firefly_fanfic | [ fic ] tongue-tied (and two inches tall)

title: tongue-tied (and two inches tall)
author:

wordsthatfail
summary: he can't ask her to stay, but he can ask her not to leave.
rating: r for language
character(s): mal reynolds, inara serra
pairing(s): mal/inara
spoilers: through shindig
word count: 200
disclaimer: the characters aren't mine; the words are, save for dialogue taken straight from shindig; joss, please don't sue — lowly copy editors aren't worth the effort.
a/n: written for a

whedonland challenge. set the night before mal's duel; prompt: shindig. feedback is love, but be brutal; i welcome comments and criticism of all kinds.

"Don't take his offer."

"What?"

His tongue ain't working.

Ain't or won't, and he don't think the distinction matters one whit, anyhow. Not when Inara's got those dark eyes trained on him, sword in hand and something between worry and quizzical exasperation softening the mask she wears so well.

(And kào if she can't take him apart piece by parcel like this, her features scrubbed clean of rice powder and kohl, her full lips bare instead of rubied.)

"Don't do it," he says around the cotton in his mouth. "Because in the case it happens, it means he's the fellow that killed me, and I don't like fellows that kill me, just in general. I said before I don't have call to stop you, and that's true, but anyways -- "

His voice hitches, a pause that lasts barely half a heartbeat.

"Don't."

Please.

Inara doesn't say anything; he don't (can't) look at her as she takes her leave.

His fingers tighten on the gilded hilt in his hand, and he don't let himself think about her slipping between satin sheets in a room full of foofaraw and finery down the hallway or curling next to Atherton gorram Wing's gorram side.

- - - - -

translation

kào: fuck