Author's notes: This is slash, Mal/Simon, but there's nothing explicit. Mostly it's just suggestion, but there's some pretty obvious suggestions, so…right. Tis slash, you've been warned.

He doesn't remember when it started, but nowadays, he sleeps in Mal's bunk as often as his own. Mal doesn't believe in crew romances, but whatever it is they have, Simon is under no illusions that it was romantic. Sometimes, though, it seems as though Mal forgets his own rules. Simon never does, he's good at following rules—right up until the moment he finds he needs to break them.

Mal doesn't so much cuddle as hold him in place, like he's afraid he's going to leave. Simon would complain, but he's pretty sure if the grip was any looser he would. He should feel safe. Laying here, with someone he cares about, he should feel safe. He tells himself he does, but something always breaks through the lie.

"Tell me about Osiris," Mal says, already more than half asleep. Simon goes still.

He closes his eyes, and when he speaks, his voice is level. "He was an Egyptian god, the king of the underworld." He paused a moment to take a breath. "He judged the souls of the dead."

Mal shifts uncertainly, and the arm around his waist uncurls slightly. "That's not what I meant," he says.

Simon pulls away, moving to sit at the very edge of the bed. "I know what you meant."

-----

He accepts that he can never go back. He wouldn't change it, not for anything, not for dinner parties and sterile white rooms. He understands that he can't go back, and wishing for things he isn't going to have is nothing but a waste of time. He's happy where he is, as happy as he'll ever be, anyway, and he tells himself it's more than enough. They were lucky, River and him, when you really thought about it.

If fate had led them to anyone other than Mal Reynolds they would have been spaced when they learned the truth, or worse, they would have been kept alive and turned over. They're lucky where they are and there's no going back. Simon understands this, he does, and he's fine. Sometimes, he can barely remember living his former life, anyway. And you can't miss what you never had.

Osiris is like a dream. At night, when he's caught somewhere near sleep, he has trouble believing it exists at all, he feels that surely he's been on Serenity all his life—he has no parents, no career, nothing but a sister that is as likely to make small talk as scream.

He tells Kaylee the good parts of it, what she wants to hear, thinks all the while 'I would be there right now.' He knows that really, he'll never be there again and if he ever is, he'll be there in chains or he'll be dead. He doesn't want to go back to Osiris, anyone can ask him, and he'll say no and it will be the truth. There's no going back. If Simon understands anything, he understands that.

Mal doesn't like Core planets. People are happy there, Mal says, and shrugs like he's glad of it. It isn't true, though, Simon knows. People weren't happy there and Mal wasn't glad of it. On the Rim people politely shot each other in the name of good business, and collectively, everyone turns their heads away, but at least on the Rim people said what they meant; even their subterfuge was to be expected and not held against them. If you never have someone's trust, then you can't lose it.

-----

"I'm sorry," Mal says quietly, but he doesn't understand what he's apologizing for. He doesn't know what he's done, and Simon isn't sure either.

"There's nothing really to tell," he says. "You can't just say something like that and expect some clean simple answer."

Simon needs clean and simple. He likes things ordered and Mal was chaos. This whole universe was chaos, and the longer he stayed on the edge of it, the more he thought the Core was where things really stopped making sense. Mal sits up, watching him, and he knows he needs to say something. "It's not as perfect as it seems."

"But you miss it," Mal says, always trying to find out what it is that makes Simon sad. He hasn't figured it out yet, but Simon is terrified that someday he will.

He shouldn't be afraid, least of all of Mal, because Simon knows how the universe works. And if no one has your heart, then no one can break it.

-----

Mal likes to ask him if he misses Osiris, and he asks him with more and more frequency. Not like Kaylee asks, not with bright eyes and a smile, begging for stories about a life that can't be understood without experiencing it, but vaguely, never meeting his eyes at all, trying to make it clear he doesn't really care. Simon always says no, and it's always nearly the truth. Mal nods like he understands, but says "not anything?" every time, because he doesn't really understand. Not at all.

Anything? Any one thing. Simon isn't sure. He closes his eyes to place himself back there, but it's like watching someone else. His parents don't seem real either, they're like plastic marionettes and always smiling. He sees River in the living room, dancing, demanding he watch her every move because she memorized them all, and it's her first time rehearsing it all the way through. River is the only thing that seems real.

-----

"Maybe there's something I miss," he admits softly and Mal nods again like he already knew that, and asks him what. "River," he says, and turns away.

Mal isn't going to let him just slip away, though, he can feel his gaze burning still behind him. "If you ever left," he whispers. "Would you miss me?"

He says, "of course," without hesitation, but you can't miss what you never had.

"You're lying," Mal says, and his voice is soft, but thick with things Simon doesn't want to hear.

"I'm learning," Simon counters, because Kaylee was right, lying is easy.

"If you left I would miss you," Mal tells him, and Simon wonders what it costs him to admit to that and wonders if it's even true.

He thinks the problem is Mal can't understand why he doesn't miss it. Mal doesn't understand the pretense of living in a fairy tale, because he's been real his whole life. Maybe Mal thinks he's heartless, attached to nothing but the one thing he gave his world for. He probably thinks he really could walk away from Serenity with River and never look back, and on his worst days, Simon thinks so too.

"I'm not going anywhere," is all he says out loud, and then he gets up and leaves the room. The irony is not lost on him, but he doesn't look back as he climbs the ladder. Mal doesn't call him back, either.

He never does.

-----

He dreams of Hippocrates' statue sometimes, too, one good memory he pretends is enough. He dreams about it, only in the dream he is alone and he's wearing clothes, but they're torn. He grabs onto a grey arm and hauls himself up, not singing like he really had, but quiet instead like everything—no sound for miles. Once he makes it all the way up, once he catches his balance at the top, it cracks and crumbles beneath his feet.

He always wakes before he hits the ground.