I have written this fic for two reasons.
The first is that it is a present for my beta, Morgan: thanks for the faith and the vote of confidence – it is deeply and sincerely appreciated.
Secondly, this fic is written – as a vague companion – to my story: 'A Man of Misunderstandings'. Essentially, my life is exceptionally busy at the moment and the lack of response I received for the last chapter led me to seriously consider tossing the whole story in. Now, normally, I'm not a big review whore, but when you consider that I barely have a spare ½ hour these days, the thought of writing something that wasn't being read led me to question if I shouldn't better allocate my time to something that would be appreciated.
Yes, childish to a degree – but we're allowed fits of that occasionally. Anyway, I'm not abandoning 'A Man of Misunderstandings'; Morgan talked me out of it – so this story is for her.
NB: Forgot to make my usual apologies to the literary canon for various acts of theft - as usual, Lewis Carroll, but also Neil Gaiman and Mad Hettie. I also apologise for the existence of some truly excruciating puns in this work.
You'd be not shout
You'd better not cry
You'd better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Cobb is coming to town
It was well after school had finished for the day and Jayne found himself to all intents and purposes buried under what felt like a tsunami of ribbon, brightly coloured wrapping paper and the other accoutrements that bespoke the festive season.
'Ho ho ho' he thought to himself (somewhat) sarcastically as he managed, yet again, to neatly entangle his finger in a bow – well something that resembled a bow if you looked at it through slitted eyes in a poorly lit room; he also doubted the intended recipient would appreciate a gift with an attached mercenary but then he was getting to the point where he no longer cared about the social niceties and longed simply to get to the end of the process and if that involved him becoming one with his presents so be it.
"What are you doing, Sir?" came a quiet voice from the vicinity of his kneecaps.
"Holy shit! Don't do that!" Jayne was somewhat startled.
"Do what, Sir?"
"Sneak up on people, Miss Evans; even for abbreviated blond ninjas such as yourself it's considered bad manners."
"Sorry, Sir," not that Morrigan Evans, appeared the slightest bit sorry. "Are you wrapping your Christmas presents, Sir?"
"Your grasp of the obvious is truly astounding Miss Evans, keep that up and you'll live the see five foot."
"You're being mean, Sir."
"A startling observation. Perhaps you should have paid closer attention in class; you might have noticed that my name is Mister Cobb and not Mr Fluffy-McBunnykins."
"Yes, Sir," the child said in a very subdued tone and Jayne was stricken by a momentary feeling of guilt, one that warred with the eternal curmudgeon that had assumed its customary perch on his left shoulder, however, even the curmudgeon was wearing a sprig of seasonal holly – instead of its usual hemlock – and Jayne decided (buried as he was in all things Christmasy) that a little appropriately directed cheer wouldn't go amiss.
"Why are you here, Miss Evans, school is long finished and you should be at home."
"I am waiting for my mother to collect me. I had choir practise, it was our last rehearsal before the carol service tomorrow night; are you coming?" she segued, her hopeful look making the curmudgeon on Jayne's shoulder give him a pointed nudge.
Not a chance in hell, Jayne thought, "I hadn't decided" he replied.
"Who are your presents for, Sir?"
Jayne was starting to feel that the Alliance could take lessons in interrogation techniques form this child.
"My colleagues."
"What did you get them?
Jayne sighed mightily, but decided to humour the girl's request if for no other reason than the vicarious pleasure he would receive from reliving his shopping experiences and the chance to, once again, consider the ensuring chaos they would undoubtedly cause when presented; well some of them that is.
"Well Miss Evans, how we start with Malcolm Reynolds, he's the captain of the Serenity, the ship I normally work on as a … umm … protective services technician."
"You mean a mercenary?"
The big man grinned "Yes, but it's not considered polite to come right out and say it, some people don't consider being a mercenary to be a seemly profession."
"What do you mean by seemly?"
"The sort of job where you apply expensive aftershave and wear your britches around your ears."
"Like a teacher?"
"Precisely. Anyway, I brought Captain Reynolds some underwear, some Alliance boxer shorts."
"Why?"
"Well child, Captain Reynolds has a tendency to wear his trousers a mite too tight and the compression sometimes interferes with his reasoning abilities, so thought I'd help out some."
"That was nice of you. Will the Captain like his present?"
"So much that I reckon it will take at least three of the crew to talk him out of shooting me."
"That's good?"
"Exceptionally so."
Morrigan appeared somewhat sceptical, but as her mother had raised her to be a polite and respectful child she settled for nodding mutely.
"What else did you get?"
"Well, for the doctor, I managed to find him an antique."
"Really?" Morrigan was excited by this; she liked pretty things, which, to her mind, was what the term 'antique' signified. "From the Earth that was?
"Yes, that's right," agree Jayne equably.
"Is it a book or jewellery or pictures or…."
Jayne held up a large hand to forestall what he could tell would have become a long – and rather breathless – list, "No, I managed to acquire an old board game for him."
"A game?" clearly Morrigan didn't understand, games weren't antiques.
"Yes, it's called 'Operation', it's a medical game." That, Jayne could see, the child understood, clearly, from her perspective a medical game was OK, doctors getting medical games made sense.
The child looked archly at the pile of presents in front of her teacher: "There's more than two presents there, what else did you get?"
"Well, I purchased a hat – of dubious provenance - for the doctor's sister, complete with a 10/6 tag in it's brim."
"What's a provenance?"
"Somewhere in France."
"Okay," was the equitable reply. Mentally, Jayne breathed a sigh of relief; he wasn't prepared to give geography lessons: more correctly, he wasn't paid to give geography lessons outside of school hours and he'd be buggered sideways with a coracle before he started doing so.
"I brought the shepherd, who travels with us, a new bible, as the doctor's sister has turned his original copy into confetti. I also brought him a set of super-strong hair-ties because I am sick of hauling the doctor's sister out of the air conditioning ducts."
Miss Evans pulled her long blonde braid around to the front to inspect her own – purple, sparkly – hair-tie and nodded sententiously, sound hair-ties were very important.
"I brought Mister Washburne, whom you might remember from class the other day …"
" … He's that nice man, who made Euclid O'Halloran look like an idiot, isn't he? … "
" … That's right. Well I brought him a kitten. Mister Washburne's wife has been after him to have a child and he has been somewhat skittish about the notion, so I thought we'd start him off with a cat."
"Does he like cats?"
"I don't know."
"Does his wife like cats?"
"I, again, have no idea, but I brought her some anti-histamines just in case she's allergic."
Morrigan then had a suspicious thought. "Does your captain like cats?"
The mercenary (temporarily suspended) grinned. "No. He hates them and, better still, I know he is allergic …."
The elfin child grinned conspiratorially, perhaps indicating that she was coming to understand her teacher's way of thinking, "You didn't buy your captain any anti-hysteria … anti-hysterecto… umm …."
"Anti-histamines," Jayne supplied.
"Yeah, those."
"Nope."
"Did you buy the nice man's wife a present?"
"I did indeed," Jayne said, "I brought her a very nice gun belt and a gun cleaning kit."
"Why?"
"Because I have a well-developed sense of self-preservation."
It was clear that the young girl didn't understand the comment, but her momentary confusion didn't stop her from spying the final, unwrapped, present on her teacher's desk; at least she thought – see as how it was with the other presents - it was a present, but boxes of dirt weren't usually presents.
"Is that box of dirt a present?" she asked curiously.
"Yes. It's for the captain's girlfriend - it's so she can get her hands dirty occasionally."
Fortunately Jayne was saved from having to answer the inevitable questions that he could see forming on the horizon of the girl's expression by the arrival of her mother, a very attractive woman, who thanked Jayne for keeping her daughter amused. Accepting the woman's thanks with a grace that would have completely flummoxed Inara, Jayne settled in to wrap is last present.
Yes, it was going to be a good Christmas.