Winning

Disclaimer: It's not mine, it's yours! . . . wait, no, it's theirs, sorry.

Boredom

River was bored. She had already reread all of the books on the ship. Not that she had left her bed. After reading through a book once she could always read it again at any time, each page appearing clearly within her mind. She had started "reading" about three hours ago. After going through Inara's guidebooks, she had moved on to Kaylee's romance novels.

River was fascinated by the different views of sex presented in each. One focusing on control, comfort, and technicalities. The other full of people overwhelmed with feelings and passion, giving in to intense desire with sex that lacked finesse, but had a poetry of its own. She usually read Kaylee's books twice.

Afterwards, she quickly went through the various manuals and random novels that were around the ship, but no one could remember buying. She slowed down when she got to Jayne's newest gun magazine. This one was relatively new, she had only read through it once the night before.

Jayne had just sat down on his bed to read it when River had snuck down his ladder. Jayne hadn't even looked up, he'd simply tossed his magazine aside. Only then did he meet her eyes and open his arms with a silent plea.

They had had a fight earlier. He knew there would be no sex for him tonight, but he also knew he couldn't sleep without her, hadn't been able to since their first sexless night together five months ago.

She didn't say anything, she wasn't ready to talk the fight out, but she didn't hesitate as she walked over to the bed and straight into his arms. They curled up close and were asleep within minutes.

A few hours later River woke up when Jayne squeezed her too tightly. He always held her tight when they were fighting as if his subconscious had to apologize, couldn't stand the fight, worried that she would decide that this time would be the time that she had had enough and leave.

Now River needed something to put her back to sleep. Her eyes fell on the magazine where he had thrown it next to the bed. River thought about the time about a month ago when she had wanted to talk about a new kind of bullet that was meant to be shot into a non-fatal part of the body, but once inside, it released a drug instantly into the bloodstream that put the victim to sleep. It meant someone could silently take someone out from far away without killing them . . . handy.

Unfortunately, Jayne was out on a job, so she couldn't talk with him. Besides, he'd probably just say that it was cheaper to kill them. So, she was sitting and drawing in the mess while Simon drank tea. He didn't try to look over and see her drawing. He used to look at her work all the time when she drew animals, ballerinas, and dolls. When he had looked over to see the insides of a man on display, he stopped looking.

The man she had drawn was not like the ones from his medical texts, where parts of the outer skin had been sterilely removed to provide a clear view of infected internal organs. No, this man had been sliced open, seemingly by a dull blade, while he was hanging by his wrists. The worst part had been that the man's eyes had been wide open with shock, implying that he had been alive when this gruesome surgery began. He stopped looking.

Now, she was doodling another man, part of his shin was exploding with blood and bone shards flying out, but his face as he fell to the ground remained peaceful . . . handy.

Without thinking it through, she started explaining the new bullet, wanting to know how long someone would be knocked out based on different weight, body type, point of entry, etc. Simon did his best to answer her questions, but had to ask finally, "Where did you read about this?"

It didn't even occur to her to lie, this was Simon after all, "Jayne's gun magazine."

"You read it?"

"Yes."

"How'd you get it?"

River paused, in mind only, because her hand continued to detail the muscle ripping. "He left it on the table." She lied casually.

She could feel Simon's eyes on her and lightly cursed him for being so smart and observant. He knew that Jayne only read in his bunk. Last time Jayne had sat reading in the mess, he had stormed out after only a few minutes amidst jokes about apes that could read and picture book style gun magazines.

However, River didn't need him to believe the lie, she just needed him to not guess the truth. By lying about where she got it, he could assume she had stolen it, which wasn't good either, but much better than the alternative.

River was pulled out of her "reading" and her concentric memories when she heard a strange echo resounding through her head. It took her a moment to realize that it meant that Jayne was reading the same magazine at this instant. Well, that's one way to beat boredom, but River could think of a much more fun one.

He was almost done and would be going to the mess for a snack in a few minutes. Well, she could see that he eats something.