Disclaimer: Joss created Firefly and Fox killed it in its cradle. It doesn't belong to me. I'd have treated it better. The lyrics are Matthew Ryan's.

Slowly walking down the streets

Where the homeless and the lovers meet

The bars glow blue

Your skin does too

It's important that this blue-eyed black-haired boy, with a girl's name inked inside of his right arm and a ring through the top of his left ear, leave before sunrise. Mal can see the sky growing lighter, but the blue-eyed boy isn't going anywhere. He's snoring.

For the third time this week, Mal gets up first, runs the water in the shower cold. When he steps out of the stall, still rubbing his hair dry, the boy still isn't awake. Mal leans over to shake him roughly, but finds himself stroking the smooth white skin on the boy's shoulder instead. Almost no muscle tone, bones outlined in blue beneath, but his skin was some kind of perfect thing, warm even in the early morning cold.

Inside three years, Mal knows from the others, he'll be scaly and worn. A life spent breathing meth and pleasuring mudders in the clubs will do that to you. Mal goes to the cupboard, gets down bowls and a canister of oatmeal. He lets the dishes clatter against the tin tabletop, and the boy stirs.

"What are you doing?" If his skinny face hadn't marked him as a victim the first time Mal saw him, his high and kind of whiny voice certainly would have.

"Makin' you breakfast," Mal answers mildly. "It's almost time to get movin'."

The boy turns on his stomach and stretches his thin arms above his head, gripping the headboard. Mal curses the heat he feels in his face. He'd gripped the headboard just so himself, last night, and the boy beneath him had moaned so loudly Mal clapped a hand over his mouth. The boy bit his fingers, hard, and smiled at the taste of blood.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Like a rock," the boy answers, then cocks his head. "Why do we say that? It's a stupid expression. Rocks don't sleep, much less sleep deeply. I slept like ... somet