Slim as Dimes, Part 3 By belasera NC-17…ish

Oh, the things you hear in a cracked spaceship…I’m going back to my first love, Jayne/Kaylee, with a smattering of Simon for good luck. Spoilers for the BDM!

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They was bad deaths. Jayne couldn’t stop thinkin’ it, the words dropping’ into his head at all times of the day, just settling in til he felt sick from it. They was bad, wasn’t right for two people like that to be…just…plowed down, by the gorramn Alliance, who’d he’d never spared as much hatred for as Mal did, but the sentiment was catching on. By the feng luh reavers, who had no ruttin’ sense to them, be doing the sort of wreckin’ they did and for what? For nothin’. For bad deaths. Everyone was livin’ it, not just Jayne. Wasn’t nobody not movin’ through the day like the ship was tilted bad, like they was about to go sliding. Kaylee…Jayne wished he could do something when her sobbin’ came roarin’ into his bunk, but he had nothin’ worth a damn to say to her. She had Simon now, anyway. ……………………………………………………………………………………. Wasn’t everything bad. Inara came back, seemed like for good, and River was like a new person, to be talkin’ all the time nearly sensible, to be flyin’ the ship when Cap’n would let her. Zoe was…such a thing that Kaylee didn’t know what to be her own self around her, wanted to be holdin’ her all the time, but she never did, not even once. Zoe was calm in a way Kaylee couldn’t fathom, not when she was sobbin’ most nights her own self, holding her belly like bits might tumble out from the way it hurt. In a way, Simon made it worse. It couldn’t be helped, them bein’ way they were together, like two people found a treasure chest and couldn’t stop pryin’ it open to peer inside. That’s how Kaylee felt, anyhow. Like she had to always be checking to make sure he was still there, that this one good thing in all the muck was really happening. It gave her pain to think how Zoe might feel, seein’ them slide right into bein’ the couple on board, but Kaylee started to think it couldn’t matter that much, that nothin’ was gettin’ past that wall of steady hurt Zoe had put up when they buried Wash. Kaylee tried to be happy, and came so close she could ignore the difference for a while. Simon was…was more’n she’d hoped for, more’n she ever thought the ‘verse likely to hand her, but there he was, his mouth hot on hers in the engine room, givin’ her all she’d wanted for damn near forever. Kaylee tried not to think it, tried to squash it dead when she did. “Too little, too late.” Wasn’t true, was just her feelin’ tore apart ‘bout all the misery had come to them, so she buried the thought and fondled her treasure instead. Space was an issue, funnily enough. The engine room was hers, and she loved to have Simon there, but after the first few times he laughingly asked her when they were going to find a room. “Well, I’ve heard tell the guest berths are pretty nice.” He’d made a bit of a face, like something had to be explained. “Yes, but Kaylee, I wouldn’t feel comfortable….it’s just that…River will hear us.” ”River’s a seer, she can do more than hear us no matter where we are.” “I know, and I’m sorry, I just don’t think I’m ready to be intimate with you…there. Can we go to your bunk?” Kaylee made the same face Simon had just a moment earlier, as she stuttered, “Uh, w...well…no.” Simon raised his eyebrow at her and smiled a bit. “Why? What deep dark secret are you hiding in there?” Kaylee blushed, punched his arm a bit and left her hand on it. “It’s just that, well, its sorta funny, but there’s a wee little crack in my wall, and Jayne and I can hear each other.” Simon’s smile faltered. “What exactly do you mean?” “Oh, well, it’s just a tiny crack, but we chatter through it sometimes, and I’d be embarrassed to think he was hearing you and me.” “That’s not something I’d enjoy myself, but can’t you just patch the crack up?” Kaylee felt ill at the lie she’d already told, but even worse at the truth she was about to. “Well, I kinda don’t want to.” Simon stared at her like she’d just grown a moon out of the side of her head, didn’t seem like he could think of a thing to say at that, so Kaylee continued. “Just sorta friendly is all, I don’t want to stop just now, what with everyone feelin’ so low, might hurt his…feelins.” Simon’s mouth worked, opening and closing in wonder before a darker look crossed his face. “Did you, before…did you and Jayne have something…?” Kaylee looked him in the eye, thought for a flash of Zoe’s hard look and how it was a thing to be needed, oftentimes like now, as she told Simon the absolute truth. “Naw, I never touched Jayne.” Simon’s face thawed, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her near, “Maybe you’re right, the way things are right now, we should try not to upset anything. You’re incredibly sweet to worry about Jayne like that, you know.” She just smiled weakly as his hands stroked her back, let him pull her close as he whispered in her ear. “Want to go check on the engine?” ……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Simon made her feel alive, when they were together she felt so close to whole it was like she might even get through a night without crying. When she was alone again, it was just…gone. But she was never really alone, from that first night back in her own bunk after…after, he was there. Right there, though she couldn’t see him and she couldn’t say a thing to him. She just cried, and he just shushed. Like it was the only sound he was built to make, she would hear it coming through soft and steady, “shhh…” Nothing else, just that. It didn’t help, exactly, it didn’t dry her eyes but it was there and wasn’t nothing. She could have just fixed the crack, invited Simon into her bunk like he wanted her to and let him hold her, fuck her, whatever it took to keep her from feelin’ like the black was about to suck her right out of her skin. She just didn’t. Couldn’t admit to herself why, couldn’t admit that the further out they pushed from Miranda, the less she cried, and the clearer she started to see what was the truth of the matter. Her and Simon, shiny Simon, they weren’t quite…the thing. The thing she thought they’d be, anyway. They were fun, he was fun, and kind and loving and often….absent. There were silences that stretched into awkward, more and more they had less to say. Simon turned steadily back to his work in the infirmary and Kaylee invited him less to the engine room. There were so many reasons to think of, though. They’d started like fire ‘cause things’d been bad, but now it was just evenin’ out. It was right not to be missin’ on him all the time, that’s the way a good love was supposed to be. But Kaylee’s thoughts were turning from him in a way that was nothin’ but bad. When they were together, she thought only of him, she was all wrapped up in him, couldn’t see nothin’ else. There was somethin’ missing though, there was a dull edge to the way they made love that left Kaylee tense, hours later. It was somethin’ she could give herself, and there was no shame in that, but at night in her bunk, when she quietly slipped her hand down her belly, it wasn’t Simon she thought of, and that did leave her shamed. She fought it, hard, she fought against that long needy sigh that would be answered, as sure as she knew anything she knew that it would still be answered. But she bit her lip and just remembered what she could have had anew. It was wrong to be wantin’ this thing when what she and Simon had was real, was solid and sure, not no dirty thing in the dark. ……………………………………………………………………………………….. The ship seemed to right itself, slowly but with a surety. It would never be as noisy or as funny without Wash, but River was more and more like a person and sometimes it seemed like things she said, way she smiled or laughed brought Wash right into the room. Made Kaylee’s breath catch, way she did that. Yet the better things were, the more Kaylee had to see what wasn’t. She couldn’t give up on Simon, not after all the wantin’ she’d done, but she didn’t know how to make it more than that, more than just her not givin’ up ‘cause she was a stubborn ox. “Simon?” She said it as they lay tangled in her hammock, they’d still never gone anywhere but there and after three months they should have both known that was a sign of something wrong. “Hmmm?” ”Simon, I…you make me feel something good, and that’s a true thing…but…” Simon smiled against her hair. “Mmmhmm?” “Do you ever…is there anything missin’ here?” He pulled back and looked at her, her eyes sincere and something else, maybe…hopeless. “No, bao bai, no…this is good, right here, with us, this is good.” She’d knowed he was gonna say that, couldn’t muster up the will to laugh when he added, “Only thing missing is a bed.” ………………………………………………………………………………………… There was a bed. It was a bed Kaylee was looking forward to more and more, her own soft bed where questions weren’t always crowding her, where she was free and easy. Quiet, though, since she’d stopped crying not a word had passed through the crack, and it was a silence starting to get large. Wanting to be broken. She was chewing her tongue, her body coiled and twisted as she worked, and it felt like a job, do be doing this and wanting something different, something more than just all this…quiet. Maybe she did it on purpose, slapped her hand against the bulkhead, letting it do what her tongue refused to. He answered. His voice was low and urgent when he did. “Kaylee, please…please, I can almost hear you.” She groaned, needy and rumbling like she’d held it for years, and she heard Jayne echo it back at her. This was it, the thing she’d been craving, this senseless messy game of blind lust, this thing they pretended didn’t exist, so it never had to be explained. Yes, this. She went quick, tight spirals all through her as her thighs shimmied up, down, across the bulkhead so the cold metal made her yelp and Jayne’s breathe like the big bad wolf blowing her house down made her near keen until she was gone. …………………………………………………………………………………………….