A Very Cunning Bathrobe

Rated PG or so, for the cursing and implied sexin.

Whedon owns all. I just play with them. thanks, also, to Amireal and her 3DayChallenge

(this is Post-BDM, except Wash didn't die)

Stealth, graceful stealth- she is a weapon after all, designed for stealth and mystery. Even with this much weighing her down. This much fabric tugging at her, pulling to slide off shoulders, folding excess around her feet. But she moves with a dancer's grace, mischief's grace, her progress silent, unremarked until...

"GORRAMMIT CRAZY GIRL YOU GET BACK HERE NOW!" comes his roar from the shower stall.

River giggles as his outraged swearing echoes through the ship's artificial twilight. So much for the secrecy they'd kept- kissing in the empty cargo bay, tiptoeing to meet in the showers after midnight, while the others dreamed.

She hitches the heavy folds of striped fabric up her lithe, damp legs, and scampers up the catwalk to crouch in the shadows and watch as the rest of Serenity's crew emerges to find out what the commotion is about. Mal emerges from his bunk, shirtless, but armed, and peering warily into the darkness. Kaylee, tousled and wearing Simon's shirt, emerges from the engine room, followed closely by a shirtles Simon, who takes off towards the passenger dorm with an alarmed cry of "Mei-mei?"
Zoe and Wash join the assembled crew members on the deck. Only Jayne is absent from their little group.

"TA-MA-DE!!! CRAZY, GET BACK HERE!" Jayne bellows again.

"What's goin' on?" Mal asks. "Albatross? What've you gone and done?" he asks, peering through the darkness. "Simon, if your sister done gone crazy on us again, you'd best find her and do some doctorin'"

Humming a song she remembers from her mother's fancy parties, River descends the stairs, as gracefully as possible, considering the lurid striped bathrobe that is much too big for her.

"Albatross, what is that you're wearin? It ain't yours." Mal admonishes.

She stops a few stairs up, so she can be at eye level with Captain Daddy. She tilts her head to one side, considering him. "She was cold when she emerged from her ablutions," she says.

Mal is confused into silence by her big words, as she had hoped he would be.

"Crazy, this ain't ruttin funny!!!!" comes another bellow.

Kaylee looks in the direction of the showers, then looks back at River, taking in the girl's damp hair, the luridly striped bathrobe several sizes too big, and the small smile on the younger girl's face. "Wait- have you and Jayne been showerin' together? Are you and he sexin'?" she croons. "Eeek!! that's so shiny!"

"Mal, Kaylee- River's not in--" Simon emerges just in time to hear what Kaylee is saying. With a strangled cry, he gapes at River.
"No-- THIS is what going mad feels like."

"That has got to be the ugliest bathrobe in the 'verse," Zoe murmurs.

"It certainly is, LambyToes," Wash agrees.

"A man who wears that bathrobe ain't afraid of anything," Mal marvels.

"The woman presently wearing the bathrobe is similarly fearless," River assures them, her tone conversational.

"Crazy, what the ruttin hell-" says Jayne, his voice coming from the corridor near the shower room. "Oh--- go se!"

All eyes swivel to the dripping merc who has emerged from the shower room with a small, pink towel wrapped incompletely around his hips, and stopped, stunned by the unexpected crowd.

Wash leans against Zoe, laughing too hard to stand up. "A man who wears that towel ain't afraid of anything in the verse!!!"