Blurb: Jayne/River. Jayne and River clash in the worst possible way.
Warning: Angst/Some Violence/Strong Adult Themes – Not a Romance but deals with a relationship between River and Jayne. Not explicit.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and associated entities etc, own Firefly, Serenity etc, everything else is mine.
For Author's Note: PLEASE REVIEW! – Please don't flame (I need to protect my ego). Constructive criticisms and comments are welcome!
DIRTY GIRLS
Deepest Space, Darkest Fears. Two angry souls circulate in the air and weave their violent affair with hate and mourning, secrets and nightmares. One feels too much, One feels nothing at all.
Two pairs of eyes meet across the mess room table. Share a mutually hateful glare and disengage. She stares at her plate for a second before throwing it across the room. Splattering food that makes her want to purge.
"River!" Simon scolds looking at his sister. Shocked and angry.
"I can't eat, it keeps looking at me!" and she leaves, a grainy trail of sadness in her wake.
"It wasn't always like this", River thinks mourning her loss, because now it's all ruined and she can never go back. She walks the length of the banister, perfectly balanced like a cat she is. Glittering, and sleek and disdainful. She was kind once, and happy sometimes. Kaylee wasn't afraid of her and Simon didn't get angry with her. Oh how she regretted it now. How she wished she could make them understand.
She had just wanted it to be gone.
Not to feel or to hear. Not see or taste the blood. Not to remember the screams or think. Utter bliss of non-existence. The Nightmares didn't stop after Miranda. There was too much pain in the 'verse for River to stop fearing the dark. It burned her, and seared her calm, making her bleed, and melting her heart. She'd tried to end it once. Using the knife that she had used to slash Jayne's heart. But the Captain found her and bound her and now they only let her use blunt wooden chopsticks.
She doesn't remember how long ago but she never forgets. That night in the cargo bay. All alone and then suddenly thrown. Hard and cold against the wall, smothered by sin. She fought and submitted to his mauling. The medication running through her veins making her weak today. Hateful, spiteful demon all filled with lustful thoughts. He'd poisoned her and now she couldn't get out.
She hates him because he's ugly and stupid and cruel. But she lets him do it. Because when he held her under she couldn't breathe. Blacked out and slept deeply, sapped by him of the heat that kept her from resting, too tired to have nightmares, too filled with anger to be scared. The darkness behind her eyelids didn't scare her anymore – it was the safest place she could be.
He might have loved her but he was not capable of loving anymore. Things had changed for him since he heard that Mattie had died and Mama had been shot in the head by men who came looking for Jayne in the middle of the night, sent by a little grey man who wanted revenge for his father who had been plucked off by Jayne too long ago for Jayne to even remember him. So Jayne was Alone now, so angry and alone.
Jayne remembers, it wasn't always like this. He doesn't remember how long ago, but he never forgets. Shepherd Curtis. Not a shepherd at all. Not a man of God. Just an unholy monster of nightmare. Young Jayne sees her, that beautiful girl, splayed on the floor, violated and ruined. Shepherd had now turned to slaughtering his flock. Picking off the pretty ones, one by one, to satisfy his unnatural insatiable appetites.
"You say a word and I'll rip you so bad, you won't know your head from your ass." Beat Jayne until he couldn't feel. And then went away to slaughter some more. "She was a filthy whore, just like your mother. You'll all rot in hell."
He was the first one. The first splattering of blood, shining on Jayne's palms. Little did young Jayne know that Shepherd Curtis would not be the last.
So he punishes her. Makes her hurt and cry and moan just because he can. She's so beautiful. She feels everything, the doc said, she can't not. How glorious this sounds to Jayne who realised too late that the guilt had killed him.
How utterly superb…to feel…to be alive inside…
Jayne died long ago. When the guilt ate him up inside and devoured his soul. So he likes it when she hurts, and when she aches with desire. It's as if he can feel again through her. Feeling alive and powerful as he rocks her like a dolly. To be master over his lethal weapon who wilts helplessly under his touch. But he hates himself. Knows he's a monster and the torture never stops.
Dark cloud of desire. Undulations of hateful lust. Tendrils of violent craving for his touch. Bite marks are red. Nails clawing draw blood. Yearning for the heat of her to dull the cold in his chest.
It's over soon enough. They lay there. Saturated in their own filth. River gets up and runs to the wash quarters. She can smell him on her – intoxicating and sickening all at once. Desperate to be rid of him, to be rid of it all. Under burning blast of water, drowning herself in it, washing away soap and shame and watching it swirl around her feet. .
Jayne doesn't watch her leave. He hears the sound of her feet on the gangway. And then silence. He lays on his bunk, feeling the sour sweat chill his skin and his soul. He can't move. He can't think. He doesn't even think he can feel – he hates himself so much for what he's done. Images of erotic tumblings and sexual thumpings run through his mind and he feels that telltale twitch in my abdomen.
Irrepressible heathen!
The bunk is saturated with her scent. He turns his head into his pillow but is repulsed because the smell of her overpowers him. He's sobbing now. Dryly and quietly. More like wretching. Trying desperately to eject the poison in him. But he can't. Because he's kept it secreted for so long that it's seeped into the deepest layers. He wraps the sheet around him and shivers because his heart is still frozen.
Both of them vow never to let it happen again, but it does. Always. In the middle of the night when Serenity is sleeping, dark things come and frighten them both, and they end up clawing at each other. Every time it gets easier to forget the shame for both of them. Every time things get more desperate.
Jayne slowly open his eyes, to find River sitting at this foot of his bunk, with a thin blanket tied concealing her shame. She turns to him.
He looks away because he can't stand to see the dead look in her eyes, "Shenme?" he says roughly, wishing instantly that he had just thrown her out without a word.
"You can't tell Simon."
"Gorram it girl," Jayne growls, giving her a darkling look "As if I would be stupid enough…"
"You get stupid when the money's too good…" she murmurs.
Jayne looks away, pained. "Get dressed and get out," he snaps, getting out of bed himself and pulling his pants on.
"Copper for a kiss?" she mocks him, her smile disturbing and dark.
Jayne turns around and throws her dress at her "Make up your mind girl. Are you paying me or am I paying you?"
River throws her dress to one side and lies back, staring up at Jayne from the bed.
"What you lying down for? I told you to get out!"
"Can't…" she replies quietly "I'll walk on my feet, and hear with my ears…like a real girl I got all the parts. But it'll go away, and I hate it."
Jayne growls "You're crazy…I'm crazy! I didn't even-"
"She's a liar and no good can come of her," River's flings at him, challenging him, "Afraid we'll find out…but it's too late because I'm already spoiled…" she pauses and looks as if she hears something in the distance, she turns back to him, her eyes filled with tears and whispers in a horrified voice "And so was she…"
Jayne rounds on her and says in a deeply menacing voice "Get out before I spoil you for good."
But she's not afraid of him, anymore than she'd be afraid of dying. He sees the blood on the sheet and it comes rushing back to him. He's shaking with shame. Years of secret and blood, are ripping at him with gnarly grey claws, pulling him deeper into the gaping underworld. River's gone now. The dark eyes change to blue, the long brown hair transforms to short blonde locks, but the tortured soul remains. The ghostly figure of that pretty girl smiles, looking at him through dead dark eyes, accusing him, killing him, still ripping at his conscience. "Foolish boy," the girl scolds "See what you've done?"
Jayne screams and looks desperately around the room. But there's no one there. Just the smell of copper.
The screams are getting louder all the time. Now River can't even shut them out. Violence and hate clouds her mind, like a heavy fog.
River knows Simon is watching her. They're all watching her. Waiting for her to snap and destroy them all. She'll do it. She knows she could. Just snuff out their light before they had the time to realise it. But would it make a difference? They'd just become like the ghosts that haunt her at night, and then where would she be?
But she can't stand it anymore. His poison that killed his soul has seeped through her skin and she's dying in agony. She feels it all. The tar, and the metal filling her veins and the acid eating await at her soul. She wants to lash out. To make them all understand how she feels.
River screams. It's burning her brain. It's attacking her soul.
"I've sinned! You've sinned! We're being punished!"
"What's wrong with you?" Jayne says, savagely brushing her aside "You strung out on drops or what?"
"The walls. They're coming in. They're taking away my wings! Jayne! Please don't let them take my wings!" River rushes at him, grabbing at his clothes and falling to her knees.
"You ain't got wings you stupid girl. Now get off me!"
"You have to confess! Or she'll kill me!"
"Gorram it girl!" the backhander he strikes her throws her to the ground. It seems like a century before their eyes meet. But the tears are gone. And seems like there is nothing in her eyes. And when she turns back to him she's bleeding badly.
"You're not scared…you should be…I can kill you with my brain." she snarls quietly.
Jayne snorted "I can't believe this…get of here!" Jayne shouts, moving across the room to the stairs "Before I-"
"Put a gun to me, bullet in the brain pan - squish?" she shouts after him, hurling it at him like an insult.
"I'd be doing us all a favour," Jayne snarls quietly turning to walk away.
"I can't go alone Jayne…you have to come with me."
Jayne turns around and levels River with a disdainful glare "I ain't going nowhere with you, you crazy bit-"
The air stank of blood. The metal tasted wrong. And Jayne was broken.
River raised the gun to her head; she felt the cool metal against her temple and sighed, closing her eyes. She wasn't afraid anymore. It was going to be over soon.
"It's just an object…doesn't mean what you think."
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Some lines either quoted or adapted from Firefly and Serenity.
I realise that the Jayne and the River created by Joss Whedon are a great deal kinder (not to mention saner) than how I've characterised them here but I just wanted to explore River's nightmares and Jayne's guilt a different way.
Apologies for killing Jayne AND River this time. I just…well…I'm evidently unhinged and have a thing for writing angsty fics. My bad. I will try and make the next one nice.
I promise.
PLEASE REVIEW – but no flames please.