Malcolm Reynolds liked to believe he was a man who took things in stride. He'd seen a lot of weird things in his life, so not much surprised him anymore. What he saw on this particular morning did surprise him, however. To say the least.
He'd kicked on Jayne's door a few times with no response. So, either Jayne was sleeping real heavy today, he was sick and/or dead, he'd been kidnapped or he was fixin for a real good smack. 'Parenty it was the last option. Mal had climbed down the ladder, hopped to the floor and was about to give a ice loud shout when he saw a mass of long black hair splayed out over the sheets. either Jayne was being eaten by some hair monster laying on top of him, or there was a girl in his bed. When her head turned slightly, he realised it was indeed a girl. His pilot. All words that had been previously lined up for speech ropped into his stomach like little lead pellets.
"Mornin Captain," River said sleepily.
"What?" Jayne croaked, having just woken up himself.
"Mal's here."
"What?" He jerked awake, the girl on top of him sliding off. He sat upright and stared at the captain by the doorway. "Fuck."
"Mornin, Jayne," Mal said cordially.
"I'm gonna die, aren't I?"
Mal nodded. "Reckon that's a good assumption."
"Right," Jayne agreed. River sat up and put her head on his shoulder. He didn't shrug her off.
"Well," Mal said awkwardly, "'spose you two should be gettin dressed an such."
"You're going to get Simon," River said.
"Yep. Ain't much my business, but it's plenty his."
Jayne watched the captain leave in silence. Once the door had shut he laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "He's gonna throw me outta the airlock again."
"He didn't actually do it last time."
"Well, he will today." Why did this have to come around? Like he didn't have enough to worry about.Should have ended it right when it began, that's what shoulda happened. Never should have taken her to bed to begin with. She seemed happier now, though. Made him feel kinda good knowing he had done it. Made him feel even better that he could do it and her brother couldn't. Still, he shouldn't have let it go this far. Now she was saying she loved him, and this was a mess he didn't want to get into again. For crying out loud, she'd gotten him to talk about Dana. He didn't even like to think about Dana. This crazy woman was too much for him to stand. Why didn'the kick her out last night? Because he couldn't have, even if he wanted to.
"Are you sorry I stayed?"
No. "You shoulda gone."
She smiled at him contentedly. He hadn't wanted her to go. She thoguht so last night and was certain of it now. He was so troubled right now, which wasn't necessary because Captain and Simon weren't going to hurt him. Worst Mal could do was fire him, and if that happened she would go with him. She'd been fond of Jayne from the moment she saw him, and even through all his banter and her stabbing him and all their arguments and anger, she'd liked him just the same. There was something so genuine about him. He was a lot like Kaylee- his secrets were buried under only a few inches of dirt. While Kaylee's dirt was soft and ideal for gardening, Jayne's was stony and hurt your feet when you walked on it. Only people with rough callouses of hurt of their own- people like River- could dig in Jayne's heart.
Once he'd gathered his bearings, Jayne dressed himself, received a kiss from River ("You ain't makin today very shiny, you know.") and set off to face the consequences. Weren't hardly fair, though, since River wouldn't get any slack for this in the slightest. She could chalk it up to bein crazy and the planets would continue to go 'round. He, however, would be the sick pedophile takin advantage of some helpless crazy girl. Well, he could tell them right off there was nothing helpless about this girl.
Malcolm and Simon were waiting for him in the kitchen. This rought back such a vivid memory of when Jayne had been a youngster and he'd written a bad word on the bathroom wall at school. His mama and the headmaster had been waiting for him in the office with similar looks on their faces- Mal being the headmaster and Simon being his ma. Only sleeping with a man's sister was a lot worse than some bad word.
He took a seat and waited for someone to start yelling. For a while, no one did. No one said anything at all. So Jayne decided to break the silence. "Ain't that bad," he told them.
"Not that bad?" Simon repeated. He looked right on the tip of a nervous breakdown, his toes curled over the edge. "Are you serious? You've been...you...I can't even say it."
"Fucking me," River chimed in. She'd been waiting quietly in the doorway behind Jayne for her cue to enter. This one seemed appropriate enough.
"River!" Simon snapped. "Just... please, meimei, stay out of this."
"I can't. This is about me. I want to have a say."
"You don't even know how... wrong, how absurdly wong this is." He was trying not to yell at her, trying not to be angry with her because this wasn't her fault. You keep telling yourself that, he thought. She told you she wanted sex and she found some, didn't she? But she couldn't know the consequences of these things, not with her brain and emotions refusing to let reason shine through. Sex was something that didn't let sane people think right, what chance did his sister have? Jayne should have said no. What the hell was he thinking? He didn't even like River. "Do you have any idea how dangerous and twisted this is? You can't just sleep with whoever you want, there are diseases and pregnancy and... and you don't even care, do you?" She looked as though he were repeating back information she'd given him to begin with- bored but patiently listening because it was the polite thing to do. Her indifference was pissing him right off.
"It ain't as bad as you think," Jayne said.
"Jayne," Simon interrupted before another word could come from the man's mouth, "don't talk. Because if you do, I will probably just kill you. I'm really, really not in the mood to listen to you."
"You wanna bet your life on that, doc?"
"Yes," Simon said darkly, "I do." He was mad and he couldn't yell at River, so Jayne was taking all the heat for this. Which he deserved anyway. "I have many ways to kill you. Sick, sadistic ingenious ways that you will never see coming."
"You think I'm scared of-"
"You have been screwing my sister. Anything that you do to me will pale in comparison to how I shall retaliate."
"Cool it," Mal said. Fact of the matter was, Simon was scary at this moment. His sister had been messed with, and he was an expert at cutting people up and rearranging their innards. He worked with complicated medicines and could probably misx some kind of cocktail that would kill Jayne slowly, surely and painfuly. Not something Mal needed on his ship.
Simon tried to cool it, as Mal suggested, but instead punched Jayne in the eye. Jayne swung of the chair and onto the floor. Trying to keep him temper in check, he got up and placed himself back in his seat.
"First shot's free," he told Simon. "But you try that again and-" Simon's fist collided with his jaw, knocking Jayne and the rest of his sentence to the floor. Jayne kicked out his leg and swept Simon's feet out from under him. Then he bloodied the doc's nose. Now they were on level footing, and Simon lunged for Jayne with primal rage. It was far and gone from anything resembing a fair fight, but you had to give Simon credit for determination. Chairs were knocked over and thrown, the table was bumped several times and all the while Mal watched from his perch on the countertop, like a referee. Maybe if they got this out of their systems, there wouldn't be some vendetta for the next forever. best let them hash it out now. Strike first, talk later.
"Stop it!" River screamed, and they did stop, although Simon took one last sucker punch to Jayne's solar plexis. Hurt him more than Jayne, but that wasn't the point.
River knelt beide her bloody and bruised brother. "It was my idea," she told him plainly. "I made him do it. He said no."
"Repeatedly," Jayne added. he would have added more, but Mal's warning glare shut him up.
"River," Simon said, spitting blood into his lap, "you can't make those kinds of decisions."
"It's not like that," she said kindly, as though explaining sex to a teenager whose just seen a disturing porn. "We weren't doing it because we wanted to. I wanted to make things right. Sex made things quiet. I could sleep."
"There are better ways to-"
"No," she said sternly, "no more drugs. No more pills. Rver is not a lab rat. Pills do not work. Therapy does work."
"Therapy?" Oh, all those times she had said she was going to see Jayne for therapy... If he had know this was what she'd meant... "You consider it therapy?"
"That's what it was. No emotion, just sex." She took Simon's face in her hands. "We're not in love, Simon. It worries you that I won't know that sex belongs with love, but I do. It's different, though. Jayne and I were primal, tere's no room for angry thoughts when you're presed against the wall-"
"Stop, stop!" he pleaded, taking her hands. "I really don't want to know."
"Love is different. It's slow and soft, like you and Kaylee." Like what we did last night.
Simon had to think about this for a few moments. On the one hand, she'd found something other than medication to help her deal with her brain. On the other hand, that something was sex. With Jayne. That was too big a pill for him to swallow. "This has got to stop," he told her. River shook her head. "Captain!" SImon pleaded.
"This here's personal affairs," Mal told him. "I didn't exactly aprove of you an' Kaylee but I kept it to myself because it weren't my business. Neither is this."
"Am I alone in thinking this is completely wrong?"
"No," Mal assured him, "but no one else has any right to say anything about it." On the contrary, Mal to felt this was one of the most wrong and slightly disturbing things he'd ever seen. He wasn't sure of which part was worst- the fact that Jayne was sleeping with a girl almost young enough to be his daughter, that the same girl was crazy, that she had gone to Jayne (of all people) for sex, that neither of them saw any problem with it, or that they both called it therapy.
Simon groaned, feeling defeated and disgusted. "I can't stop you from doing this, can I?" he asked his sister.
"No. But don't worry- I'm not pregnant yet."
He nodded, this information being the straw that broke the llama's back. She had said yet.Dear God. "I think I'm going to be sick," he announced.
"Not in my kitchen," Mal said. He hopped down to the floor and gently helped Simon to his feet. "Lets get you to bed or something, okay? Probably best if you lie down for a while anyway."
"I think I hate Jayne," Simon said miserably. "How could he... I mean, she's too..."
"Crazy?"
"Young. She's too young." He paused. "And crazy."
Jayne wiped some blood off his cheek. That hadn't been so bad. Fight hadn't lasted as long as he'd expected. Truth be told, he thought Mal was gonna throw the first punch. He had to admire the doctor, even if only a little bit. The man had defended his sister's honor tooth and nail. Very traditional. It was this kind of thing that made Jayne think he could learn to like Simon after all. Eventually. River was sitting across from him on the floor, a funny look on her face. "What?" he asked her. "You mad I kicked your brother's ass?"
"You think we should stop therapy."
"I don't acre, if therapy was what we were doing. But we ain't anymore."
"Then what is it?"
"Now it's just sex. Regular sex."
"No, it's not regular sex."
"Oh? Then what is it, Miss I Know Everything?"
"We were making love."
"Oh, what the..." He got to his feet angrily. "What is it with you and that word? Why are you... you women... why's it always about that?"
"Not always. Just now."
"No, not now. Not ever." He grabbed one of her arms and yanked her to her feet. "You best be getin this through your head cuz I ain't sayin it but just the once." He towered fiercely over her. "I ain't never gonna say those words to you. Won't say it, won't feel it, won't never happen. You got that?"
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," she replied coolly. He wouldn't know what thehell she was talking about, she alreay knew that. Jayne had barely ever heard of Shakepseare, let alone read him enough to quote it. That was one of those things she found most charming about him. He didn't know all the classics. He stuck to real life things like how to load any kind of gun and the best way to get fod when you have no money. Useful life knowledge. Not all the crap crowding her own brain.
"You calling me a girl?" Jayne yelled. "Well fuck you. Is it any wonder I don't care about you?"
A cloudburst of emotion rained over River's mind. His words hurt, so she cried. He was being mean, so she glared. he was lying, so she spoke. "You do so," she accused. "You just won't admit it because it scares you. Because he died loving you."
"Got nothing to do with him."
"Got everything to do with him."
"Shut up!" He slapped her, ridiculously hard. If he hadn't still been holding her arm, she would have flown across the room. It was a horrible noise that silence the room, even silenced her brain. She was shocked. He threw her into the counter, releasing his deathgrip on her. "Answer's no!" he screamed, his voice enhoing in the silence of the rest of Serenity. He stormed out as loudly as he could, doors slamming in his furious wake. Poor Kaylee got a nasty "Chi shi!" as he passed her.
"Dont be scared," River whispered. "Ophelia killed herself when Hamlet shied away."
No one had seen hide nor hair of Jayne for two damn days. He stayed shut up in his room, swearing at anyone who tried to communicate with him. Not a damn person could figure out what in the hell had happened. He'd seemed absolutely fine when he and River had been discovered. What in the hell had put him in such a spell? Of course River knew, but River was not going to say to anyone what she knew. When she tried focusing on just Jayne's thoughts they were so dark and heavy and incomrehensible it gave her a headache. She spent her time on the bridge, far from Jayne and his searing anger. Not to mention it kept her away from Simon, who'd been acting weird around her since the other day. Too many people were being too complicated for her. Mal always had the same thought running in the back of his mind- something along the lines of 'What the hell?' It was a never ending mantra that repeated over and over, and sometimes River had to kick him out of the cockpit just so she could hear something other than those words for a while.
Zoe kept her company most of the time, which suited River just fine. Zoe hadn't said a damn word about it and she was resolved not to say anything about it ever. Wasn't her business, simple as that. River liked having Zoe with her. Although she wasn't outwardly aware of it, Zoe liked the bridge because a little piece of Wash was still left in it. She smiled more while sitting in the pilot's chair.
Kaylee popped in for a spell late one night. "How are you?" she asked River, taking up the seat Zoe had left half an hour ago. "Was hoping you'd be up to braiding my hair again."
"Okay." She set to work as soon as kaylee took her place on the flor in front of her. Her fingers combed and manipulated the light brown hair with practived ease.
"By the way," Kaylee said, "I like what you did to your rom. Looks pretty."
"My room?" She hadn't been there all day.
"Uh huh. Went there first to find you. I like all the colors. Even the newsprint is pretty." She touched her fishtail braid fondly. "Thanks a lot," she grinned. "I like Simon's braids, but he pulls on my hair too much. Guess since he works with so many dead and unconscious people, he's not used to takin it easy." She handed two rubber bands over her shoulder to River, who finished off the one braid and then the second twenty eight seconds later. Kaylee ran her fingers over both of them gently. "Thanks, she said again, getting up and skipping off to the handsome young doctor that awaited her. River went immediately to her bedroom. What had happened? She opened the door cautiously.
Flowers. Paper flowers hung on strings draped from the ceiling. Some were crinkled, some were very pretty and some were obviously from the learning stages. Many of them were bright colors, lots of blue and pink. Some were obvisouly crafted from torn out magazines. At least a dozen came from some sort of instruction manual. There were at least a hundred of them.
He was fully clothed, flat on his back and taking up the whole bed. "Get lost."
"I just wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"My room."
"What about it?"
"Just thank you." She kissed his forehead.
"That all?"
"Yes, that is all. I shall be leaving now." She reached as far as the end of the bed.
"Hey."
She turned back. "Hmm?"
"I ain't been dreaming so much about Dana. Maybe you were right- therapy helped."
"I'm usually right."
"That so?" He sat up, resting his forearms on his knees. "So what are you right about right now?"
"You love me."
He rolled his eyes. "Why do you keep bringing that up?"
"So you can admit to it."
"You just said you were always right, didn't you?"
""Right."
"So what's to admit?" He smiled widely. Most times he had no prayer in keeping up with her on word plays, but this time he'd gotten her good and he was going to enjoy the victory.
"Nothing, I guess," she admitted. "Just like the thought of hearing it."
"Little girl," he said, touching her cheek, "you make me about as crazy as any woman can make a man."
"Good way crazy?"
"Not like you crazy, if that's what you mean." He moved over for her. "You stayin?"
"If you want me."
"Don't care."
She didn't budge. "Not good enough."
"Huh?"
"Do you want me or not?"
"Don't care. Stay if you want."
"But do you want?"
Damn women. Don't give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile no matter what. What the hell do you do with 'em? "Sure," he said finally. River made a face. "Okay, yes. Yes I want you to stay. Now shut up and get in the damn bed already." She climbed in, satisfied for the moment. Jayne had a nice groove along his shoulder where her head fit nicely. It was her spot that she always laid her head and her mind would quiet itself shortly there after.Their bodies matched up beside one another perfectly. River moved closer to Jayne, and when she couldn't get any closer she pushed him against the wall and entwined herself in his arms and legs.
"Close enough yet?" he teased.
"No," she said honestly, hugging him tighter.
He wasn't going to fight this one, desite the fact that he had a gun in his back and she'd taken up all the space his bed had to offer. As usual. "So, uh... talking or fucking?"
"Cuddles."
"Your brother ain't gonna be too happy about this. You said weren't nothing between us."
"I said we weren't in love and we aren't."
"Ah, so now you don't love me?"
"I ove you. But we aren't in love if you don't reciprocate."
"I don't what?"
"Give it back."
"Oh." He shifted, getting the gun out of his lower back and finding a comfortable spot.
"So I didn't lie to Simon, you see."
"I guess. You gonna stop stealin all my blanket or what?"
"No." But she did share it with him anyway. They layed comfortaby with one another, having been exactly like this many times after therapy. Jayne played with her hair and enjoyed the quiet. His brain had been storing all day.
"Quiet tonight," she told him.
"That so?" Good for her. No one could appreciate a quiet night more than this girl. It was quiet, too. His mind wasn't racked with its usual worries. Mostly the thought that they were going to get caught. Getting it all out in the open- sex with River, his history with Dana- felt real good. Therapuetic.
"You asleep?" River whispered.
"You know I ain't."
"I just wanted to say I love you, Jayne."
"Yeah," he sighed. "I know." There was a real long pause. "Just don't expect me to say it."
"Say what?"
He smiled, having seen this trap from a million miles away. "That I love you too."