Work Text:
Fingers white as the mountaintops of St. Alban’s curl around the stems of one of Inara’s handpainted tea cups. The hands around it, notable in how intentionally they do not shake, are almost as fragile—as delicate, in need of cautious handling—as the finery itself.
Inara is a believer in many senses of the word; more than anything, she believes in ritual. The rites and artistry of tea service, a centuries-standing tradition in her field. Courtship as a conversation between bodies and souls, a finger grazing a delicate line against a shiver-susceptible patch of skin in luxurious anticipation.
And she believes, of course, in honoring standing appointments, even—and perhaps especially—when the client (or what-have-you), not one for tardiness, shows up a handful of moments late for their appointment already slotted for late in the evening, something discomforted in his posture, like a wild dog approaching with raised hackles.
She’d only seen Simon this way once before. When he first came to her, many months back by now, it was after that awful business on the planet Jianying. He’d still smelled of smoke and cedarwood and had tried, with wide eyes, to hand her a few wrinkled bills left over after buying River a few clothes and things of her own. For most others, it wouldn’t have been enough, even, to cover a third of a regular session. For Simon, she refused his payment gently but tangibly, his hands warm against hers as she closed his fists back around the money before pulling him in for an embrace.
Now, Simon’s sitting across from her, sipping quietly—silent, as a matter of fact. He hasn’t said a word since his arrival. That’s not altogether unheard of; many (like Mal, she supposes, before shaking herself of the thought) would be surprised by the different things people seek to find when engaging a Companion. Sometimes, all that’s needed is another person in the room, to not feel quite so alone. But with the nervous energy radiating off Simon, she can’t imagine he came here tonight with only the goal of sitting in silence.
Still, she can wait. So much of this job, of her life, is a waiting game.
Simon clears his throat. “Thank you for seeing me,” he says finally, sitting up a little straighter. “I don’t mean to intrude.”
Inara shakes her head, smiling lightly. “Of course, Simon. You know you’re always welcome.” She taps her wine-red nails against her own cup then, the sound ringing out a familiar melody. She waits another moment and then pushes, just a little, when he doesn’t continue. “It seems like something in particular is on your mind.”
“You read me too easily,” Simon says with a smile, tight-lipped.
He may not be a paying client, but people are people, and Inara’s deciphered them with ease long before she knew the word ‘Companion’. Simon, of course, speaks a language she’s rather fluent in.
In this, he’s so unlike Mal, who keeps himself locked away, plays his cards so close to his chest: Simon seems guarded on initial viewing: his face, his body, his hands, all studies in control, precision. But his eyes—they give him away entirely, and his hands always betray him eventually, following quickly suit. It almost isn’t fair. He holds himself back because that’s what he thinks he’s meant to do, but scratch the surface the right way, and he wants to fold, wants to show his hand. To be known.
And Inara does know him: often measured, often polite, but quick to boil over to acerbic at any perceived injustice. Clever, sharp. Compassionate, if a bit stilted at times—and easily startled on the matter of sex, which she’s quickly becoming sure this is about, at least in part. Few other topics could spook him so.
“That’s part of my charm. And my job,” she reminds him, placing her cup on the table she keeps nearby. “It’s about Kaylee… ?” she hedges, and Simon sighs, following her lead as he reaches to place his own tea cup down on the glinting silver saucer.
“What Jayne said earlier,” he chokes out, a flush rising high on his cheeks, and Inara stills, remembering Jayne’s crass words at dinner that evening, some crude joke about hearing the pair of them the night prior. How, if they weren’t careful, someone might assume they wanted others to join in, being so obvious.
Simon had all but melted into his chair on the spot, ears tinged pink, while Kaylee rolled her eyes in exasperation before snarking back that even if they did, Jayne wouldn’t be first pick.
“Oh, Simon, Jayne was just being… Jayne,” she sighs, smoothing the golden wrinkle of her nightdress against her knees. “Don’t take it to heart. No one thinks any less of you.”
“I know, but… something Kaylee said,” he admits. “It got me thinking, I suppose. I don’t know how seriously she meant it, it was something of a joke, but…” Incense burning faintly in the distance, curls of smoke, the familiar scent of jasmine tea burning at her nose… Simon’s ever-growing pink flush dusting across his cheeks… still, Inara waits, and Simon fidgets in his seat, almost imperceptibly. Some people need a moment to get their footing, she’s often found, and it won’t do to find it for them. Not if she wants them to get what they truly need. “She implied that, if she thought I wouldn’t mind… she would want to see other people.”
Inara stills, and can only hope it’s not as noticeable to Simon as it always is to her. He speaks this language too, after all. Stillness. Waiting. Unsurety, tied up with a neat ribbon of grace and propriety.
(Her own hands braiding through the soft meadow of Kaylee’s hair, the feel of own grip against the other girl’s chin, Kaylee’s head resting on her shoulder… how there have been times when it’s just the two of them, practically in the dark, how she’s almost thought to lean forward and… )
“Ah,” Inara shakes her head, clearing her throat. Hoping against all hopes her detour wasn’t so terribly obvious. “Jealous?” she wonders aloud.
Simon stares at her a long moment before tilting his head in consideration. “I don’t know. No?” He sighs as he thinks on it. “I thought, at first, that maybe it was her way of letting me down easily.” Inara tracks the motion as his fingers smooth a circle around the tea cup he still hasn’t set down.
Inara frowns. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean.”
Simon taps his fingers against the cup. “That we’ve had our fun, but we’re too different, or I’m too—” He makes a vague gesture to himself. “That I’m not what she wants, now that she’s had me.”
Inara blinks, surprised, and feels a pang for him. Inara does know it’s not been terribly long they’ve been together—by whatever meaning of the word, she’s not sure they’ve truly discussed it—but anyone paying a modicum of attention could see Kaylee looks at Simon as she would a stunning sunrise when they’re setting down on Persephone. Or better yet, an engine part she wants to dismantle, to figure out, to turn over in her hands over and over again. And she never does tire of her engines.
For his part, when Simon’s eyes are keen on giving him away, they’re often poised in Kaylee’s direction, alight with warmth, fond and a little powerless against it.
But she can also vaguely imagine how courtship worked in the circles he would have run in, back on Osiris. She has the benefit of distance, of knowing her engagements, however genuinely meaningful to her, are also, by nature, transactional. But she can imagine all too well not knowing. Never being quite sure.
And for someone like Simon? Who gives whatever he’s doing everything he has? It just wouldn’t do.
“Oh, Simon, you know that’s not how she feels,” she says, reaching a gentle hand to rest against his knee. “That’s not Kaylee.”
“No,” Simon admits, a faraway look in his eye. He sets down the cup on the table and begins to pick at a loose thread from the sleeve of his sweater. “No, that’s someone else.”
“Oh?” Inara’s frown only sets deeper, not from confusion or pity, but a quiet anger for her friend that’s begun to simmer underneath her skin at the thought. There’s a story there, she’s sure, but Simon only shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter. Only—I suppose I don’t understand why she would want that. If that’s not the reason.”
“Have you asked her?” An eyebrow quirked up; both of his directly in tow.
“I did. It was not smooth.” Inara bites back a laugh, though it’s a near thing. Then, he adds, half to himself and said with an almost intellectual consideration, “It’s like that hoop game they sometimes play.”
Laughing in earnest now, Inara shifts so she’s sitting closer to him, shoulders touching. Silk and skin against faded wool. “That’s a bit of a rudimentary parallel, no?” Simon shrugs, smiling a little bashfully, and Inara continues. “So, then, it’s a game. One you don’t want to play.” Inara knows that’s not what he means. If Simon was as set against it as he seems, he wouldn’t be here, trying to talk it through.
But a little willful misinterpretation can, at times, do wonders to get someone to say what they do mean.
“That’s not, I—I—I don’t understand the rules.”
Inara hums. “Does everything need rules, Doctor?”
“Not a doctor right now,” Simon reminds her, and Inara bows her head, conceding the point. That’s another part of why people come to her, to people like her… to strip themselves of the roles they wear. “Just a guy who is… kind of out of his depth here.”
“Maybe the rules are what you make them, then,” she muses. “Maybe it’s just about what feels right, and what doesn’t.”
Simon turns to look at her a little more fully, to open his mouth, to respond, but must see something else in her gaze because his own flickers down, half a second of curiosity and desire—a fleeting glance, but one taken all the same.
Then, half because Inara wants her lips to touch something Kaylee’s have claimed at least once, half because there is an easy understanding between her and Simon and more and more she finds his sleep-soft sweater and mussed up hair and high flush are drawing her in, and most of all, because she wants to soothe that frown away, she leans in and kisses him.
He startles back a moment but doesn’t break away. Which is dangerous, really. How often has she held herself back from Mal? From Kaylee? From anyone, really… these people she cares for so much, sometimes she feels the weight of it could burst out of her skin, whatever her intentions coming aboard were. She has so many reasons to hold back.
But it’s easier, somehow, with Simon. Who knows what it is to want to hold back, and to not quite be able to. Who speaks this quiet language with her.
Tea and sweat and salt and stillness, yes. She tastes something faintly fresh, though she can’t quite place it. Simon leans in closer, Inara’s hand still on his knee, his reaching for her neck, to push her hair back, to graze against the skin there with a light touch.
It’s a chaste kiss by nature. Skin against skin, warmth searches out warmth. Neither tries to make it more, but they both stay there a long time.
It happens like a dance, so naturally, she’s not sure who pulled away first as they both break gently apart. “Did that feel wrong, Simon?”
Bright blue eyes blazing against hers. His skin soft against her hand as she moves to touch his cheek. Everything that is not simple fading away, somewhere beyond the walls of her shuttle. Incense almost burned away but still a faint ghost, Simon’s knee pressing lightly into her silk-covered thigh. He leans further into the feel of her hand, whispering, faintly, “No.”