CB: Chapter Three: A Place Called Home
Title: A Place Called Home
Author: Zoe_Jayne (with help and encouragement from Domina Rin)
Series: Cloudburst (Chapter Three)
Spoilers: If you haven't read the other chapters, it may not make much sense...
Warnings: Mama'sBoy!Jayne, Reader!River
Wordcount: 1684
Leavin' home ain't always gettin' away, just like trippin' aint always fallin' down. Choosin' ain't always succeedin', stuck don' always mean you're bound. A kiss ain't always lovin', heaven ain't divine, cradlin' weren't always protectin' and life sure as hell weren't always kind.
The thoughts came as thick as honey and rolled over him, dripping off the end of his hat like the rain as the broad shouldered, tall young man walked toward the Port with nothing but a few changes of clothes, a small packed lunch and and a ticket scrunched in his pocket with a fist full of change. He kept his nose down and didn't say a word, not that there'd be anyone to talk to, most of the folk he knew were at the wedding.
Despite the belly full of piss and rattlers, he took some small perversion that at least the weather was on his side, and the perfect June day wasn't rightly so. He didn't pay attention to the shift of his body as he half slid through the muck, his footsteps echoing hollowly in his ears.
He was leaving on the sly, didn't even tell Mama, cause she'd beat sense into him afore he could git to the door, like as not. Didn't mean he weren't gonna miss her, or Pa or the girls. But mostly he left without a word cause he didn't want her thinking about loosin' the last of her boys. And he didn't want to see the look in her eye when he told her he was leavin' cause of a girl.
He let himself believe all that, believe the desperate little voice in the back of his head screaming at him to run away. The voice that made his feet drag through the mud, through the rain and through the air at this end of the world which was filled with smells he never wanted to remember, all underpinned the keen sense of poverty and despair. This way, he could say he was a man, and that he was gonna go and support his family like a man should, not on a dustball but somewhere like on the core. They always needed builders. Menders. And it were the furthest place he could dream of.
He latched onto that idea with a rusty grip. His ticket was for some place called Beylix. It sounded all kindsa fancy. He'd sure ta get work, he was skilled at hard labour and could do it without a blink. He weren't afraid of sweat, no how.
"But Beylix wasn't as far as you wanted to go. Took you to places your eyes didn't hear and your mouth didn't see."
Jayne jerked stock still, his jaw tightening and his hand on his gun. He spat the words at her with venom, hoping they would melt her away like her voice had done his memories. "Gorram it, Crazy, go 'way. Back to the ship before Doc starts missin' ya, and goes blamin' me."
"Too cold, too lost. A snowflake adrift. I didn't bring a coat."
He jabbed her with a scowl and then shrugged out of his own o.d green huntin' jacket, tossing at her while it still held his warmth, his scent in it. The thing practically swallowed her. "Well then you better get your ass in gear, or I'ma leave you behind for the Wendigos."
"Wendigos are legend, no such creature."
"You ain't never met the Barnhart brothers."
Roughly he gathered her to him, and he was almost thankful that chivalry, while possibly badly mauled with a sucking chest wound, weren't completely dead. He could pass off the shiver that raced up his spine as a reaction to the cold, he could pretend his belly weren't full of lead. He hadn't been prepared for the incredible drown of emotion. He could feel it creeping up on him even when they were as much as an hour away. Now, on ground, he began to recognise the surroundings. No one but Moonbrain could know how he was feeling, and for the first time in weeks, since Kaylee had first come to him to watch over her sleep and things changed between 'em, did he want to throttle the engineer.
Thirteen. Thirteen were an unlucky number. Thirteen years since the last time he had seen the old place, and all but his most animal parts had forgotten the emotion and the love he had for the homestead. As he and Creepy walked along, he was reminded of walkin' his sisters to the barn dances, Maddy always slower than the rest on account that she was only three at the time, and leanin' into him snug as a bug. As they walked he noticed dust and some early frost curled up behind them like tails, marking where they been.
~*~
They finally come to the gate, standing next to the scraggly looking rosebush that while it only produced a blossom here or there, resolutely refused to die off. Jayne stared up at the house some short distance away, and let it stare back. It was even more dilapidated than he recalled, shabby and worn and much too small for a family of 10. Less, if you counted the three boys gone out of the house and Ruby runnin' off ta git married to some yokel who'd be ten times dead had he ever so much as looked at her when the Cobb brothers had been around. Maybe thats why she had waited until Jayne had left permanent to do it. From what he heard, she was a mama herself now, and he had three nieces and nephews he ain't never met yet. Did they even know who he was?
"You didn't look back one last time before you walked down the road, because it seemed to you the house carried a huge, implacable weigh on top of it, making the roof sag, and you didn't want to see the painted façade chipped and faded and calling you back. Not much is different. Even the grass is still yellow and dying in front, hidden under the frost..."
"Just...shut yer trap, or I'll shut it for you, Crazy. Dong ma?"
"But perhaps memory had been distorted by time and by distance, because now it looks fresh and young, like the face of a summer love. And the frame is standing tall and proud, as if not even the burden of Atlas could break its back..."
Jayne opened the gate and pushed her a little roughly inside the yard before closing it behind them with a disgusted grunt. Last thing he needed right now was Moonbrain runnin' her yap infront of good and all and making it necessary for him to explain it all. They moved on in slower steps now, the front yard occupied by them and a small dogwood tree which hadn't growed a inch in his absence. But it never seemed that the tree had ever grown, never quite large enough for climbing which was what mattered to him as a boy. He remembered playing games under its scant protection, though he couldn't recall the rules any more. As if his memories had force, he could almost hear the sounds of children at play and almost see ghostly little forms running and scrambling to some purpose hidden from his grown up eyes.
He rubbed at the back of his neck, the fingerless canvas gloves rough against his skin, his fingers rougher.
Creepy's hand came to rest on his arm and drew him away from the ghosts and the echoes and guided him along the stepping stones placed in the ground like islands in a sea of grass, toward the drooping porch.
Who were it that said you could never go home again? Maybe it was true. Maybe it weren't. Still, the snakes in his belly hadn't gone away, coiling and striking at one another and he hesitated, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye and somehow it bothered Jayne that she seemed stronger, more confidant in this moment than him. S'not like it was her gorram family.
"Memories and perceptions of the people who live there define home and once you leave it, you never return to it the same person, so it was never the same place you remembered."
But this, he thought, this was damn close. "Do I gotta beat you quiet, little girl?"
"Sorry." Her tiny whisper died in the small puff of mist from her lips.
He stood in front of the door and for the first time in his life, he saw it. Really saw it. The dark brown stain of the wood, broken by a tarnished, well-worn brass knob. A decorative ear of dried corn probably hung there by his mother covered the peephole just below two small windows that looked out upon the world like eyes. Above the frame his family name was burnt into a plank of wood, aged by weather and grey, hanging from a chain missing a link on one side so it looked crooked.
"Amazing how much more you notice when you come as a visitor," she whispered though he never heard her words. "How much more of an impression the little things make."
He ignored her, standing there and drinking it all in.
The door opened smoothly and silently before him, and he entered the house he'd grown up in with Creepy trailing behind. The first thing that hit him was the smell. So familiar yet not something he'd ever remembered noticing befoe, something taken for granted. It was the sweet, appetizing smell of wildflowers and woodsmoke. Friends once said the house smelled like bacon at a church picnic, but he'd never noticed. Not until now. And they was right. It did.
And then his world exploded like a frag grenade.
"Jayne Cobb, while I live and breathe! Momma! PA! It's Jayne!"
He had no time to react. One minute he were standin' there, the next his body was pelted from all sides by short and thin shadows, hands touching and tugging at him as they swarmed over him, all giggly and loud and girlified. For an instant, he knew true terror when it dawned on him just what kinda ambush he'd just stepped into.
His sisters.