"Five Things the Crew Never Knew About Jayne"

Show: Firefly

Genre: General

Pairing: None

Rating: K

Summary: There were plenty of things that he just never got around to telling them. Some just weren't their business, others he wouldn't have revealed under any condition.

Disclaimer: I own nothing aside from my goldfish and textbooks.

Author's Note: I'm finally getting around to catching up on posting a bunch of fanfic from my LJ account, so some of you may have read this before...

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Jayne had little sisters – about a half dozen of them all told, and by the time he was fifteen, most still didn't come up to his waist. He'd spent more hours than he could count wiping snotty noses, braiding hair, fixing ripped rag dolls until his fingers got too big and clumsy, and walking the whole giggling crowd to school until they either got to be old enough to work or pretty enough to find some other boy. He hadn't thought on them in some time until he saw Kaylee sitting in the lounge, face screwed up in concentration as she tried to pile her hair on top of her head in some sort of complicated twist. When she let out another agitated sigh of frustration he was nearly ready to go over and lend her a hand when Inara returned with a brush, a handful of bobby pins, and a smile.

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He'd only ever read one book straight through in his life. He obviously wasn't trying to pass himself off as intelligent or educated, but there was always a little part of him that wished he'd gotten through something other than his reading primer from school. He still had the book, beaten and worn and hidden under his mattress. Sometimes he'd pull it out and flip through the pages, trying to remember everything about the day that his momma had given it to him with a kiss and a push on the shoulder out the door.

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Jayne was thankful that they never found out about Ariel. Mal knew, of course, along with the doc and his crazy sister, but no one else ever had an inkling about what had happened. Most days he barely acknowledged his second chance with a passing thought, but sometimes he was more keenly aware of his secret. It was little times mostly, like when Inara was so willing to go along with his teasing or when Kaylee gave him an extra-big hug before she skipped off to her bunk for the night. Times that he knew would be taken away without a second thought if any of them knew what he'd done.

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He never really talked about his daddy, though the crew had all heard of his momma through her letters and packages. Most assumed he was dead or run-off when Jayne was just a baby. Truth was, Jayne remembered him just fine. Remembered that he'd disappear for days at a time and come home falling-down drunk, angry, and ready to use his fist and belt on anyone who looked sideways at him. That only lasted for a couple of years though before he stopped coming home at all.

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The only other thing in the 'verse that Jayne was afraid of besides Reavers were roaches. Maybe afraid was too strong of a word – disgusted may have better summed up how he felt about the little buggers. As far as he was concerned, they were dirty, nasty, and had no place being anywhere within half a mile of him. When he found one poking around the protein containers in the kitchen, he knew he'd found himself a bit of a situation. There was no way he could let the gorram bugs keep crawling around the ship, but on the other hand, how was he supposed to bring the infestation to light without risking a good deal of ribbing? Jayne, that Jayne, being afraid of bitty little bugs? In the end, he squashed it with a can of beans and left it on the counter for someone else to find. River was discovered by Wash several hours later talking to it in Latin – he quickly told the captain that they had a bug problem.