Fic: River/Mal ficlets (Firefly, PG)
Since I haven't been writing any drabbles lately, here's a bunch of River/Mal comment fic that I never posted here instead.
Title: A Scale of Small to Endless
Rating: PG
Words: 262
Summary: River contemplates the griefs and sorrows of her crewmates.
Notes: The prompt for this one was Firefly, River, "I measure every Grief I meet" (Emily Dickinson), on the theme 'five sentences.' Technically it's only subtextually a River/Mal fic, but it fits in well enough, I think.
A Scale of Small to Endless
Some griefs she can wrap her mind around, because they are small in the scale of things; Jayne's bitter point of sadness over a gun, irreparably damaged this last job, Kaylee's sharp sting where Simon's latest careless words have cut her, Wash's slow tide of anxiety for Zoe receding.
Others carry grief more sustained, deeper and lasting, but well worn, buried enough so River can look at it without fear of falling in; Zoe's old war wounds, healed over and covered in bandages made of loyalty and love, proof that grief doesn't have to destroy; Book's peaceful green field, where he tends his flock, the new growth nourished by the bodies he's buried below, and Inara, wearing her melancholy like a layer of fabric, twisted and draped expertly to veil her, to make her all the more alluring.
Simon's griefs are not to be looked at; they are unfathomable, too close to her own to withstand, and her own are everything in nothing, like the black, infinite and waiting to swallow her into insignificance - so she refrains from measuring her own grief, and Simon's as well.
Mal puzzles her, because, like her, he seems made up of grief; pain and loss in the shape of a man. But he doesn't let it consume him, instead making it into whatever he needs, and she longs to follow him about, asking how, how do you do this? - but she doesn't, knowing there's no answer to give; she simply observes him instead, and tethers herself to him, solid reassurance in the infinite grief.
***
Title: Fell in Love with a Face
Rating: PG
Words: 336
Summary: Neither one of them thinks it's right that the other should be so pretty.
Notes: Nope, I don't have a thing for calling Mal pretty, why would you think that?
Fell in Love with a Face
"He's got a funny looking face," River says to Kaylee, her nimble fingers scooping up jacks.
"Huh? Who does?" Kaylee asks, grabbing for the ball, mind more on her strategy than River's ramblings.
"All full of lines, cares and worries and laughs. Very mobile," River goes on, ignoring the question. "The eyelashes are too long, belong to a more feminine appearance. The smile is acceptable."
When Kaylee, captured jacks in her palm, looks up, ready to repeat her question, she sees that while River's hands are darting over the jacks, her eyes are fixed on the Captain.
"Oughtn't add up to beauty, yet it does," she says, far away and still winning the game.
***
Ain't right that she should be so pretty, not really. Hardly enough of her there to be called a woman, after all, and what there is always being swallowed up in borrowed clothes don't help. Her face is all made up of big eyes and forehead and that endless curtain of hair she never does a thing with, not that he's ever been one for fancy styles. Or one for fancy clothes either, come to that.
But he's also never been one for girls just lately become adult women, and that's why it's getting to him so much, how he can't seem to stop staring at the way her mouth curves when she grins, at the graceful way she's got even when she ain't doing more than sitting on the floor playing games.
And now she's looking up, straight at him, and he knows for damn sure he's let a few too many thoughts slip for comfort.
"You think I'm pretty too?" she calls from across the cargo bay, sounding surprised.
Well, that pretty much reduces him to incoherency. "I - What? Wait, what do you mean, too?"
***
Neither one of them can understand why Kaylee's going off into peals of laughter, echoing around them in their stillness, eyes locked on each other.
***
Title: Standing By
Rating: PG
Words: 543
Summary: It's like a game, the way she talks in circles around him to get what she wants.
Notes: Prompt: Firefly, any/any, rotation.
Standing By
“You promised,” River says, eyes gone all huge but not a trace of pouting in her voice, just that flat tone she uses when she thinks she's stating the obvious.
As used to that tone as he is, Mal still finds it mighty irritating. “Shen me? Seems to me I'd remember such, promises not being things I tend to make any too often.”
“You did,” she insists, somehow managing to keep her little hands wrapped around the helm even as she twists the rest of herself to face him. “Said I was perfectly ready to fly on my own.”
He does recall saying that, now that she mentions it. “Yeah, but-”
“Said there was no reason I couldn't fly by myself,” she continues, not paying any mind at all to the fact that he's trying to talk too.
“Well, sure, darlin', but I was just saying that to Simon.”
The way she's got her eyes all narrowed in his direction don't bode especially well for him. “Does that make your statements any less truthful?”
“Not as such, no,” he admits, trying to think of a way to regain the high ground here. “Was just my way of letting your brother know I wasn't gonna hear any more talk from him 'bout what you should or shouldn't be doin', though.”
“So you didn't mean it,” she says, turning her back on him, staring out into the stars. “You lied.”
“Did no such thing,” he says, leaning over the console so she's forced to either look at him or ignore him a few scant inches from her face. “And you know that full well, so let's not be playing games here, alright?”
River tilts her head back, so the shield of her hair falls back against her shoulder, and glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “You don't mind my games,” she says, and he might've missed the way that smile of hers came out for just a second, if he hadn't chanced to be starting at her mouth at the time. “Explain why I can't fly tonight, then.”
Takes a minute for his mind to click back into place, way he was letting himself get distracted by her. Not much doubt that's part of her game. “Uh...cause it's my turn in the rotation, that's why.”
She sighs and flicks her fingers at him in a dismissive manner. “A poor excuse. Do you trust me?”
Doesn't matter how that's about the most fraught question anybody on his boat could've asked him; there's still not a bit of hesitation in his answer. “Yes.”
The smile she gives him at that is enough to light up the whole bridge. “Then let me fly tonight,” she says, removing his hand from the console, letting her fingers trace light and shivery up the inside of his arm, almost like an accident. “And maybe I'll let you fly later.”
Never mind that he's none too sure she's actually talking about him putting hands to helm later on; as he walks away, leaving her to Serenity and the black, the funny thing is how right it feels.
***
Title: More than Normal
Rating: PG
Words: 463
Summary: Some people - like Badger - don't always see them as a pair, but they've got their ways of fixing that.
Notes: Prompt: Mal/River, post-Serenity, She had never hoped for normal, but they weren't really that normal anyway.
More than Normal
It occurs to River, as she looks at the pair of them through Badger's eyes, that they're not exactly normal. Badger is used to Mal being here with Zoe; he sees them as a unit, a pair. People seeing Simon and Kaylee hanging on each other's arms walking through town see a couple. But River and Mal, no - in the eyes of others, they remain individuals, separate, apart. Too many differences; they fit together below the surface, parts of the same whole, but that's covered by flesh and skin and layers of assumptions so people can't see. It's not often she minds this, but here, seeing through Badger's thoughts, she does.
“You know, I think I remember this girl,” he says, coming towards her, bowler hat balanced on arrogance. “Pretty little bit of a thing from back home, wasn't it? Crime to keep her hidden away on that piece of crap ship, Reynolds.”
“Sad little king,” River greets him, the lilt of Badger's accent coloring her words.
“Wait, when exactly did he meet you?” Mal asks, ignoring Badger like he would a gnat.
“Long time ago. You were absent.”
“When was I absent that he was on my ship, talking to you?”
“You were playing the misguided hero at the time. And getting yourself stabbed in consequence.”
“Gonna have to be more specific than that, darlin', I tend to get stabbed a lot.”
“I know, wish you wouldn't. Makes my heart stop. This time was with a sword. Over honor.”
“Oh yeah, good old Ath. Least he walked away with as many scars as I got out of it.”
“Still, it was an unwise choice.”
“Well, now I got you to protect me, don't have to worry none 'bout makin' bad choices.”
“You still make them. I just correct you.”
Finished, they turn as one from each other to Badger, who's been watching the two of them, eyes swiveling like he was at a ping-pong match.
“Ready to get down to business then?” Mal asks him. “Only you might not wanna try settin' us up this time, cause she'll know if you're lyin' and she tends to get mighty angry when people think about hurting me. And that ain't a sight you want to see, trust me.”
River smiles at Badger, partly to be strange and eerie and not quite right, and partly because things have clicked in his mind, and he sees the two of them now as one - a strange and sharp edged pair that he doesn't understand, and doesn't care to, but a pair all the same.
She's never in her life been normal anyhow, really. It would be silly to start now.
Title: A Scale of Small to Endless
Rating: PG
Words: 262
Summary: River contemplates the griefs and sorrows of her crewmates.
Notes: The prompt for this one was Firefly, River, "I measure every Grief I meet" (Emily Dickinson), on the theme 'five sentences.' Technically it's only subtextually a River/Mal fic, but it fits in well enough, I think.
A Scale of Small to Endless
Some griefs she can wrap her mind around, because they are small in the scale of things; Jayne's bitter point of sadness over a gun, irreparably damaged this last job, Kaylee's sharp sting where Simon's latest careless words have cut her, Wash's slow tide of anxiety for Zoe receding.
Others carry grief more sustained, deeper and lasting, but well worn, buried enough so River can look at it without fear of falling in; Zoe's old war wounds, healed over and covered in bandages made of loyalty and love, proof that grief doesn't have to destroy; Book's peaceful green field, where he tends his flock, the new growth nourished by the bodies he's buried below, and Inara, wearing her melancholy like a layer of fabric, twisted and draped expertly to veil her, to make her all the more alluring.
Simon's griefs are not to be looked at; they are unfathomable, too close to her own to withstand, and her own are everything in nothing, like the black, infinite and waiting to swallow her into insignificance - so she refrains from measuring her own grief, and Simon's as well.
Mal puzzles her, because, like her, he seems made up of grief; pain and loss in the shape of a man. But he doesn't let it consume him, instead making it into whatever he needs, and she longs to follow him about, asking how, how do you do this? - but she doesn't, knowing there's no answer to give; she simply observes him instead, and tethers herself to him, solid reassurance in the infinite grief.
***
Title: Fell in Love with a Face
Rating: PG
Words: 336
Summary: Neither one of them thinks it's right that the other should be so pretty.
Notes: Nope, I don't have a thing for calling Mal pretty, why would you think that?
Fell in Love with a Face
"He's got a funny looking face," River says to Kaylee, her nimble fingers scooping up jacks.
"Huh? Who does?" Kaylee asks, grabbing for the ball, mind more on her strategy than River's ramblings.
"All full of lines, cares and worries and laughs. Very mobile," River goes on, ignoring the question. "The eyelashes are too long, belong to a more feminine appearance. The smile is acceptable."
When Kaylee, captured jacks in her palm, looks up, ready to repeat her question, she sees that while River's hands are darting over the jacks, her eyes are fixed on the Captain.
"Oughtn't add up to beauty, yet it does," she says, far away and still winning the game.
***
Ain't right that she should be so pretty, not really. Hardly enough of her there to be called a woman, after all, and what there is always being swallowed up in borrowed clothes don't help. Her face is all made up of big eyes and forehead and that endless curtain of hair she never does a thing with, not that he's ever been one for fancy styles. Or one for fancy clothes either, come to that.
But he's also never been one for girls just lately become adult women, and that's why it's getting to him so much, how he can't seem to stop staring at the way her mouth curves when she grins, at the graceful way she's got even when she ain't doing more than sitting on the floor playing games.
And now she's looking up, straight at him, and he knows for damn sure he's let a few too many thoughts slip for comfort.
"You think I'm pretty too?" she calls from across the cargo bay, sounding surprised.
Well, that pretty much reduces him to incoherency. "I - What? Wait, what do you mean, too?"
***
Neither one of them can understand why Kaylee's going off into peals of laughter, echoing around them in their stillness, eyes locked on each other.
***
Title: Standing By
Rating: PG
Words: 543
Summary: It's like a game, the way she talks in circles around him to get what she wants.
Notes: Prompt: Firefly, any/any, rotation.
Standing By
“You promised,” River says, eyes gone all huge but not a trace of pouting in her voice, just that flat tone she uses when she thinks she's stating the obvious.
As used to that tone as he is, Mal still finds it mighty irritating. “Shen me? Seems to me I'd remember such, promises not being things I tend to make any too often.”
“You did,” she insists, somehow managing to keep her little hands wrapped around the helm even as she twists the rest of herself to face him. “Said I was perfectly ready to fly on my own.”
He does recall saying that, now that she mentions it. “Yeah, but-”
“Said there was no reason I couldn't fly by myself,” she continues, not paying any mind at all to the fact that he's trying to talk too.
“Well, sure, darlin', but I was just saying that to Simon.”
The way she's got her eyes all narrowed in his direction don't bode especially well for him. “Does that make your statements any less truthful?”
“Not as such, no,” he admits, trying to think of a way to regain the high ground here. “Was just my way of letting your brother know I wasn't gonna hear any more talk from him 'bout what you should or shouldn't be doin', though.”
“So you didn't mean it,” she says, turning her back on him, staring out into the stars. “You lied.”
“Did no such thing,” he says, leaning over the console so she's forced to either look at him or ignore him a few scant inches from her face. “And you know that full well, so let's not be playing games here, alright?”
River tilts her head back, so the shield of her hair falls back against her shoulder, and glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “You don't mind my games,” she says, and he might've missed the way that smile of hers came out for just a second, if he hadn't chanced to be starting at her mouth at the time. “Explain why I can't fly tonight, then.”
Takes a minute for his mind to click back into place, way he was letting himself get distracted by her. Not much doubt that's part of her game. “Uh...cause it's my turn in the rotation, that's why.”
She sighs and flicks her fingers at him in a dismissive manner. “A poor excuse. Do you trust me?”
Doesn't matter how that's about the most fraught question anybody on his boat could've asked him; there's still not a bit of hesitation in his answer. “Yes.”
The smile she gives him at that is enough to light up the whole bridge. “Then let me fly tonight,” she says, removing his hand from the console, letting her fingers trace light and shivery up the inside of his arm, almost like an accident. “And maybe I'll let you fly later.”
Never mind that he's none too sure she's actually talking about him putting hands to helm later on; as he walks away, leaving her to Serenity and the black, the funny thing is how right it feels.
***
Title: More than Normal
Rating: PG
Words: 463
Summary: Some people - like Badger - don't always see them as a pair, but they've got their ways of fixing that.
Notes: Prompt: Mal/River, post-Serenity, She had never hoped for normal, but they weren't really that normal anyway.
More than Normal
It occurs to River, as she looks at the pair of them through Badger's eyes, that they're not exactly normal. Badger is used to Mal being here with Zoe; he sees them as a unit, a pair. People seeing Simon and Kaylee hanging on each other's arms walking through town see a couple. But River and Mal, no - in the eyes of others, they remain individuals, separate, apart. Too many differences; they fit together below the surface, parts of the same whole, but that's covered by flesh and skin and layers of assumptions so people can't see. It's not often she minds this, but here, seeing through Badger's thoughts, she does.
“You know, I think I remember this girl,” he says, coming towards her, bowler hat balanced on arrogance. “Pretty little bit of a thing from back home, wasn't it? Crime to keep her hidden away on that piece of crap ship, Reynolds.”
“Sad little king,” River greets him, the lilt of Badger's accent coloring her words.
“Wait, when exactly did he meet you?” Mal asks, ignoring Badger like he would a gnat.
“Long time ago. You were absent.”
“When was I absent that he was on my ship, talking to you?”
“You were playing the misguided hero at the time. And getting yourself stabbed in consequence.”
“Gonna have to be more specific than that, darlin', I tend to get stabbed a lot.”
“I know, wish you wouldn't. Makes my heart stop. This time was with a sword. Over honor.”
“Oh yeah, good old Ath. Least he walked away with as many scars as I got out of it.”
“Still, it was an unwise choice.”
“Well, now I got you to protect me, don't have to worry none 'bout makin' bad choices.”
“You still make them. I just correct you.”
Finished, they turn as one from each other to Badger, who's been watching the two of them, eyes swiveling like he was at a ping-pong match.
“Ready to get down to business then?” Mal asks him. “Only you might not wanna try settin' us up this time, cause she'll know if you're lyin' and she tends to get mighty angry when people think about hurting me. And that ain't a sight you want to see, trust me.”
River smiles at Badger, partly to be strange and eerie and not quite right, and partly because things have clicked in his mind, and he sees the two of them now as one - a strange and sharp edged pair that he doesn't understand, and doesn't care to, but a pair all the same.
She's never in her life been normal anyhow, really. It would be silly to start now.