Firefly, Zoe/Wash, only words
She didn’t hold much with pretty words. They were only words and she’d seen enough liars from one end of the ‘Verse to the other not to pay much more attention to words than what was necessary. Her own words were measured, almost rationed, she didn’t waste them. She’d seen to much, seen children pretending to be soldiers at Serenity Valley. She hadn’t been much more than a child herself. Words were only words, and the measure of a soul wasn’t in their words.
When Wash first bumbled out he loved her, and bumbled was the word for it, he had been navigating an asteroid belt around plastic dinosaurs. He’d shouted that while banking a hard turn Serenity really didn’t want to make and not only landing Zoe on her ass, but the plastic T-rex, the very one now on the night stand, had landed between her breasts as he stammered out that declaration, just incase they died.
She told him to fly the gorram ship and not get them killed like a fool.
She hadn’t put a whole lot of stock in his words, but he’d been sincere enough and sweet enough she’d let him prove his words.
The first kiss had been, beyond bad. Noses bumped, Jayne had nearly caught them and Wash stepped on her toe, and nearly injured himself on the gun strapped on her hip. His eyes had been so wide, so full of something she couldn’t recognize.
“Don’t kill me,” he’d said later that night when he knocked on the door to her bunk.
“I won’t,” she promised. She didn’t kill without reason. And being clumsy wasn’t reason enough to kill someone so genuine, if a little moonbrained.
He trembled as he kissed her. So softly, so carefully. He proved his words by his actions, as he kissed her, touched, tasted her skin. When she’d demanded he do something he denied her, if he only got the one night he was going to enjoy every moment of it.
*
“Husband,” Zoe demanded throatily, fingers tightening carefully into his hair as she arched up into his mouth, his tongue. “Husband,” she moaned.
He relented, kissing his way up her body. “I love you,” he said as he always did. Only words, but she’d grown used to them, her husband might be a wordy sort, but his actions stood behind those wordrs, she nearly growled in pleasure as he slid into her. “Love you,” he whispered as she pulled his head downward, claiming his mouth and tasting herself on his tongue.