SKIN

 

For some humped up reason Mal couldn’t drag his eyes away, watching through steamed up glass as those big fingers sat firm on the bone handle of the bowie knife, flicking it this way, twitching it a quarter inch back, then holding it loose as the blade sped across tanned skin like it was worthless. Maybe priceless. Mal weren’t sure which.

Soaping up his palms, he scrubbed the lather over his body, working it into all the nooks and crannies then letting the stinging needles of water rinse away the suds as he continued watching the action out of the corner of his eye.

Near black and blue from the power of the water, Mal turned off the shower then slid open the cubicle door and reached for the towel hanging close by on a peg. Wrapping it around him as quickly as possible, he moved in a little closer to Jayne, contemplating the slick slide of that big blade as it went about its business, shaving away hair and carving out the beard into a perfect goatee.

Water condensed and ran in rivulets down the glass and Jayne rubbed a wet circle with his fist, clearing away enough of the mirror so he could see.

“Ain’t you got nothing better to be doing than watching me shave, Captain?”

Mal frowned ‘cause right now he couldn’t think of a single damn thing. “Don’t think so. I’m just waiting here first in line to laugh when you cut off your nose to spite your ugly face.”

Jayne smiled, them white as white teeth gleaming back at Mal in reflection. “Slashed myself up bad the first few times I did this but it’s been more’n fifteen years now. Reckon I could pretty much do it in my sleep.”

He pulled that age old shaving face, tweaking the hairs away from around his nostrils and lips with the razor sharp tip and Mal found himself drawn even closer, his chest almost in contact with Jayne’s naked back. So close he could feel heat radiating off the other man.

“Why the knife?” he asked, wincing as the glittering blade edge whipped off the excess hairs under Jayne’s chin. One slip and that throat could easily be sliced open. Mal wondered how many men had lost their lives to that blade.

“Ain’t always razors or barber’s shops around some of the places I been holed up in and I just hate having a face full of hair. Got used to this I guess.” Jayne rinsed away soap scum from the blade, offering it more care and attention than he did his skin which got nothing more than a cursory towelling off.

“Do me.” Mal couldn’t believe those words had the gall to leave his lips. What was the matter with him? What was he doing having a conversation with his hired muscle in the bathroom of all places? More words had passed between him and Jayne in the last five minutes than they’d shared in months.

“What?” Jayne was wearing what Mal called his what-in-the-gorram-hell face and he would have felt like joining him if it weren’t for the call of that bowie knife and the thought of it gliding over slick wet skin.

“Do me,” he repeated sitting up on the metal counter in between the wash basins, making sure his towel was keeping him decent. “I trust you.”

Jayne shrugged and ran a basin full of warm water, rubbing the bar of soap between his palms until he had a nice thick lather. Insinuating himself between Mal’s thighs, he smeared the suds over flushed skin, excess soap dripping down onto both men’s towels in long white splotches.

With a wicked grin, Jayne picked up the knife and licked it salaciously. Testing it for sharpness? Tasting imaginary blood? Whatever the reason, it had Mal’s heart speeding up, close to its limit.

“Sure now are ya?”

Mal nodded, inclining his head to the right to give Jayne easy access but the first touch of steel against his skin had him dancing back.

“I ain’t gonna do this,” said Jayne trying to get away but Mal grabbed his shoulder.

“Yes. Yes you are. I’ll be still.” Damn it, he was acting crazier than River Tam, near to the point of begging Jayne. Next he’d be offering the man money for his services like he was a whore out on the game.

There was a quiet sigh then very slowly fingers crept around the back of his neck as Jayne inched in closer, holding him in place and presenting the knife to his skin.

The first swiping stroke was hot and cold, wet and burning all at the same time and Mal felt more vulnerable than he’d ever done before in his life. He couldn’t recall once having sat in one of them barber’s chairs with a hot towel around his face. Shaving had always been a personal thing between him, a mirror and a safety razor. This experience was uncharted and strange to say the least.

“Be still now,” Jayne murmured, then caught his lower lip tight between his teeth in concentration as he smoothed the knife blade over Mal’s chin.

“Laotian fu.” Closing his eyes Mal let his head fall back, resting on Jayne’s arm, enjoying the feel of the fingers kneading away at his muscles like a cat. A big cat. A tiger maybe? No, more like one of them mountain lions he’d read about that stayed on the outskirts only coming close when they needed to. Yeah, that was Jayne Cobb.

Touching his cheek, Mal was shocked how smooth the skin was. He’d had plenty of close shaves over the years but never, quite literally, as close as this.

“Fingers away or I’ll cut ‘em off.” Jayne’s voice rumbled low and deep and Mal submitted a little too eagerly for his liking, giving himself up and leaning back on his hands as Jayne pushed in closer and kept up that hypnotic swipe, rinse, swipe, soap, which was fast sending Mal into a trance. In fact he’d become so entranced by the whole thing it wasn’t until the steel slid along his neck that he became of aware of blood surging into his cock, leaving it fuller and heavier with each pump of his heart.

Struggling a little to free himself, Mal’s eyes flew open when he felt the brush of another equally hard prick against his. Carrying on as if nothing untoward was happening, Jayne tugged both towels away as he swiped the blade of the knife across his captain’s throat.

Oh god. “God.” Mal’s voice sounded thick, husky and overly loud in his ears. All he could do was lean back, bracing himself against the steel counter top and close his eyes once again as Jayne pressed onward, squeezed in tight between his thighs which were damp with sweat from the close contact.

There wasn’t much in the way of movement happening but it was enough; the subliminal slide of wet cock against wet cock making him breathless, making him ache, making him need things he wouldn’t ever have even dreamed of if he’d been in his right mind. Wrong minded, that was him. All wrong and messed up, letting Jayne tease him with knives and sweat and nakedness.

Christ. Any one of the men could walk in and find them; Mal spread open with Jayne busy at this slow relentless frottage as he rinsed the lather off Mal’s cheeks with a cupped hand of cold water.

It was an icy wake up call that had Mal involuntarily jerking forward and coming to rest just an inch away from Jayne’s face. The big mercenary bridged the narrow gap, taking Mal’s mouth in a hard kiss that had him quivering like a leaf and urging the man on with repeated nudges of his hips.

Jayne kissed like he did pretty much everything. No hint of subtlety, accurate and straight to the gorram point. It hit maximum effect with the kind of consummate ease that may well have had Mal’s knees trembling if he’d been standing up. Pulling away and panting a little to regain some oxygen, Mal looked down at their cocks which rubbed and bumped together, torturing each other with never quite enough contact. It was surely his turn to be the brave one. Reaching down, he laced his fingers into a circle, slipping them over both cocks then squeezing tighter and tighter until Jayne hissed out in this shocked kind of a way that had Mal feeling more like a captain again.

“Wo de ma,” the big man murmured picking up his knife and trailing the needle sharp tip down Mal’s chest, scraping it over his left nipple until the flesh peaked and reddened.

Jesus, the slow build was agony and when Jayne bent his head and soothed the scratch marks with long swipes of his tongue, Mal knew he had to get them closer to coming soon or die trying. Working his hands over both erections, he let the pre-come slick up his fingers then grazed a dry palm over the tip of each cock until Jayne grunted and dropped his knife, slinking his arms around Mal and heaving him closer as they fucked against each other.

“Yesu.” The word sounded more like a growl as Jayne leaned in once again, kissing Mal fiercely until his face felt like it’d been sandblasted by the abrasiveness of that goatee.

Gorram beard. If it hadn’t been for that, Mal would never have found himself on the verge of climax held tight by the arms of the most uncouth and least attractive member of his crew. ‘Cept he wasn’t, was he? Mal had never found Jayne as unattractive as he should have done.

Up until this point he’d still been hanging onto the edge of sanity but now the testosterone took over and Mal could feel that tingle in his belly driving him onwards and telling him to stop rutting around and enjoy it. Grabbing the wet bar of soap that was turning to mush at the bottom of the basin, Mal slicked up his hands and slid them downwards, pulling at the hard flesh and burying his sounds of pleasure inside Jayne’s mouth.

It was too long since he’d had this kind of sex, needy and dangerous the way he liked it best. There was none of that delicacy involved that always was necessary when he was fucking women, regardless of whether they were whores or lovers. With Jayne he could kiss as brutal as he wanted, scrape and scratch and bite and fight and get it back tenfold.

Jayne’s mouth grazed a rough path up his neck and licked away at that place just below his ear, the one part of his body that turned him to an instant ball of hot dirty lust.

“God,” he muttered throwing his head back and working both of their cocks together furiously, wetting and re-soaping them up so quick there was hardly a break in the jerk off.

“Gonna get you back to my bunk, gonna fuck you hard, gonna make you fuck me harder…”

The words kept coming over and over. For a man that didn’t like to talk much, Jayne was sure making up for it. They were pressed so tight against each other now Mal could barely find a way between skin to jack them off but he managed best he could. Running his lips over Jayne’s collarbone, he rested his head against that rough-smooth cheek and groaned out loud as he came in thick white spurts that spread wet and slick over their bellies, dripping down and covering Jayne’s cock. Jayne pulled back a little and looked at him, eyes wide and dark as he gave in to his climax, disguising the sounds of it inside Mal’s mouth and heaving into his fist.

Afterwards was more awkward then Mal ever would have guessed. If he could have turned back time, he would have done it without a doubt. Sneaking into the showers to rinse away the mixture of his and Jayne’s come, he half-chewed his lip off in panic.

“Best if we forget it,” he said emerging the exact same time as Jayne did, the way things like that always happened. Would be easy at moments like this to think someone upstairs was playing around with the pieces. Leastways that’s what a man might think if they believed in all that gou shi about god.

“Reckon so,” agreed Jayne towelling himself dry.

There was no animosity lurking behind those two simple words. If there had been then maybe it would have gone partway to making Mal feel better. As it was he couldn’ve felt any worse. Jayne pulled on his clothes and exited the bathroom as quickly as possible leaving Mal with some much needed thinking time.

It weren’t no big thing. He’d fucked Zo when they were both lost and lonely and too soldierly to admit to being scared. Of course it had taken a long while for them to get over that one time only frantic sexing.

“Gorramit.” He should have known better.

The day grew progressively worse. Even the tiniest snatch of eye contact with the merc made Mal quake in his boots. He felt like a kid who’d been caught with his pants down. ‘Cept they hadn’t been caught. Would it have been better if they had?

The day was another of them rutting nothing ones. They were stuck out in the black half way between rock A and planet B with a cargo of geological research equipment to deliver. No plans to plot out. No waves to send. Nothing to distract him at all.

Wasting away the hours as best he could, Mal wandered aimlessly around Serenity like a spook. That way he could avoid Jayne whenever he heard him close by and not appear to the others to be skulking in his bunk. It was more difficult at meal times but he did okay, pushing food down his throat and ignoring the jangling of nerves that set off this fluttering deep inside his belly.

Mal had never once in his life been accused of being a patient man and the last ten hours had convinced him that indeed was the case. He weren’t gonna be able to live through another day like today. Something had to be done.

Waiting a while for the others to settle into their sleeping quarters, he snuck up to that storage locker next to the cockpit that made do as the ship’s armoury. Tapping in the code, he slid open the hatch and studied everything with a markman’s gaze, hefting rifles to his shoulder and feeling the weight of the handguns. He still worshipped weapons with a boyish sense of excitement, which was way out of place considering the damage he’d seen done by ‘em.

Strapping the ten-inch hunting knife to his thigh and concealing another inside his boot, Mal secured the locker and made his way down ladders and across catwalks to Serenity’s crew deck. Quietly as he could, he tugged at the hatch, fully expecting it to be locked. It slid open and that ticked him off as much as it pleased him. His boots squeaked on the floor as he crept – no, crept implied creepy and it wasn’t nothing like that – as he inched closer to the bunk, drawing his knife and slipping a hand over the sleeping man’s mouth. Jayne jerked awake and Mal caught a tight hold of him from behind, letting him feel the coolness of the steel blade butting up to his Adam’s apple. That killed off any resistance and Mal slowly removed his palm, pressing the knife a little closer in for effect.

“I reckon there’s two, maybe three, options I got worked out,” he said in this tone of voice that implied he was as relaxed as a stoned up loser. “You listening there, Jayne? Ain’t fallen back asleep on me, have ya?”

“’M listening.”

“One is, I can space you.” There was a distinct lack of reaction from the big man and that annoyed Mal someways. He teased the tip of the hunting knife into that slight dip above the breastbone, pressing in hard enough to make Jayne wince. “Second thing I can do is slide this knife over your skin and watch you bleed.” The blade whipped across with a little more intent than Mal had initially intended and in the glow from the bulkhead lights he watched speckles of blood blistering up to the surface.

“I ain’t-”

Mal silenced him with a blade to the lips. Was that gooseflesh he could feel beneath his fingers? “Third thing I figured out,” he said leaning over and licking a path across Jayne’s shoulder joining up the dots of blood with the tip of his tongue. “Is I could fuck you hard.”

Disarmed with a sharp twist to the wrist, Mal landed on the floor, breath swiftly expelling from his body in this sudden huff of air as a very naked Jayne straddled him and leered downwards. All the man needed was that gorram cigar to complete the picture.

“Or maybe I could fuck you harder, Captain.”