The first time they kissed, Firefly tasted like alcohol.
Somehow, they had ended up on the deck of the ship, several bottles of varying kinds of alcohol in hand. Stone has no idea how Firefly managed to convince him to drink with him, but he did. And, somehow, most of their clothes had fallen off in the process. Both men were down to just their pants; Stone even lost his eye patch. They'd been drinking quite heavily, and Firefly had, eventually, started removing Stone's clothing. Through his whiskey-induced haze, Stone had been unable to find anything wrong with that; his clothes were heavy, and the weather was warm. He even did the same for Firefly, after a while. So there they lied, staring at the stars, bottles in hand, talking about virtually nothing.
Eventually, Firefly somehow ended up lying half on top of him, warm flesh pressed against warm flesh. Having gotten used to the cool breeze, the warmth made Stone shudder pleasantly. Obviously his body was being indecisive; he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be cool or warm. Under normal circumstances, he would have just pushed Firefly away, but these weren't normal circumstances; he was drunk, and content, and couldn't find anything wrong about Firefly curling against him like he was.
Firefly hummed in contentment; Stone's eyes were closed, but he could tell that the younger man was staring at him.
"Has anybody ever told you you're really hot?" he asked, clicking his tongue. Stone's eyes snapped open upon hearing this, and he turned his head to look at Firefly.
"What did you say?" he asked, not entirely sure the alcohol wasn't affecting his hearing.
"You're really hot." Firefly repeated, drumming his fingers against Stone's chest. Stone couldn't help but turn a slight shade of red, especially seeing Firefly's half lidded eyes and cocky grin; he was drunk, most certainly, but not drunk enough that he could just dismiss the remark as a drunken man's ramblings.
"Am I, now?" he asked, trying to keep embarrassment from creeping into his voice. Firefly's grin turned into a toothy smirk.
"Hell yeah." he replied, licking his lips. OK, so maybe he was a bit more drunk than Stone had thought, but he was still quite within his right mind.
"I could get you fired or reassigned for that, you know." Stone pointed out, drumming his fingers on the deck next to him. It was clear that, in spite of his threat, he was making no move to push Firefly away, therefore making it completely ineffectual.
"You won't, though." Firefly said surely. Stone chuckled.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked, reaching up and running a hand through Firefly's hair. He remembered him being bald when he'd first started working for him; now, he had a quite full head of hair. He also remembered having complimented it when it had just started growing in, and wondered if there were any connection between the two. Firefly pressed more tightly against his side and continued to grin.
"Yeah." he replied. "You'd miss me too much." He dropped his head to rest it next to Stone's, his forehead pressed against the other man's temple, his lips brushing against Stone's jaw. The higher ranking official couldn't decide whether it was on purpose or purely coincidental, so he decided to let it slide as he pressed his lips together, staring at the night sky in thought.
"I think I might, actually." he admitted, bringing the bottle of whatever he was holding (he honestly couldn't remember at that point) to his lips. Firefly immediately brought his head up upon hearing that, an uncharacteristically confused look on his face. Stone had never seen him confused by anything before; it was almost pleasant.
"...what?" was all he seemed able to say, which made Stone laugh again.
"It's nice having you around. Nicer than I thought it would be when I first met you." he admitted. "You're funny, lively, and for the most part, the best at what you do. You'd be a hard man to replace." Firefly smiled more sincerely, actually reddening at the compliment.
"If you can generate compliments like that on a whim, it's a wonder you don't have a girlfriend already." he said. "...or, a boyfriend." Stone raised an eyebrow at him.
"You sound as though you're implying something." he said with an air of amusement. Firefly didn't say anything, just cleared his throat awkwardly. "Let me guess, you want to know which gender I prefer." he said.
"Would be nice." Firefly replied. "It's not like you ever let on when you're sober." he pointed out, running a finger across Stone's chest for a particular emphasis on the 'sober' part.
"Well, your implications were correct, I do prefer men." he replied. "Not that it's any of your concern." he clarified, swallowing past a freshly formed lump in his throat. Firefly gave him a lazy smile.
"I'm starting to think it might be." he said, shifting his body forwards slightly and raising himself up with one arm so he was looking directly into Stone's eyes. Stone felt his face getting warm, and put his hands on Firefly's chest, not pushing him away but simply holding him back. Firefly understood, raising himself a little higher so Stone wasn't pushing on him anymore, and the older man dropped his hands.
"I'm your commanding officer, Firefly. You know our policies." he pointed out, sitting up. Firefly switched to a kneeling position, one knee between his shins.
"Honest answer, is that your only argument?" he asked with a sly smirk. He took another swig from his own bottle, and Stone mirrored the action. With every drop that passed through his lips, his mind swayed more and more towards saying yes, and finally, he caved. He reached up and rand a hand through Firefly's hair again.
"You look so much better with your hair grown out like that." he sighed, leaning back on one elbow and moving his body forwards to compensate; as a result, Firefly's knee ended up pressed against his crotch. "Why did you ever shave it off?" he asked. Firefly gave a shuddering shrug as Stone began to rub the lobe of his ear under his new piercing.
"Hair's highly flammable." he replied. "At my...old job, I had to shave it off so I didn't set it on fire." he replied. Stone raised a curious eyebrow, but didn't ask. Instead, he put a finger behind the lobe of Firefly's ear to push it forwards a little, to be able to better examine the loop earring attached to it.
"It's not exactly compliant with protocol, but it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would." he said, a small hum to his voice. He dropped his hand away from Firefly to grab his alcohol and take another drink. At the same time, Firefly very slowly reached around him, seemingly to take the as of yet unopened bottle sitting behind him, but ended up with his hand on Shane's lower back, pulling him forwards. Stone's rational mind tried to fight against the instincts created by the booze sloshing around in his stomach, and failed miserably. His eyes heavy, long, dark lashes obscuring most of what his eyelids didn't, he tilted his head back, looking up a the night sky rather than at the younger man trailing his lips gently along his jawline before meeting his own. For the most part, he sat back and let Firefly do the work, his only contribution being to sit up and put an arm around Firefly's waist as he opened his mouth to let him in to explore. Eventually, the younger man pulls away, his eyes closed and a grin on his face.
"What was that about policies?" he asked. Stone took another drink, then put the bottle to Firefly's lips, who graciously accepted, putting his hand over Stone's to tip the bottle into his mouth to take a swig, draining the last few drops in the bottle. As soon as he finished, Stone tossed the bottle to the side, not particularly caring where it ended up, and knotted his fingers into Firefly's hair.
"Oh, shut up." he said, before pulling him in for another kiss.
At some point in the night, they must have ended up moving from the deck of the Sea Titan to Stone's room, because when the ship's commanding officer woke up, a strong pounding behind his eyes and in his temples, Firefly was still sound asleep next to him. It wasn't hard for him to figure out what happened, especially judging by the dull aching in his hips (which was really nothing compared to his head, so much so that he didn't notice it until he tried to swing his feet out of bed). He pushed his hair back before dragging his palm down his face, resting his hand across his mouth. This was what he'd been trying to avoid; he'd learned a few years ago that sleeping with teammates never ended well, and it wasn't hard to tell that Firefly was attracted to him, and he'd long since stopped denying the fact that it was mutual. But really, he should have seen it coming. He sighed and stood up, grabbing a clean uniform from the rack in his closet and heading straight for the shower; he wasn't going to let a little setback like this keep him from his work.
When he managed to drag himself out of the comforting embrace of the hot water, he left the room to find Firefly (having retrieved his boxers, at least, from the pile of clothes haphazardly discarded during their antics) sitting on the edge of his bed, groaning and holding his head in his hands.
"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad." he said, and immediately Firefly looked up at him and gave him a tired smirk. There were deep purple bags under his eyes, and he was strangely pale.
"What're you, immune to hangovers or something?" he asked. Stone opened the top drawer of the dresser in the far right of the room and rummaged through its contents for a moment before tossing a bottle to Firefly, who caught it without trouble and looked at the label briefly before opening it and swallowing two capsules dry. Stone was about to point out that he was only supposed to take one before he realized Firefly was probably the sort of person who had grown immune to most hangover cure-all's over the years.
"No, I just know how to ignore them." he replied. "Mind over matter and all that. Now, you'd better head back to your room, you need to get showered and dressed." he pointed out. Firefly gave a little salute and stood, rather shakily for a second, but quickly regaining his balance.
"You're awfully calm. I imagined you'd be freaking out about last night." he said. Stone gave a little shrug as he headed towards the door, opening it for the barely clothed man.
"It's nothing that hasn't happened to me before. Go get ready now, Firefly, you know we have a job to do." When it was clear Firefly wasn't going to move very far past the doorway, he cleared his throat. "We'll talk about it later, now go." he said, with more command in his tone. Firefly looked at him over his shoulder and smirked.
"Whatever you say, boss."