Inara had a weakness for pedicures. It was, in Mal’s considered opinion, one of her more endearing qualities. Not to mention that it offered him a perfect excuse to nibble on her ankles, so long as he did not commit the heinous offence of smudging the nail polish he had carefully applied to her toes. Truth was, he got to hear a girlish giggle when he painted her toes, and he was so ridiculously over the moon for that giggle.

OK, well that and the goodly portion of sake they had downed in anticipation of his birthday the following day. In light of that, he thought he had done a damnably fine job of not accidentally coating Inara’s entire foot with polish.

Inara pointed at him with her foot.

“Blow?”

Mal noted that it was a question rather than a direct order. This made it much more difficult to resist as he gently blew on her toes, eliciting yet another one of those grand giggles.

“Let me do your toes, Mal.”

He squinted at the bottle of purple frosted nail polish she held out toward him. She knew him well enough by now not to girlify him. On the other hand, there was that goodly portion of sake making the both of them more than a bit reckless and him not taking into consideration the damage his manliness from purple toenails. And the giggle. Mal could not discount the fearsome power of that giggle to bring a strong man to his knees. Or to, you know, agree to have his toes painted purple.

He stretched out on his bunk and lifted a leg.

“’s good thing I’m not prone to wanderin’ around barefoot.”

As Inara worked carefully on his toes, they discussed the birthday plans for the following day. Or rather, River and her love of “kidnapping” the birthday person out of a nice warm bunk to herd them into the mess, still in their PJs, for a birthday breakfast. Mal was just glad there was never any mention of birthday spankings. If there was one thing to put the mortal fear into him, it was River gleefully counting out the thirty-something spankings as she doled them out.

Once Inara had finished her handiwork, she returned the favor by blowing on his toes to finish drying the polish. Mal wiggled them experimentally, eliciting an admonishment from Inara not to smudge.

Ten minutes went by.

“Dry yet?”

“Yes, Mal, probably so.”

“Good thing that.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

In response, he laid all the way back on his bunk, pulling her down on top of him. Purple toes or no, he could definitely feel parts of his manliness rising to the occasion, despite the not inconsiderable amount of sake warming his stomach. Furthermore, if the tips of her breasts under his fingers were any indication, parts of her were also standing at attention in response.

What seemed to be an eternity later, Inara pulled away.

“Mal, if I don’t leave now, I’ll fall asleep here. And do you really want River to kidnap the both of us for your birthday breakfast?”

He sighed, bowing to her superior wisdom, as well as their agreement to not quite yet let the rest of the crew in on whatever in hell this was between them. However, as a mock show of wounded male pride, he did pretend to make one last grab to haul her back to the bed, sending her scurrying up the ladder leaving yet another of those girlschool giggles in her wake.

The following morning, Mal had more than a few causes to regret the amount of sake from the night before. Not the least of which was River bounding into his bunk, yanking the pillow out from underneath his head, and repeatedly whacking him with it, all the while extolling him to get up, get up, get up because it was his birthday.

Girl kept that up much longer, she might not see her next birthday.

Finally, with a great amount of grunting, groaning and cursing, Mal shuffled into the mess, still in the sweatpants he normally wore for sleeping. The rest of the crew all chimed in to wish him a Happy Bir…

Dead silence as they all stared. Mal wondered if he had something on his face, they way they just kept looking at him. Finally, Kaylee broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Hey, Cap’n, how com yer wearin’ the Passionfruit Purple nail polish I loaned Inara?”