[He's caught between a teasing you're nothing but trouble and a more sincere you never are. So he responds with silence instead, just holding the cloth out in Luna's direction while keeping his gaze downcast.]
...Thanks.
[Luna's seen weakness in him before. And vice-versa -- you don't spend the better part of a decade at each other's sides through thick and thin, hope and despair, without seeing glimpses of every facet of their heart. Mal's never liked feeling vulnerable in front of anybody, even the people he trusts most, but now it's not just his body that feels so naked.
In his effort not to look at Luna he focuses on himself instead, and for the first time he really looks at the damage from his botched self-amputation. Rather than neat surgical scarring, the end of his arm is a still-healing mess of puckered burgundy, crowned by darker lines where he made the first few clumsy, hesitant cuts. Even where he finally did slice through part of bone the shape's all uneven where he snapped it off with his own strength and desperation, and by all means none of it ever would have healed if not for the Witch's magic.
Not that he was ever planning to need it to.
How ugly, he finds himself thinking as he stares at the arm cradled in his lap. Followed up by a more recurring thought: what good is a boxer with only one hand?
Luna's presence now is all the reminder he needs that he would do the same thing all over again, though. Even if he can't be of as much use to him as he used to be, or if he's only looked on with pity from now on... in the end, it was a good trade-off.
He closes his eyes and leans back a little into Luna's touch as he works, his shoulders heaving with a deep but silent sigh.]
no subject
...Thanks.
[Luna's seen weakness in him before. And vice-versa -- you don't spend the better part of a decade at each other's sides through thick and thin, hope and despair, without seeing glimpses of every facet of their heart. Mal's never liked feeling vulnerable in front of anybody, even the people he trusts most, but now it's not just his body that feels so naked.
In his effort not to look at Luna he focuses on himself instead, and for the first time he really looks at the damage from his botched self-amputation. Rather than neat surgical scarring, the end of his arm is a still-healing mess of puckered burgundy, crowned by darker lines where he made the first few clumsy, hesitant cuts. Even where he finally did slice through part of bone the shape's all uneven where he snapped it off with his own strength and desperation, and by all means none of it ever would have healed if not for the Witch's magic.
Not that he was ever planning to need it to.
How ugly, he finds himself thinking as he stares at the arm cradled in his lap. Followed up by a more recurring thought: what good is a boxer with only one hand?
Luna's presence now is all the reminder he needs that he would do the same thing all over again, though. Even if he can't be of as much use to him as he used to be, or if he's only looked on with pity from now on... in the end, it was a good trade-off.
He closes his eyes and leans back a little into Luna's touch as he works, his shoulders heaving with a deep but silent sigh.]