edenbound | F: Kiss or Kill

Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Mal/Inara
Warnings: Angst
Rating: G
Summary: Discomfort at dinner. For jamileigh17's prompt of "queen".

Mal stretched his legs out under the table and tried to devote his attention completely to what he was eating. Mush, of course, this far into their journey. Mush that was rather liberally spiced: they were at that stage of the journey where any flavour was better than the natural blandness of the mush.

Inara was at dinner. She wasn't there very often, these days. Packing, he supposed she'd be normally, packing up her things and her memories ready to walk off Serenity and never come back.

She had the audacity to smile at him when he looked up and chanced to glance her way, and immediately he felt as stupid and tongue tied and clumsy as he always did beside her graceful, well, grace. Even though she was leaving, and didn't want any of it, his treacherous heart still skipped a beat or so.

"Are you alright, Mal?" she asked, all queenly and condescending.

"Fine," he muttered. He wasn't sure if he wanted to kiss her or kill her more, at that moment.