Character/Pairing: Jayne and River (Pre Rayne)
Prompt: None, the prompt table is dead. I borrowed Vera and shot it.
Disclaimer: I don't own nuthin', din't get paid, suing would be pointless
Warnings: Less fluff, more angst.

Huge thanks as usual to the great and wonderful Ceslas for the beta and for holding my hand and patting me gently when I got all glum. There have been some minor edits since so any cock ups are mine all mine.

Authors Notes: This story started with a lovely, neat, planned out plot that I dumped because it just wasn't right. I am writing the next instalment now. It is supposed to be Rayne but I'm not guaranteeing it. The thing I've learnt from writing this, my first series is you can't force it when one of the characters is squatting in your head going "Nope, ain't doin' it." So,this is the "sucks the least" version of this part. Just don't shoot me. Please? In theory there is more to come though there may be a delay while I write it and then re-write it, re-write it again and again, and again...

Hey, ain't we ruttin' bin here a'fore?

Seeing tears in River's eyes, Rick had given her a cuddle. It was rather nice. He stroked soothing circles on her back.

Somewhere in the building River could feel Zoë's emotions calming to a blank, exhausted acceptance. As Zoë's mind stopped pressing River became more aware of her immediate surroundings, Rick's hand was still circling her back and his mind was clear, direct and laid out before her like a map.

She could feel his breath on the nape of her neck. The thumb of his other hand started to stroke up and down on her waist. There was nothing grabby or frightening about his thoughts, just a gentle, warm, curious buzz.

Rick preferred boys, but he did like girls for a change.

River pulled away, a flush staining her cheeks. She'd only felt dim flickers of interest from boys since Simon had rescued her; she was always hidden or hemmed in by her brother, or the Captain and dressed in tents.

In the Academy there had been some interest, her mind flinched away from that. No one had wanted to touch her so badly they would brave the Alliance's wrath. Nevertheless, the thoughts were there; greasy, sticky thoughts that she could barely understand then because they came to her misshapen by her addled mind.

Then there was Jayne, the first rush as she came out of the box to every time she looked at him after Miranda. It was grossly unfair that the mere sight of him could make her burn and turn inside out when he didn't want her. It might be a crush, it might be more, it still hurt.

Nothing about Rick burned, her insides stayed resolutely where they were, but she was curious.

His eyes were twinkling gently; he looked like he was thinking of kissing her, he was thinking of kissing her.

Maybe she'd let him.

Jayne, a combination of the jitters and temper riding him like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, fought the urge to go in the opposite direction.

He didn't want this, this complicated, confusing, slew of if, buts and maybes. Gorramn Kaylee, screwing with a man's head.

What he wanted was a fight, a big fist flying, blood spattering, eye gouging, dirty fight.

He wanted to get sexed, until his eyes crossed and his legs turned to jelly. With someone anonymous, someone with breasts like melons, thighs like hams, dumb as a bag of rabbits and blonde. Someone who he wouldn't have to see, or think of again.

Then he wanted to get drunk, blind, stinking, throwing up everything you ate for the last week, wake up and forget everything drunk.

For once, he went in the opposite direction of everything he wanted. Jayne had a feeling deep in his innards that if he didn't sort this out there wouldn't be a fight dirty enough, a blonde curvy enough or a drink deep enough to do the trick.

There wasn't much time; her brother was on the way to get her. Jayne could hardly sort anything out with Simon playing Gooseberry and he was in no mood to wait. He had to be moving.

The door to the shop opened.

"By all that you hold dear Rick Plummer, if you're fixin' ta start a harem outta my crew I swear I'll drop you where you sit. Get your wū huì bì bǎng of my 'Tross."

Rick scowled at the Captain, "What and give you a clear shot, I don't think so. Plus," he grinned evilly, his Londinium accent strengthening, "She's a right cosy armful." He squeezed to emphasise the point.

"River, get offa him!" Mal barked, "Ain't right fer a fella like that to be feeling on you."

River turned and gaped at him, mouth half open, eyes luminous and tear stains on her cheeks.

That took the last shred of Mal's temper and trampled it into the dust. "You made her cry?" his eyes narrowed and his aim became rather less general and more precise.

"No I bloody didn't!" snapped Rick, offended.

River got cross; Mal was being grossly unfair to Rick, who was not responsible for her crying. In a convoluted way, she was crying because of Mal but explaining that would take all week and more patience than she would ever be possessed of.

"No, he did not make me cry and who I embrace is not your concern!"

There was a nasty light in Mal's eye, his last nerve was shredded, barrelling towards shoot first, ask questions later. First Zoë going AWOL and now this. As far as he could see there was one common denominator, "I'm tellin' you now to get offa him, I ain't havin' you taken advantage of."

"None of your business! I will embrace who I wish, isn't taking advantage of me! Watch!" she grabbed Ricks face in both hands went to kiss him.

When Jayne pushed the shop door open he was more than irritated to find Mal already there. It was bad enough he'd have the Doctor playing Gooseberry any second. With Mal around he wasn't going to get a moment to talk to the girl and if he didn't get to talk to the girl soon someone was going to get hit, maybe the way things were going it might be Mal. He'd heard the man yelling down the street, seemed he was in a temper to match Jayne's.

Jayne looked to see what Mal was pointing his gun at. Kaylee had left him one last thread to hold his temper together and it snapped with a twang.

"Girl- you-get-the-gorramn-hell-away-from-him-right-now!"

River froze, her lips a bare millimetre from Rick's. Mal's head slewed around. "Glad you could join us Cobb, can't see that the girls gonna listen anymore to you than me though. Oh…"

River was listening to Jayne, after a frozen moment she shoved Rick away so hard the man fell backwards of his stool and disappeared behind the counter.

An, "Ow!" came from somewhere close to floor level.

"Git over here girl!" Jayne bellowed, hands clenching and releasing.

River scrambled off her stool and made it half way across the floor before she stopped, her face flickering through expressions, intent, miserable, and then plain furious.

"No!" She stamped a foot, an angry sob in her voice.

"Neither of you has a need to go anywhere." Barked Mal, he closed his eyes a moment, "Has everyone run plum mad today?" he asked no one in particular.

"Seems that way," said Rick, still invisible, "did I mention, ow!"

"Girl's comin' with me," snarled Jayne, through gritted teeth.

"No! Don't want to." River crossed her arms, a stubborn set to her jaw.

"Yer goin'." Jayne took a step towards her, his face an education in how to look mulish.

"Can't make me." River stamped her foot again.

"Cobb, what in the Sam Hill are you doin'? She stole yer hat or sumthin'?" snapped Mal.

"Ya want the girl gone from here?" Jayne growled out of the side of his mouth.

"Guess so, but …" Mal threw his arms up in the air, "What the hell, I ain't got time fer this, just get her back to her brother dong ma? You can tell me what this is all about later."

Jayne didn't spare him a glance, "Girl, get yer skinny ass over here."

"No!"

Jayne was past arguing, past considering that his actions could get him good and dead, he swooped, River shrieked.

"I want her back on the ship in one piece Cobb! Ya hear me? N' if she kills you don't come cryin' to me." He watched Jayne disappear through the door, it looked like River was giving him a good kicking, "And you're grounded young lady, 'till you're forty." He added as the door swung shut.

"What's going on?" A bleary-eyed Zoë stood in the doorway to the back premises wearing Rick's pyjama top as a nightshirt and clutching a cup of coffee. She looked down, "Hello Rick." She blinked muzzily at him, "Gonna tell me why you're on the floor?"

"Seemed safer down here." There was a moment of silence them the sound of a pump action being shucked. "Mal, I'm getting up but I have a gun and I swear if you make one more aggressive move towards me I'll shoot you. I've had enough for one day savvy?"

"Oh I ain't promisin' nuthin', seems you've been mighty busy with my crew."

Rick popped up from behind the counter like the devil through a trapdoor in a pantomime, clutching his shotgun. "I don't know what you think I've been doing but I haven't touched Zoë in anything other than a brotherly fashion and I didn't do a thing to River that you couldn't have stood and watched."

"Looked gorramn like there was somethin' goin' on."

"I don't take advantage of miserable young girls Mal. I'm not saying it didn't cross my mind, she's very pretty."

"She was fixin' to kiss you!"

Zoë raised her eyebrows at that, her head had been swivelling back and forth between them like a spectator at a tennis match. It wasn't helping her headache. She picked up River's discarded stool and sat on it. Rick was sounding more and more annoyed, Zoë wondered vaguely if the Captain would get shot; it smelt like that kind of day and where was River? She could have sworn she heard her voice, and Jayne's. It had finally got her down the stairs.

"Yes!" Rick spat, "She was going to kiss me, not the other way around. The worst thing I did was give her a comforting cuddle."

"Well, it ain't right, is all, I'm… sayin'" Mal sagged and then jerked back upright, "Alright then. I guess I ain't gotta need to shoot you today."

"How magnanimous of you."

Zoë stuck a hand to her head worried it might fall off. "Would someone please tell me what's going on?"

"I was hopin' you would tell me Zoë." Mal looked her up and down and gestured in the general direction of her startling attire.

Zoë shrugged, her face bleak, "I got drunk and couldn't face going back to Serenity. Not that it's any of your business sir, but I slept in the spare room, all Rick did was pull my boots off." She gave Rick the ghost of a smile, "Man always did fancy Wash more n' me."

"I have dreadful taste." Rick smiled sadly at her and reached out a hand. To Mal's increasing discomfort, Zoë took it and smiled back at him. The sooner he could get her out of here the better.

"Well… okay then. That was all?" He waited for Zoë's tired nod, her face was starting to wear that little twist that told him she was giving some thought to hitting him, the last time he'd seen that was when he tried to order her not to marry Wash. It was time to move on. "Well, good, I need my first mate back; we got a cargo, customers comin' in a little bit. I need you dressed and at your post."

Zoë took a mouthful of coffee; her shoulders went back with an effort, as if she was standing at attention but fighting it. "No sir."

Mal gaped at her, "Whad'ya mean "No sir.""

"I mean no sir; I ain't comin' back to Serenity, 'cept to pick up my belongings. I'm getting off here."

That simple statement exploded in the air like a Bouncing Betty. Rick froze, Mal gaped, Zoë looked at him steadily. Mal waited for her to shout "Joke!" But then Zoë didn't joke much.

Breaking the stillness, Rick picked his own stool up and sat on it, examining his fingernails as if he didn't want to look at either of them.

"You can't." That wasn't his voice, Mal was certain that his voice didn't sound like that all strained and damn near desperate.

"Yes, Mal, I can." Zoë's voice was firm, but weary.

"You can't."

Zoë gave him a level, blank, look, face smooth as water polished rock.

"Is this down to him?" Mal pointed at Rick, with his gun.

"It's news to me," Rick shrugged, still looking at his nails.

"Ain't stayin' where every gorramn thing hurts to look at, it ain't livin'." In all the long years they had been together that was the most Zoë had ever said about her feelings. There was a hard, bone numbing winter in those words. Mal had never felt so cold.

So cold, he couldn't bear it.

Outside Jayne came to a halt and looked around, there was an alleyway at the side of the shop and he carried the kicking River into the shadows. A few people in the crowd looked at them, but no one was inclined to take on the huge and furious man.

There was a dumpster that looked reasonably clean, Jayne dropped River on it. A little fist clipped him on the jaw, moving fast he caught both her wrists.

"Pack that in! I'm in the mood ta spank ya as it is."

"Like to see you try!"

Jayne glared at her through narrowed eyes, "Seems I'm doin' ok so far."

"Because I let you. Could kill you ten different ways right now."

Jayne let go of her wrists and placed his palms flat on the dumpster lid. He leaned in until his nose was practically to her nose and growled, "Give it ya best shot Girl."

River tensed, and then sagged. "Don't want to." She peeked up at him, "but I still could, many more different ways now my hands are free."

"Don't give a cuss. Trudie n' Kaylee right? Ya crushin' on me?"

His bluntness squashed River small, "Don't know."

"Whatcha mean ya don't know?"

River sat up and glared at him, "Means I don't know! An adolescent crush is a perfectly logical explanation for my feelings but it doesn't go away, it just gets worse! It makes no sense that I would want you, I just do!"

"Well I don't want ya, so it ain't happenin'. Ya just get over it, an' do it quick."

"But, you…" River's face fell, she crossed her arms and glared at him, eyes all shiny, "Don't know if I can, this 'crush' is very persistent."

"You're gonna have ta cos there ain't a woman worth dyin' over n' if yer brother or Mal see ya shed so much as a tear over me, hell, once I'd finished off yer brother Mal 'ud shoot me. I got ma life just the way I like it, good and simple. So make yerself miserable ifen ya want. It ain't gonna get ya anywhere."

River stared at him; he could feel her walk straight into his head and make herself at home and it was terrifying because he could not fight it.

"It's a mess in there," she said, her voice cool, floaty and somewhat eerie. "It was so neat once but it isn't now. Kaylee was right; you are a "fraidy cat". Could understand it better if it was Simon or Mal, scalpels or airlocks but it's me and yourself."

River's voice became a lilting singsong, her legs began to swing, "Afraid that I will be more than a warm body in the Black and an exchange of fluids. There are no concrete answers, never are. I might grow out of it, you might get tired of me, don't see why we shouldn't have something we burn for while we find out and," she looked up at him, "I burn." Her tiny hand laid itself, light as a whisper, over his heart and started to tap to its beat, faster and faster.

Jayne's fury scorched through his body and he snatched her hand away. "Get outta my head girl," he hissed, grabbing her shoulders, "yer wrong anyways. Maybe burnin' fer me but I ain't given ya a thought in that way."

"Liar," River's chin went up, 'if the girl had a couple of fellas under her belt and wasn't so young.' It's etched on the rock in your head. Stopped me kissing Rick, why would you care? Heart speaks the truth." Her hand reached for his chest again.

Jayne swatted her hand away; he grabbed her shoulders again, shaking her a little. "Woman, I tol' ya ta stop." He said, his voice thick.

River kissed him.

She took him completely by surprise. Whatever River was there was nothing delicate or innocent about her kiss, or her hands, fluttering over him like butterflies, one going straight to where it would get the most attention. It shocked him completely, Jayne Cobb had been around the block a hundred times, the press of lips and the flutter of hands shouldn't make his whole world compress to one overwhelming want, but it did.

When she pushed him away he growled, the blood was booming in his ears and he understood what she meant now because he burned, his objections laying in ashes at his feet. His head generally the loser when it came to ruling his body retired sulking. He always thought better with his bones, skin and muscles anyway. Now bones, skin and muscles just wanted to be closer, to take what was before him and make it his.

The future was nothing. Didn't matter what she wanted, or dreamed of because he wanted the now and stepped back to her, lips willing if it got him more.

River put her hands up to hold him off; it held him back, just. He'd never had trouble stopping before, didn't like it, but he could do it with a shrug and a cuss and move on to the next woman. At this moment seventeen years of his mother's rule was holding him but it was a precarious thing.

"Now we burn." River touched her mouth gently, in wonder.

"Girl." He growled, tracking her fingers as they ghosted across her lips, hands in fists at his sides, there was too much right in front of him for the taking. He saw her start and her eyes widen.

"J-Jayne," the uncertainty in her voice cooled him a little. His mind caught up with current events and made him see the nervousness in her eyes.

"Gorramn it girl. Ain't gonna hurt ya." That's what she was, just a girl, he made himself focus on that and took a deep shuddering breath, stepping back, getting some air between them. "Guess you win, but you'd better make sure I don't get dead over this."

"They won't hurt you; I will make sure of it. Jayne is mine?" She asked, hopeful, but a little wary.

She found herself on the receiving end of a scorching glance, "You got me wantin' ya, ain't ya? Ain't ya happy now?"

River couldn't understand why his words flooded her body with cold. Desperate for answers she probed at the mind in front of her. Under the calming, but still sharp and hot want, there was a flat pool of thoughts, swirling gently. Jayne didn't try to hide them and she dipped a toe in the water.

"Ma 'ud say it's 'bout time I settled. Damn she's a hot little thing, warm body in my bunk, gonna live longer with her at my back, long as she don't stab me. No more trim, gonna have to wait a bit. Don't wanna wait. Hope she's worth it, seems she might be. Everything tight n' firm, damn she makes me burn, ain't burned like that since Becky Lishops stuck her hands on me behind Jarrett's barn. Still kinda screwy but she was ok when she sat with me when I was doing stuff n' just listened. Reckon she's gonna be a wildcat in the sack n' the rest I can put up with. I'm getting' between them thighs. Don't mean I gotta go soft, don't mean she gotta mean nothin' even if she says different."

Nausea gripped River; she slid bonelessly from the dumpster and staggered away, towards the mouth of the alley.

"Girl! Where ya goin?"

"Don't want this."

"What!" Three long strides brought Jayne to her side, a huge hand gripping her arm, "Whaddya mean ya "don't want this?""

River's hands fluttered, "This," her eyes flickered across his face and jerked away, "What you offer is empty, still fighting, always fighting."

His fingers tightened, "Whaddya mean empty?"

"You don't want me."

"Din't ya hear me just now, I want ya just fine. Gorramn it girl I'm willin' ta risk airlocks n' scalpels, n fussin' ta have ya."

"Don't want me! Want my skin and orifices, willing to pay the price like coin on the dresser when you are done."

"Huh?" Jayne pulled that face at her, the impatient, "why have I got to deal with this feng li girl" face. It had always hurt her, now it was worse, it cut and stabbed.

"Don't want me, would just go along with being with me so that you could have a warm body in your bunk. Just like Saffron except I won't cost you Vera." She looked up at him, eyes luminous, "What would your mother say?"

It was a low blow, but it gave Jayne pause. Not an hour ago, he'd been thinking River was too good for the likes of him. One hard on later and he'd stopped caring about that, the girl had slid half way into the category of trim, just trim he was going to have to pay for with a bit more effort then coin. Jayne's Ma stepped up into his minds eye and gave him the "look", the disappointed but not surprised look. He let go of River's arm, the last of his desire shrivelling and dissipating like dust in the wind. "Aw gos se!" He looked down and saw her clear, just a girl.

"I was right weren't I," his voice was bitter, "shouldn't have let ya get near me. Reckon ya played with matches n' damn near got yerself burnt."

River winced at his sourness, "I am sorry, couldn't help wanting. Didn't want you to know, it all got complicated with presents and Trudie and Kaylee."

Jayne grunted, "Don't matter none," his forced tone gave the lie to that, but his mother was ruling his head and his actions once more. Gorramn he wanted a fight. "No harm done. Less'" he gave her a narrow look, "Am I gonna have ta leave over this? Not that I care none, but, I just wanna know."

It was ridiculous that she could be so miserable and yet he could make her want to laugh. Trying to hide his desire to stay in his home.

"No, like the cargo bay, best forgotten and not spoken of. Might need to talk to Kaylee and Inara, they have been watching but they won't give us away."

"Shiny," he pulled a thoughtful face, "Well that's that then." He looked down at her a second with his jaw clenched and then his face smoothed out, she felt him flood with something like relief and it hurt most of all.

"Best we get ya back ta the ship n' yer brother." He stated, as if they'd just been on a shopping trip.

River was grateful to him in that moment, for being Jayne and not wanted to dissect and analyse and agonise.

"Mother hen, fuss, fuss, fuss." She coughed away the choke in her voice and forced a smile, "He won't be there, got lost looking for me."

Jayne sniggered, on principle, but it was an uncomfortable sound. River playing the game to the rules she had been given slapped him, lightly on the arm, "Hey!" he pulled a grumpy face at her.

River looked at him a moment. The feelings were still there, rather trampled and tatty looking but there all the same. She didn't know what that meant for the future, but things were about to change substantially on Serenity and the ship would need them both.

"Yes, lets go home."