river_meimei | (no subject)

(no subject)

Wash is gone. Pretty much every member of the crew has chipped in to help with flying at some point; skill levels vary, of course, but it's not complicated to fly in a straight line through the black, or babysit the autopilot. Every night, Zoe silently takes Naomi and leaves for Milliways, to sleep there instead of in their bunk.

All the same, there's work needs doing. Or, maybe, everyone's got extra reasons to seek out work right now. Keep the hands busy and (maybe) the mind quiet.

Either way, it's been a while since River's guns were last cleaned. Which is why she and Mal are sitting at the kitchen table with rags and brushes and oil, guns in various states of disassembly spread before them both.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OH.

His foggy eyes clear, just a little, and he nods, reaching a hand out again, but not picking it up.

"Learned, on a piece like this. Got sold."

With all the other stuff, when everything had to go. Mostly been rifles and semi-automatics since then, but if he closes his eyes, he can still remember the sound of the bullets against tin cans back on a fence post, the way KE pushed him aside, called him a cheater.

"I'm sorry."

Ennis shrugs, and swallows. Out comes the handkerchief, and he coughs into it a little.

"Weren't nothing worth holding on to anyway."

River's shoulders hunch slightly, just for a moment.

She nods.

Ennis' foot makes contact with a table leg, just quick-like, and he looks apologetic when things get shaken up a bit.

River's hands have dropped an inch to spread abortively across the guns, without quite touching. She blinks at them, now, and then glances up.

Her own words, back at her.

"I'm sorry."

River smiles at him, small but real.

"Just jumped," she says.

"Call it exercise."

That gets a small smile, if an embarrassed one, and he leans forward on the table.

"Can't think I'd even be able t'shoot one of them now."

It's whispered, soft, with a sharp lace of anger.

River's eyes on him are, for just a moment, clear and sober and considering.

"Could if you had to." Just as soft, and matter of fact.

He looks up at her, head tilted to the side, she's right, but he's unsure.

Maybe she can be sure for him.

And then he looks like he wants to say something, ask something, but he doesn't, and instead he gives a labored chuckle and smiles, shaking his head at a memory.

That moment of intent clarity is gone, but she pulls a leg up against her chest and keeps watching him anyway.

The smile on Ennis' face turns old, melancholy, and he closes his eyes like it'll help him remember better.

"Jack can't shoot for shit, never could. Nearly got us killed up on that mountain."

And maybe it's a little bit of an exaggeration, but isn't that half the fun in story telling?

"Bears in the underbrush."

She's listening, and her face has softened.

"More like the river,"

he says, and it's not a snub, but an emell- embel-

an addition.

"Coyotes in the trees."

And for a brief moment, he flashes on that sheep, ripped open and bloo-

"Bear spooked the damn pack animals, lost most 'f our food."

River watches his face, and his hands, and the air around him.

And listens.

His hands fiddle with an unseen lighter as he tells the story.

"Knocked the fuckin' hell out've my head, took me most've the rest of the day to pick up the food. Get back to camp, Jack's there waiting and there ain't nothin' but fuckin' beans to eat. Jack says he's gonna shoot us somethin' to eat.

There's something not unlike a smirk on his face.

"We'd'a starved to death."

River's expression shifts while he talks, as it often does, flickering through half-seen changes of reaction and thought.

But she's smiling a little herself, and that's mostly a constant.

"He tried, though."

He sure's hell tried.

Ennis is smiling, too, and it seems maybe like the mountains are a little bit closer, the air's a little bit crisper.

"Trees."

This contribution is soft enough that it's clear she's not trying to interrupt the story. (Though what she means by it is not so much clear, maybe.)

He don't know what she means by it, but the trees're there, too, he can smell 'em, just about.

"S'it, really."

River pulls her other leg up and wraps her fingers around her ankles. Whoever does the laundry this round will be delighted by the oil stains this leaves on her yellow skirt.

"Yes," she says, and smiles at Ennis.

So's long as it ain't Ennis, he don't care. It was a long time ago, that, and Ennis remembers it like it was just yesterday, the smile as Jack shoved him and their dinner fell.

Maybe it'll be like that again, some day.

Maybe they missed out on it altogether.

There are things that are

(o lost, and shall not come again)

only memory. And all you can do is cling to their ghosts, or try to forget, whichever one hurts less.

And there are things that you can reclaim, and sometimes you don't even know that you can until you have.

"We'll make him cook," River says, and her smile has faded a little but the warmth of it is still in her eyes.

"You don't want him to cook."

Ennis looks very serious.

"Worse'n I am, maybe."

Can't cook, can't shoot, what good is he?

Ennis slides down in the seat a little, one hand going to cuff his arm.

"It'll be good."

He says, like they've agreed to something.