Job: Beylix

[badinlatin]

This could have gone better.

The bullet graze on his bicep is bleeding pretty impressively, but Mal still has all sensation in his forearm, so he's not worried. He even smiles a bit, firing off one round - two - three, all in the direction of the lawmen pursuing him. One bullet blows the lead tire of a motorbike behind him which launches the rider up and over like so much dead weight. Should wear a helmet, jackass.

It's more luck than Mal admits that he makes it up the cargo bay ramp before the lawmen manage another decent shot. The take is still on the mule - wrapped up and sealed, all the protein of the rainbow - and Mal doesn't even inspect it. He barks to River to take off, and he heads to Milliways before anyone manages to talk to him.








He's got a new shirt and a couple glasses of bourbon in him before he comes home.

Comments

[river_meimei]

River rolls her eyes. Dramatically.

He takes so much looking after.

"Prove it, cap'n."

[badinlatin]

"[Don't start.]"

That's apparently all the conversation Mal feels like, if River's going to be...whatever is going on here.

"We done?"

[river_meimei]

"No."

[badinlatin]

Great.

"Then say your piece so I can go on with my gorram day."

[river_meimei]

River's starting to look frustrated. So that makes two of them!

"It's reciprocity."

"You're crew too. What it means. In the ontology."

"Don't be a dummy when it's needless."

[badinlatin]

Mal gets what River is trying to say. He knows that River doesn't like it when Mal is in a precarious position. Rather he stick to the quieter jobs, most likely. Maybe she thinks he's lost a step.

Don't be a dummy when it's needless.

"I'm goin' to take the jobs what turn profit, River. Same as always."

Even when it's not.

[river_meimei]

"You're ignoring the back. Pretends it's not relevant."

[badinlatin]

Mal's eyes close and he exhales.

"There are days when I miss not understandin' what you were gettin' at. I'm going to go now."

[river_meimei]

River doesn't miss those days. The sour face she makes probably says so.

She doesn't try to stop him, anyway. Just watches, thoughtful and a little irked.

She's said her piece. He understood it. That's where it stands, that's all.