Thoughts Colored Ugly 6
Jan. 4th, 2008 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lit_galGuess who shows up at that there auction...
Thoughts Colored Ugly 6?
River/Jayne
Rated: ADULT
Warnings: Dom/sub, slavery, angst.
Previous parts
Thoughts Colored Ugly 6?
River/Jayne
Rated: ADULT
Warnings: Dom/sub, slavery, angst.
Previous parts
The slave market was about as embarrassing as Jayne had expected it to be. He ended up sitting on a platform raised up about two feet from the dust of the market square. If he stood next to the post where Mann had chained his leg, he'd be above the crowd and too gorram conspicuous for his own liking, so like the other slaves all on their own little platforms, he sat down and bent his legs in front of him.
Just like on the Henrietta, most of the slaves were men. Didn't need to buy whores since they sold themselves in the houses, so most of the slaves were needed for working. Every once in a while, the crowd would thin, and Jayne would catch sight of a black-haired woman almost to the other side of the square, but for the most part, the slaves were all young men who were stupid enough or desperate enough or maybe just drunk enough to make the same gorram bad decision Jayne had.
Rather than watch the buyers who wandered the square, Jayne kept his eyes closed and wrapped his arms around his bent knees. It made it easier to avoid growling at the people who walked by and poked at him. About his only chance now was looking meek enough for work on one of the border planets. Mann had already shown him the advert he'd written, and it did put Jayne in a goodly light. Funny, Jayne usually avoided work, but that advert made him sound like a regular work horse. 'Course working was better than sitting in a gorram slave cage.
Jayne snorted at his ability to lie to himself. Harder to keep up those lies when a man had too much time alone for thinking thoughts that didn't fit into the little fantasy he'd built. Weren't no drinking or whoring or turning his anger on anyone else when he was in a slave cage in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep.
Jayne had always seen himself as strong, but these last three weeks had made Jayne start rethinking that. The longer he'd lived with his step-father, the more the man's words had come true. Man had called him a worm, and Jayne had tried his best to prove he had backbone, more than anyone on the whole damn planet. Had gotten himself in a world of trouble that way, and he knew he'd started losing whatever goodness his ma and pa ever tried to fill his head with. It was like trying to prove that he weren't a worm made him into one because Jayne knew his pa would have tanned him good for some of the stunts he pulled. 'Course his step-father tanned him, but what came after… the contempt… it just made him want to go out and do worse. His step-father would have a right laugh over Jayne being on a slave post.
But it weren't just that that made him weak. Put him on the Black Darling with Rick Smith, and he'd done started down a path that would have made his ma cry… if she'd ever known just how much of a wang ba dan he'd become. Put him on the Serenity, and pretty soon he was trying to figure out how to be a better man, how to be someone worth writing a gorram song about. Put him on the Henrietta and watch him drink himself stupid and sell himself into slavery. Put him on Mann's farm, and he'd been all about fixing up some farm that weren't even his.
He was gorram weak. Right now, Jayne figured he was about the weakest yanse lang in the whole gorram 'verse. Someone stopped to read the advert on the slave next to him, and Jayne leaned his head back against the post. The guy on the next stand jerked, his ankle chain rattling, but Jayne didn't bother looking. He wondered who he'd be in ten years. If he didn't get bought by one of the ships that ran out to the border planets, he figured he'd become one of them cow-eyed slaves that don't even bother looking at the hills anymore.
Wasn't a pleasant thing to discover about himself.
"Jayne," hissed a familiar voice, and Jayne had to take stock and make sure he hadn't lost his mind before he tilted his head up and cracked open an eye.
Then he had to blink to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "This is right embarrassing," Jayne muttered as Mal stepped close. River was behind him, that head tilted to the side, and even with her being bat-shit crazy, he was still happier to see them than he'd ever been to see anyone before in his life.
"You sold yourself?" Mal asked. "You done some mighty stupid things since I knowed you, Jayne Cobb, but you sold yourself?"
"Was drunk."
"Must've been gorram good whiskey," Mal swore as he read the advert nailed to the front of Jayne's post. "And you must've buffaloed whoever wrote this something good," he added as he gave the post with the advert nailed to it a good thump. "Motivated to work." Mal gave a good snort to let it known what he thought of that.
"You here for rescuing or humiliatin' me?" Jayne asked, more than a little annoyed with what Mann had written now that Mal was reading it.
"Here to buy a slave," River announced as she watched the crowds with interest. Mal graced her with a look that suggested she hadn't been having one of her better days.
"You had to bring her?" Jayne asked. River turned and briefly smiled sweetly at him, making his blood run cold, before she went back to watching the buyers.
"Can't rightly say I brought her," Mal said dryly, and there was definitely a story in there. "You're due up for sale in two hours, so we'll get you back to the Serenity after that."
"I can still hear you thinking all loud," River said as she glanced Jayne's way.
"Captain, I'd feel better if you did the bidding and not her," Jayne said carefully. Mal glanced over.
"Don't reckon I can blame you for that. She's been a mite bit peevish since you've been gone."
"I haven't," River objected to that. "You just need to get laid."
Jayne almost snorted up a lung at that outburst. Mal gave him a nasty look.
River really looked at Jayne then, looked so close that Jayne could feel himself squirm. "The Henrietta sent your bag back to us. You listed Mal as next of kin when you signed up," she offered, and Jayne had to remind himself that asking how they'd found him was a real reasonable question, so it weren't like she was reading his mind. Hopefully. He glared at her, and that just made her smile wider. It wasn't a comforting expression.
"Maybe we can talk 'bout this once we get back home. Don't rightly feel like having this conversation when you're chained to a post in the middle of a market," Mal pointed out, and now Jayne noticed the frown and the way Mal looked around uncomfortably. "Idiot," he felt the need to add, but Jayne wasn't disagreeing.
"Fair enough," Jayne agreed. "And captain," he said when Mal had started turning away. Mal looked back at him. "Thanks."
"You're working off every gorram credit I'm paying for you," Mal warned. "And you'd better be about as good-natured about working as that there advert says you are."
Working it off… on the Serenity. Jayne couldn't even pretend to be unhappy 'bout that. Mal gave him a sharp nod and then tugged the brim of his hat down as he hurried through the market crowd. Unfortunately, River didn't follow. She wandered closer to the short platform where he was sitting and plopped down on the edge. For a second, Jayne had a little fantasy of kicking her right off into the dust of the road, but he could just imagine how well that'd go over.
"Slave platforms are for the slaves," he said instead. She pulled one foot up under her.
"I didn't mean for you to go away."
Jayne snorted his answer to that bit of stupidity and leaned back against his post. Now that he knew Mal was here to claim him, he looked around the crowd. Wasn't sure, but it looked like a couple of Henrietta's crew were walking the rows. Jayne indulged in a nice little fantasy about Lexos wandering close enough for Jayne to break his neck. He may not remember all of that night when he'd lost his freedom, but he sure as guai remembered Lexos showing him the pot and explaining how a man could make a lifetime's wages in one hand of poker. Jayne'd been too gorram drunk to be foolin' with poker, but then that were just more proof of Jayne's weaknesses. Captain was right, he was an idiot.
"Ugly thoughts. Not as confusing as before, thought," River said as she reached out and fingered the edge of his sleeve. Jayne pulled his arm back.
"Don't need you doing your crazy talk 'round here. Got enough problems without having to deal with you."
"I should have known that you'd run. I should've gone out there and told the captain that he couldn't let you leave." River didn't touch him again, but her fingers rubbed on the grain of the wood that made the platform. She stared at it like she could find all the answers in the universe there, and maybe in her own mind, she could. Jayne didn't even pretend to understand what went on in her head.
"You think the captain could've stopped me?" Jayne gave a laugh.
"Yes." The simple word almost whispered ended Jayne's laugh pretty quick.
"Weren't his right to be telling me what to do. I left. My decision," Jayne insisted, and right now he'd do about anything to get out of this conversation, but chained to the post, there weren't much he could do except sit there.
"He's all confused. He could stop you, but I don't think he wants to know that," River nodded slowly.
"I ain't tryin' to start a fight I'll lose, but you do know you're gorram nuts, right?" Jayne asked. "The captain ain't the one who's confused."
River looked at him, and for a half second, Jayne had visions of getting backhanded right off the platform. He wondered if anyone would try to stop her from banging up the merchandise before the sale, but that would be Mann's job, protecting him, and that would be the shortest fight in the history of the whole damn 'verse.
Instead of hitting him, she chewed her lip and looked all thoughtful for a second before she answered. "Most of the time I can hear my own thoughts clear, but sometimes other thoughts just spill over, and I can't sort 'em fast enough," River said, sounding more sane that usual. "I shouldn't have offered to take your pain until I had it all sorted out in my head what I should do, but I made that mistake. Got to fix it now." Jayne looked at her and wondered if she was sane enough to not break his arm if he kicked her off his platform. She laid her cheek down on her bent knee and looked at him.
"Cao," he swore. "Can't go hitting you when you look like some kid doing that," he complained.
"Not a kid."
"Reckon I know that. Guai, even the Reavers know that."
"Not crazy," River said in that same tone of voice. A passing customer gave her a real strange look.
"Not so sure on that count."
"Only as crazy as you," she said as she looked at him with another of her creepifying smiles.
"I'm about as sane as they come."
"Except the part where you sold yourself," River said in an annoyingly sane voice.
"Were drunk. And I gambled my freedom, I didn't gorram sell myself like some ji nv. Besides, I weren't the one who gutted you."
And the closest customer hurried away with her floral dress all swirling around her ankles as she nearly ran.
"Didn't gut you."
"Used a butcher knife on me."
"Just sliced a bit, is all," she argued, and for that one second, she sounded more like Kaylee than those nicely educated words of her brother. Jayne glared at her, and she slowly smiled. "I hurt you, but you can't say you weren't looking to get hurt," she shrugged. "Even then I could hear you, but there were too many voices. I didn't hear right."
"Damn well didn't hear right. Never asked for someone to gut me with a knife."
River reached out, and Jayne froze as her fingers reached under his shirt and traced the edges of the scar she'd left on him.
"I'm not bought and paid for. Should keep your hands to yourself," he said, and his guts were sending up so many emotions that Jayne couldn't even feel one before another came flashing through like a lightning storm. Fear was in there, desire and embarrassment and a flat out certainty that Mal was going to hand him his balls for letting River do this… it was all chasing through his brain.
"Yet," she said, her fingers tracing the hard line of the scar up on his stomach up and then down. "Not bought and paid for yet."
"Well, I don't think the captain will be giving you privileges," Jayne said as he finally gathered the courage to push her hand away. He wasn't intimidated by much, but knowing just what River could do, it made a man think twice about what he might be willing to just endure.
"Is that scar bigger than the one on your back?"
Jayne froze.
River's eyes drifted shut. "You think of her so often, of how she left fire on your skin and let all the loud thoughts scream themselves silent."
"Get out of my gorram thoughts," Jayne snarled, and now he were angry. River just watched him with those wide eyes of hers that reminded him of a cow, just blinking and watching.
"I shouldn't have let you leave."
"Can't tell a man what to do," Jayne said firmly. And yeah, it was a stupid thing to be saying. River reached down and trailed fingers over the cold steel locked around Jayne's leg just above his boot. "Weren't a slave then," he growled.
"Shouldn't have let you leave. Should have tied you up and kept you in my cabin until the mood passed," River said dreamily. "Got all confused, worse than the captain even." And there went Jayne's idiot cock startin' to get wrong ideas as her hand stroked his leg.
Jayne reached out to shove her off his platform once and for all, and inhumanly strong hands grabbed him, held him. One around his arm, and the other around his leg just above that shackle, and the part of Jayne that knew how to survive froze. Glancing around, he could see how people kept their backs to him, how the folks were avoiding his platform, so there weren't no help coming from anyone else, and Mal wasn't anywhere to be seen. Cao.
"Thought you promised you wouldn't be taking anything that I weren't giving," he said slowly, the prey to the predator, and it weren't a position Jayne was real good at… being the prey. River looked up at him and blinked several times. The sanity of earlier was slipping away.
"I won't take your pain," she said. "Never your pain, but I won't go letting you hurt yourself again."
"I'm not your gorram responsibility," Jayne snarled. River just smiled sweetly and put her head on his shoulder. Jayne rolled his eyes but didn't do anything else as she scooted closer. "Feel free to leave any time," he suggested.
"Not leaving you."
"Don't need a gorram babysitter. Not like I'm going anywhere," he pointed out as he jerked on the chain around his ankle.
"Shouldn't be up here by yourself."
"The whole point of the gorram platform is so that I am up here alone," he pointed out all logical-like. She ignored him.
"So strong, but all alone in the dark." She closed her eyes. "I could always hear you so much easier than the others, maybe because you were in the dark with me."
Jayne narrowed his eyes as the crazy talk really got going good. "Not in the gorram dark," he growled. She didn't answer right away.
"Even when the Reavers danced in my head, I could find you. Your pain sparkled when theirs drank in all the light. Sometimes they would pluck the light from the world so fast that it would leave streaks through my mind, and when I could feel them pulling at me, I'd see you. But then sometimes, I'd shut that door altogether and dance in my memories where the Reavers couldn't find me, and then I'd lose you, too." She shifted around so she was mostly facing him, draping one leg over Jayne's and he jerked just enough to make his chain rattle. Her eyes didn't even come open as she shifted her small body around so she was wound around Jayne and just about in his lap, her head resting against his shoulder and her eyes still closed.
That was all crazy talk, crazier than since before Book had died and she'd reclaimed some piece of her mind. Jayne looked at her, not really sure what to say to that because all the talk of Reavers was makin' his skin crawl. Fortunately, the Reaver talk made his cock think twice before going and doing something stupid and embarrassing about having a female draped over him.
River had commandeered his right arm, so Jayne had to use his left to adjust his hat to keep the rising sun off his face. Either the crazy had gone to sleep or she were faking it real good, so Jayne decided he could ignore her about as well as she was ignoring him. He just wished she hadn't decided to pick him as her bunk for a morning nap. But if she were in all out crazy-mode, he wasn't planning on arguing with anything she did.
Once River settled down and stopped saying crazy things, the crowd eventually wandered close again. The curious stares he got just made Jayne roll his eyes. When River shifted, Jayne let his hand rest on her back, and she settled down again. Girl was still loonier than bat shit, but if Mal was going to hand him his balls on a plate anyway for getting all personal with her, he might as well not make it worse by letting her go sliding off into the dirt when she was deep enough asleep to not notice.
Leaning back against his post, Jayne watched the shadows and tried figuring out the time until that two hours Mal had promised him were up.
Just like on the Henrietta, most of the slaves were men. Didn't need to buy whores since they sold themselves in the houses, so most of the slaves were needed for working. Every once in a while, the crowd would thin, and Jayne would catch sight of a black-haired woman almost to the other side of the square, but for the most part, the slaves were all young men who were stupid enough or desperate enough or maybe just drunk enough to make the same gorram bad decision Jayne had.
Rather than watch the buyers who wandered the square, Jayne kept his eyes closed and wrapped his arms around his bent knees. It made it easier to avoid growling at the people who walked by and poked at him. About his only chance now was looking meek enough for work on one of the border planets. Mann had already shown him the advert he'd written, and it did put Jayne in a goodly light. Funny, Jayne usually avoided work, but that advert made him sound like a regular work horse. 'Course working was better than sitting in a gorram slave cage.
Jayne snorted at his ability to lie to himself. Harder to keep up those lies when a man had too much time alone for thinking thoughts that didn't fit into the little fantasy he'd built. Weren't no drinking or whoring or turning his anger on anyone else when he was in a slave cage in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep.
Jayne had always seen himself as strong, but these last three weeks had made Jayne start rethinking that. The longer he'd lived with his step-father, the more the man's words had come true. Man had called him a worm, and Jayne had tried his best to prove he had backbone, more than anyone on the whole damn planet. Had gotten himself in a world of trouble that way, and he knew he'd started losing whatever goodness his ma and pa ever tried to fill his head with. It was like trying to prove that he weren't a worm made him into one because Jayne knew his pa would have tanned him good for some of the stunts he pulled. 'Course his step-father tanned him, but what came after… the contempt… it just made him want to go out and do worse. His step-father would have a right laugh over Jayne being on a slave post.
But it weren't just that that made him weak. Put him on the Black Darling with Rick Smith, and he'd done started down a path that would have made his ma cry… if she'd ever known just how much of a wang ba dan he'd become. Put him on the Serenity, and pretty soon he was trying to figure out how to be a better man, how to be someone worth writing a gorram song about. Put him on the Henrietta and watch him drink himself stupid and sell himself into slavery. Put him on Mann's farm, and he'd been all about fixing up some farm that weren't even his.
He was gorram weak. Right now, Jayne figured he was about the weakest yanse lang in the whole gorram 'verse. Someone stopped to read the advert on the slave next to him, and Jayne leaned his head back against the post. The guy on the next stand jerked, his ankle chain rattling, but Jayne didn't bother looking. He wondered who he'd be in ten years. If he didn't get bought by one of the ships that ran out to the border planets, he figured he'd become one of them cow-eyed slaves that don't even bother looking at the hills anymore.
Wasn't a pleasant thing to discover about himself.
"Jayne," hissed a familiar voice, and Jayne had to take stock and make sure he hadn't lost his mind before he tilted his head up and cracked open an eye.
Then he had to blink to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "This is right embarrassing," Jayne muttered as Mal stepped close. River was behind him, that head tilted to the side, and even with her being bat-shit crazy, he was still happier to see them than he'd ever been to see anyone before in his life.
"You sold yourself?" Mal asked. "You done some mighty stupid things since I knowed you, Jayne Cobb, but you sold yourself?"
"Was drunk."
"Must've been gorram good whiskey," Mal swore as he read the advert nailed to the front of Jayne's post. "And you must've buffaloed whoever wrote this something good," he added as he gave the post with the advert nailed to it a good thump. "Motivated to work." Mal gave a good snort to let it known what he thought of that.
"You here for rescuing or humiliatin' me?" Jayne asked, more than a little annoyed with what Mann had written now that Mal was reading it.
"Here to buy a slave," River announced as she watched the crowds with interest. Mal graced her with a look that suggested she hadn't been having one of her better days.
"You had to bring her?" Jayne asked. River turned and briefly smiled sweetly at him, making his blood run cold, before she went back to watching the buyers.
"Can't rightly say I brought her," Mal said dryly, and there was definitely a story in there. "You're due up for sale in two hours, so we'll get you back to the Serenity after that."
"I can still hear you thinking all loud," River said as she glanced Jayne's way.
"Captain, I'd feel better if you did the bidding and not her," Jayne said carefully. Mal glanced over.
"Don't reckon I can blame you for that. She's been a mite bit peevish since you've been gone."
"I haven't," River objected to that. "You just need to get laid."
Jayne almost snorted up a lung at that outburst. Mal gave him a nasty look.
River really looked at Jayne then, looked so close that Jayne could feel himself squirm. "The Henrietta sent your bag back to us. You listed Mal as next of kin when you signed up," she offered, and Jayne had to remind himself that asking how they'd found him was a real reasonable question, so it weren't like she was reading his mind. Hopefully. He glared at her, and that just made her smile wider. It wasn't a comforting expression.
"Maybe we can talk 'bout this once we get back home. Don't rightly feel like having this conversation when you're chained to a post in the middle of a market," Mal pointed out, and now Jayne noticed the frown and the way Mal looked around uncomfortably. "Idiot," he felt the need to add, but Jayne wasn't disagreeing.
"Fair enough," Jayne agreed. "And captain," he said when Mal had started turning away. Mal looked back at him. "Thanks."
"You're working off every gorram credit I'm paying for you," Mal warned. "And you'd better be about as good-natured about working as that there advert says you are."
Working it off… on the Serenity. Jayne couldn't even pretend to be unhappy 'bout that. Mal gave him a sharp nod and then tugged the brim of his hat down as he hurried through the market crowd. Unfortunately, River didn't follow. She wandered closer to the short platform where he was sitting and plopped down on the edge. For a second, Jayne had a little fantasy of kicking her right off into the dust of the road, but he could just imagine how well that'd go over.
"Slave platforms are for the slaves," he said instead. She pulled one foot up under her.
"I didn't mean for you to go away."
Jayne snorted his answer to that bit of stupidity and leaned back against his post. Now that he knew Mal was here to claim him, he looked around the crowd. Wasn't sure, but it looked like a couple of Henrietta's crew were walking the rows. Jayne indulged in a nice little fantasy about Lexos wandering close enough for Jayne to break his neck. He may not remember all of that night when he'd lost his freedom, but he sure as guai remembered Lexos showing him the pot and explaining how a man could make a lifetime's wages in one hand of poker. Jayne'd been too gorram drunk to be foolin' with poker, but then that were just more proof of Jayne's weaknesses. Captain was right, he was an idiot.
"Ugly thoughts. Not as confusing as before, thought," River said as she reached out and fingered the edge of his sleeve. Jayne pulled his arm back.
"Don't need you doing your crazy talk 'round here. Got enough problems without having to deal with you."
"I should have known that you'd run. I should've gone out there and told the captain that he couldn't let you leave." River didn't touch him again, but her fingers rubbed on the grain of the wood that made the platform. She stared at it like she could find all the answers in the universe there, and maybe in her own mind, she could. Jayne didn't even pretend to understand what went on in her head.
"You think the captain could've stopped me?" Jayne gave a laugh.
"Yes." The simple word almost whispered ended Jayne's laugh pretty quick.
"Weren't his right to be telling me what to do. I left. My decision," Jayne insisted, and right now he'd do about anything to get out of this conversation, but chained to the post, there weren't much he could do except sit there.
"He's all confused. He could stop you, but I don't think he wants to know that," River nodded slowly.
"I ain't tryin' to start a fight I'll lose, but you do know you're gorram nuts, right?" Jayne asked. "The captain ain't the one who's confused."
River looked at him, and for a half second, Jayne had visions of getting backhanded right off the platform. He wondered if anyone would try to stop her from banging up the merchandise before the sale, but that would be Mann's job, protecting him, and that would be the shortest fight in the history of the whole damn 'verse.
Instead of hitting him, she chewed her lip and looked all thoughtful for a second before she answered. "Most of the time I can hear my own thoughts clear, but sometimes other thoughts just spill over, and I can't sort 'em fast enough," River said, sounding more sane that usual. "I shouldn't have offered to take your pain until I had it all sorted out in my head what I should do, but I made that mistake. Got to fix it now." Jayne looked at her and wondered if she was sane enough to not break his arm if he kicked her off his platform. She laid her cheek down on her bent knee and looked at him.
"Cao," he swore. "Can't go hitting you when you look like some kid doing that," he complained.
"Not a kid."
"Reckon I know that. Guai, even the Reavers know that."
"Not crazy," River said in that same tone of voice. A passing customer gave her a real strange look.
"Not so sure on that count."
"Only as crazy as you," she said as she looked at him with another of her creepifying smiles.
"I'm about as sane as they come."
"Except the part where you sold yourself," River said in an annoyingly sane voice.
"Were drunk. And I gambled my freedom, I didn't gorram sell myself like some ji nv. Besides, I weren't the one who gutted you."
And the closest customer hurried away with her floral dress all swirling around her ankles as she nearly ran.
"Didn't gut you."
"Used a butcher knife on me."
"Just sliced a bit, is all," she argued, and for that one second, she sounded more like Kaylee than those nicely educated words of her brother. Jayne glared at her, and she slowly smiled. "I hurt you, but you can't say you weren't looking to get hurt," she shrugged. "Even then I could hear you, but there were too many voices. I didn't hear right."
"Damn well didn't hear right. Never asked for someone to gut me with a knife."
River reached out, and Jayne froze as her fingers reached under his shirt and traced the edges of the scar she'd left on him.
"I'm not bought and paid for. Should keep your hands to yourself," he said, and his guts were sending up so many emotions that Jayne couldn't even feel one before another came flashing through like a lightning storm. Fear was in there, desire and embarrassment and a flat out certainty that Mal was going to hand him his balls for letting River do this… it was all chasing through his brain.
"Yet," she said, her fingers tracing the hard line of the scar up on his stomach up and then down. "Not bought and paid for yet."
"Well, I don't think the captain will be giving you privileges," Jayne said as he finally gathered the courage to push her hand away. He wasn't intimidated by much, but knowing just what River could do, it made a man think twice about what he might be willing to just endure.
"Is that scar bigger than the one on your back?"
Jayne froze.
River's eyes drifted shut. "You think of her so often, of how she left fire on your skin and let all the loud thoughts scream themselves silent."
"Get out of my gorram thoughts," Jayne snarled, and now he were angry. River just watched him with those wide eyes of hers that reminded him of a cow, just blinking and watching.
"I shouldn't have let you leave."
"Can't tell a man what to do," Jayne said firmly. And yeah, it was a stupid thing to be saying. River reached down and trailed fingers over the cold steel locked around Jayne's leg just above his boot. "Weren't a slave then," he growled.
"Shouldn't have let you leave. Should have tied you up and kept you in my cabin until the mood passed," River said dreamily. "Got all confused, worse than the captain even." And there went Jayne's idiot cock startin' to get wrong ideas as her hand stroked his leg.
Jayne reached out to shove her off his platform once and for all, and inhumanly strong hands grabbed him, held him. One around his arm, and the other around his leg just above that shackle, and the part of Jayne that knew how to survive froze. Glancing around, he could see how people kept their backs to him, how the folks were avoiding his platform, so there weren't no help coming from anyone else, and Mal wasn't anywhere to be seen. Cao.
"Thought you promised you wouldn't be taking anything that I weren't giving," he said slowly, the prey to the predator, and it weren't a position Jayne was real good at… being the prey. River looked up at him and blinked several times. The sanity of earlier was slipping away.
"I won't take your pain," she said. "Never your pain, but I won't go letting you hurt yourself again."
"I'm not your gorram responsibility," Jayne snarled. River just smiled sweetly and put her head on his shoulder. Jayne rolled his eyes but didn't do anything else as she scooted closer. "Feel free to leave any time," he suggested.
"Not leaving you."
"Don't need a gorram babysitter. Not like I'm going anywhere," he pointed out as he jerked on the chain around his ankle.
"Shouldn't be up here by yourself."
"The whole point of the gorram platform is so that I am up here alone," he pointed out all logical-like. She ignored him.
"So strong, but all alone in the dark." She closed her eyes. "I could always hear you so much easier than the others, maybe because you were in the dark with me."
Jayne narrowed his eyes as the crazy talk really got going good. "Not in the gorram dark," he growled. She didn't answer right away.
"Even when the Reavers danced in my head, I could find you. Your pain sparkled when theirs drank in all the light. Sometimes they would pluck the light from the world so fast that it would leave streaks through my mind, and when I could feel them pulling at me, I'd see you. But then sometimes, I'd shut that door altogether and dance in my memories where the Reavers couldn't find me, and then I'd lose you, too." She shifted around so she was mostly facing him, draping one leg over Jayne's and he jerked just enough to make his chain rattle. Her eyes didn't even come open as she shifted her small body around so she was wound around Jayne and just about in his lap, her head resting against his shoulder and her eyes still closed.
That was all crazy talk, crazier than since before Book had died and she'd reclaimed some piece of her mind. Jayne looked at her, not really sure what to say to that because all the talk of Reavers was makin' his skin crawl. Fortunately, the Reaver talk made his cock think twice before going and doing something stupid and embarrassing about having a female draped over him.
River had commandeered his right arm, so Jayne had to use his left to adjust his hat to keep the rising sun off his face. Either the crazy had gone to sleep or she were faking it real good, so Jayne decided he could ignore her about as well as she was ignoring him. He just wished she hadn't decided to pick him as her bunk for a morning nap. But if she were in all out crazy-mode, he wasn't planning on arguing with anything she did.
Once River settled down and stopped saying crazy things, the crowd eventually wandered close again. The curious stares he got just made Jayne roll his eyes. When River shifted, Jayne let his hand rest on her back, and she settled down again. Girl was still loonier than bat shit, but if Mal was going to hand him his balls on a plate anyway for getting all personal with her, he might as well not make it worse by letting her go sliding off into the dirt when she was deep enough asleep to not notice.
Leaning back against his post, Jayne watched the shadows and tried figuring out the time until that two hours Mal had promised him were up.
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Date: 2008-01-04 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:08 pm (UTC)Thanks for sharing!
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Date: 2008-01-04 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:30 pm (UTC)But you know me...lol
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Date: 2008-01-04 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:29 pm (UTC)More please , I am begging here!
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Date: 2008-01-04 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-04 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 12:11 am (UTC)I LOVE a big man on his knees. The bigger the better, LOL.
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Date: 2008-01-05 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-05 05:13 am (UTC)Laurie
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Date: 2008-01-05 05:19 am (UTC)Right now, Jayne doesn't know how to be in his own skin. He was happy enough to be described as a hard worker until Mal saw it. He lets River cuddle, but feels a need to justify it. He's still a little messed up in the head, poor boy.
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Date: 2008-01-05 03:22 pm (UTC)And that insight of Jayne's, into his own chameleon nature, was good.
He should be doing his best to look like an unattractive purchase, right now, to keep the price down, I reckon.
I am really enjoying this story. But (not that I don't trust you *g*) I'm going to still need convincing about River in any relationship, let alone one with Jayne.
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Date: 2008-01-05 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-06 01:02 am (UTC)It must have really affected Mal to know Jayne put him down as next of kin.
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Date: 2008-01-06 11:18 pm (UTC)