Title: too soft, too much (fogged up version)
Author: Gin
Summary: He's asleep, or telling himself he's asleep so he might get on with this whole business.
Rating: R
Fandom: Firefly
Warnings: None.
Spoilers: A little for the end of the series. Tiny, though.
Author of original story: "too soft, too much"by shadowen.
He dreams. Or not. He could be awake; he doesn't know. His wits are all fogged, paper crumbling at the edges, and at the same time he knows the sensations of his covers better than he ever thought to before. They wad up against his back, perfumed all spicy and so soft as to be almost the same as good oiled leather.
Not his covers, then. But definitely not hers, either. In all things, in all of the gorram situations this 'verse might see fit to stick him in, he would never, and is not imagining her bed. He tries to think if he's ever actually seen her sheets. No, her bed is always made up perfect, and he's not seen beyond her fancy silk bedspread and the hangings surrounding the whole deal. Never seen her sheets. Much less her in them, wrapped up and naked underneath. It ain't her. He mutters it in his sleep, or his maybe-sleep.
So. He's asleep, or telling himself he's asleep so he might get on with this whole business. Kind of an embarrassing thing to think about or do with the lights on. He should be up at the bridge, or in the kitchen, or checking up on Kaylee, and instead he's laying around in bed. Trying to be asleep. Mal squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on those perfumed sheets, and when he tries hard and long enough, he can smell the phantom of incense smoke.
And the silk. It's everywhere, all over his body, just gracing touches on hers. He ain't felt real, bona fide silk in so many years he'd thought the feeling itself had gone away.
He breathes in the smells and the feel of the silk and her body, lush and smooth. He cups his hand around her breast and thinks -- no, that's too full . Hands crawl up his back as he thrusts, urgent, and he thinks again -- no, there's nothing there and they belong to no one. The legs wrapped around his waist and flexing in time with him, they're too slim and the knees too bony. The skin -- he thinks, it's all wrong.
Mal buries his face in her hair, this imaginary woman. Her skin of her neck is too pale, like milk, and her hair is coarse and in the way of his kissing her. It ain't the genuine article, and he don't like that at all.
When he comes he has to get to it roughly, panting and quick-like. After it's over, he lets the brief moments of dazed exhaustion wash over him. There's so little pleasure in it at the end, Mal observes sourly, that he might not have done it at all. It's all he can gorram afford. It's all he deserves. Mal brings himself to the moment completely, forgetting the smells and the touches his mind thought up. He stands up and gets dressed fast. His mind wanders, embarrassed. He ain't real proud of himself.
Really, he hasn't thought about her since clearing out her shuttle. Well, and that one moment when he imagined her face, her smiling gently as she tended to. Climbing the ladder, ready to work and leave what belonged in his bunk in his gorram bunk, all Mal can think about is what she left behind on Serenity. Doubtful she had the same predicament.
None of it meant a thing in the end, he knows. That's the way it should be.