Like Blood in the Rayne Chapter 2
Title: Like Blood in the Rayne
Author: elsibet34
Fandom: Firefly
Pairings: Jayne/River with hints at Mal/Inara and Simon/Kaylee
Rating: R
Disclaimers: Joss is the Master of the Firefly ‘Verse. Subspecies is the product of Charles Band’s beautiful mind. It’s all theirs.
Summary: Serenity takes on more than its’ crew bargained for when they transport an ancient artifact.
Notes: This takes place after the BDM and all the Subspecies films. Everything is fair play. Also, I reserve the right to change pov at scene changes. I like to. :P
Chapter 2 - It Calls to Me
“Nice to see you’re here on time but where’s my cargo?" Mal asked the little man who walked into Serenity’s cargo hold through the small exterior door. After all, even though the job sounded like a sweet deal, Badger had proved himself to be something less than fully trustworthy on notable occasions in the past. Mal had taken the precautions he felt were necessary when Badger wanted to simply deliver the crate to the ship rather than meet on the usual neutral ground.
“Why, Captain Reynolds, you could make a man feel unwelcome, talk like that.” Badger eyed the guns aimed steadily in his direction by both Jayne and Zoe. “One of my boys will be along with it in just a minute. Don’t you worry your head about it none, right? I just wanted to come along ahead and make sure everything was all friendly like.”
Okay, Mal thought, like that wasn’t at all suspicious. He stared at the middleman with intense scrutiny for a moment. “You came here alone as what? A show of good faith?”
Badger laughed nervously. “I guess you caught me.” He looked to the firearms again. “I might.” He stressed the word ‘might’ and paused. “Well, I just might have been hoping to see that new pilot of yours around here somewhere.”
If that didn’t beat all, the guy meant it, Mal thought. And, did Jayne just growl? Mal looked at his big gun but saw no sign anything was amiss before he turned back to Badger. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck there. Girl’s a pilot, not muscle. She’s probably up on the bridge where...”
Mal stopped to follow the look Badger was sending toward the steps. “Then again, she does have this habit of not doing what she’s supposed to be doing.” Mal rubbed the back of his neck, wondering where he could find a crew that would just do what he told them to do for once.
Once again River put on the same accent and mannerisms Badger sported. By the fact the man seemed to like her so much, either even he couldn’t tell the difference or he found her mimicry infinitely amusing. She smiled at him. “Oh, are you here then? Brought us a happy little trinket to sell?”
No doubt about it anymore. That time Mal knew for a fact he’d heard a growl come from Jayne. The mercenary moved sideways to the base of the steps and spoke to River without even looking at her. “Shouldn’t you oughta be preparing for our departure or something along those lines, little girl?”
A slow, crooked smile spread across her face, aimed at Jayne’s tense shoulders. When she met Mal’s eyes, he thought he saw a twinkle in the depths of hers. Naw, he had to be imagining things. She spoke to the captain instead of answering Jayne directly. “I’ll be up front, yeah? Call me when we’re ready to lift.” She gave a friendly little wave to Badger and moved dreamily back up the stairs and away toward the bridge.
“Now, hold up a minute…” Badger began but came up short when Jayne stepped close enough that Vera’s barrel was mere inches from his chest. Badger attempted to push the big threat aside lightly with one finger while saying, “See? This is not exactly the kind of friendly I was hoping for.”
“I ain’t exactly a friendly kinda guy.” Jayne quipped back.
“I hate to bother you boys when you’re having such fun.” Zoe said. “But this wouldn’t happen to be what we’re waiting on, would it?”
The three men looked toward the doorway where a fourth man stood, holding a metal box that was roughly a foot and a half cubed and looking at Zoe warily. “That it is.” Badger stated the obvious answer.
Mal eyed the little box. “That’s all we’re moving? Really? What the blazes can be worth so much if it fits in such a tiny little container?”
Badger’s lackey set the carrier on the floor and backed away from it quickly, looking more than a little bit spooked by the thing. Mal didn’t like it one bit. There was a logo screen printed on one side so he moved closer to get a better look. “Looks like it says Clafferty’s. Ain’t that that fancy place, auctions off go se from Earth That Was? Jump up, Badger, just what the hell am I moving here?”
Badger fiddled with his white boutonniere, pointedly not looking at Mal anywhere near the eyes. “The woman what bought the damned thing called it object d’art. I’d call it nothing but an ugly little sculpture. Nothing important about it, really.”
“Then why the high price tag if the thing’s so gorram ugly?” Jayne asked.
Mal was really starting to think there was something going on here that Badger wasn’t telling him, not that it’d make much of a change from their usual manner of business if, indeed, that turned out to be the case.
“Suppose it’d be just ‘cause the thing’s so bloomin’ old.” He made a conspiring little grin in the direction of the item in question and went on. “She told me the little piece of go se is over a thousand years old.” Surprised looks popped up on three faces. “Can you imagine? Me, I’m thinking she’s had a pretty good con pulled on her but who am I to point it out?”
Badger and his man both made for the door to leave. “Coordinates for the drop are in the packing paperwork in that sleeve on top the box ‘long with the information to wave Miss Morgan and let her know when you’re about to arrive.” He tipped his hat and wiggled his brows. “And tell the pretty little bird she’s more’n welcome to stop by and see me next time you lot are planet-side.”
Mal stared at Jayne when he slammed the door harder than was needed and smacked it with one hand after it was shut. “Jayne, there something going on here I oughta maybe know about? ‘Cause if there is, I’m thinking now would be a good time to let me in on it.”
“Man just rubbed me the wrong way today, is all.” He shoved the crate into the compartment Zoe opened for him, grabbed his guns again, and left the bay without another word, leaving Mal and Zoe to share a significant look.
“Sir, that was all manner of strange behavior, even for Jayne.”
“You ain’t wrong.”
“Think we should keep an eye on him in case he might be up to something?”
“Honestly, I thought we’d finally got past all that, Zoe.” He really had thought as much. Jayne had shown more loyalty to the ship and her crew than Mal would have found possible of him since the last time they were on Ariel. Oh. It dawned on him. Funny, who would ever have thought Jayne Cobb could be bothered to feel guilty about something? Mal realized his first mate still waited patiently for instructions.
“I don’t reckon we got any real need to worry but just the same I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
****************************************
****************************
River shut down the bridge just before midnight, ship’s time. Any other night in the last month or so and she’d have happily stayed there for another two or three hours but something had been tickling at her brain since she’d lifted Serenity away from the dock on Persephone.
Since Miranda, the voices she had been hearing in her head had almost entirely faded away. Granted, she could still hear the people who were actually in close proximity but the unbearable press of a chorus of the dead had been lifted away. The last few weeks had been so peaceful. That night, though, she heard whispers, distant sounding and indistinct, but still there and still voices, nonetheless.
Her voice boomed deeper than normal. “You need to get some sleep.” She made the Tyrannosaurus say to her, holding it up near her face and bobbing it up and down like a doctor nodding at his patient. “Logically speaking one of the primary symptoms to manifest in periods of sleep deprivation is the commencement of hallucinations.”
She nodded back at the small plastic dinosaur and returned him to his place on the instrument panel. “Yes, I know. I should try to get some rest.”
She made her way toward her room slowly, the whispers becoming steadily louder with every step she placed against the floor. When she reached the turn toward the passenger bunks, her feet did not take it. Instead, she kept working her way toward the cargo bay, as if someone called her there.
She simply had to see what drew her. Once inside the cargo bay, the whispers had become voices, a mass of confusion barreling at her in dozens of languages at once. She knelt outside the hidden compartment. Her fingers lifted, seemingly of their own accord, until just their tips lay slightly pressed against the door.
One of the voices began to stand out from the others, then. It spoke not in any language she recognized, let alone understood, but she somehow could feel that it was calling for help. In a trance, she pulled the cover from the compartment and stretched a hand inside.
When she touched the box, the voices became screams.
*************************************************************
Jayne bolted suddenly awake to the sound of River’s terrified screaming. His heart inexplicably lodging somewhere in his throat, he didn’t even pause to put on a shirt or shoes. He had a gun in each hand and was in the hallway above the crew bunks in a matter of seconds, nearly colliding with a similarly armed and suited Malcolm Reynolds in the process.
Zoe arrived in the hall right after the two men and the three of them hurried down to the bay as a unit, finding chaos greeting them when they arrived.
The crate they were being paid to transport had been pulled out to the middle of the floor where River kicked at it with her feet. Her body was racked with loud sobbing and she pounded her fists against her temples, Kaylee and Inara attempting futilely to keep her from hurting herself.
“Gei ai de ji du, somebody restrain her!” Simon yelled as he ran off, presumably to fetch a sedative for his sister.
Jayne dropped his guns to the floor and was at her side immediately, grabbing hold of both her arms and moving her fists away from her head. “What the ruttin’ hell happened here?”
Kaylee answered him through her tears. “We don’t know. She was just beating on it when we got here. Yelling something about not letting it out. It don’t make any sense. She was doing so much better.”
River had stopped sobbing and was winding her arms around Jayne, almost climbing into his lap where he was kneeled on the floor. She shook her head. “No. Not crazy.” She pleaded at Jayne with her big tear reddened eyes. “Please, don’t you see? Pandora didn’t know what was in the box either but it was still just as bad when she opened it. Help me.”
He didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant by Pandora but she seemed so desperate. He looked to Mal, a hunch forming in his mind. “I’m thinking she’s got a bad feeling about that box. You?”
Simon came running back in with a syringe and Jayne held River still for him. As she started to quiet down, Mal replied, “Yeah, seems to be. Maybe we oughta be asking the buyer some questions.”
The captain gave Jayne an odd look when he scooped River up and started to carry her. Jayne pointedly ignored him until he spoke. “If you’re sure you don’t mind putting her in her room, I think we should all meet up on the bridge afterward and give this Michelle Morgan a call.”
“Don’t mind at all.” Jayne carried River carefully away, completely forgetting the guns he left on the ground.
TBC...
Chinese Translations:
Gei ai de ji du = For the love of Jesus
Author: elsibet34
Fandom: Firefly
Pairings: Jayne/River with hints at Mal/Inara and Simon/Kaylee
Rating: R
Disclaimers: Joss is the Master of the Firefly ‘Verse. Subspecies is the product of Charles Band’s beautiful mind. It’s all theirs.
Summary: Serenity takes on more than its’ crew bargained for when they transport an ancient artifact.
Notes: This takes place after the BDM and all the Subspecies films. Everything is fair play. Also, I reserve the right to change pov at scene changes. I like to. :P
Chapter 2 - It Calls to Me
“Nice to see you’re here on time but where’s my cargo?" Mal asked the little man who walked into Serenity’s cargo hold through the small exterior door. After all, even though the job sounded like a sweet deal, Badger had proved himself to be something less than fully trustworthy on notable occasions in the past. Mal had taken the precautions he felt were necessary when Badger wanted to simply deliver the crate to the ship rather than meet on the usual neutral ground.
“Why, Captain Reynolds, you could make a man feel unwelcome, talk like that.” Badger eyed the guns aimed steadily in his direction by both Jayne and Zoe. “One of my boys will be along with it in just a minute. Don’t you worry your head about it none, right? I just wanted to come along ahead and make sure everything was all friendly like.”
Okay, Mal thought, like that wasn’t at all suspicious. He stared at the middleman with intense scrutiny for a moment. “You came here alone as what? A show of good faith?”
Badger laughed nervously. “I guess you caught me.” He looked to the firearms again. “I might.” He stressed the word ‘might’ and paused. “Well, I just might have been hoping to see that new pilot of yours around here somewhere.”
If that didn’t beat all, the guy meant it, Mal thought. And, did Jayne just growl? Mal looked at his big gun but saw no sign anything was amiss before he turned back to Badger. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck there. Girl’s a pilot, not muscle. She’s probably up on the bridge where...”
Mal stopped to follow the look Badger was sending toward the steps. “Then again, she does have this habit of not doing what she’s supposed to be doing.” Mal rubbed the back of his neck, wondering where he could find a crew that would just do what he told them to do for once.
Once again River put on the same accent and mannerisms Badger sported. By the fact the man seemed to like her so much, either even he couldn’t tell the difference or he found her mimicry infinitely amusing. She smiled at him. “Oh, are you here then? Brought us a happy little trinket to sell?”
No doubt about it anymore. That time Mal knew for a fact he’d heard a growl come from Jayne. The mercenary moved sideways to the base of the steps and spoke to River without even looking at her. “Shouldn’t you oughta be preparing for our departure or something along those lines, little girl?”
A slow, crooked smile spread across her face, aimed at Jayne’s tense shoulders. When she met Mal’s eyes, he thought he saw a twinkle in the depths of hers. Naw, he had to be imagining things. She spoke to the captain instead of answering Jayne directly. “I’ll be up front, yeah? Call me when we’re ready to lift.” She gave a friendly little wave to Badger and moved dreamily back up the stairs and away toward the bridge.
“Now, hold up a minute…” Badger began but came up short when Jayne stepped close enough that Vera’s barrel was mere inches from his chest. Badger attempted to push the big threat aside lightly with one finger while saying, “See? This is not exactly the kind of friendly I was hoping for.”
“I ain’t exactly a friendly kinda guy.” Jayne quipped back.
“I hate to bother you boys when you’re having such fun.” Zoe said. “But this wouldn’t happen to be what we’re waiting on, would it?”
The three men looked toward the doorway where a fourth man stood, holding a metal box that was roughly a foot and a half cubed and looking at Zoe warily. “That it is.” Badger stated the obvious answer.
Mal eyed the little box. “That’s all we’re moving? Really? What the blazes can be worth so much if it fits in such a tiny little container?”
Badger’s lackey set the carrier on the floor and backed away from it quickly, looking more than a little bit spooked by the thing. Mal didn’t like it one bit. There was a logo screen printed on one side so he moved closer to get a better look. “Looks like it says Clafferty’s. Ain’t that that fancy place, auctions off go se from Earth That Was? Jump up, Badger, just what the hell am I moving here?”
Badger fiddled with his white boutonniere, pointedly not looking at Mal anywhere near the eyes. “The woman what bought the damned thing called it object d’art. I’d call it nothing but an ugly little sculpture. Nothing important about it, really.”
“Then why the high price tag if the thing’s so gorram ugly?” Jayne asked.
Mal was really starting to think there was something going on here that Badger wasn’t telling him, not that it’d make much of a change from their usual manner of business if, indeed, that turned out to be the case.
“Suppose it’d be just ‘cause the thing’s so bloomin’ old.” He made a conspiring little grin in the direction of the item in question and went on. “She told me the little piece of go se is over a thousand years old.” Surprised looks popped up on three faces. “Can you imagine? Me, I’m thinking she’s had a pretty good con pulled on her but who am I to point it out?”
Badger and his man both made for the door to leave. “Coordinates for the drop are in the packing paperwork in that sleeve on top the box ‘long with the information to wave Miss Morgan and let her know when you’re about to arrive.” He tipped his hat and wiggled his brows. “And tell the pretty little bird she’s more’n welcome to stop by and see me next time you lot are planet-side.”
Mal stared at Jayne when he slammed the door harder than was needed and smacked it with one hand after it was shut. “Jayne, there something going on here I oughta maybe know about? ‘Cause if there is, I’m thinking now would be a good time to let me in on it.”
“Man just rubbed me the wrong way today, is all.” He shoved the crate into the compartment Zoe opened for him, grabbed his guns again, and left the bay without another word, leaving Mal and Zoe to share a significant look.
“Sir, that was all manner of strange behavior, even for Jayne.”
“You ain’t wrong.”
“Think we should keep an eye on him in case he might be up to something?”
“Honestly, I thought we’d finally got past all that, Zoe.” He really had thought as much. Jayne had shown more loyalty to the ship and her crew than Mal would have found possible of him since the last time they were on Ariel. Oh. It dawned on him. Funny, who would ever have thought Jayne Cobb could be bothered to feel guilty about something? Mal realized his first mate still waited patiently for instructions.
“I don’t reckon we got any real need to worry but just the same I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
****************************************
****************************
River shut down the bridge just before midnight, ship’s time. Any other night in the last month or so and she’d have happily stayed there for another two or three hours but something had been tickling at her brain since she’d lifted Serenity away from the dock on Persephone.
Since Miranda, the voices she had been hearing in her head had almost entirely faded away. Granted, she could still hear the people who were actually in close proximity but the unbearable press of a chorus of the dead had been lifted away. The last few weeks had been so peaceful. That night, though, she heard whispers, distant sounding and indistinct, but still there and still voices, nonetheless.
Her voice boomed deeper than normal. “You need to get some sleep.” She made the Tyrannosaurus say to her, holding it up near her face and bobbing it up and down like a doctor nodding at his patient. “Logically speaking one of the primary symptoms to manifest in periods of sleep deprivation is the commencement of hallucinations.”
She nodded back at the small plastic dinosaur and returned him to his place on the instrument panel. “Yes, I know. I should try to get some rest.”
She made her way toward her room slowly, the whispers becoming steadily louder with every step she placed against the floor. When she reached the turn toward the passenger bunks, her feet did not take it. Instead, she kept working her way toward the cargo bay, as if someone called her there.
She simply had to see what drew her. Once inside the cargo bay, the whispers had become voices, a mass of confusion barreling at her in dozens of languages at once. She knelt outside the hidden compartment. Her fingers lifted, seemingly of their own accord, until just their tips lay slightly pressed against the door.
One of the voices began to stand out from the others, then. It spoke not in any language she recognized, let alone understood, but she somehow could feel that it was calling for help. In a trance, she pulled the cover from the compartment and stretched a hand inside.
When she touched the box, the voices became screams.
*************************************************************
Jayne bolted suddenly awake to the sound of River’s terrified screaming. His heart inexplicably lodging somewhere in his throat, he didn’t even pause to put on a shirt or shoes. He had a gun in each hand and was in the hallway above the crew bunks in a matter of seconds, nearly colliding with a similarly armed and suited Malcolm Reynolds in the process.
Zoe arrived in the hall right after the two men and the three of them hurried down to the bay as a unit, finding chaos greeting them when they arrived.
The crate they were being paid to transport had been pulled out to the middle of the floor where River kicked at it with her feet. Her body was racked with loud sobbing and she pounded her fists against her temples, Kaylee and Inara attempting futilely to keep her from hurting herself.
“Gei ai de ji du, somebody restrain her!” Simon yelled as he ran off, presumably to fetch a sedative for his sister.
Jayne dropped his guns to the floor and was at her side immediately, grabbing hold of both her arms and moving her fists away from her head. “What the ruttin’ hell happened here?”
Kaylee answered him through her tears. “We don’t know. She was just beating on it when we got here. Yelling something about not letting it out. It don’t make any sense. She was doing so much better.”
River had stopped sobbing and was winding her arms around Jayne, almost climbing into his lap where he was kneeled on the floor. She shook her head. “No. Not crazy.” She pleaded at Jayne with her big tear reddened eyes. “Please, don’t you see? Pandora didn’t know what was in the box either but it was still just as bad when she opened it. Help me.”
He didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant by Pandora but she seemed so desperate. He looked to Mal, a hunch forming in his mind. “I’m thinking she’s got a bad feeling about that box. You?”
Simon came running back in with a syringe and Jayne held River still for him. As she started to quiet down, Mal replied, “Yeah, seems to be. Maybe we oughta be asking the buyer some questions.”
The captain gave Jayne an odd look when he scooped River up and started to carry her. Jayne pointedly ignored him until he spoke. “If you’re sure you don’t mind putting her in her room, I think we should all meet up on the bridge afterward and give this Michelle Morgan a call.”
“Don’t mind at all.” Jayne carried River carefully away, completely forgetting the guns he left on the ground.
TBC...
Chinese Translations:
Gei ai de ji du = For the love of Jesus