Back Stories III: Chapter 8
Friday, May 22, 2009
Jayne remembers, Inara vents, and a long lost OC returns to deliver a big ole heap of exposition.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 3865 RATING: 9.0 (PG13) SERIES: FIREFLY
Chapter 8.
It belongs to Joss and all those business people. I'm just playing.
Links:
, , , BS Book II, BS Book III, Chapter 1. Timing, pairings, and canon blurbs are in my . Many thanks to my beta readers:
fireflyfans dot net members desertgirl and nosadseven.
Jayne Cobb cunningly executed the casual lean of the watchman, a stance that boldly told the world that he had no business to do here, thank you very much, except to hold up this wall and be thoroughly invisibly bored.
Every hired gun had this pose down; it was a basic part of the job. When you’re not the one in charge, not the one arranging or finalizing the deal, you tended to do a lot of standing about watching, being ready without looking ready, being aware without seeming aware, being interested without appearing at all interested. Though, Jayne had to admit that what was happening at the moment certainly was interesting, enough to draw his eyes away from the station’s concourse to fix on the table Mal shared with the contact. The captain had an envelope in his hands, an ugly stained square of paper just like the one he’d gotten from Ricky Lu on New Melbourne a few days ago. The second half of the pay for this delivery job was richer than the first, richer by far
Kaylee was ALMOST going to be usefully comforting and then.. blows it by essentially parroting Inara's fears at her again. Calling "Companion!Inara" perfect plastic when Inara had just insisted that she sees no distinction between herself and her job and that her job doesn't make her an empty, shallow shell. And then she's all startled that Inara would pull away again, slips further onto that safe ground of detachment. Oh, Kaylee. I love your misguided belief in your people skills... *pets*
And oh, Inara. I understand why she has that reaction, because as heartfelt and theoretically beautiful as Mal's sentiments in the earlier chapter were.. doesn't mean that he has a real understanding of what it is like for her and there IS a strong sense of dismissal in there. *sigh* Of course, it hits Inara on a much more intense level because of all their history, because of her guilt, because of how beautiful they were together. She went to such lengths to protect her profession, then risked it all, huge sacrifice - and now it seems like everyone dismisses what it means to her as shallow and "not her". Of course she'd go into a angry, defensive frenzy and ultimately detach emotionally to protect herself. She's on the brink of complete chaos.
Daaaang, you can do complex messes well! :D
Looking for more, once your school year is over.
You can't take the sky from me
I have to say, I do have a hard time imagining Kaylee not wanting to be friends with Inara under any circumstances, even IF Inara were nothing more than a shallow materialistic clothes-pretties-wine-boys obsessed ditz.
But Kaylee is a bit of a romantic herself, isn't she? So maybe she did accidentally mean what she said.
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