Five Things (2)
This was the first time I've written for this show.
Fandom: Firefly
EDIT: Credit where credit is due: nightrider101 was a great help in coming up with ideas for this one.
Prompt by sarkywoman: Five times Jayne was nice to Simon for reasons he didn't even understand himself.
1.
Later Jayne would tell himself that he didn’t even like strawberries that much. He had gotten some from an old acquaintance they had happened to run into (the way they always happened to run into old acquaintances of someone), and apparently the bad impression he had made during their first meeting still lingered, so the man gave him his assorted fruits without much fight. Fruits were rare enough for a space traveller, and free fruits even more so, and so Jayne had taken them. Even the strawberries. Despite not liking them very much.
That he didn’t like them much (as he had been reminded of when he bit into the first one and the sweet, intense taste exploded on his depraved tongue) was the reason why he gave most of them to Simon after the doctor had watched him eat for a while, with an expression on his face that would have resembled greed if such an expression hadn’t been completely below him. Snotty brat. Giving him the strawberries had also made him go away to share them with his crazy sister, which was a bonus. Jayne was quite happy to be rid of him. Yes, he decided: getting rid of Simon had been his main motivation for giving away the precious fruits (he could just as well have sold to Wash or Kaylee for exorbitant prices if he hated them so much), not the resulting expression of pleasant surprise on Simon’s face that would follow him into his bunk.
2.
“Ouch,” Jayne said. Loudly. He also said, “Be a bit more careful, you butcher!” Eventually he cursed (repeatedly) and hissed through clenched teeth, “How the hell did it even get there?”
“It’s a thorn,” Simon said with insufferable calmness. “A long, nasty thorn that’s stuck in your butt. It happens when you sit on thorns.”
“No shit!” Jayne cursed again when the long, nasty thorn was pulled out of his flesh. “I won’t be able to sit for days!”
“I knew there had to be a good side to your favour of the horizontal position.” There was a distinct lack of sympathy in the doctor’s voice.
“Hey! I thought doctors were supposed to be nice.”
“No. Doctor’s are supposed to heal you and tell you you’re an idiot to get injured in the first place. If you want sympathy, try the shepherd.”
“No way! If the others learn about this they’ll laugh at me for weeks.” It occurred to Jayne that nothing would stop Simon from telling them himself. But while he was still looking for a good thing to threaten the doctor with that would not result in his sister killing him with her brain, the young man sighed.
“I guess I could tell them that you got injured in a heroic gunfight, should anyone ask,” he offered. Shot in the butt was still kind of unheroic, but at least it was better than confusing a branch with a bench. “Since people shoot at us a lot, it wouldn’t do for our best fighter to die of embarrassment.”
This took Jayne by surprise, and before his brain caught up with his mouth, he stuttered, “Well, yes. You are not so bad too. As a doctor, I mean.”
Behind him he heard Simon snort and already regretted having said anything at all.
3.
“Who did that?”
Simon flinched and battered Jayne’s hand away when he reached for the rather big and purple bruise on the doctor’s face. To Jayne’s own surprise seeing the other man’s face bruised pissed him off. Probably because he wanted first rights on that. The bruising, that was. Not the face.
“Some guy,” Simon explained. “We got in a fight. Well, Mal and Zoe did. I just managed to get hit by someone with a very bad aim.”
That… had been to be expected, actually. Simon was hardly the kind of guy who got into bar fights, unless it was someone else’s bar fight.
“Did you break his nose in return?” Jayne asked, because that was what he would have done. It was only fair and just, after all.
“Of course not,” Simon told him, in a way that said ‘I’m not one of you brutal people who always solve conflicts with violence’ but probably really meant ‘Look at me! I’d only break my hand in the process.’
“Did he buy you a drink as compensation?”
“We kind of didn’t get around to that,” Simon said sourly.
“Then you should have broken his nose.”
“That’s your way of handling things. I’m not stopping you. You can go and break his nose any time you like if it’s so important to you.” The doctor walked away with a dismissive wave, indicating that he didn’t really mean it, and Jayne shrugged, and smirked, and turned to leave the ship, with the intention of doing exactly as suggested.
4.
Apparently River really didn’t like Jayne’s clothes, for she had broken into his room while he was training with Brook, and had cut to shreds all his spare shirts.
At least he hadn’t been wearing them, this time.
To say that he was pissed would have been an understatement. So the next day Jayne, who lived his life by the strict philosophy of ‘an eye for an eye’, took one of his knifes and made his way over to the girl’s room to destroy her clothes, and her brother’s too, while he was at it. It was the doctor’s job to watch over her, after all, which made the destruction of Jayne’s shirts also his fault. That he'd had to deal with a hysterical sister all night, who was currently sedated and restrained in the med bay, definitely wasn’t punishment enough.
Just as it wasn’t punishment enough for River to be a hysterical girl who was currently sedated and restrained in the med bay. Not when it came to his favourite t-shirt!
Jayne found Simon when he crossed the sitting area. The young doctor was sitting on the couch, on his own, his shoulders slumped and his face buried in his hands. He looked up when Jayne entered, and the older man saw deep lines of exhaustion, stress and worry on his face. The doctor straightened, as if to pretend that he wasn’t about to fall over, and offered a weak smile of politeness.
Jayne didn’t destroy any clothes that day.
5.
It was a fact that Simon was much too tense whenever they left the ship. Actually he also was too tense when they were inside the ship. At some point, Jayne had realised that the boy just didn’t know how to have fun.
At a slightly later point, Jayne had decided that he would chance that.
Simon didn’t appear to appreciate his idea of fun very much. They sat inside a dimly lit (so the dirt on the walls wasn’t as obvious, Simon pointed out) club that smelled of cigar smoke and alcohol and had naked girls dancing on tables. Jayne quite liked it, but Simon seemed, if possible, even more stiff than before, and not in the same way Jayne was.
So Jayne, after a few drinks, paid a pretty young thing to sit in Simon’s lab and rub against him a bit. And she did, and seemed to enjoy herself quite a lot, while Simon desperately tried to get rid of her without being impolite, which only seemed to encourage her further. Jayne was laughing quite a lot.
Until the girl pulled off her shirt and Jayne discovered that she was, in fact, a guy. And not even an especially feminine one. The dim light was definitely working against him here.
After a few seconds of confusion, Jayne laughed again, harder than before. Simon looked unhappy and embarrassed, a half naked guy was rubbing against him -
- and it was fucking hot.
Jayne chocked on his drink, coughed for half a minute, and decided that he needed to help Simon get rid of the half naked guy right now, because Jayne needed to leave. Badly. He needed to get back to the Serenity and crawl into his bunk.
And Simon he would take with him.
March 9, 2009
.
Fandom: Firefly
EDIT: Credit where credit is due: nightrider101 was a great help in coming up with ideas for this one.
Prompt by sarkywoman: Five times Jayne was nice to Simon for reasons he didn't even understand himself.
1.
Later Jayne would tell himself that he didn’t even like strawberries that much. He had gotten some from an old acquaintance they had happened to run into (the way they always happened to run into old acquaintances of someone), and apparently the bad impression he had made during their first meeting still lingered, so the man gave him his assorted fruits without much fight. Fruits were rare enough for a space traveller, and free fruits even more so, and so Jayne had taken them. Even the strawberries. Despite not liking them very much.
That he didn’t like them much (as he had been reminded of when he bit into the first one and the sweet, intense taste exploded on his depraved tongue) was the reason why he gave most of them to Simon after the doctor had watched him eat for a while, with an expression on his face that would have resembled greed if such an expression hadn’t been completely below him. Snotty brat. Giving him the strawberries had also made him go away to share them with his crazy sister, which was a bonus. Jayne was quite happy to be rid of him. Yes, he decided: getting rid of Simon had been his main motivation for giving away the precious fruits (he could just as well have sold to Wash or Kaylee for exorbitant prices if he hated them so much), not the resulting expression of pleasant surprise on Simon’s face that would follow him into his bunk.
2.
“Ouch,” Jayne said. Loudly. He also said, “Be a bit more careful, you butcher!” Eventually he cursed (repeatedly) and hissed through clenched teeth, “How the hell did it even get there?”
“It’s a thorn,” Simon said with insufferable calmness. “A long, nasty thorn that’s stuck in your butt. It happens when you sit on thorns.”
“No shit!” Jayne cursed again when the long, nasty thorn was pulled out of his flesh. “I won’t be able to sit for days!”
“I knew there had to be a good side to your favour of the horizontal position.” There was a distinct lack of sympathy in the doctor’s voice.
“Hey! I thought doctors were supposed to be nice.”
“No. Doctor’s are supposed to heal you and tell you you’re an idiot to get injured in the first place. If you want sympathy, try the shepherd.”
“No way! If the others learn about this they’ll laugh at me for weeks.” It occurred to Jayne that nothing would stop Simon from telling them himself. But while he was still looking for a good thing to threaten the doctor with that would not result in his sister killing him with her brain, the young man sighed.
“I guess I could tell them that you got injured in a heroic gunfight, should anyone ask,” he offered. Shot in the butt was still kind of unheroic, but at least it was better than confusing a branch with a bench. “Since people shoot at us a lot, it wouldn’t do for our best fighter to die of embarrassment.”
This took Jayne by surprise, and before his brain caught up with his mouth, he stuttered, “Well, yes. You are not so bad too. As a doctor, I mean.”
Behind him he heard Simon snort and already regretted having said anything at all.
3.
“Who did that?”
Simon flinched and battered Jayne’s hand away when he reached for the rather big and purple bruise on the doctor’s face. To Jayne’s own surprise seeing the other man’s face bruised pissed him off. Probably because he wanted first rights on that. The bruising, that was. Not the face.
“Some guy,” Simon explained. “We got in a fight. Well, Mal and Zoe did. I just managed to get hit by someone with a very bad aim.”
That… had been to be expected, actually. Simon was hardly the kind of guy who got into bar fights, unless it was someone else’s bar fight.
“Did you break his nose in return?” Jayne asked, because that was what he would have done. It was only fair and just, after all.
“Of course not,” Simon told him, in a way that said ‘I’m not one of you brutal people who always solve conflicts with violence’ but probably really meant ‘Look at me! I’d only break my hand in the process.’
“Did he buy you a drink as compensation?”
“We kind of didn’t get around to that,” Simon said sourly.
“Then you should have broken his nose.”
“That’s your way of handling things. I’m not stopping you. You can go and break his nose any time you like if it’s so important to you.” The doctor walked away with a dismissive wave, indicating that he didn’t really mean it, and Jayne shrugged, and smirked, and turned to leave the ship, with the intention of doing exactly as suggested.
4.
Apparently River really didn’t like Jayne’s clothes, for she had broken into his room while he was training with Brook, and had cut to shreds all his spare shirts.
At least he hadn’t been wearing them, this time.
To say that he was pissed would have been an understatement. So the next day Jayne, who lived his life by the strict philosophy of ‘an eye for an eye’, took one of his knifes and made his way over to the girl’s room to destroy her clothes, and her brother’s too, while he was at it. It was the doctor’s job to watch over her, after all, which made the destruction of Jayne’s shirts also his fault. That he'd had to deal with a hysterical sister all night, who was currently sedated and restrained in the med bay, definitely wasn’t punishment enough.
Just as it wasn’t punishment enough for River to be a hysterical girl who was currently sedated and restrained in the med bay. Not when it came to his favourite t-shirt!
Jayne found Simon when he crossed the sitting area. The young doctor was sitting on the couch, on his own, his shoulders slumped and his face buried in his hands. He looked up when Jayne entered, and the older man saw deep lines of exhaustion, stress and worry on his face. The doctor straightened, as if to pretend that he wasn’t about to fall over, and offered a weak smile of politeness.
Jayne didn’t destroy any clothes that day.
5.
It was a fact that Simon was much too tense whenever they left the ship. Actually he also was too tense when they were inside the ship. At some point, Jayne had realised that the boy just didn’t know how to have fun.
At a slightly later point, Jayne had decided that he would chance that.
Simon didn’t appear to appreciate his idea of fun very much. They sat inside a dimly lit (so the dirt on the walls wasn’t as obvious, Simon pointed out) club that smelled of cigar smoke and alcohol and had naked girls dancing on tables. Jayne quite liked it, but Simon seemed, if possible, even more stiff than before, and not in the same way Jayne was.
So Jayne, after a few drinks, paid a pretty young thing to sit in Simon’s lab and rub against him a bit. And she did, and seemed to enjoy herself quite a lot, while Simon desperately tried to get rid of her without being impolite, which only seemed to encourage her further. Jayne was laughing quite a lot.
Until the girl pulled off her shirt and Jayne discovered that she was, in fact, a guy. And not even an especially feminine one. The dim light was definitely working against him here.
After a few seconds of confusion, Jayne laughed again, harder than before. Simon looked unhappy and embarrassed, a half naked guy was rubbing against him -
- and it was fucking hot.
Jayne chocked on his drink, coughed for half a minute, and decided that he needed to help Simon get rid of the half naked guy right now, because Jayne needed to leave. Badly. He needed to get back to the Serenity and crawl into his bunk.
And Simon he would take with him.
March 9, 2009
.