A/N: I would be a little discouraged by the lack of reviewage on the first parts of this fic (though I'm hugely grateful for those I did get!), but I know the beginning to this was very like the actual episode. My story stats say 200 people started reading this, so with a little luck you're all back to see what happens in Act Two - hold onto your hats, its about to get fun ;-)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Act Two
Jayne hadn't a clue how to react to the group of Mudders stood before him now, filling his view, chanting his name, and apparently worshipping him as some kind of hero. In a moment, he'd turned on his heel, hurrying back into the sanctuary of the tavern and demanding a drink at the bar. He hoped for things to be calmer inside the drinking hole, but others had very different ideas. The worst of it was, the one shouting loudest about his newly found hero status seemed to be one of his own damn crew!
"Good people of Canton" River yelled happily from atop the end of the bar, "Welcome back your hero" she told the gathered crowd who listened one and all, "Here he is - it's Jayne" she declared, gesturing towards him, starting an applause that echoed around the whole tavern.
Jayne looked at the girl with a glint in his eye that didn't bother River at all. He wouldn't hurt her, not really. She only wished he'd admit to what he'd really like to do with her, because in her current state of slight drunkenness she would have no problem with welcoming his advances, or even making a few of her own. Of course, Jayne was soon distracted from the young woman stood atop the bar as his drink was knocked from his hand and hastily replaced with a shot of the best whiskey in the house.
Cheers went up all around, every mudder, young and old, thrilled by the return of their hero. They were all around him, slapping his back and shaking his hand, much to the amusement of River who laughed out loud as Simon helped her down from her platform to solid ground once again.
"Sweetie, you really didn't oughta be up there" Kaylee warned her friend, "Mightn't a' been safe"
"They see us as Jayne's people" said River, telling both the mechanic and her own brother how it was, "They would no sooner hurt the army than its leader"
"River, Jayne is not our leader" Simon quickly reminded her, "He's just some... big ape-man... gone wrong thing" he said with a vague hand gesture in the general direction of the man in question.
"Er, yeah, I really wouldn't be sayin' that here, Simon..." he was swiftly warned by Kaylee as a couple of mudders looked at them in a threatening way, "He was just jokin'" she said with a smile as she pulled the doctor and his sister away, "Let's just get another drink, leave Jayne to his fans and the Cap'n to his business" she said, glad to be out of an awkward situation for a while at least.
* * * * *
River liked to watch, take in a scene, feel the emotions of those around her. When she gained her abilities to read people she wasn't sure, but it was one of her greatest gifts to have, and happiest to use. She experienced so much through others, understood so much that other young women her age never would.
The Captain was unhappy right now, and it showed on his face, though River doubted anyone else would have noticed. A part of him was jealous of the attention Jayne received. Another part was concerned that his plan would fail and yet River herself had confidence in Mal to turn this situation to his advantage, the way he so often did.
Across the room, Kaylee and River's own brother Simon sat together, slowly getting closer to unconsciousness through over-consumption of the beverage they called Mudder's Milk. Simon was losing the inhibitions that meant his feelings for the ship's mechanic remained hidden, which should end well, but her brother was such a boob, River would guess even now that the whole situation was bound to end badly.
Sipping her own potent drink, the girl who had hardly ever been permitted alcohol growing up enjoyed the warm feeling that filled her body. She felt strangely confident because of it, and more womanly than she ever had before. Her eyes drifted to Jayne as a cheer went up around him.
The full story of his heroics had been told over and over, as the Mudders showed their appreciation for what he had done. They had been allowed to keep the money he had dropped on them, deliberately or not, and for this they loved him. River didn't need a reason such as this, she loved Jayne because she believed she was simply born to do so. She had no better reasoning than that.
It was this, she suspected, that caused the pain in her chest and the fire in her eyes as she realised Jayne had a another woman held tight to his body. She knew the intentions of both parties where this union was concerned, and one was far more heinous than the other. Jayne-man wished to lie with a woman, purely for the sake of physical release which River could make sense of, but the whore was not to be trusted. She did not seek to please or worship the town hero. No, she had a plan to steal all she could take and bolt before Jayne had a chance to get his pleasure from her. All this, River knew, long before the whore whispered in the mercenary's ear and crept up the stairs to the upper level of the tavern.
Jayne was to follow in a few moments, but River was not about to let him be used this way. Putting her cup down on the bar she hopped down from her stool onto slightly wobbly legs and, unnoticed by anyone, slipped out of the room, up the stairs to find where the whore was hiding and deal with her once and for all.
* * * * *
Jayne threw his latest shot of whiskey down his throat and declined the next refill. Drinking he liked; a party and hearing of his own heroics, he was getting well used to and enjoying tremendously, but there were other pleasures he was hankering for that required a little privacy and the use of a bed. Staggering more than a little, he bid a fond farewell to his fans for now, and headed for the stairs that seemed to swing back and forth of their own accord as he moved towards them.
Still, he battled against the symptoms of his drinking and moved up the steps as best he could, headed for the room where his woman was waiting for him. She wasn't as pretty as some he'd had, but a whore was a whore and it wasn't so much her face he was going for. He had imagination enough to get by with whatever he was given and this one in particular he liked 'cause she was offering everything for free on account of his being a hero.
Jayne tripped on his way to the bedroom door, the one across from the stairs, that was the one the girl had said... the girl who's name had fallen out of his head somewhere between the bar and the door. It didn't matter, he wasn't much for names anyhow, even less so than he was for caring what the whore looked liked.
As he got the door open, he realised she was already in the bed, and he guessed without her clothes, since a dress was slung over the back of a chair in the corner, one he'd seen on a person not long before. It didn't occur to Jayne at all that the woman in the bed might not be the one he'd come to see, and that the dress he recognised was not the one his free woman had been wearing at all. Sure, he'd seen it before but on a very different female form, one he desired, but had never really seriously considered climbing in to bed with. Now he was doing just that, of all unholy mistakes. Drunk as he was, he had no idea what he was doing, who he was propositioning, until it was very nearly too late.
"Hey there, pretty thing" he slurred as he crept in under the covers beside her, running his hand down her naked form.
"Hello, Jayne-man" she replied, turning over to face him, watching with amusement as his eyes went comically wide, close to falling clean out of his head as far as River could tell.
"Tyen shiao duh... What in the gorram hell are you doin' here, Crazy?!" he asked her overly loudly, a stupid thing to do if he didn't want to be discovered in bed with the last person he ever should be close to like this.
"She doubts you need a diagram for explanation" the young woman smiled, a look in her eyes that Jayne knew far too well and yet had never seen her wearing.
Of course, it was just about the only thing she was wearing and that hadn't escaped the notice of this man either. Hell, but she had curves and such she had no right to own, and the sight of her now, having been somewhat uncovered in his attempts to move away from her, was showing him it all in glorious technicolor, distracting him further from what he might have said next. Too much Mudder's Milk and whiskey combined, and then this, it was too much for any man to take.
"You can't... you can't be naked and in here and... naked" he repeated, finding it difficult to think of anything else, "and damn beautiful" he admitted by mistake, making her smile, "but naked" came a final thought, that he either was too out of it to realise he'd already said it or just felt the need to say over and over, as if she needed to be told.
"Can be and am" she said definitely, striking a pose meant to lure him in, and hell if she wasn't gonna do just that if'n he didn't listen to what conscience he did have left and walk away right this second.
"I gotta go" he said, pulling his legs out from under the covers and sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to River, trying to gain some control over his head and his feet, and another part of his anatomy that was refusing to co-operate in a much more painful way than the rest, "Hey, where'd my whore go?" he asked suddenly as he recalled what he was here for in the first place.
"Scared her away" River explained easily as she moved up close behind him, running slender fingers up his arm and across his bare back, "Guay Toh Guay Nown"
"Schemin'?" he echoed, leaning forward to reach for his T-shirt and regretting it immediately as the room spun on its axis, "Well, you ain't to be trusted neither, ya crazy mixed-up kid!" he complained as he pulled his top back over his head.
"Not a kid" she snapped, grabbing him by the shoulder, taking him by surprise, and using his drunken and dizzy state to her advantage as she pulled him round to face her, "Isn't that obvious?" she asked, pushing her hair back over her shoulder, "Hero wanted a woman to lie with, here she is" she offered easily, either not understanding what she was offering him or perhaps just not taking into account how much he could really want her if'n he let hismelf.
"Oh, girly" he said, closing his eyes and swallowing hard, "you dunno what you do to a fella" he told her, "I could... Hell, I can't do that to ya, just can't" he told himself as much as her as he turned away from her once again and she let him this time.
He was a little confused as to why she seemed to bust up laughing the second his back was turned, but her explanation came quick enough that he didn't wonder long.
"Ma wouldn't like it" she giggled, apparently believing that was his main, if not only reason not to lie with her - and reminding Jayne once more of her Reader abilities.
"Ain't nothin' to do with it!" he protested anyway, standing up fast and immediately regretting the manoeuvre as the trials of the day and moreso the mixture of alcohol he'd consumed hit him full force and right between the eyes.
Jayne found his legs wouldn't hold and his head couldn't cope as the furniture hopped around the small room and the mirror on the opposite wall showed two of himself, spinning around and around.
"I don't... oh, I don't feel so good" he admitted, collapsing back onto the bed with a thump.
"Too much fine whiskey" the young woman beside him sighed as she helped him further into the bed and pulled the covers up around his chin, "Jayne-man would not perform well anyway" she considered, though with his eyes closed and the badness he was feeling she doubted he was really paying attention to the words she spoke mostly to herself anyhow, "First time should be special for a girl"
"Yeah" he vaguely answered her as he started to lose consciousness, "Guess so..." he said softly before he was gone, dead to the world and probably for the rest of the night.
Moving up close, River hovered over him, taking in the sight of her Jayne-man sleeping peacefully. He looked strangely angelic to her, despite the fact he behaved like the devil himself sometimes. He had proven himself even more worthy a man than she'd hoped tonight, though she was a little disappointed he had spurned her advances.
"Goodnight, Hero of Canton" she smiled as she softly kissed his lips, "Hero of my heart" she added in a whisper, curling her body up close to his and letting sleep claim her too.
To Be Continued...