*Disclaimer!*

I don't own any of this, the characters, equipment descriptions and pretty much everything excepting the situation are property of Joss Whedon and all the other people/entities that I don't care to look up right now. I have not, nor will ever lay claim to anything in this story.

Good enough? So read it already! ;D

:)

Jayne glanced over his shoulder at the small, young girl fighting behind him. It had been half a decade since she'd taken over piloting Serenity, but she still looked like the same to him. A little girl, covered in gore and playing with knives. Well... maybe not a girl, so much...

She had ditched the small pistol he'd lent her when it'd run clean out of ammo and these things had kept coming. Now she had a hunting knife in the one hand and a machete in the other spinning, dipping and thrusting in the effortless ballet of what he'd come to think of as her "Death Dance". Sickly brown-green ichor splashed the thin, faded material of her tunic and caked in the limp waves that escaped the loose bun of hair at the back of her perfectly shaped skull. The strands of hair hung into her face and streaked it with muddy, sticky sweat. They fought three of these buggers, each, for every step back toward the Mule they won. Jayne steady as a flag pole to her whipping banner of gore they inched back the way they had come. Hard-won sweat.

He was a part of and apart from her weaving and swaying. She never put a foot wrong, never caught him in her friendly fire and never chose a combatant that he was already fighting. The dance was, as always, perfect. Only someone so sure-fire crazy could make an art of death. But as she gracefully swept another insectile limb from its body all the crazy was gone from her sharp eyes. She swung at him and he ducked. She caught the big bug square between it's antennae, gave him a small smile and twitched her head in the direction he was supposed to be facing then continued to cut swaths from the fabric of critters that had flowed out of the hill in front of them. Beautiful art.

Earlier in this small uninhabited moon's day Serenity had set down just long enough for Jayne and River to disembark with the Mule full-up with camping gear. They were supposed to set up camp in a secure spot then wait for the Captain to pilot the ship back with ransomable goods. What they had found is that this moon wasn't just uninhabited the locals made it uninhabitable. What with their swarming with deadly intent and all.

They had drove the Mule toward the hills then set out a-foot to poke around in search of a good hidey hole. They climbed the hardscrabble hill under the hot sun looking for a cave or some nook that could serve as a fortified hold for a few days, Jayne always kept the moonbrain in sight no matter how she wandered about. He didn't want to deal with the fuss her spoiled brother would pitch if she got her crazy-ass lost on this goram moon.

He had peeled the top of his jumper off and was just finished tying the arms around his waist when he noticed that she had stopped suddenly and cocked her head at something just around a big boulder and out of his sight. He caught the sound of her voice cooing calm and as he rounded the bend the sight of the nasty bugger stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Come away from there, girl." He said in an artificially even tone as he tugged at her elbow, eyes fixed on the green-black, triangle shaped head not ten feet in front of her. It whistled and clicked at her then rushed forward on it's multiple stick-like legs and took a small chunk from the skin of her shin with it mouth-claw thingys. She had made not a sound but jerked her leg back then shot it square between its multi-faceted eyes.

A strange mix of fear, pride and arousal flushed through Jayne as he watched the giant insect jerk and twitch then finally quiet and give up an awful pong. He was prodding the still and stinking body with his boot when he heard a rustling noise just up the hill. They both looked up to see several more triangle heads poke over the crest of the hill. Larger Heads.

"Shit." Was all he said as he pulled out both of his pistols and started to back away. He looked to the girl and saw her pull out her hunting knife, gun already in hand.

The two of them backed away as quickly as they could while the swarm came to the aid of their dead comrade. The insects each touched the smaller body of the dead one as they passed chattering and whining, aiming to overrun the pair of humans.

"Baby Killers!" River screamed in hatred and sorrow. "They cannot replace what they have taken! Take their meat for sustenance!"

"What fool thing you sayin, Moonbrain?" Jayne yelled at her as he sidled faster down the path. He glanced at her face and found it streaked with tears and twisted in an expression of such sorrow that his heart nearly broke and he took a step toward her intent on comforting her.

"Look out!" She yelled at him, wide-eyed and pointed behind him with her gun. She fired as he ducked to the side. He turned his back on her to look at the thing she had put down. Perfect headshot. They were surrounded.

That's how they came to the hacking and slashing. River killed seven more of the huge critters before her gun was out of rounds. She slung the empty gun at another attacking bug, distracting it for a second, as she leaned over and yanked the machete off his pack all in one fluid motion. Jayne killed twelve before one of the things bit his arm and he lost one of his pistols. He fired the other dry and pulled his shot blaster from the holster on his back then started peppering the on-rushing swarm with superheated plasma. And on she danced.

They were no more than a hundred yards from the Mule when the swarm began to thin and Jayne thought he could see some actually turn back toward their hill.

"Too much loss today. Too close to the border-lands." River grunted. "Go to your homes and mourn. This place is holy."

More and more of the bugs drifted away from the fight allowing Jayne and River to retreat more rapidly toward their transport. Abruptly the insects left off their harassing and trooped back up the path to their hidey place in the hills.

Jayne reached the Mule and looked back to see that there was not a bug in sight. He slung his pack and his shot blaster into the transport then bent over and propped himself up on his knees with his hands, elbows locked and breathing in gasps.

He heard River start to laugh, gulping out mirth in ragged bursts so he turned his head to look at her. She was leaning with her back against the Mule, head thrown up so her crown rested against the hot metal exposing the soft swell of her throat. She was breathing heavy, like him, and laughing hysterically between gasps. The action shook her body in an oddly alluring way. No sooner than the thought was in his head, did she drop hers to look him square in the eye. All hint of mirth was gone, replaced by some vaguely familiar intense glint. She meant some sort of mischief, this one.

"Does she still look like a little girl?" She asked, eyes wide and mockingly innocent.

"Nope." He replied gruffly as he stood up tall.

"Maybe more like a very small woman?" She took a few slow steps toward him, watching her hand as she dragged it along the fender of the Mule. Then snapping her intense gaze back to him.

"Less'n you've had a suitor that Simon ain't kill't..." She stopped bare inches from him and shot a hand up to the back of his neck. She propped herself up onto the tip-toes of her boots lifted her chin and arched her body into his. She had him just where he wouldn't admit he'd wanted to be and she slammed him with a kiss.

Weary and stunned he clapped his hand to her hip and gripped tight. She had dressed in those tight lil shorts that drove him slug-brained every time he thought of them and a light, flowing tunic that was less fabric than air allowing him to see right through the loose weave to the tight fitting halter underneath.

"I could have a lover that Simon can't kill." She stated after breaking off the short-hard kiss. She cocked her head to one side and looked at him with those huge, dewy eyes.

"Heh..." He grunted and smiled, mostly to himself. He made a quick decision. "He'll try." With that he grabbed the back of her head, threading his fingers through the silky smooth hair there and completely ruining the loose up-do.

Last time they had seen Inara she had cut off River's unruly hair to just below her shoulders then trimmed it all frilly around her face. The effect had been dramatic, turning the girl with rats' nest hair into an effortlessly styled young woman. Now all that soft hair fell about her face and shoulders sliding over his arm like tiny fingers setting off every nerve they touched. He shivered a little as he pulled her face back to his and nuzzled her cheek with his nose before kissing her waiting mouth soundly.

Her hands found their way under his shirt and she dug her nails into the flesh of his back just on either side of his spine. He winced and pulled back as her fingers settled into a fresh bruise he didn't know about and he cursed. She giggled and pressed harder.

"Ahh! Gorram lil-" She slapped him, hard across his battered face, cracking his lip and dazing him for a second. She turned smartly away from him but didn't get more than a step before he had his arms around her, pinning hers to her sides. He lifted her, kicking, into the air and rubbed his stubbled cheek on her neck before biting hard at the nerve where the neck meets the shoulder. She gasped and whined a little as he felt some sort of weird sensation like a pop or a tiny explosion of desire inside his head. Her whole body shuddered.

"It's been proven that people react amorously when they have survived a stressful situation." She rattled at him.

"Yeah," he grunted and loosened his grip, letting her small frame slide down the length of him. "But stress don't make you as pretty as you are."

She was wobbly in the knees as she turned in the circle of his arms, "Endorphins are released into the brain. They make a potential mate look more pleasing."

He thought on that a moment, "Then you must be downright gorgeous right now."

"The endorphins want you to sex me." She wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled herself up to his face again.

His rough and calloused hands found the soft flesh of her sides, under her tunic and he stroked the skin there causing gooseflesh to rise. She fumbled with his belt and he opened the clasp of her halter with a practiced snap. He could almost feel the delight run through her as his raspy hands stroked buttery soft skin. His mind started to blur with pleasure as he lowered her to the dusty ground, but he hesitated.

"What's wrong, Rock-brain?" she murmured into the skin of his now bare chest, before giving him a small peck there.

"It's just that-" He stopped as she gave him a throaty laugh. "What?"

"What 24 year old has never had a lover?" She traced the muscles of his stomach, back and forth, lower and lower.

"One with a bro like yours." He pointed at her.

"Simon cannot keep me restrained from where I wish to go." She bit his outstretched finger, bearing down just enough to clear the fog in his head then released. "You are not the first to enjoy my body."

He shook his bitten finger a couple times while watching a slow smile creep across her face. He was straddling her, knees planted in the dirt with a look of comical disbelief plastered on his scarred face. She giggled again. It was like she knew what the sound of her chime-like laughter did to him.

"Will you enjoy my body, Jayne?" She looked at him longingly with her huge brown eyes. "Please?"

That was all it took to dissolve Jayne's last reserve of mental fortitude. And how he did enjoy her. Enjoyed her body, enjoyed her noises, her smells, her tastes... He enjoyed the look on her face and the arching shudder of her frame when he was making sure she enjoyed it all too.

He was shoving his legs back into the pants of his jumper when he detected a familiar rumble from the sky.

"This, uh..." Jayne caught River's attention, "Can't happen again."

"It might happen again." She countered, brushing sand from the small of her back.

"I mean, you can't be all lovey about me all the time."

"Only when the endorphins tell us to." She agreed with a solemn nod.

As the wind from Serenity's landing whipped grit into the air about them, River put her hair back in its loose bun and smiled at him sweetly. There was still a shine of mischief in her eyes.

Jane thought of how she looked, covered in gore and sweat and blood, swirling like a deadly tornado, chest heaving with exertion... Jayne's Merc sense told him this was going to be trouble. He shook the thought out of his head and grinned. He sure did enjoy that Death Dance.

:)

So, what do you think? This is my first pairing of characters that aren't mine, ever, so give me a holla!