Summary: Jayne lifts, and Inara wonders just how much they weigh.

Meant as a sequel to Calibre, but can stand alone just as well.

Weight
by
Kel

She stood on the catwalk, quiet, observing. She wasn't lost in thought – couldn't think of something to think. The only sound was the clanking of metal and his breathing, heavy and controlled, echoing off the walls.

"What're you lookin' at?" he grunted between breaths. Weights go up, weights go down, no one there to spot him, just her, watching.

"Why do you do that?"

"Keep in shape." But she wasn't asking about the weightlifting, and she knew he knew it, was just too obtuse to acknowledge.

Her feet were moving before she had a chance to wonder if this little endeavor was even worth her time, and she descended the stairs to approach him. Each step gave a faint metallic rattle as her weight came down on it, her expensive slippers making no sound. Inara always took care to ensure her steps were soft and silent, unlike the man before her, who clomped around like thunder whenever he wasn't on a job.

"You know," she mused, slinking up next to him and leaning softly against an old metal shelving unit, "Those people back there are a family." She gestured slowly and delicately back toward the galley, bringing her knuckles to rest against the metal, tapping it with a quiet rhythm.

Jayne paused in his workout to gaze at her with a question in his eyes at her proximity. The gold pattern on her black dress shone in the low light. "And why ain't you with 'em?" He turned away from her and her sparkle and resumed his steady repetitive motion, working off his frustration. Lift and lower, lift and lower, inhale, exhale.

"Why aren't you?"

Her returning question was quiet enough that he could've pretended not to have heard it. Instead, he laughed outright, bringing the bar to rest on the rack and relaxing onto the bench. "You're about as feng le as the girl," he chuckled. "Or do you get less tetchy'n Mal do when I insult ya?"

Inara smiled, and he stopped laughing in favour of looking confused. "I've been called worse by worse men than yourself, Jayne." The truth was, while she'd been offended, Inara was in no way hurt by comments for which Mal had seen fit to send Jayne from the table. She just felt a conservative sort of pity for the man. "I'm serious. Why do you seek to segregate yourself so thoroughly from people who could be your family?"

"They ain't my family," he snapped. "Now why don't you go finish your meal – gotta keep your strength up for yer whorin'."

"What makes you think I belong there any more than you do?"

"'Cause you ain't–"

"A poor, backwater thief? A criminal? On the wrong side of the law? Name one of them who isn't. If you're not a part of that family, then I'm sure as hell not." And because she couldn't bear the thought that she might not be, she found herself a little angry at him now. "Now quit being such a ben tiansheng de yi dui rou and go finish your supper. Got to keep your strength up for protecting this crew."

She turned on her heel and left him dazed and taken aback to follow her. When he returned in her wake and sat back to the table with a mumbled apology, she did not smile.

She didn't want the others to assume it would be one of victory over him.

End.

feng le - crazy, from ever context I've seen it in
ben tiansheng de yi dui rou - stupid inbred stack of meat, according to fireflychinese(dot)kevinsullivansite(dot)net