(no subject)
Title: Tempted
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Rayne
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss is off creating some genius. Here's this instead.
Summary: Prompt #5 for Rayne Shippers Summer Challenge
#5 - Sweat
River rested her hands on her enlarged abdomen and watched her lover lift weights methodically in the silence of the cargo bay. The strongest muscle in the human body is the masseter muscle of the jaw. Or the rectus femoris of the thigh. These things were difficult to measure scientifically. Jayne's colors were chaotic - rusty frustration, deep blue pools of worry, and growing gray puffs of exhaustion. The excursion to the saloon alone had not calmed him as much as she'd hoped. Her fault.
River silently walked out of the shadows, slowly circling around his weight bench. Jayne didn't acknowledge her in any way, but his body and mind tensed. Her fault.
Jayne's mind flashed on their earlier fight. She saw herself - hair wild, face savage and crying - backing away from him with a broken plate for defense. She'd been convinced Jayne was trying to take the children away from her. That he was waiting for their child to be born and would take them all away to protect them from their crazy mother. Nevermind that none of this was based on reality. It was hard to reason with a schizophrenic in the middle of a delusion.
Hormones from pregnancy made it difficult for River to keep a grasp on reality. The only reason she and Jayne had more than one child was that they were rather more prolific than either of them had bargained for. Today had been a particularly trying day. Jayne responded how he always did when she "had a fit". He got angry. Not at her necessarily, though there were times he was definitely that. Jayne just didn't know what to do when she became unstable. Because there was nothing he could do. He hated not being able to fix her. Hated feeling useless.
Stopping behind the weight stand, River ran her finger up the trail a drop of sweat had left behind on Jayne's neck. He shivered. The average adult male loses 250 grams of sweat an hour during vigorous activity.
Rubbing the perspiration together between her thumb and index finger, she stated, "A woman wants to have sex with you."
Jayne set the weight bar in its place, both eyebrows raising as he looked up at her. "She does, does she?"
He didn't exactly sound enthusiastic. Then again, he thought she was talking about herself. After her earlier behavior, River couldn't blame his reticence.
"She asked you for it. In the bar."
His ears twitched in surprise but, otherwise, showed no emotion to her clarification. He didn't say anything. She circled around to the front.
"You said no."
Jayne sat up. "You doubted I would?"
River sensed a bit of anger underneath the question, that she would question his loyalty.
Instead of answering she said, "You were tempted."
His face didn't show guilt or look guarded, which she supposed was something. In fact, his eyes seemed to be searching her face for something. River was almost positive her face was void of any expression. He always found it annoying and creepifying when she did it. Said it wasn't right to look that "empty". She wasn't sure if she was doing it just to irritate him or not.
Finding whatever he was searching for in her face ...or not, he finally replied, "Yep."
She could easily think that he was always honest with her because she could read his mind in a second to find out he was lying, but Jayne had never been the type to mince words. Jayne rarely lied to anyone and that was only if money was involved or he sensed his life would be in danger if he told the truth.
River placed a hand on each of his shoulders before slowly meandering up his neck. She rested them there. The force required to break a human neck is 37.76 pounds.
"The question is, yuān, did you say no because you knew I would find out or because you love me?"
His lips actually quirked up, shocking and annoying her enough into breaking her blank expression with the twitch of an eye.
"Both," he replied, reaching out to put his big tempted traitorous man paws on her hips. "Woman, I have been faithful to you goin' on ten years. I figure, I ain't got tired a you yet, I ain't gonna."
Truth.
"I am broken," she confessed, suddenly more vulnerable than jealous. "Difficult and yell things that don't make sense."
Tears sprung to her eyes and River hated herself for not being able to prevent them. "And you wanted her. And I shouldn't have seen but I did. It was an accident. Not that I can blame you. I want to but was not providing you the option of intercourse and..."
Jayne roughly pulled her down in his lap so that she was straddling his legs. Their offspring kicked in rebellion of the sudden shift. His mouth was pursed so tight his lips were white. His nostrils flared, making him look like a bull about to charge. Jayne was furious and she had no idea why. "You really are cracked, you know that?!"
"Yes," she replied, still somewhat bewildered and overwhelmed by the anger pulsing off of him.
"Bì zuǐ! That woman was a nice-looking piece of tail. She propositions a man; he's gonna think on it. I don't care how long it's been since we sexed, I ever stray, you better shoot me. Feng le stupid moonbrained woman. I ever hear you talking go se like that again, you'll just think you've seen me pissed."
Maybe it was because she was crazy, but that was the most romantic thing he'd ever said to her. River wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. Her mental walls were still weak enough that she picked up on Jayne rolling his eyes, even as he wrapped his arms around her in return.
"Promise?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said in kind of a sigh. "Not that I'm advocatin' long stretches between the sex, mind."
She smiled over his shoulder. "Of course."
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yuān = mandarin duck (A cob is a male swan. I picture River teasingly calling Jayne chǒu xiǎo yā/ugly duckling as a tease, shortening it to this. Also, mandarin ducks are a symbol of love and fidelity in China.)
Bì zuǐ = shut up
Feng le = crazy