ALIVE

Her perfect breasts were a bare five inches from his face, moving with the undulations of her torso. He couldn’t remember the number of times he had wondered what they would feel like, taste like, and now he knew the answer to both. Her thighs clamped his sides in a vice-like grip and the heat of her near to sent him into delirium.

The only thing that held him back was the sound of her weeping.

But then, he was weeping too, so it hardly made a difference. ------------------------------------------------

He was drunk when she found him, as he had been for months, crouched over a bottle of cloudy rotgut in a dive on Persephone. Inara was like some sort of exotic flower on a shit heap when she walked in. He swore at her and tried to hit her when she tapped his shoulder and spoke his name. Her face, even through his fog, stopped him from trying again. To his shame, he took another swig from his bottle, then threw his arms around her and began to cry, noisily and drunkenly, on her slim shoulder. She pushed him back into his seat and glanced around. “Jayne! Hush! Sssh, now, come on. Quietly!” Eventually she had shushed him enough that he stopped crying and snorted. She wrinkled her nose and her brow creased when she looked at him again. “I heard you tried to contact me yesterday,” she whispered. “I knew I’d find you here.” He could barely hear her. “What happened? Where’s Mal? Is Serenity docked here?” “Serenity’s dead,” he slurred, not looking at her. “Serenity’s dead. I killed her, ‘Nara. She… Serenity’s dead.” He repeated it a few more times under his breath while he waited for the room to start spinning again. He felt like he wanted to throw up and pass out again, but he couldn’t tell whether it was because of the alcohol or because of her presence and the aching despair in his gut that it caused. “What happened?” She shook him, her voice becoming shrill. ”Jayne! Tell me what you are talking about!” She looked around the room at the sudden drop in ambient noise. The bartender was examining Jayne closely, and she could not hope to pass for anything other than a wealthy outsider in this bar. Jayne was near to passing out, and looked like he was about to start crying again. She gripped his arm tightly and helped him to his feet. “Come with me, now. We have to leave.” He lurched backward to grab for his bottle before she hustled him out the door.

------------------------------------------------- He could barely stand to touch her, and at the same time wanted to touch every part of her at once. The intensity of his conflict and his anger made him cry out and she took it as a sign to move faster. She rubbed herself along his length, her eyes closed and every moan that escaped her lips sounded like another man’s name.

He didn’t care. -------------------------------------------------

The shower on Serenity had done wonders for sobering a man up. At best it was luke warm, and the cold steel under foot had helped. The Companion’s bathroom was vastly different, blues and golds and pale creamy stone that felt warm to the touch. The water was hot and all the bottles lined up on a shelf in the shower cube held a different scent. He stood motionless while she tugged off his clothes, grinning inanely and trying for a half hearted grope while he remembered the number of times he had fantasized about her ripping his clothes off. She grimaced like she could read his mind, and shoved his naked body into the shower. He stood for a full minute letting the water run over his head and back, stunned by a sudden awareness of his surroundings. Then he vomited, noisily, and barely heard her swear more ably than he would have figured.

She must have heard him turn the water off because as soon as he had picked up the finely woven blue towel he heard her call, “What happened?” She stood in the doorway. He didn’t look at her. He turned the towel over in his hands. “This is a soft towel. I guess you got it pretty good here.” “Don’t prevaricate.” Her voice was sharp. It stung him. “Tell me what happened to Serenity.” He couldn’t open his mouth. He turned his back on her and began drying his chest and belly. He heard her hissed intake of breath and small cry of horror. “Oh… Jayne, when did you get those scars?” He bowed his head. “Town called Black Dog,” he mumbled, “shithole planet called Ayers, out in the Rim.” His mouth tasted like someone had pissed in it. He’d gargled something minty in the shower, so he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or his own fear that made his tongue so sour. “Got jumped.” He felt one soft fingertip barely touch his skin, tracing the outline of the ugly red ridges on his back. He winced. They were only a few months old, and still tender. He turned around and she drew back. She looked at him hard for a few seconds. Jayne Cobb had always prided himself on being able to pick the exact moment when his opponent first felt fear, when they began to accept that they weren’t going to win this fight. His gut clenched as he saw that curl of inevitability pass through Inara’s dark features. “Tell me,” she said. Her voice was softer and a little more desperate. He wrapped the towel around his waist. “I did tell you,” he said at last. “I came all the way from the Rim to tell you.” She didn’t move. “Serenity’s dead,” he said slowly. “On Ayers. We was jumped and it all went… bad.” “And Mal?” He barely heard her strangled whisper. He looked at the wall behind her and slowly shook his head. She took two quick steps toward him and grabbed his arms, shaking him sharply. “No!” She cried, a catch in her voice. “He isn’t dead. That’s not what you mean, you sonofabitch, not at all! Tell me the truth!” He shoved her away, more strongly than he had intended and she landed back leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, panting. “It is true,” he protested, “Mal’s dead, and so’s Zoe and the Doc and… and everyone. ‘Cept Crazy, and she’s crazy again.” As she crumpled to the floor like her bones were all broken, he leaned toward a fine stone basin and threw up again.

------------------------------------------------- Sweat gave her tan a bronzed glow and her skin where he ran hungry hands over and over it was damp and smooth as steel. Her belly was as soft as his pillow had been on Serenity. Her hands, just as needful as his, clutched at his arms, his hair, his neck. She was ungentle, unrefined, even clumsy in her grief and her need, and met his every thrust wildly.

Her hair came loose when he pulled it. He thought it looked like The Black. -------------------------------------------------

She made them tea and seemed to take comfort in the familiar motions. She had gotten him a robe instead of his clothes. He wondered if she might have thrown them away or burnt them because they offended her sensibilities. Hell, they offended his sensibilities by now. “Where is River?” Her voice was calm, modulated, and sounded like she was asking him if he thought it might rain. He thought about throwing his teacup at her, and thought better of it. “With Badger,” he replied, frowning at the frailty of the cup in his meaty hand. “Badger?” She turned to him accusingly. “Jayne, of all the stupid places! I know what Badger does with girls River’s age – “ “Yeah, well, none o’ them girls are scary wrongheaded assassins, neither,” Jayne interrupted. “Badger even thinks at her wrong, and she’ll gut him with a toothpick.” He gave up on the cup and set it down, sloshing tea over the rim. “And anyway, I had to leave her with somebody. Couldn’t just let her wander. Not after…” Inara turned to him, shock written plainly across her face. “After what? I need to know, Jayne. I can take it.” He poked at the teacup morosely. She reached across to him and took his hand, the first time ever that she had reached for him that way. Her fingers were cold. He had always expected them to be warm. “Zoe went down first. Since Wash died she stopped wearing her jacket into jobs. I knew it. Not sure if Mal did. It was quick though. Headshot. Right here.” He pointed to the side of his head. Inara looked sick, but nodded. “They was after the ship, see? Pirates, I guess. S’what Crazy called ‘em anyways.” His head was pounding like gunfire. He closed his eyes and willed it to stop. When he opened his mouth to speak, his throat closed over like he was going to be sick again. “I got it next. I went down, couldn’t move. Got shot four times in the back. Mal, he…” Inara twitched and her grip on his hand tightened. Surprising himself, he closed his hand around hers and held on. He sat back and stared at the ceiling because he couldn’t look at her blank expression. “Men like me an’ the Captain, we know we’re gonna die. All it takes is that one tiny mistake, y’know?” He didn’t know if she nodded or not. “I blanked out. Thought for sure I was gonna die. Next thing I know’s Crazy leaning over me, poking me and telling me I gotta get up and live a little longer.” He couldn’t stop telling it now. He’d been telling it in his head for months and it was almost comforting to use real words. “She hauled my ass back to the ship, found all the bad guys dead outside in a pile. Looked like she’d dragged ‘em all out there by herself. Killed most of ‘em herself too, I reckon. She ain’t saying much, so I can’t be sure. Doc was laid out, nice and neat, in the infirmary on the table. Crazy was babbling ‘bout how she’d tried to help him, but didn’t know the words, or some such. But he was dead. Gutshot. Just one. Cap’n had dragged himself back to the bridge, held ‘em off for a while.” He groped his other hand for Inara’s too, not sure if it was for his benefit or hers. “Shot that finally killed him went though the heart.” He finally looked at her. Her head was bowed and her eyes were staring blankly at their four hands, tangled together. “He was all.. you know… peaceful like.” He disentangled his fingers from hers and rose to his feet, pulling at the robe awkwardly. She didn’t move. She didn’t even look like she was breathing. She looked dead. He paced a few steps, wishing he was anywhere else. He had always meant to go home again, see his mother and Mattie and the others. Maybe he could take River: weren’t nobody that Ma couldn’t raise properly, even a little hell-girl like that. Behind him, Inara made a noise, a kind of soft shuddering sigh. He looked back at her. Her eyes were blurred with unshed tears. “What about… um… what about Kaylee? Is she?” The Companion’s voice was thick and slurred. Jayne kept pacing. “I think maybe I’ll take River home. To my Ma. Girl like that needs a home place, I guess.” He paced faster, his motions jerky. The robe was almost coming undone. He fumbled with the tie. “Reckon she’d do real well at home. She’d have Mattie and the sisters to run around with, ‘course I’d need to make sure she don’t kill nobody by accident or on purpose.” “Jayne!” Inara rose to her feet and moved to intercept him. She stood in front of him and looked him in the eye. She caught his gaze and he couldn’t look away. “What about Kaylee?” How could he tell her? How could he tell her about finding Kaylee huddled behind Serenity’s engines, near dead from blood loss and shock, about the last incoherent words she babbled before she slipped away? How could he tell her about having Kaylee’s blood under his nails until his shower twenty minutes ago? He couldn’t. He couldn’t breathe from all the unsayable words under his skin. He pitched forward and landed bonelessly on his knees, like he had after using up the last of his strength carrying Kaylee into the infirmary and laying her carefully beside the Doc. He thought the pounding in his chest would kill him. It wasn’t until Inara knelt beside him and wrapped unexpected arms around him and pulled him close that he let it go and howled. Inara smelled like lemons.

Since the moment those bullets had slammed into him, he’d been sleeping. Maybe he was dead and all this was a dream after all, with dream logic and rules not applying. Somehow her hands slipped inside his robe and somehow his arms wrapped around her waist and somehow they made their way to that fancy smooth bed of hers before the tears and clothes started falling away together. He didn’t remember his fantasies about her. All he remembered was the expression on Mal’s face when Zoe fell motionless in the dust. It was the same one on Inara’s face as he moved inside her and she clung to him like she was drowning and whispered “Don’t let me go.”

He had expected it to be awkward and strange afterward, but it wasn’t. She seemed strangely calm as she rose and slipped into her dress. She didn’t look at him, but then, that was nothing new. He stayed sitting on the edge of the bed staring at his hands, wrapped in a saffron coloured bedsheet. She moved to pick up the tea set they had left on the small table and when she reached for the teacups he saw that her hands were trembling. “Thank you,” she said softly. He looked up at her, surprised. “What fer?” She scooped the cup onto the tray and turned to him. “For coming all this way to tell me. For… everything.” She returned to the tea set. “Did you bury them?” He returned his gaze to his hands again. He felt curiously naked. Of course, he was naked, but he felt… exposed. He didn’t like it. “Took a while. I was more ‘n half dead and Crazy was more ‘n half crazy. We hadda grab the mule and set out fer the nearest settlement. It was a week ‘til we could get back to start the work and I was so…” He stopped. Inara looked at him again, set the tea tray down and sat beside him on the bed. “You were injured? Weak?” Her tone was sympathetic and he hated it. He shot her a Look, and saw her flinch beneath it. He was weak, and it was none of her business. He clenched his jaw against the anger inside and risked a sideways glance at her. Her face was compassionate. It was too much. “Gorramit!” he exploded, and stood up suddenly, clutching the sheets at his waist. “It weren’t my fault, okay?” He gestured wildly at her. “I got shot, weren’t nothin’ I coulda done, dong ma?” “That’s right, Jayne.” Inara matched her tone to his and stood up. He grunted, momentarily taken aback by the edge in her voice. “Mal hired you as muscle, Jayne Cobb,” she continued, taking a step toward him. “How could you let him down like that? After all the things he’d done for you, making you a part of his crew, a no good criminal like you? You could barely spell family, yet they welcomed you into theirs like you belonged there.” She took another step toward him. He could feel his muscles bunching and violence twitching in his hands. “And now they are dead.” Her voice caught on that and she began to cry again, her throat still raw and her eyes still red. “They are all good, fine, loving people and they are dead and you, Jayne Cobb, are here, alive.” She came in close to him and hissed, “How dare you be alive?” He swung past her and sank his fist into the wall. His knuckles flared with pain and his whole body stiffened with it. He shut his eyes and breathed deep, trying not to explode, or vanish or drop dead, wishing he could do all three. Instead, Jayne Cobb exercised a rare moment of restraint and let his breathing calm before pulling his hand out of the wall. “Feel better?” she asked from behind him. He turned to her, expecting more anger. Instead she was more or less composed and her expression was once more compassionate. “Feel better?” she asked again. He looked at his bloodied knuckles in shock, and back to her. He shook his head. “Nope. Not in partic’lar.” “You will eventually.” She leaned forward and took his injured hand in hers, turning it over and inspecting the damage. “You will get over it, in time.” “So you didn’t mean all those things you said?” Jayne was bewildered with the strength of the feelings running through him and didn’t want to have to think right now. She looked up at him, her hands closing on his injured one. “I meant every single word,” she said quietly. “But I too will get over it, in time.” She sighed, and he felt a release himself as she did so. “I’ll go and get some bandages for your hand,” she said with a brief caress over his palm. He dropped the sheets as he noticed his clothes folded on a table by the door. He crossed to them and started pulling them on, mindful of his bleeding knuckles. He heard a cupboard open in the bathroom. “What will you do now?” Inara called to him. Good question, he thought grimly, flexing his hand to be sure he hadn’t broken it. Get out of here for a start, I reckon. “I gotta go rescue Badger from River. She’s probably gutted him and made a hat from his entrails by now. She ain’t right – even more than usual – these days.” He pulled his boots on, didn’t bother tying the laces, and stood up. He could hear Inara running water. He was reaching for the door when she reappeared behind him a bowl of water and some bandages. “Leaving already? Most men settle their account first.” Her voice was chilly. “I said what I came to tell ya,” he replied, his hand still on the door. “Reckon the sexin’ was just somethin’ that happened ‘cause we both needed to feel like we was still alive. Like the Shepherd said once. Don’t mean that I love ya or nothin’.” Inara blinked and nodded. “Where can I reach you?” she asked, chill dissolving into plaintive plea. “I need to go to… to the grave. To say goodbye.” Jayne thought for a moment. “If he’s still alive, and not missin’ any important bits, I’ll leave a forwardin’ address with Badger.” He starred hard at the floor for a moment. “I gotta go.” He paused for a moment, floundering. “Go on,” Inara said softly. “Thanks, Jayne. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.” He opened the door, looked back once, and walked away. She twitched a hand, as if to call him back, then subsided and shut the door behind him.

------------------------------------------------- When she leaned over him, and pressed her lips to his he knew it wasn’t him that she was thinking of, and it was okay because he wasn’t thinking of her either. He was thinking of the last time he saw Serenity, lonely, empty, bloodstained, abandoned on that rock with the man who had loved her tumbled dead and buried near the airlock doors where the soil was softest.

She arched her back and tilted her head back, her hips moving spasmodically as she orgasmed, a name escaping her lips like a prayer. He felt himself tip over the edge and wished that he too had a name to bring him benediction.