"My brother is too stupid to live."
"River!" Kaylee forgot to quirk her finger, cup midway to lips. "What a thing to say."
"True thing," Simon's sister said grimly.
Kaylee looked into her coffee. "If he's not interested -"
"Oh he's interested!" Inara and Margot said together.
"He is?" Kaylee wondered, half hopeful, half doubtful.
"Very much so," Inara said with certainty. "That's what makes him so inept - I suspect he hasn't much experience with women."
"Never had a girlfriend in his life," said River.
Kaylee blinked. "You're kidding. You mean he's - he's -"
"Virgin," said River calmly. "Gonna have to teach him."
Oh!" Kaylee stared big eyed into the middle distance absorbing that. "Never been a man's first."
"Osiris is a fairly straight laced culture in such matters," Margot told her. "Casual sex is strongly discouraged and permanent bonding the rule. Becoming Simon's first could mean being his last. Might want to consider if you're ready for that kind of commitment."
Kaylee's eyes got even rounder. "Oh!" she lapsed into thought.
"I want Jayne," River said suddenly, almost defiantly.
Inara and Kaylee stared, cup and sweet midway to mouths, but Margot merely pursed her lips. "I admire your taste, little one, Jayne Cobb is a mighty fine hunk of manhood."
River glowed. "He's good at sex too."
Kaylee turned bright red and clamped her mouth firmly shut. Inara choked, oddly as she hadn't yet taken a bite of her sweet.
Margot's eyebrows rose, one higher than the other. "Can't always trust a man's word on that subject, sweetheart."
"The whore at the Heart of Gold said the same," River answered. "She said I'd be lucky to have him."
Margot's head tilted. "Just after a tumble are we?"
River's smile went. "No, not just that. I like Jayne. He's simple." The mixture of laughter and horror went out of Inara and Kaylee's faces and they listened as soberly as Margot as River continued: "Not simple-stupid, he's a lot smarter than even he thinks, open-simple. Most people are like origami," her hands made a twisting gesture, "lots of faces, some hidden. Jayne's like a smooth sheet of paper, all there to see. Not all admirable but all in the light, no hidden darknesses."
Margot nodded. "I'd agree with that assessment. In fact that's the thing I like best about men of his kind myself. So - think he's interested in you?"
That brought the glow back. "Oh yes. Sure of it now. I stir him up and disturb him, just like Zoe said about Wash and her." a tender smile crossed River's face. "He doesn't like it."
Inara and Kaylee exchanged an uneasy glance, suddenly seeing Jayne's snarling ways towards and about River in a new light.
"I see that," Margot said thoughtfully. "Men like our Jayne tend to have spots of decency. Sexing a virgin girl, 'specially one that's not all there, could be one of them."
Inara looked uncertain but Kaylee bit her lip knowing the merc's obscure decent side better than anybody.
River's face turned tragic. "I know. I know I'm not good for him - not now." Determination gleamed in her eye and hardened her mouth. "But I'm getting better - I will get better! And when I am I'll make him see me as a woman, not a virgin girl."
"Honey," Inara said gently, "he might not be good for you."
But River just shook her head. "He's perfect," she said with certainty. "Strong and mean, able to protect me. Wanting me, even if he won't admit it. Perfect."
Kaylee was trying to decide whether to be horrified or not. Margot said tranquilly; "Well you got time, River, time for second thoughts if you're going to have them." she twinkled at both girls. "The men you've picked might take a bit of work but I don't doubt you'll get them in the end. Women most always do." Now it was Inara's turn to bit her lip and stare at her plate as the two girls glowed.
...
Jayne had gotten down to his pair of big bore handguns, Isobel and Bessie, when Simon walked into the living area, forehead creased with worry. "I can't find River anywhere."
"Went out," Jayne said not lifting eyes from his work.
"What!"
The volume of Simon's cry, almost shriek, finally made him look up. "I said she went out. With Kaylee, Inara and Margot."
"But - But - it's not safe!" Simon stuttered.
"Don't be any dumber than you are," Jayne said calmly, returning his attention to Bessie. "She's with respectable company in respectable parts of town. Bounty hunters don't hang out in the kind of places classy ladies favor."
...
What looked like the entire crew of a mid-sized passenger ship poured into the Oda, gussied up in the fancy dress uniforms favored by want-to-be classy shipping lines, all liquored up and looking for women or men, according to taste.
Inara reached over and pulled a tasseled cord, shutting the drapes of their booth and enclosing them in a faux silk tent. "Thought so," she said, "this place must be a house of assignation."
"A house of what?" Kaylee asked.
"A place for professional women to meet clients," Inara explained.
"You mean like Companions?"
Both Inara and Margot shook their heads. "No, not Companions, but a higher class of whore then you find trolling the docks." said the latter.
Their curtains were yanked open to frame a slightly weaving figure his fancy uniform very much the worse for wear. A leer broke over his face. "Lookee what I found." a several more men in similar condition crowded in behind him. "Well don't you ladies just look good enough to eat. And just waiting to comfort some lonely spacemen down from the Black."
"We're not looking for clients, thank you," Inara said firmly.
The leer turned to a frown. "What'd'ya mean?"
"I mean we're not interested," Inara said even more firmly. "That's why our booth was closed. Now please leave."
Now the man's face turned red and ugly, the reubens behind him muttered and crowded closer. "Fancy ladies think they're too good for us, do they!"
Margot rose to her feet somehow managing to loom menacingly even though she was several inches shorter than the man facing her, cold gray eyes fixed like targeting beams on his face. "What part of 'not interested' didn't you understand?" she rumbled, voice low and threatening.
Man took a step back, colliding with those behind him.
One of the big 'waiters' chose that moment to appear. "These men bothering you ladies?"
Margot shook her head fractionally, eyes still fixed gimlet-like on the leader. "A little misunderstanding. They were just leaving."
And that might well have ended it, if the reuben nearest the waiter hadn't pulled a knife and slashed. The waiter jumped back just in time, but Margot broke her stare at the glimpse of steel and her subject regained his nerve and grabbed River's arm hauling her to her feet.
River screamed. Kaylee overturned the table as she launched herself across it, driving a tiny fist into the man's belly, well below the beltline. He doubled over. River wriggled free. A reuben reached for Kaylee and was blocked by Inara's arm as she kicked him hard in the knee. The crack was clearly audible above the oriental muzak. Meantime Margot had produced a pair of trident shaped sai from her flowing sleeves and gone for the knife-wielder. She caught his wild slash expertly between the prongs of one sai and gave a twist that snapped his blade while reversing the other to drive the grip into the junction of neck and jaw.
Waiters and snooty-ship reubens converged on the scene and the fight spread. Inara launched a spin kick, taking out two men. Kaylee, the light of battle gleaming in her eye, went after a third. Margot was fighting with another rueben who'd drawn steel. This one had more skill than the first and was giving her problems. The waiters, badly outnumbered, were taking a lot of punishment. Luckily they seemed more than able to absorb it as they grappled with the crewmen, using wrestling holds and throws with the expertise of long training. Booths shook and collapsed as the fight surged around them. Whores, mostly female, screamed, fought their way free of the tangling curtains and fled, or tried to, along with their mostly male clients.
River stood in the middle of it all. Wide eyed, not knowing what way to turn. Inara, Kaylee and Margot were all to absorbed to take care of her. Somebody grabbed her shoulders and she screamed.
"Easy, missee." it was one of the waiters. "Get under cover." he pulled her to the bar and shoved her behind it. "Here, keep your head down." he told her then spun away to charge, bull-like, back into the fray.
River crawled into the space beneath the racks of bottles, and curled herself into a ball, eyes tightly closed, wincing and flinching at the crashes, shouts and shrieks from the other side of the sheltering teak.