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theleaveswant Jan. 14th, 2009 03:50 pm)
theleaveswant Jan. 14th, 2009 03:50 pm)Three stories I wrote in 2006 and never posted (never heard back from beta readers). I am at once very proud of and very embarrassed by all these old pieces.
Title: Unfamiliar Sleeping Arrangements
Summary: Three vignettes about sharing a bed.
Characters/pairings (Rating, Length): I = Simon/Kaylee (FRT, 438 words); II = Mal/Inara (FRM, 689); III = Zoe/Wash (FRT, 441)
Spoilers/timeline: Post-BDM, spoilers in II and III.
Disclaimer: Not my babies.
I
When the invasive beeping refused to desist from the power of his will alone, Simon was forced to stretch and twist his body half out of the bed in order to locate the button that would make the alarm clock shut up. A bleary-eyed glance around the room confirmed that he was not in his own berth in the passengers’ quarters but the bunk of a crew member, gaily decorated and cluttered with esoteric mechanical whatsits.
He peered at the clock’s blinking display and groaned at what he saw. Soft, smooth arms reached out to encircle his torso and he allowed himself to be drawn back into the centre of the bed. “It’s 0600,” he whispered, his voice rough from disuse, as he rolled on his side to face Kaylee.
“Can’t be 0600,” she muttered, pouting. “We just got to sleep.”
“S’what the clock says.”
“Clock’s stupid, then.” She pulled him tighter, wrapping both of her legs around one of his and rubbing a foot against his calf.
Simon shifted so that Kaylee could rest her head on his arm, and stroked her cheek with the knuckles of his free hand. “I like it here,” he sighed happily.
“Me too,” she mumbled, smiling and blinking her thick lashes. He wiped the gunk from the corners of her eyes with his thumb and kissed her forehead softly.
“Why do we have to get up?” he yawned. “Why can’t we just stay here another week or so?”
Kaylee giggled.
“I’m serious. I can’t remember the last time I felt as comfortable as I do here. All warm and safe . . . and warm . . . and . . .” He ran his hand down her arm to clasp her hand and she tickled her fingers through the sparse dark hair on his chest.
“Naked?”
“Naked.” He pushed her hair back from her face and laid his hand over her throat so he could feel the reality of her pulse, the rhythm of her being. “There is no place in the whole of this big, bad ‘Verse where I would rather be.”
Kaylee “aww”ed and rolled him onto his back, cupping his face in her palms and kissing him deeply and damply. When she had declared him good and smooched she curled herself in to his side, settling her head on his chest.
Simon dozed off there with his arm wrapped around her, but he’d hardly slept five minutes before being roused by Kaylee’s teeth and hot tongue teasing at his earlobe and her calloused fingers tweaking at his nipple. He sighed with mock resignation. It was time to get up, in one sense or another.
II
Malcolm Reynolds was a sprawler, a tosser and a turner.
He occupied a far greater percentage of the bed than was fairly accorded to him, but exactly which bits changed constantly. Inara, who did not normally consider herself a light sleeper, was barely able to shut her eyes before his restless jostling shook her awake and set her mind racing all over again, a flurry of consequences, impossible solutions and worst-case scenarios.
She had surprisingly little practice sleeping next to someone, considering how many had shared her bed. It was not uncommon for a client to doze off once the crux of their business had been completed, but as a Companion she was not obligated to join them and rather than linger by their sides she generally used the time to tidy and to meditate, restoring order to her shuttle, her body and her mind. Not so tonight. They had drifted off in each others’ arms, exhausted, and it was only as the hours wore on that Inara’s brain had grown febrile with anxiety. The shadows of her living space, thrown by stars and moons millions of clicks away, had grown long and sharp in the threat of the coming day and the restless body by her side had taken on a menacing, alien shape.
Mal rolled over again, pulling more than his share of the sheets along with him, and Inara crossed her arms over her breasts and stared at the canopied ceiling with her brow tightly furrowed. This was a mistake, a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be going back to the training house, but how could she? Now that they’d finally carried the bluff too far and forced each other into the harsh light of admission, and she could no longer lie about having no reason to stay? At least he didn’t snore.
Inara envied Mal his ability to flop down on a mattress and escape into unconsciousness (even if, judging from the occasional muscle spasms and small noises, his escape may not have been blissful). For her part, she was unable to quiet the clamor in her brain. Even if it never happened again, they’d both know that it had. How long would it take the crew to find out? She was sure Mal wouldn’t stand for her returning to work, should she (could she) defy him? How would she support herself if she couldn’t?
Apparently Mal’s stupor was not as impenetrable as it appeared, for when Inara glanced over she found him watching her through half-lidded eyes. “Hey,” he whispered when he saw that she’d noticed.
Inara shook her head as she looked at him. “Mal, we can’t—“
“Shh . . .” His arm reached out to pull her towards him, turning her so that he could wrap himself around her, mold his body to hers. He kissed her shoulder and as he spoke his breath tickled warm and wet on her skin. “S’okay. I’ve got you. Can’t nothing get you here, and don’t none of it bear worryin’ on ‘til the morning. For now, just . . . stay.”
Inara wondered where this confidence had come from. Earlier, lost in the flurry of kissing, caressing and undressing, she’d been too preoccupied with her own responses to make a proper (professional) observation of his emotional reaction. When they finally emerged from the tumult, Mal on his back bucking up to meet her while Inara undulated on top of him like seaweed, he’d looked awed and astounded by the turn of events, right up to the moment he howled his release and drove her to her second fall. He seemed to have adapted rather well since then.
“You know you can’t control everything. You keep trying, you’re like to drive yourself doodly.” While her natural impulse was to argue, there was something extremely persuasive about having his warm body spooned against her back, the tenderness with which his strong arms held her pinned. She discovered in this enfolding a feeling of security, even of belonging, and despite her fear Inara allowed herself to be marched to sleep by the drumbeat of his heart against her spine.
III
Strange how a bed that always felt just a little too tight for two is much, much too big for one. Does a person really take up so much space, or does he, in some strange twist of physics, only leave it behind?
Zoe wears pyjamas to bed, now, and pulls the blankets up over her shoulders. She never used to. The bed was always plenty warm with just her skin and a sheet and his body beside her. It’s strange. She can hardly remember what it was like before he moved in, back when this was just her bunk, but she’s sure it wasn’t this big, or this cold.
She’s alright during the day, when her hands and eyes and brain are busy. At night, though, alone in the bed they used to share, she feels his absence more intensely than any presence. It wasn’t so bad at first, when getting Serenity functional again had occupied every waking moment and a cocktail of painkillers and sedatives had regulated the rest, but since they’d gone back in the Black and the Doc had weaned her off the drugs it was getting harder and harder to keep her mind empty long enough to get to sleep. She works herself as hard as she can, trying to tire herself beyond thought, but there just isn’t enough to do.
She inhales deeply, hoping to fill her nostrils with his scent, revive him with the mess he left by living, but it is too late: the sheets have been laundered.
She’s supposed to be the strong one, she knows that. The tall, straight oak, unbent by winds of harsh circumstance. She knows people questioned her and Wash, wondered what could possibly tie beautiful Amazonian Zoe to a weedy goofball pilot. They didn’t understand that Wash was the solid ground that supported her, the soft and yielding soil in which Zoe had finally been able to take root and grow. In this bed, in his arms, wandering Zoe finally felt safe enough to settle down. Wash had been her home.
Now, without her solid ground, Zoe can feel herself shrinking. Lying with her knees tucked up to her chest in a bed getting bigger and colder by the minute, stretching out like an ocean, like the vast empty of the Black, Zoe buries her sodden face in the mattress. She’s drifting, a tree uprooted, her branches cracking in the vacuum. The harder she tries to suppress them, the more forceful are the sobs that rip from her body. Tiny Zoe wants her stolen comfort. Steadfast Zoe wants her goofy husband . . . and knows he’s never coming back.
Title: Wet
Summary: Jayne catches Mal in the shower . . . and he’s not alone.
Word count: 807
Rating: FRT
Characters: Jayne, Mal, ?FC
Pairing: Mal/? (het)
Spoilers/Timeline: Probably but not necessarily post-BDM.
Disclaimer: If I could invent something this awesome, I’d have died of happiness by now.
“Da da ba ba, babadabada, ba badabadabadabada,” Jayne sang as he descended the ladder to the ship’s shower facilities, loudly enough that at first he didn’t hear the water already running in the first of the two stalls. He didn’t remember seeing a tag on the door; people were supposed to leave an indication of their presence in order avoid the embarrassment of unanticipated simultaneous nudity (number seventy-four in Wash’s catalogue of embarrassments). He frowned, song trailing off just in time to hear a woman giggle, promptly followed by a fierce shushing sound.
The big mercenary grinned. Must be Kaylee had persuaded the doc to give her a personal hygiene lesson. “Well, well,” he called out jovially. “Good morning.”
“I, um, uh. Morning.” It wasn’t Simon’s voice that answered, however, and it certainly wasn’t Kaylee’s.
“Mal?” he asked, perplexed, as he hung his towel on a peg outside the second stall. “Whoinell ya got in there with you?”
“What? I have no idea what you’re, uh—there ain’t nobody here but you an’ me.” Inside the stall Mal put a hand to his companion’s mouth to help her stifle another giggle.
“No, acourse not,” Jayne paused smirking. “Y’know what? I think I forgot my soap. Don’t s’pose I could borrow yers, could I?”
“Uh, sure. Why don’t I pass it to ya over the wall here?”
“Wouldya? Gee, thanks, Mal, you’re a real pal.” Instead of stepping into the empty booth, Jayne moved quietly towards the door of the occupied stall.
“It’s no trouble, really, I’m just about done.” Inside the stall the captain shot his cohort a panicked look. She responded with an apologetic shrug. Mal grabbed the soap and began to scrub furiously, coating himself with a mask of innocence and lather. As soon as he put the bar down it was picked up again and slender hands returned to add an extra layer of foamy camouflage over the marks her mouth had left on his neck and chest, then gestured for him to turn around. “Why?” he mouthed. “The scratches,” she silently replied, and he hissed as the soap stung in the crisscrossing red welts that had risen on his back since last night.
Mal spun around fast when Jayne kicked the door in, doing his best to look both shocked and affronted. “Gorrammit, Cobb, whatinell do you think you’re doin’?!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mal,” he chuckled, “I could have sworn I heard somebody else in here. It could have been a violent assailant.” He pushed Mal aside with the strength of one hand to expose the woman concealed behind his torso, perched on the hip-high ledge on the stall’s back wall with her slender limbs folded discretely across her body. She raised her head and the near-black curtain of her dripping hair parted to reveal dark liquid eyes that met his own with a haughty stare through the streaming water.
“Well now, ain’t that somethin’,” Jayne leered. “Does Simon know about this? I know he’s always after me to report it every time I get lucky; I bet he’d just love to grill you two about the what and where.”
Mal glared at the brute. “Jayne, you will not tell anybody about this. That’s an order.”
“Oh really?” Jayne’s heavy torso shook with impish laughter as he ran his eyes up and down over the smaller captain’s damp, bubble-clad body. “’Cause I’d like to see you stop me.”
He easily dodged Mal’s soapy-handed grab and dove for the cubby where they’d stashed their stuff. Mal lunged out of the stall after him but skittered on the slick tiles and went down hard on one knee. “Jayne, get back here!” Mal barked angrily as the mercenary hauled himself one-armed up the ladder, with their clothes and towels bundled under the other.
Mal shot to his feet, blood streaming down his shin, and cast about for something to cover himself with. Unfortunately, the only item on offer was Jayne’s towel, which looked like it had traveled a few miles since its last wash. The moment his reluctance to touch the stained terry cost him was all it took for Jayne to make good his escape, the heavy thumps of his running stride receding down the corridor along with his gleefully urgent shouts for Kaylee.
Mal heard the water shut off and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said to the woman who stepped gracefully from the stall, wringing water from her mane.
“What are you apologizing to me for?” she asked, smiling.
He frowned. “Jayne’s going to tell everybody about us. I kinda figured you wouldn’t want that.”
Inara smiled and rose up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Why don’t you let me handle that,” she said as she brushed past him to the ladder and ascended smoothly, her radiant skin still bare and glistening with moisture.
Title: Christmas Dinner in the Badger’s Den
Summary: Christmas Eve—Badger makes a generous offer, but what are his motives?
Rating: FRC
Wordcount: 882
Characters: Mal, Zoe, Badger
Disclaimer: Ingredients aren’t mine, I just mixed them together.
Author's Note: An answer to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squish_67’s call for holiday drabbles. Pretend it went up (two years and) three weeks ago.
“We done here?” Mal asked, handing back the third form Badger had presented him for initialing, to indicate that he had, in fact, received payment this time.
“Yeah, just about,” Badger confirmed, marking his own ledger, and Mal stepped away from the table to join his first mate.
“I’d say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but this ain’t the Eve for lying.”
“Aren’t you just precious?” Badger grinned patronizingly. “Happy trails.” Mal sketched him a mocking salute and turned to leave.
He caught them with a loud “Erm” as they were about to cross the threshold. They waited for him to follow up on his noise, which he didn’t until they took another unison step out the door, at which point his chair squeaked as its occupant shot to his feet.
Mal glanced warily at Zoe, who frowned in agreement, and turned to look back at the diminutive grifter. “There something else you wanted, Badger?”
“Oh, no, nonononono,” he smiled mildly until they were about to turn around again, then said “well, sort of.”
Mal scowled; Zoe raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Either of you ever been to Dyton ‘round Christmastime?” Two nonplussed shakes of the head. “Oh, it’s lovely. Gets a knee-deep dumping of snow, like clockwork, every year, ‘cross the whole colony. Now, Persephone’s nice, so far as climate goes, in fact much of the year I far prefer it, but it just does not feel like Christmas.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Mal said, considering the frankly balmy weather they’d experienced on the walk to Badger’s office. “What’s it got to do with us?”
“Well, y’see now, I try’n get home every year to visit me ol’ mum—she’s a dear, my mum. I’ve offered a hundred times to set her up in a top-drawer flat here or on Beaumonde, anywhere she wants, but she’ll have none of it. Won’t hear of leaving that old cottage. Anyway, I try to get back an’ see her if I can, but this year, what with all the stink over that attempted coup on Boros and all, I just couldn’t arrange passage in time.”
Mal looked at Zoe, trying to puzzle out what Badger wanted. It was more than a three day journey to Muir, the world on which Dyton had been founded, so there’d be little point in fishing for a ride.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Zoe, politely. “My own mother passed some years back and I often regret not spending more time with her.”
Badger flushed, clearly embarrassed, “Yeah, well, she’s a tough ol’ bird, innit, my mum, an’ I’ll get round to see her as soon as I can to make up. It’s just . . . well, since I’m here, this year, and you’re here, and, well, it being Christmas and all, it wouldn’t be at all neighbourly if I didn’t at least invite you to . . . stay for supper?”
Mal blinked. “Didn’t know ‘neighbourly’ was in your repertoire, Badge. What are you really asking?”
“Nothing! Just, I got plenty of food set by, an’ I figured you lot could do with a hot meal.”
“That so?” Mal sucked his teeth and looked appraisingly at Badger. “And would we be your only dinner guests or have you also extended this invitation to, say, law enforcement officers or representatives of the Alliance military?”
“Is your opinion of me really so low? No, you would be my only guests. This is a gesture of kindness, and one I’ll very quickly regret making if you’re going to look down your nose like that.”
“Well, we thank you for your consideration, it was very generous of you, but we’ve really got to—“ Mal turned once again towards the exit but froze at a sound he never expected to hear.
“Please?” Badger asked, sounding almost desperate.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you stay for supper, please?” Mal looked back at Badger, who shifted uncomfortably, then shared a skeptical glance with Zoe. “Only . . . I don’t want to be alone.”
“What about your . . . employees?” Zoe asked. The dark warren of offices and warehouses that was Badger’s lair had seemed surprisingly empty when they came in.
He scowled. “Oh, I gave them the night off. They’ve all got children or sweethearts or something.”
“Those selfish bastards,” Mal said.
“You’re telling me. So, are you staying?”
The captain made a face, struggling to find the words to turn him down without alienating the important contact, or angering the man who had just humbled himself so pitiably before them.
“Look, I got a ham the size of a two-year-old and a case of real brandy, grade-A stuff, never seen the inside of a bathtub. You can bring your whole crew. We don’t need to talk or nothin’, just get pissed and watch the Dickens broadie on the Cortex. What’d’ya say?”
Mal sighed. “We’d be happy to. Zoe?”
The first mate nodded and made for the exit. “I’ll round them up. Sir?” she added, pausing with a smile and a hand on the doorframe, “Merry Christmas.”
Badger beamed and clapped Mal on the back. “Cheers, mate! Here, gimme a hand with the flue and we’ll get a real fire going. Have this place looking hospitable in no time!”
Title: Unfamiliar Sleeping Arrangements
Summary: Three vignettes about sharing a bed.
Characters/pairings (Rating, Length): I = Simon/Kaylee (FRT, 438 words); II = Mal/Inara (FRM, 689); III = Zoe/Wash (FRT, 441)
Spoilers/timeline: Post-BDM, spoilers in II and III.
Disclaimer: Not my babies.
I
When the invasive beeping refused to desist from the power of his will alone, Simon was forced to stretch and twist his body half out of the bed in order to locate the button that would make the alarm clock shut up. A bleary-eyed glance around the room confirmed that he was not in his own berth in the passengers’ quarters but the bunk of a crew member, gaily decorated and cluttered with esoteric mechanical whatsits.
He peered at the clock’s blinking display and groaned at what he saw. Soft, smooth arms reached out to encircle his torso and he allowed himself to be drawn back into the centre of the bed. “It’s 0600,” he whispered, his voice rough from disuse, as he rolled on his side to face Kaylee.
“Can’t be 0600,” she muttered, pouting. “We just got to sleep.”
“S’what the clock says.”
“Clock’s stupid, then.” She pulled him tighter, wrapping both of her legs around one of his and rubbing a foot against his calf.
Simon shifted so that Kaylee could rest her head on his arm, and stroked her cheek with the knuckles of his free hand. “I like it here,” he sighed happily.
“Me too,” she mumbled, smiling and blinking her thick lashes. He wiped the gunk from the corners of her eyes with his thumb and kissed her forehead softly.
“Why do we have to get up?” he yawned. “Why can’t we just stay here another week or so?”
Kaylee giggled.
“I’m serious. I can’t remember the last time I felt as comfortable as I do here. All warm and safe . . . and warm . . . and . . .” He ran his hand down her arm to clasp her hand and she tickled her fingers through the sparse dark hair on his chest.
“Naked?”
“Naked.” He pushed her hair back from her face and laid his hand over her throat so he could feel the reality of her pulse, the rhythm of her being. “There is no place in the whole of this big, bad ‘Verse where I would rather be.”
Kaylee “aww”ed and rolled him onto his back, cupping his face in her palms and kissing him deeply and damply. When she had declared him good and smooched she curled herself in to his side, settling her head on his chest.
Simon dozed off there with his arm wrapped around her, but he’d hardly slept five minutes before being roused by Kaylee’s teeth and hot tongue teasing at his earlobe and her calloused fingers tweaking at his nipple. He sighed with mock resignation. It was time to get up, in one sense or another.
II
Malcolm Reynolds was a sprawler, a tosser and a turner.
He occupied a far greater percentage of the bed than was fairly accorded to him, but exactly which bits changed constantly. Inara, who did not normally consider herself a light sleeper, was barely able to shut her eyes before his restless jostling shook her awake and set her mind racing all over again, a flurry of consequences, impossible solutions and worst-case scenarios.
She had surprisingly little practice sleeping next to someone, considering how many had shared her bed. It was not uncommon for a client to doze off once the crux of their business had been completed, but as a Companion she was not obligated to join them and rather than linger by their sides she generally used the time to tidy and to meditate, restoring order to her shuttle, her body and her mind. Not so tonight. They had drifted off in each others’ arms, exhausted, and it was only as the hours wore on that Inara’s brain had grown febrile with anxiety. The shadows of her living space, thrown by stars and moons millions of clicks away, had grown long and sharp in the threat of the coming day and the restless body by her side had taken on a menacing, alien shape.
Mal rolled over again, pulling more than his share of the sheets along with him, and Inara crossed her arms over her breasts and stared at the canopied ceiling with her brow tightly furrowed. This was a mistake, a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be going back to the training house, but how could she? Now that they’d finally carried the bluff too far and forced each other into the harsh light of admission, and she could no longer lie about having no reason to stay? At least he didn’t snore.
Inara envied Mal his ability to flop down on a mattress and escape into unconsciousness (even if, judging from the occasional muscle spasms and small noises, his escape may not have been blissful). For her part, she was unable to quiet the clamor in her brain. Even if it never happened again, they’d both know that it had. How long would it take the crew to find out? She was sure Mal wouldn’t stand for her returning to work, should she (could she) defy him? How would she support herself if she couldn’t?
Apparently Mal’s stupor was not as impenetrable as it appeared, for when Inara glanced over she found him watching her through half-lidded eyes. “Hey,” he whispered when he saw that she’d noticed.
Inara shook her head as she looked at him. “Mal, we can’t—“
“Shh . . .” His arm reached out to pull her towards him, turning her so that he could wrap himself around her, mold his body to hers. He kissed her shoulder and as he spoke his breath tickled warm and wet on her skin. “S’okay. I’ve got you. Can’t nothing get you here, and don’t none of it bear worryin’ on ‘til the morning. For now, just . . . stay.”
Inara wondered where this confidence had come from. Earlier, lost in the flurry of kissing, caressing and undressing, she’d been too preoccupied with her own responses to make a proper (professional) observation of his emotional reaction. When they finally emerged from the tumult, Mal on his back bucking up to meet her while Inara undulated on top of him like seaweed, he’d looked awed and astounded by the turn of events, right up to the moment he howled his release and drove her to her second fall. He seemed to have adapted rather well since then.
“You know you can’t control everything. You keep trying, you’re like to drive yourself doodly.” While her natural impulse was to argue, there was something extremely persuasive about having his warm body spooned against her back, the tenderness with which his strong arms held her pinned. She discovered in this enfolding a feeling of security, even of belonging, and despite her fear Inara allowed herself to be marched to sleep by the drumbeat of his heart against her spine.
III
Strange how a bed that always felt just a little too tight for two is much, much too big for one. Does a person really take up so much space, or does he, in some strange twist of physics, only leave it behind?
Zoe wears pyjamas to bed, now, and pulls the blankets up over her shoulders. She never used to. The bed was always plenty warm with just her skin and a sheet and his body beside her. It’s strange. She can hardly remember what it was like before he moved in, back when this was just her bunk, but she’s sure it wasn’t this big, or this cold.
She’s alright during the day, when her hands and eyes and brain are busy. At night, though, alone in the bed they used to share, she feels his absence more intensely than any presence. It wasn’t so bad at first, when getting Serenity functional again had occupied every waking moment and a cocktail of painkillers and sedatives had regulated the rest, but since they’d gone back in the Black and the Doc had weaned her off the drugs it was getting harder and harder to keep her mind empty long enough to get to sleep. She works herself as hard as she can, trying to tire herself beyond thought, but there just isn’t enough to do.
She inhales deeply, hoping to fill her nostrils with his scent, revive him with the mess he left by living, but it is too late: the sheets have been laundered.
She’s supposed to be the strong one, she knows that. The tall, straight oak, unbent by winds of harsh circumstance. She knows people questioned her and Wash, wondered what could possibly tie beautiful Amazonian Zoe to a weedy goofball pilot. They didn’t understand that Wash was the solid ground that supported her, the soft and yielding soil in which Zoe had finally been able to take root and grow. In this bed, in his arms, wandering Zoe finally felt safe enough to settle down. Wash had been her home.
Now, without her solid ground, Zoe can feel herself shrinking. Lying with her knees tucked up to her chest in a bed getting bigger and colder by the minute, stretching out like an ocean, like the vast empty of the Black, Zoe buries her sodden face in the mattress. She’s drifting, a tree uprooted, her branches cracking in the vacuum. The harder she tries to suppress them, the more forceful are the sobs that rip from her body. Tiny Zoe wants her stolen comfort. Steadfast Zoe wants her goofy husband . . . and knows he’s never coming back.
Title: Wet
Summary: Jayne catches Mal in the shower . . . and he’s not alone.
Word count: 807
Rating: FRT
Characters: Jayne, Mal, ?FC
Pairing: Mal/? (het)
Spoilers/Timeline: Probably but not necessarily post-BDM.
Disclaimer: If I could invent something this awesome, I’d have died of happiness by now.
“Da da ba ba, babadabada, ba badabadabadabada,” Jayne sang as he descended the ladder to the ship’s shower facilities, loudly enough that at first he didn’t hear the water already running in the first of the two stalls. He didn’t remember seeing a tag on the door; people were supposed to leave an indication of their presence in order avoid the embarrassment of unanticipated simultaneous nudity (number seventy-four in Wash’s catalogue of embarrassments). He frowned, song trailing off just in time to hear a woman giggle, promptly followed by a fierce shushing sound.
The big mercenary grinned. Must be Kaylee had persuaded the doc to give her a personal hygiene lesson. “Well, well,” he called out jovially. “Good morning.”
“I, um, uh. Morning.” It wasn’t Simon’s voice that answered, however, and it certainly wasn’t Kaylee’s.
“Mal?” he asked, perplexed, as he hung his towel on a peg outside the second stall. “Whoinell ya got in there with you?”
“What? I have no idea what you’re, uh—there ain’t nobody here but you an’ me.” Inside the stall Mal put a hand to his companion’s mouth to help her stifle another giggle.
“No, acourse not,” Jayne paused smirking. “Y’know what? I think I forgot my soap. Don’t s’pose I could borrow yers, could I?”
“Uh, sure. Why don’t I pass it to ya over the wall here?”
“Wouldya? Gee, thanks, Mal, you’re a real pal.” Instead of stepping into the empty booth, Jayne moved quietly towards the door of the occupied stall.
“It’s no trouble, really, I’m just about done.” Inside the stall the captain shot his cohort a panicked look. She responded with an apologetic shrug. Mal grabbed the soap and began to scrub furiously, coating himself with a mask of innocence and lather. As soon as he put the bar down it was picked up again and slender hands returned to add an extra layer of foamy camouflage over the marks her mouth had left on his neck and chest, then gestured for him to turn around. “Why?” he mouthed. “The scratches,” she silently replied, and he hissed as the soap stung in the crisscrossing red welts that had risen on his back since last night.
Mal spun around fast when Jayne kicked the door in, doing his best to look both shocked and affronted. “Gorrammit, Cobb, whatinell do you think you’re doin’?!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mal,” he chuckled, “I could have sworn I heard somebody else in here. It could have been a violent assailant.” He pushed Mal aside with the strength of one hand to expose the woman concealed behind his torso, perched on the hip-high ledge on the stall’s back wall with her slender limbs folded discretely across her body. She raised her head and the near-black curtain of her dripping hair parted to reveal dark liquid eyes that met his own with a haughty stare through the streaming water.
“Well now, ain’t that somethin’,” Jayne leered. “Does Simon know about this? I know he’s always after me to report it every time I get lucky; I bet he’d just love to grill you two about the what and where.”
Mal glared at the brute. “Jayne, you will not tell anybody about this. That’s an order.”
“Oh really?” Jayne’s heavy torso shook with impish laughter as he ran his eyes up and down over the smaller captain’s damp, bubble-clad body. “’Cause I’d like to see you stop me.”
He easily dodged Mal’s soapy-handed grab and dove for the cubby where they’d stashed their stuff. Mal lunged out of the stall after him but skittered on the slick tiles and went down hard on one knee. “Jayne, get back here!” Mal barked angrily as the mercenary hauled himself one-armed up the ladder, with their clothes and towels bundled under the other.
Mal shot to his feet, blood streaming down his shin, and cast about for something to cover himself with. Unfortunately, the only item on offer was Jayne’s towel, which looked like it had traveled a few miles since its last wash. The moment his reluctance to touch the stained terry cost him was all it took for Jayne to make good his escape, the heavy thumps of his running stride receding down the corridor along with his gleefully urgent shouts for Kaylee.
Mal heard the water shut off and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said to the woman who stepped gracefully from the stall, wringing water from her mane.
“What are you apologizing to me for?” she asked, smiling.
He frowned. “Jayne’s going to tell everybody about us. I kinda figured you wouldn’t want that.”
Inara smiled and rose up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Why don’t you let me handle that,” she said as she brushed past him to the ladder and ascended smoothly, her radiant skin still bare and glistening with moisture.
Title: Christmas Dinner in the Badger’s Den
Summary: Christmas Eve—Badger makes a generous offer, but what are his motives?
Rating: FRC
Wordcount: 882
Characters: Mal, Zoe, Badger
Disclaimer: Ingredients aren’t mine, I just mixed them together.
Author's Note: An answer to
squish_67’s call for holiday drabbles. Pretend it went up (two years and) three weeks ago.“We done here?” Mal asked, handing back the third form Badger had presented him for initialing, to indicate that he had, in fact, received payment this time.
“Yeah, just about,” Badger confirmed, marking his own ledger, and Mal stepped away from the table to join his first mate.
“I’d say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but this ain’t the Eve for lying.”
“Aren’t you just precious?” Badger grinned patronizingly. “Happy trails.” Mal sketched him a mocking salute and turned to leave.
He caught them with a loud “Erm” as they were about to cross the threshold. They waited for him to follow up on his noise, which he didn’t until they took another unison step out the door, at which point his chair squeaked as its occupant shot to his feet.
Mal glanced warily at Zoe, who frowned in agreement, and turned to look back at the diminutive grifter. “There something else you wanted, Badger?”
“Oh, no, nonononono,” he smiled mildly until they were about to turn around again, then said “well, sort of.”
Mal scowled; Zoe raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“Either of you ever been to Dyton ‘round Christmastime?” Two nonplussed shakes of the head. “Oh, it’s lovely. Gets a knee-deep dumping of snow, like clockwork, every year, ‘cross the whole colony. Now, Persephone’s nice, so far as climate goes, in fact much of the year I far prefer it, but it just does not feel like Christmas.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Mal said, considering the frankly balmy weather they’d experienced on the walk to Badger’s office. “What’s it got to do with us?”
“Well, y’see now, I try’n get home every year to visit me ol’ mum—she’s a dear, my mum. I’ve offered a hundred times to set her up in a top-drawer flat here or on Beaumonde, anywhere she wants, but she’ll have none of it. Won’t hear of leaving that old cottage. Anyway, I try to get back an’ see her if I can, but this year, what with all the stink over that attempted coup on Boros and all, I just couldn’t arrange passage in time.”
Mal looked at Zoe, trying to puzzle out what Badger wanted. It was more than a three day journey to Muir, the world on which Dyton had been founded, so there’d be little point in fishing for a ride.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Zoe, politely. “My own mother passed some years back and I often regret not spending more time with her.”
Badger flushed, clearly embarrassed, “Yeah, well, she’s a tough ol’ bird, innit, my mum, an’ I’ll get round to see her as soon as I can to make up. It’s just . . . well, since I’m here, this year, and you’re here, and, well, it being Christmas and all, it wouldn’t be at all neighbourly if I didn’t at least invite you to . . . stay for supper?”
Mal blinked. “Didn’t know ‘neighbourly’ was in your repertoire, Badge. What are you really asking?”
“Nothing! Just, I got plenty of food set by, an’ I figured you lot could do with a hot meal.”
“That so?” Mal sucked his teeth and looked appraisingly at Badger. “And would we be your only dinner guests or have you also extended this invitation to, say, law enforcement officers or representatives of the Alliance military?”
“Is your opinion of me really so low? No, you would be my only guests. This is a gesture of kindness, and one I’ll very quickly regret making if you’re going to look down your nose like that.”
“Well, we thank you for your consideration, it was very generous of you, but we’ve really got to—“ Mal turned once again towards the exit but froze at a sound he never expected to hear.
“Please?” Badger asked, sounding almost desperate.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you stay for supper, please?” Mal looked back at Badger, who shifted uncomfortably, then shared a skeptical glance with Zoe. “Only . . . I don’t want to be alone.”
“What about your . . . employees?” Zoe asked. The dark warren of offices and warehouses that was Badger’s lair had seemed surprisingly empty when they came in.
He scowled. “Oh, I gave them the night off. They’ve all got children or sweethearts or something.”
“Those selfish bastards,” Mal said.
“You’re telling me. So, are you staying?”
The captain made a face, struggling to find the words to turn him down without alienating the important contact, or angering the man who had just humbled himself so pitiably before them.
“Look, I got a ham the size of a two-year-old and a case of real brandy, grade-A stuff, never seen the inside of a bathtub. You can bring your whole crew. We don’t need to talk or nothin’, just get pissed and watch the Dickens broadie on the Cortex. What’d’ya say?”
Mal sighed. “We’d be happy to. Zoe?”
The first mate nodded and made for the exit. “I’ll round them up. Sir?” she added, pausing with a smile and a hand on the doorframe, “Merry Christmas.”
Badger beamed and clapped Mal on the back. “Cheers, mate! Here, gimme a hand with the flue and we’ll get a real fire going. Have this place looking hospitable in no time!”
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(And the rest made me grin.)
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The shower scene was very funny. No way Jayne could keep his mouth shut!
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