Work Text:
1. Chagrin, the sky above these strange fanfares.
Jayne drags the chair slowly, small clouds of dust rising around his feet and dulling the shine of his polished boots. When he is a few feet away from Serenity, he settles the chair and lets himself fall down on it, stretching his legs out in front of him.
He adjusts his sunglasses and waves as Kaylee goes by him, dropping a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“Xie-xie, Jayne,” she says, and she’s gone. He can’t see her face, but he knows she’s smiling.
The Doc and his sister follow soon enough. He nods at Jayne, River skipping happily at his side, her dress billowing in the wind and the dirt around her.
He doesn’t know where the preacher is, he hasn’t seen him the whole day.
Zoë and Wash left half an hour earlier, and Jayne can very well picture what they’re gonna do for the rest of the evening. He’s no psychic, but it doesn’t take much imagination, and he has lots. Especially regarding ruttin’.
Like now, he’s stuck guarding the boat, but his mind is travelling at the speed of light in the direction of the nearest whorehouse. There’s one just off the market, if he remembers right. There was a girl, last time he’d been here, Rita or something, she could do the-
Another chair is dropped next to his, the noise dragging him away from the memory of Rita’s white and really soft thighs.
Mal flops down on the chair, he has a bottle in his hand. He’s looking ahead and doesn’t seem to acknowledge him at first.
The wind rises and Jayne gets some dust in his eyes, despite the protection of his sunglasses. It prickles and it itches. He sneezes.
“Bless you,” Mal says and takes a swig from the bottle.
A moment later, as an afterthought, he offers the bottle to Jayne. “Ain’t the best,” he says, “but it does the job.”
He nods and takes it. It burns on the way down, and Mal is right, it tastes foul, but he’s had worse. “You ain’t gonna go an’ have some fun?” he asks, giving the bottle back.
Mal shrugs. “Thought I’d keep you company.”
Jayne nods, but he knows that nothing is ever this easy with Mal. He turns to look at him, but he’s still looking out in the distance, focusing on something or someone in the docking area. His eyes squinting and almost shut because of the dust in the wind and the light of the setting sun.
“You don’t trust me,” Jayne says, and it’s not a question.
“No,” Mal answers anyway.
2. Boorish, and the beauty underneath.
“Now, this I what I call a nuisance,” Mal says, rubbing his arms to try and warm up a bit.
Next to him, Jayne spews a long string of Chinese words, illustrating just what he thinks of their current situation. Mal only half-listens to it, but he’s sure somebody’s uncle gets mentioned in a very non flattering and too close for comfort relation to a syphilitic donkey.
He’s inclined to mostly agree with him, though, because being stranded once with no clothes in a middle of nothing by a whore was enough for him and he really didn’t care for a repeat.
Seems like Fate doesn’t share his opinion.
At least this time he has Jayne and their cargo with him. Misery loves company, as they say.
“My balls are freezin’” Jayne kindly informs him, before cursing some more.
Well, Mal isn’t so sure about Jayne, but the fact that the cargo consists mostly in highly alcoholic beverages is some kind of silver lining.
Looking at the glass half full, here, or the bottle, as the case may be.
“Cheer up,” Mal exclaims, tossing a bottle to Jayne and getting one for himself. “Zoë will be here before anything really important freezes and falls off.”
“My ass is freezin’, too,” Jayne grumbles and then he proceeds to down half a bottle in one swig.
3. Hearts, burning wander.
A job that went well, strangely enough, but Jayne isn’t the type to argue when a good thing happens to him. At this point he usually goes to look for some alcohol, a pool table and some thighs to wrap around his waist, not necessarily in that order.
He looks down at the bottle held tightly in his hand.
One out of three, ain’t that bad.
“Figured you’d be down there by now,” Mal says, coming to stand next to him. He’s looking at the lights spreading out below them.
The whole village is down there partying, getting drunk. Getting laid.
Jayne should be down there. He still hasn’t figured why he isn’t.
“Well?” Mal prods him.
Jayne looks up at him, sitting up. He shrugs not knowing what to tell him, but Mal nods as if he’d just answered him.
Then a booted foot is nudging at his thigh, and Mal motions for him to pass the wine.
They look down at people dancing and laughing and talking, and up there it’s just the two of them and a bottle. The sounds and the voices are very faint, and for a moment it’s an illusion of peace.
“For once, it’s nice to have a quiet night,” Mal says. “I was beginning to think that’s something that only happens to other people.”
Jayne grunts in reply as he receives the bottle back, and it suddenly occurs to him to ask why Mal is up here, talking to him.
He opens his mouth to form the question, when they hear the shots.
“Shiny,” Mal grimaces, and Jayne gets up and they both have their weapons out at the same time.
The bottle falls to the ground and shatters, the dirt drinking all the remaining wine.
Later, they’re both sitting in the infirmary as Serenity flies away at full thrust. Their shirts are off, waiting for the doctor to be finished with Zoë and patch up their minor wounds.
Jayne knocks his shoulder into Mal’s. “Well, it was nice while it lasted,” he mutters, so that the Doc won’t hear, as if the sight of the village from above was a thing intended only for the two of them. Their secret.
“Yes,” Mal snorts. “Those thirty seconds sure were magic.”
His words are tinted with sarcasm, but they sound genuine.
4. Ghosts, tearing through the shrouds.
Serenity lies motionless and crippled, and to the careless eye she may look almost the same as the first day Mal saw her, but years have gone by since then, and to Mal’s eyes it feels like it’s the weight of memories keeping her down and preventing her from flying.
The starboard engine has been repaired, and it’s just a matter of days before the other one is put up as well, she needs a new paintjob, some of the external paneling replaced, and then you’d think she should be good to fly.
Only she won’t.
Mal knows it, he sees it in Zoë’s face, whenever her hands and her eyes glide over the pilot chair. He senses her struggle, he sees her flinching, her trying not to feel, to be heartless. He knows she looks and tries not to expect Wash sitting there playing with his dinos.
Zoë’s stuffed all of Wash’s things in a box, Mal’s seen it among the trash. He’s brought it to his bunk, and he’s gonna give it back to her when she’ll be ready. It’s his job to be the unfeeling hun dan, and Serenity won’t fly again until Zoë finally understands that.
The sound of boots reaches his ears and he turns to see Jayne coming towards him, squinting up in the late morning light.
“Hey,” he greets him, rising his right hand. He’s holding a bottle from what Jayne still believes is his secret stash.
“Cap’n?” he frowns when Mal doesn’t reply.
He wonders if he can still be called Captain when his boat is laid open in front of them, far from flying. He doesn’t bother to correct him.
“Coming along nice,” Jayne says nodding in the direction of Serenity, but he’s keeping his eyes fixed on him, as if waiting for a confirmation. He’s smiling a small, satisfied grin.
“Why’re you still here?” he asks, suddenly, because Jayne’s stuck with them until the very end, despite his continuous complaints and his protests, his desire to take command over him. And not only that, he’s been the first to agree to go with him on his crazy and most likely suicidal mission.
Jayne looks taken aback at the question, and his grin falls off. “What d’ya mean?”
“Crazy job that wasn’t even a job, Reavers, no coin, no ten percent,” Mal explains. “And you still haven’t left.”
There’s a moment of silence, then, quietly, “you wanna- you want me gone?”
Mal takes a deep breath. “Not really,” he says with a shrug. “Just wondering why you ain’t yet, though.”
“Told you,” Jayne mutters. “If I can’t do something smart, I’m gonna do something right.” But Jayne is looking straight at him, now, and Mal isn’t so sure those words have the same meaning as earlier.
“Drink?” Jayne offers, and by the awkward look in his eyes, Mal knows that he’s let out more than he meant to.
“We ain’t had lunch, yet,” he says, but takes the bottle anyway.
Jayne’s got some good go se in his not-so-secret stash.
“Saw a cannon today,” Jayne breaks the silence after a moment. “Was on sale.”
“Was it?” Mal snorts, not sure if ‘cannon sales’ actually exist, but absolutely convinced that Jayne would manage to find one if they did.
“Would look mighty shiny on her.”
Mal sips thoughtfully, considering that. His lips curve in an almost smile around the neck of the bottle, and for a moment he can see her, flying, beautiful as ever, looking as good as new.
Though still crippled and not whole on the inside, and stronger because of that.
5. Not love, but relentless life.
“You don’t gotta do all this stuff with me,” Jayne grunts quietly as Mal’s fingers begin once again the journey down his back, between his shoulder blades, following his spine to reach the swell of his buttocks.
“I know,” Mal says, his fingers going up again, reveling in the feel of Jayne’s warm skin shuddering under his touch, in the feel of the smoothness occasionally giving way to old scars.
Jayne’s face is turned away from him as he lies on the bed. The lights in the room are off, so all he can see is bathed in the pale light coming from the street. They’re on the second floor, they’ve left the curtains open.
The skin beneath his hands is grey and luminescent, almost otherworldly, and Jayne’s so still he looks dead. But he’s warm and he trembles with life, and Mal can’t stop touching him, down his back, over his ass, along the back of his thighs, until his palm comes to rest behind his knee.
He breathes and takes a long swig from the bottle. He’s slightly drunk, but not so drunk as to blame all of this solely on the intoxication.
“You can just get to the ruttin’,” Jayne says, but his tone is soft, not demanding in the least.
He places his hand at the back of Jayne’s neck. “I know.”
There’s a moment of silence, then the rustling as Jayne turns around to face him. “Why’re you doin’ this, then?” His voice is muffled when he turns his face into the pillow.
Mal doesn’t want to think how many have done that before, how many have used this bed before them.
“I don’t know,” he replies and bends down to kiss the spot right next to where his hand is resting.
His lips move up his neck, to his ear, his cheek. It’s more of a caress than plain kissing, until Jayne turns his head further and their mouths meet.
“Thought you didn’t ‘kiss ‘em’,” Mal says, drawing back and allowing Jayne to sit up.
“Only those I don’t trust,” Jayne replies, taking the bottle from his unresisting fingers and stretching across the bed to lay it on the night table.
With all that skin laid out if front of him, just for him, Mal can’t resist, and his right had travels the now familiar journey over hard muscles and smooth skin.
“You sure like my ass,” Jayne mutters, but doesn’t make any gesture to remove his hand, and who’s Mal to disabuse him of that notion, especially when it’s true?
“You trust me, then,” Mal says.
“I ain’t carryin’ no weapons, am I?” comes the matter-of-fact reply.
Mal snorts. Trust Jayne to quantify that in the amount of weaponry he carries around.
“What?”
Mal just shakes his head. “Nothing.”
His fingers are restless on Jayne’s skin, and he could do this all night, absorbing his presence, his essence, through touch.
“Can’t figure it out,” he says after a moment.
Jayne turns on his back, his hands on the pillow, almost joined above his head. He looks openly at him, the frown on his face betraying genuine curiosity. “What?”
Mal shrugs. “You, mostly,” his fingers close around Jayne’s neck, not squeezing, just resting there. “This.”
“Stopped a while back,” Jayne admits with an aborted shrug. “Was givin’ me headaches.”
“Thinkin’ makes your head hurt,” Mal snorts. “Now, why do I believe that?”
“Ain’t no need of big thinkin’,” Jayne replies, then softly he continues, “jus’… suppose you trust me, too. A lil’.”
It sounds more like he’s asking. Mal shakes his head. “Don’t know,” he says. “Don’t suppose.”
Not yet, he wishes he could add.
He’s never trusted a lot, people or things, in his life. He trusts Zoë, and he doesn’t know if there’s enough trust left for somebody else. Not Jayne.
“What’re you gonna do, then?” Jayne asks. “We’re naked, but we ain’t ruttin’, we got wine but we ain’t drinkin’. You got me here, but you ain’t trustin’ me,” he keeps talking and Mal wishes he would get to the gorram point already. “You’re jus’ thinkin’. What good that do, now? Everything’s done, and we’re alone here. No more thinkin’.”
“Don’t seem like a smart thing to do.”
Jayne’s right hand closes on his thigh. “Sure feels right, though.”