Disclaimer: If I owned this, there would be Jayne dolls with wardrobe. And also River dolls. So I could make them kiss. But I don't, so there aren't, and such is the unfairness of life.
Thank you for your kind reviews. It makes me so happy to share this with you. (And when you write back, it's less like I'm talking to myself like a crazy person.)
xxxxx
"Jayne, River, you're done. Go to your rooms, please."
"Aw, come on, Mal," Jayne whined. "We ain't even done nothin'."
"Table manners consistent with current cultural setting have been observed, Captain," River agreed with Jayne. Least ways Mal was pretty sure that's what she was doin'.
"Ain't a punishment for bad table manners. I intend to talk about you while you're not here."
Jayne looked like he wanted to say something, but shoved back his chair and strode to the exit.
"Your bunk's the other way, Jayne," Mal called.
"I'll be in the hold," Jayne snapped. Mal allowed the other man his defiance as it tended to keep some ration of peace.
River snatched up the last protein flour biscuit and started to follow.
"Steer clear of the man-ape, mei-mei," Simon said.
River just gave her brother a look and flounced out.
Mal knew there needed to be some airin' out regarding recent events, but he was for damned sure he didn't know where to start. He felt like things were spinning out of control, and that never set well. The dust-up over River and firearms, Jubal Early breaking into the boat, Inara...
"Anybody got anythin' they wanna say?"
"Do we know what happened between Jayne and the shepherd?" Wash asked.
"No we don't," Mal told him. "Book convinced me that was somethin' between him n' Jayne, and I'm inclined to let it stay that way. 'Slong as it doesn't interfere with the runnin' o' things."
"Sure am curious, though," Kaylee said.
"Doesn't take much to set Jayne off," Simon told her. "Voice of experience here."
"Well not for you, no. But Jayne and Book was good friends. As close to bein' friends as Jayne gets. Voice of experience here," she threw back at him, with a half grin to soften it before her face went serious again as she looked back to Mal. "I just hate we're losin' people, Captain. Feels..."
"I know, little Kaylee. I've lost my ambassador and my preacher-only respectable people I had on this boat-over the course of two weeks. Got a job planned and I can't afford to toss my gunhand out the airlock, much as I might like to. Don't got plans to dump my doc or my crazy person, neither, but we gotta have us a talk about what happened last night."
"River defended Book," Simon snapped. "Maybe even saved his life. If anyone was crazy last night, it was your semi-trained ape."
"Ain't denyin' that. But how, Doc? How'd she know the shepherd needed saving?"
"You're back to the psychic thing again," Zoe stated.
"Can't ignore it."
"Can we talk about how a ninety-eight pound girl fights off a...Jayne?" Wash asked.
"Zoe already said he wasn't tryin' to hurt her," Kaylee was quick to remind them.
Zoe leaned back in her chair, sharing a glance with Mal over her husband's head. "Seeing her move, I'm not sure it would have mattered."
Mal nodded. "And the first few rounds there, I'm not sure how much he was pullin' punches."
"I know I couldn't last two rounds against Jayne," Wash said.
Zoe patted his shoulder. "We all know that, dear."
"You gonna eat that, or you just take it to play with?"
River tossed the biscuit high and Jayne sat up on the weight bench to snatch it from the air. He got up, leaned against the stack of crates she was sitting on, and broke it in half.
"Here. Eat this before a strong wind comes and blows you away."
"In the Black, atmospheric-oh," she finished, realizing he was making a jocular reference to her size.
"What are they talkin' about?"
She opened her mind to the currents above them. "More speculation on the girl. What is she made for? Is she dangerous?"
"Not talkin' about me, then?"
"Not the main concern, right now. Little girl fights the big man, doesn't go squish. Holds more interest."
"I don't go 'round squishing little girls, as a rule."
"Jayne has more rules than he lets on."
"Stay out of my head," he snapped. "Don't go gettin' all personal. We ain't friends."
"He needs to reassert boundaries. Holy man-"
"What did I just say?"
River fell silent. Not knowing when to keep thoughts internal was an old problem. Having so many thoughts not her own just made it worse. For a few moments she worked on reinforcing the walls between her brain and the other brains on the ship.
"It's different for Jayne," she said, trying to work something out. "She hears things, knows things. Makes them..." She looked up toward the galley above. "Emotions scurry with many tiny feet, searching for-"
"Makes them all twitchy."
"Jayne is not twitchy. Angry. Always angry. But not twitchy, not fearful of this aspect."
He shrugged one shoulder. Part of her, somewhat removed from the conversation, admired it. She would come back to that later.
"Why ain't I scared o' you bein' a psychic an' all? I ain't sayin' I'm fine with it. A man should be able to keep his secrets without some moonbrained girl pokin' around in his head. But they as were makin' you, they made you a Reader for reason. It's a right handy skill."
"She feels neither handy nor skilled."
"She feels everything. She can't not." Simon's voice, from Jayne's brain. The girl lying in the chair with her insides on display. Not her memory, but his.
"Figure they were buildin' me for a sentry or somethin'," he said, his voice low. Struggle in the quality of his speech. "At first, I could hear so much, smell every damned thing. My eyes would just zoom in and focus on stuff like I didn't even tell 'em to. Damned unsettlin' it was. I couldn't-"
It was a feeling she got from him then. Always on alert for danger, always threatened. A spring over-wound, unable to release. The part he never learned to regulate.
"Well," he finished. "You'll get more used to it, time goes on. I 'spect."
"He as a sentry," she nodded. "What is she built for?"
His head tilted back. Not to look for the others, but just to look somewhere new and not at her. To stretch muscles, not fully conscious of the irony of exposing the throat when he the word "Assassin," dropped.
The word had flitted through the minds of the others for the past two weeks, a dark, slippery, double-edged blade of fear. They leapt away from it, then cringed, hoping it wouldn't come back.
In Jayne's mind it was a half-formed picture of a woman, dark but lithe, quick and keen. Strong. But when she tried to focus it blew away, a picture made of smoke.
"You know somethin' about me now," his voice broke into her thoughts. "I been knockin' around the Rim for years 'fore I landed on Serenity. It's a good set-up. Cap'n keeps his head down. Don't draw attention he can't help, and don't take no undue risks with my person. Ain't a lot of bosses got that kinda attitude about the help. An' I always gotta think like maybe there's someone still lookin' for me. It's what's kept me alive and free this long, and it's how I'm built. Now I gotta be worried about them who's lookin' for you. You're a threat to me, and I don't like it. I ain't made no secret about that."
She didn't have a reply, and it was probably best not to make one and have it be wrong.
"Ain't personal," he grumbled. She cracked open a metaphorical door that separated where she ended and he began, let some of him trickle in. Under his constant anxiety was concern, a hint of contrition. He...felt bad for making her feel bad? She shut the door. "Ain't like you can help what's lookin' for you, and seems the cap'n's set on keepin' 'em from ya, so..."
"No longer set. Leaning again, not committed. Concerned for the others. She may be a danger. Unknown parameters. Unpredictable. Assassin."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't worry too much. It's still you versus the government, and that puts him on your side. Just don't knife anyone he actually likes."
It was on the tip of her tongue to explain about that, but his emotions crested again. She tasted the ashes of his shame and regret as his thoughts swirled around Ariel. He pushed them back and locked them away again.
