Title: Five women
Type: Fluff,Pre/Early Rayne
Rating: R Bit of bad language and sex related stuff.

Spoilers: One indirect for the BDM
Warnings: Jayne Cobb is talking about some of his conquests, so it gets crude, because it's Jayne.
Summary: Who has Jayne Cobb kissed on the mouth?
Big Thanks: To Wildchild for the beta, particilarily since I sent it, re-wrote it and sent it again thus mucking her about. She has the patience of a saint.

Authors notes: There was a challenge going around live journal where you would challenge someone to write a fic based around the five times a character did something. I actually gave "five women Jayne Cobb kissed on the mouth" to Ceslas and then basely asked for it back. Ceslas being a truly wonderful person didn't mind. Sadly it relies on truth or dare to get Jayne talking, but hey, I figured that you might play all sorts of stupid games if you were stuck in the black for long, (In other words I couldn't think of anything better, Hey ho.)

Five Women

"This is a dumb game, I wanna play sumthin' else," whined Jayne Cobb. He glared balefully at Simon Tam. The Doctor had his arms crossed, leaning back in his chair across the galley table. His smug, superior expression made Jayne's fist itch.

Simon glanced at Mal, "What was the forfeit for a person who refuses to do the dare or speak the truth, Captain?"

"That would be dishes for one month, Doc." Mal gave Jayne an evil grin, "Come on, Jayne, we're all just plain dyin' ta know." Mal nodded to River Tam, "I want you ta tell us if Jayne don't speak the truth, little witch, dong ma?"

River dipped her head in ascent, her hair flopping over her face. She turned her unnerving gaze to Jayne, a little twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Mal waved an encouraging hand at the petulant mercenary. "Come on now, Jayne, y'all agreed ta play truth or dare. Y'all had me dancing round the galley with a mop and Simon is looking real cute in Kaylee's overall." The Doctor looked ruefully down at the appliqué bunny rabbit on the garment straining across his chest.

"Come on, Jayne, let's hear about those women you kissed on the mouth," teased Zoë.

Jayne felt surrounded and he wasn't a man who reacted well to the feeling. There was Kaylee and Zoë grinning at him, Inara looking at him thoughtfully, River examining him like a bug under a microscope and Mal and Simon full of glee, as if they were convinced he was going to look foolish and more than loved the idea.

"Ai ya hua qiao ku zi dai!" muttered Jayne. Except for emptying the septic vat, there was nothing he hated more than dishes. He sighed in a put-upon fashion.

"The first woman I kissed on the mouth was," he paused, opening and shutting his mouth a couple of times, "aw hell I don't wanna tell ya." Mal waved a bit of paper at him with 'dishes, one month' written on it. He pouted.

"It was my Great, Great Aunt Rachel, ok!"

Mal looked like all his dreams had come true. "Your what?" he hooted. Everyone else chuckled.

Jayne scowled at him, "You gonna let me tell ya or not? Woman was eighty n' she'd fallen asleep in a chair after Sunday Dinner. My cousin Billy bet me his catapult, it was a real good 'un, too, that I wouldn't kiss her."

Everybody looked at him expectantly, grinning. He glowered at them.

"Jayne, you gotta tell us more than that," said Zoë. When Jayne didn't speak, she narrowed her eyes at him. "I could make your life real miserable, Jayne Cobb, an' you know I will."

Jayne growled, poured himself some sake and tossed it off in one mouthful. "I snuck up besides her while she was snorin' with her teeth in a glass next ta her, n' I'm just fixing to kiss her on the cheek real fast n' light so as she din't wake up when damn me if she don't turn her head." Jayne pulled a disgusted face at the memory.

"I was lip to wrinkly lip with ma Great, Great Aunty. Ain't bin so scared before or since cos she opened her eyes and caught me at it."

The widening grins of his audience exploded into laughter.

"What did she do?" virtually sobbed Inara.

"She smiled at me, pulled her head away and said, 'Ain't we a bit old for that, Bertie?' n' fell asleep agin."

"W-who was Bertie?" howled Simon.

"Her husband. Woman musta bin cracked cos I weren't barely seven n' the old fart'd bin dead more n' thirty years." Jayne watched his crewmates virtually roll around with laughter. "Hah de hah hah," he snarked.

"Ok, Jayne," said Mal wiping his eyes, "Who was the next lucky lady ta get herself a little Cobb lip action?"

"Couldn't rightly be called a lady," Jayne said sulkily, "It was Holly Stokes, she was ten n' I was eight. Dependin' on how much candy ya'd got the girl would let yer kiss her or look at her bloomers. Since I din't have much candy I got to kiss her, weren't much more 'n bumpin' lips though."

"Aw, that's sweet, Jayne," sing-songed Kaylee, smiling.

Everybody looked at her.

"Ain't you ever played Doctor or sumthin' growin' up?" she asked them.

"No!" they all chorused.

"Oh." Kaylee blushed.

"D-did you kiss boys for candy?" stammered Simon.

"Naw, but I knew a girl that did sumthin' like it, she'd get boy's ta do her homework for her." Kaylee blushed even more, "I just played a little Doctor n' Nurses n' you know, ya show me yourn n' I'll show ya mine."

Simon grinned, "Perhaps we could play that later?"

Kaylee elbowed him in the ribs and planted a big kiss on him.

Mal pointed a finger at Simon, acting all alarmed, "What have you done with our stiff n' proper Doctor and who in the merry hells are you?" Inara swatted him on the arm and River giggled. She studied Jayne from the corner of her eye, he was examining Kaylee thoughtfully, the texture of his thoughts faintly lecherous, his mind on Kaylee's childhood experiments.

She took the last roll from the basket on the table and threw it at him, hitting him neatly in the middle of his forehead.

"Hey," he snapped, giving her a dirty look.

"He must relate the next history; there are two more tales to tell."

Jayne looked at her steadily for a moment, she could feel him trying to decide something, "Ain't two tales, there's three."

River's mouth dropped open, "H-he is erroneous," she stammered, "There are two."

"Three."

"Two."

"Three."

River opened her mouth to say two again but Mal frowned her down. "Let him tell the tales, I'm findin' this downright amusin'." River retreated behind her curtains of hair.

Jayne smirked at her, "I shipped of planet when I was seventeen, din't get much chance ta get anywhere with girls with ma breathin' down my neck so I got me ma first whore as soon as I had enough pay. Took me a while to earn any decent coin so I stuck with cheap ones an' I din't wanna kiss em anyways."

"Then there was Christine," he paused frowning, "Christine sumthin'," Jayne waved a hand vaguely in the air, "ain't good with names. She was some red hot core bred fancy woman lookin' for a young bit of rough, n' hell, I was willin' ta oblige. Got ta stay in a fancy hotel room for a couple a days with some snot nose bringing food 'n drink ta the room." Jayne smiled at the memory, he'd enjoyed ordering the room service fella around, hearing him say "Yes sir, no sir, right away sir," and knowing the man hated every second of it.

"She was a fair bit older n' me, learnt a whole bunch of stuff in that hotel room that makes me real popular in some places," he waggled an eyebrow suggestively, "ifen you catch my drift. Did me a whole bunch of kissin' n' all, weren't bad neither fur getting' things started."

Kaylee giggled, her hand squeezing Simon's knee. The Doctor covered her hand with his own and squeezed back.

Jayne's eyes drifted vaguely over to Inara, "She wore the prettiest clothes, silk right down ta the skin but she liked it when I tore 'em off her. Little flimsy bit's of nuthin' worth a week's wage ta a man like me all torn up all over the floor."

"Well, that's plain sinful," observed Zoë wryly, filling up her glass. Her mind slipped to the one and only piece of silk she owned, her last birthday present from Wash. Her hand shook, some sake sloshed onto the table and she muttered a curse. Wash had loved to pull that scrap of peach silk and lace from her body with aching slowness. She saw River looking at her, the girl's eyes misty. Zoë looked away, the sympathy unbearable. Jayne had started his fourth tale and she tried to focus on that.

"The fourth one I kissed on the mouth, well that was some bitch of a whore. Woman had the finest pair of tittie's I ever did see," Jayne remembered how excited he'd been, getting her all naked, twenty one years old and his first big wage burning a hole in his pocket. The other whore's he'd had cost a quarter of what he paid for this one and had barely raised their skirts for him. Christine had given him a taste for something better.

"Hell, they looked good in her dress but when I got her naked, they was all big n' bouncy, with the prettiest pink buds you ever did see pointin' right at ya." Jayne sketched the shape of them in the air with his hands, ending with his palms cupped full of imaginary flesh. He noticed suddenly that everyone was looking at him funny. He frowned at them, "What?" They just continued looking at him so he shrugged and continued with his tale. "Course she had the goodnight kiss on her lips so I din't get to play with them none." He scowled. "Woke up in alley half way across the town with a sore head n' empty pockets. Lucky I'd stashed part of ma wages back on the ship."

"What did you do?" asked Inara.

"Went back to ma ship, n' when ma head stopped achin' I got some cashy money n' found a cheap whore n' got my itch scratched. Weren't nuthin' else ta do, there were big fella's at the cat house n' the crew I was with back then weren't gonna back me up."

"What was her name?" asked Kaylee, curious.

"Whose name?" asked Jayne, puzzled.

"The goodnight kiss whore."

Mal paused with a cup of sake halfway to his mouth, "Why d'ya wanna know that, little Kaylee?" he asked, bemused.

"Just wondered is all, seems kinda glamorous somehow, pittin' her wits against folk, not the druggin' or nuthin'…" Kaylee's voice trailed off.

Jayne pulled a face at her, "Hell, I don't know, din't ask, only thing I remembers 'cept the tities was she weren't no real blonde."

Simon, Kaylee, Zoë and the Captain snorted with laughter. Inara frowned at him and River just looked at him out of her saucer sized eyes, head cocked on one side. He grinned right at her and her eyes widened further and further until he thought they would fall right out of her pretty head.

Inara was still frowning, "That's two more tales, Jayne. I always assumed that you gave up kissing on the mouth because of the goodnight kiss. I can't believe you kissed one of your, shall we say, ladies of the night since then."

"It weren't no lady of the night, and it weren't that long ago neither," said Jayne smugly.

"When did y'all get a chance ta convince some woman ta kiss ya?" asked Mal, frowning.

"I'm telling ya, ain't I, 'an there weren't no convincin' needed neither. The fifth woman I kissed, well I say woman but she's just a gir…"

He was interrupted by River standing up so quickly her chair fell over.

"You promised," she whispered.

"I din't promise nuthin'," he snapped back, arms crossed again.

"You didn't kiss me!" she shrieked, pointing at him with a shaking finger as though she was delivering a curse.

"Did so!"

"I was confused."

"Din't feel confused ta me!"

"I was relieved that you were alive, I thought you were asleep!"

"Well I weren't, n' I only said I wouldn't tell cos you said it was a mistake 'an we should forget it." Jayne stood up and leant on the table until his nose was practically touching River's pointed finger, "That don't matter none, you was the fifth girl I kissed on the lips!" he straightened up and re-crossed his arms, his face mean, "your brother asked the question an' Mal dun made it plain I'd gotta answer it honest."

"Isn't true, I kissed you! You just lay there like a taxidermist's showpiece! Not valid! Four not five!" River made to slump back in her chair, not recalling that it had tipped over, and landed plump on the floor, pulling her knees to her chest and looking up at Jayne with dilating eyes. "Yuan ren, hun dan, bai lei!"

"Kiss me with that mouth, girl?" he sneered.

Everyone else, frozen like effigies from the moment River stood up, abruptly came to life again. Kaylee bent down and hugged River to her, shooting a dirty look over her shoulder at Jayne; Inara joined her, stroking River's hair. Simon leapt up as if he wanted to throw himself at the mercenary, but some how held himself, back his hands clenching and un-clenching.

Mal got control of his dropped jaw and took a step towards the merc, violence in his eyes, when he was stopped by Zoë's hand slapping into his chest. "You wanna explain this, Jayne, before someone gets hurt?" she asked levelly.

"It was 'bout six weeks ago when I got tipped off the mule and banged up real good. Doc knocked me out ta stop me movin' about n' crazy here comes into the infirmary 'n attaches herself ta ma lips. I'd woken up before n' only just dozed off agin. She said sorry, it was a mistake n' we should just forget it 'n I said ok."

"Ok," said Zoë. She felt Mal's body relax a little and out of the corner of her eye she saw Simon's hands loosen. "So she kissed you an' nuthin' else then or since?" Jayne nodded. "I think we got that, so why'd you bring it up? You could have left it out an' we'd all be none the wiser."

Jayne looked at River like she was the most confusing thing in the verse, "Cos I ain't forgotten it an'…" he stopped for a moment, "Gorramn it! Girl, I don't wanna!" he hollered right at River. "Aw crap!" Jayne made a violent movement as if he was pushing something away and stormed out of the galley.

River's head came up sharply from Kaylee's shoulder as she watched Jayne stomp through the door with an open mouth and wide wondering eyes.

Mal looked at her; there was something in her face, something hopeful. A horrible notion worked its way into his brain. "Little 'tross, no, you can't want my big old dumb merc."

"Did he mean he wants ta kiss her again?" asked Kaylee, looking round the room, a tentative smile blooming on her face. "That's kind of shiny, ain't it, I never knowed him ta wanna have a girl, ya know, regular like."

"Not sure we know that yet, Kaylee," said Zoë.

"If Jayne was interested in you, wouldn't you have known, sweetie?" asked Inara gently.

"Did my best not to look, sometimes I couldn't help seeing, I thought it was Jayne being Jayne all lusty. Didn't understand that was why I never saw anyone else in there anymore." River smiled and Simon could have sworn she started to glow. He didn't move, even though he wanted to shout 'no!' at the top of his lungs.

"You ain't got nuthin' ta say Doc?" asked Mal.

Simon just shook his head, dumb, two opposing parts of his brotherly love fighting and screaming at each other in his head. The part that had promised to let River make her own choices was winning and in this instance, he didn't like it.

River got up; she rested her palm on her brother's cheek and smiled at him.

Zoë could have sworn she damn near floated out of the door and none of them made a move to stop her.

OOOOOOOOOO

River found Jayne in his bunk, stuffing his possessions violently into a duffle bag.

"I'm gettin' off when we hit dirt tomorrow, I ain't sorry I said it, just ain't gonna stay here no more."

"I don't want you to go, it wasn't a mistake. I thought," she took a breath; "I knew you weren't asleep, I thought when you didn't respond you didn't want me, not in that way."

"Yeah, right, just sayin' that cos the big dumb merc made an ass out of himself. Ain't a one of ya takes me seriously. Did they laugh?"

River punched him in the arm, not with the full force she was capable of, but with enough to make him drop the duffle bag, slap his hand to his arm and glare at her resentfully.

"Stop being an ass, Jayne Cobb, or I will hit you again until you see sense."

"Ya will, huh?" Jayne took a step towards her.

"Yes!" she snapped back, hands on hips.

"That right?" he stepped a bit closer.

"Yes!" she yelled at him.

Jayne glared at her a moment, his jaw working. Swiftly he pushed her against the bulkhead, getting her under the arms so he could drag her up to a comfortable height and kissed her hard on the mouth. River's arms slipped round his neck and her legs came naturally round his waist. The kiss became something soft, hard, silken, and rough all at once. Jayne didn't stop until he was out of breath and his knees were jelly.

River mewed in protest when his lips left her. Jayne rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed, getting the hang of breathing again.

He had just got enough brain function back to wonder if moving his hands to more intimate places would get him slapped when something occurred to him. He opened one eye, "Can't say it ain't five now," he huffed, smugly.

River regarded him narrowly, "Be satisfied with that number, Jayne Cobb," she kissed him fast and hard, "it will not go up."

OOOOOOOO

Ai ya hua qiao ku zi dai – Damn, smart arse Doctor
Yuan ren, hun dan, bai lei - Ape man, Bastard, Scum.