Spook
It was Simon's turn to cook dinner. He'd finally gotten to the point where he would apologize in advance. Then again, every day Simon cooked was one in which Jayne did not, and they thanked all the lucky stars in the 'Verse for that. It was another night of nearly-stale protein, and Simon did what he could to make it more palatable. It worked, for the most part, to hold one's nose and swallow.
"Ya did good, Simon," Kaylee said, smiling past the bubbling in her stomach that disagreed. He smirked self-depriciatingly.
"Well, it's better'n starvin', anyway," Jayne grumbled, poking at his plate with a fork, as if expecting his food to run from the tines.
"That," Mal added, grimacing, "is an insult t' starvin', Jayne."
"Oh come on," Kaylee pleaded, placing her hand encouragingly over Simon's, "it ain't as bad as what Jayne dragged in a week ago."
"Least that used t' be alive," Jayne added in his defense.
"I think it still was when we ate it," Simon noted, looking a little green at the memory.
"Boys," Zoe chided, trying not to look amused. "Really, y'all should know better than t' encourage each other."
"He started it," Jayne reminded everyone, pointing at Simon with his fork. To be fair, it was Mal that started it, but no one seemed to bring that fact up. River's lips curled up as she stared at her plate, and Jayne sneered childishly in her direction as a form of response.
"It's all right," Simon said at last, scooting his own plate away. "It's rubbish, but it's honest rubbish."
"Can't stand for my rubbish lyin' to me," Mal said with a bout of silent laughter in his chest. "No, right 'n honest, Doc... I think this ought t' be a felony on civilized planets."
Laughter broke the tension, and even Jayne cracked a smirk. He erased it as soon as Simon caught his eye, and he went back to stabbing his pitiful meal. Inara recovered from chuckling and opened her mouth to speak.
The lights in the galley flicked off. A tight silence fell on all gathered at the table; the last time those lights flickered, their engine had caught on fire. It was not a good sign. Then, after only five seconds of darkness, the lights turned back on. Eyes met in question, and Jayne was the first to stand quickly and move away from the door to the engine room. The lights went off and on again in quick succession perhaps three or four times, then remained on.
"Kaylee," Mal said as he stood, "engine room. Jayne, make sure these're the only lights actin' funny--"
"Don't seem that funny t' me..."
"Didn't ask for your comedic opinion, just check the passenger dorms. Zoe 'n the Albatross, need ya on the bridge for systems check. 'Nara, you might want t' check--"
"I'm on it," Inara assured him, standing and heading toward the stairs past a grumbling Jayne.
"Doc, you'll probably want t' see t' the infirmary."
The lights flashed off, stayed that way for nearly half a minute, then turned back on. Mal didn't seem to like this very much at all. He headed up to the bridge with Zoe and River, and he felt an unnatural shiver run up his back. That was not a good sign. He got on the comm to ask Kaylee to check main life support while she was down there.
One systems check later, Mal could find nothing wrong in any of the lines. Kaylee had reported back that Serenity was running just fine, and wasn't saying anything about the lights in the galley. Jayne and Simon confirmed that the galley was the only sphere of influence, as they'd waited in various parts of the ship and no flickering occurred. Zoe'd had the good sense to check the lights in the galley, to see if they needed changing. No such luck; they worked as well as the day they were installed. It was puzzling and downright strange.
As they all stood in the galley, waiting with eyes to the ceiling to see if and when the lights might flicker again. To break the chilling, uneasy silence, Jayne spoke first, shifting his weight to his other foot nervously.
"So... Y' think it's a spook?"
"What, a ghost?" Kaylee asked, for verification. The two met eyes, and he looked back to the ceiling first.
"Y'all were thinkin', I'm just sayin'."
"I hardly believe in ghosts anymore," Simon said, arms crossed resolutely but staring with a hunched spine at the once-sputtering lights.
"Spectral emanations," River mumbled, standing between Simon and Jayne, her head slightly cocked as she observed the lights with bemused fascination. "Like shadows in the dark, doesn't make sense."
"Yeah, well, your whole ruttin' head don't make sense," Jayne retorted, not looking away from the lights, as if sure they would go off if he took his eyes away.
"Shut up," Mal said succinctly, and there was no more sound. After another pause, he sighed through his nose and moved away toward the crew corridor. "Well, fun as it is t' blind myself starin' at a piece 'a faulty wiring, I'm gettin' some sleep. If y'all stay up all night cycle watchin' that thing, I ain't listinin' to you complain all morning, dong ma? Oh, and Jayne? That ghost shows up, you let me know."
Jayne flipped the casual bird at Mal's retreating back. Kaylee rolled her eyes.
Others followed the captain's example, and soon, only the mechanic and the merc were left in the galley. Since their ship-wide sweep, the lights hadn't so much as blinked. Kaylee sighed at the wasted minutes, then retreated to the engine room Jayne grumbled at being left alone, and didn't seem to like it much, and therefore headed off for the crew corridor, shutting off the galley lights as he left the room. Unexpectedly, they flicked back on. He started, looked about, and turned them off again. Off they stayed.
Jayne visited the cockpit before heading off to bed, staring up at the stars and wondering which of the thousands of wires in the ship had malfunctioned to cause the flickering light. He resisted the very real urge to strip off the metal sheeting on the walls and dive right into that mess of wire. Lost in the thoughts of pliers and copper wire, he watched the outline of small plastic dinosaurs on the console against the darkness of space. He sighed once through his nose, done with those thoughts and everything associated with them, and wanting very much to lie in bed and forget about it.
His retreat to his bunk was impeded, however, by a pair of jaunty blue eyes that stood before him as he turned to leave the bridge. Jayne nearly jumped out of his skin, giving a shout of alarm, stumbled backwards and nearly tripped over the pilot's chair. The owner of those eyes stumbled back in fright as well, reeling backward and nearly falling out the airlock and down the stairs, giving a strangled cry of panic. They stared at each other, Jayne's chest heaving with heavy breaths as he stared at the sight in front of him.
"Jeez, Jayne, you scared the--I think I'm gonna have a--you don't have to scream you know! I still have ears." He said, holding a hand to his chest. He seemed tangible enough, save for the circular bloody wound in the center of his chest. Jayne's face was a terrible ashy shade of gray as he stared incomprehensibly forward, blinking slowly, afraid this illusion might disappear if he blinked too hard.
"Wash?" he breathed unbelievingly, his breath packed like tight cotton in his chest.
"Who else do you know with this debonair grin and a hole the size of a tire through his chest? Because if there's someone else, I'd like to know."
Ever the wordsmith, all Jayne could mutter was: "You're dead."
Wash paused, his smirk faded, and his eyes dropped to the aforementioned hole in his person. "Y'know, that would explain this a whole lot better than my theory."
"What's that?" Jayne asked, more because he had been paying more attention to the death wound than what the specter was saying.
"Wolverines," Wash said simply.
Jayne blinked a few more times, realized that this wasn't going away, and lowered his eyebrows in response. He reached a hand out and aimed right at Wash's collarbone. While he seemed as real as flesh to Jayne's eye, as soon as his own hand would have made contact, Wash's collarbone went translucent and intangible, and Jayne's hand passed right through. It was like shoving a fist into ice water. Wash jumped back, shivering and covering his collarbone.
"Don't do that!"
The two stared at one another, both now apprehensive. Jayne was the first to speak, oddly enough.
"So, d'you remember anythin'?"
Wash paused, still protective of his abused collarbone. "Not a lot. There were some reavers, I think. And spinning. A lot of spinning." As if to illustrate the point, Wash held a hand to his forehead.
"Mr. Universe," Jayne prompted. "That broadwave 'bout Miranda, and we got them reavers t' follow us--bad idea now, lookin' back..."
"The broadwave," Wash repeated, looking as if something clicked. "River... and Zoe." Wash's head snapped up, suddenly at attention. "Jayne, is Zoe all right?"
"She's fine," Jayne said, sure by now that this entire conversation was taking place in a macabre dream-world. "Everyone got out all right, discountin' a couple'a bullet wounds 'n such. But, hell, you didn't even make it t' the last stand, Wash."
Wash sighed through his nose, running a bloodied hand through his blonde shock of hair. "That's not good."
"I reckon y' wouldn't 'a made it outta there anyway," Jayne said. "The Doc almost bit it."
"Sounds like a hell of a last stand," Wash said with obvious bitterness, and a touch of mocking.
"So s'that the last thing ya remember? Crashin'?"
"Yeah," Wash said after pondering over it for a quiet moment. "That's it. Can't really remember how I got this thing--" He jerked a thumb at the hole in his chest. Jayne cringed. "Guess I'll have to find a jacket..."
"Or wear a dress," Jayne suggested in a low tone.
A moment of strange silence took them, and then the two instantly broke into stuttering snickers. They quieted themselves down quickly, realizing that the situation wasn't quite as funny as they seemed to think.
"Okay," Jayne said at last, raising one hand slightly, "I got a question. You're a bon-a-fide ghost, right?"
"Seem to be."
"All right, so why me, huh?"
Wash thought on it. "Well, I've been trying to get attention all afternoon. I just assumed it was Ignore the Pilot Day. I figured if I flipped the lights in the kitchen a few times someone might notice..."
"Cheeky little--"
"But you're the first one who even pretended I was there," Wash said, completely ignoring Jayne. "And, if I know my bedtime stories as well as I think I do, that means you're the only one that can see me."
Jayne lowered his eyebrows, suddenly defensive. "Aw, c'mon, now! That ain't fair! I didn't even like ya!"
"To be fair, I think I liked you less."
"Why ain't you hauntin' Zoe, or Kaylee? You liked Kaylee, right?"
"Yeah, I liked Kaylee. She was nice," Wash said with a general shrug.
Jayne dug his face into his hands, growled, and ran his fingers back through his hair in a frustrated move. "So I got a dead guy followin' me around now?"
"Going back to the bedtime story thing," Wash began, "it has something to do with unfinished business, I think."
Jayne stopped grumbling for a long, finger-drumming moment. "I'm goin' t' bed," he said finally, stepping past Wash and heading for the door. Unable to stop him physically, Wash was reduced to vocally.
"Woah, woah, hold it! We haven't figured out the... the... the ghost thing yet! You leave now and I could turn out to be a vengeful spirit or something! We don't know! I don't even know how I died!"
Jayne rounded on him, looking very tired and edging on being very angry. "You was stuck like a pig on the end 'a one of them reaver harpoons, all right? It went straight through the back 'a your chair. Cap'n made me come in 'n fish you out, 'cause Zoe wouldn't set one little toe on this bridge. Not for two months, Wash! I had t' drag you out t' your little hole in the ground, had t' look at that hole right straight through ya, and I don't like the way it's starin' back at me now!"
Wash was silent, nervously crossing his arms over the gaping hole in his chest and looking down at his feet. "I'll... I'll just wait here then," he said in a low voice. He turned away from Jayne and the door, arms still folded, to observe the blackness staring at him through the window. With his little plastic dinosaurs surrounding him, looking stoically out from his position near the pilot chair, Jayne felt a flash of familiarity that was surprising. If not for the hole extending through to Wash's back, Jayne might have been looking at the past, before Miranda. He shook his head, lowered his eyes, and stalked out of the cockpit.
As he kicked open the door to his bunk, he shook his head, throwing a glance back over his shoulder. "Gorram spooks..."
AN: Hey all! Just a quick note here before I dash. I got this idea while watching late-night TV and stayed up even later than I meant to. I started out with Kaylee being the one to see Wash, but then realized it was too sad and not enough funny. It's mainly supposed to be funny, because that's the kind of ghost I imagine Wash would be. Has this been done? I hope not. Anyway, thanks for reading, and do that thing I always encourage you to do. You know, with the awesome?