Oh Joy Sex Toy
A gift fic for clumsythief
Serenity jerked and juddered, a deep shiver of uncertainty shaking through its frame as it lurched into the atmosphere. Normally, Mal wouldn't even notice a bit of turbulence here and there, but when the ship heeled over with a groan like a sick cow, he spilled out of his bunk and onto the cold, unforgiving deck.
That was hard to ignore. Mostly since they weren't supposed to arrive at Juno for another two days.
"Gorram it Wash," he growled into the com, trying to coax his sore nose back into place, "What in the seven hells is goin' on with my boat?"
He knew it was bad when Wash's overly cheerful voice piped back, "Just a little...uh," another wail from the ship, "just a little...you know, we're gonna have to put down for a bit, here. We should—we can, we can make the grottoes on Aphrodite. I'll just let everyone know to uh, whoops!"
Serenity dropped so fast Mal actually hit the ceiling. His nose popped audibly as he kissed the decking again.
"Wash!"
"Everyone hang on," he was making a general announcement, "because we're gonna be making a...faster than usual approach planet-side. Thanks!"
Three minutes later, they touched down. Three seconds afterwards, a fire broke out in the engine room.
()()()
"Do we have any idea how long this will take?" Inara's gentle, modulated voice was fraying around the edges, and she barely spared a glance up from the ruins of her delicate porcelain tea set, "You assured me six days on Juno, and—"
"And you had six eligible clients booked on each day, I know," he replied, hiding his chagrin behind a more sardonic grin than usual. "I'm sorry on their account, but the intake draft is jammed but good. Wash can't get liftoff until it's cleared."
He needn't have bothered hiding his shame; Inara was too busy salvaging the remains of her shuttle's lavish décor to do much else than snap:
"Well, maybe I should go talk to Kaylee then, since you're not interested in helping me and you can't tell me when we'll be getting off this rock," she rose abruptly, crunching china underfoot. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were narrowed, flashing.
Mal swallowed. Seeing Inara angry was a rare treat, but he did feel guilty all the same.
"Excuse me," she swept past him and off towards the engine room, a phoenix in red and gold robes.
He followed.
"Aphrodite's full of salvage yards," he said, threading his thumbs through his belt loops to keep himself from helping Inara over the fallen piping on the catwalk. A man shouldn't seem too eager to help a woman who doesn't want anything to do with him, after all. "Shouldn't take us more than a day to find what we need, get airborne again. Of all the planets to have a crash—an interesting landing," good save, "this is a lucky one."
"If it's all the same to you, Captain," she replied, not mollified in the least, "I'd rather hear that from your mechanic. We both know it wouldn't bother you at all to have me break my contracts...again."
That last bit had not been meant for his ears. But he heard it all the same.
Mal swallowed again. An innocent man would leap to his own defense. A guilty man would turn her unspoken accusation of jealousy back on her. He couldn't do either.
Betwixt and between was a damned uncomfortable place to be.
()()()
"I've already got a list for you, Cap'n," Kaylee brandished a oil-streaked piece of paper at him from underneath the engine, "Nothin' too rare, but if we could spare a day here..." she wiggled out from under and blinked at Inara, "Hey, you! Everything okay? Sorry I couldn't give you warning to fasten anything down, but the intake valve gave out so fast—oh, no, and you've got so many pretty things in your shuttle—" she looked ready to cry.
"Mei guanxi, meimei," Inara replied, smiling. She knelt down, careful to keep her dress from the trickles of oil that dripped from the engine casing. "You got us on the ground in one piece. That's all that matters." She stroked Kaylee's greasy cheek and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Nobody could have kept us flying but you."
Kaylee blushed. Mal did too—he loved the way Inara smiled at her 'little sister'—but thank all the powers in the 'Verse no one was looking at him.
"I know you had plans on Juno, but...Cap'n," as she looked his way he cleared his throat and set his brow firm; he hadn't been smiling, no way, this was a serious situation, "If we could spare a day or two for some salvage...we really need some new compression coils. Intake's nothin' but a few hours to repair now we're on the ground, but if those coils give out, we'll be dead in the water."
"Well, I don't wanna keep our lady waitin', especially since you told me those coils were good for another few months. So we'll look around, but the minute we're good to go, we go."
Kaylee sighed, but nodded. Long experience had taught her that getting between Mal and Inara was as pointless and dangerous as getting between two dogs and their bone. "Then get goin'," she flopped backwards and slid under the engine again.
()()()
"I don't think this shop sells filters, Mal."
"I'm thinkin' you might be right," he replied.
The shop hadn't looked like anything particular from the outside. Then again, nothing on Aphrodite looked like much from the outside. Every store, shack, and hovel sold pretty much the same assortment of old parts, cheap brick-a-brack, and vacuum-sealed rations. Then again, Mal should have remembered that Aphrodite was on the major passenger circuit from the core to the outer rings.
It was Kaylee's fault, being so hung up on those damned compression coils. This was what Mal got for trying to be good to his crew.
The air was heavy with patchouli, sandalwood, and musk. What little sunlight filtered through the grimy windows was stained scarlet by silk hangings. There was barely room to move between elegantly carved teak tables covered with...
He was blushing again—or maybe just suffocating from lack of clean air, he couldn't tell—but certainly no one could see in this den.
"Yeah, nothing we need here...let's go," he turned, nearly knocking over a jade Buddha with the sack of parts on his back.
"Just a moment,"
Gorram it, he could hear the smirk in her voice.
"You've gotten everything you need, but I could use a thing or two myself," Inara glanced at him from the corner of one lined eye. She picked up a smooth carving of—that was not a carving...at least, not an ornamental one—and turned it idly, running her finger over the lined wood. "And a pair of strong arms to help me carry them."
He tried—and failed, of course he failed, but he was doing the best he could—to keep a straight face.
"Is this why you tagged along? Because if you wanted to embarrass me—"
"Oh for goodness' sake, Mal," and now she laughed, and he was lost because she almost never broke character like this; never laughed at him or with him, and there she was, laughing until she clutched her sides, "You are such a prude! You can stay right here if you want and save your virgin eyes, but all I want is a new tea set. And maybe some incense; something smells lovely here."
"How can you tell?" he muttered. But he followed her anyway.
Of course he did.
()()()
In short order Inara had skillfully accumulated a small mountain of stores at the register. The bone-white tea set was joined by two large, dusty tins of oolong, a marble set of Chinese checkers, several bolts of embroidered fabric, boxes of jasmine incense, and a rounded porcelain flute shaped like a chestnut.
"You want me to get Wash to run the mule out here?" Mal griped, not swayed even when Inara played a short, sweet melody on said flute to test the sound. "I ain't no cart horse."
"If you like, but please don't worry," she replied without batting an eye, "I plan on carrying most of this myself; no one who knew you would call you as careful as a horse in any case. I have no desire to lose another tea set."
"Yeah, well," he muttered. Then, embarrassed over how much he'd been muttering, "We gonna be much longer? We're cutting our time here short on your account anyway."
"Ten more minutes," she said, "I just need to see what's in the back room."
"Back room?"
She smiled. "You should probably stay here. I doubt there's anything back there you'd want to see."
He humphed. But he followed her.
()()()
"What in Calypso's soggy swampy sinkholes is that?"
Inara held the carving carefully between two fingers and frowned. "I have no idea," she said, brow furrowed. She turned it another way, and shrugged. "I've never even seen pictures of anything like this in the archives. It's fascinating."
"That's one word for it," he admitted.
The device seemed to be made of bone, or some wood that was as pale and aged as bone. About as wide around as the average—well—it also clamped together with several screws to increase the circumference if necessary. On the inside of the cage were rounded bumps set at irregular intervals.
It took all Mal's self-control not to imagine what those bumps would feel like on his...
Well.
He cleared his throat, loud enough that Inara looked over. The glint of curiosity in her eyes did not make him feel any less flustered.
So he blurted the first thing that came into his head. "You sure that belongs back here? Maybe it's just a pretty box to keep your bananas from getting smashed."
"Maybe," her lips drew tight and her dimples deepened and if she laughed at him now he was going to spontaneously combust, "It does look like it would hold the average...banana. Maybe it's a relic from Earth-that-was," Inara looked back at the thing again, "or based off a design from it. I can't believe something like this wouldn't be in the archives, though. I'll send a wave to the head archivist on Sihnon; maybe she can tell us what it is."
"Just for the record," he put in, "I don't really care. Doesn't look like anything very...interesting anyway."
"Hmm," Inara nodded sagely, "Still. There are many things in this world that don't look interesting until you meet someone who knows how to use them."
It was hard to breathe, but that could just be the incense-clogged air. It was just the incense-clogged air, nothing else. Certainly Mal's lungs weren't clamping up at the thought of Inara's practiced hand taking that whatever-it-was and putting it around his...
Well.
"That all you need?" he said, trying for nonchalance and falling so far short it was shameful. "Everybody'll be waiting for us to come—we need to be coming—going, is what I mean. Gotta get...ship, repairs. Parts; Kaylee needs these parts."
Practiced in the art of not noticing when a man was making a fool of himself, Inara merely nodded in reply to the torrent of humiliation. "Yes," she said, holding the little thing carefully as she brushed past him and out through the heavy curtains, "This is all I need."
()()()
Four hours later—seven hours after their abrupt landing on Aphrodite—Serenity lifted into orbit. The ascent was less smooth than anyone on board would have wanted, and certainly bumpier than Mal would ever have accepted, but for some reason, Mal was not around to object. In fact, no one had seen the Captain since he'd come stomping into the cargo bay, a demure Inara in tow, dropped his bag of parts, and disappeared into crew quarters.
All orders about repairs and departure had come over the com, and Simon—who had been concerned that Mal had picked up some bug on planet and gone to his room to offer treatment—had been turned away at the door.
Mal, for his own part, was working his way through a bottle of synth-scotch and trying valiantly to ignore the wave Inara had sent him a mere twenty-seven minutes after getting into her shuttle.
The archives did in fact have a reference to what they'd found in that store.
Mal was 100% certain that he did not want to know what it was.