Prompt #19- Fear

Fear is something that River thinks she understands, When she was younger, everyone said that she was fearless.

River was never afraid to climb the tallest tree or skate on the thinnest ice or race after her big brother. She hadn't been afraid to be the smartest in her class or correct her teachers.

But River had a secret; she had been afraid of failure.

Deathly afraid.

She was terrified that one day she would wake up and discover that she wasn't as smart as she thought she was.

She had been afraid that someone would give her a task and she would fail at it and everyone would see what a liar she was and they were all hate her and she'd become nothing. River was the clever one; what was she if not that?

It was one of the reasons that she had gone to the Academy in the first place. She wanted to know more, know it all, be able to baffle and bluff her way into people thinking her extraordinary. She was determined to get her fear under control.

And yet she hadn't known what fear was.

Fear was her own breathing stinging her throat in jagged edges, like glass sliding down her neck, as tubes were rammed down the thorax, choking her.

Fear was an uncontrollable pain in the lower stomach, crawling tentacles across her belly, icy and slimy at the same time at the sound of two sets of feet stomping down the hall

Fear was half-moon slices in her palms as her nails dug in, blood trickling down her wrists as monsters danced at the edge of her vision.

Fear was sweat coating her back under a thin dress, the chill of air-conditioning hardening it to a crust as gloves waved under her vision, halting in mid-air like a conductor about to start his crescendo.

Fear was watching through wide eyes as her own hands wrapped themselves around someone's throat and snapped.

Fear was waking up screaming before realising that you'd never gone to sleep.

River had thought that she'd known fear.

She'd been wrong.

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Fear is something that Jayne thinks he has never known. When he was younger, everyone said that he was fearless.

He was never afraid when his father took to the bottle and used his words and his fists on him and his brothers. Jayne stood tall and proud in front of Mattie and took the beatings like a man. Jayne wasn't afraid when his ma found out that his bruises weren't from rough-housing and from someone a little closer to home. He wasn't afraid when she took the tiny hand-crafted pearl gun and took away the one who had hurt her boys.

Jayne wasn't afraid of the bigger boys, or their pas. He wasn't afraid of hard work or dying. He's stared down the barrel of a gun so many times that he knows what the barrel looks like in and out.

He thought fear was weakness and being scared of something stupid.

But Jayne has a secret.

When he thinks of Reavers his breathing starts to get heavy and he can feel the huffs of air slicing at his throat.

When he thinks of Niska and what he did to Mal he feels snakes crawl across the bottom of his belly.

Whenever he thinks of his ma dying his hands start to shake and his nails dig into his callused palms.

When he remembers Miranda, a sheen of sweat that has nothing to do with his workout, covers his back in a cold, slick skin.

When he closes his eyes he sees a little girl covered in blood, a pile of bodies at her feet and all he can hear is the silent snap as the bay doors opened.

When he dreams of River's death he wakes up wishing that he could scream.

He doesn't and he won't.

Because Jayne isn't afraid of anything.

Jayne knows he's fearless.

He's wrong.