs free, and he's suddenly
very deeply ashamed.
Anyone could walk by at any moment- and even if they couldn't, this would still
be so wrong. He fights her off and tries to get up, but she pushes him back
down again, knocking the breath out of him and laying him out flat.
 
                              Between the desire
 
Then she straddles him, pushing herself down hard on his cock. She lets out a
loud, keening cry when she does it; he's trying not to hear. Trying to be some
place else, trying to think of Zoe or stars or anything good that's not this.
River rides him fast and hard, her mouth gaping open, eyes vacant like she's
not even there.
 
                                 And the spasm
 
Wash has his eyes clamped tightly shut. If he's really going through this, he
doesn't want to see it. He can hear some kind of noise, like footsteps coming,
thinks he hears a voice, but he ignores it. It isn't a savior- there can't be a
savior- so what does it matter?
Despite everything, he starts coming. Then he's suddenly cold and exposed, and
he doesn't understand why immediately. His semen spurts up onto his stomach,
and he realizes it's because she's gone. He doesn't understand, but then when
did he start understanding any of this?
 
                               Falls the shadow
 
He opens his eyes, thinking it's finally safe, and stares right up into the
face of his captain.
 
                           For Thine is the Kingdom
 
His left eye is purpling from Mal's fist, his right eye from Simon's. He's
fairly certain the pain in his ribs came from Jayne's boot. In his mind, he has
deserved every one of them.
Book- the only person who seems to understand- brings him food or comes to sit
with him every so often. They don't talk, but Wash thinks he'd go completely
mad without someone there, at least some of the time.
He can't decide if it's him or them keeping him sequestered. He feels like what
he's done is all over him; he has to keep reminding himself that it wasn't his
fault, but he can't admit it yet. What he did- if he did anything or not- is
too horrible, too far outside of the realm of consideration to be shifted.
If he can just get to Zoe, if he can just make her understand, maybe it isn't
really the end.
 
                        This is the way the world ends
 
River lays her head across Kaylee's lap.
"Not his fault," she says, as Kaylee strokes her hair. Kaylee purses her lips,
not wanting to get involved, just keeps playing at the mess of hair across her
thighs.
"All her fault," River tells her, turning and looking into her eyes. "If they
only knew."
 
                        This is the way the world ends
 
"You've got to believe me," he tells her, swallowing hard on a dry throat. "Bao
bei, the day I do anything to hurt you is the day I die."
Zoe's face is completely blank. It's a mask- the same mask she uses when she's
meeting a contact for the first time, the same mask she wore when she came to
save him from Niska, the same mask he always imagined she wore in Serenity
Valley. It tells him absolutely nothing, and in that moment, he is lost.
Then Zoe wraps her arms around him and holds him close.
 
                        This is the way the world ends
 
Mal is walking Simon across the room by his throat. He slams the doctor into
the wall and hisses something at him.
Wash can barely see and can't hear at all, as he's trying not to be seen
himself. He only came for a wrench, not a fight.
They glare at each other for a few minutes, then Mal abruptly drops Simon and
stalks out. Wash tries to flatten himself as Mal comes by, but it's pointless.
"What in the hell are you doin' out here?" Mal says in passing, lips in an
unnaturally tight smile. "You've got a ship to fly."
 
                        Not with a bang, but a whimper
 
Kaylee can't even say anything; she's crying into Inara's shoulder. Simon takes
one last look at Serenity, the place he has been starting to regard as his
home.
River doesn't even look concerned. The thought crosses Simon's mind that maybe
she doesn't know she's leaving.
"Won't leave," she says, not looking at him. "Can't leave. Too much tied to
this place. Doesn't know what she's done." River looks hard at him, and
suddenly she's much older, much graver. "Don't tell her when she wakes up."
She takes Simon's hand and walks off into the dusty world.
 
                              Life is very long.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
