"He has a lip ferret, sir."
Mal laughed, "That ain't no lip ferret. Maybe a lip mouse. Might go as far as to say lip hamster, as fuzzy as it looked this morning when he was doing that wicked bit of flying."
"Wicked enough for you to kiss him, Sir?"
"Wicked enough, just not gorram naughty enough," Mal's eyes sparkled. "Going with that whole I could have kissed him exclamation. Could have, which you seem a might bit tetchy about."
Denial would make Mal worse, Zoe knew that plenty well. Didn't help that Mal knew she knew he would, which was the reason she suspected for the glint in his eye that never boded well. Her own eyes warned him off. The twitch of his lips said he was having none of that. Pressure of her back molars grinding together let him know she was serious. Tilt of his head was a question, not him backing off none. Her eyes dropped. He sighed, giving her the space she asked for without moving an inch.
Their loudest arguments had been silent. Eyes. Lips. Teeth. Muscles tense or not.
Arguing with Wash was an exercise in focus.
"So then would you go out with me?"
And volume.
"NO."
Perseverance, or lack there of.
"Fine, one date, and then you are never going to ask me again!"
Falling in love with the qingwa cao de liumang was even worse than arguing with him.
"Permission to marry Wash, sir."
A beat while Mal stared at her. "No."
No movement of eyes, no grinding of teeth, no tilting of head nor muscles tensing in the least. Zoe just answered in words, her face a study in stillness. "Going to marry him anyway, sir."
"Even if I order you not to?"
"You ordering me not to?"
"Believe I just did."
"Still marrying him, sir."
"Had a suspicion that might be the case." Mal sat back, eyes talking with concern as his voice teased warmly. "Ain't sure I like this, him inspiring insubordination in my crew and all."
"Sir, me telling you off ain't nothing I haven't been doing when it needed being done that predates Wash joining this crew and you know that."
This smile reached his eyes. "You going to tell me off?"
"If I got to."
"Thought you didn't believe in marriage," the smiled vanished.
"He does. He makes me think it might be shiny."
"I don't like it."
"You don't have to."
"He ain't one of us."
No. He weren't blood. The blood mixed on the battlefield binding them all that lived tighter than blood by birth. He weren't survivor, not that any of them really were. Not when they were living breathing ghosts. Wash weren't a ghost. He was real. Alive. Warm and eager. He weren't one of them.
"That's why I'm marrying him, sir."
She didn't have no choice in the war. She didn't chose Mal. He didn't chose her. Lord knew why they lived. Zoe didn't. Not as crazy as Sarge had been. But she followed him, crazy as he was. She'd follow him anywhere.
This time she was going first.
"I made my choice."
"Him."
"I'm sorry. You were going to ask me to choose, right? Did you want to finish?"
Qingwa cao de liumang = frog humping son of a bitch
The End