Old War Horses

[lit_gal]

Title: Old War Horses
Firefly x Sentinel
Mal/Jayne, Blair/Jim
Rated: ADULT
Taming the Muse prompt:

Malcolm Reynolds fought for the Browncoat rebels. They wanted their freedom. They lost. James Joseph Womak was a commander for the Alliance, determined to bring justice to the common people. His side won, but he still lost.

This time on Old War Horses:
There's a plot afoot, and it's time to be addressing it!



If you want to read the early chapters, go to Twisting the Hellmouth. 

If you want to read the most recent chapters, use tags.

22

“Anything?” Mal asked. They crouched inside an empty store across from the Blue Sun office. It was night, but even so, a light shone in the window. And if they wanted to get the key back before Inara’s customer noticed it was gone, they had to move tonight.

Jim was a mite bit surprised that Mal was willing to trust him and his senses to search the place, but Jayne did seem to be mellowing him out. Either that or Jayne was distracting him to the point that he forgot he hated Jim, either was possible. Jim had to admit that he had never known two men to have quite so much sex in so short a time. The smell of it all made Jim’s nose itch.

“Focus on the building,” Blair whispered, his hand resting on Jim’s shoulder like he knew that Jim was distracted from the task at hand. He probably did, but Jim really doubted that he understood what was distracting him.

Rubbing his nose, Jim concentrated on the office, sending his hearing out to creep along the ground, listening to the wind push bits of dust so that it scraped across the ground. Blair’s words became background noise as he finally reached the building and pushed past wood walls.

“A person typing,” Jim said, and he pointed at the north end. “Slow. Not sure of what to say. Click… click click click click… click click…. Space.” Jim stopped. He doubted anyone wanted the number of keystrokes and despite a somewhat irrational urge to leave his hearing there and count them, he moved on. “Machine running, humming. Moving air. Papers rustling, their edges fluttering.”

“Fan, Jim, it’s just a fan,” Blair muttered close to his ear. “What else?”

“A whistling noise. Barely audible.” Jim followed the sound, his hearing tunneling forward until Blair’s voice and the sound of his heartbeat faded. He knew he was risking a zone, but this wasn’t a normal whistle. “Air rushing past a tiny crack, deep, so deep it makes a whistle as it passes.” Jim pushed farther, his hearing becoming a dull roar as he sought the smallest sound in the ground. Burrowing animals and the creaking of the moon itself filled his awareness as he pushed past any safe boundaries. Blair’s fingers were hot islands pressing into his arm, but Jim allowed his senses to unfurl. If there was danger, he had to know before Blair walked in there. Nothing else mattered.

Jim head pounded with the force of the blood flowing into his brain, but he allowed his hearing to quest out into that dull silence and the scrabbling of bugs under the ground. When he finally broke through into sound, he fell forward into the sound of voices, of computers, of footsteps echoing off metal walls and then he couldn’t hear anything.




“Jim, follow me back. Come on, man. You are totally freaking me out here. Totally. You know how much you hate it when I freak out, so you have to get back here. Come on. You can do it.”

Jim groaned as his head throbbed painfully. “Don’t yell.”

“Oh thank God,” Blair breathed, and from the tone, Jim could tell he was whispering, even though the words echoed in Jim’s head. When Jim reached up to explore the weight holding him down, he realized Blair was laying on him, his head on Jim’s chest.

“So, can we start with the shooting now?” Jayne’s voice ripped through Jim’s head, and he cried out.

“Hey, dial down. Come on, control the hearing. Just as soon as you have it back under control, you can shoot Jayne for being a big old hwun dan,” Blair promised. Jim cracked and eye open and Blair was glaring at Jayne. Mal was too, which was a little more surprising.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jayne complained. Either he said it a good deal softer or Jim’s hearing was coming back under control. Blair settled for giving him an even colder glare. Blair did have a mighty unfriendly glare on him when he wanted to. Jim reached up to pat Blair’s arm.

“I’m okay.”

Blair’s snort made it clear that he didn’t believe that.

Jim frowned. “How long?” he asked as various cramps and aches started making themselves known.

“About two hours,” Mal answered bluntly. Blair was always a lot more circumspect when it came to his zones, but Jim figured if he’d wasted two hours, Mal had a right to be blunt. Cao. Two hours. Jim rolled to his side and got an arm under himself. Mal left the window to come over and crouch down, leaving Jim clenching his fists as his gut twisted up over having a Browncoat over him when he was so helpless. “We were about to leave you here, Ellison. Sandburg, though, seems to think you wouldn’t have checked out unless you heard something you didn’t expect.”

“Like an underground computer room with at least six employees?” Jim asked.

“Like what?” Mal asked.

“Whoa. Oh man, score one for River,” Blair added, smiling widely. “Oh yeah, there’s some big secret in there, and they are about to lose it.”

“Hold your horses, Sandburg,” Mal snapped. “Exactly what are you talking about, Ellison, and keep in mind that two hours of watching you sleep hasn’t exactly improved my mood.”

Jim pushed himself up so he was at least sitting. His head pounded from the movement, but he found it easier to ignore the pain than his unease at being helpless on his back. “I heard a whistle,” he started, rubbing a hand over his face to chase away the last threads of numbness that followed whenever he allowed another sense to overshadow touch.

“Yeah, got that part before you checked out.”

“Hey,” Blair objected.

“Passed out, checked out, make a complete target of himself and slowed the mission down,” Mal snapped. Jim couldn’t disagree with any of that, so he put out a hand to stop Blair from mounting a defense where it really wasn’t warranted. Jim knew they had a tight timeline, and he hadn’t controlled his senses well enough to prevent him from endangering the mission.

“It’s true enough,” Jim said softly, giving Blair a firm look. From the mulish expression he got in return, he was guessing Blair had a whole lecture planned for later, but at least he pressed his lips together and didn’t comment. “The whistle came from the fan’s air blowing over a crack where a door isn’t completely closed. I’m guessing it’s a hidden door because what’s below is about two thousand square feet, three or four rooms, one large and the others office-sized. There were at least five people in the main room, and I could hear one person in an office, talking, but I couldn’t catch the words. The five in the main room were typing mostly, and someone had on the news. Whatever the office on top is, that’s the cover for the real work in the basement.” Jim finished his report and watched Mal, perfectly prepared to have the man call him a liar or insane.

“Wow. Okay, we are so testing your hearing again,” Blair muttered quietly, but Mal simply looked down at him in shock.

“Well, cao. I don’t suppose your hearing can tell us how many weapons we’re walking in on.”

Jim shook his head.

“If’n any of that’s accurate, it’s just creepifying,” Jayne complained. Jim tightened his jaw. He knew how wrong his senses were, but he didn’t need a man with the intelligence of a sheepdog pointing it out.

“No more than your habit of hitting every mark between the eyes,” Mal cut him off with a sharp tone. Jayne grunted, but he didn’t seem willing to disagree with Mal. Even if they’d started having sex more than any two men should once they’d passed seventeen, they didn’t seem too interested in being nicer to each other, that’s for sure.

“So, we go in hot and assume we have six armed guards at the bottom.”

“Guards ain’t likely to be doing any typing, Mal,” Jayne pointed out. It was actually a rather reasonable observation.

“And we ain’t likely to get ourselves dead from underestimating the enemy if we assume they’re all armed and capable of putting a shot where they want it. The minute we take out the guy in the office, the others are going to be gunning for us,” Mal countered. That was an even more reasonable point. Jim figured these two might have some strategic sense.

Jayne grunted and started checking his weapons.

“I can go in,” Blair said.

“No,” Jim snapped, tightening his hand around Blair’s arm.

“Hey, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Blair objected.

Jayne’s snort made it clear he wasn’t agreeing with that, but Mal was giving Blair a look that was worrying Jim. Jim glared at him. “He’s not going in,” Jim said firmly. Jim would let that happen over his dead body.

“I can get in there and distract the guy so he doesn’t raise the alarm. Come on. I’m not some fucking damsel in distress, here.” Blair crossed his arms and glared at Jim.

Struggling to his feet, Jim shook his head. “I’m not putting you in the middle of a fight when you don’t even carry a gun.”

“You don’t carry a gun?” Jayne blurted out, and from the tone, he considered that the craziest thing a man could ever do.

“There are a lot of kinds of weaponry, and a gun is only one kind.”

“It’s the best kind,” Jayne disagreed.

“It’s the kind you need to if you’re going up against an unknown enemy,” Jim said firmly, glad that Mal had finally given him back some of his weapons, even if he figured the man would confiscate them again before letting Jim back on the Serenity.

“Oh man, all three of you are dying of testosterone poisoning!”

“I ain’t said nothing on the issue,” Mal complained, his hands going up in surrender.

Jim gave Mal a cold look. “Sending an unarmed man into an unknown situation is about as stupid as any strategy I’ve ever heard.”

“It ain’t half as stupid as some of the things I’ve done in the past,” Mal answered entirely too easily.

“Exactly! Wait…” Blair went from looking around in triumph to pinning Mal with a confused look. “You think it’s a stupid idea? And exactly how stupid are these plans you’re talking about in the past?”

“Plenty stupid,” Jayne offered, and he didn’t back down from that one inch when Mal glared in his direction. “But what will sending the little one in there accomplish?”

Blair sighed. “If you keep calling me little, I’m going to flash you and damage your manly ego,” Blair threatened. He really was a well-built man, Jim had to admit that, but right now, he was more concerned about the size of his common sense.

“You aren’t going,” Jim said.

Blair snorted. “That would work better if you were in charge of the mission,” Blair pointed out. Jim narrowed his eyes, silently warning Blair to not make any rash choices. “Mal, I can talk him out of there. Man, I can talk anyone out of anything.”

“And then get shot two seconds later,” Jim finished for him. More than once, Blair’s mouth had talked them into some place that Jim’s gun got them out of. True, more times Blair talked his way free of the trouble, but the fact remained that Blair’s ability to talk around someone didn’t prevent them from taking a dislike to him.

“Well, if someone tries shooting him, Jayne can kill them, can’t you?” Mal asked with an excess of cheerfulness as he turned to Jayne.

“Gorram right,” Jayne agreed with a smile as he grabbed his sniper rifle and headed over to a corner of the window where a small circle of glass had been cut out to prevent it from altering the trajectory of a bullet. “I ain’t never missed someone I was aiming at.”

“And that’s true, even when he’s falling down drunk. It’s downright unnatural,” Mal said.

Jim stepped forward, physically crowding Blair closer to the wall. “You’re not sending him in there,” Jim snarled, ignoring the annoyed huff from Blair. Jim expected an outburst, maybe even a gun jammed in his guts, and with his sense of touch still reeling from the zone, Jim wasn’t safe to pull his own weapon to defend them. However, Mal sighed and looked around for a second while he seemed to collect his thoughts.

When Mal did turn back, Jim could see a firm resolve on his face. “A mission can only have one commander, Ellison. You ain’t it. Now I’m willing to cut you some slack seeing as how you’ve been on your own for a while, but you yourself offered to leave Blair to me while you took off on some chase, so I figure at the very least, Blair’s crew, even if you’re too stubborn to take an order from a Browncoat. My crew, my command. If he can get in there and talk his way around the guard, fine. If he can’t, he’ll come straight back out, no harm no foul.” Mal leaned to the side and gave Blair a sharp look.

“Hey, no problem. I am not looking to get shot,” Blair quickly agreed.

“So, Blair’s going in. Stand down, Jim,” Mal warned, and the tone made it clear that he didn’t plan on repeating himself. Jayne shifted, settling his rifle down so his hands were free, and Jim figured that he was about to see the business end of Jayne’s fists if he tried pushing this too far. Depending on how far Jayne went, that could be downright dangerous in the middle of a mission, and Jim wasn’t willing to get taken out of the game, not when he was the only one who would put Blair’s safety first.

“If he gets hurt…” Jim warned as he eased off so that Blair had room to get by him. “Worse yet, if he gets…” Jim stopped, refusing to even jinx them by saying the words.

“If he gets killed, I’ll make sure to kill you before you have a chance to kill me,” Mal offered with a smile. “Sandburg, unless you want that Ellison and I should go trying to kill each other, try to not end up dead.”

“Yes, sir, Captain Mal,” Blair said as he darted by them both and headed out the front door. Mal sighed.

“He’s downright annoying, but I protect crew, Ellison. Jayne, shoot anything that looks cross-eyed in Sandburg’s direction. Ellison, you might want to start listening in so we know if things start going pear-shaped.”

Jim still wasn’t happy, but he didn’t have a lot of illusions about his ability to influence Mal’s decisions. Bending and flexing his fingers to regain control over touch, Jim moved to the window and watched the storefront.

“He’s saying that he’s glad someone’s still working because his horse came up lame,” Jim started narrating as he listened to Blair weave his obfuscations around the Blue Sun guard.

Comments

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Plot ahoy, along with a grumpy over-protective Jim. Fun. :-)

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

And the worst part is that he isn't in charge and he doesn't get to be over-protective.

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Thwarted over-protective Jim is what makes it fun.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

But you know Mal really will go out of his way to protect crew, even if Blair has now beat out both Jayne and Simon as MOST ANNOYING crew evah

[1orelei.livejournal.com]

Is that because Blair combines annoying with nigh River levels of trouble? (I only ask because I note River didn't make your list of Mal-irritants. ;)

Also - YAY PLOT!

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

LOL! Poor Jim! No one can resist Sandburg.

Although, it's got to suck that he was outvoted by Mal.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

No one can. Blair is one of those men, like Xander, who seem so non-alpha, but they get their way.

Torn

[loushy.livejournal.com]

I love this story line. The pairings, the tension, the humor and I want to see more but at the same time I am waiting with baited breathe for more about Temar and Shan. Vile temptress you, making me check the website and my inbox several times a day, errrr

Amberly

Re: Torn

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. And I am writing more Temar/Shan, I just can't get the next chronological bit to work for me. I'll get there.

[skeptic7.livejournal.com]

This is great. I love the way that Jayne and Mal seem to accept Jim's senses, but I think they are immured to strangeness having been around River, and watching Jayne's magical way with a gun. Now if they could just figure out how to handle Sandburg. ...
Mal is a great commander even if its just a 4 man team.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

That's it... when compared to River, Jim is downright uninteresting. but handling Blair... that's going to take a lot more effort.

[spiceblueeyes.livejournal.com]

So Blair is crew. I wonder how long it will take Mal to truly accept Jim as crew, or if he ever will.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Blair is crew... the jury is still out on Jim.

[hawera.livejournal.com]

You see? It's far more important that you get on with this than that you edit other peoples' stuff for the print room.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY... and the good news is that one of the others actually got called back in (during vacation) to fix his screwups. See... it all worked out to the good.

[dustandroses.livejournal.com]

Huh. Came to see if a new post was up, and couldn't find my comment to this one. I meant to make a comment, honest, I did! BTW - you didn't put any tags on this post, so it might be harder to find for people like me who check tags almost compulsively. *g*

I'm impressed at Mal's ability to get around Jim like that. Jim's almost fanatically obsessed with keeping Blair safely out of trouble, despite the fact that Blair is as much of a trouble magnet as Daniel Jackson. But then they don't come much more stubborn than Mal, do they? It's got to be difficult not being the guy in charge.

:::pets poor Jim:::

But maybe the one I should be feeling sorry for is Mal. Now that he's accepted Blair as a crew member, Mal's gonna feel responsible for him, and trouble magnets are notoriously bad at doing as they're told.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

I do try and answer comments when I put up a new chapter... kind of like an alarm system. I used to be better about posting regularly, but it's hard these days.

Mal is pretty stubborn, and more than that, Jim knows if this all goes bad, he's still on the Alliance's chopping block, leaving Blair with Mal. So he has to let Blair learn to be Mal's crew.

[dustandroses.livejournal.com]

I do try and answer comments when I put up a new chapter... kind of like an alarm system.

I appreciate that, I think it's an excellent way to let people know you've got a new post up. My problem is that I often let a new chapter sit a few days, then go back and read it again before I post comments. So sometimes I don't get a comment posted in time for the alarm system to do me any good.

That's why I use tags and memories. I have a bookmark folder in my browser labeled wips, and I keep copies of the tags/memories of all the current wips I'm reading. It's a small list, so I usually check it after I check my email when I first start up my browser. At the moment, you're at the top of my list. *g*