badinlatin | Mal-River, cleaning guns.

Mal-River, cleaning guns.

Mal certainly doesn't carry as many guns as Jayne does on any given day, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a little collection of his own, which is in rather desperate need of care. He hadn't been feeling up to dealing with it recently.

Now that things have calmed down considerably - and he's not cooing over Naomi like an overexcited uncle you can never get rid of - he's setting himself up at the kitchen table, looking rather frazzled at not being able to find his barrel brush.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are steps down into the kitchen. One -- River half-closes her eyes, her hands lifting for balance, and sways when she lands as if with an instant's vertigo -- and two.

Ah ha! The barrel brush was hiding with great skill.

Underneath a placemat.

Mal retrieves it, offers a short "Wei, lil' one" to River and sits back down to work.

River opens her eyes again, and -- after a moment -- focuses on Mal's hands.

She drifts closer to the table, watching.

Mal doesn't mind her watching him work like this. Not the way he does sometimes when she's watching him do other things, lift weights or move boxes around in the cargo bay. He sees the appeal in watching other folk do this with their weapons - Jayne even is probably at his most collected while taking his knives to a whetstone - and Mal imagines he is much the same.

He finishes with his sidearm eventually, moving to a smaller pistol he straps to his ankle in emergencies.

His most collected, perhaps, but not his most hygienic.

River settles into a chair, pulling her knees up one at a time until she's tucked into a tidy ball, her cheek resting against her knees.

The pistol is finished even more quickly than his sidearm, having been left unused for awhile and therefore not needing very much work.

The knives will take longer, and Mal shoots a glance at River.

"I got an extra stone if you want to help."

River glances at him, sidelong.

After a minute, she smiles, a little.

Mal pulls out a variation on a bowie knife and a whetstone that's actually too worn to do much good. He's using his better one to play with his pocketknife.

After a minute and half the work done on one blade: "Don't you have things o' your own you might want to take care of?"

Mal remembers most things.

River brushes her fingers across the whetstone, exploring its gritty surface. Then across the flat of the knife, with the same curiousity.

"I am."

Mal chooses to translate this as that she remembers to clean the guns Simon has for her somewhere, and goes back to sharpening the blades of the bonehandle knife.

River glances at him again.

"They're under the bed," she says seriously.

"Good place for them to be."

For now

"I keep mine in my top drawer, usually. 'Nara hates that, but only 'cause she'll try to put clothes away and she finds bullets in with the socks."

River ducks her head, with a breath of silent laughter.

"They're not optimal footwear."

"Wo dong. Too pointy. Probably cause blisters somethin' terrible," Mal smirks.

"Gotta keep the bullets somewhere within reach, though."

"We can fold the socks."

Whether this is meant as advice or agreement isn't entirely clear, but either way it's amiable.

"Sounds like a plan; I'll let Inara know, she can arrange 'em by color."

Mal holds up a second finished blade. "White, black, used-to-be-white and used-to-be-black."

"Green," says River absently, to the whetstone.

It... might be related to the conversation?

She bends over the almost-bowie knife, her hair straggling across the table, and peers at it from inches away.

"It's getting dull."

Good thing Mal's finished with his pocketknife, and hands her the stone he was using.

"This one should be better."

Now it's Mal's turn to watch River at work.

He'll have a bit of a wait, as this whetstone, too, is carefully examined at close range.

It's just an object, after all.

"No," she says reflectively, to the whetstone. "Different criteria range. We'll readjust the stairway."

Finally, she curls her fingers around the knife's handle, slow and exploratory, and lifts it.

Mal doesn't voice a Wow I have no clue what she's sayin' to me so much as continue an ignorantly amused expression.

It sounds like an afterthought when Mal mentions, "Think I've got an idea for a heading, 'fore we take another job."

River glances at him. Curiously, maybe, or just listening.

Scraaaaaaape goes the knife against the whetstone, in a long leisurely stroke. The correct way for sharpening it, although at this rate it'll take her a week to finish the process.

Rifle ramrods don't really exist too much anymore, but the knifescrape almost sounds like one.

"Well," he starts rather awkwardly, "with all o' the events having gone on around here, I thought that you - I could --"

"We both got ... opportunities now, I think.

River's hand stills.

And resumes the long, slow scrape. Her face is sober, and hard to read.

After a minute: fingertwirl. With the hand holding the knife.

And Mal watches that knife far more than he looks to River.

"Just thought I should tell you I was thinkin' about it."

Why would I ever leave Serenity?

"Was just wonderin' if you were."

"We're on a ship," River says softly, after a minute. Also to the knife.

If this is meant to be any kind of answer, the meaning isn't readily apparent.

A pause. Then, in the same tone, "Serenity."

"That it is," Mal agrees.

You lost everything you had in that battle.

"Don't plan on lettin' that change anytime soon."

How did you go on?

"Just thought I'd tweak the details."

"Quantify the trajectory."

River's watching him, now.

"Can't yet. Gotta talk to a few people first."

Zoe, for one. Inara for another.

Zoe will be the hardest; that's why she's first.

Silence, for a minute.

"You want to go back," River says to his shoulder. Her voice is soft and reflective, and a little distant.

"Walk in the valley of death. Remember what he never forgot."

For a second - just a second - Mal feels the muscles in his face tighten, staving off...anything.

"It's an opportunity," he manages to say finally.

(For I will fear no evil)

"Is that a bad thing?"

River focuses on his face, after a moment.

"What it is." Still reflective, and this time almost gentle.

The knife and whetstone dangle in her hands, forgotten.

"I can't tell you, captain."

To his shoulder again, "It's buried in the feathers."

"I know you can't." A long exhalation, and Mal sets about gathering up tools he doesn't need anymore back into each appropriate pouch in the long leather wrappings.

Mal reaches for the mostly-unsharpened knife. "Are you finished with this?"

River blinks at the knife. Maybe she forgot what it was, or that she held it.

"It's not sharp," she says, faintly surprised.

This does not necessarily mean she's still working on changing that fact.

"Doesn't necessarily need to be different tonight," Mal shrugs, taking both the stone and the knife.

All his weapons roll neatly within his leather satchel and the pocketknife returns to Mal's boot.

River follows the knife with her eyes, watching as it disappears into the roll of leather.

After a minute, "There's a path."

Beat, and then a faint smile up at Mal.

"Got rocks."

"Better 'n woods - least rocks are low to the ground, I can see where I'm goin' around them."

Standing, Mal reaches into his pocket haphazardly - he finds a lollipop.

His mother thinks his affinity for cigars lately has to do with an oral fetish. She may have a point, as he pops the candy into his mouth.

Moving the stick to one side, "Wan an?"

River's knees are still pulled up to her chest. She curls her fingers around her toes, toying with them absently.

"The periscope is fractured."

Another faint half-smile.

"We'll send the sparrows for reconnaissance."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mal-River, cleaning guns.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject