#firefly fusion

Tommy had no idea how Bobby managed to do the things he did with just some spices and a handful of pots and pans, but the things he dished up for Harbor’s crew was the best eating Tommy had had since he was still hiding behind his Mama’s skirts. 

He would overlook a lot of potential problems for how happy the Shepherd made Athena. 

He would strap on his sidepiece and go to fucking war against those problems for the man’s pancakes. 

He dished himself up a stack of three of said pancakes, fluffy and golden the way food made from protein blocks had no right to be, and turned to grab the jug of decidedly less tasty–but still better than it ought to be–synthetic syrup. 

Only to jump in surprise when he found Hen and Karen–his pilot and her esteemed wife–standing less than a foot away from him, matching looks of scrutiny and no small amount of suspicion on their faces. 

“So,” Hen said without preamble, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes at him. “Where you going with this?” 

He glanced between the two women, suddenly feeling cornered on his own damn ship. “Uh, to the table. So I can eat it?”

Karen arched an eyebrow, regal as any queen in the scarlet and gold-trimmed dress of the Scholars’ Guild. He didn’t know Karen well…her work with the Guild took her all over the galaxy for months at a time, and it wouldn’t do for a woman of her rank in the Guild to be seen too often with a ship crewed by several people who were ‘wanted for questioning’ in a myriad of investigations. Now that their son Denny was safely enrolled in one of the Scholars’ Guild’s planetary academies, though, she was becoming a more frequent guest on Harbor. 

“We mean, where are you going with Buck?” she said bluntly. 

The ‘Buck’ thing was new. And a good sign, according to Bobby…that Evan felt comfortable enough around them to start expressing his preferences (in healthier ways than the sometimes-violent outbursts that had been the norm when he first came aboard) and explore his identity in new ways. Tommy would be lying, though, if he said he wasn’t secretly pleased when Evan told him he preferred it when Tommy called him by his given name. According to Evan, it was never ‘sharp’ when Tommy said it. 

“Oh. He’s not having any pancakes. The chemical structure interacts with the molecular bonds on the plates and makes them too crunchy apparently.” 

He shrugged in a what-can-you-do way, used to Evan’s random quirks about things on the ship. Last week he’d refused to drink the water out of the dispensers for three days because one of the new filters they’d bought on their last supply run made it taste like peach schnapps. No one else could taste it (to Tommy and Eddie’s disappointment) and Maddie insisted Evan had never had peach schnapps, but Evan had been adamant. 

Karen looked distinctly unimpressed. 

“Are we still talking about pancakes?” he asked innocently.

“We’re talking about your intentions,” Hen said, her voice grave and serious.

“Are they…honorable?” Karen added. 

“I’ve got a medal hanging up in my bunk,” he replied indignantly. 

“You stole that off that freight pilot that tried to stiff us on the Io run,” Athena said suddenly, appearing from the corridor and not even bothering to pretend she had not been eavesdropping as she made a beeline for the coffee pot. 

“Whose side are you on?” he snapped, before turning back to Hen and Karen. He found them just staring at him, clearly unwilling to get out of his way. He sighed. “We are taking it very slow. In fact, I’m letting him set the pace. And I’m just trying to keep up.”

Hen finally cracked a smile at that, and Tommy felt a little of the tension that had been creeping into his shoulders dissipate. He and Evan had not been obvious about…whatever it was they were doing. Talking, mostly, late into the night on nights when neither of them could sleep. But Harbor was not a large ship and his crew were some of the nosiest assholes he’d ever met. 

“Look, I get it. I’m being careful with him. But he’s a grown man, not a child. He knows his own mind. Weird as some of the shit that comes out of it can be.” His lips quirked into an amused smirk. “Besides, we all know Maddie’ll shoot me in the balls if she thinks I’m taking advantage.”

Hen and Karen exchanged a loaded look, but then Hen wound her arm around her wife’s waist. “Be careful with yourself, too. Buck doesn’t always realize he’s accelerating too fast. Captain.” 

With that, she and Karen stepped neatly around him, heading for the counter and the tray of pancakes. Tommy shook his head, before changing course and heading up the corridor that led to the helm, shoveling pancakes into his mouth as he went. The bridge was mostly quiet when he arrived, Eddie seated at Hen’s usual station, and Evan examining a set of readouts from the comms intently. 

“Okay, look, just because something is mathematically possible,” Eddie was saying as Tommy entered the bridge, “doesn’t mean it’s practical. How would you even get it into the hold?” 

Evan made a dismissive gesture. “Physics,” he said, like the answer to whatever they were arguing was obvious. To him, it probably was. Eddie snorted fondly. 

“Right. Physics. I’d pay money to see you try.”

Tommy stabbed the last of his breakfast with his fork. “Do I want to know what you’re planning to do with my ship?” he asked. Evan swiveled in his seat to look up at him with a wide, pleased smile that sent a shivery burst of warmth through Tommy’s chest. 

“Probably not,” Eddie said, standing up from the pilot’s station and stretching until his back cracked. “Bobby make pancakes?” 

Evan wrinkled his nose in disgust and then turned back to the readouts, muttering to himself in a way that Tommy had come to know meant there was an idea percolating in his head that was either genius, insanity, or some unholy combination of both. 

“If you hurry, you can probably snag some before Chim eats them all,” Tommy said, to which Eddie tipped him a mock salute.

“Better go. You’ll need your energy,” Evan said. 

“Right,” Eddie shrugged, holding out a hand for Tommy’s empty plate to take back to the galley, which Tommy handed over gratefully. He headed down the corridor Tommy had just exited, whistling to himself.

“Anything interesting on the comms?” Tommy asked, taking the pilot’s station Eddie had just vacated. 

Evan shook his head. “It’s already ghosts and echoes. But some of the voices are still real. We should help.” 

Tommy frowned. “Help? Help who?”