Cotton Candy Sweet
"My food is attempting to devour me!" groused River, holding the cone with its cloud of pink spun sugar at arm's length and glaring at it. "This is against the natural order!"
Tendrils of pink had appeared in her dark tangle of hair. Around her mouth, there were spots of darker pink, where sticky bites of cotton candy had dampened and smeared.
Jayne looked down at her and a gruff laugh burst from him. "You've made a gorram mess, that's for sure, Moonbrain. Maybe we should have got ya an ice planet instead."
"Don't like them either. Food mimicking geologic structure is prone to tectonic shifts."
"If yer saying they melt and get all over yer face- that's kinda the point. Plus," he grinned down at her. "Y'are kinda cute when ya get all sticky like, eatin' something simple. Nice to see ya ain't a genius all the time." He moved to wrap his arm around her, ignoring the stickiness that brushed from her hair to his arm.
She leaned against him, still holding the cotton candy as far away as possible.
They strolled the fairground in companionable silence for a while. The rest of the crew had disappeared to other corners of the carnival, in a celebratory mood- they'd finished the job early, gotten paid, and nobody had gotten shot.
"Oooh! Shiny! Cotton candy!" squealed Kaylee, bounding towards them, out of the crowd. She helped herself to a delicate handful, popped it into her mouth, and then turned to Simon, who, a few paces behind, was staggering under the weight of an enormous stuffed purple elephant, and a gigantic, lime green teddy bear.
Jayne looked at the pansy doc in something approaching grudging admiration.
"Looks like ya are some use after all, winnin' prizes for yer girl."
Simon's face appeared from around his burden, with a withering look, as River squealed with glee. "Mechanic fingers bested doctor brother fingers in their deftness. She has sole ownership of the beasts she tamed. Simon is her beast of burden, only."
Jayne guffawed again. "Havin' a reader around is all manner of shiny." He hugged her a little closer, and got cotton candy all up and down his arm and shirt. "Gorram! Ya got my shirt all sticky."
River quirked a smile up at him.
He grabbed her free, unsticky hand, and tugged her back to the ship. He liked the way the reader thought, about his shirt crumpled on the floor, and the empty ship they'd have to themselves while the others played at the carnival.
