(no subject)
Title: Vicious Cycles
Author: Ana Sedai
Rating: PG
Character(s): Mal
Prompt: 094 - Chains
Word Count: 946
A/N: 25/100 for Mal/River Joss100 (that’s right, we’re a quarter of the way there!)
Summary: Mal and guilt. (Yes, more angst. Sorry.)
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The alarm beeped softly in the blackness of Mal’s bunk, but it was an unnecessary wake-up call. He’d been wide awake for hours, staring into nothingness, his thoughts swirling around like water down a drain. And the few snatches of sleep he’d been able to catch had done him next to no good.
Mal was tired, tired of so many things. He was tired of feeling guilty for being alive when nearly everyone else he’d ever known was dead. He was tired of the low simmer of anger that constantly broiled inside him since the war ended. He was tired of always wanting what he could never have. And he was sure as hell tired of feeling ashamed for wanting it.
Up ‘til Miranda, he’d never realized how badly he’d needed to do something that mattered, that made a difference. For that brief time, that simmer that he hadn’t really noticed before had become a full-on inferno, a righteous wrath that couldn’t be tamed until the mission had been completed. That much, at least, had been familiar, a holdover from days when it seemed that all that’d kept him going was anger, and a rock-hard belief in the rightness of his Cause.
But for Miranda, there had been something else inside him as well, something that hadn’t been so familiar. In addition to the anger and sadness that Book’s and so many others’ murders had brought on, he’d become conscious of a…a coil of something, winding thickly through his mind. It had been cold, contained, and not a little bit ugly. The fiery anger and the coldness had mixed and mingled and fermented until he couldn’t tell which was feeding which. It was what had made him see the necessity of roping the bodies of friends to the front of their home. It was what had steeled his voice when he faced his crew and threatened them with death if they stood in his way.
He’d told Inara that if he went to war, she’d see something new from him. He hadn’t known how right he’d been until later. Mal had been many things in his life: son, lover, soldier, smuggler, thief. But until that day, he’d never been a monster.
He’d never suspected that part of himself existed. Oh, he knew that what he’d done and said had been necessary. That didn’t wash away the fact that he’d been the one to do it. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could still see them hanging there on the bow of his ship, strung across it like a grotesque necklace created by the devil himself. And the looks in his crew’s eyes as they’d stared at him… Exposing Miranda to the ‘verse had alleviated some of his shame, but it had never really gone away.
He’d spent two months believing that he could move beyond it, that River could be his salvation. But his conscience had finally caught up with him last night. He and River’d shared a kiss that had shaken him to the core, and a tangle of words that almost broke him in two. His sleep, what there’d been of it, had felt the results.
Nightmares of the Valley had mixed in with more recent horrors. He dreamt that Simon didn’t make it to the Maidenhead in time, that he shot his little albatross clean through her brain. He saw Kaylee’s and Zoe’s and River’s faces on the corpses of both Serenities. He dreamt that he’d come back to the holding point after broadcasting the message, only to find everyone gutted and slaughtered, even the girl that no blade had ever touched.
He could take a hint from his own brain. The long and the short of it was that he scared himself. The darkness in him ran too deep. He knew River had her own share of it, but it wasn’t the same. Hers was knowledge forced on her without her consent. His was a darkness of his own making.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. Stripped of all self-delusion, he could at last admit it to himself. He loved her so much it burned. And she loved him, much as he didn’t want her to. She knew him, knew every part of him, and she wasn’t afraid of him. But that was the crux of it: he was, and he knew she should be. And so he loved her too much to take what she offered. If he had even a little less degradation in his soul, he might’ve been able to. She would’ve been good for him. Of that, he had no doubt. But it just wasn’t enough. Not for her.
And that’s that. He kicked his blanket off and cursed when he almost tripped over his boots.
“Lights!”
As he dressed in the dim light, he mulled over his options. He refused to wallow in self-pity any more. Look at the bright side, Reynolds. You won’t have to deal with askin’ courting permission from that uptight brother o’ hers. He managed a tired grin at that thought. He could handle this. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. All he had to do was bury everything deep down, like he’d done after the war. Bury it, lock it up, throw away the key. Go back to the way things were before. Simplest thing in the ‘verse. Be friendly, captainy, and occasionally gruff, just what everyone expected of him.
And try to forget that while he’d been holding River in his arms, kissing her as though his very life depended on it, he’d felt an instant of such perfect peace that his soul had cried out with joy.
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Y'all know the drill. Rest here: Big Damn Prompt Table
Author: Ana Sedai
Rating: PG
Character(s): Mal
Prompt: 094 - Chains
Word Count: 946
A/N: 25/100 for Mal/River Joss100 (that’s right, we’re a quarter of the way there!)
Summary: Mal and guilt. (Yes, more angst. Sorry.)
*****************************************
The alarm beeped softly in the blackness of Mal’s bunk, but it was an unnecessary wake-up call. He’d been wide awake for hours, staring into nothingness, his thoughts swirling around like water down a drain. And the few snatches of sleep he’d been able to catch had done him next to no good.
Mal was tired, tired of so many things. He was tired of feeling guilty for being alive when nearly everyone else he’d ever known was dead. He was tired of the low simmer of anger that constantly broiled inside him since the war ended. He was tired of always wanting what he could never have. And he was sure as hell tired of feeling ashamed for wanting it.
Up ‘til Miranda, he’d never realized how badly he’d needed to do something that mattered, that made a difference. For that brief time, that simmer that he hadn’t really noticed before had become a full-on inferno, a righteous wrath that couldn’t be tamed until the mission had been completed. That much, at least, had been familiar, a holdover from days when it seemed that all that’d kept him going was anger, and a rock-hard belief in the rightness of his Cause.
But for Miranda, there had been something else inside him as well, something that hadn’t been so familiar. In addition to the anger and sadness that Book’s and so many others’ murders had brought on, he’d become conscious of a…a coil of something, winding thickly through his mind. It had been cold, contained, and not a little bit ugly. The fiery anger and the coldness had mixed and mingled and fermented until he couldn’t tell which was feeding which. It was what had made him see the necessity of roping the bodies of friends to the front of their home. It was what had steeled his voice when he faced his crew and threatened them with death if they stood in his way.
He’d told Inara that if he went to war, she’d see something new from him. He hadn’t known how right he’d been until later. Mal had been many things in his life: son, lover, soldier, smuggler, thief. But until that day, he’d never been a monster.
He’d never suspected that part of himself existed. Oh, he knew that what he’d done and said had been necessary. That didn’t wash away the fact that he’d been the one to do it. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could still see them hanging there on the bow of his ship, strung across it like a grotesque necklace created by the devil himself. And the looks in his crew’s eyes as they’d stared at him… Exposing Miranda to the ‘verse had alleviated some of his shame, but it had never really gone away.
He’d spent two months believing that he could move beyond it, that River could be his salvation. But his conscience had finally caught up with him last night. He and River’d shared a kiss that had shaken him to the core, and a tangle of words that almost broke him in two. His sleep, what there’d been of it, had felt the results.
Nightmares of the Valley had mixed in with more recent horrors. He dreamt that Simon didn’t make it to the Maidenhead in time, that he shot his little albatross clean through her brain. He saw Kaylee’s and Zoe’s and River’s faces on the corpses of both Serenities. He dreamt that he’d come back to the holding point after broadcasting the message, only to find everyone gutted and slaughtered, even the girl that no blade had ever touched.
He could take a hint from his own brain. The long and the short of it was that he scared himself. The darkness in him ran too deep. He knew River had her own share of it, but it wasn’t the same. Hers was knowledge forced on her without her consent. His was a darkness of his own making.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. Stripped of all self-delusion, he could at last admit it to himself. He loved her so much it burned. And she loved him, much as he didn’t want her to. She knew him, knew every part of him, and she wasn’t afraid of him. But that was the crux of it: he was, and he knew she should be. And so he loved her too much to take what she offered. If he had even a little less degradation in his soul, he might’ve been able to. She would’ve been good for him. Of that, he had no doubt. But it just wasn’t enough. Not for her.
And that’s that. He kicked his blanket off and cursed when he almost tripped over his boots.
“Lights!”
As he dressed in the dim light, he mulled over his options. He refused to wallow in self-pity any more. Look at the bright side, Reynolds. You won’t have to deal with askin’ courting permission from that uptight brother o’ hers. He managed a tired grin at that thought. He could handle this. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere. All he had to do was bury everything deep down, like he’d done after the war. Bury it, lock it up, throw away the key. Go back to the way things were before. Simplest thing in the ‘verse. Be friendly, captainy, and occasionally gruff, just what everyone expected of him.
And try to forget that while he’d been holding River in his arms, kissing her as though his very life depended on it, he’d felt an instant of such perfect peace that his soul had cried out with joy.
************************************
Y'all know the drill. Rest here: Big Damn Prompt Table