Title: Of Drugs and Juggled Goslings

Author: Lemon Lashes

Email: lemonlashes@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.geocities.com/lemonlashes

Characters: Wash, Simon

Pairing: Wash/Simon

Crossover?: No

Rating: R

Genre: *slash*

Status: Complete

Summary: PWP with sprinkles of pillowtalk. The cats are away.

Archive: anywhere you like, just let me know

Mild Spoilers For: Season 1 up to and including "Our Mrs. Reynolds"

Note: fourth entry in The Filament series.

Characters: They all belong to Joss. They're in good hands.

Acknowledgments: Spike again serves as the able muse to keep me going on this. Thank you, Spike.

Night shift.

Serenity glides through space at what Simon has come to think of as moderate speed, easing through vacuum to Beaumond. Alone in the tiny cube assigned to him in the passenger dormitory, he is lying awake on his narrow bunk, feeling faintly melancholic and more than a little... deprived.

He has been with Wash once, just over two weeks ago. Since then, nothing has happened. The two of them have tried, God knows, but they keep falling prey to a host of inconveniences and qualms. Sometimes it's just incompatibility in their duty schedules. At others, one or the other of them has been sucked in by a fit of conscience, swallowed into avoidance mode. Crises small and large have kept them apart, too--River's bad days, a recent job, and just today the 'wife' Mal picked up on Triumph. Serenity, it seems, is rife with crisis.

On the few occasions when everything has worked out... when they've been in the same room and willing, someone has invariably joined them. Captain, usually. Inara twice. Shepherd and Zoe once each. Coincidences, he knows, but they're just frequent enough to make Simon fear the whole ship knows what's going on.

"What isn't going on," he corrects himself wistfully. He has been afire, racked with frustration and a lust he finds unaccountably hard to repress. Simon is good at bottling things up: fear, anger, desire, frustration. It has never been this difficult before. But only River's panicked cries or the sight of an actual injured crew-member...

(Wash's temple a few hours ago, bleeding, is most definitely excepted; Simon went half-mad with the desire to lick it clean)

... can dislodge his mind from this warm place where it has taken up residence, a humid beachside resort of the mind where his remembered Wash strolls, showing off the hair on his arms, smiling, smelling of salt water. He speaks sometimes too, says Simon's name, murmurs rude words. His voice is just slightly flat when he shifts to Chinese, his tonals off. The half-laugh and tilted, turned-away head when he's embarrassed or nervous.

All these images play through him while he should be doing other things--sleeping, for example--and now once again he's got himself worked up. Simon's cock, barely tingling just minutes ago, is fully erect. His hand has slid down there as if by itself, gripping his flesh almost loosely, stroking

but with an easy rhythm. He needs this, but at the same time it isn't what he wants.

Wash's lips, the firmness of steel inside him, steel wrapped in quilted silk as he puts his hands on Simon's body, as they kiss, the feel of his cock on Simon's tongue...

Now he does squeeze, bearing down on himself, drawing air hungrily into his lungs and making himself groan.

A soft trio of taps on the portal of his cabin make him yank the hand away fast, as guiltily as if he'd been caught handling himself in public.

"River?" He throws on the voluminous robe he's taken to wearing these last weeks, cinching it shut and then bunching extra fabric in front to hide his arousal. He lets himself feel a touch of gratitude that his sister isn't screaming. Then, groin throbbing, he cracks open the portal.

Wash is there.

"The twins are off looking for Saffron and the shuttle," he says.

Simon doesn't say anything, just steps out of the way. The pilot steps into Simon's quarters for the first time, seeming to fill them to capacity as he closes the portal, throwing the latch.

"How long..."

"Hours," Wash says, gaze steady and a hint of a smile on his face. Almost playful, very possessive and Simon doesn't realize he has taken a step back until the other man closes the space between them. He grasps Simon's arms and walks him one more step in the same direction, to the bunk. A light push becomes a controlled fall, bringing them onto it. Eyes locked, Wash atop him. The bunched folds of the robe suddenly form a knot around his groin.

And finally the pilot is kissing him. It's not slow, not gentle like the first time. These are hard, passionate, almost bites and they're telling him Wash has been feeling the deprivation just as keenly as he. Simon lets his jaw fall open, unresisting, glad as Wash's tongue probes to the back of his mouth. The pilot's hands move over him in what is nearly a massage, grabbing at everything, kneading flesh--temples, cheekbones, jaw. Fingers circle Simon's throat for a second and the doctor is shocked when his hips heave upward, jolted by a new flavor of desire.

Pressed by now against his ear, Wash's lips twist into a grin. "That so?" he whispers. One of his wandering hands slips down to trap Simon's wrist. Jolt again, and this time Simon sucks air in a hiss. His back arches and Wash bends down to lay his teeth against his neck. Gentle nip, then a real bite.

Bucking against the restraint of Wash's body, Simon suddenly shivers.

"Hey, it's fine," Wash murmurs, answering a fear Simon didn't know he had. "We'll just play a little. Nothing fancy."

Struggling for breath, he nods.

The hand on his wrist draws it up, out of the way, and then dips down to collect Simon's other hand. He's imagining Wash will pin them there, but instead the other man slides sideways, weighting Simon's chest with one arm, leaving one leg thrown over his knees. His head bends close and Simon strains upward to lick the injured temple fervently. His arms stay up out of play, as if they were tied or pinioned there, and a little thrill runs through him. This is just enough, he thinks, this is good. He can move them if he wants to.

He doesn't want to.

Now Wash's fingers slide into the robe, rubbing up and down at its join, stopping at his waist where the sash is knotted. Each downstroke seems headed right for Simon's cock and doesn't make it. Instead it just widens the space between the panels of the robe, exposing a centimeter more of flesh each time. His muscles tighten against the weight of Wash's limbs as the hand moves up, down, up, down.

"No, no." Wash pushes down against the resistance until Simon lets himself relax. The sash is untied; flick, flick, the robe is casually thrown open. Simon feels Wash's gaze like a live thing crawling over his skin: throat, nipples, navel, cock, thighs. The blond man's breath is ragged, his lips parted as his eyes do their circuit and return to Simon's cock. The back of his hand slides down again, twists, catching Simon up almost roughly, jerking suddenly and hard, once, then again and again.

Bright explosions of sensation erupt outward with each tug and Simon gives in entirely. He strains against Wash's grip to thrust into his hand, but the downward push on his chest and legs is steady, and he can't move enough.

Funny how having someone else's hand down there makes all the difference, he thinks, and then Simon's coming, hot spurts hitting his stomach and chest, his chin, and Wash's face too. Wash dips a finger in the droplet on his cheek and smears it around under his eye. Then he slides his entire hand into the cum, spreading it on Simon's belly and licking it off his fingers before squeezing him again.

"God, god, god," Simon rasps out, mindful of the sound-thin bulkheads and his sister sleeping--he hopes--less than a meter away.

"Mmmm," Wash replies, almost dreamily. His slicked hand is already becoming sticky, and as it rubs Simon's abdomen the liquid's heat is going, bringing with it evaporation and chill.

"I wish I could shout," Simon whispers, and Wash kisses--then bites--him again.

"Don't move." He pushes down with the restraining hand, reminding them both it's there. Then, levering up to his knees, he pulls off his maroon patterned shirt and the tank top beneath. Simon watches, breathless, as he slips out of everything else, revealing the cock Simon has been dreaming--and daydreaming--about for fifteen days without break. It is long, furred in gold, and glistening at the tip. He starts to move one of his arms at last, reaching for it, but now Wash does pin his wrists. "What'd I say?"

"You said--don't move."

"S'right." One-handed, Wash continues to hold Simon's hands against the thin mattress until the doctor is still again. Then he reaches down his own body, another slow caress from shoulder to knee, and takes his cock in hand. He strokes himself, pulling up and down, stretching the shaft of himself until it he is barely beyond the reach of Simon's tongue, then pulling it out of the way.

Simon groans. More frustration, he thinks, is definitely not called for. "Wash?"

The eyes drift to his, lazy and teasing. Raised eyebrows ask him a question.

"Let me."

"Let you what?" Pumping himself, hand clenched, Wash's voice is starting to fray. He looks close to coming himself.

And that's almost enough to bring tears to his eyes, because by now Simon is made of nothing but a need to have that cock in his mouth again. He has a fleeting sense of having been cheated once--he has sucked Wash once before, but didn't get to bring him to orgasm that way--that steels him for using the language that comes to him with such difficulty. "Let me suck you."

"Ahhhh," Wash says, smiling widely. "Almost there."

Almost about to come? Or...

"Let me suck your cock." Even now he has to force the words over the outraged screams of his internalized grandmothers, both of them. "I want to suck your cock, Wash."

The grin gets wider, and Wash's restraining hand comes away from Simon's wrist. The younger man rolls toward the cock as if he was being reeled in. Catching it in both hands he dives over it with his mouth, sucking in half at a gulp, his lips mashing up against his own knuckles as both his fists squeeze at the base of the shaft. Wash's hands are in his hair again at last, a sensation, felt

only once, that he has missed ever since like an amputated limb. He sucks, sucks for all he's worth, head bumping up and down, his fingers circling down to clench Wash's balls with soft squeezes, glorying in the feel of his inner thighs brushing the sides of his face. The scent coming off Wash's skin down here, his cock rubbing back and forth on the edges of Wash's teeth and this is where they stopped before, him working it in deeper and deeper, pulling the cock into himself, pulling in a steady, persuasive beat and feeling lit inside and out with bright mindless joy.

Forever, he thinks, and it's the only thought in his usually chattering mind, I could do you forever.

Now Wash is finally coming in his mouth, the hands coming off Simon's head to press against the bulkheads and the breath above him hitching as hot salty cum fills his throat, forcing him to hollow his throat and swallow all at once. The chatters return: there's a second where one Simon thinks he'll drown in the flood while a clinical voice from med school responds scornfully, with statistics on how much liquid, to the milliliter, is probably being expressed into his mouth. Wash lets out his breath in one sustained exhalation and all the tensed muscles near Simon's face--the upper legs, the abdominals, the glutes under his right hand--relax.

Still swallowing, Simon eases back, letting Wash's cock slip from the grasp of his lips and uncoiling so he's lying on the bunk.

"Come here," he says, as softly as he can. He opens his arms and isn't surprised when the other man hesitates. Simon knows a little too well what Wash is getting out of this: a chance to be the strong one, to be the choice-maker, to have control. And it's not as though Simon minds not leading in this dance of theirs: if anything, he's alarmed by how easy it has been to let the other man steer them through increasingly passionate waters.

But all Simon's demanding now is a snuggle. The pilot will have to reconcile himself to this little hint of assertiveness.

So he waits, not pushing, and Wash does finally fold himself into the embrace. Warm naked body against his makes Simon's heart soar, and that's alarming too. Wash's head relaxes onto his biceps and they blink at each other, mutually pleased, noses almost touching. Almost, but not quite, sleepy. His skin is wide-awake, recording every point of contact, every movement and wash of breath over his face.

"I almost got good-night kissed once," Simon says, and as Wash's face--now inches from his--curls into confusion he adds: "Drugged, I mean. Like the Captain."

"No kidding?"

"Almost."

"What happened?"

"Some of the other Emergency doctors had talked me into going out with them, after work. I didn't usually, but I was new, trying to fit in..."

"A process you hate."

"I guess you noticed. Anyway, we were out, they were drinking and this woman turned up. She seemed interested in me, and my colleagues immediately made themselves scarce."

"Discreet of them."

"I wasn't sure I was all that grateful. I used to be..." He has an urge to look away from Wash's eyes. Tries to repress it, and feels faintly pleased when he succeeds. "Used to be pretty shy."

"Uh huh," Wash answers.

"I'm sure they thought they were doing me a favor."

"And?"

"She took me to this back room in the bar. Storage room. She was very confident, very beautiful, very determined. She was about to kiss me--and I wanted her to--but I remembered everything my parents had ever said about casual sex being a short trip to misery."

"Ah, the button-down boy explained." Simon pinches him gently, in mock-reproach, wanting to see if there's a reaction. There is: Wash pulls an innocent expression but disconnects the pinching hand, holding it still. "So what happened?"

"I lost my nerve. But by then she had her arms around my neck."

"And oh shit, how do you push 'em away without being a bastard?"

"Precisely."

"I've been there. Recently, as a matter of fact. So...?"

Simon blushes. "I... heaved, as if I was going to vomit. She let go, backed up."

"And then?"

"I ran."

"I'll have to remember that trick," Wash chuckles softly. "Could come in handy."

"It worked better than expected. I didn't know it at the time, but the door to the room was locked. Propped open, but latched. When I ran off it closed and she got locked in. And an hour later one of my colleagues went back to Emergency--she was on split shift--and got a good-night kiss victim from several hours earlier. The victim woke up, described my 'date' down to her dress and shiny blue shoes...."

"And your doctor friend called the police?"

"Yes. Sent them to the club to save me and I was long gone. My would-be assailant was still stuck there."

"See?" Another laugh from Wash, and Simon memorizes the sound. "That's why you should always *always* follow your parents' advice."

Chewing his bottom lip, Simon takes careful note of the way the movement draws Wash's face back into an expression that is distinctly sexualized. Signals, Inara had said. Body language. "My parents told me never to use obscenities."

"Except when they tell you that." He brushes his lips over Simon's nose. "Mine told me to become a commodities broker."

Kiss back. For fun he makes it tentative, as if he's shy, and the intensity of Wash's gaze becomes stronger. So much for assertive... but it's working. "Mine wanted me to design gardens as a hobby. Not to actually garden, mind you... because that might ruin my hands."

"Mine said to marry for money."

"Mine said not to marry at all. Also because of money."

"What's the weirdest thing they ever told you?"

He answers without hesitating. "Never date anyone named after a fruit."

"Really?"

"I swear."

"Huh. Mine said never do business with people who juggle livestock."

"Livestock..." Simon blinks. "Well... that's a piece of advice I suppose you followed by default."

"Actually..." Wash dots his tongue around Simon's lips, flicking it in and out wetly. It still tastes of salt and body fluids. "You'd be surprised. Say cock again."

"Cock," he says, and it's almost easy.

Wash shifts so that he's the one holding Simon instead of the other way around. "Say fuck me."

He pauses for a second, letting himself struggle with it even though he *could* choose to relax, let the words fall out of him. Letting Wash see the friction within, though, makes the arms tighten around him. Signals. "You did say we had hours, didn't you?"

"One hour left," Wash murmurs, kissing fire onto Simon's waiting skin. "Say fuck me."

"Fuck me, Wash," Simon answers. And then there's nothing for him to do but let himself be pushed more firmly against the mattress, where anything he might say--parentally sanctioned or otherwise--is muffled by the insistent pounding of his heart, by the press of lips and tongue against his and the rub of their bodies against each other, racing the clock.

### The End ###