Firefly Fic: WAITING FOR U-DAY (PG)
Malcolm Reynolds is a violent man, and he knows it. When he was just a kid, Shepherd Pogrebin preached that Calsayo was nothing more than a brawl with uniforms on, and it was impious that so-called good Christians would flock to watch a debased gladiatorial spectacle instead of coming to Prayer Meeting. And Mal didn't disagree. On the other hand, he was also the Captain of the Calsayo side, and when he was fifteen, and the Cougars won the Northwest Quadrant championship, Shepherd Pogrebin was lucky just to lose his pulpit and not get run out of town on a rail.
That was Mal's first taste of leadership, and of distinction (his Mama often quoted back to him a school report that read, "Malcolm is by no means as dim as he would like you to believe"), and he liked it.
There were things Mal enjoyed about the war, and if they'd managed to win, he would have enjoyed most of it. Up until Serenity Valley, where-just as you'd expect from a pack of politicians-they managed to find a way to make winning the battle just as much not fun as losing it.
The measure of a man is not what he desires, but what he can get away with. Mal knows how precarious his hold over his crew is, and how much he dreads losing any of them. Not just to death, but to huffy resignation, because how can he know that he could replace them with better?
He can't risk losing Zoe, not only because of everything he owes her, but because everything she owes him is one of the strands of silk in the spiderweb of his own belief that he's a good man. Anyway, hitting Zoe would be a very poor idea in terms of practicality. And that means that Wash is under Zoe's protection. There was that one time that Mal relocated Wash's shirt while he was still wearing it, but that was in Zoe's interest and while she was unconscious, so Mal skated on that one.
Mal was brought up well, so he would not stoop to hitting an elderly Shepherd. And that, in turn, averts any humiliating questions about the fate of his kneecaps if he tried. One of Mal's missions is to protect Kaylee against any bastard who'd be low enough to hit her. Even though she is so sweet that a small slice of her goes a long way, and sometimes Malcolm wishes he could just wrap her up and send her to the next person on the Christmas list.
When it comes to Jayne, Mal knows that he is outnumbered and outgunned, so he has to operate by moral authority. That one time, yes he did need to use a wrench, but only to get Jayne to sit still long enough to listen to a parable that Jayne, in his heart of hearts, believed already. If he hadn't, trying to tell him would have turned out a lot worse.
River sits mostly in the back row of the chessboard, so Mal mostly intuits the number of squares she can move, and she, too, is under protection. Mal suspects that he got a one-time introductory offer in terms of hitting Simon; if he does it again, he guesses that sooner or later the 'Verse would be picking bits of Reynolds out of its teeth. It's the two least physically formidable members of his crew that give him the collywobbles, because he recognizes that Simon and Inara are about as malleable as a marble quarry and easygoing as the Count of Monte Cristo. For his own safety, he hopes that if they are at anything of each other's, it'd be throats.
In fact certain dreams have been had, right when a man is unconscious and least able to defend himself, when he is aware of the general quantity of volume displaced and dark, dark hair and smooth skin but he isn't quite sure which one of them is giving him a hard time.
So that's why Mal looks forward to jobs, and circles U-Day on the calendar every year. Because he spends his life exasperated, but he knows that there's nobody he can hit but total strangers.
That was Mal's first taste of leadership, and of distinction (his Mama often quoted back to him a school report that read, "Malcolm is by no means as dim as he would like you to believe"), and he liked it.
There were things Mal enjoyed about the war, and if they'd managed to win, he would have enjoyed most of it. Up until Serenity Valley, where-just as you'd expect from a pack of politicians-they managed to find a way to make winning the battle just as much not fun as losing it.
The measure of a man is not what he desires, but what he can get away with. Mal knows how precarious his hold over his crew is, and how much he dreads losing any of them. Not just to death, but to huffy resignation, because how can he know that he could replace them with better?
He can't risk losing Zoe, not only because of everything he owes her, but because everything she owes him is one of the strands of silk in the spiderweb of his own belief that he's a good man. Anyway, hitting Zoe would be a very poor idea in terms of practicality. And that means that Wash is under Zoe's protection. There was that one time that Mal relocated Wash's shirt while he was still wearing it, but that was in Zoe's interest and while she was unconscious, so Mal skated on that one.
Mal was brought up well, so he would not stoop to hitting an elderly Shepherd. And that, in turn, averts any humiliating questions about the fate of his kneecaps if he tried. One of Mal's missions is to protect Kaylee against any bastard who'd be low enough to hit her. Even though she is so sweet that a small slice of her goes a long way, and sometimes Malcolm wishes he could just wrap her up and send her to the next person on the Christmas list.
When it comes to Jayne, Mal knows that he is outnumbered and outgunned, so he has to operate by moral authority. That one time, yes he did need to use a wrench, but only to get Jayne to sit still long enough to listen to a parable that Jayne, in his heart of hearts, believed already. If he hadn't, trying to tell him would have turned out a lot worse.
River sits mostly in the back row of the chessboard, so Mal mostly intuits the number of squares she can move, and she, too, is under protection. Mal suspects that he got a one-time introductory offer in terms of hitting Simon; if he does it again, he guesses that sooner or later the 'Verse would be picking bits of Reynolds out of its teeth. It's the two least physically formidable members of his crew that give him the collywobbles, because he recognizes that Simon and Inara are about as malleable as a marble quarry and easygoing as the Count of Monte Cristo. For his own safety, he hopes that if they are at anything of each other's, it'd be throats.
In fact certain dreams have been had, right when a man is unconscious and least able to defend himself, when he is aware of the general quantity of volume displaced and dark, dark hair and smooth skin but he isn't quite sure which one of them is giving him a hard time.
So that's why Mal looks forward to jobs, and circles U-Day on the calendar every year. Because he spends his life exasperated, but he knows that there's nobody he can hit but total strangers.