Big Damn Dog
The tamingthemuse prompt this week was Higgledy-Piggledy. The only two characters I know who could use that phrase without raising an eyebrow are Dru and River. So, I'm back with a bit of my Mal/Jayne piece, which is *still* preslash. I know, I will get to the slash... eventually.
Big Damn Dog, chapter 2/?
Previous chapters: HERE
Spoilers: War Stories and anything before that.
Warnings: D/s
Summary: After Mal makes Jayne back down, their whole relationship is shifting out of control. But one push from River and Inara, and maybe Mal will understand just how much power Jayne is willing to turn over.
Mal leaned back, flinching when his chest burned from the torture Niska had inflicted. It hadn't been a shiny day, that's for sure, but everyone had gotten out alive, and these days, that counted for something.
"So, you came along for the big rescue," Mal commented casually, watching as Jayne shoveled soup into his mouth. Jayne's hand paused half way to his mouth.
"Well, yeah. You got something to say about it?" Jayne was defensive, and Mal remembered what Inara had told him, warning him that Jayne was trying to rely on him for guidance, and that Jayne would turn on him like a rabid dog if he confused Jayne bad enough. 'Course, she didn't say it quite like that, but with Inara, you had to figure out the meaning behind all the pretty words.
"Just surprised, is all."
Jayne snorted and started scooping up more soup. Never say that Jayne Cobb let a little bullet wound keep him from his food. Jayne's ravenous appetite was far less surprising than the fact he'd gone and gotten himself shot trying to save Mal.
"I mean, you aren't exactly known for your heroics," Mal said. He was surprised at the flash of emotion on Jayne's face. But then Jayne just shrugged. In the past, Mal wouldn't have thought twice-he'd be likely to dismiss the expression as a passing case of gas. But now Mal felt a little like he'd kicked a dog. He wasn't normally the sort who did that. No, he was more the sort to kick sleeping bears. And the fact were that he was still a mite bit concerned that Jayne was more bearlike than Inara gave him credit for.
He could still feel hot anger over that stunt Jayne had pulled-trying to turn in the Tams. But he also couldn't get the image out of his mind, of Jayne begging. Not begging for his life or for the mercy of a bullet. Nope, he'd begged for Mal to not tell the others that he'd betrayed them. And even now, when Jayne was buyin' the crew apples and giving up his cut to ransom back Wash and putting his own life on the line for Mal... even now Mal couldn't figure out how he was supposed to deal with Jayne. Who was the real Jayne Cobb--the man who did right by the crew or the man who'd betrayed them?
"I can be heroic," Jayne answered after long silent minutes interrupted only by the clink of the spoon against the bowl.
"I ain't sure that's the right word to describe going after Niska on his own station," Mal pointed out pretty damn honestly. He couldn't say for sure he would have pulled a stunt like that, but he was mighty proud to have a crew stupid enough to try it and good enough to pull it off.
"More like suicidal," Jayne agreed.
"Then why'd you go?" Mal asked.
Jayne frowned at him, giving him a narrow-eyed glare like he might stare down another gunhand waiting for some silent signal to draw weapons and fire.
"Don't rightly appreciate the way you're looking at me," Mal warned him. Jayne's gaze immediately darted off in another direction. And that felt wrong too. It was like Jayne was going out of his way to be vulnerable, either that or he thought Mal wasn't important enough to keep an eye on. Jayne's hands slowly fisted before he pulled them off the table and hid them in his lap. But Jayne stayed real quiet. Too quiet. Mal could read the others easy enough... well, all except for Inara, and who knows what companion-trained thoughts she had bouncing around up there. But Jayne had been a closed book lately. It made Mal real uneasy.
"I asked why you went," Mal repeated. Jayne glanced over before looking down at his lap.
"Weren't like there was a whole lot of choice. Wash was takin' the boat in whether I agreed or not," Jayne pointed out.
Mal wasn't entirely sure he agreed with that logic. Wash might have been ready to fly into this fight, but after he'd been tortured, his thoughts were a mite bit scrambled. It wouldn't have been too hard to convince Zoe that the odds were against them and that she had a duty to keep Inara and Kaylee and the others safe. Hell, Mal hadn't expected the others to come back at all. He figured his slow and painful death would be the price he paid to buy the rest their freedom from Niska's vengeance.
"You still ain't answering. Why did you pick up a gun and come after me?" Mal asked.
This time Jayne looked up at him, but the suspicion and fear still lurked there. It had been lurking ever since Mal had locked Jayne in that airlock and threatened to put him out into the black. The funny thing was that Jayne could probably take him given proper warning. Jayne weren't no slouch in the fighting department. And if'n he wasn't up for a fight, he could just get off at any one of a dozen worlds and people would leave him alone. He was just one more gunhand jumping ship, and that wouldn't raise any flags, not even with the Alliance.
"If I'm going to go and get dead, I'll do it with a gun in my hand," Jayne answered.
Mal studied the man, studied him closer than he generally allowed himself because most menfolk didn't take to being studied. For a second, Jayne stiffened, but then he looked away and let Mal do all the studying he wanted. There wasn't even any more soup left in the bowl, so neither one of them could pretend it was anything other than Mal's interest that kept Jayne in his seat.
"If you'd stayed in your bunk, like Inara, Niska would have felt honor-bound to leave you alone." Mal watched Jayne carefully. Jayne weren't showing no sign of surprise, so Mal figured he already knew that.
A little hand dropped onto Mal's shoulder and he yelled, leaped to his feet, and then yelled again when the movement made his wounds burn like he were getting stabbed all over again. "Dammit, don't do that," Mal snapped. River looked at him, her head tipped to one side and a sad look on her face.
"Following higgledy-piggledy, thoughts out of order," she announced with great seriousness. Mal rolled his eyes at the evidence she wasn't having one of her good days.
"Go away, Moonbrain," Jayne snapped. He was up and out of his seat.
"Leave her be," Mal ordered. Surprisingly, Jayne obeyed. He looked at Mal with that same confused look again, but he settled back down into his chair like he expected it was electrified or something. River promptly went over and dropped down onto Jayne's lap like it were something she'd done a hundred times before.
"I ain't touchin' her," Jayne shouted, throwing his hands wide to either side to prove just how much he wasn't touching her. But River had her hands around the back of Jayne's neck and she was looking into his face.
"Higgledy piggledy follow the rain. One Jayne two Jayne three Jayne more."
Jayne looked over toward Mal with clear panic in his eyes now. Mal could only shrug because he sure didn't know what to do with the girl most of the time. "I'll get the doc," Mal said.
"Don't leave me with her!" Jayne called out, but Mal was already up and heading for the door. Jayne had dealt with bigger problems in his life than one crazy girl, so he'd survive until Mal could get the doc. Besides, Mal was quickly starting to think that he'd started a conversation with Jayne that he wasn't in any position to finish. What did he expect to hear from the man? Part of Mal just wanted some evidence that this new Jayne, the one who followed orders so gorram well, would stick around, but he didn't know what evidence he wanted. The fact were that anything Jayne said would be highly suspect. But then Jayne did something like go on a suicide mission against Niska, and Mal couldn't help but think that maybe Jayne was giving him some pretty reliable evidence after all.
Pushing all those thoughts to one side, Mal went to find the doc before River could do anything to permanently scar Jayne's emotional well-being. Mal snorted at that thought.
By the time Mal got to head back to his room hours later, he was not only aching, but tired and frustrated. The ship was beat up, Niska had gotten most of their ill-gotten gains, and Mal was more than a little frustrated by the fact that the man had gotten away. It would have been a right pleasure to snap that old neck.
Mal was halfway down the ladder to his room when he realized his room wasn't as empty as he tended to prefer. He swung around, shocked to see Jayne sitting on Mal's only chair polishing a gun.
"Jayne?" Mal asked. Whatever Jayne wanted, Mal really wasn't up for it, not tonight.
For a second, Jayne kept cleaning his gun, and Mal got a real cold shiver down his back. Shifting around to get the ladder at his back, Mal leaned against the wall, keeping his own gunhand clear.
"Crazy wouldn't leave me alone anywhere else," Jayne answered, putting the cleaning cloth down. He looked at Mal and then frowned. "Kept sayin' that you had some gou shi in your head, so I figured it was easier to just come here."
"And break into my quarters?" Mal asked. That was the sort of logic Jayne was likely to use, but that didn't mean he liked it. "Actually, how did you break into my quarters?" Mal demanded. While he didn't have any illusions about Jayne's ethics, he figured Jayne breaking into a place generally required more blowing up of doors.
"Crazy opened it," Jayne answered, but he was sounding all distracted, and that made Mal wonder exactly what he had to be distracted about. "Aiya," Jayne swore, and then he tossed his gun on Mal's bed. Mal's hand was halfway to his own gun before he realized that Jayne wasn't bringing it up aggressive-like. After that, Mal could only stare in surprise as Jayne tossed a second gun, three knives, a set of brass knuckles and a grenade after that first gun so that Mal's bed looked like a well-stocked blacksmith's counter. Crossing his arms, Jayne leaned back against the wall on the far side of the room from any of his weapons.
"You done twitchin' now?" Jayne demanded. Mal took a step forward, and honestly, it did feel good to get between Jayne and his heavy artillery. Mal half-expected Jayne to make a dive for one of guns, but he just stood there looking a little twitchy himself. "Gao yang jong duh goo yang. What are you expectin' of me? Ain't like I'll give up my guns for just anyone, but you're still lookin' at me like you're expectin' a knife in the back." Jayne took a step forward, his fists clenched, and Mal shifted his weight.
"Maybe because I am," Mal shot back. He hadn't been planning on having this discussion, but he'd had a the kind of day that made even a sane man a touch on the unbalanced side, and Mal didn't have a lot of illusions about his own sanity.
"If I'm going to stab you in the back, I'll do it to your front."
"You didn't last time."
"I didn't know I was gorram stabbing you in the back."
"You should have."
"I know!" Jayne shouted his answer, and then the two of them stood there staring at each other.
If Mal had been given a choice, he would have happily ignored this particular elephant in the room, but now he felt backed into a corner where he had to speak his piece. A little voice whispered that it would have been a whole lot easier to just throw Jayne out the gorram airlock, but then guilt settled into his guts at even thinking that. Just because it would have been easier didn't mean that it would be right. Jayne sank back down into the chair, and Mal was reminded again of Inara and her description of Jayne as a dog. He was looking like a dog that'd been kicked too much, and Mal didn't like to think he'd been the one kicking him.
"I ain't the brightest. Never claimed to be," Jayne said softly. "So, if there ain't no way to make this right, just tell me so I know to move on."
Mal opened his mouth, ready to let fly with a sharp comment, but looking at Jayne, he just couldn't poke at the man or his obvious lack of intellect, not when he was poking at himself. Inara should be here. She was always saying how she knew better than him, so she should prove it now, but Mal knew he wasn't going to get her. He figured Jayne had less patience for her philosophizing than he did.
Sliding a half step to the side, and Mal sat on the edge of his bed, picking up the grenade Jayne had tossed onto it.
"Why are you carrying a grenade?"
"Man never knows when he might have to blow something up," Jayne answered, his voice softer than Mal was accustomed to.
"I'd appreciate it if'n you didn't bring heavy ordinance into my bunk." Mal turned the grenade in his hand, running a finger over the cool, curved surface. He waited for Jayne to demand his weapons back, but Jayne just sat quiet. It wasn't really in Jayne's nature to be quiet, and this was one of those things that was weighing on Mal's mind. It seemed like he just didn't know Jayne-hadn't known Jayne since that day when he'd threatened to toss him out the airlock.
"You want me to leave?" Jayne finally asked when the silence had gone on so long that it had become an oppressive weight that settled onto both of them.
"Why did you come after me?" Mal asked instead of answering the question.
Jayne frowned, but it was one of those confused looks of his rather than any unhappiness. "Thought it was what you'd have me do." From how slow Jayne was saying that, he still wasn't real sure on his answer.
Mal put the grenade down with the rest of Jayne's arsenal. "Can't say I would have recommended it, but I'm glad you did," Mal said. "I appreciate you risking yourself like that."
Jayne positively perked up at that comment. "Weren't like I didn't have cause to be angry. Niska took our bribe and then kept you anyway. That's as good as welching on a deal."
Mal raised an eyebrow because Jayne never had seen anything wrong with double dealing in the past. "So, you were so offended, you decided to commit suicide by going up against Niska on his own station?"
That made Jayne frown a bit. "Sorta."
"It's the part where you can't explain yourself that has me twitchy, Jayne."
"I never-"
Mal didn't give Jayne a change to finish his thought because he kept right on going. "If'n I don't understand the doc and any of his idiocy, I ain't too worried because he's on my ship only as long as he has my good will. One foot out of line, and I toss him and his sister off."
From the look Jayne gave him, it was pretty clear Jayne didn't think that was likely. Mal had to admit that it would take more than a foot out of line to make him give some slip of a girl the boot, especially when she couldn't defend herself from the alliance, and her brother was next to worthless. But that was a discussion for another day.
"But you're a different story. I ain't forgetting that you shot your last captain. Course, you did it for me, and I do rightly appreciate that, as well as appreciating the fact that he paid you so poor that I could bribe you away. But you're not like the doc. You're dangerous. Right now, I reckon I could take you pretty easy seeing as how I have all the weapons, but when I went to put you out that airlock, I had to take you from behind. Fact is, I don't give myself real good odds if we're going at it face to face, so I'm wondering whether I'm going to have to find out."
Jayne sat up straight. "You think I'm aiming to take you in a fight?" From the shocked tone of voice, Mal could pretty well guess that he'd been aiming wrong.
"No." Mal said defensively, and now Jayne just looked more confused. Mal sighed and rubbed a hand across his chest where the skin still burned from Niska's torture. He'd already been dead once today, and even that didn't buy him any rest with the crew. No, Jayne just had to demand that he figure out his mind on this matter. Taking a few minutes, Mal tried to gather all his thoughts and his worries into one place so he could speak his mind. "I don't think you're aiming for a fight, I just reckon you get yourself in some bad spots by not thinking. I don't want me or my crew around when you decide to put yourself in another bad spot."
Whatever Mal said, it'd been the wrong thing. He could see it in the way Jayne's confusion hardened into a cold mask of indifference. When Jayne got to looking indifferent on a subject, people started getting dead. And even with all the weapons, Mal still figured Jayne had at least a slim shot of taking him in close quarters, especially seeing as how Mal was still trying to get over the bit where he'd been dead.
"That ain't a look that makes me feel any more softly toward you," Mal warned.
"If I ain't crew, I guess it don't matter. I'll be asking Wash what our next stop is," Jayne said. He stood stiffly, like an old man, and then he moved to the ladder without even looking at his abandoned weapons. Watching Jayne's back, Mal knew he had fucked something up. And truly-he hated that he felt like he was the one in the wrong when it were Jayne with the bad habit of going and getting stupid.
"Didn't give you permission to leave," Mal snapped. He wasn't sure Inara had been right about Jayne giving him the power here, but this was as good a time to find out as any. Jayne stiffened, his back still to Mal for long minutes. Then, ever so slowly, he turned around. With his arms crossed and his face still that dangerous sort of indifferent, Mal felt a bit like a man who'd grabbed the wrong end of a rabid dog and couldn't quite figure out how to let go.
"I ain't looking for you to leave."
"Not like you trust me."
"No, it's really not," Mal immediately agreed. Something dark flashed across Jayne's face. "It's true," Mal defended himself from his own guilt, which was starting to become annoying. "I still don't know why you called the Alliance on the Tams, but it was about as dumb a move as I've ever seen a man make. If I ain't understanding your thinking, I don't know how to trust you."
Jayne stared at him for long minutes before finally looking away. "Reward had some influence on my thinking."
"I figured that," Mal pointed out. That got him a dirty look from Jayne.
"Seems like the minute you took on the Tams, you've been doing things that put us all in the line of fire. You done pissed off Niska, and there ain't another man in the 'verse dumb enough to do that, not even me. River stabbed me, or did you forget that? I may be used to getting stabbed, but what if she'd stabbed Kaylee or Wash?" Jayne paused. "Well, Kaylee anyway 'cause I'm not going to pretend to care about Wash. It just seemed that you had a blind spot with those two."
"So you were going to take care of them for me?" Mal asked.
"Well, yeah." Jayne sounded so unapologetic that it took Mal a second to recover from a new wave of anger.
"So, you think I'm too gorram dumb to know how to captain my ship?"
"I ain't never said that." Jayne stepped forward, and the indifference in his face had twisted into distress and anger, two emotions that actually scared Mal less than Jayne's indifference.
"Yes, you did. You thought you knew more than I did, and your gorram stupidity just about got us all killed. I need to know you're never going to go trusting your own judgment again, because that was just about the end of us all. Ni dongdé ma?"
"Yeah, I understand." Jayne started studying the floor, and seeing a big man like Jayne so quick to agree just... okay, it felt a little good knowing he could bring Jayne to heel, but it were a little unsettling, too.
"Should probably get off next stop," Jayne said, his eyes following the line of the ship plates as they met on the floor of Mal's quarters.
"Gun hoe-tze bee dio-se."
Jayne looked up at Mal's string of curse words. "I ain't asking you to leave. If I wanted you off my ship, I would have put you off myself. Had a real good shot at it back when you were in that airlock, and as the captain, I made a choice to keep you on. Don't seem like such a bad choice considering you and Zoe were the only two real gun hands in the assault, and you two still took out Niska's men. Now that's downright embarrassing-getting your ass kicked by two armed soldiers and a bunch of crew who can't find the right end of a gun to fire. Niska should fire any of them that didn't end up dead."
Mal smiled at that thought. A whole carrier of Browncoats would've had trouble taking Niska's station, and Zoe and Jayne had pretty much done it on their own. If someone was going to make comparisons between Jayne and a dog, they'd better make it a damn big dog-one of them junkyard mutts that rips your guts out if you go stepping onto its property without leave.
"Were a pretty nice bit of business," Jayne answered, and Mal had never been so pleased to see Jayne smile.
Mal's smile grew wider. "Considering the shepherd wouldn't shoot higher than the kneecaps and the doc didn't manage to hit anyone at all, it was downright unbelievable."
Jayne frowned for a second.
"Gos se. What?" Mal demanded.
"Probably nuthing."
"We ain't having this conversation again, Jayne. What is it that I'm expecting from you?" Mal's voice didn't leave any room for debate.
"I ain't going to go figuring on my own." Mal would have cut out his own liver and offered it up before saying that to another man, but Jayne seemed downright relieved.
"Right then, that means you don't leave the ship without my say-so, you don't go selling crew to Alliance, and you tell me what you know without making me ask after it."
Jayne crossed the small quarters and sat down on Mal's chair. "You got anything to drink?" he asked. Mal looked at him for a second. He supposed Jayne had done enough to earn a reward or two. "Behind the blue book." Mal pointed to his shelf.
Jayne pulled out the whiskey and put the book back while Mal made a pile of Jayne's armaments at the end of the bed, closer to Jayne. Even if Jayne didn't feel a need to ask for them back, Mal figured it was downright rude of him to make Jayne go unarmed.
"The doc said that there were only the two soldiers inside the hanger when he and the preacher took off to help us-the one burned, and the one who the preacher had kneecapped and knocked out cold. Only when we was running back, there were more'n that. And Kaylee's been acting real strange." Jayne took a deep drink before handing the whiskey over.
The truth was, Mal didn't like the thought of Kaylee having to kill, but he liked the thought of being dead even less, so he couldn't say he was sorry at how things had worked out. "Likely she didn't like having to kill," Mal guessed.
Jayne shrugged. "Maybe, only she wasn't doing much guilting for someone who just made their first kill. Guay, I worried at it more the first time I done shot someone. So seems like there's something more, only I can't figure what."
That did seem worrisome. "I'll go asking after it, just as soon as I get some sleep," Mal promised. He put the cap back on the whiskey and put it out of Jayne's reach. Maybe Jayne was learning a thing or two because he recognized the dismissal. He stood up without a word and started tucking his weapons away into a dozen hiding places in his clothes. Mal hadn't ever guessed just how armed the man was. It seemed like it'd weary a man to carry all that metal, but Jayne just gave Mal a nod and headed for the ladder.
"Night, captain," he offered.
"Night, Jayne." Mal watched Jayne close the hatch behind him with the definite feeling that something had just shifted in their relationship. Mal just wasn't exactly sure what. Well, time would tell.
Big Damn Dog, chapter 2/?
Previous chapters: HERE
Spoilers: War Stories and anything before that.
Warnings: D/s
Summary: After Mal makes Jayne back down, their whole relationship is shifting out of control. But one push from River and Inara, and maybe Mal will understand just how much power Jayne is willing to turn over.
Mal leaned back, flinching when his chest burned from the torture Niska had inflicted. It hadn't been a shiny day, that's for sure, but everyone had gotten out alive, and these days, that counted for something.
"So, you came along for the big rescue," Mal commented casually, watching as Jayne shoveled soup into his mouth. Jayne's hand paused half way to his mouth.
"Well, yeah. You got something to say about it?" Jayne was defensive, and Mal remembered what Inara had told him, warning him that Jayne was trying to rely on him for guidance, and that Jayne would turn on him like a rabid dog if he confused Jayne bad enough. 'Course, she didn't say it quite like that, but with Inara, you had to figure out the meaning behind all the pretty words.
"Just surprised, is all."
Jayne snorted and started scooping up more soup. Never say that Jayne Cobb let a little bullet wound keep him from his food. Jayne's ravenous appetite was far less surprising than the fact he'd gone and gotten himself shot trying to save Mal.
"I mean, you aren't exactly known for your heroics," Mal said. He was surprised at the flash of emotion on Jayne's face. But then Jayne just shrugged. In the past, Mal wouldn't have thought twice-he'd be likely to dismiss the expression as a passing case of gas. But now Mal felt a little like he'd kicked a dog. He wasn't normally the sort who did that. No, he was more the sort to kick sleeping bears. And the fact were that he was still a mite bit concerned that Jayne was more bearlike than Inara gave him credit for.
He could still feel hot anger over that stunt Jayne had pulled-trying to turn in the Tams. But he also couldn't get the image out of his mind, of Jayne begging. Not begging for his life or for the mercy of a bullet. Nope, he'd begged for Mal to not tell the others that he'd betrayed them. And even now, when Jayne was buyin' the crew apples and giving up his cut to ransom back Wash and putting his own life on the line for Mal... even now Mal couldn't figure out how he was supposed to deal with Jayne. Who was the real Jayne Cobb--the man who did right by the crew or the man who'd betrayed them?
"I can be heroic," Jayne answered after long silent minutes interrupted only by the clink of the spoon against the bowl.
"I ain't sure that's the right word to describe going after Niska on his own station," Mal pointed out pretty damn honestly. He couldn't say for sure he would have pulled a stunt like that, but he was mighty proud to have a crew stupid enough to try it and good enough to pull it off.
"More like suicidal," Jayne agreed.
"Then why'd you go?" Mal asked.
Jayne frowned at him, giving him a narrow-eyed glare like he might stare down another gunhand waiting for some silent signal to draw weapons and fire.
"Don't rightly appreciate the way you're looking at me," Mal warned him. Jayne's gaze immediately darted off in another direction. And that felt wrong too. It was like Jayne was going out of his way to be vulnerable, either that or he thought Mal wasn't important enough to keep an eye on. Jayne's hands slowly fisted before he pulled them off the table and hid them in his lap. But Jayne stayed real quiet. Too quiet. Mal could read the others easy enough... well, all except for Inara, and who knows what companion-trained thoughts she had bouncing around up there. But Jayne had been a closed book lately. It made Mal real uneasy.
"I asked why you went," Mal repeated. Jayne glanced over before looking down at his lap.
"Weren't like there was a whole lot of choice. Wash was takin' the boat in whether I agreed or not," Jayne pointed out.
Mal wasn't entirely sure he agreed with that logic. Wash might have been ready to fly into this fight, but after he'd been tortured, his thoughts were a mite bit scrambled. It wouldn't have been too hard to convince Zoe that the odds were against them and that she had a duty to keep Inara and Kaylee and the others safe. Hell, Mal hadn't expected the others to come back at all. He figured his slow and painful death would be the price he paid to buy the rest their freedom from Niska's vengeance.
"You still ain't answering. Why did you pick up a gun and come after me?" Mal asked.
This time Jayne looked up at him, but the suspicion and fear still lurked there. It had been lurking ever since Mal had locked Jayne in that airlock and threatened to put him out into the black. The funny thing was that Jayne could probably take him given proper warning. Jayne weren't no slouch in the fighting department. And if'n he wasn't up for a fight, he could just get off at any one of a dozen worlds and people would leave him alone. He was just one more gunhand jumping ship, and that wouldn't raise any flags, not even with the Alliance.
"If I'm going to go and get dead, I'll do it with a gun in my hand," Jayne answered.
Mal studied the man, studied him closer than he generally allowed himself because most menfolk didn't take to being studied. For a second, Jayne stiffened, but then he looked away and let Mal do all the studying he wanted. There wasn't even any more soup left in the bowl, so neither one of them could pretend it was anything other than Mal's interest that kept Jayne in his seat.
"If you'd stayed in your bunk, like Inara, Niska would have felt honor-bound to leave you alone." Mal watched Jayne carefully. Jayne weren't showing no sign of surprise, so Mal figured he already knew that.
A little hand dropped onto Mal's shoulder and he yelled, leaped to his feet, and then yelled again when the movement made his wounds burn like he were getting stabbed all over again. "Dammit, don't do that," Mal snapped. River looked at him, her head tipped to one side and a sad look on her face.
"Following higgledy-piggledy, thoughts out of order," she announced with great seriousness. Mal rolled his eyes at the evidence she wasn't having one of her good days.
"Go away, Moonbrain," Jayne snapped. He was up and out of his seat.
"Leave her be," Mal ordered. Surprisingly, Jayne obeyed. He looked at Mal with that same confused look again, but he settled back down into his chair like he expected it was electrified or something. River promptly went over and dropped down onto Jayne's lap like it were something she'd done a hundred times before.
"I ain't touchin' her," Jayne shouted, throwing his hands wide to either side to prove just how much he wasn't touching her. But River had her hands around the back of Jayne's neck and she was looking into his face.
"Higgledy piggledy follow the rain. One Jayne two Jayne three Jayne more."
Jayne looked over toward Mal with clear panic in his eyes now. Mal could only shrug because he sure didn't know what to do with the girl most of the time. "I'll get the doc," Mal said.
"Don't leave me with her!" Jayne called out, but Mal was already up and heading for the door. Jayne had dealt with bigger problems in his life than one crazy girl, so he'd survive until Mal could get the doc. Besides, Mal was quickly starting to think that he'd started a conversation with Jayne that he wasn't in any position to finish. What did he expect to hear from the man? Part of Mal just wanted some evidence that this new Jayne, the one who followed orders so gorram well, would stick around, but he didn't know what evidence he wanted. The fact were that anything Jayne said would be highly suspect. But then Jayne did something like go on a suicide mission against Niska, and Mal couldn't help but think that maybe Jayne was giving him some pretty reliable evidence after all.
Pushing all those thoughts to one side, Mal went to find the doc before River could do anything to permanently scar Jayne's emotional well-being. Mal snorted at that thought.
By the time Mal got to head back to his room hours later, he was not only aching, but tired and frustrated. The ship was beat up, Niska had gotten most of their ill-gotten gains, and Mal was more than a little frustrated by the fact that the man had gotten away. It would have been a right pleasure to snap that old neck.
Mal was halfway down the ladder to his room when he realized his room wasn't as empty as he tended to prefer. He swung around, shocked to see Jayne sitting on Mal's only chair polishing a gun.
"Jayne?" Mal asked. Whatever Jayne wanted, Mal really wasn't up for it, not tonight.
For a second, Jayne kept cleaning his gun, and Mal got a real cold shiver down his back. Shifting around to get the ladder at his back, Mal leaned against the wall, keeping his own gunhand clear.
"Crazy wouldn't leave me alone anywhere else," Jayne answered, putting the cleaning cloth down. He looked at Mal and then frowned. "Kept sayin' that you had some gou shi in your head, so I figured it was easier to just come here."
"And break into my quarters?" Mal asked. That was the sort of logic Jayne was likely to use, but that didn't mean he liked it. "Actually, how did you break into my quarters?" Mal demanded. While he didn't have any illusions about Jayne's ethics, he figured Jayne breaking into a place generally required more blowing up of doors.
"Crazy opened it," Jayne answered, but he was sounding all distracted, and that made Mal wonder exactly what he had to be distracted about. "Aiya," Jayne swore, and then he tossed his gun on Mal's bed. Mal's hand was halfway to his own gun before he realized that Jayne wasn't bringing it up aggressive-like. After that, Mal could only stare in surprise as Jayne tossed a second gun, three knives, a set of brass knuckles and a grenade after that first gun so that Mal's bed looked like a well-stocked blacksmith's counter. Crossing his arms, Jayne leaned back against the wall on the far side of the room from any of his weapons.
"You done twitchin' now?" Jayne demanded. Mal took a step forward, and honestly, it did feel good to get between Jayne and his heavy artillery. Mal half-expected Jayne to make a dive for one of guns, but he just stood there looking a little twitchy himself. "Gao yang jong duh goo yang. What are you expectin' of me? Ain't like I'll give up my guns for just anyone, but you're still lookin' at me like you're expectin' a knife in the back." Jayne took a step forward, his fists clenched, and Mal shifted his weight.
"Maybe because I am," Mal shot back. He hadn't been planning on having this discussion, but he'd had a the kind of day that made even a sane man a touch on the unbalanced side, and Mal didn't have a lot of illusions about his own sanity.
"If I'm going to stab you in the back, I'll do it to your front."
"You didn't last time."
"I didn't know I was gorram stabbing you in the back."
"You should have."
"I know!" Jayne shouted his answer, and then the two of them stood there staring at each other.
If Mal had been given a choice, he would have happily ignored this particular elephant in the room, but now he felt backed into a corner where he had to speak his piece. A little voice whispered that it would have been a whole lot easier to just throw Jayne out the gorram airlock, but then guilt settled into his guts at even thinking that. Just because it would have been easier didn't mean that it would be right. Jayne sank back down into the chair, and Mal was reminded again of Inara and her description of Jayne as a dog. He was looking like a dog that'd been kicked too much, and Mal didn't like to think he'd been the one kicking him.
"I ain't the brightest. Never claimed to be," Jayne said softly. "So, if there ain't no way to make this right, just tell me so I know to move on."
Mal opened his mouth, ready to let fly with a sharp comment, but looking at Jayne, he just couldn't poke at the man or his obvious lack of intellect, not when he was poking at himself. Inara should be here. She was always saying how she knew better than him, so she should prove it now, but Mal knew he wasn't going to get her. He figured Jayne had less patience for her philosophizing than he did.
Sliding a half step to the side, and Mal sat on the edge of his bed, picking up the grenade Jayne had tossed onto it.
"Why are you carrying a grenade?"
"Man never knows when he might have to blow something up," Jayne answered, his voice softer than Mal was accustomed to.
"I'd appreciate it if'n you didn't bring heavy ordinance into my bunk." Mal turned the grenade in his hand, running a finger over the cool, curved surface. He waited for Jayne to demand his weapons back, but Jayne just sat quiet. It wasn't really in Jayne's nature to be quiet, and this was one of those things that was weighing on Mal's mind. It seemed like he just didn't know Jayne-hadn't known Jayne since that day when he'd threatened to toss him out the airlock.
"You want me to leave?" Jayne finally asked when the silence had gone on so long that it had become an oppressive weight that settled onto both of them.
"Why did you come after me?" Mal asked instead of answering the question.
Jayne frowned, but it was one of those confused looks of his rather than any unhappiness. "Thought it was what you'd have me do." From how slow Jayne was saying that, he still wasn't real sure on his answer.
Mal put the grenade down with the rest of Jayne's arsenal. "Can't say I would have recommended it, but I'm glad you did," Mal said. "I appreciate you risking yourself like that."
Jayne positively perked up at that comment. "Weren't like I didn't have cause to be angry. Niska took our bribe and then kept you anyway. That's as good as welching on a deal."
Mal raised an eyebrow because Jayne never had seen anything wrong with double dealing in the past. "So, you were so offended, you decided to commit suicide by going up against Niska on his own station?"
That made Jayne frown a bit. "Sorta."
"It's the part where you can't explain yourself that has me twitchy, Jayne."
"I never-"
Mal didn't give Jayne a change to finish his thought because he kept right on going. "If'n I don't understand the doc and any of his idiocy, I ain't too worried because he's on my ship only as long as he has my good will. One foot out of line, and I toss him and his sister off."
From the look Jayne gave him, it was pretty clear Jayne didn't think that was likely. Mal had to admit that it would take more than a foot out of line to make him give some slip of a girl the boot, especially when she couldn't defend herself from the alliance, and her brother was next to worthless. But that was a discussion for another day.
"But you're a different story. I ain't forgetting that you shot your last captain. Course, you did it for me, and I do rightly appreciate that, as well as appreciating the fact that he paid you so poor that I could bribe you away. But you're not like the doc. You're dangerous. Right now, I reckon I could take you pretty easy seeing as how I have all the weapons, but when I went to put you out that airlock, I had to take you from behind. Fact is, I don't give myself real good odds if we're going at it face to face, so I'm wondering whether I'm going to have to find out."
Jayne sat up straight. "You think I'm aiming to take you in a fight?" From the shocked tone of voice, Mal could pretty well guess that he'd been aiming wrong.
"No." Mal said defensively, and now Jayne just looked more confused. Mal sighed and rubbed a hand across his chest where the skin still burned from Niska's torture. He'd already been dead once today, and even that didn't buy him any rest with the crew. No, Jayne just had to demand that he figure out his mind on this matter. Taking a few minutes, Mal tried to gather all his thoughts and his worries into one place so he could speak his mind. "I don't think you're aiming for a fight, I just reckon you get yourself in some bad spots by not thinking. I don't want me or my crew around when you decide to put yourself in another bad spot."
Whatever Mal said, it'd been the wrong thing. He could see it in the way Jayne's confusion hardened into a cold mask of indifference. When Jayne got to looking indifferent on a subject, people started getting dead. And even with all the weapons, Mal still figured Jayne had at least a slim shot of taking him in close quarters, especially seeing as how Mal was still trying to get over the bit where he'd been dead.
"That ain't a look that makes me feel any more softly toward you," Mal warned.
"If I ain't crew, I guess it don't matter. I'll be asking Wash what our next stop is," Jayne said. He stood stiffly, like an old man, and then he moved to the ladder without even looking at his abandoned weapons. Watching Jayne's back, Mal knew he had fucked something up. And truly-he hated that he felt like he was the one in the wrong when it were Jayne with the bad habit of going and getting stupid.
"Didn't give you permission to leave," Mal snapped. He wasn't sure Inara had been right about Jayne giving him the power here, but this was as good a time to find out as any. Jayne stiffened, his back still to Mal for long minutes. Then, ever so slowly, he turned around. With his arms crossed and his face still that dangerous sort of indifferent, Mal felt a bit like a man who'd grabbed the wrong end of a rabid dog and couldn't quite figure out how to let go.
"I ain't looking for you to leave."
"Not like you trust me."
"No, it's really not," Mal immediately agreed. Something dark flashed across Jayne's face. "It's true," Mal defended himself from his own guilt, which was starting to become annoying. "I still don't know why you called the Alliance on the Tams, but it was about as dumb a move as I've ever seen a man make. If I ain't understanding your thinking, I don't know how to trust you."
Jayne stared at him for long minutes before finally looking away. "Reward had some influence on my thinking."
"I figured that," Mal pointed out. That got him a dirty look from Jayne.
"Seems like the minute you took on the Tams, you've been doing things that put us all in the line of fire. You done pissed off Niska, and there ain't another man in the 'verse dumb enough to do that, not even me. River stabbed me, or did you forget that? I may be used to getting stabbed, but what if she'd stabbed Kaylee or Wash?" Jayne paused. "Well, Kaylee anyway 'cause I'm not going to pretend to care about Wash. It just seemed that you had a blind spot with those two."
"So you were going to take care of them for me?" Mal asked.
"Well, yeah." Jayne sounded so unapologetic that it took Mal a second to recover from a new wave of anger.
"So, you think I'm too gorram dumb to know how to captain my ship?"
"I ain't never said that." Jayne stepped forward, and the indifference in his face had twisted into distress and anger, two emotions that actually scared Mal less than Jayne's indifference.
"Yes, you did. You thought you knew more than I did, and your gorram stupidity just about got us all killed. I need to know you're never going to go trusting your own judgment again, because that was just about the end of us all. Ni dongdé ma?"
"Yeah, I understand." Jayne started studying the floor, and seeing a big man like Jayne so quick to agree just... okay, it felt a little good knowing he could bring Jayne to heel, but it were a little unsettling, too.
"Should probably get off next stop," Jayne said, his eyes following the line of the ship plates as they met on the floor of Mal's quarters.
"Gun hoe-tze bee dio-se."
Jayne looked up at Mal's string of curse words. "I ain't asking you to leave. If I wanted you off my ship, I would have put you off myself. Had a real good shot at it back when you were in that airlock, and as the captain, I made a choice to keep you on. Don't seem like such a bad choice considering you and Zoe were the only two real gun hands in the assault, and you two still took out Niska's men. Now that's downright embarrassing-getting your ass kicked by two armed soldiers and a bunch of crew who can't find the right end of a gun to fire. Niska should fire any of them that didn't end up dead."
Mal smiled at that thought. A whole carrier of Browncoats would've had trouble taking Niska's station, and Zoe and Jayne had pretty much done it on their own. If someone was going to make comparisons between Jayne and a dog, they'd better make it a damn big dog-one of them junkyard mutts that rips your guts out if you go stepping onto its property without leave.
"Were a pretty nice bit of business," Jayne answered, and Mal had never been so pleased to see Jayne smile.
Mal's smile grew wider. "Considering the shepherd wouldn't shoot higher than the kneecaps and the doc didn't manage to hit anyone at all, it was downright unbelievable."
Jayne frowned for a second.
"Gos se. What?" Mal demanded.
"Probably nuthing."
"We ain't having this conversation again, Jayne. What is it that I'm expecting from you?" Mal's voice didn't leave any room for debate.
"I ain't going to go figuring on my own." Mal would have cut out his own liver and offered it up before saying that to another man, but Jayne seemed downright relieved.
"Right then, that means you don't leave the ship without my say-so, you don't go selling crew to Alliance, and you tell me what you know without making me ask after it."
Jayne crossed the small quarters and sat down on Mal's chair. "You got anything to drink?" he asked. Mal looked at him for a second. He supposed Jayne had done enough to earn a reward or two. "Behind the blue book." Mal pointed to his shelf.
Jayne pulled out the whiskey and put the book back while Mal made a pile of Jayne's armaments at the end of the bed, closer to Jayne. Even if Jayne didn't feel a need to ask for them back, Mal figured it was downright rude of him to make Jayne go unarmed.
"The doc said that there were only the two soldiers inside the hanger when he and the preacher took off to help us-the one burned, and the one who the preacher had kneecapped and knocked out cold. Only when we was running back, there were more'n that. And Kaylee's been acting real strange." Jayne took a deep drink before handing the whiskey over.
The truth was, Mal didn't like the thought of Kaylee having to kill, but he liked the thought of being dead even less, so he couldn't say he was sorry at how things had worked out. "Likely she didn't like having to kill," Mal guessed.
Jayne shrugged. "Maybe, only she wasn't doing much guilting for someone who just made their first kill. Guay, I worried at it more the first time I done shot someone. So seems like there's something more, only I can't figure what."
That did seem worrisome. "I'll go asking after it, just as soon as I get some sleep," Mal promised. He put the cap back on the whiskey and put it out of Jayne's reach. Maybe Jayne was learning a thing or two because he recognized the dismissal. He stood up without a word and started tucking his weapons away into a dozen hiding places in his clothes. Mal hadn't ever guessed just how armed the man was. It seemed like it'd weary a man to carry all that metal, but Jayne just gave Mal a nod and headed for the ladder.
"Night, captain," he offered.
"Night, Jayne." Mal watched Jayne close the hatch behind him with the definite feeling that something had just shifted in their relationship. Mal just wasn't exactly sure what. Well, time would tell.