Her capable fingers slid across the complicated dials, knobs, switches, lights and buttons, making sense of the chaos, guiding them effortlessly through the black. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and a few wild strands curled around her face, framing the concentrating frown. She paused then, looked up and swivelled to face him.
He stood in the doorway, brawny arms crossed, and his grey-blue eyes drilling into hers with a heavy frown knitting his dark browns. He was naked of weapons, and his wet, black hair was plastered to his face in some places, sticking up haphazardly in others, telling her he'd just gotten out of the shower. There was also the smell of cheap soap and the slightly stale water, and that hint of hot gunpowder and steel that was all his own.
For a long moment, they just watched each other, neither speaking, neither saying a word. Slate blue eyes bored into chocolate brown, and drunk in the sight of the other. He didn't ask what he wanted to ask, because he couldn't. It wasn't within his wide and varied capabilities yet to show her. It would be breaking a lifetime of habit, to ask her if she was okay now. Maybe that was why they worked so well; because he didn't have to. He transmitted the thought, the worry, the confusion, the fear, so clearly, that she never had to ask. He was broadcasting now, loud and clear.
Are you alright Crazy?
She smiled sadly at him.
"Removal of her amygdala ensures she will never be able to accurately process and suppress emotional data" she whispered, spinning back to face the Black.
"Chemically enhanced extrasensory perceptions, genetic athleticism was an additional benefit in the experimental psychological treatments...insanity and a killer" she finished bluntly, doing something at the Cortex.
For a big man, Jayne moved silently. He reached over her and put his hands over hers, pulling her gently away from the co-pilots seat. Still unspeaking, he held her against his chest and she listened to his steady heartbeat. He didn't know what she'd said, but he suppressed a burst of hatred for the Academy doctors. He knew hatred like his could trigger another breakdown. Instead, she felt him turn his focus to the things that made her strong; furious, sweaty sparring sessions in the cargo bay, mirrored by equally furious dances to memorised quartets and symphonies only she could hear, games with Kaylee, fresh fruit, the feel of Serenity responding to her precise movements. Tentatively, another thought came; his projection of himself. Tired, grumpy, scarred; too old, too uncivilised, his soul not pure enough and his past not clean enough. He wasn't good enough for a Core girl like her. Did he make her strong?
She looked up at him, and he was looking back down at her, carefully, heart beating fast, but he tried not to show it.
"He makes the monsters far away. Stable base, little tree can grow out of ledge in a cliff" she said, smiling reassuringly.
He crooked his eyebrow at her. She giggled. He liked it when she laughed like that, totally sane, totally her. Her eyes melted at his thoughts and tentatively she traced the stone-strong line of his jaw.
"Say it out loud, Jayne. Please" she begged.
She saw him hesitate, felt him struggle. She needed to hear him say these words. He steeled himself, looked deep into her dark eyes and felt the steel melt. He cleared his throat.
"I'm glad yer right, Crazy, coz I dunno what I'd do without ya"- he moistened his lips and she pressed herself closer to him, encouraging without words. With the heady scent of her hair, he felt his blood rush south, but forced himself to concentrate.
"Ya keep me alive an' ya keep me honest as we're ever gunna get, being thieves an' all. Ya drive me fong luh in a million diff'ent ways, but girl...if you wasn't around..." he trailed off, the possibility too much for him to voice aloud.
They kissed. He held her tiny little body flush against him and felt her fire, felt every inch of power and soft woman. When they drew apart, her cheeks were flushed, her lips reddened from his stubble. Standing on her tip toes, she began to kiss a burning line across his jaw, down his neck, and gently bit the skin at the base of his throat, smiling at the deep rumble from his chest.
"How's 'bout ye stick this bird on auto an' come on down ta ma bunk, Crazy?" he murmured, voice rasping and husky. She drew back, whirling out of his arms. He felt the loss like a limb.
"You haven't said the words" she said.
He shook at the prospect.
"Say it outloud, Jayne" she insisted.
"Ye already know it anyhow" he complained.
"Its not the same. Make it audible, like an official mark. Make it real" her last words turned almost pleading. When Jayne stepped towards her, she stepped away.
He struggled again, but only for a split second.
"Gorrammit River-girl. I love ya. Always will, for so long as ye'll have me"
A brilliant, blinding, achingly beautiful smile burst across her face and she leaped into his arms, pressing her mouth desperately to his, her legs wrapped easily around his waist, arms tight around his neck. The force pushed him back into the wall of the bridge as they devoured each other hungrily. Gasping, Jayne drew back.
"Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan! We gotta get me to a bunk, girl-"he paused to taste those delicious, swollen lips again.
"-Coz if the Cap'n-" and again, longer this time, stealing his breath and soul, and him not minding a bit.
"-Catches us-" Goddamn her delectable, soft, branding lips! "-I'ma gunna get-"
Oh wuh de ma, the things she could do to him, wrapped around his waist like that, her long, talented fingers all tangled in her hair. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was doing it on purpose.
"-Spaced!" he managed to gasp out. He flicked the tip of his tongue along the curve of her ear and felt her heated shiver go through her, vibrating though to some very sensitive and alert parts of his anatomy.
"There's fire burning in her, flames and coals and embers, all alive" she managed to say, panting, her neat breasts heaving. His fingers shaking like he'd never felt before, he played with a flyaway strand of hair curling around the edge of her face.
"Ye keep burnin' girl, coz I'm right there with ya"
She put her feet down on the floor and pushed a chaste kiss to his lips, like the brief caress of a match against his skin.
"She loves you, Jayne, now and forever"