Cyristmas Request Ficlet: DOT HEART (Firefly, Inara/Simon, PG)
For prehistoric_sea, who wanted Simon/Inara and a space!TV dinner. (734 words)
Simon looked over his shoulder. Nobody was following him. Well, Jayne observed with some interest that Simon had washed his hands and brushed his hair since his return to the ship, but Simon was able to deflect interest by telling Jayne that he had promised to teach River how to perform tracheotomies with a fairly blunt pencil, and they had a fairly blunt pencil but were short an experimental subject.
Simon paused for a moment, self-diagnosing tachycardia, but only of the fun, recreational variety. He'd managed a lightning-fast descent on the market, and if anybody had reported him, Serenity was spaceborne once again, and would have to find him first to bind him by law. So he'd gotten away with that (a recent discovery: that he liked getting away with things, it was fun). It looked like he was getting away with a progress toward Inara's shuttle, unobserved by anybody. Anybody who wasn't omniscient and crazy, anyway.
"I didn't think I had time to look for a real restaurant," Simon said. "So I bought some of these self-heating things. It says they have cabbage-it's got to be real, there isn't such a thing as fake cabbage, is there? I must have looked a little, uhh, like they were, you know, humble, so the Shepherd said, better a dinner of herbs and love and a stalled ox and hatred therein. And I said once the ox sped up again there could be quite a problem in an enclosed space, even if the inhabitants didn't hate each other already, but River said no, dummy, stalled meaning pent up in a stall for future feasting. And I said that I could remember when vegetables were…commonplace, not worth thinking about. Something the second kitchen-maid fetched as soon as it was light enough to see around the market."
"Simon," Inara said. "You are a likeable and in some ways admirable man, but you could whine for Osiris at any distance. Stop it."
"Sorry," he said, "Sorry," bending his head to brush his lips against her fingers. That reminded him of his favorite part of his birthday-when Inara held his hand-so he smiled.
Inara adjusted the two foil parcels until they were exactly the same distance from the edges of the table, the heating tabs facing the center. She pulled the tabs, and the foil wrappers swelled as the steam heated the dumplings and spring rolls and siu mai. She opened the lacquer cabinet and took out two pairs of her best ivory chopsticks and two of her best linen napkins.
"Oh, Inara," he said. "Everything you do is in Goddess pose."
The expression of guileless admiration on Simon's face warmed her heart. Prefabricated or not, she was glad that he knew which tabs to pull.
Unlike most of her clients, Simon was young and beautiful. In common parlance, he was thin-skinned, but when she touched his skin, it felt thick and expensive, like vellum or five-ply cashmere. It wasn't unusual for her clients to be crazy about her, but Simon was genuinely zealous to please her. Clients so often felt they paid not to have to pretend to want to please her, or paid for her to pretend that they did.
Inara thought Simon's technical skills were very passable for a civilian. .If she were still an Examiner she would certainly pass him at Certificate Three and perhaps Four, but he could never be trained as a Companion. That requires exquisite sensitivity to the difference between what customers want and what they say they want. Trying to teach Simon this would be like passing out violins to the tone-deaf: unproductive to the art, and distressing to those in the immediate vicinity.
Simon put the sake bottles into the cups, so they'd be warmed too when he triggered the heating ignition unit in the bottles. Inara realized once again that Simon was physically very graceful. It was something that always took her by surprise, because of his verbal clumsiness. Being close to River made everyone look awkward, much as standing next to Jayne prevented Mal from looking tall.
"I'm sorry," Simon said again. "I should have found some way to order a banquet for you, this is just a snack…"
"Sometimes I prefer a light meal," she said. "The heavier ones are so often indigestible."
O hai guyz! Happy New Year!
wildannuette is having a multifandom kink challenge, and I started writing one combining a couple of the Firefly prompts, although I'm not making much progress because it's so filthy that I'm embarrassing myself, although it's mostly femslash and if I were a resolution-making type person "moar femslash!" might be one of them.
I'm up to 2800 words on the still-untitled B7/FF happy-ending-post-PGP story. B7 peeps: I know timelines are notoriously problematic, but how long do you think elapsed between Rumours of Death and Blake-the-episode?
Simon looked over his shoulder. Nobody was following him. Well, Jayne observed with some interest that Simon had washed his hands and brushed his hair since his return to the ship, but Simon was able to deflect interest by telling Jayne that he had promised to teach River how to perform tracheotomies with a fairly blunt pencil, and they had a fairly blunt pencil but were short an experimental subject.
Simon paused for a moment, self-diagnosing tachycardia, but only of the fun, recreational variety. He'd managed a lightning-fast descent on the market, and if anybody had reported him, Serenity was spaceborne once again, and would have to find him first to bind him by law. So he'd gotten away with that (a recent discovery: that he liked getting away with things, it was fun). It looked like he was getting away with a progress toward Inara's shuttle, unobserved by anybody. Anybody who wasn't omniscient and crazy, anyway.
"I didn't think I had time to look for a real restaurant," Simon said. "So I bought some of these self-heating things. It says they have cabbage-it's got to be real, there isn't such a thing as fake cabbage, is there? I must have looked a little, uhh, like they were, you know, humble, so the Shepherd said, better a dinner of herbs and love and a stalled ox and hatred therein. And I said once the ox sped up again there could be quite a problem in an enclosed space, even if the inhabitants didn't hate each other already, but River said no, dummy, stalled meaning pent up in a stall for future feasting. And I said that I could remember when vegetables were…commonplace, not worth thinking about. Something the second kitchen-maid fetched as soon as it was light enough to see around the market."
"Simon," Inara said. "You are a likeable and in some ways admirable man, but you could whine for Osiris at any distance. Stop it."
"Sorry," he said, "Sorry," bending his head to brush his lips against her fingers. That reminded him of his favorite part of his birthday-when Inara held his hand-so he smiled.
Inara adjusted the two foil parcels until they were exactly the same distance from the edges of the table, the heating tabs facing the center. She pulled the tabs, and the foil wrappers swelled as the steam heated the dumplings and spring rolls and siu mai. She opened the lacquer cabinet and took out two pairs of her best ivory chopsticks and two of her best linen napkins.
"Oh, Inara," he said. "Everything you do is in Goddess pose."
The expression of guileless admiration on Simon's face warmed her heart. Prefabricated or not, she was glad that he knew which tabs to pull.
Unlike most of her clients, Simon was young and beautiful. In common parlance, he was thin-skinned, but when she touched his skin, it felt thick and expensive, like vellum or five-ply cashmere. It wasn't unusual for her clients to be crazy about her, but Simon was genuinely zealous to please her. Clients so often felt they paid not to have to pretend to want to please her, or paid for her to pretend that they did.
Inara thought Simon's technical skills were very passable for a civilian. .If she were still an Examiner she would certainly pass him at Certificate Three and perhaps Four, but he could never be trained as a Companion. That requires exquisite sensitivity to the difference between what customers want and what they say they want. Trying to teach Simon this would be like passing out violins to the tone-deaf: unproductive to the art, and distressing to those in the immediate vicinity.
Simon put the sake bottles into the cups, so they'd be warmed too when he triggered the heating ignition unit in the bottles. Inara realized once again that Simon was physically very graceful. It was something that always took her by surprise, because of his verbal clumsiness. Being close to River made everyone look awkward, much as standing next to Jayne prevented Mal from looking tall.
"I'm sorry," Simon said again. "I should have found some way to order a banquet for you, this is just a snack…"
"Sometimes I prefer a light meal," she said. "The heavier ones are so often indigestible."
O hai guyz! Happy New Year!
wildannuette is having a multifandom kink challenge, and I started writing one combining a couple of the Firefly prompts, although I'm not making much progress because it's so filthy that I'm embarrassing myself, although it's mostly femslash and if I were a resolution-making type person "moar femslash!" might be one of them.
I'm up to 2800 words on the still-untitled B7/FF happy-ending-post-PGP story. B7 peeps: I know timelines are notoriously problematic, but how long do you think elapsed between Rumours of Death and Blake-the-episode?