Title: Breaking Stasis
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed! You all rock, it made a tough work week soooo much better. I wanted to mention that parts of these two chapters are a shout out to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a great computer game I was feeling nostalgic for. Thanks again, hope you enjoy chapter two!
Something was swatting at his face. It was real light, little taps along his cheekbones and his jawline. In the back of his mind it registered that it probably should be hurting him a lot more, but his head was in such agony that it overwhelmed all other injury. Groaning, Jayne opened his eyes in time to see the crazy cryo girl smack him clean across the face. Judging by the expression on her face and her bright red hand she had been doing it for some time. He reached up and grabbed her wrist, grimacing as a shooting pain ran through his skull. "Gorram it, girl, what you doing that for?"
"You're awake!" River felt the worry flow away from her face and she couldn't help but smile that her efforts had finally come to fruition. "Dangerous probability of an intracranial hemorrhage."
"Yeah, sure." He only understood about half of what she'd said so he brushed it off. Looking around he realized he was lying on the floor of the pod, Persephone's sunlight streaming through the windows. Damn shuttle even seemed to be in one piece. "How the hell we land?"
"I commandeered the shuttle. Without correction our trajectory would have eclipsed Persephone's atmosphere." She could feel her tenuous grip on her sanity slip further, just a little. Somehow when the escape pod had disengaged from the ship she had a moment of clarity. The shuttle's movement had been broken down into physics and calculus. She could clearly see its smallest particles as if they were all laid before her. Puzzle pieces that fit together: angle of attack, dynamic pressure, entry corridor, heat flux, lift over drag, stagnation point. Together they had formed a picture and with more lucidity than she thought she possessed she had been able to see where and how they should land. But as soon as the pod had come touched earth reality had started to fade on her again. She knew she had to get the big man awake as quickly as she could.
"Hah, sure you did girlie." Ain't no way slip of girl like her had landed them. He must've done it himself before he'd gone and blacked out completely.
"River."
Moving cautiously he tried sitting up and almost fell back down again. His head was still pounding like a jackhammer, it felt like a compression coil was tightening around his brain stem, and suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep. "Whatever you say."
He tried leaning back down to rest on the floor on the ship, but her little hands grabbed him and she struggled to keep him upright by his shirt front. "There is no time for this behavior. Gray backs are crawling on their bellies. Crawling closer."
"Gray backs? Speak sense, can't ya?" Maybe her brain was still jumbled from the cryo. Through the fog in his brain he tried to think about folks who wore gray round these parts. Only one group of people came to mind. "Ta ma de, you mean the Alliance?"
She nodded eagerly, thrilled he was actually able to understand her. "They watched the bird tumble from the nest, the message in the bottle."
So the Alliance knew where they were. Right, of course they did. "Think it's about time these chickens flew the coop then." Gathering his strength Jayne tried again and managed to stumble to his feet. The effort proved to be too much and he fell heavily against the bulkhead, scrambling for purchase against the smooth walls so he wouldn't fall on his ass again. River saw him pitch to the side as he struggled for equilibrium and she slipped up against him putting her arm around his waist. For one worrisome second he was sure he was just going to take her down with him, but he somehow managed to right himself.
With shaking knees he took the first few trembling steps to the hatch of the pod. "Where we headed? Ya happen to catch where we landed?" he asked, then silently cursed himself for wasting his breath. No way in hell that girl had stepped foot on Persephone before. One look at her, even with her bare feet and only wearing his hen da de yifu, and a body could tell she was Core, through and through. Persephone wasn't exactly a true Rim planet, but girlie talked so prettified she could even be from Sihnon or Bellephron.
"Abandoned apartment building nearby. Base camp before summiting Chomolunga." River knew she wasn't really making sense and that it would annoy the big man. But, somehow, she knew just as certainly that the building could provide temporary respite from their zealous pursuers.
He'd be damned if he was going to let some rarified princess tell him what to do. He was about to tell her so, too, except his head started pounding in double time. It took all of his energy just to get his legs moving in the same direction and not act like a total dumbass so as not to draw unwelcome attention to himself. With concentrated effort he managed to work his way up to looking like a sodding drunk being led by his long suffering woman.
They discretely entered the apartment building. After navigating some stairs that River described as decidedly byzantine and Jayne described in such colorful Mandarin that even the genius girl carefully catalogued it in her vocabulary they finally made their way to an empty apartment on the second floor. The complex was mostly deserted, just squatters and the odd petty thief. Good company for two looking to stay under the radar.
River tried to lower Jayne to the apartment's sole, and surprisingly relatively clean, bed carefully, but he was too heavy and fell most of the way down to the hard padding. With another groan (she was beginning to suspect he was not the most stoic of men when it came to pain) he sat upright in middle of the single bed, leaning against the wall.
Closing his eyes against the harsh sunlight that fought the thin paper shades in the windows, he couldn't help but feel a sort of grudging respect. Girl had known where she was going after all. She had done good. Leastways he wasn't lying in some gutter somewhere, looking to all the world like he was three sheets to the wind or worse. Now he could finally sleep.
River had been smiling, sensing his pleasure and gratitude even if he would never put voice to it. He was tired; she could tell. She could feel his weariness roll off of him in waves of dark blue and purple. As the ripples hit her she could feel her own body try to lull itself into slumber. But something, some distant recollection, wouldn't let her rest. She climbed onto the edge of the bed and crawled on her hands and knees to where Jayne was sprawled. Hesitantly she reached up and touched the back of his head below where it rested against the wall. Even though she was expecting the dried blood she still gasped as she felt it on her fingertips, smelt the coppery tang.
The bed had shifted as she moved and Jayne could feel her coming closer. Who knew what go se she was up to now. But when she started prodding him he blearily opened his eyes. The wound was still fresh and angry and it hurt like a bitch to have her poking at him. "What the hell you think you're doing?"
Withdrawing her hand and wiped it on his oversized jacket she stared at him intently. "You experienced significant head trauma."
"No shit."
"I was verifying the injury," she tried to explain. She had seen him sail through the air in the escape pod back in space, seen his back slam against the bulkhead and his head be thrown back to pound against the console. River wanted to smile even though it was inappropriate; her memories had been real, then, and not some induced hallucination.
Shutting his eyes again he grunted out, "You can do whatever the fuck you want as long as you let me sleep."
"No! Must not sleep after undiagnosed head trauma, could enter comatose state!"
Her voice was agitated, frantic, but he didn't stir. Damn it if she wasn't always on about something.
"You are not listening to me!" She tried grabbing his shoulders to shake him, but he was too broad. She could barely get a grip on him even kneeling next to his side. Panic building she swung a leg over his outstretched legs to settle in his lap. Yes, now she could finally reach his shoulders properly. Jostling him as much as she could she tried to explain again. "Must not slumber!"
When the wound in his head brushed against the hard plaster wall he groaned and seized a hold of her wrists to stop her. "Now what the hell do you think you're doing? I've been hurt plenty before, this ain't nothing but a scratch. Lemme be, sooner I can sleep this off sooner we can get off this rock."
"You have a cavalier attitude about death," she said glaring at him.
"Xie xie. Yer a real brat, you know that?" He wanted to shout at her, to throw her off of him. He would've too, if it hadn't been for that gorram expression on her face. Complete sincerity wasn't something one saw very often out here on the Rim. Seemed like everyone had an agenda. Plus she was worried some, he could tell. Actually worried about him out of all the people in the 'verse. Couldn't recall the last time someone had been genuinely worried about him like that; probably his ma when he left all those years ago. "But I'm tired," he protested weakly, wincing when it came out as more of a whine than he had intended.
"We need to keep talking. It will help to keep you alert." Gracefully she removed her hands from his grasp and folded them gently in her lap.
"Ain't got nothing to say."
She pursed her lips. "Fine, I shall speak." She wasn't sure why she kept pushing this. If the ignoramus wanted to risk his own life that was his affair. But each time he closed his eyes she could see clearly what would happen: his face fading to a pale mimicry of its color, his body stiffening as rigor mortis set in.
"Well, why were you in that cryo box anyway?" With everything that happened Jayne hadn't had much time to think on it, but now that he had a second to breathe it was unsettling him a little. He reckoned there was only a handful of reasons to put someone in cryo and even less reasons where it ended well for whoever had been shoved into the box in the first place.
"I don't recollect." River frowned. There seemed to be a gap in her memory. The last thing she remembered… "I was at the Academy. And I thought that Simon was coming for me. But instead I awoke from stasis."
There was that name again. "Simon, he your bao bei or something?"
She giggled and Jayne realized it was the first time he had ever heard her laugh. It seemed sad somehow, like she was trying but couldn't quite reach happiness. "Simon is my gege. He must still be on Osiris."
"That where you hail from, then?" Slumber was threatening to overcome him again and he figured it was 'cause he was sitting so still like. He liked to be moving, always wanted to be doing something. Didn't really hold for lazing about in bed unless he was sleeping or his John Thomas was getting some welcome attention. He started to move his hands just so that at least some of him was in motion and as if on auto-pilot they found their way to her bare knees as she sat astride him. With little flicks of his thumbs he caressed the inside of her knees and slow began the ascent of the planes of her smooth thighs.
She almost started when his hands touched her knees and her mind instantly began to enumerate the improprieties of the situation. She was wearing a man's overcoat sans undergarments. She wearing a man's overcoat sans undergarments and was sitting in the lap of said man. She was wearing a man's overcoat sans undergarments and was sitting in the lap of said man while he his hands wandered up her legs. His hands were warm and rough and above all incredibly distracting to her thought process. Gamely she bit her lip and continued on; he would not disrupt her concentration. "Yes, I lived there until I was fourteen. Then I… I, I left," she finished lamely.
"Went away to this school?" He had reached the bottom of the coat and he ran his hands along the outside of it, up the sides of her legs and to the small of her back.
"No, not school." There were no words to describe the Academy. Whenever her mind was brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to pick through her memories of her time there it was as if she was back. Even now, in this old apartment more than 2 AUs away, she could feel the blind terror she had felt there start to creep on the edge of her consciousness. She could feel her breathing start to accelerate and couldn't distinguish its source. Two warring emotions were fighting for dominance. The fear she had recognized instantly; it had been her constant companion for the last three years. The other was different. It was uncharted territory and somehow it made her feel excited and apprehensive simultaneously.
"No schooling? You some kind of genius or something?" Folks were required to attend school in the Core, even Jayne knew that. He may have left when he was twelve, but she would have had to stay longer. He wasn't particularly listening for her answer though, choosing to focus on the much more interesting contours of her back through his heavy jacket. Even though it was thick and heavy-duty he could still make out the shape of her spine through the cotton. Definitely a bit too far on the skinny side.
She nodded, now somehow breathless. "A wunderkind. But no more. Now I'm broken."
"Mmhmm," he mumbled as his hands stilled and his head relaxed again on the wall. He was just so tired, couldn't shake the feeling.
River could feel him starting to slip away from her again. She wanted to shake him as she had before, but was worried about further brain damage. As his mind lingered between the border of wakefulness and slumber she could suddenly see unbidden into it. She didn't like the feeling; it reminded her, as so many things did, of the Academy. But her control was poor and it took her a few minutes to extract herself. He was thinking of her as she had been when he first opened the cryo box and she blushed to see herself through his eyes. It's a girl, cute too. His emotions were still lingering on the surface of his thoughts and they were shot through with red. Be damned if I'd ever thought a gorram coat would practically give me a hard on. Her cheeks were surely aflame with the force of her blushes.
She needed to get his attention quickly. The threat of him quietly slipping away had diminished some, but it was still present. Her mind half in Jayne's thoughts and half in her own she did the most logical thing she could think of. Placing her hands back on his shoulders she leaned in hesitantly. Pausing for a moment she looked down on his face. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and even. Strong cheekbones, stronger jaw, full lips. A scar close to his mouth, a nose that had been broken at least once, and a goatee that looked unquestionably scratchy. He looked so much calmer, more peaceful like this. His bluster was gone and the angry furrows between his brows had smoothed out, leaving gentle lines in their place. She couldn't help but bridge the gap between them and shyly kiss him.
At first he didn't respond and River felt cripplingly self-conscious. Embarrassment ran through her like a sword through her flesh. She knew only the theory behind kissing, not the practice. How mortifying that her first experiment was such a failure. Despite what she had thought she did not interest him. Then suddenly she felt his lips move beneath her own.
Jayne hadn't known the girl for very long, but he knew that she was unpredictable as hell. Hadn't seen this one coming, that was for sure. Ta ma de, but he loved being the big damn hero. He should rescue nekkid girls from distress more often. He'd change his colors and be the good guy full time if it meant getting trim this easily.
He didn't like kissing on the mouth; one good night kiss, a stolen wallet, and a good drubbing would do that to a man. But there was no chance of that here and after he had gotten over his initial shock he returned her demure kiss eagerly. He ran his tongue against her pressed lips and she couldn't help but gasp against the sensation. Never one to not take advantage of a good opportunity he deepened the kiss voraciously, exploring her mouth, her taste, those breathy little moans she was making as her body was overloaded with stimuli. He wrapped one hand in her dark hair, tilting her head for better access. His other hand crept down her back, down to the hem of his coat. Wasn't 24 hours before that he had seen her naked as the day she was born; remembering all that smooth skin he wanted to tear the coat from her body right this second.
River was overwhelmed. She could feel everything. Just the kiss had put her practically at her breaking point and now his hand was inching its way up her leg raising the fabric as it went. She had never felt anything like it before. During her entire time at the Academy she had never felt one gentle touch and after she had given up hope that she would be rescued she had even stopped feeling any positive emotion. To feel wanted, excited, pleasured – it was too much. She put her hand down on top of his stopping its progress and pulled back to break the kiss. "No, Jayne."
"Come on, baby. I'll make you feel real good." He started kneading the flesh under his hand and she felt a current flow through her body.
That was precisely the problem. "Just this," she whispered as she leaned down to kiss him again, taking his wrist to move his hand back to its original position on her back.
Figured. Should've known Core girls didn't move that fast. Wouldn't be the first time. Hell, girls never moved as fast he hoped they would, was why he was so keen on whores. He resigned himself to feeling as much of her back as he could through that ruttin' coat.
She felt as if she was overflowing with emotions. They were surging right up to the walls of their levee; anymore and she would drown. But she knew it was worth the risk. This happiness would slip through her fingers just as surely as her sanity would and she was determined to cling to both for as long as she could.
ta ma de: mother fucker
hen da de yifu: big clothes
gose: crap
xie xie: thank you
baobei: sweetheart
gege: other brother
