Old War Horses
I've had two people email and say they couldn't get into chapter 18 on Old War Horses, and it's the coding with the links that seems to be a little more complicated that necessary, so I'm changing the links here.
If you want to read the early chapters, go to Twisting the Hellmouth.
If you want to read the most recent chapters, use tags.
I'm reposting chapter 18 under the link for people who got shut out, and chapter 19 follows after.
Title: Old War Horses
Firefly x Sentinel
Mal/Jayne, Blair/Jim
Rated: ADULT
Malcolm Reynolds fought for the Browncoat rebels. They wanted their freedom. They lost. James Joseph Womak was a commander for the Alliance, determined to bring justice to the common people. His side won, but he still lost.
This time on Old War Horses:
Blair is determined to help Jayne through a difficult time. Possibly someone should have sent Jayne that memo.
18.
“Morning!” Blair practically sang as they walked into the galley.
“Mornin’ Blair!” Kaylee answered with equal enthusiasm. Jim offered a polite nod to the assembled group, but he didn’t plan to push things with any of these people. Simon Tam was still giving him a worshipful look that made Jim about as uncomfortable as Mal’s hate. Only Jim noted that Mal was more interested in poking at eggs than glaring this morning.
“Whoa, eggs. Who do I have to kill to earn some of those?” Despite the suggestion that he’d have to earn breakfast, Blair walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a plate to serve himself, and no one objected. Kaylee went back to loudly telling a story about some trader the crew knew with a forced attempt at humor, Simon kept watching Jim, River watched Blair, and Mal sat at the table with an expression like someone had shot his dog. Only Zoe looked unaffected by whatever foul mood had settled over the crew today. Jim felt like he was in one of those fictional vids where it turned out some virus was slowly turning everyone into a Reaver, emotions were just that unbalanced. Even the smell had a jagged edge to it that made Jim uncomfortable.
“Here you go,” Blair said, handing Jim a plate loaded with food. Even though Jim accepted it, he kept his eyes on Mal, watching to see if the captain would object to the sheer volume of food Blair had brought him. Jim knew that if he were still an Alliance captain with a core-deep belief in the cause and he’d been forced to take on a Browncoat passenger, Jim would have set a few rules. He sure wouldn’t have wanted the Browncoat eating all the fresh protein. However, when Mal looked up, his glare focused on Blair. While Blair blithely sauntered back to the kitchen for more food, Mal followed him with a sullen glare.
“Captain,” Jim greeted him, feeling a need to distract Mal from whatever unhappiness was making him take such a sudden dislike to Blair. “Any word from Beaumonde?”
Kaylee fell silent and everyone waited for Mal to answer, but he didn’t. Zoe picked up the slack. “No word yet, but as long as no one is shooting at us, that’s generally a good sign.”
Jim frowned. “Where’s Jayne?” It made him nervous, not knowing where Jayne was. These people might be uneasy allies against the Institute, but they were still enemy. Jim couldn’t shake that feeling. And the fact was, he always wanted to have his enemy where he could see them. However, the second Jayne’s name left his mouth, Jim had a good idea what bug had crawled up Mal’s ass. Despite the fact that last night had gone well enough, something had soured.
“Working. At least one person on this gorram crew knows how to get his work done.” Mal slammed his fork down on the table, and everyone except Zoe sort of froze in place. Zoe kept on eating her breakfast, and Jim tried to take his cues from her. She’d clearly been with the captain long enough to read him, so despite the sour fear that settled in his stomach, Jim started eating. He didn’t lie to himself about this attack in two or three days. Mal would put him in the most vulnerable, most dangerous position, and Jim needed to make sure he was strong enough to hold his own. He couldn’t afford to pass up fresh, unprocessed protein.
Eventually the others started moving. Kaylee stayed silent, her story abandoned.
“Seriously cranky vibes,” Blair whispered as he sat next to Jim on side away from Mal. Jim’s stomach unknotted a little having Blair close enough to grab up if the situation turned more inhospitable than normal. From the mingled scents of frustration and anger and confusion, it might turn ugly any second.
River shifted in her chair, stood and then put her knees in it before settling down like an overgrown five-year-old. “Medial orbitofrontal cortex failure hurts,” she offered with a sympathetic look in Mal’s direction. Jim took a slow deep breath through his nose, sorting through various smells to see if she was describing some illness, but Mal smelled fine. He smelled aggravated, with stress hormones leeching out his skin, but that wasn’t a surprise.
Blair made a sympathetic face, so clearly River’s comment meant something to him. “Oh man. Yeah, it would,” Blair agreed. “But letting the medial orbitofrontal cortex rule your life is not cool. And you are sounding better, far more coherent.”
“Head clearer,” she agreed with a not-subtle shit-look for her brother.
“I bet. Those were some heavy-duty meds you were on.” Blair nodded. “Seriously heavy.”
Simon stiffened under their implication that he’d overmedicated his sister. “They helped her with the panic attacks.”
“Well, yeah,” Blair agreed. “She was drugged to the gills. I’d have a hard time panicking too if I were that drugged up, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I mean, if I’m facing real danger, I prefer to do it with real fear on my side.”
“You can’t-” The doctor looked ready to make this an all-out medical war, but Mal cut him off.
“I ain’t interested in having you two ruin my breakfast,” he snapped. “Wuh de tyen, ah. God save me from core-bred gao yang jong duh goo yang. Not a one of you has the sense god gave a motherless whoring turtle.” Snatching his fork off the table, Mal started shoveling the food in like someone might try and take it away from him.
Jim might have worried some because he could smell the aggression and the need to fight rising from Mal’s skin like a fog, only Zoe kept right on eating breakfast with only a raised eyebrow to comment on Mal’s vivid use of profanity.
River made a face. “Hippocampus and anterior insula vie with amygdala for blood flow.”
“Okay,” Blair said, and he sounded a little distressed about that. Jim frowned. Normally he didn’t mind not understanding Blair’s conversations, but everyone at the table seemed to be getting more uncomfortable than was really safe considering he and Blair weren’t armed.
“Would either of you like to start clarifying what you’re talking about?” Mal demanded.
Blair didn’t answer, but River gave him a bright smile. “No,” she said, almost singing the word. “Captain needs more oxytocin.”
“Oxytocin?” Simon almost choked on a laugh. “The captain isn’t that bad.”
The captain turned a deadly cold look in Simon’s direction. “He might be if’n he gets aggravated enough,” Mal warned, and Jim could hear the dangerous edge of frustration in that voice.
“Blair, knock it off,” Jim warned softly.
“Old war horses,” River offered with a soft sigh.
“They are who they are,” Blair agreed with a shrug.
Mal leaned forward. “And I’m getting aggravated enough that you both ought to be a mite bit worried.”
It was Simon who stepped in. “Oxytocin is a hormone associated with socialization. Sometimes people with anti-social disorders are prescribed doses to improve their ability to interact with others.”
That made Mal’s face turn an unhealthy shade of gray. Whatever had gone wrong between Mal and Jayne, it had done so spectacularly, and Jim could just kill Blair for starting this whole mess.
“Are you calling me crazy?” Mal’s voice was dangerously calm.
“No way. That description is a total oversimplification,” Blair said with a dismissive snort. From the way Simon stiffened, he wasn’t used to having his doctoring questioned. “I will avoid doing surgery if you’ll avoid psychiatric diagnoses, because those are not in our mutually exclusive areas of expertise. Alpha-hypophamine oxytocin polypeptide is a neuromodulator. We all have it in our bodies. Yes, it affects a person’s feelings for his fellow humans, but it also prepares fetal neurons for delivery by changing the function of gamma-aminobutyric acids and causes spinal cord movement and is even involved in addiction.”
Blair slung the words out there, his hands gesturing in the air with enough vehemence that Jim could recognize the obfuscation from a mile away. If Simon’s explanation about anti-social disorder caused this much verbal flailing on Blair’s part, Jim was guessing it was pretty near the mark. He glanced over, and Mal just looked confused. Aggravated and confused.
“I’d like to check over… something not in this room.” Jim stood up, his food in one hand while he pulled at Blair’s arm with the other. “Come on, Mr.Know-it-all.”
“That’s Dr. Know-it-al,” Blair complained, but he scrambled to grab his fork and get up. Even he knew the room was turning dangerous for those who didn’t have the protection of being trusted crew. “And as a doctor, I’m supposed to know everything about my very narrow field of study. Totally narrow. And oxytocin is within my very narrow field.”
“Uh-huh.” Jim said as he herded Blair toward the exit.
Behind them, Kaylee was trying to soothe the others. “Really? They have something what can make unsociable types social? We should carry some of that, do y’all remember…” She launched into another story of some trader they knew who’d shot Mal. They were out in the hallway and halfway to the sleeping quarters when Blair stopped, his plate still clutched in hand.
“You have to find Jayne.” Blair looked up with wide, panicked eyes.
“Why?” Jim asked suspiciously.
“Because Mal totally fucked something up. Cao, if River’s even half-right, I do not want to think what shape Jayne’s in.”
“Hurt?” Jim’s gut soured at the idea of Mal doing damage to his lover, but Jim had been a cop long enough to know that people did that-they hurt those they were closest to. Before Blair, Jim had one short-lived marriage and three lovers who hadn’t even approached the stage in a relationship where you go leaving things in each other’s quarters. So he didn’t have a long list of lovers, but he couldn’t imagine hurting any of them. Even Caroline, who’d left him after one long screaming match about honor and duty and his choice to accept a promotion to front-line duty in the war, never inspired the sort of violence some men regularly took out on their lovers. Jim hadn’t pegged Mal as the sort to do that, either.
“No way.” Blair gave Jim a punch in the arm. “Stop assuming the worst about people.”
“I was a cop, Sandburg. It comes with the territory.”
Blair snorted. “I know plenty of cops who aren’t so… Wait… Actually, every cop I know is actually some variation on a dick.” Blair grinned at him. Jim gave his partner the sort of glare that had, once upon a time, made suspects confess and cry.
“River says that Mal’s emotions are all over the map, particularly his emotions concerning sexuality.”
“That’s what that brain talk was all about?”
“Yep.” Blair nodded. “River’s no more insane that you or me.”
“Sanity is a little questionable when it comes to all three of us,” Jim pointed out.
“Okay, that’s true. Everyone on this ship could use a little therapy. Or a lot of therapy.” Blair cringed. “Or huge shitloads of therapy with a side of psychotropic and antidepressant medication thrown in on the side, and I am not normally the one to go for prescribing medicine. But anyway, the medial orbitofrontal cortex functions to put heavy emotions in lockdown.”
“And with Mal, it just failed,” Jim finished, remembering River’s words.
“Exactly. So Mal can’t deal with all these emotions that are hitting him. Fear and lust and all these messy feelings are getting his brain… whoa.” Blair stopped, just out of words, but Jim remembered what it had been like. When he’d first seen Blair in a white lab coat and blue gloves, he’d nursed the same hate he felt for all the Institute doctors. Learning to see Blair the man had taken some uncomfortable mental shifting.
“And if he’s emotionally suffering and striking out….”
“Jayne would have been ground zero, this morning,” Blair said with a grimace. “Use your hearing to find him, Jim. No way can we just let him suffer while everyone sits in there with Mal like he’s in the right.”
Jim sighed. “We should go to our quarters and stay out of this,” he said, knowing before he started that he was going to lose this battle.
“No way. Look, maybe I shouldn’t have jumped in so fast, but I’m the one who pushed Mal in Jayne’s direction, so if he just emotionally or spiritually shredded Jayne, that is on me. I am not leaving him to suffer alone while everyone on this ship acts like he’s some soulless mercenary. I mean, they talk like he’s here for the money, but have you seen how he looks at this crew? Man, they’re his family, and they don’t respect him at all. No way am I turning my back on that.”
Yeah, Jim lost the battle the minute Blair brought in the idea of a man struggling with a family that didn’t respect him. Sometimes Jim wondered if Blair was intentionally manipulative or if his mother’s training had sunk in so deep that he simply instinctively coerced the whole ‘verse into doing what he wanted. Some days, Jim just didn’t know. However, he sent his hearing out, tracing the corridors and long runs of metals struts until he heard the clinking of heavy weights in the steady pattern of a man doing repetitions.
“This way,” Jim offered, gesturing down a corridor. Blair gave him a brilliant smile and a quick eyebrow wiggle before he turned and practically bounced down the way.
They were so going to end up getting spaced.
19.
Jim held back while Blair closed in on Jayne. If this were about fighting, Jim would be taking the lead, but if Blair had it in mind to talk to a man about his sexual relationships, Jim planned to stay as far out of it as he could while still having his partner’s back. It seemed like a man should be able to have a relationship implode without having some near-stranger get in the middle, but that wasn’t the way Blair saw things.
Jim wondered whether Blair would have been so pushy if he’d been around when Jim and Carolyn had been in the middle of their disastrous break-up. Probably. Hell, as persuasive as the little shit could be, he probably would have talked them into staying together, which would have been wrong because Jim couldn’t image his life with anyone but Blair.
“Hey,” Blair said as he walked up to Jayne, starting out pretty neutral. Jayne’s body tensed when Blair got close enough to be in striking range, but he pretended to be unaffected. Jim leaned against the railing on the stairs that led up to a balcony that overlooked this empty cargo bay and watched. Jayne really wasn’t like any mercenary he’d ever known. He was dumb and in love with his gorram guns, and that was pretty typical of the breed, but he wasn’t particularly short-tempered and he tolerated Blair well enough.
As a cop, Jim had seen plenty of mercenaries turn on a man because he wasn’t manly enough. Sly boys were in real danger around them, and considering that some of the bastards sought out whore houses that offered sly, it sometimes turned very dark. Jim had been assigned to more than one of those investigations. He hated them. The other whores would always hide the customer rather than risk losing business, and Jim did hate to leave a crime unsolved. Oh, he did often enough. You didn’t work the fringes of society without losing more cases than you solved, but Jim never got used to the casual acceptance of violence. Yet Jayne never smelled of aggression around Blair, and he seemed more confused than offended by the idea of a man like Jim being sly.
Jayne kept lifting, grunting as he pushed the bar with the heavy plates all the way up before slowly lowering it. It was an impressive amount of weight he was pushing, especially since he didn’t have anyone to spot him. Either he was confident in his ability to lift that much or he was a fool. Maybe a little of both.
After two more repetitions, Jayne settled the bar into place and sat up. Rather than answer Blair, he gave him an odd look while wiping a towel over his sweaty face.
“So….” Blair said, letting his voice trail off. Jim cringed. Blair might be able to talk a farmer out of his last acre, but after all this time, he still didn’t know how to talk to a soldier. Or a mercenary.
Jayne narrowed his eyes and gave Blair a dangerously cold look. “You got something to say?”
“Me? No. I’m here to see if you need to say something or ask something or you know, talk.” Blair gave Jayne his most sympathetic expression. At least he hadn’t chosen manipulation. Jim hadn’t seen that ending well.
Jayne cocked his head. “About what?”
There was a heartbeat’s moment when Blair looked just plain shocked. He probably was. Jayne certainly didn’t act like someone whose lover had turned into a hwun dan with a Browncoat’s sense of honor. Jim sighed as he realized he probably needed to come up with another insult. Mal was a Browncoat, and his honor wasn’t actually in question-only his intelligence.
“Mal seems unreasonably cranky this morning,” Blair said, his voice slower. Now he figured out that this might not be the best plan, either that or his brain was busy spinning with new plans that were going to get him and Jim spaced.
“And?” Jayne asked.
“And I was wondering if you were okay.”
Jayne looked bone-deep confused now. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
That one stumped Blair, and he looked over toward Jim.
Holding up both hands, Jim shook his head. “Leave me out of this one.” The minute the words left his mouth, Jim knew he’d made a tactical error.
“Leave you outta what?” Jayne demanded, throwing the towel down and standing up to advance on Jim. Least he wasn’t getting aggressive with Blair, but it still wasn’t a comfort to have Jayne stalking him, especially when Jim still hadn’t gotten his hands on a gorram gun.
“Whoa, hey, no need to get aggressive,” Blair said as he darted forward, but Jim could see Jayne’s body tense for attack, his pupils slightly dilate as he searched for a vulnerability to hit, and Jayne wasn’t going to need more than one hit to take out Blair. Darting forward, Jim grabbed Blair by the back of his shirt and yanked him so hard that Blair’s arms flew out and the shirt tore, but it got him out of Jayne’s path. Confusion froze Jayne for the half second it took Jim to put himself in front of his partner.
“Blair thinks that Mal might have treated you a little poorly considering that he’s treating the rest of the crew like they’re lepers trying to kiss his daughter,” Jim hurried to explain. Jayne hadn’t reacted well to the idea of being left out of something, and Jim planned on making sure they went out of their way to not hit that particular button again. “I said that I thought a man should be able to handle his personal life without having Blair stick his nose in the middle. So there’s nothing much to be left out of except your personal life, which I think we’ll both be excusing ourselves from,” Jim finished. Backing away, he watched Jayne for any sign of attack. Luckily, Jayne looked more bewildered than confrontational.
“You were worried about how Mal were treating me?” he asked, and his hands dropped back down to his sides. Jim stopped when Blair put both hands on his back physically forced him to. When they got back to quarters, Jim was going to…. Cao… he was going to have all sorts of thoughts about ripping into Blair and then Blair was going to go dismissing him as usual. Some days Jim wondered when he’d lost all control over his relationship.
“Well, yeah. I mean we were worried about you,” Blair said as he leaned to the side so he could make eye contact with Jayne. Jim’s jaw was tight enough that he was risking a broken tooth.
Jayne’s eyes narrowed.
“He was worried about you spiritually,” Jim corrected Blair. “Personally, I think a hwun dan like you can take care of yourself and if you need spiritual help, you’ll figure out for yourself where to find it.”
Jayne snorted, but that seemed to settle him down some. Jim glanced over his shoulder, doing his best to give Blair a glare sharp enough to convince him that they should be leaving. Unfortunately, Jayne spoke up again before Jim could convince Blair to go into a full retreat.
“Ain’t one good reason for you to care whether Mal were acting like a shen jing bing.”
“Except that you’re a good man, and that is so not fair of him to do to you,” Blair immediately answered Jayne.
Both Jayne’s eyebrows went up and he took a fast step back as though Blair had hit him. “Guay. I would have shot your man there, you know,” Jayne said, poking a finger toward Jim. Jim crossed his arms and fought down a rising feeling of helplessness. Jayne truly would have, and the fact that Jim couldn’t do a gorram thing about that was bitter on his tongue.
“Only if Mal told you it was the right thing to do,” Blair said. “I mean, he totally must have proved himself at some point or you wouldn’t be so loyal, but now with Jim on board, he’s acting more like a da shabi.”
Jim choked at Blair’s particularly crude piece of profanity. “Chief,” he warned. If Jayne was all that loyal, calling Mal that particular name wasn’t going to win them points.
However, Jayne laughed. “He can be a bastard, alright.”
“And this morning?”
Jayne scratched his cheek. “I ain’t even sure what riled him. I woke up and he was already acting like someone had been poking him with a stick.”
“Oh man. I hear that,” Blair said with entirely too much sympathy. Jim angled his body slightly so he could pin Blair with a warning glare. Blair reached up and patted him on the arm. “No offense, but you can totally get unreasonable sometimes,” Blair told Jim in an apologetic voice. “I mean, you get some gou shi in your head and you do not let it go. I have never met a more stubborn man in the whole ‘verse… well, exceptin’ Mal. River’s right. You two are old war horses that just keep walking the same length of trail over and over and gorram over.” Blair rolled his eyes.
Jim crossed his arms and was on the verge of ripping Blair apart, but Jayne started speaking before Jim could gather up all his offended thoughts. “They’re downright annoyin’,” Jayne agreed. “I thought being sly meant that I’d have someone who could speak his plain mind, but Mal’s acting about as bad as the girls back home-always saying things that don’t have anything to do with what they mean.”
“I hear you. Man, so annoying.” Blair nodded enthusiastically.
“Are you about done insulting me?” Jim asked. Jayne frowned at him, and Jim realized the gorram merc was taking offense for Blair. Jim figured he would never figure out how Blair managed to talk his way around so many curves, but he really wasn’t in the mood to have Jayne taking Blair’s side in this fight.
“Hey, you know I still love you. You’re perfect for me, Jim, but no way does that mean you’re perfect.” Blair leaned close and wrapped his arm around Jim’s waist, and Jim wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling at this point. Annoyed and confused, maybe.
“Ain’t no way he’s as bad as Mal,” Jayne said as he turned his back and headed back to the weight bench where he’d left his shirt. He snatched it off the bench.
“I don’t’ know about that. He’s always getting in these funks where he thinks he has to die to save me.”
“Well Mal’s nearly gettin’ us all killed on a fairly regular basis,” Jayne said. Jim slung his arm over his shoulder and listened as Mal crept in closer. Hopefully Mal was hearing what he needed to hear because Jim really didn’t want to get in the middle of these two again, and he really didn’t want to get thrown out an airlock.
“But that means you’re with him. This idiot is always trying to leave me behind,” Blair said with a roll of his eyes toward Jim. "I would rather face death with Jim than put up with his idiotic habit of tryin’ to put me somewhere safe before he goes off acting like a sha gua.”
“I wouldn’t put up with that.” Jayne said with another nasty look in Jim’s direction. Fact was that Jim wasn’t real comfortable with Jayne getting so unhappy. It’d be one thing if Jim had a gun on his hip. Armed, he’d take on Jayne no problem. However, unarmed and trapped on a ship of Browncoats that were already more than a little hostile, Jim really didn’t need to give anyone else a reason for hating him.
“Yeah, well I’m not a fighter like you, so it’s hard to convince the idiot to let me come along.”
“You shouldn’t be in danger,” Jim said in his own defense. Clearly, that didn’t impress Jayne much.
“I’d give Mal a piece of my mind if’n he even tried that shi on me.”
“Oh trust me. Jim hears about it. I can’t seem to convince the sha gua that I can take care of myself, but I do tell him what I think of his opinions on a regular basis.”
“I wish Mal would do that same. I ain’t even sure what I did wrong this time.”
“Whoa, you’re assuming that you’re the one who screwed up.” Blair squirmed out of Jim’s embrace to stand in front of him, and Jim let him. Hell, at this point, Jim wasn’t even sure what battle they were trying to win, so it was best to just let Blair do his thing and try and minimize any damage that happened after. If Mal got offended, Jim just wasn’t sure that he was the best person to be doing that minimizing.
Jayne snorted. “Trust me. I did the fucking up. I generally do. Only, if Mal ain’t explaining what I done wrong, I can’t fix it.” Jayne pulled his shirt on and sat on the weight bench, looking about as beaten as a man as big as Jayne could look.
“I’m guessing he’s a chou wang ba dan, and that’s the problem.”
“He can be,” Jayne said, and Jim was surprised to hear Jayne agree. “He ain’t never been to me, though, not even when I gave him cause. Hell, I done plenty bad, even when I weren’t trying, and Mal ain’t sent me packing yet. So if someone went and did the sly thing wrong, I’m guessing it was me.” Jayne paused, and Jim watched the subtle shift of dozens of muscles as his mood changed. Jim wrapped his arm around Blair’s shoulders and prepared to move fast if need be. The senses warned him when someone was thinking something, and right now Jayne was thinking plenty. Jim just didn’t know him well enough to understand what he was thinking on.
“You think you two could help me practice the sly stuff?” Jayne asked. It was the tone, the perfectly innocent tone, that kept Jim’s brain from rightly understanding just what Jayne had just said. Instead, he stared at Jayne, his brain trying to sort through that combination of words and come to any meaning that made sense.
“Cobb!” Mal’s voice bellowed, and Jim’s guts about turned to water. Cao. There was a reason he was always telling Blair to stay out of people’s personal lives.
If you want to read the early chapters, go to Twisting the Hellmouth.
If you want to read the most recent chapters, use tags.
I'm reposting chapter 18 under the link for people who got shut out, and chapter 19 follows after.
Title: Old War Horses
Firefly x Sentinel
Mal/Jayne, Blair/Jim
Rated: ADULT
Malcolm Reynolds fought for the Browncoat rebels. They wanted their freedom. They lost. James Joseph Womak was a commander for the Alliance, determined to bring justice to the common people. His side won, but he still lost.
This time on Old War Horses:
Blair is determined to help Jayne through a difficult time. Possibly someone should have sent Jayne that memo.
18.
“Morning!” Blair practically sang as they walked into the galley.
“Mornin’ Blair!” Kaylee answered with equal enthusiasm. Jim offered a polite nod to the assembled group, but he didn’t plan to push things with any of these people. Simon Tam was still giving him a worshipful look that made Jim about as uncomfortable as Mal’s hate. Only Jim noted that Mal was more interested in poking at eggs than glaring this morning.
“Whoa, eggs. Who do I have to kill to earn some of those?” Despite the suggestion that he’d have to earn breakfast, Blair walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a plate to serve himself, and no one objected. Kaylee went back to loudly telling a story about some trader the crew knew with a forced attempt at humor, Simon kept watching Jim, River watched Blair, and Mal sat at the table with an expression like someone had shot his dog. Only Zoe looked unaffected by whatever foul mood had settled over the crew today. Jim felt like he was in one of those fictional vids where it turned out some virus was slowly turning everyone into a Reaver, emotions were just that unbalanced. Even the smell had a jagged edge to it that made Jim uncomfortable.
“Here you go,” Blair said, handing Jim a plate loaded with food. Even though Jim accepted it, he kept his eyes on Mal, watching to see if the captain would object to the sheer volume of food Blair had brought him. Jim knew that if he were still an Alliance captain with a core-deep belief in the cause and he’d been forced to take on a Browncoat passenger, Jim would have set a few rules. He sure wouldn’t have wanted the Browncoat eating all the fresh protein. However, when Mal looked up, his glare focused on Blair. While Blair blithely sauntered back to the kitchen for more food, Mal followed him with a sullen glare.
“Captain,” Jim greeted him, feeling a need to distract Mal from whatever unhappiness was making him take such a sudden dislike to Blair. “Any word from Beaumonde?”
Kaylee fell silent and everyone waited for Mal to answer, but he didn’t. Zoe picked up the slack. “No word yet, but as long as no one is shooting at us, that’s generally a good sign.”
Jim frowned. “Where’s Jayne?” It made him nervous, not knowing where Jayne was. These people might be uneasy allies against the Institute, but they were still enemy. Jim couldn’t shake that feeling. And the fact was, he always wanted to have his enemy where he could see them. However, the second Jayne’s name left his mouth, Jim had a good idea what bug had crawled up Mal’s ass. Despite the fact that last night had gone well enough, something had soured.
“Working. At least one person on this gorram crew knows how to get his work done.” Mal slammed his fork down on the table, and everyone except Zoe sort of froze in place. Zoe kept on eating her breakfast, and Jim tried to take his cues from her. She’d clearly been with the captain long enough to read him, so despite the sour fear that settled in his stomach, Jim started eating. He didn’t lie to himself about this attack in two or three days. Mal would put him in the most vulnerable, most dangerous position, and Jim needed to make sure he was strong enough to hold his own. He couldn’t afford to pass up fresh, unprocessed protein.
Eventually the others started moving. Kaylee stayed silent, her story abandoned.
“Seriously cranky vibes,” Blair whispered as he sat next to Jim on side away from Mal. Jim’s stomach unknotted a little having Blair close enough to grab up if the situation turned more inhospitable than normal. From the mingled scents of frustration and anger and confusion, it might turn ugly any second.
River shifted in her chair, stood and then put her knees in it before settling down like an overgrown five-year-old. “Medial orbitofrontal cortex failure hurts,” she offered with a sympathetic look in Mal’s direction. Jim took a slow deep breath through his nose, sorting through various smells to see if she was describing some illness, but Mal smelled fine. He smelled aggravated, with stress hormones leeching out his skin, but that wasn’t a surprise.
Blair made a sympathetic face, so clearly River’s comment meant something to him. “Oh man. Yeah, it would,” Blair agreed. “But letting the medial orbitofrontal cortex rule your life is not cool. And you are sounding better, far more coherent.”
“Head clearer,” she agreed with a not-subtle shit-look for her brother.
“I bet. Those were some heavy-duty meds you were on.” Blair nodded. “Seriously heavy.”
Simon stiffened under their implication that he’d overmedicated his sister. “They helped her with the panic attacks.”
“Well, yeah,” Blair agreed. “She was drugged to the gills. I’d have a hard time panicking too if I were that drugged up, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I mean, if I’m facing real danger, I prefer to do it with real fear on my side.”
“You can’t-” The doctor looked ready to make this an all-out medical war, but Mal cut him off.
“I ain’t interested in having you two ruin my breakfast,” he snapped. “Wuh de tyen, ah. God save me from core-bred gao yang jong duh goo yang. Not a one of you has the sense god gave a motherless whoring turtle.” Snatching his fork off the table, Mal started shoveling the food in like someone might try and take it away from him.
Jim might have worried some because he could smell the aggression and the need to fight rising from Mal’s skin like a fog, only Zoe kept right on eating breakfast with only a raised eyebrow to comment on Mal’s vivid use of profanity.
River made a face. “Hippocampus and anterior insula vie with amygdala for blood flow.”
“Okay,” Blair said, and he sounded a little distressed about that. Jim frowned. Normally he didn’t mind not understanding Blair’s conversations, but everyone at the table seemed to be getting more uncomfortable than was really safe considering he and Blair weren’t armed.
“Would either of you like to start clarifying what you’re talking about?” Mal demanded.
Blair didn’t answer, but River gave him a bright smile. “No,” she said, almost singing the word. “Captain needs more oxytocin.”
“Oxytocin?” Simon almost choked on a laugh. “The captain isn’t that bad.”
The captain turned a deadly cold look in Simon’s direction. “He might be if’n he gets aggravated enough,” Mal warned, and Jim could hear the dangerous edge of frustration in that voice.
“Blair, knock it off,” Jim warned softly.
“Old war horses,” River offered with a soft sigh.
“They are who they are,” Blair agreed with a shrug.
Mal leaned forward. “And I’m getting aggravated enough that you both ought to be a mite bit worried.”
It was Simon who stepped in. “Oxytocin is a hormone associated with socialization. Sometimes people with anti-social disorders are prescribed doses to improve their ability to interact with others.”
That made Mal’s face turn an unhealthy shade of gray. Whatever had gone wrong between Mal and Jayne, it had done so spectacularly, and Jim could just kill Blair for starting this whole mess.
“Are you calling me crazy?” Mal’s voice was dangerously calm.
“No way. That description is a total oversimplification,” Blair said with a dismissive snort. From the way Simon stiffened, he wasn’t used to having his doctoring questioned. “I will avoid doing surgery if you’ll avoid psychiatric diagnoses, because those are not in our mutually exclusive areas of expertise. Alpha-hypophamine oxytocin polypeptide is a neuromodulator. We all have it in our bodies. Yes, it affects a person’s feelings for his fellow humans, but it also prepares fetal neurons for delivery by changing the function of gamma-aminobutyric acids and causes spinal cord movement and is even involved in addiction.”
Blair slung the words out there, his hands gesturing in the air with enough vehemence that Jim could recognize the obfuscation from a mile away. If Simon’s explanation about anti-social disorder caused this much verbal flailing on Blair’s part, Jim was guessing it was pretty near the mark. He glanced over, and Mal just looked confused. Aggravated and confused.
“I’d like to check over… something not in this room.” Jim stood up, his food in one hand while he pulled at Blair’s arm with the other. “Come on, Mr.Know-it-all.”
“That’s Dr. Know-it-al,” Blair complained, but he scrambled to grab his fork and get up. Even he knew the room was turning dangerous for those who didn’t have the protection of being trusted crew. “And as a doctor, I’m supposed to know everything about my very narrow field of study. Totally narrow. And oxytocin is within my very narrow field.”
“Uh-huh.” Jim said as he herded Blair toward the exit.
Behind them, Kaylee was trying to soothe the others. “Really? They have something what can make unsociable types social? We should carry some of that, do y’all remember…” She launched into another story of some trader they knew who’d shot Mal. They were out in the hallway and halfway to the sleeping quarters when Blair stopped, his plate still clutched in hand.
“You have to find Jayne.” Blair looked up with wide, panicked eyes.
“Why?” Jim asked suspiciously.
“Because Mal totally fucked something up. Cao, if River’s even half-right, I do not want to think what shape Jayne’s in.”
“Hurt?” Jim’s gut soured at the idea of Mal doing damage to his lover, but Jim had been a cop long enough to know that people did that-they hurt those they were closest to. Before Blair, Jim had one short-lived marriage and three lovers who hadn’t even approached the stage in a relationship where you go leaving things in each other’s quarters. So he didn’t have a long list of lovers, but he couldn’t imagine hurting any of them. Even Caroline, who’d left him after one long screaming match about honor and duty and his choice to accept a promotion to front-line duty in the war, never inspired the sort of violence some men regularly took out on their lovers. Jim hadn’t pegged Mal as the sort to do that, either.
“No way.” Blair gave Jim a punch in the arm. “Stop assuming the worst about people.”
“I was a cop, Sandburg. It comes with the territory.”
Blair snorted. “I know plenty of cops who aren’t so… Wait… Actually, every cop I know is actually some variation on a dick.” Blair grinned at him. Jim gave his partner the sort of glare that had, once upon a time, made suspects confess and cry.
“River says that Mal’s emotions are all over the map, particularly his emotions concerning sexuality.”
“That’s what that brain talk was all about?”
“Yep.” Blair nodded. “River’s no more insane that you or me.”
“Sanity is a little questionable when it comes to all three of us,” Jim pointed out.
“Okay, that’s true. Everyone on this ship could use a little therapy. Or a lot of therapy.” Blair cringed. “Or huge shitloads of therapy with a side of psychotropic and antidepressant medication thrown in on the side, and I am not normally the one to go for prescribing medicine. But anyway, the medial orbitofrontal cortex functions to put heavy emotions in lockdown.”
“And with Mal, it just failed,” Jim finished, remembering River’s words.
“Exactly. So Mal can’t deal with all these emotions that are hitting him. Fear and lust and all these messy feelings are getting his brain… whoa.” Blair stopped, just out of words, but Jim remembered what it had been like. When he’d first seen Blair in a white lab coat and blue gloves, he’d nursed the same hate he felt for all the Institute doctors. Learning to see Blair the man had taken some uncomfortable mental shifting.
“And if he’s emotionally suffering and striking out….”
“Jayne would have been ground zero, this morning,” Blair said with a grimace. “Use your hearing to find him, Jim. No way can we just let him suffer while everyone sits in there with Mal like he’s in the right.”
Jim sighed. “We should go to our quarters and stay out of this,” he said, knowing before he started that he was going to lose this battle.
“No way. Look, maybe I shouldn’t have jumped in so fast, but I’m the one who pushed Mal in Jayne’s direction, so if he just emotionally or spiritually shredded Jayne, that is on me. I am not leaving him to suffer alone while everyone on this ship acts like he’s some soulless mercenary. I mean, they talk like he’s here for the money, but have you seen how he looks at this crew? Man, they’re his family, and they don’t respect him at all. No way am I turning my back on that.”
Yeah, Jim lost the battle the minute Blair brought in the idea of a man struggling with a family that didn’t respect him. Sometimes Jim wondered if Blair was intentionally manipulative or if his mother’s training had sunk in so deep that he simply instinctively coerced the whole ‘verse into doing what he wanted. Some days, Jim just didn’t know. However, he sent his hearing out, tracing the corridors and long runs of metals struts until he heard the clinking of heavy weights in the steady pattern of a man doing repetitions.
“This way,” Jim offered, gesturing down a corridor. Blair gave him a brilliant smile and a quick eyebrow wiggle before he turned and practically bounced down the way.
They were so going to end up getting spaced.
19.
Jim held back while Blair closed in on Jayne. If this were about fighting, Jim would be taking the lead, but if Blair had it in mind to talk to a man about his sexual relationships, Jim planned to stay as far out of it as he could while still having his partner’s back. It seemed like a man should be able to have a relationship implode without having some near-stranger get in the middle, but that wasn’t the way Blair saw things.
Jim wondered whether Blair would have been so pushy if he’d been around when Jim and Carolyn had been in the middle of their disastrous break-up. Probably. Hell, as persuasive as the little shit could be, he probably would have talked them into staying together, which would have been wrong because Jim couldn’t image his life with anyone but Blair.
“Hey,” Blair said as he walked up to Jayne, starting out pretty neutral. Jayne’s body tensed when Blair got close enough to be in striking range, but he pretended to be unaffected. Jim leaned against the railing on the stairs that led up to a balcony that overlooked this empty cargo bay and watched. Jayne really wasn’t like any mercenary he’d ever known. He was dumb and in love with his gorram guns, and that was pretty typical of the breed, but he wasn’t particularly short-tempered and he tolerated Blair well enough.
As a cop, Jim had seen plenty of mercenaries turn on a man because he wasn’t manly enough. Sly boys were in real danger around them, and considering that some of the bastards sought out whore houses that offered sly, it sometimes turned very dark. Jim had been assigned to more than one of those investigations. He hated them. The other whores would always hide the customer rather than risk losing business, and Jim did hate to leave a crime unsolved. Oh, he did often enough. You didn’t work the fringes of society without losing more cases than you solved, but Jim never got used to the casual acceptance of violence. Yet Jayne never smelled of aggression around Blair, and he seemed more confused than offended by the idea of a man like Jim being sly.
Jayne kept lifting, grunting as he pushed the bar with the heavy plates all the way up before slowly lowering it. It was an impressive amount of weight he was pushing, especially since he didn’t have anyone to spot him. Either he was confident in his ability to lift that much or he was a fool. Maybe a little of both.
After two more repetitions, Jayne settled the bar into place and sat up. Rather than answer Blair, he gave him an odd look while wiping a towel over his sweaty face.
“So….” Blair said, letting his voice trail off. Jim cringed. Blair might be able to talk a farmer out of his last acre, but after all this time, he still didn’t know how to talk to a soldier. Or a mercenary.
Jayne narrowed his eyes and gave Blair a dangerously cold look. “You got something to say?”
“Me? No. I’m here to see if you need to say something or ask something or you know, talk.” Blair gave Jayne his most sympathetic expression. At least he hadn’t chosen manipulation. Jim hadn’t seen that ending well.
Jayne cocked his head. “About what?”
There was a heartbeat’s moment when Blair looked just plain shocked. He probably was. Jayne certainly didn’t act like someone whose lover had turned into a hwun dan with a Browncoat’s sense of honor. Jim sighed as he realized he probably needed to come up with another insult. Mal was a Browncoat, and his honor wasn’t actually in question-only his intelligence.
“Mal seems unreasonably cranky this morning,” Blair said, his voice slower. Now he figured out that this might not be the best plan, either that or his brain was busy spinning with new plans that were going to get him and Jim spaced.
“And?” Jayne asked.
“And I was wondering if you were okay.”
Jayne looked bone-deep confused now. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
That one stumped Blair, and he looked over toward Jim.
Holding up both hands, Jim shook his head. “Leave me out of this one.” The minute the words left his mouth, Jim knew he’d made a tactical error.
“Leave you outta what?” Jayne demanded, throwing the towel down and standing up to advance on Jim. Least he wasn’t getting aggressive with Blair, but it still wasn’t a comfort to have Jayne stalking him, especially when Jim still hadn’t gotten his hands on a gorram gun.
“Whoa, hey, no need to get aggressive,” Blair said as he darted forward, but Jim could see Jayne’s body tense for attack, his pupils slightly dilate as he searched for a vulnerability to hit, and Jayne wasn’t going to need more than one hit to take out Blair. Darting forward, Jim grabbed Blair by the back of his shirt and yanked him so hard that Blair’s arms flew out and the shirt tore, but it got him out of Jayne’s path. Confusion froze Jayne for the half second it took Jim to put himself in front of his partner.
“Blair thinks that Mal might have treated you a little poorly considering that he’s treating the rest of the crew like they’re lepers trying to kiss his daughter,” Jim hurried to explain. Jayne hadn’t reacted well to the idea of being left out of something, and Jim planned on making sure they went out of their way to not hit that particular button again. “I said that I thought a man should be able to handle his personal life without having Blair stick his nose in the middle. So there’s nothing much to be left out of except your personal life, which I think we’ll both be excusing ourselves from,” Jim finished. Backing away, he watched Jayne for any sign of attack. Luckily, Jayne looked more bewildered than confrontational.
“You were worried about how Mal were treating me?” he asked, and his hands dropped back down to his sides. Jim stopped when Blair put both hands on his back physically forced him to. When they got back to quarters, Jim was going to…. Cao… he was going to have all sorts of thoughts about ripping into Blair and then Blair was going to go dismissing him as usual. Some days Jim wondered when he’d lost all control over his relationship.
“Well, yeah. I mean we were worried about you,” Blair said as he leaned to the side so he could make eye contact with Jayne. Jim’s jaw was tight enough that he was risking a broken tooth.
Jayne’s eyes narrowed.
“He was worried about you spiritually,” Jim corrected Blair. “Personally, I think a hwun dan like you can take care of yourself and if you need spiritual help, you’ll figure out for yourself where to find it.”
Jayne snorted, but that seemed to settle him down some. Jim glanced over his shoulder, doing his best to give Blair a glare sharp enough to convince him that they should be leaving. Unfortunately, Jayne spoke up again before Jim could convince Blair to go into a full retreat.
“Ain’t one good reason for you to care whether Mal were acting like a shen jing bing.”
“Except that you’re a good man, and that is so not fair of him to do to you,” Blair immediately answered Jayne.
Both Jayne’s eyebrows went up and he took a fast step back as though Blair had hit him. “Guay. I would have shot your man there, you know,” Jayne said, poking a finger toward Jim. Jim crossed his arms and fought down a rising feeling of helplessness. Jayne truly would have, and the fact that Jim couldn’t do a gorram thing about that was bitter on his tongue.
“Only if Mal told you it was the right thing to do,” Blair said. “I mean, he totally must have proved himself at some point or you wouldn’t be so loyal, but now with Jim on board, he’s acting more like a da shabi.”
Jim choked at Blair’s particularly crude piece of profanity. “Chief,” he warned. If Jayne was all that loyal, calling Mal that particular name wasn’t going to win them points.
However, Jayne laughed. “He can be a bastard, alright.”
“And this morning?”
Jayne scratched his cheek. “I ain’t even sure what riled him. I woke up and he was already acting like someone had been poking him with a stick.”
“Oh man. I hear that,” Blair said with entirely too much sympathy. Jim angled his body slightly so he could pin Blair with a warning glare. Blair reached up and patted him on the arm. “No offense, but you can totally get unreasonable sometimes,” Blair told Jim in an apologetic voice. “I mean, you get some gou shi in your head and you do not let it go. I have never met a more stubborn man in the whole ‘verse… well, exceptin’ Mal. River’s right. You two are old war horses that just keep walking the same length of trail over and over and gorram over.” Blair rolled his eyes.
Jim crossed his arms and was on the verge of ripping Blair apart, but Jayne started speaking before Jim could gather up all his offended thoughts. “They’re downright annoyin’,” Jayne agreed. “I thought being sly meant that I’d have someone who could speak his plain mind, but Mal’s acting about as bad as the girls back home-always saying things that don’t have anything to do with what they mean.”
“I hear you. Man, so annoying.” Blair nodded enthusiastically.
“Are you about done insulting me?” Jim asked. Jayne frowned at him, and Jim realized the gorram merc was taking offense for Blair. Jim figured he would never figure out how Blair managed to talk his way around so many curves, but he really wasn’t in the mood to have Jayne taking Blair’s side in this fight.
“Hey, you know I still love you. You’re perfect for me, Jim, but no way does that mean you’re perfect.” Blair leaned close and wrapped his arm around Jim’s waist, and Jim wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling at this point. Annoyed and confused, maybe.
“Ain’t no way he’s as bad as Mal,” Jayne said as he turned his back and headed back to the weight bench where he’d left his shirt. He snatched it off the bench.
“I don’t’ know about that. He’s always getting in these funks where he thinks he has to die to save me.”
“Well Mal’s nearly gettin’ us all killed on a fairly regular basis,” Jayne said. Jim slung his arm over his shoulder and listened as Mal crept in closer. Hopefully Mal was hearing what he needed to hear because Jim really didn’t want to get in the middle of these two again, and he really didn’t want to get thrown out an airlock.
“But that means you’re with him. This idiot is always trying to leave me behind,” Blair said with a roll of his eyes toward Jim. "I would rather face death with Jim than put up with his idiotic habit of tryin’ to put me somewhere safe before he goes off acting like a sha gua.”
“I wouldn’t put up with that.” Jayne said with another nasty look in Jim’s direction. Fact was that Jim wasn’t real comfortable with Jayne getting so unhappy. It’d be one thing if Jim had a gun on his hip. Armed, he’d take on Jayne no problem. However, unarmed and trapped on a ship of Browncoats that were already more than a little hostile, Jim really didn’t need to give anyone else a reason for hating him.
“Yeah, well I’m not a fighter like you, so it’s hard to convince the idiot to let me come along.”
“You shouldn’t be in danger,” Jim said in his own defense. Clearly, that didn’t impress Jayne much.
“I’d give Mal a piece of my mind if’n he even tried that shi on me.”
“Oh trust me. Jim hears about it. I can’t seem to convince the sha gua that I can take care of myself, but I do tell him what I think of his opinions on a regular basis.”
“I wish Mal would do that same. I ain’t even sure what I did wrong this time.”
“Whoa, you’re assuming that you’re the one who screwed up.” Blair squirmed out of Jim’s embrace to stand in front of him, and Jim let him. Hell, at this point, Jim wasn’t even sure what battle they were trying to win, so it was best to just let Blair do his thing and try and minimize any damage that happened after. If Mal got offended, Jim just wasn’t sure that he was the best person to be doing that minimizing.
Jayne snorted. “Trust me. I did the fucking up. I generally do. Only, if Mal ain’t explaining what I done wrong, I can’t fix it.” Jayne pulled his shirt on and sat on the weight bench, looking about as beaten as a man as big as Jayne could look.
“I’m guessing he’s a chou wang ba dan, and that’s the problem.”
“He can be,” Jayne said, and Jim was surprised to hear Jayne agree. “He ain’t never been to me, though, not even when I gave him cause. Hell, I done plenty bad, even when I weren’t trying, and Mal ain’t sent me packing yet. So if someone went and did the sly thing wrong, I’m guessing it was me.” Jayne paused, and Jim watched the subtle shift of dozens of muscles as his mood changed. Jim wrapped his arm around Blair’s shoulders and prepared to move fast if need be. The senses warned him when someone was thinking something, and right now Jayne was thinking plenty. Jim just didn’t know him well enough to understand what he was thinking on.
“You think you two could help me practice the sly stuff?” Jayne asked. It was the tone, the perfectly innocent tone, that kept Jim’s brain from rightly understanding just what Jayne had just said. Instead, he stared at Jayne, his brain trying to sort through that combination of words and come to any meaning that made sense.
“Cobb!” Mal’s voice bellowed, and Jim’s guts about turned to water. Cao. There was a reason he was always telling Blair to stay out of people’s personal lives.