AN: If you want the sex part of this chapter, its on my LJ (http/ isn't terribly explicit for sex, and its very easy to see where it goes...
'You think he turned the Captain down?' Kaylee asked in disbelief.
'I'm telling you,' Wash said, 'Simon ran out of that room like a pack of Reavers was chasing him down. He came this close to knocking me down. Stopped to apologise, and say that Mal's bandages were off, and then went haring into his bunk.'
'That doesn't mean they were kissing,' Zoë protested. 'The boy's always a little jittery, the Captain maybe just yelled at him.'
'Zoë, love of my life, darling-one, are you blind?' Wash asked. 'They've been circling each other the past two weeks. And that's ignoring all that burning tension beforehand.' He grinned comically.
'They would be so shuài together,' Kaylee said, sighing.
'Didn't think you'd be so happy bout the doc getting a new rut-buddy,' Jayne said.
'Jayne!' Zoë said warningly.
'It's okay,' Kaylee said, smiling at Jayne, 'I know he don't mean nothing by it. And it's okay, me'n Simon had a talk about it before.'
'You knew!' Wash asked in horror. 'And didn't tell us?'
'It was a secret,' she explained. 'And he's so shy. But I don't get why he would say no to the Captain, I thought he wanted it so much...'
'Maybe he didn't want it that way,' Book suggested.
'What way?' Kaylee asked. Then, in horrified realisation, 'You mean just a sex-thing? The Captain wouldn't do that! It'd just be mean. Simon loves him...'
'Simon is a very...' Book paused. '...closed off young man. I don't imagine that whatever that Captain said or did was something he was expecting. I would suspect that he panicked.'
'Poor Simon...' Kaylee murmured sympathetically.
Mal walked in to the dining area. If he listened at the door much longer one of them was going to notice. And anyway "poor Simon"?
'Captain!' Wash exclaimed pointedly. 'We were just talking about platypus's.'
Mal glared.
'Or is it platypi?' Wash asked wonderingly. 'Come on wife, let's go find out.' Wash left hurriedly, Zoë trailing after him.
'I should go check the engine,' Kaylee said. She left, but not before throwing a sympathetic glance over her shoulder at Mal.
Jayne left, no excuse given. Book looked at Mal meaningfully, 'Anything you want to unburden yourself of, Captain?'
'I haven't sinned!' Mal exclaimed. At Book's stare, he amended, 'Not recently anyway.'
Book nodded and left, thankfully without any "special hell" lectures. Why did everyone assume he was the villain here? Or the idiot at any rate. He wasn't the one accusing other people of not knowing their own mind. Or of imprinting on the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, like he was a rutting gosling or something! "Come back to me in a month?" Did Simon think he was some kind of addiction that Mal needed twenty-eight days to come back to his senses?
Mal pondered what Book had said to Kaylee. He supposed he had surprised Simon, but shouldn't it have been a good one? He had known Simon liked him, so why was it so gorram awful that he kissed him? On the other hand, Simon of course didn't know Mal liked him. Maybe he should have led off with that? That still didn't excuse the implication that Mal only liked Simon for his doctoring...
Simon slunk into the kitchen. When he saw Mal, he jumped about a foot in the air. 'Umm... good morning.'
'Morning, doc,' he answered cheerfully. Simon looked confused. Well good.
'Do you want a coffee?' Simon asked.
'Already done,' he answered. 'All better, remember? I can fend for myself. You don't need to worry anymore.'
Simon nodded, looking a little hurt, but as he turned his head to the coffee, Mal swore he heard a muttered, 'That'll be the day.'
Mal considered. He could wait a month.
It was day four. The crew had stopped acting as if he was likely to blow up, and Zoë had happily given back control of the ship. Simon was still trying to avoid him, and River looked between them mournfully, but otherwise things were back to normal.
All excepting the fact that he was now actively making a list of Simon-things. The implication that his affection was somehow less pure than Simon's had stung. It wasn't his fault that so much of Simon's being was tied up in being a doctor or looking after his sister. The list was harder than he had thought.
River wandered in. 'You want to fuck him.'
'River! Girl, you can't go...'
'I was trying to help.'
'Well... don't! That's not something little girls...'
'Not little.'
'...Not something sisters of any age say about their brothers!'
'True though.'
That was neither here nor there.
Day eleven now. Mal watched Simon from outside the infirmary. Possibly not the best time to get non-medical related insights into him, but that's where Simon spent most of his time.
The doctor was looking at the screen in the infirmary, but Mal had no idea what he would be looking at. Could be to do with River, could be updating his charts, but there's no way of knowing without asking, which he can't do.
He was about to leave when he saw Simon rubbing at his face distractedly. Simon's full of nervous habits, but this one looks new. Mal tried to picture Simon as he's seen him recently, and this time catalogues the tiny scar above the left cheekbone. He remembered Simon's insistence that nothing had happened when Mal had thrown the scalpel at him. Mal grinned. One more entry for the list.
This was day eighteen. Mal was reverting to his eavesdropping ways, as spying on Simon alone in the infirmary was getting him nowhere. Wash and Simon were in the kitchen, both a little too drunk to be playing tall card very well, but fine with the drunken rambling.
'All I'm saying, doc...' Wash began.
'No!' Simon complained loudly. 'See, you're doing it too! No one ever calls me by my name...' he muttered sulkily.
'You are a doctor though,' Wash pointed out reasonably. 'Unless you're not. You haven't been pulling a clever scam to steal our organs, have you?'
'No, of course not! I just... I mean I am a doctor. And I'm River's brother. But I'm not... You're a pilot!'
'Yep.'
'But nobody calls you that,' Simon said.
'Ah...' Wash said knowledgeably. 'Now I get you. This is about Mal.'
'It's not about Mal!'
'You think he'd call you doc when you were... you know.'
'It's not...'
'I'd be pretty bothered if Zoë called me anything like that during sex. Mostly she calls me God though, which isn't my name, but pretty nifty anyway...' Wash's babbles tailed off as his wife appeared at the other door. 'Wife!'
'Husband,' she answered dryly. 'Bed.'
'See?' Wash whispered over his shoulder.
Simon didn't, but Mal thought that he did.
On day nineteen Mal tried calling Simon by his name for the whole day. As he didn't have much reason to see him, though, it didn't seem to have much effect. Unless you counted Simon's confusion when Mal came visiting just to talk.
On day twenty-three he saw Simon too much. They came upon a planet that had been hit by plague, and Simon, of course, had to go tend to the survivors, risking quarantine and God knows what else when the "friendly" settlers tried to hold onto the medic. Mal had stood guard for the doctor while he tended the very sick, and had glowered the entire time when Simon wasn't careful enough with mask and gloves in his hurry to help. When they had left, Simon looked up at Mal nervously and received a glare for his efforts. The look on Simon's face was resigned, as if his suspicions had been confirmed.
Twenty eight days, almost to the minute, after Simon had ran out of the infirmary, Mal walked into the dining area. Simon was sitting on the couch nursing a cup of tea, and the rest of the crew were scattered around the room.
'Captain,' Wash called.
'Hush,' River instructed him gently. 'Happy endings can't wait.'
He walked to the couch, and crouched on the floor beside Simon, fixing him with a stare. 'You can't lie for beans. You don't like to shoot people, but you'll do it if you have to, not just for River, but for the crew on this boat. You want to fix people, not just because of you bein a doctor, but because it's right. So you want to help people even if it's dangerous or ugly or if they don't want your help. You resolved your problems with Jayne your own way. You can be a good leader when you have to. The times you get relaxed enough to joke. You're not out for attention or praise, even when you're the smartest person in the room. It's hard work making you smile, but it's worth it. You're smart and gentle and you care and that's not about you being a doctor, that's why you're a good one. You just have it the wrong way round.'
He kissed Simon again, and this time he was the one to pull away. Mal stood up.
'Twenty-eight days, doc. Either I'm cured or I'm not gonna be.'
'I...' Simon stuttered.
'Just answer the question.'
'I... I don't think you asked one.'
'Yeah I did. Yes or no?' Mal reached a hand down, and in a mirror gesture to a month and a half ago, Simon took it and let himself be pulled up and away.
In the corridor Mal looked over at Simon. 'You okay?'
Simon had regained his composure. He pulled Mal down for a kiss, deepening this one and leaving Mal sagging against the wall. Mal felt the grin against his mouth. 'You were blind for a month,' Simon teased, 'and you're closing your eyes while we do this?'
Mal opened his eyes to meet Simon's, dark with something indefinable. 'So, how d'you want to play this?'
'Bunk?' Simon asked.
'Eager to do something?' Mal asked, grinning.
'Yes,' was the simple reply.
He wakes, as he did for most of a month, because of Simon. This time though, it isn't the quiet voice that wakes him, but a hand running carefully through his hair. 'Simon.'
Mal opened his eyes fast enough to see a look something like relief on Simon's face. After all that, the boy still thought he was about to be tossed out of bed? He kissed Simon slowly and deeply, trying to explain that he had known exactly what he was doing then, what he is doing now, and what he's going to want to do and for a good while after.
Simon apparently got the message and rolled the two of them over. He raised himself up to look down at Mal while he straddles him. 'Turn about's fair play?' he asked innocently.
Mal grinned 'And how long have you been waiting to say that?'
Simon smiled and whispered against his mouth, 'Far, far too long.'
FIN.
Translations:
shuài - handsome
Done! So thanks to all my lovely reviewers. Especially Montana, Sara and Surplus Imagination on the last batch.
Vampbarbie, I'm glad you liked it even you don't normally do slash. (I read the occasional Simon/Kaylee fic myself!)
Maybe see you all again soon when we'll all have two hours more canon to play with! Runs off excitedly