Mal-Wash.

[badinlatin]

Captain on the Bridge.

Not that Mal expects Wash to salute or anything.

"You nervous yet?" Mal grins, handing him a cup of coffee.

Comments

[flybywash]

A small breath. Reluctantly, "Not so much, no. Mostly in the sense that I sided with you on everything but the box-throwing, which, by the way -- "

He spreads his hands with a patently incredulous air.

"The hell, Mal?"

[badinlatin]

Mal has only just now turned around, bending to place the two mugs on the floor.

"Wo dong, wo dong, I know, but...she said I didn't have any right to do what I did. I should've know better, I -- she thinks I'm crazy, Wash."

[flybywash]

"Which you're not." Beat. "That much, but...the good kind of crazy. The crazy I kind of enjoy. And I told her that you damn well did have the right to do what you did -- not the right to take it out on her, but everything with Niska, yeah."

[badinlatin]

"Was she right, though?" Mal picks up momentum a bit, though he doesn't move back up from the steps. "Was she right to believe me so...incapable that I was an idiot to want to go against Niska and then I should be berated and beat down by her after? I do that enough to myself, Hoban."

[flybywash]

Wash is silent.

"We all put Kaylee in a really bad position," he says carefully, at last, "when we went and took our nice shiny impromptu one-week vacation to the cells. She ain't ever supposed to be running this ship. And she got angry about it, which, okay," his mouth twists a little in sympathy, "yes, she's right to do that, but --

"But that's just my point, she's not right to say you can't go after him -- I mean, yeah, we shouldn't have, but that's in the same 'verse where we're all rich and prosperous and law-abiding -- just like you're not right to completely blow a circuit at her. Am I veering anywhere toward sense-making?"

[badinlatin]

"Yes you are," Mal confirms. "But what difference does this make now? Now I'm the mental patient who can't control himself."

[flybywash]

"So try doing something that proves you aren't fēngle. I know it's a wild suggestion, but -- "

[badinlatin]

"And what might that be exactly? I apparently don't have much experience with it, so..."

[flybywash]

Wash sighs.

"To start with, talk to her again. Without throwing things. Or losing your temper. It's Kaylee, Mal, that shouldn't be too hard."

[badinlatin]

"And if she don't want to talk to me?"

Y'know, ever?

[flybywash]

That gets a smirk.

"Has a little fact like that ever gotten in the way of me running my mouth at somebody? Just follow my fine example, Cap'n. You'll be fine."

If there's any preening, it's only for effect.

[badinlatin]

Mal can't help but feel this is different than any other time he's had to talk to someone when that someone didn't want to listen.

"I'll try."

"...can I go get that other coffee now?"

[flybywash]

In an amused drone: "Yes, Mal. You can go get the other coffee now."

He swings his chair back around.