The Powder Room

Rating: PG for mild cursing
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon is my master now.
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Summary: Yes, I’ve read a poem. Try not to faint. Written for bashipforever for the Mal/Inara Ficathon.

Mal was so busy fighting with a crate of his newest cargo — and even though he had the crowbar, seemed that the crate was winning — that he didn’t even notice that Inara had returned until River called out a greeting.

He jerked his head up to watch her descend the stairs. Inara was still all done up for her party, her dress a deep shade of red. Mal only took his eyes off his work for a second and managed to nick his hand pretty bad. He swallowed a curse and wiped the blood off onto his pants. Jayne had three open crates already and all Mal had for his troubles was a busted finger and a bloody pair of pants. Damn woman was too distracting.

“Back so soon, ‘Nara?” he asked. “Your clients sure know how to have fun.”

She rolled her eyes at him and glided over to survey the cargo, picking her way through boxes so that her silk skirts wouldn’t catch on anything. “Yes, it was quite boring. I mean, certainly no one got drunk enough to marry a complete stranger, so how could we ever manage to enjoy ourselves?”

Mal decided to ignore the fact that Jayne was laughing under his breath.

“What do y’all do at these fancy parties?” Mal asked, finally wrenching the crate open and pulling off the lid. “Y’all sit around recitin’ poetry and playin’ the harpsichord? Sounds excitin’”

“All mimsy were the borogoves,” River piped up.

Mal nearly dropped the lid he was holding,

“Mal, the girl’s talking nonsense again,” whined Jayne. River didn’t seem much offended by Jayne’s comment, just smiled at him like she knew more than him. Which, of course, she did.

Mal sighed. “It’s not nonsense. It’s a gorram poem.” He slammed the crate shut and turned to glare at River. “Stay out of my head, girl.”

She just stared back at him, her face the picture of innocence. “Jayne and I can finish unloading the crates.”

“Fine,” Mal said, ignoring Inara’s curious look and the way Jayne leaned against one of the unopened crates and stared. “I’ll be in the mess if you need me.” Mal headed up the stairs to the catwalk and had almost made his escape when River called out after him.

“The frumious Bandersnatch!”

“I mean it, River!”

Mal walked into the mess and poured himself a large cup of coffee, settling down at the table. There weren’t any biscuit to go with his coffee and no sugar to put in it, so good thing he liked it black. The mess was nice and quiet–no crazy mind-readers to bother him or any beautiful women to distract him from his work with their perfume and their shiny hair.

“Mal?”

He didn’t bother to look up from his mug. “Decided not to help River and Jayne finish unloading the cargo?”

Inara came ’round from behind him and sat beside him, hands folded primly in her lap. “As you pointed out, Mal, I’m not exactly dressed for it.”

“Next time, you can borrow some of Kaylee’s coveralls.”

Inara laughed softly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Inara didn’t seem in a hurry to start any sort of conversation, just watched him while he sipped his coffee. Mal would be damned if he was gonna have a heart-to-heart with her about this. But she just sat there, looking all expectant at him. Damn woman with her wiles knew the best way to get him talkin’ was not to push.

“Back when I was a young sprout,” he started reluctantly, “I had this teacher–Miss Hsiao. They’d brought her in from some Core planet to teach us nóng fÅ« on Shadow. She’d had all kinda schooling and come to us with the notion that we should learn poetry and literature and all that huā qiào stuff when it would have been more helpful to teach us how to shoe a mare.”

Inara just watched him as he told his story and Mal paused long enough to be a little in wonder of the fact that for once they weren’t bickerin’. It was sure not to last, though.

“So,” he continued, “one day she decides that we each have to learn a poem by heart and then get up in front of the class and recite it. The girls all picked poems about love and flowers and the boys all found themselves poems about wars. Me? I found me a poem about nonsense and spent a whole week learning it so I wouldn’t get embarrassed. Knew it backwards and forward and probably coulda recited it in my sleep. Turned out, though, that I didn’t much like talking to a big crowd of people, so it didn’t matter none. Froze up and couldn’t remember a word of it.”

“I imagine that if I asked you right now, Mal, you’d be able to recite it for me.”

Mal laughed softly to himself and looked her square in the eye, trying to decide if she sounded flirtatious because she meant it or if it was a reflex for a Companion. “Yeah, well, I seem to have gotten over any nerves I had about speechifying in front of people.”

“I always knew there was more to you than you let on, Malcolm Reynolds,” she said warmly. “Who knew you had the heart of a poet?”

“Oh, Inara,” he grinned, “I know all *kinds* of poems I can recite to you. There’s this one about a man from Nantucket…”

Inara rolled her eyes. “Mal, be a grown up.”

Mal sat back in his chair some so he could enjoy her exasperation. “It’s a poem. It has a rhyme scheme and everything.”

“You know, I think I liked it better when you had stage fright.”

END.

Author’s Notes: Written for bashipforever, who wanted Mal knowing more than one poem, vulnerability, and a touch of angst. However, *I* wrote it so, angst? Yeah, good luck with that. Thanks to Carmen Sandiego, for putting this ficathon together and not killing me for being so late with this. Thanks to Angstville for helping me with the poetry part and, as always, to Macha for enduring all my whining. And thanks to Cassie and Viv Wiley for cheerleading.

“Jabberwocky” is by Lewis Carroll.

Chinese:
nóng fū - peasant; farmer (my apologies, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it plural)
huā qiào - fancy