FIREFLY: dustland fairytales (don't have happy endings)
Title: dustland fairytales (don't have happy endings)
Pairing: Mal/Inara
Word Count: 910
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for superkappa for The Five Acts Meme.
Summary: Grief makes a man philosophical. Post-Serenity.
The thing about space is, a man gets lonely sometimes. Simon said it first, and back then Mal had dismissed it as baby talk, stuff for pampered little boys, not men, but now he thinks he might be catching on. It's not the black, the openness--he likes that, he does. The promise of another galaxy, another run. It's just that, sometimes it hits him that it's too quiet when you aren't getting shot at and too loud when you are. Like your eardrums might explode from the pressure either way. He tells Inara this one day a few weeks after they bury Wash, and that's his excuse for getting all mushy. Grief makes a man philosophical. She laughs quietly at that, not triumphantly, but tiredly, stopping and turning back to look at him on her way off of the bridge.
"You miss civilization," she says, words clipped sharp and soft on her tongue like she knows him. Scary part is, sometimes he thinks she does.
"No," he says a little too sharply, a little too late. Because he doesn't. He's seen what civilization does to the ones who don't take well to it and so has she and where in the 'verse did she get the fool notion that civilization is a word that actually means something anymore? He doesn't miss a gorram thing and she knows that, and he doesn't know when the hell she's gonna stop getting off on getting a rise out of him. He turns his back on her, huffy, maybe a little over-dramatic, tilts back in the pilot chair a little and comes face to face with a wide-eyed River, hanging from the ceiling like a gorram spider. Fuckin' albatross. He may or may not shriek like a little girl. Inara's soft retreating laughter burns in his ears for days afterwards.
-
Two months later she hops off the ship at Persephone.
"It's nothing personal," she says by way of explanation. Her eyes flicker a little, like they've got lights or stars stuck in them. "I don't know how the Guild has reacted to the disintegration of the Alliance. I'd like to find out whether I still have a job." She smiles then, and he thinks if it were possible for her to be anything less than gorgeous that she might look wan. "I'll understand if you don't want me back on your ship. If they find out you're here. . . ."
Mal shrugs, ignores the implication in her tone, crosses his arms across his chest. "Said I'd take you wherever you needed to go." Fly in, drop her out of the sky, done deal. They both know this is goodbye. Her face doesn't change. He's not sorry, and his gut doesn't twist.
"I'm sorry," she says, like she wants him to feel bad. "It wasn't my intention to complicate your plans."
He shrugs again, resists the urge to make a comeback--they don't have any plans, and she knows that too--and ends up feeling like his shoulders might get permanently stuck somewhere in the vicinity of his ears if he doesn't stop it soon. "Things always do." Get complicated.
Kaylee looks at him all knowing-like then, and Simon steps forwards and shakes Inara's hand to fill up the empty silence. Zoe hugs her and River looks like she's trying to, and Jayne either nods or leers, it's hard to tell the difference. She turns to Mal next, and her palm is cool and firm on his forearm, the other held lightly over his clenched-up fist. The space where her skin doesn't meet his feels hot and empty.
"I'm sure I'll miss you eventually." She smiles then, bright and shiny and gorgeous like he'd been missing. He purses his lips, nods, keeps the muscles in his face taut. The sound of the airlock lifting up and away brings him back. He pulls away from her, not abruptly, but not gently either. When she's gone he rubs at his arm all day until he's stopped feeling the weight of her there.
-
Time passes. The signal changed everything, that's what they all say--but their corner of the verse is fairly quiet, you'd think they'd notice it more. Eventually River starts piloting full-time, which gives Mal an opportunity to focus on jobs. Money. The beautiful part is that now that law and order've been thrown out the window, getting the kind of work he's used to--the illegal kind--is tough. Everything is legal because there is no one who actually wants to enforce the law. The signal's made an honest man of him. He laughs, wonders whether she'd believe it. Maybe she'd think him reformed.
-
He sees her in his dreams. You again? What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone? She just looks at him all melancholy-like. I don't want to be here, she says sometimes, and he knows it's true. Mal doesn't tend to put a lot of stock in dreams and suchlike nonsense, but this is different. Somehow. Someway. Her fingernails stab the inside of his wrist and he feels the blank stretch of space and absence above and around him like a map in his head. He wakes up knowing where he's going next, though he's got no gorram idea what he'll do when he gets there. He'll figure it out eventually. She always was good at telling him what to do.
Pairing: Mal/Inara
Word Count: 910
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Written for superkappa for The Five Acts Meme.
Summary: Grief makes a man philosophical. Post-Serenity.
The thing about space is, a man gets lonely sometimes. Simon said it first, and back then Mal had dismissed it as baby talk, stuff for pampered little boys, not men, but now he thinks he might be catching on. It's not the black, the openness--he likes that, he does. The promise of another galaxy, another run. It's just that, sometimes it hits him that it's too quiet when you aren't getting shot at and too loud when you are. Like your eardrums might explode from the pressure either way. He tells Inara this one day a few weeks after they bury Wash, and that's his excuse for getting all mushy. Grief makes a man philosophical. She laughs quietly at that, not triumphantly, but tiredly, stopping and turning back to look at him on her way off of the bridge.
"You miss civilization," she says, words clipped sharp and soft on her tongue like she knows him. Scary part is, sometimes he thinks she does.
"No," he says a little too sharply, a little too late. Because he doesn't. He's seen what civilization does to the ones who don't take well to it and so has she and where in the 'verse did she get the fool notion that civilization is a word that actually means something anymore? He doesn't miss a gorram thing and she knows that, and he doesn't know when the hell she's gonna stop getting off on getting a rise out of him. He turns his back on her, huffy, maybe a little over-dramatic, tilts back in the pilot chair a little and comes face to face with a wide-eyed River, hanging from the ceiling like a gorram spider. Fuckin' albatross. He may or may not shriek like a little girl. Inara's soft retreating laughter burns in his ears for days afterwards.
-
Two months later she hops off the ship at Persephone.
"It's nothing personal," she says by way of explanation. Her eyes flicker a little, like they've got lights or stars stuck in them. "I don't know how the Guild has reacted to the disintegration of the Alliance. I'd like to find out whether I still have a job." She smiles then, and he thinks if it were possible for her to be anything less than gorgeous that she might look wan. "I'll understand if you don't want me back on your ship. If they find out you're here. . . ."
Mal shrugs, ignores the implication in her tone, crosses his arms across his chest. "Said I'd take you wherever you needed to go." Fly in, drop her out of the sky, done deal. They both know this is goodbye. Her face doesn't change. He's not sorry, and his gut doesn't twist.
"I'm sorry," she says, like she wants him to feel bad. "It wasn't my intention to complicate your plans."
He shrugs again, resists the urge to make a comeback--they don't have any plans, and she knows that too--and ends up feeling like his shoulders might get permanently stuck somewhere in the vicinity of his ears if he doesn't stop it soon. "Things always do." Get complicated.
Kaylee looks at him all knowing-like then, and Simon steps forwards and shakes Inara's hand to fill up the empty silence. Zoe hugs her and River looks like she's trying to, and Jayne either nods or leers, it's hard to tell the difference. She turns to Mal next, and her palm is cool and firm on his forearm, the other held lightly over his clenched-up fist. The space where her skin doesn't meet his feels hot and empty.
"I'm sure I'll miss you eventually." She smiles then, bright and shiny and gorgeous like he'd been missing. He purses his lips, nods, keeps the muscles in his face taut. The sound of the airlock lifting up and away brings him back. He pulls away from her, not abruptly, but not gently either. When she's gone he rubs at his arm all day until he's stopped feeling the weight of her there.
-
Time passes. The signal changed everything, that's what they all say--but their corner of the verse is fairly quiet, you'd think they'd notice it more. Eventually River starts piloting full-time, which gives Mal an opportunity to focus on jobs. Money. The beautiful part is that now that law and order've been thrown out the window, getting the kind of work he's used to--the illegal kind--is tough. Everything is legal because there is no one who actually wants to enforce the law. The signal's made an honest man of him. He laughs, wonders whether she'd believe it. Maybe she'd think him reformed.
-
He sees her in his dreams. You again? What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone? She just looks at him all melancholy-like. I don't want to be here, she says sometimes, and he knows it's true. Mal doesn't tend to put a lot of stock in dreams and suchlike nonsense, but this is different. Somehow. Someway. Her fingernails stab the inside of his wrist and he feels the blank stretch of space and absence above and around him like a map in his head. He wakes up knowing where he's going next, though he's got no gorram idea what he'll do when he gets there. He'll figure it out eventually. She always was good at telling him what to do.