What Begins with an Apple, Part 6a
A/N: With particular thanks to my friend Julie, Official Fowl Consultant and Chicken Wrangler Extraordinaire, for contributing her expertise and wit to the chicken-y portions of this fanfic. Any mistakes and inaccuracies are not her fault.
Nobody here but us chickens.
It was late in the day when Mal finally remembered about the chickens. He'd just grabbed a couple of apples from the bowl on the dining room table and cut them into slices. As he walked down toward the infirmary and cargo bay, he savored a couple of the crunchy, juicy pieces. Jayne surprised him with his generosity sometimes. Musta paid for the apples outta his own pocket, 'cause Mal hadn't given him no budget for luxury items like fresh fruit when he sent him to re-stock Serenity's supplies on Beaumonde.
Shoulda checked on the chickens the first night in the Black, before turning in. Chickens left unfed started to turn mean and vicious. But it had been, by any standards, one helluva day, and he'd barely made it to his bunk. Fell asleep with all his clothes on, including his boots. Woke up feeling groggy and guilty—guilty about sticking Inara with the night watch, guilty about Zoe getting shot, guilty about allowing River and Ip to walk into danger, guilty about Kaylee's close call discovering the detonator as she worked on the ship. Then River dropped the bomb about Ip's friend Bill the gorram Blue Hand assassin, and by the time Mal was finished rocketing around the ship, it was getting on in time. Eventually, having made the rounds and settled everybody (including himself) back on a more-or-less even keel, it was evening. And Zoe was hungry. Mal went up to the galley to rustle up something to eat. Most handy was the apples Jayne had bought, so Mal grabbed a couple of them and sliced them up.
And that is how he found himself remembering, of a sudden, that there were two crates of live chickens in his cargo bay as hadn't been checked on, watered, or fed in at least twenty-four hours, and probably longer if they'd been brought in from afar before they were delivered to Serenity. Gorram chickens.
After delivering the apple slices to Zoe, Mal headed straight to the cargo bay. "Alright, let's see what we got in here," he muttered to himself as he sprung open the latches and lifted the lid.
"Nobody here but us chickens," answered a voice from within the crate.
"Gah!" Mal jumped out of his skin and the lid went clattering to the floor of the cargo bay, as a wave of excited squawking erupted amongst the startled chickens. He wasn't scared—just startled beyond measure. A body don't expect chickens to speak. He looked into the crate, and there, sitting amongst the settling chickens, was Saffron.
His first instinct was to slam the lid back on and bolt it tight until they reached Hektor and got the gorram crate off his boat. But he'd already noticed that, despite her smart remark, Saffron looked miserable. She looked just as droopy as the birds surrounding her. She made no move to stand up and he reckoned she was too stiff to do it. Can't be no fun to sit locked in a four-foot-high chicken crate for a day and a half.
"Please," she begged, looking up at him, "help me out, Mal."
He stared down at her, silent. At her face, gorrammit, not at her low-cut blouse and 馒头 mántóu. Ammonious fumes wafted out of the crate. A chicken hopped onto Saffron's shoulder and plucked at her hair.
"Get me out of this box," she pleaded in a miserable voice, waving her hands in a half-hearted attempt to fend off the chicken. Mal guessed she'd made the gesture hundreds of times in the last thirty hours.
"Like hell," he responded, aiming for hard-edged 混蛋 húndàn, but falling far short of the mark.
"I won't cause any trouble," she promised. "Just let me out of this…" she cast a miserable glance around at her malodorous surroundings as she sat stiffly in the straw, now scattered with chicken droppings and crowded with droopy-looking fowl.
"Woman, you are off your nut," he countered, but his heart wasn't really in it. He remembered with perfect clarity the havoc that resulted when Saffron got loose on Serenity, and he was in no way eager for an encore performance. If he let her out, he did so in the full knowledge that she would take advantage of any bit of freedom she was given and screw them over just as fast and fully as she was able. But it just didn't sit right with him to keep a human being—any human being, even Saffron—confined to a filthy chicken crate for the duration of the journey to Hektor. It was cruel. And he wasn't cruel. Well, not that cruel.
"Mal, you gotta let me out of here."
"Ain't gonna happen."
"Won't you let your own wife out of a cage?"
"You ain't my wife!" he exclaimed, his voice rising.
"Married me, didn't you?"
"Me and every man in the galaxy!" he exclaimed. "你是公共汽車 Nǐ shì gōng gòng qì chē."
"What kind of husband locks his wife up in a box?" she asked indignantly.
"I did not lock you up—" he exclaimed, forgetting to counter the 'husband' part of her rhetorical question. "How'd you get in there, anyway?"
"Help me out."
"I ain't lettin' you—"
"Wait 'til they hear you keep your wife locked in a filthy chicken c—"
"I do no such thing! And you ain't my wife!"
"Please, Mal—hubby—"
"We are not married!"
"爱人 Àiren, you gotta let me out of here. You can't keep me cooped up—"
"Don't see why not—"
"Cruel husband! Might as well kill me now…" She began weeping.
"I ain't killin' you!" he exclaimed, completely disconcerted. "What kind of crappy place—now will you stop that?"
"Better kill me now, husband," she moaned. "Better to die now than waste away in a chick—"
"Now cut that out."
"—kept locked in a box, pecked by the cruel beaks—"
"Will you shut up?! Those ain't Reaver chickens." He couldn't help but notice that several chickens were, in fact, walking on Saffron, pecking repeatedly at her skin, hoping to discover that this time, one of her freckles was really a delicious bug to eat. He felt like he was completely spun about. He looked around the cargo bay, hoping to find an ally—and saw Inara. She had come partway down the stairs from the catwalk. He didn't know how much of the exchange she had witnessed. "You make a move, any move at all, and I will riddle you with holes," he told Saffron, his gun hand hovering over his holster. Keeping Saffron in his peripheral vision, he went right over to Inara and conferred with her in a whisper.
"Inara—" Mal began, quietly, urgently.
"You brought your wife back aboard, I see," she hissed back at him. "Are you going for a harem? Want to be cock of the walk?"
"I ain't—she ain't—Inara, that ain't fair!" he hissed back at her.
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair. That's exactly what it looks like," Inara responded.
"Listen, I'm tired a' walkin' on eggshells around you, Inara. This woman's bad news. She'll steal the ship and leave us for dead if we give her the chance."
"You can't keep her cooped up in a box for a week, Mal."
"Can, too. And it ain't even a week to Hektor, it's only four more days."
"Mal!" she hissed.
"I ain't lettin' her out. You know what happened last time she got loose on the boat."
"She disabled Serenity and left you for dead in the desert."
"I wasn't dead, I was only—"
"And I had to ride to your rescue, when she left you stranded in the middle of nowhere with no clothes!"
"C'mon, Inara. You enjoyed that," he said meeting her eye, challenging her to admit which part of that she had enjoyed the most.
Inara was in no mood for games with Mal. "Yes," she hissed. "I enjoyed it. It was delightful to be a Big Damn Hero for once."
"Bein' a Big Damn Hero ain't all it's cracked up to be. Heroes got to make the tough calls. Like leavin' that evil double-crossing snake locked up in that box where she belongs."
"You can't leave a human being locked in a chicken coop, Mal."
"Can't I?" he responded, defiantly.
"Oh, for god's sake, Mal, can't you at least act like a decent human being?"
He held her stare—god, she was so beautiful and full of fire, madder 'n a wet hen as she was, and—she would probably clock him if he tried to touch her. He backed down. "'Course I can, Inara. I'm just sayin' what I wish I could do. She's gotta come outta the crate, but I can't let her loose on the ship. She's gonna hafta stay locked up in one of the passenger dorms. She gets out, she'll muck up the engine, muck up the helm, blow the airlock and leave us all for dead while she flies the coop on one of our shuttles."
. . .
Saffron couldn't hear what Malcolm Reynolds was saying to that 泼妇 pōfù Companion of his, but she could read their body language perfectly well. And it was instantly apparent to her that the situation had changed since she was last aboard Serenity. They were lovers. She couldn't see his face full-on, but his gestures, as he nearly touched Inara, were loving and intimate, and her face, despite its carefully schooled expression, lit up as she spoke to him, her emotions revealed in her eyes. The crackling hot sexual tension between them was just about palpable, as they hissed and whispered and spat words at each other. Saffron took it all in, as she shooed away yet another chicken that came to pluck at her hair. She could tell that their relationship was still new, still fragile, easily shaken—and easily broken. She was careful to hide her smile. This job would be more of a pleasure than even she had imagined—and she had a very vivid imagination. She could drop the "hubby" come-on to Mal, although it would still be fun to annoy him. It would be much more satisfying for her to scuttle their relationship. She began to calculate what she could do to get them beyond arguing with each other—and take them to permanent estrangement. It was all in how you played the game. It almost made up for having to stow aboard among the gorram chickens.
She tried to move her legs—she was so cramped. Another pair of those awful chickens was pecking at her freckles again. She was careful to keep her triumph to herself, as Malcolm Reynolds strode back over to the chicken crate. She cast a sad, miserable, pleading look up at him.
"Please…" she whispered, with an expressive look, somewhat diminished by the feeble swat she made at yet another chicken.
"I will let you out only if you agree to my conditions," he said in a loud, captain-y voice. "You're to stay confined to a room in the passenger dorm at all times. You may leave the room only for meals and to visit the head, and only under escort. Is that understood?"
She nodded, weakly.
"You can get outta the box now."
She made no move, but let the tears well in her eyes, fully aware of the audience she was playing to.
"Now what is it?" he demanded, again aiming for hard-boiled, and again missing the mark, as her tears found their target.
"I…can't…get up," she said haltingly.
With a huffing of annoyance tinged with pity, Mal reached down into the box to give her a hand. Saffron allowed him to haul her up, caressing the hand that helped her. She lost her balance just as she reached her full height so that she careened into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her to steady her, then recoiled at the closeness of her position, and the smell. Saffron delighted in the play of emotions on his face as abashed confusion and instinctive physical desire chased annoyance. But she kept her thoughts carefully to herself, lowering her eyelashes and sniffling.
"I'm…faint with hunger." She wobbled into him again, making sure to rub against his sensitive regions as she swooned.
He caught her, steadied her, and spoke soothingly, trying not to breathe through his nose. "Sshhh, ssshhh, we'll get you fed, and bathed—" He broke off, embarrassed by his own suggestion of bathing. "Not nobody deserves to be stowed in a chicken crate. Who put you in there, anyway?" he demanded.
"It's a long story," she said faintly, rolling her eyes up into their sockets as she collapsed limply in his arms.
"Get Simon," Mal said to Inara. He picked up Saffron and carried her into the infirmary.
. . .
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.
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glossary
馒头 mántóu [steamed buns (boobs)]
混蛋 húndàn [bastard]
你是公共汽車 Nǐ shì gōng gòng qì chē [Slut (lit., "You're a public bus," i.e. "You get around, and everyone has had a ride")]
爱人 Àiren [Spouse, Lover]
泼妇 pōfù [shrew, bitch]
A/N: She's baaaack! Oh no! I want to thank Nutluck, from Fireflyfansdotnet, for introducing the phrase "Reaver chickens" and (dare I say it?) egging me on. Now, how about a review? Fair or fowl, whatever feedback you provide is welcome. Whether you type like lightning or have to hunt and peck. :-)