So anyway, this is my story that my girlfriend, veshengri, mentioned about a month ago in hers that we were supposed to upload together. But once I finished mine, I hated the way it turned out and decided to overhaul it. Now it's finally ready I feel. If you didn't read hers, we both came up with a similar prompt for a fanfic (Kaylee steals Mal's coat) but decided to take it in our own, different, individual directions. Like most of her stories, hers is more light-hearted and humorous while mine, like most of my stories, is more lemony. Like with virtually everything I write, these characters do not belong to me at all. And for those who don't get the title reference, listen to the song "Running Up That Hill" by Placebo (the Kate Bush version is also acceptable but I feel the Placebo one fits better) and imagine the lyrics being sung from Kaylee's POV. Anyway, enough jabbering, on with the story.

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"Where in the sphincter of hell is my coat?!"

In the few weeks it had been since his ship resumed flight after the Miranda footage broadwave, things in Capt. Malcolm Reynolds' life continued in much the same fashion it had beforehand for him and his crew: Things were not going smooth. Jobs were scarcer than usual, thanks in no part to the Alliance wiping out several of his previous employers. And the few jobs they had gotten had come with much begging and pleading on Mal's part to even be trusted with work from people who were scared stiff at doing business with the man who had decided to poke the governing body of the galaxy with a really pointy stick.

The handful of jobs they did get didn't go much better once they had been hired. Mal wasn't sure how they were doing it but somehow the Alliance always happened to be around while business was trying to go down. And they always happened to be armed to the teeth and looking for a fight. Not one job had gone down in the past few weeks without at least a minor firefight breaking out. And it w