A/N: Hee! Super fun drabble (well, it’s like, eight drabbles in one, but still…pretty short for what I usually write) for the ff_friday community on LJ. Prompt was: exercise. Hope you like!

- - -

There's a time for cleanin' and there's a time for sulkin‘, Kaylee Fryre decides, heaving a sigh as she looks around her bunk. An' right now seems like as good a time as any to get some tidyin' up done.

She bends to pick up an old pair of coveralls, tosses it into the basket near her closet so that the next time they all have some extra soap lyin' around, she can dunk her clothes underwater for a spell. Kaylee's starting to think her clothes are smellin' so bad, no one's wantin' to come near her.

Why else would Simon be avoiding her, after all?

Kaylee frowns and balls up a wrinkled tee-shirt, tosses it into the basket as well. She'd thought things were goin' so well. After that night in the engine room, the way he'd come in and was so adorable, tryin' to help her repair Serenity. And then the sex. The really, really shiny sex. Kaylee smiles wistfully. The heat and the sweat and the hallelujah, finally! of it all...she ain't likely to forget anytime soon. But Simon seems to have forgotten pretty damn well, and in a hurry!

Two weeks had passed, two weeks of him duckin' her and puttin' her off. The one time she'd been forward enough to stick her hand down his pants, he'd actually yelped--yelped like a scared puppy dog!-- and grabbed her hand, tellin' her he was busy.

"Taking care of River," he insists, whenever she asks what he's so busy with. But Kaylee knows it's a load of go se, 'cause more oftentimes than not now, River's more sensical than him, and the girl just looks at her older brother with that long-suffering look in her bottomless eyes.

So why? Why is Simon bound an' determined to not have the lotsa, lotsa sex Kaylee had told him they was gonna have after that first time?

Kaylee sighs and gets to cleaning the floor, thinkin' of all the ways she could trap Simon in a corridor today. Maybe she'll make Jayne help her--seems to be, he's always the one with the least to do aboard ship. An' she knows he likes messin' with the doctor. Kaylee giggles, arranging the spare tools she's got lying under her bed in a nice pile atop her dresser. Naw, she ain't mean enough to sic Jayne on the doc. This problem's one she oughta be amply capable at handlin'.

Sex is what Kaylee knows best, second to machines and smilin'.

Finally, Kaylee straightens, surveying her room. Now that all her clothes and trinkets are tucked away where they oughta be, the place looks right shiny. She likes the way everything don't match, the lights twinklin' over the bulkhead and her tools gleaming grey-bright on every available surface. It's homey, and she thinks it'd be even more homey with one swai doctor lyin' atop the covers.

Kaylee shrugs. The bed would look a mite more comforting mussed up some, sure, but Kaylee ain't about to get her panties in too much a twist. Call her an eternal optimist, but she knows it's only a matter of time 'fore the Doc gets over his prim an' properness and scales the ladder down to her room. An' anyways, she's glad her space is so sparkly-clean it almost puts the infirmary to shame. She grins to herself as she clicks off the light.

Sometimes, she figures optimistically, tidy rooms can be a real turn-on.

- - -

Simon peers around the corner of the corridor as Kaylee traipses past, humming to herself. When she enters the engine room without seeing him, he heaves a sigh of relief.

It’s been two weeks since their--er, interlude--and Simon has been hard-pressed to offer up a feasible reason as to why it isn’t going to happen again anytime soon. Kaylee seems to have grown ten extra hands in her enthusiasm, and while under any other circumstance, Simon would blink and thank God or Buddha or whoever that he hasn’t screwed things up enough for her to not want to touch him, under this circumstance--

He winces, cupping his hand in front of him protectively. He’s out of commission for at least another week. There’s no if and or but about it. Simon sighs, knowing that he ought to explain things to Kaylee, especially since she has a way of taking things he does or says in the worst possible way.

But it's just too embarrassing. Simon just can't bring himself to explain the reason he's so afraid of Kaylee touching his extremities. Kaylee herself probably wouldn't do much more than laugh, with that gentle, sweet twinkle in her eyes. But the rest of the crew is liable to give him hell, and Simon doesn't want anyone to know if he can help it.

Although Jayne probably suspects. After all, it is the man-ape's fault. The day after that lovely first time with Kaylee, Jayne had goaded him into an early morning pick-up game of Throw-the-Ball-into-Crudely-Made-Hoops. Simon had accepted, feeling, well, more confident than usual. And then he, Simon Tam, had gone down hard, pulling a particularly important muscle as he twisted and turned on the ground.

He'd told everyone it was just a muscle cramp. Most everyone had believed him, though River has taken to snickering every time Simon slips and cringes now.

Simon winces again, thinking wistfully of the way Kaylee had whispered to him this morning in her sultry, playful voice. “I cleaned my room just fer you, Doc. Nice and sterile. Wanna help me dirty it up?” And then she’d licked his ear--licked his ear!--before winking and sauntering off, leaving Simon gasping through the pain as his body reacted.

One more week, he reminds himself.

Sometimes, he thinks miserably, exercise can be a real drag.

- - -