"I swear, if I miss lunch on account o' yer scrawny ass, that little kick Kaylee gave ya's gonna feel like a bugbite."
The man just stared up at him. He'd stopped moaning and whimpering while Jayne dragged him out of the mule and tied him up and had now moved onto stony silence and hate in his eyes. Didn't bother Jayne none. He'd gotten worse from better.
Jayne stomped over to his bag of weapons and propped Myra up against the nearest crate. With a flourish, he pulled the knife out of his waistband and held it up in front of him. A little over ten inches long and made of the hardest steel in the 'verse, he'd picked this beauty up after a job back when he was still running with Marco. They'd taken a week in Asham to patch up their holes – both in the boat and their bodies – and Jayne had taken to wandering through the bazaar when he wasn't drinking or chasing trim. Freaky little man at one of the booths had sized him up, gibbered in some dead old language from Earth-That-Was and pulled this bit of shiny from under a red rug. Cost him near every bit of coin he had in his pockets, but she was worth the price a hundred times over.
He called her Inez, which sounded near enough like what the little guy kept babbling at him.
She wasn't the biggest knife in his collection, nor the prettiest, but she was the wickedest. Scared that clumsy Alliance mole bad enough he tried to lie when he clearly hadn't got the talent for it, didn't she? Saved his own ass on enough occasions – most times just the sight of her was enough to scare the piss outta any man.
Bernoulli's stooge weren't no different. Soon as the lights of the cargo bay started winking off Inez's long blade, the man started up with the whimpering again.
"Aw, shut it. Ain't gonna cut you none." Jayne turned the blade a little so the light reflected right into the man's eyes. "Lessen the cap'n wants me to, that is."
"Won't be necessary, I think, Jayne."
He looked up to see Zoë heading towards him from the door to the passenger lounge. "You sure 'bout that? Man did give Kaylee a little scare back there in town… Figure maybe we teach 'im a lesson 'bout puttin' his hands where they ain't wanted?" He turned to look directly at Zoë so the other guy couldn't see his face and gave an exaggerated grin.
"Seems to me that'd be a fine lesson for this man to learn." Her face was as calm as her voice, but there was a look in her eyes that told Jayne she maybe wouldn't mind dishing out the lesson herself. "But, the captain said no touchin' – and I assume he don't just mean with hands."
"Gorram shame. Inez ain't tasted blood in near a week." Jayne inwardly flinched as the words come tumbling out of his mouth.
Zoë's steps faltered a bit at the reminder of what had happened back on Canton, but at least she didn't start up with that creepifying stare again. Instead, she said, "Cap'n said to store your gear and get on up to the table. I'll make sure our guest is comfortable in one of the spare passenger bunks."
Something about that didn't sit right. Where was it that the doc 'n' his sister holed up? Be just our ruttin' luck for this miserable hún dàn to find out we got two fugies on board and go tattlin' to his boss… "Ain't the–"
"Now, Jayne," Zoë interrupted before he could say any more. "Everybody's waiting lunch on you."
"Since when do any of 'em wait t'eat?" he muttered, as the first part of what she'd said sunk in. "Oh. Everybody." He gave a tight nod as he re-sheathed the knife, picked up his gear and walked away. He heard a stifled gasp at something Zoë did to their guest and let loose a little snort: this would probably be the last time the bái chī underestimated any woman.
Halfway up the steps, Jayne started to think maybe he ought to give his bunk a pass and just head straight on into the galley. The dark, rich smell of flesh and butter had him near to drooling and it ain't like they never seen his guns before. Mal might get pissy, but tough shit. Could hardly expect a man to think straight when faced with his first real meal in who knows how long.
By the time he made it to the upper deck, his mind was made up. His girls had waited this long to get properly stowed; they could wait a little longer.
Jayne stepped down into the galley and nodded at Mal, who was just crossing to the table with a bowl piled high with steaming potatoes. "Couldn't wait no more – smell o' that butter's drivin' me fēng le."
"Reckon it'll do that to a man been living on protein all these weeks." Mal smiled as he sat down but it didn't reach all the way up into his eyes. "You lock all that up soon as you're done eatin', dǒng ma?"
He didn't bother to respond – he'd just noticed there were only two empty seats at the table: one next to Wash that was meant for Zoë and one smack dab between the fugies. Why they wasn't sitting right next to each other, he didn't know, but he'd be damned if he was going to sit between them for a whole meal.
Just as he was about to stomp out to his bunk, he caught sight of the pan Kaylee was passing to the doc and his knees fairly buckled.
It was a whole roasted chicken – and not one of them scrawny birds like you'd normally see on a moon the size of this one. This was ten pounds if it was an ounce, big enough that it was almost spilling out of the pan they'd cooked it in. He hadn't seen a bird that big since dinners at his ma's table when times were good. As if in a daze, he shed the rifles and bag and sank down into the chair next to the doc.
The moonbrain babbled something at him but he didn't even hear her. All his attention was focused on that crisp, brown, juicy bird as the doc passed it into his hands. Somebody'd already carved her up and Jayne watched as a fat bead of grease slid down into the exposed shoulder joint. He grabbed a drumstick and a couple of thick chunks of breast meat and slapped them onto his plate before passing the whole thing to the girl on his right.
Gorram thing smelled so tasty he couldn't even pretend at being civilized and use a fork. He hefted the drumstick and sank his teeth into the tender meat, groaning as he did. The thing damn near exploded in his mouth, juice running over his tongue and dribbling down his chin a little. He rolled the meat around in his mouth, sucking on the skin, savoring the salty taste. Whoever'd done up the bird, they'd put some of the preacher's spices on it along with a healthy amount of butter. It practically melted in his mouth.
When he finally bit down into the meat, he thought he was going to start whimpering, right there at the table.
Vaguely, he realized that he wasn't the only one. Not a one of 'em at the table was doing anything but chewing and moaning and groaning.
Well, all except the crazy girl. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw she was playing with a tiny scrap of chicken on her plate and looking at everybody with them big eyes.
It would be a rutting shame for her to waste even that little piece of meat, so Jayne nudged her none-too-gentle with his elbow and asked, "Ain't ya gonna eat that? I got more'n enough room on m'plate, if'n ya don't." He should have waited until he was finished chewing to talk. He watched with more than a little sadness as bits of half-chewed chicken went flying all over the table.
One piece landed right next to the bowl of little potatoes he'd completely forgotten were there. Sticking the drumstick in his teeth, he pushed his plate forward and dumped a couple of spuds onto it. They rolled around crazily, leaving soft golden trails of butter in their wake. He tore off another bite of chicken and this time he did whimper a little as the taste burst over his tongue.
Kaylee giggled around a mouthful of food. "Sounds like one o' them 'pleasure palaces' in here!"
Everyone broke up laughing, except Jayne, who was busy chasing a wobbly potato around his plate, and Mal, who yelped, "I don't wanna know how you know that!"
"Kaylee," Wash moaned, one hand clasped to his heart, the other around his fork, "were I not a blissfully married man, I would kiss you right now. How did you find all this stuff?"
"Easy as pie, that's how! While I was waitin' for the cap'n to finish up his business, the pudgiest little kid you ever did see went runnin' past me. Followed him on home an' asked his momma where was th' best place in town for food an' she jus' pointed at her front door. Ten minutes later, I'm headin' back to meet the cap'n an' luggin' a box full o' the best food I seen in ages." Kaylee paused to grin at all of them. "An' speakin' of pie… She gave me one o' them, too!"
"Amen," said the preacher, and everybody laughed again.
Except Jayne, who had finally managed to spear the stubborn potato and was licking off the butter before he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head as he chewed. How the hell he was supposed to go back to eating that foul-smelling protein mash after this, he didn't know. Meal like this was the sort of thing a man expected for his very last.
He felt a little shiver snake down his spine at the idea.
"Feed the body, feed the soul. Feel the hunger, feel the hole," the girl at his side whispered. "You should patch it up."
He whipped his head around to look at her but her gaze was fixed on the chicken she had speared on her fork. She snarled at it and then popped it in her mouth, another one of them crazy smiles twisting across her face.
Jayne shuddered as that little shiver came back up his spine and straight on into his head. Gorram creepifying. There was enjoying your food like a normal person and then there was whatever the hell she was doing. He tried to inch his chair away from her without anybody noticing, but she sort of swayed in his direction as he moved. Deciding that ignoring her was the best plan, he turned his full attention to his plate and ate as quickly as he could.
Pie or no, he wasn't sticking around any longer than he had to.
He was just wiping up the last of the butter with a chunk of chicken when Zoë sat down next to Wash. She and the captain shared a look and Wash said they'd be arriving at the drop within a couple of hours. Talk turned to the job, just like always, and Jayne felt the muscles in his back tighten up every time somebody mentioned moving the cargo they'd picked up on Canton. He'd be glad when them gorram crates were far behind them.
tbc...
Translations:
bái chī - idiot
fēng le - crazy
dǒng ma - understand?