Set post-movie.

Mal/Inara implied.

Not beta-read.

Plotless introspection.

The slender thread that connect over here with.. over there.

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The Body

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Puzzling enough, in the grey-quiet hours, in her bed when he cannot sleep and doesn't want to move, it is the church songs that come back to him.

It's humming within him, the energy of a room suffused with faith, the vibration of a couple dozen voices, loud more than even, drawn out and powerful, alight somehow. Singing about the misery of the now and the glory of the beyond, so fervently he had believed it, young and strong and practically overflowing.

The body is just one step, an ephemeral tool. Mind-bendingly similar to the woman sleeping stretched out in front of him, and so different still. She's breathing, warm and dry and so safe.

He pulled the blanket away, is clenching it in his hands and is watching her without seeing. Trying to comprehend. Candlelight flickers over her, both focus and distraction.

His body has always been kind to him. Solid, functional, utilitarian. It does what he wants and needs and not always with much grace but just enough for him to know the value. Enough to contemplate the shape of his hand and understand what Inara means when she whispers against his skin about perfect design and temples. Grass between his toes and the weightlessness of swimming, a full on run, textures, tastes, smells and being able to fit another person in such a way as it makes you expand to the size of the entire 'verse with the pleasure.

Just a tool, but so beautiful. The spark of the divine.

It is what chafes whenever he closes his eyes. Because he knows it is the mere vessel, flesh and bones and easy to break.

He breaks it with regularity. His own and that of others and it never catches him like this.

Back in the war...

So much of him starts with those words. Back in the war where he left seven years of his life. He learned the truth of it, the misery the preacher