browncoat2x2: Painting of C-3PO on Tattooine (Broken Heart)
[personal profile] browncoat2x2
Thought I'd throw a couple of the random little scenes I've got sitting on my hard drive that may otherwise never see the light of day. They won't be complete by any means, but I figured here's a good a place as any to store them. Maybe I'll even throw some of my deleted scenes from Choices up here, just to keep 'em all together.

Anyway, this is just a little dinner table discussion between the crew and Zoe about my favourite pair, Mal and Inara.



“Don’t see why the Cap’n don’t jus’ up and kiss ‘er, get it over with. It ain’t like she don’t want him to!” declared Kaylee.

Zoe shook her head, not looking up from the pistol she was meticulously oiling at the table. “Ain’t the way the Captain operates.”

“Sure would give us all a gorram break if he would,” grumbled Jayne. “All their carryin’ on. Didn’t know better, a body’d start to wonder he weren’t sly.”

“Mal ain’t sly,” said Zoe firmly.

“And – you know that how, exactly?” interjected Wash. Zoe ignored him.

“Captain’s problem ain’t that he’s sly or nothin’ such,” she said.

“Well, what the gaui is his gorram problem then? Woman wantin’ ta be took like that, wouldn’t ruttin’ wait fer nothin’, were it me,” Jayne said, shaking his head.

“You ever seen the Cap’n take up with anyone?” Kaylee asked Zoe.

The Browncoat shook her head, sliding the parts of her weapon together. “Can’t say I have.”

“Then, how do you know? … uh, Lamby toes?” said Wash, leaning forward, concern blooming over his features.

“He ain’t never been with no one?” asked Kaylee, incredulous. “That’s terrible sad.”

“Didn’t say he ain’t never been with no one,” Zoe refuted, shaking her head again and pulling the gun apart to clean a piece again. “Jus’ said I ain’t never seen him take up with no one for any duration-like.”

“Gorram! Ain’t he functional?”

Zoe gave Jayne a look. “Captain’s just fine in that department, Jayne.”

“Okay. Now I really have to know how you know that--”

“Husband, you and I are gonna hafta have some words on the issue of trust real soon you keep goin’ on in this fashion,” Zoe said, turning a cold gaze on Wash that let him know in no uncertain terms he was heading for trouble. He pulled back, frowning.

“Better check our course,” he mumbled and left the mess, heading for the cockpit.

Zoe sighed. “A lot of it is the Captain just ain’t got the time for any sort of ‘relationship’,” she said, her gaze lingering on the doorway her husband had walked out. “Too many complications, and too busy lookin’ after everyone else to…” She trailed off, searching for the words to explain.

“Indulge?” suggested Book, who up till now had been sitting silently in the corner but had come forward to join them at the table.

Zoe turned her eyes to meet the preacher’s and nodded. “Good enough word for it.” She paused, her focus shifting to a far off memory. “Back in the war, Mal… he kept us alive, kept us goin’. Kept our hope up… After Serenity…”

The room hung on her words, silenced by this uncharacteristic foray into taboo territory.

“Captain ain’t never learned how to stop doin’ that. Hasn’t even occurred to him that he could stop. Just not the man he is. We’re his crew and he’s responsible for us, leastwise, way he sees it.”

“But ‘Nara ain’t, well, Cap’n ain’t never called her crew, much as she is family,” said Kaylee.

Zoe shook her head, coming back to the present. “Don’t matter. She’s on his boat, on his shuttle. He still feels he’s got a responsibility t’wards her. ‘Sides which, he’s got too much respect for Inara to actually kiss her.”

“Huh?” grunted Jayne around his spoonful of protein sludge.

“Wha?” echoed Kaylee. “Sure got a funny way a’ showin’ it,” she complained.

“It’s not the woman he doesn’t like…” said Book softly. Zoe nodded but Kaylee still looked confused.

“But, why’s he treat her so mean ‘n all, then?”

“It’s the job he don’t truck with, not Inara herself. Captain ain’t the sharin’ type. He wants her to stop workin’, but he knows he ain’t got no right to ask. Problem is, he wants the have that right,” said Zoe sadly.

“And Inara can’t let him,” Book added softly.

Date: 2006-03-28 11:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] agent-rouka.livejournal.com
Captain ain’t never learned how to stop doin’ that. Hasn’t even occurred to him that he could stop.

You always have these little gems of sentences in your stories, that really sum up an issue. Because... so dead on!!


I loved the Zoe and Wash bits, especially, hilarious and serious all at once, and the idea of them all discussing it and the image of Mal respecting Inara too much to kiss her, it's so sweet and stupid of him.

Squee, snippetry!

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