inalasahl

Not by NaNoing alone, does a writer live. I wrote this for scribblinlenore's Pucker Up mini-challenge and 30_kisses.

Title: When Spring Is Being Born
Author: inalasahl
Pairing: Simon/Inara
Fandom: Firefly
Disclaimer: The characters and world of Firefly/Serenity belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Twentieth Century FOX, Universal Pictures and a bunch of other people I'm sure, none of which are me.
Warnings: Serenity spoilers.


Inara's hands are sticky with gluten from making tong yuen for Dong Zhi. It is technically winter again, though it hardly matters.

Spring never comes to Serenity. Time passes, but seasons do not. On planetfalls which number fewer than ever, there is rarely time for looking at new buds and hopeful growth. No one will work with them now. Malcolm Reynolds is cursed, the gossip says. For all Mal plays at being a criminal, he has long kept a mental hierarchy of lines he would not cross. It injures something in him to steal from those who can't afford it. So Simon spends protracted hours taking the place of people like Fanty and Mingo, finding Alliance targets, digging for pass codes and blueprint specs. The one time Mal came back from using River's talents to blackmail a petty cog, face drawn and nauseous, Inara told him it was time to increase her rent. She drowned his protest with a clipped rebuke, "You're no good to us if you break."

He appreciated her practicality, but that was the end of anything between them. He hates the way she makes her money, hates more to admit that he needs her not to stop. For her part, Inara needs things that time has drained from Mal.

Simon buries his face in his hands as River and Kaylee start whispering into each other's ears, hands clasped, placing quick teasing kisses behind earlobes and along jaw lines. Inara laughs at him, smiling indulgently. She knows he is bothered far more by the idea of his younger sister in a relationship than by his former lover's defection. He scowls at her amusement, blue eyes dancing, though. "Get me out of here," he mouths.

Blue eyes have always been her weakness.

She washes her hands quickly and takes his, pulling him away from the table and the lounge. They never kiss in the corridors. It only took one time, one, of Zoe coming along and swallowing hard before hurrying away without a word for them never to kiss in public again. There is one planetfall that Serenity manages regularly no matter how short they are on fuel and time, or how pursued by enemies and feds. Inara keeps a dedicated stash of incense for just those visits. It was River who chose and planted the right greenery to brighten the spot without consistent maintenance. Left to the rest of them it would have been sentimentality: sweet flag, token of comrades, but River said calamus needed marshes to grow beside.

Sometimes Inara worries about how easy it is for Simon to wait for hidden nooks and concealed alcoves.

But then they are in their space. A forgotten sleeper up the ladder in the third tier of the passenger dorms, and she wonders how she could ever think it was easy for him as his mouth trembles against hers and his warm hands cup her jaw. Tianna, everyone should know kisses like this. Tongues rasping against each other, creating quivering ripples of arousal that pool in her belly and the balls of her feet. She is no stranger to kissing, but this melting relinquishment is new. They kiss and kiss and kiss until neither of them knows where she and he stop and the other begins.

She thinks this is what it is Mal imagines she pretends to sell, as if she had even known such a thing existed before Simon.

Mal and Zoe share a bunk now, She has no name for the thing between them, neither philia nor eros, beyond them both. It is not what she would want, but she thinks that neither one of them wants more. Their hearts are both buried elsewhere. And if their relationship is about something besides love, or at least, a type of love she doesn't understand, that is their affair.

"Where are you?" Simon whispers against her cheek, eyelashes fluttering against her skin.

She leans against his shoulder, angling her mouth upward. "I love you," she says.

Brown eyes, liquid, dark and needing, are his weakness, she thinks. His expression sharpens at her words, greedy and wanting, as his mouth moves to snare her lower lip, sucking gently on it, until her own mouth grows insistent, tired of waiting. He, too, has not been unmarked by this last year.

She wonders where Simon learned to kiss like this, and how it ever ended. She could not give it up.

It was Simon who brought a small gardenia tree back to the ship as a gift for Inara. For her clients, she may wear jasmine, garoo wood, juniper or cloves and cinnamon, but for Simon alone it is always gardenia. Even with artificial gravity, plants do not do well in space, and gardenias are worse than most, native to humidity and acidic soil. But they are evergreens, constant and true, steadfast, season after season. Inara does not know if that is what Simon meant, but it is what she takes away from the gift that needs constant coddling.

Simon buries his face in the crook of her neck, taking full deep breaths and leaving endearments in return. Inara has no need to search for new green leaves or tilt toward restless suns. Spring travels with her, no matter the season.

Quote of the day: To be alone, when Spring is being born, / One should be dead—or suddenly grown old. (Caroline Giltinan, "Alone in Spring")