“Jayne. Jayne. Jayne!”

The man in question jerked his head up and banged it against the pipe. “Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la doo-tze!” Pressing one hand to the back of his skull, he edged out from under the contraption and straightened up, eyeing Mal dangerously. “You got somethin’ against my head?”

“No.” Mal took a seat on the edge of a nearby crate. “May I ask what you’re doin’ with my engine?”

“Kaylee said somethin’ or other about retrofittin’ the grav drive. I was tryin’ - key word there bein’ tryin’, afore I was so rudely interrupted - to see if I could figure out what in hell she was goin’ on about.” Jayne removed his hand from the back of his head and looked at his fingers. “You’re damn lucky you didn’t cause no bleedin’.”

“You’re the one who hit your head.” Mal looked at Jayne and decided to go for it. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Aw hell, you’re still cut up about that?” Jayne gave a barely noticeable eye roll and leaned against a part of the engine that Mal had no hope of being able to identify. “You was the one who wanted to wear the dress.”

“Wearin’ the dress and gettin’ insulted wasn’t a package deal!”

“Well,” Jayne said slowly, “you got to admit you don’t make much of a woman.”

Mal refused to admit anything. “If I recollect rightly, ‘powerful ugly’ was the phrase you used.”

“And if I recollect rightly, you went off’n got yourself a wife shortly thereafter. So pardon me if I can’t see any reason for you to be all wounded and such.” Jayne wiped his oily hands with an even oilier rag. “Unless o’ course you got secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“We been up here a long while, and I can’t recall when’s the last time I seen you in a brothel. You don’t got needs?”

“Needs?” Mal knew he was being the ‘Verse’s greatest echo and worst conversationalist, but he frankly couldn’t help it. Thinking around Jayne had always been difficult. Partly because Jayne himself didn’t make a habit of thinking much.

“Yeah, needs.” Jayne’s eyes bored into his, then slid down his body in a way that made Mal distinctly uncomfortable. “You got a problem with dirt?”

“What?”

“Dirt.” Jayne had straightened up, and was moving toward him with a grace that should have been an arrestable offence on someone that size. “As in, you gonna holler’n fuss if I get oil on you?” Without waiting for a reply, a big hand came down on Mal’s shoulder, pushing him back down onto the crate just as he’d been about to get up.

“Jayne Cobb, what the ruttin’ hell -” Mal stopped talking. What was the point? Jayne had never listened to a word he’d said and he surely wasn’t going to start now.

“You like to talk, hmm?” The mercenary’s voice had dropped to a murmur, and the other hand was on Mal’s thigh. “Bet you’d be a right screamer in bed.” Mal shut his eyes and tried to convince himself this wasn’t happening, which wasn’t very effective when he took into account the fact that Jayne’s hand was sliding higher and higher by the second. “Boxers, right?”

“What?” Mal sounded dazed, even to himself.

“Boxers.” Jayne’s hand was dangerously close now, and a dark, pleasurable heat was beginning to coil in Mal’s groin. “You wear ‘em?”

“Yeah...”

“Mm.” It wasn’t so much a word as a low growl from somewhere deep in Jayne’s chest. “Kinda pretty, boxers. Comfortable too.” Mal’s mouth went dry, and he bit down on his lower lip to stop himself from moaning as a large, warm hand curled around him and heat turned to fire. “Kinda lean towards wearin’ nothin’ myself.”

Mal snapped his eyes open before the images associated with that statement could flood his brain and almost succeeded. “Jayne -”

“Yeah, I see you like my name.” Jayne nudged Mal’s legs apart and moved to stand between them. A strange mixture of sweat and engine grease that was not entirely unpleasant drifted to Mal’s nostrils. “You like it that much, you won’t mind me makin’ you scream it.”

“Scr -”

“Anybody ever tell you you talk too gorram much?” Jayne raised an eyebrow.

Mal let out his breath in a whoosh. “Um.”

“Figures.” Jayne took hold of Mal’s face, the hand so big it wrapped around his jaw. Unreadable eyes stared into his. “You want somethin’, Mal, you ask me for it, dong ma?”

Mal managed to find his voice. Unfortunately, it came out a few octaves higher than usual. “Uh-huh.”

“Now we got that clear.” Jayne leaned down, which made Mal lean backward. In a few seconds they went from a slightly compromising position to one that could not be mistaken for anything else, with Mal half lying down, propped up on his elbows on the crate, and Jayne supporting himself over Mal with one hand on either side of his head. And if any of the crew walked in, that was really not going to be shiny.

“Jayne.” Mal, who was by now completely frustrated by his inability to get out a complete sentence, opened his mouth to launch into a tirade but was stopped by Jayne’s crushing weight on his chest and a pair of lips against his ear.

“My bunk,” Jayne breathed.

Oh God. Mal swallowed tightly. Oh God oh God oh God - “Yes.”

Jayne stood up and glanced down at the prostrate captain. “You might wanna lead the way. I ain’t so sure I trust you to not duck into a corner and -” The hand gesture that followed was universal.

Mal struggled to his feet, which turned out to be a little more difficult than he had originally predicted. Walking was also something of a problem. Jayne obviously saw this, because a hand gripped his elbow and half-pushed, half-carried him along.

Mal didn’t know what he’d expected. He knew there was a load of desire in him, and obviously a bunch of it in Jayne too, and the hormones feuding in his blood had been driving him crazy for the past few months. And he’d been finding it increasingly hard to concentrate around the mercenary. Jayne, crude and blunt as he was, had some kind of strange effect on Mal that he didn’t quite understand or even want to think about. But still. He definitely hadn’t expected any of this.

In the corridor at last, Jayne bent and pulled up the trapdoor, biceps flexing in a way that swiftly drew Mal’s thoughts to what the rest of his body might look like, and stood back. Mal climbed down the ladder and stood in the small quarters, made even smaller by the numerous articles of weaponry strewn about. And Jayne wasn’t exactly a compulsive cleaner either.

The click of the door told him that Jayne had come down the ladder. Muscular arms slid around his waist and pulled him back against Jayne’s broad chest. A mouth descended on his neck, biting and sucking, and Mal’s eyes closed involuntarily as a hand slid down to massage the bulge in his pants.

“Jayne...” Mal shifted uncomfortably. Those pants, which were tight all the time, were way too tight right about now. “Jayne -”

“I didn’t know you liked my name that much.” Jayne turned Mal around to face him, and there was laughter in the blue eyes and in the one lifted eyebrow. “Look, Mal...you got a problem with this, you speak up now, you hear?”

Mal stared. “Jayne, dammit, I’m the gorram captain! I give the orders!”

“Yeah.” Jayne seemed unconvinced. “Uh-huh.”

Mal realized he was trembling. Hoping something sturdy was behind him, he sat down abruptly, and was thankful to find that he had landed on Jayne’s bunk. He’d also come within inches of sitting on Vera, which could have been potentially deadly. He looked up at the massive man standing in front of him, and buried his face in his lightly shaking hands.

“You ain’t never done this before.” Jayne’s voice was soft, and it was not a question.

Mal shook his head mutely.

“It’s all right,” Jayne said in that same soft voice, and put one unreasonably large hand on Mal’s head. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, Mal. I know this might sound right crazy after what I done on Ariel, but...you just got to trust me.”

Trust Jayne. How in the hell was he supposed to trust Jayne? The mercenary had already proved time and again that he was just that - a mercenary. He’d betray Mal and the entire crew of the Serenity in a heartbeat if he were ever paid enough to make it worth his while. Trust Jayne? Oh yeah. No problem with that at all.

To give him credit, Jayne seemed to see the problem. He knelt before Mal and laid his hands on Mal’s knees. “I know I ain’t got no morals or ethics or nothin’. I known since I was born that I wasn’t never gonna be no good man. And I know I done some downright questionable things in the past, but...but Mal...you got to trust me. I done this before. I can make it so’s it don’t hurt a mite. But if you’re gonna be tense and...and stuff...this ain’t gonna be shiny.”

Mal clenched his fists in his hair momentarily and then gripped his own thighs, looking the other man in the eye. “Jayne,” he said. “Jayne, you had better not be messin’ with me here. Because if you are messin’ with me let me assure you there ain’t a galaxy big enough for you to hide in. You pull a stunt here and I swear by that pretty floral bonnet you made me wear that I will end you. Dong ma?”

“I hear you, Mal.” Jayne was uncharacteristically serious. He turned his hands so the palms faced upward, but left them on Mal’s knees. After a moment’s hesitation, Mal laid his own hands in Jayne’s.

Jayne’s paws dwarfed Mal’s. They were rough and callused, and stained around the fingernails and in the creases with seven different shades of oil and dirt, but to Mal they felt like heaven. They felt like the only thing he wanted to feel on his skin. The hands moved to hold his wrists loosely.

“You okay?” Jayne asked huskily.

If Mal could have spoken, he’d have said that ‘okay’ was the last thing in the world that he was. But there was a constriction in his throat that left talking completely impossible, so he answered the question the best non-verbal way he knew how - with a kiss.

Jayne was perfectly motionless for all of maybe two seconds, and then Mal felt the mouth beneath his responding. A strong tongue stroked his, and then Jayne’s hands were on his face, holding his head, fingers searching his hair and lips searing his right down to the core of his being.

By the time the kiss broke Mal was breathless. “I thought you never kiss ‘em on the mouth.”

Jayne considered. “Did I ever specify who them was?”

“No,” Mal admitted.

“Right.” Jayne looked pleased with himself. “You done talkin’, Mal? ‘Cause I can maybe think of better things you could be doin’ with your mouth.”

The bottom fell right out of Mal’s stomach at that, and what followed was a session of sex that thoroughly exhausted even Jayne and left Mal wondering exactly why in the hell he wasn’t dead yet.

“Damn,” he groaned, thinking about moving and realizing he couldn’t. “You always like this?”

“Always like what?” Jayne turned his head to look Mal in the eye, but that seemed to be the extent of his movement capability as well.

“This gorram ruttin’ horny!” Mal finally managed to extricate his leg from under Jayne’s leg and collapsed, spent by the effort. His entire body felt like it’d been put through a wringer. Twice. Possibly three times.

“Yes,” Jayne said simply.

This gave Mal pause. Hell, he had desires too, but Jayne...Jayne was a one-man sex machine. No Companion or doll or well-lubricated fist could satisfy him. Which made Mal wonder what was going to happen now.

“You gonna give me sexin’ when I need it, Mal?”

Mal fought the urge to laugh and thought that only Jayne could ask that question and not only be perfectly serious about it but manage to make it sound oddly romantic. He gave a small outward grimace that he perversely hoped his bedfellow would notice. “Don’t think my body can handle it.”

Jayne gave a low growl that assured Mal that he had indeed noticed. “Your body can handle it just fine.”

Mal made a noncommittal noise in his throat and reflected that he did feel better. Sexual tension was a killer, and there was nothing quite like being in space and wanting a body to bed down with and knowing there wasn’t anyone. But apparently there was now.

“You gonna talk to me or lie there grinnin’?” Jayne’s voice brought Mal back to reality.

“Jayne,” Mal said sincerely, “I will give you sexin’ when you need. Provided my pi gu don’t cave in first.”

The grunt he heard in answer was definitely one of satisfaction, and Jayne turned away to get some much-needed rest. Mal hesitated only a moment before curling his body against Jayne’s and sliding one arm around the mercenary’s waist. Rough fingers slipped around his wrist, pulling his hand up towards Jayne’s chest, and Jayne’s breathing deepened and slowed as sleep worked its magic.

Mal could not help but smile. Wasn’t life great, the way it could lend you a hand while acting like it was planning to kick your teeth in the whole time? Somehow you never got what you expected, but what you did get turned out to be exactly what you needed in the end.