Title: Making Nice

By: Cabiria

(lokisees@yahoo.com)

Pairing: Mal/Simon (sorta), Mal/Jayne

Rating: NC-17

Spoilers: Anything up to Ariel.

Summary: Angst angst angst

Archive: Wherever. Just let me know so I can visit and feel all spiffy.

"Next time you stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face!"

Mal slammed the communicator down, leaving it in the window, and stalked away. He faintly heard Jayne calling after him. _No. No, not now._ He’d come back for the mercenary when he could trust himself not to strike the man.

_Trust. Yeah, that’s gotten me somewhere,_ he though, bitterly. When he reached the catwalk, he turned and looked down at the cargo bay. He’d quickly stashed most of the supplies while Jayne was unconscious, and the rest could wait. It would be a distraction, later.

"Mal?"

He turned quickly, appalled at himself for letting someone, even a member of his crew, sneak up on him. It was the doctor, pale as skimmed milk and trembling. Mal blinked at the sight. Some part of him insisted he should reach out and comfort the man, or at least move him against a bulkhead for stability in case Simon took a sudden header, but that part had long since lost control over Mal’s body. He only stared, fingers twitching slightly.

"Doc? You need something?"

Simon took a deep breath and steadied himself with an obvious effort. "I’ve made up a preliminary plan of action based on my first review of River’s readings." His voice only shook a little. "There’s a compound that will help stabilize her for the short term. I could probably make it from what’s in the infirmary, but it would take at least 56 hours, and…" He looked away from the cargo bay.

Mal heaved a sigh. "I’m guessin’ we picked up some of it back there?"

Simon nodded, still avoiding his eyes.

"How much do you need?"

"Just a vial. It’s the Amox--" Simon looked up in time to notice Mal’s eyes start to glaze. "The translucent purple bottles with a diagonal red stripe."

Mal nodded. "I seem to remember that. It’s in one of the loose boxes, I think. Go ahead and take what you need--which I reckon is more than one vial?"

He raised an eyebrow at the doctor, who shrugged. "Probably closer to a dozen, depending on how quickly the toxicity of the compound begins to outweigh the benefits."

Mal snorted and asked impatiently, "So why’d you say you only needed one?"

Simon shrugged again. "I didn’t want to cut into the profit margin too much. After all, these are yours as payment, not my personal property." He continued with a ghost of a smile, "And I could always sneak back and take as much as I needed later, before you and Zoe make an inventory."

That startled a harsh laugh out of Mal. "Help yourself, Doc. I reckon we’ve got enough to spare."

Simon lost his smile, and the little color his cheeks had regained drained out again. He looked down into the cargo bay, past the goods, and at the closed hatch at the back. His shoulders drooped. "Um…okay, how about I…"

Mal followed the direction of his gaze. _Oh…damn. Damn. Can NEVER go smooth…_

"You heard." It was a statement. Simon nodded. "How much?"

"All of it, I think. I came down to ask, and heard…him…yelling to be let out… And I thought it best I stay out of crew affairs, but didn’t want to leave entirely… I…"

Mal’s gentler impulses grappled for the upper hand, and he found himself taking the doctor’s arm and roughly moving him to the bulkhead. Simon leaned against it gratefully, surprised into silence by the manhandling.

"Now, look, Doc…" Mal trailed off, unsure of where he should go from there. What came out of his mouth, apropos of nothing, was, "And you’re crew, too."

He punctuated the statement by jabbing a finger toward Simon’s face. Simon nodded, too enthusiastically. "I know, just a slip of the tongue. I meant…"

He sighed. "I didn’t want to believe it. I don’t. Maybe I won’t."

"Simon…"

"No, really. It doesn’t matter, really. It’s in the past."

"It was two hours ago," Mal pointed out, glaring.

Simon insisted. "No, really. He did betray us, but that has to be mitigated by his later actions. He didn’t have to save us as well. It would have been easier for him to get himself free and leave, but he didn’t. I think he understands, now, about us, about me…"

The last few words were barely audible.

"Never mind. A dozen, you said?" Mal sighed and, giving Simon a slight push to confirm he was solidly set against the ship’s wall, headed back down the ladder. He could feel Jayne’s eyes burning twin holes into his back as he rummaged through the supplies, but carefully avoided turning in his direction. It took twice as long as it should have for him to locate the medicine, and then, faced with the difficulty of carrying a dozen slippery vials up a ladder, he impatiently shoved them down the front of his shirt.

Simon hadn’t moved. Mal fished three of the vials from his shirt.

"Here," Mal said. Simon did nothing, staring over Mal’s shoulder at the cargo bay. "By which I mean, hold out your hands. Hands make better carrying tools than what you’re offering, which is nothing. Doc?"

The doctor moved. His gaze shifted from the cargo bay to Mal’s face, and then he launched himself at his captain.

Overeager hands roamed down Mal’s back, clutching his shirt, moving to grab his rear and pull him close. The vials dug painfully into his chest, two of them together catching his left nipple as effectively as a clamp. He braced himself against the bulkhead with both hands as he overbalanced, before he could knock them both to the floor. Mal opened his mouth to speak but only let out a heavy grunt of surprise, pain, and sudden, unexpected, arousal. Simon caught those lips in a heavy kiss before he could breathe. He moaned into Simon’s mouth as another tongue licked his lips.

Mal left go of the bulkhead and grabbed the other man’s shoulders, holding them for just a moment as Simon redoubled his efforts, grabbing Mal’s suspenders and pushing them down his arms, sliding his hands up under the back of Mal’s shirt. Mal could feel his own day’s stubble scraping across Simon’s immaculately shaved cheek as the other man ducked to nip along his jaw. The ice-cold hands on his back made him jump, and he pushed Simon away, too hard.

The doctor stumbled, but caught himself. He looked for a minute as though he would reach for Mal again, but then stood upright, giving the other man an almost arch look.

Mal shook his head, trying to ignore the way his body now felt cold in all the places that’d been pressed against Simon, his own instantaneous, and now painful, erection. "Doc. Doc, I’m flattered, but no. Not with a member of my crew, not like this."

His throat didn’t want to let the words out. He wondered what Simon tasted like. It had been too damn long.

Simon shrugged, suddenly almost at ease. He looked over Mal’s shoulder again, and with a funny half-smile, replied, "I understand, Mal."

He reached into Mal’s shirt. Mal started and grabbed his hand but, smiling again, Simon turned his wrist to show what he held--one of the vials. The fact that his knuckles brushed Mal’s skin with the movement was, of course, entirely coincidental. Mal shivered.

He let go of the doctor’s hand. "Here," he said, and fished the rest out and handed them to Simon, one by one. The doctor cradled the vials in his arms with the ease of long practice.

"Go take care of your sister." Mal made shooing motions with his hands, willing the other man to move farther away.

Simon’s face softened into a more natural ease. "I will," he nodded, and turned to leave.

Something compelled Mal to call after him. "Keep me up on that, y’hear?"

The doctor waved an affirmative without turning around, and was gone.

Mal let out a heavy breath and let his body slump. He turned and leaned on the safety rail, letting his head drop and hang limply. A few more deep breaths and concentration on unpleasant images (_That time the ship’s septic system backed up; helping Kaylee muck coagulated grease out of half the engine from a gasket blow-out; Badger wearing Kaylee’s party dress…Ooh, that one did it._) and Mal felt presentable enough to face his crew.

He straightened up, and found himself pinned by a glare. All he could see, from across the hold, in that small window, was a pair of gray eyes fixed on him.

_Damn. Damn. Never smooth._

He walked back into the ship and found Zoe on the bridge. "Where’s Wash?" he asked, out of courtesy.

"He’s already turned in, sir." She smiled at him, smugly, and he found himself chuckling.

"So you’ll be turning in soon yourself, then?"

"Not right away. I’d planned on doing a quick inventory of the supplies." She stretched her back, twisting from side to side. "Do a little gloating."

Mal nodded, relieved. "Would ya mind battening down the last couple of boxes?"

"Certainly."

"Oh, and Jayne got himself stuck outside the hatch. Let him in, will ya?"

Zoe gazed at her captain levelly. "Outside, sir?"

Mal returned a humorless smile. "Uh huh."

She sighed. "So it was Jayne?"

"Uh huh."

Zoe gave him another one of her eloquent looks. Mal had years of practice reading them. Zoe wouldn’t tell the rest of the crew what had happened, except…

"I’ll have a talk with Wash in the morning, okay?"

She nodded, her expression one of relief. Mal knew how much she hated being strung from obligations, to her captain and to her husband. "I’ll go take care of that, then."

She smiled again, suddenly, her eyes roaming down his figure. Mal suppressed the urge to cover himself with his hands. "What?"

Zoe shrugged as she passed him. "You look a bit…rumpled…sir. Have a good night."

II.

_Has this only been a week?_

Mal threw himself on his bunk and groaned. He contemplated staying there until everyone outside his quarters had forgotten he was on the ship, but decided that Kaylee could probably get through any lock he put up.

_Tzao gao. I think this entire crew’s gone fong luh._

River now seemed to be the sanest person on board Serenity, but it wasn’t much of an improvement. She’d pestered Book about the fallacies of 17 different dogmas, until the Shepherd had taken to hiding in the unheated vacant shuttle, with his hair unbound as an extra precaution. Mal was weary of lecturing him on the dangers of frostbite in space, peppered with River’s helpful fun facts on the body’s reactions to an airless vacuum at various velocities. Then there was the way that the girl no longer screamed or spouted prophesies, except near the end of the day when the drugs in her bloodstream ran thin, but she would sometimes look at a person and smile kinda funny, with her head tilted to the side. It was creepifying.

At least the Doc had relaxed, somewhat. When he wasn’t poring over River’s records or discussing the benefits and drawbacks of various psychomimetics with Inara, of all people, he spent time in the engine room. He said it was relaxing, listening to the thrumming and groans of the machinery. Kaylee smiled, wickedly, and said she knew just what he meant. Mal avoided the engine room, now.

Wash and Zoe had taken over the bridge, to a large degree. There were several locks on the main door, and Zoe had even cobbled together a primitive retinal-scanning device that only admitted Zoe, Wash, and Mal. Somehow, River kept slipping by it. That made Wash twitchy, and a twitchy pilot made the rest of the ship jumpy as well.

Mal sighed heavily, and rolled onto his stomach. Then there was Jayne. Jayne was the worst.

Everyone knew. They’d known the day after Zoe left Jayne out of the hatch. Wash had paced through his discussion with the Captain, roaming from the relative privacy of the bridge through the living quarters to the kitchen and back. Yelling at the top of his lungs most of the way. They quickly had an audience of six following them. Jayne stayed in his quarters through it all.

Finally, they had compromised. Wash was free to put all the locks he pleased on the bridge and his quarters, but Jayne was allowed out of house arrest. It had quite a ways to go before it could be called even an uneasy truce. Mal was left with a sour feeling in his guts. He hated defending Jayne after he’d betrayed him, but he had to defend his decision. That was that. Jayne stayed, even if it drove everyone else fong luh.

Jayne had surprised Mal, though. The man kept trying to…make nice…in his own special way. It had everyone frightened. He’d cleaned out the cargo bay before ship’s dawn that first day, organizing the new cargo by color and finding ingenious hiding places for it all on the off chance they were boarded. Mal didn’t comment on it. Jayne did the same to Simon’s infirmary, earning the doctor’s silent wrath as he re-organized the contents according to function and put up a notice banning all "man-ape bastards" from his station.

Then, Jayne spent several days helping Kaylee flush various parts of Serenity’s engine. Mostly, this involved Jayne bracing heavy machinery upwards, Atlas-style, for hours on end while Kaylee crawled underneath. The engine ran better afterwards, and Kaylee slowly thawed to Jayne’s desperate grins. She brought him meals, silently, since he was avoiding the common areas.

Jayne even drew a clumsy picture of what might have been a winged stegosaurus on a leftover piece of plexi and stuck it to the sealed door of the bridge. Wash left it there to curl and fade.

Meanwhile, the walls of the cargo bay developed odd divots, marked with minute splashes of blood. Mal was beginning to seriously worry. Jayne was not the kind of man who had ever, once, had to defer gratification. His problems had always been easily resolved by the application of muscle or firepower. Mal doubted he’d ever put in effort that wasn’t immediately rewarded, instead of being returned with glares and suspicious glances. He didn’t think Jayne could keep his efforts up for much longer; hell, it was a miracle they’d lasted this long.

Mal sat suddenly as an idea occurred to him. Something had to be done, that much was for sure. He may as well talk with the man himself, give him some choice in the matter.

He found Jayne where he’d expected to, the cargo bay. The mercenary was shirtless and oily with sweat, pulling himself upwards with mechanical rhythm. Mal noted that he’d already lost some weight; the slight softness of his stomach was gone, replaced by a hard hollow.

"Jayne," he called. The other man paused.

"Yeah?"

"Wanna talk to you."

Jayne dropped to the floor and faced his captain. He drew himself up stiffly. "Knew it would come to this."

Mal stood up straight and threw his shoulders back, unconsciously imitating Jayne’s stance. "Come to what?"

Jayne shook his head angrily. "Don’t be like that. We both know."

Mal shifted so his feet were set farther apart. "Then why don’t you let me in on it?"

Jayne sneered, "Just tell me if you’ll at least wait until we get to a planet to dump me out the back."

Mal shook his head, suddenly weary. "I’m not dumping you out into space, Jayne. Ye soo, would you calm yourself?"

"Ta ma duh!"

"Jayne!" Mal paused to collect himself. "I’m not here to throw you out. Not today, anyway. Maybe later."

Jayne grunted, but didn’t relax his stance.

Mal consciously tried to relax, and held up both hands, palm down, in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "I’m just here to talk."

"About how you’re tossing me out?"

"Ta ma duh, would you cram something in that big mouth a yours for a minute?" Mal shook his head. "Yeah, that’s an option." He raised his hands higher as Jayne began to sputter. "Not dumping you out now, dong ma? Maybe, next planet we hit, you step out and don’t step back on."

Jayne turned away quickly, pulling one of his guns from his waistband. Mal exercised every ounce of control in order to remain still. Luckily, Jayne merely opened the chamber, pulled a rag from his pocket, and began cleaning it with choppy strokes.

"Could be," he finally replied, biting off the words.

"Could be," Mal echoed. "I’m thinking, though, that you don’t want that."

Jayne shrugged, still concentrating on his piece.

"From the way you’ve been making nice, I reckon you’re wanting to stay."

The other man grunted, and then unexpectedly stood and threw the gun (_Boone?_ Mal thought) across the bay. Mal fell back a step.

"Well, I can’t exactly do that, now. Can I? No one will ruttin gimme a chance here!" he snarled. "Like to get killed in my bed one a these nights, stayin here!"

Mal shook his head. "What did you expect? Ev’thin’ go back to the way it was after you sold us all out?"

"Told ya I won’t do it again. I promised!"

"You said a lot of things, Jayne. If I recall, you said first you didn’t do a damn thing."

Jayne huffed and looked away. "But I did tell ya. I did. And I meant it. I won’t do it again. That’s enough?"

Now he looked at Mal pleadingly. He shook his head. "It’s not enough. You’ve gotta prove it. And proving something like that…well, that’s what they call proving a negative, and it’s damn near impossible."

"Cai bu shi."

"Yeah, you were pretty damn stupid."

Jayne glared. "_This_ is cai bu shi. Just tell me."

Mal shrugged. "I gave you your choices. Leave, or stay. You know what staying means--more of the same. If it’s not worth it to you, I’ll understand."

He turned to leave, suddenly feeling sick. Why’d this taken such a personal turn? If the mercenary was only going to upset the balance of his little crew, his family, Mal wanted him gone. Gone yesterday, and good riddance. Jayne’s pleading eyes had gotten to him, though.

Mal wasn’t prepared for the hand that grabbed his elbow, and he jumped a mile and shook it off. He turned to find Jayne just behind him. He could smell the other man, the oil in his short hair, the funkiness of clothes worn too many days in a row overlaid with the cleaner sweat of exertion, even a faint metallic smell left from the weapons he always wore. He stepped back, involuntarily. When Jayne followed him, stepping into a shaft of light from overhead, Mal noticed the dark circles under his eyes, shadowy lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before. And the trembling, he noticed, when Jayne laid a more careful hand on his forearm. The mercenary was shaking in his boots.

"What’ve I got to do, Mal?" he murmured, starting intently at Mal’s face. "Jus’ tell me that."

Mal felt a stab of real fear--for his ship and crew, mostly. He wondered suddenly if Jayne could even hold it together until their next plantfall. Even a one-mercenary rampage was too dangerous for a ship this small.

Jayne took hold of his other elbow as well. Mal stepped back, only to feel his heel strike the bulkhead. Cornered.

"Jus’ tell me," he said again. His hands moved restlessly, chafing at Mal’s arms.

"Jayne--" Mal began, but the mercenary was already in motion, pushing him with surprising gentleness against the bulkhead. He rubbed at Mal’s chest through his shirt with his knuckles, still desperately staring into Mal’s eyes. "Jayne, there’s--"

Jayne leaned down and kissed him, crushing Mal’s words of negation back into his mouth. The lips trembled against his. A tongue tentatively traced the outline of his lower lip.

_Go se, not again…_ The tongue probed at his mouth, seeking entrance. Jayne’s hands held him firmly, but Mal guessed that he would leave him go if he pulled away. Or did he just want to believe that? Just like he wanted to believe now that Jayne just needed to work off some of his excess…energy; that a little positive reinforcement couldn’t hurt, either… Or was it just enough to believe that the mouth on his felt incredible, lightened the darkness that had settled in him every since he walked away, prepared to consign this man to the atmosphere…

Mal opened his mouth, felt the other man’s teeth brush against his as Jayne thrust forward with a moan. His hands came up to cup the back of Mal’s head, fingers buried in the soft hair, as their tongues tangled together.

Mal found that he was clutching Jane’s biceps. He forced his hands to relax and slid his arms around Jayne, tentatively caressing the bare back. Jayne rocked his body against him, humming feverishly in the back of his throat. He moved his mouth to Mal’s neck and nipped gently. His coarse beard tickled, and Mal chuckled involuntarily. Jayne straightened again, looking at Mal with a delighted, desperate, grin.

"Jayne," he said again, oddly touched by the other man’s determination to please him. Jayne’s lips twitched at the sound of his name, the delight in his expression being replaced with raw desire. Mal slid one hand down to cup the bulge in Jayne’s cargo pants, caressing it roughly with his thumb.

Jayne thrust his hips forward, eyes closing, with an animalistic whine. Mal ran his thumb around in a circle, testing the length of him. Moaning, Jayne fastened his lips on his captain’s neck, sucking hard. He pulled Mal’s shirt from his pants and roughly slid his hand down the center. Buttons popped and flew.

Mal squirmed as the rough, calloused hand rubbed across his chest. It grabbed at a nipple and pinched, making him gasp and arch his back as the sensation shot straight to his groin. It occurred to Mal that he should probably say something; he should probably not be making out like some randy teenager where any crew member could wander by and get an eyeful…

Jayne fell to his knees, holding Mal to him with one arm around his waist. In one smooth movement, he undid the other man’s pants and took his cock in his mouth.

Mal groaned at the sudden, overwhelming sensation, immediately losing all ability to think. Frankly, the entire crew could be gathered around them, while Kaylee passed out popcorn and Wash took pictures, and he wouldn’t have noticed.

It had really been too damn long.

He began thrusting in Jayne’s mouth. Jayne sucked, hard and irregularly, the lack of a steady rhythm making Mal’s efforts to hold off the inevitable a moot point. Mal wondered if he’d done this before. When the other man worked a hand inside his pants, fondling his balls gently before moving back to slide one finger inside him, Mal came so quickly and intensely he surprised himself.

Jayne swallowed it all, carefully licking him clean afterwards. Mal slid down the wall until he crouched on his feet, shivering with pleasurable aftershocks. He didn’t notice that Jayne had returned his intense gaze to his face until the mercenary looked away with a sigh.

Mal shook himself out of his stupor. He reached out and shoved Jayne, who fell, ungracefully and sprawling, to the floor and looked at Mal with confusion and unhappiness.

Mal took a second to re-fasten his pants and then crawled over to lay on Jayne’s legs, pinning him. "You know what they say, Jayne," he told the man, giddy with his own sensations, "fair’s fair."

He kissed Jayne’s stomach, rolling his tongue into his belly button. The merc touched the crown of Mal’s head, tentatively. He didn’t push, but Mal took the hint anyway, unfastening the other man’s pants and enclosing his erection in a gentle fist. He pumped, gently, contemplating the painfully swollen purple tip. Mal guessed the Jayne wouldn’t last very long either, and lapped at the glans, circling the head.

Jayne swore and arched up into the touch. Mal shifted so he was between Jayne’s legs instead of on them and grabbed his hips with both hands. Jayne slid closer, whimpering, and Mal obliged him by licking slowly up the underside of his shaft. When he reached the top, with Jayne writhing under him, Mal quickly enveloped his cock, easily taking in the full length and swallowing around it.

Jayne thrust forward, but gently, obviously holding back. He gasped Mal’s name in rhythm with his movements. In minutes, he stiffened, huffed, and came.

They lay tangled together for a few moments of fleeting peace, but too quickly remembered where they were. Mal sat and stretched, enjoying the warm looseness in his spine, and belatedly thought to wonder where all of his buttons had flown.

"Mal?"

He turned back to the merc and went cold. Jayne had refastened his pants but still sat, staring at Mal with a desperation that had only increased.

"Jayne, what--"

Jayne shook his head. "So, right. Things are fine now, dong ma? No dumping me off on some backwater, no more locks on the bridge. Right?"

The gray eyes were pleading again, trying to demand and failing. "Right?" he asked again, his voice cracking.

Mal closed his eyes and shook his head, wordlessly, and his stomach clenched, all the muscles in his body re-tightening. He heard the other man curse, brokenly, and the heavy tread of his boots as he stalked away, back up the ladder.

He stood, but only tucked his open shirt back into his pants and leaned against the wall, unmoving. Some time later, Wash entered the cargo bay and started when he noticed Mal standing in the shadows.

"Cap’n--what are you doing here so late?"

Mal shook himself and shrugged. "Just ship’s business."

Wash frowned. "Were you speaking to Jayne? He went by like a herd of buffalo a few minutes ago."

"Why? Where’d he go?"

"Just to his quarters, slammed the door. Something wrong?" Wash asked with a quizzical look that wasn’t entirely without suspicion. Mal cursed to himself. This was what he’d brought onto his ship.

"No, nothing wrong. We just had a discussion about his…options."

Wash shrugged. "Guess it didn’t go well."

"Guess not." Mal pushed away from the bulkhead. He nodded to Wash as he passed. "Night."

Back in his quarters, Mal threw himself down on his bunk for the second time that night, cursing himself that it now seemed so much colder, and smaller.

END