ADVANCED WARNING - HINTS OF PRIOR NON - CON INVOLVING AN OC
Title: A Little Help
Prompt: "Friend" for the Copper for a Kiss Rayne mini challenge
Characters: River, Jayne, OC
Ship potential?: Pre-River/Jayne by a looooooooooooooooong way or maybe not, you choose.
Author: Jaynedancing aka 9_Things
Disclaimer: Not mine, not paid, please don't sue
Word count: 950 ish
Rating: 12, for some unpleasantness, hints of possible non con not involving a character.
Notes: Fairly rushed and not beta'd, sorry 'bout that.
A Little Help
Ain't she sumthin'? Them legs just go all the way up."
Jayne's glass of not half bad whiskey froze half way to his mouth. He followed Jacob's eyes to where River was dancing the night away. He had a point, Jayne had reason to know that River did indeed have legs fitting that description and a whole set of other mouth watering attributes.
Of course Jayne's mouth had dried up on that subject the first time the girl had gone wiggy, then turned to dust when she'd slashed him with a butcher's knife. It didn't change the fact that she was pretty and these days he respected her a lot in specific areas but all in all Jayne Cobb would sooner climb into a bag of rattle snakes than into the sack with River Tam.
That being the case he didn't give a good gorramn who the girl chose to make time with, except…
Jacob Webbely was a childhood friend. Strange how you could bump into folks from home all over the verse, but there he was on Three Hills, propping up the make shift bar in the town hall while four fellas fiddled up a storm and an old woman who probably spent her Sundays at the church organ hammered folk tunes from a tired looking upright piano.
From the age of six Jacob and Jayne had played hooky, run riot, stole stuff and when they were fifteen pooled their money to buy a whore for a hour and played rock paper scissors to see who got to go first. Jayne couldn't recall who'd won but he did remember the woman smelt of garlic and peppermints.
For two years after that they'd interspersed their petty crime sprees with the determined chasing of anything in a skirt under forty that looked halfway approachable, but there was a basic difference between Jayne and Jacob.
Jayne in his own way, actually liked women. He liked them willing, he liked pleasing them as long as it didn't get in the way of getting his and even when coin was short and all he could afford was a skirt up, pants down quickie he was careful that his wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am didn't leave the woman smarting.
Jacob now, Jacob was something else. Leaving a girl crying didn't bother him one bit. Jayne was almost certain he only took what was on offer, but he didn't care a cuss for what he took.
Being a whole lot older and when pushed a bit more thoughtful then he'd been at seventeen it occurred to Jayne that getting beat up by a tiny little girl was just the medicine Jacob Webbely deserved.
He opened his mouth to say that he'd be happy to introduce them, but the words tangled up on the trip from his brain and that wasn't what he said. By the time he'd shown Jacob the scar on his chest and described in excruciating detail the state of the Reevers after River had finished with them Jacob had lost interest in River and the plate of chicken wings he'd been holding.
Being Jacob, he got over it, an hour an a half later he was talking to a young woman with red bouncy curls and a sugar sweet smile.
Jayne didn't interfere. In his opinion the girl wasn't any concern of his plus she probably had family at the dance. One of these days Jacob was going to say "I do" with a shot gun rammed up his pi gu and Jayne was going to laugh.
He found himself a seat, a plate of meat with a side of corn and another drink, half an eye on a tall black haired woman about his own age with a sharp but encouraging glint in her eye.
"Jayne!" River made him jump, appearing from nowhere, new clothes and brushed hair making her look half way like a regular girl, holding a plate in her hand.
Jayne's eyes fixated on the plate, it had the biggest slice of cake he had ever seen drizzled all over with sugar syrup and assaulting his nose with tang of lemon.
River pushed the plate in his direction. "To show my appreciation."
Jayne grabbed the plate first, then asked her what she was talking about, showering her in crumbs.
"You protected me from the predator," River replied, brushing sticky cake globs from her skirt. "Unnecessary, but the thought was appreciated."
Jayne shrugged, vaguely uneasy with himself. "Man's a friend of mine, din't want ya cutting off his gāo."
River regarded him thoughtfully, head on one side. "Of course. It is a natural instinct to protect our friends."
Jayne had a niggling suspicion that there was more to that statement than met they eye, he scowled at her. "Thanks for the cake, now git. Bitty thing like you hanging around gonna cramp my style."
River smiled sweetly and turned on her heel, moving in Jacob's direction.
"Girl!" Jayne's hand shot out and caught her arm. "What the hell ya doin'?"
"Your friend is about to take that girl outside, my protective instincts are not confined to my friends." She shook her arm gently, dislodging Jayne's hand and slid through the crowd, following Jacob and the red headed girl out into the dark.
Jayne stared after her for a few minutes, his mind revolving slowly. Eventually he abandoned his cake and left through the back door, went back to Serenity and spent the rest of the evening stripping Vera to bits and putting her back together again, a task he found soothing.
He never asked River what she did to Jacob and she never told him, but from that night on being around River gave him an uncomfortablness; it took him an awfully long time to figure out why.