Guns & Violas, Part One

--Disclaimerness: Joss Whedon owns the characters and the ship they ride around in, I'm just playing around with them for a moment :)--

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And so it went on, and on. And on...

And on after that, too.

Mal started thinking of ways to stop the clamour from entering his ear sockets. There had to be something on this boat to dampen the noise besides his pillow. Cotton balls, duct tape, mayhap even marshmallows.., he went over the list in his head. Pillows were supposed to stop noises like this weren't they..? Sitting up, he looked at the wall from wence the reverberations annoyingly came. He glanced to his clock which stared back at him from the nightstand. "Alright, two more minutes, then I tell her to cut it." He bopped the clock, and watched with reddened eyes as the geisha's head bobbled. "Never gets old..."

The see-sawing continued unabated.

"...but that surely does." he groaned. "Why I ever let her get that gorram thing is beyond my comprehension at this juncture... First a layer-cake, now this..., at least the dress wasn't so noisesome."

The geisha looked at him.

Mal stared back.

The geisha wouldn't blink, so Mal let her win the stare down.

The noise stopped.

"Oh, sheh sheh, thank you." he whispered with praying hands at the wall, then slumped back into his pillow.

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Kaylee flipped the page to the next song in the crumpled old 'Teach yourself Viola' booklet.

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" 'sure you don't wanna tend ta that..?" Jayne sneered at Simon across the table.

"Meaning.., what exactly?" Simon ventured.

"Sounds like a dyin' cat." The merc winced slightly as a gratingly high note pierced the dining room. It mercifully died away, and Jayne continued cleaning his revolver's cylinder chambers. "You're a doctor, doc, maybe go make sure that fee-line gets a good injection afore she goes..."

"Was there a school you went to...?!" Simon blurted, having nearly choked on his beans and rice.

"There