A/N: One pun was stolen from Terry Pratchett, kudos to anyone who spots it.

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River was embraced by REM sleep, her eyelids fluttering. Neurons fired in her brain relentlessly like short bursts of electricity which tasted violet. Softly she began her way along the steep incline out of scentless sleep. Picking her way along a bottomless chasm, which beckoned her ears with pretty sights. River placed her hands atop her head keeping her thoughts from flying away.

Twinkle, twinkle little star, prey tell me where you are.

And River twinkled. But she was lost inside the closet and the lion couldn’t find her and she couldn’t find him. And everyone was getting lost together but her. The chasm yawned but never tired. Never tired of waiting for her to fall.

She franticly drummed ‘Simon’against her leg with her fingers, but her voice smelled tinny and feeble. Yet here he came, marching along on columns of fog, clothing her in multicoloured XTC. Was he not? She shivered in her shroud, tasting bland and without salt. Sticking out the tongue to hear, she strained.

*****

Kaylee was flying like a dream. Her hands were on Simon’s chest and she could feel him gulping in great breaths of air. His eyes were focused on one thing and one thing only: her lips. Just as hers were fixed on his. In a few seconds it would all be over: the waiting, the yearning, the pining and the bumbling and it would all begin: the burning, the fluttering and the wonderful queasy feeling of newness with each other. Or it would just be so so. Not knowing was part of the fun. She smiled into Simon’s lips and smiled even more when the excitement spiked in her belly, releasing hundreds of thousands of tiny sparks which started zooming around in her blood. Slipping her arms around his neck naturally brought her flush with Simon’s body and she could feel him shaking. With desire? With nerves? She didn’t know and couldn’t wait to find out.

*****

Mal and Inara were sitting in the mess silently. Only the occasional rustling could be heard when Inara turned a page or a slight swishing or clinking noise as Mal was cleaning his gun. But inside each, they held entire lifetimes worth of conversations about each other, with each other. Yet silence reigned, damning silence. Still, when the clock ticked over to five past eleven and 13 seconds ship time and Inara turned another unread page, both looked up and for the eternity of a seconds glance all was there and nothing had to be said at all. Then it was five past eleven and 14 seconds and Mal resumed sighting along the barrel of his gun and Inara went back to not-reading.

*****

Zoe ran her hands along her husbands back, making him arch into her touch. He was such an unrestrained individual and she loved him for her own inability to ever let get go completely. She cupped his ass in her hands, kneading and pressed herself closer to him, wanting to feel his heat. Wash twisted around in her arms and slid his mouth over her lips. Desire was rising sullenly in her and she answered his tongue with thrusts of her own, just as she let her legs spread to accommodate his hardness, then clamped them shut around him, trapping his dick and his moan within her.

*****

Jayne lay stretched out on his bunk staring at nothing in particular. They had just left one dirtball of a planet for another and would spend the next week in transit. A curious emptiness always settled in him just after lift-off. Like after you had finished the last of your booze knowing you didn’t have the money for more or after ruttin’ and spending yourself ruthlessly in some nameless whore. Ever-present resentment roiled in his gut, sparking along his nerve endings. He hadn’t tacked back into place the cloth which hid his gallery of beauties, as he called them in the safety of his head. Lazily he let his eyes wander over his exquisite arsenal of death, lovingly caressing the distincitve shapes and forms, while he let his hand drift southward on his body. For a short moment he enjoyed the warmth of his own hand as it slid over his t-shirt covered chest. He made a short stop at his nipple, rubbing it through the cloth, making it peak against the cotton. Further south his pants began to feel tight and the zipper started pressing nicely into his growing erection. He grasped himself firmly through his pants, kneading his cock into form. Suddenly impatient he sat up and tugging at the hem of his shirt, pulled it over his head, dropping it carelessly onto the floor. Laying back again, he opened his belt buckle, the metal clattering with a melodious sound, reflexively making his dick harden even more in anticipation. Hitching his hips he slid out of his pants, not having bothered with underwear in the first place. His cock and balls welcomed feeling unrestrained and Jayne slid his hand where he wanted it most and let his thoughts wander.

*****

River zoomed along following her tongue. She tasted pink excitement with her brother and his girl and saw earthy scents in Zoe and Wash. Book she couldn’t find and didn’t miss. Mal and Inara showed her slow burning heat and couldn’t find it themselves. River’s senses teetered on the brink, taste was sound and smell was touch, and listening to all the voices making pitter-patter noises was whiting out the girl. She dove for the bitterest shadows. Letting the missing piece of the puzzle pull her along. She tasted salt and gun metal.

*****

Jayne licked his hand to slick him up, enjoying an easy glide far more than a dry yank. His cock nestled pleasantly in his palm, just as it had always done. Familiar, yet ever challenging. Jerking off had always been a lefthanded thing for him. It kept his right hand in easy reach for his gun. Lifting his eyes he roamed the pin up pics above but those were too well known and papery to him to hold his interest. He imagined Zoe on her knees before him but she drifted away just as Kaylee did. It didn’t feel wrong to use his female crew mates for this, hey, he was a guy after all and guys were allowed such thoughts. But thoughts of Zoe and Kaylee inevitably lead to Inara, whose classyness was intimidating, if Jayne was ever honest and the moonbrained girl, whom he didn’t want to think about at all. But since Ariel he hadn’t managed to stop. She was all over his thoughts and sometimes he suspected that wasn’t her fault at all.

Frightening, never kiss ‘em on the mouth, never let them close, never let them see or see himself.

With effort Jayne turned his thoughts outward again, finally settling on a well-used fantasy of a faceless woman jerking him off in the backroom of bar he once went to. Slow and languid strokes, up and down in almost hypnotic motion. He wanted to go faster, to make it hard and dirty, just like himself but kept a tight reign on his pleasure, wanting to make it last. Precum was pearling on the tip of his cock and he sent his thumb drawing circles on the slit. Pleasure spiked and made him jerk his hips involuntarily. Suddenly something twisted and languid went out an airlock just like he himself had almost done. Suddenly the faceless woman was dark brunette and petite and it took all of Jayne’s effort to keep it at that.

*****

The girl was dancing, dancing in a whirlwind of someone elses making. River closed her eyes and let the girl be tossed and turned, as she had always done. Or had it only started when blue became the enemy? The chasm yawned and gobbled her up only to spit out a screaming thing that screamed and wouldn’t stop seeing. All made no sense and the only thing remaining was at the tip of her tongue. The only thing that had any significance at all. Salt and gun metal. Gun metal and salt. Something crooked twisted and all was clear for point zero five seconds. Enough for the girl to hook herself to it. Taste. Was gun metal and salt. Sight. Was dark hair shrouding a bent head. Two out of six ain’t bad.

The girl burrowed and took.

*****

Jayne sped up his movements, precum slicking him up even more. His head fell back against the bulkhead, the coolness a welcome relief from the heat that raced through his body. He hung on helpless, riding on an intense wave of toe curling pleasure, his hand was moving faster now and harder. His breath came in short, harsh bursts and he held her down.

Don’t see, don’t be seen.

*****

The girl opened her eyes wide and heard salt on her lips. No, that was in fact wrong.

Silly girl, sit up and take note. Taste goes like so. And River tested it by licking her fingers.

Visual perception is consisting of the ability to detect light and for the visual cortex of the brain to process it. River looked at her fingers glistening wetly in the dim light of her cabin.

What was crooked was straight now and River liked it that way. No more tired chasms. Intrigued she looked at the insides of her eyelids some more. Her fingers were soundlessly walking down into the strawberry valley.

*****

A slow burn started at Jayne’s lower spine, pooling in his belly, he could feel all his muscles bunching in a race for release. But somehow it kept moving out of reach. Jayne trailed his other hand through the coarse hairs at the base of his cock, teasing them. Then he slipped his fingers upward again. His calloused fingertips were just on the right side of rough to tease his nipples in the best way. Tiny, pearly teeth would probably feel better though. Ambushed, Jayne held on as his cock jumped in his hand.

*****

The girl was a fast learner for when her fingers couldn’t hear sight nor taste in her valley, she took a page out of someones elses book and tried the newfangled invention of touch.

And suddenly she was aflame and her mouth was agape but stayed tasteful, just as her eyelids showed her pretty pictures like it was supposed happen. And whereas before she had turned and hid herself in the wooly folds of drugged equilibrum, she now threw back her head in joyful abandon and leapt right into the roiling, boiling mess of burning, licking, unpredictable input.

Purgatory.

*****

Jayne had managed to push aside any and all thoughts of his ‘phantom’ woman and let plain sensation take over. His thigh muscles were quivering and his butt cheeks were clenching and unclenching, his hand a blur on his dick. And then she raised her head. And Jayne hadn’t given her leave to. And her lips glistened wet and red with juices both his and hers. And he hadn’t given her leave for that either.

Jayne jackknifed in blinding pleasure as his orgasm rolled inevitably with the crushing force of hard vacuum through his body.

*****

Liquid fire raced along veins, pleasure overloaded all sense and senses and Rayne gasped out salvation in completed unison.

Finis