Author's Note: I believe the technical term for this chapter in canon slang is "morbid and creepifying". I hope you can handle it, as long as I do it quiet-like. ;-) Also, the style here is highly experimental, compared to prior chapters. I hope it'll be worth the read.

WARNINGS: Seriously, this chapter depicts an encounter with implications of sex with a minor and all manner of kink and awkward. Read at your own risk.


She's full of holes. Pieces are missing everywhere; people and chairs leak out into the black. Kaylee sews her up, and I hold her hand as we run, but bits keep falling off. Lost pages and dinosaurs and shed hairs and bullets trail behind us, a bread crumb trail back to where it all began. Follow the trail, follow it home, but not until they're ready.

Two by two by ten, I tell Simon. Measurements, mei mei? Yes, I say, of us, because she is family too. He nods like the bobble-headed caper, and laughs when I think so.

Waking up meant learning to talk again. In the white I had forgotten how. I'm not a native yet, can't think in their codes, but Simon says soon. Soon.

I learned to waltz when I was a meter tall. Now the meter is me and my sister, my ship, humming our beat and dancing together. One two-three, one two-three, one two-three... I dance on her skin, and she dances on stars. She thinks in metric too. Ten, ten, ten.

So proud of Zoe. They sounded beautiful, and my heart shattered like it's been on ice. Black ice, in the black. Won't be lonely no more, says I.

There are ten rungs on the ladder, ten choices. Only two ways to go, and hell's position is dependent on local gravity. Descending, nonetheless.

There's a snoring dragon down there. He threatens fire, but I am hotter. Thinking too loudly, and if quiet weren't my game he'd hear it for sure. Only time my insides stay in is when I sneak. Tip tip-toe, tip tip-toe, tip. I'm deep inside the lair now, and basking in his scalding breath. The trick is to slip into the bed of treasure without rustling his scales.

What passes for dawn out here is approaching. Every other night I choose to be a dream. This morning I want to be real...

Blink, shit, four big eyes. Gorrammit, girl! What are you doing? Watching/wondering, hoping. Dreams turn real sometimes. Not on the rim they don't. Not in the black.

You been reading me? He can tell I ain't, except in flashes. Can't help it. The glint of a blade is shinier in sleep. It's no secret what we want in any case. No- too young, ain't my type. Ain't I, glossy and wet with blood? I'm old enough for killing, old enough for... Fucking hell. Itty bitty thing raining death? That should be a nightmare, not a fantasy. Go find someone who'll take care of you, bitch. I can't You know I can! I ain't some longhaired girl in a tower. No need for princes here, just folks. Wouldn't you rather a woman who didn't need saving? Woman? In all but deed. Go se... I...

Doc'll kill me if I do. I could if you don't, and ain't that a pretty thought? We're thinking on it now, for sure. That scar on your chest is ten kisses long, I estimate. Everything is metric, even this. You cut me, I cut you. We both bleed.

Don't worry, I know you don't- on the mouth... Don't. Yes... This is wrong, moony. Right and wrong is for the core, Jayne Cobb, not out here. Can't change what we are or how we got here can't deny we fit like this shouldn't pretend to be thinking other thoughts

this your first time
that i remember
our first could be our last i want it to last want you want want fuckitwantgodbaobeipleaseno yes yesyes. stars.