Fic: Ransom
Nobody die or anything, but I actually wrote something. It's not a meme! Also, click on the first cut line. I screwed up and telling you which one to click on is easier than fixing the problem. Oooh, lazy!
Title: Ransom
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: River/Jayne, Simon/Kaylee, Mal
Genre: Angry with a happy ending?
Timeline: After BDM
Disclaimer: I claim that I have absolutely nothing to do with Fox. And that claim would be correct.
Summary: Sometimes drastic measures must be taken.
Written for: A-Z Shuffle Meme (Pack Up by Eliza Doolittle)
"River, why the hell ain't my boat landed?"
The fact that she was being called River spoke to Mal's mood. He never called her by her given name unless he was angry and inclined to express his captain-y authority.
"Port Authority has asked us to wait."
Captain-feet stomped a little more quickly to the bridge.
"You wanna explain why you didn't notify me we'd been hailed?"
The permanent state of tetchiness that was her captain now that Inara had left again clawed its way unwanted inside River's brain.
Her tone thus affected, she replied shortly, "They do not wish to board us. Must wait in line just like the rest."
"Line? What line?"
"All spaces but space itself are occupied."
She gestured her arm toward the window.
The Eavesdown Docks were bursting with activity below them with not a single spot to land the ship available. Mal glared down as if he wanted to squish them like bugs.
Malcolm Reynolds, the lord and father of irony.
"How long?"
"Any moment..." her console chimed. "Now."
Mal turned on his heel once he'd heard what he wanted. "Get it done."
Because he was her captain and because she alone knew the real reasons Inara left, River kept silent and did as ordered.
The Captain and Zoe were going job hunting, more than likely leading them to the weasel's sett. Once the ship was docked and powered down, River sought to find what the others plans were.
She found Simon and Kaylee first and the latter was wearing her 'shiny smile, eyelash batting' look of allure. It battled ge ge's grimace of eternal worry.
"C'mon, Simon. A real date. Yer always sayin' ya wanna take me somewhere that's got tablecloths and candles but then every time we get anywhere that's got 'em you start worryin' about bein' seen."
"It's a serious concern. Persephone is as close to Core as the border planets come."
Used to the argument, River and Kaylee shared bemused smiles in greeting. "River, tell 'em he ain't got nothing to worry about."
"You could wear your retina deflectors."
"My glasses?" Simon considered and then shook his head. "They would be very out of place in a restaurant."
She shrugged. "So go to the festival."
A gasp escaped Kaylee. She grabbed hold of Simon's forearm. "Oh, I'd plumb forgot. Simon, we just gotta go. I heard they even got a circus! And you can wear them glasses the whole time to that."
Her brother couldn't withhold a grin at her exuberance and let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. A signal of defeat.
Knowing the cue as well as River, Kaylee squee'd.
Still, he reminded, "What about the goods the Captain wants us to get from the market?"
"I can get them."
Simon's mouth worked, opening and almost closing, with no sound coming out.
River knew what he was going to say before he found his voice and her eyes narrowed in response.
"Mei mei, I'm not sure..."
"I am fully capable of purchasing protein, Simon."
"Of course you..."
He was coddling her. She hated being coddled.
"No. I don't believe you think I am. Afraid I will get lost in the sea and drown. I would like the list, please, Kaylee."
The ridge between Simon's brows deepened in that look that was somehow a cross between concern, disappointment, and constipation.
"River, I'm just worried that..."
Accepting the list and coin Kaylee pulled from her coverall's pocket, River interrupted, "Always worrying. You'll get an ulcer. Go to the festival with Kaylee."
Now it was her turn to turn on her heel and leave without waiting for a reply.
Twenty! Twenty completed figurative solar revolutions (if she were to calculate the literal amount of times she had traveled around a star she would be much older) and he still treated her like an infantile! She was not a bird to be kept in a cage.
Simple Simon, ginormous nǎo cán boob!
"Hey! Where you goin'?"
Without stopping her path across the dining area, River answered the tables mercenary occupant, "Market."
Jayne started to stand up. "Ya want some comp'ny?"
Her entire body tightened with rage.
Hair flew as she spun, words striking out like a cornered viper. "I am fully capable of doing things without others assistance!"
Jayne's brows and hands both held high in surprised surrender were the last things she saw as she continued her path of righteous self-vindication.
Two hours later, River returned to the ship with a headache, two heavy sacks of goods, and an even fouler temper. That clerk bought the evaporated milk at 1/2 the price he was charging. Dishonest thievery. The Captain would not approve. When River pointed this out, the clerk not only refused to lower the cost but threatened to remove her from the store.
Threatened! Her!
Insufferable hundan. She should have strangled him with his shoelaces.
Jayne had the misfortune of being in the cargo bay doing pull-ups when she entered and dropped to the floor when he saw her.
"Get anythin' good?"
River rolled her eyes. "Girly mags and compacted tobacco are hardly things the Captain would give me money for."
He frowned hard at her. "What up and lit the fuse on your tampon?"
For the second time that day his words raised her hackles to their peak.
Dropping the sacks to the grating, River marched over, stopping just in front of him. "My having a particular temperament you don't approve of has nothing to do with my menstrual cycle. And even if it were, that would be none of your business."
He barked a humorless laugh. "That's cute, coming from you, always up in everybody's business."
Why that...! "The only reasons I peek are when the Captain asks or when someone thinks too loudly. Perhaps you should not think about me so much, Jayne. You do get so loud when I'm around."
His face closed down. "I don't think shit about you."
With affected boredom, River examined the ends of her hair. "Says the man that spends a considerable amount of his time thinking about this girl's legs and their apparent flexibility."
Leaning forward, she lowered her voice as if telling a secret. "While that position is possible, I do not think anyone would approve of the location."
His smile was full of malice. "Girl, me picturin' ways to cao you into next Sunday don't mean a tinker's damn. Case you hadn't noticed, I like women. I like 'em nekkid, screaming, and on their backs. Though, any which way'll do."
She shook her head, brown eyes locked on blue. "I'm the only one you think about with clothes on."
His jaw visibly flinched. "Bizui."
"Giving me a gun where others would give flowers. Bought me apples once, too. Didn't like me so much then, though."
"You deaf? I told you to shut up."
Jayne was an odd combination of panicky and furious and it only fueled her sudden need to push his buttons.
Her brows arched. "Shut up or you'll shut me up? How you going to shut me up, Jayne? Wish I could shut you all up from your thinking, feeling, pushing it all on me when I don't want it! But I can't always do that, can I?"
Leaning down real close to her face, he all but growled, "Folk can't help what they think none but at least they got the sense to keep their traps shut."
He stood to his full height and shook his head, looking disappointed. "Unlike you, who don't bother thinking at all before ya open yer mouth. An' here I thought that'd been a good thing."
When he walked away, River felt oddly cold.
And guilty.
She reassured herself with the knowledge that they had fought many times before, some even coming to blows.
Jayne would get over it.
-----------------------------------
Jayne didn't get over it.
He'd been avoiding her for seven days, three hours, and forty-eight minutes.
On a ship.
A small ship.
A ship in which the odds of his successfully avoiding her as well as he had been were very minute. Very.
When Jayne had been forcibly in her presence for one reason or another, he didn't look at her. At all. It was if she wasn't even there. She'd even tried provoking him on more than one occasion. Her attempts just caused him to leave the room.
Which is why it had come to this.
Jayne had forced her hand.
So when the supernova exploded in the bunk section of Serenity, River remained where she was in the cargo bay and waited for the black hole to come and seek its destruction of her.
-------------------------------------
That rutting bitch.
She'd stolen his gun.
She'd touched his gun.
He was gonna kill her.
There was a scrap of paper where Vera should have been and Jayne stalked over and ripped it from its place.
River Tam's Demands For the Safe Return of One Vera, Callahan Full-bore Auto Lock with Customized Trigger Double Cartridge Thorough Gauge
1. Jayne will growl when she steals his bread at dinner.
2. Jayne will share his most recently discovered dirty jokes with her.
3. Jayne will tug her hair when he teases her.
4. Jayne will tease her.
5. Jayne will be Jayne.
Crumbling the note in his fist, Jayne dropped it to the floor and stormed off to find her. And by storming off he meant stalking the halls silently. He wouldn't be able to sneak up on her but that didn't mean he wanted to alert the rest of the crew to his plans of gutting her slowly.
Jayne eventually found her in the middle of the cargo bay, sitting there like Serenity's very own Buddha.
If Buddha was skinnier'n a stick and didn't brush his hair.
"Where is my gorram gun?"
He'd say she stood up but River didn't do simple shit like that. She flowed up from the floor like gravity wasn't the same for folk that tiny.
"Did you read my demands?"
Demands, his muscular buttocks. They were in the middle of no and fucking-ware. There were only so many places she could have hid her. Horror flashed through Jayne when he become conscious of the fact she could have spaced his very favorite gun.
"You don't give her back, I'll make you give 'er back."
"I like that you like my legs."
It was such an abrupt change of subject that Jayne was still trying to figure it out when she continued.
"Didn't before. Felt you undress me with your eyes. Hard to focus on conversations with the captain when clothes keep disappearing. But I feel more naked now because your eyes aren't there."
His hands tightened into fists. "'Scuse me for not giving a flying mǐ tián gòng about catering to yer wantin' somebody to crush on you. Not that I ever did that anyhow. Now give me my damn gun!"
By the end, he'd stopped caring about being heard and his voice boomed as he yelled.
River matched it with a keening wail. "But she is sorry!"
It'd been a long time since she'd talked in the third person without meaning to and that spoke more than anything else to how upset she was.
Her hand gripped the front of her dress above her heart. "She broke something she did not know she had and now she has a hole here!"
Tears slid silently down her cheeks and she whispered, "I can't fix it without you."
He snapped, "I don't fix things. I break 'em."
Ignoring him, River crossed the space between them and laid her palm over his heart. "I made a hole here, too. We can fix each other but I need you to show me how."
Jayne didn't rightly know what to think about that.
-----------------------------------------------------
River couldn't figure out what Jayne was thinking.
She was trying not to peek but she wanted to and he wasn't saying anything.
Panic began to well up inside her and her voice may have shook just a little as she pleaded, "I'm a very fast learner! Can make promises, too! Won't steal your shirts to sleep in anymore. Except the yellow one because it is my favorite. I will do my utmost to never speak of something from the Jayne brain unless you specifically allow it. And I shall stop teasing you over your fear of felines. Also, I can..."
River always found it rude when Jayne interrupted her. It was difficult enough at times to get words in their proper shape without him going in and muddling them up.
But when chapped lips pressed against hers demanding both entrance and her silence, acquiescence and rebellion met as one. She opened to his fervor and need took vocal form from her throat to his.
Some untold time later, Jayne rested his head against hers, panting breaths mingling between them.
"Jayne is a liar."
Without malice, he asked, "How's 'at?"
"You fixed us both without saying a word."
He laughed, pulling her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her.
Nuzzling her hair, he inhaled a deep breath.
"Can I have my gun back now?"
Title: Ransom
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: River/Jayne, Simon/Kaylee, Mal
Genre: Angry with a happy ending?
Timeline: After BDM
Disclaimer: I claim that I have absolutely nothing to do with Fox. And that claim would be correct.
Summary: Sometimes drastic measures must be taken.
Written for: A-Z Shuffle Meme (Pack Up by Eliza Doolittle)
Click to view"River, why the hell ain't my boat landed?"
The fact that she was being called River spoke to Mal's mood. He never called her by her given name unless he was angry and inclined to express his captain-y authority.
"Port Authority has asked us to wait."
Captain-feet stomped a little more quickly to the bridge.
"You wanna explain why you didn't notify me we'd been hailed?"
The permanent state of tetchiness that was her captain now that Inara had left again clawed its way unwanted inside River's brain.
Her tone thus affected, she replied shortly, "They do not wish to board us. Must wait in line just like the rest."
"Line? What line?"
"All spaces but space itself are occupied."
She gestured her arm toward the window.
The Eavesdown Docks were bursting with activity below them with not a single spot to land the ship available. Mal glared down as if he wanted to squish them like bugs.
Malcolm Reynolds, the lord and father of irony.
"How long?"
"Any moment..." her console chimed. "Now."
Mal turned on his heel once he'd heard what he wanted. "Get it done."
Because he was her captain and because she alone knew the real reasons Inara left, River kept silent and did as ordered.
The Captain and Zoe were going job hunting, more than likely leading them to the weasel's sett. Once the ship was docked and powered down, River sought to find what the others plans were.
She found Simon and Kaylee first and the latter was wearing her 'shiny smile, eyelash batting' look of allure. It battled ge ge's grimace of eternal worry.
"C'mon, Simon. A real date. Yer always sayin' ya wanna take me somewhere that's got tablecloths and candles but then every time we get anywhere that's got 'em you start worryin' about bein' seen."
"It's a serious concern. Persephone is as close to Core as the border planets come."
Used to the argument, River and Kaylee shared bemused smiles in greeting. "River, tell 'em he ain't got nothing to worry about."
"You could wear your retina deflectors."
"My glasses?" Simon considered and then shook his head. "They would be very out of place in a restaurant."
She shrugged. "So go to the festival."
A gasp escaped Kaylee. She grabbed hold of Simon's forearm. "Oh, I'd plumb forgot. Simon, we just gotta go. I heard they even got a circus! And you can wear them glasses the whole time to that."
Her brother couldn't withhold a grin at her exuberance and let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. A signal of defeat.
Knowing the cue as well as River, Kaylee squee'd.
Still, he reminded, "What about the goods the Captain wants us to get from the market?"
"I can get them."
Simon's mouth worked, opening and almost closing, with no sound coming out.
River knew what he was going to say before he found his voice and her eyes narrowed in response.
"Mei mei, I'm not sure..."
"I am fully capable of purchasing protein, Simon."
"Of course you..."
He was coddling her. She hated being coddled.
"No. I don't believe you think I am. Afraid I will get lost in the sea and drown. I would like the list, please, Kaylee."
The ridge between Simon's brows deepened in that look that was somehow a cross between concern, disappointment, and constipation.
"River, I'm just worried that..."
Accepting the list and coin Kaylee pulled from her coverall's pocket, River interrupted, "Always worrying. You'll get an ulcer. Go to the festival with Kaylee."
Now it was her turn to turn on her heel and leave without waiting for a reply.
Twenty! Twenty completed figurative solar revolutions (if she were to calculate the literal amount of times she had traveled around a star she would be much older) and he still treated her like an infantile! She was not a bird to be kept in a cage.
Simple Simon, ginormous nǎo cán boob!
"Hey! Where you goin'?"
Without stopping her path across the dining area, River answered the tables mercenary occupant, "Market."
Jayne started to stand up. "Ya want some comp'ny?"
Her entire body tightened with rage.
Hair flew as she spun, words striking out like a cornered viper. "I am fully capable of doing things without others assistance!"
Jayne's brows and hands both held high in surprised surrender were the last things she saw as she continued her path of righteous self-vindication.
Two hours later, River returned to the ship with a headache, two heavy sacks of goods, and an even fouler temper. That clerk bought the evaporated milk at 1/2 the price he was charging. Dishonest thievery. The Captain would not approve. When River pointed this out, the clerk not only refused to lower the cost but threatened to remove her from the store.
Threatened! Her!
Insufferable hundan. She should have strangled him with his shoelaces.
Jayne had the misfortune of being in the cargo bay doing pull-ups when she entered and dropped to the floor when he saw her.
"Get anythin' good?"
River rolled her eyes. "Girly mags and compacted tobacco are hardly things the Captain would give me money for."
He frowned hard at her. "What up and lit the fuse on your tampon?"
For the second time that day his words raised her hackles to their peak.
Dropping the sacks to the grating, River marched over, stopping just in front of him. "My having a particular temperament you don't approve of has nothing to do with my menstrual cycle. And even if it were, that would be none of your business."
He barked a humorless laugh. "That's cute, coming from you, always up in everybody's business."
Why that...! "The only reasons I peek are when the Captain asks or when someone thinks too loudly. Perhaps you should not think about me so much, Jayne. You do get so loud when I'm around."
His face closed down. "I don't think shit about you."
With affected boredom, River examined the ends of her hair. "Says the man that spends a considerable amount of his time thinking about this girl's legs and their apparent flexibility."
Leaning forward, she lowered her voice as if telling a secret. "While that position is possible, I do not think anyone would approve of the location."
His smile was full of malice. "Girl, me picturin' ways to cao you into next Sunday don't mean a tinker's damn. Case you hadn't noticed, I like women. I like 'em nekkid, screaming, and on their backs. Though, any which way'll do."
She shook her head, brown eyes locked on blue. "I'm the only one you think about with clothes on."
His jaw visibly flinched. "Bizui."
"Giving me a gun where others would give flowers. Bought me apples once, too. Didn't like me so much then, though."
"You deaf? I told you to shut up."
Jayne was an odd combination of panicky and furious and it only fueled her sudden need to push his buttons.
Her brows arched. "Shut up or you'll shut me up? How you going to shut me up, Jayne? Wish I could shut you all up from your thinking, feeling, pushing it all on me when I don't want it! But I can't always do that, can I?"
Leaning down real close to her face, he all but growled, "Folk can't help what they think none but at least they got the sense to keep their traps shut."
He stood to his full height and shook his head, looking disappointed. "Unlike you, who don't bother thinking at all before ya open yer mouth. An' here I thought that'd been a good thing."
When he walked away, River felt oddly cold.
And guilty.
She reassured herself with the knowledge that they had fought many times before, some even coming to blows.
Jayne would get over it.
-----------------------------------
Jayne didn't get over it.
He'd been avoiding her for seven days, three hours, and forty-eight minutes.
On a ship.
A small ship.
A ship in which the odds of his successfully avoiding her as well as he had been were very minute. Very.
When Jayne had been forcibly in her presence for one reason or another, he didn't look at her. At all. It was if she wasn't even there. She'd even tried provoking him on more than one occasion. Her attempts just caused him to leave the room.
Which is why it had come to this.
Jayne had forced her hand.
So when the supernova exploded in the bunk section of Serenity, River remained where she was in the cargo bay and waited for the black hole to come and seek its destruction of her.
-------------------------------------
That rutting bitch.
She'd stolen his gun.
She'd touched his gun.
He was gonna kill her.
There was a scrap of paper where Vera should have been and Jayne stalked over and ripped it from its place.
River Tam's Demands For the Safe Return of One Vera, Callahan Full-bore Auto Lock with Customized Trigger Double Cartridge Thorough Gauge
1. Jayne will growl when she steals his bread at dinner.
2. Jayne will share his most recently discovered dirty jokes with her.
3. Jayne will tug her hair when he teases her.
4. Jayne will tease her.
5. Jayne will be Jayne.
Crumbling the note in his fist, Jayne dropped it to the floor and stormed off to find her. And by storming off he meant stalking the halls silently. He wouldn't be able to sneak up on her but that didn't mean he wanted to alert the rest of the crew to his plans of gutting her slowly.
Jayne eventually found her in the middle of the cargo bay, sitting there like Serenity's very own Buddha.
If Buddha was skinnier'n a stick and didn't brush his hair.
"Where is my gorram gun?"
He'd say she stood up but River didn't do simple shit like that. She flowed up from the floor like gravity wasn't the same for folk that tiny.
"Did you read my demands?"
Demands, his muscular buttocks. They were in the middle of no and fucking-ware. There were only so many places she could have hid her. Horror flashed through Jayne when he become conscious of the fact she could have spaced his very favorite gun.
"You don't give her back, I'll make you give 'er back."
"I like that you like my legs."
It was such an abrupt change of subject that Jayne was still trying to figure it out when she continued.
"Didn't before. Felt you undress me with your eyes. Hard to focus on conversations with the captain when clothes keep disappearing. But I feel more naked now because your eyes aren't there."
His hands tightened into fists. "'Scuse me for not giving a flying mǐ tián gòng about catering to yer wantin' somebody to crush on you. Not that I ever did that anyhow. Now give me my damn gun!"
By the end, he'd stopped caring about being heard and his voice boomed as he yelled.
River matched it with a keening wail. "But she is sorry!"
It'd been a long time since she'd talked in the third person without meaning to and that spoke more than anything else to how upset she was.
Her hand gripped the front of her dress above her heart. "She broke something she did not know she had and now she has a hole here!"
Tears slid silently down her cheeks and she whispered, "I can't fix it without you."
He snapped, "I don't fix things. I break 'em."
Ignoring him, River crossed the space between them and laid her palm over his heart. "I made a hole here, too. We can fix each other but I need you to show me how."
Jayne didn't rightly know what to think about that.
-----------------------------------------------------
River couldn't figure out what Jayne was thinking.
She was trying not to peek but she wanted to and he wasn't saying anything.
Panic began to well up inside her and her voice may have shook just a little as she pleaded, "I'm a very fast learner! Can make promises, too! Won't steal your shirts to sleep in anymore. Except the yellow one because it is my favorite. I will do my utmost to never speak of something from the Jayne brain unless you specifically allow it. And I shall stop teasing you over your fear of felines. Also, I can..."
River always found it rude when Jayne interrupted her. It was difficult enough at times to get words in their proper shape without him going in and muddling them up.
But when chapped lips pressed against hers demanding both entrance and her silence, acquiescence and rebellion met as one. She opened to his fervor and need took vocal form from her throat to his.
Some untold time later, Jayne rested his head against hers, panting breaths mingling between them.
"Jayne is a liar."
Without malice, he asked, "How's 'at?"
"You fixed us both without saying a word."
He laughed, pulling her against his chest and wrapping his arms around her.
Nuzzling her hair, he inhaled a deep breath.
"Can I have my gun back now?"