Trust was not a word people had ever associated with Jayne Cobb, to his knowledge anyway. Not that he cared. Jayne didn't trust anyone, unless he had to,and no-one trusted Jayne...unless they had to. Jayne had always thought Mal was of the don't-trust-anyone-unless-you-have-to school too, leastways as it applied to him, except apparently he hadn't been. That was hard enough to wrap his head around, and strangely troubling when he thought about it, and now he was almost two full platinum into a pretty good drunk and the problem had yet to disappear.
Because the thing was, if Mal hadn't trusted Jayne, and they'd run the Doc's plan like Mal was all trusty of him because Mal had had to be, then Jayne turnin' in the fugies was fair and square (or as fair and square as screwin' someone over ever got). If Mal had had to do it that way, then those were the breaks, and Jayne turnin' the fugies in was an unlucky break, but nothin' personal, just a risk that, you know, Mal would'a, sort'a, figured in. Just the way the cards fell out.
But Mal had taken it all kinds of personal, wrench-to-the-head personal, out-the-airlock personal, blah blah blah crew dong ma, hands off and all. And really that should have been the end of it to Jayne's way a thinking, cause Mal wasn't the sort to hold grudges. If beatin' the crap outta ya wouldn't settle it, hell, Mal'd just blow yer head off. But this were different, damned if things weren't different now, and it took Jayne a while to figure out what the difference was cause not much had changed between him and Mal that he could see. He'd been a risk before and he was a risk now. But Mal had trusted him before, and didn't now. That was it.
Maybe if Jayne had known Mal had trusted him before he would'a laughed, but since it was gone he kinda missed it, in an afterwards fashion, like a pretty whore ya didn't think was all that great till you were six days out into the black and suddenly ya liked the way she ribboned up her hair or some such stupid thing and you were sorry you hadn't stayed for another go round. There was a distracting thought.
He gulped down the last of his beer and caught a barmaid's attention with a leer and a wag of his eyebrows. Across the table, River looked up. "You're so sentimental," she said. He scowled at her and she put her face back down into her folded arms, looking half passed out drunk, and wasn't that a fine thought in a place like this. If Mal or Zoe caught them like this he'd be humped.
He ordered another beer, then made it two while he had the chance. The barmaid looked River up and down dismissively just to let him know she thought he could do better, and sniffed. "She's worth about a million of ya'," he said, annoyed for no good reason he could name, and then his brain tried to figure out the math there and gave up. Anyway that was the problem right there, 200,000 credits, half a million platinum maybe, come prancin' into some low-life dive and plopped right down at his table when all he was fixin' to do was get good and wasted, definitely laid. Here she was instead, and this a big damn city for the rim, and Mal with no idea where she was, in fact no-one knowing where she was, except Jayne, across from her, in a low-down dive bar where River would never, ever think to go, and moreover, the kind of place that no-one would ever believe that Jayne could leave. It was the perfect setup, maybe too good to be true. Damned if he was goin' to say a word to her about it either, crazy girl, probably just come to get him into trouble.
On the other hand he had ignored her now for near to half an hour and it hadn't done him a bit of good. There she still sat. He sighed and yanked the barmaid back with a rough hand.
"Better get her a sandwich or somethin'," he added, and the girl stalked off.
"Brute," River said, twirlin' her hair.
"What are you doin' down here anyway?" he demanded. "You want a whore you should'a tried Inara, you're high-class enough." Snorting at his own joke, he took another drink.
"Captain said to stay out of trouble."
"Girl, this place is trouble," he said, and the barmaid slammed down a sandwich and more beer. Prob'ly spit in the sandwich too but hell, creepy girl could figure it out.
"Serenity was trouble," River said.
"Sure as shooting," Jayne agreed readily and took a swig, ignoring the way River nibbled at her food, more disturbing thoughts. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Serenity is home now," she said sternly.
"Sure," he agreed.
"But before it was trouble."
"Whyfor?"
"Feds," she said calmly and ate another piece of chicken.
This took some thinkin' over, and so Jayne tried. "On Serenity?" he asked at last.
"Yes," she said.
"They see ya?" She gave him a look that asked Are you stupid? He recognized it. "Yer brother?"
She shrugged. "With Kaylee. Park. Giggles and kissing." He grit his teeth. "Think Mal's a smuggler," she confided, and it took him a long time to realize she meant the Feds. She didn't help him out with it none either, just picked the meat out of her sandwich.
"What're you botherin' me for?" he asked finally. "Go find Mal, or Zoe and Wash."
She shrugged. "They're busy."
"And I ain't?"
She looked him in the eye. "Nope."
"You're crazy." She looked unbalanced by that, so he kept goin'. "And for some genius, pretty gorram stupid too. I ain't trustable, you know."
She smiled. "Yes, you are."
"Yeah?"
"You'll see," she said, and he felt a chill run over him, like geese were walkin' over his grave. "I'll show you," she added. "Captain too. Now time to go."