Disclaimer; characters and 'verse not mine, Joss's

Dressing Down

This boat was turning into a strange place to be, Mal mused, and he was disgruntled because he had no real way of controlling it. Since that meal where Jayne spouted something off about kangaroo courts, he and River had been running around engagin’ in some peculiar and slightly creepifiying competition. Creepifyin’, because he couldn’t get used to Jayne knowing or caring that baby kangaroos from Earth-what-were had crawled down their mama’s birth canals on their own and were about two inches long when they did it. It wasn’t quite as bad when River responded that in poor grazing seasons the mothers would nurture the little female joeys and let the male ones die. In fact, Jayne’s reaction to that had been right amusing.

They were all used to oddities from River, even as improved as she was. But this, the only thing he could see was that it was a strange brand of flirting. With Jayne. Who apparently was flirting back. Aside from all the wrongness he saw in that, he wondered what had happened with Jayne and Zoë. Nobody ever told him anything.

And Inara had been odd, lately, too. The whole breathing-trouble thing was just a part of it. She didn’t seem to take their little back-and-forth spats as lightly as she’d once been able to. More than once her eyes had crossed with his and seemed to be trying to communicate something he couldn’t quite figure out. Or, if he was honest, it was more that he wasn’t certain he dared try.

He passed two of his oddities, Jayne and River, in the corridor, both with mounds of clothing in their arms. He didn’t ask. But when Zoë was the next person he met up with, he stopped her.

“Zoë, with everything that’s going on, are you OK?”

Used to being on the same wavelength as her captain without having to stop to think, Zoë stopped to think. Didn’t get it.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“I’m not blind, I’ve seen all the flirting, if you want to call it that. It doesn’t bother you at all? If you weren’t that attached, then that’s . . . good.”

Now completely lost, Zoë adjusted the leather vest she wore. “No idea what you’re saying, captain, you’re gonna have to be clearer than that.”

Mal shrugged, resigned. “All right, if that’s how you want to be. Inara and Kaylee told me about you and Jayne. But if it really doesn’t bother you, I’ll leave it alone.” He moved to continue past her.

Zoë blinked as what he’d meant dawned on her, then she grabbed his arm. The action was so far from something she would normally do that he stopped in surprise, and registered the quizzicalness of her face.

“Captain, I appreciate that everyone on board had been trying to cheer me up. Is this your idea of a little joke? You have to tell me these things so I know when to laugh.”

For a moment he so enjoyed this reemergence of her dry humor that he only looked at her. Then he shook his head confusedly.

“Are you telling me, you and Jayne never had a thing?”

Zoë dropped his arm. “Are you telling me that wasn’t supposed to be a joke?”

Mal’s jaw set. “Kaylee and Inara . . . well, I guess no, really just Inara. Why would she ever – later, Zoë”—

“mm-hm,” she waved her fingers at his retreating back.

_____________________

River followed Jayne down to where the laundry was, her soiled clothing piled in her arms. He’d told her it was time she learned. She’d never had to do it at home or the Academy, of course, and here Simon had been doing both of theirs. Jayne said it had to stop. Though she didn’t see why, she went along with it so she could have time with him. Even though it meant time with the washing machine, too.

The machine was a little alarming; it moved about on its own sometimes after Simon turned it on, in ways its designer had not intended. It was unnatural. Kaylee said that was because Simon didn’t ‘balance his loads’, but River wasn’t certain Kaylee knew what she was talking about. The big grey thing was attached to the wall by a single small cord, and who knew when it might decide to burst its flimsy bond and progress through the boat, shaking and spilling out cleaning fluid? If it did that it might do anything. Another reason she had come with Jayne; she didn’t want to be in here alone with it if Simon decided she needed to do her own laundry.

Jayne dropped his pile on the floor and opened the maw of the appliance, wanting to show her something. She approached apprehensively. He retained all his fingers, just as Simon did when he touched the monster, but she still wasn’t sure it was tame. She noted that Jayne had nice fingers, with blunt-tipped nails that he kept clean. She wholly approved of that. The digits were a good size, strong and long like the rest of him, but not so bulky that they weren’t adept at handling things. They would be good at handling her, she thought, moving a bit closer. Their tips were callused and she could imagine the scraping feeling they would make on her bare skin.

Veins sketched themselves up and around them; she visually traced the course of a large one that began at his longest finger before languidly sliding over large browned knuckles. She imagined doing the same thing with her tongue. With one deep breath, the fiendish cleansing equipment was forgotten as she followed the vein’s licentious path. It caressed his powerful hand up to his well-built wrist. Here she contemplated the myriad little bones ridden by his supple skin until another vein entranced her. This one tunneled sinuously beneath that warm man-skin and a dusting of alluring short dark hair, driving itself higher and harder against the flow of the blood within it. River thought she could sense the pulsing of that blood, hot and fluid and alive, pumping rhythmically again and again, deeply and wetly and hard . . .

Her mouth was very dry. She felt her own heartbeat’s slow heavy thud as she continued tracking greedily; the privileged blood vessel was just all over Jayne’s arm, moving on him wantonly, probing into the warm depths of his elbow and nuzzling there. Then it plunged higher yet, up to the hard places that truly robbed her of breath. Brachioradialus, biceps brachii, deltoid; these are my paradise, she though muzzily. The vein whose intimacy she so coveted curved clingingly over gorgeous firm muscle that rippled smoothly, undulating with movement, swelling and flexing, relaxing then contracting . . .

She was panting.

“River.” Fingers, lovely agile fingers, snapped in her face. “Hey, River, you in there, feng le girl? That’s all ya have to do, it’s easy. Now let me see you do it.”

She looked at him vacuously for a long enough period of time that he knew she hadn’t heard a word of his instruction. Sighing, he re-opened the washer to start over, and wondered why she flinched away from the lid. But then she leaned over to look uneasily down into the depths of the drum. “Jayne’s t-shirts are in there?” She asked dreamily.

“Yeah, most of ‘em were dirty.”

“The machine will deliver them up whole and safe? Undamaged?”

“Usually does.”

She straightened away, satisfied about he didn’t know what.

“Good,” she said, “Jayne should always wear t-shirts. Ones with short sleeves.” Her brow furrowed a minute. “Cannot recall, does he have any with no sleeves?”

___________________________

There was quiet in the room except for the machine swishing to itself. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t exactly light, either. River had told Jayne there were ‘steps’ to whatever it was they were doing, and he mused that there musta been a million of ‘em, ‘cus they’d gotten nowhere in the past week. Maybe she thought they’d gotten somewhere, but until they got physical, he knew they hadn’t gone nowhere important.

True, it was kinda nice, and different, to have maybe-sex out there waitin’ and not go charging to it. Anticipation, and all that; risin’ sexual tension. He’d not felt it since he was maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. Since then, if he needed some, he went and paid and got some. But River’d never even come close to it before, he was sure, and so if she wanted waitin’ they’d wait. Till it killed him. And it might.

When after five minutes his own load of now-clean clothes hit the dry cycle, he told River she could put hers in in another five because the drying would be finished. He watched her bend over a chair and sort colors. Bein’ it was her doing that simple job, it didn’t seem so simple no more; she was so graceful it made her look like a story or a portrait-picture, ‘Girl Loading Washer’.

Make that ‘Feng Le Girl Loading Washer’; she got no closer than arm’s length to the open washer’s rim, tippin’ her clothes in from the side instead of from above, as fast as she could, while never lettin’ her fingers dip over to the inside. He decided to not even ask. But as she dipped and turned, the new green sundress moved’ ‘round her body and dipped low in the front so he caught a glimpse of cleavage. Ah, cleavage, weren’t nothin’ like it on a woman what still had her clothes on. ‘Cept maybe a pair of pants stretchin’ tight when she bent over. He eyed River’s backside, figurin’ it’d look pretty good in that position. He’d noted her hair and her legs many times before, and her feet. He glanced down; her little toenails were painted blue. He wondered if Kaylee’d had something to do with that.

“Jayne is ogling,” River interrupted his survey of her feet.

“Yep.” He didn’t even have to ask what the word meant, he’d been accused of it more’n once before, ‘n it was usually true. They were the only people in here, and he wasn’t gonna deny it anymore. Hell, if’n her brother or Mal were here, he’d still say it. He wasn’t usually one to hide anything, anyway. He’d considered the probable upset amongst the others if he decided to chase River back like she’d been chasin’ him. And he knew angry crewmembers wouldn’t be what stopped him.

Nah. If he wanted River, he’d have her. He was gettin’ less afraid of that airlock the closer he got to the girl; or maybe wantin’ her so much was just makin’ the fear seem smaller.

River swayed a little, side to side, like there was music but only she could hear it. He watched her, wishin’ he could hear it too. “You like the way I look,” she asserted. He nodded firmly, wantin’ no more misunderstandings in that area. “Yer shiny as a sun,” he confirmed. “Supernova, even.”

Her lips up-tilted, then straightened.

“What do you like besides the looks?”

He frowned. She wanted compliments on somethin’ besides how good she looked? He’d never had to give out anythin’ like that. His brain scrambled, and came up with exactly nothin’.

Her eyes rounded, then dulled. Her head tucked. Wo de ma, he groaned mentally. Here we go again. Maybe he should re-think this chasin’ thing, if all he was gonna do was hurt her.

“He has always hurt her,” she whispered, swaying more forcefully, eyes closed, “since their beginning, cuttings and stabbings and small deaths. He is sharp on the edges, wounds her tender parts . . .”

His chest was tight with a feeling he recognized as pain. He had to cut her off. “Girl, you’re breakin’ me,” he rasped. “Whaddaya want with a big ole’ lunk like me, if I only hurt ya?”

“Didn’t say only hurt,” she told him, opening her eyelids; no tears spilled but they washed her eyes to an unnatural brightness. He could tell she was forcing words out past a constricted throat, wanting him to understand. “She can care for him . . . sharp things, if well-cared for, are very, very shiny. Worth holding unto.”

He clenched his hand around the back of his head, couldn’t look at those eyes. His own throat was closing up on him. “Well, I don’t wanna hurt ya anymore.”

His clothes were done, he had an excuse to go. They mounded up soft and warm in his arms as he left. River was gonna hafta do hers alone, he had stuff to consider.

_________________________

Simon had come to see Inara last week at Mal’s urging, to assess her respiratory status. She’d gently laughed him off, but he’d insisted.

“How often does this shortness of breath happen?” He asked, sitting in her shuttle with her tea table between them.

“Well – daily.”

He shook his head.

“How long have you been noticing it?”

“Mm, for about two years now.”

He frowned in professional concern. “Inara, you should have told me. Daily for over two years? This is serious, you’re lucky you haven’t ended up seriously incapacitated. We need to go to the infirmary, I have to do a full workup”-

Inara sighed, suddenly just weary of it all.

“Thank you Simon, but that’s not necessary. I know what the problem is.”

Now his frown was puzzled. “You do?”

“Yes. I know the trigger.”

“Which is?”

She pressed her lips together, then just said it. “It’s Mal.”

He considered her face, and understanding crept across his. “Ah.” He rose from his seat and offered her one of his sweet, sympathetic, slightly sardonic smiles. “I’m afraid there’s not a lot medical science can do to cure that.”

She smiled back at him. It had felt oddly relaxing to tell someone what she’d guarded so jealously for so long. “I do appreciate your concern, Simon. Please, think of something to tell him, all right?”

“All right.” He nodded his head to her, ever polite, before exiting. He later told Mal something about the differences between planetary and ship-board atmospheres affecting some people, nothing serious. Mal had accepted the explanation.

So when the captain entered her shuttle, unannounced as usual, she was a bit surprised. It had seemed he’d been avoiding her, lately. He stood just inside the door hanging and squinted at her, as though she was a species of creature he’d never seen before. She raised her brows at him and ignored the thumping of her heart with practiced ease.

“Did you want something other than to stand and stare at me?” She enquired with that gentle edge to her tone that prodded all his irritation buttons. He walked a few more steps into the shuttle.

“What kind of game you trying to run on me?” He didn’t sound angry, just confused.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” He frowned at her.

“No, Mal, I don’t.” She tipped a hint of long-suffering into her voice, to spur him along.

“I mean your insinuating right to my face that Zoë and Jayne were thinkin’ on each other, when that’s not the case at all!” Now he was getting hot and bothered, and that was what she wanted, because she was feeling that way and didn’t want to be the only one.

“I’m just trying to figure,” he continued, his words getting hard, “if there was an actual reason, besides the usual sick desire to play with my feelings, why you would purposely mislead me when what I asked for was enlightenment as to what was going on!”

Play with his feelings? The ones he didn’t let out into daylight? Where had that accusation come from? Angry herself now, she rose from her graceful seated position and faced him. She drawled her own words cruelly over his nerves; “Oh, Mal, there are so many kinds of enlightenment you need.” Her usual half-smile, to sign that the insult shouldn’t be taken seriously, was missing.

His lips firmed into each other, sensing a deeper meaning there than he could readily decipher. “You calling me blind?” he questioned harshly. “You, Miss I-Can-Screw-Everyone-In-The-Verse-For-Money-And-Still-Be-Clean-And-Whole?”

She flinched, and his own wince said he was sorry, but he was also too irate to take it back.

That had hurt, but he hurt her all the time, she thought, and she was usually better at hiding it. She wasn’t sure what had happened to all her defenses. Maybe opening up that little bit to Simon had left her more vulnerable that she’d thought. Her layers of sophistication were deserting her. “That sounds a lot like jealousy, Captain I-Am-In-Command-Of –Everything-And-Never-Need-To-Feel-Anything.” Her words were short, cold and bitter. Yes, something had definitely happened in that time with Simon. Or she was just at an end. An end to all this ridiculous, wearying pretending they’d been doing for so long.

Mal’s eyes had narrowed at her, and his face was a study in anger balanced on confusion. This was a too-sudden change for him, the open emotions. He didn’t know what to do with it, except revert to anger – the emotion he most readily displayed.

“You telling me I don’t feel? Don’t have emotions like a normal man?” He was just this edge of shouting at her, which he’d rarely done, and a morass of feelings he didn’t want to name was rising in his chest.

She flung her hands out in fiery exasperation. “How would I know, Mal? You never let me know! You dance around the truth and hint and raise my hopes and then you cower away from it. I’m tired, Mal, I don’t want to do the dance anymore.”

“Dancing!” One hand jerked cruelly through the air. “That’s what you think we’ve been doing? This has been a gorram dance?! You want to know what I think?” Now he was shouting, control gone. Her release of charge over her reactions freed him to let go of his.

“Yes!” she cried at him, breathing fast and hard. “I want to know! Truth, Mal, I’m so tired of hiding it!”

“Truth?!” he bellowed back at her. “Truth is too hard!” He stopped abruptly, tortured realization in his expression, and bowed his head, rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I-I have to go, Inara.” He turned.

He was leaving. She couldn’t let him, they were so close to something. She had to make him stay and face it.

“Please,” she called softly, all the temper gone from her voice and from her heart. “Please, Mal, don’t. Just say it, for once, for you or me or us or whatever it takes to get you to tell it. The truth.”

She was frozen in fear he’d leave. He didn’t. He could have gone the well-traveled back-up-and-pretend-it-never-happened route. He didn’t do that either. What he did was turn around. Maybe he was tired of it all, too. He impaled her with his gaze. His next words were quiet, and ragged, and naked.

“Truth is I want you so bad it hurts, and for more than just a bedding and for longer than just a night, but I know I can’t have you. Truth is we’re as far apart as two people can get in this ‘verse, and all the pihua that’s in between us . . . I can’t, Inara, I can’t get through all that, to get to you, by myself.” His voice was raspy and unsteady. “I know you don’t belong to anybody but yourself, but truth is I hate, I despise every one of your clients because they’ve had you, and I can’t do anything about it. I hate them with a hatred so deep, it chokes me. And I hate you for that, Inara, and I have too much hate in my life . . .” he just stopped talking, drained and soul sore. His eyes were gritty with the salty tears that he was fighting back.

It was a long speech for him, and Inara stood pale and silent through the entirety. Her heart was split open and bleeding inside her chest, her chin was trembling with the effort not to break apart. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do, after all this time of fighting and hiding and silence. What move could you make when everything you’d worked to conceal was spilled out in the open in all its dirt and glory?

Her move was to him. She didn’t know if she could force her body to obey her but it did, and got her over in front of the raw, exposed man who stood there still, still. She worked her throat and her lips but no sound would come out, so all she could do was what she’d wanted to for an eternity; she tilted her head in till her forehead rested on the broadness of his chest. She raised her arms and linked shaking hands behind his back. Then she stood there as still as she could on trembling legs, nearer Heaven than she’d ever been and fearing she’d be turned away.

He was shaking too. That was all he did for elongated seconds, not meeting her action but not backing away either. When his arms twitched on either side of her, then slowly rose to slide up her own, she couldn’t think. Heat thrilled through her brain and spilled down her spine to center between her thighs as he cupped her chin between both palms, and raised her face until she could see his. Their gazes trapped each other, fraught with so many things there were no words for, and Inara no longer needed to breathe. She could see uncertainty in him, though, an aching hesitancy that burned her and motivated her to find her voice.

“Mal”- it was such a dark harsh sound she didn’t recognize it- “Beloved.” Her voice cracked and she had to pause, then continued, low and forced and intense. “No one’s ever had me but you. No one ever will.”

Brown-lashed lids closed tightly, once, then lifted again. “Beloved?” he whispered, dragging his thumbs across her cheekbones. She wanted to smile, and tried, but tears spilled over unto his hands instead. “Beloved”, she affirmed fervently. And he dropped his head, sighed release, and then covered her lips with his.

She didn’t know how her heart would stand the joy.