milliways_bar | (no subject)

Mal comes over to her table, smiling in his own way.

He lets the purple suspenders to the interrupting for him.

Kaylee looks up.

And smiles.

"Well. Aren't you lookin' shuai."

Mal looks down at himself and shrugs, disbelieving.

"I swear I have no idea to what you are referring, meimei."

Men are so odd.

She takes out her headphones. "So what're you up to?"

"Not too much, really - deciding to keep my mind off o' upcoming events. I'm writing out a travelogue bit for this lady Samantha, seein's how she is so interested in space and all."

Said with an almost confused tone. Mal sometimes forgets how odd it is to some people that he lives on a spaceship.

Kaylee blinks. It's kind of odd to her, too. "...just space? Not the rest of it?"

It's more the places they land that are interesting, to Kaylee.

"'S kinda what I meant - all of it. Places we land, too. Might even write about Angel, once I've actually been there."

"Oh." Pause. "'Cause there's only so many ways you can describe stars. 'S why I was wonderin'."

"Uhm, Kaylee? You may've never known this about me, but I could probably fill up every piece o' parchment paper I got on the boat about space, and livin' in it."

Kaylee eyes him.

"How much paper is that?"

Pause.

"'Sides, didn't mean livin' in it and all. Just what the black looks like."

"It's...a lot. Keep it away, really." Mal sighs, lightly. "Think I could do a fair job o' describin' what it looks like to me."

A small smile. "Sniffin' the air is far better than kissin' the dirt, to me. In more ways than I usually talk about."

"Yeah?" Kaylee rests her chin in her hand.

Oops. Good job, Mal. Now she expects you to continue.

Mal waves one hand idly at her, almost to dismiss the topic, but continues anyway.

"I figured out a long time ago that I hated gravity. When you're planetside, you -- you can't forget things. They pull your shoulders down, just like terraformed gravity. When you're flyin' in the black, you don't worry 'bout it, at least not in the same way you do in the world.

"Some days I think that, if I lived planetside, I'd be gray and mean and hatin' life."

Kaylee listens to this.

As she does, a small smile appears -- faraway, and fond.

"And now," she says, "you're just mean."

The smile grows.

Mal's thoughtful demeanor changes to a more cheerful one as he jokes, pointing to the hairs above his right ear.

"Got a few grays goin' there, if you looked."

"...examinin' your head ain't exactly the way I like to spend an evenin', captain." Cheerfully.

"And why not?" Mal asks indignantly. "Don't gray hairs at the temples mean one is distinguished or some such? What if you need evidence o' what you should already know, hmm?"

"Don't mean distinguished. Just means old." Kaylee beams at him.

Mal thwaps Kaylee's shoulder from across the table.

"I'm the only one that can call myself old, dong ma?"

"Shi a, captain. Whatever you say."

So innocent. So adorable.

"Damn straight whatever I say. 'M the captain."

As though he needed to remind himself.

"...Think you could remind 'Nara o' that? She's been orderin' me around all week."

"About what? The temple thing? 'Cause if that's it, she's allowed."

"...gorramit."

Mal hates it when Kaylee's right. Like, a lot.

There is beaming!

There is grumbling.

"You know what you're wearin' yet? On Saturday?"

"There's a dress, from when Crowley and I went shoppin' on Lavinia -- haven't had a chance to wear it yet. Thought this might be the perfect time."

"Sounds nice. Know Zo' got somethin' nice from Wash for New Year's. Figure she might use something at the temple though, seein's how she's in the ceremony and all."

Ooooooh, says Kaylee's face.

"I bet they got lots of stuff she'd look good in."

"I think they would too. S'pose I should tell Zo' that if she chooses somethin' at the temple, she might get to keep it?"

"You think that might get her to pick somethin' there?"

"Maybe. 'Sides - thought all womenfolk liked slinky things."

Snerk.

"Depends on the kind of slink. Like. It don't work for me, so much. Does for Zoe. And does for Inara, sometimes."

Smirk. "All the time, for Inara actually."

"You're biased," says Kaylee.

Grinning.

Mal is so cute when he is smug and happy.

Wider smirk. "Possibly."

"Better Inara than Saffron."

"...if you're tryin' to get me to argue with you, nothin' doin'."

"Not at all, just statin' the facts - when I pick womenfolk to be around, they tend to be the cute, normal ones.

"Well, 'cept you."

"That's right," says Kaylee. "'Cause I'm not just cute. I'm adorable."

Beaming!

"Good grief."