A Mite Unpredictable
Doxies and Dupes
Chapter Six
By RingPrincess
A/N I'm so sorry for the lateness of this. You see, I got nominated for this award for Rayne fic with most potential and well, I had to make good. Making good involved re writing the next chapters and I had a hard time. But here you are. I hope you enjoy!
"The man, sir, is a cad." Zoë said as she placed her hands on her hips. Her eyes on Badger's mule pulling away down the crowded docks, their passengers filing towards the dorms. Their trunks piled in the middle of the floor.
Mal's face froze for a second and then he shrugged. "He took off his fancy hat for dinner."
Zoë smiled tightly. "Doesn't change nothing."
Mal shrugged and punched a button on the gray box near the door. "Meg, take us out of the world."
Zoë turned around and stared at Mal's back as he went further into the ship, the cargo bay doors closed behind her cutting off the final light on Persephone. She shook her head and laughed quietly to herself.
Mal continued up the stairs and reached the kitchen fairly quickly. Jayne was standing over the sink with River both had soap up to their elbows.
"Jayne, Albatross," he said. They looked over their shoulders. Mal latched his thumbs through his belt loops. "I don't right know what's been going on for the last few weeks, but it ends now. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see it. It's in the past and that's where it's gonna stay. We've all got jobs to do and that's what we're going to do." Both stared at him, Jayne's mouth gaping. Mal nodded and shifted on his feet. "Get to work." He left, River and Jayne's eyes burning into his back. He proceeded back down the stairs and into the common room outside the infirmary. He gazed at each one of his new paying passengers, well Badger was paying and they were along for the trip, a one-way trip. Mal opened his mouth to say something when a very familiar head of strawberry blonde hair caught his attention.
Blue eyes raked his figure up and down and her mouth curved into a smirk. He was as handsome as ever.
Mal's mouth opened and closed for a few seconds then he sputtered the first thing that came to his head. "What happened to you not being anyone's doxy?"
"Captain Reynolds," she purred.
Mal pointed at her. "You're pulling a scam and I'm not going to be any part of it, Yo-Saff-Bridge. And I don't recall giving you permission to be on my boat."
Saffron pouted. "Badger paid my fare, like he paid the other girls."
Mal froze.
She pouted more. "And it is awfully cold outside."
"As cold as your lack of a heart," Inara said from the other entrance of the downstairs common area.
Saffron's head whipped around to stare at her. "One doesn't need a heart to be a whore or a companion."
Inara turned to Mal. "She can't stay on. Every time she's come near Serenity, she hurts the ship."
Mal's mouth opened.
Saffron stood up. "You're just jealous of my mechanical abilities."
Inara's control loosened enough to roll her eyes. "Mal, don't tell me the job has anything with her."
"I'm as much a passenger as the others," Saffron gestured with her hand.
"Passengers?" Inara coughed.
Mal frowned and stepped back into the conversation. "Yes, passengers, who will follow the same rules as every other passenger that have gotten onto my boat."
Inara blinked. "Rules?"
"Which I was just getting to before I was interrupted."
Both Inara and Saffron frowned at Mal.
"I don't recall any interrupting. You just started talking." Saffron crossed her arms.
Mal glared. "See, interrupting!" Saffron pouted and sat back down. "Now, as I was about to say before," He gestured all around the common area. "The rules are these. You are restricted to the common area and your rooms while the ship is in flight, except during meals, which are held in the kitchen up these stairs and to the right. When you do leave this area you will be escorted at all times by a member of the crew, which goes double for Yo-Saff-Bridge."
"Her name is Dierdre." One of other girls said.
Mal's eyebrows flew to his hairline. "Dierdre now." He gave Saffron a long level look. "Well, Dierdre, double for you or you will find how cold it is outside. Jayne will be moving all your trunks into your rooms shortly."
He walked through the common area and past Inara who followed him into the cargo bay.
"And who are those woman, Mal?" Inara asked.
"They're employees of Badger's."
"Who, as we both know is a fine upstanding businessman."
"I just take the jobs, Inara. I tend not to ask too many deep questions. We don't have jobs. We don't fly. As I understand, you're both in the same type of work. You should get along fine."
"So, they are whores."
"I thought it was obvious." Mal turned to her. "I don't like having them on my boat as much as you don't."
Inara reared back. "Meaning what? You don't like sex workers using your ship as transportation from place to place."
"That's not what I said. Why do you have to be so tetchy about what you do?"
"Because you don't approve and have never been afraid to say so."
"That doesn't stop you from working or at least it never has before. I appreciate you going off for supplies while Zoë and I went to discuss business with Badger. Yet, I don't understand why you didn't line up a meeting while you were here."
Inara's mouth snapped shut and she blinked a few times. She spun and headed up the stairs. "I'll be in my shuttle."
Mal stared after her. It'd been a simple question.
--
"Mei-mei, what are you doing?" Simon asked outside his sister's closed door.
"Changing," she replied.
"It's the middle of the day and you've changed twice already."
"Affirmative."
Simon sighed and looked upwards.
River glanced at her closed door at his sigh and went back to her clothes. She picked up another dress and threw it over her head. "It's not right." She muttered and picked out more clothes, holding them in front of her at arms length and then placing them near her chest. She scowled and threw them onto a heap of rejects. "No, no, no." She heaved a great sigh. "I have nothing to wear."
"You have plenty to wear." Simon riposted outside the door. "Now come out."
"Nothing that fits!" River shouted at the door and threw one of her boots at it. Simon just didn't understand.
"All your clothes fit." Simon sighed.
River glared at the door. "They don't fit." She emphasized. "Simon doesn't understand. Can't repeat too often or it will become ineffective." She muttered and glared at all the clothes that littered her small room, covering the floor and her few pieces of furniture.
"Of course not." Simon rolled his eyes, River could tell. Simon did that when he was annoyed with her.
"Nothing to wear." River repeated. "Nothing that will set me apart and above them. No one will notice me and I will lose. Not fair that Jayne likes their types already. They have the advantage, must figure out how to negate and defeat."
Simon stared at the door, brow furrowed.
"I will not lose to them."
"River, you're not making sense."
"Not making sense because you cannot see." River crossed her arms. "You cannot see because you do not want to see. You refuse. Go away. Go be with Kaylee. Leave me to my misery. Go away!" She stomped her bare foot.
Simon sighed and stared at the door for a few moments. "All right, just come out for dinner." He walked away.
River sat on the bed and stared at the floor. What was she going to do? A scrap of gray underneath a pile of flowers caught her eye and she grinned. She reached down and pulled the gray dress out of the pile. Jayne liked this dress. She tossed it over her head, wiggling her hips to set it correctly. She fumbled for her boots and with a quick look around the room shrugged and headed out the door.
--
Mal had his feet up on the table in the kitchen and a coffee cup in his hand when Inara came in to get something. She saw him and turned away.
"Ifin' I was a smarter man, I'd think you were avoiding me." Mal mused into his cup. "An old fashion shunning, them women have been on board less than twenty seventy-two hours and you haven't said a peep to me since we shouted. Hard to think there isn't a connection, since you've been socializing with them and all."
Inara paused.
"If you're not there anymore, I'm gonna look right foolish talking to myself." Mal continued.
Inara stared down the hall for a moment, debating on whether or not to speak what had been on her mind the past day and a half. The time she'd spent her waking hours with Badger's whores talking 'shop'. Her shoulder's tightened and she spoke. "They're not just whores, Mal. Saffron's involved and that means something's up." She turned around. "Can't you see, Badger is using you again. You're dupes for her wiles and his snake tongue."
"Doesn't change facts that we need jobs." Mal set his feet down. "Miranda or no, right now we're social pariah's for anyone with a shady past. Alliance is watching us somehow and until they figure we're not going to do anything more. We have to lay low. If that means taking jobs from people we don't like. That's what we got to do."
Inara pressed her lips together. "There are plenty of legitimate jobs you could take that would accomplish the same purpose and keep the Alliance away from you at the same time."
"And those with legitimate business won't touch us either because of," Mal tilted his head, "Miranda."
Inara and Mal stared at each other.
--
"She just feels insecure, Simon." Kaylee said, her legs extending from under the engine.
"Insecure?"
"Not that, pass me the wrench, I blame her." Kaylee grunted. "Ifin' you weren't so uptight about everything I might be insecure too." Simon's eyebrows flew upwards. Kaylee couldn't see from her place so she just kept talking. "But you're up here in the engine with me and not in the infirmary."
Simon shifted on his feet. "I'm," he paused. "Hiding."
Kaylee pushed out from under the engine and frowned. "Hidin'?"
"The common room feels," he paused again searching for the right word. "Invaded."
Kaylee giggled. "All the female fripperies."
Simon grimaced. "And the smell. It's giving me a headache, along with River's sudden strangeness."
"Well, if you feel invaded think how she feels. All these women invading her space."
"Then she could go to the kitchen."
"Which she has been," Kaylee interjected and pulled herself back under the engine.
"Or to the cargo bay. Yet, she's changing her clothes every five minutes."
"Not every five minutes, Simon."
"It feels like it." Simon raked a hand through his hair.
"When did you start exaggerating so much?"
"And she's talking nonsense. I thought she was doing better."
"She is, she's perfectly fine and as rational as one can be when they feel like she does. Insecurity isn't a rational thing that can be fixed with drugs."
Simon stilled and crouched down so he could try to see her under her beloved engine. "Do you feel insecure about me?"
Kaylee paused for a second. "Sometimes, when I think about all the core girls and debutantes you used to know and the way you used to act."
"I was a prick."
"You had a real stick up your ass." Kaylee nodded. "But these whores are to River what those Core girls were to me. All them pretty dresses, fancy perfumes and their manner. Of course she's changing her clothes and things."
"But why?"
"It's one of them women things." Kaylee said. "No matter how hard I try to explain it. It ain't goin' to make sense. River's got catchin' up to do to become a balanced young woman and this is part of it. Relax."
"You've been telling me that a lot lately." Simon grinned.
"Hmm, maybe that stick isn't as gone as I thought." Kaylee wiggled back out and sat up. She placed her wrench to the side.
Simon leaned in, sister forgotten for the smell of engine grease and soap. "Care to find out?"
--
Meanwhile, back in the kitchenInara moved closer to the table. "I'm slightly confused as to the nature of my position on this boat."
Mal set his cup on the table. "First I heard of it."
She paused at the opposite end and rested the tips of her fingers on the tabletop. "Since Miranda, I'm not sure of how I fit here. Am I a Companion, a passenger or a member of the crew? The nature of things before was always fluid I will admit. They've just gotten worse and worse lately. I need to know what you want me to be."
Mal's eyebrows flew to his hairline. "Me?"
"I can't have you changing the rules all the time. If I'm to be something on the ship, I have to be that one thing and not be dabbling in three things at once."
Mal sat silently for a few minutes. "What do you want to be?"
"I don't know." She paused and looked down at her perfectly manicured hands. "Living out here in the black has changed my view on how the 'verse works. On Sihnon, I would never believed Miranda or Reavers possible." She looked up. "Or that the Alliance would do something such as create them. Out here," she gestured helplessly. "It's different. It's a fact of life and I have to come to deal with that. Sihnon isn't my world anymore and I've chosen to stay here. To stay here I have to have a place."
Mal felt drawn to her. He stood up and walked around the table to her. He brushed her shoulder with his hand. "Inara," he murmured.
"And I need to know what you want that place to be-"
Mal leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. She sighed, a gentle breeze across his lips and leaned into him. His hand tightened on her shoulder, his arm wrapped about her waist drawing her closer. Inara knew what to do. It's what she did. Yet, Mal was different. He wasn't business. He was the man who had managed to get under her skin for over a year. Oh, one could never be oneself around men, but around Mal she sure wanted to try. She slid one hand around his neck and buried into his hair. Her other hand went to his hip, clutching it until her knuckles turned white. He brushed her lips again and again. Her world was spinning and she didn't care in the least.
She might have been if she was aware they were being watched.
--
River's legs kicked back and forth over the edge of the catwalk. Normally, she'd lie down and listen but today she wanted to keep her eyes on Jayne. Her thoughts were on him already, so why not her eyes. It wasn't as if he wasn't nice to look at. There really was no pretending that Jayne was easy on the eyes. It was there in the way his muscles flexed under his t-shirt or the scruffiness of his neatly trimmed goatee. His hair was just long enough to run her fingers through. He'd gotten it cut after Miranda.
So River stared. The physical was solid. It was fact. Underneath the physical there were currents and eddies of the emotional and the mental, things that couldn't really be measured no matter how hard you tried. It all came down to one simple thing. There were far too many couples aboard the boat.
No matter what Jayne said, Simon's words kept coming back to her. "Disconnected," she whispered. She could think of a lot of things that meant the same thing, detached, disengaged, cut off, severed, removed, separated, isolated, confused. The words ran through her head, each a permutation of Simon's statement.
Her head snapped upwards towards the kitchen. She closed her eyes as she shared the dizziness of Mal and Inara. She forced her eyes open to look at Jayne. Was what she felt for him just a reflection of them? A wave of warmth swept for the engine room, Simon and Kaylee. She clutched her temples. She didn't want to feel them. She wanted to be herself, whole and entire! And nothing, absolutely nothing radiated off of Jayne. She glared at him and resisted the urge to scream. She'd felt nothing ever since those he chu sheng za jiao de zang hou had come on board. Not a whisper, not even a ghost in the middle of the night, not even what she considered the dirty mask of thoughts that hid his true feelings and emotions.
And the captain had been hovering. Or she'd felt intimidated by the smoothness of Badger's girls, with their pretty dresses and well done coiffures. Not that she would have asked in front of them, this was too intimate. It was between Jayne and her. They'd most likely laugh at her. So, she couldn't ask. She glanced up at the ceiling again. He seemed a preoccupied at the moment and the girls were confined to the downstairs common area. She stood up to go talk to Jayne.
But he was missing.
--
She'd been staring at him. Like he was going to up and disappear if she turned away. Staring at him though locks of dark wavy hair hard enough to burn holes through his shirt and into the muscles covering his heart. It made his muscles tense up and his brow furrow. He shivered unconsciously and his hands shook. He couldn't concentrate and that was something he needed when he was lifting weights without a spotter, at least, a spotter who wasn't over six feet up and five feet away. She wouldn't be able to do much of nothing up there and he hadn't wanted to call her down to help and be that much closer to the intensity of her rich brown eyes. If she stared hard enough he was sure she could see right through him and deep into his heart and brain. So, he'd left and despite the intensity of her stare. He didn't think she noticed.
He grabbed the top rung of his bunk and used a foot to push the door in. He quickly wiped the sweat from his forehead with the towel around his neck. He descended into his bunk not bothering to turn on the light. He knew where everything was. He dropped the towel on the floor and pulled his sodden t-shirt over his head.
A light flicked on.
"Hello big boy," Mal's psychotic blushing bride virtually purred from behind him.
"Oh rutting hell," he muttered and didn't turn around. Maybe if he didn't turn around she would just disappear.
No such luck. Saffron ran a hand down his back, and he stiffened, muscles tensing even more. "Big, strong, sweaty man," she purred. "You're so tense, let me help."
Jayne's eyes closed. Yes, woman folk were nothing but trouble, this one in particular. Saffron's hands rubbed his shoulders. Her lips brushed the back of his neck, tickling the short hairs at the nape. Saffron smiled against his skin.
There was the sound of rubber hitting metal and Jayne jumped. River stared at him. Her eyes riveted on his face.
Saffron unaware of their new guest reached a hand around his chest and pressed her body against his. Jayne's eyes widened. Saffron's fingers tangled with the short hairs on his chest. River's jaw dropped slightly and she stiffened and then the screams started.
--
End Chapter...
I know I'm mean. Ending like that, but it's such a good place to stop! ducks and hides I'm writing more promise!
