A/N: Based on the song "Vera Flew the Coop" by Marian Call. Hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.
It was an unremarkable sort of night, in the same sort of bar on the same sort of gorram rock where Jayne always found himself.
The crew he was aligning himself with at the time was a mite too prim for his own tastes, turning up their noses at a dive like this. He wanted to get in their faces, wanted to yell that they'd all taken a dive just for doing what they do, and should just give up and have some gorram fun.
It was urges like this that told Jayne when he really needed to go get piss-drunk.
He landed heavy on the barstool and gave the tender a pointed look. Seconds later, he had some go-se beer in his hand, and things were looking up.
Jayne didn't even have the chance to get properly dazed before he saw her, so he knew she was the real deal. She walked in wearing men's clothes, but there was no mistaking her for a man underneath them. Her face was pretty and sharp, with a cold glint to her eyes that you could spot easy from across a smoky bar room. She had a shiny looking gun in her holster that Jayne found himself really wanting to ask after. When she sat a ways down the bar and got tossed some drink without a word, he was sold.
He nudged the man next to him, who'd been sitting with his shoulders hunched like he was some kind of regular fixture in these parts. "Hey, that girl over there - you know anything about her?"
The man snorted and slammed his glass on the counter. "Vera? Oh no, you don't wanna be fixin' your sights on her any time soon. She'd break you like she breaks all of 'em."
Jayne glared at him. "I'm not out lookin' for my truest love or nothin'."
"'Snot what he meant," another man chimed in. "She don't get around to breakin' too many hearts. She breaks knuckles."
"And wrists," the first man added.
"And sometimes legs, if you're lucky," he finished. "Call it what you will, but Vera ain't exactly suitable trim for any night."
That didn't sound too good for him, but still, this Vera sounded more attractive than ever. He spent a few moments weighing the pros and cons against how drunk he was. Then he gave up, stood, and went over to talk to her.
"You're a damn fool," Vera said as he came up behind her, before he could even say anything. "Weren't you even listening? Mog there gave you a pretty accurate definition of me."
"Yeah," he said. "But, uh, I'm pretty drunk."
"Liar." Vera spun around and gave him a narrow eyed once-over. "You ain't had more'n two sips of drink tonight. You're just dumb as bricks."
Jayne shrugged. "Yeah, been told that once or twice."
Her laugh was icy and mocking. "Well, that was honest." She set down her drink and stretched up into standing. "Maybe I'll let you live." She crooked a finger and started sauntering for the door. "Maybe."
Jayne really didn't have a choice but to follow her out.
There wasn't none but a couple people out on the street. Vera let Jayne follow her out behind the bar, where there wasn't none at all. It was a mite unsettling, but when a woman's looking and walking like that, Jayne's got a policy to never ask questions. 'Sides, he thought, if she was gonna do like they said, wouldn't she have just thrown a punch right there in the bar like any sensible being?
"What's your name?" she asked, approaching him like she meant to back him into the wall.
He swallowed. "Uh, Jayne."
Vera smirked and ran one hand down his arm. "Jayne is a girl's name."
Seeing the invitation, he moved forward and took an arm around her waist. "Jayne ain't a girl."
She laughed and looked up into his eyes. There was that cold glint, giving him a little pause. Maybe this girl was a real danger under her teasing words and mesmerizing moves. But then again, maybe it was that her eyes were just…like that?
Vera closed in and slipped a knee in the space between his legs. That was a good sign. Then she smirked and jerked up, hard.
That wasn't such a good sign.
Jayne groaned and doubled over when she stepped away. "Well, Jayne, that favor was for being a liar." She circled around him, grabbed his shoulders, and shoved him back so his head knocked against the wall. "And that one was for thinkin' you were somethin' special enough to catch my eye."
Damn, but that girl is strong, Jayne thought as he grew dizzy and dropped to his knees.
She nudged him with her boot, and he heard the unmistakable click of a gun. "I know your type. Seen it way too many times. Maybe this one's just because I'm sick of seein' it. You can believe that, if you like." He watched her aim, and with a neat bang, she planted a bullet straight in his knee. He yelled and fell sideways to take the weight off what was probably a broken kneecap.
Vera spun her gun and shoved it back in her holster. "Or maybe I just really don't like you." She turned, and was gone before Jayne could shake away the pain enough to pull his own gun on her.
It was only a few months later. Jayne's knee had successfully patched up, and he was with a new crew. He didn't exactly like this crew all that much, either, but he did like the captain's gun. And one day, he said so.
"Yeah well, she ain't yours," the man said defensively, continuing to polish it. "She's got no name as of yet, and I mean to be the one to name her."
Jayne shrugged. "You sure? 'Cause I got a nice name lined up." He pulled his own gun from behind his back and let a bullet fly nice as you please into the captain's skull. He fell out of his chair, leaking brain matter onto the floor.
With a grin, Jayne went up to the table and ran a hand over the most powerful gun he'd ever had the pleasure of owning. "Vera."