Author: FitzsFool
Title: The Watcher Chapter Two
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A continuation of The Watcher.
Jayne peeked around the cargo bay door, whilst trying to make it look as though he wasn't really peeking. Mercenaries, after all, never peeked. They strode about manfully, claiming every room they entered as their own.
"Seems like the coast's clear," he mumbled to himself, hoisting his trousers further up his waist and striding purposefully towards the weight bench. A flicker of movement from the walkways caught his attention and he stiffened, squinting upwards with a sharply indrawn breath.
"Gorram girl's makin' you jittery," he shook his head and continued on his way.
Up on the walkway, River held her own breath and carefully stretched the cramp out of her calf. Since their conversation a week previously, Jayne had been very careful to make sure she wasn't around whenever he worked out. River had had to resort to increasingly clandestine methods to watch him. This time, she had been waiting for an hour, squeezed into a tight space between a large box and a metal wall. It had worked, thankfully, and now she was afforded a glorious view of hot, sweaty Jayne. As she watched him, River mentally catalogued her reactions, much as she would for a science project.
Heart-rate increasing, pupils dilated, fluid secretion progressing as expected.
River understood the physical aspects of sexual attraction. What she didn't understand were the abstracts, the feelings that such an attraction inevitably raised within her.
Sex is a means to an end. A method of reproduction. Surely there is no sense in having sexual intercourse for any other reason than to conceive and further the species.
River shook her head, leaning forward slightly as Jayne removed his shirt in one swift motion, using it to rub his chest down.
Interaction between male and female pupils had been strictly monitored at the academy. As a consequence, River had spent the time that most girls learned about sex having her brain operated on. While other girls had experienced first kisses, first fumblings, River had experienced pain, hysteria and confusion. Now, River was keen to find out more about the process that had Kaylee and Simon giggling in his bunk late at night, when they thought River was asleep. She wanted to know what it was that shone so clearly through both Wash's and Zoe's eyes when they looked at each other. What made Mal and Inara so frightened.
River didn't understand the difference between lust and love.
Jayne would be the one to teach her. River had decided some time ago.
Now all there was left to do was convince him.