'Well, you were right about this being a bad idea.'

The image below was posted to reddit on 8 December 2018, and my brain wrote a little story about it. Since my brain and I are on tenuous terms at best, I thought I’d humor it and write the story down.

After arguing back and forth with Inara about whether it would fit, Mal—fresh off the anesthesia—stood up. He was still wobbly, but pushed through. Once fully upright and steady, gazed about the infirmary.

“Where…”

Inara wearily cut him off, “It’s under the blanket,” indicating the quilt Kaylee left behind after standing watch over her captain.

Frustrated that he was now on the wrong side of the bed, Mal toddled around the room, refusing to put his hand on the mattress for support—despite obviously wanting to.

Underneath the bright patchwork quilt lay the bedraggled leather duster. Mal articulated his new chrome fingers, looking almost guilty that they seemed to work perfectly.

Inara sat silently in the doctor’s chair, her penetrating gaze the loudest sound in the room.

“Right,” he said, realizing he was the lone performer on a stage of his own making. He grabbed his brown coat by the collar, and eased his left arm in, comfortable as a second skin. Mal rolled his shoulders and briefly hesitated: his new musculature was girthier than his previous.

No matter. In for a penny, Mal thrust his cybernetic arm into the empty sleeve. Up until the elbow, it was a resounding success. Unfortunately, the secondhand Blue Sun bicep had other ideas, and decided that sleevelessness was the height of early-26th-century fashion.

‘That was the good sleeve too,’ Mal thought as the remnants slid down his insensate metal forearm; as a reflex, he caught the leather just before it hit the floor. Inara was mercifully silent.

“So… either I did that intentionally to look manly and impulsive, or I’m too doped up to think straight. Those are your choices, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she intoned doubtfully.

He thought for a beat, then tried, “Is there any way it could be your fault?”

“No, Mal.”

Sighing, he tossed his erstwhile sleeve onto the counter.
“Could you at least help me back into bed before the I-told-you-so?”

Inara chuckled and rose. Reaching for his flesh-and-blood arm, she smiled wryly,
“No promises, 我的小半机械.”