He leaned back a little, cupping his jaw, his thumb tracing over the length of his chin and down his neck. He kept his hand in the other's back pocket to keep him close, nudging their foreheads together.

"Yeah, guess I do," he murmured, which he would never had said sober. Ever. He never had reason to say it to anyone else, mostly because it wouldn't have been true, so even if he did, it didn't matter. With Mal, yeah, maybe it kind of mattered.

He was his friend, after all. Which was had kept him from moving in before now, twisted as it might be.