By no means do I own these characters, because I'm not genius like Joss or Tim, or any other of the Mutant Enemy writers and directors. Thanks for being gentle about letting me borrow them for a bit!
My first attempt at Fanfic. Reviews are welcome :)
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River was standing flush with the wall, her eyes closed, the cool metal a welcome distraction from the things inside her head. She'd become accustomed to the people on this ship. They all felt – safe – or safer than anywhere else. She thought clearest when they were in deep space, when they were out amongst the nothing and the stars were cold company.
"Prickly, prickly. The spines of gods and goddesses." Her voice was inaudible, but she said it all the same. In her bunk Kaylee stirred restlessly, her dreams taking a dark turn. Zoe rolled into her husband's embrace, while Wash pulled the covers closer over both of them. Simon slept like the dead. She giggled. "The doctor like the dead," she smiled. "Death where is thy sting?" She touched her lips to the wall, and it was then she heard the soft clink of metal against metal, far below in the cargo bay; her eyes snapped open and she pushed back from the cold wall, her face an echo of loss.
"Mysterious fathoms…" she murmured as she moved softly onto the upper platform above the cargo bay. Wanna play? She walked quickly, like a giddy child, but with soundless exuberance that came so naturally to her.
Her feet made barely a whisper of sound as she padded across the catwalk, but he heard her. She was even quieter when she went to her stomach on the second landing, but her hair made a light swishing sound as she brushed it out of her face. She was watching him again. It made Jayne downright queasy when she did that.
It was dark on the cargo deck, but he felt her vivid eyes on him, even though he couldn't see her. He kept lifting, determined to ignore her, as he had so many other nights. But she stayed, watching. He felt his anger building as the sweat beaded on his forehead. Why in the gorram hell would she not be sleeping? Why did she come, night after night, to watch him get the only decent workout he could, out here in the middle of nowhere?
"A small thing makes you angry. What does that indicate about the size of your most essential parts?" Her disembodied voice floated down to him, the slightest sound above a whisper. In a sing-song tone she adds, "Anger, anger everywhere, smaller yet and light as air."
"What in the gorram hell's that crazy talk?" Jayne was unnerved, and wondered, not for the first time, if she was reading his mind.
"Better than a novel, and a docuvid on theoretical physics combined." Her giggle was almost in his ear, and he sat up and spun to see her hanging off the lower landing just above him. He could just make out the endless fall of her hair, and her pale cheeks fair glowed as she stared at him.
"Think yer a funny person, do ya? Hi-larious, do ya think?" He said sarcastically. "Damn sprite, think yer all-- sneaky, sneaking 'round like I ain't gonna know you're here."
"Wit is educated insolence, and you are not a fraud."
"Bu xuei, girl! Damn right I ain't no fraud. Get on to bed now! Ain't your brother sticking you with enough stuff to keep you in bed?" He'd have to have a word with that fei hua brother of hers. Simon swore she was getting better, but he hadn't seen any indication.
"A double negative. Always negative. A man named Jayne. It's not really about the money. Or the kill." She flipped suddenly off the platform, and landed, cat-like, on her feet and facing him. "You like it rough."
The little bit of light was on her face now; it was less shadowed. Her expression was eerie, like a cat again, hungry and hunting. Jayne was beginning to feel uncomfortable, but he'd be damned to show it.
"What do you want from me?" He muttered, rolling onto his back and beginning to press again.
She began to spin in circles around him, missing every obstacle in her path, dancing to music only she could hear. As she spun, she spoke soft words, and he knew she meant them for him, somehow knew they were in answer to his question. "Absence… Solitude… To be absurd and delicious…the fume of sighs – and a mirror…"
He finished his reps and shook his head, lying there and listening to her spin in the dark. "You know you'd be easier to get along with if you stopped speaking in gorram riddles all the gorram time."
She came and sat in front of him, her knees touching his, her skirt riding up her thighs as she straddled the weight bench. He'd been uncomfortable before. Now he was working quickly towards bothered. He started to stand, but her hand darted out to touch his chest; it stopped him as surely as if she'd held a gun. Only her fingers scorched him, where a gun would been cold.
"Simon – well, he's – no, and Mal he denies, same as Inara does. Kaylee, she's too much the same and Wash and Zoe, they sum one together. So the lesson has to be learned at the feet of a master."
She stared at him as if it all made sense, and she expected him to act. When he sat there, staring mutely back at her, she sighed, and moved closer. Jayne felt like ice everywhere, except where her fingers touched him, and her knees. She made a low sound in the back of her throat, then rubbed her face against his cheek. She whispered in his ear, "Exhausting the contemplation of experience, we could be integrally beneficial to the universe."
Then just as suddenly as she had come upon him, she was gone, fleeing toward the room she shared with her brother. Jayne sat very still, not moving until he heard the distant swish and click of the door, opening and closing, and a good bit after that, just to be sure.
Jayne was confused. And damn unhappy at that. Not only had she managed to make his brain feel like scrambled ai dun dun xing en, she'd left him strung up. Times like these a man wished they had some real whores on the Serenity, he thought to himself, shifting uncomfortably and glaring up in the general direction of Inara's shuttle.
Some days he hated this ship. Well, no way around it, he'd deal with it himself, like he usually did. It was only… He grunted, and got off the bench, making his way quickly, and carefully, up the stairs to his bunk.
Far below, River lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, listening carefully to the ebbs and flows of the people sleeping on the ship. And the one not sleeping. It made her feel… oddly warm, eavesdropping on Jayne, and she closed her eyes to savor the combustive reaction his passion had on her. He couldn't keep her out of his mind this time, since she was what brought him to it. She bit her lip to keep from waking Simon, but smiled too. It was delicious, just a little. She felt restless, and exhausted, warm and cold, all at the same time. When he came to the penultimate moment, she rose with him, almost to its peak, and crashed with a shuddering breath, just as he released the last of it.
River sighed deeply, and listened as he went to sleep. She was awed by their ability to just – get it out and go to sleep. She'd heard Wash and Zoe's passions so often, but it was different from Jayne's, or even Inara's clients, even the Counselor. What an interesting study that had been.
She rolled over, feeling sleepy, but not wanting to let go of her considerations. She was getting used to these people, and she was learning them. They fascinated her, and she didn't understand them. She knew everything they felt, every moment, but they never made sense, they fit no predictable pattern. It both amazed and troubled her.
Learn the wrong things from experiences, do back flips for false devotions.
She didn't really want to go to her dreams tonight. They were always there, lurking, even when Simon's fogs were strongest. She sensed that she was losing this one. But she couldn't stay awake forever. And they would always be there, lurking, the doctors, the government, the Hands of Blue. She shivered, and thought again of Jayne, and smiled.
Sleep found her, and the horrors that it carried came soon after. But for a few brief moments, River experienced peace. When she woke, hours later, her screams had woken Simon, and he was beside her, wrapping her in his warm, safe, but ineffectual arms. As she shivered and sweated and cried baby tears into her brother's shoulder, she knew she had to keep studying Jayne. He might be the key. The key to lock her mind up again. The key to make them stop searching. She clutched at Simon's shirt and wept for all she'd lost, this moment of weakness hers to bear.
