TITLE: Gently Down the Stream

AUTHOR: Doqz
FANDOM: Doctor Who/Firefly
ARCHIVE: Please ask.
DISCLAIMER: Main characters mentioned belong to BBC and Joss Whedon . No profit is being made.

"Bleedin' hell, I haven't seen anything this dingy since I lit out of Cardiff." The blonde girl dipped her hand into the dark river, letting the water run though her fingers.

The Boatman glanced back at her briefly, the blue eyes faintly puzzled, "Cardiff... Doesn't ring a bell. Must be one of the demon realms."

Rose Tyler snorted softly and dried her hand on her jeans. "Close. Wales."

The humor was clearly lost on the helmsman, for whom the clarification was apparently just as mysterious as the original statement. He went on gamely though, with the determined cheerfulness that seems to be the hallmark of taxi drivers and morticians.

"Yeah. Demon realms, man. There's a bunch of them during the Twilight of the Mad Goddess. One of them worships bunny slippers. Odd bunch, demons."

A soft, plaintive trill carried from the boat's wake where their cargo was straining at the taut rope.

Rose squinted in faint disbelief. 'The fookin' thing is hungry again? I just fed it like a minute ago!"

"It's just a baby," The boatman smiled tolerantly and, tilting his cowboy hat at a jaunty angle, looked around. "Ah-ha!"

Hooking the charcoal sack deftly with his foot, he punted it toward his passenger, never letting go of the tiller. "Would you do the honors?"

Rose looked at the sack with quiet despondency. "This is what it's come down to, then. I'm a bleedin' pet-sitter."

"Could be worse. At least you're getting a free ride out of the deal." The boatman pointed out philosophically and tugged on the tiller with slight movement, the exact economy of force required for the boat to twist around the purple cat striding across the waters of the Styx, betraying his skill.

Rose scowled darkly as she upended the sack into the water. " Oh, yeah? What's so free about it?"

"Could be worse..." She mimicked. "Thanks for the tip, Whiskers. Tell me something I don't know."

She shaded her eyes as the nebula exploded somewhere in time to her left, blooming into a violent flower of destruction and creation, Shiva's shriek of orgasmic triumph echoing through the ages and space.

Rose held her stare for a long moment, watching the twisting image of unquenchable fire grow and change into something else, indefinable, beyond the words. Turning finally away she sighed deeply and absently flicked a coal splinter at their charge, eliciting a happy burbling thanks.

"You should shave," She offered spitefully, without looking. "You look ridiculous. As if your name wasn't enough."

The pilot looked hurt. "What's wrong with my name? Washburne - clean AND manly. 'Cos with the fire and burning, see?"

Rose snorted again. "Oh, yeah? And what the hell does Hoban mean?"

Wash rounded on her triumphantly and then suddenly deflated.

"I don't know." He admitted and sighed glumly. Then, immediately, brightened. "But I remain confident it's full of mystical significance just waiting to be discovered."

Rose pondered this for a second and then glanced at the boatman with cold appraisal. "You're completely and utterly full of shite, aren't you?

Wash smoothed out his mustache self-consciously. "You're a very bitter young lady, you know that? And you know nothing about fashion. I happen to think I look rather dashing."

"Christ..."

"No, he had a goatee. Told me he grew it after the Pirates of the Caribbean came out. David Bowie was pissed."

Rose visibly considered her options and decided to disengage from the conversation, before her blood pressure did something painful to her left eye.

The silence stretched, blending into the darkness surrounding the boat, broken only by the stars and the quiet noise of the river flowing through time, the murmur of its waves whispering an eternal lullaby.

The was no warning and there was no reprieve, the serpent lunging out of the emptiness, its jaws gaping, blocking out the universe, the roaring hiss shaking the very foundations of Creation, rattling the boat and reverberating through Rose's bones.

"No."

He said it calmly, quietly, the word almost lost as the raging serpent suddenly recoiled in rattling, mad confusion.

Apep, the worm of night, the killer of Set, the eater of the Sun, the specter of the Forever River rose out of the water, its great undulating body twisting in a macabre charm-dance, the fangs glistening with wet darkness. "Miiiiiiiine."

"No." Wash said again, and straightened his hat absently, his eyes calmly fixed on the snake, the hand firm on the tiller as the boat danced in the boiling water.

"Who daresssssss..."

"I'm the Pilot." Wash smiled strangely, sadly. "Always. And I say no."

His lips quirked into a scornful, dismissive grin and he snapped his fingers as if warning away an unruly dog. "Flee."

Apep screamed, the darkness roiling in its eyes, the eternal night fighting for its crown.

A faint click behind him cut through the noise like razor and Wash glanced over his shoulder. Rose winked at him, the shotgun ludicrously huge but gripped with practiced ease by slender fingers that worked the safety. "What he said, ugly. Blow."

The Serpent hissed again, the sound of blood and broken glass slithering with dark promise through their minds, warning of death and vengeance.

And then it was gone, disappearing like the black mist burned away by morning.

"Y'know," Wash remarked conversationally, turning back toward the tiller. "You remind me of my wife."

"Is that a good thing?"

"... it really depends."

Rose laid down the gun and grunted, as she hefted another back of charcoal overboard. Ra giggled happily and gulped it down, the first sound that the infant sun made since the serpent's attack.

"Oh, bleedin' hell..." Rose swore suddenly and with feeling.

"What?"

"The bastard grew again! It's going to be a bitch and half getting him up at this rate!"

She scowled fiercely at the frolicking Godling. "That's it. It's dieting time for you, bright eyes - or you can climb up there by yourself."

"Cheer up." Wash offered brightly. "Could be worse."

"...I swear to God, I will crotch-gouge you to death."

"Promises, promises."

"I'm not kidding. Jack showed me how."

The bickering echoed faintly through cosmos as the sun grew in the water.

The river flowed.