You Had Me From ‘Stuff It’

Author’s blurb: I came up with the idea for this fic when I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard the song You Had Me From Hello by Kenny Chesney, so that’s the reference in the title. Please read and if you’re feeling generous, review. Thanks! Oh yeah, and all that shiny disclaimer stuff too! lol (O... and I have a question for anyone... does the mention of boxers deserve a PG rating?... just wondering) Thanks again!

He had only been on the boat a grand total of a week… and he’d already been snubbed at least twelve times. Well, Wash reasoned with himself technically to be snubbed, the person committing the snubbing has to actually talk to the recipient of the snub... and he had yet to actually hear a word from the goddess he was trying to woo. Wash didn’t think she had to though, the almost obsessive way she patted the gun on her hip whenever he was talking to her got the message across quite clearly. Although, as a large and semi-muscular man, he would never let the fear of getting a little hole shot in him be sufficient reason to give up the chase. What would he tell his dinosaurs after all?

It was clear to him after his first day onboard that the leering glances that most women found flattering would obviously not work on the first mate. This timeless technique of seduction came far too close to getting him a black eye, and it amused the captain too much… which was something perhaps even scarier than the first mate. The jury was still out on that one.

Zoe also made it abundantly clear that playing the gentleman wouldn’t help him either. During a trip to gather parts to help Serenity get flying again, he had dashed ahead of her in the street to shoo a stray cow out of her path. She just smirked and walked by as he stepped backward and sank in a puddle of mud up to his knees. He swore revenge on the uppity bovine, but didn’t take the whole thing too hard… it did make her smile after all.

He tried ignoring her, he heard that sometimes women actually fell for that reverse psychology crap sometimes, but he quickly dropped that topic. He found it next to impossible for him not to follow her with his eyes everywhere she went, and she seemed to enjoy it too much.

His latest and least subtle attempt was to try and find something that they both enjoyed, and to somehow engage his stalwart object of affection in a conversation. He had to think hard about that one. He was a grown man who liked to play with dinosaurs, and thought the finest form of entertainment was shadow puppets, while she kicked ass for a living and ate guys like him for lunch.---He didn’t equate arm wrestling with pain until she almost snapped his wrist, and he had to be rescued from the self-induced situation by Mal who, for some reason, believed that it was counterproductive to have a pilot with a broken wrist. He was sure that even the palm trees on his shirt were blushing by that point.

As he trudged his way back up to the bridge with his dinner of protein bars and his wounded pride, he couldn’t help but wonder if something was inhibiting his innate charm from working its magic on her. He was sure that a group counseling session would clear matters right up.

“So why exactly is a cute, young, hunk like you, Wash, having trouble picking up the resident goddess?” Dilbert, his stegosaurus, asked as he settled himself in the pilot’s chair.

Wash found that speaking with his dinosaurs helped him solve many issues, and to visualize concepts that would have otherwise stayed locked up in his deviously brilliant mind forever.

He seemed to have found a gosling that was a bit too heavy for his mind to juggle however, and was still pondering this question several hours later when the object of his desires climbed up the stairs to the bridge. He gave up thinking and instead watched her as she rooted through the storage lockers and tore up some of the deck plating. She had already started on the compartments under the copilot’s console before he took pity on her and decided to say something.

“You know, when you frisked me the other day, you could’ve just asked where I got my stunningly exotic wardrobe. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy a beautiful woman groping me, but…” he trailed off when this elicited no response.

He looked to his dinosaurs, his own personal cheering section, and they seemed to tell him to not back down now.

“I get them at Cute & Samoan.” Wash blurted out, searching for material. “I’m an excellent people reader. I’ve only been here a week and I already know where the whole crew shops.”

She jerked, and for a moment he thought that he had actually said something that caught her interest. He sighed when she casually flicked a dust bunny the size of a small dog out from under the console where she was laying.

“Yup. I’ve got you all pegged. Mal shops at Tall & Grumpy, you shop at Armed & Beautiful, and Bester… well, he shops wherever there’s estrogen and a tattoo parlor.”

He wanted to pretend that the slight chuckle he heard wasn’t only in his mind.

“You sure there’s nothing I can help you with?” Wash asked as he leaned forward to get a better view of her legs.

Still no answer.

“Ok, if you don’t say anything I’m going to assume that the captain lost his keys again.”

Zoe stood up, and he looked up at her expectantly. He held his smile when she brushed by him and began to search through the stack of boxes that sat in front of the pilot’s console. Wash allowed himself a moment to pout.

“You know, you’re by far the prettiest wall I’ve ever talked to.” Wash said as he laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair.

Zoe finally finished going through the last box and slowly stalked over to stand before Wash. She crossed her arms and glared down at the colorful man, pleased when he looked a little intimidated.

“Stuff a sock in it Pilot.” She said, and headed down the stairs.

“You’d think that that gorram lip ferret would weigh so much that it would keep his mouth shut.” He heard Zoe mumble under her breath as she turned to walk away.

Wash just smirked and began to revamp his plan on the wooing of the warrior woman… there was no way he was giving up now.

--------------------------------------- 3 years later-----------------------------------------------------

The alarm rang loudly in their quarters and Zoe quickly hurried to turn it off. She smiled, both amused and annoyed that her husband had yet again changed the nice classical music she had chosen for their wake-up call and replaced it with a song having to do something with a yellow submarine. The old-earth song practically screamed “Wash”, so while she would complain about it to her husband, she actually found that it was growing on her… just like him she mused.

Wash, as usual, slept through the alarm and only started to wake up after she pulled all the covers off him.

Zoe’s hand brushed across something odd in the drawer as she was getting dressed and she roughly pulled it out, thinking that Wash had snuck another one his dinosaurs into the cabinet thy shared. What she found instead was quite different.

There were numerous sheets of paper, all with Wash’s messy scrawl on them, that had been wrapped haphazardly with a leather shoelace. One of hers she noted as she rifled through the papers. Most had paragraphs and paragraphs written on them, my Wash never was a man of few words she thought to herself. On several of the sheets she noticed were small sketches, and one looked like a dinosaur eating someone wearing a coat that looked suspiciously like Mal’s. That made her chuckle, she never knew her husband was that talented an artist.

Underneath the drawing was a date, and nothing else. It was several years ago, just after Wash had joined the crew, and the date was insignificant to her. “What happened then?” She asked aloud, trying to recall anything of importance happening on that date.

“Huh?” Wash mumbled as he pulled on his boxers and sleepily walked over to her.

“What’s all this, husband?” Zoe asked, holding up all the papers.

Wash’s eyes got real big and he suddenly seemed very awake. He looked like he was going to say something, but he lunged for the papers instead. Zoe danced out of his way.

“Is this a diary, husband?” Zoe asked, a chuckle in her voice.

“No!” Wash wailed.

Zoe arched an eyebrow and gave him ‘the look’. She watched as his self resolve crumbled, and red appeared in his cheeks.

“It’s a memoir of significant dates.” He coughed and looked away.

She smiled, struck by how he resembled a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Ah… so what significance does this one have?” She asked and held up the sheet with drawing on it.

Wash glanced up and smiled. He had both dreaded and hoped that one day Zoe would stumble across these papers and ask about them.

“You picked my favorite one, Zoey.” He said and kissed her forehead.

They sat back down on the bed and she waited for him to go on. He took her hands in his and got a mischievous grin on his face.

“This was the first time you talked to me.”

Zoe chuckled as she remembered what he was referring to.

“Yup lambie-toes, you had me from ‘stuff it.’’