Mal, Inara, Cake and the slightly nausious feeling that comes from too much of it.

Shippy fluff.

Post-movie.

Free for all ages.

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Slice it foward

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It's one of the more incongruous sights he never expected to see in his galley and enough to slow down his steps to what might be considered stopping short, if one were picky.

It's not so much that she's at the table late at night, dressed in nothing much and a shimmery robe.

Nor, exactly, that there's a shallow, patterned cup of golden liquid sending steam upwards in a lazy slow... well, she's obviously having tea.

The point of contention between reality (What he sees.) and reality (As he would prefer it: predictable.) is the elaborately staged depiction of bloody massacre, artfully done in cake. Cake remains.

He spends a few moments blinking at the tableau, taking advantage of the fact that even a woman as schooled as Inara cannot see with closed eyes, and then elects to speed up his approach once more from not at all to leisurely.

"You decided that twenty-nine would be the right age to take on the shape of a bumblebee?"

It's not a harsh disappointment when she doesn't startle, he has accepted over time his inability of graceful stealth, but the complete lack of implied eyerolls leaves somewhat of a sting.

She just calmly reaches for that mug of hers, and the smell of ginger dances about.

"Bumblebees are useful creatures," she eventually ventures.

His arms cross, the better to project an air of ridicule and judgment. "Also fuzzy and rotund."

And they also sting. "One cake, Mal!"

"One entire cake," he points out helpfully but she only sips and lets an expression of suffering flitter across her face that he simply knows is designed to make him wonder if it's the abnormal expansion of her stomach or... him. He knows it, because it's working.

"S'not like, you know, it weren't your cake to eat."

With some further importance, it wasn't his to stea