Old War Horses

[lit_gal]

Malcolm Reynolds fought for the Browncoat rebels. They wanted their freedom. They lost. James Joseph Womak was a commander for the Alliance, determined to bring justice to the common people. His side won, but he still lost. 

Old War Horses

Fandoms: Firefly x Sentinel.
Slash: Jim/Blair, Mal/Jayne
Rated ADULT
Prompt: Taming the Muse:

Now that Blair has figured out that the unrequited love between Mal and Jayne is actually a bit more triangle like with Inara in there somehow, he has to figure out if he's done serious damage to some relationships. LJ is being a beast, so bear with me if the formatting is fubar.


( Part one ) ( Part two ) ( Part Three )  ( Part Four )  ( Part five ) ( Part Six )  ( Part Seven )  ( Part Eight )  ( Part Nine )  ( Part Ten ) ( Part Eleven )  (Part Twelve)

13

Blair looked at the map Zoe and Mal had pulled up on the computer display.

“This is the target?” Jayne sounded disappointed. Then again, Blair figured he’d rather have something a little bigger. Even Jim was looking a little uncertain about attacking a six hundred square foot accounting office, even if it was a Blue Sun office.

“There has to be something more than just an office,” Jim said as he leaned closer. Mal made a mighty unhappy face, but then Blair figured he’d been about to say the same thing, and manly stupidity meant that Mal couldn’t go agreeing.

“Ghosts hidden in the walls,” River said.

Mal sighed. “I’d feel better about this if you went back to talking sane-like. I thought once we got through those Reavers you’d gotten better.”

“New ruts and old ruts,” River said solemnly. She pointed to the office on the map. “Old ruts, old ghosts with little teeth, eating the elephant from inside, whispers of lime green and jade and viridian.”

Blair pulled out his notebook and started taking notes. She’d said little teeth before, but now she associated them with ghosts, and elephants was altogether new. When Blair looked up, River gave him a small smile. Blair could almost feel those little teeth of guilt gnawing on him. River and Jim suffered because of people who found science more interesting that morality, and Blair had followed the Institute down that path for far too long. Now that he was trying to fix his mistakes, he always felt like he was doing too little and he couldn’t figure out things fast enough. Blair was on the verge of sinking under a big wave of remorse when Jim’s arm came around his shoulders and Jim pulled him close. Sagging into Jim’s strength, Blair noticed Jayne’s eyes on them.

“Ain’t so interested in elephants, not unless you think they’re going to have some crazy gou shi like attack elephants,” Mal said as he hit the controls and made the map of the office rotate ninety degrees before appearing in three dimensions.

“Nope,” River offered.

“You know it ain’t going to be as easy as it looks,” Jayne warned.

“I don’t need you to do my figuring for me,” Mal said. Even Zoe gave him an odd look at his sharp tone of voice, but Jayne didn’t look even a little surprised, which didn’t say good things about their relationship. “We need to either get in there quiet-like or we need to figure out the traps so we can set them off before stepping right in the middle of them.”

“It does seem like it, sir,” Zoe said. She moved the controls and made a new angle appear on the screen. From any angle Blair could see, it looked like a boring little office.

Inara gave an exaggerated sigh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this because it’s a violation of my companion oath, but I do know someone who works in that office.”

“Know?” Mal was sounding particularly cranky today.

“He’s a client,” Inara said, her voice tight. The glare was enough to confirm for Blair that there were emotions running far too deep here. This whole ship needed therapy, and that included Inara. That little fact surprised Blair. Most companions had to work through their psychological issues before completing training, but Inara had clearly picked up one or two issues since then.

“What do you know about this client of yours?” Jim asked, his voice all business. Unless Blair missed his guess, Jim was trying to get everyone focused on the job. Heavy emotions, like the ones swirling around this room, tended to put him on edge. Sentinel senses meant he experience emotions far more viscerally, smelling the aggression and distress.

“He’s a manager, a very nice man. He likes to say the night, so when he’s with me, he never stirs out of the house. I’ve seen his keys on the dresser, so I imagine that if you grabbed them, he wouldn’t be in a position to notice until morning.” Inara had retreated to a stiff formality.

“So, we should count on him being too distracted to sound the alarm?” Jim asked.

“If’n she were whoring with me, that would make me all kinds of stupid and distracted,” Jayne offered. Blair watched a dozen microexpressions cross Inara’s face. It certainly was an odd sort of compliment. Mal snorted.

“I can call him. However, if you do anything to comprise my position, I will never answer one of your summons again,” Inara warned, her gaze locked on Mal. For a man who was getting threatened, he looked rather nonplused. He frowned, but then he focused on the map rather than give any answer at all.

Inara sighed before she turned and headed out of the room, her shawl gathered around her like armor as she headed to the shuttle she’d docked with Serenity. Blair had always seen companions as emotional fortresses—and he knew that was a bias formed by his mother and the companion guild’s carefully tended public relations. Companions were people, and people had big old emotional soft spots. Blair had just never seen a companion with such an open wound out where everyone could see. And no one on the ship was even reacting. Blair was almost sure that wasn’t through any sort of callousness as much as ignorance.

“Blair should see Inara’s sparkles,” River said softly.

Jayne snorted. “If she’s done up her new shuttle the way she mucked up ours, sparkles ain’t the word I’d use. The whole shuttle stunk of that gou shi incense she likes and she stuck fabric about every place it’d stay up. Took me a month to clean that gorram shuttle.” Jayne looked like he was honestly put upon, but the others didn’t look too sympathetic

“I wouldn’t mind seeing if she would share some supplies,” Blair said, looking up at Jim. He wouldn’t normally ask for permission to do his psychology, but Jim’s arm still held him tightly.

Looking down at him, Jim sighed loudly. He knew Blair was up to something; however, he loosened his arm. “Don’t cause too much fuss,” he pleaded.

“Who, me?” Blair danced away and gave Jim a bright smile.

“If it were me, that look of his would make me worry,” Mal muttered.

“It does,” Jim agreed, but then Blair was off, hurrying toward the shuttle dock where Inara had brought her shuttle in. He didn’t know if she was planning on leaving or visiting with Kaylee, but he couldn’t afford to miss her. After all, he was the one who put Jayne in Mal’s path, and if he was mucking with Inara’s love life, then he needed to warn her… and tell her that she was tangled up enough to need a companion herself.

He caught her as she climbed the last ladder up to her shuttle. “Inara!” he called. There was a flash of something, but when she looked down to see him, her expression turned into a carefully neutral mask.

“May I help you?” she asked, coming down the two steps she’d climbed. Blair got the feeling he wasn’t getting invited into her new shuttle; the emotional guards were all up.

“I just wanted to say that… um… well…” Blair realized he hadn’t planned out how to say this part. He felt like he was trying to give his mother advice on her love life. Inara wasn’t as old as Naomi, but she was a companion, and even knowing that he was being unreasonably biased, Blair still couldn’t help but think he was overstepping. Trying to open Mal and Jayne’s eyes was more of a public service since they were both growling at the world more than they ought, all out of a frustration that seemed downright silly in Blair’s mind.

Inara gave him a small smile and stepped forward to lightly touch his arm. It was a classic companion move, and Blair could even cite the studies that described the ephemeral alliance-bond created by a simple touch. “If you need to talk to me, you should know that our conversation will remain private, even from Mal,” she vowed.

“Especially from Mal,” Blair blurted out with a snort. Inara pulled her hand back and looked at him with confusion. “I mean… oh man, I am so mangling this.” Blair ran his hand over his face. “My mom… she was a companion.”

“Really?” Inara sounded surprised.

“Yeah, shocking, I know. The guild is a little anti-pregnancy.”

“A little,” Inara agreed. “Your mother must have loved you a lot to disregard her training.”

Blair leaned back against the railing. “She disregarded a lot of her training,” he agreed. “She was sort of a free-thinking sort, a real child of the ‘verse.”

Inara tilted her head in a clear invitation for him to continue.

“I mean, she taught me a whole lot of companion tricks, and I know the guild would give birth to kittens over that.”

Inara laughed. “There are many male companions. True, they work within the core planets more often than out here, but the guild has no policy against male members.”

“Totally. I know that.” Blair nodded. “I was thinking they’d be more upset about her sharing the training. We aren’t just talking first level companion tricks.” Blair thought about that. Having Naomi teach him those sexual techniques would have been more than a little disturbing. He preferred to learn about sex the old-fashioned way—reading dirty stories. Of course, in his case, it had been Naomi’s companion training guides, but that was way better than having Naomi teach him the stuff.

“Blair?” Inara asked. This one had advanced training… Blair guessed she’d been a house trainer, maybe a mistress like Naomi had been.

“She taught me house mistress tricks,” Blair said, and Inara couldn’t hide a flash of shock and possibly even horror. “She was into reading souls and helping them onto their rightful path. That’s the training she gave me.” Blair thought about his work with the Institute. “Not that the training kept me from making some totally disastrous choices, because man, I did that. I didn’t just fall off the path, I jumped off. I found the deepest, murkiest water in the ‘verse and I did a gorram swan dive off the path.” Blair stopped, and Inara’s expression softened.

“Blair, we all make questionable choices; that’s part of being human,” she said in her most soothing voice, and Blair could feel the urge to just tell her the whole story and let her take some of the weight from him, but he’d come out her to help her, not dump his issues onto her lap.

“Like falling in love with Mal?” Blair asked in an equally sympathetic voice. Inara sucked in a fast breath and took a step back, her hand coming up to grab the ladder up to the shuttle. For a time, they looked at each other—two damaged souls who could see the damage within each other. Blair felt that way around Jim, too, like his wounds were exposed. However, Inara didn’t have the advantage of the senses. She had training and experience and a companion’s need to help a soul. At one point Blair thought he’d had that, but he’d sold his soul to the Institute. Earning it back was harder than it looked.

“You are a surprise,” Inara said quietly. “I hadn’t thought I was that obvious.”

“You are,” Blair said. “You and Jayne both.”

Inara laughed, her gaze going up the ceiling. “Yes, there is that. A more ridiculous love triangle, I can’t imagine, which is why I chose to absent myself.”

“So…” Blair studied her. “You don’t mind if Mal is looking to Jayne?”

She laughed again. “Looking to Jayne? Mal? That man wouldn’t notice Jayne following behind if—” She suddenly stopped and stared at Blair, she smile fading. “You told him?”

“I sort of led the horse to water,” Blair admitted. “I didn’t know there was another leg on the triangle.”

“You must have led him to water and then shoved his head under the surface until he near drowned,” Inara muttered, but then that wasn’t far from the truth.

“Have I screwed up?” Blair asked. “I mean, I don’t think Mal has talked to Jayne, and I’m pretty sure Jayne doesn’t know he loves Mal. We could still…” Blair stopped because he wasn’t sure what they could do. Once someone had an epiphany, trying to get them to forget the truth was a mite bit hard. Oh, it could be done, but it took more manipulation than Blair was comfortable with… and the fact was that he was comfortable with a lot of manipulating.

Shaking her head, Inara settled herself on the step. “No, don’t interfere again. In case you haven’t noticed, Mal does not react well to being managed.”

“Oh man, now that is an understatement. I thought he was going to punch me for making him realize that Jayne loved him.”

“I’m honestly surprised he didn’t,” Inara said. “The man is brilliantly un-self-aware.”

“Which is why he’s never noticed that you love him,” Blair guessed.

Inara took some time to rearrange her skirts. “I imagine I could have brought him around to the knowledge in time; however, it’s best that I don’t.” Even though her tone was perfectly controlled, Blair could still feel the pain behind the words.

“Why?” Silence descended on them.

“Mal is fond of his stereotypes.” Inara eventually said with a sigh. “To him, a companion will always be a whore, and no amount of convincing will make him part with that belief. I had to choose between Mal and the career I love.”

Blair thought about his mother and her willingness to walk away from the Companion Guild, and part of him wondered why Inara thought her love for Mal wasn’t worth it. Then again, he didn’t know their pasts. He certainly couldn’t imagine Mal being very respectful of Inara, even if she left the guild. “No way is a companion a whore,” Blair said firmly since it was the only reassurance he had to offer.

His mother certainly had conflicts with the guild, including moral objections to the way money changed hands. Before leaving the guild, she reached the point where she would refuse to accept payment because love and the sort of soul-healing a companion offered should never be negotiated on the basis of pay. However, the man who tried calling her a whore before or after leaving the guild would have found himself castrated in about two seconds. Naomi wasn’t one to stand for that sort of insult, and Inara struck him as a woman cut from much the same cloth.

“No, but I had grown far too willing to allow others to say that in my presence,” Inara said sadly. “I hope you are successful getting Jayne and Mal to recognize their mutual attraction.” She stood up and smoothed out her skirt, picking at a piece of imaginary dirt. “And if they figure out that you are intentionally manipulating their feelings, I will pray for your soul after they both space you,” she finished. “Truly, tread carefully. They are both damaged and short-tempered men.”

“Then the world is safer if they’re with each other, saving the rest of the verse from the chance of having one of them fall for an innocent.”

Reaching out, Inara ran the back of her finger across Blair’s cheek in an intimate gesture. “That is more true than you can know. In love, they are both menaces.”

Blair smiled at her. “Then they’re better off menacing each other. I’m simply glad I haven’t complicated things for you.”

“Not at all. Perhaps if Mal moves on, I can find it easier to convince my own heart to do the same. However, know this: His disrespect for my career, his unwillingness to bend, and his flagrant disregard of anyone else’s opinions means that I retired from the field long ago, even if my heart still struggles to accept that truth. I am not Zoe, and I cannot accept Mal as a commander. So, if he will not allow me to be his equal, I cannot allow myself to love.”

“I’m sorry,” Blair offered.

“You don’t need to be, and Mal will never understand me well enough to understand why I feel an apology is necessary. So, I wish you luck with Mal and Jayne. When I have a time for my client’s visit, I’ll send a message so you can retrieve the keys.” Without a farewell word, Inara turned and headed up the ladder and vanished into her shuttle.

Watching the door lock behind her, Blair felt a flash of homesickness. For him, home had never been a place, it had been Naomi. Later, home became Jim. No matter how many times Blair tried to explain that, he never could get Jim to understand that running with him didn’t bother him. As long as he had Jim, he was happy.

However, right now, he felt a dull ache of longing for Naomi. He wondered if she’d been as sad when she’d been forced to choose between the guild and her beliefs. When he’d left Naomi shortly after the war, he was still young enough that their conversations had a certain shallow quality that kept him from truly understanding her. And unless something changed, he would never get to know her as an adult. Maybe Inara’s melancholy was infectious because Blair suddenly felt unaccountably sad.

Comments

[spiceblueeyes.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was kind of a sad chapter. I hope Blair gets to see Naomi again. And poor Inara.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

This is a sad story, in many ways. I'll try to cheer you up a bit with the next chapter

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

Ah! That was heartbreakingly sad. Poor Inara!

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

I really wanted to give Inara a proper voice and send off... not just ignore the canon attraction

[zilentdreamer.livejournal.com]

Awesome chapter. I love how well you peg River's random statements.

I will never stop being impressed by how true you stay to the characters.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I do love these characters, that makes it easy to write them.

[1orelei.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I really like Inara here - can I say that? She's awesome. And I like your Naomi too, even if we're only meeting her through Blair's interpretation.

River too, and her non-attack elephants. Amazing how you can give me a chapter of full of Blair, and I come out of it admiring all females.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

I really wanted you to have sympathy for the women. Just because I'm taking this slash doesn't mean that I have to disrespect or ignore that this series is het oriented.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

attacking a six hundred square foot accounting office Excellent, of course that’s where they’d be heading! ;-)

“If’n she were whoring with me, that would make me all kinds of stupid and distracted,” Jayne offered. I could see him saying that.

Blair could feel the urge to just tell her the whole story and let her take some of the weight from him I’m loving your descriptions of Inara’s Companion tricks. Really cool!

Blair felt a flash of homesickness. For him, home had never been a place, it had been Naomi. Awww, that’s brilliant!

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

I love Jayne because he says what everyone things but would never dream of saying, and then he says it in the most blunt and offense way possible. You have to love that. Well, as long as you don't actually have to deal with that personality in RL, anyway

[skeptic7.livejournal.com]

Lovely chapter. Love Inara's self knowledge of the "its not there, its not there, I have my hands over my eyes and I am not listening to you, love triangle." I also love the part where she says that Blair must have led the horse to water and push his head under.
I do hope Blair doesn't get spaced for rearranging everyone's minds.

Can you see Blair as a guru dispensing advice? "Oh great Sandburg, son of the greater Sandburg, What must I do to be enlightened?"
"Stop being a self centered Jerk and look at the people around you!"

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Inara is a companion, and in the series, it was established that she knew her feelings for Mal were complex AND she walked away. I did want to give her a chance to actually share her thoughts on that. Jayne isn't 'stealing' her man.

[dphysh.livejournal.com]

So glad I finally got all caught up! This is still one of my very fav fics! Your 'voices' are just so true! Especially Jayne - just the right amount of taciturnity mixed with injured 'innocence'! I ended up going right back to the beginning cos it was too good not to pay it that kind of a compliment! Please update soon I am dying to find out what will happen at the building and with Jayne and Mal and of course Jim and Blair! Adore this fic and want more soon ! PLEASE!! ")

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I like writing Firefly because there is such a rhythm and beauty to the very unbeautiful way they mangle English. I am going to push through on this one, so the next chapter is out.

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

oh Inara. But I can see her point, in that Mal didn't change for her, so she had to move on.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you can see Inara's dilemma. I don't want the slash to come at the expense of demonizing the het pairing here. They're both good people who simply don't fit together.