Old War Horses
Rated ADULT

Chapter One

"Just a little farther," Blair whispered, and Jim tightened his hand around his partner's shoulder, struggling to ignore the sensory flood that threatened to swamp him. That last time was too close, and he was having too much trouble getting the senses back under control after he'd caught the tail-end of that shock wave blast. Cao. If it weren't for Blair, the Alliance would have taken him, but how long could he rely on a psychiatrist to save him from the gorram Alliance? He pushed that despair aside and focused on their immediate needs. Right now, his most important mission was putting one foot in front of the other. They had to keep moving because the government boys were just too damn close on their tails.

"Oh man, it's just adrenaline and reaction. You can control this," Blair muttered.

Jim glared and really wished that Blair could be intimidated. Unfortunately nothing Jim had ever seen, not Alliance scientists or their human experiments or half-dead men crying for help had ever intimidated Blair. They'd made the psychiatrist cry and his heart pound uncontrollably, but nothing ever intimidated him, not even James Joseph Womak in a bad mood.

"How about that one?" Blair asked, nodding toward the oldest piece of gou shi Jim had seen in a long time. The ship was Firefly class, and carrying more replacement parts than original from the look of her. Taking a deep breath, Jim anchored himself with a hand on Blair's shoulder and let his hearing slide out of his body, sending it to crawl across the ground like a snake until he could hear the footfalls of dock workers and the rough Chinese curses of men and the scrape and drag of cargo as it was shifted. The firefly's engines rumbled softly, and Jim could hear the even rhythm. She had a good engineer. Reaching farther, Jim listened to the structure, searching for rattles or groans that could lead to metal blowing out and ships losing atmosphere mid-flight. Nothing.

"She's solid," Jim said tightly. Using his hearing had left his head pounding and he clung to Blair's shoulder.

"Just a little farther. We'll get passage and hole up in a room. You can sleep this off," Blair promised. Blair was good like that, promising something if Jim could make it just a little farther. Get past the perimeter and Blair would be able to remove the pain controller from Jim's neck. Get past the Londinium docks and Alliance guards, and Jim would be free for the first time in years, for the first time since men had shown up requesting that he accompany them back to the core for an experiment. Blair never promised more than he could deliver. After all, he never promised Jim they'd be safe or they'd be able to sit on one planet for more than two days before the gorram Alliance scientists tracked them down

"You folks looking for passage? The Serenity is about the best around. Where you going?" a cheerful voice asked. Jim had let his head hang forward as he stared at the dust of the road, but now he looked up at a girl with a wide smile and thick brown hair. Only that smile was faltering, and she was backing up quick.

"Captain!" she cried out. Jim glanced at Blair who had a panicked expression on his face. Time for an exit. Jim shoved aside the pain and pulled Blair behind him as he turned and hurried down the street. "Captain!" she cried louder. Jim broke into a trot, his hand still clutched around Blair's wrist.

"Hold up right there." A huge man with an enormous gun stepped out from behind a loaded cart, and Jim's hand instinctively fell on the butt of his gun. "Try it and you're dead, dong ma?" he asked.

"Jim?" Blair whispered, his hand resting on Jim's back. Jim carefully let go of his pistol and held his hands out.

"I understand," Jim agreed with the armed thug. "We don't have any problem with you."

"Seems like Kaylee do," the big man insisted. "Let's go back and figure what that is."

Jim watched the man for a second, the way he held the gun, the way his eyes scanned the area without ever losing focus on him and Blair. Soldier or merc, that's for sure. Damn it, either one would turn Jim in faster than a Browncoat could turn tail. Jim started turning and got just far enough that he could make eye contact with his partner. He nodded, and Blair's mouth came open, probably to argue, but Jim didn't give him time.

Throwing himself backwards, he collided with the big guy, grabbing the barrel of the gun and forcing it to the side.

"Run!" he ordered Blair as a fist caught him just under the ribs. The punch made Jim grunt, but he jammed his knee up into an unprotected gut.

"Wang ba dan," the man cursed and then Jim caught a blow upside his head that sent him crashing into a cart before crumpling to the ground with his sense of hearing warbling out of control. Cao. Jim blinked, his hearing totally gone, but at least now he could function. The big guy had Blair by the back of his hair. Jim had told the kid to cut that tzao gao off before someone used it against him, but obviously he hadn't made his point clear enough because the big merc was dragging Blair by it.

Jim reached for his gun, but the merc swung his own gun around so fast that Jim was staring straight down the barrel before he could even get his clear of the holster. And the big bastard still held Blair, even when Blair kicked him in the shin. Jim could see the man's face twist into something ugly and he jerked on Blair's hair hard enough that the small man was almost pulled off his feet.

"Blair, enough," Jim said. Normally Jim could hear the slightest whisper, so the absolute silence made him cringe. Blair was saying something, and Jim squinted as he tried to read his lips, but he couldn't make it out. Another man appeared, a spacer, and he stepped next to the big guy, resting his hand on the big one's arm and saying something that made Blair roll his eyes. Jim still couldn't hear any of it. The barrel of the gun poking at him caught his attention.

The big one said something and from the unhappy expression, he'd said it more than once. Jim cursed his senses to guay as he struggled to figure it out. If he didn't, they were going to shoot him and he didn't even want to think what would happen to Blair. The 'verse wasn't nice to pretty, sly boys this far out on the rim. He'd get sold to some whorehouse, and Jim would have one more life on his conscience. The big guy jerked his gun, and Jim followed his line of sight. Of course. Holding his hands out in surrender, Jim carefully moved toward his belt, undoing it before pulling the leg-tie free and letting his entire gun belt side to the ground.

"Just let Blair go," Jim said. He wasn't in any position to negotiate with a gun in his face and hearing that was currently missing in action, but he had to try something. The big guy looked to the second fellow, and Jim slowly stood up, focusing on the second one. This new guy asked a question, and Jim frowned. Whatever else this one was, he wasn't a merc. Since Jim had been reduced to playing a guessing game, he would say this was either the captain or the second in command of the ship.

Captain jerked his thumb, and Jim started slowly toward the ship, keeping his hands out away from his body. He had a half-dozen weapons in different places, none as easy to get to as the one on his hip had been, but they were there. And the merc behind him would know that, even if the captain didn't. Captain seemed like he might be a little too clean-cut to take a man's head off with a slipwire, but Jim wasn't, and he was betting the merc wasn't either. He just didn't want to give the merc a reason to hurt Blair before he could do some negotiating.

The girl-next door sort with her wide hazel eyes watched as Jim walked up the ramp. Passing her, he could smell engine grease and lube, so this was their mechanic or assistant maybe. A captain didn't usually have the mechanic acting as barker in dock. Mechanic was usually off trying to scrounge ship parts for cheap.

Jim stopped in the middle of the hold and turned around, waiting to see what the two men behind him would do. The captain looked up toward the walk, and Jim looked up to see a dark woman with thick curled hair and a dangerous look come down the stairs. Jim glanced from her to the second man trying to figure out which was the captain and which was the second. The woman stopped in front of the man and they talked as she kept glancing back toward Jim.

When the man stepped forward, Jim pegged him as the captain. He was talking again, and Jim frowned. Suddenly Blair put his elbow into the merc's stomach and jerked away. Blair should have made for the hills, but instead he made for Jim's side, and the mercenary had the gun up and pointed at Blair's back. Stepping forward, Jim put himself in the path, his hands held up in surrender as the mercenary looked to the captain.

Meanwhile, Blair slipped in next to Jim, his arm going around Jim's waist the way he would when Jim's senses had been so thrown out of wack that he couldn't see when he was stumbling on feet that couldn't feel anything. If the kid had any sense, he'd cut Jim loose and find some nice quiet moon where the gorram Alliance wouldn't find him, but the man had no sense of self-preservation. Jim sighed as he slipped an arm around Blair's shoulders and stared at the captain.

Blair tugged on his shirt, and Jim looked down. Blair said something and tugged at his ear.

"Can't hear a gorram thing," Jim admitted. Blair talked on, his mouth silently working, and Jim watched him, catching quick glances at the confused crew as Blair gave him a hopeful look. Finally, Blair reached up and rested his palm on Jim's cheek.

"...on line. You know the drill, man. This is all mind over matter. The brain is just trying to protect you, but you have to take control of it." Blair's words boomed in his head for a second before they slowly settled back down to normal, or normal for Jim anyway.

"Hearing's back," Jim said tersely. This show had just given these people way too much information, but Jim didn't suppose that made much difference now. You took a prisoner, and the first thing you did was check the waves to see if anyone was looking for that prisoner. They went looking for someone with senses as screwed up as a Browncoat's sense of strategy, and they'd find the alert with his name on it... and the reward.

The Alliance had done this to him—they had activated some long dormant genes that turned him into something abnormal. They'd given him senses that could hear a cockroach walking across the floor, but it had also stripped him of the control he'd always had. He'd been an officer. He'd led battalions at the Battles for Du-Khang and New Kashmir. He'd been willing to give his life for the Alliance and the belief that everyone deserved the protection of the law. However, the Alliance hadn't taken his life. They'd found some genetic quirk in his genes and they had taken his freedom and his sanity instead.

"Right then, if you're done being crazy, let's have the rest of the weapons," the captain insisted, his gun still firmly pointed in their direction. The merc stood to the side with a clear shot, and the dark woman had a mighty fine pistol of her own on her hip, her hand resting on it. If it was just him, Jim would take his chances. Dead was better than being back in some Alliance lab, but he had Blair to think of. Blair had sacrificed his career and his life to get Jim out of that hell, and he wasn't putting the man back in there with him.

Jim started reaching for his jacket. "Not you," the captain interrupted. "Have the boy pull 'em out."

Jim glanced down at Blair who had a sour expression at being called a boy. He was older than he looked, and was a doctor to boot, but like Jim kept telling him, having that innocent camouflage was useful. These people were already seeing Jim as the threat and Blair as his boy, which meant Blair still had a chance of getting out of this.

"Jim?" Blair asked quietly. Jim raised his arms level with his shoulders.

"Go on," he told his partner. Blair looked at him for a second with a frown. "Take all of them, Chief," Jim said softly. There were only one or two weapons Blair didn't know about, so that would pretty much strip him, but right now they needed strategy, not brute strength. Jim might take that big merc on a good day, but today wasn't a good day.

He waited as Blair pulled weapon after weapon out of their secret places and handed them over. By the time Blair finished, Jim was left with only a long needle down the back of his boot and a slipwire in his belt.

"What brings you to these parts, Womak?" the captain asked. Jim frowned at the man. Clearly the captain knew him, but Jim couldn't remember ever meeting anyone who looked like him. The man wasn't starched enough for an Alliance officer--too much of the frontier about him--both his way of talking and his dusty, rumpled clothes. But the man looked too much like a straight shooter for him to be anyone Jim had been assigned to investigate before the war. He'd generally been sent after men and women who thought the border moons offered protection from law and justice, and this man didn't have the desperate look of a morally lost man. Now the merc... Jim could imagine himself tracking that one down.

"Do I know you?"

The merc snorted. "Meybe I hit him upside the head to hard. Scrambled some brains. If I hit him again, maybe I'll knock the piece back in."

"Hey," Blair jumped in, both hands held up, "let's not start with--"

Jim cut his partner off by the simple act of grabbing him by the back of the neck and yanking him back. These people needed to see Blair as worthless, as some sly trick Jim had picked up along the way to scratch an itch. Otherwise, Blair was going down with him.

"I don't know who you are," Jim said tightly. If they had his name, they'd find that wave and that reward twice as fast though. "But I'm willing to deal."

"Ain't like you have much to deal with this time, Womak."

"This time?" Jim asked with a sinking feeling. If you had someone with an old run down ship talking about dealing with a Womak, chances were it wasn't Jim they'd run across. So many times Jim wondered what stroke of luck had put him into the Institute's hands instead of his brother, and on his darker days, he suspected that Charles just might have had his hand in it. It would be like him to save his own skin and set Jim up for a fall at the same time. In his more charitable moments, he just figured the Alliance thought they had better control over him.

"You've run into Charlie," Jim said to the captain. He still didn't know what sort of relationship the ship had with Charlie... they could be paying him off or running from him. WIth Charlie, you never knew.

"Who's Charlie?" the merc asked. Funny, most of the time captains kept their mercs on short leashes, having them shoot but not talk. This one was downright talkative.

"Lieutenant Charles Richard Womak, dirty cop," Jim answered when the captain didn't seem to take offense at the merc jumping into the conversation. "I'm not him. And here's the deal," he hurried to say before he could get dragged into that conversation. He didn't want to know how these people knew Charlie. "The reward on me is alive only, so you let Blair walk out and away, and I won't fight you and force you to kill me."

The captain exchanged looks with his second.

"Re-ward?" the merc quickly pounced on that word. "Mal, if'n there's a reward, you're going to remember that I'm the one who brought him in, right?"

"I don't figure you ought to be talking to me about rewards, Jayne," the captain said with a sour expression, and all the avaricious delight in the merc's face just faded into something cold. "And how you figure we're going to collect?"

"Sir," the second in command said, and Mal immediately turned his attention to her. "If they're on a wanted list, maybe we should just dump them off and burn out of here."

"But they need passage," the mechanic now offered. "Maybe we could give 'em passage somewheres further out."

"Ain't like there's a whole lot further out than here," Mal said with a thoughtful expression. That ended when a girl's voice came over the intercom.

"Emergency lift procedures, secure all cargo because we're flying in eight minutes," it offered and the ship's engines started burning hotter.

"Zoe, find out what the guay that girl's doing," Mal demanded and his second went running. "Kaylee, get to the engine room." The girl nodded and hurried off as Jayne glanced back toward the crates sitting in the middle of the hold and Jim. "Get the crates," Mal ordered as he held his own gun a little higher. Jayne backed away several steps before putting his gun on a bench. Jim watched it. In a hard liftoff, things could go flying all sorts of directions, so he just had to keep an eye open.

The voice returned over the intercom. "Two by two, hands of blue," it announced.

Jim's eyes went wide, and he glanced down at Blair who was looking equally shocked. "Oh man," he mouthed. Jim anchored himself with a hand on Blair's shoulder and then reached out with hearing. He ignored Jayne's grunts as he manhandled crates to the side and lashed them with rope, he ignored Zoe up trying to reason with some girl who was just calmly giving the burn countdown, he ignored the soft, cultured curses of some man who was quickly closing drawers. He let his hearing slide outside the ship and search the docks. Two aisles over, he found it--the distinctive whine of those disrupters that could bring Jim to his knees so easily.

"Two aisles over, about half a mile out," Jim said quietly. "Got two government men heading this way, but they're moving slow and methodical, so they don't have our location yet." Mal looked at him real sharp.

"Well cao. That do explain who's looking for you. Jayne, you got that cargo?"

"Would iff'n I had help," he answered. Mal jerked his gun toward Jim. "We know that lot, and I ain't so much in need of money that I'd turn a cow over to them and their gorram experiments. You help Jayne get that cargo secured so we don't all end up crushed against the inside of the cargo hold during lift, and we'll figure the rest out from there."

Jim studied the man for a second, listening to the heartbeat before he decided Mal was telling the truth. "Stay here, Chief," Jim said as he moved to help the merc."

"I could--"

"Stay," Jim growled. He wasn't having the man do manual labor. That wasn't what he'd gone through eleven years of schooling to do.

"Gorram stubborn hwun dan" Blair muttered, but at least he stayed as Jim went and push his shoulder to a crate, helping push it to the side of the wall where Jayne secured it.

Off to the side, Mal was talking into an intercom, probably thinking he had privacy, but with Jim around, privacy was in short supply. Even the Project failed to understand just how little privacy they had with Jim around. He was talking to Zoe, and Jim could hear the woman's voice through the intercom and up in the pilot's seat.

"Got another reader, Zoe. I swear, it's downright creepifying the way they always end up on my boat."

"Must be karma, sir," Zoe answered. Jim just mused over what it meant that Mal thought he was a reader and how exactly they had a second one on board. If they had another sentinel on the run from the Project, Jim wanted information, and right now, playing along was the only way to get that information.

"Mind your knee," the merc offered, but he offered it at the same time he jammed a crate into Jim's knee. The pain lanced up through Jim's leg so that for a second he couldn't tell if he'd broken the kneecap or not.

Before Jim could curse the moron out, Blair was there, his hands on Jim's waist. "Dial it down, Jim. You're all off-balance, but you can control this." Jim leaned into his partner, letting Blair support him as he manhandled his pain, forcing his body to ignore the extra sensory input until he could, once again, feel his whole and unbroken leg and the throbbing lump where the merc had shoved the crate into it.

"Cao. We're all 'bout to get real dead if'n you don't get moving," the merc suggested.

"You are a real asshole," Blair answered, and before Jim could reel him back in, Blair put his hands on a crate in the middle of the bay and shoved it at the merc as hard as he could. It hit the merc on the hip, shoving him to the side.

"You piece of niou se" the merc cursed, and he started coming around the side of the crate, his hands balled up into fists.

Reaching out, Jim caught Blair's arm and pulled him back behind him before squared up against the merc, waiting for the man's first move. How a man swung on his first punch told a lot about who he was, and unless Jim missed his guess, Jayne was big and stupid and likely to come swinging fast and hard. In these close quarters that was going to make him a hard opponent to take down.

"Jayne!" the captain yelled out sharp.

Immediately, Jayne stopped, although his hands didn't come down from their aggressive position. "Mal, that little ji nv shoved the gorram crate into me."

"Get the cargo secured," the captain insisted. The girl's voice over the intercom announced ninety seconds, and with a growl of complaint that would have gotten him put on deck duty on an Alliance ship, Jayne shoved the crate closer to the wall.

"Ain't got time to finish. Should tell Moonbrain to hold on before she crushes us all to death." Jayne muttered the words so that only Jim could hear them, but Jim wasn't disagreeing. If the pilot had any sense, she wouldn't take off until all cargo was secure. He started eyeing secure corners where he could stash Blair if the crates turned into deadly projectiles.

Jim shoved a crate closer to the stairs, and Blair stepped up next to him, adding his own muscle.

"Blair," Jim said wearily.

"Don't say it." Blair's voice was a clear warning. It was pretty obvious that he had run out of patience. "You can be overbearing and overprotective after we get the gorram cargo secure." As much as Jim didn't like to see Blair acting like manual labor, he had to admit that he was being logical. As much as Jim would like to keep Blair, he couldn't. He couldn't protect Blair from the Alliance and he couldn't protect him from doing labor that was beneath his status.

Life was funny. At one point Jim would have called this labor beneath him. He'd been a captain of his own ship, and on the fast track for promotion up the ranks.

His mother's people had been the powerful Womaks, a name that inspired fear in the service. His grandfather had been an admiral and Jim had been chosen to captain the lead ship in the greatest battle between the Alliance and the Browncoat mutts that had challenged them. And Charlie... well, he had used the name to keep himself out of jail more than once.

His father was an Ellison, one of the families that controlled the financing and business in the Core. At one point, Jim would have said his father had the political power to do what even his grandfather couldn't get done with a gun. Of course, that had been before the Alliance had taken him. Either his father couldn't get him out or his father had decided that it wasn't worth the risk to his own financial position to challenge the Institute. God knows their fingers reached deep into a lot of different pockets of power.

But now, now Jim thought of himself more as a damaged test subject. He was an experiment gone wrong, and after being stripped and ordered around, strapped to tables and made to scream in pain--after all that, Jim didn't think of himself as a Womak or an Ellison. Some days he didn't even remember what it felt like to stand in his purple uniform, proud and sure of his place in the uniform as he commanded from the deck of his own ship. Some days he could only remember the Institute and the way he would pray for those days when Blair would come in with his glasses and pretend to record Jim's responses while he whispered reassurances and stroked a single finger over the back of Jim's hand. Those moments had been his one island of sanity, and now he repaid Blair by putting him in danger over and over.

Jim secured the last crate and scanned the room. Unfortunately, the merc with the girl name had already reclaimed the weapon he'd put down earlier, and he had it pointed at them.

"Just because the captain ain't throwin' you out an airlock, don't go thinking I won't gut shoot you and leave you to bleed to death," the merc offered with a grin that made it pretty clear he meant every word of what he said.

Blair sucked in a breath. God help them, Blair always expected the best of people, and he never stopped being surprised when people turned out to be back-stabbing, power-hungry, soul-sucking mercenaries all out for themselves. Jim took a step forward to put himself in the line of fire.

"We're just looking to avoid trouble."

Blair started to say something, and Jim reached over and caught Blair by the back of the neck just as the ship started thrusting against the cold moon. The whole ship shivered, and Jim involuntarily stretched out his hearing, listening as the metal groaned and the engines sang in a particular tone that meant suggested the parts were all well-oiled and well-tuned. For a second, Jim's consciousness seemed too large to fit into his body, as if he was the ship itself and every noise reverberated inside his head.

"Jim!" Blair called, tugging on Jim's arm. Jim blinked, and the hallucination slipped away, leaving him clinging to a staircase with a mercenary's gun pointed at his gut.

"Up the stairs and to the right," Jayne ordered. Jim didn't bother to argue; he'd learned the pointlessness of arguing against orders. Instead he moved his arm to allow Blair to go ahead of him up the stairs.

Chapter 2

"This is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into," Blair said as he threw himself down on the narrow bunk. From the tone, he was quoting another of his precious tomes from Earth-that-was. The man had a love for history that equaled his love people--only history rarely let him down.

"We do get into them," Jim agreed. He walked to the bunk and pushed Blair's legs to the side so he could have some space. "And someone is going to end up on the floor." The bunks were clearly not designed for two people.

"No way. That floor is cold, and I hate the cold, and you have a very bad habit of just turning down your pain dial. So not safe."

Jim remembered the way his skin had turned black when the Institute had tried their cold experiments. "Not like I had a lot of choice," Jim pointed out.

"Screaming in pain would have been a choice," Blair said dryly.

Jim sighed. He didn't want to have this argument again. Yes, he could have screamed in pain, but unlike Blair, he didn't believe that would have made the researchers cut the experiments short. But he hated to tell Blair everything that had happened in those closed rooms—he didn't want Blair to know the way the same researchers who went out for drinks with him had treated Jim like an animal to be broken. So, if Blair wanted to believe that deep down, every human had some bit of the salt of the earth in them, Jim was going to just keep quiet and allow the man to believe what he wanted. He'd already ruined enough of the man's illusions.

For several minutes, they just sat in the small room where Jayne had locked them. Blair shifted one of his feet so that it was in Jim's lap, and Jim ran his hand up and down Blair's leg. Blair had already kicked off his boots, and Jim traced the edge of his toe. It was the only comfort he could offer in the small space. At least it was clean. The last ship they'd taken passage on had smelled so bad that Jim had spent most of the week either with his sense of smell spiking on the stink of human excrement from inadequate recyclers or he'd just zoned out of self-preservation. This ship was surprisingly clean for a non-Alliance vessel.

After a long silence, Blair asked, "Senses okay?"

"Hearing's still a little unpredictable," Jim confessed.

Blair didn't answer. But then, all his testing equipment was in his pack so he didn't have anything to test Jim's control or to try and help him readjust to normal. Jim just hoped that the captain didn't throw all their possessions out the airlock.

"Oh man." Blair sighed the words and he stared up at the ceiling. Jim stopped stroking Blair's leg and looked over.

"Blair?"

"I just..." Blair waved his hands. "Naomi always said to reach out to people... to make a human connection with another soul... but I can't do anything locked in a little room."

"I just hope they dump us at the next stop."

"So, they aren't going to turn us in?" Blair pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked at Jim with hope and fear shining from his expression.

Jim tilted his head and listened to the conversations that he could hear echoing through the ship. The girl, Kaylee, was talking to someone about how cute Blair was. From the sounds, the man she was talking to was about as unamused by that as Jim. Luckily Kaylee was now busy explaining how Blair was also sly, so it meant that she could comment on his cuteness and it didn't mean anything. Clearly those two were sexually involved, and Jim had to wonder if the captain allowed that or if his crew were hiding their relationships. He concentrated, allowing his hearing to slide along the hull where the engine noise purred through the metal until he found new voices.

The pilot wasn't talking, but the captain seemed to be doing a whole lot of talking to her. When Jim had been a captain and someone had displeased him, Jim had talked a lot less and given a whole lot more punishment. From the sounds of it, Mal wasn't handing out any discipline at all. He was pretty much just talking on how much the pilot had displeased him, only he was using pretty colorful language. Actually, he wasn't even accusing the girl of displeasing him; he was just talking about how displeased he was in general while the girl made little affirmative noises that seemed designed to placate the captain more than anything else.

Jim allowed his hearing to slide away again, and for a second, it was like he lost control and he was the ship, hearing out into the black where the pops and faint whistles of space were like a music that was so faint, the notes spaced so far apart, that Jim could feel an almost instinctive need to stretch into it, to reach out into that almost silence. Individual notes struck the hull and left tiny ripples of sound in their wake as they flew through the black and the dust slid over the skin of the ship. The sound grew, like a distant storm heard through the stone walls of his grandfather's hunting house, but then a warm hand rested against his arm. Blair's familiar heartbeat with its low drumming and the rolling thrum of blood through his veins swallowed Jim whole until he lived inside that sound, oblivious to everything else. Blair's heart caught, a single beat slightly out of tempo, and Jim shook himself free of the trap.

"Sorry," he said giving Blair a sheepish look.

"No problem. Hey, it's normal for you. You're just doing your totally amazing thing."

Jim just snorted. Blair could call him amazing, but as far as Jim was concerned, the Alliance doctors had turned him into a freak, and the fact that it was some rare genetic inheritance that made it possible for them to torture him—that just made it worse. It was like he had some culpability in his own torture.

Pushing that thought aside, Jim carefully let his hearing slide out into the ship again, following the heavy struts that carried sound like a tuning fork. However, Jim couldn't hear the woman who was the captain's second or Jayne. He did hear the distinctive sound of gun parts clicking into place, and he tensed in fear, but then another click and a long slide of metal against metal made it pretty clear that someone was cleaning their weapons. That didn't necessarily mean anything, especially out here on the border where a misfiring gun could get you killed.

Pulling his concentration back to his partner, Jim shook his head. "This is the most undisciplined ship I've ever seen, but so far, they don't sound interested in getting rid of us or even talking about us."

Blair sighed. "I really hope that's good."

Jim went back to rubbing Blair's leg. He really didn't have any other way to comfort Blair. As much as he was relieved at the evidence that Blair wasn't the starry-eyed, naive son of a companion he once had been, he hated that Blair was losing some of that love of life. Even worse, Jim and the Alliance he'd once fought for had been the one to strip away Blair's illusions. Cao, Jim had enough illusions of his own stripped away to know how much that hurt.

Blair's hand rested on Jim's shoulder, and Jim stopped rubbing Blair's leg and looked at him. "Hey, we got away again. That's makes twelve."

Twelve close calls. That was about twelve too many. Maybe Blair recognized the look on his face because he aimed a soft punch at Jim's arm.

"Oh no. There will be no brooding. Pissing off the Institute bloodhounds is good. Oh man, they are back there walking those aisles over and over wondering if we're hiding in some damn olive oil barrel again, and here we are, together, in once piece. This is a win. A total win. So do not go looking for reasons to pull out all that tactical errors gou shi."

"Such language," Jim teased. Blair rolled his eyes.

"I know way better words than that. I was raised on the frontier, unlike some people who had to learn their dirty words off some porn wave."

"And my grandfather's diary," Jim offered. "He had creative uses for elephant dung in his expletives."

Blair laughed, and Jim watched as the energy that Blair seemed to always carry inside just unfurled like a sail in the wind. When Blair felt joy, it was like he spread it into the very air around him. "Oh man, I've heard you when you're pissed. That would explain a lot."

"Hey, I don't curse that much," Jim protested. The Alliance trained bad language out of officers with a whole lot of deck duty.

Blair answered with a snort and poked his finger toward Jim stomach in a mock attack. Jim easily caught Blair's wrist.

"Maybe I picked up a few bad habits doing undercover work before the war." Jim smiled. Blair counterattacked with his other hand, and Jim had to twist around to keep from getting attacked with a tickle finger. Blair's laugh filled the room, and he fell back onto the bunk, only because Jim was holding him, that pulled Jim down on top of him. Blair gave an umph as Jim's weight landed on him, but when Jim went to shift off, Blair reached up and caught Jim by the waist and gave a salacious grin.

"Should we?" he asked with a devilish smile.

Part of Jim answered yes immediately, and from the way Blair's smile turned even more salacious, he could feel Jim's cock already starting to press down toward that familiar heat. It took the rest of Jim a few seconds to make a decision about whether he really wanted to have sex locked in a closet-sized room on a bunk narrow enough that they risked back injury. At one point he might have worried about tactical advantages and privacy and psychological vulnerabilities, but those training classes and their Alliance teachers were his past, and in the present, he'd learned to take pleasure and love where he could.

"You are insatiable," Jim accused Blair as he pushed himself up.

"Well, yeah," Blair immediately agreed in a tone that made it pretty clear he thought Jim was silly for even having to say it. "Seriously. I have a lover with the hottest body in the 'verse, and you think I’m not going to take advantage of that? Naomi did not raise a fool."

"Naomi raised an incredibly brilliant, caring, and unashamedly messy man," Jim agreed, a smile tugging on the edges of his lips.

"Dick," Blair called him as he sat up. Jim reached down to pull his shirt off, but Blair reached out for him, settling his own hands on top of Jim's for a moment to stop him. Kneeling up on the bunk, Blair leaned in and kissed Jim. Forgetting the shirt, Jim caught Blair by the back of the neck and pulled him closer, those curls tickling over the back of his fingers and his hand.

Blair continued to kiss him, but his hand slipped down to run under Jim's shirt. The hot trail of fingers over his skin made Jim gasp, breaking the kiss. Taking advantage of Jim's distraction, Blair wiggled away and leaned down to breathe over Jim's skin just over the belly button. Jim could feel his skin contract, the hairs raise and then yield to Blair's breath. Before Jim could gather his thoughts and pull himself out of the sensory feast, Blair had pushed Jim's shirt up so that it gathered under his arms and then Blair ran a tongue across Jim's taut nipple.

Jim's skin cooled so fast that gooseflesh rose on his arms, and then Blair breathed across the skin, warming it with his breath.

"Cao," Jim swore, and Blair chuckled, each sound blowing a little puff of air across Jim's body. Arching his back, Jim grabbed for Blair's shoulders, allowing his partner to pull his shirt off. "I didn't used to be this much of a..." Jim stopped as Blair ran fingers down over his stomach, the heat of them sinking into Jim until he existed only for the sensation of feel. He couldn't hear anything and his vision went dim, but every nerve ending was alive, waiting for touch. Blair pulled on Jim's arm, and he moved when Blair moved him, his skin dancing with heat and the tingling anticipation of release as his cock thickened with need.

A palm pressed into his chest, each finger—each wrinkle on each finger—pressing into his flesh. Jim reached up, capturing Blair's hand. Running his hand up Blair's arm, he explored the curve of muscle and the way Blair's arm had slight tremors that betrayed his own desire. Breathing deep, he tasted the air. Blair's lust was heavy and warm.

"Dial back. Come on, don't lose yourself. Dial back." The words finally trickled in, and Jim reluctantly turned his attention to controlling his sense of touch. Blair had taught him that—to take the senses and limit them so they didn't overpower him. Blair's hand faded so that it was an island of warmth and weight, but the individual press of each cell faded into one general impression.

"I'm fine," Jim said with just a little crankiness. He had been enjoying himself.

Blair rolled his eyes. "I plan to make you a whole lot better than fine, and I really don't want to send you into a zone."

"I'm not going to zone." And since Jim had no better argument, he reached up and captured Blair's face between his hands and pulled him down for a long kiss. Now that Jim's senses were more balanced, he could hear Blair's heart pound out and smell the salt and musk of his body. It was good to know that Jim, for all his flaws and issues, could still inspire that level of lust in someone. He didn't let Blair go until Blair was gasping for air through his nose, his fingers digging into Jim's bare shoulders as he groaned in abject need. Only then did Jim let him go.

"Oh man, I'm going to come in my pants," Blair whispered. He lowered his forehead until it just touched Jim's own, and then he just held himself still, panting as he struggled to get himself under control. Jim tried hard to not smirk. Oh yeah. He might be an old war horse who'd seen one too many wars, but he could still keep up with the younger stallions.

Reaching up, Jim slipped his hand under Blair's shirt and slowly pulled it up and off. Blair's sides were heaving like they had just run a mile, and his eyes were dilated until the blue was a thin wire around a dark center. Then Blair's fingers were working at Jim's pants, pulling the buttons loose. As the fly opened, Jim groaned in pleasure. His cock was definitely feeling neglected.

"Wow. Okay, I am not the only one ready to go off," Blair said with a chuckle.

"Do we have any slick?" Jim asked. They could certainly do frottage, but that wasn't his first choice. Blair knelt on the bunk between Jim's legs and pulled out a small packet.

"No way would I run out of this stuff. Okay, I would because this is my last bit, so after this I'm out, but getting more is a definitely priority."

Obviously, Jim hadn't kissed Blair enough if he could still form complete sentences. However, before Jim could pull him close again, Blair had gotten back to work. Backing up, he pulled Jim's shoes off and then Jim's pants followed. Now he was definitely in a hurry. Jim lay back and let his dial for touch slowly inch up until he could trace the residual heat left every place where Blair had touched him: his thigh, his stomach, his nipple, his arm... they all tingled with warmth.

Finally, Jim's pants were gone, and Jim allowed his legs to fall open. Blair's breath hitched and his heart's rhythm tripped along faster than ever. Jim smiled smugly at the evidence of Blair's arousal. Blair, however, didn't even pause to give Jim shit about being smug. He reached out and ran a finger up the underside of Jim's heavy cock. Hissing with a need to come, Jim threw his hands wide and sent his fingers scrambling over the cold metal wall as he tried to find something to grab before he came all over himself. His whole body was hot, and his cock was the hottest part as it lay against his lower stomach. And now his balls felt heavy. Cao, it had been too long.

"Blair," Jim cried out, and even Blair had to hear the desperation in his tone. Clearly he did because Jim's heat was balanced by a cool finger at his entrance. Jim canted his hips and Blair's slick finger slipped inside without resistance. Jim's awareness narrowed down until he could only feel Blair's hands. One rested on his stomach, and the heat of that was so great that Jim squirmed in need. Blair's other hand was slowly working in and out, and the cool slick quickly warmed. A second and third finger opened Jim. His muscles stretched until he could feel the burn as cells strained.

Jim's cock was almost on fire now. Then a cool dampness stole the heat from him, and Jim gave a hoarse cry. The surprise nearly shocked the orgasm out of him. Opening his eyes, he looked down to find Blair just finishing a long, leisurely lick up the underside of Jim's cock. He looked up with a Cheshire grin on his face. Angling himself between Jim's legs, Blair took his own cock in hand. Jim bent his legs and pushed himself up into a better position before letting his eyes fall closed.

Blair's first press against the muscle stretched Jim just to the point of discomfort. He dialed up on feeling, though, eager for the feeling of Blair all the way inside. Moving slowly, Blair eased inside, his heat nearly too much for Jim. Their bodies merged, and now he could feel Blair's heartbeat within his own body, a strange syncopated rhythm against his own heartbeat. Blair's sweat and his own made their bodies slide together as Jim brought his knees in just enough to trap Blair between them.

When Blair finally pressed up close to Jim's body, Jim's cock throbbed with need. The pressure from inside set him on the knife point of orgasm, but he needed just one touch to finally come. And Blair denied him that touch. Instead Blair slowly slid out, his cock sliding out of Jim's body. Arching his back, Jim gasped and struggled to fight against his own need to just take his cock in hand and finish. He wanted to. And Blair wouldn't stop him, but if he did it, then his senses would reel out of control and he'd be left in a glut of sensations, unable to feel any more. So instead, he pressed his hands to the wall and focused on the cold, unyielding steel under his palms and the hot cock now pressing back into his body.

Blair started moving faster now. The room was a cloud of pheromones that Jim breathed in with every pained gasp. Their flesh slapped together as Blair thrust hard and fast, and now the heat of their bodies mingled until Jim could feel the warmth like the sun beating down. Jim's ass ached with the stretch and his cock was twitching as every thrust pressed up into the prostate. Blair was breathing in little harsh gasps, and then he cried out. The first of his orgasm spilled into Jim, and he could feel the warmth sink deep into him. Blair's cock thickened and then Blair tightened a fist around Jim's cock, and the world exploded.

Jim's orgasm tore through him. He could feel his skin tingle as every cell registered a sensation at once. He was hot and every individual bead of sweat demanded his attention as it slowly trickled down his body. His arm hairs stood at attention, bending one way and then the other as the movement of their bodies created a small weather pattern of gusts and flurries. His legs were burned by Blair's hot palms pressing into them, and his come splattering against his stomach registered with thousands of cells so that Jim could identify each drop, the way each slid between the hairs on his stomach, the shape of each oval as it landed.

Like a fish, Jim opened his mouth and struggled to find air where there was none. His whole body writhed as information crashed over him. Pleasure, love, heat, touch. Blair was a part of him, his body still pressed up so close that Jim could feel his heartbeat through their skin, and the salt-sweat and lust poured from Blair.

Blindly reaching out, Jim caught some part of Blair and pulled him close. The scent of love and lust distracted him from touch enough that Jim realized he had Blair's arm. Tucking his face in close to Blair's shoulder, Jim tasted and scents gathered there, sucking the lust-warm skin and enjoying the saltiness of the moisture that gathered. Running his hand over Blair's chest, Jim felt the heart that had been tripping so wildly out of control start to slow.

Then hearing returned, and the thrump of Blair's heart became an audible presence that matched the feel under Jim's palm. For long minutes, Jim lay still, Blair's warmth slowly fading to a normal temperature. Either Blair's fever-levels of body heat were fading or Jim's senses were. Then, finally, sight returned. Jim blinked as Blair's face came into view. A few sweaty curls were plastered to his forehead, but his expression was still one of bliss.

"Hey," Blair said softly.

"Hey," Jim answered. He stretched and felt his muscles respond lethargically.

"You back?" Blair reached up and ran a thumb over Jim's lip. When he pulled it back, there was a streak of red. Putting his tongue out, Jim realized he had bit his lip. "What's it like for you?" Blair asked curiously.

Jim reached up and wiped away any last blood before he pulled Blair closer for a kiss. "I can't explain it. I just know..." Jim shrugged. "I like it."

"I assumed," Blair said with a laugh. "Any chance you'd share the blanket?"

Jim frowned and then realized that the bunk didn't have a pillow. He'd been lying on the blanket which was folded up, and Blair was pressed with his back against the cold wall.

"Cao. Next time, say something." Jim reached under his head and pulled it out. It was awkward spreading it out with Blair still laying mostly on him, but neither of them seemed inclined to move. Eventually Jim and Blair worked together to get the blanket tucked between Blair and the wall with the rest almost reaching all the way around Jim. He didn't mind the cold though, not like Blair did. Naomi had raised him on one of the hottest parts of Whitefall, a planet that was plenty hot everywhere, and he never seemed to stop missing the heat of his homeworld.

"Too happy, sated, and lazy to say something," Blair finally answered wearily. Before the Serenity, they'd been running for eighteen hours straight trying to get from one port to another without leaving a trace, so Jim figured they both had a right to be downright exhausted. However, that didn't prevent him from lying under Blair, listening to the ship sing and Blair's breathing grow heavy. Jim stood guard as long as he could, and then slowly he slipped into sleep.

Chapter 3

Jim woke as boots stopped outside their small cell.

"Blair, we've got company," Jim said. For a half-second, Blair mumbled and sleepily squirmed against Jim's side, and then Jim's words finally got processed into Blair's awareness, and he snapped into motion with an efficiency he hadn't possessed until they'd been on the run a while.

"Cao, cao, cao, cao," Blair muttered as he scrambled to get his pants on and nearly took off a body part Jim particularly liked with a hasty zipper. Rather than panic, Jim gathered his clothes and carefully shook out his pants. They'd stowed away in the back of a freight hauler and then walked the last ten miles to get to a new port at Dyton, and Jim gave his pants another vigorous shake and dirt drifted into the air and then slowly settled. It was about as clean as he was going to be able to get them.

The hatch cracked open, and Jim noted the care their guard was using. This was a ship used to dealing with prisoners, and he wasn't seeing them making many mistakes.

"Captain wants to talk," Jayne said from the hatch that led out of the tiny room where they'd been imprisoned.

"Hey! We're naked here," Blair protested even though he only had to finish buttoning up his shirt. Jim stood up, still fully naked, and walked over to get toilet paper. The last thing he needed was Blair's come dripping into his pants to distract him at the wrong time. However, giving the merc reason to underestimate him... that had some tactical value. And men did have a mighty foolish habit of assuming that the bottom man in a sly partnership was less than manly. That was sheer idiocy in Jim's book, but he sure didn't mind taking advantage of another's idiocy.

Jayne was now crouched down in the hall above, looking through the hatch at them. Tactically, it was a horrible position for Jim, but the position wasn't all that better for Jayne who had to look down into the cell. The ladder that led up and out of the room was a good seven foot, and if Jim could pull Jayne down head first, that would make for a nasty fall. Then again, Jim would still be left with a ship full of enemy and no way to fly a ship he wasn't rated on. Firefly class were practically antiques. He could probably figure out the controls, but he couldn't guarantee that he'd get everything right before sending them crashing through an asteroid belt.

"Can't say I expected that. I thought the little one would be rollin' over an' playing girl," Jayne said as he watched Jim clean up. Jim could almost taste Blair's fury on the air, and in about two seconds, Blair was going to go off on some verbal tirade to protect Jim's honor.

"Blair, some merc and his mouth doesn't make a bit of difference here. Let it go." Jim dropped the toilet paper into the disposal and pulled his pants on. With his fingertips, he checked the placement of the slipwire in his belt while he pulled his pants up. Blair was muttering under his breath, but he managed to not say anything to antagonize Jayne, and Jim could see that it took him some effort.

For his part, Jim didn't hurry. Jayne wasn't a fool, but he wasn't a trained guard, either. The longer Jim made him wait, the more he was getting mighty uncomfortable, and uncomfortable men rushed and made mistakes.

"Aiya, hurry up," Jayne finally complained. Jim finished pulling his shirt on and gave Blair a little nod. Blair headed for the ladder, but before he even got near, Jayne had backed away from the opening. Clearly, the man wasn't an idiot. Well, actually, he did seem like a bit of an idiot, but he had enough common sense that he wasn't going to fall for the sort of cheap tricks Jim had used on a half dozen people who'd thought they could make easy prey out of him and Blair.

"Down there," Jayne gestured. He had a Callahan Fullbore autolock, which seemed a mite bit overkill for two prisoners. Two prisoners in full body armor, shields, and armed to the teeth might warrant that level of firepower, but Jim couldn't figure if Jayne was the sort to be extra careful or just the sort who liked to have his hands around the biggest gun he could find. Either way, a shell from that would go right through Jim, through Blair and might take out one or two minor interior hulls before stopping. Inside a ship, a sonic rifle would be much less likely to cause friendly fire or damage the ship, and Jim filed that bit of information away for later use. Jayne might be a weakness they could exploit.

For now, Jim just went where ordered, carefully keeping Blair ahead of him. Otherwise, Blair was likely to start saying things to Jayne that Jim just didn't really want said.

"Guess you don't much care who knows you're sly," the merc commented.

Jim sighed. While he could try to have some control over Blair, he clearly couldn't stop Jayne from saying something idiotic.

"Nothing wrong with being sly," Blair immediately shot back.

"For a man like you, most like there isn't," Jayne agreed, but it was Jim he was watching. It was a strange conversation, but then Jim had largely become immune to strange. His life had been nothing but strange ever since two officers had shown up with his transfer papers. Jim still remembered his own stupid pride, thinking that they wanted him to teach military strategy to their precious geniuses or have him work with top officials. Back then he'd had a lot of pride and very little patience for oddities or mercenaries with poor hygiene. Time had taught him differently.

"Can't see that it's anyone's business but mine," Jim commented.

"Except me. As the other half of the sly, it's my business," Blair butted in. "Oh man. You just assume I'm okay being sly because I don't go around metaphorically peeing on trees, but Jim—"

"Ain't nuthing wrong with peeing on trees," Jayne immediately defended himself. Jim almost smiled. For all of his complaints about stereotyping and testosterone poisoning, Blair probably hadn't ever expected a man to literally embrace peeing on his territory. Naomi had been a companion, and that meant something, even on the border planets. The men Blair had been raised around had tried to keep a certain civility around the Sandburgs, and only now was Blair learning just how crude the frontier could be. They were crass and cruel people who would enslave someone or steal a widow's land. Jim had spent his life fighting against that sort of evil, and now he was hiding amongst it.

"You... but... oh man, you actually pee on trees?"

"What else would you pee on?"

"A toilet," Blair suggested.

Jayne snorted. "You and the doc should get along real good. Core-bred dandies." His tone made it pretty clear what he thought of the Alliance. Jim's guts clenched. If these people were die-hard Browncoats, Jim knew just how badly this was going to turn out. Sooner or later one of them was going to remember his name, and he cursed himself as a fool for not giving them some story that didn't include being a Womak. However, he was not going to let their hatred for him spill over onto Blair.

"Blair was actually a Browncoat," Jim pointed out, hiding his desperate hope that Jayne would believe him. Rough men rarely respected desperation.

"I wasn't a Browncoat," Blair disagreed. "I was more a Browncoat sympathizer. Naomi and I patched soldiers up, but we didn't go out and shoot anybody over some stupid war over a big piece of dirt... or several big pieces of dirt."

Jim cringed. It would really help his plan if Blair would just try to gain their captors' sympathy, but calling the war stupid was not going to help on a ship full of Browncoats.

"Gorram right," Jayne said, which was mighty surprising since Jim had him pegged as a Browncoat rebel. "Ain't nothing on a rock worth dying for."

Blair gave Jim a triumphant look, but seeing as how they were still being marched down a corridor with a mercenary's gun at their backs, Jim didn't see they had much to celebrate.

"Now if'n it were a big pile of money, now that would be worthy fightin' for, although I'd still be all for avoiding the dying."

Blair stopped as Jayne made his big announcement, and Jim had to push him to get him to move again. "Not here," Jim whispered hoarsely. The last thing Jim needed was for Blair to start a fight when he didn't have anything bigger than a slipwire to back his partner up.

"Man, your enlightenment is very limited," Blair settled for complaining.

"That sounds like one of Inara's fancy words, and I ain't much on words. I'm more for letting my gun talk for me."

"Inara?" The gears in Blair's head almost clicked as they started turning. Blair was great at weaving a story to distract or even outright lie, but when something caught his curiosity, he couldn't keep his emotion off his face. "Is she one of the crew?"

"Naw. She was a whore who traveled with us some a while back."

"Oh no. No way are you calling a companion a whore. No gorram way." This time Blair did stop, and Jim could not push him into motion again before getting a gun barrel poked in his back. For a half second, Jim calculated his chances with a spin attack, but he still had a ship full of Browncoats, and Jayne had a pistol that he could probably get to before Jim could grab the autolock and get it turned around. It was a gorram big gun.

Blair was oblivious to Jim's dilemma because he was busy tearing into Jayne. "A companion is a spiritual and emotional guide. He or she helps people reach their potential."

Jayne gave Blair a look of disbelief. "They get paid for having sex. That makes 'em whores."

"They accept gifts in return for opening a person to the possibilities." Blair's hands few into the air in exasperation. "Many times that includes sex because sex is part of the basic, fundamental nature of humanity. However, that does not make them whores. They are therapists and spiritual advisers and religious sages and..." Blair waved his arms in dismay as his vocabulary failed him, but Jayne wasn't looking much impressed.

"His mom was a companion," Jim explained.

"Ah." Jayne nodded like that explained everything, and he actually looked a mite big more sympathetic. So, the man had no trouble shooting an unarmed man in the gut, but he had a soft spot for mothers. This ship was just all kinds of confusing.

"Ain't smart to keep the captain waiting." Jayne poked the gun in their direction, and Blair realized that he was not going to convert Jayne, so with a sigh he turned back toward the corridor.

"They aren't whores," he said softly, like a child complaining, but Jim knew that Blair was about as likely to let it drop as a Browncoat was to develop any sense of strategy. A leopard just couldn't change its spots. Oh, Blair would keep his own counsel until he saw an opening, but sure as summer rains, he'd keep gnawing at this until he got Jayne to agree that companions were enlightened bringers of truth and joy.

"In there," Jayne said as they approached an open door. It didn't take much figuring to know that's where they were headed because he could hear the voices so loud that even Blair should be able to hear them even if he couldn't hear what they were saying the way Jim could.

The engineer was in there--Kaylee--with all her stumbling sweetness. She'd almost tripped over her tongue as she tried to reassure her beau that Blair being sly made it okay for her to think him cute. Jim hadn't caught her boyfriend's name, but he was core-trained and educated; Jim could hear that in the tone and cadence of his voice. The captain, Mal, and his second, Zoe were talking quietly in the corner, but Jim could easily hear them discussing their next potential stop. The cargo they were carrying couldn't be delivered until the proper time, and they'd planned to sit planetside until they'd found someone to pay them for a short-haul or passage. Now they were flying with no destination. Jim marveled at the folly of that. Agreeing to haul someone's freight around like a flying storage shed was about as wasteful of ship resources as anything Jim had ever heard. And the pilot was here--a girl with a rabbit-fast heartbeat. Lots of people seemed to talk at her, but she did precious little talking herself. River. The name brought to mind the giant rivers of Osiris that cut across the open plains and cut deep valleys into the land. However, the girl seemed like more of a meandering stream than a river, and from what little she had said, her mind meandered more than most streams.

Blair stopped in front of him so suddenly that Jim walked into him and got a gun barrel in his back again as Jayne didn't stop fast enough. He was getting mighty sick of that.

"River?" Blair asked, shock turning his voice into a whisper.

Jim looked at a girl with long hair and bare feet tucked up under her in a chair. She tilted her head and smiled at him. "The man who thinks too fast."

"Dr. Sandburg?" This time Jim spotted a young man who looked far too core bred for these parts. That would be Kaylee's man.

"Dr. Tam?" Blair sounded shocked, but Jayne was putting the barrel of his gun into Jim's back, and so he pushed his partner into the room.

"Zoe, you feelin' as weirdly left out as I am at this point?" Mal asked. He moved forward toward a table that dominated the center of the room, his second standing just to his side.

"Yes, sir, I think I am," she agreed.

Dr. Tam stepped forward, his eyes still wide with shock. Clearly he had a history with Blair, but then Jim had learned that about half the universe seemed to have history with either Blair or Naomi. The Sandburgs had lived on more planets than Jim had visited in six years of service. "Captain, this is Dr. Blair Sandburg from Londinium Institute of Medicine. He's the one who helped me get River out."

Jim looked at the girl a second time. So, she'd been another of the tortured souls in that place. Most of the Institute's victims were younger than Jim. When his hearing had gone out of control, he'd listen to them crying for parents and screaming in pain. He wondered if he'd ever heard her cries.

"Thought so fast that his brain overloaded and all his moral circuits got rewired," River said with a smile for Blair. Then she looked at Jim, her head tilting to the side in confusion.

"Ignore the crazy," Jayne suggested as he came into the room, his gun still pointed in their general direction.

"I wouldn't call that crazy," Blair said. "My new wiring is a lot more efficient than the old job," he told River.

She turned her gaze back toward him. "New wiring looks like your original wiring with all the illogical whorls all burned up."

"Naomi would probably agree," Blair agreed softly.

"Chief?" Jim asked. Blair looked up at him, and the honest pain he saw reflected in Blair's eyes made him immediately hate this River. River looked at him with her head cocked and slowly smiled.

"I helped Dr. Tam with his sister, but only after I spent three years working on cases for the Institute. I thought I was serving some higher good, but eventually, when I got in so far that they owned my life, I figured out that they weren't about making the world better or helping people. They were taking beautiful young women like River and cutting them up to create something..." Blair stopped and looked at River.

"Abominations," she said softly. Her eyes moved over to Jim.

"No, mei mei, you aren't an abomination," Dr. Tam said as he moved to her side, his hands on her shoulders.

"Course you ain't," Kaylee quickly added. "You're just a girl who ain't had but bad luck her whole life."

"I was the abomination," Blair said softly, "and I've been doing my best to change that, to undo some of the harm I did working for the Institute."

"Two by two, hands of blue," River muttered.

"The stewards," Jim said softly. River nodded.

"I ain't but following about every third word of this, and as the captain, confusing me is not in your best interest right now," Mal interrupted. "Simon, you seem to have some history here, so why don't you start."

Simon nodded. "When I went searching for River, I tried to get into the Academy. I ended up going into a blackout zone where I got introduced to Dr. Sandburg going under the code name Indian Chief. He was treating some of the homeless people in the zone, but more importantly, he was a psychologist attached to the Institute. He provided the information I used to break River out."

"I gave him as much as I could. I should have done more, but by then they were getting suspicious and I couldn't help River." Blair chewed on his lip, and Jim reached out and pulled his partner to his side.

"Not your fault, Chief. You did everything you could."

"Wait," Jayne said. "That little ji nv is a doctor? He ain't even as old as the doc, and I ain't real comfortable when he goes pokin' and proddin' at me."

"I'm equally uncomfortable when forced to poke and prod at you," Simon said dryly, "but Dr. Sandburg is a medical doctor and psychiatrist."

"Who thinks so fast his brain sometimes gets all tangled on itself and trips on iron-heavy feet," River added.

Jim studied the woman. Clearly she was the one they had experimented on, but she wasn't acting like a sentinel. She noticed his gaze and stared up at him. "Another abomination with genes that burn bright," she said.

"Oh?" Mal leaned forward and gave Jim a thoughtful look. "I reckon she's saying there's something about you we should know, like how you knew them hands of blue fellows were at the docks."

"I could hear them," Jim said carefully. He couldn't afford to give them too much; he sure wasn't telling them how vulnerable he was to spikes and zones.

Jayne snorted. The captain just leaned back in his chair and frowned at Jim. "Can't imagine why a man would lie about something like that. Easy enough to check on whether he were telling the truth."

Jim watched this man who had the authority to space him or give him one more head start against the Alliance hunters chasing him. He made his decision. "When you called Zoe on the intercom, you said it was freaky how the readers always found your boat. She suggested it was karma."

Trading shocked expressions, Mal and Zoe both then stared at him.

Under his hands, Blair stiffened and he tried to step forward aggressively, only to have Jim hold him back. "Hey, he's no more a freak than River is. They both just got totally screwed over by the Institute."

Mal shook his head, clearly not happy with any of this. "I'm looking for simple answers because I'm a simple man... a simple man and an annoyed one and getting more annoyed by the second."

Jim stepped forward. "I was assigned to the ninth unit during the war. Shortly after the rebels surrendered, two men requested that I be reassigned to Londinium for follow up testing after a routine scan. I was signed into the Institute three years ago at which time they began a series of experiments designed to reactivate dormant genes that give me an ability to see and hear with far more accuracy than a normal human."

"Weren't hearing too good out there. If they were trying to make you better'n the rest of us, seems like they done fucked up a bit," Jayne pointed out derisively. Jim turned to glare at the merc for a second, but the man obviously wasn't impressed. He just stared back. When Jim turned to focus on Mal again, the captain was pale, his hands braced on the table as he stood and stared at Jim.

"The ninth? James?" he asked darkly. "Don't suppose you're the Jimmy who served at New Kashmir?" Jim stiffened. The second they had his name, this was inevitable.

"Jim?" Blair asked as he looked up. Jim subtly pushed Blair away an inch or two. Whatever was about to happen Blair wasn't a part of it. This was his past come back to haunt him.

"Yes, I am," Jim said clearly. Zoe had been looking confused, but now her eyes went cold, and her hand fell to her gun. Mal outright pulled his gun.

"Blair, go stand with your doctor friend," Jim said as he pushed his partner away another inch.

"Jim, what's going on?" Blair demanded as he got his hands around Jim's arm and held on.

"Aiya. Go stand with the other doctor," Jim said angrily.

"No." Blair didn't beg or plead or offer those long explanations that mostly just wore Jim down so he didn't care anymore and went along with whatever Blair wanted, but this time, the answer was a plain old 'no.'

"Ain't got an issue with you, doc," Mal said, and Jim felt the cold in his spine. "Might be best, though, if you didn't go getting between me and Captain Jimmy here."

"Captain Jimmy?" Simon asked as he stood back up and stared at Jim. For his part, Jim wasn't sure which he resented more, the look of worship on the doc's face or the pure hatred on Mal's. Of course, it was the hatred that was about to get him dead.

"Jim?" Blair was clinging harder now, refusing to let go of Jim's arm.

"This has got nothing to do with Blair. He was out patching up rebels while I was sending them to hell as fast as I could," Jim said. If he was going to die for what he did in the war, he wasn't going to do it begging for his life from a damn Browncoat. Mal's face went just about white, and Jim braced himself for the shot. It was almost a relief after all this time. At least it was going to be some gorram rebel who took him out and not a needle while he was strapped naked to some table. He supposed that was the best end that he could hope for.

Chapter 4

"Mal!" Simon said as he moved to get between them.

"Doc, move yourself to the side. I'd be a mite bit put out if I had to go shooting through you, but that don't mean I wouldn't do it."

Jayne stepped forward and grabbed Simon, pulling him away without even paying attention to the man's struggles. It seemed that the doctor didn't claim much respect, but then Jim didn't expect these sort of crude people to show respect for a man based on his learning. "What about the reward?" Jayne asked. "Seems a waste to go and shoot him. If ya don't like him, I say we get a payday out of it."

Jim tightened his jaw. He'd rather be dead than go back there, but if that's what it took to buy Blair a safe berth, he'd do it.

"Dr. Tam, look after Blair," Jim said as he kept his eyes on the captain. He didn't have a weapon on him that would save him from the captain's six shooter, and he still had the merc to deal with, not to mention the captain's second who had a cold look in her eye, so he had to be realistic about his chances.

"Sir, maybe we all need to calm down," Zoe suggested. She still looked at Jim with hateful eyes, but at least it wasn't a killing hate he saw in her. River stood, and Jim saw the motion out of the corner of his eye. However, he was more focused on the gun in Mal's hand.

"Calm down? Shun-sheng duh gao-wahn. They sing songs about him, and I think we all know that not everyone who goes and gets a song writ about him is exactly hero material. Fact is, from where I stand, seems like the Captain Jimmy who went and gutted our air force is more war criminal than war hero."

"Can't say as I disagree," Zoe said, and Jim could feel Blair's hands tighten, and the man struggled to get closer. Jim held him to the side as best he could. "I just ain't one for shooting an unarmed man."

Mal's jaw tightened. For a second, the entire room was still, and Jim could hear each heartbeat in a complex, twining rhythm. Finally Mal spoke. "Jayne, give him a gun."

"Sir," Zoe objected as Jayne stepped forward.

"What? I'm agreeing with you. Won't shoot an unarmed man," Mal said without the gun wavering.

Jim glanced over, and Jayne was offering him a gun. "Jim, no," Blair hissed, but Jim reached out and took the barrel of the gun in his left hand seeing as how his right was still trying to keep his partner in the clear. He continued to hold the gun by the barrel as he let his arm drop to his side. This wasn't about giving him a chance, and Jim wasn't about to let this chun zi Browncoat lie to himself and pretend that he'd killed a man in a fair fight. There wasn't anything fair in this room.

"I'm armed now," Jim said calmly as he faced the captain. He could hear the blood rushing through his own heart with a sickening wet slurp on each beat, and he wondered briefly if he'd hear the bullet going through his own body.

The girl, River, spinning into the space between them startled Jim so bad he flinched back and ended up with Jayne's gun barrel in his back again. "He sees what you don't," she said.

"He can," Blair blurted, his voice high and strained. Jim hated hearing the fear, but there was precious little he could do to help his partner except die without pulling him into the shit with him. But words kept tumbling out of Blair as if that would make some difference. "He can see riders miles away or see a weak spot in a deck plank with the naked eye. Oh man, do you have any idea how useful that could be? And if you think he did something wrong, he has paid. They experimented on him, so whatever you think he's done, he's paid for it. Oh man, he has no karma at all left after what they've done. You can't just shoot him," Blair pleaded.

"Watch me," Mal said as he came around the table, but River moved into his path again.

"He sees what you all see but you never look at," River said firmly as she reached up and put a hand on Mal's chest.

"I swear, you're almost sane until you go trying to talk about them hands of blue folk," Mal sighed.

"He heard them. He knows their secret names and passageways under the castle walls," River said.

"You mean the Institute?" Blair asked. "Hey, if you have a problem with the Institute, we both know all sorts of information, but if you kill Jim, I will personally--"

"Shut up, Chief," Jim cut that thought off as sharply as he could. The last thing he needed was for Mal to start seeing Blair as any kind of threat. Blair was one of the most courageous men Jim had ever known, and during their escape, he'd watched Blair put a bullet through a guard and he'd watched Blair later light candles and pray for the man's soul; however, his safety depended on these people seeing him as nothing more than a sly trick.

"Captain, if they have information on the people who did this to River, surely we can put aside what might have happened during the war," Simon argued.

"Put aside... you want I should put aside the fact that he done killed thousands of men and women who were trying to protect their way of life?" Mal demanded.

"I fought soldiers, and if they were inadequately trained and prepared for the realities of battle, that is not something I bear responsibility for," Jim said tightly.

He didn't mention guilt because he did carry that. He'd carried guilt from the moment that he had sprung his trap only to find that the ships he intended to engage in battle went down in a disorganized rabble, many not even getting off a shot before they were blown apart. Others hit their own fleet in the panic and fleeing. He'd felt guilt from the first body to slide past the window of his ship, a boy no older than his baby brother. The vacuum of space had bloated his face, but even so, Jim could see that the kid was so young that he should have been home with his mother, not out fighting for a bunch of criminals who were trying to keep the law out of the outer territories.

"Jim, man, you aren't helping," Blair hissed. "Totally not helping. Maybe you can do your self-flagellation later, like when there aren't guns pointed at us."

Jim ignored Blair and focused on the captain. "But Blair was one of yours, so you do what you're going to do and you call it justice or revenge or whatever you want, but you kill Blair, and that's just murder," Jim said firmly.

Mal narrowed his eyes. "That so?"

"Oh man, it's murder no matter who you shoot in this room. I have never met such a stubbornly unenlightened group in... okay, in about two months since that's when we got out of the Institute, and those people? Totally not enlightened." Blair jerked away from Jim, but instead of retreating, he moved toward the captain. "But hey, we all did what we thought was right. Yeah, you and I happen to think Jim's version of right was completely and entirely not right. That does not make him evil. In fact, that doesn't even make us right. The universe is a big place, and for all we know, the Alliance might be the best solution in the long run."

Jim watched the captain's eyes narrow dangerously, and Jim cursed Blair's mouth. The man could fit both feet in it at once and still have enough room to talk around them. And if he kept talking, he was going to get spaced along with Jim.

"At least the Alliance does something to fight the space trash and slavers." Jim spat the words and glared at the captain.

Blair turned around and gave Jim a glare just about as nasty as the one Mal was aiming his way.

"You see?" Blair looked over his shoulder at Mal. "The big chun zi is trying to protect me by getting you pissed at him. That is so not the action of an evil man. An idiot, yes. But not evil."

"Blair," Jim warned darkly. Blair rolled his eyes.

"Not evil? He gorram ambushed the fleet. He sent thousands of men and women to their deaths without ever givin' 'em a chance to even get off a shot," Mal's face twisted in a personal sort of grief. And for a second, Blair's expression mirrored it. The guilt clawed at Jim, but he pushed it aside. There wasn't anything he could do now.

"We all lost someone at New Kashmir." Blair's voice had a rough edge to it before he took a deep breath. "All of us. Good people died, but that was war."

"What he done... that weren't war," Mal said very firmly as he raised his gun. Jim clenched his jaw and struggled to bring his hearing down so that he wouldn't have to hear the bullet coming at him. Hell, in some ways this was a gorram relief. He was ready for this to just be over—the running, the fear, the slow realization that there was no end game. They would always be running and the Institute would always be flushing them out of one cover or another. Death was inevitable, and only the exact details were in question. Now Jim just needed for Mal to pull the trigger before Blair could go and say something unforgivable.

"That was war." Blair whispered the words, but he was also moving fearlessly closer to Mal. The captain's second moved forward, clearly ready to provide backup if Blair proved dangerous. Unfortunately, Blair just wasn't that kind of dangerous, and there wasn't going to be a last-minute save like on the waves he'd watched as a kid.

Mal looked at Jim and then at Blair.

"Before the war," Blair offered, "Jim worked undercover. He specialized in shutting down slavers, and we both know what an ugly world that is. You can't blame him for thinking that any price was worth it to save those poor souls."

Mal snorted. "Alliance ain't done much to stop slaving."

Blair shrugged, and Jim could just imagine the wry look on his face. They'd had this discussion more than once. "Well, yeah. You and I know that. But people from the Core? Oh man, they only see what the official waves say. They think we're all involved in slaving and drugs. And let me tell you, Jim sometimes says some mighty stupid things that prove he grew up listening to those waves."

Mal looked at Blair like he was a piece of cow dung that had gotten stuck on his shoe. "And you think that makes up for him being Captain Jimmy? You like rolling over for a mass murderer?"

Jim tightened his fingers around the barrel of his borrowed gun. Mass murder... it wasn't the epitaph he'd planned when he'd been trying so hard to move up the ranks in the service.

"Ain't the little one what's rolling over," Jayne offered with a smug tone, but Mal pretty much ignored him.

"Now Mal," the starched doctor, Simon, stepped forward, "as much as I respect your point of view..."

"No you don't," the captain interrupted. That seemed to stop Simon for a second.

"Perhaps I don't always agree with you."

Mal gave the doctor an incredulous look.

The doctor's back went even straighter and Kaylee moved closed enough to slip her hand into his. Clearly they were not hiding their relationship. The doctor edited himself. "Perhaps it's fair to say that I rarely agree with you, but given your habit of making very poor choices..."

"Always come out alive at the end." Mal visibly flinched at the end of that sentence, and Jim could see the captain's second emotionally shut down. Her pupils dilated in distress and she took a half-step back, and the engineer, Kaylee, looked to be about two seconds away from crying. "Anyway," Mal kept going, plowing right through the awkward silence that had fallen in the room. "This ain't your business. This is my ship, and I ain't about to let Captain Jimmy hitch a ride."

Blair snorted. "He didn't ask for one. We were trying to leave when you put a gun in our faces." Blair turned toward Simon. "Jim has suffered just as much as River, and whether you think he was a hero or the epitome of evil, there's no way a human being deserves to be hurt like that. And now the captain wants to kill Jim? The karma in this room is so heavy it's about to start generating its own gravity."

The doctor turned toward Mal. "Blair is a friend. I am not about to allow you to shoot him."

Jim frowned, not sure what game Blair was playing. Normally, Blair was a master of manipulation—the Institute had brought him in on the basis of his psychology degree and his ability to talk people into pretty much anything, but this time, Jim had no clue what the man had in mind. If Jim wanted to work on turning one of the crew to their side, the doctor would not be his first choice only because the man didn't seem to have much power to start with. A powerless ally could be more of a hindrance than a help.

"Ain't asking your permission," Mal said with an exaggerated cheerfulness. "'Sides, I'm not planning on shooting your friend, just the murdering son-of-an-Alliance-bitch."

"Sir," the second interrupted. "Maybe we should think this through."

"Oh... tee wuh duh pee-goo. Zoe, he's Captain Jimmy! If you tell me that you ain't thinking on shooting him..."

"I'm thinking it, sir," she agreed, and Jim could feel his headache tighten around his skull. There were entirely too many people who wanted to kill him in too small of a space, and he was just too tired to keep fighting any of them. "I just don't think we should do it," she finished.

"Then Jayne can," Mal said. Jim could hear the snick as Jayne took the safety off his autolock. Clearly Jayne was not planning on having any moral dilemma or debate over the killing.

"No one is shooting them. It's lunchtime." River made that announcement and then twirled in a circle before heading for the kitchen area. The girl was clearly not engaging all her engines.

"Um... Simon, is she okay in there?" Blair asked. Simon looked over where River was happily pulling out cans and carefully peeling off each label before opening it. When he didn't answer, Blair clarified, "I mean with the knives. River and knives were not always such a good combination if you know what I mean."

"She gorram stuck me with a knife," Jayne protested loudly.

"Didn't you use the safeword?" Blair demanded of Simon, horror pretty clear in his voice.

"Thought words like cobwebs, but the knife moved too fast for the utterance of sound." River gave Blair a smile before pulling out a bowl and dumping what looked like peaches in.

"You know about them safewords?" Mal asked, and now he seemed to be totally focused on Blair. Whatever else was going on, River was important to the captain, but Jim couldn't quite figure if it was a good or a bad thing that Blair was tying himself to the girl's history. Jim knew how the Institute had coerced Blair by threatening to take even more drastic action against the subjects, but that didn't mean Captain Mal would understand. He seemed like the sort of man to make up his mind first and ignore all the evidence to the contrary later. Browncoats were like that—rushing in where even angels feared to tread and then wondering why they got their gorram asses kicked every time.

Blair shrugged again. "I designed the failsafe."

"You... you did?" The captain didn't seem to have words for that. River came in and slipped an arm around Blair's waist, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

"The sunlight burns dark."

Blair looked at her. "Why?"

"Mei mei, this is not the time." Simon interrupted their conversation and reached out to physically pull River away. Jim had seen what some of the Institute's projects could do, and he'd try to grab a live bomb and pull it around by the wiring before he try to engage one of them in a physical confrontation. The Institute had turned those young people into stone-cold killers with inhuman strength and accuracy, but River just ignored her brother. "Sometimes she still loses track of reality," Simon offered apologetically.

"No way," Blair contradicted him. "The experiments destroyed her ability to relate to reality and emotionally engage, but it did not cause any sort of hallucinations or delusional episodes. If she says the sunlight is burning dark, then it is. We just need to figure out what that means. Personally, I'm hoping she's not talking about our engines." Blair looked over to Jim, his expression worried.

"Can't hear anything out of the ordinary, Chief," Jim answered.

"Okay, so not the engines," Blair mused.

"Wait." Kaylee looked at Jim searchingly. "You can hear the engines from here?"

"The spinning makes a sort of..." Jim paused, not sure how to explain the warbling note that always make a ship's hull reverberate. In some ships, the note sounded sour and it made the hairs on his arms stand up. On this ship, it was a background hum that was always just at the edge of his awareness.

"A music. She sings," Kaylee finished.

Jim thought about that. "It is a kind of music, a repetitive chord that is playing in the background."

Kaylee's smile lit the room. "I'll be. I thought I was the only one who heard that, or more like that I was just imagining the engine singing at me seein' as how I love 'em so much. But I can always tell when a ship is feeling sickly because her song goes all unpretty."

"Really?" Now Blair's face lit up, and Jim could see the same sort of unmitigated joy there, like nothing the universe threw at him could sully his soul. "Oh man, you must have hypersensitive hearing. On Earth-that-was, sometimes the senses would become naturally hypersensitive, but the Institute always had to genetically trigger the awareness, and Jim was the only one they could ever get to trigger for all five senses. Wow. Does anyone in your family have sensitive hearing or maybe they're extra touchy-feely or have really good vision." From Blair's tone, he was just about to launch into his speech on the amazing adaptability of the human brain.

"Wait one gorram second," the captain stopped him. "We were talking on how we were going to shoot your partner."

"Oh man, we already moved on," Blair said dismissively. "River, what does the sunlight burn?"

She seemed to think about that for a second. "Nuclear fusion in the peaches, all the 'verse is dying of radiation sickness."

"Mei mei?" Simon asked softly.

"We ain't done," Mal warned, his weapon pointing at Jim. "Aiya, get the gun away from him, Jayne," Mal said in a mighty cranky voice.

"Weren't my idea to give it to him at all," Jayne complained so quietly that only Jim could hear, but he took the gun out of Jim's hand without so much as asking, and Jim allowed himself to be disarmed. When Jayne grabbed his wrists, Jim let the man pin his arms behind his back and wrap a length of what felt like leather around his wrists. Seemed like he was less likely to get shot if he was restrained, so protesting would be counter-productive. However, Jim couldn't resist the urge to pull at the bindings to test the strength.

"You ain't pulling out of that," Jayne said smugly. "Well not 'less you got some crazy powers going like Moonbrain over there," he added after a second, and he sounded a whole lot less smug about that part. So clearly, these people did have some clue about what River could do. However, the captain and the doctor were hovering near her like she was a kitten who'd showed up at their doorstep starving and mewing. She might be a kitten, but she was a half-grown saber-tooth kitten who could eat them both if she got it in her mind to do it. And Jim didn't have any illusions about his ability to protect Blair. He hated the bad luck that had put them on his ship.

"Is this about us going to Miranda?" Zoe, the captain's second, asked.

Jim looked at her with horror crawling up through his guts. They'd taken this ship to Miranda... the planet on the far side of Reaver space? They'd faced drug-maddened cannibals that would eat you alive and do it as slow as they could? They'd visited Miranda? Jim always did think of Browncoats as being suicidal and downright stupid when it came to military tactics, but clearly he needed new verbage to describe just how stupid and how suicidal these people were.

River smiled over like Zoe had said something particularly amusing. The girl was mad. She was mad, the crew was suicidal, and Jim was tied up like a hog the day before a Christmas ham dinner.

"I should go check the autopilot. Serenity sometimes just likes to have her settings checked or she picks new headings," River said, and she sounded oddly coherent.

"Okay. But if you can think of new words for this sun that burns dark, you come and tell me, okay?" Blair asked seriously.

She nodded. "You should fix dinner. I'm not hungry." She turned and headed out of the crew area with a downright sane look on her face.

Mal watched her go with worry etched on his face. "Is anyone else startin' to worry about just how permanent River's new gasp on sanity might be?"

"I can review her medication history," Simon suggested. Kaylee was clinging to his arm in clear distress, but Jim couldn't figure if she was afraid of River or afraid for her. If she had any common sense, it'd be the first.

"Whoa, you put her on meds?" Blair demanded.

"Standard anti-psychotics."

"I told you to get her off the medicines."

"She wasn't lucid."

"And if you're drugging her up, she's never going to be lucid. What they did..." Blair swallowed. "It affected her ability to interact with the world. Language centers were damaged and logic completely rerouted, but she is perfectly sane and rational within her own frame of reference."

Mal took a step back and sprawled in one of the dining room chairs. It was a deceptive posture. His arms were thrown wide, one resting on the table and one on the back of the chair, but every muscle was tense and ready for action. Zoe retreated to a spot behind him. "Now see, I have a problem with how much you know and just how involved you were. I don't suppose you had anything to do with the experiments they did on River, now did you?" Mal asked, his voice honeyed, but Jim could see the trap laid out as neatly as could be. And he had no doubt Blair did too.

"I was one of the psychologists on the Project. My job was to make sure that the subjects retained enough sanity for the brainwashing to work," Blair said without apology. "I also designed the safeword so that the people could be immediately disabled."

Simon was turning a shade of green. Clearly he didn't know just how involved Blair was, but that meant he was an idiot. Anyone who knew enough to help him get his sister through all that security had to be gorram high up in the organization.

"Does that mean you can make her less crazified?" Jayne asked.

Blair sighed. "I wish I could. I was brought into the project fairly late... after several test subjects committed suicide and one went into a fugue state. I did my graduate work on the subconscious on Sihnon after the war, and they thought I could stabilize those who were becoming unbalanced. By the time I figured out why all these people were suffering...." Blair shrugged, but he did nothing to hide the dismay and pain on his face. For a second, Jim had truly worried that Blair might be joining him on Mal's hit-list, but now Mal seemed to relax as he rubbed a hand over his face.

"Seems like these folk are good at manipulatin'."

"You have no idea," Blair agreed. "So, Zoe said you had been to Miranda. Does that mean you're the one who released the wave that's pretty much destroyed entire political careers?"

Mal nodded wearily. "Seemed like someone should know what the Alliance is up to." Mal gave Jim a dark look. "Drugging people and hiding the horrible side effects, now there's a government to make a man proud."

"Lost us crew on that," Jayne said softly. It was odd, because Jayne did not strike Jim as a sentimental man, yet he looked almost upset about that.

"Lost too many," Kaylee echoed. "And all them folks dead because the Alliance wanted to find a way to make everybody be all shiny and nice to each other...." She wrinkled her nose.

"It's creepifying," Mal finished. "But the Alliance ain't like to listen to reason. They want their nice clean little universe, and if they have to wipe out entire planets to get what they want, I don't reckon they lose much sleep over it."

The day was that Jim would have argued that. Now... now he wasn't so sure that Mal was wrong.

"Not everyone in the Alliance is like that. A lot of them think they're doing the right thing and protecting people," Blair said softly. Mal's frown made it pretty clear that he didn't want to go back to this conversation, but Jim could testify to just how tenacious Blair could be when he thought someone needed a little re-education. Mal's gaze flicked over to Jim, but then he focused on Blair.

"So, you were part of the team that turned River into who she is. You got any ideas about how to help her?"

Blair slowly shook his head. "I don't know if anyone can change what's been done. Her brain was altered when she was young enough for the synapses to reroute. But now... gametogenesis and its related increase in gonadal steroid hormone secretion is over."

Mal gave Blair the sort of look Jim found himself using a lot when Blair got to talking science. Maybe that's why Blair recognized the confusion.

"She's not an adolescent anymore, so her brain can't heal itself if we try to rewire it again," he translated.

"We could administer a series of hormonal replacements." Simon looked desperate for Blair to agree, but Blair was already shaking his head.

"No way. The Institute tried to use older subjects chemically regressed to adolescence, and it just doesn't work. River is the way she's going to be."

"Crazy," Jayne helpfully offered. He earned a vicious glare from Blair.

"No. She just has her own way of seeing things. It's like someone raised a child and every time they meant 'up' they said 'blue' instead. That person would sound crazy. 'You need to go blue. Go blue. I want it farther blue.'" Blair mimicked someone giving orders. "Totally incomprehensible, unless you have the key. So, if you're asking her about anything she thought about while she was in the institute, you have to figure out the key."

Zoe spoke up. "So if she says the sunlight is giving all of us radiation poisoning?"

"Oh man." Blair made an elaborate grimace. "Something is so about to kill us all, I just have no fucking idea what."

Mal slappped his hand down on the table."Cao," he swore.

Jim couldn't agree more with the captain. Cao.

Chapter 5

"You want I should check things out, look for radiation leaks?" Kaylee asked with a strange sort of enthusiasm that Jim didn't normally associate with major mechanical failings. He also doubted that Kaylee was going to find anything. This Firefly class ship was humming with a music so perfectly tuned that Jim could well believe that she was about the only crew up to Alliance quality. Well, her and the doc. From the looks of it, he was core trained, and those core universities didn't allow someone to call themselves a doctor until they knew their business inside and out. It wasn't like the border planets where someone who knew how to pull a splinter and lance a boil could call themselves a hedge doctor and start charging settlers money for snake oil.

"You'd best," Mal agreed. "Check anything that might get a sudden urge to blow us all to pieces or start leaking radiation."

"You got it, captain," she agreed, and with a quick kiss on the cheek for the doctor, she fairly scampered out of the room. Had Jim been assigned to inspect the crew during a patrol, he would have wondered at her age because she didn't hardly seem old enough to sign a contract to serve on a ship... or she didn't act it anyway.

"You know, we should check the medications you've used on River. Some of those antipsychotics..." Blair whistled to show just how powerful they could be.

"I was acting in her best interest," the doctor said peevishly.

"Totally. I get that," Blair nodded. "You didn't have her full medical history, and her symptoms would have mirrored psychotic episodes."

"I had no medical history at all." From the tone of voice, the doctor clearly assigned some blame for that to Blair. Jim had to swallow a whole lot of angry words about how Blair had put his life and his freedom on the line to get River out at all, medical records be damned.

Blair, however, just gave a little laugh that conveyed more disgust than humor. "No offense, but first, I would have gotten caught if I even looked at her full records much less printed the scans. And second, you would have thrown a fit right there if you'd seen half of what they did, and that was not in anyone's best interest. He who fights and runs like hell before the Alliance troops catch up to him, lives to not get thrown into a itty, bitty little cell," Blair said, mangling the old saying and holding his hands out to show the tiny little cell size they were all going to end up in if they got caught. Jim wasn't going to let that happen. Not to Blair. Not after everything the man had done.

The doctor still didn't look happy, but he also looked like he couldn't argue with that logic. "Besides, I really want to see what has been going on with her blood work now that she isn't getting pumped full of the poisons they were using. Do you have any scans, anything that would show internal brain structure or blood flow through the neural pathways?" Blair's eyes lit up with the joy of science.

That seemed to break the tension that was growing between the two men. "We actually sneaked into an Alliance facility and got a full set of scans." The doctor looked very proud of that, and he should be. Either this crew was a whole lot better than Jim was giving them credit for or Alliance security was getting lax, and the Alliance was not one for letting security go lax.

"Very cool," Blair said enthusiastically. "Come on, Jim."

"Captain Jimmy and I are going to talk," Mal interrupted. Blair had been focused totally on the doctor, or at least he had given every impression of it. Jim figured he had been just as focused on getting Jim out of Mal's immediate vicinity. The man wasn't dumb, and he had to know that Mal wasn't going to let something this big drop. Blair could distract him temporarily, but even Blair's power of manipulation had a limit.

"No way," Blair said stubbornly.

"Blair, go do your thing with the doctor."

"No." Blair glanced at Jim, but his eyes went immediately back to Mal.

"Chief, I am not kidding on this one. My area of expertise, my call. Go." Jim kept his voice steady.

"But Jim..." Blair turned and looked at him with wide eyes. He wanted to stay and fight, but Jim figured most of the danger was past now, and if Mal was still angry enough to kill him, well that just meant the man was never going to calm down and Jim didn't have any shot of getting off this boat alive. If that was the case, he would rather have Blair safely out of the room.

"Go try and help River. She deserves your help just as much as I do. So go do your doctoring thing," Jim said just as firmly.

Blair caught his lower lip between his teeth as he looked from Jim to Mal and back.

"Cao. I ain't planning on gut-shooting him the minute you have your back turned," Mal complained.

"I never said you would!" Blair snapped back. He angled himself so that he squared off against Mal and crossed his arms. "Can I get your word that you don't plan to shoot him anywhere at all?"

Mal narrowed his eyes and really studied Blair. The very fact that he was hesitating meant his word was worth something. It also meant that Mal didn't want to make that promise. "Are you always this annoying?"

"Yes," Jim said at the exact moment Blair gave an indignant, "No!" Blair gave Jim a quick glare. "Hey, I am not the one who kidnaps some poor schmucks who were just trying to outrun Alliance hunters. That was you. That was all you. And killing the poor schmucks you kidnapped would be totally bad karma. Enormously bad karma," Blair said, but he started out of the room, and the core doctor stuck close to him. "And Jim, if you get yourself killed, I am so finding you in your next incarnation and kicking your ass for ordering me out of here." With than, Blair left the room, his back still stiff and his hands clenched tightly.

"And here I thought he was some sly trick." Mal sounded rather disgusted with himself for that misjudgment.

"He is a sly trick. He's just a smart one," Jim pointed out. "Then again, I'm just as sly as he is." Jim raised his chin and just dared Mal to make something out of that.

Mal actually seemed to relax. Maybe it made him feel good to know that the monster of Browncoat nightmares was taking it up the ass. He seemed like the kind of man who might take comfort in that. "So," Mal said slowly, "the great Captain Jimmy is standing in front of me. I never thought this day would come. Did you, Zoe?" Mal leaned back to look at his second who was still standing just behind him.

"No, sir, can't say I ever did."

"Are you looking for an apology?" Jim asked.

"Might make me feel better about not shootin' you."

"Not going to happen." At Jim's words, Mal's whole body tightened.

"Sir," Zoe warned, her tone of voice sounding so much like a chiding mother's that Jim really did have to wonder at the command structure on this ship. For a captain, Mal didn't seem to have much say in what went on.

"Ain't like I was going to shoot him, at least not without having Jayne cut him loose," Mal said with more than a little petulance in his voice. "Shooting a man without giving him any chance to defend himself, that's more Alliance-like than I'm generally comfortable with." Mal glared at Jim.

"I've never shot an unarmed man in my life. And I never shot at ships that weren't under a flag of war looking to shoot at me," Jim pointed out. His jaw was starting to ache from clenching it, but if he truly went off on these people, his life span was going to be unmercifully short, and then Blair... Jim sighed. Blair never did let things lie. As much as Jim didn't want to admit it, Blair would back the gorram captain into a corner until Mal had to shoot him, just out of pure self-defense.

Mal rubbed one hand against his pants. "You ain't sayin' much to make me like you more."

"I don't need you to like me. I figure I just need you to not shoot me until you can drop us off on any planet of your choice."

"Captain Jimmy." Mal shook his head like it was amusing. "The great hero who crippled the rebellion without losing a single man. And look what they've done to their shiny hero. Real nice bunch you work for, Captain Jimmy. Cain't even imagine why someone might go thinking the Alliance are a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards and scum without an ounce of honor."

"I've heard some variation on that from Blair more than once," Jim pointed out dryly. Of course, Blair said it much more diplomatically by talking about propaganda and social pressures, but it came down to the same thing if you read between the lines.

Mal looked at him and leaned back far enough to prop his boot on the chair next to him. "And you're still holding that the Alliance were the right side?"

Jim thought about that. Blair generally talked to him without demanding that Jim admit any fault or make public declarations, but it looked like Mal wanted his pound of metaphorical flesh. Jim gritted his teeth and wished that getting tied up and shoved around by a merc with the intelligence of a common sheepdog was the worst humiliation Mal demanded. However, having to admit that he'd killed for the wrong gorram side... that burned his throat like stomach acid.

"Letting farmers get raided by slavers and abused by landowners who treat them like slaves isn't right either," Jim pointed out.

"Gao yang jong duh goo yang! The rebellion weren't standing up for slavers."

"But you protected them. Slavers paid for your ships."

"The ships you blasted to scrap metal without giving them a chance to fire a single shot." Mal leaped up from his chair, his hand on his gun.

"Sir! Remember, you said you wouldn't shoot a man who had no chance to defend himself."

Mal gave Zoe a nasty look. "I reckon I'm giving him about as much of a chance as he gave our fleet."

If Jim was going to die, he sure as hell wasn't going to die with the bitter taste of confession in his mouth. If Mal was determined to do some killing, Jim was determined to say a few truths. "I'm not the one who sent out crews who didn't know their thrusters from their firing pins." Jim spat the words. "One of the best men I ever served with was in that fleet. Captain Joel Taggart would have fought like hell and taken three or four ships before his one went down, and I knew it. I knew I was going to have a long hard fight against a man I respected, even if I gorram hated the side he took in this war. But he never fired a single shot. Aiya! He was killed by his own. Idiot Browncoat rebels trying to run every direction at the first sign of a fight. Crashing into each other, taking out friendlies instead of focusing on the job at hand. I didn't put green kids and idiots on those ships--the rebellion did."

Mal had turned a special shade of white, and even Zoe had gone ashen-gray, her lips pressed tightly together.

"We came out of that comet cloud blind. One rebel ship ramming us and creating a log jam would have crippled the Alliance fleet. I took a chance hoping to surprise the rebel fleet and minimize the losses. It was a gorram gamble. If Joel had been on the near side of the rebel fleet, I would have lost. He would have rammed the first Alliance cruiser and our formation would have been fractured as every ship was left fighting for itself. That's the briefing I gave the other captains. But Joel was killed by some moron trying to run for cover that didn't exist. So don't make out that I'm the monster that took your precious dream away. Your precious dream was nothing more than smoke defended by untrained chun zi with heads full of glory instead of common sense."

"Seems like you have a whole lot of opinions," Mal said, his voice thick with contained anger.

"Yeah, I do," Jim agreed. "I'm not saying the Alliance is any better, and I figure I've had a good long time to think about that, but don't go claiming some moral high ground."

"I never claimed to be a good man—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Blair hurried right back into the room, his hands help up. "Okay, we all know that Jim has a different point of view. No need to go shooting the big idiot." Blair glared at Jim, but Jim just kept his eyes straight ahead. "Okay, clearly we can't go leaving you two without a minder. Geez. Chill."

"See? Won't stop pulling their carts," River announced as she trailed in after him.

"Blair? What is it?" The doctor trailed after River, like some sort of bizarre train.

"Horses. Whenever she talked about the war, she would use the metaphor of the soldiers as horses," Blair explained to the doctor happily enough, but Jim noticed that the man landed right in Mal's line of fire, and that was not a coincidence. Blair smiled at River. "So when she came hurrying up to us in the hall saying that the horses kept pulling their carts on the same track, I figured Mal and Jim were about ready to start up a new battle between the Alliance and the Browncoats, which is a little amusing because Jim doesn't support the Alliance anymore. He's just too gorram stubborn to admit he was wrong, and he's too gorram right about there being all kinds of shady folk mixed up with the Browncoats.

"There was this one guy... he actually sent two goons to try and grab Naomi. I mean, yeah, she walked away from the Companion Institute and rejected their regimented approach to spirituality, but this guy tried to force her into one of his whore houses. So not cool. So incredibly not cool. Man, she choose who she wanted to be enlightened with, and he was not on that list, but no one would stand up to him because he was some high-muckity-muck. He'd given ships and arms to the cause, and that was supposed to excuse the fact that he was scum. So, we all have not happy memories of the war, and we all need to stop dragging the same carts along the same tracks because, man, that war is done and over."

"All the tracks worn smooth just rut up again in the rain." River said this sadly.

"Totally," Blair agreed. "People suck. They seriously suck. So no more raining out of either of you," Blair pointed first at Mal and then Jim. "Wait. Why are you tied up?" Blair hurried toward Jim. Jim watched Mal, waiting for him to stop Blair, but he didn't comment as Blair reached around and started working the leather. "Aiya. Who did this? This is way too tight for circulation."

"Was more worried about him wiggling free," Jayne pointed out. Blair glared over at him.

"Jim can turn off pain receptors, so you can't trust him to know when something is physically damaging him."

Jim's arms feel to his sides, and Jim cringed when he saw his purpling flesh and the fingers swollen so big they looked like overripe grapes ready to split open.

"Jayne!" the doctor gasped. Mal was looking a little green around the gills, too, but it was the doctor who rushed forward, his mouth still running. "Of all the ignorant, careless things I've seen you do, and I've seen plenty, this is just about the worst. We need to elevate the hands. I'll need to get him back to medical to check for vascular damage and administer painkillers."

"Jim," Blair asked. "Do you need painkillers?"

Jim shrugged. "Tingles a mite. I've had a lot worse."

"Screams echoing down the hallway." River brought her hands up and wrung them. "Scream and scream, and they only record how loud your screams are. 101.2 decibels. 99.7 decibels."

"Yeah, but you can get your revenge by not screaming," Jim told her. River looked at him, her head tilted to the side. "It always pissed them off." Jim could feel a bitter smile tugging the edges of his lips. When you were in hell, you found amusements in the smallest revenge.

She slowly smiled. "Increase pain stimulus over and over, but no scream. Feet black from cold. Dead flesh, but no screaming. Corrupt the datum. Annoy them like fish caught in a hall of mirrors."

"Exactly," Jim agreed. "If you can't fight back, you always try to annoy the torturers." Jim got some satisfaction from Mal's stricken expression. The man might not like Alliance, but he clearly had even bigger issues with torturers. "If you're going down, at least annoy those that are about to take you down," he said with his eyes pinned firmly on the captain. From the way Mal's whole body stiffened, he got Jim's point.

"Jayne," Mal said darkly. "That were stupid. That were more stupid than usual. You want to explain just what you were thinking?"

"He weren't complaining," Jayne defended himself loudly.

"Aiya. It's like a convention of the obdurate and unenlightened." Blair used a hand on Jim's arm to guide him out of the room. "Medical for you. And man, if you can't keep control of the pain dial, you tell me. Do not try and play stoic."

"I'm not actually playing at anything. I don't feel much," Jim defended himself. "You can stop playing mother hen, Sandburg."

"Whatever."

"I've been injured far worse."

"Uh-huh."

Blair just kept agreeing with whatever Jim said, but that didn't keep him from guiding Jim with his hands on Jim's elbow or from dropping a thousand soft touches onto Jim's arm. It was mighty hard to argue with a man who just agreed with you and kept right on doing what you were asking him not to do, so Jim finally just gave up and let Blair usher him to a treatment bed. Behind him, Jim could hear Mal and Jayne start in on each other, so maybe one disaster had been averted.

"You really don't feel this?" the doctor asked. He stared at Jim's hands with a familiar fascination that made Jim's stomach tighten into a knot. "Fascinating."

"His pain receptors scream into the dark, but no one is listening," River shouted after them. She was either staying in the mess hall or going back up to pilot the ship, and Jim didn't even want to think about the craziness of allowing one of the Institutes little projects to pilot. At one point, Jim had been a damn fine pilot himself, but he sure would never let himself get behind the controls now... not with his own body so out of control.

Jim looked down. He realized that Dr. Tam was supporting his right arm and Blair was holding his left.

"I can hold my own arms up," Jim said peevishly.

"There's muscular damage. Holding the limbs up will only increase the potential for long-term harm. How can you ignore this?" Dr. Tam bent down to study Jim's purpling flesh.

"Oh man, Jim can do amazing things. This... this is more one of his anti-amazing things, because ignoring pain signals is so not cool. But he can hear a single bolt letting steam escape through the threads when it's down in the middle of a working engine. The Institute was amazed at what he could do. I mean, I can't explain the anatomy of it because my thing was always the psychology, but it's incredible."

"It's not as incredible as it is annoying," Jim disagreed.

Dr. Tam abandoned his attempt to walk and examine the damage at the same time. "Like with River. What she can do is incredible, but I'd rather have her back the way she was," Dr. Tam said quietly, and Jim really couldn't disagree. The Institute thought they were justified. He'd heard them talking in their little gathering rooms with their worthless sound insulated walls that they thought protected them. They thought the test results meant that all the pain was worth it, and they'd grown so used to seeing people as "test subject 57-B-4" that they'd lost track of what they were doing.

"That happens when people get too curious... too fascinated with science," Jim said. He only realized how Blair would hear that when he looked at his lover's guilty expression. Cao. He hadn't meant to dredge up that old guilt; he'd only wanted to make sure that this new doctor didn't show too much interest in Jim's abilities. "Chief," Jim whispered. As far as he was concerned, Blair had nothing to apologize for, but he'd still accepted Blair's apologies over and over until Jim was sure the man couldn't have any guilt left. And still, Blair always found more.

The guilt vanished as Blair gave him a bright smile that might have fooled someone who didn't know him and couldn't see the pain running just under his skin. "No problem. I know what you mean. Oh man, that is going to hurt like a hwun dan when you actually start feeling things again."

"I'll be fine," Jim promised. Blair's snort was not exactly reassuring, but then Blair had been through this with him before. They'd stowed away once, and Jim had been crushed by shifting cargo. Once they'd hit planet side, Jim's pain dial had completely spun out of control. This time would be different though. No way would it hurt as much. The injuries weren't internal, and they certainly weren't as bad as the frostbite that had turned his skin black or the acid burn test that left his skin peeling off in great sheets while the flesh weeped.

"I don't really see how you can say that," Dr. Tam said, leading them into a small examination room. Jim had to grit his teeth and force his fear back just to get himself to lie down on the examination table. Carefully settling Jim's arm at his side, Blair moved closer to his head and rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey. How are you doing? Do you think the captain would care if I eviscerated the big, stupid one?" Blair teased.

"Jayne?" Dr. Tam asked as he gathered silver equipment that shone under the medical lights. Jim closed his eyes and tried to strangle the irrational fears that rose. "Some days I wish someone would strangle him. While I believe in charity for my fellow man, Jayne can truly test a man's patience. He would do anything for money. Believe it or not, he tried to turn River and me over to the Alliance, and then he accepted our gratitude for helping us fight our way back out of the detention center where his duplicitous actions had landed us."

"Whoa. Okay, not cool," Blair said. Jim ignored the words and held on to the tone, to the sound of Blair's voice and his heart pounding steadily. "I would think Captain Mal was not exactly the sort to have a sense of humor about that."

"I still don't know what happened between those two, but Jayne is still here."

"But not regular crew? I mean, if he's a regular mercenary, he didn't go with you on a suicide run on Miranda, did he?" Jim could hear Blair's confusion, and he had to admit that Jayne was a hard one to peg. Clearly he was uneducated, bordering on just flat-out stupid, but he was the one the captain trusted to watch prisoners. He got clearly emotional when the subject of the dead came up, but the doctor seemed to think that Jayne valued only the money. Then again, maybe the others couldn't see his emotions. Jim found that sometimes his Sentinel abilities meant that he could read people so well that he didn’t realize he was seeing beyond what others could. He mentally reviewed his observations of Jayne while the doctor did something that made his hands tingle more.

When the subject of their dead came up, Jayne's eyes had dilated and his lips had thinned. He'd been unhappy, and he'd made his profile slightly smaller, pulling his shoulders in. That wasn't exactly the signature of a man who valued money. Of course, any man who wanted money would be wise to steer clear of this ship because this crew was not coming off as any sort of financial masterminds.

"I guess I just don't understand all the crew," Blair said weakly. Jim knew that admission had to hurt because Blair could usually lay out a whole person's life within five minutes of meeting them. His psychological skills were the best or else the Institute would never have hired him.

"They aren't easy people to get to know," Dr. Tam agreed. "Captain Jim, are you doing okay?"

"It's just Jim." Jim opened his eyes. "I stopped being a captain in the Alliance a long time ago." His hands were actually looking better. Some of the excess blood had been drained so the flesh had an almost normal color and the size had come down. The edges of his nails was flaking, which mean the doctor had been a little too enthusiastic about using the healer. The dried cuticles were going to annoy him for a while.

"Jim," Dr. Tam said almost reverently, and Jim gritted his teeth in the face of that idiotic adoration. "I'm almost done. The surface is going to be tender for a while, but I think I have most of the arterial damage under control."

The pain dial slipped out of Jim's control, and suddenly the slight tingling turned into a living fire that ate its way up his arms. Jim screamed as his nerve endings came to life.

"Whoa." Blair grabbed his shoulder. "Visualize that pain dial. You can see it. Look at the LED indicators on the panel, what do they say?"

"Ten," Jim hissed out.

"Is he okay?" Dr. Tam stood, the healer in his hand and a horrified look on his face. Blair shook his head, but when the doctor pulled back, the air eddies brushed over the skin, and every nerve registered the movement. A single hair moving in its pore felt like an ice pick being pried against his skin and Jim cried out roughly.

"Dial it down to a nine. You can control this. Move it from a ten to a nine. I know it's stuck, but man, you have never backed down to anything, and you will not let a little dial beat you, dong ma?" Blair demanded. Jim struggled. In his imagination, his hands were so badly damaged that he had trouble visualizing himself turning that knob. It stuck. His fingers were so thick with pain that he couldn't bend them around it.

"Come on. Tell me when you get to nine. Blair's voice was a soft curtain that draped over Jim's pain, dulling it like a sheer diffuses the light.

"I can give him a shot of—"

"No. Jim, I know it's bad, but maybe you need to just slide away. Let the pain go. Do you see the switch for touch? Find the power button and just let it go. I'll be here. I'll watch out for you." Jim lost himself to the voice and the struggle to control his senses. "Power it down, Jim. Let us handle this." Jim let his body slide away into a place where he would feel no more pain.

Chapter 6

"You alive?"

Jim opened his eyes to see Mal in the doorway. "I figure it'll take a whole lot more than that to end me." Jim looked around. "Where's Blair?"

Mal's expression twisted, and Jim could feel fear rip through him. He forced himself to sit up even though his whole body was still weak. Clearly the doctor had given him something. "He's fine. He threatened all kinds of bodily harm if I so much as upset you. He's a mouthy little shit," Mal said with a pained expression, so Jim figured that Blair had really gotten his mouth running but good.

"He really is a good man," Jim said.

With a frown, Mal leaned against the wall and studied Jim in a way that made him mighty uncomfortable. "He spends a whole lot of time saying the same about you. He spends enough time saying it that about all I want right now is a little peace where someone isn't chasing after me listing all your positive attributes." That made Jim smile. Blair pretty much won arguments by wearing people down with talk instead of throwing a punch the way most men did. Mal shrugged, which did seem to suggest he was as helpless against Blair's unconventional attacks as most men. "How about we call a truce and just don't go talking on certain subjects?"

"Like the war?" Jim guessed.

Mal looked around at all the doctor's equipment. "Might be we should leave the subject alone."

Jim nodded. "It's not a subject I really want to discuss, so that seems fair. At least as long as not talking about it means you don't plan to throw both of us out an airlock." A little part of Jim wanted him to just drop the subject, but until he had this man's word that they were safe, Jim wasn't feeling safe.

"I reckon I can live with that so long as you aren't walking around here talking about your glory days."

A dark laugh slipped out of Jim. "Trust me, I remember those days as anything but glorious. I generally spend reunification day getting so drunk I can't stand up. At least I did until the Institute left me like this." Jim held up his bandaged hands. They itched. "So, as just one more passenger you're hauling around, I'm wondering if you've figured out the radiation leak."

"I ain't so sure we have one," Mal shook his head. "I know River's a reader, and a gorram good one, but Kaylee knows this ship, and she's been all over it three times and claims there ain't a thing wrong with her."

"The cargo?" Jim guessed. The captain would have to be an idiot to have not checked, but with this crew, Jim couldn't take that risk.

"Nope. What I got is a whole lot of worthless data disks with three year old racing stats sitting on top of a whole heaping pile of Darga root."

Jim cringed. Aiya. He wasn't sure what was worse, the fact that he was traveling with a drug smuggler or the fact that Mal was a drug smuggler by accident. This ship sure wasn't run the way he was used to a ship running. Jim sighed. Then again, the way he was used to things running, no one had any say or any right to speak up. That kind of blind obedience hadn't exactly worked out real well for him either.

"No smart comments?" Mal asked, clearly surprised.

With a shrug, Jim shifted around. His hands were still giant, useless cotton balls, and the annoyance of that was far greater than his annoyance with Mal. "Don't suppose it's any of my business what cargo you run. Not anymore. There was a day that I worked enforcement out here, and I will say that your story would not have been real convincing."

Mal scratched his cheek for a second. "Don't exactly look good for us, but now that we know what we're carrying, we can secure it. Honestly, I wouldn't believe that story myself if someone else were the one telling it." He scratched again. "Of course, if'n the Alliance boards, the cargo ain't going to be their first priority."

"True." Jim closed his eyes.

"Your little friend seems to think we're all at the end of a gun here, that whatever River has bouncing around in her head, it's as deadly as she seems to think."

Jim opened his eyes and looked at Mal. The man was studying the wall most carefully.

"I never knew one of the Institute's projects to be wrong about something like that," Jim said slowly. "The scientists didn't really know my range, so my cell's soundproofing was inadequate, and I can tell you that at least three of them starting making a fuss the night before one of them went missing. I guess that was River. The scientists never did figure out how they knew, but they did. They always knew when something big was coming, even if the scientists couldn't decipher their warnings until after it happened. That's how Blair got me out. He started planning the escape, and when the readers started in with their crazy metaphors and the place went into lockdown, he grabbed me during a transfer. If River says there's danger, I'm willing to put my money on it. More than that, I'm willing to put my freedom on the line for it."

Mal wandered over to the counter and picked up a cylinder of something. "Last time she started her crazy talk, the Alliance sent the Operative after us and we ended up having to run for Miranda just to get the ammunition to get them to back off. She ain't been near as much with the crazy since. In fact, she's been downright sane ever since. So that leaves me to ask whether the danger isn't something you're bringing on my ship."

"Might be." Jim could hardly deny that the Alliance wanted him back pretty badly. If Mal wanted to drop them on the nearest planet, Jim couldn't complain. "When you say they sent the Operative, are you using that word to mean agent, or did this man actually call himself the Operative?"

"Seems like you might know something about him." The thing in Mal's hand clattered as he tossed it back onto the counter.

"I heard a lot in there. The scientists stopped thinking about me as a prisoner and I was one more piece of furniture." Jim grimaced. That had been one of the worst parts, but Jim had fought to keep quiet and foster that disrespect. Oh, he could have tried to get them to identify with him and develop sympathy, but he had chosen to gather information and endure the process of dehumanization. Only Blair had cut through his façade to see how much he was hurting.

"Man makes mistakes when he underestimates his enemy." From the tone, Mal was making it pretty clear that he still considered Jim an enemy, even if he was willing to call a truce.

"He does," Jim agreed. "River and the other students were version 2.0 of their project. The Operative was the original. He doesn't have the physical abilities and he has limited access to the sort of mind-power they have, but he can read people and make almost impossible predictions. Blair always wondered why they weren't sending him after us, and I guess now we know. Is he dead?" Jim prayed to the universe that they would give him just one gift.

"Still up and kicking last I knew. Whoever holds his leash pulled him back after we got the message out. I guess we aren't that important anymore. We already told about their dirty little secret."

"And I still have all my secrets." Jim let his head fall back against the examination table. That had been their only advantage. They didn't know why the Operative wasn't on their trail, but he wasn't, and that had allowed them to slip through the noose over and over. Jim didn't have a lot of illusions about their chances if the man was now available to track them. Cao. It would explain why they'd been run so hard to ground in the last week. The man was hunting them and just keeping in the shadows so they didn't know the game had changed. "He's going to know we've taken up with you," Jim confessed. He didn't have a right to pull these people into his mess—not after they'd just crawled out of their own.

"How you figure that?" Mal was sounding surprisingly reasonable for a man who had just learned he was in the crosshairs again.

"The Operative is a reader. Readers create a sort of dead zone around them. River can't see him directly, and he can't see her. If we've dropped off his radar, he's going to know that could only mean one of two things—I'm back in the Institute and the other readers are shielding me or I'm with River."

At first, Mal didn't react. Jim tipped his head up in time to see Mal close his eyes and mutter something physically impossible about elephant diarrhea in Chinese. It was amazing how much more obscene anything became when muttered in Chinese.

"If I can get Blair to agree to it..." Jim sighed at the difficulty of that task... "will you take him on as crew if I move on? The Operative is sure to come after me." Jim figured he could run long enough and hard enough to give the Institute hunters a challenge, and then he could end it hard and fast. If he could take a couple of them with him, well that would be all the better.

Mal crossed his arms and just frowned at Jim in a way that made it pretty clear Jim wasn't going to like whatever he was about to say. Jim nodded. He'd try and find some other haven for Blair, then.

"Seems like you're mighty set on getting yourself killed there, Jimmy."

Jim narrowed his eyes at the captain, but then considered he was nearly unarmed and physically injured, Jim didn't figure his glare would go far. "Let's just say I'm realistic."

"And you're realistically talking yourself into an early grave. You mind explaining that to me because I never thought you'd be a coward. I expected an Alliance-loving back-stabbing, honorless son of a whoring turtle, sure, but not a coward."

"Son of a turtle works a lot better in Chinese. In English, it just sounds like you ran out of insults and reached a little too far to make one up," Jim pointed out.

"And if I tell that little sly friend of yourn that you're slightly on the suicidal side, he'll make your life so close to a living hell you really will welcome death," Mal counterattacked, and Jim had to admit that the captain had him there. If Blair heard any of this, Jim was going to get lecture on enlightenment until the rest of his hair fell out.

"You want the cards on the table?" Jim asked. It wasn't like he had anything left to lose. "Fine. The long and short of it is that we're out of money, out of planets, and out of time. I had a dozen false identities and bolt holes when I worked undercover, and my boss didn't know about most of them. Banks is a good man, but systems get hacked and waves get intercepted, so I took care of myself. But every bolthole that I ran for, the Institute flushed us out of. We're out of money, stowing away on ships and eating stolen food, and still on every planet they get closer. This last time... they were two rows over. If your pilot hadn't taken off as fast as she did, they would have gotten close enough to disable me, and then I would have been back in that cell and Blair would have been in the cell next to me. My time's up. I've come to accept that the same way you just sometimes know when you're losing the battle. It doesn't mean you stop fighting, but it means you change your expectations about how it's going to end up. And if I die, that's still a better future than I was looking at a year ago. Blair gave me back my freedom and a chance to die on my feet. I just refuse to pull Blair down with me."

Mal's eyes had gotten all big. "So you really were trying to get me to help you with a bit of suicide? Cao. I thought he were making that up."

"Who?"

"Your Blair. He were the one who asked me to come in and poke about to see if you were losing your mind or just really set on getting yourself dead."

"He... but. Cao." Jim let his head thunk back against the exam table. "I'm never hearing the end of this."

"Oh man, never is a long time, but you aren't hearing the end of this for at least three lifetimes," a familiar voice told him. Jim could hear as Blair's feet scuffed against the floor as he hurried past Mal.

"I should have heard you out there," Jim said peevishly, but he already had a pretty good idea what happened.

"You needed to turn the senses off for a while. How long has it been since you really slept? You just doze. Doze and let your senses constantly check the surroundings. Man, the brain needs rest." Jim glared at his partner. "And when it comes to understanding the senses and how far you can't push the human brain without sleep, I'm actually the expert. I have three degrees to prove it." Blair softened his words by coming close and trailing his fingers down Jim's arm. His eyes were dangerously bright, and as much as Blair hated crying in public, he looked pretty close to doing just that.

"I'll forgive you for slipping me the gorram drugs if you forgive me for pulling you into all this," Jim said softly.

Blair shook his head. "No way. Wait. That sounds like I'm not forgiving you. No, I mean that I got myself into this because I was so gorram curious and so gorram caught up in the possibilities that I didn't stop and do a morality check until way too late. Way too late. So I got myself into this. You and River just gave me a chance to do something good after putting myself into a big steaming pile of bad."

"You two are almost annoying in your mutual supportiveness," Mal commented. "I ain't sure whether you've gone and drunk some sort of happy water or if you're both a little touched in the head."

"He's touched in the head," Jim quickly answered, bringing a bandaged hand up to brush over Blair's cheek. "However, when it comes to strategy, I'm running the show, right?" Jim demanded. He knew the logical way out of this, but Blair was going to kick and scream the whole way. Even now he was fighting against answering, biting his lip and just looking at Jim.

"Show me a flaw in my logic, Chief. Show me one card we haven't played, and I'll change my mind. But I'm not taking any of this lightly, and I just don't see any way out unless you stay here where River can shield you."

"They want me, too," Blair said, and that was his stubborn expression.

"Yes," Jim said slowly, "they want you if they can get you, but they've already discredited your work and thrown up so much mud that you'll never convince anyone to listen to your stories about some grand conspiracy. I'm the one they need dead. I'm the one that keeps them up at night worrying, both about the contacts I might use and the information I might have overheard."

"We could go to Naomi," Blair blurted out. This was another old argument, and Jim didn't even bother answering; he just looked at his partner.

"If anyone could talk an evil government conspiracy out of being evil just through the sheer power of guilt, it would be Naomi." Blair gave a little laugh, but Jim noticed he wasn't making any attempt to actually argue the point. Jim's guts tightened. A little part of him had hoped that Blair would have a good counter-argument, that he could pull just one more rabbit out of his hat. Jim had already given up on living once, and Blair had given him back his life, but Blair didn't have anything left to give.

"How about I give the ship a good searching and see if I can't find this danger River is talking about," Jim suggested. A job would be better than sitting around waiting for planetfall so he could start his final run. Even though he should be making plans and gathering information on which planet they were heading for, Jim didn't ask. He didn't want to know whether he had days or just hours left with Blair.

"You think you can find what Kaylee couldn't?" Mal asked. He had spent the entire conversation studying them, but Jim was too tired to hide his feelings, and he didn't think it mattered much anymore.

"Yep," Jim said. He started swinging his legs around. The world warbled in and out of focus, straight lines warping into curves.

"Oh man, you can do that after the last of the drugs wears off."

"God, Sandburg, how much did you use?" Jim blinked to try and clear his vision.

"About a fourth of what I usually use." Blair did not sound amused. "You were about ready to pass out on your own. I just helped a little. Actually, that should not have put you down at all, so there is no way you can afford to focus your senses for a full search of the ship. No way. Priority one is to get a little lunch in you, and then we can check the hands, and then you need more sleep."

"We have time for that?" Jim asked, looking over toward Mal.

"Ain't like I'm in a hurry to get anywhere in particular," Mal shrugged and then headed for the door. "River opened every can of peaches we got, so we're having a peach-themed lunch before they can go bad. I swear, I miss her saner days already." With that, Mal was gone.

Jim sighed. He'd wanted time to plan his conversation with Blair—time to gather his arguments and put up sandbags around his failing emotional walls. He never meant for Blair to hear him talk about their failures to someone else, but it didn't change the fact that they had failed. No matter how hard they ran and no matter how many tricks Jim used, they couldn't break free of the Institute and the leash was still around their necks. Blair stood beside Jim's bed, and his silence did tend to suggest that he had pretty much reached the same conclusions. "How about we check the hands now, Chief? I don't really want you feeding me in front of the crew." Jim lifted his mummified hands. He was guessing Blair was responsible for the bandage overkill.

Blair rolled his eyes. "Manhood does not require you to ignore injuries."

"No, but male ego does. Besides, if the doc knows his stuff, they'll be healed enough for light use," Jim said. "I need to get the muscles loosened up, and I don't have a lot of time to spare."

That was the wrong thing to say. Blair's breath caught in his chest and then Jim could smell the salt of Blair's tears. Wiping angrily at his eyes with the back of his hand, Blair reached out and started unwinding the gauze.

"Chief," Jim whispered.

"No. Don't go there. Man, I am not prepared to talk about this right now. Later, okay?" Blair looked up, his eyes so red that Jim could trace the veins as they lazily wandered through the white. "Later," Blair whispered, brushing his eyes again. Jim nodded. Blair deserved a little time to get himself together. Jim just hoped Mal wasn't planning on setting down too soon; this wasn't how Jim wanted to leave it with Blair.

Once Blair got Jim's hand unwrapped, Jim could see the skin red and dried from the healer. Blair sandwiched Jim's hand between his two palms, the warmth making Jim's skin itch even more, but he wasn't about to say that, not when every moment of contact had become so important.

"I love you," Jim said softly. He wanted to add more, but anything he might say would just hurt Blair more. Blair wanted to force the universe to be fair. If Blair was right about them having other lives after this one, Jim could only hope that they found peace in some distant future because he didn't expect to ever have it in this lifetime. In this lifetime he was simply grateful beyond belief that he was going to die fighting; he was going to die knowing he had found a safe haven for Blair. It was enough.

Taking a deep breath, Blair let Jim's hand go like it was the most difficult thing in the world. Jim brought his hand up and cupped Blair's cheek, resting his thumb against his lower lip. "I will always love you." Jim stopped, not trusting his own voice to stay steady.

Time shuddered and stopped, and Jim just stared at Blair, memorizing every inch. Then something beeped, and time caught up with itself, and Blair reached for the bandages still wrapped around his second hand.

"Man, do not count us out yet. The universe has a way of surprising us. There are more things in heaven and hell than are dreamt of in your pessimistic philosophy, James Joseph Womak," he said firmly. Jim smiled. Maybe. He allowed himself to feel just a little spec of irrational hope as Blair undid the bandages on his second hand. Maybe, but probably not.

Chapter 7

Jim was still flexing his hands, trying to get feeling back into the stiff muscles as they walked the corridors. "No guard?" Jim asked suspiciously. His mind went to the possibility of sealing off a section and flushing it to space.

It was an easy way to get rid of someone. Jim had done it himself when he'd been second in command on Captain Taggard's ship before transferring over to Captain Banks. Pirates had gotten on board, which had been part of the plan when they'd flown a decoy into pirate-held space. The part that hadn't gone according to plan was where the pirates had used an electrical disruptor cannon. Two guards died when their control panels exploded in their faces. Three more were flat-out electrocuted and most of the crew, including Captain Taggard, had been knocked out cold. Jim had been the first one to wake up, and with no ability to control the situation or arrest the pirates who had taken the bait, he had locked down crew quarters and flushed the corridors to space. Men died silently and quickly once you took their air away.

"Man, turn off your natural pessimism." Blair slipped his arm around Jim's waist.

"Says the man who's running from an entire government," Jim pointed out. Both of them had some cause for pessimism.

"Yep, but think about this... the universe landed us in the one place where the Operative can't actually see us."

"Which is how he's going to know exactly where we are," Jim countered.

"Okay, I'm trying to give the universe some room to work here. You might try a little positive thinking." Blair gave Jim a disgusted look before darting ahead and practically running down the stairs toward the hall that led to the galley.

"Anything fall off?" Jayne stepped out of the shadows where the deck walls met at an odd angle that created dead space. Firefly class ships were like that... funny little corners and odd angles.

"Nope," Jim answered. Jayne didn't have his big gun, but he was still carrying enough weaponry to set Jim's arm hairs on end. Jim expected some sort of smug reaction or maybe outright sadism, but instead, Jayne looked almost relieved. Could be the captain had given him grief because Mal did not seem like the sort to torture a man. He was more the sort to just shoot them.

Jayne fell in beside Jim, and Blair looked over his shoulder with a Cheshire grin that made Jim even more suspicious.

"You want something?" Jim just came right out and asked. He didn't know what Jayne was playing at, but he was not in the mood, and the last of the drugs was still pulling at him, preventing him from using his senses as easily as he had come to expect.

"Nope." Jayne walked a little faster so that he hit the door to the galley before Jim. For a second, Jim got a crawling feeling of dread as the large man came between him and Blair, and Jim stomped down on that dark instinct. He was planning on leaving Blair with these people, so he couldn't exactly go setting rules about them not getting too physically close to him.

Inside, Mal was already seated at the table with a bowl and Kaylee was hovering in the kitchen. "We got us peach cobbler... or something that comes close anyway and soup and biscuits.

Jayne walked over and nearly stuck his head in the soup pot. "Smells ripe."

Kaylee got an almost hurt look on her face. "It's just chicken and some peaches." From the look Jayne was giving her, that did not reassure him.

"Really?" Blair hurried over and sort of jostled Jayne to the side. Jim tensed up as Jayne's hands clenched, ready to follow up by throwing some fists, but Blair was totally engrossed in the pot. "My mother used to make this baked chicken and peach dish with a little clove and a little ginger. Wow. That brings back memories of home." Kaylee's smile lit up the room.

"We ain't got no clove or ginger, but I used cinnamon and something called allspice. I figured if it was called 'all' that must mean it's good for most anything."

"Good choices."

"Long as it don't poison us all, I reckon it's better than some would do," Mal said with a significant look in Jayne's direction. Jayne's body tensed up, but he didn't comment on Mal's criticism. He just grabbed a biscuit, walked over to the table and dropped down. Jim walked cautiously over toward Kaylee, not sure what the rules were now. Mal looked easy enough about having Jim walking around, but that look was deceptive. Even without using all his senses, Jim could see the tension in the captain.

"Looks good," Jim offered the engineer. Engineer. If she was a real engineer, she wouldn't be cooking or acting as the barker planetside. This whole ship ran like it was short crew, and Jim wondered how many they had lost during their little adventure at Miranda. Kaylee turned her smile toward him.

"Thank you kindly." She poured the thick soup into a bowl and handed it to him with a plate of cobbler and biscuit and something that might be a peach cookie or just a really flat piece of bread. It didn't matter to Jim as long as it was edible and had a lot of calories. They'd missed more than a few meals and even Blair was starting to look a little gaunt.

"Here you go," she said, offering the same to Blair.

"This smells really good. Doesn't it?" Blair asked. At first, Jim thought Blair was talking to him, but then Blair put the plate and bowl in front of Jayne before heading back for another plate for himself.

"Um... yeah. Ain't too bad," Jayne said, clearly confused. Jim sat across from Jayne and just enjoyed watching Blair turn that oversized brain to manipulating someone else for a change. Jim still wasn't sure if it was Naomi's training from the time Blair was a child or his psychology degrees, but the man could talk a settler out of his last horse and then make the settler thank him for the right to be swindled.

"So, it looks like Dr. Sandburg might be joining us for a more long-term stay," Mal commented just as Dr. Tam came in. The doctor's eyes went big.

"Truly?" he asked, and Jim wondered how the man managed to hold on to so many core mannerisms out here on the edge of nowhere. He sounded just like a cadet straight out of Alliance training. When Blair didn't answer, Jim looked over to see him just on the verge of sitting, his face stony and frozen.

"Yes, he is," Jim answered for him. That not only got Blair moving, but it earned him another glare from Blair as he sat.

Mal stopped eating for a second. "I suppose that means that we'll need to figure out what he's going to do."

"He's a doctor," Simon said as if that explained everything.

"Ain't seeing a need to have more than one of those on board," Mal said. If Jim were Simon Tam, he would have taken that as a warning. Simon, however, looked ready to argue.

Blair stopped that by holding up a hand. "Hey! I am not a medical doctor. I mean, I can take out a splinter and figure out which antibiotic to give, but my specialty is psychology. I haven't done actual medical practicing in a good long time because I focused my work on persistent, reoccurring psychotic episodes. My hypothesis is that psychotic episodes are actually periods of other-awareness rather than dysfunctions in and of themselves."

"You studied at Sihnon," Simon said with the sort of dry disgust Jim used to use to describe cadets coming out of Persephone's military academy. The place was little more than a warehouse of adolescents with attitudes.

"And you," Blair poked his spoon in Simon's direction, "studied at either Bellerophon or Osiris to get an attitude like that going. Did you know that on Earth-that-was, there were entire cultures that revered schizophrenics because of their ability to see the world through a different lens? Entire cultures. Our assumptions are just that... assumptions. We think they're processing information incorrectly only because they're doing it differently that we would."

"And they're unable to care for themselves or form coherent memories during the events."

"Define coherent." Blair's hands were dancing in the air now, and both Mal and Jayne were looking on like they weren't sure what was going on. Kaylee just started eating and Jim followed suit. "You're defining that term based on your own perceptions, just like you interpret River's behavior based on what you think a young woman should do. Norm-referenced behaviors are not, by default, correct."

"So, how would you handle it? Should we leave schizophrenics to..."

Mal whistled loudly, cutting the conversation short, and Blair looked over with the sort of happy curiosity he always showed. One day the man might figure out that most men didn't like getting interrupted in the middle of a fight, but today was not going to be the day.

"I ain't following any of this, because I'm still back on pondering what Blair is going to do with us if he takes a job as crew."

Blair dropped his gaze down to his plate, and his whole body just stilled. Jim could tell he was trying to come up with some argument for staying with Jim, but the time for that was past. If the Operative was coming after them, their time was up.

"You'd be a good barker, Chief," Jim commented. "That would free up Kaylee to scrounge for engine parts because it can't be easy to keep a ship this old flying the black."

"Amen," Kaylee said softly. "What are you going to sign on as?" Kaylee asked Jim with this guileless expression that stopped the words in Jim's throat. He looked over toward Mal, but the man's face was blank.

"I'm not," Jim said quietly. "And Blair is good with food. In the war, he learned to make most things palatable, even when he was cooking with tumbleweeds. However, if he tries to get you to eat his pickled tumbleweed recipe, I would suggest that you pass."

"It made the supplies last. The soldiers didn't complain," Blair said softly.

"Wait. You ain't happy about staying behind, but you are anyway?" Jayne asked, staring at Blair in a way that made all Jim's protective instincts come roaring to the forefront. Jayne might not be the simple mercenary he'd assumed when he'd first seen the man, but that didn't mean he had a right to go questioning Blair.

"Blair is in charge of anything touching on psychology, which is why I'm not yelling about him using drugs on me when I really didn't want them used," Jim said firmly. "However, I'm the one trained in strategy, and if I tell him that the only feasible strategy is for us to split up, then I would expect my partner to listen."

Jayne looked at Jim, and now he looked even more confused. Jim looked from Jayne to Blair, hoping that Blair could somehow explain whatever weirdness the mercenary had going on in his head, but Blair looked just as confused as Jim.

"I thought you were the manish one," Jayne finally told Blair. Jim might have taken offense at that, but Jayne was pretty clearly confused rather than just trying to be offensive.

"What?" Now Blair had turned all his attention to Jayne, which was good because it meant he wasn't thinking about the future that was rushing toward them faster than Jim liked.

"Him letting you do the fucking..." Jayne poked a thumb in Jim's direction. "I thought that made you the one who were a man."

"Oh good lord," Simon said quietly, his face getting quite pink.

"I am a man," Blair said. "I even have testicles to prove it, although I would really rather not provide visual evidence of that right now."

"Huh?" Jayne tilted his head, and Jim took a bite of peach soup just to keep from laughing. Yeah, insulting Blair's manhood was not healthy for anyone, and more than one person had learned that the hard way. Blair could be downright hard on a person's ego.

"I have balls; therefore, I am a man."

"But yer crying."

Jim's head came up, and he was surprised to see Blair wipe at the corner of his eye. Kaylee's overspiced soup and the drugs were clearly still interfering, but Blair wasn't apologizing for his tears at all. "I'm a man with balls who was crying," he said harshly.

"Oh, Blair," Kaylee breathed. That was one who Jim could trust to look after his partner.

"Okay, do you have a point here or did the universe just put you here to test my patience or perform penance?" Blair demanded of Jayne. Now Jayne was looking around the table like he expected one of them to back him up. Mal was looking very interested in the corner of the table, Simon was slowly reddening and Kaylee had her face scrunched up with sympathy for Blair.

"Cao. Ain't like I'm the one breaking all the rules here," Jayne said defensively. Maybe he realized that no one was on his side in this odd conversation.

Mal sighed. "You'd be best to ignore Jayne. He can say some mighty stupid things sometimes."

"Ain't like you aren't thinking the same thing." Jayne set both his elbows on the table.

"I really doubt I'm thinking anything nears to what you're thinking," Mal's tone of voice made it very clear that he expected there was a huge gulf between the thoughts of the two men.

Despite the frustration and danger clear in Mal's tone, Jayne kept right on trying to talk his way out of the mess he'd gotten himself into. Jim had a feeling it wasn't going to work, but he gave Jayne credit for being a gorram stubborn man who didn't give up easily. "I'm thinking that if'n the big one is the woman in the relationship, then the little one shouldn't be so girly."

"Yep, that is just about the most horrifying thing you could say, so naturally you go saying it."

Jim raised his spoon. "And can I add that I have testicles just as large as Blair's."

"Bigger even," Blair added. He speared two peaches out of his cobbler with his fork and then shoved both in his mouth at once so that Jim was reminded of growing up on Osiris and watching the chipmunks.

"And you're admitting that?" Jayne asked Blair. Now Jayne was confused and horrified.

Blair swallowed. "Did you know that in the animal kingdom, the species with the males who are least likely to get cheated on have the smallest testicles? The testicles of gorillas are like totally tiny." Blair held up two fingers to demonstrate just how small they were. "But rats. Whoa. Man, they have huge testicles. If our testicles were proportionally just as large as a rat's, then we'd have basketballs between our legs. But the rat gets cheated on way more than a gorilla, so it has to make up for that cheating in volume. It's all about the volume."

Mal was looking at Blair in dismay. "Surprised as I am to say this, I finally found someone whose conversating is even less appropriate than Jayne's. Rat testicles?"

"I think it's real interesting," Kaylee blurted out. Mal just looked at her with the same dismay he'd been using on Blair just a second ago.

"Exactly," Blair said smugly. "So you would think men would brag about having small balls. You know, more of a 'I don't need any more than this because my partner is faithful' kind of thing."

Jayne reached down and made a show out of grabbing his crotch. "I got two that are plenty big right here."

"And Jayne has reclaimed the title of most creepifying," Mal said wearily. "As the captain, I ain't interested in hearing any more on any part of anyone's sex life... or anything's sex life," he modified himself, pointing a finger at Blair.

Jim stirred his soup, and a lot of the little fears that had been squeezing his heart like tendrils started to loosen up. If Mal liked Blair enough to include him in the group teasing, then there was a good chance Blair had a place here long term. Given a choice, Jim wouldn't pick a captain crazy enough to make a run into Reaver space, but he had survived it. The fact that any of his crew made it out alive did suggest that the man might have some sort of brain.

"You know," Blair said, stirring the soup and wrinkling his nose so that he got wrinkles just at the bridge of it where his glasses rested. "We keep looking for radiation."

Mal looked downright relieved at the change of topics. "Seeing as how that's what River said were going to kill us, seemed reasonable."

Stirring his soup, Blair got that distant, dreamy tone to his voice that usually meant he was thinking about something too hard. "But what she said was that there was nuclear fusion in the peaches, and that's where the radiation was coming from."

"Ain't no radiation in those. I checked 'em before I started cooking," Kaylee offered.

"Yes, but we were assuming the peaches were the metaphor and the radiation was the part that was real. Let's turn that around. Assume that what she wanted us to look at was the peaches and radiation was a metaphor for..."

"For...?" Mal asked.

Blair shrugged. "I don't know, but that doesn't mean it's not a real danger. River's brain was rewired, particularly the language centers, but the information and memory is still intact."

"Ain't even going to go thinking too hard about how you know all this," Mal muttered, but then if he was muttering it, that meant he didn't plan to confront Blair about his bad choices in getting involved with the Institute.

"Where is River right now?" Blair stood up, his face lit with excitement, but before he could even turn around, River was there in the doorway, her bare feet and loose hair making her look much younger than she was.

"Listening to a brain that goes so fast it forgets where it's gone," River offered.

"Totally," Blair agreed amiably as he hurried to her side. "Talk to me about peaches, River."

River's eyes glazed. "It's always there, but no one sees it. Watching. Watching. No one watches the watcher."

"There she goes all crazy again," Jayne said in a voice that made it pretty clear he was feeling put upon. When Mal gave him a cold look, he grabbed a biscuit and shoved it in his mouth.

"The peaches are watching?" Blair asked.

River moved closer, and Jim stood up. He still had the slipwire in his belt if he needed it. That might be enough if she was distracted enough, but instead of attacking, she moved in and put her head down on Blair's shoulder. "In the corner. Look. No one looks. Not the peaches."

"Not the peaches?" Blair echoed, putting his arms around her. "It's the peaches, but it's not the peaches. And the thing watching us is in the corner."

Jayne snorted, but a look from Mal quieted him.

"Jim, any ideas?" Blair asked. Jim shrugged and looked into the kitchen. His vision zoomed in on a blue half-circle. The blue word "Blue" sat on top of the white word "Sun" inset into the half circle. Below it, the Chinese characters for blue and sun sat side by side.

"Um, Chief, could she be talking about the Blue Sun logo?" Jim asked. He was answered by a wild scream as River clung to Blair and caterwauled like an animal about to be taken for slaughter.

Chapter 8

"That was unexpected," Zoe said as she stood in the hallway where Blair had exiled all of them. He'd ordered a very surprised Jayne to keep everyone out and then slammed the door. Jayne looked almost surprised to be following Blair's orders, but he was. He'd put himself in the middle of the door and kept Simon from following.

"I'm her brother," Simon said for about the thousandth time, but Mal didn't look impressed, and he didn't tell Jayne to let the man past. So Jayne kept guarding the door.

"Can you hear anything?" Mal demanded, stopping his pacing long enough to stop in front of Jim.

Jim cocked his head. River was saying a whole lot of things that didn't make any sense at all, and Blair was offering quiet reassurances while, at the same time, clicking away on something. If Jim had to guess, he'd say Blair was taking notes on River's ravings. "Yep," Jim admitted. He stopped there, and Mal's face slowly twisted with frustration.

"You plan to share?"

"Nope." Jim reached over and used one hand to rub the sore fingers of the other.

"You want I should shoot him in the kneecap?" Jayne asked in the sort of voice that made it clear he'd consider it a pleasure. Funny, Jim had just come to the conclusion that Jayne wasn't a sadist, and now he was going out of his way to prove Jim wrong.

Mal didn't answer right away, and Jim just watched him. These people had to know that Jim allegiance would always be with Blair. "No," Mal finally said. "Gorram trouble just always finds my ship," he muttered after a second.

"Does seem like it, sir," Zoe agreed. Jim studied her. She was calm, but the second Jim paid her some attention, she focused on him, her sharp gaze just daring him to make a move. She would have made a good officer. "Sir, how much do we trust River's word that Blue Sun is dangerous?" Zoe asked the captain without taking her eyes off Jim.

Jim was surprised when Mal turned and looked at him. "I reckon you know more about the Core than any of us." He crossed his arms and just looked at Jim like he was half expecting Jim to refuse to give them any information. The fact was that Jim didn't feel much loyalty to the Alliance or the Core, not anymore.

He shrugged. "My father is an Ellison. He always said that any company was fair game except Blue Sun. He said that business was so big that they could take a loss on any one division until they managed to drive the competition out of business, and they had more than once. When Blue Sun got into the business of distributing alcohol, that's when my father shifted his business over to ship fuel. He didn't even try to hold on to his old contracts. Food distribution, medical technology, alcohol and even canned and dried foods—my father considered them all bad business because you don't compete with Blue Sun."

"Ain't much there we don't already know," Mal pointed out.

"It's not like I'm involved with the business world." Jim crossed his own arms and dared Mal to make an issue out of it.

"Wait. So Crazy's all worked up because of some gorram fruit seller?" Jayne asked.

"I reckon they're a mite bit more than fruit sellers," Mal said. "Leastwise, I assume based on the fact that River thinks they're going to be the death of us."

Jayne's snort was the only answer he gave.

"Sir, we could ask our contacts on Whitefall..." Zoe started.

"No," Mal cut her off before she could finish. "We ain't pulling anyone into this. We got a job, so we're staying in the black until it's time to deliver."

Zoe nodded, and Jim thought there was probably a story there. God knows he'd arrested men who hadn't done anything other than make the wrong friends, and then held them until he could find his fugitive, so he suspected their friends had been harassed more than once in some attempt to get at them.

At the time, Jim had called his actions justified. He was a lone lawman in a very wild territory, and he'd been doing what he had to in order to get the job done. Now he wondered if that hadn't been how his brother had started... just bend a little law here and a little law there. Cao. Jim couldn't even find it in him to hate Charlie for being a dirty cop. On lots of worlds, a dirty cop still ranked above a fugitive, and that's was Jim was. The great hero of the Alliance was a deserter and a fugitive.

Jim wondered if the Alliance would go pick up Charlie now and pick up where they'd left off in their sentinel research. Jim's twin was the only other man in the whole gorram verse guaranteed to have the gene for these cursed senses.

The door opened, and River was standing there, her hair hanging limp and her fingers scrambling at the edge of the door. Jayne fell back as fast as he could, but Jim couldn't tell if the merc realized just how dangerous she was or if he didn't want a crying woman picking his shoulder to cry on. Tears slipped over her cheeks as her eyes found Jim.

Slowly, she walked toward him, and Jim kept himself carefully still. If her attention was on him, he would never be able to move fast enough to disarm or disable her. Instead, he made eye contact with Blair who was now in the open door, and he prayed that Blair could use the safe word fast enough if it came down to it. The doc opened his mouth, maybe even to say the safe word, but Mal reached over and pulled the man closer, whispering a warning for him to keep his mouth shut.

"Lime green, Kelly green, jade, viridian," she murmured, "all whispering back. Whispering."

Jim frowned at Blair. Blair could only shrug helplessly. River frowned and tried again. "viridian, emerald, chartreuse. Anger. Moss and emerald. Fear, teal and viridian and streaks of forest."

"Whoa." Blair stepped forward. "Those are multi-functional brain scan colors. She's describing the frontal cortex colors of a scan."

"Why?" The doctor asked.

"Good question." Blair shrugged. "I have no clue."

"They listen. Always. Little teeth." Reaching up, she tangled her fingers in her hair.

"Ain't like this makes much sense," Mal pointed out.

"It makes perfect sense if you're River," Blair argued. "Only I can't quite figure out what frame of reference she's using."

"Torture. Pleasure. Whispering always. Won't stop whispering."

Jim cringed at the pain in her voice. He knew what it was like to find yourself unable to shut out the whispers that slipped into your head. When the Institute played their games with people's lives, they never even considered that men and women would have to live within these drastically damaged and altered bodies. For the Institute, they were all just tools. Tools didn't give up because they were too goram tired of trying to relearn how to interact with the world.

River inched closer to Jim. Reaching out, her fingers searched for him as she moved like a blind woman feeling for the wall. She touched him, her fingers warm on his neck, and then, with a low cry, River took off down the hallway, her bare feet slapping against the floor and her tears still drying on her face.

"I'll—" Blair started to say.

"Chief, let me try," Jim asked. He figured he could understand her frustration. When his senses had first come online, the scientists were always asking him to describe things that he didn't have the words for. He could see a thousand shades of red in a fire, but he only had about a half-dozen words. They had rarely been patient with his attempts to cooperate—and eventually he had just stopped even trying.

Blair looked at him with concern. "I can be patient when I want to be," Jim said dryly.

"If'n he's the womanly one, shouldn't he be the one doing the comforting, anyway?" Jayne asked, poking his thumb toward Jim. Clearly the man had issues, and Jim was starting to think that a fist would be the fastest solution for it.

"I would appreciate it," Jim said slowly, "if you would quit trying to call me womanly. Not that I have anything against women," Jim said with a tight smile in Zoe's direction. "But as a man, my cock is starting to take offense."

Jayne opened his mouth, probably to say something even more disturbing, but Mal spoke up. "Could be that you should just try not talking for a bit," he suggested.

Surprisingly, Jayne shut his mouth. Leaning over, Jim touched Blair's arm. "I'll be right back. If you hear screaming, come and use that safeword of yours."

Blair grimaced. "If she decides to go after you, I doubt I'd hear a scream."

That was probably true, but Jim understood River, and he understood why she'd rushed away from Blair. Blair made a person want more and try harder and when they still failed, well that was a mighty bitter pill to swallow. Jim didn't think Blair ever understood that even though Jim had tried to explain. Jim gave Blair another pat on the arm and then turned around to follow River up to the bridge.

"Captain Jimmy," Mal called. Jim cringed at the name, but he turned around to look at the other man. Raising an eyebrow, he waited for whatever Mal had to say. "She's crew, Womak." Mal didn't have to say any more; Jim understood the threat. Nodding, Jim turned and followed River.

The ship's song shifted as she chose new coordinates, the smaller correction engines puffing their breath into the black. River was turning the ship. Jim shook his head at the lack of discipline on this ship. Of course, considering that she was one of the Institute's projects, it was probably good that no one tried to keep her on a leash. She'd cut their hand off.

Stepping through the last bulkhead, Jim looked around at the bridge controls. The Firefly class ships had a dizzying number of gauges and dials and buttons, and River sat in the pilot's chair with her fingers dancing between them all.

Walking over to the co-pilot's chair, Jim sat down. She looked at him sharply. "You think too loud."

"I'll work on that." Jim stared out at the planets and moons, each a slightly different shade. To any other human, they would all look like stars lying on a curtain of black, but Jim could see each planet and each star, some colors muted and others brilliant white. When he'd been a pilot, he'd never truly appreciated the black. Now that he could see the beauty in the dust that floated between worlds, he couldn't trust himself to pilot a ship.

"I don't get lost in it," River said.

Jim glanced over. "I do," he admitted softly.

"I get lost in myself. Can't think. Can think, can't explain."

Jim nodded. "Is this danger going to come after us?"

"Yes." River turned to look at him, and he could see in her face that she didn't have one second of doubt on that front.

"If I take off, leave and lead the hunters away from the ship, will Blair be safe here?" Jim supposed he should be asking about all of them, but he'd had his illusions of nobility stripped away a long time ago. He didn't care about the others; he cared about Blair.

River tilted her head. "Teal and viridian and streaks of forest." She grimaced. Jim wondered what it must be like to know that you're sane and to know that you sound so very insane. There were days when Jim had feared he was losing his mind, and there had been days he'd been trapped inside the pain or inside the beauty of a single flashing light through a prism, but he'd never been trapped the way she was.

"If I leave, there are brain scans?" he asked.

"Teal and viridian and streaks of forest."

"Fear." Jim said the word quickly. "You said those were the colors on a brain scan that indicated fear. Who would be afraid?"

"Sitting in a torture chair, teal and viridian..."

"And streaks of forest," Jim finished for her. "Would Blair be in that chair?"

She shook her head.

"Me?" Jim's heart pounded against his ribs.

She looked at him, her dark eyes shining with tears. She nodded. "Punish the misbehavior. Redirect with operant conditioning."

Leaning back, Jim closed his eyes and tried to control the fear that slammed into him. Redirection. That sounded like one of the Institute's nicely sanitized words for torture. "If I stay here, will the hunters find us?" She didn't answer, and Jim opened her eyes to find her studying him closely. After a second, she nodded.

Cao. So he was lost to the hunters either way. "If I leave, will the ship be safe?" Jim asked again. River caught her lower lip in her teeth like she was thinking on that real hard, and then she shook her head no.

"Gan ni niang," Jim cursed viciously. River looked over at him in amusement, and Jim could feel his face heat. He'd been out on the rim too long if he was cursing in front of girls barely old enough to be legal.

"Blue Sun is funding the hunters, aren't they?" Jim asked. It didn't make any sense. Blue Sun was a corporation with thousands if not millions of stock holders and a board of trustees and bank records and payrolls, and absolutely no reason for getting involved in the Institute and their sick research, but it was the only thing that made sense. River nodded.

"What does it feel like?" she suddenly blurted.

He looked at her. "What does what feel like?"

She wrapped her arms around herself. "To remember what it's like to be normal?"

Jim blew out a breath. Hellfire and Browncoat rebels. He'd never expected that question. Swallowing, he looked out at the beauty laid out in front of him in the black. Beaumonde was a slowly growing green glow, like a pinprick hole that let light leak in from some great distance. Jim knew he shouldn't be able to see it from here, but he could. It was so bright, even when it was just a pinpoint, that Jim could see the halo of light around it. Jim could hear each speck of dust as it slid over the ship's hull, each one a faint note that shuddered and failed when it touched glass which had no sound or echoed when it was caught in the giant chamber of their silent main thrusters. The ship was singing, a chorus of tiny notes all accompanying the gently thrumming engines that ran life support and gravity.

"It feels horrible," Jim confessed, his voice a whisper. "It's like remembering who you should be and knowing you'll never be that person again."

"I can't remember."

"Be glad," Jim said. He was probably being a real hwun dan because he had no right to suggest that he had a bigger burden than she did—that his suffering was somehow worse because he could still remember standing on the bridge of his ship or remember the feel of the engine controls under his hands. But there were days he wanted to rip out that part of himself that remembered. "I'm sitting outside, starving, looking into a window," Jim said, struggling to explain. "I used to be able to walk in and eat any time, and even now, there are people eating and happy and ignoring me. But I can't get in."

He looked over, and she had her head tilted. "Blair doesn't ignore you," she said softly.

Jim had to smile. "No, not Blair. He was a big enough idiot to come out and starve on the streets with me. But if you can't remember what life was like before all this, that's probably just as well."

"I remember Simon. He bought me an ugly shirt for my third birthday." She made a face like she was picturing the shirt right now. Jim laughed.

"That bad?"

"Yes." She smiled back. "But I can't remember it without still feeling like I can't find words, like I'm already broken even then. Everything's scrambled."

Jim turned his attention back out into the black. "You're doing okay now."

"Forming new neural connections, walking uncharted territories where I can put out word markers that we share," she said seriously, and suddenly she wasn't sounding quite as sane. Oh, Jim had followed most of it, but that definitely was sounding a little on the odd side. She sighed. "When it rains, all the old ruts come up."

Jim shifted around to look at her. "You said that before. You said that Mal and I were in the same ruts that had come up after a rain."

"Once a rut is there, it's hard to get the wheel out without whipping the horse."

That was true enough if you were on a border planet and traveling by wagon. The metal rimmed wagon wheels would cut into the ground and create deep tracks along the most common roads. As long as you wanted your wagon to follow the others, those ruts were handy. They kept your wagon out of any hidden dangers. But if you wanted to go off in a new direction, those same ruts became a trap that locked you into a path.

"Can you whip the horse that hard?" Jim asked.

"Don't know. I don't think so, and whipped horses scream in pain," she said. She turned back to the dials and let her fingers touch each one like some sort of rosary. Jim nodded. So she might be able to change the direction of her thoughts or her words, but not without a lot of pain. And if she tried and failed, then she would know for a fact that she was trapped instead of just suspecting it.

"The ship changed directions." Jim changed the topic. Just because he understood where River was coming from didn't mean that he wanted to contemplate any of this. He hated that the Institute had done this to him, but he was a soldier. A person could argue that he had signed his life over to serve his government, and his government had chosen a particularly offensive service, but it was a type of service. However, the idea that they had taken a child and warped her until she was afraid of trying to recover made Jim ill. He'd fought the gorram Browncoats to stop the abuse of those without the power to defend themselves, and then he'd found his side just as guilty as the other. He could taste the bile in his mouth.

"Beaumonde." She said only the name of the planet. It was an industrial world on the edge of the border.

"Can you tell me why we're going there?" Jim asked.

"No." River looked over to him. "Deep ruts in these thoughts. Screams of horses would drown all the words."

Jim nodded and stood up. "Then let the horses run where they will," he told her. For a second, he stood next to her, two broken souls escaped from hell. Reaching out, he let his hand rest on her shoulder. She didn't look at him, but a last tear slipped over her face before Jim headed out to tell the rest that River had picked a destination for them.

Chapter 9

Ignoring the couch, Jim chose one of the chairs in the Firefly's lounge area. It wasn't much of a lounge, not even compared to the military ships Jim was used to, and the chair was too small for Blair to comfortable drape himself over the arm. For a second, hurt flashed across Blair's expression, and Jim pounded down the guilt that rose in response to it. If River found some moment in time when Jim could safely run and take the danger with him, he would. And that meant Blair had to be ready for the separation.

"So, no idea why she'd be interested in Beaumonde?" Mal asked. He was looking thoughtful instead of furious, so Jim wasn't quite sure what to think of him as a captain. It seemed like he should be more concerned with getting control of his ship back. Blair walked over and sat on the edge of a couch as near to Jim as he could get. Jayne followed Mal and spent a second looking from Jim to Blair and back before he claimed the chair opposite Jim.

Jim shrugged. "No idea. She said that the thoughts in that part of her brain were in such deep ruts that trying to change the way she thought or talked about it would cause pain."

"Oh man." Jim could hear the guilt in Blair's soft-spoken words.

"Not your fault, Chief. You were brought in to help the patients, and you did your best to do just that."

"I helped them to not go so totally insane that the Institute couldn't torture them more. So not the same thing," Blair blurted. Jim was glad that the doctor had wandered up to see his sister and the women folk had absented themselves. Jim had found that sometimes women weren't as forgiving when it came to torture. Zoe might see the necessity for it from time to time and even forgive Blair for his unwitting participation, but Kaylee struck Jim as the sort to get real melodramatic about something like that.

"You did your best. What they did wasn't your fault."

"I ain't so much interested in what happened in the past," Mal interrupted. "What's more interesting for me is how we can keep on not being dead. I reckon if River has us turned for Beaumonde, she's got something in her head."

Jayne's snort made his opinion gorram clear. "That ain't a place that's likely to welcome us," Jayne pointed out, ignoring any reference to River or her motives.

"Are there many places that do?" Mal countered.

Jayne shut up, a sour look on his face.

"It's a little too close to the core for comfort," Jim offered, but no one answered. He didn't figure his comfort added up to much with either of the Serenity crew.

Blair frowned. "Is there anything special on Beaumonde?"

Mal answered first. "Factories, ranches." Walking over, he sat on the couch next to Blair. "Rovu'uhl has a fair bit of underhanded business dealings. That's where we normally do our trading. Got two bars where you can buy and sell stolen gos-se easy and without getting a knife in the back for your trouble."

"The Green Knight?" Jim asked. He'd staked out that place a half-dozen times, but he'd only caught rumors of big deals going through there.

Mal nodded. "And the Maidenhead. The Blue Anchor is harder to get into, but you get some of your best prices there. Leastwise if you ain't been unceremoniously escorted out and told to never come back." Mal's expression turned sour.

"I've been to all three when I was still working for the law, and I took down a pretty big trafficker right in the middle of the Maidenhead. Not safe places for me to show my face," Jim said.

"Shi." Jayne sat up. "Were you the gan ni niang who went and busted up the whole bar going after some hwun dan who'd been whoring out kids?"

"What about it?" Jim asked, his body stiff. He hated this. He hated living on the knife edge of always offending someone because he didn't know who these people called friends and because they sure as hell would rather see him dead than alive. At least Mal would. Jim could see that every time the man looked at him. Jim wasn't sure that Jayne actually cared one way or the other as long as Jim didn't inconvenience him personally.

"Arnaud." Mal said quietly, and Jim looked to him. If trouble was coming, Jayne might be the one dishing it, but Mal was going to be the one to turn the merc loose. Jayne didn't seem to do much without permission.

"Arnaud Thomas," Jim agreed.

Mal's face twisted into a sneer, and Jim could smell Blair's sudden distress. Blair was going to get an ulcer at this rate. "Gao yang jong duh goo yang," Mal cursed, but Jim wasn't exactly sure who Mal was calling a motherless goat. "That ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng should have been castrated and left out for the ants to eat. That inbred hwun dan got too good getting locked up for life."

Jim nodded, his tight muscles relaxing a fraction of an inch. "The Alliance doesn't believe in killing their criminals—only their own citizens."

Mal's gaze came up and settled on Jim for a long time. Jim just looked back at the captain. It wasn't like there was much else he could do.

"If'n you're the man who brought in Arnaud, they'll remember you," Mal said unhappily. "I hope River don't plan on putting us down in Rovu'uhl. Seems like between the fuss you made back before the war and the fuss we made last time we were passing through, people would likely remember us."

"We could ask River," Blair pointed out. Jim wasn't the only one who looked at Blair like he had just misplaced a few critical brain cells. "You three? Totally unenlightened," Blair announced grandly. "Yeah, River has her own vocabulary, but it's not like she's trying to keep information from us. So, we ask her why she's taking us there."

"Chief," Jim said slowly. He needed Blair to really hear him, and sometimes Blair got excited and darted off without thinking an idea through—like when he'd signed on with the Institute. "Whatever River thinking, this is an old rut for her, something she thought about a lot when her brain was...."

"Ripped up for reconstruction?" Blair supplied. "I get that. I'm not saying we interrogate her or ask her to change her language. I'm saying we should ask her and just have her describe the rut until one of us catches some clue. You know, you war horses may be used to beating people or intimidating them to get information out of them..."

"I never—" Mal snapped, but Blair just raised his voice and kept going.

"But when you're not quite as big and scary looking, you learn that you can totally learn more just by talking to people. Keep them talking, and they'll let one detail and then another slip. Pretty soon, you have the security codes for the interior locks to the Institute. Man, sometimes it takes some finesse, and if we just talk to River enough, she'll let details slip. She'll describe things until something makes sense."

Jim looked up as almost invisible footsteps padded down the hall just outside the lounge. He was still staring at the empty doorway when River slowly edged her way around and into the room.

Mal sighed. "Does anyone else find it a mite bit eerie how she goes appearin' any time we get to talking about her?"

River edged farther in. "You think loudly," she defended herself. "Zoe is pilot now."

Listening for the sound of the ship-song, Jim realized that Zoe was piloting, but she hadn't changed course. They were still heading for whatever destination River had chosen. He didn't quite understand this crew and their willingness to follow the lead of a girl who couldn't even explain where she was leading them. River cocked her head and looked at Jim for a second before turning her attention to Mal.

"A girl wanders through a ship. If she vanished, did she really exist, she wondered?"

Jim looked over to Blair, but he could only shrug. After giving a shrug, he pulled out his data recorder and started tapping in information. If River talked enough, Blair might find the key to her code, but Jim wasn't sure that would happen before all of them found themselves staring down an Alliance gun.

River frowned like she was trying to find new words. "If no one believed in her, was she actually here at all?"

Jayne answered that one. "I believe what I can gorram see," he blurted out. He then leaned back in the chair and propped his boots on the table.

Jim was shocked when River gave him a brilliant smile. Moving closer, River sat on the table right in front of Jayne. "The girl wanders, but who sees her?"

"Cao, go be crazy somewheres else," Jayne said pushing her with his boot on her hip. Jim held his breath, half expecting River to gut Jayne right there and then. Instead she let him push her away.

"Jayne, don't go kicking River," Mal said sharply. Jayne opened his mouth to protest, but closed it and just glowered at the whole room.

"We need to see someone?" Blair guessed.

Jim could immediately see in the tight line of River's mouth that Blair was wrong. He couldn't even imagine the frustration she was dealing with, but she moved closer to Blair, sitting on the table so that she was facing him and Mal. "See the ghosts whispering, always whispering."

"Whoa... I have 'whispering' in here already," Blair said, his voice tight with excitement as he clicked his data recorder. "Here. When she was talking about the brain scan colors, she said they were 'all whispering back'."

"Which means?" Mal prompted.

"No fucking clue," Blair said just as happy as ever. He'd found a corner of the puzzle, and Jim knew that his overactive brain was going to keep working this until he figured it out or until an Alliance soldier put a bullet through him. "Hey, I have another reference. 'Torture. Pleasure. Whispering always. Won't stop whispering.' So a ghost is whispering, and it has something to do with torture and pleasure. Man, the torture part would totally fit the Institute."

"River?"

She looked over at Jim.

"Can you find a way to keep the ship safe? Is there a world we could go to, somewhere that I could distract the hunters or strike at the heart of the Institute?" Jim asked. Her head tilted to the side and she frowned. Jim tried again. "You said if I stay here or if I leave, the ship is still in danger."

"Two by two, hands of blue," she muttered in a voice full of horror.

"Cao." Jayne put his feet on the deck and let his hand fall to his gun. The man might call himself a merc, and everyone on this ship might think of him that way, but he wasn't acting like any merc Jim knew. He was acting like a man who was pissed and ready to kill because something was after him and his.

"Is there a way for you to slip past them? It doesn't matter if I die, River. Is there a mission I can take to stop them, to give the ship a way out?" Jim willed her to give an answer he could understand. Instead she looked at him and slowly shook her head.

Blair's breath exploded in a huge sigh. "Thank god." Blair breathed the words like a prayer.

"Ain't liking the idea of anyone going on a suicide mission, anyway. If you're going to get killed, it only seems fair that I'm the one doing the killing," Mal said, but his tone of voice didn't match his words. Jim struggled to understand the emotions that he could hear in the subtle tones and see in the minute twitches of Mal's expression, but the captain was up and walking out of the room.

"Ghosts whisper in shades of green," River said gravely, and then she turned to follow the captain.

"Blair, I really hope you can figure something out," Jim said. Not only did they need the intel to survive whatever mission she'd chosen, but he could feel the frustration swirling around River every time she tried to explain this to them.

"Oh man, me too."

Jim looked over toward the other end of the room. Jayne's scent had inexplicably shifted. The man was leaning forward, his elbows braced on his knees as he studied Jim.

"Were you really willing to go on a suicide run, or were you just playing a sly trick and trying to impress your man?" Jayne poked a thumb in Blair's direction.

Jim crossed his arms.

"Back off," Blair jumped in. "He does not need to explain himself to you."

"Ain't talking to you little man. Not 'less you're saying you do all his talking for him?" This time Jayne looked at Blair and poked a thumb in Jim's direction. Blair opened his mouth, but Jim leaned over and put a hand on Blair's knee.

"You have something to say, you say it to me," Jim said firmly. Blair was brilliant and most times Jim didn't mind letting him take the lead. Blair talked them into and out of more trouble in a day than most men found in a lifetime, but Jim knew one thing for sure—the Alliance would have caught him within a week if it weren't for Blair's persuasive tongue. But Jayne was different. Jayne was a rough man, one likely to take things wrong and get physical and Blair wasn't the fighter.

"Ain't saying nothing," Jayne said, walking over to a compartment and rooting around for a bit before he came out with an apple. Fresh fruit was a special treat out here in the black, but Jayne made no move to offer either of them part of it. He sat down again and pulled out the biggest knife Jim had seen since his days of military training. He started slicing off a small bit. "I'm asking if you were serious."

"I was," Jim answered, not sure where this was going. For a second, Jayne just used his knife to carve out bits of apple that he ate from the edge of the blade. The crisp smell floated through the air, distracting Jim and making him hungry.

"Man, I would have waited until our next lifetime and kicked your ass," Blair said softly.

Jim smiled. "You would have calmed down by then." Jim wasn't sure he believed in reincarnation, and he knew he didn't share Blair's deep-set belief in it, but it was nice to think they'd have another shot at having a better life together.

"Don't bet on it."

"You gonna let him talk to you like that?" Jayne demanded of Jim, pointing his knife in Blair's general direction. Blair's eyes went big, and Jim shifted forward in his chair so he was in a better position to intercept Jayne if he started something. "If'n a man went talking to me like that..." Jayne started to say.

"Seems like Mal does," Blair cut him off. Jayne froze. With his knife stuck in the flesh of his apple, he just froze solid. Jim shifted a centimeter closer to the edge of the chair, watching Jayne for the first muscle twitch that preceded the attack. Jim would have one chance at disarming or killing Jayne, and he couldn't afford to lose, not with Blair in the middle.

"Ain't the same with Mal. I wouldn't never let a man mount me like I was some sort of ji nv," Jayne said with a look of disgust in Jim's direction. Jim probably should have taken offense at getting called a whore, but he'd been called a whole lot worse in his life.

"Man, you so totally have issues." Blair almost sounded amused.

"Watch your mouth, little man," Jayne warned. He pointed at Blair with the point of the knife.

Jim stood up. "Maybe you'd better watch your mouth." Jayne was on his feet in a flash.

"God save me from hun dan warrior-types," Blair sighed. "If you two want to piss on each other, I'm really not into that kind of thing."

"Seems like you're into all kinds of things." Jayne smirked down at him.

"Hey, raised by a companion here. Trust me, I'm totally into all kinds of things. Man, I know things to get into that most people haven't even heard of," Blair agreed. He gave Jim a smile, and Jim was slowly turning a subtle shade of red. Clearly Blair was not planning on following the traditional path of verbal escalation to the point of physical confrontation. "It's expensive, but if you have real ginger, you can do some really creative things. Shave the outer skin off, and then slip a finger of it up into the hole right before you give someone a blow job, and man, you would be amazed at the reaction you'll get." Blair whistled. "Oh man. Wow. Total wow."

Jayne looked at Blair almost alarmed, and then he looked over at Jim, equally alarmed. Obviously he had something rattling around in his brain, and just as obviously, Blair had decided to do a little poking around in that psyche.

"And you would be amazed what someone can do with rope. Did you know that on Earth-that-was, Samurais of ancient Japan would consider it a mark of pride when they could tie a prisoner up quickly? And hundreds of years before the first generation ships left Earth-that-was, hobaku-jutsu taught techniques for using rope for everything from disarming a swordsman to tying a partner up into aesthetically pleasing shapes."

Jayne's mouth came open. Eventually, he turned to look at Jim with horror. "You go lettin' him tie you up?"

"Can't say he's asked to," Jim said with a shrug. He didn't mention that Blair didn't actually need to. When Jim let himself truly sink into his senses and lose himself in his own sexual needs, he was fairly well helpless.

Jayne looked from one of them to the other, confusion and horror tangled in his expression.

"What a person does in the bedroom doesn't have anything to do with how they handle themselves outside the bedroom," Blair said softly. It was a tone of voice he normally used when Jim had zoned on something, and Jim could feel a little frisson of jealousy. "Jim is stronger than me. He knows more about the military and I will follow him when it comes to most things. If he follows me in the bedroom, it's because he chooses to and trusts me. It doesn't make him womanly or weak, and can I just say that your habit of associating womanly with weak is so going to get your ass kicked one day?" Blair asked, and the serious moment slipped away with that quick joke.

"Ain't a woman who can kick my ass," Jayne said defensively.

"Zoe might," Jim pointed out. "I sure wouldn't go up against her."

Jayne frowned for a second. "Ain't like I couldn't beat her if'n I put my mind to it."

"River could definitely kick your ass," Jim said, and this time he knew he was right. Jayne frowned for a second and then reached up and scratched the back of his head. Without answering, he turned around and walked out of the lounge.

"Chief, don't think it," Jim said, pointing a finger at his partner. The man had that look on his face—the one that suggested he felt a need to go meddling in someone's life for their own good.

"Man, he is tied up in emotional knots."

"Good for him."

"It would take one little push."

"Don't think it."

"One, and he would see things a little clearer."

Jim frowned down at Blair. Blair smiled up, his face so cherubic, far too cherubic for someone who had grand plans to upend someone's life.

"I think I'm going to go find Mal," Blair said, his smile widening. He stood up, and Jim caught him by the arm.

"Blair, don't do this," Jim almost begged. Almost.

"Man, when it comes to fighting, you can tell me what to do all you want. But this stuff?" Blair took a step back and slipped out of Jim's grip. Oh, Jim could hold him, but that's not how their relationship worked. "Man, I grew up watching Naomi forcibly remove heads from asses. I could probably pass the companion testing myself by now. No way am I walking away from this gorram mess." Blair's smile turned devilish, and he hurried out of the room.

Sinking back into the chair, Jim could only shake his head and hope Blair didn't get them tossed out an airlock. Jim's gut said that Mal was going to do exactly that, but Jim's gut was incredibly unreliable when it came to two things: Browncoats and love. He could only sigh and trust that Blair was going to avoid any particularly spectacular stupidity.

Chapter 10

"Hey!" The call echoed down Serenity's corridors.

Mal sighed and stopped, crossing his arms to glare as Blair came running up to him. "Something I can do for you?" If the kid said one thing about respecting war criminals and killers, Mal was going to stuff him in an airlock because he had put up with just about enough of the kid's gou shi. He doubted that he'd actually flush him because Mal could appreciate loyalty, even when it was given foolishly, but he wouldn't feel bad at all about leaving Blair in an airlock for the night.

Blair shrugged and smiled warmly. "Just thought we might talk."

"If you're about to go singing Womak's praises, save it." Mal turned his back and started walking.

"Whoa, hey, we clearly got off to the wrong start here."

A hand caught at his arm, and Mal stopped and turned, his eyes lasering in on the spot where Blair had grabbed him. Clearly Blair wasn't all that bright because he didn't remove his hand from Mal's arm. "The first thing you might want to learn on this ship is to not go grabbing at people," Mal warned.

Blair still didn't pull his hand back. "And the second?" He asked the question as casually as someone else might ask about the weather.

"Know when the ship's captain don't want to talk." Mal pulled his arm away, but Blair just kept smiling like an idiot... or a man who knew something that Mal didn't, and this conversation were putting him in a worse and worse mood all the time.

"I hear you. I just thought that if I was going to work the ship, we might talk about what you needed done. I know you need a barker planet-side, but I am getting the feeling we aren't actually going to be on a planet all that much." Blair leaned against the wall, his hands tucked behind his back and his body vulnerable. It was a pose that made Mal uncomfortable.

"I tend to prefer the black. Seems like the docks just bring trouble."

Blair gave him a conspiratorial grin. "Like an ex-Alliance officer?"

"Are you damaged in the head?" Mal looked at Blair, trying to figure out what game the kid was playing. He talked Womak up—insisted the man was the greatest thing since grav-lock boots, but then he kept trying to put Womak in Mal's sights, and that were seeming a little unfriendly-like.

"That is so open for debate," Blair said, and his grin turned mocking. It took Mal a half-second to figure out he was mocking himself. "And Jim's a good man. Jim's the best of men. I didn't see it when I first got to the Institute because sometimes we all get too caught up in appearance, you know. I mean, Jim was all closed down and angry. They'd strap him down to a table, and other than the muscle in his jaw bulging and his chest moving with every breath, you'd think he was a cadaver. He wouldn't even talk to me, and being a psychologist, there wasn't much I could do until he talked. Of course, then he did talk, and I started figuring out that I was slightly, entirely damned for helping those sadistic sons-of-bitches, but that's another story."

"Which I don’t have time for the telling of." Mal started walking away, but Blair darted ahead of him, blocking the path. For a half second, Mal considered pushing past, but there was something that just didn't feel right about pushing a man a foot shorter, especially since you knew he wasn't likely to push back. That same sense of fair play had kept Mal from taking a punch at Simon for years, and it kept him from physically moving Blair out of his way.

"Okay, you are not much for subtle." Blair snorted. "You just don't want to feel anything for Captain James Womak. I mean, having sympathy for James Womak would be a total disruption of your entire self-image. You can't feel any honest human compassion because that would humanize the enemy, and I get the feeling you are still very much in this war."

Mal glared at him.

"I can respect that. Totally. So, if you can't feel anything for James Womak, how about the fugitive Jim Ellison?

"Ellison?" Mal frowned.

Blair verbally charged right ahead. "That was his father's name. So, Jim Ellison was raised with all this money, and his brother was an asshole pretty much from the word go, and since he and Jim were twins, Jim spent lots of time getting blamed for all this gou shi that his brother did. You see, his father only saw appearances. It appeared that Jim was the one stealing shuttles and burning through greenhouse covers while sneaking a smoke, so he blamed Jim. Appearance and reality. It's all appearance and perception that creates reality. If you perceive differently, then reality is different."

"Cain't say I care." Mal steeled himself against this newest attack on his righteous anger at Womak.

"But Jim Ellison turned his back on money, and he decided that if life was unjust for him, he was going to dedicate himself to bringing justice to everyone else. You could feel something for Jim Ellison, right?"

Rubbing a hand over his face, Mal sighed. Clearly he was not getting any rest until Blair had whatever he'd come for. "Are you looking for a signed contract that I ain't going to go killing Womak in his sleep?" Mal demanded.

"Ellison."

"What?"

Blair's smile widened. "Ellison. His name is Ellison just as much as Womak. You can't forgive Womak, and I respect that. Man, if Womak were here, all righteous indignation and Alliance uniform, I'd probably shoot him myself. I mean, if he were Captain Jimmy Womak, then that would mean the war was still going on, and we were definitely on opposite sides of the war, so I would have felt really shitty, but I would have killed Womak to save the fleet."

"You would?" Mal didn't even bother hiding the disbelief in his voice. He couldn't see the kid shooting Womak. Oh, the kid might talk him to death. When Jayne had first commented on how Blair were topping Womak, Mal thought he'd been tricked or just lost his mind. Now... now Mal was pretty sure Blair could talk his way out of or into anything, including his partner's ass. Mal smiled at that private bit of crudity. He might not say the things Jayne did with such horrifying regularity, but he did enjoy rolling them over in the privacy of his own mind. Womak rolled over for this odd, little man. "You'd kill Womak?"

The smile slipped and for a second, Blair really glared at him. "Hey, I am not as innocent as you seem to think. Yes, I would have. But I don't know Womak. I know Jim Ellison, a man who tried his damnest to do the right thing, fucked up, and now life is trying to fuck him over. People change. Are you the same man you were twenty years ago?"

"Yes."

This time he got a sigh and an eyeroll from Blair. "Okay," he said slowly, "so maybe you're the exception that proves the rule. I could see where that's possible because you sure as hell aren't good at letting go of things."

"Sandburg, is there a point to this conversatin' or is this just your way of torturing me and assuming that I won't strike back?"

The look of innocence on Blair's face surprised Mal. Either the kid was stupid or he was one hell of an actor. Mal was betting on the last one. "This is two crew talking to each other," Blair said, his voice carrying just a hint of hurt.

"Feel free to talk to someone who ain't me." Mal finally did push Blair to the side as carefully as he could. Blair didn't try and stop him, but as soon as Mal started walking, Blair was right there at his heels.

"The funny thing is that you're a whole lot like Jim with the not wanting to talk about things. Jim was the same way. Of course, in that analogy I guess I'd be Jayne, so maybe that doesn't fit."

"What?" Mal stopped and looked at Blair, who was suddenly not making any sense.

He shrugged. "If you and Jim were that much alike, you'd choose partners that were alike, but Jayne and I..." He made a face and gestured to make it pretty clear that he considered himself and Jayne about as different as night and day. Mal could agree with that much at least.

"Gorram right Womak and me aren't alike, no more than you and Jayne are," Mal said indignantly. He turned to continue down the hall when the second part of that hit him. "Wait. Are you saying that you think me and Jayne—"

"Totally," Blair nodded and got a disturbingly salacious look on his face. "I mean, the way he looks at you? Whoa. Seriously hot. There are lovers content with longing. I'm not one of them. If I tried to not touch Jim the way Jayne is always trying to not touch you, I'm pretty sure my brain would explode from all the repressed lust. I just hope you make up for all that frustration when you get some privacy." Blair nodded knowingly.

"Jayne?" Mal could hear his own voice, and it was on the verge of breaking like a teenaged boy.

"Well... yeah." Now Blair looked confused.

"Jayne?" Mal repeated it louder.

"Shiong mao niao," Blair cursed softly. "Oh man, I'm sorry. I just thought—"

"Thought? Thought what?" Mal took an aggressive step forward, and Blair held up his hands in surrender.

"I thought you and Jayne were a couple."

"Jayne Cobb?" Mal looked at Blair, wondering how a man who seemed so learned could suddenly turn up so stupid.

"Well, yeah. Totally." Blair gave Mal a look that made it perfectly clear that Blair thought he was being logical and the rest of the world had just slipped a gear.

Mal shook his head, not even sure where Blair would have come up with that tzao gao. "I ain't even going to go trying to follow that logic seeing as there's nothing logical in that."

"Are you kidding? I mean, you all talk about Jayne like he's a merc."

"Because he is," Mal said dryly.

"Man, you must pay him a shitload of money. I mean, he's going up against Reavers and the Alliance and the Operative. I so do not even want to think what that must cost." The grimace Blair made was almost comical.

"I..." Mal stopped, not sure what he was supposed to say. This conversation weren't what he'd been expecting.

"Sorry about the confusion." Blair reached over and slapped Mal's arms like they were old buddies. "It was just the way he looks at you—the way he listens to what you say, it's not what I normally expect from a merc, you know? Anyway, I guess we can talk about my ship duties later. You're looking a little pale. You should eat more." Blair patted his arm once more and then turned to head back the way he came.

Mal watched Blair walk away, an odd bounce in his step that weren't natural for a man being hunted by the Alliance. Then again, there weren't much normal about Dr. Blair Sandburg. He sure as hell didn't know much about men if he thought Jayne Cobb had his cap set for another man. Jayne were the very definition of heterosexual, even if he more than likely didn't know that particular word. If Wash were alive, Mal would go and have a good laugh with him at the idea. But Wash wasn't, and the preacher wasn't, and now they had more trouble coming down on their heads.

Feeling bone-deep weary, Mal headed up to the bridge looking for Zoe. She was about the only one he trusted to keep a calm head. Kaylee always looked for the best in people, Simon couldn't see past his core upbringing and his distaste for anyone who looked scruffy, and River... well she wasn't exactly much help in this kind of situation. But Zoe had always come through for him. Always. If he was feeling off-balance, it was Zoe's company he craved.

He walked in as quiet as he could, but the second he cleared the door, she greeted him.

"Sir," she offered.

"Zoe. We still on course?"

"Yep. Don't really know what course we're on, but she's flying straight."

"Good." Mal sat co-pilot and stared into the black. For long minutes, the room was silent. Zoe sent him several curious looks, but they'd been together for so long, working side by side in ditches and trenches and ships, that she knew that sometimes he just needed time to get a reasonable thought together.

"Is Jayne lusting after me?" Mal eventually blurted. He didn't care how much time he took, that thought weren't never going to sound reasonable.

"Is... Jayne?" Zoe turned all the way around to look at him.

"No, nevermind. I'm losing my mind for ever listening to that gou shi." Mal interrupted as he started getting up.

"Yes, sir. He is," Zoe added before Mal could stand all the way up. That knocked him back down into his seat.

"Cao. Really?"

Zoe sighed and looked at him. "I wasn't sure at first. I knew he respected you after Canton and all that talk of hero-worship." She made a face, and Mal's expression matched hers. The idea of people worshipping Jayne as a folk hero had been mighty disturbing.

"But lusting?"

"I didn't start suspecting that until he wanted to go back in for you after Niska took you. It wasn't a very Jayne thing for him to do. But then when we were helping that whorehouse and Jayne tried to take every woman in the place twice, I figured he was trying hard to forget something else. It seemed likely that he was ignoring feelings for you."

"Cao."

"Yes sir. If Jayne were to take a liking to me, I'm afraid I'd have to castrate him. On the good side, the chances are that he won't ever get out of line. He hasn't yet. Clearly, he's ready to just let that dog lie quietly ignored in the corner." With that, Zoe seemed to dismiss the matter. Swinging the pilot chair around, she turned back to the instruments. Mal opened his mouth, but honestly, there weren't much to say in the face of that sort of information. He was feeling a whole lot like he'd just stepped on a grizwald, and it was about to explode and rip him to shreds. Cao and cao again.

"I'm heading to my bunk."

"Yes, sir." Zoe didn't make any other comment, but she shot him another look, one that Mal couldn't quite understand, even if they had been together for the best part of twenty years. He didn't have the energy to worry about what she was thinking, though. He was suddenly too worried about what kind of gou shi Jayne were thinking up. In the name of all the gorram gods in the gorram universe, Mal could not figure why Jayne would go lusting after him. Jayne were not exactly the sort Mal would think of as sly. Not even close.

Then again, unless Jayne were lying, Captain Jimmy was the sly one in his relationship with Blair, and Mal didn't expect that. No, he figured someone like Captain Jimmy would want to be in control.

"Cap," a voice interrupted him. Mal looked up to see Jayne standing in the corridor outside crew quarters, watching him, his arms crossed as he leaned against the bulkhead.

"Ain't you supposed to be watching Womak?"

"Watch him do what?" Jayne straightened up, but the look on his face was pure and simple confusion.

Mal could feel the hot flash of anger. He didn't want things to change, and here Jayne was changing things. "If I knew, I would have told you," he snapped. "I don't want Womak running around my ship to do whatever he wants."

"So, you want I should follow him around?" Jayne was still looking confused.

"Yes. You're security, go secure something," Mal snapped. He stormed past Jayne waiting for the explosion. He was being unreasonable. One man couldn't watch two—not even Jayne who was rather talented at intimidating prisoners. One man sure as hell couldn't guard both Captain Womak who had a reputation as a down and dirty fighter and Dr. Sandburg who could clearly twist a man's mind near to inside out. And one man could never do all that without some rest, and Jayne hadn't seen his bunk since those two had come out of confinement almost a full day's cycle earlier. Cao. They all needed some sleep. Yeah, Jayne had good cause to explode.

The explosion never came. Mal got to the hatch to his quarters and unlocked it, turning to climb down the ladder. This was Jayne's last chance to say that Mal was being a bastard, that he was being totally unreasonable and asking crew to take on a job impossible enough to be downright dangerous if the prisoners decided to fight back. This was Jayne's last chance to prove that he was still looking out for himself and that he wasn't moon-eyed and following Mal's orders, even if they were totally wrong.

"Night, Mal," Jayne said stiffly as he walked down the corridor toward the quarters where Womak and Blair were billeted.

Cao.

Mal slammed the hatch and dropped down into his own room. Of all the gorram messes, he'd landed in, this were about the worst. He wasn't sly, and he didn't want some man mounting him, but he couldn't afford to lose crew. He couldn't afford to lose Jayne who was, without doubt, the sharpest shooter on Serenity.

Him and Jayne. That were just laughable. Mal yanked at his boots, throwing one when it didn't come off fast enough to please him. He'd been real up front about not being sly. He'd said that when they were visiting that whore house and seen those pretty sly boys. Part of him even felt betrayed because Jayne had done everything short of declaring that he wasn't sly. He'd slept with every woman he could get his big hands around.

Mal thought of those big hands touching him, and that was not desire creeping up on him. Not at all. He sure as hell didn't want to lay down for Jayne Cobb. He pictured Jayne's large and work-worn hands resting against his own bare hips, and he fed the tiny seed of fear and horror that appeared. He wasn't sly. He didn't want a man to touch him with rough and demanding hands. That were just about his worst nightmare, and as much as he respected them that were sly, he wasn't changing his opinion. Closing his eyes, he sat on the edge of his bunk and tried to imagine Jayne here.

No, that was not good. Jayne's hands resting on Mal's hips, strong thumbs pressing into the edge of Mal's hipbone. A new image flashed through Mal's mind. He remembered the desperate look as Jayne stared at him through the tiny window in the airlock. Jayne had been begging him, and his dark eyes had followed Mal's every move. Jayne had never complained about Mal hitting him or about the fact that Mal had been mighty close to killing him. No, Jayne had accepted Mal's judgment as final, and he had just begged for some small comfort.

Now the large hands Mal had imagined were joined by that dark, begging gaze—Jayne looking up at him. Jayne kneeling between his legs and watching him, silently begging for permission. Jayne accepting whatever decision Mal made, welcoming any order. Jayne's mouth slightly open, his tongue coming out to just touch his lower lip as he stared at Mal's cock with longing.

Mal gasped. Well damn. Maybe he were just a little bit sly.

Chapter 11

Jim shifted, Blair’s weight hot against his back. It took him a few seconds to realize why his senses had pulled at him until he woke up. “Blair?” he asked, shaking Blair by the arm. Blair made a muffled grunt and tried to roll over, and only Jim’s quick grab kept him from ending up on the floor.

“Wha?” Blair blinked and threw his arm out, nearly hitting Jim. The bunk definitely wasn’t large enough. “What’s wrong?” he asked, much of the sleep vanishing. Jim could hear his heart start to pound faster.

“Why is Jayne sleeping in the corridor?” Jim asked. Considering how regular and deep Jayne's breathing was, he'd had time to fall asleep for fair, so he must have spent at least a fair amount of the night out there.

Blair blinked. “He’s what?”

At one point, Jim might have believed Blair, but he knew that his partner could be more devious than a Browncoat spy, and Blair had been poking at Jayne just last night, so he suspected Blair had said some sort of gou shi that had made the merc choose to sleep in a hall. “What did you say to him?”

“Me?” Blair asked with exaggerated innocence that just made Jim even more sure that Blair had been up to his mother’s tricks. Jim hadn’t ever met Naomi, the companion who had chosen to leave the guild and meddle in the lives of men and women in Browncoat territory. However, from the stories Blair had told, the woman could manipulate better than Blair. So, if Jayne had slept on the floor, Jim would put money on the fact that Blair had something to do with it. Blair, though, pushed himself upright and shook his head. “Man, I didn’t say anything that would make him sleep on the floor.”

“What did you say?”

“To him? Nothing.”

“And to Mal?” Jim asked.

Blair didn’t answer, but he did get up and go for the ladder that led up out of their quarters and into the corridors of the ship. Even though Jim expected the door to be locked, Blair pushed it open easily. “Nothing that would lead to Jayne sleeping the hall,” Blair whispered in a tone of voice that implied he thought Jayne should be sleeping somewhere else. Jim closed his eyes and counted to five. Great. Blair had tried to get Jayne into Mal’s bed, with the only problem being that Mal wasn’t sly. Considering that Blair claimed his mother had been some great goddess of matchmaking, her son could get things spectacularly wrong sometimes. Cao. Jim wasn’t even sure Jayne realized he had himself a good case of lust going for Mal. He didn’t seem the most self-enlightened sort.

“Jayne?” Blair asked, and Jim got out of bed and followed his idiot partner. A thump and cry made Jim rush the ladder and practically throw himself up into the ship proper. Blair was on the ground looking dazed and Jayne sat with his back braced against the bulkhead, his head swiveling around like he couldn’t figure out what he was seeing?

“Blair?” Jim asked, ready to hit Jayne just as soon as he had some evidence that Jayne had touched his partner. Jayne must have taken offense at the tone because he frowned and pushed himself up, one hand coming to rest on his gun.

“Whoa, hey, no problem,” Blair rushed to offer, his hand held out toward them in a placating gesture, “You would think after living with Jim I’d figure out that you soldier-types don’t always wake up nice and easy.”

“I ain’t no soldier,” Jayne snapped as he rubbed his left hand over his face, his right still resting on his gun. Jim’s palms itched to get his hand on a good gun of his own. None of these folks were particularly mentally stable, and being unarmed around them was giving him a rash.

“No way, you’re more of a samurai sort than a soldier,” Blair said as he climbed back up to his feet, rubbing his arm. Jim scowled at Jayne as he moved closer to his partner.

“If’n that’s an insult, it ain’t a good one. It’s not like I even know that those hwun dan are.”

“Who? Samurai?” Blair’s face broke into a delighted grin. “They’re awesome. They were incredible fighters. Okay, they’re a little scary in the fact that they were this entire warrior class dedicated to serving their feudal lords and their feudal lords sometimes were on the unethical, homicidal side,” Blair made a face. “But the samurais themselves stand for everything scary and strong and seriously dedicated to being the best.”

Jayne grunted. Rather than let Blair keep going with his impromptu history lesson, Jim interrupted with the bit that actually did matter. “Why are you sleeping out here?” Jim asked.

The question made Jayne shift nervously, and Jim could feel his own stress rise with Jayne’s. Something had the merc off-balance, and the idea of a well-armed and nervous Jayne was enough to make any man a bit uncomfortable. “Captain said to keep an eye on you,” Jayne finally said.

Jim exchanged a confused look with Blair. It didn’t make any kind of sense for a captain to put someone on guard alone, especially when that guard was already running without sleep. Blair seemed to understand that, too, because he looked as confused as Jim.

“What exactly are you watching for?” Jim asked curiously. He’d been pretty sure that Mal had given up any hope of killing him, and the captain had been downright friendly with Blair. Then again, that was before Blair had cornered him for a conversation. Blair might be able to talk a settler out of a horse, but that didn’t mean the settler would necessarily like Blair after. Oh, by the time Blair stopped talking, the settler would insist on giving that horse away and maintain that there wasn’t any other choice—Blair could convince a man to the point that no talking could unconvinced him. However, there were plenty of men who did take a disliking to anyone so capable of making them change their minds on a regular basis.

“Ain’t exactly sure on that point,” Jayne admitted. He also looked a bit on the chagrined side, so Jim figured he wasn’t feeling proud about falling asleep on the job. As far as Jim was concerned, that was Mal’s fault for putting Jayne on guard duty in the first place.

“You see?” Blair demanded. “That is why I say you are a modern samurai. They were famous for following orders, even when they didn’t understand them. They followed their lords anywhere, even if they led through Reaver space—not that Earth-that-was had Reavers,” Blair added quickly. “History says they would even kill themselves if ordered—or if they disappointed their lord.”

“I ain’t about to go ending myself. Not for Mal, not for anyone,” Jayne growled, and from his reaction, he was downright offended at the suggestion. However Blair ignored the emotion and kept right on smiling and nodding as if Jayne were agreeing with him. Some days Jim suspected that his partner was a little touched in the head.

“I hear you. I am right there with you… totally. Only I sided against the Operative, and you sided against the Operative and the entire Reaver fleet,” Blair made this strange face like he’d just seen something so shocking he couldn’t help but look horrified at the sight. “So man, I do not think either one of us has any room to get offended if someone calls us suicidal.”

Jim’s guts tangled into one giant knot. Blair’s words were true enough, but he didn’t like hearing it put that bluntly.

“But man, I think you win on the loyalty front,” Blair said with a sort of feigned sorrow that Jim could see right through. Jayne seemed confused enough for three men, though. “I mean, Jim tells me to do something, and there’s this little part of me that can’t keep but try to figure out a better way or argue or just go behind his back and ruin his plan because I don’t like it. I’ve done that.”

Jim snorted. Blair had done that more than once. Most of the time, he did it when Jim tried diverting some government attention to himself, away from Blair. Looking over, Blair gave him a fond look before turning back to Jayne.

“But you’re loyal enough for about ten men, so you totally win the title of samurai,” Blair said. “We should get dressed.” Blair turned his back on a very shocked looking Jayne and headed for the entrance back to their small room. Blair’s shoes and shirt were still down there along with Jim’s. Jim watched as Blair headed down, waiting until Blair cleared the ladder before following. Jim wasn’t even two rungs down when Jayne spoke up.

“He ain’t exactly the brightest, is he?” Jayne asked with a disgusted tone that made it clear what he thought of Blair’s opinion.

Jim’s first reaction was to verbally strike out at the man for disrespecting Blair, but the longer he was around Jayne, the more he figured the man offended out of ignorance more than any honest malice. Jim considered his answer a mite bit more carefully. “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met, and I’ve known some good men. Captain Taggart was a Browncoat, but he was brilliant, and Captain Banks knew more strategy than the Alliance has ever managed to write down in a book. Blair makes both of them look like unschooled half-wits.” Jim wasn’t normally that blunt, but subtly didn’t really work with Jayne. Even now, Jayne looked confused.

“But he called me loyal.”

Jim took a deep breath as he realized why Jayne was so disturbed. Blair’s worst habit was making a man reevaluate himself. It could be downright painful at times, and Jayne was suffering. However, Jim had to agree with Blair’s assessment. Jayne was loyal.

“I suppose that any man that would follow a captain through Reaver space, cover his back when the pay was bad and the danger was worse—that’s a man I’d call loyal,” Jim said. Then, before Jayne could get his mouth closed and gather the wits to say something stupid, Jim climbed down the ladder, closing the hatch to the quarters. At the bottom of the stairs, Blair looked up at him with a wide smile.

“Step one—success,” he said with a little bounce.

“One of these days, Chief, someone is going to shoot you for going meddling in their business.”

“Hey, people love me.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jim said as he climbed the rest of the way down. Blair’s smile got wider.

“They adore me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“They worship at my feet.”

Jim gave Blair a look, and Blair’s smile got wide enough to stretch from cheek to cheek. “This could backfire spectacularly,” Jim warned.

“Totally,” Blair agreed, “but if it goes well, man, that will be two heads removed from two asses. Sometimes you have to give the universe a little help, you know?”

Jim sighed. He’d disagree, but the fact was that Blair’s meddling had gotten Jim out of the Alliance labs. Given that history, maybe meddling wasn’t all bad. Jim glanced up at the top of the ladder as he pulled on his shoes. He just couldn’t help but feel a little bad for Mal and Jayne because having Blair decide that your life needed up-ending… it wasn’t easy. When Blair took a step toward him, Jim reached out and caught his partner’s arm and pulled him close enough to wrap him in a tight hug. “I hope it does work out, and if it doesn’t and they decide to throw you out an airlock, I’ll be right there with you, partner,” Jim promised. His love and his own loyalty were all Jim had to offer anymore. Blair turned and wrapped his own arms around Jim’s waist, and for a time, they stood there, leaning against each other as they stole a few minutes to find strength in each other’s love.

“Okay, enough of the mush. We have River’s big mystery to figure out and the Operative to stop and all this gou shi with Blue Sun. Man, we have work to do.” Blair pushed away, and Jim let him.

“Mush?” Jim asked in his best offended tone. Blair gave him a quick grin, so he hadn’t been fooled. “I think Jayne is rubbing off on you. One comment about my womanly ways, and you will pay,” Jim warned. “I will show you womanly and mushy.”

“Is that a promise?” Blair asked with a quick hip wiggle to make it clear that he wouldn’t mind that lesson at all.

“Just get moving, fengzi.”

“Fengzi? Me? We’re on this ship, and you’re calling me crazy?” Blair demanded.

“I think you fit in with all the other fengzi around here,” Jim said. It was true, and it hurt his heart to even think it, but Blair did fit here. He was with people he understood, who had been on the same side in the war, who he enjoyed manipulating. He had the same bed every night, and they’d gone two days without having to run from the Alliance. Jim’s gut told him that Blair belonged here, and if his heart was breaking… well, Jim was soldier enough to know that sometimes war required sacrifice.

Jim finished putting on his shirt and headed for the ladder again. “Coming?” he asked. He looked over, and all the joy had drained out of Blair. Blair stood looking at him with wide, tragic eyes that made the guilt claw at Jim’s soul. Blair quickly lowered his gaze as he nodded.

Jim wanted to say something comforting; he wanted to lie and say they’d be together forever. Instead he headed up the ladder so they could try and figure out the problems they had some chance of solving.

Chapter 12

Blair followed Jim up to the crew mess hall, watching Jayne the whole way. The man was confused as hell, but he didn’t look alarmed and he wasn’t having a heterosexual panic, so clearly Mal hadn’t talked to him yet. That man was stubborn as hell if he couldn’t see the truth two inches in front of his own nose.

“We at Beaumonde yet?” Jim asked, always focusing on the practical.

“How the hell would I know? I was sleeping in the gorram corridor.” Jayne walked a little faster so he got ahead of them. From the look Jim was giving Blair, he definitely didn’t approve of Blair’s meddling, but then if Jim had his own way, everyone in the whole universe would live in their own little bubble and not bother anyone else. Of course, given his history of torture at the hands of the Institute, that wasn’t exactly surprising. So Blair acknowledged Jim’s reluctance to get involved in other people’s issues and then ignored it. With a smile, Blair walked a little faster, intending to get ahead of Jim; however, Jim’s long legs allowed him to keep stride without even trying.

Mal and Zoe were already in the mess hall, sitting at one end of the table with their heads close together, but Blair didn’t miss the way Mal’s eyes followed Jayne. Blair’s words hadn’t fallen on fallow ground, then. He just had to be patient and let that flower bloom. Jayne, however, was watching Mal with a sort of wary confusion that wasn’t healthy at all.

Ignoring all the shared looks, Jim sat on the far end of the table from Mal. “We at Beaumonde?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“We know what we’re doing here?”

“Not a clue,” Mal admitted with a sour expression.

“We could try to offload the series seven-C circuits from the Waters job, sir,” Zoe offered.

“Whoa… you have series seven-C circuits? Those are like… ancient,” Blair said dramatically as he dropped down in a seat halfway between the two ends of the table. He was loyal to Jim always, but he didn’t need to encourage the stand-offish competition Jim and Mal had going by sitting with Jim and creating a balanced two against two dynamic.

“Told you I should space ‘em,” Jayne said from the galley, and he had his head in the cupboards, so he missed the nasty look Mal shot his way. There was a story behind that, but Blair needed Mal to use a little kindness for a bit, so Blair jumped in before Mal could go insulting Jayne.

“But we could turn that into an advantage,” Blair said. “I mean, how many different computers use that chip? If you don’t have replacement parts, then you have to upgrade, and you know that not everyone can afford that. I need to do some research, but if you found me a real smart trader, someone patient with a little creativity, I could probably get them sold for a reasonable price,” Blair offered. “Where would I find the really top traders?”

“Blue Anchor,” Jayne offered even though Mal was still frowning like he didn’t understand the conversation.

“We’re not going there,” Jim said firmly.

“You aren’t, no way. You were a cop around here. They take one look at you, and they’re going to assume I’m trying to sell them stolen equipment.” Blair paused. “Actually, I probably am, but man, I am not trying to bust anyone. So you can wait here, and I’ll take the shuttle over there.”

“You’re not going alone.” Jim almost growled the words, but Blair could hear the fear behind them.

“I’ll be fine. I paid my way through school with shady backroom trades and poker games,” Blair pointed out.

“Not alone,” Jim insisted again.

“As much as it pains me to agree with Womak, I agree. You’re not going out there alone.”

“Ellison,” Blair said.

Mal got a confused look on his face.

“Ellison. James Ellison, remember?” Blair said, reminding him of their conversation from last night. “And you two are too much. I am not a child, and I am very well aware that there are people after us. I also know how to take care of myself,” Blair pointed out. Unless one of them had a specific threat they could point out, this was being too paranoid. They weren’t anywhere near where the Operative had picked them up before, and with River picking the destination, no one could profile them well enough to predict they’d come to Beaumonde.

“It ain’t about your self-preservation,” Mal insisted. “Jayne’s about the most self-preserved man I ever have known, and I wouldn’t want him going out there alone, either.”

“I hear you,” Blair promised, and he could see Jim roll his eyes. Then again, Jim knew what that phrase actually meant. “I mean, if Jayne or I go out there, you’re obligating yourselves to come after us, no matter how bad things get. Or at least Jim is obligated to come after me, and you’d go after Jayne no matter how much trouble he got himself in,” Blair said with a nod toward Jayne. Jayne had a spoonful of something half way to his mouth, and he froze, his eyes going to Mal as though expecting an objection. Mal didn’t offer any, and Blair could see Jayne’s shock as if he hadn’t known that on his own. The people on this ship were just all kinds of messed up. “But I promise that I know how to run. Man, when you’re as short as I am, and you basically grow up in the middle of a warzone, you learn to run gorram fast,” Blair finished.

Mal was still shaking his head.

“Blair,” Jim said, his voice carefully measured, “it’s a good plan, and on another planet at another time, you can impress Mal by selling his gou shi, but not now and not this planet.”

“But—”

“No.” Mal said. “And I ain’t debating on that. You keep arguing, and I’ll tell Jayne to sit on you until we’re in the black again.”

Blair sighed and leaned back as he studied the captain. The man had stubborn down to an art. “I still think you’re wrong,” Blair pointed out.

“Which is his way of agreeing to follow orders,” Jim said. Getting up, he came over to Blair’s side and rested a hand on Blair’s shoulder. “I know you’ll sell those chips, but tactically, we can’t afford to split up right now. It will slow us down too much if we have to move,” Jim explained.

“Man, I already agreed. I get it. I get it.” Blair was a poor loser, and he knew it, but he also knew when he was beat. Jim sat in the chair next to him, studying Blair’s face, and Blair tried very hard to control his urge to smile. He’d won one battle getting Jim to choose to sit closer to Mal. It was a start. Jim’s eyebrows lowered in confusion, and Blair turned to minimize how much of his face Jim could see. The downside of loving a Sentinel was that they were damn near mind readers once they knew a person well enough to interpret all the microexpressions that crossed the human face in any given second.

“Has River said anything else?” Blair asked Mal. Zoe was silent, but she watched with the sort of sharp curiosity that Blair normally associated with companions and psychologists.

“Not a word,” Mal said. He leaned back. “I ain’t even sure if this is her final destination or a refueling stop. We’re at the Alemain Docks, which are about in the middle of nowhere.”

“Less chance of being seen out here, sir,” Zoe pointed out. “Mostly this is commercial trade and no chance for passengers or private transactions, so it’s not a place anyone will look for us.”

“How conspicuous are we?” Jim asked, his back going straight.

“Plenty,” Mal said wearily. “I have Kaylee putting out calls for whatever mechanical bits and bobs that might make it look like we landed hard and picked this place because we couldn’t get the ship to the main docs.”

Jim’s jaw was tight, but he gave a nod. So, he didn’t like their position, but he respected Mal’s attempt to give them a good story for being here. Despite their problems, Blair figured these two old war horses had a lot in common. Like right now, both men had similar expressions of dismay at not knowing what they were supposed to be doing.

“Mal!” Kaylee yelled as he she came running into the room. Mal and Zoe were both on their feet, their hands on their weapons in a heartbeat. Jayne had taken it one step farther by drawing his gun and taking shelter behind a kitchen cupboard. Jim grabbed Blair and drove for the far wall, his back to the door. Kaylee stopped and looked around with wide eyes, clearly shocked at the reactions. “It ain’t nothing bad,” she said slowly as she took in everyone’s position. Slowly Jim stood up and Blair leaned against the wall, his heart racing as everyone put weapons away.

“Kaylee, it might be that nerves are wound a little tight,” Mal explained. “Shouting should be saved for life-endangering sorts of situations for right now, okay?”

Kaylee nodded. “Sorry,” she offered quietly, “but I was excited. Guess who's here on Beaumonde.”

Mal settled back into his chair. “I can't say I'm in a mood for guessing.”

With a little smile, Kaylee said, “The captain’s being no fun today.” Her teasing managed to ease the frown on Mal’s face.

“Yep. I reckon that's me. Captain No Fun,” Mal agreed. “So why don’t you tell me who it is that has you all a twitter?”

“Inara!” Kaylee sang out the name. For a second, Blair couldn’t place it, but then he remembered Jayne’s very unenlightened description of the companion who travelled with them.

“Is she whoring around here?” Jayne asked as he shoved his gun back into its holster and went back to eating.

“I ain’t having this conversation with you again, Jayne,” Mal warned. Jim’s hand found Blair’s waist, giving him a nudge toward the table, so Blair headed back to his chair, pleased when Jim followed him rather than stake out his position at the opposite end from Mal.

“It ain't like you don't call her a whore,” Jayne said in his own defense. Blair looked at Mal. If Jayne was saying it, it was only because Jayne couldn’t see the value of companion training. Mal didn’t have that ignorance going for him.

Mal gave Jayne a real cold look. “But when I go sayin’ it, I know it ain't true.”

“Man, I think that actually makes it worse,” Blair muttered, but he did so loud enough for everyone to hear. Zoe hid her mouth behind her hand, and Blair was almost sure she was smiling.

“You have something to add?” Mal asked in a tone that warned Blair that he’d better not have anything to add. Jim’s fingers reached for Blair’s knee, tightening in warning.

“I only meant that if Jayne believes that she's a whore, he's not meaning to insult her by calling her one. If you’re saying it when you know it’s not true, that’s a good site worse,” Blair pointed out with a sweet smile. Now the corners of Zoe’s eyes had those little wrinkles that meant she was definitely smiling.

“Given your mother's background, I expect to be the last one to have any sympathy for Jayne.”

“Hey, my mother was a companion, and she did some whoring when I was about five, but mostly she wasn’t either when I was growing up. However, if you ask her, she won’t be one bit ashamed of either career choice. However, calling a companion a whore is pretty gorram low when you know there’s a difference.”

Mal and Blair glared at each other, but it was Jayne who spoke up. “I still ain't heard any explanation for how a companion is different from a whore. They both get paid for having sex.”

“Hey!” Kaylee shouted loud enough to make everyone look at her. She had both her hands on her hips as she glared at all of them. “Inara's, here now, and I don't want any of you insulting her. We're family and if you go drivin’ her off with all this talk, I ain't going to be responsible for what I do you.” She pinned each of them with a glare. Jayne gave a rather dismissive snort, but Blair noticed that the rest of them looked suitably threatening. As engineer, Kaylee could muck with everything from the lights in a person’s quarters to whether the hot water worked when you went for showers. She wasn’t someone he wanted to rile… not that he was doing any of the insulting. That was Mal and Jayne. However, Blair figured that if Inara was a companion, she’d give Jayne some leeway just because he was ignorant. Companion training included enough psychology that she should recognize honest stupidity.

“Let me guess,” a new voice said, “Jayne and Mal are discussing my career choices again.” A woman stood in the door, her dark hair curled so that not a single strand was out of place and her clothing didn’t have a spot of dirt or a stitch out of place. She wore a dress with red and gold layers and her jewelry had to be worth at least as much as most farmers earned in a decade. This was not just a companion, but someone high in the hierarchy.

“Inara!” Kaylee threw herself forward and hugged the woman with abandon. Inara smiled and hugged her back, the affection unmistakable. Blair was actually a little surprised. One of the main reasons why Naomi had chosen to leave the guild was because they had a strict policy of companions maintaining emotional distance from all others. They believed that only the detached observer could see clearly enough to help others overcome their spiritual conflicts. Naomi had decided that the opposite was true—that only the person who loved and was loved unconditionally could find the key that allowed them to open others’ hearts. So she had gone from living by the mantra that one had to detach to living by the mantra that one had to love, even if circumstances forced one to detach. This Inara clearly hadn’t detached from the crew, not successfully.

“I've missed you,” Inara said warmly. “Kaylee have you been keeping our boys in line?”

“I've been doing my best, but you know them.” Kaylee kept one arm around Inara’s waist while she turned to smile at Mal and the others.

“I do know them. And I know that if they're here they're up to some trouble.”

“Don't know why you'd be saying that,” Mel said in an offended tone of voice.

“Oh I can't imagine,” Inara said with sarcasm that she didn't even attempt to hide. “Is this something that's going to leave me looking for a new home base?”

“It's not like what we do affects you anymore,” Mel snapped, and in that moment Blair saw the resentment and the longing and the need. Well shit, the two of them had been in love. Or maybe they’d had a case of unrequited lust, but there were layers of hurt going here.

Blair studied Inara wondering whether she knew that Mal was still hurting for her. Companions had a lot of psychology training. One of the reasons he'd gotten through his psych degrees so quickly was because Naomi had taught him from the time that he was big enough to understand the words. So he had trouble believing that anyone who’d completed companion training could miss the signs of unrequited love. But on the other hand, some mighty smart people had trouble seeing what was right before their faces, especially when it involved themselves. Blair watched them, Jim’s fingers tightening against his knee again. Reaching under the table, Blair patted Jim’s arm, silently reassuring him that Blair didn’t intend to do anything. Before Blair thought he’d had a simple job of making Jayne and Mal see each other, but it might be that Jim was right about this backfiring.

“For once again our fault trouble found us,” Kaylee said brightly, defending the captain.

Inara's eyes went immediately to Jim and Blair. When he came to fighting, Jim was in charge. Blair had no trouble with that, but dealing with a companion with his business. Blair stood up and stepped around the table to greet Inara. Jim followed, but he stayed one step behind Blair.

“Blair Sandburg,” he said offering his real name and his hand as he held out his hand as if to shake. She gave him a small smile of greeting that didn’t reach her eyes and went to take his offered hand, but at the last minute Blair took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it in his best gentlemanly manners. Off to the side Mel snorted.

“Mr. Sandburg, very nice to meet you.” The cultured tones of good training took over.

“Ms. Inara, may present James Ellison,” Blair said with a small gesture toward Jim. With a stiff but formal bow, Jim greeted her and then stepped forward to take her hand and kiss it. Blair didn’t miss the look of hate from Mal.

“Mr. Ellison,” she said in the same cultured tones. “Would you happen to be related to William Ellison?” Blair wondered if she could read Jim’s flinch was well as Blair could. Of course she would know all of the big political players and businessman.

“I am,” Jim said without offering his exact relationship. Inara took the hint and simply smiled as she dropped the matter. “Mal, the quality of your passengers seems to improved somewhat.”

“I wouldn't be saying that,” Mal said with more than a little disgust. Inara chose to ignore the insult. Blair was almost certain that she was intentionally choosing to not address the matter, which was odd if she’d traveled with the ship. Surely she hadn’t allowed him to insult the clients who had come onboard.

“Hopefully you two gentlemen are not the source of whatever trouble brings Mal and Serenity to these parts.”

River walked into the room, and she stood to the side watching with her head tilted as though confused by the interactions. Then again, Blair figured anyone who didn't have companion training or an advanced psychology degree would be confused by this crew. Jayne finished his food and put the dish in the cycler without even twitching at the Mal-Inara interactions, despite the fact that Blair was certain that he had a very strong interest in Mal. However, Blair didn’t have enough information about the interpersonal relationships to push that button—not now.

“I suppose a manner, we are,” Blair said. “We certainly seemed to have found some trouble. The crew has been kind nice enough to offer some help getting out of it.” Jim’s eyebrow went up, signaling to both Blair and Inara that he didn’t believe that line of gou shi.

Mal came right out and said, “I can't remember I ever offered.” Making a mental note to make sure that none of these people were anywhere around when he tried to use a few obfuscations, Blair smiled at Inara and willed her to ignore the odd undercurrents of emotion in the room.

“I did,” River offered from her position against the wall.

Inara looked over and smiled River. “How nice to see you again, River. Frankly, I trust your judgment in such matters far more than Mal’s. If you think they need helping, what can I do to help?” The dig at Mal and the quick offer to help when she didn’t know how Blair’s goals aligned with the requirements of the companion guild shocked Blair to his core.

Mal looked furious. Glancing over at Jayne, Blair tried to decide how he was taking this whole subtle conflict. Not only was Jayne not watching, but he didn't seem to have any particular emotion involved. Either he wasn't as in love with Mal Blair had thought, or the man didn't recognize that the tangle of emotions in front of him. Blair guessed it was the second, and considering how bad he had it for Mal, it was probably good that he couldn’t see the truth here. Love triangles were nasty. Blair never wanted to be in the middle of that.

“So what exactly are you targeting?” Inara turned to Mal.

“Don’t look at me. It ain’t like I'm the captain or nothing. From the way people around here don’t tell me what’s going on, you’d think I just hired on as crew.” Mal gave River a nasty glare, but for some reason Inara ignored the clear signal that River was in control.

Maybe she was used to ignoring River the way the rest of the crew was. Blair noticed River look his way and smile as she caught that thought. She knew they didn’t see her, but at least she was amused rather than annoyed by it. For one second, Blair wondered what it would be like to see inside the heads of these folks. Then he looked around the room. Mal looked constipated with fury, Zoe had on a patient look, like a mother trying to get through a difficult play date, Kaylee looked as though she didn’t even notice the conflicts, as did Jayne, although in Jayne’s case, he also looked cranky. Blair didn’t want to be able to see the insides of these folks. The outsides were confused enough for him.

“Well then, perhaps Mr. Ellison knows.” She turned to Jim and gave him a brilliant smile that made Mal bridle with frustration. Clearly, Jim recognized what was going on because he took a step closer to Blair, and draped his arm around Blair shoulders. For a moment, Inara’s eyes went wide, like she was surprised at people being sly. Sometimes men on the frontier took a slanted look at sly, but core bred companions sure shouldn’t bat an eye. After that blink of shock, she inclined her head and gave a small nod of acknowledgment. Jim was sly and taken, and she wouldn't interfere with that.

“As far as I know, River picked this destination on her own,” Jim offered only after Inara had signaled her understanding that he would not react to her.

“Oh?” Innara turned to look at River

“The eyes are yellow and teal and vermillion,” River said seriously, “ghosts floating through walls to touch the sky.”

Blair considered that for a moment. “Do the eyes see the colors or do they create it?” Blair asked. He didn’t miss the surprise on Inara’s face. She didn’t have the same expectations as crew so either she’d been off for a long time or she’d never truly integrated to the point that she accepted and expected the same things from River.

River walked to him and slid her arm around Blair's waist. On Blair's other side, Jim stiffened. The warrior in Jim was never comfortable around those strong enough to physically beat him, and River could. However, all she did was lay her head on Blair’s shoulder. “Ruts rise up in rain, the eyes watch but they watch rain, colors rising up through the dust. Ghost. Everywhere ghosts,” she warned. Blair frowned as he thought back to everything she said. If Blue Sun was the watching eye, River was suggesting that they were also doing things or at least present for things that caused fear.

“Could someone explain what’s going on?” Inara asked as she studied River.

“Well, we’re a mite bit short on explanations.” Kaylee made a face like she was ashamed of that fact. “Truth is, we don’t rightly know what we’re even doing on Beaumonde.”

“Invading the eyes and poking the ghosts,” River said.

“Well, that’s better than poking someone in the eye and invading a ghost,” Blair joked. River turned her head to smile at him.

Zoe stood up and held out her hand toward River like a parent offering to lead a child. “Maybe we could get a map of Beaumonde. It seems like River does better when she can point.”

River held Blair’s waist even tighter, shaking her head. “Have to invade 29°58'30.92North 31° 8'15.12East,” she said with as much confidence as Blair had ever heard her use.

“We’re invading something?” Jayne asked, and from the tone of voice, that cheered him up mightily. “What are we invading.”

“What is at those coordinates?” Mal asked.

“On this planet? Not a clue, sir, but I can find out.” Without another word, Zoe headed out of the room.

“Well, it sounds like this mission is off to the same sort of start all your missions use,” Inara said with a vicious smile in Mal’s direction.

“Ain’t like a whore would come up with no better,” Jayne snapped, and Blair leaned back into Jim’s body and watched the interactions. Was Jayne intentionally battling with Inara for Mal’s attention or subconsciously reacting to a threat? And the fact that Mal looked so grouchy, was that because of his relationship with Inara or with Jayne or was he just truly a disagreeable sort. Blair had always prided himself on being able to read people better than most, but suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. One thing he did know, though—no son of Naomi was going to leave this crew with their heads this far up their collective asses.

Chapter 13

Blair looked at the map Zoe and Mal had pulled up on the computer display.

“This is the target?” Jayne sounded disappointed. Then again, Blair figured he’d rather have something a little bigger. Even Jim was looking a little uncertain about attacking a six hundred square foot accounting office, even if it was a Blue Sun office.

“There has to be something more than just an office,” Jim said as he leaned closer. Mal made a mighty unhappy face, but then Blair figured he’d been about to say the same thing, and manly stupidity meant that Mal couldn’t go agreeing.

“Ghosts hidden in the walls,” River said.

Mal sighed. “I’d feel better about this if you went back to talking sane-like. I thought once we got through those Reavers you’d gotten better.”

“New ruts and old ruts,” River said solemnly. She pointed to the office on the map. “Old ruts, old ghosts with little teeth, eating the elephant from inside, whispers of lime green and jade and viridian.”

Blair pulled out his notebook and started taking notes. She’d said little teeth before, but now she associated them with ghosts, and elephants was altogether new. When Blair looked up, River gave him a small smile. Blair could almost feel those little teeth of guilt gnawing on him. River and Jim suffered because of people who found science more interesting that morality, and Blair had followed the Institute down that path for far too long. Now that he was trying to fix his mistakes, he always felt like he was doing too little and he couldn’t figure out things fast enough. Blair was on the verge of sinking under a big wave of remorse when Jim’s arm came around his shoulders and Jim pulled him close. Sagging into Jim’s strength, Blair noticed Jayne’s eyes on them.

“Ain’t so interested in elephants, not unless you think they’re going to have some crazy gou shi like attack elephants,” Mal said as he hit the controls and made the map of the office rotate ninety degrees before appearing in three dimensions.

“Nope,” River offered.

“You know it ain’t going to be as easy as it looks,” Jayne warned.

“I don’t need you to do my figuring for me,” Mal said. Even Zoe gave him an odd look at his sharp tone of voice, but Jayne didn’t look even a little surprised, which didn’t say good things about their relationship. “We need to either get in there quiet-like or we need to figure out the traps so we can set them off before stepping right in the middle of them.”

“It does seem like it, sir,” Zoe said. She moved the controls and made a new angle appear on the screen. From any angle Blair could see, it looked like a boring little office.

Inara gave an exaggerated sigh. “I can’t believe I’m saying this because it’s a violation of my companion oath, but I do know someone who works in that office.”

“Know?” Mal was sounding particularly cranky today.

“He’s a client,” Inara said, her voice tight. The glare was enough to confirm for Blair that there were emotions running far too deep here. This whole ship needed therapy, and that included Inara. That little fact surprised Blair. Most companions had to work through their psychological issues before completing training, but Inara had clearly picked up one or two issues since then.

“What do you know about this client of yours?” Jim asked, his voice all business. Unless Blair missed his guess, Jim was trying to get everyone focused on the job. Heavy emotions, like the ones swirling around this room, tended to put him on edge. Sentinel senses meant he experience emotions far more viscerally, smelling the aggression and distress.

“He’s a manager, a very nice man. He likes to say the night, so when he’s with me, he never stirs out of the house. I’ve seen his keys on the dresser, so I imagine that if you grabbed them, he wouldn’t be in a position to notice until morning.” Inara had retreated to a stiff formality.

“So, we should count on him being too distracted to sound the alarm?” Jim asked.

“If’n she were whoring with me, that would make me all kinds of stupid and distracted,” Jayne offered. Blair watched a dozen microexpressions cross Inara’s face. It certainly was an odd sort of compliment. Mal snorted.

“I can call him. However, if you do anything to comprise my position, I will never answer one of your summons again,” Inara warned, her gaze locked on Mal. For a man who was getting threatened, he looked rather nonplused. He frowned, but then he focused on the map rather than give any answer at all.

Inara sighed before she turned and headed out of the room, her shawl gathered around her like armor as she headed to the shuttle she’d docked with Serenity. Blair had always seen companions as emotional fortresses—and he knew that was a bias formed by his mother and the companion guild’s carefully tended public relations. Companions were people, and people had big old emotional soft spots. Blair had just never seen a companion with such an open wound out where everyone could see. And no one on the ship was even reacting. Blair was almost sure that wasn’t through any sort of callousness as much as ignorance.

“Blair should see Inara’s sparkles,” River said softly.

Jayne snorted. “If she’s done up her new shuttle the way she mucked up ours, sparkles ain’t the word I’d use. The whole shuttle stunk of that gou shi incense she likes and she stuck fabric about every place it’d stay up. Took me a month to clean that gorram shuttle.” Jayne looked like he was honestly put upon, but the others didn’t look too sympathetic

“I wouldn’t mind seeing if she would share some supplies,” Blair said, looking up at Jim. He wouldn’t normally ask for permission to do his psychology, but Jim’s arm still held him tightly.

Looking down at him, Jim sighed loudly. He knew Blair was up to something; however, he loosened his arm. “Don’t cause too much fuss,” he pleaded.

“Who, me?” Blair danced away and gave Jim a bright smile.

“If it were me, that look of his would make me worry,” Mal muttered.

“It does,” Jim agreed, but then Blair was off, hurrying toward the shuttle dock where Inara had brought her shuttle in. He didn’t know if she was planning on leaving or visiting with Kaylee, but he couldn’t afford to miss her. After all, he was the one who put Jayne in Mal’s path, and if he was mucking with Inara’s love life, then he needed to warn her… and tell her that she was tangled up enough to need a companion herself.

He caught her as she climbed the last ladder up to her shuttle. “Inara!” he called. There was a flash of something, but when she looked down to see him, her expression turned into a carefully neutral mask.

“May I help you?” she asked, coming down the two steps she’d climbed. Blair got the feeling he wasn’t getting invited into her new shuttle; the emotional guards were all up.

“I just wanted to say that… um… well…” Blair realized he hadn’t planned out how to say this part. He felt like he was trying to give his mother advice on her love life. Inara wasn’t as old as Naomi, but she was a companion, and even knowing that he was being unreasonably biased, Blair still couldn’t help but think he was overstepping. Trying to open Mal and Jayne’s eyes was more of a public service since they were both growling at the world more than they ought, all out of a frustration that seemed downright silly in Blair’s mind.

Inara gave him a small smile and stepped forward to lightly touch his arm. It was a classic companion move, and Blair could even cite the studies that described the ephemeral alliance-bond created by a simple touch. “If you need to talk to me, you should know that our conversation will remain private, even from Mal,” she vowed.

“Especially from Mal,” Blair blurted out with a snort. Inara pulled her hand back and looked at him with confusion. “I mean… oh man, I am so mangling this.” Blair ran his hand over his face. “My mom… she was a companion.”

“Really?” Inara sounded surprised.

“Yeah, shocking, I know. The guild is a little anti-pregnancy.”

“A little,” Inara agreed. “Your mother must have loved you a lot to disregard her training.”

Blair leaned back against the railing. “She disregarded a lot of her training,” he agreed. “She was sort of a free-thinking sort, a real child of the ‘verse.”

Inara tilted her head in a clear invitation for him to continue.

“I mean, she taught me a whole lot of companion tricks, and I know the guild would give birth to kittens over that.”

Inara laughed. “There are many male companions. True, they work within the core planets more often than out here, but the guild has no policy against male members.”

“Totally. I know that.” Blair nodded. “I was thinking they’d be more upset about her sharing the training. We aren’t just talking first level companion tricks.” Blair thought about that. Having Naomi teach him those sexual techniques would have been more than a little disturbing. He preferred to learn about sex the old-fashioned way—reading dirty stories. Of course, in his case, it had been Naomi’s companion training guides, but that was way better than having Naomi teach him the stuff.

“Blair?” Inara asked. This one had advanced training… Blair guessed she’d been a house trainer, maybe a mistress like Naomi had been.

“She taught me house mistress tricks,” Blair said, and Inara couldn’t hide a flash of shock and possibly even horror. “She was into reading souls and helping them onto their rightful path. That’s the training she gave me.” Blair thought about his work with the Institute. “Not that the training kept me from making some totally disastrous choices, because man, I did that. I didn’t just fall off the path, I jumped off. I found the deepest, murkiest water in the ‘verse and I did a gorram swan dive off the path.” Blair stopped, and Inara’s expression softened.

“Blair, we all make questionable choices; that’s part of being human,” she said in her most soothing voice, and Blair could feel the urge to just tell her the whole story and let her take some of the weight from him, but he’d come out her to help her, not dump his issues onto her lap.

“Like falling in love with Mal?” Blair asked in an equally sympathetic voice. Inara sucked in a fast breath and took a step back, her hand coming up to grab the ladder up to the shuttle. For a time, they looked at each other—two damaged souls who could see the damage within each other. Blair felt that way around Jim, too, like his wounds were exposed. However, Inara didn’t have the advantage of the senses. She had training and experience and a companion’s need to help a soul. At one point Blair thought he’d had that, but he’d sold his soul to the Institute. Earning it back was harder than it looked.

“You are a surprise,” Inara said quietly. “I hadn’t thought I was that obvious.”

“You are,” Blair said. “You and Jayne both.”

Inara laughed, her gaze going up the ceiling. “Yes, there is that. A more ridiculous love triangle, I can’t imagine, which is why I chose to absent myself.”

“So…” Blair studied her. “You don’t mind if Mal is looking to Jayne?”

She laughed again. “Looking to Jayne? Mal? That man wouldn’t notice Jayne following behind if—” She suddenly stopped and stared at Blair, she smile fading. “You told him?”

“I sort of led the horse to water,” Blair admitted. “I didn’t know there was another leg on the triangle.”

“You must have led him to water and then shoved his head under the surface until he near drowned,” Inara muttered, but then that wasn’t far from the truth.

“Have I screwed up?” Blair asked. “I mean, I don’t think Mal has talked to Jayne, and I’m pretty sure Jayne doesn’t know he loves Mal. We could still…” Blair stopped because he wasn’t sure what they could do. Once someone had an epiphany, trying to get them to forget the truth was a mite bit hard. Oh, it could be done, but it took more manipulation than Blair was comfortable with… and the fact was that he was comfortable with a lot of manipulating.

Shaking her head, Inara settled herself on the step. “No, don’t interfere again. In case you haven’t noticed, Mal does not react well to being managed.”

“Oh man, now that is an understatement. I thought he was going to punch me for making him realize that Jayne loved him.”

“I’m honestly surprised he didn’t,” Inara said. “The man is brilliantly un-self-aware.”

“Which is why he’s never noticed that you love him,” Blair guessed.

Inara took some time to rearrange her skirts. “I imagine I could have brought him around to the knowledge in time; however, it’s best that I don’t.” Even though her tone was perfectly controlled, Blair could still feel the pain behind the words.

“Why?” Silence descended on them.

“Mal is fond of his stereotypes.” Inara eventually said with a sigh. “To him, a companion will always be a whore, and no amount of convincing will make him part with that belief. I had to choose between Mal and the career I love.”

Blair thought about his mother and her willingness to walk away from the Companion Guild, and part of him wondered why Inara thought her love for Mal wasn’t worth it. Then again, he didn’t know their pasts. He certainly couldn’t imagine Mal being very respectful of Inara, even if she left the guild. “No way is a companion a whore,” Blair said firmly since it was the only reassurance he had to offer.

His mother certainly had conflicts with the guild, including moral objections to the way money changed hands. Before leaving the guild, she reached the point where she would refuse to accept payment because love and the sort of soul-healing a companion offered should never be negotiated on the basis of pay. However, the man who tried calling her a whore before or after leaving the guild would have found himself castrated in about two seconds. Naomi wasn’t one to stand for that sort of insult, and Inara struck him as a woman cut from much the same cloth.

“No, but I had grown far too willing to allow others to say that in my presence,” Inara said sadly. “I hope you are successful getting Jayne and Mal to recognize their mutual attraction.” She stood up and smoothed out her skirt, picking at a piece of imaginary dirt. “And if they figure out that you are intentionally manipulating their feelings, I will pray for your soul after they both space you,” she finished. “Truly, tread carefully. They are both damaged and short-tempered men.”

“Then the world is safer if they’re with each other, saving the rest of the verse from the chance of having one of them fall for an innocent.”

Reaching out, Inara ran the back of her finger across Blair’s cheek in an intimate gesture. “That is more true than you can know. In love, they are both menaces.”

Blair smiled at her. “Then they’re better off menacing each other. I’m simply glad I haven’t complicated things for you.”

“Not at all. Perhaps if Mal moves on, I can find it easier to convince my own heart to do the same. However, know this: His disrespect for my career, his unwillingness to bend, and his flagrant disregard of anyone else’s opinions means that I retired from the field long ago, even if my heart still struggles to accept that truth. I am not Zoe, and I cannot accept Mal as a commander. So, if he will not allow me to be his equal, I cannot allow myself to love.”

“I’m sorry,” Blair offered.

“You don’t need to be, and Mal will never understand me well enough to understand why I feel an apology is necessary. So, I wish you luck with Mal and Jayne. When I have a time for my client’s visit, I’ll send a message so you can retrieve the keys.” Without a farewell word, Inara turned and headed up the ladder and vanished into her shuttle.

Watching the door lock behind her, Blair felt a flash of homesickness. For him, home had never been a place, it had been Naomi. Later, home became Jim. No matter how many times Blair tried to explain that, he never could get Jim to understand that running with him didn’t bother him. As long as he had Jim, he was happy.

However, right now, he felt a dull ache of longing for Naomi. He wondered if she’d been as sad when she’d been forced to choose between the guild and her beliefs. When he’d left Naomi shortly after the war, he was still young enough that their conversations had a certain shallow quality that kept him from truly understanding her. And unless something changed, he would never get to know her as an adult. Maybe Inara’s melancholy was infectious because Blair suddenly felt unaccountably sad.

Chapter 14

Mal paced his quarters. Three days. Inara was making him wait on purpose. To what end, he couldn’t even hope to guess because that woman’s mind twisted as often as a corkscrew. Every time Mal thought she’d go left, she darted gorram right. At one time, he’d actually given thought to courting the woman, but every time he’d try to go hinting at it, she’d talk up whoring like it was the greatest career in the ‘verse, so he supposed that was her answer. One man wasn’t enough for her.

She wasn’t anything like people like him and Zoe and Jayne. Soldiers thought something and they came right to the matter and said it. Aiya, even Captain Jimmy was easier to go understanding than Inara. And that was saying a good deal because thinking on Captain Jimmy was starting to give Mal a headache. He sure wasn’t the hard-nosed Alliance hero out there singing the praises of the government, that’s for sure. And he wasn’t even holding to the law much anymore. He hadn’t said two words against the idea of breaking into the Blue Sun office.

And he was sly.

That last—that had thrown Mal. Sure, men turned sly, but most of the time, it was because there weren’t women around. In war, that happened a lot. People fell into bed with each other because they were clinging to some slender thread of sanity. He and Zoe had fallen into bed once or twice, but as soon as other partners were available, neither of them had wanted more. Seeing as how she married Wash, Mal figured he wasn’t her type. She wanted a man who’d make her laugh, and that wasn’t one of Mal’s skills. Leastwise, the people who laughed at him generally weren’t doing it because Mal had made a joke.

Then again, he’d always assumed he wasn’t Jayne’s type either, and ever since that hairy little wang da bang had gone saying that gou shi about them being together, Mal couldn’t help but think back on a whole lot of things that hadn’t made one bit of sense at the time. Like Jayne being all forgiving about Mal damn near spacing him. The version of Jayne that Mal had once hired away from another captain, that man would have taken a swing, and then he would have quit. Hell, that man had turned on his last captain over a chance to get his own quarters, yet he’d followed Mal through Reaver space. He’d laid his life on the line to protect crew. It wasn’t making any kind of sense… or it did, but it was the sort of sense that Mal ever expected. And he didn’t like change.

Mal reached over and hit the internal communications. “Jayne?”

“Captain?” Jayne sounded about half-asleep.

“Get your ass to my quarters,” Mal ordered, and then he hit the disconnect before Jayne could go and do something like ask ‘why’. Mal didn’t have a why. He just knew he hated change, and he hated not understanding even more. And lately, there was too much of both on his ship. This was his ship, and he wasn’t standing for it. Or sitting for it.

With a sigh, Mal sat on the edge of his bunk, and the same fantasy that had chased him for the last two nights pressed close. Jayne… on his knees… that big mouth full of something that Mal was pretty sure Jayne would chew off before sucking enthusiastically. This was all Sandburg’s fault. Mal was even having a few odd thoughts of sympathy for Captain Jimmy, being stuck with a little sha gua like that one.

Mal shoved the thought of Jayne and his fantasy to one side so well that when the knock came at the hatch to his quarters, Mal about jumped out of his skin. “Captain?” Jayne yelled when Mal wasn’t quick enough to open the door.

“You don’t have to go yelling,” Mal snapped as he stepped up a couple of rungs on the ladder and threw the lock.

Jayne gave Mal a real suspicious before he followed Mal down into his quarters. For his part, Mal retreated to the far wall as he sorted through more thoughts than he was used to having… at least, he wasn’t used to having this many thoughts about Jayne. It was downright disconcerting to look at a man’s mouth and wonder how much of your cock would fit in it. It was even worse when you couldn’t figure out how he’d react if you tried to put it there.

After the silence had dragged on some time, Jayne started looking around. “What? Is the place bugged or something?”

“Why would my quarters be bugged?” Some days, Mal really couldn’t figure Jayne out. More and more here recently.

“Why would you call me here and then not talk to me?” Jayne countered. That was all Mal could take. No way was he having crew challenge him in his own quarters, making him feel this out of sorts.

“Wuh de tyen, ah,” he cursed, “what in the name of every motherless goat in creation would make you go mooning over me?”

Jayne reared back. “I never said I was.”

“So, are you denying it?”

Jayne’s mouth fell open and for a time, they just stood and stared at each other. It seemed to take him some time to gather a few thoughts together. “I ain’t saying nothing, one way or the other,” he finally insisted.

Sinking down into a chair, Mal tried to figure out when he’d started losing all control. It seemed like he couldn’t even remember back to when he’d had this crew following orders and acting like a crew. “Aiya. When did you turn sly, Jayne Cobb?”

With a really pained expression on his face, Jayne started studying the floor. “I don’t know. It ain’t like I thought on it much.”

“You ain’t thought on it much? Seems like that’s something a man should go thinking about once it crosses his mind.” God knows, it was about all Mal could think about. They were about to go into battle with Blue Sun, and Mal was practically obsessed with Jayne’s mouth.

“I’m more about trying to avoid the gou shi. Ain’t you?”

“Since that little wang ba dan went and told me you were sly for me, I seem to be obsessing on it a bit.” Mal stopped, realizing about five seconds too late that he’d just called himself sly. In all the years he’d wandered the ‘verse, he’d never seen himself as sly, but now, the word slipped right out of his mouth easy. And the way Jayne’s mouth hung open in shock was giving Mal even more sly thoughts. “I can’t really think on much else, and seeing as how we have people trying to kill us, again, that might be a touch dangerous. I can’t think with you looking at me with those eyes of yours,” Mal complained, trying hard to avoid pointing out that it was Jayne’s mouth that was most distracting.

Jayne’s mouth closed so fast his teeth clicked. “You want I shouldn’t look at you?”

Clearly being sly hadn’t improved the IQ. “That wasn’t exactly my point,” Mal said.

“I ain’t catching what your point is, then.”

“Are you thinking on bedding me?”

Jayne took a second to scratch his crotch, and Mal’s gaze slipped down to where Jayne’s cock made a bulge. Was his cock always that large? Maybe Mal was imagining things. Jayne’s scratch turned into a quick readjustment of the junk. “Not exactly,” Jayne said in a hesitant tone.

The idea that Jayne was getting hard gave Mal a pause. His fantasies had a whole lot more to do with Jayne’s mouth than any other part. And the idea of Jayne’s cock anywhere near his ass was unequivocally terrifying. “I can’t say I like the thought of rolling over for a man. You try to roll me over, and you’re going to be lucky if you make it off the ship without having parts detached, and I’ll start with the parts you’re most fond of,” Mal warned.

From the shocked expression on Jayne’s face, that hadn’t been expected. Mal had no idea why he felt so guilty about setting Jayne straight, but he could feel the guilt clinging to him. “Why?” Jayne asked, clearly confused as hell. Of course, it didn’t take much to confuse Jayne. Mal felt another stab of guilt as he thought that. Jayne crossed his arms and glared like he could hear Mal’s less than charitable thoughts. “Womak rolls over, and he’s plenty man enough,” he said in his most mulish tone.

Mal felt a stab of something that wasn’t guilt. “He’s… are you pining over Womak? Because I’ve got to say you’ve done some morally questionable things in your life, but if you even consider laying down for Captain Jimmy, that’s going down as about the singularly most disturbing thing you’ve ever done.”

“I never said I’d be sly for him. He ain’t my type. He’s… he just ain’t,” Jayne finished weakly. “I’m just saying that you’re talking on being sly like it’s something a man shouldn’t be, but Womak’s sly and you’re still hating him just as much, so you ain’t treating him like woman.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means you get stupid around womenfolk. But Womak being the sly one doesn’t make you start thinking with your pecker like when you’re around a woman.” Jayne added an emphatic nod with that last bit.

“You’re the one who keeps getting that part confused. Just because a man’s sly doesn’t mean he can’t be a powerful annoyance or downright bastard. Womak’s just lucky enough to be both.”

With a smug expression, Jayne nodded. “Exactly. Seems like most people think that being sly makes a man less of a bastard.”

Mal stood up and struggled to find something to look at other than Jayne’s mouth or his crotch or pretty much anything on him. “Actually, only you think that.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. There were plenty of sly soldiers in the war. They killed as well as those who were off chasing women.”

“Oh.” Jayne sounded confused again. “It’s just where I come from most men don’t really think much of those who are sly.”

Mal sighed. This was an unprecedented mess, and given how many messes they ended up in on Serenity, he did think they’d run out of new disasters. Even the gou shi with Blue Sun was just a new version of Miranda. But Jayne… he was all kinds of unprecedented.

“Where I come from, men don’t care much as long as the ones who are sly don’t go trying to put their cocks somewhere they shouldn’t.”

Silence fell on them again, and Jayne shifted from foot to foot as Mal tried to figure out exactly where they were going. He was feeling more tangled up than he had at any time since Inara had left the ship.

“Captain,” Jayne asked, his voice softer than usual.

“What?”

“Is this leading up to me getting put off the ship?”

Mal looked up, shocked. “What? No! Ai-yah. Tyen-ah, what would even make you think that?”

“With you being about as confusing as River, it ain’t like you’re giving me a whole lot to work with. I’m only understanding about every third thing you’re even saying,” Jayne complained. “If you got something to say about me or me being sly, just gorram say it.”

Shock robbed Mal of his words for a moment. Usually he was the one not following much at this point in a relationship. Only he wasn’t really in a relationship, not as yet, anyway. Moving to the bed, Mal sat on the edge and thought on how he always hated when women didn’t just explain things outright. Some days, his favorite fantasy was a woman who could just come out and tell him what she was thinking on.

“I got lots to say,” Mal started slowly. This might be the stupidest plan he’d ever come up with, and he was man enough to admit he did come up with some God-almighty stupid plans. Leastwise, he could admit that in the privacy of his own thoughts.

“Then say it,” Jayne said. He frowned and crossed his arms, but he was still standing in Mal’s room, making it clear he was waiting on Mal’s word. Of course, if Mal was wrong, the doc was going to be picking broken teeth out of Mal’s spleen.

“I like the thought of you on your knees, sucking on my cock. I can’t say the thoughts have gotten much past that point, but I reckon if we get that far, my imagination might be able to come up with one or two more suggestions.” Mal tensed, waiting to see if Jayne would take offense. God knows that Mal wouldn’t be much interested in returning the favor, despite the fact that seemed mighty unequal.

Jayne seemed to freeze. His mouth was open again, which was giving Mal’s imagination some room to work, but he wasn’t actually reacting much.

“Of course, if that’s not the kind of sly you are, I won’t take no offense,” Mal added when the silence got too awkward. That seemed to make Jayne shake free of whatever shock had hold of him.

“You wouldn’t mind?” Jayne narrowed his eyes like he was searching for a trap.

“I wouldn’t mind what?”

“Me trying out being sly on you.”

Mal’s cock gave an almighty twitch, and Kaylee’s comment that his pants were too tight never had seemed so true. “Jayne, when is the last time you gave up a chance to get sexed?” Mal didn’t wait for an answer because they both knew that Jayne never had. “I ain’t about to turn down a chance for some sexing.”

Jayne’s slow smile was about the most surprising and most oddly attractive thing Mal ever had seen in his life. “That I understand,” Jayne said as he started to unbuckle his gun belt.

Chapter 15

While Jayne put a disturbing number of weapons on Mal’s table, Mal unzipped his pants. He had to admit this was possibly the most awkward sexual moment he’d had since he was 17 and a girl first showed him how to use his various bits.

“Fair warning, I ain’t exactly sure what I’m doing,” Jayne warned as he turned around, and then without warning, he stepped close and went to his knees right between Mal’s legs.

Mal arched his back and sucked in a breath as his cock got real hard, real fast. Well shit, he was more sly than he’d thought.

“You got one. You know what feels good.”

Jayne frowned at Mal’s unzipped pants and his cock tenting Mal’s blue boxers. “True, but I ain’t usually looking at mine from this angle,” Jayne said without even a bit of hesitation. If Mal were on the floor, he’d be doing a whole lot of hesitating, but Jayne’s left hand came up and rested on Mal’s thigh while Jayne reached in for Mal’s cock without any sort of guile or that blinking thing women did that they thought made them so gorram attractive.

When Jayne pulled Mal out, he made a little grunt that Mal wasn’t sure how to interpret, and then he just leaned forward and sucked just the tip into his mouth. Jayne Cobb on his knees with Mal’s cock in his mouth was about more than Mal could take. He thrust up and gorram near came. He also inadvertently shoved most of his cock in Jayne’s mouth, and Jayne leaned all the way back on his heels.

“Shi. You ain’t got to go choking me. I was getting around to it,” Jayne said with an almost annoyed expression on his face.

“It wasn’t exactly intentional.” Mal could feel himself get warm, either from the sight of Jayne on his knees or from good old-fashioned embarrassment. It’d been a long time since he’d lost control of his cock like that.

“It weren’t?” Jayne frowned.

“It felt good, and it’s been a while. I just… slipped.” Mal hated admitting that, and the smug smile on Jayne’s face made it worse.

“Gorram right it felt good. I’ve never left a lover wanting,” Jayne said, and before Mal could take offense at the implication that he wasn’t as good in bed, Jayne had rocked forward and taken a good bit of Mal’s’s cock in his mouth. Mal’s words disappeared in a moan as Jayne sucked, his fingers reaching down to caress Mal’s balls.

Aiya, but Jayne could suck. Mal squirmed as his breath came in heavy gasps. Pulling back, Jayne spend some time running his tongue along the crown of the penis, his large fingers circling the base of Mal’s cock and squeezing just enough to make Mal see stars.

Mal struggled to open his legs more, but his pants trapped his legs no matter how much he struggled. Jayne sank down on Mal’s cock again, doing something with the back of his throat so that it tightened around the tip of Mal’s cock, and Mal jackhammered his hips forward, all control stripped from him as need flooded through him.

He was falling, and he threw his hands out to the side, hitting a wall before he realized that Jayne had simply lifted his legs and swung him around so that Mal was flat on his bunk. The strength gave Mal a tingle of anxiety. However, he looked down and Jayne had settled at the end of the bed, Mal’s cock deep in his mouth as he sucked enthusiastically, his cheeks hollowing out, and his large, dark eyes watching Mal. That was enough to overcome any lingering cobweb fears and Mal arched his back as his lust finally overwhelmed him.

Forgetting anything but the pleasure, Mal thrust up, digging his heels into the bed. Large hands pinned his hips, but Mal didn’t care because he was consumed by waves of spine-shivering delight. He opened his mouth to warn Jayne that he was coming, but he only managed an inarticulate cry before he came hard. His whole body was fever hot as his body tightened and he involuntarily thrust up again and again. Then the pleasure finally started to ebb, and Mal sagged back onto the bed.

Gasping as though he’d just finishing running for his life, Mal stared up at the ceiling and let his brain finish rewiring. He was gorram sly. He was so sly that other sly folk looked positively heterosexual next to him. Why in the name of everything that was holy in the ‘verse had he never noticed this before?

When the mattress dipped, Mal looked over to see Jayne moving up the bed. Some of the pleasure faded as fear pressed in again, but Mal wasn’t so uncharitable as to kick a man out of bed after flute playing like that. He scooted to the side, and Jayne moved up until he was almost on level with Mal.

“Jayne,” Mal said, not sure how to explain why he really didn’t want to return the favor. Some of the sly was fading.

“So, it were good?” Jayne asked with a plain honesty.

“The best I’ve had,” Mal admitted. “Which is why I’m feeling like a hwun dan for not returning the favor.”

“Ain’t like I gave you time to,” Jayne said with a shrug.

Pushing himself up on one elbow, Mal looked down and sure enough, Jayne had a small wet stain on his pants. At least Mal got his pants off first. Another day, Mal might have said as much, but it seemed uncharitable to say something that cold to the man laying up in your bed. “You are all kinds of a surprise, Jayne Cobb,” Mal said instead.

“Ain’t even going to argue that. I’m wondering why I didn’t try that a while back. Men parts are a lot easier to get at than women parts, and once you start talking straight, you’re easier to follow than most women. That’s why I like whores; they don’t go confusing me.”

Mal thought about Inara and all her mixed up messages. “We can agree on that,” Mal said. He felt awkward, but he reached out and rested his hand on Jayne’s shoulder. Did men cuddle? Looking over, he checked to see how Jayne would take that. Jayne’s eyes were closed, and his right arm was tucked under his head. From the slow rise and fall of his chest, he was either asleep or heading there fast. “Good night, Jayne,” Mal said.

“Night, Mal,” Jayne mumbled. Well, this answered the question about whether men cuddled and saved Mal from having to find meaningful talk. After sex always had seemed like a mighty inconvenient time for conversating. Rolling onto his right side, Mal faced the wall and let his weary body drift toward sleep. When Jayne’s arm came to rest on his waist, sleep had so great of a hold on Mal that he couldn’t rouse himself enough to get concerned about it. Besides, it felt good to share his bunk with a warm and willing partner. It’d been too gorram long.

Chapter 16

“Blair, I really hope you know what you’re doing,” Jim warned as he turned over in the bunk. Blair raised his head, blinking in the darkness.

“Man, I never know what I’m doing. Not exactly. I only nudge the universe. I gave up trying to control where things went about the same time I gave up selling my soul to the Institute.”

Jim sighed. He’d always thought he had cornered the market on guilt, but Blair was about the most stubborn man in the whole gorram ‘verse when it came to carrying guilt.

“Why? What did I do this time?” he asked when Jim settled back down onto the narrow bunk. Either Jayne was a lot more flexible than he looked, or Mal had a bigger bunk than they did.

“You pointed Mal at Jayne.”

“Oh shi. Really? Already?” Blair sounded awe-stricken.

“You’re surprised?”

“Well, yeah. I thought it would take way longer. My guess is that Inara did too because she didn’t arrange for that client of hers for three more days. And honestly? I thought she was being optimistic. No way did I expect them to get their heads out of their asses by then. The lesson here is to not doubt the companion. Wow. Already.” With a shake of his head, Blair settled back down on the bunk.

They lay there for no more than thirty seconds before Blair pushed himself up on one elbow. “Whoa. You are all tense.”

“I know this, Sandburg,” Jim snapped. He immediately felt guilty, and he wouldn’t have blamed Blair one bit if the man had stormed off, but that wasn’t Sandburg. Jim had discovered in the Institute that the more he snapped, the more Blair tried to help. It was a codependent sort of affection that sometimes made Jim worry. It also forced him to curb the worst of his temper because he wouldn’t take it out on a man who refused to fight back.

“Whoa. Okay, you’re really tense.” Blair’s hand stroked over Jim’s chest, sending little tendrils of warmth soaking in through his skin. Jim could even feel the ghost of Blair’s warm breath against his shoulder, and all his arm airs stood on end. When Blair’s hand finally slid south far enough to find Jim’s cock hard and throbbing, it stilled.

“Really tense,” Blair repeated, this time in a more sympathetic tone. “Not that I’m questioning my own sex appeal, but what has you this worked up?”

“Drop it, Mr. Universe.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m nosy. Man, you are not telling me anything I don’t know, but if this is some Sentinel thing….”

“This is a human thing,” Jim said, willing his body to come back under control, but the sound of Mal’s evenly timed gasps made that almost impossible.

“Human thing?” Blair didn’t sound convinced.

Jim sighed and realized he had two choices: tell Blair or get badgered until he gave up and told Blair. “I can hear them.”

“Oh.” Blair made a face. “That’s awkward.”

“Yeah, a little,” Jim agreed. Mal loathed him, so listening as the man’s breathing grew more ragged and deep groans joined the chorus was more than simply awkward.

“But this never affected you before. I mean, Kaylee strikes me as the sort of girl who really likes to have sex, and you haven’t reacted to her and Simon.”

Closing his eyes, Jim wondered if he could will himself to get some spontaneous rash that would distract Blair from this particular conversation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of his talents. “Kaylee and Simon don’t sound like…” Jim hesitated.

“Like what?” Blair prompted when Jim took too long.

This was definitely heading into territory Jim didn’t want to explore, but with Blair as a partner, he didn’t have much chance of winning this particular battle. And as a commander, he knew that a quick surrender and retreat was sometimes better than a prolonged defeat.

“I’ve only had sex with you since the senses came online. Kaylee doesn’t sound like you, and Simon makes the sort of noises that make me think he’s practiced making polite sex noises.” The man sounded polished and polite, even during sex.” Jim actually found that a little disconcerting, but then Simon did have some odd notions. “Mal and Jayne sound more like us.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Jim said, and he struggled hard to rein in his frustration.

“Hey, you don’t have to get frustrated. Or you don’t have to stay frustrated, anyway,” Blair said in a low voice, his fingers moving down to stroke Jim’s balls exactly the way he loved. They tightened and his cock hardened even more, but Jim reached down and caught Blair by the wrist.

“Not now.”

“Not now? Man, you are ready to blow. Come on.”

“I’m not going to have sex just because I can hear those two.”

“But….” Blair stopped. “Okay, you have got to explain this one to me, Ellison. How does this make any sense at all?”

“I’m like this because of them,” Jim snapped.

“And? Who cares how you got this way?”

“I do. These damn senses are turning me into a voyeur.”

“There’s nothing wrong with—”

“A man has a right to a little privacy, and I’m eavesdropping on his intimate moments.” Jim pushed himself up in bed, and groaned as his cock protested the loss of contact with Blair’s hand.

“Look, Ellison,” Blair said, using Jim’s father’s name again. Blair had gotten into a habit of calling him Ellison, and Jim had no idea where that gou shi had come from. He didn’t have a great relationship with any of the Ellisons, not that the Womaks felt any affection for a traitor and fugitive. “Spanking, bondage and voyeurism is the holy triumvirate of human sexuality. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the sight or sound of people enjoying sexual pleasure.”

Jim tried to cut Blair off because this was definitely one area where Blair’s companion mother had raised him with a completely different set of values than Jim had been raised with. “I don’t want—”

“Tough shit. Your body knows what feels good, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What are they doing, anyway?” Blair asked, his voice dropping into a more intimate tone.

“You want me to tell you….” Jim let his voice trail off. Some days Blair could still shock him down to his core.

“Hell yes. I mean, I can imagine, but imagination is no substitute for knowing.” Blair lowered his voice again, and he found the tone that always sent shivers through Jim. “Come on… what do you hear?” What are they doing?”

“From the sounds, Mal near to choked Jayne by shoving his cock down Jayne’s throat,” Jim said, going for the crudest possible description hoping to get Blair off the subject.

Blair laughed. “Oh man, I so saw that coming. That man is like… whoa… wound tight,” he finished. “But I bet that didn’t slow Jayne down.”

Conceding defeat, Jim sighed. “It didn’t. He complained that he would have gotten around to sucking the whole cock eventually, and then he went back to work.”

“Oh man. Okay, that is totally Jayne. One of these days, he’d going to figure out he has a few more kinks than just being sly,” Blair said quietly, and Jim had a flash of fear at Blair trying to have that discussion with Jayne.

“Blair, you can’t—”

“Relax, Jim. As much as Mal is caught up in knots, it’s going to be years before they’re ready to go there.” Blair’s words only partially reassured Jim since it wasn’t exactly a promise to stay out of their business. “So, what are they doing right now?” Blair asked, and his heart started to pound a little faster. The smell of musk, both his own and Blair’s, started leaking into the air, competing with the tang of metal that always filled ship air.

“Mal is making rough little grunts, and I keep hearing flesh against metal.”

“What?” Blair asked.

Jim reached out and slapped the metal side of the ship. “I think Mal’s going to have a sore hand tomorrow,” Jim said. He was guessing Mal didn’t know how hard he was hitting because tiny echoes of the hit whispered from all over the ship. “Jayne isn’t making much noise, but I can hear him gasping for air through his nose, and when he pulls all the way off Mal, I can hear the sucking sound.” Jim settled back down on the bunk, and Blair laid on one side, a leg hooked over one of Jim’s legs. Blair’s hand returned to gentle stroke up Jim’s cock, and Jim knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost himself in his senses.

Before that could happen, Jim threaded his fingers through Blair’s long curls. For a second, he stroked Blair’s hair, feeling Blair’s body temperature slowly rise. “Mal screamed,” Jim said softly before he curled his fingers behind Blair’s neck and pulled the man close for a kiss.

Blair’s lips were soft under his, yielding when Jim ran his tongue over Blair’s lower lip. Moving into Blair’s mouth, Jim grew more aggressive. The sound of Mal’s climax pushed him into a raw, visceral need. Shifting, he used his weight to partially pin Blair and then kiss the life of out him. Blair groaned and thrust up against Jim’s hip. For a long time, Jim lost himself in the feel and taste of Blair, but then he pulled back and kissed Blair’s jaw before moving down to kiss his neck. “Oh man. Shit. Yeah. Voyeurism good. Voyeurism fucking great,” Blair muttered as Jim nibbled at the juncture between Blair’s neck and shoulder.

“Jayne wants to know if he was any good,” Jim whispered before he sucked on Blair’s earlobe.

“Please tell me that Mal was a gentleman about it.”

Jim ran his teeth over Blair’s earlobe, feeling the delicious shiver that went through Blair’s entire body. “Told him Jayne’s the best he ever had,” Jim answered.

Blair snorted. “Either Mal’s had some mighty bad blow jobs or Jayne is one hell of a quick learner.”

Reaching down, Jim wrapped his hand around Blair’s cock, and he could feel the individual skin cells contract under his touch. “Mal’s not returning the favor.”

“Is Jayne upset?”

“Sleepy. I think he finished on his own,” Jim said. He could feel the floating sensation as all senses started to spread like a sail in the wind. He imagined that he could almost see Jayne and Mal falling asleep together, Mal’s pants still caught around his ankles.

“At least he’s not going to frustrate himself waiting for Mal to catch up. Say what you want about Jayne, the man does know how to throw himself into something,” Blair said. Jim could feel hands press him back to the bed. Touch expanded until Jim could feel every hair on his body, feel each cell where Blair’s warmth pressed up against him. Blindly reaching out, Jim caught Blair’s hair and let each silken thread run through his fingers.

He could feel the air move out of Blair’s way as he leaned closer, bringing his heat with him. He breathed over Jim’s skin, and the warm musk skimmed over Jim’s skin, bringing his senses to life. “Watch the dial, Jim,” Blair muttered before he placed a series of kisses down the center of Jim’s chest. Jim arched his back as he felt the warmth almost burn him. When Blair sucked one of Jim’s nipples into his mouth, Jim gasped, his whole body reduced to that point until he could feel each cell, feel the flow of blood and the firing of each individual nerve cell as Blair sucked. The feeling almost swallowed Jim alive, and then Blair was gone, and his nipple pebbled as cold air shocked the nerves.

Gasping again, Jim pulled his awareness back from the edge of a zone. Residual heat trails crossed his body, each place where Blair touched him leaving warm fingerprints. When Jim had been near-zoned on his own nipple, Blair had run a hand down over Jim’s side to his thigh, and now Jim could trace every moment of that in the warmth left behind.

“Don’t get too hungry for touch. Balance it, Jim,” Blair advised, and Jim forced his hearing higher. Sight was still offline, but in the dark, that gave them a sort of equality.

“God, I want you,” Jim confessed, reaching for Blair.

“You always have me,” Blair said, yielding when Jim pulled him close, but then Jim lost track of more time as he scented the salt of precum and the musk of their desire. Blair’s heart pounded so loud that Jim could almost each the echoes off the metal walls. When Blair’s finger ran down over Jim’s cock, Jim could feel the blood vessels contract. His back arched, and Blair made little noises, little grunts that meant he wasn’t far from the edge, either. Jim could smell the need, he could smell as the musk took on a deeper note.

Jim breathed pheromones with every gasp now, and he could feel his sense unfurl more. Dust against the hull sang in an irregular series of high notes as Blair worked a finger into Jim.

“More,” Jim begged softly. Blair’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart gave a quickened half step, but Blair complied by slipping a second finger in quicker than usual. Jim pulled his legs up and caught the back of his own knees. “Blair, hurry,” he begged. His senses fully unfurled so that every place where Blair touched him, a hand on Jim’s leg, a thigh pressed against Jim’s ass, Jim could feel their bodies merge, the blood singing just under the skin. He wanted Blair in him for this moment.

Blair said something, but Jim’s hearing wasn’t tuned to human voice, and the words vanished into a series of tones that spoke of lust and want and love. Words lied, but the tones were as old as humanity and pure in their honesty. Jim could feel his tissue and muscle stretch as Blair slid inside, and this was always the perfect moment. Jim slipped away while Blair held him, strong hands anchoring him while Jim vanished into the pure reality of the senses.

His skin sweated from their combined heat where Blair’s hands held his legs and the slap of Blair’s thighs against his ass awoke each cell, and Jim’s body twitched and strained in time with Blair’s ragged breathing. Jim could feel Blair’s heatbeat reverberate through him, his own flesh yielding as it answered Blair’s rhythms. Jim’s whole body sang with pleasure as he imagined he became Blair. At the same time, he could feel himself stretching so he could become the Serenity, feel each piece of dust slide across his skin, feel the heat of the sun against his face as she circled the moon, hear every human life inside.

Blair came with a shout, and the spell broke. Suddenly, Jim was back inside himself, coming with an almost painful pleasure. He could feel Blair’s come inside his body, feel the short thrusts as Blair finished coming, his body radiating heat and his scent heavy with pleasure. Blair collapsed forward, pressing Jim’s legs farther up into his chest.

“Sorry,” he immediately apologized. He squirmed back, his cock slipping free of Jim as he allowed Jim to lower his legs. “Oh man. I think I’m broken.” He dropped down next to Jim, and Jim gathered Blair into his arms, staining until he could get the blanket up and over both of them.

“Just worn out. I can do that to a lover,” Jim teased. He could still feel Blair’s come in him, and he could feel echoes of his senses giving him the illusion of ship song.

“Yeah, man, you can. You totally can,” Blair agreed, but his voice blurred with fatigue. Jim pulled him closer and lay down. In Mal’s bunk, Mal and Jayne were sleeping, their breathing deep and even. A small, uncharitable part of Jim’s mind couldn’t avoid a little comparison, and he figured he and Blair could certainly win one particular competition.

Chapter 17

Mal stirred. He was warm. Not just warm, but sated with the feeling of another body in his bunk with him, the soft sounds of another’s breath lulling him as he drifted through half-sleep. Beaumonde. The details of their latest madness floated up into his awareness, followed by the memory of exactly who was sleeping in his bunk with him. Two seconds later, it occurred to him that there was something poking him in the butt. “Jayne, that best not be you poking at me,” Mal warned darkly. He got a grunt and some shifting from the body behind him. “Jayne!” he snapped.

The restless shifting immediately froze. “What?”

“That best not be you poking me,” Mal warned again now that Jayne was awake.

“What?” Jayne asked, his voice awake enough, but sounding confused. Jayne rolled onto his back, and that left Mal enough room on his bunk to get turned around so he was facing Jayne. It made him more comfortable when he could keep an eye on Jayne, particularly when the man’s cock was hard. Mal was in bed with a naked Jayne Cobb, his tough, muscled body and impressive cock laid out for Mal to see. A line of white scar crossed just under Jayne’s left nipple, and a fainter one across his stomach. Three different pock-marked holes from bullets decorated his body, two of them from Jayne’s time serving Mal. His body was a hard map of trouble.

“I’m just piss proud. It ain’t like you aren’t the same,” Jayne pointed out as he rubbed a hand over his face. Mal shifted nervously because his cock was half-hard with a need to take a piss, but it wasn’t his cock that he was disturbing at finding in his bunk. Even by the low lights, Jayne was a powerful large man. Last night, his cock hadn’t made an appearance, but now Mal could see it, thick and heavy with low hung balls that rolled when Jayne shifted. When they’d visited Inara’s whore friend, the girls at the house had spoken right complimentary about Jayne’s abilities at sexing, and now that Mal saw the man’s tools, he could see that Jayne had quite a bit to work with. Mal actually felt a little uncomfortable at the comparison. Jayne sat up and rubbed his face for a second before he padded over to the urinal port naked. Leaning against the wall with one hand, he sighed as he held his cock and peed.

Mal went to sit up and realized his pants were still caught around his ankles. Actually, when he’d gone to bed, Jayne was still dressed, but now he was naked as the day he was born, his clothes draped over Mal’s chair. Kicking one foot loose from the pants, Mal sat up and started straightening out his pants so he could put them on. He really needed there to be one less naked man in this room.

“You’ve been up,” Mal accused him. Jayne didn’t even turn around.

“Yep. You sleep like the dead, and I couldn’t truly settle until I knew the hatch was locked.”

It was such a reasonable response… such a classic Jayne response… that Mal was having trouble adjusting to the fact that this security-obsessed version of Jayne had gone to his knees and sucked Mal’s cock. The memory of Jayne’s unhesitating willingness made it hard for Mal to shove his cock in his pants, but he did it anyway, cringing a bit at the pain. He might not be comfortable with being sly in the morning, but his cock still was mighty fond of the idea of being sly at night. His cock was even more in favor of it if it led to more of Jayne on his knees. That had been a sight worth a whole ship load of credits.

Jayne finished and turned around, his cock soft again, which still didn’t hide the fact that he was a well-hung man. “What’s eating at you this morning?” Jayne asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Again, it was a classic Jayne gesture, and seeing it on a naked Jayne was doing something odd to Mal’s brain.

“Nothing,” Mal said before he headed for the urinal, shoving Jayne to the side.

“If’n that’s the case, then you must be one of those people who wake up mean.”

“I ain’t—” Mal stopped and unzipped the pants he’d just zipped up. He couldn’t say that wasn’t being mean, because threatening his lover before the man was even awake was mean.

Normally when he stuck his foot his far into his mouth, whatever woman he was with stormed out. Jayne just kept looking at him. For a time, Mal concentrated on pissing. It was more comfortable than a conversation he didn’t know how to finish. Besides, he needed time to try and gather the scattered thoughts that kept slipping away from him. This was all Sandburg’s fault. At one point, Mal figured he’d space Captain Jimmy and give Sandburg the boot next planet they reached. The longer those two were around those two, the more he reckoned he’d give Captain Jimmy the boot at the next planet with his hide still intact and space Sandburg. About the only reason he hadn’t done it yet was the sheer pleasure of knowing Jimmy had to put up with the hairy little hwun dan.

By the time he turned around, Jayne was pulling on his pants, and Mal found himself staring at the dried spot on Jayne’s pants. Jayne’s come had dried hard and now that Jayne was pulling the pants on, the cloth flexed and the crusty stain cracked, creating a thin white line through the barely visible dark spot. He’d come in his pants. There weren’t another person in the ‘verse Mal ever had come that easy. Usually he had to put real effort in to get a woman that pleasured-up.

“If you decided you ain’t sly, we don’t got to do this again,” Jayne said as he sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed his boots. True, there was a little part of Mal that wanted to take that easy out even if he was more sly than he’d ever anticipated, but that’d mean giving up the sight of Jayne on his knees. That wasn’t his first choice, or even his second. Even now, Mal found himself watching Jayne’s mouth.

“I never said I wasn’t sly,” Mal snapped.

Jayne pulled his shirt off the chair and just looked at Mal, confusion written all over his face.

“I’m starting to think you’re the woman in this relationship,” Jayne complained.

That came so close to Mal’s discomfort that he stepped forward, his fear and anger raging forward. “Excuse me? It wasn’t me on my knees taking orders.” Mal took some pleasure at getting in that shot. However, Jayne didn’t look much like he’d taken any damage at all—no twinge of guilt or flinch or even a darkening blush at his willingness to suck cock. If anything, Jayne looked more confused and twice as riled.

“And it ain’t me talking in circles like some skirt,” Jayne shot back. “I’ve always taken your orders, so I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t take ‘em here, leastwise until you prove you’re such a hwan dan that you aren’t worth following no more.”

The thought of Jayne walking away from this nearly took Mal’s breath. “Are you threatening me?”

Jayne’s mouth near to fell open. “Aiya. You’re a right bastard in the morning, Mal.” Standing up, Jayne pulled his shirt on and headed for the ladder.

“Jayne,” Mal warned. Jayne turned around, one hand on the ladder. His face reflected a sort of weary suspicion, but he was waiting. On Mal’s word, he stood waiting, but Mal didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t going the way he’d thought. Having Jayne on his knees was nice enough, but having Jayne with all his cantankerous parts standing in his quarters was a little more problematic.

“You got something to say?” Jayne asked. Clearly there was a limit to how much gou shi Jayne would put up with.

“If I ordered you to your knees?” Mal asked. He hadn’t meant to ask that, but the words slipped out like slippery fish wiggling through his fingers. Jayne looked even more confused than ever.

“Are you?” he asked, and Mal had the feeling that if he said he was, Jayne would go down right now. Mal’s cock started getting hard, and he was tempted. Jayne’s talent at sucking cock wasn’t in question.

“Didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying, then?” Jayne crossed his arms and gave Mal a long look. Mal could admit to feeling guilt here. He never was one for keeping a relationship going. Normally, making a woman happy in bed was his strength, and all the talking after just got him turned around until he said something offensive. This time, he hadn’t gotten around to making Jayne happy before the awkward conversating the next morning. Mal hadn’t done anything that came even close to reciprocating the pleasure Jayne had given him.

Jayne sighed. “Call when you’ve decided what you want, Mal,” Jayne said as he started climbing the ladder. Knowing he had the power to call Jayne back made it twice as hard to avoid doing exactly that. However, he watched Jayne climb the ladder and vanish. Mal turned away, about as mad at himself as he was at Jayne. He stopped when he saw his table. Jayne’s gunbelt and about half dozen weapons scattered across the table. Jayne had left his weapons. No way would Jayne ever leave his weapons some place unless he intended to come back.

Mal just couldn’t figure out why he should. It wasn’t like Mal had given him many reasons to come back.

Chapter 18

“Morning!” Blair practically sang as they walked into the galley.

“Mornin’ Blair!” Kaylee answered with equal enthusiasm. Jim offered a polite nod to the assembled group, but he didn’t plan to push things with any of these people. Simon Tam was still giving him a worshipful look that made Jim about as uncomfortable as Mal’s hate. Only Jim noted that Mal was more interested in poking at eggs than glaring this morning.

“Whoa, eggs. Who do I have to kill to earn some of those?” Despite the suggestion that he’d have to earn breakfast, Blair walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a plate to serve himself, and no one objected. Kaylee went back to loudly telling a story about some trader the crew knew with a forced attempt at humor, Simon kept watching Jim, River watched Blair, and Mal sat at the table with an expression like someone had shot his dog. Only Zoe looked unaffected by whatever foul mood had settled over the crew today. Jim felt like he was in one of those fictional vids where it turned out some virus was slowly turning everyone into a Reaver, emotions were just that unbalanced. Even the smell had a jagged edge to it that made Jim uncomfortable.

“Here you go,” Blair said, handing Jim a plate loaded with food. Even though Jim accepted it, he kept his eyes on Mal, watching to see if the captain would object to the sheer volume of food Blair had brought him. Jim knew that if he were still an Alliance captain with a core-deep belief in the cause and he’d been forced to take on a Browncoat passenger, Jim would have set a few rules. He sure wouldn’t have wanted the Browncoat eating all the fresh protein. However, when Mal looked up, his glare focused on Blair. While Blair blithely sauntered back to the kitchen for more food, Mal followed him with a sullen glare.

“Captain,” Jim greeted him, feeling a need to distract Mal from whatever unhappiness was making him take such a sudden dislike to Blair. “Any word from Beaumonde?”

Kaylee fell silent and everyone waited for Mal to answer, but he didn’t. Zoe picked up the slack. “No word yet, but as long as no one is shooting at us, that’s generally a good sign.”

Jim frowned. “Where’s Jayne?” It made him nervous, not knowing where Jayne was. These people might be uneasy allies against the Institute, but they were still enemy. Jim couldn’t shake that feeling. And the fact was, he always wanted to have his enemy where he could see them. However, the second Jayne’s name left his mouth, Jim had a good idea what bug had crawled up Mal’s ass. Despite the fact that last night had gone well enough, something had soured.

“Working. At least one person on this gorram crew knows how to get his work done.” Mal slammed his fork down on the table, and everyone except Zoe sort of froze in place. Zoe kept on eating her breakfast, and Jim tried to take his cues from her. She’d clearly been with the captain long enough to read him, so despite the sour fear that settled in his stomach, Jim started eating. He didn’t lie to himself about this attack in two or three days. Mal would put him in the most vulnerable, most dangerous position, and Jim needed to make sure he was strong enough to hold his own. He couldn’t afford to pass up fresh, unprocessed protein.

Eventually the others started moving. Kaylee stayed silent, her story abandoned.

“Seriously cranky vibes,” Blair whispered as he sat next to Jim on side away from Mal. Jim’s stomach unknotted a little having Blair close enough to grab up if the situation turned more inhospitable than normal. From the mingled scents of frustration and anger and confusion, it might turn ugly any second.

River shifted in her chair, stood and then put her knees in it before settling down like an overgrown five-year-old. “Medial orbitofrontal cortex failure hurts,” she offered with a sympathetic look in Mal’s direction. Jim took a slow deep breath through his nose, sorting through various smells to see if she was describing some illness, but Mal smelled fine. He smelled aggravated, with stress hormones leeching out his skin, but that wasn’t a surprise.

Blair made a sympathetic face, so clearly River’s comment meant something to him. “Oh man. Yeah, it would,” Blair agreed. “But letting the medial orbitofrontal cortex rule your life is not cool. And you are sounding better, far more coherent.”

“Head clearer,” she agreed with a not-subtle shit-look for her brother.

“I bet. Those were some heavy-duty meds you were on.” Blair nodded. “Seriously heavy.”

Simon stiffened under their implication that he’d overmedicated his sister. “They helped her with the panic attacks.”

“Well, yeah,” Blair agreed. “She was drugged to the gills. I’d have a hard time panicking too if I were that drugged up, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I mean, if I’m facing real danger, I prefer to do it with real fear on my side.”

“You can’t—” The doctor looked ready to make this an all-out medical war, but Mal cut him off.

“I ain’t interested in having you two ruin my breakfast,” he snapped. “Wuh de tyen, ah. God save me from core-bred gao yang jong duh goo yang. Not a one of you has the sense god gave a motherless whoring turtle.” Snatching his fork off the table, Mal started shoveling the food in like someone might try and take it away from him.

Jim might have worried some because he could smell the aggression and the need to fight rising from Mal’s skin like a fog, only Zoe kept right on eating breakfast with only a raised eyebrow to comment on Mal’s vivid use of profanity.

River made a face. “Hippocampus and anterior insula vie with amygdala for blood flow.”

“Okay,” Blair said, and he sounded a little distressed about that. Jim frowned. Normally he didn’t mind not understanding Blair’s conversations, but everyone at the table seemed to be getting more uncomfortable than was really safe considering he and Blair weren’t armed.

“Would either of you like to start clarifying what you’re talking about?” Mal demanded.

Blair didn’t answer, but River gave him a bright smile. “No,” she said, almost singing the word. “Captain needs more oxytocin.”

“Oxytocin?” Simon almost choked on a laugh. “The captain isn’t that bad.”

The captain turned a deadly cold look in Simon’s direction. “He might be if’n he gets aggravated enough,” Mal warned, and Jim could hear the dangerous edge of frustration in that voice.

“Blair, knock it off,” Jim warned softly.

“Old war horses,” River offered with a soft sigh.

“They are who they are,” Blair agreed with a shrug.

Mal leaned forward. “And I’m getting aggravated enough that you both ought to be a mite bit worried.”

It was Simon who stepped in. “Oxytocin is a hormone associated with socialization. Sometimes people with anti-social disorders are prescribed doses to improve their ability to interact with others.”

That made Mal’s face turn an unhealthy shade of gray. Whatever had gone wrong between Mal and Jayne, it had done so spectacularly, and Jim could just kill Blair for starting this whole mess.

“Are you calling me crazy?” Mal’s voice was dangerously calm.

“No way. That description is a total oversimplification,” Blair said with a dismissive snort. From the way Simon stiffened, he wasn’t used to having his doctoring questioned. “I will avoid doing surgery if you’ll avoid psychiatric diagnoses, because those are not in our mutually exclusive areas of expertise. Alpha-hypophamine oxytocin polypeptide is a neuromodulator. We all have it in our bodies. Yes, it affects a person’s feelings for his fellow humans, but it also prepares fetal neurons for delivery by changing the function of gamma-aminobutyric acids and causes spinal cord movement and is even involved in addiction.”

Blair slung the words out there, his hands gesturing in the air with enough vehemence that Jim could recognize the obfuscation from a mile away. If Simon’s explanation about anti-social disorder caused this much verbal flailing on Blair’s part, Jim was guessing it was pretty near the mark. He glanced over, and Mal just looked confused. Aggravated and confused.

“I’d like to check over… something not in this room.” Jim stood up, his food in one hand while he pulled at Blair’s arm with the other. “Come on, Mr.Know-it-all.”

“That’s Dr. Know-it-al,” Blair complained, but he scrambled to grab his fork and get up. Even he knew the room was turning dangerous for those who didn’t have the protection of being trusted crew. “And as a doctor, I’m supposed to know everything about my very narrow field of study. Totally narrow. And oxytocin is within my very narrow field.”

“Uh-huh.” Jim said as he herded Blair toward the exit.

Behind them, Kaylee was trying to soothe the others. “Really? They have something what can make unsociable types social? We should carry some of that, do y’all remember…” She launched into another story of some trader they knew who’d shot Mal. They were out in the hallway and halfway to the sleeping quarters when Blair stopped, his plate still clutched in hand.

“You have to find Jayne.” Blair looked up with wide, panicked eyes.

“Why?” Jim asked suspiciously.

“Because Mal totally fucked something up. Cao, if River’s even half-right, I do not want to think what shape Jayne’s in.”

“Hurt?” Jim’s gut soured at the idea of Mal doing damage to his lover, but Jim had been a cop long enough to know that people did that—they hurt those they were closest to. Before Blair, Jim had one short-lived marriage and three lovers who hadn’t even approached the stage in a relationship where you go leaving things in each other’s quarters. So he didn’t have a long list of lovers, but he couldn’t imagine hurting any of them. Even Caroline, who’d left him after one long screaming match about honor and duty and his choice to accept a promotion to front-line duty in the war, never inspired the sort of violence some men regularly took out on their lovers. Jim hadn’t pegged Mal as the sort to do that, either.

“No way.” Blair gave Jim a punch in the arm. “Stop assuming the worst about people.”

“I was a cop, Sandburg. It comes with the territory.”

Blair snorted. “I know plenty of cops who aren’t so… Wait… Actually, every cop I know is actually some variation on a dick.” Blair grinned at him. Jim gave his partner the sort of glare that had, once upon a time, made suspects confess and cry.

“River says that Mal’s emotions are all over the map, particularly his emotions concerning sexuality.”

“That’s what that brain talk was all about?”

“Yep.” Blair nodded. “River’s no more insane that you or me.”

“Sanity is a little questionable when it comes to all three of us,” Jim pointed out.

“Okay, that’s true. Everyone on this ship could use a little therapy. Or a lot of therapy.” Blair cringed. “Or huge shitloads of therapy with a side of psychotropic and antidepressant medication thrown in on the side, and I am not normally the one to go for prescribing medicine. But anyway, the medial orbitofrontal cortex functions to put heavy emotions in lockdown.”

“And with Mal, it just failed,” Jim finished, remembering River’s words.

“Exactly. So Mal can’t deal with all these emotions that are hitting him. Fear and lust and all these messy feelings are getting his brain… whoa.” Blair stopped, just out of words, but Jim remembered what it had been like. When he’d first seen Blair in a white lab coat and blue gloves, he’d nursed the same hate he felt for all the Institute doctors. Learning to see Blair the man had taken some uncomfortable mental shifting.

“And if he’s emotionally suffering and striking out….”

“Jayne would have been ground zero, this morning,” Blair said with a grimace. “Use your hearing to find him, Jim. No way can we just let him suffer while everyone sits in there with Mal like he’s in the right.”

Jim sighed. “We should go to our quarters and stay out of this,” he said, knowing before he started that he was going to lose this battle.

“No way. Look, maybe I shouldn’t have jumped in so fast, but I’m the one who pushed Mal in Jayne’s direction, so if he just emotionally or spiritually shredded Jayne, that is on me. I am not leaving him to suffer alone while everyone on this ship acts like he’s some soulless mercenary. I mean, they talk like he’s here for the money, but have you seen how he looks at this crew? Man, they’re his family, and they don’t respect him at all. No way am I turning my back on that.”

Yeah, Jim lost the battle the minute Blair brought in the idea of a man struggling with a family that didn’t respect him. Sometimes Jim wondered if Blair was intentionally manipulative or if his mother’s training had sunk in so deep that he simply instinctively coerced the whole ‘verse into doing what he wanted. Some days, Jim just didn’t know. However, he sent his hearing out, tracing the corridors and long runs of metals struts until he heard the clinking of heavy weights in the steady pattern of a man doing repetitions.

“This way,” Jim offered, gesturing down a corridor. Blair gave him a brilliant smile and a quick eyebrow wiggle before he turned and practically bounced down the way. "But not until we've both finished breakfast," Jim said. "Tactically, you do not compromise yourself by missing a meal in enemy territory," Jim said firmly.

"Oh man, enough with the enemy stuff," Blair complained, but he did come back and retrieve the plate he'd casually shoved onto one of the steps leading up a level. If he'd left it there, someone would have slipped and been hurt, no doubt. Of course, the way Blair found trouble, he'd find a much better way to anger Mal. After shoving a mouthful of food in, Blair waved his fork in the air. "Watch, I can fix this."

With a sigh, Jim started in on his own breakfast despite his now-sour stomach. They were so going to end up getting spaced.

Chapter 19

Jim held back while Blair closed in on Jayne. If this were about fighting, Jim would be taking the lead, but if Blair had it in mind to talk to a man about his sexual relationships, Jim planned to stay as far out of it as he could while still having his partner’s back. It seemed like a man should be able to have a relationship implode without having some near-stranger get in the middle, but that wasn’t the way Blair saw things.

Jim wondered whether Blair would have been so pushy if he’d been around when Jim and Carolyn had been in the middle of their disastrous break-up. Probably. Hell, as persuasive as the little shit could be, he probably would have talked them into staying together, which would have been wrong because Jim couldn’t image his life with anyone but Blair.

“Hey,” Blair said as he walked up to Jayne, starting out pretty neutral. Jayne’s body tensed when Blair got close enough to be in striking range, but he pretended to be unaffected. Jim leaned against the railing on the stairs that led up to a balcony that overlooked this empty cargo bay and watched. Jayne really wasn’t like any mercenary he’d ever known. He was dumb and in love with his gorram guns, and that was pretty typical of the breed, but he wasn’t particularly short-tempered and he tolerated Blair well enough.

As a cop, Jim had seen plenty of mercenaries turn on a man because he wasn’t manly enough. Sly boys were in real danger around them, and considering that some of the bastards sought out whore houses that offered sly, it sometimes turned very dark. Jim had been assigned to more than one of those investigations. He hated them. The other whores would always hide the customer rather than risk losing business, and Jim did hate to leave a crime unsolved. Oh, he did often enough. You didn’t work the fringes of society without losing more cases than you solved, but Jim never got used to the casual acceptance of violence. Yet Jayne never smelled of aggression around Blair, and he seemed more confused than offended by the idea of a man like Jim being sly.

Jayne kept lifting, grunting as he pushed the bar with the heavy plates all the way up before slowly lowering it. It was an impressive amount of weight he was pushing, especially since he didn’t have anyone to spot him. Either he was confident in his ability to lift that much or he was a fool. Maybe a little of both.

After two more repetitions, Jayne settled the bar into place and sat up. Rather than answer Blair, he gave him an odd look while wiping a towel over his sweaty face.

“So….” Blair said, letting his voice trail off. Jim cringed. Blair might be able to talk a farmer out of his last acre, but after all this time, he still didn’t know how to talk to a soldier. Or a mercenary.

Jayne narrowed his eyes and gave Blair a dangerously cold look. “You got something to say?”

“Me? No. I’m here to see if you need to say something or ask something or you know, talk.” Blair gave Jayne his most sympathetic expression. At least he hadn’t chosen manipulation. Jim hadn’t seen that ending well.

Jayne cocked his head. “About what?”

There was a heartbeat’s moment when Blair looked just plain shocked. He probably was. Jayne certainly didn’t act like someone whose lover had turned into a hwun dan with a Browncoat’s sense of honor. Jim sighed as he realized he probably needed to come up with another insult. Mal was a Browncoat, and his honor wasn’t actually in question—only his intelligence.

“Mal seems unreasonably cranky this morning,” Blair said, his voice slower. Now he figured out that this might not be the best plan, either that or his brain was busy spinning with new plans that were going to get him and Jim spaced.

“And?” Jayne asked.

“And I was wondering if you were okay.”

Jayne looked bone-deep confused now. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

That one stumped Blair, and he looked over toward Jim.

Holding up both hands, Jim shook his head. “Leave me out of this one.” The minute the words left his mouth, Jim knew he’d made a tactical error.

“Leave you outta what?” Jayne demanded, throwing the towel down and standing up to advance on Jim. Least he wasn’t getting aggressive with Blair, but it still wasn’t a comfort to have Jayne stalking him, especially when Jim still hadn’t gotten his hands on a gorram gun.

“Whoa, hey, no need to get aggressive,” Blair said as he darted forward, but Jim could see Jayne’s body tense for attack, his pupils slightly dilate as he searched for a vulnerability to hit, and Jayne wasn’t going to need more than one hit to take out Blair. Darting forward, Jim grabbed Blair by the back of his shirt and yanked him so hard that Blair’s arms flew out and the shirt tore, but it got him out of Jayne’s path. Confusion froze Jayne for the half second it took Jim to put himself in front of his partner.

“Blair thinks that Mal might have treated you a little poorly considering that he’s treating the rest of the crew like they’re lepers trying to kiss his daughter,” Jim hurried to explain. Jayne hadn’t reacted well to the idea of being left out of something, and Jim planned on making sure they went out of their way to not hit that particular button again. “I said that I thought a man should be able to handle his personal life without having Blair stick his nose in the middle. So there’s nothing much to be left out of except your personal life, which I think we’ll both be excusing ourselves from,” Jim finished. Backing away, he watched Jayne for any sign of attack. Luckily, Jayne looked more bewildered than confrontational.

“You were worried about how Mal were treating me?” he asked, and his hands dropped back down to his sides. Jim stopped when Blair put both hands on his back physically forced him to. When they got back to quarters, Jim was going to…. Cao… he was going to have all sorts of thoughts about ripping into Blair and then Blair was going to go dismissing him as usual. Some days Jim wondered when he’d lost all control over his relationship.

“Well, yeah. I mean we were worried about you,” Blair said as he leaned to the side so he could make eye contact with Jayne. Jim’s jaw was tight enough that he was risking a broken tooth.

Jayne’s eyes narrowed.

“He was worried about you spiritually,” Jim corrected Blair. “Personally, I think a hwun dan like you can take care of yourself and if you need spiritual help, you’ll figure out for yourself where to find it.”

Jayne snorted, but that seemed to settle him down some. Jim glanced over his shoulder, doing his best to give Blair a glare sharp enough to convince him that they should be leaving. Unfortunately, Jayne spoke up again before Jim could convince Blair to go into a full retreat.

“Ain’t one good reason for you to care whether Mal were acting like a shen jing bing.”

“Except that you’re a good man, and that is so not fair of him to do to you,” Blair immediately answered Jayne.

Both Jayne’s eyebrows went up and he took a fast step back as though Blair had hit him. “Guay. I would have shot your man there, you know,” Jayne said, poking a finger toward Jim. Jim crossed his arms and fought down a rising feeling of helplessness. Jayne truly would have, and the fact that Jim couldn’t do a gorram thing about that was bitter on his tongue.

“Only if Mal told you it was the right thing to do,” Blair said. “I mean, he totally must have proved himself at some point or you wouldn’t be so loyal, but now with Jim on board, he’s acting more like a da shabi.”

Jim choked at Blair’s particularly crude piece of profanity. “Chief,” he warned. If Jayne was all that loyal, calling Mal that particular name wasn’t going to win them points.

However, Jayne laughed. “He can be a bastard, alright.”

“And this morning?”

Jayne scratched his cheek. “I ain’t even sure what riled him. I woke up and he was already acting like someone had been poking him with a stick.”

“Oh man. I hear that,” Blair said with entirely too much sympathy. Jim angled his body slightly so he could pin Blair with a warning glare. Blair reached up and patted him on the arm. “No offense, but you can totally get unreasonable sometimes,” Blair told Jim in an apologetic voice. “I mean, you get some gou shi in your head and you do not let it go. I have never met a more stubborn man in the whole ‘verse… well, exceptin’ Mal. River’s right. You two are old war horses that just keep walking the same length of trail over and over and gorram over.” Blair rolled his eyes.

Jim crossed his arms and was on the verge of ripping Blair apart, but Jayne started speaking before Jim could gather up all his offended thoughts. “They’re downright annoyin’,” Jayne agreed. “I thought being sly meant that I’d have someone who could speak his plain mind, but Mal’s acting about as bad as the girls back home—always saying things that don’t have anything to do with what they mean.”

“I hear you. Man, so annoying.” Blair nodded enthusiastically.

“Are you about done insulting me?” Jim asked. Jayne frowned at him, and Jim realized the gorram merc was taking offense for Blair. Jim figured he would never figure out how Blair managed to talk his way around so many curves, but he really wasn’t in the mood to have Jayne taking Blair’s side in this fight.

“Hey, you know I still love you. You’re perfect for me, Jim, but no way does that mean you’re perfect.” Blair leaned close and wrapped his arm around Jim’s waist, and Jim wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling at this point. Annoyed and confused, maybe.

“Ain’t no way he’s as bad as Mal,” Jayne said as he turned his back and headed back to the weight bench where he’d left his shirt. He snatched it off the bench.

“I don’t’ know about that. He’s always getting in these funks where he thinks he has to die to save me.”

“Well Mal’s nearly gettin’ us all killed on a fairly regular basis,” Jayne said. Jim slung his arm over his shoulder and listened as Mal crept in closer. Hopefully Mal was hearing what he needed to hear because Jim really didn’t want to get in the middle of these two again, and he really didn’t want to get thrown out an airlock.

“But that means you’re with him. This idiot is always trying to leave me behind,” Blair said with a roll of his eyes toward Jim. "I would rather face death with Jim than put up with his idiotic habit of tryin’ to put me somewhere safe before he goes off acting like a sha gua.”

“I wouldn’t put up with that.” Jayne said with another nasty look in Jim’s direction. Fact was that Jim wasn’t real comfortable with Jayne getting so unhappy. It’d be one thing if Jim had a gun on his hip. Armed, he’d take on Jayne no problem. However, unarmed and trapped on a ship of Browncoats that were already more than a little hostile, Jim really didn’t need to give anyone else a reason for hating him.

“Yeah, well I’m not a fighter like you, so it’s hard to convince the idiot to let me come along.”

“You shouldn’t be in danger,” Jim said in his own defense. Clearly, that didn’t impress Jayne much.

“I’d give Mal a piece of my mind if’n he even tried that shi on me.”

“Oh trust me. Jim hears about it. I can’t seem to convince the sha gua that I can take care of myself, but I do tell him what I think of his opinions on a regular basis.”

“I wish Mal would do that same. I ain’t even sure what I did wrong this time.”

“Whoa, you’re assuming that you’re the one who screwed up.” Blair squirmed out of Jim’s embrace to stand in front of him, and Jim let him. Hell, at this point, Jim wasn’t even sure what battle they were trying to win, so it was best to just let Blair do his thing and try and minimize any damage that happened after. If Mal got offended, Jim just wasn’t sure that he was the best person to be doing that minimizing.

Jayne snorted. “Trust me. I did the fucking up. I generally do. Only, if Mal ain’t explaining what I done wrong, I can’t fix it.” Jayne pulled his shirt on and sat on the weight bench, looking about as beaten as a man as big as Jayne could look.

“I’m guessing he’s a chou wang ba dan, and that’s the problem.”

“He can be,” Jayne said, and Jim was surprised to hear Jayne agree. “He ain’t never been to me, though, not even when I gave him cause. Hell, I done plenty bad, even when I weren’t trying, and Mal ain’t sent me packing yet. So if someone went and did the sly thing wrong, I’m guessing it was me.” Jayne paused, and Jim watched the subtle shift of dozens of muscles as his mood changed. Jim wrapped his arm around Blair’s shoulders and prepared to move fast if need be. The senses warned him when someone was thinking something, and right now Jayne was thinking plenty. Jim just didn’t know him well enough to understand what he was thinking on.

“You think you two could help me practice the sly stuff?” Jayne asked. It was the tone, the perfectly innocent tone, that kept Jim’s brain from rightly understanding just what Jayne had just said. Instead, he stared at Jayne, his brain trying to sort through that combination of words and come to any meaning that made sense.

“Cobb!” Mal’s voice bellowed, and Jim’s guts about turned to water. Cao. There was a reason he was always telling Blair to stay out of people’s personal lives.

Chapter 20

Mal’s stomach churned. Despite that, he really had been planning on staying quiet and letting Jayne have his say. It wasn’t like Mal owned him. Besides, Sandburg seemed to be getting through Jayne’s thick skull, which was a feat Mal never had been able to master. However, when Jayne went so far as to invite himself into a purple-belly bed… Captain Jimmy’s bed… the murderer of…. Mal locked down his thoughts because if he kept thinking on that too much, he was tossing Womak out the gorram airlock, and that’d leave him dealing with Sandburg. Mal already had enough trouble on his ship without inheriting Dr. Sandburg.

“Mal.” Jayne stood up, a frown on his face, but it seemed like Captain Jimmy was more distressed about Mal’s mood than anyone else. He was backing up toward the ladder, practically dragging his sly little trick with him. Doctor. Mal wondered why he never did get any useful doctors on the ship, just meddling, core-bred, annoying ones.

“We’re leaving,” Jim said firmly, and Mal pinned him with a hard enough glare to make Jim drop his gaze first.

“But,” Blair started saying.

“Not now, Naomi,” Jim said in a sharp tone.

“Hey, there is nothing wrong with being my mother,” Blair protested. If it were Mal, he’d be more protesting getting called a woman, but there really wasn’t a good way of explaining Sandburg-logic.

“Another time and another place, and I might agree. Here and now, we’re leaving,” Jim said firmly.

“Good,” Mal snapped as Jim got Blair onto the stairs and starting physically shoving him up. “And keep him outta my sight,” Mal yelled after, not even sure if he was telling Sandburg to keep Captain Jimmy away or the other way around. As long as he didn’t have to look at either one of them, he would be a happy man.

After watching them disappear up the stairs, Mal turned to find Jayne watching, his mouth nearly hanging open. “What you do that for?” Jayne demanded.

For a second, Mal stared at him. “What? You want I should bring them back so you can go bedding Captain Jimmy?”

“I wasn’t interested in him as much the little one. He seems to have taught Jim how to do things right.” Jayne crossed his arms, and Mal just did not have the words to answer that. He turned and started walking back toward the bridge.

“Does that mean I should go and see him?” Jayne called after him.

Mal whirled around. “If that’s what you really want, see away.”

“What I really want is to figure out how I done you so wrong that you’re cranky as a gut-shot bear this morning.”

“Wrong?” All Mal’s anger slid into guilt. Jayne had done plenty of wrong in his life, but last night… the only wrong had been Mal. All the starch seemed to go right out of his spine, and he leaned against a crate someone had shoved up against the wall.

Maybe Jayne was more observant than Mal thought because he took a step forward. “Mal, you okay?” he asked with more sympathy that Mal ever expected.

Turning around, Mal punched the wall next to the stairs up to the next level. “Cao,” he swore, cradling the injured fist in his good hand.

“Damn, Mal. If’n you’re looking to take a swing at me, I figure I have a right to know why.” That sounded more like Jayne—angry and confused.

Still holding his bruised knuckles Mal whirled around. “I ain’t looking to take a swing at you!”

“So, the wall managed to piss you off?”

Mal had to take some time to rein in his temper before he said something truly unforgivable.

“Cao. Just say whatever you got to say.” Jayne stepped so close that Mal could feel the heat of him, smell the salt and see the beads of sweat gathering at his hairline. Jayne crossed his arms over his chest, and the muscles bulged.

“I ain’t doing this. I really ain’t doing this,” Mal said, and he might have gone through with that, only Jayne turned around to leave, and Mal’s imagination gave him a flash of what it might mean if Jayne went to Blair. He could imagine Jayne on his knees in front of Sandburg, Jim watching from the side, that tight expression of his never changing as Jayne followed Blair’s orders. “It wasn’t you that didn’t know how to do sly last night,” he admitted, turning so he could stare down Serenity’s long corridor. He sure as hell couldn’t say this to Jayne’s face. “I wasn’t the most charitable of lovers, and it’s been a lot of years since I left a bed partner that….” Mal stopped and sighed. The fact was he’d been a lousy partner, and the fact that he still wanted to lie up with Jayne without wanting to ameliorate those flaws was making him question himself. Mal never was at his best when he went questioning himself, and he knew it.

“I ain’t following even half of that,” Jayne said, he put out a hand to catch Mal by the arm, and Mal whirled around. Jayne always had been the obdurate one, not accepting anything without having it shoved in his face first.

“I’d cut out my tongue before I’d suck your cock, and I’d cut your cock off before I let it inside my hole. Is that plain enough for you?”

Jayne pulled his hand back like he’d been burned, but instead of getting angry, he stared at Mal with that expression he sometimes got when people went using words he couldn’t keep up with. The problem was that Mal was fairly certain Jayne knew every word he’d just used.

“That’s what’s eating you?” Jayne finally asked with an expression like he’d just smelled something particularly noxious.

“It was one of the things,” Mal said, suddenly unwilling to admit that was pretty much the whole shape of the matter. It seemed like a man should get plenty upset about that, but Jayne didn’t look upset as much as mightily annoyed.

“If’n I wanted someone to go sucking on my cock, I’d hire a whore for it,” he said with a shrug.

“Don’t think to compare me with one of your whores,” Mal warned.

“I ain’t.” Jayne threw his hands up. “If you ain’t interested in giving me orders in the bedroom, I ain’t going to go saying anything about it, but you’re about the most aggravating man I ever have met. I hope all sly men aren’t aggravating the way you are. Hell, you weren’t even aggravating until you went and tried being sly. I mean, you’re a real wang ba dan sometimes, but you ain’t never been this hard to understand.”

Mal’s mouth nearly fell open as shock grabbed him and gave him a good hard shock. Jayne should be mad as hell about Mal’s behavior in the bedroom. He sure as hell shouldn’t be offering to still take orders in the bedroom. That wasn’t the way it worked. If Mal had tried that with anyone he wasn’t paying in good coin, they’d come after him with a knife looking to gut him.

“You should be offended at my lack of interest in your cock,” Mal pointed out, feeling somewhat foolish for even having to explain the matter. It was like trying to explain why people called “the black” black. It was so obvious that it wasn’t something to go talking about.

Jayne shrugged. “It ain’t like I don’t have experience with taking care of my own dick. I don’t need someone else to go messing with it to get myself off.”

Mal felt reality slipping around him. This wasn’t Jayne Cobb. The Jayne Cobb he knew was more likely to…. Mal’s brain brought up the image of those whores they’d fought for at Petaline’s place, the way they all giggled around Jayne, following him like puppies. And Jayne hadn’t given them coin. They just wanted Jayne, and Mal always had wondered why those women were all so willing to not only provide free services but do it so enthusiastically. None of Mal’s whores were ever that devoted to the job at hand. And Jayne had followed them out onto Higgins’ Moon when it was pretty clear he would rather cut off his own arm. Then he’d followed them out into Reaver space. What had Sandburg been saying… that Jayne were more loyal than most. The thought had pricked him at the time, but now Mal felt like the prick had gotten infected. He grabbed a nearby handrail and just about fell on his ass, but at least he managed to do it so that he ended up sitting on the step which was a lot less embarrassing that falling down when you weren’t even drunk. Come to think of it, getting drunk wasn’t a bad idea.

“Mal, you fixing on retching on the decking?” Jayne asked. Mal didn’t know whether Jayne was concerned about him or the chances that Jayne would end up cleaning the deck, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that Jayne was concerned.

“Wasn’t really thinking on it, no,” Mal assured him even as he struggled to get his mind around a reality that just kept shifting under his feet.

“New ruts under the grass,” a voice announced from above. Mal looked up to see River standing on the catwalk and looking down at him, her head tilted to the side.

“Don’t go messing in matters that aren’t your business,” Jayne snapped. Most times, Mal was quick enough to bring Jayne to heel around River. He didn’t want those two starting something that Jayne couldn’t finish, and he sure as all guay couldn’t control River. But looking back, he’d been bringing Jayne to heel for all that time, and Jayne hadn’t even bothered snapping at the hand controlled him. Oh, Jayne was quick to tell him when he thought one of Mal’s plans was addlepated, but he was there in the middle of the insanity with the rest of them.

“New ruts hurts,” River announced grandly before she padded off, her bare feet slapping at the metal flooring.

“Gorram moonbrain. If the hairy little doc is one of those that rewired her, I’d suggest keeping him away from any wiring. It don’t make sense to make someone that crazy.”

“She’s not crazy,” Mal said, his voice faint even to his own ears. The fact was, getting new ruts set down in the brain did hurt a bit. “So, if I told you that I wanted you on your knees right now, you wouldn’t take no offense to that?” Mal asked, studying Jayne and hoping he could get clear if the man took offense enough to throw a fist.

“Not as long as you didn’t go getting all riled if one of the women saw us,” Jayne answered, he uncrossed his arms and promptly crossed them again as he eyed Mal up and down like he was a snake ready to bite. Mal figured he’d done enough to put any man on edge, and Jayne wasn’t exactly the calm or forgiving sort. It did make a man wonder why he stayed around.

“And if I said that I wouldn’t ever be returning the favor?”

Jayne frowned. “I ain’t no urchin looking for leavings to avoid starving to death. If you’re planning on being sly only behind a door and then chasing your skirts and getting stupider than usual, I ain’t interested,” Jayne said firmly.

Mal breathed out, relieved that the man was willing to put up some rules here. It seemed like this relationship was starting off one-sided, and if Jayne had conditions, that was doing something to even that out some.

“I’ll agree to that. No hiding that you’re in my bed, and no chasing skirts, but that means you’re willing to….” Mal cleared his throat. He wasn’t some colt-legged boy, but telling a grown man like Jayne to suck his cock was making him feel right uncomfortable.

“I’ll follow orders same as always, I’ll just extend that into the bedroom,” Jayne agreed. “When you aren’t over-thinking, you’re easier to please than a woman. I ain’t never thought on it much, but with a cock, you don’t have to go worrying that someone’s faking the lust just to get you moved out and bring another customer in. I ain’t fond of it when women go doing that.” Jayne scratched his crotch, and Mal noticed that he was a good-sized bulge in his pants. Jayne wiped the sweat off his face, his hand lingering around his mouth, and Mal watched. Jayne’s mouth was a wonderful thing. Now that Mal didn’t have to feel guilty about his own inability to reciprocate, it might be a downright glorious thing.

Mal groaned as his cock hardened.

Stopping, Jayne looked over with that calculating expression that usually meant he was coming up with angles for shooting someone dead. “You want to go back to your bunk?” Jayne asked. Mal had spent decades trying to come up with ways to sweet talk a woman into his bunk, and now his cock seemed more interested in Jayne Cobb, who didn’t need any sweet talking at all.

“You interested in sucking my cock?” Mal asked, just to make sure he was understanding Jayne.

“Yep,” Jayne said without any self-consciousness at all, and then he turned and started heading back up toward the crew quarters. Yeah, Mal had rightly wasted a whole lot of time trying to learn to learn sweet-talking, not that it mattered now. Now, he wanted to see Jayne on his knees, that beautiful mouth around Mal’s cock. Mal groaned and nearly grabbed his crotch as his desire got a little ahead of the rest of him. He was not going to come in his pants like a gorram teenager. Pushing himself up to his feet, Mal realized that if he wanted to avoid doing exactly that, he needed to get to his bunk before he could do too much thinking about how Jayne looked on his knees.

Chapter 21

Mal stirred, and Jayne’s hand tightened around his waist, Jayne’s breath on the back of his neck. Even though Mal felt that immediate flash of dread that had made him turn so mean only yesterday, one talk and two and a half more times of Jayne sucking Mal’s cock had calmed his nerves a mite. That and he still felt a little guilty about falling asleep that third time. Fact was, Jayne wasn’t looking for anything but a warm body and someone to please who wouldn’t go denying him or playing games. Mal wouldn’t do the first, and he was trying hard to avoid the second. It was harder than he’d thought.

Growing up, sly boys had been the ones in danger, the ones who, like girls, you had to look out for. His father always told him that if you punched a man, make sure he saw it coming, if you punched a boy, make sure he was taller than you, and to not ever punch a girl or one who was sly. It wasn’t fitting. Mal had always seen himself as one who did punching or who got punched. Fact was he did more of the getting hit than he really liked. However, he’d never even looked to being sly. He really never would have looked for men like Jayne or Jim to be sly.

Jayne and Jim were the sort of men you punched or looked to get punched by. If you were lucky, they were the kind who would punch someone else for you. They weren’t the sort to go protecting with the womenfolk.

Mal cringed. That had been Jayne’s lunacy—talking about Jim like he was a woman and should be more womanly. Fact was, he and Jayne were both the children of backwards moons. Mal just took more care to avoid advertising that fact. Zoe gave her heart to the Browncoats, but like Wash, she’d grown up near the border moons. She’d been near enough to the core to get regular schooling. Kaylee was the only other one from the real wild outlands, and she had a personality that just shook off all her old learnings as soon as she found something new.

Mal could admit that he had a little more trouble shaking off his beliefs. Oh, he believed in being polite to those who were sly—giving them the respect that Jayne had so casually dismissed with his constant comments on Jim being womanly. However, he’d been raised to think of them as the sort that weren’t manly enough for fisticuffs and random violence.

Hell, he might have spaced Jim, only the thought of Captain Jimmy and the idea of him being sly clashed in his brain so much that he hesitated long enough that he started seeing the man behind the labels.

Jayne shifted, and Mal rolled over onto his back, pushing at Jayne’s arm until he got himself enough room to breathe. Jayne snorted and made a sort of growling grunt before he went still. It was odd, knowing that Jayne woke up quiet-like. He sure didn’t sleep quiet, but then Mal had spent so many years sleeping with a dozen other soldiers in a small space that one man’s snoring couldn’t rightly disturb him much.

Slowly, Jayne’s eyes came open, and he took a long look at Mal. His body tensed, and Mal felt another kick of guilt. If his father wasn’t already in his grave, the old man would take Mal to task for how he’d behaved… right after he’d taken Mal to task for bedding a man.

“You feeling mean this morning?” Jayne came right out and asked. The good thing about Jayne was that you didn’t really have to wonder what he was thinking. If it crossed his mind, it came out his mouth without editing.

“Not so much. I think you made me too mellow to care much about any cantankerous feelings I might still harbor,” Mal offered with a smile. He hated that Jayne’s expression stayed suspicious. However, with a nod, Jayne rolled off the bed and headed over to pee.

“You wore your pants to bed.” Mal tried to make it sound like a simple observation, but Jayne shot him a concerned look.

“I ain’t looking for a repeat of yesterday. If’n I’d known the sight of a cock got you riled, I would have worn pants then too.” A zipper opened and Jayne looked down, watching himself pee most likely.

“You’ll smell worse than usual, sleeping in them.”

Jayne frowned as he took another glance over his shoulder. Maybe he was looking to see what sort of mood Mal was in, but the fact was, Mal didn’t know what kind of mood he was in. He only knew he had made a mess of things yesterday, and this morning, he was regretting about every minute of it.

“You taking offense to my smell now?” Jayne asked.

“Well, I would appreciate it if you could manage one shower a week,” Mal said, smiling to lighten the tone. From the way Jayne moved his shoulders, he was tucking himself back in. Bracing himself, Mal blurted out, “Don’t zip up.” For a second, he thought Jayne would disobey that. It wasn’t a rational order, even. Mal waited for the sound of the zipper going up; however, after a second of perfect stillness, Jayne turned around, his hands hiding his cock and his pants unzipped.

“We playing at something here, Mal?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. For a sly man, Jayne truly didn’t need protecting if punches flew.

“I’m wondering what you’re getting outta this, Jayne. I know what I stand to gain seeing as how you have so much talent that you should be getting paid for it.” Mal watched as Jayne shifted uncomfortably. Right then, that wasn’t the tact to take.

“You want to talk with my pants unzipped?” The suspicion was right there on the surface for Mal to see.

“I’m giving the orders,” Mal tried saying in his captain-tone. Oddly, that settled Jayne right down. He still looked concerned, but all that shifting stopped. “Come over here,” Mal ordered, pointing next to the bed. Mal had fallen asleep in his birthday suit. Actually, he’d fallen asleep with Jayne’s mouth on his half-hard cock, but considering that he’d come twice in as many hours, Mal had impressed himself getting even half-hard. He wasn’t a teenager anymore. Moving slow, Jayne covered the three feet to stand where Mal directed him.

Mal swallowed. This had seemed like a good idea two minutes ago, but up close and personal with Jayne’s body, he suddenly wondered if he even wanted to get over this discomfort he had around another man’s cock.

“You want I should stand here forever?” Jayne asked, and that edge of unhappy was back in his voice.

“Hands behind your back,” Mal said more to get them out of the way than anything else. This was his plan, and he was going to see it through. He might not be the best with planning, but he sure as hell knew how to gorram follow through with a plan, good or bad. So, he watched as Jayne moved his hand and his pants gaped open, revealing the cock within.

It was a cock. Mal had seen hundreds in his life. Jayne’s was bigger than most but not as big as some. Reaching out, Mal pushed the pants open farther to reveal the entire cock. It was thick and dark, and even now it was starting to grow harder.

“Mal?” Jayne asked, and now he had the edgy sound to his voice, like they were about to get ambushed. Gritting his teeth, Mal reached up and took the cock in his hand. It felt like his. The angle was wrong since he never reached up to grab his own cock, but there wasn’t anything here to go verbally eviscerating Jayne over.

“What makes you want to suck one of these?” Mal asked curiously. He rubbed his hand over the end, watching the foreskin slide and move. He couldn’t really see the appeal, himself. Oh, he was getting over his dread of the thing, but he wasn’t looking to put it in his mouth, either.

Jayne sucked in a breath, his whole body going tense. Mal thought he made a mistake, hurt Jayne maybe. However, when he looked up into Jayne’s face, he could see the same expression Jayne had on his face when a particularly beautiful woman walked by. Mal had been on the verge of getting unhappy about Jayne’s refusal to answer, but his breath caught in his throat, and he swallowed the angry words, knowing they didn’t have a place between him and Jayne, not anymore.

“I asked you a question,” Mal said when Jayne took too long. He ran his finger over the side of the cock, watching it twitch to life.

“I just like touching. Always have,” Jayne answered defensively.

“Touching? Not sexing?”

For a second, Jayne didn’t answer. Of course, he was sucking air through his teeth as his cock hardened, so Mal decided to give him some time.

“Sexing is easy enough. I have a hand for that,” Jayne said, “but it ain’t the same without someone to touch.”

“That’s what you were doing with Petaline’s girls?” Mal asked, and he surprised himself with the flash of jealousy that stabbed him in the chest.

“Mostly. Always ended with a good rutting since that’s good too, but when I hire a whore, I always make sure I get one that don’t mind some time just touching.”

“And sucking on?”

“Like to suck on breasts,” Jayne admitted. “Cocks are better, though. They react. You can feel them grow and know how the other person’s feeling. I was sucking on a whore once, and I looked up, and she had one of them data things she was using to check messages. It put me right off.”

Mal snorted. “Trust me, I won’t be checking any messages. Hell, when you get going, the ship could be on fire, and I reckon I wouldn’t care much. You don’t do anything by halves, Jayne Cobb.” Mal watched in amazement as Jayne’s cock filled out. Mal had been judging the weight of it, so his fingers were under as it filled and darkened.

And that was about where Mal’s new slyness started fading. He didn’t want to be holding Jayne’s cock when it came. Mal carefully eased his fingers away, realizing that they had a slight moistness to them that came from Jayne. It seemed disrespectful to wipe off a hand after touching a lover, so Mal rested it on his own knee. And now Jayne was looking down at him, and Mal realized he’d gotten into this plan without having an exit strategy. Oh, he could tell Jayne to suck him, and his own cock was showing a good deal of interest in that, but Mal was starting to feel like he was showing a lack of creativity in this relationship.

Clearing his throat, Mal eyed Jayne, and Jayne eyed him right back. “I want to see you make yourself come,” Mal said. That wasn’t strictly the truth seeing as he had some trepidation over that very thought, but he hoped Jayne couldn’t see that.

For a second, Jayne stared down at him. “You want I should jerk off?” His voice was slow and uncertain, but then Mal had been giving a few mixed messages lately.

“That’s an order,” Mal said as firmly as he could given the way his own stomach had little flutters of discomfort or interest… Mal couldn’t decide which.

“Huh.” For a second, Jayne considered Mal the way he sometimes considered River, like maybe one too many brain cells had been knocked loose. Then with a shrug he seemed to dismiss all that before he wrapped his hand around his cock and started pulling at it unmercifully.

“Aiya, slower,” Mal said. The rate Jayne was pulling at it, it looked like he was trying to milk a cow rather than pleasure himself.

“I been pleasuring myself most my life Mal, I know how to get myself off.”

“Well I said for you to do it slower,” Mal insisted. True, he probably shouldn’t have said that, but once he had, he wasn’t going to go backing down.

Jayne gave a mighty sigh, but he started stroking himself slower this time, his hand moving up and down, the foreskin sliding and the pink tip of the cock appearing and vanishing into it like a winking eye. Mal scooted back on the bed both to be out of the line of fire and to get a better view. Jayne’s jaw was set and he had a look of utter concentration, like this was some task he needed to get done.

“When you’re done, I’ll let you suck me, and I’m going to try my best to not come for as long as possible,” Mal commented. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how long that’d be. Jayne was mighty talented with his mouth, but Mal’s cock was about half worn out already, and the day was only starting. However, the promise made Jayne’s lips part as his breathing grew heavier. He started pulling on himself faster again, and Mal repeated his order. “Slower.”

“I need—”

“Slower,” Mal said firmly. His own cock stirred at the sight of Jayne in need, his back arching now as the slow strokes kept him from finishing the deed. It occurred to Mal that Jayne did sex the way he did his shooting—hard, fast, accurate, and utterly businesslike. As far as Mal was concerned, any time you approached sex and guns using the same theory of life, you were doing something wrong.

“Stop for a second,” Mal said. Jayne’s eyes popped open, and he gave Mal an almost hateful look, but he stopped. His cock was hard, jutting out and demanding attention, but he stopped.

“You ever play with your balls when you’re like this?” Mal asked.

“Ain’t got no need—”

“Try,” Mal cut him off. It wasn’t about need, but if Jayne hadn’t seen the need, he wouldn’t have tried it.

That inspired a much-put-upon sigh, but Jayne reached down for his balls. Mal opened his mouth to give warning, but before he could, Jayne had caught up his balls in a grip that was far too hard. “Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng,” he snarled. Mal cringed in sympathy, but surprisingly, Jayne’s cock didn’t soften at all. Mal’s cock would have surrendered unconditionally and retreated from the field after having his balls handled like that.

“Might want to go easy there,” Mal recommended. That inspired another unhappy look from Jayne, but he fondled his balls, this time gentling his fingers. Mal watched as Jayne’s body started showing signs of that need to come again. He stretched, his back arching and his mouth coming open again. Precum stained the tip of his cock, and Jayne kept fondling his balls until he weaved gently. He had to reach out with his left hand and grab at the wall to keep from falling down.

Mal’s own cock was hard now, the pleasurable ache settling in. “Now try stroking yourself, slower now,” Mal said.

Jayne sucked air in through his teeth as he started stroking himself painfully slow. Mal felt sympathy for him seeing as he was definitely ready to come, but the sight of the man lost in his own lust, his body curved in unfamiliar ways… it had some appeal. Jayne’s head tilted back, making the front of his neck arch out, the Adam’s apple sliding up and down. Mal let his own hand slide over to his cock and he started gently teasing himself.

“Mal, please,” Jayne begged, the words rough, and Mal figured that was probably about the first time Jayne Cobb had ever begged for anything.

“Finish it off and get over here,” Mal said. Jayne made a noise that wasn’t exactly a word as he started pulling at himself. He hadn’t even finished one stroke before he started coming. He caught his come in his hand and slumped over, his left hand still braced against the wall.

“Fuck, Mal,” Jayne said softly, and the wonder and shock and plain happiness in the voice made Mal think that maybe he wasn’t such a poor lover after all.

“You’d best get over here unless you plan to watch me finish without you,” Mal commented, giving Jayne the choice. Jayne looked up with dark eyes and promptly wiped his hand on his pants, making a streaked stain down the leg that didn’t seem to bother him at all. When he took a step forward, his pants started slipping down, and Jayne pulled them up and shoved his cock in before zipping up. “You don’t have to hide your cock, Jayne,” Mal commented. But Jayne didn’t answer. He reached for Mal, grabbing his hips and pulling him forward with an ease that reminded Mal just how strong Jayne really was. And then Jayne went to his knees next to the bed and started sucking on Mal’s cock. Mal might have said he was going to try to keep from coming, but the fact was, Jayne’s mouth was entirely too talented for him to keep that promise.

Chapter 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.

Chapter 23

“Oh man, you should see this woman. I mean… whoa… seriously,” Blair said, his arm thrown around the guard’s shoulders as he guided him out into the night. The man looked around nervously, but after that bare hesitation, he let Blair steer him right out into the trap. “No way is she local. Total companion. I’d bet you a week’s salary she’s a companion.”

Mal was looking at Jim like he couldn’t quite believe the pure bullshit Blair was spinning and getting away with, but Jim could only shrug. He’d grown used to Blair’s obfuscations, manipulations, and outright lies.

“Where?” the man asked. He might have asked more only Jayne fist caught the guy on the cheek and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

“Oh geez. You did not have to do that,” Blair objected loudly.

Mal gave Blair an incredulous look. “That was the plan. Now keep your voice down.”

Blair’s voice got softer, but he ran after Mal as the man helped Jayne drag the Blue Sun employee into an alley. “Do you have any idea how much damage is done to a human brain when you hit someone that hard?”

“Nope,” Mal answered.

“If you hit someone hard enough to knock them out then you’ve already done serious damage. You can kill someone like that. Kill them.”

Mal took a second to glare at Jim, but if he wanted to be captain, then Jim was letting him deal with the captain-type complaints. He leaned against the corner of the building and pulled the brim of his hat down to cover his smirk as he watched the street.

“I killed three or four like that,” Jayne agreed. “I ain’t exactly sure on number four because he was already bleeding good from a bullet in the gut so I ain’t exactly positive it was my fist that ended him.”

Jim almost choked to death at that announcement. He could imagine the horrified look on Blair’s face.

“Neanderthals,” Blair finally announced in a low, hissed tone that suggested he was feeling more offended than usual. “Man, you two are total and complete Neanderthals.”

“Yep,” Mal agreed. “And now we’re going to go shoot some folk. Try to stay out of the way.”

Jim pressed his lips together and tried to figure out how to do the next bit without sounding like he was telling Mal how to run the mission. There wasn’t a captain out there who wanted crew telling him how to wipe his own ass, and Jim figured that was true of Browncoat as much as it was Alliance. “Might be Blair shouldn’t come along for the assault,” Jim said carefully.

From the cold and calculating look Mal gave him, the man wasn’t fooled.

“Hey, I’ve shot a gun,” Blair protested before Mal could go taking offense, although Jim doubted the man intended to save Jim with that bit of intervention. He looked downright pissed off.

Pursing his lips, Jim considered Blair for a second. “Yes, you shoot often enough, but I’ve never seen one of your bullets actually hit a person.”

Blair glared.

“No offense, but I ain’t looking to have someone who shoots that bad at my back,” Jayne said with an apologetic look in Blair’s direction.

“Man, I would not shoot *you*,” Blair said, his own nasty glare focusing on Jim. Jim hated that he had to ask a Browncoat’s permission to protect Blair, but he’d decided a long time ago that the universe cared very little about his pride.

“Mal?” Jim asked.

The sigh did suggest that Mal knew he was being played. For a second, Jim wondered if he would turn down Jim’s request just out of principle. “Sandburg, you need to get this key back to Inara’s.” Mal finally said as he pulled the key out of his pocket and thrust it at Blair.

“But—”

“I ain’t going to leave Inara in a spot, and we’re about to make a whole lot of noise, and if someone calls him, that’s going to leave her client wondered how his key went and got missing. You’ve got exactly ten minutes before we open fire and you’d better hope they don’t come looking for their missing guard any quicker than that. Now move,” Mal said. When it came down to it, Blair always did follow any order that made sense, and Jim could see he would follow this one. Oh, he hesitated and shifted his weight from foot to foot and even glanced over at Jim like he had any say in the matter, but in the end, he huffed and turned around.

“Just remember,” he almost hissed the words, “whatever you do in this lifetime, you have to live with the karma of that in your next one.”

“Seems like you and your partner are the ones who should be worrying about that,” Mal pointed out. Jim flinched, and Blair did too, but on Blair it looked more like a puppy getting kicked the way his shoulders drooped. Jim glared at Mal.

“Fine.” Blair turned and trotted up the street. As Blair hurried away, a rough silence fell on the rest of them. It took some time for Jim to gather his temper well enough to talk without calling Mal every name in the book. If two men wanted to have at each other with words or fists, Jim wouldn’t interfere, but some people weren’t cut out to fight. Kaylee was one. Jim wouldn’t ask her to kill any more than he’d ask River to preach a sermon. Blair was another who didn’t fight, and Mal had gone and antagonized him about as hard as he could.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go bringing up his past,” Jim warned Mal. Oh, it was a carefully worded and calmly stated warning, but it was a warning. “If you want to take a shot at me, you’ve got a right. You and I were on opposite sides, and two men who can believe things deep enough to shoot at each other ought to be able to say it to each other’s faces. But Blair never wanted to hurt anyone.”

Mal looked him up and down, but Jim refused to back away from the captain’s hard stare. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Alliance?”

“I don’t now. I did then, and I still think your Browncoats were corrupt through to the core. So you save your comments about karma for me.”

Mal got an injured look on his face. “I wasn’t the one who even brought it up. Seems like Blair can defend himself well enough without you jumping in to fight his gorram battles, Ellison. Cao. If he’s this mouthy all the time, I’m starting to regret taking him on as crew.”

Jim’s guts knotted at the thought of Blair’s safe-haven vanishing.

Jayne gave a loud snort. “You’ve been threatening to put Moonbrain’s brother off so long it ain’t like no one listens to that threat anymore, Mal.”

“Do not start with me, Jayne Cobb.”

“I’m stating a truth.”

“I can put you off,” Mal pointed out, his eyes narrowed.

“You could, but you ain’t going to find no one who sucks your cock, takes or orders or shoots your enemies half as good, so you ain’t going to,” Jayne answered with a little more cockiness than Jim was used to seeing in the man. Mal stood there, his mouth literally open, but Jim noticed that he didn’t actually contradict Jayne.

“Go tie up the guard,” Mal finally ordered Jayne.

Angling his body away from the other two, Jim checked his watch. It felt like ten minutes were up, but they’d managed to get themselves uncomfortably tangled in the world’s most awkward conversation inside of two. Luckily, everyone seemed to have run out of words, so for the next eight minutes they all stood outside the Blue Sun office, the light from one spluttering lamp casting shadows that danced across the rough wooden door. Jim could feel the temptation to watch the dust motes swirl and spin, but he forced his senses back, casting out only a net of hearing and scent. Of course, the second he caught a whiff of the breeze carrying Mal and Jayne’s musk, he turned that control down and relied on his hearing to warn him if anything was about to go particularly wrong.

“Alright, time’s up,” Mal announced either minutes later. “Ellison, you’ve got point.”

Jim nodded, he’d expected that, which is why he’d wanted Blair out of the way. The man insisted on following Jim into battle, no matter how dangerous the situation, and Jim didn’t trust Mal and Jayne enough to want Blair in the middle.

“Mal?” Jayne asked, his voice almost offended.

“If he can smell out trouble, you can shoot it,” Mal promised quietly as they approached the door, and Jayne shifted his grip on his weapon. Clearly he had no problem with that order.

Jim pushed the door open and scented carefully, drawing air in through his mouth so his taste could help identify any scents. There was machinery here, a lot more than Jim could see in this simple, dusty little office. File cabinets stood off to the side, and a single tablet-style computer lay on the desk, left behind by the man Blair had ushered out. Jim could smell his scent at the desk.

Stepping carefully into the room, Jim felt the air stir against his arm, the fan weaving back and forth as it created little air streams that flowed through his hairs.

“You planning on moving soon?” Jayne hissed. Jim glared over his shoulder before turning his attention back to the office. The floor felt wrong. Jim knelt down and rested his hand on the sanded boards. Tiny vibrations rolled up through his arm.

“They’ve got a generator,” Jim said.

“Makes sense they might. It’s easier to hide than solar.” Mal edged to the side, his gun up as he watched the room. Jayne took the other side of the door where he could watch for anyone coming in.

Jim nodded and tilted his head, searching the walls for the hidden door. He could still hear the wind whistling over the crack, and he turned toward the wall the fan was aiming at. Vision tunneled in until he could lose himself in the grain of the wood, lines and whorls became as large as canyons, and Jim had to work to convince his gaze to move against the grain of those mountains and valleys until finally his sight fall off into a valley so deep that the zone pressed against Jim, nearly taking him as he fell forward to his knees.

“Ellison?” Mal was there, a hand on Jim’s shoulder, and Jim shivered for a minute, nearly shoving the man away. No one touched him when he was near a zone, no one except Blair—not since the Institute and the doctors who saw Jim as some tool to be used and tuned and adapted to fit their needs. The memory of other hands pulled at him, and Jim battled back the nausea that took him for a second. Then Mal pulled his hand back and Jim cleared his throat.

“Found the crack,” Jim said, his voice tight. Standing up, he walked over to the wall and rested his hand on the place where the wood covered the metal.

“I don’t see nothing,” Jayne said. Jim ignored him and ran his hand up to the top of the crack, feeling for a second before moving right to trace the edge of the door.

Mal leaned in so close that Jim could feel the heat of him. “This isn’t any thrown together business. I could have searched this place for a month and not found it.”

“You see it?” Jayne asked from the door.

“Nope. I still don’t.” Mal leaned closer to the wood.

“Look four centimeters to your left,” Jim suggested. Mal shifted. “See it now?” Jim found the second corner of the door and started tracing the edge back down. There’d be a trigger somewhere in the door. A remote trigger in the desk would make it too easy for someone to track the signal. Hell, as a cop, Jim had done that often enough. He’d sit in some seedy bar with a handheld scanner and wait to pick up trigger signals, tracking them back to the source. Generally, when people felt a need to hide a door, they had something fairly interesting behind that door.

“I still don’t see anything, Ellison, so either you’re really good or you’re leading us all on a wild goose chase.”

Jim kept feeling along the edge of the doorframe. If he wanted to convince Mal and find whatever River had sent them to find, he had to focus on the job. His fingers ghosted over the wood, but he paused at one spot. Slowly, he smiled as he felt the wood worn down so smooth that even Jim couldn’t feel the grain anymore. Someone had touched this one spot a lot. Standing up, Jim gave Mal a smile before pressing hard.

A groan warned them before a doorway started sinking into the wall.

For a second, Mal looked flabbergasted, but then his weapon came up. “Jayne, point. Ellison, make sure nothing shoots us in the back.” For a second Mal stared at Jim, and Jim figured the man was trying to figure out if Jim would shoot him in the back. The fact was, Jim had stopped believing all Browncoats were wrong about the same time he’d figured out that not all Alliance were right. He wasn’t going to share that with Mal, though. The man’s ability to assume his side was always the right was could get annoying.

Jayne stepped between them, taking point down the stairs, and Mal quickly followed, leaving Jim to cover the exit. Strategically it made sense. If Jayne was as good at shooting as everyone seemed to think, then he was a good site better than Jim. However, it still rankled to get left behind when the unit went into battle. Gunshots rang out, and Jim clenched his teeth and dialed back hearing before the ricocheting sound could deafen him.

“Mal!” Jayne called out, and Jim was half-way down the stairs, gun aimed in a second.

Jayne fired a shot, taking out a man coming through an office door, pistol in hand. Mal had his back to the office as he struggled with a heavy-set woman who still had a headset hanging from her neck. A number of people were dead, sprawled out in the middle of red sprays of blood that made it clear Jayne’s oversized weapon had taken them. He had managed to take out a good number, more than Jim would have. A few more groaned on the floor, and three people huddled in the corner, unarmed, but watching with fearful eyes. Jayne ignored them.

After glancing over to see if Jim was covering the room, Jayne walked over, cocked back an arm and punched the woman grappling with Mal. Her head snapped back and she sank to the ground unconscious.

“Mal, you ain’t got one lick of sense the minute some skirt bats her eyes,” Jayne said with a snort.

“She was stronger than she looked,” Mal defended himself.

“If you’re fighting someone, it helps to hit them,” Jayne said. For a second, the two men glared at each other. Their relationship certainly wasn’t one Jim would want any part of. He and Blair might have differences, but they didn’t call each other out on their faults, not like these two. However, Mal shook off the criticism and turned to the three remaining employees.

“So, who’s going to offer to show us around the place?” he asked. Two of the survivors were men, one an older gentleman with thinning hair, and Mal focused on him, striding over and grabbing the man’s arm before pulling him up.

“We don’t have any money,” the man quickly protested.

“Do I look like a common thief?” Mal paused. “Don’t answer that.”

The woman pushed herself up. “You have to help them,” she said, looking toward the injured. One had a leg injury that looked more painful than dangerous, but one had a wound to his side and the other a gut shot. A fourth lay near the stairs, his body making so many squelching sounds that Jim’s stomach roiled before he could focus his hearing elsewhere. Someone had taken time to kick their weapons to the side, but no one had offered any first aid.

“You got them?” Jim asked Jayne. Jayne gave him a confused look, but Jim went over to the one shot in the gut and knelt down to assess the wounds. When he focused on the internal organs, he could hear the heart beating strong, the blood pushing through vessels and the intestine leaking into the abdomen.

“Oh shit,” Blair’s voice sounded from the top of the stairs. “Oh shit, shit, shit.” He took two steps down into the basement, and Jim looked around and saw the room through his friend’s eyes. It was a bloodbath. Jim could see that each fallen body had a matching weapon just out of reach, but he doubted Blair was doing that sort of threat assessment. He saw the dead and wounded, not the weapons and the threat that Jayne and Mal had managed to survive without a scratch.

“This one has a perforated colon, no other organ damage,” Jim said, anxious to move Blair past the horror of the scene and onto helping someone. Blair could handle about any gou shi the universe threw at him as long as he could do some good. That was part of who he was.

“You say that like a perforated colon isn’t enough,” Blair said, his voice tight with emotion as he hurried over. “Man, this is… this is….” Blair stopped without coming up with a way to end that.

“The man with the shot to the leg has a muscle injury, no bone or artery damage. The woman took one to the side, her lungs sound clear, and I don’t hear any internal bleeding. She’s not in immediate danger.” Jim gave Blair a quick rundown, trying to distract him. Blair might be a psychiatrist, but he’d gone through medical school. Jim wasn’t even surprised when Blair took his bag off his shoulder and pulled out medical supplies.

“I should—” Blair looked over toward a man lying on his stomach near the stairs. Jim caught his arm, stopping him.

“Don’t,” Jim said firmly.

“But…” Blair frowned. The man’s low moans made it clear he was still alive.

Jim shook his head. “There’s too much damage, Blair. Focus on the ones you can help.”

Blair crouched next to the man with the perforated colon, his face reflecting so much pain that Jim hated himself for being unable to find an excuse to leave Blair back on the ship. He shouldn’t be in the middle of this. But then Blair took a deep breath and the emotion vanished from his face. “What can you hear?” Blair asked as he took out a vial and needle. Jim knew this version of Blair—this doctor focused on the job. It wasn’t a memory he cared to relive, so he gave Blair the fastest rundown on the condition of the three who could be saved before he got up to head over to Mal and Jayne. They’d talked one of the three techs into giving them access to the system, and Mal was downloading files.

“What have we got?” Jim asked. He cast his hearing out, but it didn’t sound like anyone had noticed their raid yet.

“Lots of numbers that don’t mean much to me,” Jayne said.

“Mal?” Jim looked over.

“Keep an eye up top,” Mal ordered him. Jayne wasn’t sure whether Mal didn’t want to discuss it with the Blue Sun employees listening or if he just didn’t understand the data any better than Jayne. Either way, Jim had gone into this mission agreeing to follow orders. He looked over toward Blair who was setting up an IV over the gut-shot man and whispering reassurances to the injured woman.

“Keep an eye on Blair, okay?” Jim asked. Mal looked up from the computer station where he was downloading data and over at Blair. Already, Blair’s hands and arms were smeared with blood and his face had a serious intensity that wasn’t normal for him.

Mal frowned for a second before he nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for him. You just give us warning if we need to clear out fast. I want to get as much of this as I can.”

Jim nodded and headed for the stairs. As much as it made his gut ache to leave Blair down there, Blair wouldn’t leave his patients, and Jim wasn’t in charge of the mission. Worse, if this plan of River’s didn’t work, he was still going to have to pull the hunters off their tail by leaving Blair behind. Then he would have to trust Mal to always have Blair’s back. It wasn’t a comforting thought. Oh, Jim was starting to think Mal was less of an idiot than Jim had first assumed, but he didn’t want anyone else taking responsibility for protecting Blair. That was his job. At the top of the stairs, Jim crouched down low and rested his fingers against the floor as he sent his hearing out to creep along the ground like a fog, searching for the sound of running feet or shouting men. Instead, the town was silent, and Jim waited for the others to finish as he stood guard at their back. It was all he could do.

Chapter 24

“So, what’d we get?” Mal asked as River brought up streams of data onto the screen.

Everyone stood around watching, but Jim was focused more on his partner. Blair had been quiet ever since they’d returned. The second they got back on the ship, he’d showered off the blood and changed his clothes, but his eyes were still haunted. Jim reached out and rested a hand on Blair’s shoulder, and Blair summoned up a weak smile. Then he leaned in closer, his weight resting against Jim’s side. Jim wrapped his arm around Blair and held him tightly. “You saved them,” Jim whispered while the others fussed over figures. River brought up a split screen with two sets of data, and Simon Tam was the first to spot that they were two versions of financial records.

“I didn’t save all of them,” Blair whispered back. The air smelled of salt, and Blair turned his face toward Jim’s chest. Kaylee turned a worried face their way, and Jim nodded at her. He appreciated that she cared, but he didn’t want someone else coming in and comforting his partner. If they couldn’t figure out River’s plan and Jim still had to make a suicide run, he wanted to store up every memory of Blair he could get. So he tightened his arms around Blair and rested his cheek on the top of Blair’s head.

“They’re financing the president. Blue Sun isn’t just donating money, they’re actually financing the president and at least half the elected congress. Look at that,” Simon said, pointing at the screen. “They own the government.”

Blair tried to squirm around, but Jim held on tighter. There was a little sob from him, and Jim could feel the tremors. Blair needed to feel this, he needed to let the pain out or he’d swallow it. That’s what he’d done after their big escape. For almost a month, they’d hidden at a little prospector’s place Jim had kept as a bolt hole in case of trouble, and Blair had insisted that he was fine, that he knew he wasn’t at fault for the people inside the Institute. He’d claimed that for almost two weeks, brushing off Jim’s sympathy until he’d finally broken down.

Now that Jim knew his partner had a habit of burying his own guilt, swallowing it whole until it gnawed at his guts, Jim was quicker to force the emotion out. Slowly Blair’s arms came up around Jim, holding on for dear life. It was funny—Blair understood everyone else so well, and yet he still needed Jim to do this for him, to hold him and prick the emotion until it came out. Ideally Jim’d rather do it in private, but Blair had insisted that he wanted to see the information that had come at such a high price.

“Oh my God.” Simon breathed out the words, leaning close to the screen. “This… this could bring down governments. I can’t believe they’re doing this. I can’t believe they’re keeping records about having done this. Oh my God.”

“Brother thinks in grey and grey, all the color leeched from the sky,” River announced as she slowly scrolled through more figures. They didn’t mean all that much to Jim, but if River and Simon thought they were important, Jim would believe them.

“What, so this is like Miranda with some big-ass secret?” Jayne asked. “The last secret looked more important than this. This is just figures.” Jayne clearly wasn’t impressed.

Simon looked at Jayne with his mouth literally open for several seconds. “The last secret could be dismissed as an ill-thought out plan by a small group of overenthusiastic scientists. This is proof that our whole democracy is essentially a farce, a fiction, a nice little fairy tale that Blue Sun has plastered over their own dictatorial control of the universe. My god. They will do anything to control the markets and the profits, all for the benefit of fifteen men who think they own the whole ‘verse. Oh my god.” Simon backed away from the screen, tried to sit on the edge of table and instead ended up on the floor. Stranger still, he didn’t seem to notice he was on the floor.

“So, this is important?” Jayne asked as he looked at the screen with some degree of skepticism. Blair squirmed again, this time adding an elbow in the side, and Jim loosened up enough for Blair to turn and study the screen. Jim might not like the idea of Blair postponing the coming emotional storm, but he couldn’t force Blair to focus on himself instead of their newly stolen data.

“It don’t look half as interesting,” Mal agreed. “I suppose we should find someone to broadcast this. It seems like last time, that was the hardest part.” Mal got quiet, and Jim could taste the grief around them. The crew had lost people on that mission, and Jim’s guts tightened at the thought that they might lose more, and none of them had any idea what the endgame looked like since they were following River’s plan.

“Nope,” River said firmly. “Plough horses in the dressage ring.”

“The what?” Jayne asked. Jim figured he wasn’t the only one ignorant as to the finer points of show horses, but he was the only one willing to admit it.

“Dressage,” Simon said wearily, as if Jayne’s ignorance was a personal affront. Jim wasn’t sure how the man had managed to avoid being punched. “It’s a French term. A dressage horse is the ultimate in training, an animal who can respond with the simplest touch of his rider and perform gracefully.”

“And I’m guessing she’s calling us the plough horses,” Mal said.

“It does seem like it, sir,” Zoe agreed. “On the bright side, a good plough horse is a valuable animal.”

Mal looked over at her, his face incredulous, but the corners of Zoe’s mouth were twitching with a smile, and he just rolled his eyes at her.

“However, if we are going to try and find a broadcast platform, I recommend we don’t split the crew again, sir. We don’t have the personnel for that sort of assault.” She gave him a nasty look, but then after finding out that their quick little raid on a dusty office had turned into a full-out assault of a secret base with armed guards, she hadn’t been amused at being left out. On an Alliance ship, these people would all have rank, and Jim would understand their relative positions, but now Zoe, who he had originally thought of as Mal’s second, had been left behind in favor of Jayne, and Jim wasn’t sure how that all worked. It seemed like without rank there were likely to be some hurt feelings somewhere along the way.

“No!” River pushed herself up out of the chair. “Plough horses in the dressage ring ruin everything. Plough horses in the field sow the seeds of wheat the feed the family.” She closed her eyes and clenched her fists in a way that made Jim want to back out of the room slowly and carefully.

However Blair shoved at Jim’s arms to get free. “So River, we can do something with this, but if we do the wrong thing, we’re going to stick out like a plough horse in a show ring and likely make fools of ourselves at the same time?” He asked.

“Already plowed through the quarter line… G to I to X to L.”

“Gixl?” Jayne said. Funny enough, it seemed like when everyone was confused, Jayne was about the only one willing to admit it.

“They’re positions on the dressage ring, she’s describing the line as you move your horse down the field.” The way Simon said that he made it sound like everyone should know that already, but Jim had been raised on Osiris—he’d seen horses and riders performing in the ring—and he still didn’t have a gorram clue about Gs or Xs.

River’s fists slowly unclenched as she nodded. “Horses aren’t all horses,” she muttered softly. “Some eat the elephant from the inside.”

Mal scratched his head. “If we aren’t supposed to tell anyone and we aren’t supposed to take our plough horse selves into the fancy dressage ring, what exactly are we supposed to do with this? I don’t mind saying that I’d be fond of figuring out how to not end up dead, and after leaving witnesses behind, I ain’t so sure on our long-term survival, at least not me and Jayne.”

Jim wondered if they would have left live witnesses if he and Blair hadn’t come along. He didn’t think Mal was the sort to execute people, but Jim knew better than most that desperate people did despicable things. Most days Jim figured he’d even done one or two despicable things himself.

Surprisingly, River turned to Jim. “Ruts under leaves and litter still lead home.”

Mal sighed. “Is anyone else getting mightily annoyed with this talk?”

“Nope,” Blair said, earning a nasty look from Mal. Blair looked up at Jim. “Man, she wants you to use some skill you learned a long time ago, some thought that’s so old it’s covered over by leaves.” From River’s smile, Blair had guessed right.

“Maybe she wants you to start massacring people,” Mal suggested with an overly sweet smile.

Jim drew himself up and just stared right back at the captain. He’d never hidden from his past. After a second, Mal sighed. “Seeing as how River could just as well go massacring herself if she took a mind too, maybe not. This is probably something that only you could do.”

Jim looked around at the crew all looking to him, but he didn’t have an answers. “Any clearances I had are long since cancelled, any allies turned against me.” Jim hated that Captain Banks probably thought of him as a traitor, but he most likely did, and he’d turn Jim over to the alliance in a second. “And you just saw the sum total of what my senses can do in the field.”

“Gorram unnatural how he found the hidden door,” Jayne agreed.

“Well that ain’t really much of a help,” Mal pointed out.

Simon pushed himself up and stepped to Kaylee’s side. “What other skills do you have?”

“Killing Browncoats and tracking down slavers and pedophiles,” Jim answered. “I was a good cop, but with the reward out for me, I don’t think I can go back to my old contacts without ending up with a gun in my back as one of them try to sell me.”

“Ruts covered in leaves, leaves rotting back to dirt,” River said, her voice tinged with desperation.

“So a really old memory,” Blair said. “Could it be a skill you learned in college?”

Jim tried to think back, but he’d been unremarkable in his college days. That had been before he found himself, and most days he walked around expecting people to accuse him of something. Growing up with Charlie, Jim had learned to expect a knife in the back. Charlie’d do something downright unforgivable, anything from wrecking a shuttle to laming a horse so bad it had to be put down, and the wang ba dan found a way to blame Jim. Jim became the evil twin in the family, and by the time Jim left home, their younger brother Stephen was starting to pull the same gou shi. By the time he got to college, all Jim wanted was to be left alone. He didn’t trust many people, and he sure didn’t learn anything pertinent to this sort of mess. He shook his head, unable to find anything in his memory “I studied military history and criminal profiling. I honestly didn’t do anything particular special.”

“So, she wants you should profile someone?” Mal’s suggestion made River fist her hands up again. River’s frustration was starting to worry Jim because when the Institute’s readers started getting frustrated, people had a habit of ending up dead.

“Ruts crisscrossing with stupid brother,” River said, her hand snapped out to point straight at Simon Tam. And that made no sense at all. Jim looked over to Simon, but the stupid brother in question looked just as confused as Jim.

“Oh man.” Blair looked back and forth between them. River seemed to back away as she watched Blair’s hands start to fly. “Okay, you two have something in common. Let’s start at the beginning and figure this out. There’s a logical solution here.” Blair got his academic voice out, the one where he got excited about numbers and testing. “Okay, we should approach this logically, so one of you can start listing off all the places you’ve been and people you know, and we’ll cross-reference with the other. We should start with places. I mean, no way does everyone remember all the people they’ve met, but if we can’t find a place in common, we can start—”

“She’s changed course and we’re headed for Osiris,” Zoe interrupted. Jim felt the ship shiver as she corrected herself mid-flight, moving onto a new trajectory.

“Or we can wait until River just shows us,” Blair finished, much of his enthusiasm gone as if she’d pricked his balloon…. Or taken away his bright and shiny new puzzle. Jim almost felt sorry for Blair, except he knew that Blair wanted the puzzle so he wouldn’t have to think about the pain of what he’s seen in that basement.

“Osiris? That’s where we grew up,” Simon said.

“Old ruts covered in leaves,” River agreed from the pilot’s seat.

“Jim, isn’t that where you grew up?” Blair asked.

Staring at the new heading, Jim could feel a sinking in the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, and it’s where my father still lives.” This was not good.

“If your father lives there, why do you look like someone just tried to kill your dog?” Mal asked.

Jim looked over. “Maybe I should mention that my father killed my dog to punish me for not following the rules up to his standards.”

Jayne made a face. “He killed your dog?” Clearly that violated Jayne’s moral standards, and Jim figured when you managed to morally offend Jayne, you were out on some pretty thin ice morally speaking.

“Is anyone else getting a bad feeling?” Zoe asked softly.

Jim didn’t answer, but he figured from the way he was getting sympathetic looks and Blair’s arms tightening around his waist, they all knew he agreed.

“Too much gray. Color and colors and horses and elephants all gray,” River announced in the heavy silence that had fallen over the bridge.

Well cao. They were headed for Osiris.

Chapter 25

Jim escorted Blair back to their quarters.

“Oh man. Okay, I know you do not have warm and fuzzy feelings for your father. Do you really think River wants you to go to your father?”

“I don’t know,” Jim said, opening their quarters and standing to the side while Blair went down into the room.

“That is going to be one wild meeting. Wild.”

“Yep,” Jim agreed as he followed Blair into the room.

“So, is he safe… I mean, will he turn you over to the Alliance? I may complain about Naomi not naming my father, but man, that is way better than having a father who would turn you over to the Alliance. And seriously, do not even get me started on the dog thing. I mean… who kills a kid’s dog? That is so not cool.”

Jim watched as Blair paced the small room. He had too much energy for the small space, but Jim let him pace off as much energy as he could. “Are you planning on contributing to this conversation?” Blair finally demanded.

“No, not really.”

That made Blair stop in his tracks. He stood near the tiny table and stared at Jim like he couldn’t recognize him. “You are so in denial,” Blair said, poking a finger in Jim’s direction.

“No, squirt, I’m not. I know my father is an asshole and that his emotional abuse sent me running to the Alliance because I wanted to find a better authority figure.”

Blair frowned, but he didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Either that, or he didn’t want to admit that Jim was the self-aware one in this relationship. Oh, he had plenty of other issues including an ongoing self-worth issue and a fatalism born in the bowels of the Institution. However, he was far more self-aware than Blair who could see everyone’s faults but his own. Considering that he was a psychiatrist, Blair had this huge blind spot when it came to himself.

Blair crossed his arms. “Why do you have that look on your face?”

“What look?” Jim asked with as much innocence as he could muster. Blair’s eyes narrowed more.

“Oh no. You are getting ready to say something I do not want to here, and let me make this one hundred percent clear James Joseph Womak Ellison. I am going to Osiris with you. I am your partner. Partner. You hear that? Partner, as in the person who goes with you, not the person who gets left behind every time you think it’s more convenient.”

Jim gave a snort. “Considering that we’re both on a Browncoat ship old enough to have belonged to my great-grandfather as a young man, I clearly don’t leave you behind all that often.” Jim didn’t mention that he’d like to leave Blair behind more. He’d been an officer long enough to know that some battles were unwinnable.

“So… you aren’t going to tell me to stay behind when you visit your dad?”

“I don’t know that either of us are going to see William. Unless River comes right out and tells me to go see him, I don’t plan to go near the man,” Jim said firmly. The comm system came on with an electronic pop that suggested Kaylee needed to fix something in the unit. River’s voice filled the room.

“Coming right out and telling,” she sang and then the comm system popped again and went silent. Jim sighed. He didn’t know what annoyed him more: having a reader constantly monitoring his thoughts or having to visit his father.

“Oh man. That is….” Blair’s voice trailed off.

“Irritating?” Jim guessed.

“No way. I mean, River is trying to help, and I am not that easily irritated, unlike some people,” Blair gave him a look. “But is River monitoring everyone all the time or is she just monitoring us because she’s trying to communicate? The readers at the Institute were emotionally shut down. River… man, she has done an incredible job of recovering. I wonder how well she would perform on a Cummings-Nguyen personality inventory?” Blair stopped, his expression slowly turning suspicious. “What?” he demanded.

With a sigh, Jim sat on the edge of his bunk and considered possible attack strategies. With Blair, direct usually worked, but when he decided to develop a blind spot, he could really wallow in his own cluelessness. “Nothing, Blair. I just thought you’d be tired.”

“No way. I stayed up longer as a student. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Jim asked, all lightness gone from his voice. He’d seen Blair’s pain during the op, and he wondered how much of that Blair was hiding. He’d seen young men do that in the war—swallow the pain down until it threatened to eat them alive. He didn’t want that for Blair.

“Yes,” Blair snapped, looking even more confused. “You’re the one who has to face your father.”

Making a face, Jim shrugged. “In the name of war, I’ve done worse,” he pointed out. The memory of young Browncoat bodies floating in space came to mind. Mal and his kind were idiots fighting to protect criminals and their right to exploit the weak, but Jim and his Alliance troops were idiots fighting to protect a criminal government and their right to exploit everyone. Some days he wished he’d died back before realizing how wrong he’d been… how wrong they’d all been.

Sitting next to Jim, Blair let his hand rest on Jim’s knee. “Bad memories?” he guessed.

“Yeah,” Jim agreed with a huff. “Fighting in war leaves you some rough and bloody memories. I can remember every fallen soldiers—every man I shot and every soldier I tried to save.” Jim looked down at his hands. He hated letting his control over his emotions slip because sometimes they raged out of his control. He’d feel this hot loss, this burning hatred and raw grief, and he’d slip into a dark place that he had trouble returning from. It was easier to lock it all down, but it was also hypocritical of him to keep his own emotions locked down when he needed Blair to admit to a little pain of his own.

Jim looked over, and Blair was swallowing, his fingers twitching as though he was still doing chest compressions to try and save one of the Blue Sun workers.

“Even when you know you’re right… even when you know you’re serving the greater good… it’s hard,” Jim said gently.

Now Blair recognized the trap Jim had set, and he flew off the bed, stopping only once he’d reached the far side of the room, his arms wrapped around his waist. “Oh man, do not turn this back on me,” he said, his words angry, but his tone barely hiding the pain.

“Blair, you know you have to talk about this.”

“No. No I don’t. I’m the psychiatrist here, so I should know.”

“I’m the combat-experienced officer,” Jim countered. “Do you think I don’t understand? I’ve held my hands over bleeding arteries while men I knew bled to death in my arms.”

“And that’s not what I did,” Blair shouted. “I didn’t know these people. I didn’t have emotional bonds to severe and I don’t have to live with the guilt of pulling the trigger because I didn’t!”

“I know,” Jim agreed.

“I mean, Jayne and Mal were the ones who did that mayhem. If anyone should feel guilty, they should,” Blair went on, ignoring Jim. Jim didn’t even bother to point out that neither Mal nor Jayne were the type to feel guilty. Well, not for enemies, anyway. Jim had seen Mal flinch when someone would mention missing crew, so he figured Mal carried his own guilt, even if he denied it. Jayne, however, was the least emotionally complex, most direct, and least guilt-prone person Jim had ever met.

Blair started paced. “They pulled the trigger. I mean, I can come up with a dozen different scenarios that would have resulted in fewer deaths. Did you know there are knockout gases that can take down an adult in under five seconds?” Blair’s pacing grew more frantic, which left him almost spinning in circles in the small room. Jim watched, reassured by the fact that the emotions were coming out now. “Or food,” Blair blurted out, “we could have put sedative in the food. I mean, everyone has to eat, right? When they sent out for food, we could have put sedative in it.”

The plan had enough holes in it that Jim didn’t bother answering. Inara’s customer would have discovered the missing key, and anyone who didn’t eat would have had time to put the office into lockdown, not to mention that they didn’t have that much sedative, they didn’t have a way to intercept any food order, and anyone who ate too much of the sedated food would have died anyway. Jim kept all that to himself as Blair’s emotions spun out, his brain working through all the “what-ifs.”

“Man, I could have brought up a dozen different plans, and I didn’t. I stood there and let Mal and Jayne shoot a whole bunch of people. What does that say about me?” Blair froze, turning a tortured expression toward Jim.

“That you feel empathy, even when you’re dealing with the enemy, and not many men are good enough to do that,” Jim answered quietly.

Blair shook his head. “I didn’t, though. If I had empathy, I would have found another plan. I would have realized that Mal and Jayne’s plan would lead to massive gunfire. I don’t think those two know any other solution.”

“Probably not,” Jim agreed. His opinion on Browncoat morality might have changed, but he still considered their strategy vastly inferior.

“What’s wrong with me that I didn’t argue with them? Why did I just go along with it. Man, cleaning up after the fact is not the same from stopping the mess in the first place.” Blair’s eyes shone with tears, and now Jim could see them reach the real emotion that had been souring Blair’s scent since they came back to the ship. Inching closer, Blair looked at Jim like he was expecting an answer. “What is wrong with me that I can’t do the right thing up front?”

“You do, Blair,” Jim promised, but Blair shook his head.

“No, I admit I’m at fault and try and clean up the mess, but that is not the same thing. Not even close. Not even in the same ‘verse. Man, I suck.”

“Blair,” Jim interrupted, reaching out to catch Blair’s arm and pull him into a hug. “You’re a good man. Any mistakes you’ve made dwarf in comparison to mine. If you forgive me, you have to forgive yourself.” Jim knew his words hit home when Blair gave a strangled sob, his fingers clutching Jim’s shirt.

Jim remembered Joel Taggart, his friend who had fought for the Browncoats—his friend he had killed. After a hard case, Joel would always want to sit around and remember other cases, other detectives, other friends. Simon Banks would challenge Jim to a game of darts and then throw those darts hard enough to work out his anger. On hard cases, he traded the darts for a shooting competition at the local range. Henri Brown would offer to drink him under the table or take him to a horse race or a bare-knuckle prize fight. Rafe would offer some upscale club where the Womak name would open doors and they could politely drink themselves to oblivion before some well-dressed maître d’ poured them into a cab and paid to ensure their safe delivery back him. Every man had his own way of decompressing after a hard mission. For Jim, he used to stare out at the black for long hours, his pain raging as he sat silent in the dark. But for Blair, only tears could ease this pain.

Blair hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d tried to save every one of those injured prisoners. Tomorrow he’d realize that. Tonight Jim backed up to the bunk, pulling Blair with him. Settling back, he tugged Blair onto the bed, and Blair allowed himself to be maneuvered into place between Jim’s legs. And then Jim let Blair cry. Hitting the switch to plunge them into darkness, Jim lay stroking his fingers through Blair’s hair and listening to the ragged breathing as Blair excised his demons. Tomorrow would be better; Jim had to believe that. Otherwise they were in serious trouble because when they reached Osiris, Jim knew he didn’t have the strength to deal with his father alone. Blair wasn’t the only one carrying demons.

Chapter 26

“Let’s do this,” Jim just about snarled as he headed for the open hatch. The green of Osiris drifted in with the breeze, smell of open water and cut grass and wildflowers bringing up childhood memories that left Jim on edge.

“Are you okay?” Blair asked quietly.

Jim loved Blair, but some days, the man could annoy a saint. “Sandburg, if you ask me that again, I’m going to shoot you and have Jayne hide the body.”

Jayne snorted as he passed them, his eyes on the horizon. This was a rural area in the middle of the massive Ellison estate, but they all new that private guards would come out to find out why the shuttle had landed in the middle of the pasture.

“Right. And you aren’t repressing, not at all,” Blair muttered softly enough that only a Sentinel would hear him.

“You sure they’re going believe that you’re Charlie?” Jayne asked. If Blair was obsessing over Jim’s mental health, Jayne was obsessing over security.

“You did,” Jim pointed out as he straightened his Alliance uniform. It felt odd. At one point in his life, he’d been so proud to wear a uniform—to prove he was something other than the screw up his father always accused him of being. Standing in front of a mirror with his first uniform on, he’d finally felt like a man instead of a child scrambling to get his father to love him. And now the uniform rubbed him sore—literally and metaphorically, and he was back on Osiris trying to figure out exactly what River wanted him to tell his father. This wasn’t going to end well. Jim fingered his sidearm, wondering if he was going to have to end himself to avoid getting dragged back to the labs. He was a soldier; he’d do what he had to.

“Got company,” Mal said from his spot next to the open hatch of the shuttle. Two men in the blue uniforms of Ellison private employees were crossing the grass, their hands on their weapons. They would be the advance guard, but the real threat would be the sharpshooters and the pilots already readying attack craft.

Jim straightened up and started across the wide meadow toward the house with its white columns and large verandas. Blair fell in next to him, and Jim clenched his fists. He didn’t like Blair going into the lion’s den, but he’d lost that battle. Jayne taking his other side was more a surprise.

“Cobb?”

“Like Mal always says, we stick by our own.” Jayne shifted his big-ass gun to his other hip and scratched his stomach. “I ain’t exactly sure when you started being ours, though,” he admitted with a shrug. Jim blinked at him for a second, not sure what shocked him more, Jayne’s willingness to stand with him or the fact that Mal had sent Jayne along. Jim looked back and Mal still stood next to the shuttle door, his arms crossed and his body language about as tense as a man could get when he was trying so hard to look casual.

With a brisk nod, Mal took a step back into the shuttle and hit the controls to close the door. Up until this point, Jim figured that he and Blair were on their own, but he knew one thing—Mal wouldn’t ever leave Jayne. Since those two had started consummating on every surface on the Serenity, Mal’s eyes had followed Jayne’s every twitch in a way that Jim recognized entirely too easily. He looked at Blair the same way.

Mal was making it clear that they were getting through this as crew or they were going down the same way. It was the sort of loyalty that Jim hadn’t felt since before the war when he, Banks, Taggard, Brown, Conner, and Rafe had formed a Major Crime team to deal with the worst of the human traffickers and murderers out on the rim. That team would have walked through hell for each other. Having Jayne and Blair walking next to him, Jim could almost believe that the three of them could pull off the impossible the way the Major Crime team had for so many years.

Jim could see the very instant when the guard recognized him—or when they thought they recognized him, anyway. The muscles around their necks and shoulders loosened, and the older one contracted his mouth slightly in disgust. Charlie had that effect on people once they really knew him.

“Where’s my father?” Jim demanded loudly, putting on his worst manners.

“Lieutenant Womak,” the older guard offered, and Jim brushed by the man, ignoring his own discomfort at treating another man so rudely. After all, he was playing Charlie, and Charlie didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.

Jim walked faster, listening as Blair had to trot to keep up, his heart pounding faster, although Jim didn’t know if that was the running or the fear. Jayne’s heart pounded steadily, and he didn’t seem to mind leaving the two guards at their backs. Then again, given the way the man shot, Jim was fairly sure Jayne could take both of them before either had a chance to twitch. Odd as it was, Jim wasn’t even the most unusual person on the Serenity.

“Is your father expecting you?” the guard called as he followed behind, and Jim kept right on moving. Charlie wouldn’t answer questions from a flunky.

“Danburg, call ahead and find out where Mr. Ellison is,” the guard ordered his younger partner, and then he was running to get ahead of Jim. “Lieutenant, your father has asked that you not come back here.”

Jim looked over, surprised at that. His father had always favored Charlie; however, Jim couldn’t afford break character. So he sneered. “I don’t take messages from flunkies.”

Blair made a strangled sound that came close to a laugh, and Jim glared at him before setting off for the house again. He’d grown up here on Osiris, surrounded by cars and horses and wide open spaces, but after living on the fringes of society, the wealth on this estate was enough to make him feel slightly nauseous. He’d seen so much starvation and privation that the sheer decadence made him hate that earlier version of himself that had taken it all for granted.

Jim stepped up onto the porch, and he took a second to look around at the verdant fields stretching out to the horizon. Serenity’s shuttle squatted like an ugly little bug, but other than that, the illusion of tranquility surrounded the house. However, Jim had grown up in this illusion, and he knew how much turmoil and hatred roiled just under the surface. “The security had better be turned off or my friend there is going to shoot you in the gut,” Jim warned coldly, jerking his head toward Jayne.

Jayne shifted his huge weapon and eyed the guard so coldly that Jim almost broke cover long enough to remind Jayne that they were trying to avoid bloodshed. As much as he appreciated Jayne offering backup, Jim wished he had someone who was less likely to actually gut-shoot someone doing the job.

The security guard tapped a small control on his wrist. “Security cleared, sir,” he said stiffly, his anger carefully bottled, but not well hidden.

Turning his back on the guard, Jim grabbed the handle of the French door, half-expecting to get electrocuted, but the security was off. For the first time in over a decade, Jim entered his childhood home. It smelled the same—wood cleaner and jasmine. Sprays of artfully designed flowers sat on well-tended antiques and hand-carved furniture. Jim strode past it on his way to his father’s study. Despite the fact that his father owned the entire mansion, the man practically lived in that one room. From that room, he’d take vid calls from teachers and send out servants to summon his sons to stand in front of him and accept punishment. Jim took lead, Blair slightly behind him with the guard and Jayne coming up the rear, neither one willing to leave the other at his back, no doubt.

A maid caught sight of him and pulled back into one of the sitting rooms, pulling the door mostly closed as Jim passed. The marble floor and columns in the enormous hall made their footsteps echo, and for a half-second, Jim paused as his hearing struggled to identify the echoing sounds of so many feet. Jayne’s boots were so soft that they barely even echoed at all. For a big man, he was used to walking soft. Blair’s slapped against the marble, and the guard who had taken up position at Jayne’s side had a staccato heel-first rhythm.

Shaking off the feel of being surrounded by strings of sound, Jim reached his father’s study and pulled the doors open, standing in the exact place he’d sworn he’d never return. He held onto both doorknobs, waiting as his father finished something on the computer before slowly turning to look at each other. They considered each other, two grown men not sure what to expect from each other—at least that’s what Jim thought it felt like.

“Son,” William said in measured tones.

“Dad,” Jim returned, equally cautious. He’d half-hoped that River would send a transmission down explaining what they needed since Jim didn’t actually know why they were here, but from his father’s expression of confusion, she hadn’t.

William sighed and stood up from his desk. “You’re dismissed, Udall.”

Jim turned around to see the guard eyeing Jayne suspiciously. “Mr. Ellison…”

“Dismissed,” William barked in a tone that made it clear his next word would be to fire the guard.

“Yes, sir,” the guard gave a brisk nod and then headed back down the marble hall, his staccato steps fading into the distance.

With another of those sighs that made it clear that Jim was taking up valuable time, William sat back down behind his desk. “Well, this is a surprise.”

“Because you banned me from the house?” Jim asked as he stepped into the room. Blair was immediately at his side, and Jayne took a position next to the door where he could cover the room and the hallway.

“I banned your brother, James, not you.”

Jim sucked in a breath, and Jayne brought his weapon up, lined up with William’s head.

“Hey, whoa, let’s all calm down,” Blair rushed to say, moving to get into Jayne’s line of fire, but Jim reached out and caught Blair’s shoulder, pulling him close. As much as he didn’t want to see his father dead, he really didn’t want his father to feel some false sense of security and reach for a gun himself. If Jayne’s big-ass weapon was pointed at his gorram head, he’d think twice before trying to double cross them.

Sure enough, William held his hands up. “James, I’ve tried to find you for over a year now. I got suspicious when I couldn’t get any word on your posting, but after some rather suspicious people picked up Charles, I figured something had happened.”

“The Institute got Charlie?” Jim’s gut churned with dread. He hated his brother, but he didn’t deserve that.

“A group of doctors ordered Charles in for testing about five months ago. After two weeks, they released him, but Charlie had the feeling that something more was up.”

“Oh man.” Blair leaned into Jim, his body trembling. “Oh shit.” Jim understood the feeling.

“He came here, not looking for answers, but wanting revenge. Apparently he didn’t like his treatment while he was their guest, and he wanted some assistance making them pay.”

“And you weren’t ready to endanger your position to do that?” Jim guessed. The discomfort of his sons had never been one of William Ellison’s great concerns.

“Over Charles’ offended dignity? No,” William said simply. “However, it made me search harder for you.”

Jim gave a rough laugh and shook his head in disbelief. “Why the hell would you bother looking for me Dad? Cao, even when I lived in this house, you never much cared as long as I didn’t interfere with your life.”

“James, language,” William said, sitting up.

“Yeah, Dad. I’ll worry about a little swearing.”

Blair pushed his way out of Jim’s arms, and stepped forward. “Hey, all this rehashing of the past—so not healthy. I mean, it sounds like you were worried for your son,” Blair told William. Jim opened his mouth to protest that, and Blair turned on him, poking a finger toward his face. “And it sounds like you haven’t known your father for a very long time and people change. So how about we all just calm down and try using a few civilized manners.”

Jim snorted, but when Blair not-so-subtly pushed him toward a chair, Jim went, trusting Jayne to cover their back. “Dad, can I introduce Dr. Blair Jacob Sandburg. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“A rather direct one,” William commented. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Sandburg. I would offer to shake hands, but I suspect that my son would find some ulterior motive in that, especially given that you two appear involved, so I shall simply express my pleasure in meeting you verbally.”

“Appear involved,” Jayne said softly with a snort, clearly amused by Jim’s father’s attempt to not comment on Jim’s new slyness.

“Dad, this is Jayne Cobb. He’s a better shot than I am.”

“Then you are truly exceptionally,” William said with a nod in Jayne’s direction.

“Gorram right,” Jayne agreed. Jim might have called it arrogance, only Jayne could back up his words with some mighty uncanny shooting.

William’s lips thinned, but he didn’t comment on Jayne’s colorful language. Instead, he turned back toward Jim, his hands carefully placed on top of his desk, palms down and fingers splayed in a display of surrender. “James, I have done everything I could to find you, but despite my considerable resources, you vanished. After Charles described the intrusive medical testing to which he had been subjected, I feared the worst.”

“You should have,” Jim said bluntly. His father swallowed.

“Okay, Jim, I know you have some anger about your childhood, and normally I am not one for repressing emotions, but maybe we can table that discussion for later,” Blair said softly.

“Jim has a right to some anger,” William commented, and there wasn’t a phrase that could have shocked Jim more.

“He… really? I mean, you aren’t denying the fact that you were like a total hwun dan?”

William flinched. “I thought psychiatrists were supposed to be more subtle.”

“Man, it is all about the truth. The truth is you were…” Blair whistled. Considering that Blair had just told Jim to shelve his aggression, the man wasn’t following his own advice.

“I thought I could raise sons strong enough to survive in the world. Instead, Charles is utterly dishonorable, Steven lives on my money, and the one son who took my lessons to become strong enough to force the world to bend to his will not only hates me, but apparently he’s a wanted fugitive. I think I can see the truth well enough to know that my… parenting choices… did more harm than good.” William turned his focus from Blair to Jim. “Despite my failings, I do love you, and I have tried to find you… to offer you help if I could.”

“Right, Dad,” Jim said without pretending to believe his father.

“You’re my son,” William said softly.

“You have two more to fall back on. I can’t believe that you’d risk your position to help me.”

William leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled in front of him. “Then why are you here?”

That was a good question. Jim looked to Blair since he couldn’t talk to his father without the anger seeping into every word… not that Blair was much better. Blair took a deep breath. “The group that took Jim wanted to activate a genetic abnormality he possesses. It allows him to see more, to hear more than normal humans. He’s not the only test subject they kidnapped. They took a number of brilliant young men and women to try and develop telepathic and telekinetic powers, and they had one project to try and create people who could see the future.”

William closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Blair fell silent. Jim reached out and pulled Blair closer, urging him to sit on the arm of the chair. Settling himself down on the arm, Blair rested his hand on Jim’s shoulder. Jim needed that touch right now. He felt like he was fifteen years old and he desperately needed his father, and he was afraid that, like back then, his father was about to turn on him.

William slowly shook his head. “I knew there was interest in developing the human genome, in seeking to fulfill human potential. During the war, there was talk of having genetic researchers focus on the untapped potential. But after the war, the talk died down. I thought they’d given up on the madness.”

“You knew?” Jim demanded.

William’s head jerked up. “No. No, I didn’t. I knew that ten years ago a group of scientists was looking for donations and pushing a story about helping humans reach the potential of the human genome. I thought they were talking about cellular level testing, not experimenting on human beings.”

“Well, guess what Dad, they decided to go with human testing. Tell me, did you give them money,” Jim demanded. The way his father’s face whitened told him everything he needed to know. Jim went to stand up, but Blair’s hand pressed him back into the seat.

“No one could have known what they were going to do,” Blair said firmly. “Hey, I worked for the soulless shen jing bing bastards because I didn’t know what they were doing until it was too late for me to get out.”

Jim gritted his teeth. He wanted to argue that it hadn’t been the same thing, but he knew if he did, Blair would use Jim’s words as an excuse to trot out all the reasons why Blair’s action were evil.

“You worked for them?” William looked from Jim to Blair and back. “You helped James get out. You know what they did.”

“Yeah,” Blair agreed, “and trust me, you do not want to know what they did.”

William closed his eyes tightly for a second, and Jim could taste the bitter scent of grief. He shook his head, almost convinced that his senses were playing tricks on him. Then William opened his eyes again and looked right at Blair. “What can I do to help? Any resources you have, they’re yours.”

Blair’s fingers tightened around Jim’s shoulder, although Jim didn’t understand the message. This wasn’t the father from Jim’s memory. He didn’t know this William Ellison, and he didn’t know how to talk to the man. After a second, Blair spoke up. “We actually aren’t sure what we need. We have access to another escaped subject from the Institute, a reader who has limited ability to see the future and some telepathy. She suggested that we needed to come to you, that you had some skill—something you’d tried to teach Jim a long time ago that could help us now.”

“Something I tried to teach James?” William frowned. “Certainly I tried to teach my boys self-sufficiency and success in business, but I know nothing about genetics.”

Jim leaned forward. “This isn’t about genetics, Dad. She sent us on a mission against Blue Sun. What we need help with is a lot bigger than what happened to me.”

“Blue Sun?” William’s voice faded to a whisper.

“Will you help?” Blair asked. Jim held his breath, honestly not sure what he expected. The father from his memories would have turned them out. He might have even called the authorities. This father who sat in front of him with his steepled fingers and gray hair smelled of grief, of fatigue. Jim didn’t know what he’d do.

Slowly, William nodded. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I’ll do anything you need me to,” he said, his voice taking on a little more of that steel that Jim remembered.

“Awesome,” Blair said with a smile. Jim wasn’t sure if it was awesome since they still didn’t know what they were doing, but it certainly was one more piece of evidence that River had some sort of rational logic bouncing around in that brain of hers. Hell. She was right. His father would help.

Chapter 27

Mal stood back and watched the others. Jayne was wound tight enough to snap at any time, and considering that he had Vera on his hip, that weren’t a pleasant thought. Jim looked about as tense, but Blair was clinging to his arm like a limpet, so Mal figured that would keep him under control. William Ellison was the real unknown. After Jim’s description, Mal had expected a hard man, someone who had the hard look of a gambler or a slaver or some other sort who knew how to shred human dreams. Instead, he looked like a sad old man.

About every time Jim went looking off at something else, Mal could see William watching him with this lost expression Mal simply didn’t associate with the sort of hard man that would turn his sons against each other.

“Well, that’s it,” Blair concluded, leaning back away from the computer screen where William was watching the evidence they’d stolen scroll across the screen.

William looked around the room, and Mal returned his even gaze. The man would bleed as easy as anyone else, so Mal wasn’t much impressed.

He was also wondering exactly when his life had turned so strange that he’d be standing in the middle of a mansion on a gorram core planet with Captain Jimmy, Jimmy’s sly lover and a sly Jayne Cobb. It was enough to make a man wonder if he hadn’t gotten hit in the head once too often and started hallucinating.

“So Blue Sun is running the government.” William leaned back and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You don’t sound surprised,” Jim said.

“I can’t say I am. I always suspected that they had a lot of power given their ability to fund elections, but this level of unadulterated control is unexpected.” The way William said that made it almost sound like he was admiring the bastards. Mal scratched his stomach and wondered just how crazy River might be for sending them here. He also wondered if Jim was bothering to use any of his senses to keep an eye on his father. It didn’t exactly take a genius to see the man was not handling this reunion well. Zoe had warned him that people were unreasonable when it came to family.

“So,” Jayne spoke up, “do we go broadcasting that gou shi the way we did with the Miranda video?”

William’s eyes went large. “You were responsible for broadcasting the Miranda video?”

“Yep,” Mal answered for him. He might trust Jayne with their lives, but when the man talked too much, he inevitably said something real stupid. “We took down the hwun dan who ran that mess,” Mal said proudly.

“What an utter waste,” William said, disgust in his voice. “A total, unmitigated, foolish waste.” Mal could feel his spine stiffen in offense. They’d paid in blood to make sure the government never tried that again, and this man had no right to go casting aspersions, not unless he wanted to eat those aspersion along with a fist.

“Dad,” Jim said with aggravated tone.

“Power that is squandered loses its effect. I taught you that James,” William said, and rather than looking apologetic, he crossed his arms and glared at his son.

“Some of us aren’t manipulative bastards,” Jim took a step forward, and then Blair was out of his seat, pressing himself to Jim’s chest. For a little sly trick, he was good at keeping Jim in hand.

“If you can’t manipulate circumstances well enough to protect yourself, you are a victim, James. A victim.”

“Then maybe I’m a victim, Dad, but at least I’m not pulling this shit,” Jim said, waving a hand toward the computer. Mal could see Blair pushing to keep Jim back from his father, and Jayne shifted nervously. Mal caught Jayne’s eye and gave a jerk of his head to order Jayne to stand down before he shot someone.

William stepped back, his hands up. “I never wanted you to be the sort of man who would do this.”

“Really?” Jim demanded. “It seems like that’s exactly what you wanted. Hell, look at Charlie. You got a manipulative son-of-bitch with that one, and that’s who you always held up as the perfect example of a Womak-Ellison.”

“I did—” William stopped, pressing his lips together as he cut himself off.

“Okay, we all have strong feelings here,” Blair soothed them both, sounding a whole lot like Inara. “We all need to step back and seriously think about not pissing each other off to the point that we feel the need to kill each other.”

William frowned, but he didn’t disagree with that assessment. With a sigh, he retreated to the far side of the room and sat on a leather couch bigger than Mal’s whole quarters. “I recognize that I encouraged a certain level of deceit in Charles that is not healthy.”

Jim and Jayne both snorted. Mal figured anyone Lieutenant Charlie ran across knew the man had a certain level of deceit.

“Be that as it may, I never favored deceit in and of itself, only the ability to employ it when necessary.”

“Like when it benefits you?” Jim asked sarcastically.

Blair was muttering now, his mouth moving even though Mal couldn’t catch any of the words.

“Like when it prevents one from being hunted like an animal,” William said. “Machiavelli put it best. Humanity is by nature deceitful, and the honest man will be taken advantage of by the dishonest. To protect oneself, one must live in the reality rather than the imagined world, James. You were entirely too willing to live in an imagined world, and I worried that you wouldn’t be able to take care of yourself.”

“Well then, this must be a real affirmation of your whole belief system,” Jim snapped and then the two men glared at each other. Mal reckoned he’d never been quite so uncomfortable all his life as he was getting caught between these two. Well, maybe when he woke up and found out he’d accidentally married Saffron before figuring out she was just using him. That had been mighty uncomfortable. Considering the number of times women had made him feel like that, it was surprising he hadn’t decided to take up with being sly even earlier.

“No, this isn’t,” William whispered. He closed his eyes and for a moment, he seemed to sag. However, the moment passed and he visibly pulled himself back together. “You clearly have the skills to take care of yourself, but this is… Blue Sun is an enemy grown far too large for anyone to confront alone.” William looked over at Mal. “And if I offended your sense of strategy, I apologize. However,” he said, turning back to Jim, “as Machiavelli says, a man will sooner forgive the murder of his father than the seizure of his property. Humanity lives in fear of loss, and only through manipulating that fear can a ruler lead without fear of being overturned.”

“Huh?” Jayne asked.

William looked over and sighed. “If I threaten to shoot you, you have something to fear. If I actually do it, I’ve done the worst thing I could and you have nothing more to fear.”

Mal cringed at that particularly unfortunate metaphor, and Jayne brought Vera up to train it right at William’s head. Williams’ eyes went comically large.

“Don’t, Jayne,” Mal ordered before this could get out of hand.

“He threatened to shoot me,” Jayne said in a much put-upon sort of voice.

“It was an example. He ain’t going to shoot anyone,” Mal said firmly. Hopefully he was even telling the truth. Mal noted that Jim’s hand twitched toward his sidearm. The man might not like his father much, but he’d kill in defense of him. Luckily, Jayne was already lowering Vera so she pointed toward the floor.

“I ain’t liking his kind of metaphor,” he complained.

“Man, the testosterone in this room could choke an elephant,” Blair muttered loud enough to make sure everyone could hear. “Jayne, he means that if you guys had threatened to reveal the Miranda plot, the government would have done anything you asked. However, because you did reveal it, they didn’t have anything else to fear.”

“People went to prison over that,” Mal pointed out. He felt pretty damn proud of that.

“Probably not the right people,” William said. “The right people will have studied Machiavelli and Nietzsche and Nash, and they will have ensured that someone insulated them from any public disclosure. They are, no doubt, safe. However, if you had only threatened to expose them, they would have worried about a potential weakness in their defenses, they would have acted as if they were vulnerable, a state which would have given you more room to operate.”

“Or more like they would have tracked us down and gutted us,” Mal said. This whole conversation was souring his stomach something fierce. He remembered the pain and the desperation as he’d fought to get that message out. He remembered the bone deep terror that there wouldn’t be any of his crew—his family—left after he got done. Having this man dismiss all that as tactical error was making him feel about as homicidal as Jayne on a bad day, and there wasn’t a soul in the ‘verse who wanted to deal with Jayne on a bad day.

“If they believed they could neutralize you, yes. They would have. However, if they feared you….” William let his voice trail off.

“Oh man, that’s it,” Blair said, his voice full of wonder. “River wanted us to find the thing that Jim had learned so long ago that he’d let it rot and had forgotten it. Jim learned to manipulate others, but he rejected that way of life. True, he rejected it because it’s immoral and totally bad for the karma in a soul-sucking sort of way, no offense Mr. Ellison,” Blair offered with a smile that didn’t match his words. William failed to look placated. “But the lesson is manipulation. River sent us down here precisely because she didn’t want us to do the same thing with this data as you guys did with the Miranda footage.”

“You think River wants my father to handle this?”

“Me?” William asked.

“Him?” Mal and Jayne demanded at the same time. All of them looked around at each other in shock, all of them except Blair who rolled his eyes.

“Man, what do you think she meant when she talked about ruts covered over in leaves? She called us plough horses in the dressage ring, and if we’re the plough horses, William Ellison is definitely the dressage horse. So, if we want to win a dressage competition, we have to put a dressage horse on the line.”

William frowned. “I’m sorry, but is any of that supposed to make sense?”

“Sadly, it does,” Jim said with a sigh. “I don’t like it, but it makes sense. However,” he said, holding up a finger when Blair looked like he might start bouncing, “we need River to confirm it. Right, Captain?” Jim looked over, and despite Mal’s sour stomach, he had to agree that it sounded like the sort of logic River would use.

“I can take Blair up to talk with her seeing as how he’s about the only one of us that can make heads or tails out of her rambling,” Mal offered.

“Oh yeah, I need to check to see if Mr. Ellison is the horse that can eat the elephant in the room. Totally.”

Mal watched as William looked increasingly concerned. Standing up, he moved closer to Mal, surprisingly enough, but then Blair was plastered to Jim’s side, and William seemed to have a few concerns when it came to Blair.

When William came close enough, he whispered to Mal. “Is that young man quite sane?”

“Dad!” Jim said loudly.

“It was a simple question, James.”

“Don’t ask it again.” Jim crossed his arms and clenched his jaw.

“He’s totally questioning my sanity, isn’t he?” Blair asked, and oddly, he had a huge smile on his face. “No problem. Hey, I get that all the time.”

Jayne shifted. “Only ‘cause you act like a fengzi who can’t quite figure out how to hide it from the regular folk,” he offered, and sadly, that sounded like his sincere tone, like he was honestly trying to help.

“Might be you shouldn’t give others advice,” Mal suggested. “Try to keep them from killing each other until we get back,” Mal said, pointing from Jim to William. “Sandburg, let’s go. The sooner you have that talk, the sooner we can get off his gorram planet.”

“Oh, um, aren’t you coming?” Blair looked at Jim in clear concern.

“Go on, Chief. I’ll be here when you get back.” Jim looked over at his father, and Mal didn’t need any fancy degree in psychiatry to see that Jim was threatening to take his father apart if the man tried anything. William simply headed back to the couch he’d earlier left.

“Get the lead out, Sandburg,” Mal said as he started for the door. This whole place was giving him a sour stomach. He should make Zoe bring Sandburg back down. She was better at not shooting people who annoyed her. Mal always did have trouble with that.

“Play nice,” Blair ordered over his shoulder as he followed. “They are totally going to emotionally slaughter each other,” he said softly as he trotted at Mal’s side.

“Ain’t that what families are supposed to do?” Mal asked.

“You need therapy. I mean… seriously… huge, fucking amounts of therapy. You might want to look into that,” Blair offered sweetly.

Mal snorted and just walked a little faster, enjoying the fact that Blair and his short legs had to scramble to keep up.

Chapter 28

Jim considered his father, not sure what to say to the man now that Blair was gone. Of all the people in the universe to entrust with the power to blackmail the whole gorram ‘verse, his father would have been on the bottom of Jim’s list. He couldn’t believe River wanted this. However, questioning his father meant questioning River and Blair, two people Jim did put his faith in.

“Perhaps we could talk,” William said with a look toward Jayne.

Jim glanced over and considered the possibility this was a trap. If his father wanted to get the drop on him, getting Jayne out of the way would be a good step one. But if this was going to go south, Jim would rather have it happen when Blair was safely off planet. “Jayne, you interested in some food?” Jim asked.

“Ain’t looking to eat any of that little fussy gos-se Inara’s trying to pass off as food all the time,” he said, holding his fingers out to show something small. Unless Jim missed his guess, Inara had tried to introduce Jayne to the amuse-bouche.

“Dad always has good old fashioned cakes and cookies around. Sally runs the kitchen. I’ll introduce you,” Jim said.

“James,” his father interrupted him. Jim looked over, prepared for the verbal battle to start, but his father looked too tired to even start a fight. “Sally will recognize that you’re not Charles in a split second. I’ll show him the kitchens. You… make yourself at home,” he finished.

At home. In the study. In his entire life, Jim had never been allowed to touch one book, one box, or one corner of anything in the study. When he had been called in as a child, his job was to stand with his hands behind his back and offer a respectful “Yes, sir” to everything his father said. There wasn’t a place in the ‘verse he felt less at home. However, his father gave Jayne a tight smile and headed out with a quick “Follow me.”

That left Jim alone. He ran a finger along the desk, feeling the grain of the wood roll under his finger. This wasn’t plastic, but a real living tree that had been chopped down to create a desk. The obvious show of wealth was something Jim couldn’t understand anymore. Wandering over to the shelf behind the desk, Jim could see the books with covers worn from fingers rubbing over the corners. These were the ones his father valued most, even though they didn’t have the gold edging that Jim could see on other bookshelves. Sitting in his father’s chair, he pulled one out. It was old, and Jim carefully opened it to find a family lineage. Turning the brittle pages, Jim read back into time, back to the generational ships that had brought people to this corner of the ‘verse. Closing it carefully, Jim slid it back into place on the shelf.

As he ran his finger over the spines of these well-loved volumes, Jim let his fingers linger over the ones his father handled most. They were slicked with the oils from hands. When he found a particularly slick back, Jim pulled it out. Machiavelli. Appropriate. Jim pushed that back into place without another glance. Again, he let his fingers explore the shelf, this time the lowest level, until he found a book slick with use. Pulling it out, Jim opened it, his breath catching in his chest as he saw himself staring up from the page. It was a report on his arrests of several smugglers working out of Whitefall. He turned the page and found a letter of congratulations on his son’s promotion, only this time it was Charlie’s promotion to captain. Obviously he’d been busted back a rank or two along the way. The next page showed Jim escorting a well-dressed man in handcuffs through the doors of the Ariel main jail. He’d trafficked in underage girls, and Jim remembered how Simon had bought him drinks after that bust.

Another turned page and Jim was into the war… pictures of Jim with his unit, all of them in purple uniforms, all of them so foolishly sure they were doing the right thing. Jim quickly closed the book.

“I was quite proud of all your achievements.”

Jim looked up at his father. “If you think this changes anything….” Jim stood up and stared down at the book. Why the hell would his father keep these kinds of clippings.

“I don’t. I know I made my mistakes, Jim. I thought I was teaching you to take care of yourself.”

Jim snorted and moved to the window. It was too early for Mal and Blair to be back, but he could stand here and watch for them until they did return.

“Are you and Dr. Sandburg in a committed relationship?” his father asked.

Jim looked over. “Are you ashamed of having a sly son?” he demanded.

His father drew himself up. “No. I am less than thrilled with your choice, but then I suppose given your hatred for me, it’s reasonable that you would choose such a plain-spoken man. Unartful even.”

Jim could feel anger wrapping around his guts. “He’s a good man.”

His father moved farther into the room. “I don’t doubt that. You’re a good man, so I can’t imagine you choosing anyone who wasn’t.”

“Right,” Jim said sarcastically, “because you have so much respect for me.”

“I suppose I deserve some scorn.” His father had such a martyred tone, that Jim had to grit his teeth to keep from exploding. His father did deserve scorn, so to say it in that tone of voice was insult on injury. “What did I do that was so very bad, though. I mean, other than misunderstanding the conflict between you and your brother and pushing you too hard, what did I….”

Jim whirled around. “You turned us against each other, Dad,” Jim snapped. “No matter what I did, it was never as good as Charlie. Guess what, Dad? Charlie cheated.”

Drawing himself up a little straighter, his father said, “I do know that now.”

“Now. Great.” Jim threw his hands up in the air. This shouldn’t matter to him. It absolutely shouldn’t matter. So why did he want to punch something hard enough to break it… preferable his father’s face.

“Yes, now. I know that I’m a good thirty years too late to make up for my basic inability to understand Charles. He is a petty man who will throw away human decency and long-term advantage in order to get himself what he wants in the short term. He’s a bad seed. I see that now.”

“Great, Dad.” Jim leaned against the window sill, suddenly too tired to be angry anymore.

“So,” his father continued, “other than allowing Charles to manipulate me, how am I such a horrible father? I wanted the best for you. I pushed you because I knew you had it in you to be great.”

A rough laugh slipped out. This was the most surreal conversation Jim even had, and he’d had some strange ones. He lived with Blair, for the love of God. That led to odd conversations. “You shot my dog, Dad. The only thing in this whole house that was truly mine, and you shot it.”

He’d been an old stray Jim had picked up at school, and Jim had been terrified that his father would make him get rid of it, but somehow he’d caught his father in a rare good mood and he’d been given permission to keep the scruffy little thing. Jim always suspected Sally had been involved in making his father let him keep Scraps. And then, once Jim had really grown to love it, his father had simply shot him. Jim had seen men die in battle. He’d lost friends. It was utterly ridiculous that even now he could feel this all-consuming grief as he remembered the gray fur streaked with dull red blood.

“Oh for… He was sick.” His father snapped the words out, and Jim didn’t bother turning around to see the look of utter frustration on his father’s face. He’d seen it every time he’d tried to bring the subject up. “You don’t leave an animal to suffer, James. I’ve had that conversation with you entirely too many times.”

“Do you remember Eric Sliverman?” Jim asked softly. His father didn’t answer, but the old man remembered everything, so he probably did. “His parents had just bought him a scanner, and when Charlie told him my dog was dead, he came over. There weren’t any tumors.”

The silence was its own sort of answer, but after painful, long minutes, his father finally asked, “How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure,” Jim said firmly as he turned around to see how his father would explain this. He was surprised at the look of weariness of his father’s face. His father ran his fingers through his white hair and sighed.

“I never wanted you to find out about that dog.”

Leaving the window, Jim crossed over to the desk, leaning over it and pinning his father with a harsh glare, the sort that had once intimidated criminals into confessing. “What?”

His father sighed again. “Your brother got frustrated because the dog chewed through one of his games. He hit the dog hard enough that the animal was suffering.”

Jim reared back. “Charlie?” That was the sort of thing Charlie would have bragged about in a , ‘hey, I killed your dog and got away with it’ sort of way.

“No, Stevie,” his father said, his voice whisper-soft.

Well, cao. His father would do or say anything to avoid responsibility. Jim didn’t know why River wanted his father involved, but the man clearly couldn’t be trusted. “He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. Nice try, Dad, but that’s not a believable story.”

William sighed. “I suspect Charlie either encouraged him or helped, but as much as I wanted you three to learn healthy competition and develop independence, I didn’t want you to hate Stevie the way you hated Charles.”

“Healthy competition? That’s what you called it?”

“I called it survival. The world isn’t kind, and I taught you to survive. You learned that from me.” His father leaned forward, poking himself in the chest with his thumb.

“So I should thank you for turning my family against me?”

That earned another aggravated look from his father. “You’re being melodramatic. You’ve always been melodramatic.”

“Yeah, that’s me, Dad. I’m a fugitive from the Alliance that I dedicated my life to, I’ve been tortured, had limbs frozen, electrocuted, beaten, operated on, imprisoned. I’ve been to war to defend a government that I now find out is a lie, a government that I killed friends to protect. I led men into battle and watched them die in my arms. I’ve seen raped children huddled in cages and then had to stand by while the traffickers brought their way out of a legal system that didn’t care about them, and through all that, I’ve tried to not lose myself to an anger that makes me want to burn the entire gorram ‘verse to the ground and piss on its ashes. But that’s probably more of my melodrama,” Jim snarled. His father had slowly lost most of his color throughout Jim’s rant, but Jim didn’t have time for his father’s precious sensibilities. “Fuck you, Dad. Fuck you.”

Turning around, Jim marched out of the room and toward the kitchen. If his father was going to call the authorities, Jim couldn’t even care right now. He was too angry to care about anything other than getting a little space before he murdered the man in cold blood.

By the time Jim slammed through the kitchen doors, Jim was starting to feel the first tendrils of shame at having lost his temper. Jayne sat at the counter eating what looked like an entire turkey. When Jim came in, he dropped his food, his weapon coming up. “Trouble?” he asked.

“Only my father,” Jim snapped.

With a grunt, Jayne lowered his weapon and picked up his turkey drumstick again. “He ain’t nothing. You should see my hwun dan of a stepfather. If the man didn’t make my Ma and Maddie so happy, I’d gut him and leave the entrails out for the coyotes. Cao, if I had to be around him even this long, I probably would gut him despite it.”

Jim wasn’t sure he believed that, but he moved so the pantry was to his back and he had a good view of all exits before he grabbed a chunk of turkey breast. It meant he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jayne who had chosen the same bit of counter for the same reason.

“Every once in a while, Blair waxes poetic about fathers and wishes his mother would give him a name so he could have some father-son moment with the man.”

Jayne grunted. “Don’t know what that’s got to do with poetry, but I figure most men quit their fathers about the same time they stop trying to be them.”

For a stupid man, sometimes Jayne did make sense. With nothing more to add to that conversation, Jim focused on eating food even though his stomach still churned with emotion.

Chapter 29

Jim stood right behind his father as Mal and Blair crossed the pasture. Blair had on a big smile, and he waved enthusiastically.

“He is a rather energetic sort,” his father offered in the most mild tone ever.

“Gorram hyper,” Jayne agreed after a few awkward seconds of Jim not responding. “But he ain’t half bad to look at.”

Jim leaned around his father to glare at Jayne.

“What? Being that I’m sly now, I get to notice other men, and he’s real pretty.” Jayne bristled, and then he frowned, his expression turning less certain.

“If Mal catches you saying that, you and Blair are both going to be dead,” Jim warned.

Jayne gave one of his big horse snorts. “Don’t need anyone to tell me that. Mal’s a possessive bastard.” And yet, despite the words, Jayne had a very satisfied expression on his face. Jim’s father just looked more confused than ever.

Blair started trotting, and Jim stepped forward to meet him. The second Blair got close, he slipped into his place at Jim’s side, slipping an arm around his waist. “Oh man, River is so relieved that we finally managed to get our shit together and figure out the whole plan. She was twirling. She tried to get on the shuttle only Captain Crankypants over there wouldn’t let her on.”

“Captain Crankypants?” Jim asked, looking up at Mal.

“Kaylee was calling him Captain Tightpants, but there is not a force in the ‘verse that can make me comment on his tight pants.” Blair gave Mal an overly sweet smile before he turned to William. “So, River seems to think that you know how to handle this, so just tell us what we can do to help.”

It took Jim’s father several seconds and a couple of coughs to get his voice engaged. “I need to make copies, secure them, make contact with a number of allies before dropping a few hints that lets them know that I’m a player in the game.” He cleared his throat. “Quite frankly, while they will clearly recognize me as an enemy, it could be quite advantageous to confuse the matter somewhat—to imply that I had this information despite you rather than working in concert with you.”

“The enemy of my enemy….” Jim muttered.

“Is probably still my enemy, but I’ll work with him as long as it works out to my benefit,” his father finished for him with a small smile. As a child, Jim had grown so tired of hearing that, but here he was risking his life and freedom—Blair’s life and freedom—on the theory.

“Karma. That’s all I’m saying,” Blair offered. “Karma.”

“Some of us don’t believe in reincarnation,” William pointed out.

“Which so don’t make it less true,” Blair countered.

“I don’t care,” Mal interrupted. “Unless someone’s shooting me dead in the next five minutes, reincarnation ain’t a topic I need to do much thinking on. However, I got a crew I have to look out for, so you need to lay out how this works so that if I don’t like your plan I can shoot you and make my own.” Mal rested his hand on the butt of his gun and looked at William. Jim felt a flare of anxiety as the two men faced off. They were both gorram stubborn, and if one of them decided to dig his feet in, this could still get ugly.

“I plan to imply that my son hired you, which would imply that you and your crew are insignificant players, little more than hired help,” William offered. Mal narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice the captain’s aggravation. “Meanwhile, I will suggest that Jim and Blair are guests here until such time as I decide they are safe to send on their way.”

Jim tightened his hand on Blair’s shoulder. This might be a prettier prison than he’d been in before, but he certainly didn’t want to be trapped in it.

“Okay,” Blair said slowly. “Am I the only one who thinks it might be a bad idea for you and Jim to be on the same planet?”

Jayne snorted.

“Blair,” William said slowly, as though feeling his way through the words, “if they believe you acted with Captain Reynolds, then everyone on that crew will be at risk as these people attempt to determine if any of them have the power to release this information. If the Serenity leaves and I am the only one negotiating—”

“Then Blair and I are the only ones in danger because we’re the only other ones who’ve seen the information,” Jim finished. He hated the plan, but it was solid logic. It minimized their exposure and allowed Mal to get the civilians to safety. Jim looked down at Blair, desperate to hold onto his lover and equally desperate to have Mal take him to safety.

“Forget it,” Blair said before Jim could comment. “They already know I tanked my entire career and put my medical license on the firing line for you, so they’re going to know that I’m in this with you. I’m not hired help.” For emphasis, Blair planted an elbow in Jim’s stomach.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jim defended himself.

“You were thinking it so loud even I could hear it and I ain’t exactly one for picking up on subtle,” Jayne pointed out. Jim glared at him.

“Jayne, secure the shuttle,” Mal ordered, and Jayne headed across the field, that Callahan fullbore autolock held at the ready. “Ellison, can we talk?” Mal asked, jerking his head back toward the shuttle. Jim nodded. If he took Blair, they could both get on the shuttle and run for it, leaving his father to clean up the mess, but that would put everyone on the Serenity at risk—Kaylee and Simon Tam and River. They didn’t deserve that.

“Chief, wait here,” Jim said, letting his partner go and giving his father one hard look that he hoped the old man understood. If anything happened to Blair, if his father so much as upset him or ruffled his hair, Jim was going to prove that he could be just as much of a hwun dan as Charlie ever had been. Threat delivered, Jim followed Mal to a tree a good fifty yards out. It was close enough that Jim could still hear his father and Blair, but far enough that they wouldn’t be able to overhear his conversation with Mal. Jim looked over and Blair was shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“This plan work for you?” Mal asked straight up.

Jim thought about that. “I’m not fond of staying here with my father.”

“Ain’t surprised to hear that. You want I should take Blair? Jayne can be mighty persuasive when people need getting dragged out of some place kicking and screaming.” Mal frowned. “Except the one time I ordered him to do that with River. That didn’t end so pretty.”

“You sent Jayne after River? And he went?” Jim knew that Jayne was about as loyal as an old dog, but he never thought the man would go on a suicide mission. “And he lived?”

Mal rolled his eyes. “River wasn’t actually trying to kill him. She just wasn’t fond of being restrained and removed. However, Blair wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and you know it.”

Jim looked at his partner. “I don’t know. He’s a mean little shit when you rile him.”

“That don’t surprise me.”

Jim sighed. “But he’s right. They know we’re together, so if I send him off with you, they’re going to assume I trust you enough to protect my lover.”

“Can’t have that,” Mal commented.

“Not if we want to keep Kaylee and her man clear of this,” Jim said. “You and I are soldiers. Sooner or later we’ll probably die on the end of some gun, but the civilians don’t deserve to be in the middle.”

Mal’s eyes scanned the house and the field where Jayne stood in the open door of the shuttle. “They don’t deserve it, but it seems like they end up there anyway.” Mal said, his voice mild, but his gaze settled on Blair and William.

“Yeah, they do,” Jim agreed. He didn’t consider his father a civilian because the man knew how to fight, even if it wasn’t with a gun, and Blair would argue that he put himself in the fight by taking the job at the Institute. It was too late to keep either of them out of this fight. “They really do,” he agreed sadly.

Mal nodded, and then he turned toward the shuttle. “Be seeing you around, Ellison,” he called over his shoulder. Jayne watched, and Jim turned back toward the house. His father might say they were making a pretense at being unwilling guests, but as far as Jim was concerned, it wasn’t pretense. He would give about anything to be on that shuttle with Mal. He just wouldn’t give up the chance that he could buy their way out of this mess.

Feeling a little like a man walking to the gallows, Jim headed back up to the house.

“They’re leaving?” Blair asked.

Jim nodded. “Hopefully these people will ignore them.”

“If this works, they will,” his father promised, but Jim had learned that his father’s promises meant very little. He just looked at the man.

Blair moved back to Jim’s side. “You two were fighting, weren’t you?”

“It doesn’t take a degree in psychiatry to see that, Einstein.”

“James,” his father said in an exasperated tone as though Jim had the audacity to use the wrong fork during a formal dinner.

“Whoa, hey,” Blair jumped in. “No offense here because River says we can trust you and I have shitloads of respect for River’s opinion, but you do not get to set the rules for the relationship I share with Jim. Sarcasm is a normal part of our communication, and as long as we understand that the frustration is for the world and not each other, that is not an unhealthy thing. True, it’s not exactly recommended by most forms of couples therapy, but hey, we’re fine.” Blair tightened his arm around Jim, leaning in him, and Jim could feel some of his tension ease. “Now you and Jim is another story.” Blair said with an exaggerated eye roll as he pointed from Jim to his father.

“Don’t start,” Jim warned. If they were going to be stuck here, Jim did not want the entire visit to be one long fight, and once Blair got his claws into something, he was the most persistent little shit in history. He’d never drop if.

“What?” Blair blinked up with innocent blue eyes—yeah, like that worked. Jim just glared. “Hey, maybe I just want William to admit that he was so totally off-base that you have a right to be angry.” Blair pointed out.

Surprisingly, it was William who answered. “Do you think I don’t know that?” he asked.

“I suspect you totally know it. I also suspect you spend way more time making excuses than just letting Jim be mad.”

Jim could see his father pull himself up straight. His eyes dilated with emotion. “Anger doesn’t solve anything,” he informed Blair stiffly. If Jim liked his father better, he would have warned him that no one won these kinds of fights with Blair.

“Oh man, you are so totally wrong there,” Blair said with a chuckle. “If we don’t feel our emotions, we can’t get through them. Trust me, as a professional, I am saying that Jim has every right to be angry with you. I may understand that you acted out of ignorance, but as the adult in this house, you should have figured out that Charles was borderline Schizoid Personality Disorder without his twin brother having to explain it, especially since children and adolescents do not have that kind of cognitive distance from their immediate family.”

“He… what?” William actually looked confused.

“Come on. Charlie has never had a link to anyone romantically, he has totally detached from his family unless he wants something, he has poor interpersonal relationships at best and has been demoted several times, and he does not have the sort of affective response you expect from someone during times of stress. Total Schizoid Personality Disorder. He is not even functional in the traditional sense of the word.”

“Do you know him?” Jim demanded. It seemed that Blair should have mentioned that before now.

Blair snorted. “No way. However, when the Institute discussed the value of having a twin as a control group, a chance to torture two people with the same genetic code and see how having the Sentinel gene activated or non-activated affected the response to stimuli, his file came across my desk. I told them that he clearly had mental health issues that precluded using him as a control group for anything. His file looks like a case study in unhealthy. Seriously.” Blair shuddered before poking a finger toward William. “As his father, you should have seen that, so Jim gets to be angry with you. No excuses.”

William blinked several times. “I’m not trying to offer up an excuse.”

“So you’re willing to straight up say that you screwed this up?”

“Didn’t I just say that?” William looked at Jim for some sort of confirmation, but Jim didn’t comment. He was on Blair’s side in this.

“I don’t know,” Blair said with a casual shrug. “I wasn’t listening to you. Try saying it again.”

“Fine. I badly misjudged the entire situation. I was a horrible father, but—”

“Ah! No but,” Blair said loudly. Jim had to work to avoid smirking at the sight of his lover reading his father the riot act. This might even be worth it. “Leave it right there. You’re admitting that you’re a horrible father, right?”

With a sigh, William admitted, “Yes.”

“Good. See, Jim, people can change.” Blair patted Jim on the arm. “Now you need to admit that you have this totally unrealistic expectation. I mean, he thought being a good father meant making money, which is clearly the stupidest plan in the ‘verse; however, it was an attempt to do the right thing. He has no psychological training, he was totally caught up in his work, and face it, he was blind when it came to Charlie’s bullshit. So admit that he’s an idiot and not evil.”

Jim’s mouth dropped open as his lover turned on him. It took Blair poking him in the stomach to make him answer. “I never said he was evil.”

“Really? Man, are you sure of that?”

“Yes,” Jim said, his voice dark with unspoken threats.

“So you’re willing to admit right now that your father isn’t evil, he didn’t try to ruin your life or drive you out of the home? You’re willing to admit that he is a man who loves you and is simply an idiot who screwed up and was a horrible father?”

“I—” Jim stopped he didn’t want to admit that. He realized he was actually fond of hating his father.

Blair’s expression grew soft, and his father looked away. “Jim,” Blair pleaded, “come on. I know you hold a grudge, but enough is more than enough.”

Realizing that he either gave in now or gave in after days of nagging, Jim sighed. “Fine, I know that he fucked up without having any of it come from malice.”

Blair smiled at him, and that almost made up for the little ball of resentment in Jim’s stomach. “Good. So we’re good?” Blair asked, looking from Jim to William.

“You think we’re good now?” William asked.

Blair snorted. “Not even. I could have therapy with you two for a year and not scratch the surface, but if you can admit that much, you’ll get through the rest on your own eventually. Just try to do it before one of you dies, okay? Karma’s a real bitch when you refuse to emotionally engage. She just makes you live the same shitty life over and over and over until you finally get your head out of your ass, and I do not plan on having this same conversation with you two five hundred years from now. Got it?” Blair pinned each of them with a sharp look, and then he smiled and wandered off into the house.

William looked over at Jim. “Well, he’s quite interesting.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Dad,” Jim said. If nothing else, Blair would give his father incentive to get this plan of his underway so they could leave. Very few people had the constitution to handle long term exposure to Dr. Blair Sandburg.

Chapter 30

William laughed. “Oh my heavens. And how did Naomi react to that?” he asked as he poured more lemonade into Blair’s glass.

“She was all fluttering hands and kept telling everyone that she meant to do it,” Blair laughed. Jim sipped at his own drink, still not quite sure how to handle Blair and his father’s ability to bond. It certainly made it harder to hate his father, and he suspected that was the point. He couldn’t even hold it against these two that they were manipulating him because he did know they were both acting out of love. Hopefully with Blair around to share his bluntness with frightening regularity, they could even avoid repeating the mistakes of their past.

“Mr. Ellison, your visitors have arrived,” a security staff member announced as he stood in the door to the sunroom.

“Show them in,” William said cheerfully, but Jim stood up.

“Dad, we should meet them out there.”

His father frowned and looked from Jim to Blair and back again, clearly not wanting to go along with that plan.

Blair settled the matter by standing up. “As much as I have loved getting to see naked baby pictures of Jim, it really is time for us to go.”

The flash of grief on his father’s face didn’t surprise Jim as much as it would have three weeks earlier. The cold father Jim remembered didn’t exist anymore, and Jim couldn’t help but feel that the sad man his father had become didn’t deserve hatred. Besides, his father had managed to manipulate an entire government into dropping all charges against Jim and Blair and paying Jim’s back pay. The fact that he’d gotten Jim’s Alliance rank was less welcome, but Jim could understand that their enemies needed some proof that his father had him under control. The money and the orders that came with Jim’s job as a peace officer would make it easier to believe that William was pulling the strings.

“We’ll be back, Dad,” Jim promised. His guts didn’t even knot up at the thought of keeping that promise.

His father slowly turned his lemonade glass. “Yes, you have to be now, don’t you? Otherwise you’ll make it very difficult to convince them that you aren’t a threat.”

“Well then, there’s more than one reason to come back,” Jim said. His father looked up at him quickly. “Within a month we’ll be back for a visit. That’s not so long.”

“No. I suppose it’s not. I could—”

“Stay,” Jim said. His father was still a part of his life that didn’t quite match with the man he was as a fugitive or as a cop. He preferred to keep the two parts of his life separate. “We don’t need escorting out as though we’re guests.”

For a second, Jim thought his father would ignore him, but then he nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll see you soon, though.” While his father clearly hadn’t meant it as an order, Jim could still here the steel in the words. That was fair. His father was on the firing line, and if Jim didn’t follow his lead, they could still all end up dead.

“Soon, Dad,” Jim promised, and then he turned to head out to where the Serenity’s shuttle had been given clearance to land. “You’re dismissed,” Jim snapped at the guard who tried to follow them, and the man quickly turned and headed the other way.

“Man, some of your dad’s manipulation is rubbing off on you,” Blair muttered. “We don’t need escorting out as though we’re guests.” Blair gave a huff of laughter. “You just don’t want him around Mal and Zoe. Face it, you are a snob about not being a snob, and you don’t want any more reminders of the fact that you were raised with a platinum and diamond spoon in your mouth, especially where other people might see them.”

“Keep it up, Chief,” Jim warned. He really didn’t feel that way. He didn’t. Jim frowned as he realized that Blair had pretty much nailed exactly how he felt. Shit. “You’re a pain in the ass, Sandburg.”

“Hell yes, I am,” Blair quickly agreed. They turned the corner, and there was the shuttle squatting in the middle of the field. Mal and Jayne were standing near the nose while Kaylee stood with Simon’s arms around her, hands over her mouth as she looked around with undisguised awe. Jim should have met them at the shipyards. Maybe Blair could read minds because he chuckled again.

“Hi, guys!” he yelled, waving at them. Zoe appeared at the top of the shuttle’s ramp, and she raised her hand in greeting. Kaylee waved wildly, and others turned to watch them walk up.

“Someone call for a ride?” Kaylee asked in a sing-song tone as soon as they were close enough.

“Oh hell yes!” Blair agreed. “Man, I love the food in this place, but I feel like I can’t scratch without having to apologize.”

Jayne frowned. “Ain’t no one who can make me feel bad about scratching.” As proof, Jayne reached down and scratched his crotch.

“Oh good lord,” Simon muttered as he looked off the other direction, and Jim realized that this felt more familiar than his childhood home, despite the fact that they hadn’t spent all that much time on the Serenity.

“Well for one, I’m glad to see you two didn’t get yourselves killed,” Zoe said brightly. “Especially if you’re paying. We could use some steady work.” She gave Mal a look, but the captain was busy not looking back at her.

“Pay?” Blair laughed. “No way. Man, I am broke on broke. Even if I have my medical license back, I will not be practicing. People on the frontier don’t care much for therapy and people in the core are a little prejudiced against my brand of truth. They prefer truths that match their biased, stuck-up, aggravating world views.”

“I think she means me, Chief,” Jim pointed out. His father hadn’t wanted Jim to go back to wandering the frontier alone the way he had before the war. Jim figured now that he had Blair along, they needed someplace steady to hang their hat and someplace mobile enough to land him in the center of trouble where people needed an honest cop. The Serenity fit that bill.

Blair blinked up at him. “You’re paying?”

Mal answered before Jim could. “He’s sure not going to be crew. I can use a barker who knows how to cook, but I don’t need another gunhand, certainly not one that carries a badge. But he offered a good fare for regular passage and use of a shuttle. I’ve never been one to turn down regular work.”

“You do it all the time,” Jayne said. Mal gave him a dirty look, but Jayne pretty much just stared back. After a second, Mal sighed.

“And since I am carrying a badge again, I guess you’ll have to be more careful about what cargo you take on,” Jim pointed out.

“I don’t know about that. I hear that you’re supposed to be some major crime cop, someone who doesn’t get involved in a little smuggling. From the way I hear it, you might even take passage on a smuggling ship to buy your way into some of the seedier corners in the ‘verse.”

“You’re assuming you could get me into those corners. You have more people who hate you than I do, and that’s saying something.”

“He’s got a point there, Mal,” Jayne pointed out.

Mal whirled on Jayne. “Exactly whose side are you one here, Cobb?”

Jim bit his own tongue to avoid pointing out that from the smell, Jayne and Mal had been on the same side of a bed several times in the last few hours. Whatever else may have changed in the last three weeks, Jayne and Mal hadn’t stopped rutting like rams.

“Didn’t think you had to ask that, Mal,” Jayne pointed out.

“Seems like it’s hard to tell some days.”

From the look Jayne gave Mal, he didn’t exactly agree. “I’ll have to show you later.”

“Awwww,” Kaylee said loudly. “You two are so cute.” That earned her matching glares from Mal and Jayne.

Clearing his throat, Mal turned to Jim. “We had a visitor track us down at the docks.”

“Oh?”

“The Operative.”

Jim could feel his guts knot, but the crew seemed relaxed about it. River stuck her head out from behind
Zoe and waved at him. Zoe tried to move out of her way only to have River move with her so the two of them did an odd dance at the top of the shuttle’s ramp. Three weeks in his father’s house, and Jim had already forgotten how strange they all were. Blair waved back.

“The Operative?” Jim asked slowly.

Zoe stopped her dance and looked down at them. “It seems from his expression that Jim’s about as fond of that man was we are.”

“Is he still after us?” Jim braced himself for the answer. If he was, it meant that his father’s plans weren’t working as well they’d thought, and they all probably needed to run for the darkest corner of the universe they could find.

“Nope,” Mal commented. “The government told him you were dangerous, so he took on the job even though he doesn’t actually work for them anymore. You were right that when you went off his radar, he figured out that you’d joined us, which is why he came to talk to us. He figured if he came here, you’d try to kill him before he could explain why he’d taken the job to track you down.”

Blair made a face. “Oh man, when you go back to the soul-sucking government after escaping? That is not saying good things for your karma.”

Jim wondered if getting his badge back qualified for a case of karma-damage, but Mal was already shaking his head.

“He insists that he wanted to talk to you before deciding whether you were the threat the Institute claimed.”

Frowning, Jim tried to figure out if Mal had really been stupid enough to buy that excuse. “And if we weren’t, he would just pat us on the head and let us go?”

“Yep,” River announced brightly. “One old war horse running new fields.” She twirled down the ramp and caught Jim by his shoulders, kissing him on the cheek before Jim had a chance to react. Then she pulled away to stand next to Blair, her arms around him. Jim breathed out slowly as he ordered his soldier’s instincts to stand down. Even though River was clearly on their side, Jim’s instincts still reacted to having such a dangerous woman so near his lover. River flashed him a bright smile and rested her chin on Blair’s shoulder. “Other war horses still cling to old ruts,” she said.

Blair chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know. I happen to think we have a couple of old war horses who’ve done a pretty damn good job of getting out of their ruts.”

River tilted her head and considered Mal and then Jim. Jim crossed his arms and glared.

“Nope, still like ruts.” She leaned close to Blair’s ear like she was going to whisper, but then she used a loud stage whisper to announce, “They like rutting.”

Jayne snorted loudly and Kaylee hid a smile behind her hand.

“Don’t you have something else you ought to be doing?” Mal demanded.

“Nope,” River said, her smile brighter than ever.

“Oh yeah, this is going to be all kinds of interesting,” Blair said as he headed up into the ship. “You know what they say: kong xue lái feng wei bì wu yin, and I totally believe there’s a reason for the strange wind that brought us together.” Jim followed his lover into the shuttle. He wasn’t so sure the universe had planned this, but he was starting to think it might turn out well. Instead of getting an assignment from Banks and heading out into the frontier with no backup, no home, and no family, he had a badge, a lover, a home, and a ship full of insane folk who were starting to feel like family.

“Maybe the universe has a strange sense of humor,” Zoe offered as she followed them.

“More like it doesn’t like me,” Mal complained.

“Aww. The captain is feeling all picked on,” Kaylee teased.

Jayne gave another of his indelicate snorts as he followed them into the shuttle. Jim heard someone trigger the ramp, closing it so they could head back to the shipyard where the Serenity was waiting. It was time to go home.

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