Ursa Major, Ursa Minor

Chapter Eight:

Back in his fighting fairies T-shirt and his cut-off cargos, Jayne felt a bit more like himself. Minus the goatee. Something he was lamenting over in front of the mirror in his bunk.

“Hair grows back.”

Jayne leapt near to the point of hitting the top of his head on the ceiling and clutched at his heart. “Wo de ma he ta de feng kuang de wai sheng dou!”

River, hanging upside-down from the top rung of the ladder, giggled and crossed her arms.

“Scared you.”

Jayne smacked her dangling hair. “Coulda ruttin’ killed me. I purt near jumped clean through the gorram bulkhead!”

“Could have. Your head is hard enough.”

Oh, it’s on, girlie.

River only had half a second to think about what Jayne just thought before she felt fingers digging into her ribcage. Then they wiggled.

A peal of uncontrolled laughter escaped and she tried to curl into herself to escape Jayne’s unrelenting tickling fingertips, but Jayne had three sisters and two brothers at home and he knew this game better than anyone. He fought his own grin and tugged River off the ladder and into his bunk.

*

Mal woke up (with a bit of a hangover) to howling laughter. Inara groaned at the sound and curled further into his bare back.

“Wha?” was Mal’s eloquent observation to the laughter.

Inara’s curved hands twisted and wound their way around his middle. “Sounds like River is having some fun,” she whispered.

“Hm.”

The laughter turned maniacal and was joined by a deeper laugh and a few broken curses from…

“That Jayne?”

*

“Stop! Stop!” he crab walked on the floor in a desperate attempt to escape River’s experienced fingers. But River was like a cat at the cream and he couldn’t get away from her. “Chuo zi!” he yelped.

Jayne held his hands up in the universal sign of “time out” and tried to catch his breath. River stopped—breathing just as hard. They were both grinning wide enough to light the room.

“Morning,” River huffed.

Jayne shook his head and tried very hard to not look at her heaving bosom—the gentle curve of her breasts was revealed by the low-cut blouse she wore and it was a mite distracting to a fellow like Jayne—especially when he’d missed out on female contact for such a long time. Even more so after that heated tango they had preformed last night.

“Mornin’” he managed to croak out.

“It’s your turn to make breakfast,” River said.

“That why you had to scare the ever-lovin’-hell outta me?”

“Yep.”

Jayne stood and held a hand out for her to take. “Alright then, xuan ni. But you’re gonna help me out.”

River (blushing at the sudden pet name he’d decided to give her) took his hand and let him propel her up off the floor and into the air to land on his hip in a move they’d used in the jive dances last night. “You first,” he nudged her rump up the ladder and rolled his eyes at her bare feet.

Once Jayne climbed out of his bunk, River grabbed his hand and dragged him to the kitchen. “We can make pancakes,” Jayne suggested.

River turned her head and gave him a grin. “Or a reasonable facsimile of pancakes.”

“A wha?”

“As close as we can get with what we have.”

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, xuan ni?”

“More fun to use big words.”

Jayne snorted.

*

Kaylee and Simon were already in the mess—Simon was already making coffee and heading toward the stove with what looked like purpose in his eyes.

“Simon, we don’t want stomach aches today,” said River.

Simon stuck out his lower lip. “I’ve gotten better at it,” he denied.

“Liar.”

Simon looked up from measuring out the coffee to see his sister dangling from Jayne’s back with her arms around his neck.

“Mei mei, what are you…?”

River hopped off Jayne’s back and skipped into the pantry. “We’re making pancakes,” she called out.

Jayne scooted around Simon and dug out a mixing bowl and frying pan. “We picked up some of that mix crap last stop. Find that and some powdered milk, ‘kay xuan ni?”

Simon raised an eyebrow at the pet name and Kaylee giggled.

Two cans of powdered milk were launched out of the pantry and caught by Jayne.

He pried one open and dumped it into the mixing bowl. The box of pancake mix hit him in the side of the head.

“Gorramit, River-girl!”

She giggled.

Despite his vehement dislike of Jayne, Simon couldn’t help but admit that the big mercenary did bring out the best in his sister. She certainly was more playful with Jayne—more together, even. He still watched the pair of them as he poured cups of coffee for himself and Kaylee.

Zoë descended into the mess with a yawn and eyed the coffee machine. “Mornin’ everyone.”

A chorus of “good morning” followed her greeting.

She pointed to the coffee pot suspiciously, “Kaylee, you didn’t make the coffee, did you?”

Kaylee smiled. “No, Zo. Simon banned me after the last time. He made it.”

Zoë smiled a bit and poured herself a cup. “The one thing he don’t screw up in the kitchen.”

“Hey!”

River helped Jayne with the water to mix ratio and snorted at her brother’s exclamation.

“It’s true, Simon. Medical school should have taught you how to boil water correctly as well as make good coffee.”

Jayne whisked the batter smooth and grinned sideways. “Kaylee ain’t that good a cook neither.”

“Either”

“Whatever, xuan ni. If either—”

“Neither”

“Stop it! If neither one of them can’t cook, how the di yu are they gonna fair later in life?”

Zoë’s smile widened. “One of them’ll have ta learn.”

River handed Jayne a small measuring cup to dish the batter into the frying pan, “I vote Kaylee. Cooking is a skill that Simon will never be able to learn,” she idly watched Jayne cook.

Zoë sat in her usual chair and watched the pair interact. This was quickly becoming a habit for her as of late.

“When do we flip them?” River asked.

Jayne gestured at the pan with a spatula. “See those bubbles? That means the bottoms are a nice golden brown.”

He flipped the three cakes in the frying pan with a practiced flick of the wrist.

“Turn the oven on warm, xuan ni, and stick a baking sheet in there for when these’re done. Gonna make a bunch.”

River did as he asked and ignored the gaping face her brother was giving both of them.

“You are very good at this, huan ren,” River said with an elbow dig to his ribs.

Kaylee slapped a hand across her grin and tried incredibly hard to smother her giggle.

Jayne made a face at River’s pet name for him and plopped the three finished pancakes into the warm oven. It was about that time that the captain and Inara finally wandered into the kitchen to the smell of semi-real food cooking.

“You done giggling for the day, Jayne?” Mal asked.

“Nah, I still got a few in me,” Jayne retorted dryly and flipped another trio of pancakes.

Mal poured himself a cup of coffee and got Inara a cup ready for her tea. “You’re awfully cheery this mornin’.”

River turned from helping Jayne to beam her full smile at her captain. “That’s because we had good crime last night. Our mark suspected nothing, I got to dance, and no one was injured.”

“Fer once,” Jayne snorted.

“No one stabbed, shot, punched, or kicked,” River continued.

Kaylee slid into her usual chair and rested her chin on the heels of her hands. “Was the dancin’ fun?”

River put more pancakes in the warm oven and nodded. “Jayne is a very good dance partner.”

Mal snorted into his coffee.

“He also has very good hands.”

Silence.

Jayne was too focused on cooking to notice the various speculative and horrified looks he was receiving from the crew.

“We got any of that syrup leftover, River-girl?”

*

Traveling in Serenity’s blind spot, Lady Donna examined an old wanted beacon for the tenth time. The photo was old and the bounty had been removed, but that was the young woman she’d seen dancing with the large man as a part of Captain Reynolds’ distraction.

She had dug deep into the records to find this—deep enough to discover that it wasn’t the Alliance that had put out the bounty, but the Blue Sun Corporation. The Alliance’s puppeteer.

Donna ran a delicately manicured fingernail across River Tam’s name and grinned. She’d get more from Blue Sun for this girl than from fencing the artifacts she’d had Reynolds steal.

Smile still in place, she waved the CEO.

TBC

Translations:
Wo de ma he ta de feng kuang de wai sheng dou: Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews
Chuo zi: Stop it
Xuan ni: Pretty girl
Di yu: Hell
Huan ren: Good-looking/cute man