It started, of course, with too much drink.
The celebration tapered down hours ago, leaving most of the crew retreating into the ship's dark corners, crawling away from the waning buzz and into their dens.
They're on the bridge but the lights are off - hushed and silent and encased in starlight.
Simon talks about the two long years spent searching for River, and Mal doesn't talk about the war but manages to fill the silence anyway. And somehow, the minutes seep and trickle and flow and the better part of an hour has passed in the dark since the two of them both stumbled up here, looking to be alone but finding company instead.
"I felt like- like I was losing my mind," Simon is slurring, gesturing with the glass his Core-bred diction was last seen disappearing into. "Or... or maybe like everyone else had lost theirs, does that make sense to you?" At Mal's near-silhouetted nod, he continues, encouraged. "They all kept telling me that... that I was being paranoid, or that I just missed her, or how I shouldn't go poking where I don't belong or how even if something was wrong I should just- just move on with my life, put my head down and not make trouble, it was never the same thing and they got angry when I kept digging. It was just... madness. And I thought... I thought..."
Mal waits for the younger man to find his words, a task that grows more difficult with each passing glass. Enough seconds pass that he briefly thinks the man has fallen asleep, but a passing glance reveals Simon transfixed by the stars in front of them, his ingrained fear of the void erased along with his inhibitions. Mal nurses his own drink sparingly, having already caught on that someone's going to need to walk the doctor back to his bunk all the way at the engine end of the ship without cracking both their skulls open.
"I thought... I thought, there's just so much rot in this," Simon finally says, voice much lower and shaking with the kind of bleak bitterness Mal's surprised to hear from anyone but himself. "How it goes all the way down. I think- I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if..." he pauses, takes a heavy gulp of alcohol, and seems to lose his train of thought entirely. "When I got her back, I just wanted to grab her and run away. Away from it all. Even if we hadn't- Even without the warrant."
Mal listens patiently, less inclined to punch the doc than he's been in a very long time now.
"It is rotten all the way down, son," he says gently, because the moonshine has nothing if not mellowed him and he recognises that sometimes being captain comes with sitting there and just letting the crew pontificate. "Alliance never played fair. Never once as squeaky clean and shiny as they want you all to think. But you made it out of there. Both of you." Hollow comfort, hollow words. Nobody ever said captaining was easy.
"Did we," Simon laughs bitterly, then stops himself with a guilty shake of his head. "No, I know we- I shouldn't. It's not fair to River to..." he curls in on himself miserably and doesn't talk again until he's finished most of his glass.
"I'unno..." Simon mutters eventually, rearranging his limbs in the co-pilot seat and fixing the Black with a thousand-yard stare. "Sometimes I think I'm still there. Looking for her. Like this is all a dream and I'll wake up and it'll be- I'll be back on Osiris. Not knowing where she is. Back to square one. Isn't it strange, Mal? How we're... fugitives and getting shot at and everything keeps breaking but we're alive and this is the closest I've been... the closest I've ever been to..."
Simon gestures vaguely at the void and falls silent in frustration.
"...Freedom," Mal supplies. He raises the glass to him without really looking. Bootleg liquor sloshes over the edge and onto Simon.
Simon frowns at him like the word is new to his vocabulary. After some heavy consideration he nods solemnly and clinks his glass against Mal's. It nearly slips from his fingers.
"To freedom," Simon echoes, sounding wretched. He downs the glass and doesn't hesitate to pour himself another. Mal watches with a frown.
"You feelin' sane now?" Mal asks him, eventually. "Here, on the ship?" he adds unnecessarily. It's a rare chance for the captain to play doctor, of a sort, though he reckons this sorta thing is more up Inara's alley. 'Cept Inara ain't here. He blinks at himself and washes out the thought of her with the burning moonshine.
Simon tilts his head back and regards the dark. "I don't know if I do," he mutters. It's not the answer Mal was hoping for. "Realistically, I don't expect that we'll keep dodging them for long. A man stares 'nto the abyss, and..." he gestures vaguely and knocks down a plastic dinosaur. Despite the buzz, he seems to remember where he is again, and the face that's turned to the stars abruptly looks too young and yet too old at once.
"I shoul' go," Simon murmurs, reclaiming his awkwardness, if not his sobriety, with impressive determination. "'ve talked your ear off."
"Way I remember it, you reattached that ear. I reckon that evens out," Mal points out with a smile.
It wouldn't be that funny to a sober man but sends Simon into a startled guffaw, all deep and throaty, unrehearsed, not proper-like. And Mal cannot help but grin as well.
"Don't have to go jus' yet," he says reasonably, when they're both done chuckling. "Ain't got nothing but time out here in the Black, and ship won't run any faster with you not on the bridge."
"That's nice of you," Simon muses, head propped up against his palm and blinking drowsily at the stars. A beat and he smiles and his eyes meet Mal's. "You're nice."
Mal snorts. "Been spendin' too much time with lil Kaylee, doc. She oughtta tell you I ain't nice. I'm a mean old man."
Simon smiles but doesn't try to argue him out of it. If it weren't for him being a surgeon and all, Mal might consider keeping him drunk on a permanent basis. Man's so much more agreeable this way.
They drain their glasses in oddly comfortable silence, languid sips taking them further still from sobriety. Mal chews and thinks and turns it over in his mind, feeling like he owes the doc one last piece of captainly advice before the surely overdue stage of walking him back to bed.
The odd smile on Simon's face is still there, but that same old haunted look has slipped back into his eyes - worry never far from him, no matter the amount of liquor, and prone to making up the distance when they both ain't looking.
"A man can't live off of self-denial alone, Simon," Mal mutters to the Black, when the silence between them has steeped. "Believe me, I've tried. Man's gotta carve out a place for himself that's just his, ain't no matter how small. Me, I've got the ship. And you - you find somethin' to keep you sane and you don't let go. That's how you make it in this 'verse."
Mal doesn't think he's said anything funny, but Simon is grinning lazily at him as if he's in on some secret joke.
"You really think I should?" he asks with that same strange smile.
He gives the man the most serious look he can manage being as well and truly buzzed as he is. "Believe that's what I just said, son."
"Okay," Simon says simply and closes his eyes as he leans in.
And then the doctor's warm mouth is on his.
"...Huh," Mal says eventually.
The common room is still quiet. Serenity's still flying.
And Simon is still kissing him.
When he's got an inkling the man is oddly reluctant to stop, he finally brings up a bracing hand - it flounders for a bit in the vicinity of Simon's face before settling on his shoulder, all platonic-like. He applies enough pressure to put an inch of distance between them.
"You care to explain this, son?" he asks as levelly as he can, ignoring the way his heart is druming in his ears.
Eyelashes flickering, Simon is still staring at his mouth like it's the first glimpse of shore after a year spent asea.
"'S obvious, I think. And you probably shouldn't call me that right now, cap'n," he slurs nonchalantly, sliding closer again, and leave it to Simon gorram Tam to boss him around during mouth-to-mouth.
Mal snorts. "Always knew you'd warm up to the chain of command."
"I could stand to warm up to it a little more..."
And there's a hand on his neck now, warm as embers, practiced surgeon fingers stroking the side of his jaw and suddenly all Mal can think about is how damn long it's been since he's had himself a nice, long, proper kiss. One that don't end up with him passed out on the floor, for one thing, or the willing partner getting all bullet-ridden the next day.
He closes his eyes and lets it go on considerably longer than he should. Stars pass them by.
It's the tongue slipping past his lips that does it, eventually. Mal takes a long, difficult moment to dig up his willpower. Long enough that his hand has had time to slip unbidden down Simon's spine and to the edge of his shirt, fingers seeking exposed skin and digging in.
The groan Simon breathes into his mouth shakes him back to reality. He takes a deep breath and pushes the man away.
"Alright, doc, reckon you've had enough." Mal does his best to keep his breath steady as he pries the man's hands off his body.
"I wan' more," Simon slurs, doing his best to keep clinging to him as Mal tries to fend him off. "Took me long enough." And that's a comment he ain't gonna dwell on, nope.
"Up you go." Mal settles for slinging Simon's arm over his shoulder, half-supporting his weight as he pulls them both to their feet and starts their labourious march down the hall. "Let's get you back to your bunk."
Simon grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like "We could get me back to your bunk," as they pass the crew quarters, which Mal has the good grace to ignore. He soon has trouble keeping his composure when the man who's clinging to him starts nuzzling into his neck. He swears under his breath, but it's the closest thing to prayer he's done in years. It's a long way to the passenger quarters, after all.
And speak of the devil - more or less - but Book is there when they round the corner to the galley. The man's got an empty mug in his hand, his unbound hair is haloing around his scalp in an amusing sight Mal is too distracted to appreciate... and he's watching the two of them with a very particular expression.
Mal glares back. "The special hell, I gorram well know," he snarls, and keeps moving.
The walk to passenger cabins feels even longer than it is, as conscious as he is of Simon's warm weight against him every step of the way.
In Simon's cabin, he sits Simon down on the bed. The younger man's head lolls back until he's looking up at Mal with a dazed smile fond enough to melt just the outer layer of his resolve.
Mal stares back at him, insides twisting.
Ain't nothing about this that's a good idea, so there ain't gonna be no repeat performance. Crew romancin' only ever means complications.
All the more reason to steal one last taste while he still can. Just for keepsakes, just to dot his i's on the experience - an indulgence that's not quite special hell worthy, but certainly on the level of a particular purgatory, and make no mistake.
"Ta ma de, I'm a bad man," he mutters, leaning down and reaching for Simon's face.
This kiss is brief but firm, all breath and heat and a hint of tongue, and all the more precious for being stolen. And then he's backing away and closing the cabin door before he lets himself do something they'll have no chance of laughing off in the morning.
Off to get a much-needed drink of water, Mal finds Book in the kitchen and glares at him as if the whole thing is somehow his fault. Which it might be, if Mal were the sort to believe in divine retribution for unspecified karmic crimes.
The Shepherd is waiting on the kettle to boil. The two of them regard each other over the whistling, and Mal wonders if he looks as disgruntled as he feels. Might explain why Book is staying quiet and letting his eyebrows speak loudly enough for the two of them.
"Weren't nothing serious, Shepherd," Mal finally speaks, caving. "The doc's gonna be plenty embarrassed 'bout it as it is. So you don't go makin' it worse, dong ma?"
"How very noble of you, captain."
Mal stalks off and ignores the hint of mockery.
It surprises him when Simon seeks him out the next day - he'd have bet even money on a week of solid avoidance, or even jumping ship out of embarrassment right out here in the Black.
The boy looks dreadfully sober and there's no question from the look in his eyes just what he thinks of his own drunken exploits.
Mal had been planning to pat him - professionally - on the back, tell him to think nothing of it, and get on with his life.
He's not sure how or why he ended up teasing him, instead. He tells himself it's for the look on Simon's face.
"No harm done, doctor. Just some honest spit-swappin' between folk." He gives Simon his jauntiest smile.
The man sputters and blinks at him, cheeks rapidly filling with colour.
"I just- I'm sorry, it was... unprofessional. I shouldn't have been drinking that much, I would never just..."
"Never just what? Kiss me?" He gives the doc an offended look and paws at the planes of his own face in shock. "You saying I ain't pretty enough to kiss? So much for all that fancy Core-bred bedside manner, doc."
Simon just stares at him, mouth slightly agape.
"I'm not... sure how you want me to answer that..." he manages finally, when the wry grin on Mal's face isn't letting up.
"What, about my prettiness? Thought that'd be a straightforward enough question," he grins.
Simon looks at him, then seems to collect himself and smile a little. A downright unsettling sight when he'd been expecting the doctor to combust on the spot.
"I get... sentimental, when I'm drunk," Simon explains, a calculating look in his eye. "I remember thinking about how grateful I was that you took us in, and everything you've done for us since then. I got overemotional." His smile turns serene. "It won't happen again."
Mal's gut started churning with ill-defined guilt about halfway through that little speech, and what's worse, there's a glint to the doctor's eye now that suggests he's well aware of what he's doing. That somewhere along the line, he's discovered just how testy it makes him when people think of him as a hero, which he ain't. That he's got a better insight into Mal than he's all that comfortable with regular folk having.
Gorram wiles, is what it is.
Mal grumbles something in response and stalks off, not missing the way Simon straightens, triumphant. He's done with the teasing, for now.
The urge to punch him again is there, but it's a shadow of its former self.
He somehow tells Zoë before he even registers he's doing it, in a fit of grumbling - complaining, if he's honest with himself - that wasn't meant to go nowhere and is of the kind she usually tunes out.
"I've got cargo burning a hole in my hull I can't dump, I've got the ship's medic throwing himself at me, and that don't even begin to-"
"You got a what, sir?" Zoë interrupts, eyebrow raised.
Mal catches and recollects himself. "Doc gets flirty when he's drunk. Who knew. Anyway - 'twas nothing. Nothing happened, so don't go giving him any grief about it. Boy's tight-wound up enough as it is."
Zoë opts for diplomatic silence, but he can tell she's surprised.
Don't matter none. Was nothing.
He puts the matter well out of his mind.
It doesn't work.
It's the way the doc kissed him, he thinks. All slow and fervent like it was a man's last cigarette before the firing squad. He thinks of his hands melting the tension on the doctor's body, every touch followed by something easy and languid.
Shipboard romances complicate things, but so does having a medic who's too pent-up to function.
Mal curses to himself as it dawns on him he's fishing for excuses.
Gorram it.
"Don't rightly know if it was nothing, Zoë," he concedes to her much later, alone with her on the bridge again. It's been many hours, but Zoë seems to catch on straight away.
"That so, sir?" she asks carefully.
He chews on his words a while before he answers.
"We was talking- well, about his sister, an' how's thought of nothing but her in years. I told him to go for something that'd keep him sane, just for him. And then the damn boy's kissing me. What the hell, Zoë? Thought he was supposed to be smart. Top three percent or somesuch."
She's raised her eyebrows at him. "So there was kissing, sir?" she asks, clearly doing her best to keep a straight face.
"Don't rightly make sense to me."
"I agree, sir. Don't think there's many as would consider you a paragon of sanity," she says dryly.
"I gotta talk to him," Mal says. A conversation that 'honest spit-swapping between folk' don't begin to cover.
"And say what, sir?"
"Wha- only one thing to say, Zoë, dontcha think?"
"Wouldn't imagine what that could be, sir."
She's holding back laughter, and Mal gapes at her. "I can't be having crew romancin' on my boat, Zoë! Least of all captain romancin'!"
Zoë simply raises an eyebrow, and it's only then he realises he was trying to get her to talk him out of it.
"You and Wash don't count."
"I'll tell him you said so, sir. He loves a second opinion."
"And speakin' of that, you better don't go telling him about this, either."
Zoë raises both eyebrows. "Making no promises there, captain."
"You tell Wash, and it's out. You want the doc being even more awkward than he is?"
"Don't rightly conjure how that's possible, sir."
Mal laughs. "Yeah, well, best we don't go looking to find out."
Simon had thought the teasing would be a one-off, Mal disguising his own discomfort at what had happened at Simon's expense.
But it hadn't stopped there.
The damn touching - a hand on his elbow here, a chest brushing past his shoulder there, feather-light and so close to that razor edge of propriety that it's driving him mad, leaving him questioning himself and hyper-aware of his tingling skin at embarrassing random moments throughout the day.
And now, it seems, the man is determined to carry his mockery into the infirmary. Into his domain.
"Not gonna kiss it and make it all better, doc?" Mal's smile interrupts his suturing, a scant week later, and medically speaking, the captain should count himself lucky that his doctor's composure can weather a shock or two. Simon blinks slowly at the stitches, considers looking up to fix the captain with a glare to make his feelings known, and ultimately decides against interrupting his own work like that. He gives a little shake of the head and carries on as usual.
Until a hand is pawing at his hair and he nearly jumps, only keeping his hands steady through years of experience.
"I will sedate you if you interfere with my work," he hisses, surprised by his own vehemence.
"That don't sound mighty Hippocratic," Mal says, but lets his hand drop. "Whatever happened to 'do no harm'?"
"I imagine if I cross the line, you're free to report me to the nearest authorities," Simon says to the suturing with an icy smile.
There's silence from Mal - he can only hope the man has learned his lesson, as he has yet to look away.
He was obviously foolish to hope for it, because next, there is a much gentler touch of a knuckle at the back of his neck that doesn't startle him as much.
"...What are you doing, Mal?" he sighs with resignation.
"Not interferin' with your work, I'd hope." The answer is some odd mix of mocking, yet not.
"We're going to have to talk about this," Simon mutters darkly under his breath, less bothered by the touches than by the captain's refusal to admit that he was doing anything out of the ordinary.
"Talkin' ain't exactly what I'm interested in."
"You realise this is inappropriate?"
"It's always about what's appropriate with you, ain't it?" Mal asks, and Simon bristles at the unbidden reminder of that equally awkward encounter with Kaylee. "'Sides, I don't recall starting this. Sure am mighty tempted to finish it, though."
He ties off his suturing with a hand that's steadier than his nerves and says "All done" before he stands back to finally get a good look at the captain's face. "Finish it how?" he asks as the captain peels his shirt back on.
Mal grins in a way that warms him all the way down his neck. "Don't rightly know yet, but I reckon you'll find out."
Simon may be slow to take a hint, but he's not that slow. With a heavy sigh, he turns to the sink to wash his hands. "Mal, if... for whatever reason... you are flirting with me," and he could imagine pretty well what that reason might be, considering the captain's propensity for practical jokes at his expense, "I really do have to ask you to stop."
Mal regards him silently for a bit after that, the grin on his face replaced by something far more difficult to read.
"Wasn't a bad kiss," he says meaningfully.
Face flushing, Simon turns to stare. "What?"
"I'm not exactly dropping down on one knee here, Simon. Just wondering if there's more where that came from, is all."
It's the 'Simon' that does it. He opens his mouth slightly and for a while the two regard each other, almost unblinking.
He's not sure why he's so surprised that this is... somehow... happening. Being discussed. On the table. Perhaps he's grown so used to seeing Mal's fruitless back-and-forth with Inara that it never crossed his mind the man might actually carpe diem for a change.
He tries to ignore the guilty flutter in his stomach at the fact that it's him he's carpe diem'ing, and not Inara.
"It's a bad idea, Mal," he says simply.
A beat of silence, and Mal's look softens. "Maybe it is, maybe it ain't. As you've probably sussed out, top three percent and all... I ain't so picky that I'd turn you down on account of you ain't a woman." He gingerly slides off the infirmary bed and smoothes out his shirt, still watching the doctor. "Think it over, is all."
"I already thought it over months ago. It's a bad idea," Simon repeats before his brains catch up with him and he blinks, then hides the blooming heat in his face by ducking his head and sterilising his suturing equipment with surprising vigour.
He can feel the burning stare on his back without looking. The silence in the room is so thick you could hear a pin drop.
"Months ago, huh?" Mal smirks finally.
He sounds impossibly smug. And he's not done yet.
"Care to explain it, doc? What happened months ago?"
He had no intention to answer, wouldn't know how to if he tried- but then it springs forth, warms him to his core with something fresh and fond and beautiful.
You were kind to River.
He almost says it, too, but some residual brain function forces him to bite his tongue. He craves seeing more of that kindness, wants to bask in it and rub his face against it like a beam of sunshine.
He wants to know it won't be coming from a place of selfishness, henceforth.
No. He will never tell the captain why he fell in love with him.
"Jubal Early," he mutters instead, knowing just how little sense that makes, but the day is clear and vibrant in his mind.
A bullet in his leg, half-delirious with pain. River's smile, childish and bright as the captain helped her out of the space suit - and the fond warmth in Mal's eyes as he did it.
Simon strides out of the infirmary without looking back, before he can be tempted to do something as foolish as reconsider.
River gives him a serious look over dinner, that day, and Mal smiles back at her in confusion. It's still one of her lucid streaks, and it ain't crossed his mind until now that she's probably got a pretty clear picture of his stumblings, all high-res and multicolour.
She leans towards Mal across the table. "He's dumb with boys," she tells him in a meaningful stage whisper that leaves Mal sputtering, Kaylee giggling, Wash choking down a shaky snort, and Zoë and the Shepherd both smothering a smile. Only Jayne looks baffled.
And Simon, who glances at them from his spot off by the sink, confused but none the wiser.
Mal stabs at his food and gives River a little glare, but it's half-hearted.
Sometimes the lot of them forget the ship psychic is also a bratty teenage girl, and how the latter is permaybehaps more relevant.
"You told Wash, didn't you."
"Could be I did, sir."
"Could have you court-martialled for a breach o' intelligence like that."
"I'll accept the consequences of my actions, sir."
She's trying not to laugh at him, and failing.
Mal figures he deserves that, for all the grief he ever gave his first mate about her and Wash.
He lets her laugh.
Simon has a natural stillness to him, a certain inertia - perhaps in service of a profession where errant movements can easily spell trouble, or perhaps older than that. He is not a jittery man - he rarely fidgets, and something about him makes it easy to gravitate to him as a source of calm.
Mal's been putting that to the test, it seems.
At first he tells himself he's just having a little fun, is all. The needling and the ribbing is a vast improvement over the punching and the hitting and he's got a feeling the doctor would agree there. The fraught tension between them is less barbed wire and more tangled yarn as of late, and that in and of itself is refreshing enough to bask in. The odd bit of teasing just goes with the captainly perks; his medic got himself soused and all but tried to climb into his mouth in the process, how can he not have a go at him after that?
...But then his hand would brush Simon's wrist, or linger just a fraction of a second too long on his arm, and suddenly the stillness of his body would turn that much more controlled, as if it's taxing his considerable composure to feign unaffectedness.
Even the good doctor cannot account for his skin, and Mal watches with satisfaction at the faint red patches that emerge on his neck, his cheeks, his ears.
He had no way to expect just how heady and flattering the sight would be.
Malcolm Reynolds. Still got it, pipes up an altogether smug part of him. He stomps it down like a cockroach.
He wonders if it's Simon's touch-starved naivete that draws him so, when Inara's self-assured aloofness only raised his hackles.
Self-delusion stripped away, he knows he is being selfish, and probably cruel.
He probably shouldn't be thinking about Inara.
He thinks back to that kiss, instead, drunken and starlit. Even with everything else on his mind, it had seemed... uncomplicated. Right. And dangerously easy. Like he's back at the ranch, fifteen and stupid and not a care in the world except for Mary-Anne's mouth on his.
Mal doesn't trust it when things are easy.
He takes in the perpetually haunted, distant look in Simon's eyes and tries to convince himself he'd be doing the man a favour by indulging him. Then he remembers Inara, and why she left.
He should damn well know better.
He vents to Zoë without meaning to. She knows his moods too well, it's not like he could have kept this one a secret.
Trouble is, instead of having his back as she gorram well should, Zoë seems awful determined to enjoy this. He's got half a suspicion she and Wash have already come up with a betting pool of some sort.
He tells her how he's not fit to be anyone's comfort, how Inara's gone, and how Inara is smarter, in her own way, than the lot of them all put together.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Zoë asks him in a tone that doesn't bode well for his dignity.
Mal nods reluctantly.
"It ain't just him that's dumb with boys, sir," she tells him.
Mal glares back at her.
It's a gorram mutiny.
Another day, another dinner, another remark from River that's just on the wrong side of obscure and Simon is in earshot this time long enough to go bright red. Afterwards, Mal pulls the sister aside when they're both down in the cargo bay.
"Little girl, know you mean well an' all but you gotta let folks do things their own pace. Not go poking 'round in their heads for things as might not be age-appropriate to see. Dong ma?"
She sticks out her tongue at him. "He'd be lost without me. He's not very smart, you know," she tells him in a concerned whisper as if sharing some grave secret.
Mal laughs. "That he ain't, mei-mei. That he ain't. But the rest of us as ain't child prodigies gotta do our best with what we got. Why don't you stop pesterin' your brother for a little bit?"
She grins. "Only if you pester him a lot more."
Mal glares. "Don't make me ground you, girl."
'You wouldn't. No ground around us, only void. You'd have to space me and let me float away." She sounds delighted by the concept. "Pulp of a dandelion. Taraxacum officinale. But the flower is a lie. Two hundred blossoms move as one, so none of them are lonely until they all take flight."
Mal tilts his head. She looks happy like this, spouting some odd mix of florid prose and florid science.
"Startin' to suspect you was always this strange, girl."
Her smile only brightens. "You don't know the half of it." She leans close to whisper into his ear. "Ask him about the other half. He'll like that."
Mal gives a glower and abandons any hope of approaching this whole thing without her meddling.
He turns and only then catches Simon looking down on him from the catwalk - watching him with River.
Mal scowls reflexively and walks away to the sound of River's giggling.
And tries not to dwell on the gorram sunlit look on Simon's face.
He mulls over possible approaches without meaning to. Kissing him outright - doesn't feel right. Not in the stark light of the infirmary, with Simon's spine stiffer than the metal of his instruments and his eyes sharp and watchful. Inviting him straight to his bunk to rut like animals - perish the thought.
Then Mal is on the bridge again like so many nights, alone and sleepless. The answer is as obvious as the stars.
He drifts through the ghostlike ship to his bunk, fetches the bottle of semi-nice wine from his personal stash that has been waiting for 'the right occasion' for who knows how long. He's not surprised to find Simon in the infirmary, still up and reading.
The man looks up at him and stills - and so does Mal. Something about the artificial nighttime makes this feel that much more intimate - the shadows deeper, the silence more tangible.
He turns over the wine bottle in his hand. "Join me on the bridge?" Mal asks him with a quiet smile. The invitation hangs between them like air - a seed of another starlit moment, waiting to be watered.
Simon's mask barely slips. He looks down at the bottle and thinks a while. Thinks too damn much. Can't the boy just stop thinking for a gorram bit?
"...I need assurances," Simon finally speaks, eyes piercing Mal's again.
He quirks an eyebrow, cannot help but grin at the imperious tone. "Assurances?"
Simon lifts his chin, as if bracing himself. "That this won't come down on River."
Mal nods, a little grimly. "It won't."
"River and I need a place here, Mal," Simon says urgently, voice low. "As much as I've talked - sometimes - about leaving the ship, I'm past deluding myself now that we could ever find anyone else to trust. Whatever happens- if it gets complicated, or awkward, I don't want this to reflect on-"
"I said it won't. You have my word on that, doc," Mal says firmly. And can't resist. "You need that in writing?"
Simon relaxes, almost smiles (but not just quite)... looks at him a little more openly, now, with a little wonder. He takes a step towards where Mal is standing at the threshold, then another. Clearly stalling, he looks down at the bottle to inspect the label, and Mal waits. The doctor approaches romancin' just like he approaches everything else, it seems - tentative and just barely on the sane side of overplanned.
'What about you, doc?" Mal asks, mirth in his eye. "You won't run off on me over some little spat, will ya? Would hate for one of my crew to bleed out on account of that."
Simon's mouth quirks. "You have my word on that, captain. I can write you a doctor's note, if you like."
The teasing is a good sign - and god, there is no grace at all between the two of them, stumbling around each other like skittish deer.
Mal takes a chance - takes a step into the infirmary and then another, meets him in the middle. He raises a hand, and Simon watches it like it's an errant scalpel. Mal dances his fingertips to the man's jaw, butterfly-light, where his fist last connected weeks ago.
Simon swallows and seems one heartbeat away from falling into his arms. Mal grins.
But the grin falls quickly at the next few words.
"And what if Inara comes back tomorrow?" Simon whispers.
Just like that, Mal is tempted to pop the bottle and get a head start on it right there. He smiles wryly, looks down at the spotless floor.
"Even if she did," he answers slowly, fingers still tracing the air over Simon's chin, "won't ever change the fact that she left. That woman doesn't do anything lightly, Simon. Ain't no gorram chance it was ever gonna work out between us, but even less chance of it now. She's done and buried it."
Too late, it crosses his mind that this is probably not what Simon wanted to hear - how much it makes him sound like second pickings, and maybe that accounts now for the wistful flicker in his eye. The doctor's sure to say no, kick up a fuss, get all haughty-like and announce that he ain't nobody's rebound.
"I can live with that," Simon says instead, a little sadly, and takes the bottle.
They slip to the bridge, lights dimmed and the void around them all pitch and glimmer.
They've barely finished the first glass when he kisses Simon. The doctor lets him.
The wine was just a pretext, after all.