Shall We Dance...
Title - Interference Pt 2 - Shall we dance? Part One Here
Type - Somewhat angsty fluff
Rating - PG13 - Possibility of sexual activity, some mild cussing.
Pairing - River/Jayne
Spoilers - Slight, indirect.
Disclaimer - Not mine, didn't get paid, please don't sue.
Warning's - Mild slash themes female/female
Huge, groveling thanks to wildchildfbnbg for betaing. Any remaining stylistic, grammar or spelling stuff ups are mine all mine.
Anna smiled down at River, her hand outstretched, her eyes twinkling with merriment. River’s mind and eyes skittered away around the room, unable to decide or deal with what that simple outstretched hand could mean.
Kaylee was watching her now like a little girl who’d lost her dolly, tear tracks on her face, her hand white knuckled, fisted in the shoulder of Simon’s shirt.
Simon’s arms were tightly folded, watching her with furious concentration. River could feel his thoughts tumbling, both hopeful and shocked and curious?
Mal’s hand was tightening on her shoulder. She could see Anna through his eyes, could feel him assessing her as a threat to his family. Then she felt that fade, pushed aside by a pitch-black mirthless ‘make him pay’ humour first oozing then gushing into his mind.
Zoë was focused absolutely on Jayne, hand still at the mare’s leg pistol on her hip, no thought as such that wasn’t invested in the bodily preparation for shooting if she deemed it necessary.
For a moment River’s mind split and scattered like a shadow of her worst pre-Miranda days. She looked again at the hand in front of her, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I…” She paused turning her eyes uncertainly to Jayne, the hot spikes of his fury and humiliation jabbing at her like Alliance needles.
His mortification focused her, her mind re-assembled itself and set hard. The big ox’s pride was smarting; he didn’t like that Anna had chosen her over him. As River’s mind coalesced, she found that for the first time since the beginning of the argument she could read Jayne with clarity, not just his emotion but also his intentions. At that moment River was overwhelmed by sickness. She was so sick of being the grown up when her man was old enough to be her father. She plastered a bright, brittle smile to her face and laid her hand in Anna’s.
River could feel Mal’s evil smile, even though she couldn’t see it. His hand disappeared from her shoulder. “That’s right little ‘Tross, dance with the nice lady.”
There was a small dance floor in front of the stage at the other side of the bar. Anna led her gently there.
The woman put her hand under River’s chin and delicately lifted her face to hers. “Just a dance, beautiful girl, let’s show your huan dan man what he could be losing,” she whispered.
A knot of tension left River and she found a smile as she saw herself through Anna’s eyes, stuck in the crowd of worshipers that morning, on their way to the bar. River saw her own face turn to hiss furiously at Jayne, his face turned away from her. She saw the yank of his arm from under her hand and her own hurt expression. River saw through another’s eyes the long white silky line of her legs under her skirt, the delicate slenderness of her waist flaring into her back under the curtain of thick, wavy hair.
Jayne couldn’t see straight, he was simply not capable at that point because the blood was thrumming in his eyeballs. Dimly he perceived the bitch’s arm encircle the waist of his girl. He saw her other hand come to rest on his baby’s neck and stroke it a little in a way that only his hands should do.
He could feel the hot crawl of Mal’s eyes upon him, feel Mal’s itch to do him violence but he didn’t care.
The track on the jukebox changed to something with a faster, lighter beat.
Anna grinned hugely and dropped her hands to River’s hips, snapping River to her body, meshing their hips together. River read the steps of the dance that Anna wanted but didn’t expect to get in Anna’s head. Without any guidance she leaned back to the left and curved her body round and up, her arms over her head. She felt Anna appreciate the lift of her breasts with her eyes and the smooth curve of her belly with a light stroke of her fingers.
Jayne’s eyes burned into River through slitted lids. She could feel his possessiveness expanding and overtaking him, mixing with his anger and humiliation and something else… It was misery. Big, tough Jayne Cobb was miserable because her body was warm against another not his; he saw her skipping away from him to the steps of dance.
Anna’s hand planted firmly in her back to pull her closer, exhilarated just from the dance, from finding someone who could dance along with her.
River turned so that her back nestled wantonly squirming into her dance partner’s front, raising her arm to rest loosely and trustfully around Anna’s neck.
A hand not Jayne’ slid light fingered from River’s elbow, caressing her side, just barely grazing the side of her breast to take her hand waiting, resting at her waist. Anna spun River out and back, out and back, snapping River to her body almost violently, moulding River’s form to hers with a wiggle and a squeeze.
River spun again and Anna raised her hand so that River spun beneath it, spinning and spinning until her skirts flared to reveal the tiny shorts she always wore underneath her dresses and a petite 22 strapped to her thigh.
As she whirled, she saw flashes of faces and expressions.
Mal grinning mirthlessly, his eyes on Jayne, arms folded.
Simon, his mouth agape, his arm tight around Kaylee, her tears dry now, enjoying the dance despite herself.
Zoë still absolutely focused on Jayne.
Anna’s eyes on her legs, imagining what they could do and where they could go, excited by the gun, black against the smooth cream of her skin.
And Jayne, in her head she can hear the hiss of his breath like leaking steam from between his teeth, feel the tension of his body screaming in his mind.
River finally came to rest on her dance partner’s chest, her leg naturally lifting to curve ‘round Anna’s hip. Anna’s hand caressed her thigh and then griped high on her thigh as they undulated together in a parody of lovemaking, but the lightness had gone, there was serious intention in the stroking, griping fingers, an exercise of will to prevent those fingers from wandering to more intimate places. Anna’s blazing blue eyes lost themselves in River’s brown. Anna’s mind was more intent, more caressing, more amazed, more wanting than when she held her hand out to River at the beginning of their dance. It was a joke then, but the joke was burning away.
Anna’s scorching mind was looking through River’s clothes, the fingers of her mind were in places used to Jayne’s touch, and her mouth was in places used to Jayne’s lips. It tugged at River with a delicious warmth in the belly, a flush of the skin, a tightness and a readiness that wasn’t hers.
MINE! The bellow came from every inch of Jayne’s skin, from every twist of his sinew, from every muscle that ever took her weight or held her close. It howled through his head and hers and for a moment River didn’t know who she was and whose eyes she was seeing with.
Anna made a noise like a kicked chicken that would have been comical in another place and another time. River turned and saw that Jayne had thrown his whiskey bottle at the mirror behind the bar. He stood frozen, eyes fixed and glaring like blades into Anna’s flesh.
For a moment the room and the faces of River’s family were reflected, perverted in the shards of the mirror, flashing her back to some of her worst drug-induced nightmares before they plummeted, smashing to the floor. The noise broke the spell of stillness.
The barman erupted from the back premises and started to gibber at the damage.
“Cobb, you stand down!” yelled Mal.
“Screw you!” bellowed Jayne.
“SHIT!” Anna saw a man big enough and mad enough to tear her to pieces closing in on her and stepped back, taking a probably futile defensive stance.
River, as always fast on the draw, had her twenty-two out from her thigh holster and levelled at Jayne before he had closed half the distance between the bar and the dance floor. Jayne halted in his tracks, baffled and furious, looking ridiculous being held in place by the tiny girl and her tiny gun.
There was the cock of another firearm, River could see, and Jayne knew without looking that Zoë has his back covered. If Mal might pause and re-think, however mad he was, because (though he would deny it with his last breath) it was Jayne, they knew that Zoë would shoot him if she thought it necessary, without a thought.
So, Jayne stood, his face furious, his eyes losing interest in Anna and boring into HIS girl, seeing the heat coming off her that was nothing to do with him. He wanted to howl.
“Stand down, Zoë.” River’s voice was calm and quiet.
Zoë looked across at Mal who was in the process of placating the barman with a handful of credits and got a deeply reluctant nod. She holstered her pistol, but her hand stayed on the butt.
“I don’t know if this is a melodrama or a farce.” Spat Simon, standing up, “Perhaps we can find a travelling freak show to take him in. I’m sure the people around here would find him hugely entertaining.”
“Simon, don’t, ain’t this horrible enough?” snapped Kaylee.
“Yes, Simon, shut up or I will make you.” River eyes him levelly.
“You are possessed, River. I’m beginning to think what you need is an exorcism, not medication.”
River regarded Simon through narrowed eyes, “For once, Simon, you may be right, but here is the conundrum - I don’t want to.”
“Want to what?”
“Be exorcised. I like the demon that possesses me, I love it.” She sees Jayne sag, feels his dizzy relief. She knows that he didn’t fully comprehend her meaning, but that is unimportant right now.
“I don’t understand you,” said Simon, deeply, desperately frustrated.
“Reckon’ you should stop trying Doc. Maybe she ain’t for you to understand,” suggested Zoë evenly.
“You are taking her side in this insanity?” barked Simon.
Zoë stared levelly at him.
“I don’t understand you either,” muttered Simon, defeated.
“Can’t say I do if it comes to that,” observed Mal, looking at Zoë thoughtfully.
“Guess if they’re happy…” faltered Kaylee.
River can see Simon thinking of every bruise he has seen on his sister’s skin, and some he’d seen on Jayne’s, along with the bite marks and the scratches. The occasional grazes and nips he gets from Kaylee speak to him of passion, while River and Jayne’s just speak to him of violence. He thinks of watching them spar in the cargo bay and later finding Jayne in the infirmary, making a mess trying to splint his own broken finger. He thinks of them yelling at each other, nose to nose. This morning’s fight was not the first and is unlikely to be the last. They make love look like war to him and he finds it hateful.
“Simon, the wolf must dwell with the wolf, a lamb would merely be ingested.” River sees Simon trying to absorb that. “You would have me lie down with a young man, or woman,” River nods towards Anna, “with no violence in them, all pretty and soft, how would you feel when you found me with fleece between my teeth?” Simon shakes his head at her, screwing his eyes shut, trying to push those images away.
“Hey!” said Anna, slightly affronted, “I’m not really much of a lamb you know, I like women with a bit of bite to them.”
“Couldn’t deal with the big bad wolf,” River grinned at her toothily.
“There ain’t anybody dealin’ with her lessen it’s me,” stated Jayne, arms folded, glowering at Anna.
Anna didn’t look convinced. “If you say so. Not that I want to break up this romantic interlude, but with your man charging at me like that and the couple of beers I put away earlier, I really need to pee.”
A bubble of laughter filled River’s head. It’s all so ridiculous. She sees Zoë, leaning back against the wall now, hand off her gun, a tiny twitch of her lips the only sign of the smile that’s trying to break free onto her face. River finds that interesting but files it away for later study so that she can concentrate on Jayne.
“Jayne? Have I your attention?”
Jayne hasn’t moved other than to fold his arms. It isn’t visible to anyone but his muscles are trembling and he feels sick, adrenalin gone sour on him. He looks at his girl, he can see the laughter in her head through her eyes, and he knows with blinding clarity that he is the luckiest son of bitch alive. He’s made an ass of himself but he doesn’t care because his girl said she loved him, right in front of everyone. Everything else is just details, including the fight and its cause and the dance and the twenty-two pointed at his head. He nods.
“For the benefit of everyone else who will otherwise question us endlessly and yet again ask me to constantly justify my choices, you would not have had sex with Anna, you did not intend to have sex with Anna, and you thought that I would know this. “
“Ai ya!” Another wave of panicked adrenalin coursed through Jayne, “Ya mean you really thought I was gonna go off with that girl? Shit, baby girl, ya know I ain’t gonna do that!”
“I was frightened, you, you ben wu we yuan!” River’s voice wobbled and broke a little. “I was too distressed to read you correctly; it was only when Anna expressed a preference for me that my head cleared enough to read your intentions.”
“You were tryin’ ta make the little Witch jealous?” Mal glowered at him, “That’s dumb even for you, Jayne. Y’all came too damn close ta getting’ shot for it.”
Jayne shrugged, but his eyes were on River and they were apologizing. She could read him clearly, it wasn’t getting shot that was bothering him, it was how close he had come to screwing up with her that mattered.
River took a deep breath to steady herself. “You knew I would recognize her as a woman who would be physically attractive to you and you wanted to make me aware that there were other women who might give you what I would not.”
Jayne shrugged again, “Guess so.” His face and stance were all big tough man but his eyes were still apologizing.
“Give him what, River, what did he ask you to do?” squeaked Simon in a lather of horror.
“None of your business, Simon!” snapped River, rolling her eyes.
“Damn right, ain’t anybody’s business but ours,” growled Jayne.
Kaylee’s eyes are shining now; River can hear her guessing what Jayne asked for in her head and weaving romantic stories around it.
“I sure as hell don’t wanna know, probably worse than what I’m imaginin’,” muttered Mal. River took a peek at what Mal imagined and winces. She pushed that away and focused again on Jayne.
“I am still mad at you, Jayne.”
“Reckon that’s gonna happen a lot.” Jayne shrugged.
“What will not happen a lot is your trying to make me jealous with easy pickups. No offence, Anna, he didn’t understand what a remarkable person you are.”
“Oh none taken; actually, thanks, I think. I still need to pee.” Anna grimaces at Kaylee whose tension is relieving itself in a fit of the giggles. Her eyes wander away from the giggling girl hanging off the arm of her pretty fella and for the first time she spots Zoë.
Zoë returned Anna’s intent assessing look impassively.
“Of course, please do what you need to,” said River graciously.
“Huh,” Anna dragged her attention away from Zoë, “Oh yeah, excuse me a sec.” Anna made a beeline for the bathrooms with some scraped together dignity. River holstered her pistol and walked over to Jayne who eyed her with an expression somewhere between nervous and hopeful. River grabbed his ear painfully and pulled his face down level with hers. “You will pay, Jayne Cobb.”
“Ow! Gorram it, woman, that’s still attached! Ain’t I suffered enough seein’ you rubbin’ yerself all over that little vixen?”
“I could have grabbed you in worse places, have done it before and can do it again, and she is not a vixen, she heard us arguing in the crowd and felt sorry for me. And no, you have not paid enough.”
“Gorram it!”
River looks over Jayne’s shoulder at the rest of the crew, “Have you all had an enjoyable drink?”
“Just dandy little witch, floor show was interestin’ too. Reckon we all ourghta get back to the ship, that’s if y’all sorted out your domestic issues.” Mal said sourly, considerably lighter in the pocket from this adventure.
“Not quite, may Jayne and I join you in an hour or two?”
“Sure, why not, don’t all need to be there for Inara to dock, but if you two ever get hitched I ain’t buyin’ y’all a present. An’ we’re gonna talk about how your man’s gonna pay me back for the mirror when y’all get back.”
“Acceptable.”
“River!”
“Just go, Simon. You don’t understand us, I accept it, and I wish you would do the same but I will love you anyway.”
Kaylee grabbed his arm and pulled him along behind her, giving River an understanding smile, her head full of romantic scenarios.
Zoë just nodded, but River stopped her before she left. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For never asking me to explain or to justify what I’m doing with Jayne.” Zoë shrugged, half a smile twitching the corner of her mouth, her eyes in the past.
“Mal whined nearly as much as Simon, but I reckon your fella needs an even firmer hand than mine.”
“Wash was one in a million,” said River, smiling
“Bounced back like a rubber ball never mind how many times I slapped him down.” She moved back towards the door.
“Zoë, wait outside, there’s a girl coming out of the bathroom who could do with a drink and she won’t impose on you. “
Zoë’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ll trust you girl.”
“Always can, my word on it.”
Zoë disappeared through the door, Jayne who had only been following this with half an ear his focus being firmly on River frowned. “You settin’ Zoë up on a sly date? Din’t know she went that way.”
“She has never done so, not the point, Anna won’t mind if it’s just a drink and Zoë will talk to someone who makes her laugh a little like Wash did and will feel better for a while.” River grinned at Jayne, “And Anna isn’t sly.”
“No, not sly, tricky.” Said Anna, appearing from the bathrooms, she grinned at Jayne.
“Ya mean you like fellas too? I knew ya was givin’ me the happy eye.” Jayne announced triumphantly.
“I was laying it on a bit thicker than usual, but yes, you got me. That’s a potent smile you’ve got there.” Anna’s eyes went slightly out of focus. “If the circumstance had been different and there hadn’t been the most beautiful and angry girl I’d ever seen in the room, well, I’d have had you on your back before you could finish your drink.”
“His cranium is of an adequate size already,” pointed out River, looking with disapproval at Jayne’s self-satisfied expression.
“Was that wolf stuff all metaphorical or are you really a biter?” inquired Anna, addressing River.
“Yes.”
“Yum.” She sighed, “Oh well, never mind.” She patted River absently on the shoulder. “I’m off, there’s a beer with my name on it somewhere.”
“Waiting outside you will find Zoë Washburn; she could also do with a beer.”
“She the tall one?” asked Anna, eyes intent.
“Yes.”
Anna looked at Jayne, her eyes alight “Have you noticed her legs? Does she bite?”
“Can’t tell ya about the biting but there ain’t a straight man breathin’ not gonna notice Zoë’s legs.” He thought for a moment, “Guess there’s a fair number of women gonna notice them too.” River smacked him.
“Hey!”
“I know, eyes in your head, dick in your pants, I have heard it before.” River turned to address Anna. “Zoë is not looking for sex. But she would appreciate a drink with someone who ‘bounces back like a rubber ball.’ You will make her laugh.”
“If you say so, it’s been a blast.” Anna picked up her bag and disappeared through the door with a merry wave. As the door slowly drifted shut, they heard Anna’s cheerful voice, “Zoë, is it? There’s a bar down here where this fella juggles the most amazing things,” there was a pause and the murmur of Zoë’s voice, “Geese? No, I don’t think so but we can ask, and there’s a stripper, nice fella, does this thing with a ping pong ball…”
River smiled at the closing door, until her man’s shifting feet attracted her attention. She dragged him to the bar and sat him down. River took Jayne’s head between her hands and kissed him gently. For a moment he hesitated, not sure if he was forgiven enough to touch her, but his body took over and his hands came up and pulled her in hard and then harder, wedging her in the gap between his legs, pouring every ounce of his relief through his mouth into hers.
River felt the heat in him quicken and felt her own and it was her own, the right hands, the right mouth, the right insistent press of skin and muscle. If they didn’t always get the minutiae right the foundations were solid. River and Jayne knew what was important, even if everyone else thought they were wrong.
Jayne freed his lips reluctantly, the barman was hovering about disapprovingly with a dustpan and brush in his hand and there had been enough fussing for one day. “So what now baby girl, guess I can live without…” River silenced him with one hand.
“You do not have to live without, only wait a little.” She smiled into his eyes, “I want what you want but I want to work on being a girl first, I have to learn to control myself more.”
Jayne cosied her a little further into his lap, “Why din’t you say that?”
“You scared me. I was happily in anticipation of your penetration and an almost immediate orgasm and you choose that moment to tell me you want to have a baby and that you want to start trying immediately. I said no more sharply than I intended.” She gave him a dirty look, “And you gave me no opportunity to explain.”
“You’d just smacked me round the head, girl! I was too gorram mad for explain’ stuff.” River sighed internally. Jayne had become quite adept at apologizing with his eyes, but getting him to say sorry out loud would be the work of a lifetime.
Jayne stroked her hips, looking down at her belly, “Kinda came to me sudden. Ain’t many men in my line of work get ta be much older than me, din’t wanna miss the chance to see ya all fat n’ filled up with me. Idea makes me feel all kinds of manly, horny too.” He grinned at her.
River just looked at him, resigned. He was a self-absorbed Ass, but he was her self-absorbed Ass.
“If forty is the average lifespan for a Mercenary then logic suggests that some must live to a venerable age to balance those who die very young through inexperience or ineptitude, plus you have me at your back. You can wait.”
“Ok, I got that, I guess. Anyway, we getting’ back to the ship cos I din’t get ta finish sexin’ ya up this mornin’ an’ ma John Thomas ain’t happy about it.” He pressed his body into hers to illustrate the point.
“First you must pay.”
“Aw, pi hau! What’s it gotta be, flowers n’ candy n’ all that go-see?”
“Too easy, firstly I wish to ensure that you are aware of the full significance of today’s happenings.”
“Huh?”
“I danced with a woman.”
“So?” River knows that Jayne doesn’t dance, unless he’s really drunk (he likes to watch her dance, and he’d cheerfully watch a stripper but that’s different); he doesn’t see the point. If dancing is foreplay clothed and standing up he figures he’d be better off not bruising the woman’s feet and getting straight to the naked lying down, or standing up, or whatever position came to mind. As far as he was concerned it was all good.
“I writhed in her arms, I squirmed in her embrace, her hands were on my body and you watched.”
Jayne frowned, then suddenly his face got intent and lustful, then it fell.
“Gorram it, dun had my baby girl dirty dancin’ with another woman an’ I was too mad to appreciate it.” He thought for a moment, “Ain’t no chance that…”
“No, I appreciate that it is a common male fantasy but in reality I have no desire to rub my body against anyone other than you and furthermore I have no real desire to engage in any kind of threesome. I would be likely to act violently if I found you touching or being touched in a sexual manner by another woman, or another man for that matter.”
Jayne grinned ferally; he loved it when his girl got possessive. River continued, “However, along with a high proportion of other men I accept that the idea will enter your head from time to time.”
Jayne nodded, “That’s fair.”
“It is only appropriate, since I at times fantasise about a sexual encounter with two men.”
“Ya do! Hey! That’s ma dirty girl.” A horrified expression crossed his face, “Mal ain’t the second fella is he?”
“No, regardless of the identity of the second man I think it might be worth your considering that such a scenario would entail my being touched and penetrated by another man.” River prayed that she had put enough conviction into that ‘no’, things were complicated enough as they were. It wasn’t like she thought about it a lot.
Jayne got a thoughtful look on his face. His hands tightened on her waist.
“Ain’t gonna happen, n’ that’s flat. You wanna think about it some times, well I can get with that, but I ain’t havin’ any other fella touching you.”
River grinned and squirmed against him, “I will shortly ask you a question. I wish to make it clear that a negative answer would not be wise. Your ear and other appendages may be attached but that situation could change.”
Jayne groaned, partly at the shift of her body against his nether regions, partly from a presentiment of his own suffering, “Aw crap, baby, what ya gonna make me do?”
River wiggled away from him and went to the jukebox. She picked a song with a slow, romantic, easy rhythm and she held out an inviting hand to him.
“Want to dance, my beautiful man?”
Epilogue
Zoë was very late getting back to the ship, she had a ping pong ball in her pocket and she was smiling.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ben - Stupid
wu we yuan - Ape
Author’s notes
I’m a sucker for a happy ending.
I wanted there to be a little mystery at the end of this tale, so you can all make your own minds up about what Zoë got up to with Anna, I think they just went for a drink, but then I have a very pure mind.
Using the word ‘tricky’ as slang for someone who is bi-sexual is my idea, it just seemed appropriate since the firefly verse slang for a homosexual was sly. It is not meant to be derogatory, just following the verse’s lead.
This is the second full version of this that I wrote, the first had Jayne chasing Anna round and round the bar and a stripper getting a shaving cut in a very awkward place, it all got a bit keystone cops meets Emmanuelle so I gave it up.
As I said there is a whole bunch of ways this second part could have gone, I’m not in love with what I’ve written, so if anyone else wants to play, you’re more than welcome.
And finally this owes a respectful nod to currikitten and simpleserenity whose work helped me get a better grip on the darker side of River and Jayne’s relationship, I’m not suggesting that this fluff is in any way on a par with anything that they’ve written, but it helped me feel a little less fluffy bunny when writing River and Jayne.
References:
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I…” Is taken from the poem ‘The road not taken’ by Robert Frost
River’s comment’s about wolves and lambs is based on ‘And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the kid, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.’ (NASB) Isaiah 11:6
This passage is commonly miss-quoted as “And the lion shall lie down with the lamb.” In my first draft River talks about lions and lambs which I thought sounded better, but I can’t imagine River miss-quoting. Hey ho.