( continues...) hair, and the boy looks up with an expression of surprise.
“Oh, don't apologise, lad. Tracey's done us a favour, the damn fool. Boy never did have the sense to come in out of the rain. Turns out them goods weren't quite as saleable as we thought – reckon he's going to be regretting he ever laid eyes on 'em, before too very long. But that's his problem.” Mal's eyes narrow. “And he's just cost me ten pieces of eight, so I'm not much minded to feel sorry for the blighter. Now, let's go back to where you mentioned – did I hear you say something about a passenger, Master Frye?”
Master Frye has the grace to blush a little, but he sticks his chin out and squares his shoulders. “I know it's not customary, Cap'n, but he asked real nice, and he had a whole big pile of gold ready to pay us for our troubles. Said there'd be more at the end, if'n we took him where he wanted to go. An' I thought, since we didn't have no particular plans for our next voyage – 'cause we didn't have no particular plans, did we, Cap'n?”
“We did not.”
“Well then, I thought you'd at least want to talk to him.”
“Did you now?”
Master Frye grins. “I did, sir.”
“He wouldn't happen to be an uncommonly decorative sort, now, would he, this potential passenger of ours?” asks Mal, without looking at the ship's carpenter.
“He's awful pretty,” Master Frye admits, without a whit of shame. “And you should see the clothes on him! And the nice manners! And he's a doctor. And you know how much we could use a proper ship's doctor – 'cause Lord knows I've done my best, but I'm more use for sawing wood than sawing limbs, and I don't know the first thing about making up tonics and tinctures. But Mister Tam here is a surgeon, Cap'n. An honest-to-God surgeon, from Harley Street, in London, if you can believe it. And he says if we give him passage, he'll help out as ship's doctor, if the need should arise. Lend us his expertise, kind of thing.”
Mal glances over at his quartermaster. “That would be useful,” he says, and she nods. Mal's expression grows thoughtful. “Say, Zoe, how'd you like to become Acting First Mate of 'Serenity'?”
“Quartermaster's plenty work enough for me, Cap'n,” she says, shrugging. “I don't take real kindly to being at any man's beck and call.”
“You're at my beck and call,” Mal says, sounding slightly wounded.
“You keep right on telling yourself that, Cap'n,” says Zoe in an equitable tone, and strolls off to find the sailing master.
So, I'm not quite sure I'm clear on "fusion." Is it a crossover? Are we going to be seeing characters from a different story (looks like maybe PotC, here, eventually?)Or just plopping the characters into an AU situation? Fusion seems an unnecessarily high-falutin' term for something that already exists.
They're all very much in character, but somehow I'm missing the feeling of the speech vernacualr found in Firefly. Of course, if this is 18th century Caribbean days, they wouldn't be speaking like that. My brain is just slightly confused at this point. But, I am enjoying this! Do not think this is a complaint or a criticism. I'm just kinda rolling the flavor of the story around in my head and speaking out loud.
A fusion is taking characters from one universe and putting them in another universe, where they always existed. So the Firefly people have always lived in the 18th century -- they're not somehow displaced there.
It's a type of AU, basically. AU is such a broad term that it doesn't always convey specific information about the type of story.
Yeah - I'd never heard of it before. Rheanna handily linked me to trinityofone's rather lovely SGA/HDM fusion Daemonology, and I went: "Aha!"
(I could probably use this story for the Historical AU square on my bingo card, either, but I
do
plan to include magical elements, and some things & characters specifically taken from the PotC 'verse. Plus, PotC isn't actually set at any specific date - it's all wibblywobbly timeywimey contradictionpants anachronisms, so I'm going with that. Although if I decide to write Captain Jack Sparrow and co in the Firefly 'verse [which is also very tempting] then I WILL stick this on the Historical AU square, and the hell with it)
See, you could put Captain Jack Harkness in the Firefly 'verse
easily.
No reason for it not to be the same 'verse that Doctor Who & Jack inhabit. Jack Sparrow, otoh - that has to be a Fusion.
Eh, maybe I'll just slot this into Historical AU, so I can put Jack Sparrow in the Firefly 'verse. I'd love to see him interacting with River...
Anyway, on with this current project:
* * *
Their potential passenger is standing on the dock, looking nervously at Badger's flunkies, and casting languishing glances at the mountain of baggage that is, Mal assumes, his own.
“That's a fair bit of cargo you got there, friend,” says Mal, eyeing the trunks thoughtfully. “Master Frye tells me you're eager to buy passage with us on 'Serenity'. Is that right?”
“That's correct, Captain,” says the man, standing up very straight. He extends his hand. “Dr Tam, sir. Dr Simon Tam. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Mal's hand is still a little sticky from all the orange pulp, but he extends it anyway. “How do you do, Doctor?” he says. “So, where is it that you're hoping we might take you?”
An expression flickers over the doctor's face that looks a little too much like guilt for Mal Reynolds' liking. “Oh, well, is that so very important?” he asks, trying to smile. Mal blinks.
“Yes,” he says, his eyebrows lifting up towards his hairline. “It kind of sort of is. You do have a destination in mind, I take it?”
Tam swallows. “It's – complicated,” he says.
“Complicated,” echoes Mal, looking up at the clouds as if imploring them for patience. “Well, that's nice. It was – interesting, meeting with you, Doctor. But I'm a busy man. Good luck with buying passage on one of the other ships docked hereabouts. Some of them ain't as fussy as I am.” He turns on his heel and is about to step onto the gangplank when Tam names a figure so outrageously beyond anything it might have occurred to Mal to demand, that he freezes in place.
There is a pause, and then Mal turns around and stares at the Doctor in utter bafflement.
“You could buy a ship for that kind of money,” he says. “You aren't serious.”
“I'm perfectly serious,” says Tam, and he seems a little more self-possessed now that he's got Mal's attention. “Half of it now, half of it – afterwards.”
Even half of such a sum is still a treasure trove, and entirely ridiculous. “After what?”
Dr Tam licks his lips. “It's a personal matter,” he says, awkwardly, glancing over his shoulder in a way that tells Mal rather a lot. “Can we – please, can we discuss this in private?”
Mal shrugs. “Fine by me.” He steps back onto the gangplank. Tam doesn't follow him, though, and when Mal turns a quizzical gaze on him the doctor looks helplessly at the trunks.
“I need my things,” he says. “I really – I can't get on board without them. I need my things with me. Please.”
Mal stares at him, trying to weigh him up, and then sighs. “Fine. JAYNE!”
* * *
“My Quartermaster, Mistress Zoe,” says Mal, a little later, when Tam's goods are stowed and they are safely ensconced in the Captain's cabin. The doctor looks quite startled, but after a beat he makes Zoe's lips twitch in amusement when he bows low to kiss her hand just as graciously as if she were a fine lady in a ballroom. “Ain't no call for that, Doctor,” says Mal, his brows coming together. “We don't stand on much ceremony aboard 'Serenity'.”
“No, really, Cap'n, I think we should introduce a little more ceremony,” says Zoe, gravely.
“You offering to start curtseying at me, woman? I'd love to see you curtsey. We could get you some skirts and all, for the full effect.” Mal nods to himself, a faraway look in his eyes. “And petticoats. Lots of petticoats.”
“Ah. Perhaps not.”
“That's what I thought.” Tam looks from one to the other with a slightly lost expression, and Mal returns to the matter at hand. Master Frye wasn't wrong, Mal reflects: the young doctor is very decorative, as well as having ridiculously good manners. And being so wet behind the ears that he (continued...)
