A/N Think this might be the last chapter for a while, unless fresh inspiration or a prompt strikes. Feel like possibly it should come with an author's disclaimer! It came out a little stronger than some of the others. See what you think...
Never a Normal Girl
River had never been normal.
Even before the Academy broke her she had learned too fast, progressed too quickly, to ever be considered that.
But she knew how things were supposed to go; her mother had taught her before she disowned her.
Meet a boy, share a kiss, fall in love.
Anything else was supposed to come after.
She couldn't say for sure when it first started. Certainly after Miranda.
There'd been a look in his eye when the blast doors opened. Something like the way he looked at a weapon that wasn't his - speculative, admiring.
At some point it turned covetous.
Not that it changed how he spoke to her. If anything that had worsened. Harsh words spilling carelessly like scattered grenades. Lip curled, declaring dislike, distrust, distaste.
But he couldn't control his eyes - the heat that flared when she stretched to reach an upper shelf; and he couldn't control his thoughts - the speculation that burned when he watched her fight.
It unfurled like fever in River's soul, searing like a brand, stamping her with his mark. And somehow he knew without knowing; somehow he sensed her response. Heat spread, need heightened, tension ratcheted.
At times she felt the air between them was vibrating, quivering with unvoiced thoughts and unrealised urges.
Until the day they found themselves separated from the others, fighting back-to-back, knowing each second could be their last, that their survival was dependent on the other. Locking and loading, whirling and slicing, bringing down the enemy one by one.
Jayne's thoughts, desires, his inner landscape, had become River's refuge; familiarity had rendered clarity. She'd learned to Read him as herself. So she could feel it – feel the moment the tension gave. The moment need outweighed caution or history or self-preservation.
The last corpse fell and he'd turned, stepping forward, crowding her until her back hit the wall, arms pressed flat either side of her face, caging her in. His breath had stayed even throughout the fight, but now he seemed to strain to draw it in. His eyes were azure fire, alight with feeling that could no longer be denied.
There was no gentleness or tenderness there. Just a question, a demand, a challenge. He surrounded her in every sense of the word: enwrapped in his colours, encased by his arms, drowning in his scent.
She reached out and traced the line of perspiration that ran down a temple, under the neck of his shirt, and saw the cords of his neck stand out in sudden, sharp tension.
His stare pierced her in place, fierce and feral.
"Don't start somethin' you can't finish, girl," he gritted out through a throat gone dry.
In answer she leant forward and licked her way back up his neck; hands fisting in his shirt, she spoke one word:
"Please."
His eyes blazed; his hands reached for her.
Later she carefully explained to Simon how her dress came to be ripped in the fight.
Their encounters were explosive, frenzied. Drowning her in feeling, but in an oh-so different way from the darkness that used to swallow her. Being swallowed by Jayne was an entirely new experience. She delighted in it, revelled in it.
Simon commented on her ever-increasing lucidity, thoughts quietly pleased that he'd found the right combination of meds at last. He didn't know Jayne was the reason.
He didn't know Jayne was the anchor.
There were close calls, of course. The bar on Persephone was one. The farrier had smiled at her and asked if he could buy her a drink, hand lingering on her shoulder. Fortunately, Mal had Big Scary Captained him away before Jayne could give into impulse. He had hastily knocked back three fingers of whisky, trying to sublimate the red haze that roared to knock the ruttin hún dàn out!
That night he pressed his lips to that same shoulder in a gleam of tenderness… then bit down hard.
Their snatched moments stretched longer and longer, increasing in length and frequency.
They moved from sleeping together in the vernacular to the material, slumbering so deeply afterwards that several times Jayne almost didn't wake in time to sneak back to his bunk.
One time, after, he had stroked her hair, drowsily content. The hand immediately twitched away, his surprise at the unconscious gesture mirrored in the jerk of his colours.
He'd stayed away for a few days after that, but he couldn't stay away long.
And once a trickle starts, eventually the sluice will give.
Mouths, once all teeth and tongue and edge, started softly pressing to necks. Frantic, roving hands slowed and stroked and savoured. Jayne's eyes still blazed, but there was a contentment there bordering on peace.
The day she heard her father was dead she fled from Serenity, wanting to breathe real air, needing the open space. For once Simon didn't follow, too stricken with his own feelings.
But Jayne had.
He'd approached her warily, like a horse liable to bolt, then pulled her into his arms. It was the first time he'd embraced her outside of the nighttime.
He seemed stiffly uncomfortable, but his arms were warm and steady around her.
The vague thought he should let her cry it out brushed against her mind, but after a few minutes he didn't seem able to bear it any longer. Easing her back, he sank his hands into her hair, tilting her face up to meet his gaze.
His words rumbled against her chest, caught in a crossfire of feelings: "He ain't worth no more tears than that, Moonling." Gruff tenderness. Baffled affection. Uncertainty edging towards fear.
His eyes traced her face, tracking every feature and back again, before dropping to her mouth.
She could hear the hitches of his breath; she could Read the impulsion in his colours. But he remained frozen. Unable to move forward.
"Jayne…" she breathed.
His eyes met hers, burning with longing and fear. The connection between them seemed to quiver; she couldn't tell if it was him trembling or her.
It didn't matter. She knew what she had to do.
He'd taken the step forward last time; he'd crossed the line.
Her turn.
Hands mirroring his, she rose to her tiptoes and closed the last distance between them.
River had never been normal.
She met a man and gave her body. They shared a kiss.
And fell in love.
fin
Glossary:
hún dàn - bastard