Aichmophobia for Bugchicklv (Firefly Threesome Fic Exchange)
Title: Aichmophobia
Author: Vibishan
Gift for: Bugchicklv
Pairing: Simon/River/Jayne
Rating: NC-17. Not kidding.
Warnings: See paring. Threesome, CSI, one person of questionable sanity in a sexual situation. Weird, psychic voyeurism, implied sex between adolescent minors, implied pre-pubescent River psychically spying on sexual situations (and enjoying it). Also, faint hints of D/s dynamic in an erotic sense. If any of this offends, bothers, squicks, etc, then feel free to pass this by.
Summary: After Miranda, River schemes, dreams, and eventually gets exactly what she wants.
Length: 6,000 and change
Disclaimer: Firefly and all characters & concepts therein belong to Joss Whedon, etc. Simon's early flings belong to me.
Author's note: It's still Saturday in Alaska, damnit! THIS IS ON TIME!
Feedback: is better than vicarious orgasms.
River has always known about intercourse, always technically understood the seemingly gross and cumbersome act of inserting a penis into a vagina for the purpose of reproduction. Well, not always, but she cannot recall a time when the anatomical details where unknown to her, or a moment they were first revealed. She does remember that when she was five, she lay in bed at night, awake because of a thunderstorm, and made the synaptic connection for the first time between that absurd physical act and the occasional rumbles and sparkles of pleasure and affection, muted by distance, that she sometimes felt from her parents’ room.
Simon’s room was closer.
The day he lost his virginity to Xia Yue Wicombe, River sat against their shared wall, back pressed to the lavender painted plaster, eyes squeezed shut, and shook, delirious with the sheer volume of joy pouring through them. The next day, River decided to repaint her room. She covered the simpering, little girl lilac with a whirling torrent of blue and green and white. Her parents thought it was amazing and incomprehensible, like most things she did, unable to see that her mural hid no secret code or revolutionary artistic genius, but Simon understood.
“It’s a river overflowing,” he recognized instantly, even though River didn’t have enough room on her walls to depict all the aquatic flourishes she wanted and banks.
“But why?” River pressed, just to make sure.
“With happiness, of course,” he had grinned, before kissing her hair and strolling out to visit Xia, whistling. It occurred to River later that it wasn’t that he understood her artwork, but that the wall was her understanding of his feeling.
When River was thirteen, their parents caught Simon with Quin Makiri. After that, Simon didn’t bring his partners to his room anymore. It made River furious, partly for Simon, but mostly for herself. Simon would start medacad in a next year anyway; after he moved out, he could sleep with anyone he wanted, but River had only just starting fully tapping into the physical sensations and thought vicarious orgasms were the best thing since the Kirieh Equations, and much better than masturbation.
Before the academy, only sex and similarly strong sensations broke through into her mind, and relishing the chance to slide into the passenger’s seat of Simon’s amatory explorations had largely been the extent of her psychic exploits.
She remembers as little of her time in the academy as she can, but from what she cannot avoid recalling, her captors usually kept her so drugged that their thoughts drowned in all of her delusions, planted and not.
When she first thawed in a premature rush of steam and awareness in Serenity’s docking bay, the rampant emotions had steamrolled unabashedly into her mind with all the courtesy of a Tornado tearing across the flat, geographically unimpeded continents of Ceres. Mal’s anger had been searing, blinding and burning her, while Simon’s sharp jumble of fear, frustration, and relief had pressed at her mind like broken glass, jagged and smooth at the same time. Inara’s horror at the sight of any woman locked away in a box, stripped, sedated, and stored for transport had oozed, slimy and disgusting, like half-decayed debris squelching in River’s toes, and rotting. Her automatic revulsion made River sick and panicked, while Zoe’s cold fury hurt almost as much as the captain’s hot rage. Wash’s confusion and concern, laced with pity, left River even more disoriented and nauseous than before.
Then Simon had taken her hands, and for all his worry about her present and their future, she felt his love for her fiercely, and she gathered herself inside of his self-enforced calm just as her gathered her in his arms. River labored to control herself as he had, and dared to examine the minds around her, searching for a lifeline.
She found Jayne. Caught between restraining the slim, pretty doctor as he struggled and rubbed against him and the sudden, unexpected view of a nubile, almost spectral girl, Jayne buzzed with simple lust. The musky, earthy pleasure of wanting was a familiar sensation, a clean and simple urge that River knew and enjoyed and could take solace in.
In the following months, Jayne’s predictable concupiscence became her frequent refuge from the needling, inescapable egos that filled the small spaceship, when the thrumming tension of her brother’s stress and the whining animosity of Mal’s and Inara’s mutual
aggravation and the guilty weight of Book’s past became too much. He could be counted on to provide a simple measure of raw, juicy ardor whenever Inara stepped out of her shuttle in yet another enticing outfit that barely covered her nipples, let alone her cleavage, which was often. River let herself wallow in his rush of arousal. She hid in the ducts above his room the way she’d once crouched against Simon’s wall, wrapping herself in the plain pleasure of his solitary climax the way she’d wrapped herself in her mother’s oversized fur coat years ago, soft and warm and comforting.
She’d been furious when she heard his intention to betray them; his mind was supposed to be safe. In the end, though, it worked out for the best. Simon’s natural, calm air of command and his unconditional magnanimity with undeserved trust while Jayne lay paralyzed at his mercy had lead to Jayne’s fantasies becoming increasingly centered on Simon. River loved the feeling of Simon’s love, sad as it was for all the pieces she was missing, and the invocation of her own love for him made the simple exaltation of borrowed satiety even better.
~*~*~
After Miranda, River had a good deal more control of her training. The conditioning even seemed to promote it; nonfunctional assassins were impractical, after all. She had fought so hard against the heartless ubercompetence they’d tried to foist on her that she’d become incapable of everything, but after she used it for her purposes, instead of theirs, she could risk lucidity more without falling under their control. She still had difficulty expressing herself in linear language, the emotions of others could still overwhelm her, and she still had flashbacks to her initial trauma - but on her more better days, Simon started letting her help design her own meds, with oversight, and her awareness improved vastly.
She learned to appreciate the ease with which she could Read, and didn’t mind speaking in riddles, but her automatic, hysterical breaks when confronted with certain situations were as intolerable as they seemed intractable, and she wanted that fixed.
River didn’t think she could handle needles and restraints, so instead of strapping her to the table, she eventually persuaded Simon to let Jayne hold her down. She could feel every rough, muscled line of him as his heavy weight pushed her into the infirmary table. His strong thighs braced her legs, and he held her wrists, one in each warm, calloused hand. He would keep her safe, and if something went wrong, he’d let her go.
Simon stood at the counter, sterilizing the thin steel awl they’d be stabbing her with. Awl. Not a needle. Not a needle notaneedlenotaneddlenot -
Rough friction rubbed at her cheeks as Jayne nuzzled her, murmuring reassurance.
“Hey now, no need to get skittish. Your brother and I’m gonna take good care of ya. Easy now. Yeah…stop shakin’ I got ya, yer fine.” River trembled, but took a breath.
“Desensitization, by exposing the patient to graded doses of a phobic trigger, can be an effective technique in reducing the irrational and debilitating panic reactions associated with extreme trauma,” she recited automatically.
Simon turned back to them, needle glinting ominously between his hands. She looked away, focusing on Jayne, blunt and scruffy on top of her, as far from that world as it was possible to get. Her breasts pushed against his chest as her ribcage rose, separated on by the thin fabric of her dress and his beige T-shirt. Her breathing deepened, while his became shallower. She smiled.
She felt Simon’s hand in her hair, stroking gently.
“You sure you can handle this, mei mei?”
They’d started with embroidery, giving her a needle to control and direct at her own whims, and worked up to light, painless pricks along her arms, while slowly increasing the amount of her medications delivered with hypos. Still, Simon sometimes worried they pushed her too far too fast, and it was difficult to explain that she needed to be pushed, even though, medically, he already knew.
“Associative conditioning mentally linking the anxiety provoking stimuli with positive emotional and physical sensations aids in relaxation and recovery.”
Simon’s mouth tightened briefly, but then she chuckled.
“You know, Jayne, I think she wants you to kiss her.” River’s smile made her cheeks ache..
“She wants me ta what now?” Jayne spluttered.
“She needs comfort,” Simon explained.
“But -”
“Jayne. Kiss her. Now.” River shivered in delight at the unequivocal, unmistakable tone of Simon’s command.
Jayne twitched reflexively above her, and then he bent his head and tentatively placed his lips on her own. She squirmed happily in his grip and sucked at his lip into her mouth. He reciprocated, licking at her lips and tongue with a nervous, cautious reverence. River could feel the reason for his hesitation; hear it as if he had whispered it in a shamed confession against her neck.
So beautiful. So elegant and pale, like porcelain. Priceless and fragile and not to be touched by the likes of Jayne Cobb, the callous and clumsy and cheap.
She kissed him hard, sticking her tongue into his mouth and clacking their teeth together, trying to show him he wouldn’t break her, that she’d already been smashed and she needed those weathered, craftsman’s hands to fix her. He responded, deepening the kiss, but kept it slow, tongue stroking through her mouth, more daring, but still tender.
So beautiful. More beautiful than anything he’d held before. To be cherished.
A cold line of metal laid against her cheek. She shuddered, and Jayne stopped instantly.
“Do you want to do this now?” Simon asked softly. River bit her lip. “Hickory dickory dock. The cat ran round the clock. Clock struck seven, she wanted to get ‘em, hickory dickory dock.”
“Okay.” He slipped the foam sponge pad beneath the lobe of her ear and applied a precise dose of topical nerve blocker. He’d assured her the painkiller wasn’t really necessary but the medical ritual of it calmed her. Simon’s careful expertise held her as surely and safely as Jayne’s arms.
The point of the needle touched her skin. She jerked involuntarily, terrified, even though she could barely feel the pressure. Jayne held her fast, and Simon’s hand remained perfectly steady. She relaxed.
Then Simon pushed the needle in, puncturing skin and sinew, into her flesh and out of it, like the electrodes, damage without pain but the dire promise of pain to come.
“River.” Simon’s voice cut through the panic and she stared at him. His gloves were the cheaper, old-fashioned white kind instead of the standard blue, and he’d foregone scrubs. He wasn’t a scientist or a doctor, at least not a doctor like them. Just her brother.
“Jack shall have Jill, nought shall go ill…” she insisted, mostly to herself.
“Shhh,” he whispered, cradling her face with the hand not still holding the needle in her ear. He kissed her forehead, which wasn’t what she wanted.
“The social taboo against incest is a vestigial and primitive custom that arose from the evolutionary benefit of maximum phenotypic diversity in subsequent generations of sexual genetic recombination and the increased likelihood of detrimental hereditary conditions in the offspring of closely related individuals,” she pointed out.
He sighed.
“Nevertheless, I was raised in a society that instilled that particular taboo, and I’m really not comfortable…”
He was so stubborn sometimes.
“Desensitization can erode previous negative conditioning,” she reminded him.
“You heard the girl,” Jayne muttered, and she could feel the words rumbling in his torso. It tickled, and River laughed in delight. Simon made a face - less revulsion than simple nerves.
“Come on, doc.” Jayne urged. “Give the girl what she’s askin’ for.”
“You just want to watch us,” Simon accused, pouting.
“Well, you’re both all manner of purty, but that don’t change her wantin’ it.”
Simon swallowed, bit his lip and then bent his head, finally - finally - kissing her full on the mouth. He pulled away too soon, but River knew she’d won. She could have more later. Simon picked up the titanium starter stud and deftly threaded it behind the needle. He carefully dabbed at the fresh puncture, cleaning and disinfecting. He disposed of the alco-wipes and picked up the second needle from the UV box. He grinned at her, and she started to sing-song.
“Jayne and Simon, in Seren-it-ty, K.I.S.S.I.N.G -” Simon cut her off with another kiss, harder and wetter this time, fueled by a rush of heat as he finally allowed himself to want.
“You missed,” Jayne complained. Simon put the needle on the tray with a snap.
“Excuse me?”
“Er, I meant - that was, but she said -”
“Jayne. Stop babbling.” Jayne’s mouth snapped shut. Then,
“Could I have one?” Simon raised one eyebrow and River squirmed as her insides twisted in the very best way.
Simon paused, considering. He was such a tease.
“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain which inevitably falls in direct proportion to the amount of moisture originally evaporated from various liquid water sources, discounting the negligible amount altered in chemical reactions, maintaining a stable hydrosphere within three percentage points of the original water level established by terraformation,” she suggested.
“Oh, alright.” Simon grabbed Jayne’s head and sealed their mouths together. Jayne gasped and leaned in to the fingers twisting fruitlessly in his short hair, seeking purchase. River watched them avidly, counting the flashes of tongues she could see venturing back and forth, greedily hoarding the thrills of lust sparking through both of them. They broke off, panting. Jayne whimpered.
Without allowing her enough time to think about what would happen, Simon scooped up the new needle and the fresh foam pad and stuck the needle smoothly through her other earlobe. Her heart rate sped up and she gasped faintly, but it was already over. With no time for a panic attack and little tingles still coiling in her stomach, she sighed and untensed almost completely as he fitted the second stud into her left ear.
~*~*~
Once the procedure was completed, River’s boys promptly retreated, denying that it had been anything other than helping her heal. Jayne wouldn’t touch her unless Simon was present, and Jayne also avoided Simon like rotten gooseberries. Simon, meanwhile, continued to hug her and kiss her chastely on the hair or the cheek, but no more than that without substantial urging. They stuttered and stumbled when she brought it up, as skittish as horses in a storm. In private they ran off whenever she pressed them, and although she glared at both of them at mealtimes and in the cargo bay, she wasn’t ready to reveal their fledgling affair to the rest of the ship just yet.
The worst was that she knew they missed each other, could feel their sorrow and yearning like a deep bruise in her breastbone, but they stayed away, apparently because of her.
Stupid boys.
But River was a genius, and she had a plan. The next time they made landfall, River pawned a necklace of Inara’s. The large square ametrine was valuable but ugly, and Inara had disliked the client who’d given her it. When River innocently asked if she could borrow the thing, Inara had regifted it to her, as River had known she would. The 48.7 carat stone brought her more than enough to buy the things she wanted.
Her plan began with two packages, one wrapped in crisp green foil, the other in rough brown sack paper, and two impeccably forged notes.
The first two gifts were simple, practical. A compact, concentrated laser pistol for Jayne, with a nuclear battery and no blowback. The weapon was slim, sleek, and beautiful. Honed. River had been very tempted to keep it, but the plan was more important. The very best part about the weapon had been the inscription: just frivolous enough to make it look somewhat to Simon’s taste. A delicate engraving of ivy vines and leaves scrolled around the barrel in silver wire, framing the calligraphed name Ellie Jane.
Simon also got a laser. He’d been working with an old fashioned metal-blade scalpel the entire time they’d been on Serenity, and on a few notable occasions, a primitive ridge-toothed bone saw. He was as deft with them as he was with everything, but River knew he hated it, hated the inevitable imprecision of the tool. The new laser cutter could be calibrated to any medical possibility. Fine enough to pare between layers of skin, its settings ranged from self-cauterizing heat to producing almost no heat at all, at any depth, and it had all the delicate maneuverability of a conductor’s baton, if not more. The artist in Simon was as delighted as the doctor, and the purist, the obsessive-compulsive sterilizer that still winced at penetrating skin with a physical implement and considered the alcohol wash the most barbaric way to cleanse equipment since holding it over an open flame, literally squealed with joy. Quietly.
They were both overwhelmed, too smitten with the magnitude of the gifts to seek each other out immediately, which granted River the time she needed to continue.
The next day they received matching bottles of alcohol, again signed by each other. Simon’s was old sake, one of his favorite labels, and River enjoyed giving him back some small piece of everything she took him away from. Jayne’s liquor was Raki, which to the best of River’s knowledge, he’d never had before, but Jayne liked liquor and he once spent an entire landfall chewing on licorice root (a popular local snack sold by what felt like every single vendor they passed), so she figured he’d appreciate fermented licorice juice.
The third day she left Simon a little carved flute like the one he used to play when she wanted music, apropos of nothing, to dance to, before their parents decided that a hobby as a flautist was frivolous and took up too much study time. Jayne got a digichip of star jazz, hot and fast and surprising, heavy on the space bass, and she suspected that even if he’d never heard any before, it would be just his style.
She also threw a temper tantrum. It might have proved counter-productive in the long run, if they got too overwrought vis-à-vis her mental health, but it kept everyone distracted and Simon busy, so they didn’t check in to thank each other just yet.
The fourth day, they make landfall, and when River rises to deliver her last two gifts, she finds, to her consternation, that they have both already left the ship. Frustrated, she leaves the file chips on their respective pillows and searches for someone to stave off her pout, but everyone except Zoe has departed planetside, and Zoe always takes these things in stride.
So she returns to Simon’s room and tosses the microdrive anthology of McEwan, Rushdie, and Pamuc on the floor and flops onto his bed. Without meaning to fall asleep, she buries her head under his pillow and ignores the world, and promptly drops into slumber.
~*~*~
She awakes to smug amusement emanating from the doorway. She emerges from under the pillow to see Simon and Jayne leaning on different sides of the door, grinning identical grins.
“Did you really think we wouldn’t figure it out?” Simon asks teasingly. River covers her head with the pillow again.
“An ostrich. Can’t see me.” And then, “How?”
“Well, I wasn’t certain until I saw the flute. But really, brilliantly though you manage to fake his truly appalling and all but illegible handwriting -”
“Hey now, you’ve a fair unlegible piece yourself, with all them swirly curly-Q letters -”
“The perfect spelling was something of a tip off,” Simon finishes.
“In such an instance, a gesture of gratitude is considered appropriate to avoid offending a generous benefactor,” River instructs them pointedly.
“Don’t you go callin’ us rude,” Jayne tells her. “We got you a real purty gesture, too.” Simon walks in and pulls her into a sitting position on the bed, taking the spot next to her. Jayne sits on her other side, pulling a small black box out of his pocket as Simon teases the small metal rod inserted through her ear.
“The derma-daub worked perfectly,” Simon murmurs. “And you don’t really need these anymore.” He starts to remove it.
“So we gotcha somethin’ shiny to replace ‘em with.” Jayne opens the box, revealing a pair of sparkling garnet and seed pearl earrings in the unmistakable design of two little apples, missing one bite each.
They sparkle cheerfully and chatter about Jayne’s apology apples and June orchards during the holidays on Isis.
“Stole them.”
“Only a little bit. We was browsing through a fence’s stuff and they was jus’ sittin’ there.”
Both of her studs lay pragmatic and dull in Simon’s hand for a moment before he sets them carefully to the side. He and Jayne reach simultaneously for the earrings, each plucking one from their velvet bed.
With oddly matched but equally careful ministrations, Simon affixes the ornament in her left ear and Jayne secures the one in her right. She leans over to kiss Jayne and he responds perfectly, leaving her lips wet and tingling. She sucks at him, twisting a hand in his t-shirt and wondering if the lust twisting in her abdomen is his or hers when she feels Simon’s, foolishly jealous, and still tinged by guilt.
She turns to him and tries to kiss him too, but he turns away.
“River, I know you don’t want to believe this, but you’re still damaged in some ways, and we’ve been your world, to some extent, and I shouldn’t take advantage…” She stops him with two fingers on his lips.
“Not a child. Was confused, but now she comprehends. She comprehends.”
This time when she leans in he lets her kiss him, and she tries to convey her earnestness through the energy of the kiss. When he still doubts, she takes his hand and places it on her breast, wriggling at the little thrill that slices through her.
“Cracked,” she mutters against his lips. “Can see the mark. But fixed. Not new, but not broken. A dropped vase. Less pretty, chipped and traced by shatter lines, but the glue holds. She holds. Wants to be filled.”
He shudders at that, then pushes her down, pushes her into Jayne and onto him as Simon squeezes her breast through her dress’s top and kisses her with all the hunger he’s been holding back. River’s stomach quivers and she feels her panties - lacy blue that she stole from Inara - dampen. Jayne rubs enthusiastically against her behind while Simon devours her mouth, still stroking and gripping her chest. River writhes, delighted, loving the sensation of being caught between them, surrounded and protected and ardently desired.
Then Jayne reaches around with the hand that’s not tightly gripping her hip and palms her other breast. It’s warm and visceral and breathtakingly erotic, and the best part, even better than the shocks and shivers dancing a tango between her legs, is the way she can tell, without looking or knowing before hand, whose hand is whose.
Simon’s long, nimble fingers stroke and trace, rolling her nipple in his precise, almost painful grip, controlled and reckless at the same time. Now that his barriers are finally gone, she can feel his desperation through their deft movements, darting inside her V-neck collar to brush the bare skin of her areole and then slipping back out. Jayne’s hand is broader, slower, and thick with calluses from labor. He cups and massages her, relishing the weight of her.
River keens, high in her throat, because first hand arousal in combination with their building excitement is so much better than piggybacking on Jayne’s fantasies.
Jayne is mouthing the back of her neck, alternately kissing and suckling, and he groans and rolls his hips just as Simon whimpers and bucks, so that she feels both of their penises, hard and hot even through their pants, rub against her at the same time. Caught between them, she quakes under the wave of lust that crashes through her, like a pulse of electromagnetic radiation barreling unobstructed through space. She needs skin, and tugs shamelessly at Simon’s shirt. Jayne’s hand slides down her torso and jerks the garment free, their fingers brushing together as they spread and explore Simon’s stomach, creeping upward to stroke the smooth muscles of his chest.
Simon’s hand - the one not now occupied with teasing both her nipples, tugs up the hem of her dress and slides underneath her thigh. River moans and shifts herself farther up, letting Jayne take a little more of her weight to grant Simon more access. He obligingly lets his hand travel farther up her leg until his fingers are clutching her ass and now she’s rolling his nipples back and his erection is driving into her thigh and Jayne’s is pushing between her cheeks inches from Simon’s fingertips and she’s still kissing him and she never knew anything could be this hot.
Then Simon’s fingers stride across her quadricep to dip into her inner thigh, drawing intricate designs that some corner of her mind meticulously registers as seven pointed stars. She admires his dexterity even as jolts of pleasure strike her, as if in defiance of his delicate touch. Then he pushes his fingers farther between her legs, massaging the soft fabric of her panties into her, hard, and she groans against his lips in deep, erotic perfection as she shudders in the grip of an all-consuming, all-encompassing storm of thrashing, unbridled pleasure.
When she comes back to herself, Jayne’s arms are holding her fast and safe, and the first thing she sees is Simon’s nervous smile, the one where he bites his bottom lip and brings his top lip down over his teeth as if to hide it. She allows a lazy smile to sashay across her features.
“Bare for me,” she requests.
Simon stands and divests himself of his rumpled dress shirt in seconds, flipping through the plethora of buttons with an unconscious panache that brings a resurgent tingle to her labia, and she misses the feeling of his fingers there.
When Simon reaches for the clasp of his obviously tented pants, a growl comes from behind her.
“Wait,” Jayne orders, and Simon, bemused, does so. River scootches forward off of Jayne’s lap to let him up. He crouches on one knee in front of Simon and undoes the fastening before drawing the zipper down, slowly. He eases the pants off Simon’s hips and strips them from him, first the left leg, and then the right.
River wonders if it’s too soon after orgasm to start touching herself.
Jayne pulls off Simon’s underwear and inhales deeply, making River’s breath catch in her chest. She rearranges herself on the bed to get a better view.
Jayne nuzzles the junction of Simon’s leg and hip, nosing Simon’s black, wiry hair. Then he licks a broad, glistening trail up Simon’s already straining cock. Simon makes a muffled noise in his throat that leaves both Jayne and River grinning. Finally, Jayne takes the tip in his mouth, letting it slide through his lips like another wet, sucking kiss. This time the noise Simon makes is closer to a growl. He grabs Jayne’s head and pulls him forward, eliciting twin groans from both of them as Jayne obeys the unspoken directive.
Needing no more encouragement, Jayne drops his jaw and swallows all of Simon, sliding forward until all of him is down the merc’s throat. Then Jayne begins to move, bobbing his head back and forth. One hand braces against Simon’s sharp hipbone, while the other tantalizingly fondles his balls.
River stares, fascinated, eyes eating up the contrast of Simon’s smooth, bare skin, partially blocked by Jayne, rough and tan and still mostly dressed. She takes in the tightness of Jayne’s shoulders under his shirt, a sure sign that he is enjoying this as thoroughly as Simon, even if she couldn’t hear his groans or what passes for his thoughts in his blissed out, lust-drunk state. She watches the open, vulnerable expressions that tumble across Simon’s face, and she thinks they make him even more beautiful.
She thrills a little just at watching. She has spied on this act, and many others, so many times, but this is the first time she has ever been allowed to see, to lie only a few feet away and scrutinize the way Jayne’s darting tongue makes Simon shake and tremble, wanton and unbound in a way that she has felt and known about but never witnessed.
Simon’s breath has started to come in short, stuttering gasps, and when Jayne reaches around to work a blunt finger inside him, Simon gasps
“No,” and pulls Jayne away by his hair. He moves across the room to his dresser, tossing an order behind him as casually as a piece of discarded laundry, only more so, because Simon is usually more fastidious about his laundry than the outfit currently on the floor would suggest.
“Clothes off, Jayne,” he commands, and by the time he finishes rummaging around in his drawer and turns back to face them, Jayne is completely naked and waiting. River's eyes follow the thin white scar across Jayne's chest where River carved him open, and Simon forged him whole. She looks up when Simon gestures in her dierction,telling Jayne, “Her too.”
Jayne moves back to River, gathering one side of her dress in each hand and lifting. River holds up her arms to help Jayne pull it off, just like Simon did for a few short years when he’d been old enough to get her into pajamas and tuck her into bed on his own, but not so old that it embarrassed him. She hears him echo the memory and they lock eyes, smiling. Jayne kneels beside her, brushing his beard against her breasts and murmuring his appreciation for her lack of brassiere on the way down. Then he kisses her belly along the border of her panties before reaching into them and skimming them down and off.
Simon tosses him the bottle he retrieved and takes Jayne’s place by River on the bed. He sets the two packets in his other hand beside her and places steady hands on her thighs, coaxing her to spread her legs apart. Simon spares a glance over his shoulder at Jayne as he kneels between them.
“Prepare me,” he orders simply, and then returns to River. Like Jayne did with him, he busies himself with rubbing his face a few time in her black thatch, exactly the same color and texture as his own.
Then his tongue dips into her, and she throws her head back, quaking, helpless with sensation. He laps and sucks and tongues her voraciously, seeking out what feels like every millimeter he can reach inside her and lavishing it with attention. When he sucks on her clitoris, she almost blacks out. He jerks forward from time to time, his moans vibrating her flesh in his mouth as Jayne pries him open.
Finally Simon scoops up the condoms, ripping off both wrappings. He rolls one onto Jayne and hands him the other. Simon squeezes some of the gel onto his fingers and rubs it on Jayne with a little more pressure than necessary, causing the other man’s slick fingers to tremble as he manages to get Simon’s condom on. They kiss, fingers slippery between them, chests and hips and groins rubbing together. River whimpers, it’s so beautiful.
Then they turn to her and climb on the bed. She spreads her legs instantly, one sentiment she has no trouble expressing. Simon crawls on top of her and pauses, one hand on her hip, the other caressing her cheek.
“River..this…is going to hurt, a little.” Even through the aching, overwhelming desire she can feel radiating from him, his eyes hold only concern. She has no doubt that if she said she didn’t want to, he would haul Jayne off to finish them both in the shower. He takes care of her, no matter what. It makes her want him that much more.
She tilts her head upward and kisses him, sweet and sure. She breathes her words against his mouth, willing him to understand.
“Tooth pulled, bone set, stitches sewn. Love sealed. Pain heals.”
“Mei Mei -” he protests. She kisses him again, hard and wet and heavy. She licks inside his mouth, and he taste like her juices, and that just makes her wetter.
“Healer,” she whispers, stroking his cheek. “Not the bad pain.” Her other hand trails down Jayne’s bare arm, and she remembers Simon’s second first time. “Like the burn. Makes it sweeter.” And then, because nothing has been this important since the Reavers on Miranda, she steels herself and breaks out of her defensive labyrinth of singsong and scientific minutiae.
“I want this,” she states, as clearly and plainly as she can. She grips Jayne’s wrist tightly. “All of this.”
Simon has tears in his eyes and although he doesn’t let them fall, she can feel the joy overflowing his skin and spilling into hers. He wraps his arms around her, their pale skin flawless and seamless from one to the other. He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. As he moves to her neck he tugs Jayne down with him. Jayne sucks on her shoulder as Simon showers kisses on her collarbone and between her breasts. He sets his mouth on a nipple and sucks deeply, and an instant later Jayne does the same on her other side. Simon slides down, kissing her ribs, her belly button, and her open thighs. Last, he presses a fierce kiss into the center of her slick cunt.
She watches his arms flex as he levers himself up again, and he moves himself into place to take her.
He pushes in, an inch, or maybe two, and he feels so much bigger than his tongue had, or even her own fingers. Slowly - terribly, terrifically slowly - he eases in, and it does hurt. Her brain supplies all the relevant clinical information about the hymen, but she ignores it, because this is Simon and he’s inside her, filling her, spilling the blood they both share.
It is absolutely glorious.
And then it’s even better, because Jayne is pushing into him, which drives him even deeper intoher, and that thought is as exhilarating as orgasm all on its own.
When Jayne is entirely inside Simon, River leans up to kiss him over Simon’s shoulder and they become a perfect circuit of love and desire and raw joy flowing through them. Simon pulls out almost completely, and Jayne mimics him, before thrusting smoothly back in. The two of them stumble for few strokes before they find a steady, syncopated, one-two rhythm . As the smooth pistoning becomes natural, they share a kiss sloppily over Simon’s shoulder. Simon drives faster into her as Jayne plunges into him, fucking both of them, and Simon’s hands are on her shoulders and one of Jayne’s is at the small of her back, and she can barely feel anything except the intense pleasure sparking deep inside her.
They’re all too far gone to last long, and Simon comes first, jerking within her. Jayne groans as Simon tenses and comes with him while their combined ecstasy tips River over the edge and they are all falling together, weightless in space or plummeting to the ground, and it hardly matter which, because they are inseparable.
When River wakes, both of them are wrapped around her in a messy, puppy-like heap, and her bright jeweled apples, twin badges of courage and recovery, are casting kaleidoscopic flecks of red light on the walls through her curtain of coitus-tossed hair.
~Fin~
Author: Vibishan
Gift for: Bugchicklv
Pairing: Simon/River/Jayne
Rating: NC-17. Not kidding.
Warnings: See paring. Threesome, CSI, one person of questionable sanity in a sexual situation. Weird, psychic voyeurism, implied sex between adolescent minors, implied pre-pubescent River psychically spying on sexual situations (and enjoying it). Also, faint hints of D/s dynamic in an erotic sense. If any of this offends, bothers, squicks, etc, then feel free to pass this by.
Summary: After Miranda, River schemes, dreams, and eventually gets exactly what she wants.
Length: 6,000 and change
Disclaimer: Firefly and all characters & concepts therein belong to Joss Whedon, etc. Simon's early flings belong to me.
Author's note: It's still Saturday in Alaska, damnit! THIS IS ON TIME!
Feedback: is better than vicarious orgasms.
River has always known about intercourse, always technically understood the seemingly gross and cumbersome act of inserting a penis into a vagina for the purpose of reproduction. Well, not always, but she cannot recall a time when the anatomical details where unknown to her, or a moment they were first revealed. She does remember that when she was five, she lay in bed at night, awake because of a thunderstorm, and made the synaptic connection for the first time between that absurd physical act and the occasional rumbles and sparkles of pleasure and affection, muted by distance, that she sometimes felt from her parents’ room.
Simon’s room was closer.
The day he lost his virginity to Xia Yue Wicombe, River sat against their shared wall, back pressed to the lavender painted plaster, eyes squeezed shut, and shook, delirious with the sheer volume of joy pouring through them. The next day, River decided to repaint her room. She covered the simpering, little girl lilac with a whirling torrent of blue and green and white. Her parents thought it was amazing and incomprehensible, like most things she did, unable to see that her mural hid no secret code or revolutionary artistic genius, but Simon understood.
“It’s a river overflowing,” he recognized instantly, even though River didn’t have enough room on her walls to depict all the aquatic flourishes she wanted and banks.
“But why?” River pressed, just to make sure.
“With happiness, of course,” he had grinned, before kissing her hair and strolling out to visit Xia, whistling. It occurred to River later that it wasn’t that he understood her artwork, but that the wall was her understanding of his feeling.
When River was thirteen, their parents caught Simon with Quin Makiri. After that, Simon didn’t bring his partners to his room anymore. It made River furious, partly for Simon, but mostly for herself. Simon would start medacad in a next year anyway; after he moved out, he could sleep with anyone he wanted, but River had only just starting fully tapping into the physical sensations and thought vicarious orgasms were the best thing since the Kirieh Equations, and much better than masturbation.
Before the academy, only sex and similarly strong sensations broke through into her mind, and relishing the chance to slide into the passenger’s seat of Simon’s amatory explorations had largely been the extent of her psychic exploits.
She remembers as little of her time in the academy as she can, but from what she cannot avoid recalling, her captors usually kept her so drugged that their thoughts drowned in all of her delusions, planted and not.
When she first thawed in a premature rush of steam and awareness in Serenity’s docking bay, the rampant emotions had steamrolled unabashedly into her mind with all the courtesy of a Tornado tearing across the flat, geographically unimpeded continents of Ceres. Mal’s anger had been searing, blinding and burning her, while Simon’s sharp jumble of fear, frustration, and relief had pressed at her mind like broken glass, jagged and smooth at the same time. Inara’s horror at the sight of any woman locked away in a box, stripped, sedated, and stored for transport had oozed, slimy and disgusting, like half-decayed debris squelching in River’s toes, and rotting. Her automatic revulsion made River sick and panicked, while Zoe’s cold fury hurt almost as much as the captain’s hot rage. Wash’s confusion and concern, laced with pity, left River even more disoriented and nauseous than before.
Then Simon had taken her hands, and for all his worry about her present and their future, she felt his love for her fiercely, and she gathered herself inside of his self-enforced calm just as her gathered her in his arms. River labored to control herself as he had, and dared to examine the minds around her, searching for a lifeline.
She found Jayne. Caught between restraining the slim, pretty doctor as he struggled and rubbed against him and the sudden, unexpected view of a nubile, almost spectral girl, Jayne buzzed with simple lust. The musky, earthy pleasure of wanting was a familiar sensation, a clean and simple urge that River knew and enjoyed and could take solace in.
In the following months, Jayne’s predictable concupiscence became her frequent refuge from the needling, inescapable egos that filled the small spaceship, when the thrumming tension of her brother’s stress and the whining animosity of Mal’s and Inara’s mutual
aggravation and the guilty weight of Book’s past became too much. He could be counted on to provide a simple measure of raw, juicy ardor whenever Inara stepped out of her shuttle in yet another enticing outfit that barely covered her nipples, let alone her cleavage, which was often. River let herself wallow in his rush of arousal. She hid in the ducts above his room the way she’d once crouched against Simon’s wall, wrapping herself in the plain pleasure of his solitary climax the way she’d wrapped herself in her mother’s oversized fur coat years ago, soft and warm and comforting.
She’d been furious when she heard his intention to betray them; his mind was supposed to be safe. In the end, though, it worked out for the best. Simon’s natural, calm air of command and his unconditional magnanimity with undeserved trust while Jayne lay paralyzed at his mercy had lead to Jayne’s fantasies becoming increasingly centered on Simon. River loved the feeling of Simon’s love, sad as it was for all the pieces she was missing, and the invocation of her own love for him made the simple exaltation of borrowed satiety even better.
~*~*~
After Miranda, River had a good deal more control of her training. The conditioning even seemed to promote it; nonfunctional assassins were impractical, after all. She had fought so hard against the heartless ubercompetence they’d tried to foist on her that she’d become incapable of everything, but after she used it for her purposes, instead of theirs, she could risk lucidity more without falling under their control. She still had difficulty expressing herself in linear language, the emotions of others could still overwhelm her, and she still had flashbacks to her initial trauma - but on her more better days, Simon started letting her help design her own meds, with oversight, and her awareness improved vastly.
She learned to appreciate the ease with which she could Read, and didn’t mind speaking in riddles, but her automatic, hysterical breaks when confronted with certain situations were as intolerable as they seemed intractable, and she wanted that fixed.
River didn’t think she could handle needles and restraints, so instead of strapping her to the table, she eventually persuaded Simon to let Jayne hold her down. She could feel every rough, muscled line of him as his heavy weight pushed her into the infirmary table. His strong thighs braced her legs, and he held her wrists, one in each warm, calloused hand. He would keep her safe, and if something went wrong, he’d let her go.
Simon stood at the counter, sterilizing the thin steel awl they’d be stabbing her with. Awl. Not a needle. Not a needle notaneedlenotaneddlenot -
Rough friction rubbed at her cheeks as Jayne nuzzled her, murmuring reassurance.
“Hey now, no need to get skittish. Your brother and I’m gonna take good care of ya. Easy now. Yeah…stop shakin’ I got ya, yer fine.” River trembled, but took a breath.
“Desensitization, by exposing the patient to graded doses of a phobic trigger, can be an effective technique in reducing the irrational and debilitating panic reactions associated with extreme trauma,” she recited automatically.
Simon turned back to them, needle glinting ominously between his hands. She looked away, focusing on Jayne, blunt and scruffy on top of her, as far from that world as it was possible to get. Her breasts pushed against his chest as her ribcage rose, separated on by the thin fabric of her dress and his beige T-shirt. Her breathing deepened, while his became shallower. She smiled.
She felt Simon’s hand in her hair, stroking gently.
“You sure you can handle this, mei mei?”
They’d started with embroidery, giving her a needle to control and direct at her own whims, and worked up to light, painless pricks along her arms, while slowly increasing the amount of her medications delivered with hypos. Still, Simon sometimes worried they pushed her too far too fast, and it was difficult to explain that she needed to be pushed, even though, medically, he already knew.
“Associative conditioning mentally linking the anxiety provoking stimuli with positive emotional and physical sensations aids in relaxation and recovery.”
Simon’s mouth tightened briefly, but then she chuckled.
“You know, Jayne, I think she wants you to kiss her.” River’s smile made her cheeks ache..
“She wants me ta what now?” Jayne spluttered.
“She needs comfort,” Simon explained.
“But -”
“Jayne. Kiss her. Now.” River shivered in delight at the unequivocal, unmistakable tone of Simon’s command.
Jayne twitched reflexively above her, and then he bent his head and tentatively placed his lips on her own. She squirmed happily in his grip and sucked at his lip into her mouth. He reciprocated, licking at her lips and tongue with a nervous, cautious reverence. River could feel the reason for his hesitation; hear it as if he had whispered it in a shamed confession against her neck.
So beautiful. So elegant and pale, like porcelain. Priceless and fragile and not to be touched by the likes of Jayne Cobb, the callous and clumsy and cheap.
She kissed him hard, sticking her tongue into his mouth and clacking their teeth together, trying to show him he wouldn’t break her, that she’d already been smashed and she needed those weathered, craftsman’s hands to fix her. He responded, deepening the kiss, but kept it slow, tongue stroking through her mouth, more daring, but still tender.
So beautiful. More beautiful than anything he’d held before. To be cherished.
A cold line of metal laid against her cheek. She shuddered, and Jayne stopped instantly.
“Do you want to do this now?” Simon asked softly. River bit her lip. “Hickory dickory dock. The cat ran round the clock. Clock struck seven, she wanted to get ‘em, hickory dickory dock.”
“Okay.” He slipped the foam sponge pad beneath the lobe of her ear and applied a precise dose of topical nerve blocker. He’d assured her the painkiller wasn’t really necessary but the medical ritual of it calmed her. Simon’s careful expertise held her as surely and safely as Jayne’s arms.
The point of the needle touched her skin. She jerked involuntarily, terrified, even though she could barely feel the pressure. Jayne held her fast, and Simon’s hand remained perfectly steady. She relaxed.
Then Simon pushed the needle in, puncturing skin and sinew, into her flesh and out of it, like the electrodes, damage without pain but the dire promise of pain to come.
“River.” Simon’s voice cut through the panic and she stared at him. His gloves were the cheaper, old-fashioned white kind instead of the standard blue, and he’d foregone scrubs. He wasn’t a scientist or a doctor, at least not a doctor like them. Just her brother.
“Jack shall have Jill, nought shall go ill…” she insisted, mostly to herself.
“Shhh,” he whispered, cradling her face with the hand not still holding the needle in her ear. He kissed her forehead, which wasn’t what she wanted.
“The social taboo against incest is a vestigial and primitive custom that arose from the evolutionary benefit of maximum phenotypic diversity in subsequent generations of sexual genetic recombination and the increased likelihood of detrimental hereditary conditions in the offspring of closely related individuals,” she pointed out.
He sighed.
“Nevertheless, I was raised in a society that instilled that particular taboo, and I’m really not comfortable…”
He was so stubborn sometimes.
“Desensitization can erode previous negative conditioning,” she reminded him.
“You heard the girl,” Jayne muttered, and she could feel the words rumbling in his torso. It tickled, and River laughed in delight. Simon made a face - less revulsion than simple nerves.
“Come on, doc.” Jayne urged. “Give the girl what she’s askin’ for.”
“You just want to watch us,” Simon accused, pouting.
“Well, you’re both all manner of purty, but that don’t change her wantin’ it.”
Simon swallowed, bit his lip and then bent his head, finally - finally - kissing her full on the mouth. He pulled away too soon, but River knew she’d won. She could have more later. Simon picked up the titanium starter stud and deftly threaded it behind the needle. He carefully dabbed at the fresh puncture, cleaning and disinfecting. He disposed of the alco-wipes and picked up the second needle from the UV box. He grinned at her, and she started to sing-song.
“Jayne and Simon, in Seren-it-ty, K.I.S.S.I.N.G -” Simon cut her off with another kiss, harder and wetter this time, fueled by a rush of heat as he finally allowed himself to want.
“You missed,” Jayne complained. Simon put the needle on the tray with a snap.
“Excuse me?”
“Er, I meant - that was, but she said -”
“Jayne. Stop babbling.” Jayne’s mouth snapped shut. Then,
“Could I have one?” Simon raised one eyebrow and River squirmed as her insides twisted in the very best way.
Simon paused, considering. He was such a tease.
“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain which inevitably falls in direct proportion to the amount of moisture originally evaporated from various liquid water sources, discounting the negligible amount altered in chemical reactions, maintaining a stable hydrosphere within three percentage points of the original water level established by terraformation,” she suggested.
“Oh, alright.” Simon grabbed Jayne’s head and sealed their mouths together. Jayne gasped and leaned in to the fingers twisting fruitlessly in his short hair, seeking purchase. River watched them avidly, counting the flashes of tongues she could see venturing back and forth, greedily hoarding the thrills of lust sparking through both of them. They broke off, panting. Jayne whimpered.
Without allowing her enough time to think about what would happen, Simon scooped up the new needle and the fresh foam pad and stuck the needle smoothly through her other earlobe. Her heart rate sped up and she gasped faintly, but it was already over. With no time for a panic attack and little tingles still coiling in her stomach, she sighed and untensed almost completely as he fitted the second stud into her left ear.
~*~*~
Once the procedure was completed, River’s boys promptly retreated, denying that it had been anything other than helping her heal. Jayne wouldn’t touch her unless Simon was present, and Jayne also avoided Simon like rotten gooseberries. Simon, meanwhile, continued to hug her and kiss her chastely on the hair or the cheek, but no more than that without substantial urging. They stuttered and stumbled when she brought it up, as skittish as horses in a storm. In private they ran off whenever she pressed them, and although she glared at both of them at mealtimes and in the cargo bay, she wasn’t ready to reveal their fledgling affair to the rest of the ship just yet.
The worst was that she knew they missed each other, could feel their sorrow and yearning like a deep bruise in her breastbone, but they stayed away, apparently because of her.
Stupid boys.
But River was a genius, and she had a plan. The next time they made landfall, River pawned a necklace of Inara’s. The large square ametrine was valuable but ugly, and Inara had disliked the client who’d given her it. When River innocently asked if she could borrow the thing, Inara had regifted it to her, as River had known she would. The 48.7 carat stone brought her more than enough to buy the things she wanted.
Her plan began with two packages, one wrapped in crisp green foil, the other in rough brown sack paper, and two impeccably forged notes.
The first two gifts were simple, practical. A compact, concentrated laser pistol for Jayne, with a nuclear battery and no blowback. The weapon was slim, sleek, and beautiful. Honed. River had been very tempted to keep it, but the plan was more important. The very best part about the weapon had been the inscription: just frivolous enough to make it look somewhat to Simon’s taste. A delicate engraving of ivy vines and leaves scrolled around the barrel in silver wire, framing the calligraphed name Ellie Jane.
Simon also got a laser. He’d been working with an old fashioned metal-blade scalpel the entire time they’d been on Serenity, and on a few notable occasions, a primitive ridge-toothed bone saw. He was as deft with them as he was with everything, but River knew he hated it, hated the inevitable imprecision of the tool. The new laser cutter could be calibrated to any medical possibility. Fine enough to pare between layers of skin, its settings ranged from self-cauterizing heat to producing almost no heat at all, at any depth, and it had all the delicate maneuverability of a conductor’s baton, if not more. The artist in Simon was as delighted as the doctor, and the purist, the obsessive-compulsive sterilizer that still winced at penetrating skin with a physical implement and considered the alcohol wash the most barbaric way to cleanse equipment since holding it over an open flame, literally squealed with joy. Quietly.
They were both overwhelmed, too smitten with the magnitude of the gifts to seek each other out immediately, which granted River the time she needed to continue.
The next day they received matching bottles of alcohol, again signed by each other. Simon’s was old sake, one of his favorite labels, and River enjoyed giving him back some small piece of everything she took him away from. Jayne’s liquor was Raki, which to the best of River’s knowledge, he’d never had before, but Jayne liked liquor and he once spent an entire landfall chewing on licorice root (a popular local snack sold by what felt like every single vendor they passed), so she figured he’d appreciate fermented licorice juice.
The third day she left Simon a little carved flute like the one he used to play when she wanted music, apropos of nothing, to dance to, before their parents decided that a hobby as a flautist was frivolous and took up too much study time. Jayne got a digichip of star jazz, hot and fast and surprising, heavy on the space bass, and she suspected that even if he’d never heard any before, it would be just his style.
She also threw a temper tantrum. It might have proved counter-productive in the long run, if they got too overwrought vis-à-vis her mental health, but it kept everyone distracted and Simon busy, so they didn’t check in to thank each other just yet.
The fourth day, they make landfall, and when River rises to deliver her last two gifts, she finds, to her consternation, that they have both already left the ship. Frustrated, she leaves the file chips on their respective pillows and searches for someone to stave off her pout, but everyone except Zoe has departed planetside, and Zoe always takes these things in stride.
So she returns to Simon’s room and tosses the microdrive anthology of McEwan, Rushdie, and Pamuc on the floor and flops onto his bed. Without meaning to fall asleep, she buries her head under his pillow and ignores the world, and promptly drops into slumber.
~*~*~
She awakes to smug amusement emanating from the doorway. She emerges from under the pillow to see Simon and Jayne leaning on different sides of the door, grinning identical grins.
“Did you really think we wouldn’t figure it out?” Simon asks teasingly. River covers her head with the pillow again.
“An ostrich. Can’t see me.” And then, “How?”
“Well, I wasn’t certain until I saw the flute. But really, brilliantly though you manage to fake his truly appalling and all but illegible handwriting -”
“Hey now, you’ve a fair unlegible piece yourself, with all them swirly curly-Q letters -”
“The perfect spelling was something of a tip off,” Simon finishes.
“In such an instance, a gesture of gratitude is considered appropriate to avoid offending a generous benefactor,” River instructs them pointedly.
“Don’t you go callin’ us rude,” Jayne tells her. “We got you a real purty gesture, too.” Simon walks in and pulls her into a sitting position on the bed, taking the spot next to her. Jayne sits on her other side, pulling a small black box out of his pocket as Simon teases the small metal rod inserted through her ear.
“The derma-daub worked perfectly,” Simon murmurs. “And you don’t really need these anymore.” He starts to remove it.
“So we gotcha somethin’ shiny to replace ‘em with.” Jayne opens the box, revealing a pair of sparkling garnet and seed pearl earrings in the unmistakable design of two little apples, missing one bite each.
They sparkle cheerfully and chatter about Jayne’s apology apples and June orchards during the holidays on Isis.
“Stole them.”
“Only a little bit. We was browsing through a fence’s stuff and they was jus’ sittin’ there.”
Both of her studs lay pragmatic and dull in Simon’s hand for a moment before he sets them carefully to the side. He and Jayne reach simultaneously for the earrings, each plucking one from their velvet bed.
With oddly matched but equally careful ministrations, Simon affixes the ornament in her left ear and Jayne secures the one in her right. She leans over to kiss Jayne and he responds perfectly, leaving her lips wet and tingling. She sucks at him, twisting a hand in his t-shirt and wondering if the lust twisting in her abdomen is his or hers when she feels Simon’s, foolishly jealous, and still tinged by guilt.
She turns to him and tries to kiss him too, but he turns away.
“River, I know you don’t want to believe this, but you’re still damaged in some ways, and we’ve been your world, to some extent, and I shouldn’t take advantage…” She stops him with two fingers on his lips.
“Not a child. Was confused, but now she comprehends. She comprehends.”
This time when she leans in he lets her kiss him, and she tries to convey her earnestness through the energy of the kiss. When he still doubts, she takes his hand and places it on her breast, wriggling at the little thrill that slices through her.
“Cracked,” she mutters against his lips. “Can see the mark. But fixed. Not new, but not broken. A dropped vase. Less pretty, chipped and traced by shatter lines, but the glue holds. She holds. Wants to be filled.”
He shudders at that, then pushes her down, pushes her into Jayne and onto him as Simon squeezes her breast through her dress’s top and kisses her with all the hunger he’s been holding back. River’s stomach quivers and she feels her panties - lacy blue that she stole from Inara - dampen. Jayne rubs enthusiastically against her behind while Simon devours her mouth, still stroking and gripping her chest. River writhes, delighted, loving the sensation of being caught between them, surrounded and protected and ardently desired.
Then Jayne reaches around with the hand that’s not tightly gripping her hip and palms her other breast. It’s warm and visceral and breathtakingly erotic, and the best part, even better than the shocks and shivers dancing a tango between her legs, is the way she can tell, without looking or knowing before hand, whose hand is whose.
Simon’s long, nimble fingers stroke and trace, rolling her nipple in his precise, almost painful grip, controlled and reckless at the same time. Now that his barriers are finally gone, she can feel his desperation through their deft movements, darting inside her V-neck collar to brush the bare skin of her areole and then slipping back out. Jayne’s hand is broader, slower, and thick with calluses from labor. He cups and massages her, relishing the weight of her.
River keens, high in her throat, because first hand arousal in combination with their building excitement is so much better than piggybacking on Jayne’s fantasies.
Jayne is mouthing the back of her neck, alternately kissing and suckling, and he groans and rolls his hips just as Simon whimpers and bucks, so that she feels both of their penises, hard and hot even through their pants, rub against her at the same time. Caught between them, she quakes under the wave of lust that crashes through her, like a pulse of electromagnetic radiation barreling unobstructed through space. She needs skin, and tugs shamelessly at Simon’s shirt. Jayne’s hand slides down her torso and jerks the garment free, their fingers brushing together as they spread and explore Simon’s stomach, creeping upward to stroke the smooth muscles of his chest.
Simon’s hand - the one not now occupied with teasing both her nipples, tugs up the hem of her dress and slides underneath her thigh. River moans and shifts herself farther up, letting Jayne take a little more of her weight to grant Simon more access. He obligingly lets his hand travel farther up her leg until his fingers are clutching her ass and now she’s rolling his nipples back and his erection is driving into her thigh and Jayne’s is pushing between her cheeks inches from Simon’s fingertips and she’s still kissing him and she never knew anything could be this hot.
Then Simon’s fingers stride across her quadricep to dip into her inner thigh, drawing intricate designs that some corner of her mind meticulously registers as seven pointed stars. She admires his dexterity even as jolts of pleasure strike her, as if in defiance of his delicate touch. Then he pushes his fingers farther between her legs, massaging the soft fabric of her panties into her, hard, and she groans against his lips in deep, erotic perfection as she shudders in the grip of an all-consuming, all-encompassing storm of thrashing, unbridled pleasure.
When she comes back to herself, Jayne’s arms are holding her fast and safe, and the first thing she sees is Simon’s nervous smile, the one where he bites his bottom lip and brings his top lip down over his teeth as if to hide it. She allows a lazy smile to sashay across her features.
“Bare for me,” she requests.
Simon stands and divests himself of his rumpled dress shirt in seconds, flipping through the plethora of buttons with an unconscious panache that brings a resurgent tingle to her labia, and she misses the feeling of his fingers there.
When Simon reaches for the clasp of his obviously tented pants, a growl comes from behind her.
“Wait,” Jayne orders, and Simon, bemused, does so. River scootches forward off of Jayne’s lap to let him up. He crouches on one knee in front of Simon and undoes the fastening before drawing the zipper down, slowly. He eases the pants off Simon’s hips and strips them from him, first the left leg, and then the right.
River wonders if it’s too soon after orgasm to start touching herself.
Jayne pulls off Simon’s underwear and inhales deeply, making River’s breath catch in her chest. She rearranges herself on the bed to get a better view.
Jayne nuzzles the junction of Simon’s leg and hip, nosing Simon’s black, wiry hair. Then he licks a broad, glistening trail up Simon’s already straining cock. Simon makes a muffled noise in his throat that leaves both Jayne and River grinning. Finally, Jayne takes the tip in his mouth, letting it slide through his lips like another wet, sucking kiss. This time the noise Simon makes is closer to a growl. He grabs Jayne’s head and pulls him forward, eliciting twin groans from both of them as Jayne obeys the unspoken directive.
Needing no more encouragement, Jayne drops his jaw and swallows all of Simon, sliding forward until all of him is down the merc’s throat. Then Jayne begins to move, bobbing his head back and forth. One hand braces against Simon’s sharp hipbone, while the other tantalizingly fondles his balls.
River stares, fascinated, eyes eating up the contrast of Simon’s smooth, bare skin, partially blocked by Jayne, rough and tan and still mostly dressed. She takes in the tightness of Jayne’s shoulders under his shirt, a sure sign that he is enjoying this as thoroughly as Simon, even if she couldn’t hear his groans or what passes for his thoughts in his blissed out, lust-drunk state. She watches the open, vulnerable expressions that tumble across Simon’s face, and she thinks they make him even more beautiful.
She thrills a little just at watching. She has spied on this act, and many others, so many times, but this is the first time she has ever been allowed to see, to lie only a few feet away and scrutinize the way Jayne’s darting tongue makes Simon shake and tremble, wanton and unbound in a way that she has felt and known about but never witnessed.
Simon’s breath has started to come in short, stuttering gasps, and when Jayne reaches around to work a blunt finger inside him, Simon gasps
“No,” and pulls Jayne away by his hair. He moves across the room to his dresser, tossing an order behind him as casually as a piece of discarded laundry, only more so, because Simon is usually more fastidious about his laundry than the outfit currently on the floor would suggest.
“Clothes off, Jayne,” he commands, and by the time he finishes rummaging around in his drawer and turns back to face them, Jayne is completely naked and waiting. River's eyes follow the thin white scar across Jayne's chest where River carved him open, and Simon forged him whole. She looks up when Simon gestures in her dierction,telling Jayne, “Her too.”
Jayne moves back to River, gathering one side of her dress in each hand and lifting. River holds up her arms to help Jayne pull it off, just like Simon did for a few short years when he’d been old enough to get her into pajamas and tuck her into bed on his own, but not so old that it embarrassed him. She hears him echo the memory and they lock eyes, smiling. Jayne kneels beside her, brushing his beard against her breasts and murmuring his appreciation for her lack of brassiere on the way down. Then he kisses her belly along the border of her panties before reaching into them and skimming them down and off.
Simon tosses him the bottle he retrieved and takes Jayne’s place by River on the bed. He sets the two packets in his other hand beside her and places steady hands on her thighs, coaxing her to spread her legs apart. Simon spares a glance over his shoulder at Jayne as he kneels between them.
“Prepare me,” he orders simply, and then returns to River. Like Jayne did with him, he busies himself with rubbing his face a few time in her black thatch, exactly the same color and texture as his own.
Then his tongue dips into her, and she throws her head back, quaking, helpless with sensation. He laps and sucks and tongues her voraciously, seeking out what feels like every millimeter he can reach inside her and lavishing it with attention. When he sucks on her clitoris, she almost blacks out. He jerks forward from time to time, his moans vibrating her flesh in his mouth as Jayne pries him open.
Finally Simon scoops up the condoms, ripping off both wrappings. He rolls one onto Jayne and hands him the other. Simon squeezes some of the gel onto his fingers and rubs it on Jayne with a little more pressure than necessary, causing the other man’s slick fingers to tremble as he manages to get Simon’s condom on. They kiss, fingers slippery between them, chests and hips and groins rubbing together. River whimpers, it’s so beautiful.
Then they turn to her and climb on the bed. She spreads her legs instantly, one sentiment she has no trouble expressing. Simon crawls on top of her and pauses, one hand on her hip, the other caressing her cheek.
“River..this…is going to hurt, a little.” Even through the aching, overwhelming desire she can feel radiating from him, his eyes hold only concern. She has no doubt that if she said she didn’t want to, he would haul Jayne off to finish them both in the shower. He takes care of her, no matter what. It makes her want him that much more.
She tilts her head upward and kisses him, sweet and sure. She breathes her words against his mouth, willing him to understand.
“Tooth pulled, bone set, stitches sewn. Love sealed. Pain heals.”
“Mei Mei -” he protests. She kisses him again, hard and wet and heavy. She licks inside his mouth, and he taste like her juices, and that just makes her wetter.
“Healer,” she whispers, stroking his cheek. “Not the bad pain.” Her other hand trails down Jayne’s bare arm, and she remembers Simon’s second first time. “Like the burn. Makes it sweeter.” And then, because nothing has been this important since the Reavers on Miranda, she steels herself and breaks out of her defensive labyrinth of singsong and scientific minutiae.
“I want this,” she states, as clearly and plainly as she can. She grips Jayne’s wrist tightly. “All of this.”
Simon has tears in his eyes and although he doesn’t let them fall, she can feel the joy overflowing his skin and spilling into hers. He wraps his arms around her, their pale skin flawless and seamless from one to the other. He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. As he moves to her neck he tugs Jayne down with him. Jayne sucks on her shoulder as Simon showers kisses on her collarbone and between her breasts. He sets his mouth on a nipple and sucks deeply, and an instant later Jayne does the same on her other side. Simon slides down, kissing her ribs, her belly button, and her open thighs. Last, he presses a fierce kiss into the center of her slick cunt.
She watches his arms flex as he levers himself up again, and he moves himself into place to take her.
He pushes in, an inch, or maybe two, and he feels so much bigger than his tongue had, or even her own fingers. Slowly - terribly, terrifically slowly - he eases in, and it does hurt. Her brain supplies all the relevant clinical information about the hymen, but she ignores it, because this is Simon and he’s inside her, filling her, spilling the blood they both share.
It is absolutely glorious.
And then it’s even better, because Jayne is pushing into him, which drives him even deeper intoher, and that thought is as exhilarating as orgasm all on its own.
When Jayne is entirely inside Simon, River leans up to kiss him over Simon’s shoulder and they become a perfect circuit of love and desire and raw joy flowing through them. Simon pulls out almost completely, and Jayne mimics him, before thrusting smoothly back in. The two of them stumble for few strokes before they find a steady, syncopated, one-two rhythm . As the smooth pistoning becomes natural, they share a kiss sloppily over Simon’s shoulder. Simon drives faster into her as Jayne plunges into him, fucking both of them, and Simon’s hands are on her shoulders and one of Jayne’s is at the small of her back, and she can barely feel anything except the intense pleasure sparking deep inside her.
They’re all too far gone to last long, and Simon comes first, jerking within her. Jayne groans as Simon tenses and comes with him while their combined ecstasy tips River over the edge and they are all falling together, weightless in space or plummeting to the ground, and it hardly matter which, because they are inseparable.
When River wakes, both of them are wrapped around her in a messy, puppy-like heap, and her bright jeweled apples, twin badges of courage and recovery, are casting kaleidoscopic flecks of red light on the walls through her curtain of coitus-tossed hair.
~Fin~