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Jul. 3rd, 2007 01:35 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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still_grrrTitle: Elegy
Author: biggrstaffbunch
Rating: G
Word Count: 1000
Prompt: Makeup prompt for Bring out your dead: (016) Wash
Characters/Pairing (if any): Zoe, Wash
~*~
It's been five months since Hoban Washburne died, and Zoe Washburne don't believe in ghosts.
Won't let herself, more like, if she's to be honest. And ever since that harpoon sailed its way through Serenity's window and into Wash's heart, Zoe's tried her best to stay truthsome with her own self. Tried her best to communicate to the crew, to her very reflection, that Wash is dead--and that he ain't coming back. Tried her best not to dwell on how gutted she is, deep and clean and hollow. No use in trying to fill them empty spaces up, 'specially not by hankerin' for a sandy-haired phantom to touch her shoulder when the moments get too hard, or when the job gets too rough. That sort of thing is just too romantical for the likes of her.
"But that's me, sugarlips. Romantical even unto death."
Yes, Zoe's tried to stay on an even keel, but there are things that could rattle even the most unshakeable wills, the most level of heads. Hearin' her lover's voice--even though she put him in the ground herself, dirt hitting the coffin like gunshots against dead flesh--is one of them things.
The shirt she's folding falls out of her hands, puddling to the ground in a bright, soft pile. She blinks down at the flower print, unseeing, till the oranges and whites and blues blend together in a blurry maelstrom of color. Enough to turn a girl's head, if she stares at it long enough, but Zoe can't quite look away. It calls an image to her mind that won't let go, holding her captive in some sort of numb stasis as the air in her bunk grows cool and the voice whispers again.
"Looks like the lakes on Ares, baby. Remember? The sun rising over the water and your eyes glowing like the coin we'd just pocketed."
Their first job as husband and wife. Zoe does remember. She kneels woodenly, reaching for the shirt. Her fingers are trembling, and cold seeps through her skin, smoky and unsubstantial like dry ice, making her shiver as she breathes in the chill.
She ain't so weak as to be fooled by her own gorram mind. She ain't. Worked too hard, lived through too much to let herself dream while she's wakin'.
"You--" Zoe starts to speak, but her voice is less than strong, and she hates herself for it.
"Our honeymoon, Zo. You shot a man in the leg and took his money, and then we went for a swim. Call me crazy, but I think it's a fine life when crime funds some nuptial naughtiness." A gentle pause. "This is the part where you call me crazy, sweetie."
Then comes his laugh, the sound filmy and dry as rice-paper. So close that she stands and whips her head up, looks around the room, blue fury raging through her veins. Blue like his eyes, and a spasm wracks her body-- jerks her around like a damn toy-- as she recalls his smiling gaze, his sweet, familiar face.
Her own face is stiff with the force of keeping expression wiped blank, and she don't need to look in the mirror to know her eyes are flat like the lowest of plains. Every time she remembers Wash now, it's a bullet to the belly, each recollection piercing her skin so that if she ain't careful, she just may heave all her breakfast onto the floor. It makes her hurt, low down in her gut, that her husband's memory is sullied by her own madness. Her own inability to figure out once and for all that he's gone, gone, gone.
She can't think of him and smile, 'cause she's too busy thinkin' of him and seeing him around.
Crazy. Zoe can surely call something crazy in here, and if it ain't the fact that a figment of her imagination has got to manifestin', then she reckons she don't know what crazy really is.
"You ain't him," she says finally, fiercely, to the heavy air of the bunk. "He's dead. Never coming back. Not ever, you hear?" Her voice is low and tight, and her hands form fists as the frustration cramps at her fingers, makes her skin itch with the need for some violence.
"Why won't you just admit I'm here, bao bei?"
A caress, like a tear sliding down her cheek, and then all at once, nothing. Like the airlock opened and oxygen got sucked out, and Zoe reckons this is what it feels like to be a shell, with an ocean of grief rushing through all the empty spaces.
In the privacy of her loneliness, no crewmembers or hallucinations to peer in on her, Zoe can’t do nothing but give up. Quietly, unobtrusively, with a little breath as her only announcement, she gives up. It’s all she can do most days just to walk tall. Figures she deserves this opportunity to rest. Ignore reality a bit more.
And the rest of the time, keep chugging along as best she can. It's all anyone can ask of her, and it's all she can demand of herself.
She kneels and picks up the soft, worn shirt, brings it up to her chest, then her face.
There's silence as she breathes in the scent that's no longer there, the one imbedded in her mind so deep that whenever she passes by the engine room or sips some tea, the smell of grease and chamomile thrust her violently back into this place.
This place of mourning, of uncertainty and regret and memory lurking in all the shadows of a bridge that, when she closes her eyes, still glows red.
Zoe sits carefully on the bed where she and her husband once made love, keeps her ears pricked and body still.
And as the minutes wane on, each just another moment that she's living without him, Zoe leans her chin against her hands and tries not to hear his voice in her head.
---
This is part of a longer fic called: five stages of grief that zoe washburne never/probably/definitely went through (or, an elegy for a pilot), and the fic is rated NC17. I’d love to see some people check it out if you enjoyed (or cried) at this snapshot.
Author: biggrstaffbunch
Rating: G
Word Count: 1000
Prompt: Makeup prompt for Bring out your dead: (016) Wash
Characters/Pairing (if any): Zoe, Wash
~*~
It's been five months since Hoban Washburne died, and Zoe Washburne don't believe in ghosts.
Won't let herself, more like, if she's to be honest. And ever since that harpoon sailed its way through Serenity's window and into Wash's heart, Zoe's tried her best to stay truthsome with her own self. Tried her best to communicate to the crew, to her very reflection, that Wash is dead--and that he ain't coming back. Tried her best not to dwell on how gutted she is, deep and clean and hollow. No use in trying to fill them empty spaces up, 'specially not by hankerin' for a sandy-haired phantom to touch her shoulder when the moments get too hard, or when the job gets too rough. That sort of thing is just too romantical for the likes of her.
"But that's me, sugarlips. Romantical even unto death."
Yes, Zoe's tried to stay on an even keel, but there are things that could rattle even the most unshakeable wills, the most level of heads. Hearin' her lover's voice--even though she put him in the ground herself, dirt hitting the coffin like gunshots against dead flesh--is one of them things.
The shirt she's folding falls out of her hands, puddling to the ground in a bright, soft pile. She blinks down at the flower print, unseeing, till the oranges and whites and blues blend together in a blurry maelstrom of color. Enough to turn a girl's head, if she stares at it long enough, but Zoe can't quite look away. It calls an image to her mind that won't let go, holding her captive in some sort of numb stasis as the air in her bunk grows cool and the voice whispers again.
"Looks like the lakes on Ares, baby. Remember? The sun rising over the water and your eyes glowing like the coin we'd just pocketed."
Their first job as husband and wife. Zoe does remember. She kneels woodenly, reaching for the shirt. Her fingers are trembling, and cold seeps through her skin, smoky and unsubstantial like dry ice, making her shiver as she breathes in the chill.
She ain't so weak as to be fooled by her own gorram mind. She ain't. Worked too hard, lived through too much to let herself dream while she's wakin'.
"You--" Zoe starts to speak, but her voice is less than strong, and she hates herself for it.
"Our honeymoon, Zo. You shot a man in the leg and took his money, and then we went for a swim. Call me crazy, but I think it's a fine life when crime funds some nuptial naughtiness." A gentle pause. "This is the part where you call me crazy, sweetie."
Then comes his laugh, the sound filmy and dry as rice-paper. So close that she stands and whips her head up, looks around the room, blue fury raging through her veins. Blue like his eyes, and a spasm wracks her body-- jerks her around like a damn toy-- as she recalls his smiling gaze, his sweet, familiar face.
Her own face is stiff with the force of keeping expression wiped blank, and she don't need to look in the mirror to know her eyes are flat like the lowest of plains. Every time she remembers Wash now, it's a bullet to the belly, each recollection piercing her skin so that if she ain't careful, she just may heave all her breakfast onto the floor. It makes her hurt, low down in her gut, that her husband's memory is sullied by her own madness. Her own inability to figure out once and for all that he's gone, gone, gone.
She can't think of him and smile, 'cause she's too busy thinkin' of him and seeing him around.
Crazy. Zoe can surely call something crazy in here, and if it ain't the fact that a figment of her imagination has got to manifestin', then she reckons she don't know what crazy really is.
"You ain't him," she says finally, fiercely, to the heavy air of the bunk. "He's dead. Never coming back. Not ever, you hear?" Her voice is low and tight, and her hands form fists as the frustration cramps at her fingers, makes her skin itch with the need for some violence.
"Why won't you just admit I'm here, bao bei?"
A caress, like a tear sliding down her cheek, and then all at once, nothing. Like the airlock opened and oxygen got sucked out, and Zoe reckons this is what it feels like to be a shell, with an ocean of grief rushing through all the empty spaces.
In the privacy of her loneliness, no crewmembers or hallucinations to peer in on her, Zoe can’t do nothing but give up. Quietly, unobtrusively, with a little breath as her only announcement, she gives up. It’s all she can do most days just to walk tall. Figures she deserves this opportunity to rest. Ignore reality a bit more.
And the rest of the time, keep chugging along as best she can. It's all anyone can ask of her, and it's all she can demand of herself.
She kneels and picks up the soft, worn shirt, brings it up to her chest, then her face.
There's silence as she breathes in the scent that's no longer there, the one imbedded in her mind so deep that whenever she passes by the engine room or sips some tea, the smell of grease and chamomile thrust her violently back into this place.
This place of mourning, of uncertainty and regret and memory lurking in all the shadows of a bridge that, when she closes her eyes, still glows red.
Zoe sits carefully on the bed where she and her husband once made love, keeps her ears pricked and body still.
And as the minutes wane on, each just another moment that she's living without him, Zoe leans her chin against her hands and tries not to hear his voice in her head.
---
This is part of a longer fic called: five stages of grief that zoe washburne never/probably/definitely went through (or, an elegy for a pilot), and the fic is rated NC17. I’d love to see some people check it out if you enjoyed (or cried) at this snapshot.
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