Disclaimer: 1) a renunciation of any claim to or connection with; 2) disavowal; 3) a statement made to save one's own ass.
Rating: PG for language
Logline (adopted from Sneakers): Two ex-soldiers, a fugitive doctor and psychic, a mercenary, a mechanic, a fly-boy, and a high class whore...and these are the good guys.
Series: The Key
Ch. 2 Workin' For a Livin'
Jayne took another sip out of his bag covered bottle, hiccupped, and leaned his head back against the wall beside the step he was sitting on. The sun had set about a half hour ago and no one thought twice about the large, apparently drunk man lounging near the alley. As the foot traffic became sparse, Jayne quietly commented to no one.
"Lookin' good here, Cap."
"S'alright, let's go," Mal replied back through the earpiece. Zoe moved into position.
The manhole cover down the alleyway popped off easily. Zoe rolled it to the side, managing to scrape some grease onto the Captain's coverall uniform.
"Nice," Mal grumbled, swiping at the stain.
"Yes, Sir, I'm sorry I wrecked your clothes for the ball," quipped Zoe.
Mal stopped. "Let's just get this done with. Kaylee, you got everything you need?"
Kaylee stepped forward, the only one there who looked perfectly at home in the bright yellow uniform coveralls they had swiped from the local electrician's guild office.
"Yep, Cap'n, good to go," she smiled, somehow lighting up the dim alleyway. She patted the shoulder bag affectionately, then accepted Mal's hand in clambering over the edge of the ladder to climb down into the hole in the ground. A few seconds passed before Mal called to her.
"You down yet?"
"Yupperoo, Cap'n! Wow! You should see all the stuff down here! Electrical conduits, water pipes, gas lines…it's like there ain't no dirt under the ground at all! Wonder what's holding up the buildings?" she mused.
Mal smiled at his mechanic's antics, but he had to get them moving. "Well I know what's holding up this little job, Kaylee, now let's focus, dong ma?"
"Yes sir, Cap'n Grumpypants sir!" she cheerfully called up. She turned up the dimmer on her cap light and swiveled around to pop off the access panel on the wall opposite the ladder. Inside it looked like someone had cooked off a huge pot of rainbow-colored spaghetti and thrown it against the wall. Wires of every color crisscrossed in every direction. What a mess, Kaylee thought to herself. Who was in charge of communications around here anyways?
She pulled some wire cutters, strippers, and various sized clamps out of her bag and proceeded to begin the dissection.
Wash was having a Jurassic-sized discussion regarding the economics of a possible crop cooperative amongst the herbivores when the call came in.
"Wash?" Kaylee called. "I'm in, you reading any of this?"
Wash clean-swept the console, then quickly reviewed the readouts.
"Not there yet, little Kaylee."
In front of Wash on one screen were the electrical and architectural schematics for the facility they were attempting to break into. On a second screen, Wash could read the communications activity involving said facility- or he would be able to as soon as Kaylee figured out which metallic spaghetti combo to clamp onto.
Kaylee methodically began clamping and releasing wires as her and Wash discussed progress. Mal and Zoe waited patiently topside. Well, Zoe waited patiently.
"Well, this is goin' well," Mal looked hopefully at Zoe.
His first mate nodded stoically. "Yes it is sir."
Mal sighed. "Kaylee!" he whisper-yelled, "what in 'tarnation are you doin' down there! Sayin' 'hello' to the local rodents?"
"Almost there Cap'n!" she called cheerfully back. She ignored his impatience; she and Wash knew what they were doin' and could get the job done faster without Mal's interference.
"Wash, how's that one?" she asked.
"No, but it looks like we got two out of three, why don't you keep trying that same row."
Kaylee stared at the mess of tangled wires in front of her. "Um, yeah, right." She proceeded to clip a few more wires when suddenly Wash piped in.
"There! Hold it, try one back, yup, that's it! Captain, I'm in!" Wash's voice rang into Mal's head.
Zoe smirked knowingly. "That's my man."
"A'right, a'right," Mal huffed. "Jayne, we still clear?"
"Not a soul out 'ere, Cap'n. They's all moved off to more 'citin parts a couple blocks over." He sounded sad.
Mal snorted. "Don't worry, we'll be done with this job early enough that you'll still have time to find some entertainment. Captain out," he finished.
Jayne stiffened; at Mal's last pronouncement there had been a shimmer of movement in the darkened doorway across from Jayne. Not noticeable if someone had passed by just then, if you didn't already know that someone was stationed in the doorway. Jayne lifted and crooked one finger slightly, keep still it said.
River was annoyed, she didn't think she had moved at all. She thought back to Mal's off-handed comment about entertainment; maybe she had taken a little deeper breathe than was necessary. It had bothered her, then it had bothered her that she didn't know why it had bothered her. She had known Jayne for over a year now, it wasn't like his habits were new to her. Although lately, the thought of those habits had become a source of irritation.
The first time she had felt this way was about a month ago- they had another job similar to this one. Everything had actually gone according to 'plan', albeit maybe because it was Inara's plan as opposed to the Captain's. They had gotten their individual shares back on board Serenity, then had split up to get whatever supplies or shopping was needed. Jayne had put on his ugly striped shirt and left the boat whistling. He and River had been paired up on the job yet again; Mal had thought he was doing the right thing pairing up his inexperienced muscle with his more experienced muscle. Goodness knows River had the skills- everyone agreed that she just needed a little real world experience. Jayne could provide that on jobs, be a mentor of sorts.
And so far it had been going well. The first job, Jayne had appeared to treat her as the weapon she was- he had kept her back, out of sight, until he needed to pull the trigger. He had treated her as if she was a loose trigger, only letting her assist when absolutely needed to even the odds and end the fight, then had immediately reined her in. He had not let her kill anyone, only incapacitate. She was a little confused by this and questioned him on it when they had gotten back to the boat. Mal had been the only one to get hurt, and even that was just a graze.
"I don't understand," she complained, "no one would have gotten hurt if you had just let me go." She knew that Jayne, Mal, heck, that everyone knew that she could take them all out but that she was voluntarily acquiescing to their command. She wouldn't have had it any other way- they gave her the one thing money couldn't buy her on a Core planet: family. She had taken to pulling small pranks around the ship for the sole purpose of getting caught and lectured; the sense of responsibility and loyalty she felt from them at times overwhelmed her, making her feel almost as happy as Kaylee.
"I don't understand," she repeated, tugging at Jayne's sleeve. He was pouring out two glasses of water to place beside the two plates already on the table. He handed one to her and pointed towards the table. "Sit."
She sat down opposite him; on the plates were some cookies she knew he had just received from his mother. They were a little stale from their time in post, but that just made them a little crispy. River looked up at him stunned. He was giving her his mother's cookies?
Jayne sat down, shoved a whole cookie in his mouth, and proceeded to give a post-job lecture, complete with crumbs spraying everywhere.
"You don't kill people unless ya have ta', dong ma?" He looked directly into her eyes to make his point. She had never realized before how blue they were. Like the sky above that resort her parents used to take her and Simon to when they were little…
"Woman, ya listenin' to me?" Jayne harshly cut into her daydream.
She bolted upright. "Yes, okay. But how do I differentiate…"
"For now, ya don' need to do any differnti-nothin'. Just shoot when I tells ya to, and not otherwise." He crammed another cookie into his mouth and proceeded to review the entire job they had done that day from beginning to end, answering any other questions she had. She was amazed at the attention to detail; whilst appearing casual and indifferent during the job, she now realized that he saw everything, took into account all possible outcomes, and cared more about human life than he let on.
As he grunted in satisfaction that the lesson was over for that day and pushed away from the table, she remembered what he had said when they had first sat down.
"You called me woman," she stated, looking back into those clear blue eyes.
"Well ain't ya? Ya're eighteen, ya gots the parts, and, well, ya ain't killin' no one unless it's absolutely necessary." He left the mess muttering to himself.
"T'ain't right, young woman killin' people anyways, mess ya head up…"
River watched him leave, her head a jumble. He knew she was a trained weapon- yet he saw her as a woman. Huh. That was new.
There had been a few legit jobs after that, simple cargo transports where the only party they needed to watch out for was the Alliance with their ridiculous tariff and export laws. People had been cooperating a little more with each other since Miranda; they had apparently decided that the Alliance was more in the way of them living their lives than their neighbors were. River and Jayne had security duty more often than not, where Jayne would spend the time lecturing River on possible real world scenarios. There seemed to be a lot more factors to consider than the scenarios the Academy had presented her with. There it had always been, 'we good, they bad, kill'. She was learning from Jayne about all the shades of grey in the 'verse, that everyone thought they were righteous.
She was also learning a lot about Jayne himself. Although he never said it, it was obvious that his examples were from situations he had lived through. There was a pattern too, one that she added to her growing list of things she appreciated about the man- he never struck first. He may have killed many men, but he wasn't in the habit of being pro-active about it, just pro-active in the self-defense department.
Having gained a measure of control over her abilities since Miranda, River enjoyed these conversations even more since she didn't have everyone's thoughts pushing into her all the time anymore. She had started observing and practicing Jayne's and Inara's way of reading people: body language. When she was unsure of a situation she still skimmed over their surface thoughts, though.
So when, about a month ago, Jayne had left the boat with a whistle and a pocketful of coin, she could see what his body language was screaming. He was obviously going whore shopping. She decided to make sure, as she was feeling unhappy about that, although she couldn't say why. So she lightly reached out with her mind towards Jayne. And frowned. She poked a little deeper, but was stopped. There was a wall there, one that hadn't been there before. Huh. When had that happened? She reached out to the others, and was easily able to discern their surface thoughts and feelings. She reached back to Jayne. No such luck.
So she would to have to assume, based on external cues alone, that he was really going whoring. Sigh. Why did this bother her so?
Across town, Jayne smirked as the hundun next to him raised the bet. This was like takin' candy from babes, he thought. His self-assurance was niggled a little though when a tall buxom blonde came over to sit on his lap and he politely shook his head no. Huh. When did he start refusin' a little company?
"Jayne! Jayne!" Mal's voice rasped in both their ears. "Can I have a status report? Where the hell are you?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're all clear here," Jayne came back to the present. Across from him River stood up a little straighter. Jayne caught her unreadable expression; they had both better start paying attention while they were still on the job, gorramit. He checked the street both ways. There was only a couple, hand in hand, starting to walk down, nuzzling each other. Jayne glanced back at River, who wrinkled her nose in disgust at the couple's public display of affection, then looked over at Jayne and rolled her eyes. He grinned slightly back at her, but did not miss that when she looked back to the couple her facial expression changed to one of envy.