For Terimaru
I gave terimaru a story and she asked nicely to see it posted here on her lovely fishy comm. Even though I neglected to include a goldfish mention. Who am I to say no?
She loved the quiet. The silence of flickering candles, the softness of the light that played in patterns where they lay and revealed to her the stillness in this man who was so rarely still. Just outside of the door his world hummed with its responsibilities and demands; its lack of fairness and surplus of irony; its dangers, its quick decisions, and its deaths. But for this brief interlude, and for a thousand others like it, he was hers.
He had fought her today, as he sometimes did. Not with words, and certainly not with his body. He had fought with his mind; with his worry and tension and subconscious and resistance to just being, to letting himself be. But she’d waited him out, holding him, stroking his chest, his shoulders, saying nothing but demanding he surrender, clear his mind, close his eyes, see, hear, and feel nothing but now, this place, and them. Finally the lines of his face eased, his muscles relaxed. Watching him now, she knew she would fight for as long as it took, so long as she could bring him, for however short-lived a time, to this place of peace. Of serenity.
It occurred to her, not for the first time, to wonder whether the fierce love she felt for Mal was like the protective love a mother felt for her child. It was a mingling of emotion: a fear of dangers both known and unknown; the resolve that sprung up in answer to that fear; the unshakable and frightening truth that this was the most important person to her in the universe, that she would do anything to keep him safe, give him respite and nurture; that her life would be shattered forever should she lose him.
She ran her fingers through his hair. What a beautiful child he must have been. At two, all enormous blue eyes under some frontier bowl cut. At ten, comfortable astride a ranch horse, already looking rugged in a canvas coat, hair most likely as unmanageable as it was now. At sixteen, tall and grinning at the girls who doubtless followed him at fairs and dances. As a young man, proud and serious as he bade goodbye to his mother, his home, and his entire planet, never to see it again.
She shivered and slid closer to him and laid her head on his chest, the warmth of threatened tears catching her by surprise. She did not know if she was strong enough to face the challenges this love demanded.
Mal was strong. He’d survived more than she dreamed, lost himself and been found again. And for all the times that memories and beliefs and will had been beaten out of him; for the times he’d been cursed at, shot at, told he was less than dirt; for the times when the verse and he himself had thought him broken beyond repair; for all of that, he had hidden part of himself away. The true Malcolm Reynolds, the boy whose wit and warmth his mother had prized; whose decency and vulnerability had warred for so long with his need to scrape out a living. The man who loved more often than he feared. But she had found him. And he had let her. Had entrusted her with the last essence of his self. For that she would protect him. With her candles, and her body, and her life.
Yes, she was strong enough for that kind of love. Inara grazed her fingers over her own belly. She had to be.
She loved the quiet. The silence of flickering candles, the softness of the light that played in patterns where they lay and revealed to her the stillness in this man who was so rarely still. Just outside of the door his world hummed with its responsibilities and demands; its lack of fairness and surplus of irony; its dangers, its quick decisions, and its deaths. But for this brief interlude, and for a thousand others like it, he was hers.
He had fought her today, as he sometimes did. Not with words, and certainly not with his body. He had fought with his mind; with his worry and tension and subconscious and resistance to just being, to letting himself be. But she’d waited him out, holding him, stroking his chest, his shoulders, saying nothing but demanding he surrender, clear his mind, close his eyes, see, hear, and feel nothing but now, this place, and them. Finally the lines of his face eased, his muscles relaxed. Watching him now, she knew she would fight for as long as it took, so long as she could bring him, for however short-lived a time, to this place of peace. Of serenity.
It occurred to her, not for the first time, to wonder whether the fierce love she felt for Mal was like the protective love a mother felt for her child. It was a mingling of emotion: a fear of dangers both known and unknown; the resolve that sprung up in answer to that fear; the unshakable and frightening truth that this was the most important person to her in the universe, that she would do anything to keep him safe, give him respite and nurture; that her life would be shattered forever should she lose him.
She ran her fingers through his hair. What a beautiful child he must have been. At two, all enormous blue eyes under some frontier bowl cut. At ten, comfortable astride a ranch horse, already looking rugged in a canvas coat, hair most likely as unmanageable as it was now. At sixteen, tall and grinning at the girls who doubtless followed him at fairs and dances. As a young man, proud and serious as he bade goodbye to his mother, his home, and his entire planet, never to see it again.
She shivered and slid closer to him and laid her head on his chest, the warmth of threatened tears catching her by surprise. She did not know if she was strong enough to face the challenges this love demanded.
Mal was strong. He’d survived more than she dreamed, lost himself and been found again. And for all the times that memories and beliefs and will had been beaten out of him; for the times he’d been cursed at, shot at, told he was less than dirt; for the times when the verse and he himself had thought him broken beyond repair; for all of that, he had hidden part of himself away. The true Malcolm Reynolds, the boy whose wit and warmth his mother had prized; whose decency and vulnerability had warred for so long with his need to scrape out a living. The man who loved more often than he feared. But she had found him. And he had let her. Had entrusted her with the last essence of his self. For that she would protect him. With her candles, and her body, and her life.
Yes, she was strong enough for that kind of love. Inara grazed her fingers over her own belly. She had to be.