Theme 70: I'm Worried About You
Today's theme:
I'm Worried About You1. Submit your drabble that fits this theme as a comment to this post. It should be between 100-300 words, if you go over/under a bit that's fine! If it's longer than say 400 words, I ask that you post on your journal or fanfiction.net and then submit the link to this post. If you find that your story is going ( Read more... )
I'm Worried About You1. Submit your drabble that fits this theme as a comment to this post. It should be between 100-300 words, if you go over/under a bit that's fine! If it's longer than say 400 words, I ask that you post on your journal or fanfiction.net and then submit the link to this post. If you find that your story is going ( Read more... )
Claim: Mal/River
Rating: PG
Drabbles completed so far: 3/100
His Bones Would Be the Shrapnel
“You got shot because of me.”
He looks up at her, blood drawing a line across the bandage on his arm, thin but spreading and out of place. “Think I got shot cause a man with a gun shot me, darlin', not cause of anything you did.”
The blood bothers her; she smells the metal-tang of it, feels it sticky on her hands, across her dress where he'd pressed against her on the ride back, what should be inside him now outside her.
“You let yourself be distracted. Put complications where simplicity should have been, to shield me,” she says, keeping her eyes set on his face, bleached shades paler than the norm but expressive as ever. “You promised things wouldn't be changed. I can't do my job if you get in my way.”
“I ain't tryin' to get in your way! Just happened to be moving in a general direction of bein' between that guy and you, is all.”
“Liar. You're the Captain, I protect you. You have to let me,” she insists, as he shifts restlessly, a schoolboy being lectured at, and gets to his feet, cutting her off.
“Yeah, I'm the Captain, but you're my - you're you, and I'd end up a hell of a lot more distracted if that was your blood all over you 'stead of mine, alright?”
She stares up at him, aching with conflict, the need to protect too many parts of him at once; before she can untangle her thoughts enough to speak, he sways on his feet, drugs and blood loss turning even her implacable Captain pliable.
“This isn't finished,” she tells him, as she guides him to his bunk - their bunk - and if all she gets in return are muttered Mandarin curses, she'll take them and hang her heart on them as proof he's still here, alive and wholly Mal, and for a short span at least, he won't have a choice but to lie down under her protection.
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