Fic: Passage (American Idol/Firefly, Adam Lambert/Mal Reynolds)
Title: Passage
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Mal Reynolds
Fandoms: American Idol RPF/Firefly FPF
Rating: NC-17 for sex and violent imagery.
Warnings: None standard.
Continuity: post-Serenity.
Summary: It's not payment for the trip off this crappy moon and out of this crappy cabaret - it's because the captain's cute.
Word Count: about 2,600.
Disclaimers: This is a work of fiction. Some of the characters herein are based on real people, but the words and events are completely made up. They are not intended to be mistaken for fact, and no libel is intended. Other characters and settings are based on Firefly, which is the intellectual property of Mutant Enemy. This original work of fan fiction is protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, and I am giving it away for free. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post.
Notes: Thanks to mandysbitch for the quick beta. Written for blackdress_adam.
The wonderful flamecurls made a fanmix for this fic. You can download the mix here. The track list is included in the .zip file.
*
It wasn't the first time Adam'd had to step over a corpse to get backstage, and that about summed up the trouble with the cabaret scene on Persephone.The body on the floor had died of a single clean shot to the brain, right through his third eye. A permanent window from his mind to infinity, not that it'd be real useful to him anymore. Adam stepped over the dead man and his surrounding puddle of gore, glad he'd worn the knee-high boots with the strong buckles, the waterproof leather, and the low heel. And that the body was too fresh to stink. It was hard to plug his nose and apply eyeliner at the same time.
Leaning into the mirror, kohl pencil in hand, he saw a stranger's reflection in the doorway. The man stared down at the corpse with a kind of resignation, as if, like Adam, he was all too used to starting his day with a murder victim blocking his path. "Don't reckon you know whether the stiff is Ricky Chau."
"Can't say I knew him," Adam said.
"Can't say I did either. Shame he's gone, though. He was supposed to pay me." The man crouched down, avoiding the pool of blood. "I don't reckon -" He reached into the corpse's coat pocket. "Oh, yes I do reckon. Looks like the motive wasn't robbery. Well. Rest in peace, Ricky Chau." He turned to leave, tucking an envelope of money into the folds of his own long, brown coat.
"Well." Adam felt he ought to reply somehow, though the stranger was already making his way back to wherever he'd dropped in from. "I suppose you ain't staying for my show."
"You got a show? 'Course you got a show. What kind?"
"It's a cabaret act," Adam said. "You know, singing. Costume changes. Small-scale pyrotechnics."
"Well, we ain't taking off 'til tomorrow morning. Got some repairs to contend with. So long as you ain't shooting ping pong balls out your pi gu or nothing, my crew and I might drop by."
"No ping pong balls," Adam laughed. "And thank you. It's not much of a livelihood, but it's mine."
"It'll be our pleasure, I'm sure," the man said. This time, Adam let him leave. He knew better than to imagine he might see the fellow again. Adam had lured and lost enough men to tell in five minutes if they were the kind to keep their promises.
But the man proved Adam's instincts wrong. He showed up at a table off to the right side of the stage, accompanied by a big, rough fellow in a tight orange t-shirt and a taciturn brown-skinned woman in a tanned leather vest. His crew, Adam guessed. Adam played to his regulars, making a point of not singing to the strangers or flirting with them. They didn't seem quite within the law, and Adam let them keep their heads low to the ground.
But during his set break, he went over to them to thank them for attending, hoping to be discreet about it but knowing there wasn't much room for discretion in skintight leather pants and platform boots. The man from before stood up to shake Adam's hand. "That's quite a voice you got there." His name was Malcolm Reynolds. He introduced his crew, too, but Adam didn't have much interest in them. Mal was the one with the silky Rim twang and the feathery brown hair that fell about his eyes. He was a little too tall for Adam's tastes, but the rest made up for it: a gentility that men from the rougher parts of the Rim sometimes carried, soft-spoken but commanding.
"So you have a spaceship?" Adam said. Mal nodded silently, like he couldn't afford to advertise. "Listen," Adam continued. "After the show, meet me in the alley behind the Orchid, two doors down. I got a proposition for you." Another nod, this one inscrutable: Adam couldn't tell whether he was going to be met or dismissed. "For now, enjoy the show." He blew a kiss as he strutted toward the stage, getting back into character. Mal smiled like he'd caught the kiss right in the face.
Mal was there in the alley when Adam came looking for him. The great big bearded fellow stood behind him, hand on his hip to signal the presence of a gun. "How can we help you?" Mal said.
"I don't reckon you take passengers?" Adam said. "I can pay."
"I seem to recall a whole line of transport ships down at the docks. You'd best take your pick of those."
"I gotta go to the Core," Adam explained. "Sihnon, New Singapore, where they audition ou xiang. Idols. I think they'd have me if they heard me, but I can't get to the Core on this gou shi restricted ID. A visa'll take time I don't have and bribes I can't afford, especially now that the bigots are calling sly folks a health risk again. Please, I'll -"
Mal folded his arms. "We don't take passengers no more."
"Mal," the bearded man growled. "We could use the cash." Mal started to raise a protest, but the other fellow talked right over him. "We could use it. And 'Nara's still got some contacts out on Sihnon. I reckon we could find us something to smuggle back out." He smiled greedily. "Some whores, maybe."
"How much can you pay?" Mal kept his arms folded, maintaining the space between himself and Adam. But he accepted Adam's offer and told him where to find the right ship in the docks.
Adam went back to his rooms of the last time to pack up his things. He could already see his own face lighting up the signs in Xing Xiu Square in New Singapore, his voice rising over the chatter of tourists as they looked up to the skyscrapers.
*
The route to Sihnon was a long and indirect one, since as Mal had explained, Serenity's fake ID would be good for the older border checkpoints but might get them too much attention at the newer ones. The ship was claustrophobic, but the stars outside were pretty. Adam settled in, helping with some small chores but mostly keeping out of the crew's hair. Except at night, when they begged to hear him sing. The big fellow, whose name was Jayne, could strum out a few guitar chords, and he accompanied Adam when he knew the tune.
Mal watched Adam intensely when he sang, not quite lasciviously, but with obvious appreciation. Adam loved it when straight fellows wanted him and couldn't tell what to do about it. He chose songs accordingly, fixing his eyes fiercely in Mal's as he sang about taking him for a ride, about easing his pain. He didn't expect to get sex out of it - he never expected that - but he wanted to make it clear to Mal that his cock was there waiting if Mal desired it.
Mal said nothing about the matter, but his first mate did. Like most of the crew of Serenity, she looked capable of weakly provoked murder, although she was welcoming enough toward Adam, especially after he'd made it known he didn't mind helping with the dishes. In a low and quiet voice that was intimidating beyond description, she said, "I hope you don't expect much out of the Captain."
"Nothing but safe passage to Sihnon," Adam said with a toothy smile that would reveal the depth of his lie.
"It ain't about you," the first mate said. "He's got problems with, well, anyone who takes a fancy to him. He likes women who - I mean, people who come on strong, and then he ain't got a ge ju ting de hou zi de zhi li what to do with 'em."
"I'm only having fun," Adam said. "I don't mean anything by it."
"That's what I'm warning you of." She pressed her hands into her hips like it was a substitute for wringing his neck. "Don't have fun. Not unless you're intending to follow through."
"Are you asking me to follow through?"
"Captain could use the affection." She fixed her eyes in his for a nerve-wracking moment before turning away, striding down the long hallway out of the passengers' quarters, and leaving Adam alone to plot.
Adam had only a few days left before they reached Sihnon, so there was no time for a well-paced seduction. He waited like a jaguar to catch Mal alone, hanging around the cargo hold attempting to look harmless, teaching dance moves to the mechanic or making up card games with the medic. Finally, after a whole day and night of fruitless loitering, he drew a breath and knocked on the vaultlike metal door of Mal's bunk. When he was let in, he said, "I was under the impression you let me aboard because you liked me."
"I let you aboard 'cause Jayne liked you," Mal chuckled. "He's got a. . . indiscriminate taste for pretty things."
"Are you saying I'm a pretty thing?" Adam stroked Mal's face, encouraged when Mal didn't flinch away.
"You got a certain loveliness about you." With great hesitation, Mal kissed him. Adam was only too happy to return it, ever gently, drawing Mal along with his lips.
"So what do you like?" Adam whispered, their noses touching. He tugged at the collar of Mal's shirt, firmly enough to threaten popping the button. "I'm more of a top, myself."
Mal laughed nervously, thumbs looped in the waist of his trousers, and didn't answer.
"You don't spend much time with sly folks, do you?"
"Only when they throw themselves at me," Mal said.
"So this has happened before?" Adam tilted his hips in, circling a subtle grind against Mal's thigh.
Mal's smile was grim and wistful. "Not since the War."
The brown coat and the unrelenting air of sadness: of course he'd been in the War. He'd been on the losing side, no doubt. Men like Mal didn't want to talk about the War. Men like Mal wanted a blow job.
Adam rolled Mal's suspenders down his shoulders. He knelt to undo Mal's fly and take out his cock. Mal said, "So, you do this for everyone who does you a favor?" He had a beautiful cock, long and straight, purple with excitement.
Adam gripped it uncomfortably tight. "Is that what you think of me?"
"I think you mean business more than pleasure."
Adam loosened his hold, running his fist up Mal's shaft until he'd released it. "What can I do to make you stop thinking that?"
"You could slow it down some, for one thing. At least pretend you ain't in a hurry to get this over with." Mal tilted Adam's chin up with his finger. "Take our clothes off, get into bed, go about this like human beings."
"I like that plan." Adam rose up from his knees, palms flat against Mal, beginning at his waist and stopping on his chest. Adam didn't object to intimacy - it was only that he'd learned not to expect any. He tilted his head and let Mal pull him into a kiss. Kissing seemed to reassure Mal of the honesty of Adam's intentions. They kept their lips in contact as much as they could while they undressed each other, fumbling blind with buttons and fasteners. They got all the way to their boots before they had to separate for a moment and tug those off.
Adam wished he had a sheet to cover himself up. He couldn't help feeling self-conscious of his soft belly and his plague of freckles. But Mal seemed to like what Adam wanted to hide. "You a redhead under all that?"
"Reluctantly."
"You should've told me back at the cabaret," Mal said. "I got a weakness for redheads. I might've reduced your fare."
Calm now, smiling wickedly, Adam led Mal to the narrow bed in the corner and lay him down to receive his prize, Mal's cock in his mouth. Mal's soft sighs sounded contemplative. He was one of the least demanding lovers Adam had ever enjoyed. Most men needed to feel powerful, especially in bed with another fellow, to create the illusion they were in control. It was true of even the most effeminate sly boys. But Mal seemed to need the opposite illusion, that Adam would keep him safe and not abandon him, even though he knew Adam would leave his life forever at the Sihnon docks.
Mal came, clutching Adam's hair but not raising his voice. He pulled Adam into his arms and rolled himself on top of Adam like they were ducking grenades. He pawed Adam's chest with his fingertips. "I guess you'll be wanting the same in return."
"That'd do nicely," Adam said.
Mal gave good enough head, hard and wet once Adam asked for it that way. It was better for the fact that Mal didn't seem to expect anything from him after it was over. Adam lay back, enjoying Mal's mouth until he couldn't hold back his orgasm. He stayed in the bed after, knowing Mal would want him to be there.
Mal said, "I don't reckon there's a thing I can do to keep you with me. To keep you from leaving at Sihnon."
"Do you want me to pretend there is?"
Mal chuckled in his rueful way. It made him sound older than he was. "You could indulge me just a tiny bit."
"Then I will."
"I'll know you're faking." Mal paused thoughtfully and brushed Adam's lips with his. "Ain't entirely sure I mind, though."
"Then I'm getting what I want," Adam said.
"By successfully pulling the wool over my eyes?" There was a laugh that wouldn't go out of his voice, like Adam had stuck it in his throat.
"Yes. By giving you a fantasy." Adam shifted under him, freeing his arms so they could lie on their sides, embracing. "That's why I want to be an idol - part of the reason. I want to be everyone's fantasy."
Mal kissed him between his eyes. "You and me, we wouldn't make much of a reality, anyway. I wouldn't mind a few days' fantasy."
So for the three days until they reached Sihnon, they played house, leaving Mal's bunk only for meals and the occasional captainly duty. Mal liked Adam best with his makeup off and hair askew: he said he liked seeing through Adam's glamorous mask. But as Mal ran his callused fingers through Adam's washed-clean hair, Adam felt not naked, but hidden. Perhaps that was why, every time Adam gave Mal the chance to talk about his past, Mal went silent and kissed him. He sensed, maybe, that although he was full of stories, Adam didn't really want to hear them. Adam liked Mal as a chivalrous knight who had swooped down from the stars. In each other's arms, though, they had no past, only the rattle of steel bulkheads, only Adam shrieking as he came and Mal covering his mouth, laughing that they were waking the neighbors.
As the crew prepared Serenity to dock at Sihnon, which it seemed they'd finagled some way of doing with a semblance of lawfulness, Adam took off his mask for the last time, with a thick layer of foundation. Glitter on his eyelids, shiny black on his lashes, lips shimmering and hair teased high. On Sihnon, this was the only person he would be. No compromises.
At the Sihnon docks, saying their farewells, he and Mal were strangers again. They kissed each other's cheeks demurely. "I reckon the next time I see your face," Mal said, "it'll be on a screen forty feet high."
"Forty?" Adam laughed. "Forty feet aren't nearly enough for how big I'm going to be."
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Mal Reynolds
Fandoms: American Idol RPF/Firefly FPF
Rating: NC-17 for sex and violent imagery.
Warnings: None standard.
Continuity: post-Serenity.
Summary: It's not payment for the trip off this crappy moon and out of this crappy cabaret - it's because the captain's cute.
Word Count: about 2,600.
Disclaimers: This is a work of fiction. Some of the characters herein are based on real people, but the words and events are completely made up. They are not intended to be mistaken for fact, and no libel is intended. Other characters and settings are based on Firefly, which is the intellectual property of Mutant Enemy. This original work of fan fiction is protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, and I am giving it away for free. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post.
Notes: Thanks to mandysbitch for the quick beta. Written for blackdress_adam.
The wonderful flamecurls made a fanmix for this fic. You can download the mix here. The track list is included in the .zip file.
*
It wasn't the first time Adam'd had to step over a corpse to get backstage, and that about summed up the trouble with the cabaret scene on Persephone.The body on the floor had died of a single clean shot to the brain, right through his third eye. A permanent window from his mind to infinity, not that it'd be real useful to him anymore. Adam stepped over the dead man and his surrounding puddle of gore, glad he'd worn the knee-high boots with the strong buckles, the waterproof leather, and the low heel. And that the body was too fresh to stink. It was hard to plug his nose and apply eyeliner at the same time.
Leaning into the mirror, kohl pencil in hand, he saw a stranger's reflection in the doorway. The man stared down at the corpse with a kind of resignation, as if, like Adam, he was all too used to starting his day with a murder victim blocking his path. "Don't reckon you know whether the stiff is Ricky Chau."
"Can't say I knew him," Adam said.
"Can't say I did either. Shame he's gone, though. He was supposed to pay me." The man crouched down, avoiding the pool of blood. "I don't reckon -" He reached into the corpse's coat pocket. "Oh, yes I do reckon. Looks like the motive wasn't robbery. Well. Rest in peace, Ricky Chau." He turned to leave, tucking an envelope of money into the folds of his own long, brown coat.
"Well." Adam felt he ought to reply somehow, though the stranger was already making his way back to wherever he'd dropped in from. "I suppose you ain't staying for my show."
"You got a show? 'Course you got a show. What kind?"
"It's a cabaret act," Adam said. "You know, singing. Costume changes. Small-scale pyrotechnics."
"Well, we ain't taking off 'til tomorrow morning. Got some repairs to contend with. So long as you ain't shooting ping pong balls out your pi gu or nothing, my crew and I might drop by."
"No ping pong balls," Adam laughed. "And thank you. It's not much of a livelihood, but it's mine."
"It'll be our pleasure, I'm sure," the man said. This time, Adam let him leave. He knew better than to imagine he might see the fellow again. Adam had lured and lost enough men to tell in five minutes if they were the kind to keep their promises.
But the man proved Adam's instincts wrong. He showed up at a table off to the right side of the stage, accompanied by a big, rough fellow in a tight orange t-shirt and a taciturn brown-skinned woman in a tanned leather vest. His crew, Adam guessed. Adam played to his regulars, making a point of not singing to the strangers or flirting with them. They didn't seem quite within the law, and Adam let them keep their heads low to the ground.
But during his set break, he went over to them to thank them for attending, hoping to be discreet about it but knowing there wasn't much room for discretion in skintight leather pants and platform boots. The man from before stood up to shake Adam's hand. "That's quite a voice you got there." His name was Malcolm Reynolds. He introduced his crew, too, but Adam didn't have much interest in them. Mal was the one with the silky Rim twang and the feathery brown hair that fell about his eyes. He was a little too tall for Adam's tastes, but the rest made up for it: a gentility that men from the rougher parts of the Rim sometimes carried, soft-spoken but commanding.
"So you have a spaceship?" Adam said. Mal nodded silently, like he couldn't afford to advertise. "Listen," Adam continued. "After the show, meet me in the alley behind the Orchid, two doors down. I got a proposition for you." Another nod, this one inscrutable: Adam couldn't tell whether he was going to be met or dismissed. "For now, enjoy the show." He blew a kiss as he strutted toward the stage, getting back into character. Mal smiled like he'd caught the kiss right in the face.
Mal was there in the alley when Adam came looking for him. The great big bearded fellow stood behind him, hand on his hip to signal the presence of a gun. "How can we help you?" Mal said.
"I don't reckon you take passengers?" Adam said. "I can pay."
"I seem to recall a whole line of transport ships down at the docks. You'd best take your pick of those."
"I gotta go to the Core," Adam explained. "Sihnon, New Singapore, where they audition ou xiang. Idols. I think they'd have me if they heard me, but I can't get to the Core on this gou shi restricted ID. A visa'll take time I don't have and bribes I can't afford, especially now that the bigots are calling sly folks a health risk again. Please, I'll -"
Mal folded his arms. "We don't take passengers no more."
"Mal," the bearded man growled. "We could use the cash." Mal started to raise a protest, but the other fellow talked right over him. "We could use it. And 'Nara's still got some contacts out on Sihnon. I reckon we could find us something to smuggle back out." He smiled greedily. "Some whores, maybe."
"How much can you pay?" Mal kept his arms folded, maintaining the space between himself and Adam. But he accepted Adam's offer and told him where to find the right ship in the docks.
Adam went back to his rooms of the last time to pack up his things. He could already see his own face lighting up the signs in Xing Xiu Square in New Singapore, his voice rising over the chatter of tourists as they looked up to the skyscrapers.
*
The route to Sihnon was a long and indirect one, since as Mal had explained, Serenity's fake ID would be good for the older border checkpoints but might get them too much attention at the newer ones. The ship was claustrophobic, but the stars outside were pretty. Adam settled in, helping with some small chores but mostly keeping out of the crew's hair. Except at night, when they begged to hear him sing. The big fellow, whose name was Jayne, could strum out a few guitar chords, and he accompanied Adam when he knew the tune.
Mal watched Adam intensely when he sang, not quite lasciviously, but with obvious appreciation. Adam loved it when straight fellows wanted him and couldn't tell what to do about it. He chose songs accordingly, fixing his eyes fiercely in Mal's as he sang about taking him for a ride, about easing his pain. He didn't expect to get sex out of it - he never expected that - but he wanted to make it clear to Mal that his cock was there waiting if Mal desired it.
Mal said nothing about the matter, but his first mate did. Like most of the crew of Serenity, she looked capable of weakly provoked murder, although she was welcoming enough toward Adam, especially after he'd made it known he didn't mind helping with the dishes. In a low and quiet voice that was intimidating beyond description, she said, "I hope you don't expect much out of the Captain."
"Nothing but safe passage to Sihnon," Adam said with a toothy smile that would reveal the depth of his lie.
"It ain't about you," the first mate said. "He's got problems with, well, anyone who takes a fancy to him. He likes women who - I mean, people who come on strong, and then he ain't got a ge ju ting de hou zi de zhi li what to do with 'em."
"I'm only having fun," Adam said. "I don't mean anything by it."
"That's what I'm warning you of." She pressed her hands into her hips like it was a substitute for wringing his neck. "Don't have fun. Not unless you're intending to follow through."
"Are you asking me to follow through?"
"Captain could use the affection." She fixed her eyes in his for a nerve-wracking moment before turning away, striding down the long hallway out of the passengers' quarters, and leaving Adam alone to plot.
Adam had only a few days left before they reached Sihnon, so there was no time for a well-paced seduction. He waited like a jaguar to catch Mal alone, hanging around the cargo hold attempting to look harmless, teaching dance moves to the mechanic or making up card games with the medic. Finally, after a whole day and night of fruitless loitering, he drew a breath and knocked on the vaultlike metal door of Mal's bunk. When he was let in, he said, "I was under the impression you let me aboard because you liked me."
"I let you aboard 'cause Jayne liked you," Mal chuckled. "He's got a. . . indiscriminate taste for pretty things."
"Are you saying I'm a pretty thing?" Adam stroked Mal's face, encouraged when Mal didn't flinch away.
"You got a certain loveliness about you." With great hesitation, Mal kissed him. Adam was only too happy to return it, ever gently, drawing Mal along with his lips.
"So what do you like?" Adam whispered, their noses touching. He tugged at the collar of Mal's shirt, firmly enough to threaten popping the button. "I'm more of a top, myself."
Mal laughed nervously, thumbs looped in the waist of his trousers, and didn't answer.
"You don't spend much time with sly folks, do you?"
"Only when they throw themselves at me," Mal said.
"So this has happened before?" Adam tilted his hips in, circling a subtle grind against Mal's thigh.
Mal's smile was grim and wistful. "Not since the War."
The brown coat and the unrelenting air of sadness: of course he'd been in the War. He'd been on the losing side, no doubt. Men like Mal didn't want to talk about the War. Men like Mal wanted a blow job.
Adam rolled Mal's suspenders down his shoulders. He knelt to undo Mal's fly and take out his cock. Mal said, "So, you do this for everyone who does you a favor?" He had a beautiful cock, long and straight, purple with excitement.
Adam gripped it uncomfortably tight. "Is that what you think of me?"
"I think you mean business more than pleasure."
Adam loosened his hold, running his fist up Mal's shaft until he'd released it. "What can I do to make you stop thinking that?"
"You could slow it down some, for one thing. At least pretend you ain't in a hurry to get this over with." Mal tilted Adam's chin up with his finger. "Take our clothes off, get into bed, go about this like human beings."
"I like that plan." Adam rose up from his knees, palms flat against Mal, beginning at his waist and stopping on his chest. Adam didn't object to intimacy - it was only that he'd learned not to expect any. He tilted his head and let Mal pull him into a kiss. Kissing seemed to reassure Mal of the honesty of Adam's intentions. They kept their lips in contact as much as they could while they undressed each other, fumbling blind with buttons and fasteners. They got all the way to their boots before they had to separate for a moment and tug those off.
Adam wished he had a sheet to cover himself up. He couldn't help feeling self-conscious of his soft belly and his plague of freckles. But Mal seemed to like what Adam wanted to hide. "You a redhead under all that?"
"Reluctantly."
"You should've told me back at the cabaret," Mal said. "I got a weakness for redheads. I might've reduced your fare."
Calm now, smiling wickedly, Adam led Mal to the narrow bed in the corner and lay him down to receive his prize, Mal's cock in his mouth. Mal's soft sighs sounded contemplative. He was one of the least demanding lovers Adam had ever enjoyed. Most men needed to feel powerful, especially in bed with another fellow, to create the illusion they were in control. It was true of even the most effeminate sly boys. But Mal seemed to need the opposite illusion, that Adam would keep him safe and not abandon him, even though he knew Adam would leave his life forever at the Sihnon docks.
Mal came, clutching Adam's hair but not raising his voice. He pulled Adam into his arms and rolled himself on top of Adam like they were ducking grenades. He pawed Adam's chest with his fingertips. "I guess you'll be wanting the same in return."
"That'd do nicely," Adam said.
Mal gave good enough head, hard and wet once Adam asked for it that way. It was better for the fact that Mal didn't seem to expect anything from him after it was over. Adam lay back, enjoying Mal's mouth until he couldn't hold back his orgasm. He stayed in the bed after, knowing Mal would want him to be there.
Mal said, "I don't reckon there's a thing I can do to keep you with me. To keep you from leaving at Sihnon."
"Do you want me to pretend there is?"
Mal chuckled in his rueful way. It made him sound older than he was. "You could indulge me just a tiny bit."
"Then I will."
"I'll know you're faking." Mal paused thoughtfully and brushed Adam's lips with his. "Ain't entirely sure I mind, though."
"Then I'm getting what I want," Adam said.
"By successfully pulling the wool over my eyes?" There was a laugh that wouldn't go out of his voice, like Adam had stuck it in his throat.
"Yes. By giving you a fantasy." Adam shifted under him, freeing his arms so they could lie on their sides, embracing. "That's why I want to be an idol - part of the reason. I want to be everyone's fantasy."
Mal kissed him between his eyes. "You and me, we wouldn't make much of a reality, anyway. I wouldn't mind a few days' fantasy."
So for the three days until they reached Sihnon, they played house, leaving Mal's bunk only for meals and the occasional captainly duty. Mal liked Adam best with his makeup off and hair askew: he said he liked seeing through Adam's glamorous mask. But as Mal ran his callused fingers through Adam's washed-clean hair, Adam felt not naked, but hidden. Perhaps that was why, every time Adam gave Mal the chance to talk about his past, Mal went silent and kissed him. He sensed, maybe, that although he was full of stories, Adam didn't really want to hear them. Adam liked Mal as a chivalrous knight who had swooped down from the stars. In each other's arms, though, they had no past, only the rattle of steel bulkheads, only Adam shrieking as he came and Mal covering his mouth, laughing that they were waking the neighbors.
As the crew prepared Serenity to dock at Sihnon, which it seemed they'd finagled some way of doing with a semblance of lawfulness, Adam took off his mask for the last time, with a thick layer of foundation. Glitter on his eyelids, shiny black on his lashes, lips shimmering and hair teased high. On Sihnon, this was the only person he would be. No compromises.
At the Sihnon docks, saying their farewells, he and Mal were strangers again. They kissed each other's cheeks demurely. "I reckon the next time I see your face," Mal said, "it'll be on a screen forty feet high."
"Forty?" Adam laughed. "Forty feet aren't nearly enough for how big I'm going to be."