ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

There is a bed in the infirmary that, the last time Mal checked, had a body in it. A body that was still breathing, thanks to that [son of a bastard suitmonkey] doctor he keeps on his boat.

Not that Mal would know this or anything, but the bed that Mal hasn't let out of his sight for more than ten minutes...eleven minutes...twelve minutes is empty.

Why would he not know this?

He dozed off fourteen minutes ago.

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Red's antsy.

He's been doing this acting thing for too damn long. Sure, he's good at it, but man, guy needs a break once in awhile.

He paces the room, looking from something--anything--to do.

Maybe he'll go out and see what's going on in the bar.

River doesn't like infirmaries. Probably never will.

All the same, she'll come to them, now and then, and this one is Simon's; not as much as the one on Serenity, but even so. It helps. So she'll come, when she has reason.

Right now, she has reason.

She pokes her head slowly around the doorframe, tangled hair falling over her shoulder. Her eyes land on Mal, slumped in his chair, and then on Red -- and then a second, sharper look, and her eyes flash with sudden and furious understanding.

Red feels her and stops his pacing, turning to face her. His grin is a sharp knife. It says, come in.

River obliges.

Slowly, each step carefully placed, and her eyes never leave him. There is a glitter deep in them; there is a taut control thrumming through her body, an no sign of her restless absent gesturing.

It's no accident that when she stops moving and stands -- poised, watchful, waiting -- she's placed herself directly between Red and Mal.

"Uh, hi," he says in a boyish voice, the sharp knife replaced with a young smile.

River's eyes narrow.

It's a long moment before she says, soft and tight, "No."

"No?" He looks at her quizzically.

"Stop it," she says, and then again, voice rising, "Stop it."

"Isn't a game, you think he's a game but it's not. She won't play."

Mal snorts, shifts slightly, and resettles. River's fingers are stiff, twisting slowly against the air.

"I...I don't know what you're talking about," he says convincingly.

Soft, "You're a liar."

Her gaze flicks away, returns; stays fixed on him, too long for any kind of politeness, before the next flicker of a shift.

Between her flickers he smirks.

"What?" He asks, still feigning confusion.

Maybe she sees it anyway.

Maybe she doesn't.

"You're not," she says, high and tight and focused, and reaches behind her in a swift grab at the air. For Mal's arm, maybe, but she misses if so. "Fools him, lies with your face and his voice, make them feel and you're laughing behind your face. Teach me to see through, wángbadàn de biăozi, I'm seeing."

There's a dangerous, hissing edge to her voice, and a hard glitter in her narrowed eyes.

He backs away from her, slight fear on his face.

"I don't...I don't understand." He looks from Mal to River to Mal, as if secretly willing him to wake and save him from the crazy girl.

"Dāngrán." It's cold.

"I'm." She swallows, and her jaw clenches. "Nobody's playing. Time for solitaire."

This time, the grab for Mal's arm is successful. Her fingers tighten on his forearm, digging into brown fabric.

Red simply watches as she stirs Mal awake.

pictures and stones and paper flowers
Mal wakens abruptly, River's hand tightly - more tightly than Mal thinks he's ever felt before - wrapped around his arm. Going from bad dreams to sudden alertness is hard, sometimes.

He's almost getting whiplash between looking at the seemingly bewildered expression on Red's face and the look of...control, on River's.

River's fingers tighten further, short-clipped nails pressing into the tight weave of his worn sleeve, and she pulls slightly on his arm without looking at him.

"Time to take a break," she says, her eyes never leaving Red. "At ease. He can spell you."

"River -- what..."

Mal is confused. Very confused.

And starting to get a little agitated that her grip on his arm hasn't let up.

"You wanna let go o' me now?"

"No."

Beat. There's still that sense of taut control about her, that waiting, taut readiness. And her eyes never leave Red's confused, youthful face.

"Not yet, captain."

River's free hand is a tight fist.

"Excuse me?"

Mal stands from his chair then, imposing his not-inconsiderable height differential over River.

Turning to the other man in the room, "Sorry 'bout this. Some folk just don't have manners 'round new people."

Which is as nice of a phrase as Mal's got for River at the moment.

"I didn't know what to do about her," he says, a hint of helplessness in it. "I didn't want her to wake you, but she insisted."

"Time to go," River says again, a sharp edge in her voice.

"He's fine."

Simon said that too.

Mal actually prefers mutinies to take place on a ship.

Not his ship, of course. But at this point, that'd work too.

Mal stands firm, completely not understanding why River is against him now too.

Another yank on his arm, sharper, as her eyes flare.

Red

(smiles, fierce and bloody)

glances from her to Mal, bewildered and uncertain.

"Watching with his eyes, you're not listening." River's voice rises, anger lacing through it. "Time to go."

(He looks better in Red)

Turning to the fellow soldier, "Excuse me. Officer-like matters 'n all, you see."

Mal is the sergeant after all.

River and Mal leave the infirmary, Mal looking ready to slap the girl, if he could get her damned grip off his coat.

Mal returns to the infirmary, appearing all the more sure of himself and solid as he is back in Red's presence.

"I...apologize again, for her. Bit of a mess in the brainpan. Gets ideas."
Don't know if they're wrong.

"She...didn't make a whole lotta sense, but it sounded like she doesn't like me too much."

"What River likes and what she don't are no concern of mine," Mal responds, convincingly enough. He hopes.

"You're movin' about well enough - you want to get out o' the infirmary? Stables, maybe? I actually keep a horse 'round here my own self, when I get a chance to have 'im."

He nods emphatically, his face lighting up with the prospect of leaving the infirmary. He throws on a shirt and pulls on his brown coat. "Lead the way."

"The two men leave the infirmary, Mal's choice of walking through the center of the biggest crowd he can find in the bar before making it through the back door very purposeful indeed.

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