Prompt: Mal/River, I could get used to this.
Timeline: Established relationship
As Little as this Bed Allows
Isn't that Mal's thinking Serenity is imperfect in any way, exactly – somebody else's fluffy lord surely knows how he loves his ship – but he is finding out now that there's a damn good reason Zoe had insisted on taking over the larger bunk when she started bedding down with Wash.
"You mind gettin' your hair outta my face, maybe?" Seems like no matter how much of River's silky hair he pushes off himself, there's always a strand or two left to tickle him. Not that the sweet flowery scent of it isn't a nice reminder that there's a woman in his bed for once, but really, it's enough to drive a man clear out of his head.
"You're lying on some of it," she points out, shifting about next to him, getting cold little feet all kinds of places they don't belong. "That makes it rather difficult."
"Well, here, let me just-" Except too much shifting around makes him almost fall off the edge, and the bed's a mess of flailing limbs in no time. Not in the fun way it had been not long ago neither, cause the wheezing gasp River lets out is no kind of pleased.
"Ow."
"Sorry, darlin', did I hurt you?"
"Think your right patella made contact with my solar plexus."
"Okay, can I get that in dummy talk for those of us who ain't freaky genius types like you?"
She gives him a long-suffering sigh and a pained look, pulling that endless curtain of tickles back behind her shoulders. "You kneed me in the chest."
"Oh," he says, pulling her down underneath him, cause he's more than happy to check for any damage in that particular area, "no harm done, I hope?"
She laughs against his mouth when he goes to kiss her, light and breathy and completely maddening, just like the rest of her. "The solar plexus is lower down, Mal."
"Glad to hear it. Wouldn't want to – wo de ma, is that your foot?"
"Possibly," she says, scooting away from him much as possible, which ain't so very far. "Was it problematic?"
"Only cause it felt like a block of ice. This is what comes of going 'round barefoot all the time."
"It's a resolvable issue," she says.
"Long as your solution don't involve getting your feet anywhere near me again, that's – hey, you give that back!"
"You wanted me to warm myself," she says innocently, great big eyes peeping at him over the cocoon she's made out of the only blanket, wrapped all nice and snug around herself.
"Didn't have a mind to freeze my own self. You gotta share, and that's an order. Ain't gonna disobey Captain's orders, are you?"
"Your pilot and crew member wouldn't," she says, before sticking her tongue out at him, safe inside her fleecy little fortress. "Your girlfriend would."
"Well that ain't rightly fair," he says, giving up and flopping down on his back, though there's parts of him hanging off the bed, what with it being more crowded than normal. "Might just have to take myself down to the passenger dorms to get any rest, if this is how it's gonna be."
There's another little sigh in the darkness, and then her hands (thankfully a good deal warmer than her feet) and her voice prodding at him. "Move over – no, this way, you boob. There." She settles herself, and the blanket too, down on top of him, more or less. "Will this do?"
Seeing as how there's no hair in his face, he can breathe fine, and none of his limbs seem likely to go all pins-and-needles on him, he thinks this just might work out after all. "Yeah, albatross," he says, kissing her hair, not a single strand sticking around to bedevil him. "Thinkin' I could get used to this."