Challenge: Mirror (shinies, win or lose)
Title: Don’t pick at it.
Author: godsdaisiechain
Fandom: Firefly
Type: Fic
Characters/Pairing: Mal, Inara, River, Simon, Kaylee, Niska
Word Count: ~1850
Rating: PG
Summary: Set right after "War Stories"  Even though Simon managed to put that ear back on, Mal is upset after being killed under torture by Adelai Niska. So’s everyone else on Serenity. Especially Inara.


Simon stepped up close, as if to brush at Mal’s hand, but held himself away at the last moment. “I just reattached that ear, Captain. Don’t pick at it.”

Mal rolled his eyes. Gorram fool doctor.  How was a man not to pick at it? Niska cut his ta ma de ear off his gaisi head, and he warn’t supposed to pick at it? Man can’t win for losing.

Simon was talking like a cross between a doctor and an amused father. Like he was in charge.  Like being Captain didn’t count for nothing when a man was hurt a little bit.  Although it did hurt right smart, getting killed. He ain't never done that before. A man just wasn’t his own self after getting killed earlier in the day. Mal could feel himself thinking the old way, the way Jayne still talked, the way he got himself away from after leaving home.

Everyone was hiding the mirrors, too. And anything shiny enough to reflect a face in. Mal just hoped Simon didn’t put his ear back on all crooked.

Inara seemed to be lookin’ at him different now, too. Sad like. Almost scared.  That could chill a man, seeing an ice princess like our own Inara start to warm to a rough-edged criminal like himself.  A respectable woman on a ship of theives, and worse, if his suspicions about the Shepherd were correct. Inara wasn't giving up the sparring and softening toward a fella for no reason.

Mal wished he had seen that softness without getting himself stabbed and chopped up all kindsa ways.  He went through the rest of the day trying to hide the twinkle in his eyes. He was happy to be saved, so happy that his crew had come back for him that he could have gaisi de ta cried.

He could never cry in front of Jayne.  He’d lose control of the ship.  Especially after he let Jayne handle killing Niska’s thug.

Everyone tried not to let him see they were coddling him like a baby. Little Kaylee cooked up somethin’ that Mal couldn’t taste.  He forced it down, though, as much as Jayne didn't eat while he was pretending not to look. Her hands was shaking like a ship with no stabilizers. No use giving her anything else to worry on.

The most creepifying part was when he went to the hold to get a breath of stale air. River was there, wandering around in her bare feet.  She nodded at him, looking like she could see to the bottom of his soul. “It gets better,” she said, looking over his shoulder at a point in the middle of the firefly, then suddenly clapping her eyes on his. “Their souls are broken. Cut the soul from someone else.”

“What the shenme fengkuang de hema are you talking about?” he said, to cover up the curdling feeling in his middle.

River came closer, almost dancing in that way of her’n, and draped herself over Mal. “It doesn't work.  You can't cut a soul. It gets better. Bang, bang, bad men. Poof.”  She peeled herself off, giggled, and ran into the passenger bunks before he could say anything else.

Oddly, Mal felt deeply comforted.  Even though he should have felt downright unsettled that the crazy girl was making so much sense.

Something made a noise and Mal’s body snapped to full alert.  His heart started thrumming fit to bounce from out his chest right across Serenity’s cargo bay. He looked up, shaking and sweating like he’d just run from a ship of Reavers on his own two legs. “Well, hello there, Ambassador,” he said, voice quivering, then wished he’d grunted like Jayne. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Hello Mal,” she said, looking at the steps, not up, the way she normally would.  Were her eyes red?

“Those men bother you? Niska’s fellas?” Mal demanded, even though she was nowhere near Serenity or Niska during all the trouble. “You get hurt?”

Those brown eyes flashed surprise right at him. “No, Mal.  And I do know how to protect myself.”

“They teach you that before or after sword fighting?” he wanted to know.

“At the whore academy?” she asked, and suddenly Mal felt very weary.  He tugged at his ear, and Inara slapped his hand away.  “Don’t pick at it,” she snapped. Mal just wanted to put his forehead on her shoulder, wanted her to brush his hair and give him tea.

“I better go lay my head down. Doc gave me something to put me to sleep,” Mal said. “All soothing and soporific-like.”

Inara smiled and blinked too fast, grabbing his hand before he could touch his ear again. “Don’t pick at it. Do you want it to heal crooked?”

Mal made it back to his room, but not before Simon, Kaylee, the Shepherd and Jayne each told him not to touch his ear. Kaylee finally took his hand and insisted on tucking him in. There was a horrified noise when she saw his bunk.

“How do you live like this, Cap’n?” she asked.  “Don’t you worry none.  I’ll clean it up.”

“Now you just leave my things be, little Kaylee,” Mal said. “You ain’t got no call to be cleaning up any more of my messes today.”

Kaylee kissed his cheek. “I love my Captain. And he’s not getting better like this.”

A man lost all dignity when his crew saved him. At least Zoe said “sir” when she disobeyed him.  He fell into a fitful sleep and woke, sweat pouring off him like a river, blood pounding in his ears.  It was late.  Everyone else was sleeping, except the Shepherd, keeping watch in the Black.  Mal would talk to him a spell, then walk into the hold, maybe make hisself some coffee. He sniffed, and something that smelled much nicer than anything else he’d ever smelled in that bunk tickled his nostrils.

“Mal?” It was Inara, sitting on a cushion next to his bunk.  She sounded worried, like he warn’t answering when he was supposed to.

“I thought you didn’t service the crew,” he said, his voice breaking on the last word. He was too tired and hurting for a fight. The Doc had done his best, but some things couldn’t be mended right away. A soft cloth touched his forehead.  Inara was wiping the sweat from his brow, like she cared.  The shinies in her hair glinted in the dim light.

“Don’t pick at it, Mal,” she murmured, gently moving his hand away from the ear.  “Here, sit up. I have your medicine.”

Mal did as he was told. He moaned, not caring how much his wounded little boy softness showed in front of her. He let Inara brush the hair from his face and hold the cup so he could drink down cool water. Except it was tea.  His body shook like that heart was trying to burst out again.  Except that was the sobs.

He never knew exactly how it happened, but his shirt was already off, and he was crying against her silky nightgown with her soft, sweet-smelling hair falling over him and she was smoothing his skin and his hair and telling him it was all right now. And it was for a moment. Except she was crying, too, and a man couldn’t abide that, so he put his arms around her and they held each other until they was both cried out.

“I’m sorry.  I was so frightened, Mal,” she said.  Mal concentrated on keeping his hands pressed flat on Inara’s waist and back. She was liable to pull away all bristly-like if he stroked the soft silk. Probably because that wouldn’t be the real reason a man was stroking it.

“I wasn’t too comfortable my own self,” he said, thinking to make a joke.  Except his breath came all raspy like a tumbleweed was caught somewhere. She swallowed, and ran her fingers through his hair, then pulled away gently.  He let her go, but not all at once, savoring the feeling of her supple flesh under his fingers.

Water splashed in the basin and Mal felt some relief that Kaylee had seen to it.  “This room isn’t fit for a sick person, Mal,” she said when she came back to wipe his face and chest.

“I ain’t sick,” he said. It was too intimate to let her touch him in the dark without talking.  “You all takin’ it in turns to watch me?”

“No, Mal,” Inara said, her voice all quivery.  She took his hand and put it on her thigh. “Don’t poke at it.” He could feel her trembling.

Something in the soft silk whispered to Mal in the darkness. He’d got himself killed the day before and the words slipped out before he knew he’d thought them. “You ain’t never been like this with anyone before, have you?”  Her hands stopped moving, but they quivered against him.  “You ain’t never done this before.”  He stopped talking, but the words kept going inside his head. Never cried like this, cared like this. Sure, she liked her clients well enough. Maybe even loved some of them a little.  But they were safe.  There were all those rules to protect her. She was just as innocent as River some ways, maybe more.  Just as shut off from herself as he was from himself, maybe more.

There was always something mighty scary right under the surface with River, something a wise man didn’t rile up. With Inara, the layer below was shrill and contentious. She was only that way with him. Like he meant something different. Like she was hiding something it would be too easy for him to find.

He didn’t expect her to say anything. “I,” she said. “Almost.  I almost did.”  And Mal thought that was why she had left.  She was running from someone. Not someone who hurt her or she angered.  Someone she loved.  Almost loved. “But it was too late.”

“I…” Mal started, but Inara kept talking.

“It’s so complicated, Mal. I have nothing else. Nothing outside the Guild.”

“Some fella hurt you?”

“He fell in love with someone else,” Inara said. “It was too late, then. I needed a change.”

“But you fell in love, after,” he said, trying not to sound too eager. “That’s how you know it were only almost?”

The answer was better'n he hoped it could be. “Serenity has that effect on people,” Inara said.  Mal wanted to sit up and put his head on her shoulder, but her hands felt good where they were.  “Are you ready to go back to sleep?”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked.
         
“No, Mal,” said Inara.  “I put something in the tea to help you sleep.”

“I wish you hadn’t of gone and done that,” Mal said, suddenly frightened.  He didn’t want Niska rising up in his dreams.

“It keeps the dreams away,” Inara said, like she knew. Like she had caused to know.  She covered him with a blanket that smelled better than it should have.  Kaylee must have washed it while he was all passed out.

“Lie down with me?” Mal cursed Niska for killing him and taking away his shame. But Inara didn’t tease him.  She eased herself beside him and he rested his head on her shoulder, wishing he could do that every night.

In the morning, she was gone and his memory was a mite fuzzy.  Mal never mentioned anything about it because he was afraid it was a desperate man’s dream. He decided not to pick at it and see how it healed.