sufficient unto the day
Translations:
Tian - god, heaven
fong-luh – lunatic, crazy
meimei - sister
tzang-huo - filthy bastard
Mal wondered if the boy even knew he was sly. Simon, that was, not Mal. He figured either the boy was completely oblivious or repressing something gorram fierce, ’cos he’d kept on after Kaylee no matter the setbacks - and Mal hadn't seen that kind of natural ineptitude with the ladies since. . . well, never. Hell, even Tracey had courted whores smoother’n Simon had courted Kaylee.
Watching from the sidelines made him cringe for his gender, when he wasn’t tryin’ not to laugh his gorram ass off that was. It might just have been a lack of people skills (and Tian knew the Doc sure had that lack), but seemed to Mal that Simon was looking for the type of steady affection he no longer got from his fong-luh meimei, rather than something more romantic-like.
Sure, Kaylee was a right pretty thing, and she made more than one man hot under the collar (including that tzang-huo Jayne, until Mal made it clear that if Jayne, his John Thomas and Kaylee ever met, Mal would be shooting someone - and it wouldn’t be Jayne or Kaylee), but there weren’t much in the way of true passion in Simon’s overtures.
Mal might’ve said it was on account of the Doc being frigider than a chunk of meteor ice, but that were before he got to know the boy. He might be right proper and prissy up front, but the Doc sure had that deep-runnin’ still waters thing going for him.
Probably didn’t hurt him none to get a little physical release (and might just get that stick out of his backside), but truth be told, Simon was too busy obsessing over little River to fall in love. And Mal had seen enough to know how Simon was about something he really wanted – all focus and sharp brilliant like a laserblade – to know that weren’t what he felt for Kaylee.
If anything, he reckoned he’d seen the boy give Jayne the eyeball once or twice when he first came aboard. At least until Jayne opened his gob. Jayne was a pretty gorram impressive physical specimen, but weren’t no surprise to see any budding attraction shot down by his less-than-enchantin’ personality.
He wasn’t all that sure the boy had been aware of his own looking anyways. And even if he had, didn’t mean the Doc would do anything about it. Mal might lean toward women, but he didn't have himself any problem with a person tumbling their own sex between the sheets. Who could tell what some fancy Core-bred rich boy thought on that account though? The Doc had some right strange ideas about what was ‘appropriate’ at times.
And that, more than anything made him uneasy on account of little Kaylee. Didn’t seem to Mal that Simon would be calling their relationship quits - even when (not if) he knew there weren’t no future to it. And Kaylee was too softhearted an’ all. She’d figure if two such opposite-seeming folk as Zoe ’n Wash could make it work (or rather, had made it work - which had been a constant source of amazement to Mal at the time, but was a road it weren’t wise to walk down right this moment) then so could she and the Doc.
Mal was right tempted to forbid the two to 'see each other any more. Then again, hadn’t worked with Zoe ’n Wash, didn’t think it would work with Kaylee and the Doc. ’Sides, he could just imagine the pouting and flouncing little Kaylee would do. Not that she’d obey him anyways. And the Doc – well, after the inevitable look of blank incomprehension faded, he’d have some scathing things to say, and Tian knew, there were plenty of better things the boy could be doin’ with that pretty mouth of his. Jayne had had the right of it there. It was also downright temptin’ in fact to make him do some of those better things. At least that’d get his attention off of Kaylee and toward what seemed more rightly his natural inclinations.
Appealing though
the prospect were, it was probably best to leave well enough alone. “Sufficient
unto the day the evil thereof,” his ma had always used to say, and that seemed
a good enough piece of advice to him. Mal figured Kaylee would work it out herself
sooner or later; hopefully without no female histrionics to follow. It weren’t
as though she was really stuck on the boy - but she did so love the shiny. And
Simon might be more’n a peck useless most of the time, but Mal reckoned he was
surely that. Shiny.
