Fic: In The Valley of Serenity
Jan. 27th, 2008 04:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iliaTitle: In The Valley of Serenity
Author: Lady Yueh
Fandom: Heroes/Firefly[ish]
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not my property and no infringement is intended.
Character(s): Claire, Peter, mentions of Adam.
Author’s Notes: Response for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
heroes_fest. I fulfilled the prompt but it’s more introspective and angsty than I’d intended. Special thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
emmyhildy who did such a brilliant and speedy beta job. Comments?
---------
She checked the readings with care before starting to input the coordinates into the navigation system with nimble fingers.
Soon she wouldn’t have even that. She’d be beyond the system parameters of known space and flying completely blind.
She’d been searching for almost three decades.
Twenty-seven years of her near immortal life spent searching for her wayward uncle.
He could never let go. The man used to have a hero-complex that put Superman to shame and it had only gotten worse over time. He’d thrown himself into “selfless” situations with increasing desperation as the years went by and the people they loved left.
I don’t want to forget, Claire. I need to feel something, do some good for people. I don’t…I have to be human, I have to care. There’s nothing else.
She couldn’t understand how he actually believed that bullshit. She was supposed to be the drama queen, the immature, eternal teenager. Whoever had called Peter a broody, emo hero had pegged him perfectly. He was hiding, trying to forget the people he’d lost by dealing with humanity’s problems when he should be dealing with his own. Even for a centuries old pseudo-immortal, the man had issues.
And Adam! He was no help. He and Peter had an odd relationship. Adam would cause trouble and Peter would try and stop it. In her opinion, it had become a game between the two of them--their way to deal. Adam did it to escape the tedious boredom--he was pushing his first millennium, after all--and Peter just wanted a clear cut situation, black and white, good guy versus bad guy.
Boys.
Couldn’t they find something else to do but re-enact some good vs. evil cliché? This wasn’t some crap television show.
Adam had to play God and manipulate his own freaking solar system while Peter reverted to type and went to stop him.
They went off to play cops and robbers on a galactic scale and left a goddamned note.
Dear Cheerleader, can’t stand your bitchy nagging. Going to go mess with some stupid mortals. Cheers, The Blond Bastard.
Claire, Adam’s up to something and I’m going after him. It should only take a decade or so. I’ll be back. Stay safe, Peter.
---------
Despite, or perhaps because of, their age they could forget so easily.
Time was a river that wore down their small pebbles of memories.
They’d all forgotten the varied evils of humanity as they played their games, secure in their invincibility.
It was time they remembered.
--------
There were no screams.
Screams somehow implied life. They were the act of someone trying to deny that last stroke that would end their existence, the acknowledgement of pain that was such an inexorable facet of living.
There was none of that here.
There were only the dead, the dying and the living-dead.
The low, near-silent groans and whimpers of these broken men and women would come to life in his sleeping moments for centuries to come.
He’d some here, hoping to…well, just hoping.
He wasn’t the only one.
He’d lived among them, fought with them and against them, been one of them.
All for nothing.
In the end there was only this: people, browncoats and purple-bellies alike, rotting in perdition.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death…
--------
She’d been on the ridiculously belated medical ships sent to give aid to whatever survivors could be found at ground zero but found him too late to stop someone from recognizing him as different.
There was already a make-shift lab in some lost corner starting preliminary tests before the proper authorities arrived.
They’d only questioned her once before a quick flash of her papers silenced all inquiries. Because of her clearance, they thought she was the agent sent to collect their prized discovery, but they were long gone before the deception was recognized.
Adam’s game had spun out of his control and the best he could do was cut and run before he too became a pet in a lab again.
The only help he’d been able to give her was the Blue Sun identification that had secured her unlimited and unquestioned access to Peter for a short period of time.
She couldn’t look at the broken husk that lay so still in the bunk of her small ship and recognize the man that he had been; her friend, her family, and her protector.
Her gift ensured that his body was completely unmarred and eternally young but it could do nothing for the wounds that littered what was left of his soul and were reflected in his eyes.
He wanted death, she could see that in his eyes.
She’d wanted it before too, and knew she would want it again.
Her only consolation lay in the nature of existence. Everything died. Everything. She was not arrogant enough to believe that she would outlive the universe itself. Even if it took millennia there would be an end to this continuous cycle, this dance that went absolutely nowhere and achieved less than nothing.
For now she had to endure, and it might be selfish, but she couldn’t do it alone.
She couldn’t face infinity without Peter.
She refused.
“It’ll be okay, Peter. It will.”
So many lies had painted her lips that even this one sounded true.
Author: Lady Yueh
Fandom: Heroes/Firefly[ish]
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not my property and no infringement is intended.
Character(s): Claire, Peter, mentions of Adam.
Author’s Notes: Response for
heroes_fest. I fulfilled the prompt but it’s more introspective and angsty than I’d intended. Special thanks to emmyhildy who did such a brilliant and speedy beta job. Comments?---------
She checked the readings with care before starting to input the coordinates into the navigation system with nimble fingers.
Soon she wouldn’t have even that. She’d be beyond the system parameters of known space and flying completely blind.
She’d been searching for almost three decades.
Twenty-seven years of her near immortal life spent searching for her wayward uncle.
He could never let go. The man used to have a hero-complex that put Superman to shame and it had only gotten worse over time. He’d thrown himself into “selfless” situations with increasing desperation as the years went by and the people they loved left.
I don’t want to forget, Claire. I need to feel something, do some good for people. I don’t…I have to be human, I have to care. There’s nothing else.
She couldn’t understand how he actually believed that bullshit. She was supposed to be the drama queen, the immature, eternal teenager. Whoever had called Peter a broody, emo hero had pegged him perfectly. He was hiding, trying to forget the people he’d lost by dealing with humanity’s problems when he should be dealing with his own. Even for a centuries old pseudo-immortal, the man had issues.
And Adam! He was no help. He and Peter had an odd relationship. Adam would cause trouble and Peter would try and stop it. In her opinion, it had become a game between the two of them--their way to deal. Adam did it to escape the tedious boredom--he was pushing his first millennium, after all--and Peter just wanted a clear cut situation, black and white, good guy versus bad guy.
Boys.
Couldn’t they find something else to do but re-enact some good vs. evil cliché? This wasn’t some crap television show.
Adam had to play God and manipulate his own freaking solar system while Peter reverted to type and went to stop him.
They went off to play cops and robbers on a galactic scale and left a goddamned note.
Dear Cheerleader, can’t stand your bitchy nagging. Going to go mess with some stupid mortals. Cheers, The Blond Bastard.
Claire, Adam’s up to something and I’m going after him. It should only take a decade or so. I’ll be back. Stay safe, Peter.
---------
Despite, or perhaps because of, their age they could forget so easily.
Time was a river that wore down their small pebbles of memories.
They’d all forgotten the varied evils of humanity as they played their games, secure in their invincibility.
It was time they remembered.
--------
There were no screams.
Screams somehow implied life. They were the act of someone trying to deny that last stroke that would end their existence, the acknowledgement of pain that was such an inexorable facet of living.
There was none of that here.
There were only the dead, the dying and the living-dead.
The low, near-silent groans and whimpers of these broken men and women would come to life in his sleeping moments for centuries to come.
He’d some here, hoping to…well, just hoping.
He wasn’t the only one.
He’d lived among them, fought with them and against them, been one of them.
All for nothing.
In the end there was only this: people, browncoats and purple-bellies alike, rotting in perdition.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death…
--------
She’d been on the ridiculously belated medical ships sent to give aid to whatever survivors could be found at ground zero but found him too late to stop someone from recognizing him as different.
There was already a make-shift lab in some lost corner starting preliminary tests before the proper authorities arrived.
They’d only questioned her once before a quick flash of her papers silenced all inquiries. Because of her clearance, they thought she was the agent sent to collect their prized discovery, but they were long gone before the deception was recognized.
Adam’s game had spun out of his control and the best he could do was cut and run before he too became a pet in a lab again.
The only help he’d been able to give her was the Blue Sun identification that had secured her unlimited and unquestioned access to Peter for a short period of time.
She couldn’t look at the broken husk that lay so still in the bunk of her small ship and recognize the man that he had been; her friend, her family, and her protector.
Her gift ensured that his body was completely unmarred and eternally young but it could do nothing for the wounds that littered what was left of his soul and were reflected in his eyes.
He wanted death, she could see that in his eyes.
She’d wanted it before too, and knew she would want it again.
Her only consolation lay in the nature of existence. Everything died. Everything. She was not arrogant enough to believe that she would outlive the universe itself. Even if it took millennia there would be an end to this continuous cycle, this dance that went absolutely nowhere and achieved less than nothing.
For now she had to endure, and it might be selfish, but she couldn’t do it alone.
She couldn’t face infinity without Peter.
She refused.
“It’ll be okay, Peter. It will.”
So many lies had painted her lips that even this one sounded true.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 12:56 pm (UTC)And the notes. Oh poor Claire. Her immortal boys are so troublesome.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:13 pm (UTC)I am very very happy that the angst works.
As to the immortal boys that plague Claire? Yeah, she's waiting for technology to advance so she can force them into a sex-change 'cause centuries of being hip-deep in testosterone? Not fun. Let's not discuss the amounts of times she's shot either of them.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:22 pm (UTC)ROFL I can imagine!
(And the mental image of Claire shooting the boys whenever she gets irritated with them just cracks me up. XD)
*icon is kinda appropriate*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:25 pm (UTC)*icon is very appropriate. Mine, not so much but it amuses me.*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:29 pm (UTC)Okay, now that? Best mental image ever.
Boys: *bicker bicker bitch moan whatever*
Claire: *turns around and shoots both of them* SHUT UP OR I'M TURNING THIS SPACESHIP AROUND.
Boys: *bleed, heal, and pout*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-27 01:35 pm (UTC)*snickers*
Oh god, I can't stop giggling. But that may be the sleep deprivation kicking in.
*my icon greets yours*