The infirmary is still a mess.

Book tried to put things right while the crew was on Canton, but the preacher could only guess at the rightful places for things. He'd given the space an appearance of tidiness, true, and Simon appreciates the effort. But now instead of finding the things Jayne threw on the floor and stowing them correctly, he has to hunt.

Still, it probably isn't a bad thing that he isn't having over to retrieve his tools and instruments.

It's not that Simon is feeling any pain. He disapproves of self-medication, generally, but after Kaylee left his quarters he hobbled to the infirmary, and the experience was enough to convince him to make an exception. He's shot full of a neural inhibitor, and even as he feels his muscles tensing in resistance to free movement, there is no corresponding protest from his central nervous system.

His mind falls into almost meditative calm as he sorts through surgical instruments and packets of suture. The only thing Jayne didn't dump out was the pharmaceuticals. He scans the drug fridge dispassionately, making a list of items he needs to restock.

The whole time he's tidying up, part of him is turning over the matter of Kaylee, the relationship on offer there. Not to mention the definitely-not-a-relationship he's having with...

Speak of the devil. Steps behind him, quiet footfalls. Simon knows without turning that it's Wash, because--even drugged--his cock jumps. As if it is a dousing rod and the pilot the only water for miles around.

Inara has become accustomed to her shuttle being used as a refuge of sorts, by Mal and Kaylee both. Each of them running from different things, but SERENITY is a small ship, and crew quarters don't always constitute enough retreat for some psyches.

The same fundamental urge drives Jayne to putter around in the cargo bay sometimes, makes Wash fussily territorial of the bridge, spurs the Shepherd to add homey touches to the galley. Subtly branding the common areas and work spaces of the ship, a process they had all but completed by the time Simon and River came aboard. It's unfortunate--the brother and sister could both use a little more room. Simon has the infirmary, but that's an area too frequently invaded by the suffering of others.

Having considered the rest of the crew her mind turns to Zoe--the one person aboard SERENITY as self-contained as Inara herself--and no sooner has the first mate's name crossed her mind than the woman herself appears, knocking on the shuttle door and actually waiting to see if she'll be invited in.

"Please, Zoe, make yourself at home." She smiles in one of the five most welcoming fashions and is secretly pleased at the result: Zoe takes her at her word, striding inside, giving the dcor a stead once-over and then dropping onto the chaise. She's playing a bit--Inara can see tension lurking under her apparent mildness--but the performance is masterful.

"What brings you to my shuttle?" Without asking Inara pours a cup of the bitter coffee she has been enjoying, handing it over. Zoe sips, brightening appreciatively, and Inara takes in the aesthetics of her lips with pleasure.

She's content to wait until she is halfway through the cup before she speaks. "I'm in the Companion database under the name Lenna Wry. I was hoping you'd take a look at my file."

I don't service crew. For some reason she doesn't speak the obvious words. Instead she glides over to the cortex, armored in professional distance, and says the name. Files pop up, pictures too and she scans quickly. Oh. She relaxes. War injuries. Therapeutic massage. A service only offered, generally, by just-trained Companions... except Zoe would never be able to find one out here.

Other details filter in--the account is inactive, but it was initiated years ago by a third party. Another false name, male. Was it Wash? Or maybe Mal?

She turns back to where Zoe is still sipping quietly. "I take it your back is troubling you?"

"Back, knee, elbow--the whole right side's out, all of a sudden. Haven't done anything to warrant it--I thought we could work a barter. I know on some jobs you like to show up with a bodyguard."

"It's only for show," Inara says, contemplating. There's no harm she can see: Wash isn't the jealous type and Mal would surely support it if he knew.

She taps a few commands into the cortex and her bed lifts itself, folding up at the sides to contain the mattress and covers, then bending to form a therapeutic altar. Drawing out a pair of pale cream sheets, she drapes it and double-locks the shuttle door. "I'll change into something more suitable and have a closer look at your file. When you're ready, get out of your clothes and lie down there."

"Will do," Zoe says, still sipping.

"It's about what they need," Mal tells Jayne. They're in the cargo bay, Jayne's personal retreat.

"Don't make sense," Jayne says, turning his knife over and over in his hands.

Mal shrugs. There's an extent to which he agrees. He understands the dynamics of collective desperation--he's seen it play out close-up and personal--but he ain't convinced the mudders were rational either. A statue of Jayne, for Heaven's sake!

They lean there on the rail, Mal hoping ungraciously that Jayne gets past this right quick. He's got enough incipient nutcases on board now with someone going on and developing a saint complex.

"Mal?"

"Yeah, Jayne?"

"How about you go put on that dress again?"

Mal's jaw drops, just for a second. Out on Beaumond he'd had good cause to trip home to the boat in drag, and before he could change back to his pants, Jayne had up and pinched him.

Mal had slapped him for getting fresh--they were playing, or so he'd thought--but Jayne had grabbed him by the arms and kissed Mal so hard his knees had quaked. Had kissed back, even. If his wig hadn't come off a moment later, who knows how far they might have gone? Mal gets giddy in a skirt, but he can't hold the illusion together unless the costume's intact. The wig fell off and they went their separate ways.

"We blew out the seams on my sleeves," he says now.

Jayne, still just a hint of a brood on his face, replies: "Got you one that fits. S'in your quarters, bottom of that pile you call a desk. Just waitin' for a day like this."

"Day like this what?"

"This crappy. So how about it?"

It's the matter-of-fact voice that gets to Mal. His cock twangs with an enthusiastic 'yes' even as he tries to decide if Jayne--straightforward simple Jayne--has really got his number so precisely. Or is it just Jayne's current need to forget what happened on Canton conveniently meshes with Mal's own desires...

"You bought me a dress," he says, by way of delaying.

"Cut to fit. And don't tell me you ain't wanting one, neither."

"You know, Jayne, I had me a platoon once suddenly started hooking up in couples. One or two at first, and then bam, it was like a chain reaction. Everyone was in love. And you know, it didn't end well."

"Who said anything about love?" Jayne squints. "First place, I ain't the one shoving Simon and Kaylee at each other. Secondly, it ain't a wedding dress I bought you. I'm not looking to... I'm talking about ruttin... about ruttin'."

"Simon and Kaylee are a tactical necessity," Mal says, and then regrets it. But Jayne doesn't ask questions, just glowers at him, the way he does sometimes. Mal remembers kissing him, a couple days back, his skirt brushing his ankles, the lips on his hard and artless.

"Go put the dress on, Mal," Jayne growls, and after a second Mal turns on his heel and makes for his quarters. He's sauntering, though, in no hurry.

A girl's got to show some dignity.

"I wanted to see if you were okay," Wash says.

"No you didn't." The infirmary is circled in windows but there's a scrub and shower-station aft. Still feeling floaty, Simon opens the steel door to that room. He can barely feel the cold steel of the door handle against his palm and fingers.

Wash avoids looking at the surgical bed as he slips across the infirmary, stepping inside. Simon follows, closing the door. The room is a narrow slot with two sinks, a head, and a shower--each wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair.

Wash takes Simon's face gently, kissing the contusions on his forehead and cheekbone before working his way down the neck and then, delicately, edging off his shirt. With the neural inhibitor at work, Simon barely feels any of it.

He's in just the wrong mood for this. Too aware that he's let his feelings get engaged, too bruised to deny he's getting far too attached to this man. He captures the wayward hands, laying them against his chest, and looks steadily into Wash's eyes until the other man looks away, shaken. He's easy to read--under the veneer of sexual confidence is a hurting, needy, guilt-ridden man. One who's getting worse, not better.

One who will never belong to me, Simon thinks.

But he reaches up anyway, unzipping the orange flightsuit, peeling it off Wash in a smooth, almost clinical sweep of his hands. It bunches down at his ankles and Simon lets his own shirt fall away to join it on the floor. He unbuckles his belt, unfastens his pants, and drops them too.

Wash's cock is hard. The rest of him barely moves. Inadvertently, Simon has trapped him: he wants to lead, not follow, but he's a fundamentally gentle person. The marks Jayne's ape-pal Stitch left on Simon's body make it impossible for Wash to play rough.

"My turf," Simon reminds him now. "I fuck you."

Wash half-nods, hands fisting against Simon's chest. "You're bleeding," he replies. "I don't think..."

Gaze firm, Simon leads him to the shower.

Inara can't resist having a peek at the second-party file, Zoe's sponsor. There's no photo but the account's a family one from a populous settlement. Wash then, not Mal. It occurs to her that she's probably looking at his real name.

She is surprised to see three Companions, two of them male, have been with Wash. Few if any clients attract the interest of more than one Companion unless there has been a retirement from the registry, a death. Or a compelling need to keep someone under a certain type of surveillance, she muses, but of course the file won't offer any details on that unless she requests them.

Back to Zoe. Inara's massage days were long ago, and she has to dig for the appropriate bodysuit, a pale blue sheath she hasn't worn since she was nineteen. She mixes a drop of relaxant in with the usual oils and returns to find the first mate nude and properly draped, rolling her head back and forth as if her neck is bothering her too.

"Shall we begin?"

Zoe nods, eyes clenched shut. Without her clothes, the underlying stress that is wrenching her body out of true is visible, less easily contained.

Placing her hand on the neck until Zoe stops moving it, Inara starts to rub.

Zoe's skin is smooth and supple--everything you'd expect just by looking at her--and there's little between it and the muscle layer. Here and there white scar tissue mars the expanse of her back. Nicks for the most part--shrapnel cuts--but one larger tear and a surgical scar too.

Inara assesses the depth of each injury site as her hands work through a preliminary circuit. Eyes closed, jaw loose, Zoe's face is unreadable. Her body hides nothing.

"You ought to try to relax," Inara murmurs. The resultant release in the body under her hands is fractional at best.

That's all right. The oils will get to her eventually. Inara picks a knot and starts working it.

Small things about massage are coming back to her. The anatomical puzzlework of the bare body, placed in a context outside of sex and seduction. The careful rationing of the strength in her hands, the concentration required to draw wordless feedback from the woman beneath her. Deciding how hard to dig at each area of tension.

Even choosing vocabulary for the session--whether to speak about the troubled areas in terms of the raw mechanics of bone and alignment, or to choose the more ephemeral language of energy blockages and ki.

None of which really touches on the real work. The tricky part is going to be addressing the underlying problem, but that is the part of a Companion's task where Inara is both a true genius and not out of practice at all.

Start far away from the center with this one, she thinks, work in. A nice safe question. She murmurs: "Zoe, do you ever dance?"

When Jayne buys a dress, it turns out he doesn't mess around. Mal finds himself looking at a cream and plum affair in brushed cotton, wide around the shoulders, narrow at the waist but flared. The skirt is very full, acres of fabric. It isn't lace trimmed or anything silly like that, just double-stitched at the hems in a pleasing but simple fashion.

My dress. My new dress. Just trying out the phrases gives Mal the beginnings of a hard-on, more so because Jayne didn't stop there but invested in a pair of underbloomers too.

Both garments sit there pretty much begging Mal to put them on, but he hangs back a pace. There's a clear trajectory here: if he suits up in this improbable uniform that Jayne--Jayne, of all men!--has bought him, well...

Crudely, he'll be expected to put out.

Hell, if he puts them on he'll want to put out. He already wants to, and Wash and Simon are maybe having an affair and Kaylee is making eyes at the boy too. Plus, Lord help them all, he thinks he's seen River with a look on her face that says she's got smut on her mind... Does Mal really need to add more sex to SERENITY's mix?

Yes, his body replies. Dammit, when did he actually take the bloomers in hand? They are incredibly soft; he has no idea what they're made of. And his cock is practically reaching for them.

"Hell," Mal breathes, and he unships his suspenders.

"Am I still bleeding?" They are in the shower now, Simon and Wash, standing together under a dispirited spray of warm water that is awakening Simon's skin despite the drug. His various injuries twinge in time with his pulse.

"No," Wash says softly, looking him over. With his hair wet he looks younger, his eyes bigger. They have their arms around each other, loose hoops, both of them a little tentative. Small droplets have beaded on the hair on Wash's forearms, and Simon runs a hand over them in a line, feeling the liquid gather and roll over his fingers.

Now he reaches up, pressing Wash back a little so he is braced against the shower wall, letting his other hand drop to Wash's wet cock. His mouth twitches at the thought of sucking him again, but Simon has reached a decision of sorts; he's made other plans. He pulls, slow and sweet, and once he's sure he's utterly in control of them both he leans in to nuzzle Wash's jawline, his ear. He's kissing harder than he might normally but he's still numb, still just coming out of the drug, and the pressure of his lips, dully felt on his end, is making Wash tremble.

Simon pumps him and nibbles there, pushing harder when Wash turns away slightly. The cock in his hand becomes ever more rigid as warm water runs down Simon's back, tickling the insides of his thighs.

"No teeth," Wash whispers, and Simon remembers suddenly that Niska's torturer was a biter. He pulls his fangs in, lets out the tongue instead. Still forceful as he plays it over Wash's lips before pushing past teeth. Wash makes a high, surprised noise and grabs for the safety bar.

Still holding him against the shower wall, but using the weight of his shoulder now, Simon lets his free hand roam over Wash's ribs, down to his ass. His hand works around to the cleft between the buttocks and as he digs in there he tightens up on Wash's cock, all the while driving kisses into him, tongue-fucking his mouth as his fingers push against Wash's ass and his own hard-on presses Wash's hipbones, as his hand strokes and Wash's knees buckle a little and they both breathe steam: Simon in random, convulsive gulps, Wash in long shuddering near-sobs that hint he's about to come.

The underdrawers are a two-piece thing--a camisole whose fabric is electrically cool against Mal's nipples and a flimsy set of tap panties that are loose at the bottom. Easy to push them aside without removing them, he observes as he slides them up to stretch over his hard-on. A coin-sized smear of pre-cum marks them at once. The fabric is...

Up in the corridor that leads to the bridge, he can hear heavy steps treading his way. Cutting off his contemplation of his cock in the panties, Mal wriggles into the dress. He tingles all over as the skirt falls into place and he fumbles the buttons with suddenly clumsy fingers. The wig he inherited by default on Beaumond doesn't quite match the dress but he slips it on anyway, tucking his hair underneath as best he can. Already the portal to his quarters is clunking open and Jayne is descending the ladder.

Catching a glimpse of himself in his shaving mirror, Mal starts to come over all lightheaded. Little curls of air tickle up through the skirt, scattering his wits further.

"Ain't you a sight?" Jayne grins.

He tries out a curtsey, frowning as it comes out clumsy. Have to work on that.

"Fits good, don't it?"

Speaking softly, he replies. "Fits just right, Jayne."

"Try moving your arms around. No problem with the shoulders this time?"

"Nope." Mal complies, circling first his right, then his left... and suddenly Jayne has closed the space between them, is catching Mal's hips and pulling him close.

"Gonna slap me again, girl?"

"Nuh uh," Mal answers. Girl. He's suddenly breathless.

Jayne kisses him.

There's a lone gentle kiss and then Jayne is all over him, arms closing tight around Mal like steel cable, mouth hard against his lips, the weighty bulge of a hard cock pushing against his skirt.

Fast. This is gonna go fast, Mal thinks, and parts of his mind seem to fuse as Jayne's hand rubs over his ass, pulling the skirt so it slides up and down over the fabric of the panties. There's a faint mudder smell--a leftover from their visit to Canton--coming off one or both of them as Jayne's stubbled chin rasps over Mal's face and the skirt he's only just put on is hitching up, fistful by fistful. His knee is exposed, rubbing against Jayne's pants and Mal is only half aware he's on his bed now, his legs nudged open, before Jayne's weight comes down atop him.

He kisses back, digs at Jayne's T-shirt with his fists, arches back as Jayne grunts and thrusts against his own silk-clad hard-on. Legs practically up in the air now as Jayne's hands work under the dress, one long grope at the soft layer against his skin before he pushes Mal's legs even wider. The fullness of the skirt obscures any view he might have, but Mal hears a zipper.

He starts to rise up some then, but Jayne's bearing down against that, hot lips on his cheek, his mouth. His hand, wet with something, is pushing Mal's drawers aside pretty much the way he imagined, homing right in on his ass. Two blunt fingers drive in all the way, no preamble, and Mal goes rigid with joy, shock and transient pain. Jayne just shoves harder, in and out and by the second stroke Mal's breathed through it, he's curling back against the fingers, marveling at the penetration. Every nerve in the world seems to be clamped around Jayne's fingers as they stroke, stroke, stroke...

... and pull out. Fast, another shock and Mal hears himself half-whimpering in frustration and loss until the movement below skirts registers. Jayne is repositioning.

Emotional geyser within that is equal parts need, lust and fear as the big snub head of Jayne presses where the fingers were seconds before.

And then Jayne thrusts into him, hard. A few short bucks of his hips drive him so far inside that Mal's body twists unconsciously, at a loss for how to deal with such a total invasion. Sighing, gratified, Jayne holds him like chains, rocking his hips and then pushing a loose fold of the skirt against Mal's face, stroking his cheek with the cloth while sliding his other hand under everything so he can tweak each of Mal's nipples. Mal's trying to ride with it, to steady in, but Jayne has no real rhythm. Quick in and out follows slow hard shoves in no particular order and all Mal knows is he's overloaded, he's being fucked by his own hired madman and the cotton on his one cheek, the fake red hair on the other and Jayne's muttering at him too--girl, give it me, girl, give it and he can't do anything but. So he moves, sometimes with, sometimes involuntarily against, and he cries out a little with every burning good thrust of Jayne inside him.

Helpless to do anything but feel it and Mal's back arches again as he comes, his own cock molten and spraying jizz into the confinement of the panties only to feel it trickling down onto himself, down toward his balls while Jayne's oiled and hammering cock continues to piston inside him.

Still coming. Feels like an explosion in an airlock; he's blown away. The release--physical, mental, emotional--is so huge he has to bite his lips to stop a noise that might be a laugh or a sob. And now Jayne's bending to kiss him--hard of course--and the beat of his hips is finally starting to steady. Mal works his hands around to Jayne's shoulders and bucks, moaning, moves into the heat and friction of Jayne's pounding for what seems like forever, like no time at all.

And now who's gasping for breath, driving in harder, a few last thrusts that are all force and tearing and yet somehow satisfying? Mal feels Jayne's orgasm in the spasm of back muscles under his grasping fingers, in the huff of released breath against his neck, in the liquid heat of jizz captured in his depths, trapped around the head of the cock still buried deep inside.

"Dance," Zoe repeats, as if the word is one she's never heard before.

"Yes," Inara says. She has worked her way down from the neck to the space between Zoe's shoulderblades. The longest of the surgical marks is here, indicating lung work perhaps. There's a mass of subcutaneous scarring which hides an even tighter muscle. Her hands work at that point, as she watches carefully for a reaction. This is one client, if you can call her that, who won't speak up if Inara is hurting her. "You're strong, graceful, I know you like music. Do you dance?"

"Not usually."

"You move like a dancer at times."

"Just move like I know how to fight is all."

"The disciplines aren't unrelated," Inara muses. She's seen plenty of martial artists at their kata over the years. She continues her work in silence for a moment, waiting to see if Zoe will speak without prodding.

She does. "Guess I dance more now than I did. Since..."

"Since your marriage?" The knot under her hand jumps, tries to tighten. Inara teases it loose again, applying more oil, more pressure. Her pale fingers circle and press on dark skin, bumping over the hard line of the scar.

"Reckon so," Zoe says.

"You didn't dance on Beaumond," she observes softly.

"He said his shoulder hurt."

He. Wash. They've gotten to him more quickly than Inara might have expected. "His shoulder hurt because of what happened to him?"

"Worst damage was in the shoulder," she sighs. "At least we got him off the boat."

The muscle relents, responding to oil and continued urging. Inara moves her attention down the spine a fraction. "Have you talked about it?"

That earns her a puzzled expression, which clears quickly. "You weren't on the ship. I forgot."

"Forgot?"

"We talked," Zoe says. "You're about the only one missed it."

"Missed... you mean you fought."

"Thought it was all we needed," Zoe says, her voice loosening finally. She's beginning to relax. Getting her talking was probably the hardest part. "Hash it out, have words..."

"Has that always worked before?"

"Every time."

"Maybe bigger problems take more... hashing."

Zoe rolls her head in a negative shake. "He's keeping something from me."

Wash comes.

Simon's hand is wringing him dry, long inexorable pulls that drive him over an edge he's been trying to back away from, a grip more aggressive than the doctor's gentle sucking and the openness of his throat. It's good, of course--he's shuddering and spraying jizz all over the shower, seeing it spatter the walls and then mix in with the water, washing down. His legs are unsteady, coltish, and he can't help moaning even though it echoes in here, seems unwisely loud.

Good, but not really what he came here for. Simon's appeal has always been his gentleness, his innocence and willingness to let Wash take the lead.

Not today, though, and Wash has only himself to blame. He'd promised Simon a fuck in the infirmary, and while Wash can't pretend he hasn't broken a few promises in his time (thou shalt not commit adultery, for example) he can't find anywhere to put his hands on Simon to turn things around. Not with the knife-cut on his forearm, the boot prints everywhere, the bruised face.

His body, clearly a traitor, curves toward Simon's cock as the doctor braces himself against a wheelchair guide and pulls him close.

"Lube," Simon says, pointing. "Over there."

Horny and conflicted, Wash hands him the bottle. Like all the things in the infirmary, it is in a white and blue plastic container. Medical lube.

"What do you think Wash could be hiding?" Inara runs her hands down Zoe's spine, stopping just above the curve of her rump.

Zoe answers immediately. "Drugs. Simon's giving him something so he can deal."

"You know this?"

Reluctantly: "No."

"Tell me why you think it, then," Inara says, hiding sudden disquiet.
 

Ravished. That's the first word that comes when Mal's language center comes back on line. It's got a pleased-sounding plumpness to it, sassy, self-satisfied. Raaavished.

It's followed quickly by another word. Leaving. Leaving?

"You going?" he says, as Jayne heaves up off of him, planting one last kiss on his chin and zipping his cock out of sight before Mal even got a decent look at it.

"Yep." Jayne gives him a wink and then a sort of half-assed salute, climbing the ladder and then stopping for a second. "In a second, anyway. Someone's up there."

It takes some effort to sit up. He's sore in places he's never been sore before, and a good many besides where he has been. His backbone feels like someone tossed it in a taffy machine and his lips are throbbing. His cock's happy, singing sleepily, but back of it there's a whole mess of startled and maybe a little torn-up tissue that isn't so sure what it thinks.

He feels good though: lighter, a little like he did the day he got his own platoon. A kid who didn't know yet that he'd be leaving them, all but Zoe, in Serenity Valley. It's like Jayne has blasted away some of the interior rust that permeates the machinery of his soul.

"You could stay," he says, not sure it's the right thing.

"And do what? Cuddle? Told you, it ain't a wedding dress."

"Right," he says, and he's even relieved. "You're right."

"Put that in cold water or it'll stain." With that, Jayne scuttles up and out of his cabin, closing him inside. Leaving Mal to clean up the things that have fallen on the floor, not to mention his soiled dress and underdrawers. Even the sheets are smeared pink-red here and there.

"Isn't that just like a man," Mal asks his wig-askew reflection in the shaving mirror, and he's surprised when the red-head in the rumpled dress laughs in response.

Kaylee's in the engine room, just in the act of wishing for a third hand when suddenly she's got one, sorta. River has materialized out of nowhere and clamped her little fist over the tubing Kaylee has been trying to hold out of the way. She's been doing this, off and on, for a while now. Showing up, helping out. Doing the right thing without being asked. She's wearing the red and white dress, as usual, and her face is a little flushed. She looks just a little like Simon.

"Thanks," Kaylee says, and puts her own two hands to work tightening the control valves beyond the tubing. "You can let go now."

And River does, but eerily enough she reaches into SERENITY's guts and pushes wires out of the way, revealing a cracked circuit panel that has to go, has to go right now. Her eyes meet Kaylee's for what is maybe the first time; she smiles shyly.

"It's broken?"

"Yeah. Hold 'er there, I'll be right back." Kaylee scurries out to the supply pile and grabs a replacement, makes the swap. When she pulls back, she brushes River's hair. River's hand comes up fast, but not to push her away. Her fingers clamp around Kaylee's wrist and her eyes search the mechanic's face. Looking away, Kaylee notices her dress is open at the top, just enough so she can see the curve of breasts, the space in between.

"Don't look," River whispers, her voice--is she teasing? "It's inappropriate."

"You are teasing."

Faint strain in the soft voice. "I don't tease."

River's fingers are warm on her arm and Kaylee can't help smiling as she looks into the tight, intense face. "You ever swear, River?"

The response is a pithy--and filthy--string of Chinese words. River darts closer, presses her lips to Kaylee's in a long shivery kiss while pulling the trapped hand against her dress, against the knot of a nipple.

And then suddenly she's gone, trotting toward the passenger dorms, leaving only her laugh and a smell of something like popcorn in her wake.

"You call that not teasin'?" Kaylee shouts after her, but a second later she hears footsteps, someone headed her way.

You might say Wash is waking up.

Simon's hands on his body still feel great--really great--and he's both willing and excited as he turns to let Simon fuck him. Desire is still what drives him, no doubt about that. But for the first time since this...

*... affair, call it an affair already, what else could it be?... *

...began, there's a germination of doubt within him, a seed of wrongness. A consciousness of Zoe and his obligations that usually vanishes when he's alone with Simon. This time it won't go away.

Not that it's enough to make him stop. Simon's presence--the nude cock-hard thereness of him--is still a balm to Wash's otherwise too-active mind.

His hands are cupping Wash's ass even now, rubbing circles from his backbone down to his hip and up again. Closing in with his thumbs, he presses gently on his opening, pushing only as hard as it takes to make Wash buck before sliding up to his shoulder again, urging him downward.

He kneels in the double-wide shower, disliking the hardness of the tiles under his knees as he grips the bench-thing placed there for patients who can't stand on their own. Canting his butt back toward the cock that he knows is waiting for him. This isn't at all what he had in mind when he slipped off to the infirmary--he'd been thinking of pinning Simon against the treatment couch and fucking him senseless--but it has been a long time since Wash had a cock up inside him. His body--independent of the frail misgivings taking root in his heart--is determined not to squander the opportunity.

He turns his face upward into the cascade of sterile-smelling hot water. Simon is an unknown quantity behind him, breathing oddly because--Wash thinks--of his injuries. It's not how he usually sounds when he's turned on.

"If you're not feeling up to this..." He says it reluctantly, words fueled by a mixture of concern, sort-of gallantry and a small idea of backing out after all.

"Oh, I'm up," Simon says in a voice that is almost grim and he moves, and the water pressure kicks up higher and what happens next isn't what he thought it would be at all. It's surprising, sexy, guilt-inducing, nothing like it was in his days as a single man, maybe even a little scary. And good, so good that Wash comes again.

And after, when they've stood and rinsed and not looked each other in the face, Simon turns off the shower, and hands him a towel. He kisses him once and says a few words, addressing them to their bare and water-wrinkled feet, but with a surprising amount of steel in his voice.

Inara's hands are stronger than Zoe would have guessed and as a body tech she is uncompromising. She doesn't let go of Zoe's troublesome joints until each of them has been tamed, and by that time every muscle in the vicinity of a problem area is pulsing, feeling like it has been dehydrated, pounded to powder and then reconstituted as jelly.

Be interesting to see if she takes that approach to sex, Zoe thinks, but the speculation goes no further than a wayward idea, a single sexualized ripple through her body that discharges as soon as it's reached her edges.

She's face up now, her breasts covered by a thin sheet, speaking to the ceiling. Offering up her meager supply of evidence that Simon is drugging Wash. It sounds ridiculous when the words hit atmosphere but the crush of small hands working at her hip don't falter. Inara doesn't contradict or debate; if anything she grows quieter.

He's sneaky about when he goes to the infirmary, Zoe says. He won't say when he's gone unless I ask. He has these periods, after, when he's ice-cold and far away.

She feels and hears a crack in the hip and keeps talking as Inara manipulates the joint, feeling for resistance before settling it back on the table and working down to the knee. She tells about the kidnapping, how he'd been covered in pinpricks and red lines, like scratches but beneath the skin, when Simon let him out of the infirmary.

The weirdest thing is the way he's normal most of the time. Then with the suddenness of a gut wound, he's a stranger. It makes her edgy even when things are good; always waiting for him to turn. And when she relaxes her guard... he cut her off at the knees the one time she tried to talk about war, about combat-stress.

"What did you fight about?" the Companion says, and Zoe realizes she has fallen silent.

"Mal," Zoe says. "Lots of things. I went off with the Cap'n on Beaumond. Found something wrong we felt we had to put right. Wash felt... abandoned. Three weeks of 'leave me alone, woman' and when I go and do it..." She lets that go with a sigh. She screwed up; it's her mistake to make right. "We fought about kids and settling somewhere and my meeting his family. We fought about me and Mal and the way Cap'n and I decide to do things and Jayne's taste in music... I don't know what-all else..."

Another crack, down by her patella. A sense of rightness flows through her from knee to scalp.

"You done?"

"Don't try to get up just yet," Inara says. Zoe hadn't taken it in mind to move at all.

"He's himself almost all the time and an alien the rest," she mumbles. "It's not how it went. On the field, I mean--it's different."

"It would be. What happened to him is different," Inara says. "And he's not like most people anyway."

"Yeah," she drawls. Her whole body is liquid now. "Are we done?"

"You're realigned," Inara says. "You ought to stay put for thirty minutes so your muscles can acclimate."

Doctor talk. "Uh huh," Zoe agrees, letting herself doze.

She barely notices when Inara steps out of the shuttle.

She passes Kaylee on the way. The engineer is humming, happy, and for a moment Inara wants to stop, shake her if necessary and warn her off Simon. But that would involve explanations, and the ship is too small already. It can't hold the kind of secret she suspects is lurking in their crew of nine. Tucked away like a loaded gun, waiting to go off.

She passes Jayne, too, and his jaunty walk says it all: he has forgotten all about that boy Zoe mentioned, the one who died on Canton. He's pretty pleased with himself too, in fact--he even tips her a wink. He must have gotten laid while he was on shore.

Even in her current state of--let's face it--fury, Inara spares a moment to make herself be glad he's feeling better. She would have thought the lesson wouldn't fade so quickly, even with Jayne. Still, she doesn't wish him ill.

Simon on the other hand... what could he be thinking?

Now she's at the infirmary. Simon is inside, moving like a robot, sorting through spilled drawers and mismatched tools. There's a deep cut on his arm that is bleeding sluggishly and his hair is wet. His face is drawn, his eyes shiny. He looks at her blankly.

It takes the wind out of her sails, seeing him like that. She'd come to tear a strip of him but now...

Inara picks up a roll of bandages off the floor with one hand, gropes for a roll of tape with the other. "Your arm," she says coldly, in the fourth not-to-be-denied voice, gesturing toward the surgical couch. Head down he shuffles over to it, leaning with the injury extended for her to wrap.

She lays the gauze over the gash. It's deep--it could use stitching--but she supposes there's no way for him to do the job one-handed and there are limits to even her training, so she winds it up, bandaging from wrist to elbow and back again. "If Mal finds out about you and Wash, he'll kick you and River off SERENITY," she says.

Simon flinches, and when he speaks, his voice is soft and high, just a thread. "Think he does know."

"Why would he let you stay?"

"Why did he take us on in the first place?" He shrugs, and then looks like he's sorry he did it.

"You should take something for the pain."

"It wore off." He looks away, blinking, and then she sees him summon up the courage to speak. "Don't worry, Inara. It's over. I gave him his walking papers."

After a long time Zoe decides the Companion isn't coming back. After an even longer time, she decides she's not so pulverized she can't stand.

She gets to her feet, stunned by the lack of pain in the joints on her bad side. A concussion blast tossed her twenty-five feet into a holding wall at Serenity Valley. By a miracle nothing broke, but her whole body goes wrong there sometimes. Now suddenly she's back to fighting strength.

"Thanks, honey," she murmurs. Companion techniques set her straight every time.

On impulse she slides over to the cortex, hits the command reverse button. Inara's bed unfolds out of its treatment configuration. She spends a moment tucking the blankets down so it looks like nothing has been disturbed. Spends another just touching things. Eight hundred different kinds of soft fabric in this place. The other Companion she used to see, once of a time, had a dedicated room for muscle therapy.

While she's snooping, she takes a whiff of all Inara's various teas, thinks about helping herself to a bit of the Turkish coffee. Doesn't, of course.

Her eye falls on the bowl of massage oil and she picks it up, swirling a finger in it. At least a cup remaining in its porcelain depths, and it'll just get tossed. She decides to take it with her, clean the bowl and return it later.

Oil in hand, Zoe steps out of the shuttle and returns to her quarters.

Her husband is waiting.

Since the fight they've been trying harder and failing more: things are strained, and she hasn't known why. There's no reason why it should be different now. But he's sitting in the light cast by a single candle, bunched up the way he always gets...

*...used to get, before the kidnapping...*

... when he's upset. When he's upset and he wants to be reached. His face is pinched but his expression isn't far away. He's here, finally, right here in the room with her, and his eyes come up and meet hers and don't skate away. At last, at long last, he's letting her see something there besides the ice of yawning distance or the banked fires of anger.

His hair is wet, and that's something she forgot to tell Inara--the washing up at odd hours. But everything else looks... familiar. Looks good.

She's been fooled before, though.

Which doesn't mean she can get away with not trying. Zoe folds down their bed, pulls back the thin coverlet, and sets the bowl of oil within easy reach. "Come here, baby," she says, and she doesn't know if he can see that she feels she might break if he won't, if he leaves or makes an excuse about going to the bridge or even just looks away.

But Wash stands. His face turns quicksilver, running through fifty emotions at once, the way it's meant to, the way she loves. Sadness, relief, joy, guilt, bafflement and everything else. Zoe has to fight to hold the tears in as he takes her outstretched hand, slipping out of his flightsuit and letting her draw him into bed.

"No teeth, okay?" he says as she oils up her hands.

"Whatever you say," Zoe agrees, and then he blows out the candles, and she doesn't have to hold her face steady anymore. Bringing her hands to his flesh she lets herself know, at long last, that it's going to be okay.

--end--