home * fandoms * firefly * bottom WARNING: If you haven't read the warning on the index page, go back and read it. If you don't, and you don't like what you find here, don't come crying to me. Title: Tokens Author: Eleanor K. Fandom: Firefly Pairing: Mal/Simon Rating: PG Posted: 6 Jan 2003 Spoilers: for War Stories Email: emungere@gmail.com Series/Sequel: Sequel to "Fuzzy" Disclaimer: Non nobis, Joss, non nobis; sed nomini tuo da gloriam. Warnings: none. Notes: Thanks very muchly to Cabiria for beta reading. Translations: "Fei hua" means "nonsense". ..___.. Simon sees Mal stagger down the hall, supported by Jayne, and takes an automatic step towards him. Book grabs his collar and yanks him back. "You wait till they're on the ship, son. Two minutes more won't make much difference." Simon waits, tension coiling in his stomach. He sees Book whip the barrel of his rifle around and jumps at the sound of the shot. Another man falls, perhaps hit in the kneecap, but the wound looks more permanent to him. Finally Jayne and Mal reach the doorway, and Simon slips under Mal's other arm, taking as much weight as he can. There is a second of horror when he sees the captain's face up close, sees the pain in his eyes, but that is all. Then he isn't thinking about how much Mal must hurt; he is only thinking about how best to repair him. *You're going all doctory on me, Simon.* Mal's voice, blurred with drink, replays in his head as it has a thousand times since that night. He can't be sure, but he thinks it was the first time Mal ever called him by name, not doc or doctor or *boy* for god's sake. He likes the way Mal says his name. With Jayne's help, he gets Mal onto the exam table in the infirmary. "Help him lie down," he tells Jayne. He washes his hands to the sound of Mal grumbling that he can gorram well lie down by himself. Jayne starts to stomp out, muttering about ingratitude and needing to clean Vera. "Hey, hold it," Mal says. "Doc needs to take a look at your shoulder." "It ain't nothing. It'll keep." "If it's nothing then it won't take long to fix, so just you stay right there. Doc?" Mal nods to Jayne as he glowers in the doorway. Jayne strips his shirt off as Simon approaches. "The bullet went straight through." He looks up at Jayne. "Can you wait? I can give you something for the pain. I'd like to get the captain's ear reattached before the tissue deteriorates any further." Jayne glances over at the Mal at the mention of the ear. "Fine with me. Like I said, it ain't nothing. If you weren't here I'd slap a bandage on and forget about it." "Well, let's be glad I am here then." He gestures toward the couch. "Go sit down. I'll call you when I'm done." There is a snort from Mal as Jayne leaves. "Slap a bandage on and forget it. He's just trying to show me up. Any other time he'd be bawling like a baby." Simon ignores him, assembling his instruments. "Any day here, doc," Mal says. "Just been tortured is all." "I'm sure you wouldn't want me to rush this, Captain." Calm is essential. Dr. Mericet drummed this into his impressionable first-year students with whip-fast interrogations interspersed with brutal personal commentary as they cut into their first corpses. *Did you wash your hands, Mr. Tam? You can't bribe germs away, you know, no matter how much money your parents have.* Mericet's jibes were the verbal equivalent of Jayne's guns, blunt and artless--and effective. Nothing upsets Simon now when he is working. He turns to Mal, who is looking up at him, face pale. "Did Zoe give you my ear?" "She did. Next time you feel like playing Van Gogh to my Gauguin, keep in mind that flowers are generally preferable to body parts." Mal frowns at him. "Who's Van Gogh?" Simon assembles the tools he will need, answering absently, glad he has Mal's mind on something other than the sorry state of his body. "He was an artist on Earth-that-was. A few of his paintings are still preserved. Really quite lovely in a disturbing sort of way. Van Gogh cut his ear off and sent it to Gauguin." "Why?" Mal is staring at him, eyes unfocused but obviously trying to follow the conversation. At times like this people will focus on almost anything other than the pain. "Lovers' spat. Also Van Gogh was insane, and I don't imagine the absinthe helped either." "Absinthe," the captain mumbles, but it's not a question, just a repetition. Mal is fading fast. Simon fills a syringe. "Time to go to sleep, Captain." Mal's hand shoots out and grabs his wrist with startling speed. "No." "This will be painful," Simon says patiently, as if Mal doesn't realize this. "It would be better if you slept through it." "No. I'm staying awake." The captain's eyes are fierce. "I don't care to argue about this." Simon takes a deep breath and sets the syringe aside. "Fine. Can I give you a local at least?" Mal's grip eases. "Local's fine. Wouldn't want to distract you with my screaming or nothing." From the sound of his voice, the captain has done more than enough screaming already. "You'll have to be very still now. Can you do that, or shall I strap your head down?" "I won't move." He didn't mean the restraints to be a threat, but he can see that Mal has taken them as such. He is deathly still as Simon administers the local anesthetic and begins his work. "Is he dead?" Simon asks, trying to distract Mal as he retrieves the severed ear from the cooler. "Who?" "Niska." At least it was a clean cut. If he does this right Mal shouldn't even have a scar. "No. No, he ain't dead." "Did you break?" He sets the ear down on a bed of gauze and sets about cleaning the wound. The blood is caked thick around it, but at least that seems to have washed away most of the particulate matter. "He wasn't asking for information." "You know what I mean." The blood cleaned away, he finds the edge almost completely free of the embedded fragments he often sees in cases like this. Of course, with no attempt made to staunch the bleeding, that makes sense. No fabric fibers left over from dirty handkerchiefs, no specks of dirt or gravel from a hand clapped over the wound. "No," Mal says after a long silence. "I didn't break. I was in his face right to the end." "He'll want you back." The dermal mender, acquired for them by Inara's client, starts up with a gentle buzz. "I know." "You should have killed him." "I ruttin' well know that, Simon." He pauses in his work. There it is again. His name, for the first time since that night. He likes it as much as he remembered, even with the irritation. Not now. Can't think about that now. He runs the mender lightly over each edge before pressing them together. Another pass with the mender, guiding it over the join, back and forth, over and over until the seal is solid. "Your ear's done. Are you sure you won't let me put you out?" "I'm sure." "All right then." He would argue, but from the way Mal looks he'll be passing out any time now anyway. "Let's get your clothes off." He unzips one boot slowly. He is trying not to remember a certain patient of his, another torture victim. It wasn't too bad until they got his shoes off, but...there are so many things that can be done to feet. Simon had cause to thank Mericet that day. His shoulders relax minutely when the boot slips off to reveal only a grey sock, unstained by blood. Mal's toe pokes through a hole in the end. "What are you smiling at, Doc? I could use a cheerful thought around now." Simon looks up. "I didn't know I was. Smiling. It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse." "You sound like you know what you're talking about." "Let's change the subject." "Okay. Got anything in mind? 'Cause I gotta say the whole subject of torture is looming large for me right now." Mal's face is bloodless, his eyes very wide as if he is trying hard to keep them from closing. His arms lie stiffly at his sides, and his hands are clenched. The knuckles are white. Simon leaves the boot and takes Mal's hand, ignoring Mal's startled look. The hand is ice cold. Mal's silence is almost a comment in itself, but Simon waits and gradually the hand relaxes. Simon eases the fist open to reveal a palm littered with red crescent moons and crusted with blood where the nails have broken the skin. "This isn't supposed to hurt. This isn't supposed to be as bad as what he did to you. Let me give you something." Mal just shakes his head. Simon looks down at Mal's hand cradled in both of his. "Let go, Mal. You don't have to fight any more. You're safe." Mal laughs at that, a rusty, bitter sound. Simon reaches behind him. His hand encounters the bottle exactly where he expected it to be, and he opens it quickly and pours a small amount over Mal's chest where it fizzles and bubbles in the wounds. Mal makes a small, shocked noise and loses consciousness. Simon sponges away the hydrogen peroxide and picks up the syringe with the sedative. With luck it will keep Mal out for three hours or so. That done, he strips off his gloves and sits down, face in his hands, fingers pressing hard against his eyes. He is thinking of all the pain Mal went through, which he has now added to. Not by accident, not to treat him, but on purpose. Enough to make him pass out finally, which apparently even Niska didn't manage. He looks down at his shaking hands, spreading the fingers wide and watching them until they are steady again. Mal's laugh is going to haunt him for a long time. He shakes himself and stands. "Jayne? Can you come in here a moment?" Jayne appears at the door. "You done already?" "No. Come and lift his hips up so I can get his pants off." "Why don't you cut them off? Ain't that how it's usually done?" "I'll do that," Simon says briskly. "And when he wakes up I'll tell him it was your suggestion, shall I?" Jayne gives him a dirty look and slides his hands under Mal's waist. "He's not gonna come to while I'm doing this, is he?" "Not for a few more hours." "He let you dope him?" "'Let' isn't the word I would have chosen. He passed out, and I made sure it would last." Simon works the pants down over Mal's hips, down to his knees. At first glance there are no obvious wounds; perhaps Niska confined his activities to the torso and above. He finishes with the boots, pulls the pants the rest of the way off, and covers Mal with a sheet. When he looks up, Jayne is watching him. "He told you not to, didn't he?" Jayne asks. "Yes." "And you did anyway." "Yes." Jayne shakes his head. "You shouldn't have done that. He's gonna be mad." "No, he's not, because he's not going to know." Simon stares down at Mal's pale face. "He doesn't need to know." "What makes you think I ain't gonna tell him? He gives the orders around here, not you." "You're not going to tell him because you're worried about him, and you don't want to upset him." He looks over at Jayne, who is watching him with the same sullen rebellion he more often directs at Mal. "He needs rest. He doesn't need to be worried by irrelevancies." He stares steadily until Jayne finally drops his eyes and gives a fractional nod. "You need anything else, Doc?" Simon almost asks him to stay. He can feel his professional front deserting him every time he looks at Mal's face. Jayne's presence would force him to stay objective. He didn't think it would be so hard, even with Mal. Even when Zoe handed him the ear, it was nothing like this. "No," he hears himself say. "Close the blinds, and then you can go." Jayne does just that without argument or hesitation, and Simon is left alone with Mal. No, not with Mal. With his patient. Mericet would be laughing his ass off right now. It's all right, he tells himself. Take it one step at a time. He washes his hands again, the ritual calming him somewhat. He snaps on a fresh pair of gloves and turns resolutely back to Ma--to his patient. A catalogue of obvious injuries forms in his head as he looks over face, chest, and arms. He pulls the sheet aside, folding it neatly at the bottom of the table. There is not so much blood as burn marks, bruises, scrapes. He cleans the body under his hands with measured precision, making himself think about every motion so that he cannot think about anything else. The door is closed for the same reason the blinds are closed--to protect Mal's privacy or his own; he's not sure which--and the air grows close and hot. His hands are sweaty inside the gloves. Here on the right side of the chest, a scrape four inches long. Antiseptic on gauze pad, wipe. Here, contact burns from electrodes, four of them, spaced evenly. Antiseptic on gauze pad, wipe. Note for later application of burn cream. Here, left hand and right hand, deep nail marks on the palm, tiny incisions. Blood to be cleaned away. Antiseptic on gauze pad, wipe. Cream and bandages applied immediately to keep the fingers from closing over the wounds again. Mark by mark, wound by wound, he cleans the body in front of him. His mind empties, but in a small corner of it he knows this is not the detachment he has come to count on. This is some trance he has fallen into, lulled by necessary attention, and in a minute the surface work will be done, and he will have to see what Niska did to his patient's insides. The mark in the center of the chest is, once cleaned of blood, clear: five small holes in a star pattern where the wires buried under the skin. He has seen it before. The nerve interface device has genuine medical uses, but a simple alteration can burn out nerve connections with pain--or pleasure, which was what he more commonly saw at the hospital. He doesn't think somehow that Niska was interested in the pleasure option. This will be delicate work, and he can't afford to do it in this dull, unthinking state. On the other hand, he is almost afraid to do it any other way. This has never been a problem before. Always, detachment has come as naturally as breathing. He has never had to work at it. He doesn't know how to work at it. He looks over the body in front of him, seeing not a collection of parts that need to be repaired, but the whole. He sees the beauty he has always seen in Mal, and there is actual physical pain in the pit of his stomach at what has been done to that beauty. He wonders how many times Mal has to go through something like this before, something that no one should ever have to go through. He wonders whether, if he could go back in time and meet Mal before the war, he would even recognize him. Picking up a gun firing a few shots--and missing, he suspects--is not comparable. He is never going to know what it was like for Mal, and he doesn't want to. He isn't sure he would survive it. He isn't sure Mal survived it. He shakes his head sharply. Mal has to survive this physically intact, and Simon can see that he does. Anything else will have to wait. *** Nearly two hours later Simon ties off the last stitch and peels his gloves off. There is some nerve damage; he can do nothing about that, but the worst of it is that Mal will have a small numb patch on his chest, no bigger than a thumbprint. He walks to the door and leans heavily against it for a second before opening it. "Jayne? I can do your shoulder now." Jayne looks him up and down. "You sure about that? You look near as bad as he does." Simon points to the stool. "Sit," he says shortly. "Huh. You're starting to sound like him, too." Jayne sits, taking off his shirt as Simon gathers what he needs. Hand washing again, gloves again, suture kit. Again. This is simple, and it's a good thing. He is about done in. Jayne hisses as the needle goes in, and Simon jerks back. "Oh, my god, Jayne, I'm so sorry." He reaches quickly for the local anesthetic. "And no painkillers either. You should have said something, it's been *hours*..." "You had other things to think about." Simon shakes his head absently, picking up the needle again. "Really, I'm so sorry. That was unforgivable. I had two patients, not one." "Drop it and sew me up already. I got stuff to do." Simon complies, smiling to himself. For Jayne that was almost nice. "All right, you're done." He strips off the gloves, hopefully for the last time today, and looks around. A good half of his instruments need to be sterilized, and Mal's blood is on the floor, on the sheet, on Simon's shirt. When he gets the infirmary cleaned up he'll be able to rest for a while. He picks up the instrument tray, turns, and almost walks straight into Jayne who is standing right behind him. "Was there something else you needed?" Jayne takes the tray from him. "Where do you want this?" Simon blinks at him, surprised, and nods to the counter. "Over there for the moment." He gives Jayne the mop and tends to his instruments. They work in silence, or with an occasional grunt of pain as Jayne abuses his shoulder. "You should be resting that." "It's my gorram shoulder. I'll do what I want with it." "I thought you had things to do." There is a pause. "Shut up." Simon looks away to hide a smile. "He's going to be all right, you know." Jayne looks over at the captain for about the twentieth time in the last five minutes. "I ain't worried. Captain's too ruttin' stubborn to--" He breaks off. "I ain't worried." A few minutes more see them through the worst of the clean up, and Simon sits gratefully on the stool. Jayne is still hovering, leaning against the wall by the door. There is a faint sound from Mal, and Simon is on his feet and standing by the exam table without being entirely sure how he got there. He takes Mal's pulse, which is still slow and steady. He checks the clock. Should be a little while yet before Mal wakes up. The captain's face is still pale, the bruises coloring to lurid purples and greens. His lip has started leaking blood again, and Simon wipes it away. "Jayne?" There is an unenthusiastic grunt of acknowledgement. "Have you ever wanted to kill someone?" Jayne snorts. "Killing folks is pretty much my job description, Doc." "No. I mean have you ever *wanted* to? Not for a job or because they were trying to kill you, but just... just because you wanted them dead." He doesn't know quite why he's asking, except that it would be comforting to know he is not alone in his desire to wring Niska's neck, and if anyone can sympathize, surely it's Jayne. "Sure. Lots of people." "Lots?" "Well... some. I wouldn't have minded shoving you out an airlock when you first came on board." That's hardly a surprise. "But not now?" "A man can get used to most anything." There is a moment's silence. "We couldn't go looking for Niska. Had to get Mal out." "I know." "Reckon we'll get another chance sooner or later." Jayne aims an unpleasant grin at him. "We'll get you a seat right up front, Doc. Learn to shoot straight, and you can pull the trigger yourself. I ain't greedy. Long as the bastard's dead, it don't much matter how it happens." Simon finds his eyes drawn back yet again to Mal's face. "It's always good to learn a new skill," he says. *** Simon is dozing lightly on the bench in the infirmary when he hears Mal stirring. He gets up, wincing at muscles that have set up and now resent any movement. Mal squints up at him. "Simon?" "Right here. You're fine. Your ear's back on." "Everyone's okay?" "Everyone's okay." Mal stares blankly up at the ceiling for a moment, then frowns. "I told you not to put me under." Could he be more of a stubborn bastard? Is it even possible? "I didn't." "No... No, you dumped *acid* on me, and I passed out! What happened to 'do no harm'?" "Hydrogen peroxide. It only felt like acid. It got your wounds quite clean." Mal glares at him. "You made me pass out." "You wouldn't let me do it the easy way." Mal looks ready to work himself into a state over this, so Simon cuts him off. "It was necessary." This is almost true. "Necessary how?" Mal asks suspiciously. "I wouldn't have been much of a doctor if I'd let you subject your body to that kind of stress. Pain isn't just something you ignore. There are physical correlations, none of them good for you." All true, but not why he did what he did. That was more like panic, or something close to it. He should have... "I should have just ignored what you said and doped you up," he says. But he couldn't do that. Mal would see it as betrayal, and he doesn't have it in him to hurt Mal that way. "No," Mal says. "You shouldn't have." Simon thinks he's going to do the 'It's my ship and you'll follow my orders or you're out' thing, but he doesn't. "I shouldn't have?" "No." "Why?" Simon prompts. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but there is something there if he can dig it out. "Because." "Because...?" Mal shakes his head, a slight movement. His eyes drift away from Simon's face, unfocussed and wandering. "Mal?" "You wouldn't do that to me," Mal mumbles as his eyes close again. The words are so quiet Simon barely catches them. *** Mal is tucked up in Simon's bed, too weak to make it up the stairs to his own room. Simon didn't like the idea of him being so far from the infirmary anyway. This way if anything goes wrong, all his equipment is right around the corner. He must admit though, nothing looks likely to go wrong. Niska is a careful son of a bitch. The injuries were calculated for maximum pain and minimum damage. Simon supposes he should be grateful for this since it means Mal is still alive and will be up and around in a few days, but all he feels is hot, simmering rage just behind his eyes, giving him a headache. He leans back in his chair and watches Mal sleep. Now that he has leisure to think instead of act it is too easy to imagine what Mal has gone through. The injuries told the story better than words could. It hurts to think about it. He doesn't want to imagine these things happening to anyone. He wants to live somewhere where people are human instead of monsters, where his sister wasn't tortured as some kind of experiment, where the man who kissed him so gently a few months ago wasn't tortured for fun. "Simon?" He looks over to see Kaylee standing in the door, twisting her hands together. "Is he gonna be okay?" she asks. "He'll be fine. You can come in if you like. I don't think you'll wake him." She nods and walks softly to the bed. She stands looking down at the captain's still face for a moment and then bends to kiss his cheek. "You get better real soon, you hear?" she whispers. "Real soon." She sniffs and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Simon holds out his handkerchief, but she shakes her head, holding her hands up for display. "You'd never get the grease out of it. He'll really be okay?" "He'll be up and bossing you around again in no time." Her smile doesn't have its usual sun-breaking-through-clouds effect, but she does look happier. She was the only one of the crew who hadn't stopped by, and Simon was wondering when she'd show up. Maybe she was just scared to look. Mal doesn't make a pretty picture right now. She squeezes Simon's hand briefly. "You were real brave today. Just wanted to say thanks and all." She blushes prettily and turns away. He watches her go, almost wishing he could follow. What Kaylee has been offering him in her sweet and cheerful way would doubtless be simpler and less painful than anything he might find with Mal. "Bossing?" Simon turns, startled, at the raspy voice from the bed. Mal's eyes are still closed, but one corner of his mouth is turned up in a crooked smile. "You are the boss. It's what you do." "Thanks a bunch." He sees Mal's face twist with pain as he shifts. "Do you want painkillers? I gave you something earlier, but you could have more now. Or something to help you sleep?" Mal makes a vague negative noise. "I just want to not move." "You really should sleep. You'll heal faster." "She likes you, you know." Simon pauses, shifting gears. "I know. I don't like her like that." Mal snorts. "Don't like her like that? We're rubbing off on you, Doc. Two months ago it would've been, 'I don't see us forming a romantic relationship,' or some such." "Fussy and sarcastic?" Simon suggests. It is a calculated risk, this reference to that night. He hasn't pushed the issue--he needs his place here on Serenity too badly, and Mal is a dangerous man to push--but he finds he is no longer willing to let it lie either. "Sometimes," Mal says quietly. "Sometimes real brave. You ever fired a gun before today?" "No." "Guess I should be thanking you." "Please don't." "Simon--" "Sleep, Captain. Are you sure you don't want anything?" "No gorram drugs. How clear do I gotta make that?" "I think you're being unnecessarily stubborn about this. I wouldn't be suggesting it if these drugs were in any way harmful--" "I don't like stuff that knocks me out." A sullen pause. "I'll take the painkillers, I guess. But not the other." "All right." Everything he thought he might need is laid out on the bedside table, and it's not hard to find what he's looking for. Simon smoothes the dermal patch into place and sits back down. "Try not to talk. You need to rest." Not feeling so free to stare now that Mal might open his eyes and stare back, Simon picks up his current book. It's not as easy as usual to lose himself in the complexities of the language, but he is deep enough into it that he is startled when Mal speaks again. "Whatchya reading?" "The Iliad." "What's it about?" "It's about a war that happened a long time ago." It's about anger and how destructive it can be, and it's a good match for his mood. His own anger is too close to the surface right now. He doesn't want Mal's thanks. He wants Mal to open up to him, or to at least be willing to talk to him for more than a minute at a time when he's not drunk or drugged. "On Earth-that-was?" "Yes." He's starting to believe that Mal isn't capable of anything resembling intimacy or even normal friendship. He doesn't know why he ever thought something would come of that drunken kiss. Doesn't even know how or when he came to want it so much. "This where you learned about Van Gogh and what's her name?" Simon laughs, caught off guard. He hadn't thought Mal would remember any of that conversation. "No. This was centuries before they were born. And Gauguin was a him, not a her." "Oh. You said lovers... I just assumed." "Assumptions can be dangerous." Minutes pass. "Still reading there, Doc? Ain't heard a page turn in some time now." "Yes," Simon lies. "Still reading." "That good, huh?" "I've always liked it." "Read me some." "You want a bedtime story?" He doesn't even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice. "Yup." No trace of shame there, just a heavy hint of smugness. Simon smiles to himself. He can't help it. He likes Mal. Despite the barbed comments and the impossibly thorny front he puts up... or maybe it's not a front. Maybe Mal is just thorny all the way through. He turns to the first page. "Meynin aiedey, thea, Peleyiadio Achileyos oulomeneyn--" "Si-mon. You're talking gibberish. What is that fei hua?" Slight shivers at the sound of his name stretched in plaintive protest. "It's ancient Greek." "What, two languages ain't enough for you?" "Shall I take this to mean you don't want to hear any more?" There is a pause and then, "No. Keep going. It sounds kind of nice." Simon keeps reading, long past the point where Mal's gentle snores suggest he is asleep at last. ------- ..end.. Continue to Intersections. home * fandoms * firefly * top