![[I saw three ships]](../2005-1icon.png)
It starts early. Or maybe it starts with Early. He's still floating out there somewhere, though she can't hear him anymore.
After that, everyone is spooked, cautious. Kaylee cries into her pillow at night, and wakes from nightmares she wishes she could forget. The Captain stops sleeping more than a few hours at a time, his face growing thin and pinched, spacer's pallor even more pronounced around the purple smudges under his eyes. River recognizes the look in his eyes; she has seen it all too often in the mirror.
She wakes with a start, fragments of dreams slipping away, for once not caught in the steel trap of her memory. It's late enough that it's early, if there's such a thing as day and night in the black, and not just waking and sleeping. For her, those are often the same, a soft liquid blur of time broken by random spikes of pain and memories that aren't hers.
She slips out of her room, the cold metal of Serenity's deck plates solid, reassuring, under her feet, the recycled air warm and smelling of Inara's jasmine perfume, and finds Mal in the kitchen, standing by the sink, tin cup in hand, tension clear in the tight lines of his back and shoulders.
He's thinking about Early again, about Ariel, about Jiangyin. About her, and how he has failed three times to protect her, and all the apples in the 'verse can't make up for that.
"Not your fault," she says, and he jumps, spilling his tea down his front, brown like old blood long spilled.
He curses furiously in a low, hard mutter that sounds like gears grinding, all cushioning softness worn away. "Shouldn't sneak about like that. Sneaking about might get a body hurt."
"You're not going to hurt me."
"Wasn't you I was worried about."
She unbuttons his shirt, fingers like white birds against a blood-red sky, trembling a little when she lays them on his cool, tea-damp skin, which is pale but not as pale as hers. She can feel him quiver in response — surprise, and something more.
"Ghosts," she says. "No place in the world, so making a place out of it."
"Tea was cold," he says, wrapping his fingers around hers. But he doesn't move them. His hands are warm, callused, strong.
She leans forward, presses a kiss to his chest, over his heart, which beats in rhythm with the hum of Serenity's engines. His skin is damp against her lips, tastes of tea and sweat and the cheap soap they all use when they haven't made planetfall in more than a week.
"River." His voice, and Simon's, too. She turns and there is Simon, barefoot like her, shirtless, his hair in disarray.
Simon grabs at her, a flurry of motion, and the Captain, still as stone except for the way his chest rises and falls as he breathes, keeps hold of her hand. She stands between them, absorbing the harsh sounds of their breathing, the air thick with the scent of soap and sweat and spilled tea. They stare at each other for a long moment, letting the silence stretch, and though he knows he's in the right, outraged brother defending his sister's honor, Simon looks away first.
"No use crying over it," she says, looking up at Mal.
He drops a kiss on the top of her head, then returns to staring down Simon, and there may be something more than irritation in his eyes now. "Go get some sleep, mèimei."
She slides her fingers along his as he releases her, watches him over her shoulder as she walks away, his shirt hanging open, dark red and stained, like his mouth in his pale, pinched face.
Simon's hand is tight on her upper arm, red on white again, and she sees patterns — love and loss, joy and mourning — and wonders what Mal's hands and mouth would feel like on her skin. Wonders if the stains would show.
Simon chivvies her into bed and climbs in beside her, pulling the blankets up. His feet are cold against her calves but his body is warm, and she relaxes, burrowing into him, face pressed to his neck. He smells familiar — beneath the soap there is the scent of antiseptic, and (she imagines) the iron tang of blood. His wound is healing, but now he, like all the rest of them, is no longer whole — his body bears the first visible scar of his new life, an angry, red pucker he will carry on his fine, white skin forever.
She moves her hand down his body, feeling him quiver the way Mal did, and gently touches the healing wound on his leg. Slides down after it, pulling at his sleep pants.
"River."
"Kiss it better," she whispers against the thin material, feeling the heat of him beneath.
He offers a protest, but she knows it's just for show, because he lifts his hips enough for her to pull his pants down. His skin is warm and soft under her lips, smoother than the Captain's, except for the ugly red mark of the gunshot wound, vivid as rubies, and twice as precious, proof of how much he cares. He shivers at the touch of her breath, her mouth, and she can feel the tension in him, the war between what he wants — what she wants — and what he believes is right.
"Badge of honor," she says, only half-teasing, fingers sweeping over the hollows of his hipbones. "My hero." She gives him this, because he gave up everything for her, and this is all they have left.
He winds his long surgeon's fingers in her hair and she wonders if he can feel her scars. "I won't let them take you again."
"I know." With whispers against his skin — breath, lip, tongue, cock — she binds him closer to her every time they do this, sharing secrets, sharing sins, in the humid dark. Simon's groans are muffled by her pillow, his body bowing under her deft touch. As she swallows, she imagines she is taking all his worry inside her, so he can be free of it, though he will never be free of her. The name in his mind, on his lips, as he comes isn't hers. She doesn't think it ever will be. It's okay, because some things are deeper than names, and they share blood and bone and double helix, the strands entwined like ropes lashing them together.
"I know you want him," she says when she's done, head on the pillow next to his and guiding his hand between her thighs.
"N-no." His fingers flex with the lie and she arches against them.
"It's okay," she says, for once soothing, gentling him, even as her voice becomes high and needy. "He wants me. Doesn't like it, but knows it's true." Her body moves of its own volition, not hers to control, never hers to control . She closes her eyes, licks her lips, imagines she can still taste him, tea and sweat and soap, beneath the bitter, nutty taste of Simon in her mouth. "You or me, it's all the same in the end. He can be ours, together." Thinking of it makes her whole body shake, straining to be free of gravity, of flesh, of pain. She buries her face against Simon's shoulder as she comes, fierce pleasure pulsing through her, sweeping everything else away for a few minutes.
Simon doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no, either, and as she falls asleep curled against him, all her demons laid to rest for a little while, she knows there is nothing he wouldn't do for her.
Two nights later, as she and Simon lie tangled together, her hands slipping beneath his waistband, her hair feathering over his skin, she hears footsteps outside the door — the Captain's footsteps, heavy, yet hesitant.
He doesn't knock.
"Doc? You seen your sister? She ain't in her…bunk." His voice trails off as River rises up on her knees and pulls her white cotton nightgown over her head in one smooth movement before Simon can stop her. She is no practiced seductress, but she knows he watches her, gaze lingering on the curve of her calf, the arch of her foot, and he has thought about her body beneath the flimsy dresses she wears, now bared to his eyes. She tries to see herself as he sees her: small, high breasts tipped with pink nipples peaked in the cool air, smooth flat belly, flare of hip and buttocks, the shadow between her moon-pale thighs, a study in black and white in the dim light of Simon's bunk. Wonders for an instant if she's what he expected, what he wants.
"Tamade!"
She can hear the jumbled thoughts in his head, horror and the grim refusal to be shocked, feel the heat of his desire and shame on her skin. She extends an arm, holds out one white-winged hand to beckon him.
For one long moment, she fears she has been too bold, that he will turn and walk out, and set her and Simon down on the next place they land, wherever that may be. Then he takes one slow step, as if gravity is exerting extra force on him, and grabs her hand, jerking her up off the bed and flush against his body. She can smell alcohol on his breath, taste it when he raises her face and kisses her.
His mouth is hot and fierce over hers, so different from Simon's gentle caresses, and she whimpers as the need pulses hot and deep inside her. Without breaking the kiss, she hooks her fingers in his belt loops, draws him back to the bed, which is barely big enough for two, let alone three. She doesn't care, and when she finally does turn to look at Simon, she can tell he doesn't either, desire etched plainly on his face.
"Wode tìan," Mal murmurs as she unbuttons his shirt, pulls him down onto the bed. "I'm going to the special hell."
"Already been to hell," she whispers against his jaw, stubble scraping against her lips. "Deserve a taste of heaven." She could be talking about either of them, all three of them. Knows it doesn't matter who, it's the truth.
He presses her back into Simon, tossing his shirt behind him, kissing her hungrily. They slide together in a tangled knot of limbs and lust, and she closes her eyes, trying to memorize the difference in the way they touch her. Simon is gentle, as if she's not already broken in a million pieces, as if she could still break some more, and he could put her back together again; Mal is fervent, desperate, like she's the river she's named for and he's been ten years' dying of thirst. He pushes inside her and she gasps, knows there will be blood on the sheets later, red and white like his lips on her skin, raising marks she'll have to hide in the morning, and his hands on her hips, red haloing his fingers as her blood rushes to the surface, singing.
They are awkward, graceless, as they thrust and surge together, Simon pulling her hair, Mal scraping his nails down Simon's chest, hoarse apologies muttered into sweaty skin. The edge of pain just makes it sweeter, more real, proves it's not a dream. As she reaches back to stroke Simon, trying to match the rhythm Mal's set, Simon sinks his teeth into the spot where her neck and shoulder meet, then laves away the sting with his tongue, slick-hot and velvet-rough on oversensitive skin. Need and pleasure rise up inside her, threatening to choke off her supply of oxygen, and she claws at Mal's shoulders, desperate for release. Mal reaches down between them, his gaze holding hers, and touches her. She does break again, but this time in the way she chooses, bliss crashing through her in waves.
She floats on the echoes of their orgasms, vaguely aware of the wet warmth inside and behind her, clinging to Mal and Simon like they are rocks and shoreline, and she is in danger of being swept out to sea.
Simon croons softly in her ear, nonsense syllables to sing her off to sleep, and Mal gathers them both in close, accepting Simon by accepting her. The knowledge of what Simon has given up for her, of what Mal will sacrifice for her, warms her even as it makes her feel guilty. Curled between them, she has never felt safer than she does at this moment, and when she sleeps, lulled by the soft countrapuntal sound of their breathing, she doesn't dream.
fin
Xue Bai, Xue Hong = Snow White, Blood Red
Tamade = fuck me blind
Wode tìan = dear god in heaven
![[fin]](../2005-1banner.png)