honest_johns | (no subject)

(no subject)

Alain's left Cuthbert to have some time alone with Susan, now that he's fully awake and clearly out of true danger.

And also because a wounded Cuthbert is a fidgety Cuthbert, and times of respite get increasingly valuable after a while of that. It's only been a day, so far, and that's not bad, but Alain knows from experience.

Which is why, right now, he's stepping into the kitchen, wondering if he can find tea and maybe even some food.

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Wash hovers over the range, nudging a spoon around through a pot of something that might pass for soup on a good day. It doesn't smell too appetizing. Welcome to Serenity, non space-faring folks.

When he hears Alain, he glances up and smiles.

"Hey. Long days and pleasant nights." He taps the spoon against the inside of the pot and sets it aside.

Hey, Alain's lived on trail rations and foraging for months on end.

...On the other hand, he's had months to get used to Milliways food now.

He smiles back. "May you have twice the number."

"How's Bert doing? I saw him when I went to check on Mal earlier, but I didn't really, uh, see him."

He peers into the pot as something goes blurp and makes a small face. "And...I would offer you some of this, but you're not my mortal enemy. Anyway, I think there's some other well-hidden healthsome things somewhere."

"He'll be fine." A small smile, private and glad and deeply relieved. "Woke up this morning, and already he's whining about having to sit still."

A rather dubious look at the pot of... stuff. "Is there -- I don't know your stores. I'd not take something that'd be missed."

A quiet chuckle. "Fear the easily bored, for when we cease to be amused, the whole 'verse suffers. Um...."

Wash furrows his brow, goes to the cabinets to check. "Lemme see, there's -- " He pulls one open. "Protein, we've still got some rice if you want it, Sanvrik but again there's the whole not trying to kill you thing, lots of tea, little bit of coffee left....Oh!"

He pulls out a foil-wrapped package and grins.

"Noodles. Shiny. Almost forgot we had these." Looking back over his shoulder, "Any preference?"

"Tea'd do me just fine. And... rice, noodles, whatever's easier? And I say thankya."

He leans a hip against the counter, and looks around at the kitchen. Approving. He's seen it before, of course, in and out for planning sessions over the last few days and for coffee-missions last night, but he still approves. It's cosy.

Wash nods, and tosses the noodle packet on the counter. A second pot, a kettle, a tea bag, and a small bowl join it not long after.

"Zoe's gonna kill me for saying this," he says quietly as he gets to work filling up the kettle, "but thank you for helping her get home okay. I know she's got no problem holding her own out there, but...." A shrug. "Thanks."

"She did hold her own. We all helped each other." Pause, and a small reassuring smile. "Glad to."

The smile's returned as Wash switches his pot of soup for the kettle. A half-hearted poke at the contents, and he starts spooning his dinner into the available bowl.

Admirably, he does not choke when he tastes it; then again, he's had experience.

Alain eyes it. And Wash's face, which is Very Carefully Not A Grimace.

"...Are you sure you don't want noodles too?"

He waves his spoon around in lieu of a head shake. "I'm fine," he says once he's swallowed. "Bad food builds character. And you're the guests on the boat. And, if nothing else," a grin as he drops the spoon back into the bowl, "there's always Milliways."

Setting it aside, he grabs the clean pot and starts to fill it as well.

Alain is dubious about this logic, but lets it go. If Wash wants to eat dreadful soup, okay.

Conversationally, "Do'ee get much of your food from the bar?"

He would, in their place.

"Sometimes. Sometimes we just tough it out." Another small smile. "Unless Jayne's cooking. Then I hide under a table in the bar with a big plate of lasagne and don't come out until they sound the all-clear."

Alain snickers a bit.

"But you still give him a turn of it."

"We are slow to learn, I admit it," he agrees cheerfully.

The kettle lets out a sharp whistle. Wincing slightly, Wash moves it to a vacant spot and scrambles for a mug for Alain.

...Make that two mugs, and another packet of tea. Hey, might as well, so long as the kettle's there and everything.

A few moments later, and he's pushing a brewing mug toward Alain while cradling a second in a free hand.

A nod of thanks, as he takes the mug.

Silence, for a moment, while the tea brews. Then, thoughtfully, "He's a good doctor, Simon Tam."

He nods his agreement. "We're damn lucky he picked this ship when he started running," he says. "Think all of us'd be dead a couple times over if he wasn't around."

Alain can well believe it. His face says so, as he has a sip of tea.

The water in the other pot's starting to steam. Wash tears open the noodles and unceremoniously dumps them in; there's a soft hiss when they strike the water.

"You guys said you'd done something like this before?" he asks after another moment's silence. "That include the Beam breaking and everything?"

Alain turns his mug in his hands.

"In a way. What the others did -- the devar-toi of the Breakers, and the Beam that spoke to them -- that one didn't break."

"But another did, when Gilead fell. There was a Beamquake then."

Pause. "We weren't so near to the path of it then, I don't think."

Another nod as he mulls this over.

"You get any giant talking gaps of nothing along with that?"

A hole in space: he should just be content to leave it at that. But nobody else saw it. Nobody else heard it, either.

Alain looks at him very sharply. He may have just paled, a little.

"And a..." Vague hand gesture. "Buzzing? A warbling? Was it so?"

"Yeah. Little bit."

Wash finds his own tea again, but doesn't drink any of it. Just lets it sit between his hands.

"Okay, more than a little bit," he amends. "Mostly it was -- "

And he cuts himself off, regarding Alain with unusual seriousness. "Don't tell anybody on the crew about this, yeah?"

"My watch and warrant on it."

Serious.

"There were voices."

Very quiet now.

"They kept saying we were gonna die either way, and if I just...let go and let us drift, at least it'd end quick. Be painless."

Beat.

"I almost did. Couple people know that part already. But there's..."

Abruptly, he sets down the mug again. "I haven't told any of 'em what the voices were saying. Or that I recognized them. Zoe's -- "

And his own voice cracks. It's harder to keep being casual about this, all of a sudden, and he presses his lips together tightly.

"It's called a thinny." Low, and just a little too abrupt. His eyes are fixed on the table, unseeing.

"It lures. Aye. Lures you so, in your head."

"Qīngwā cào de liúmáng."

He sighs, a little shaky, and rubs a hand over his eyes. "Okay, so. At least it wasn't just me. Or. It was, but...hell."

"No."

"It was real."

He's still not really seeing the table he's staring at. Face set, and pale; voice low and even.

"All lies. Never doubt that, for your father's sake. But real."

"Shì a."

Wash falls silent. Eventually, he remembers his tea, and picks it up again. It's right around then that he notices Alain's expression.

Gently wry, "You know, I've gotten very used to having people tell me to shut up when they want the talking thing to stop. Once more wouldn't've hurt."

Alain blinks, and then looks a little rueful.

A slight shake of the head. "No. It's -- I know what you're talking about. It's all right, Wash, say true. I'd rather you asked than didn't."

With a solemnity that's only about half-feigned, after he's taken a sip of tea, "And now I am that much wiser in the realm of the scary, and we all say xièxie and switch to another topic with all kinds of not-cunning and subtlety."

He checks the noodles.

"Or...." Wash puts the mug down again and turns off the range. "We get you a bowl and give you dinner. I like that plan better."

A couple seconds' worth of rummaging turns up a second bowl and a set of chopsticks -- the only clean fork-like utensil left -- which Wash frowns at momentarily. "Um, you don't." He sets them between his fingers and clicks them at Alain. "Know how to use these, do you?"

He laughs, a little, picking them up. "They've such, in some of the Baronies on the Outer Rim. It's been a while, but shì a, I know them."

That gets a sigh of relief. "Good, because first with the lack of Chinese and then with the seeing nobody use 'em around Milliways....Granted-taking isn't becoming a great option."

He grabs his soup again, stirring it around a little before taking up a spoonful.

Alain grins, and eats.

He's a little clumsy with them at first, but he manages, and gets defter as he goes.

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