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letterbladeThe next bit of Walking Out, Coming In, a concatenation of post "War Stories" fragments I've been working on for way too long. Still in preliminaries; none of the larger scenes have fully come together yet.
I'd love a beta for this piece when it's done--I have some major structural concerns I kinda want to talk to someone about. Any volunteers? *flutters eyelashes*
Mal
He was halfway through soaking the blood off his pants when the fumes he'd been running on boiled off to dry and he almost collapsed where he stood, hands past the wrists in freezing cold water in the little washbasin in his bunk. Or maybe it was just that he'd finally given up on fighting--fighting pain, fighting his way out, staving off the damage, even if he did need Simon's help for that bit. He couldn't entirely tell which. Little clouds of slowly dissolving blood shifted between his suddenly still fingers and the fumes of the cleaning compound Kaylee gave him seemed to be crawling into his nose.
He looked over to the little mirror he kept on his wall out of sheer practicality--useful to know how bad things looked after the latest job gone wrong, particularly before he'd gotten himself a proper medic. Battered and swollen a little, rather pale, nothing unexpected. It was the ear that gave him pause: discolored like a bruise on acid, little ridges of thick red where the knife had gone through, little distortions where the flesh had yet to knit up proper. It looked like it should be throbbing, gangrenous, sliding off his head. It looked like the flesh rotting alive on his men in Serenity from the infection and disease that had spread rampant across the valley--because every damn Earth-that-was bug right down to leprosy had bred in those trenches, and once in a while the skin would slide right off a soldier's fingers as he fired into no-man's-land.
It didn't feel like that, though. It felt fuzzy, comfortably numb. Simon had said it would heal just fine. Simon knew his work.
With tremendous effort, Mal set the bottle of painkillers on the sink.
"Hour and a half," he whispered to no one. He wondered when they would start wearing off. He wondered if his ear would hurt if he prodded it. It did, sharp and wrenching, and he gasped and left off and hoped he didn't roll over in his sleep.
He'd hurt a hell of a lot in his life, but he'd never felt anything quite like that, nerves screaming out for something they knew should be there but wasn't. He'd been glad even then that the knife was sharp. Small comforts. Never felt so helpless though. If somebody cuts something off of you, you at least want to be able to clutch at the bleeding stump. He was a free man. Never did like being tied down.
His hands slid back into the cold water and he leaned so heavy on the sink that the hinges creaked.
He knew what he'd been risking when he turned down the train job. He almost had the guts to think that he'd do the same thing again, knowing this would happen. It was just his body. It didn't matter. He'd seen hell, and then he'd come back for more, moved in permanent, and let hell fuck him six ways to Sunday. Hell was never sleeping for gunfire and never eating for starvation rations and never living a day without burying a man he'd been supposed to protect. Hell wasn't pain. Pain meant nothing except that there was probably a bullet in you somewhere and you might not be able to do your job in a bit. Pain has no power. Hell may be one sadistic bitch, but it ain't the whips and chains that drag you down, it's the mindfucks.
Like dying.
He looked slowly back up at the mirror, met his own eyes, and tried to convince himself that he was alive. Not a new thing, really. He'd been feeling like the walking dead off and on for six years. He'd run through bullets like rain and fallen out on the other side gasping and sure he was a ghost. But he'd never come quite this close.
It hadn't been peaceful, hadn't been a blessed relief. Oblivion had come too thick and fast to register; he simply hadn't been, for what time he did not know, and then one sharp jolt and the sickening familiar crackle of electricity shot him back from nothing to hell. There had just been pain, blinding, unspeakable pain, acid coursing under his skin, fingers eating through his flesh, racing grave-dirt worms with drills for teeth, and him screaming so long and hard that he ran out of breath and couldn't draw another because agony had frozen every muscle in his body. And it had beaten him down. And it had broken him, broken the mindless will to survive that can keep a body going like a dynamo through four months entrenched in hell. He'd died, if only for a little. He did his best to avoid that fact.
On the first day of his life, his mother had probably nursed him, probably named him, he didn't remember. On the first day of his life, he'd looked over the wide green swath of Serenity Valley and heard the first missile of the battle whistle in overhead. On the first day of his life, the great Alliance armada had sailed in low and slow between the mountains. On the first day of his life, he'd hauled open the broken doors of an old scrap Firefly and smiled. On the first day of his life, Adelai Niska had called him back from the great beyond with that horrible sing-song and held a tumbler of shining water before his face, but never given it to him.
Mister Reynolds...
Mal, dynamo still moving even if it was low on gas, forced himself to haul his pants out and rinse them, half-faint blood stains still streaking down to the crotch, because if he left them in too long Kaylee's bleach would sear precious and long-defeated colors out into water and the drain; only then did he stagger the few familiar steps to his bed and fall into exhausted and painless oblivion, still in his shirt and socks.
I'd love a beta for this piece when it's done--I have some major structural concerns I kinda want to talk to someone about. Any volunteers? *flutters eyelashes*
Mal
He was halfway through soaking the blood off his pants when the fumes he'd been running on boiled off to dry and he almost collapsed where he stood, hands past the wrists in freezing cold water in the little washbasin in his bunk. Or maybe it was just that he'd finally given up on fighting--fighting pain, fighting his way out, staving off the damage, even if he did need Simon's help for that bit. He couldn't entirely tell which. Little clouds of slowly dissolving blood shifted between his suddenly still fingers and the fumes of the cleaning compound Kaylee gave him seemed to be crawling into his nose.
He looked over to the little mirror he kept on his wall out of sheer practicality--useful to know how bad things looked after the latest job gone wrong, particularly before he'd gotten himself a proper medic. Battered and swollen a little, rather pale, nothing unexpected. It was the ear that gave him pause: discolored like a bruise on acid, little ridges of thick red where the knife had gone through, little distortions where the flesh had yet to knit up proper. It looked like it should be throbbing, gangrenous, sliding off his head. It looked like the flesh rotting alive on his men in Serenity from the infection and disease that had spread rampant across the valley--because every damn Earth-that-was bug right down to leprosy had bred in those trenches, and once in a while the skin would slide right off a soldier's fingers as he fired into no-man's-land.
It didn't feel like that, though. It felt fuzzy, comfortably numb. Simon had said it would heal just fine. Simon knew his work.
With tremendous effort, Mal set the bottle of painkillers on the sink.
"Hour and a half," he whispered to no one. He wondered when they would start wearing off. He wondered if his ear would hurt if he prodded it. It did, sharp and wrenching, and he gasped and left off and hoped he didn't roll over in his sleep.
He'd hurt a hell of a lot in his life, but he'd never felt anything quite like that, nerves screaming out for something they knew should be there but wasn't. He'd been glad even then that the knife was sharp. Small comforts. Never felt so helpless though. If somebody cuts something off of you, you at least want to be able to clutch at the bleeding stump. He was a free man. Never did like being tied down.
His hands slid back into the cold water and he leaned so heavy on the sink that the hinges creaked.
He knew what he'd been risking when he turned down the train job. He almost had the guts to think that he'd do the same thing again, knowing this would happen. It was just his body. It didn't matter. He'd seen hell, and then he'd come back for more, moved in permanent, and let hell fuck him six ways to Sunday. Hell was never sleeping for gunfire and never eating for starvation rations and never living a day without burying a man he'd been supposed to protect. Hell wasn't pain. Pain meant nothing except that there was probably a bullet in you somewhere and you might not be able to do your job in a bit. Pain has no power. Hell may be one sadistic bitch, but it ain't the whips and chains that drag you down, it's the mindfucks.
Like dying.
He looked slowly back up at the mirror, met his own eyes, and tried to convince himself that he was alive. Not a new thing, really. He'd been feeling like the walking dead off and on for six years. He'd run through bullets like rain and fallen out on the other side gasping and sure he was a ghost. But he'd never come quite this close.
It hadn't been peaceful, hadn't been a blessed relief. Oblivion had come too thick and fast to register; he simply hadn't been, for what time he did not know, and then one sharp jolt and the sickening familiar crackle of electricity shot him back from nothing to hell. There had just been pain, blinding, unspeakable pain, acid coursing under his skin, fingers eating through his flesh, racing grave-dirt worms with drills for teeth, and him screaming so long and hard that he ran out of breath and couldn't draw another because agony had frozen every muscle in his body. And it had beaten him down. And it had broken him, broken the mindless will to survive that can keep a body going like a dynamo through four months entrenched in hell. He'd died, if only for a little. He did his best to avoid that fact.
On the first day of his life, his mother had probably nursed him, probably named him, he didn't remember. On the first day of his life, he'd looked over the wide green swath of Serenity Valley and heard the first missile of the battle whistle in overhead. On the first day of his life, the great Alliance armada had sailed in low and slow between the mountains. On the first day of his life, he'd hauled open the broken doors of an old scrap Firefly and smiled. On the first day of his life, Adelai Niska had called him back from the great beyond with that horrible sing-song and held a tumbler of shining water before his face, but never given it to him.
Mister Reynolds...
Mal, dynamo still moving even if it was low on gas, forced himself to haul his pants out and rinse them, half-faint blood stains still streaking down to the crotch, because if he left them in too long Kaylee's bleach would sear precious and long-defeated colors out into water and the drain; only then did he stagger the few familiar steps to his bed and fall into exhausted and painless oblivion, still in his shirt and socks.
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Date: Nov. 18th, 2004 05:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 20th, 2004 06:53 am (UTC)