"I wanna bring her on board, Mal."
Mal looks at him, but he's kind of distracted. "What?"
"The whore. I wanna bring her with us."
Seemingly, the word whore gets Mal's full attention. "She's got a name, Jayne." He says it like it's test, like Jayne don't know her name.
"Yeah. Helen."
Mal crosses his arms. "What would we do with her on Serenity?"
He grins. He's had more than a few thoughts on that. "Hell, I know what I'd do with her."
"Yeah?"
He knows well the look on Mal's face, the one that says, You're stupider than I thought, Jayne, and I ain't in the mood for this, all in one.
"And what? Would she be in your bunk? Would you let me, and maybe even Simon, share her time if we wanted? How's she gettin' paid? You plannin' on marryin' her?"
Jayne's thought some of this through already. Yeah, she could share his bunk sometimes, but she'd have to have her own room too. A man needs his own space, and some time with just his guns. Hell no, Mal and Simon couldn't get turns with her. And him and her, they'd work out some kind of deal with the paying. It ain't like he has much to spend his cut on anyway.
And the marriage question is just stupid. He's opening his mouth to say so when Mal starts talking again. "She ain't fit for the jobs we get. She'd be one more mostly useless mouth to feed, and I already got two too many of those."
Jayne isn't sure if Mal's talking about River and the preacher, or River and the doc. He figures the preacher, 'cause much as he don't like to admit it, the doctor comes in handy damn often. Then again, so does the preacher. He shrugs the thought off and turns back to the matter at hand. "She handled herself fine in the fight. Got a little scared at first, but she did what I told her. I figure she'd be a decent shot with practice." He smirks at Mal. "I'd leave her some time for practicin'. Give her incentive to learn fast."
Mal scowls at him.
"Anyway, who knows. She might make a decent decoy on some jobs. Give folks somethin' to look at besides us, while we do what we gotta do." He didn't much like the thought of that, but that's the life out here. She'd do what was needed, just like the rest of them.
Mal's still frowning, but something about him seems to loosen up. "Give me a good reason you want her comin' with us."
The reasons should be obvious, but Mal, he gets all sticky and strange about sex and women, and Jayne's already pushed that angle a little too much. He looks away a moment, then says, "A man likes to wake up with someone. It's...it's warm." Glancing at Mal, he sees skepticism. "She smells good." It ain't wrong that he wants a little company.
There's a long pause, then Mal asks, "You let her kiss you on the lips?"
He snorts. "No."
"How're you so sure she'd even want to come with us?"
Jayne shrugs. He ain't asked, but she's already said about how she don't know what it'll be like for the brothel now, her boss being dead and them having made a lot of enemies. He figures she'd be glad enough for a chance to go someplace else.
Mal looks at him hard for a minute, then sighs. "You'd be tired of her before the week was over. Then I'd have a homesick girl eatin' up the food and not helpin' on jobs. Hell, for all I know, she'd start throwin' hysterics. We already got enough of them from River."
Helen won't get hysterical. She ain't like that. She kept herself calm, after she got her nerves squared away. And it grates that Mal says he'll get sick of Helen. Mal's always saying stuff like he knows Jayne and what's better for him. Jayne don't need someone telling him what's for his own good. Even his ma stopped trying to do that years ago.
"Answer's no, Jayne. It'll cause trouble. Serenity don't need more trouble." Mal turns and walks away before Jayne can muster up another argument.
It's like this all the time with Mal, him setting the limits and not being reasonable about what Jayne wants. It's bad enough Mal didn't listen to him about River and the doc; it's worse that he didn't even try to understand about the job on Ariel.
Jayne hears what Mal says about him: Jayne's horrific. He ain't to be taken too seriously, 'cept when he's holding a gun. Even then Mal ain't guaranteed to listen properly to what Jayne has to say.
There's other things that he knows Mal thinks too: Jayne ain't to be trusted. He's slow on the uptake, and when Jayne gets real serious about something that ain't killing, it's time for the crew to have a good laugh. He should keep his mouth shut, 'cause it ain't capable of coming out with anything worth hearing.
But when they need muscle, or the grunt work done, Jayne's the one who does it. He don't mind it so much, that's what he was hired for. But he figures a captain would want to keep his crew happy, and Jayne ain't asking for much. Mal does more for Kaylee, or hell, even the doc, without being asked. And Jayne is way more use than them two in fights like the skyplex job.
He remembers what the doc called him that one time, a trained ape without the training. He wonders sometimes if Mal sees him the same way. A badly trained animal, good for some things, bad for most others.
Jayne watches Mal walk away. There's gonna be a reckoning between them soon if Mal keeps this kind of thing up, and it won't be pretty or tidy. He ain't sure he'll be the one coming out standing, but it'll have to be done. Jayne ain't asking for much, but Mal, he don't ever give an inch. Not for Jayne.
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