For everysingleway. Mal/Simon, heat.
"Heat"
Zoe and the captain unloaded crate after crate, piling them onto a dispatched transport hovercraft. Kaylee was toiling away in the engine room, trying to patch up the overheated cooling drive. The terraforming on Argos hadn't quite panned out the way the Alliance would have liked, and they paid for their sloppiness in scores of heat-related deaths. Simon relished the opportunity to stay on Serenity's temp-controlled environment and contentedly watched Mal and Zoe lug their goods.
"Ao jian, Zoe, that's what this is. Last time I do business with a wang bao dahn on one of these outer planets. Can't even load their own shipment. They don't pay me enough for this shit."
"Right."
Zoe grunted and pushed their latest crate in line next to the others. She didn't even stop to swig from the canteen Simon had so graciously provided them before starting out that morning. Mal wasn't so dedicated; he staggered and leaned against the hovercraft and gulped down half the contents.
"I'm gonna die, that's what's happening here. I'm so gorram hot." He waved the flask for emphasis and drained it completely. Simon sighed. Zoe wasn't even paying attention.
"I could get Jayne," Simon offered. He thought it was very sporting of him; he was very comfortable, after all, what with no River to watch and no one to patch up in the infirmary.
"Naw, he's got his own business."
"You could always give us a hand," Zoe pointed out, eyeing his tall glass and pressed sleeves with mild distaste.
"Ain't no way that pasty jiang jiu xiu shi is gonna get his swai face all ruddied up for the sake of helping us."
"Mmm." Simon went back to watching Mal, who strained to help Zoe lift another crate – thankfully the pile on Serenity was thinned down to a scant few.
"Hells, I'm not making this worse than it has to be." Mal dropped the crate at their feet without evening warning Zoe; thick dust flew up and choked him in what might have been cosmic retaliation. Mal peeled off his coat – and why was he wearing that still? The man had no sense -- and yanked his suspenders down.
"You'll burn," Zoe warned.
"Doc'll fix me up," Mal replied, shaking off his burgundy shirt and tossing it into the ship, a few feet from Simon's chair. He grinned.
Simon took a sip from his glass and concentrated on not looking at Mal.
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Ao jian – torture
Wang bao dahn – dirty bastard
Jian jiu xiu shi – dandy
Swai – handsome
Ignore the awful, awful writing and the crap Mandarin and the general suck of this. I wrote it in 15 minutes.