21 for 21, 17/21 Seventeen Minutes Past Midnight

[jbeaners48.livejournal.com]

Title: Seventeen Minutes Past Midnight
Series: 21 for 21
Author: jmaria
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss owns them. We’ve seen what he’s done to them. So we gank them
Pairing: Wesley/River
Three: ingenious, slick, befuddled
Word Count: 352
Summary: Am I more? Do I feel like her because I’m a genius, feel close enough to love?
Notes: 21 for 21 is my insane plan to write 21 ficlets for my birthday. . . except that people on lj give me a pairing and three words.
Count: 17/21
Dedication: to mutelorelai  for the characters and the three words
A/N: As much as I tried, Wesley refused to get smutty in fic. Refused and sent River off to play with others. She complied as we will see in Eighteen and Life

 

Seventeen Minutes Past Midnight

“Will this make it any less real for you, my dear sweet Wesley?” River asks quietly, her face pressed gently against the slick smooth skin of his neck. Her hands trail down his chest, her nails gently dragging across his skin.

It’s been over five hundred years since a woman has touched him. Five hundred years since Fred vanished, ceased to exist, and Illyria was forged. Five hundred years since he’s felt whole, not shattered and strewn across the world. Seventeen days since he woke up, befuddled and naked in the cargo bay of the transport ship Serenity, his body wrapped protectively in the arms of a charming young girl. Seventeen minutes since he’d exploded inside of her, taking his grief, frustration, anger and pain out on the one person who knew instinctively what he was going through. River burrowed closer to him, as if she were trying to burrow into him.

“This, by definition is unreal, River,” Wesley murmured, stroking her hair.

“Am I not real? Is that simple act of feeling not real?”

“It’s real -” Wesley sighed. She was so brilliant, and beautiful and charming - like his Fred, but at the same time she was -

“As unnatural as Illyria. Perfect shell, chaos come again inside. Am I real, then? Or queen of illusions? A perfect weapon?”

“No, no, little one. You are - a bundle of contradictions. A pleasant -”

“Anomaly?”

“A pleasant perfection. Just as you ought to be. Ingenious and charismatic, and sweet,” Wesley sighed. He was quite sure he sounded as if he were describing a pet rather than a woman, and if he was thinking that, then she surely knew the truth.

“I’m not Fred,” River murmured, her lips hovering over where his broken heart lie cocooned in his chest.

“No, just as I am not whoever he is. In the long run, it’ll matter, but for now - you’re all I need beside me,” Wesley kissed the top of her head.

“Even if I’m broken?” River murmured. “Is it enough? Is it enough to live on?”

“It has to be,” he replied.

Comments

[leology.livejournal.com]

I really liked that one. Very angsty.