Firefly fic: Asset (Mal/Simon; NC-17)
Title: Asset
Pairing: Mal/Simon
Rating: NC-17
Words: About 2900
Summary: The war didn't end at Serenity Valley. Mal's still fighting. AU.
Notes: Many, many thanks to nutkin for the super-fast beta, and to valiant who said that yes, I should write that War AU.
Disclaimer: Clearly I claim no ownership to these characters/contexts; nor am I making money from this fic writing thing.
Mostly, people don't look at Mal in the eye these days. He figures sometimes it's because the bitterness and exhaustion shows on his face; sometimes he knows it's his uniform - Independents might be welcome in many places, but most people ain't looking to get involved with them. Most people are just trying to make a living in the middle of a war that ain't ever going to end.
But today Mal ain't wearing his uniform; he ain't been wearing it for a while now, 'cause that would defeat the purpose of being undercover, waiting for a contact who has promised intel.
Still, he's a little surprised when someone sits down next to him and says, "Hi."
He keeps his eyes on his drink. "I ain't looking for conversation."
"And it's a good thing I'm not looking for manners," he gets told right back, quick as a flash. It almost makes him laugh, because no one's talked back to him like that since Zoe went and got it into her head to get killed on a mission. He still ain't used to not having her watching his back.
"Place like this don't hold much stock in manners," he says, despite himself. Though it's true - the bar is about as pretty as a gunshot wound.
"Hmmm," the man beside him says.
Mal finally glances over, and he's surprised by what he sees. Kid's younger than Mal would've guessed.
"I think I've seen you here before."
That's interesting, because Mal don't remember seeing this guy at all. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
His voice ain't right for around here - proper and learned with all kinds of rich-folk diction - but the kid's clothing is rough and dirty around the edges, his face is smudged up a little, and he's got one hell of a scar down one side of his face. He looks like he belongs here, even if he don't sound like it. "There a reason you're mentioning this?"
Kid looks away. "No. No reason."
But Mal knows there's a reason, and the way the kid's blushing right now - obvious even in the dim light - he figures he knows exactly what that reason is. It's interesting - snippy back talk, blushing, that rich folk diction, the worn-out clothes. All together in one package, it's almost intriguing. Except Mal ain't got time for intriguing or dallying, even if it's been a long while since someone looked at him like they wanted more than him to shoot a gun or make a decision or get intel.
"Look," he starts, "it ain't that I ain't flattered, but I got -" he gets cut off by a loud crash behind him, the sound of a man going down, table collapsing under him. This is the real annoying part of meeting contacts in sketchy parts of town, in bars that ain't bars so much as cockroach houses. Bar fights bring the law, and they scare off nervous contacts. "Gorram," he mutters under his breath, and then the fight - expanding with each punch - gets to him.
Bar brawls are sometimes a great way to work off steam, but this ain't what he's looking for. But it ain't like he's got a choice - drunk, ugly men are already throwing punches his way, and he meets them with his own fists, or ducks. Beside him, he can see the kid's basically holding his own, eyes a little wide at the whole situation. Still, it don't look like it's the first fight he's been in, even if his aim is a little off.
"Hey -" he starts, turning towards the kid. Stupid move - he gets plowed in the side of his head by a fist that feels as big as a breadbox, and falls against the bar. And that ain't kosher, not at all.
He blanks out for the next few minutes, while he's fighting. He doesn't think about it at all, just like he doesn't think when he sends kids into fights they can't win, or when he's running into those battle situations himself. He just moves, ducks, hits, stepping over bodies at they fall, over tables and chairs as they get splintered.
And eventually, he finds himself by the door, breathing hard, no one close by except for the kid. The kid's got blood on his face, smeared across his knuckles.
"You want to get out of here?" the kid asks, wiping his hand against his jacket.
Mal looks around. No way is the contact going to be showing here today. And it ain't like he's got much else to do, except go back to a rat trap of a room, and wait. He shrugs, and follows the kid out. "What's your name?" he asks, because once you fight next to a man, he deserves some kind of name.
"Simon," the kid says, moving easily through the narrow, dirty streets.
*
"You an Independent?" Simon asks, when they get back to a couple of small rooms, clean but cheap.
Mal frowns. "You an Alliance interrogator?"
Simon half-grins, and motions for Mal's hands. "Sorry for asking. Guess maybe you don't want to be known. Give me your hands. You might need stitches."
The cuts are nothing - blood already dried, itching on his skin - and Mal's used to deal with his own hurts. "What are you? Doctor or something?"
Simon nods, once, briefly. "Yes. Or. I was."
Huh. "And now?"
Simon's mouth twists, and he waves his hand around the rooms. "Now I live here."
There's a story there, behind that twisted-up mouth and that scar, but these days, everyone's got a story. Mal's heard too gorram many of them - land lost to Alliance bombings, sons lost to Alliance campaigns, one little tragedy after another - and he ain't looking to hear one more. Instead he says, "I don't need doctoring. But my day of drinking got kinda cut off."
"I have whiskey," Simon says, and turning, pulls out two chipped glasses.
Mal smiles.
*
Half an hour later, the silence in the room is starting to grate at Mal. Drinking alone is just fine, but drinking without the noise of a bar is downright irritating. It makes him want to drink more, just so he don't have to listen to the quiet. But he can't do that - he's got to be alert tomorrow, in case the contact comes. It'll be his last day in town, either way. So he says, "You throw a decent punch."
Simon laughs. "It's passable. Not as good as yours."
"Well. I got experience from way back. You look like maybe - " you never had to fight, he's about to say, but decides against it. The whiskey is too good to throw away like that, and it's free.
"I was trained in duelling."
"I'm a pretty good shot myself."
"With swords." Simon clarifies, grinning.
Rich folk. Got to be. "Handy life skill."
"Not precisely." Simon's still grinning, wry.
"You come from one of the Core worlds?" Alliance worlds, all of them, and Mal can't quite keep the sneer from his tone.
"Yes. Osiris."
Osiris. Independents hit the planet a couple months back, bringing the fight right to Capital City. It had been called a victory, and Mal wouldn't dispute that none, even if the word don't do much for him, these days. It just gets thrown back and forth by both sides too gorram much. "How'd you end up here? Refugee?" He drains the last of his glass, the drink smoother than most he's had in years. Simon refills it without even asking.
"No. I've been here for a while. I had some - trouble. With the government."
Who hasn't? "Don't reckon they're fond of me none either. What'd you do?" He asks it even though he knows he's going to get another story, one more tale of woe when he could be sleeping, or relaxing, or doing anything else.
Something flickers across Simon's face, so fast Mal almost doesn't catch it. Anger, maybe. Rage. "I had a sister. She was -" he trails off for a moment, his eyes going soft. Then he shakes his head abruptly. "The Alliance took her, they said they needed her - for the war. How could they need a fourteen-year-old girl for the war effort? I asked them that, but they didn't answer. I tried to find her, and they shut me out. Finally, my accounts were frozen, my medical license revoked. I ended up here."
Yep, tale of woe. Though Mal ain't ever heard about the Feds taking little girls. Don't make any kind of sense. Nothing the Alliance does makes sense, these days. "You think about joining the Independents? Doctors are always real - "
"No." Simon says, looking away.
"You could be real useful -"
He shrugs. "I'm useful here. The medical infrastructure is dead - no Federal money comes this way anymore. People know where to find me. It's a living."
Yeah. Mal figures it's some kind of living. "In the bar, were you -"
Simon looks away, face slightly flushed.
It's all the answer Mal needs, but he can't quite resist pushing it. "You do that often? Looking for money maybe?"
"No!" Simon looks shocked, and it makes Mal want to laugh a whole lot. "I thought you looked. Kind."
Kind. He ain't sure anyone's ever called him kind. Least, not since the war started. This kid is just all kinds of amusing. "I ain't kind," he says, putting his drink down on the rickety table. "But it's been a while since I had a thrust." He says it deliberately crudely, and this time Simon doesn't look away, or blush. This time, Simon sets his own glass down, and looks towards the bed.
"Me too," he says, standing, barely hesitating.
Mal grins. This one is going to be good. The ones with stories, with hurts and disappoints, they're always good. It's the desperation, Zoe said to him once. That's all it is.
It ain't like Mal didn't already know that. He steps forward, backing Simon up against the wall, and it's good, real good - Simon's hands on Mal's shoulders, half-grinning again, his eyelids heavy. "What do you -" he starts, but Mal ain't one to mix sex with talking about it first, so he leans forward, presses his mouth against Simon's, grinding his cock against Simon's hip.
The room is cold, and he's tempted to keep his shirt on, do this fast and dirty, but Simon ain't having it that way. He undoes Mal's shirt, pushing it off his shoulders, and Mal figures fair's fair, and shoves his hand inside the loose waist of Simon's pants.
Simon grunts, pulling his head back slightly as Mal circles his fingers around Simon's cock. "Son of a bitch."
"Bet that ain't duelling language," Mal murmurs against Simon's lips, and he feels that mouth twitch, once.
"You'd be surprised. Harder, please."
So Mal squeezes his fingers a little harder, sliding his hand in short, abortive movements. With his other hand, he holds tight to Simon's waist. It's good, real good - the wet sounds of Simon's mouth on his, the way Simon shudders when Mal moves his thumb in just the right way, the weight of Simon's hand on Mal's ass, pulling him in close. It's good, but Mal's glad when Simon pushes him away slightly, hand on his stomach. They stumble to the bed, losing boots and the rest of their clothes on the way.
Before he knows it, he's sitting on the edge of the bed, Simon straddling him, his hands and mouth all over Mal's body, his face. Simon's cock is hot, hard against his own, and no matter what Mal does, how he tries to angle his body, the friction isn't enough.
"Mind if I fuck you?" he asks, when Simon briefly pulls away.
"Yes," Simon says, and Mal might be inclined to get pissy about the outright refusal, but Simon's sliding down to the floor, eyes dark, mouth already open, and Mal can live without the fucking if he can have this, the way Simon's mouth just draws him in. Mal is surrounded by heat - hot, wet mouth on his cock, warm hands gripping his thigh.
Simon's mouth is a little loose, lips not quite a tight seal, but Mal don't care, not at all, because Simon doesn't stop; he sets a fast, wet, messy rhythm that reminds Mal of fast charges over rough, broken terrain. "Slow down," he almost wants to say, but he likes it fast, like the lack of precision.
He wonders how many times Simon's done this before; he's about to ask, when Simon slides all the way down, swallowing around Mal's cock, then pulling back and doing it again, and again.
It tips Mal over the edge, and he comes, Simon swallowing the entire time, small noises coming from the back of throat. Mal lets himself fall back, shuddering, Simon's mouth slowly pulling away. Mal can imagine what he looks like - dark hair all messed up, lips reddened and maybe a little blurred at the edges. He wonders if Simon jerked himself off while he was sucking on Mal's cock - if Simon came all over his own hand, maybe rubbing it against his thigh.
He gets his answer when Simon shifts, moves to kneel over Mal, and asks, "Do you mind if I fuck you?"
Mal watches him in a half-haze; he takes in Simon's slick lips, and the way his tongue swipes along his bottom lip, just once. "Not after that," he replies, already feeling boneless, already anticipating cock in ass, the kind of relentless fucking he just bets Simon is aching to give someone.
Simon smiles, once, sharp and hard, and his fingers - slick with something that Mal didn't even notice - are already circling his ass. He backs up, flips himself awkwardly, limbs heavy with exhaustion, and balances himself on his knees and elbows.
Simon doesn't hesitate, fingers sliding inside.
Mal takes a deep breath, arms already shaking.
*
When Reynolds is sleeping - breath even and deep, body slack - Simon pulls himself away slowly, carefully. Underneath the bed he has a standard injector kit, and he presses it swiftly against Reynolds' bicep. The skin around the injection heals quickly, knitting together. Come morning, Reynolds will never know anything had been near his arm.
Dressing swiftly, he watches the sleeping body. Reynolds' exhaustion is profound, that's easy enough to see. Too long fighting, probably too long sending people away to die. He probably never sleeps a night through, interrupted by fighting or emergencies, or dreams. Simon almost feels sorry for him.
Almost.
Outside, the air is cold. He longs for his real clothes, the heavy cloth of his uniform, rather than the cheap shirt and jacket he has now. He walks quickly.
She's waiting for him at the prearranged spot. Her hair is pulled back tightly. It's regulation, but it doesn't suit her face. Despite the cold, she's standing straight, arms by her side. Of course, she doesn't need to hunch into her jacket, fingers shoved deep inside pockets. She's wearing her uniform. She's wearing her gloves, the dark leather lined for the winter.
"Did you get the name?" River asks, smiling up at him. She looks eager, hopeful, even with her severe hair, even in the uniform.
Simon shakes his head. "No. I still don't know who the mole is. But I have something better."
"What?"
"I've placed a tracker in Malcolm Reynolds."
Her eyes widen, her smile turns sharp, hungry. "Malcolm Reynolds."
They all know about Malcolm Reynolds. He's the darling of the Independents, having worked his way up the ranks through the long years of war. He's one of the few the Alliance would truly like to capture. He hasn't been seen in months, not publicly, and Simon wonders what it says about the Independents' resources that Mal Reynolds is out meeting Alliance turncoats.
Or maybe the traitor is so high-level that he warrants a man like Reynolds. It's an interesting thought.
Either way, he thinks the great Malcolm Reynolds is slipping. The sex - easily agreed to, desperate and a little bit pathetic - is just the most obvious sign. Still, Reynolds will make a valuable asset.
"How did you -"
"He was in the bar." They've been tracking the traitor for months now, unable to figure out a name, unable to get a real lead. The best River had been able to determine, the traitor was meeting his Independent contact in a particular bar.
Simon had gone. And he'd seen Malcolm Reynolds, waiting. He still can't believe how easily Reynolds fell into his lap.
River's smiling now, widely, and he can tell that she's fighting the urge to laugh, to take his hands and twirl him manically, edging on insane. Years after finishing the program, and she's still not quite right. He doubts she ever will be. Instead she says, "They will be so pleased."
Of course they will. Simon and River are one of the best Alliance counterintelligence teams. "Success again," he says, grinning. "I should go back. In case he wakes up."
Her eyes widen again. "Simon -"
"It was fun. Really." The taste of Reynolds is still in his mouth, reminding him of the messy, frantic fucking. "It's not every day I get to seduce a notorious insurgent. And I think he's meeting his contact tomorrow."
"How could he resist you?" she asks, cupping his face briefly in her hand, running her thumb along his scar. And then she's turning away, the dark blue of her uniform easily blending into the shadows. "See you soon."
Simon hunches deeper into his coat, and turns around, walking quickly.
End.
Pairing: Mal/Simon
Rating: NC-17
Words: About 2900
Summary: The war didn't end at Serenity Valley. Mal's still fighting. AU.
Notes: Many, many thanks to nutkin for the super-fast beta, and to valiant who said that yes, I should write that War AU.
Disclaimer: Clearly I claim no ownership to these characters/contexts; nor am I making money from this fic writing thing.
Mostly, people don't look at Mal in the eye these days. He figures sometimes it's because the bitterness and exhaustion shows on his face; sometimes he knows it's his uniform - Independents might be welcome in many places, but most people ain't looking to get involved with them. Most people are just trying to make a living in the middle of a war that ain't ever going to end.
But today Mal ain't wearing his uniform; he ain't been wearing it for a while now, 'cause that would defeat the purpose of being undercover, waiting for a contact who has promised intel.
Still, he's a little surprised when someone sits down next to him and says, "Hi."
He keeps his eyes on his drink. "I ain't looking for conversation."
"And it's a good thing I'm not looking for manners," he gets told right back, quick as a flash. It almost makes him laugh, because no one's talked back to him like that since Zoe went and got it into her head to get killed on a mission. He still ain't used to not having her watching his back.
"Place like this don't hold much stock in manners," he says, despite himself. Though it's true - the bar is about as pretty as a gunshot wound.
"Hmmm," the man beside him says.
Mal finally glances over, and he's surprised by what he sees. Kid's younger than Mal would've guessed.
"I think I've seen you here before."
That's interesting, because Mal don't remember seeing this guy at all. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
His voice ain't right for around here - proper and learned with all kinds of rich-folk diction - but the kid's clothing is rough and dirty around the edges, his face is smudged up a little, and he's got one hell of a scar down one side of his face. He looks like he belongs here, even if he don't sound like it. "There a reason you're mentioning this?"
Kid looks away. "No. No reason."
But Mal knows there's a reason, and the way the kid's blushing right now - obvious even in the dim light - he figures he knows exactly what that reason is. It's interesting - snippy back talk, blushing, that rich folk diction, the worn-out clothes. All together in one package, it's almost intriguing. Except Mal ain't got time for intriguing or dallying, even if it's been a long while since someone looked at him like they wanted more than him to shoot a gun or make a decision or get intel.
"Look," he starts, "it ain't that I ain't flattered, but I got -" he gets cut off by a loud crash behind him, the sound of a man going down, table collapsing under him. This is the real annoying part of meeting contacts in sketchy parts of town, in bars that ain't bars so much as cockroach houses. Bar fights bring the law, and they scare off nervous contacts. "Gorram," he mutters under his breath, and then the fight - expanding with each punch - gets to him.
Bar brawls are sometimes a great way to work off steam, but this ain't what he's looking for. But it ain't like he's got a choice - drunk, ugly men are already throwing punches his way, and he meets them with his own fists, or ducks. Beside him, he can see the kid's basically holding his own, eyes a little wide at the whole situation. Still, it don't look like it's the first fight he's been in, even if his aim is a little off.
"Hey -" he starts, turning towards the kid. Stupid move - he gets plowed in the side of his head by a fist that feels as big as a breadbox, and falls against the bar. And that ain't kosher, not at all.
He blanks out for the next few minutes, while he's fighting. He doesn't think about it at all, just like he doesn't think when he sends kids into fights they can't win, or when he's running into those battle situations himself. He just moves, ducks, hits, stepping over bodies at they fall, over tables and chairs as they get splintered.
And eventually, he finds himself by the door, breathing hard, no one close by except for the kid. The kid's got blood on his face, smeared across his knuckles.
"You want to get out of here?" the kid asks, wiping his hand against his jacket.
Mal looks around. No way is the contact going to be showing here today. And it ain't like he's got much else to do, except go back to a rat trap of a room, and wait. He shrugs, and follows the kid out. "What's your name?" he asks, because once you fight next to a man, he deserves some kind of name.
"Simon," the kid says, moving easily through the narrow, dirty streets.
*
"You an Independent?" Simon asks, when they get back to a couple of small rooms, clean but cheap.
Mal frowns. "You an Alliance interrogator?"
Simon half-grins, and motions for Mal's hands. "Sorry for asking. Guess maybe you don't want to be known. Give me your hands. You might need stitches."
The cuts are nothing - blood already dried, itching on his skin - and Mal's used to deal with his own hurts. "What are you? Doctor or something?"
Simon nods, once, briefly. "Yes. Or. I was."
Huh. "And now?"
Simon's mouth twists, and he waves his hand around the rooms. "Now I live here."
There's a story there, behind that twisted-up mouth and that scar, but these days, everyone's got a story. Mal's heard too gorram many of them - land lost to Alliance bombings, sons lost to Alliance campaigns, one little tragedy after another - and he ain't looking to hear one more. Instead he says, "I don't need doctoring. But my day of drinking got kinda cut off."
"I have whiskey," Simon says, and turning, pulls out two chipped glasses.
Mal smiles.
*
Half an hour later, the silence in the room is starting to grate at Mal. Drinking alone is just fine, but drinking without the noise of a bar is downright irritating. It makes him want to drink more, just so he don't have to listen to the quiet. But he can't do that - he's got to be alert tomorrow, in case the contact comes. It'll be his last day in town, either way. So he says, "You throw a decent punch."
Simon laughs. "It's passable. Not as good as yours."
"Well. I got experience from way back. You look like maybe - " you never had to fight, he's about to say, but decides against it. The whiskey is too good to throw away like that, and it's free.
"I was trained in duelling."
"I'm a pretty good shot myself."
"With swords." Simon clarifies, grinning.
Rich folk. Got to be. "Handy life skill."
"Not precisely." Simon's still grinning, wry.
"You come from one of the Core worlds?" Alliance worlds, all of them, and Mal can't quite keep the sneer from his tone.
"Yes. Osiris."
Osiris. Independents hit the planet a couple months back, bringing the fight right to Capital City. It had been called a victory, and Mal wouldn't dispute that none, even if the word don't do much for him, these days. It just gets thrown back and forth by both sides too gorram much. "How'd you end up here? Refugee?" He drains the last of his glass, the drink smoother than most he's had in years. Simon refills it without even asking.
"No. I've been here for a while. I had some - trouble. With the government."
Who hasn't? "Don't reckon they're fond of me none either. What'd you do?" He asks it even though he knows he's going to get another story, one more tale of woe when he could be sleeping, or relaxing, or doing anything else.
Something flickers across Simon's face, so fast Mal almost doesn't catch it. Anger, maybe. Rage. "I had a sister. She was -" he trails off for a moment, his eyes going soft. Then he shakes his head abruptly. "The Alliance took her, they said they needed her - for the war. How could they need a fourteen-year-old girl for the war effort? I asked them that, but they didn't answer. I tried to find her, and they shut me out. Finally, my accounts were frozen, my medical license revoked. I ended up here."
Yep, tale of woe. Though Mal ain't ever heard about the Feds taking little girls. Don't make any kind of sense. Nothing the Alliance does makes sense, these days. "You think about joining the Independents? Doctors are always real - "
"No." Simon says, looking away.
"You could be real useful -"
He shrugs. "I'm useful here. The medical infrastructure is dead - no Federal money comes this way anymore. People know where to find me. It's a living."
Yeah. Mal figures it's some kind of living. "In the bar, were you -"
Simon looks away, face slightly flushed.
It's all the answer Mal needs, but he can't quite resist pushing it. "You do that often? Looking for money maybe?"
"No!" Simon looks shocked, and it makes Mal want to laugh a whole lot. "I thought you looked. Kind."
Kind. He ain't sure anyone's ever called him kind. Least, not since the war started. This kid is just all kinds of amusing. "I ain't kind," he says, putting his drink down on the rickety table. "But it's been a while since I had a thrust." He says it deliberately crudely, and this time Simon doesn't look away, or blush. This time, Simon sets his own glass down, and looks towards the bed.
"Me too," he says, standing, barely hesitating.
Mal grins. This one is going to be good. The ones with stories, with hurts and disappoints, they're always good. It's the desperation, Zoe said to him once. That's all it is.
It ain't like Mal didn't already know that. He steps forward, backing Simon up against the wall, and it's good, real good - Simon's hands on Mal's shoulders, half-grinning again, his eyelids heavy. "What do you -" he starts, but Mal ain't one to mix sex with talking about it first, so he leans forward, presses his mouth against Simon's, grinding his cock against Simon's hip.
The room is cold, and he's tempted to keep his shirt on, do this fast and dirty, but Simon ain't having it that way. He undoes Mal's shirt, pushing it off his shoulders, and Mal figures fair's fair, and shoves his hand inside the loose waist of Simon's pants.
Simon grunts, pulling his head back slightly as Mal circles his fingers around Simon's cock. "Son of a bitch."
"Bet that ain't duelling language," Mal murmurs against Simon's lips, and he feels that mouth twitch, once.
"You'd be surprised. Harder, please."
So Mal squeezes his fingers a little harder, sliding his hand in short, abortive movements. With his other hand, he holds tight to Simon's waist. It's good, real good - the wet sounds of Simon's mouth on his, the way Simon shudders when Mal moves his thumb in just the right way, the weight of Simon's hand on Mal's ass, pulling him in close. It's good, but Mal's glad when Simon pushes him away slightly, hand on his stomach. They stumble to the bed, losing boots and the rest of their clothes on the way.
Before he knows it, he's sitting on the edge of the bed, Simon straddling him, his hands and mouth all over Mal's body, his face. Simon's cock is hot, hard against his own, and no matter what Mal does, how he tries to angle his body, the friction isn't enough.
"Mind if I fuck you?" he asks, when Simon briefly pulls away.
"Yes," Simon says, and Mal might be inclined to get pissy about the outright refusal, but Simon's sliding down to the floor, eyes dark, mouth already open, and Mal can live without the fucking if he can have this, the way Simon's mouth just draws him in. Mal is surrounded by heat - hot, wet mouth on his cock, warm hands gripping his thigh.
Simon's mouth is a little loose, lips not quite a tight seal, but Mal don't care, not at all, because Simon doesn't stop; he sets a fast, wet, messy rhythm that reminds Mal of fast charges over rough, broken terrain. "Slow down," he almost wants to say, but he likes it fast, like the lack of precision.
He wonders how many times Simon's done this before; he's about to ask, when Simon slides all the way down, swallowing around Mal's cock, then pulling back and doing it again, and again.
It tips Mal over the edge, and he comes, Simon swallowing the entire time, small noises coming from the back of throat. Mal lets himself fall back, shuddering, Simon's mouth slowly pulling away. Mal can imagine what he looks like - dark hair all messed up, lips reddened and maybe a little blurred at the edges. He wonders if Simon jerked himself off while he was sucking on Mal's cock - if Simon came all over his own hand, maybe rubbing it against his thigh.
He gets his answer when Simon shifts, moves to kneel over Mal, and asks, "Do you mind if I fuck you?"
Mal watches him in a half-haze; he takes in Simon's slick lips, and the way his tongue swipes along his bottom lip, just once. "Not after that," he replies, already feeling boneless, already anticipating cock in ass, the kind of relentless fucking he just bets Simon is aching to give someone.
Simon smiles, once, sharp and hard, and his fingers - slick with something that Mal didn't even notice - are already circling his ass. He backs up, flips himself awkwardly, limbs heavy with exhaustion, and balances himself on his knees and elbows.
Simon doesn't hesitate, fingers sliding inside.
Mal takes a deep breath, arms already shaking.
*
When Reynolds is sleeping - breath even and deep, body slack - Simon pulls himself away slowly, carefully. Underneath the bed he has a standard injector kit, and he presses it swiftly against Reynolds' bicep. The skin around the injection heals quickly, knitting together. Come morning, Reynolds will never know anything had been near his arm.
Dressing swiftly, he watches the sleeping body. Reynolds' exhaustion is profound, that's easy enough to see. Too long fighting, probably too long sending people away to die. He probably never sleeps a night through, interrupted by fighting or emergencies, or dreams. Simon almost feels sorry for him.
Almost.
Outside, the air is cold. He longs for his real clothes, the heavy cloth of his uniform, rather than the cheap shirt and jacket he has now. He walks quickly.
She's waiting for him at the prearranged spot. Her hair is pulled back tightly. It's regulation, but it doesn't suit her face. Despite the cold, she's standing straight, arms by her side. Of course, she doesn't need to hunch into her jacket, fingers shoved deep inside pockets. She's wearing her uniform. She's wearing her gloves, the dark leather lined for the winter.
"Did you get the name?" River asks, smiling up at him. She looks eager, hopeful, even with her severe hair, even in the uniform.
Simon shakes his head. "No. I still don't know who the mole is. But I have something better."
"What?"
"I've placed a tracker in Malcolm Reynolds."
Her eyes widen, her smile turns sharp, hungry. "Malcolm Reynolds."
They all know about Malcolm Reynolds. He's the darling of the Independents, having worked his way up the ranks through the long years of war. He's one of the few the Alliance would truly like to capture. He hasn't been seen in months, not publicly, and Simon wonders what it says about the Independents' resources that Mal Reynolds is out meeting Alliance turncoats.
Or maybe the traitor is so high-level that he warrants a man like Reynolds. It's an interesting thought.
Either way, he thinks the great Malcolm Reynolds is slipping. The sex - easily agreed to, desperate and a little bit pathetic - is just the most obvious sign. Still, Reynolds will make a valuable asset.
"How did you -"
"He was in the bar." They've been tracking the traitor for months now, unable to figure out a name, unable to get a real lead. The best River had been able to determine, the traitor was meeting his Independent contact in a particular bar.
Simon had gone. And he'd seen Malcolm Reynolds, waiting. He still can't believe how easily Reynolds fell into his lap.
River's smiling now, widely, and he can tell that she's fighting the urge to laugh, to take his hands and twirl him manically, edging on insane. Years after finishing the program, and she's still not quite right. He doubts she ever will be. Instead she says, "They will be so pleased."
Of course they will. Simon and River are one of the best Alliance counterintelligence teams. "Success again," he says, grinning. "I should go back. In case he wakes up."
Her eyes widen again. "Simon -"
"It was fun. Really." The taste of Reynolds is still in his mouth, reminding him of the messy, frantic fucking. "It's not every day I get to seduce a notorious insurgent. And I think he's meeting his contact tomorrow."
"How could he resist you?" she asks, cupping his face briefly in her hand, running her thumb along his scar. And then she's turning away, the dark blue of her uniform easily blending into the shadows. "See you soon."
Simon hunches deeper into his coat, and turns around, walking quickly.
End.