Fic: Shone a Light and Called It a Star (Firefly, Mal/Jayne)
First: femslash06. Because one woman is sexy, but two women are double sexy.
And now, the thing where two men are also double sexy.
Title: Shone a Light and Called It a Star
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Mal/Jayne
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/Continuity: Takes place during and after Serenity.
Summary: Jayne's mind ain't been settled since they left Miranda, and this thing with Mal ain't helping matters.
Word count: about 5,300
Disclaimers: Firefly and Serenity are the intellectual property of Mutant Enemy. This original work of fan fiction is Copyright 2006 Mosca. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed. I am the asshole who falls for your routine.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy and queenzulu for beta reading, and to distraction77 for eradicating the woobie and coming up with all the best lines. Chinese is from zhongwen.com and the Firefly Chinese Pinyinary. The title is from the song "City Lights," by Thao Nguyen, whose album everyone should buy right the hell now.
1
This was the first time Jayne'd had to rebuild his own home. On the settlement where he'd been raised up, he'd helped rebuild a lot of houses. Folks' homes got took out by twisters or fire, or when the river jumped its banks. When a family lost its house, the whole town pitched in, re-raising the beams and laying the roof, putting in the wires and pipes. Jayne'd grown up big and quick, and he'd still been a boy when they'd put him to the heavy work. "Ain't nothing changed," he muttered, loading metal sheeting onto a cart.
Jayne's family had never lost their house, not in the years he'd lived there or in the years since. He kept on waiting for the letter that said there'd been a flood the likes no one'd yet seen, or the old electric system'd finally sparked and caught, or God had seen fit to set the winds in their direction. But Jayne'd been gone near half his life now, and he still hadn't gotten that letter. By now, if he did, it wouldn't be his home anymore, just another place he used to live.
He hadn't lost much, his own self. The crash had made a mess of his bunk, but he didn't own much in the way of breakables. Mal'd let him spend a whole afternoon sorting his guns and hanging them back in place. It hadn't taken him real long, and he'd stolen that afternoon to lie on his bed and get himself some much-deserved naptime. But when he'd closed his eyes, he'd saw Zoe running into the fray and getting her back sliced. The round shock in Kaylee's eyes when the darts hit her neck. The way the whole 'verse seemed to slow down when Simon pitched backward, gut shot. He hadn't even been looking at them when it had happened -- he'd been paying attention to the Reavers. But this was how he saw it whenever he shut his eyes longer than a blink.
He rubbed his shoulder. That was just another hole. He'd never even felt it.
He dragged the cart full of metal into the cargo bay. He was gonna weld the walls back on where they'd buckled. Kaylee was waiting with the blowtorch. Jayne was surprised to see her out of the engine room, though the girl never did turn down a chance to monkey with that blowtorch. It was a thing he had in common with her.
"Engine's turning," she said.
"You fixing to take her up with the hull still melted in front?" Jayne said. "I keep telling Mal, you're gonna get us dead someday."
"It ain't running now," Kaylee said. "But I ran the test sequence, and she turns."
"Why you telling me, then?"
"'Cause if I tell the Captain, we'll be in the air with the hull still melted," she said. "But I gotta tell someone."
He suspected her of telling him just so he'd get blamed for blabbing, so he resolved to keep his trap shut till it was safe to fly. Back home, families would always try to move back in before it was safe. The preacher'd have to be the one to tell them, hold back, let your neighbors finish. Jayne'd see Mal look out on the sky at night, the way a man looks when the only thing he wants is to be in that sky. Jayne wanted to tell Mal about building houses, how he'd put up enough so that he could feel in the beams if it was ready to stand on its own. He thought about saying how he'd kept them all alive so they'd have a chance to fly again, even though he hadn't really. Zoe'd been in charge, and almost everyone'd got holes in them. Normally, Jayne wouldn'ta been qian xun de about taking credit. But he was looking up at that sea of stars too, and the sight of them hushed him.
2
The hull wasn't stable, and sure enough, a piece had tore off. Jayne raised a stink about Mal not listening to nothing but his own instincts, which instincts weren't worth a pile of gou shi. Mal stared at him, arms crossed, like he was bored and waiting for Jayne to put it away. He mighta been taking lessons from Inara. Or he mighta guessed that Jayne had wanted to start flying as much as any of them, never mind if the beams was still wobbly. But Jayne held onto the right to snort with self-satisfaction when Mal got on the intercom to say they'd be landing a mite sooner than originally planned. And humped to hell if he wasn't going to hire them a real pilot and see about finding some real work to pay for all the repairs.
So they was grounded again. Jayne was grateful that they'd had a chance to bury their dead 'fore their luck had caught up with them. He'd sat out by the Shepherd's plot while the rest all crowded around Wash. It'd been that way a lot, when both men had still been kicking. Folks had more patience for hilarity than truth. Most of the time, Jayne did too, but Book had an awful lot of truth in him, and Wash wasn't never as funny as folks seemed to think.
It was hard not to think of folks like they was still alive. Even when Jayne had been the one to heft the shovel and break the earth.
Port control on Persephone saw they was limping and sent up an escort, so they didn't have to suffer another crash landing. Jayne helped out with the second round of repairs as much as he had to, but he reckoned he'd put too much time in as it was. Whenever he could, he snuck off in search of strong drinks and willing women. He took his fill of both, and it eased the chafe of having to weld the gorram hull another time.
On Persephone, the high buildings and the smog blacked out all but the stubbornest stars. It was a place that made Jayne feel like he was gonna be planet-bound forever. But Kaylee brought back an unemployed ex-Browncoat with a pilot's license so genuine that Inara found it listed on the Cortex, and Mal's smooth talk and Vera's thick barrel persuaded Badger to set them up on a job at a silver mine on Prachalita whose storehouses could stand to be heisted.
Naturally, instead of celebrating their continued employment, Mal went back to Serenity and immediately started up a drag-out war of words with Inara. Jayne didn't pay no attention to the specifics, but they was loud enough that Jayne could hear them going at it from his bunk. He would rather have listened in on Simon and Kaylee. He wondered why them two had to be the ones with the good sense to find someplace private.
Jayne hung around his bunk for as long as he could stand it. But he'd spent a long night out and a long morning waving his gun around, and his head was aching for a cup of coffee. Also, he reckoned his being nearby might hush the bickering some. He pushed right by Inara like she wasn't there, and he set up the percolator without offering a "good morning." No point in civility when them two was prolonging his hangover.
He stretched out on the couch in the common room and waited for his coffee to brew. He wanted to throw things at Mal and Inara till they realized they wasn’t the only folks in the ‘verse. But they didn't care who they was inconveniencing, and they cared even less if they was inconveniencing Jayne.
The percolator clicked, and Jayne got up to fill his cup. Shipboard coffee tasted like gou shi, but he could feel the caffeine running into his veins as soon as he smelled it. "Morning," he felt charitable enough to say.
"If you're fixing to carry on with this bu yue mu de shi qing," Mal said to Inara, "what do you say we take it someplace else?"
"What do you say we agree that you're bu xiao de sa gua, and be done with it altogether?" Inara said.
Mal didn't fight right back. He looked down at his boots and fake-scowled. "How dare you use that kind of language in front of Jayne?" he said. "He's an innocent flower, he ain't gotta hear none of that."
Jayne knew he was being made fun of, but he guffawed anyhow. Inara didn't take it so light, though. "Maybe I'll leave you alone with your 'innocent flower,'" she said. The woman was so haughty she didn't need to storm off. The loud clack of her expensive shoes, echoing down the silent hallway, made her point as well as anything could.
Jayne topped off his cup of coffee and carried it back into the common room. Mal watched Inara till she was out of sight, and for another minute after. "She ain't never gonna fuck you," Jayne said into his coffee.
"Shen me?" Mal said, his back still turned to Jayne.
"You're the only fellow in the 'verse Inara ain't never gonna spread her legs for," Jayne said. "She'd let me rut her 'fore she'd have you."
"She would not, Mal said, right quick, but he got quiet, like thinking on it had made him reconsider.
"They'll be tobogganing in Hell 'fore she'd have either of us," Jayne said. "You gotta admit that."
"That ain't even remotely what that little... conversation was about," Mal said.
"All I'm saying is," Jayne said, "it's high time you picked up and moved on. In my estimation. Not that my estimation's ever counted for a hill of beans 'round here."
"It counts," Mal said. Before Jayne could start listing examples of how it really didn't, Mal added, "It counts as far as I weigh it in my head for a couple seconds before deciding you're wrong as usual."
"Well, maybe you oughta weigh this one longer," Jayne said, getting up for more coffee.
"You know, someday, you're gonna say something smart, and I'm really gonna regret not listening to you," Mal said, not sounding the least bit genuine. He had a way of making it so anything Jayne could think of to say would come out sounding stupid as hell.
But Jayne wasn't good at not talking. "Grenades," he said.
"Grenades?"
"I was right about the grenades. On Lilac," Jayne said.
"Who knows?" Mal said. "Someday, maybe you'll be right again."
Jayne drank his coffee and set his mind on learning to shut up. He was waiting for Mal to leave, but Mal kept right on staying. Not getting food or nothing, just standing around the kitchen like Jayne was supposed to know what he wanted. Jayne reckoned Mal might go away if he got it over with and guessed wrong. "When's the last time you got yourself sexed?" Jayne said.
"All that drinking and whoring's making your brain wavy," Mal said. "You oughta lay off."
He was skating around the question, which meant Jayne might actually be right. "When's the last time, Mal?" Jayne pressed. "Tell me it ain't been since that whore what died in the Heart of Gold."
"Don't you go talking about the dead that way," Mal said.
"You ain't had sex in over a year," Jayne said, "and you're trying to tell me Inara ain't causing no troubles you can't handle by yourself?"
Mal chewed on the knuckle of one hand and braced himself on the kitchen counter with the other. He looked positively emasculated.
"When's the last time you even been kissed?" Jayne said.
"That ain't none of your business, neither," Mal said.
Jayne put his empty mug down on the coffee table and stood up. He marched over to Mal and smacked a kiss onto his lips. "There," he said. "Now you can start over."
Mal’s fist came up too fast for Jayne to dodge. He reeled backward and came up with a split lip. He dabbed the blood with his fingers and wiped them off on his pants. Mal had his weight forward and his fists balled, prepared for Jayne to fight back. He still underestimated Jayne so much that it was right insulting. Jayne moved in close, and he caught up Mal’s wrists when Mal predictably tried to sucker punch him. Mal tried to struggle free, but Jayne planted another kiss and put a stop to that.
“What are you gonna do?” Mal said. “Keep trying till I put you out cold?”
Jayne wrapped an arm around Mal’s waist, whirled him around, and pushed him back against the kitchen cubbyholes. “You can’t put me out,” he said. "Wrench is down in the cargo bay."
“Watch me,” Mal said. He closed his eyes, real slow, and then he yanked Jayne forward by his shirt and kissed him back. Mal's breath was hot and tasted like morning. His tongue was hard and hungry, his hands huge on the back of Jayne's neck. Jayne wasn't strong enough to take his hard-on and go home. He put his hand on Mal's crotch, expecting Mal to shy back and half-hoping it. But Mal only backed away far enough so as to whisper, "Not here."
"Sorry," Jayne said, taking his hand away.
"Bu ming bai," Mal said. "My bunk."
Jayne wouldn'ta had no trouble with doing it right there in the kitchen. But he got a feeling this didn't have nothing to do with what he wanted. Mal's expectations was higher. And Mal had that funny way of making stuff like the greater good seem like a brave thing to fight for, and making it seem like the greater good was waiting in his bed.
Jayne let himself be led. He let Mal push him down flat on the bed mostly 'cause he didn't know what he'd do if Mal let him make the decisions. He wasn't the kind to go out looking for men to rut with. He wasn't opposed to the idea or nothing, just not interested in making the effort. Now that he was lying with his mouth full of blanket and his pants around his ankles, it seemed like a thing he might as well try once, in the service of a starving man.
Mal had some conception of what he was doing, or at least he was doing a bang-up job of fooling Jayne. He surprised Jayne by not hurting him right off, instead making him feel weird inside but warm and full, almost pleasant. If Mal was on the small side, that was a blessing, at least from Jayne's point of view. But it turned out to be Mal's fingers, feeling around and testing. When Mal pulled his fingers out and set about sticking his cock in, that did hurt some, though Mal was slow and cautious about it. After that first searing moment, it was just like any pain. Jayne knew what to do with pain: push it to the back of his mind and notice whatever was more important. Which in this case was Mal pressing into him with too much restraint and consideration for a starving man. Jayne raised himself up on his elbows and knees an inch or two, to make Mal drive into him harder. Mal hit something on the way in that made Jayne want to scream like a girl, though he caught it in time and turned it into a low growl. Mal got the message and kept doing him hard like that, making all these little bubbles of pleasure draw up in Jayne, almost like he was coming. Jayne ground his cock into the blanket and took what he was given till Mal shot his load and drew himself out slow. Jayne rolled over onto his back. Mal looked at him for a minute like he wasn't sure whether to cuddle him or leave him a tip. Then he noticed Jayne's hard-on and stammered, "Oh, you ain't-" and before Jayne could thank him kindly, Mal gave Jayne the fastest blow job of his life, 'cause Jayne didn't hardly need the brush of Mal's lips on his cock to get him off. Jayne hurried up to pull his pants on after that. "If in the future you have occasion to mention times when you was right about something," Mal said, "you'd best stick with the grenades."
Jayne was out of good ideas for the day, so he half-smiled at Mal and rushed up the ladder. He wandered around the ship for a while with his heart shuddering and his pi gu stinging all the way up. The cargo hatch was all the way open, and he sat down painfully on the end of it. The sun was going down, and the food stalls at the docks were lighting their red and gold lanterns, plugging their neon buddhas into their generators. They drowned out the light of Persephone's two bluish moons. Jayne hung there awhile, watching the drab busy people and the pollution-bright crimson sunset.
Kaylee hopped onto the cargo ramp, swinging a net bag of ju zi. "We getting underway tonight?" she said.
"Dunno when we're taking off," Jayne said. "New pilot's in there doing tian xiao de. Probably prying up those dinosaurs so he can get at the controls."
"Don't say that." Kaylee's lip trembled.
"Found out where we're headed, though. Prachalita. Silver settlements."
"I like that one," Kaylee said. She pressed a ju zi into Jayne's hand and skipped away. Jayne tossed the round little fruit between his hands. It was the same size as the sun looked. He knew it wasn't smart to eat fruit where beggar children and pickpockets could see, but he'd left all his coin in his bunk anyhow. He peeled off the rind and popped a section in his mouth. Better if it was all gone before he had time to start missing it.
3
Jayne shoulda known Mal wouldn't be satisfied with just the one time. Mal came back to him the very next day and snatched him into a kiss, easy as lying. Jayne couldn't figure out whether Mal assumed he wanted it, or if Mal plumb didn't care what he wanted. It wasn't like Mal was cruel or trying to hurt him or nothing. Point of fact, he was real careful about asking how Jayne wanted it. Jayne even got the sense that if he was to turn Mal away some night, Mal would respect it without a word of protest. But whenever Mal came around, Jayne's cock got the best of his judgment. Mal'd do anything Jayne could think of, and he'd do it so Jayne liked it. Jayne thought after that first time that all Mal'd ever want was to be on top, but Mal surprised him. He let Jayne bend him over the desk and shove him against the wall, or dropped to his knees without Jayne having to ask. Now that Jayne thought on it, Mal gave like he was afraid it'd be over any minute, like if he stopped giving, then Jayne would stop giving back. He might not have cared about Jayne, but he cared about getting what Jayne could do for him.
So it got to being a habit, and they got to being something like lovers. Jayne missed womenfolk from time to time, but his standards had gotten higher, seeing as he had a body to rut with whenever he wanted. He'd go out fixing to meet a stranger and not see anything shinier than Mal's mouth on his cock at just the speed he liked. It got to where he didn't look at girls no more, 'cause he knew he'd only get disappointed.
It was getting gorram queer as hell. Jayne blamed the new pilot. He'd walked in on Mal and Jayne maybe the third or fourth time they'd ever fucked. He'd been all apologetical, "Oh, I hadn't realized," but real natural about it. Like seeing Jayne and Mal half-naked and horizontal was more or less what he'd expected. And because he acted comfortable and not shocked, the rest of the crew all had to be the same way when they came to finding out. Inara had tossed off a few ugly remarks at the dinner table, but Mal didn't take her bait. That surprised Jayne, but it made him kinda proud.
It seemed like Kaylee and Simon had been together for ages, too. All these things that looked like they'd been going since forever, when really they was fragile and newly born. Jayne reckoned it was like when he'd come to work on Serenity, and Zoe and Wash was already married. It turned out they'd already been together for a good long while before Jayne came along, but it wouldn'ta mattered. He'd never known them as anything but married, never had no other way to think of them. Zoe, now, it was like looking at half a person. She played it like she was doing all right without Wash, but Jayne woulda bet money that when she looked in the mirror, she saw half a person, too.
Still, and though he felt guilty for it, Jayne liked the new pilot better than the old one. Heron was a long, narrow man, tall enough to look Jayne right in the eyes, with skin the color of good planting soil. He never made a fuss when the flying got rough - didn't make a fuss about nothing, really. He treated Jayne with a sort of distant respect that Jayne had a hard time finding nasty things to say about. So Jayne reckoned it wasn't disrespecting the dead, so much as admitting that folks was inclined to cotton to some folks more than others.
One of the things that the new pilot was real firm about was taking shifts, so Mal or River were on the bridge a lot at the odd hours, when the pilot was sleeping or taking his meals. Jayne went up there expecting that with his luck, it'd be River at the controls, driving the spaceship with her feet while she sang songs about astrophysics. Jayne was glad that Mal had hired a real pilot. The girl was better lately, even useful on a job now and again, but she was still buggy.
But when Jayne got to the bridge, it was Mal in the chair, staring out on that big black sky. They was halfway between New Melbourne and nowhere, so all the planets looked like too-bright stars. Jayne didn't have to ask what Mal was looking for. He came up behind Mal all mouse-like. He was just about to put his hands on Mal's shoulders when Mal turned around. "You're stealthy like a herd of stampeding cattle, Jayne," he said. But he stood up, put his arms around Jayne's waist, and tilted his chin up to kiss Jayne. "Ain't got much use for stealth," Mal said into Jayne's lips.
Jayne knew he was supposed to close his eyes, but he couldn't look away from the stars. 'Sides, he reckoned Mal was somewhere else too, pretending to grind against some other person's thigh. It hadn't even occurred to Jayne to wonder who he was standing in for in Mal's mind. Thinking about it made him curious, though. He bit Mal on the neck to get his attention and said, "Who're you thinking of?"
"You," Mal said, too fast to fix an ounce of truth in it.
"Niu shi," Jayne said.
"Why do you think I'm lying to you?" Mal said. "'Twixt the two of us, you're the liar."
"Takes one to know one," Jayne said.
Mal took a step back, and Jayne thought for sure this marked the last time, the last kiss he'd ever get from Mal. Mal stared at him for a long time, squinting. After some time, he cupped Jayne's chin in both his hands. "Sometimes you remind me of him so much that - I dunno. You don't look nothing like him, and still -"
"Who?" A man with a lick of sense would have known better than to ask, but sense hadn't never been Jayne's strong suit.
"Don't matter no more," Mal said. "Dead and gone."
"Reckon we all got a few like that," Jayne said.
"Yeah, but you got the sense not to remember 'em," Mal said.
"I remember some," Jayne said. "Remember the good ones."
"So you'll forget me soon as we're finished, then," Mal said.
"Reckon I'll remember you for other reasons."
Mal smirked. "You always take me so gorram serious," he said. "No wonder you remind me of him."
Jayne felt a pang and looked out at the sky. He didn't want to be some other fellow, some ghost out of Mal's sad war stories that he couldn't never live up to by virtue of being still alive. This was too late a date to learn that Mal was half a person, trying to squeeze Jayne to fit the empty part of him.
"You're taller 'n he was," Mal said.
"Shen me?"
"Ain't never been with nobody taller 'n me, before you," Mal said. "It takes some getting used to, as a matter of fact. I'm having to learn to stand on my toes."
Jayne hadn't never had a lover taller than he was. He suspected he'd have to go looking if he ever had a mind to change that, since most folks was smaller than him. He reckoned Mal was right, that there'd be some strangeness in looking up when he was used to looking down. Not as strange as having a man's cock in his mouth and admitting to himself that he liked it, though.
"Who do you think of?" Mal said. "When I'm going down on you, who do you think of?"
"I dunno," Jayne said. He didn't think of nobody, really. Not nobody other than Mal. "You, mostly."
Mal laughed, though Jayne wasn't sure why. "You're honest," he said. "Reckon that sets you apart too."
"I ain't an honest man," Jayne said. "I done proved that a few times."
"When's the last time you lied to me?" Mal said. "On Ariel?"
Jayne tried to think back on it, come up with a time since. He'd told plenty of lies, but he hadn't told none of them to Mal. Mal hadn't been there for the big lie, the one where Jayne'd let them believe he'd get them all out safe and healthy. And even that one had turned out a little bit true, in the end.
Mal took a fistful of Jayne's shirt and pulled him forward, so they was pressed close together again. "Now, then," he said, "you ain't got no business tearing me down for things I ain't done in a year."
Jayne couldn't say whether this felt like their first kiss 'cause he'd thought the one before would be the last, or 'cause for the first time he knew why he was getting kissed. He let Mal lead 'cause he didn't mind following. He liked to think of himself as the kind of man who could order folks around, but he wasn't sure of that no more. And even when he didn't agree with Mal, even when they fought loudly over Mal's sa gua ideas, it was hard to keep from doing just what Mal wanted.
Mal pushed Jayne back into the pilot's console. Jayne put out a hand to steady himself and bent a plastic palm tree. He got worried Mal'd forget where they was and make Jayne accidentally change their course with his ass. Jayne fought his way out of Mal's embrace enough to sit himself down safely in the pilot's chair. Mal climbed on top of him to sit backwards in his lap and pressed his chest back with both hands. The chair groaned, accustomed to some weight but not this much. Mal sank his teeth into the side of Jayne's neck and trailed his hand from Jayne's knee up the inside of his thigh. Jayne couldn't do nothing but hold his mouth shut. His hard-on hadn't gone down none when they was talking, and it was only getting more insistent. He bucked up against Mal. When Mal kept on groping at him, he bucked up harder and cleared his throat. Jayne appreciated that Mal wanted to touch him all over, 'specially when he'd been with so many girls who was all business or else lay back and took it without a thought to helping him out. That mighta been fine when he was younger, but his cock needed a little encouragement now that he'd cheated the Reaper awhile. Not too much, though, and Mal had got him going so strong that he was liable to burst any moment.
Finally, mercifully, Mal turned his attention to Jayne's cock, opening up his fly and setting to work with his mouth. Mal treated it almost as a sacred object, which was qi guai de but welcome. He started by licking the salt from the tip and worked his way deeper, all the while pressing Jayne flat against the chair with one arm to keep Jayne from gagging him. That freed Jayne up to feel Mal's clever tongue and the ache of his own cock. He came in Mal's mouth, quiet 'cause there wasn't nothing to be said.
Jayne sat back for a minute after Mal swung off of him, shaking off the sleepy feeling he always got right after he came. Women got tetchy when he rolled over and slept, but Mal got downright furious when Jayne didn't attend to him properly.
Jayne waited till Mal wasn't expecting it before he got up, zipped himself, and pounced on Mal like a tiger. "Herd of cattle," Mal groaned as Jayne got on his knees and sent Mal's gun belt to the floor with a thump. Sucking Jayne's cock always got Mal's hard like it was now, the red-purple veins straining against his pale skin. Jayne'd learned mostly from Mal's example, quick 'cause he'd had to. He wasn't swift at picking stuff up from books, but he never had much trouble teaching his body how to move.
Mal yanked Jayne's hair like he usually did, but as his cock swelled and filled Jayne's mouth, he started saying Jayne's name, real soft at first but almost a shout by the time he came. Like he needed to prove that Jayne had him by the brain as well as by the balls, and knowing Jayne'd need the extra reassurance to trust in that. Jayne reckoned he could get used to hearing his name whispered like praying, though he knew better than to count on it.
When Jayne got up from his knees, Mal was standing stone-still with his back against the wall, his eyes on the sky again. Since the first time that Jayne had taken a ride to the edge of the black, he'd known it wasn't the endless nothing of open space that turned men into monsters. Still, it was a comfort to have proof that they could fly forever. When Jayne had nightmares, they was about Reavers. Always would be: nothing scarier in the 'verse. But he didn't dream about turning into one no more. He dreamed about what they could take away, what they could tear down. Jayne reached for Mal's hand, 'cause the sky was so pretty and because they was both looking out in the same direction.
They managed to stand that way for almost a whole minute before Jayne pushed Mal down and straddled him, clutching at his ass. It was boring, just standing, and the stars would be there when they was done.
And now, the thing where two men are also double sexy.
Title: Shone a Light and Called It a Star
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Mal/Jayne
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/Continuity: Takes place during and after Serenity.
Summary: Jayne's mind ain't been settled since they left Miranda, and this thing with Mal ain't helping matters.
Word count: about 5,300
Disclaimers: Firefly and Serenity are the intellectual property of Mutant Enemy. This original work of fan fiction is Copyright 2006 Mosca. This story is a labor of love, not money, so it's protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed. I am the asshole who falls for your routine.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy and queenzulu for beta reading, and to distraction77 for eradicating the woobie and coming up with all the best lines. Chinese is from zhongwen.com and the Firefly Chinese Pinyinary. The title is from the song "City Lights," by Thao Nguyen, whose album everyone should buy right the hell now.
1
This was the first time Jayne'd had to rebuild his own home. On the settlement where he'd been raised up, he'd helped rebuild a lot of houses. Folks' homes got took out by twisters or fire, or when the river jumped its banks. When a family lost its house, the whole town pitched in, re-raising the beams and laying the roof, putting in the wires and pipes. Jayne'd grown up big and quick, and he'd still been a boy when they'd put him to the heavy work. "Ain't nothing changed," he muttered, loading metal sheeting onto a cart.
Jayne's family had never lost their house, not in the years he'd lived there or in the years since. He kept on waiting for the letter that said there'd been a flood the likes no one'd yet seen, or the old electric system'd finally sparked and caught, or God had seen fit to set the winds in their direction. But Jayne'd been gone near half his life now, and he still hadn't gotten that letter. By now, if he did, it wouldn't be his home anymore, just another place he used to live.
He hadn't lost much, his own self. The crash had made a mess of his bunk, but he didn't own much in the way of breakables. Mal'd let him spend a whole afternoon sorting his guns and hanging them back in place. It hadn't taken him real long, and he'd stolen that afternoon to lie on his bed and get himself some much-deserved naptime. But when he'd closed his eyes, he'd saw Zoe running into the fray and getting her back sliced. The round shock in Kaylee's eyes when the darts hit her neck. The way the whole 'verse seemed to slow down when Simon pitched backward, gut shot. He hadn't even been looking at them when it had happened -- he'd been paying attention to the Reavers. But this was how he saw it whenever he shut his eyes longer than a blink.
He rubbed his shoulder. That was just another hole. He'd never even felt it.
He dragged the cart full of metal into the cargo bay. He was gonna weld the walls back on where they'd buckled. Kaylee was waiting with the blowtorch. Jayne was surprised to see her out of the engine room, though the girl never did turn down a chance to monkey with that blowtorch. It was a thing he had in common with her.
"Engine's turning," she said.
"You fixing to take her up with the hull still melted in front?" Jayne said. "I keep telling Mal, you're gonna get us dead someday."
"It ain't running now," Kaylee said. "But I ran the test sequence, and she turns."
"Why you telling me, then?"
"'Cause if I tell the Captain, we'll be in the air with the hull still melted," she said. "But I gotta tell someone."
He suspected her of telling him just so he'd get blamed for blabbing, so he resolved to keep his trap shut till it was safe to fly. Back home, families would always try to move back in before it was safe. The preacher'd have to be the one to tell them, hold back, let your neighbors finish. Jayne'd see Mal look out on the sky at night, the way a man looks when the only thing he wants is to be in that sky. Jayne wanted to tell Mal about building houses, how he'd put up enough so that he could feel in the beams if it was ready to stand on its own. He thought about saying how he'd kept them all alive so they'd have a chance to fly again, even though he hadn't really. Zoe'd been in charge, and almost everyone'd got holes in them. Normally, Jayne wouldn'ta been qian xun de about taking credit. But he was looking up at that sea of stars too, and the sight of them hushed him.
2
The hull wasn't stable, and sure enough, a piece had tore off. Jayne raised a stink about Mal not listening to nothing but his own instincts, which instincts weren't worth a pile of gou shi. Mal stared at him, arms crossed, like he was bored and waiting for Jayne to put it away. He mighta been taking lessons from Inara. Or he mighta guessed that Jayne had wanted to start flying as much as any of them, never mind if the beams was still wobbly. But Jayne held onto the right to snort with self-satisfaction when Mal got on the intercom to say they'd be landing a mite sooner than originally planned. And humped to hell if he wasn't going to hire them a real pilot and see about finding some real work to pay for all the repairs.
So they was grounded again. Jayne was grateful that they'd had a chance to bury their dead 'fore their luck had caught up with them. He'd sat out by the Shepherd's plot while the rest all crowded around Wash. It'd been that way a lot, when both men had still been kicking. Folks had more patience for hilarity than truth. Most of the time, Jayne did too, but Book had an awful lot of truth in him, and Wash wasn't never as funny as folks seemed to think.
It was hard not to think of folks like they was still alive. Even when Jayne had been the one to heft the shovel and break the earth.
Port control on Persephone saw they was limping and sent up an escort, so they didn't have to suffer another crash landing. Jayne helped out with the second round of repairs as much as he had to, but he reckoned he'd put too much time in as it was. Whenever he could, he snuck off in search of strong drinks and willing women. He took his fill of both, and it eased the chafe of having to weld the gorram hull another time.
On Persephone, the high buildings and the smog blacked out all but the stubbornest stars. It was a place that made Jayne feel like he was gonna be planet-bound forever. But Kaylee brought back an unemployed ex-Browncoat with a pilot's license so genuine that Inara found it listed on the Cortex, and Mal's smooth talk and Vera's thick barrel persuaded Badger to set them up on a job at a silver mine on Prachalita whose storehouses could stand to be heisted.
Naturally, instead of celebrating their continued employment, Mal went back to Serenity and immediately started up a drag-out war of words with Inara. Jayne didn't pay no attention to the specifics, but they was loud enough that Jayne could hear them going at it from his bunk. He would rather have listened in on Simon and Kaylee. He wondered why them two had to be the ones with the good sense to find someplace private.
Jayne hung around his bunk for as long as he could stand it. But he'd spent a long night out and a long morning waving his gun around, and his head was aching for a cup of coffee. Also, he reckoned his being nearby might hush the bickering some. He pushed right by Inara like she wasn't there, and he set up the percolator without offering a "good morning." No point in civility when them two was prolonging his hangover.
He stretched out on the couch in the common room and waited for his coffee to brew. He wanted to throw things at Mal and Inara till they realized they wasn’t the only folks in the ‘verse. But they didn't care who they was inconveniencing, and they cared even less if they was inconveniencing Jayne.
The percolator clicked, and Jayne got up to fill his cup. Shipboard coffee tasted like gou shi, but he could feel the caffeine running into his veins as soon as he smelled it. "Morning," he felt charitable enough to say.
"If you're fixing to carry on with this bu yue mu de shi qing," Mal said to Inara, "what do you say we take it someplace else?"
"What do you say we agree that you're bu xiao de sa gua, and be done with it altogether?" Inara said.
Mal didn't fight right back. He looked down at his boots and fake-scowled. "How dare you use that kind of language in front of Jayne?" he said. "He's an innocent flower, he ain't gotta hear none of that."
Jayne knew he was being made fun of, but he guffawed anyhow. Inara didn't take it so light, though. "Maybe I'll leave you alone with your 'innocent flower,'" she said. The woman was so haughty she didn't need to storm off. The loud clack of her expensive shoes, echoing down the silent hallway, made her point as well as anything could.
Jayne topped off his cup of coffee and carried it back into the common room. Mal watched Inara till she was out of sight, and for another minute after. "She ain't never gonna fuck you," Jayne said into his coffee.
"Shen me?" Mal said, his back still turned to Jayne.
"You're the only fellow in the 'verse Inara ain't never gonna spread her legs for," Jayne said. "She'd let me rut her 'fore she'd have you."
"She would not, Mal said, right quick, but he got quiet, like thinking on it had made him reconsider.
"They'll be tobogganing in Hell 'fore she'd have either of us," Jayne said. "You gotta admit that."
"That ain't even remotely what that little... conversation was about," Mal said.
"All I'm saying is," Jayne said, "it's high time you picked up and moved on. In my estimation. Not that my estimation's ever counted for a hill of beans 'round here."
"It counts," Mal said. Before Jayne could start listing examples of how it really didn't, Mal added, "It counts as far as I weigh it in my head for a couple seconds before deciding you're wrong as usual."
"Well, maybe you oughta weigh this one longer," Jayne said, getting up for more coffee.
"You know, someday, you're gonna say something smart, and I'm really gonna regret not listening to you," Mal said, not sounding the least bit genuine. He had a way of making it so anything Jayne could think of to say would come out sounding stupid as hell.
But Jayne wasn't good at not talking. "Grenades," he said.
"Grenades?"
"I was right about the grenades. On Lilac," Jayne said.
"Who knows?" Mal said. "Someday, maybe you'll be right again."
Jayne drank his coffee and set his mind on learning to shut up. He was waiting for Mal to leave, but Mal kept right on staying. Not getting food or nothing, just standing around the kitchen like Jayne was supposed to know what he wanted. Jayne reckoned Mal might go away if he got it over with and guessed wrong. "When's the last time you got yourself sexed?" Jayne said.
"All that drinking and whoring's making your brain wavy," Mal said. "You oughta lay off."
He was skating around the question, which meant Jayne might actually be right. "When's the last time, Mal?" Jayne pressed. "Tell me it ain't been since that whore what died in the Heart of Gold."
"Don't you go talking about the dead that way," Mal said.
"You ain't had sex in over a year," Jayne said, "and you're trying to tell me Inara ain't causing no troubles you can't handle by yourself?"
Mal chewed on the knuckle of one hand and braced himself on the kitchen counter with the other. He looked positively emasculated.
"When's the last time you even been kissed?" Jayne said.
"That ain't none of your business, neither," Mal said.
Jayne put his empty mug down on the coffee table and stood up. He marched over to Mal and smacked a kiss onto his lips. "There," he said. "Now you can start over."
Mal’s fist came up too fast for Jayne to dodge. He reeled backward and came up with a split lip. He dabbed the blood with his fingers and wiped them off on his pants. Mal had his weight forward and his fists balled, prepared for Jayne to fight back. He still underestimated Jayne so much that it was right insulting. Jayne moved in close, and he caught up Mal’s wrists when Mal predictably tried to sucker punch him. Mal tried to struggle free, but Jayne planted another kiss and put a stop to that.
“What are you gonna do?” Mal said. “Keep trying till I put you out cold?”
Jayne wrapped an arm around Mal’s waist, whirled him around, and pushed him back against the kitchen cubbyholes. “You can’t put me out,” he said. "Wrench is down in the cargo bay."
“Watch me,” Mal said. He closed his eyes, real slow, and then he yanked Jayne forward by his shirt and kissed him back. Mal's breath was hot and tasted like morning. His tongue was hard and hungry, his hands huge on the back of Jayne's neck. Jayne wasn't strong enough to take his hard-on and go home. He put his hand on Mal's crotch, expecting Mal to shy back and half-hoping it. But Mal only backed away far enough so as to whisper, "Not here."
"Sorry," Jayne said, taking his hand away.
"Bu ming bai," Mal said. "My bunk."
Jayne wouldn'ta had no trouble with doing it right there in the kitchen. But he got a feeling this didn't have nothing to do with what he wanted. Mal's expectations was higher. And Mal had that funny way of making stuff like the greater good seem like a brave thing to fight for, and making it seem like the greater good was waiting in his bed.
Jayne let himself be led. He let Mal push him down flat on the bed mostly 'cause he didn't know what he'd do if Mal let him make the decisions. He wasn't the kind to go out looking for men to rut with. He wasn't opposed to the idea or nothing, just not interested in making the effort. Now that he was lying with his mouth full of blanket and his pants around his ankles, it seemed like a thing he might as well try once, in the service of a starving man.
Mal had some conception of what he was doing, or at least he was doing a bang-up job of fooling Jayne. He surprised Jayne by not hurting him right off, instead making him feel weird inside but warm and full, almost pleasant. If Mal was on the small side, that was a blessing, at least from Jayne's point of view. But it turned out to be Mal's fingers, feeling around and testing. When Mal pulled his fingers out and set about sticking his cock in, that did hurt some, though Mal was slow and cautious about it. After that first searing moment, it was just like any pain. Jayne knew what to do with pain: push it to the back of his mind and notice whatever was more important. Which in this case was Mal pressing into him with too much restraint and consideration for a starving man. Jayne raised himself up on his elbows and knees an inch or two, to make Mal drive into him harder. Mal hit something on the way in that made Jayne want to scream like a girl, though he caught it in time and turned it into a low growl. Mal got the message and kept doing him hard like that, making all these little bubbles of pleasure draw up in Jayne, almost like he was coming. Jayne ground his cock into the blanket and took what he was given till Mal shot his load and drew himself out slow. Jayne rolled over onto his back. Mal looked at him for a minute like he wasn't sure whether to cuddle him or leave him a tip. Then he noticed Jayne's hard-on and stammered, "Oh, you ain't-" and before Jayne could thank him kindly, Mal gave Jayne the fastest blow job of his life, 'cause Jayne didn't hardly need the brush of Mal's lips on his cock to get him off. Jayne hurried up to pull his pants on after that. "If in the future you have occasion to mention times when you was right about something," Mal said, "you'd best stick with the grenades."
Jayne was out of good ideas for the day, so he half-smiled at Mal and rushed up the ladder. He wandered around the ship for a while with his heart shuddering and his pi gu stinging all the way up. The cargo hatch was all the way open, and he sat down painfully on the end of it. The sun was going down, and the food stalls at the docks were lighting their red and gold lanterns, plugging their neon buddhas into their generators. They drowned out the light of Persephone's two bluish moons. Jayne hung there awhile, watching the drab busy people and the pollution-bright crimson sunset.
Kaylee hopped onto the cargo ramp, swinging a net bag of ju zi. "We getting underway tonight?" she said.
"Dunno when we're taking off," Jayne said. "New pilot's in there doing tian xiao de. Probably prying up those dinosaurs so he can get at the controls."
"Don't say that." Kaylee's lip trembled.
"Found out where we're headed, though. Prachalita. Silver settlements."
"I like that one," Kaylee said. She pressed a ju zi into Jayne's hand and skipped away. Jayne tossed the round little fruit between his hands. It was the same size as the sun looked. He knew it wasn't smart to eat fruit where beggar children and pickpockets could see, but he'd left all his coin in his bunk anyhow. He peeled off the rind and popped a section in his mouth. Better if it was all gone before he had time to start missing it.
3
Jayne shoulda known Mal wouldn't be satisfied with just the one time. Mal came back to him the very next day and snatched him into a kiss, easy as lying. Jayne couldn't figure out whether Mal assumed he wanted it, or if Mal plumb didn't care what he wanted. It wasn't like Mal was cruel or trying to hurt him or nothing. Point of fact, he was real careful about asking how Jayne wanted it. Jayne even got the sense that if he was to turn Mal away some night, Mal would respect it without a word of protest. But whenever Mal came around, Jayne's cock got the best of his judgment. Mal'd do anything Jayne could think of, and he'd do it so Jayne liked it. Jayne thought after that first time that all Mal'd ever want was to be on top, but Mal surprised him. He let Jayne bend him over the desk and shove him against the wall, or dropped to his knees without Jayne having to ask. Now that Jayne thought on it, Mal gave like he was afraid it'd be over any minute, like if he stopped giving, then Jayne would stop giving back. He might not have cared about Jayne, but he cared about getting what Jayne could do for him.
So it got to being a habit, and they got to being something like lovers. Jayne missed womenfolk from time to time, but his standards had gotten higher, seeing as he had a body to rut with whenever he wanted. He'd go out fixing to meet a stranger and not see anything shinier than Mal's mouth on his cock at just the speed he liked. It got to where he didn't look at girls no more, 'cause he knew he'd only get disappointed.
It was getting gorram queer as hell. Jayne blamed the new pilot. He'd walked in on Mal and Jayne maybe the third or fourth time they'd ever fucked. He'd been all apologetical, "Oh, I hadn't realized," but real natural about it. Like seeing Jayne and Mal half-naked and horizontal was more or less what he'd expected. And because he acted comfortable and not shocked, the rest of the crew all had to be the same way when they came to finding out. Inara had tossed off a few ugly remarks at the dinner table, but Mal didn't take her bait. That surprised Jayne, but it made him kinda proud.
It seemed like Kaylee and Simon had been together for ages, too. All these things that looked like they'd been going since forever, when really they was fragile and newly born. Jayne reckoned it was like when he'd come to work on Serenity, and Zoe and Wash was already married. It turned out they'd already been together for a good long while before Jayne came along, but it wouldn'ta mattered. He'd never known them as anything but married, never had no other way to think of them. Zoe, now, it was like looking at half a person. She played it like she was doing all right without Wash, but Jayne woulda bet money that when she looked in the mirror, she saw half a person, too.
Still, and though he felt guilty for it, Jayne liked the new pilot better than the old one. Heron was a long, narrow man, tall enough to look Jayne right in the eyes, with skin the color of good planting soil. He never made a fuss when the flying got rough - didn't make a fuss about nothing, really. He treated Jayne with a sort of distant respect that Jayne had a hard time finding nasty things to say about. So Jayne reckoned it wasn't disrespecting the dead, so much as admitting that folks was inclined to cotton to some folks more than others.
One of the things that the new pilot was real firm about was taking shifts, so Mal or River were on the bridge a lot at the odd hours, when the pilot was sleeping or taking his meals. Jayne went up there expecting that with his luck, it'd be River at the controls, driving the spaceship with her feet while she sang songs about astrophysics. Jayne was glad that Mal had hired a real pilot. The girl was better lately, even useful on a job now and again, but she was still buggy.
But when Jayne got to the bridge, it was Mal in the chair, staring out on that big black sky. They was halfway between New Melbourne and nowhere, so all the planets looked like too-bright stars. Jayne didn't have to ask what Mal was looking for. He came up behind Mal all mouse-like. He was just about to put his hands on Mal's shoulders when Mal turned around. "You're stealthy like a herd of stampeding cattle, Jayne," he said. But he stood up, put his arms around Jayne's waist, and tilted his chin up to kiss Jayne. "Ain't got much use for stealth," Mal said into Jayne's lips.
Jayne knew he was supposed to close his eyes, but he couldn't look away from the stars. 'Sides, he reckoned Mal was somewhere else too, pretending to grind against some other person's thigh. It hadn't even occurred to Jayne to wonder who he was standing in for in Mal's mind. Thinking about it made him curious, though. He bit Mal on the neck to get his attention and said, "Who're you thinking of?"
"You," Mal said, too fast to fix an ounce of truth in it.
"Niu shi," Jayne said.
"Why do you think I'm lying to you?" Mal said. "'Twixt the two of us, you're the liar."
"Takes one to know one," Jayne said.
Mal took a step back, and Jayne thought for sure this marked the last time, the last kiss he'd ever get from Mal. Mal stared at him for a long time, squinting. After some time, he cupped Jayne's chin in both his hands. "Sometimes you remind me of him so much that - I dunno. You don't look nothing like him, and still -"
"Who?" A man with a lick of sense would have known better than to ask, but sense hadn't never been Jayne's strong suit.
"Don't matter no more," Mal said. "Dead and gone."
"Reckon we all got a few like that," Jayne said.
"Yeah, but you got the sense not to remember 'em," Mal said.
"I remember some," Jayne said. "Remember the good ones."
"So you'll forget me soon as we're finished, then," Mal said.
"Reckon I'll remember you for other reasons."
Mal smirked. "You always take me so gorram serious," he said. "No wonder you remind me of him."
Jayne felt a pang and looked out at the sky. He didn't want to be some other fellow, some ghost out of Mal's sad war stories that he couldn't never live up to by virtue of being still alive. This was too late a date to learn that Mal was half a person, trying to squeeze Jayne to fit the empty part of him.
"You're taller 'n he was," Mal said.
"Shen me?"
"Ain't never been with nobody taller 'n me, before you," Mal said. "It takes some getting used to, as a matter of fact. I'm having to learn to stand on my toes."
Jayne hadn't never had a lover taller than he was. He suspected he'd have to go looking if he ever had a mind to change that, since most folks was smaller than him. He reckoned Mal was right, that there'd be some strangeness in looking up when he was used to looking down. Not as strange as having a man's cock in his mouth and admitting to himself that he liked it, though.
"Who do you think of?" Mal said. "When I'm going down on you, who do you think of?"
"I dunno," Jayne said. He didn't think of nobody, really. Not nobody other than Mal. "You, mostly."
Mal laughed, though Jayne wasn't sure why. "You're honest," he said. "Reckon that sets you apart too."
"I ain't an honest man," Jayne said. "I done proved that a few times."
"When's the last time you lied to me?" Mal said. "On Ariel?"
Jayne tried to think back on it, come up with a time since. He'd told plenty of lies, but he hadn't told none of them to Mal. Mal hadn't been there for the big lie, the one where Jayne'd let them believe he'd get them all out safe and healthy. And even that one had turned out a little bit true, in the end.
Mal took a fistful of Jayne's shirt and pulled him forward, so they was pressed close together again. "Now, then," he said, "you ain't got no business tearing me down for things I ain't done in a year."
Jayne couldn't say whether this felt like their first kiss 'cause he'd thought the one before would be the last, or 'cause for the first time he knew why he was getting kissed. He let Mal lead 'cause he didn't mind following. He liked to think of himself as the kind of man who could order folks around, but he wasn't sure of that no more. And even when he didn't agree with Mal, even when they fought loudly over Mal's sa gua ideas, it was hard to keep from doing just what Mal wanted.
Mal pushed Jayne back into the pilot's console. Jayne put out a hand to steady himself and bent a plastic palm tree. He got worried Mal'd forget where they was and make Jayne accidentally change their course with his ass. Jayne fought his way out of Mal's embrace enough to sit himself down safely in the pilot's chair. Mal climbed on top of him to sit backwards in his lap and pressed his chest back with both hands. The chair groaned, accustomed to some weight but not this much. Mal sank his teeth into the side of Jayne's neck and trailed his hand from Jayne's knee up the inside of his thigh. Jayne couldn't do nothing but hold his mouth shut. His hard-on hadn't gone down none when they was talking, and it was only getting more insistent. He bucked up against Mal. When Mal kept on groping at him, he bucked up harder and cleared his throat. Jayne appreciated that Mal wanted to touch him all over, 'specially when he'd been with so many girls who was all business or else lay back and took it without a thought to helping him out. That mighta been fine when he was younger, but his cock needed a little encouragement now that he'd cheated the Reaper awhile. Not too much, though, and Mal had got him going so strong that he was liable to burst any moment.
Finally, mercifully, Mal turned his attention to Jayne's cock, opening up his fly and setting to work with his mouth. Mal treated it almost as a sacred object, which was qi guai de but welcome. He started by licking the salt from the tip and worked his way deeper, all the while pressing Jayne flat against the chair with one arm to keep Jayne from gagging him. That freed Jayne up to feel Mal's clever tongue and the ache of his own cock. He came in Mal's mouth, quiet 'cause there wasn't nothing to be said.
Jayne sat back for a minute after Mal swung off of him, shaking off the sleepy feeling he always got right after he came. Women got tetchy when he rolled over and slept, but Mal got downright furious when Jayne didn't attend to him properly.
Jayne waited till Mal wasn't expecting it before he got up, zipped himself, and pounced on Mal like a tiger. "Herd of cattle," Mal groaned as Jayne got on his knees and sent Mal's gun belt to the floor with a thump. Sucking Jayne's cock always got Mal's hard like it was now, the red-purple veins straining against his pale skin. Jayne'd learned mostly from Mal's example, quick 'cause he'd had to. He wasn't swift at picking stuff up from books, but he never had much trouble teaching his body how to move.
Mal yanked Jayne's hair like he usually did, but as his cock swelled and filled Jayne's mouth, he started saying Jayne's name, real soft at first but almost a shout by the time he came. Like he needed to prove that Jayne had him by the brain as well as by the balls, and knowing Jayne'd need the extra reassurance to trust in that. Jayne reckoned he could get used to hearing his name whispered like praying, though he knew better than to count on it.
When Jayne got up from his knees, Mal was standing stone-still with his back against the wall, his eyes on the sky again. Since the first time that Jayne had taken a ride to the edge of the black, he'd known it wasn't the endless nothing of open space that turned men into monsters. Still, it was a comfort to have proof that they could fly forever. When Jayne had nightmares, they was about Reavers. Always would be: nothing scarier in the 'verse. But he didn't dream about turning into one no more. He dreamed about what they could take away, what they could tear down. Jayne reached for Mal's hand, 'cause the sky was so pretty and because they was both looking out in the same direction.
They managed to stand that way for almost a whole minute before Jayne pushed Mal down and straddled him, clutching at his ass. It was boring, just standing, and the stars would be there when they was done.