By Shadow Rivers

“This don’t look to be the best kind of place for laying low in, Sir.”

Mal was perched up on a rocky vantage point, surveying the one street hick town that was nestled in amongst thick woodland. While he was doing this he pondered Zoë’s words. “Why do you call me sir? War’s over and we ain’t never been what you might call traditional soldiers.”

Zoë stared at him. “It reminds me not cuss you out when one of your crazy schemes goes wrong, Sir.”

“Well, it don’t sound right so stop doing it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Mal frowned, wondering, not for the first time, why he ran with the crazy woman, then as he watched her take a killing shot at the last of the purple bellies that were in pursuit, he remembered the reason. Weren’t a person as good at sniping as Zo. Not that he’d come across yet anyhow.

“That’s that problem solved.” The woman holstered her weapon and dusted down her hands then stood looking at him with her arms folded. “Now what?”

“Now we stash all that platinum nice and safe somewhere in one of them caves then bury the bodies and head on into town. Ain’t going nowhere ‘til the shuttle’s fixed good enough to fly in a straight line.”

“Convenient, I’d say. Being rested up in a scum town for U-Day.”

“Not much choice in the matter, far as I can see.”

“Don’t even see why you get so fired up ‘round this time of year? ‘Cept for the fact it’s a great day for starting a fight.”

“It ain’t that at all,” said Mal with a slow smile as he hefted one of the lock boxes out of the shuttle and lugged it up toward the rocks. “I ain’t the trouble making kind.”

“No, Sir. Trouble just follows you around like a puppy.”

~~****~~

The girl popped her pretty face out from beneath the engine housing and smiled up at them. “Well, by the look of things you got your bilateral shaft all bent out of shape.”

“That’s great,” said Mal. “Now could you get your daddy to take a look at it so I can get to talking prices."

Tucking grubby hands into her overall pockets, the girl looked up at him. “I can if’n you want, but you’ll have to wait 'til he finishes helping out with the calving up at Dochert Ridge. And I have to warn you he ain’t nowhere near as good with engines as I am.”

Ignoring the splutter of laughter from behind him, Mal stretched out an apologetic hand and helped her to her feet. “Name’s Himmelgott and I’d be most grateful if you could see your way to fixing up the craft soon as possible. My cousin Virginia and I are on our way to Praxia to set up a mission school there and they’re expecting us soonest.”

“Well, ain’t that sweet of you.” The girl’s face lit up with a huge smile as she shook Mal’s hand with a grip that was as firm as a man’s and greasier than most he’d come across. “I’m Kaylee. Don’t you worry about this little baby. I’ll have her going soon as you can spit. Won’t cost you much neither. All I need to do is some welding and realignment and she’ll be as good as new.”

Podunk towns weren’t always the worst places to be stuck in, thought Mal as he eyed the little mechanic up. Beneath all that oil she was as pretty as a picture.

“Don’t waste your time with that gou shi,” said the girl with a giggle. “I’m spoken for by the town doctor. Only he don’t quite know it yet.”

Zoë burst into a fresh guffaw of laughter that earned her a severe look.

“Well, can you at least tell us the way to the hotel?” Mal was feeling out of sorts. He’d not had such a direct put down for a long while. Not since that chou san ba Inara had abandoned him to better herself and go train as a companion on one of the Core planets.

“Oh, don’t be sore at me,” smiled Kaylee. “Ain’t my fault I’m smitten, same way as it ain’t your fault you’re not as swai as Doc Tam.”

Mal was starting to really not like her.

“Almost as swai though,” she added, making things a little better with her sunny smile. “Hotel’s in the middle of Main Street.” She pointed down the dusty track. “It’ll be busy I reckon, U-Day coming up an all.”

“We ain’t fussy,” said Mal. “I imagine they’ll find us some place to lay our heads.”

“Long as it ain’t the jailhouse, as per usual,” muttered Zoë.

Mal coughed loudly to cover up her words.

“Be seeing you, Miss Kaylee.” He raised his hand to the girl and then strode off down the road in the direction of a passel of brightly coloured buildings.

“Why are you always intent on causing us trouble?” he said, glaring back at his long time partner.

“Me, Sir?” Zoë looked indignant. “If you can, in all honesty, say those words in three days time then I’ll hand over my whole cut of that platinum.”

“You got yourself a wager,” said Mal, spitting and shaking on the deal and feeling a mite pleased with himself as he stood in the centre of Main Street surveying the freshly watered plants and glossy paintwork. Bonneville was a pristine graveyard; the kind of place he’d have no problem keeping his nose clean. This week was building up to be as boring as all gorram hell, but it’d be worth a few days inaction just to see the smugness disappear off Zoë’s face when he took all that money from her.

At that very moment, just to be contrary, shots rang out like whip cracks and seconds later two large men came flying out the doors of the hotel. Mal and Zoë stepped neatly aside just in time to avoid being struck down like skittles as the bodies went tumbling down the steps.

“Let that be a lesson to you, you pair of moon brains.”

The words were spoken by a huge figure of a man, dressed rather incongruously in a pair of formal pants and a thick knit fisherman’s sweater. He threw a pair of pistols down at the drunken figures who were still laid out in the dust. “Don’t be shooting yer mouths or yer guns off in here again.”

With that he disappeared back inside the bar room and Mal felt an invigorating sense of anticipation slither through him. Contrary to his earlier assessment, Bonneville appeared to have potential; shame that Zoë had put the kibosh on him encouraging its development. Still, at the very least there might be some entertainment happening for him to gawp at.

Straightening his hat, Mal dusted his pants down and held out his arm for Zoë. “Come, cousin, let’s spend some of this hard stolen cash and get ourselves a bed for the night and a hot meal in our bellies.” He breathed in the scent of roasting meat that was wafting from the open windows of the hotel.

“Did you have to call me, Virginia? Do I look like a virgin to you?” muttered Zoë as they pushed their way through the saloon doors that were still swinging back and forth.

“That’s one of them questions a gentleman don’t ever answer.” Mal smirked at her. “If he wants to remain attached to his manly parts, that is.”

As well as being known to the law in most parts of the verse, Malcolm Reynolds was also known for his sweet talking ways. That silver tongue, however, became tied tight as a knot the minute he stepped up to the bar and encountered a glower vicious enough to fell an entire squadron of purple bellies.

Zoë looked on in consternation as Mal stood there with his lips flapping and no sound coming out. “Virginia and Horace Himmelgott,” she improvised. “We need two rooms and a hot meal.”

The woman was glaring at Mal so fiercely it appeared that she hadn’t even heard Zoë’s words, but then, very slowly, she opened her mouth and spoke in a refined tone of voice.

“I don’t rent out my rooms to wanted criminals.”

“And I won’t be sleeping in a place run by a low-down, cheating, back-stabbing whore.” It had been an age since Mal had even seen Inara and, even though he felt a shred of pleasure at witnessing her flailing around like a fish out of water, it was still an uncomfortable reunion.

“I imagine you’ll be needing to speak to Mr Symonds then. He runs the livery stable and I’m certain he’ll have a loose box free.”

Inara smiled sweetly and Mal squirmed a little, deeply uncomfortable about coming this close to begging. Still, the dark look from Zoë was telling him succinctly enough that he had little choice in the matter.

“On second thoughts I think we’re both of us old enough and ugly enough to get over the misunderstandings from the past. After all I have plenty of money.” He slid a fistful of platinum across the bar.

“Ill gotten as always,” she sniffed disdainfully.

“Ain’t that the best kind?” Mal leaned in closer. “Anyway, far as I can see, money that’s stolen is of no different value to money that’s earned on your back with your legs in the air.”

The sudden digging in his ribs was unmistakable. He’d had enough bullets aimed at his innards to know exactly what the barrel of a gun felt like at close range.

“Are you having a problem, Miss Sera?”

Mal looked to his left and saw that same mountainous man from earlier staring him down, dark blue eyes shining out from a bearded face.

Remembering the wager, he swallowed down the thrill of being on the edge of a duel and took the high ground. “We’re old friends, ain’t that right, Inara? You can call your guard dog off now.”

“Guard dog?” Her laughter tinkled like the chiming of a bell. “As usual you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. This gentleman is Shepherd Cobb.” There was a cheeky smile on Inara’s face and for a moment it almost felt the good old days back when they were sweethearts.

The gun was removed from between his ribs and Mal held out his hand politely. “Pleased to meet you, Sir. Horace Himmelgott and this here’s my cousin Virginia.”

The preacher’s face relaxed into a smile. “I apologise. U-Day always fixes everyone up into a lather and I like to keep the townsfolk cooled off ‘fore they wind up in the cells.”

Mal found himself more than a little stuck for words. He’d had dealings with a fair number of clergy in his time, but none of them had ever looked as if they’d be much use for anything else. This man, on the other hand, was a whole different story. He stood six feet off the ground and then a fair few inches and was built as big and sturdy as a barn door. He’d disposed of those two fellers outside like they were made of paper and the way he’d swung his gun back into its holster told Mal that he was used to handling weaponry.

Zoë was obviously harbouring similar thoughts. “Pardon me for saying, Shepherd, but you ain’t exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of a man of the cloth.” She looked him up and down with interest then clicked her fingers, calling for service. “Whiskey,” she said to Inara with a smile that softened the directness of her words. “A bottle and three shot glasses.”

“Make that two glasses,” said the preacher. “I’ll have my usual, Miss Sera.”

“Coming right up, Shepherd.”

“So what got you started on telling bible stories?” asked Mal, leading them over to a table that was close enough to a group of poker players for him to keep watch. He liked to have an eye on town money just on the off chance that a sideline earner might come up.

“Nothing got me started on it. Was always what I reckoned on doing ever since my ma had me reading scripture passages in church.” Shepherd Cobb thanked the bartender for the drinks. “On my tab please, Wash.”

“Sure thing… Shep…Ai ya!” The barman stopped in his tracks, empty tray falling to the ground as he caught sight of Zoë. “Woman, you are the most good-looking creature I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Don’t you be staring at me that way, little man.” Zoë stood up, frowning furiously as his eyes drifted up and down her svelte leather clad frame. “It ain’t respectful.”

“Full on dangerous too.” Mal laughed and it proved to be infectious when the preacher joined in.

“You should marry me. I need you to marry me.” The barman’s eyes were out on stalks.

“You don’t even know my name.”

Mal was amazed; he’d never seen Zoë react this way before and to be going all soft over a funny little runt like this…? Lost for words he stared in front of him, concentrating on the oddity that was the burly shepherd rather than the unlikely union happening on his left.

“So what are you doing here in Bonneville, Mr Himmelgott?”

“Call me Mal.”

“Fine, cepting I thought your name was Horace?”

Mal wasn’t usually this dumb. His excuse was that he was distracted by the sheer size and prettiness of the preacher, not to mention the impressive amount of weaponry he was packing. “Ain’t too fond of my given name.”

“I know that feeling well enough. My folks called me Jayne. It’s a Cobb family tradition.”

Those blue eyes sparkled as the man’s face erupted into a broad grin and Mal felt the unmistakeable stirrings of lust in his belly. “Jayne Cobb sounds kinda nice.”

The preacher held his gaze and the moment lasted a little too long for Mal’s comfort. It’d been a while since he’d flirted with another man and he’d never harboured a desire to bed a shepherd.

“You didn’t answer my question,” said the preacher as he swigged down a mouthful of lemonade, licking the sugary sourness from his lips.

Was it getting hot in here? Mal glanced in the direction of Inara. Shouldn't it be her he was mooning over? She was still pretty enough to turn any feller’s eye, but there was something about this Jayne Cobb that sent his blood pumping southwards. “Just passing through,” he answered. “Virginia and I are setting up a mission school on Praxia. Our ship broke down and we stopped here to get it fixed.”

The shepherd’s mouth opened up into that broad grin once again. “Makes me feel warm on the inside to hear of folks like yourselves fixing to do good works.”

He stripped off his sweater revealing a pale grey preacher’s shirt and a hint of hairy muscled stomach that couldn’t help but make Mal feel that warmth right along with him.

“Though I notice you’re mighty interested in that game of cards happening beside us,” the man added.

“Every feller’s got his addictions,” said Mal, taking a swig of liquor and glancing to his left to witness Wash the bartender and Zoë sharing some intense kisses.

“Not me.” Jayne looked directly at him, truth blazing out from his eyes like hellfire with a side order of brimstone.

“Not one single thing?” asked Mal incredulously, letting his eyes wander over bulging arms and strong thighs.

“Nope. I chose the path of abstinence and it suits me. If’n I’m feeling a mite frustrated I take to the hills for a spell of exercise and hunting. That always fixes me up.”

Some rather dangerous imagery popped into Mal’s head as he imagined the preacher man taking advantage of the solitude for a spot of skinny dipping and other stress relieving activities. “I wouldn’t mind accompanying you while I’m in town; if you’d be willing to take an extra body along that is.”

“That would be a fine idea.” Cobb finished his lemonade and slammed the glass down on the table. “There ain’t nothing better than having a hunting partner to do a little shooting with.”

Mal was beginning to wonder if he was being played for a fool--the man was doing a sure-fire job of revving up Mal’s engines--but the guileless look told him otherwise.

“I’ll be heading out at dawn tomorrow, if that suits you. I need to bag some meat in case of having extra mouths to feed over the holiday.”

“Sounds just dandy,” said Mal.

“I’ll be happy to have the company.” Cobb sounded sincere. “You can gladly borrow one of my horses and some equipment.”

“That’d be great.”

“We’ll call it a plan then.” The shepherd fixed him with one of them high energy grins. “I have some sick folks to visit so I’ll be taking my leave. See you outside the livery yard at day break.”

Mal nodded, his eyes lingering over the swell of the man’s crotch as he stood up. “’Til tomorrow then,” he said.

Cobb tipped his hat and departed leaving Mal caught up in a fluster of confusion. It was a mighty strange feeling to be embarking on a game like this with an old fashioned moralist. He couldn’t help but wonder if Cobb was virtuous through and through.

With Zoë nowhere to be found Mal dined alone, eating a meal of good honest fare with portions fit for a king. With little else to do he took to the card tables, laying down a stack of coins to show he was serious. The pile of money drew attention exactly the way he expected it would and soon there were six other folks gathered around.

Mal was an experienced gambler, deft at palming and reading, and, after a few hours were up, he had trebled his platinum and was ready to turn in for the night before an excess of whiskey led to frayed tempers. Normally he’d keep right on pushing, but winning this wager with Zoë was more important to him than a short-lived brawl.

“Y’ain’t getting up from this table ‘fore I’ve had a chance of earning back what you took.” A weathered face glowered at him from beneath the wide brim of a drover’s hat, bushy iron-grey beard concealing the rest of the man’s features.

Mal didn’t like it when he couldn’t see his adversary’s expression. “I didn’t take nothing from you.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice and he tried to repress it.

“Leave it, Hanrahan,” said the man who was seated to his left. “He’s done nothing wrong.”

“I ain’t certain of that.”

Mal could feel the burn as several pairs of eyes examined him from top to bottom like they’d be able to read evidence of his wrongdoings printed in neat handwriting somewhere about his person.

“Well, while you fellers are busy making up your minds, I’ll be off to get some sleep. I got an early start tomorrow so I’d appreciate you keeping the piano playing to a bare minimum.”

Getting out of there as quickly as he could manage, Mal went to collect his room key from Inara, who, as he’d expected, had relented, agreeing to allow him and Zoë to lodge at the hotel.

Didn’t stop her huffing and puffing at him though. “You’ve been here less than half a day and already you’re the cause of ill feeling amongst my regulars.”

“Ain’t my fault my pretty face gets them all worked up.” Mal grinned. “Does it still have that effect on you?”

“Not in several dozen lifetimes, Malcolm Reynolds, so you can stop thinking about that right now.”

“Because of you being so much better ‘n me, I s’pose.” He shrugged. “It’s nice to see how much use you made of all that expensive companion training.”

“At least I’m not on the run from the feds. You still think you’re above the law.”

“An’ you still think you’re above everything else.”

They’d always argued like cats and dogs. The sniping was a little more barbed and a lot less foreplay-like than it used to be, but there was still affection to be found somewhere deep within ‘em both. “Thanks, ‘Nara,” he said with a grateful smile as he accepted the room key from her henna-patterned hand.

“You’re welcome, but please keep your head down and try to stay out of trouble.”

“Me? Trouble?”

She laughed. “And don’t upset Shepherd Cobb. He’s an honest, god-fearing man and he doesn’t need to get mixed up with you and your tomfoolery.”

Mal was too occupied by thoughts of keeping his head down with the preacher man to do anything more than smile distantly. He retrieved his small valise then headed wearily up the stairs to his room. It had been a long long day.

Unpacking the few clothes he’d brought with him, Mal stowed them away in the closet and then laid out some suitable kit for tomorrow’s adventure. He set the alarm an hour before he imagined dawn would break then undressed and fell into bed. Tired as a miner’s mule, he would have fallen asleep instantly if it wasn’t for the gorram couple in the room next to his, rutting away like beavers.

"Bi zui!" he yelled, after a second round of sexing started up, slamming both fists against the panelled wall

“Sorry, Sir,” answered Zoë in her own inimitable manner.

~~****~~

Mal awoke to the unwelcome sound of jangling in his right earhole. Flailing an arm outward, he knocked the annoying timepiece to the floor where it made even more of a racket trundling around in circles, the vibration of its hammer causing it to gyrate like a carnival ride.

Groping around in the darkness, he gave up trying to find the light switch, opting instead to splash cold water onto his face then pull on his clothes, hoping to gorram hell he wasn’t wearing his pants as a jacket and vice versa.

The hotel looked as still as a morgue when Mal surveyed it from the top of the staircase. There was no smell of ham and eggs cooking and, in truth, it was mighty uncivilised to contemplate leaving a hostelry before demolishing the paid for breakfast. He crept down the stairs and, while he was reaching over to hang his room key up on the rack, noticed that there, on the counter, was a brown paper bag with a note next to it that was addressed to him.

‘Can’t let you go hungry all day,’ it said and was signed simply ‘I.’

Mal grinned, unaware that Inara even knew about his hunting trip with the shepherd. Then again that girl knew everything and always had done. It was him who’d been left in the dark throughout the course of their relationship.

Peering into the sack of food he tried to make out the contents, but the lobby was far too darkly lit to distinguish anything. He folded the bag back up and made his way to the exit, unbolting the shutters then sliding them up and pushing his way through the doors.

Dawn was showing itself on the furthest edge of the sky. The air had freshened up from an overnight shower and Mal breathed in the smell of wholesome rural life with a deep-seated joy that came from being holed up on a spaceship for much of the time. He wouldn’t swap his own life for this though; not if a planet’s worth of money was included in the deal. Out in the black he was a free man -- even when he was on the run from law enforcers verse wide.

The shepherd was sitting up on the livery railings, talking away to two of the prettiest mounts Mal had seen since he was back home on Shadow.

“Morning,” came the greeting. “Didn’t think I’d see you this early. Not after you were up so late playing cards.”

“It’s amazing what I can accomplish if I set my mind to something,” said Mal wondering two things: how come the grape vine worked so gorram quickly in Bonneville and whether Jayne Cobb ever took off his clergyman collar. It seemed a mite strange to be wearing such a thing on a hunting trip.

“Best set off ‘fore the sun gets up proper.” Cobb climbed down off the rail and mounted the bigger of the two horses, a sorrel mare with a white blaze down her forehead.

Mal tucked his lunch away into one of the side bags, checking to see what rifle Cobb had supplied him with. It looked to be an expensive piece and he nodded in approval then swung himself up into the saddle. “Come on then, preacher man, let’s see what you’re made of.”

“Yah!” With that one solitary yelp of excitement Jayne was off at a gallop, heading up the dirt track and leaving a swirl of dust in his wake.

Mal squeezed his heels in gently and the mare accelerated like a race horse. She was a beauty and he fell head over heels in love, feeling like a kid again as he flew like the wind, catching Jayne up fast. There was nothing like it; nothing to match that feeling of exhilaration.

“Like her?” yelled Jayne.

“Do I? I’d steal her if I owned a stable to bed her down in.” Mal felt his hat fly backwards, and with the leather strap tugging at his neck, he encouraged the horse to go faster just to see what she could do.

“This way.” Jayne headed off down a smaller path that took them into the depths of the forest.

Mal turned around and followed him, more restrained now, the wild ride having freed some of that pent up spirit. Much of it still burned through him though; blood racing as he gazed at the way those beige coloured pants clung to the shepherd’s backside, his shirt coming loose and revealing a hint of tanned skin. Oh hell! Mal had it bad, lusting like crazy after a man of the cloth -- a celibate man of the cloth at that, and one who didn’t appear to have a sly bone in his body.

Mal could always be relied upon to set himself a challenge and more often than not he rose to it and came out victorious. This thought was the one thing that kept him going during that frustrating trek through the woods; the one thing that stopped him from hauling the reverend’s heavy body out of the saddle and stripping him bare. A slow successful seduction would be so much more enjoyable than a swift brutal rut.

Once the sun had risen properly and the forest had begun to rustle with life, Jayne dismounted and tethered his horse to a branch near a shallow inlet of a much larger lake. Mal watched the man unpack his gear, loading his rifle ready and checking its sights, then, as stealthily as possible, he did the same.

“We’ll walk up to the tree line over there,” murmured Jayne, pointing out the direction with a gloved hand. “There’s a clearing and just beyond that a low ridge where the deer like to graze of a morning. Should get us a couple of nice bucks today if we’re lucky. Maybe some hare too.”

Mal hadn’t stalked prey for many a year and wasn’t as silent as he used to be. Laying on the ground, he watched the dappled light create a dance of shadows around them and by the time he got to thinking about hunting, Jayne was already tracking a young deer with his rifle. A blast ricocheted in and out of the trees and Mal watched as the animal staggered in slow motion and then collapsed.

“You’re a mighty good marksman for a member of the clergy,” he said in somewhat surprised fashion as they approached the felled deer.

Jayne smiled broadly at him and it caused a definite stirring in Mal’s pants. He hoped his reaction wasn’t too obvious. He wanted to take things slow; make sure his wooing of the wholesome preacher went smoothly.

The shot was a good ‘un, entering through the animal’s midsection and killing it clean. Between them they lugged it back to the river then Jayne dressed the carcass, burying the guts and leaving the deer in the water to keep it cool.

Mal looked down at his bloodied up clothing and thanked the heavens for a perfect excuse to get naked. “If you don’t mind I’m gonna get washed up and take a swim.”

“Sounds good to me.” Jayne sat on a rock, untying his boots and pulling them and his socks off. Laying his hat on the rock next to him he stood up.

Mal watched him furtively out of the corner of his eye whilst he got undressed. “Gonna give my clothes a scrub,” he called, stripping down to his shorts and hoping against hope the preacher would do the same. “Here!” he added. “Give me yours. I’ll wash ‘em the same time as I’m doing mine. I always used to scrub the laundry in the creek when I was a young un.”

Jayne stopped for a moment as if he was lost in thought, but then he unfastened the back of his collar and grabbed hold of the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head.

Ye su! but the man was a peach. All dark hair and firm muscle with skin that was as tanned as a ripe nut. Mal disguised the lustful intake of breath with a cough, keeping his hat on ‘til the last second so he could peer out from beneath the brim, watching as the preacher wriggled out of them pants. When Jayne strapped a Bowie knife to his bare thigh, Mal felt the sweat bead on his forehead. This was too much stimulation for one day; ‘specially for a man who hadn’t had a grapple in a few weeks.

Motioning for Jayne to pass over his clothes, Mal set his hat down on top of his boots and then, leaving his own hunting knife handy, he carried the pile of washing down to the water’s edge. He set about rubbing the material between two rough stones until the red stains seeped away and when the laundry was all done, he laid the garments on a fallen tree trunk to dry.

“You’re good at domestic duties,” said the preacher, his almost nude body hidden beneath the surface of the lake.

“I’m good at a lot of things.” Mal took a running dive and then lay on his back in the water, kicking out toward Jayne and itching to rub his hands over that body the same way he’d been rubbing at the man’s clothes.

“This abstinence thing?” he asked.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Is it a bible teaching?”

“’Pends what church you’re from. Generally no. I see it as a way of focusing better.”

“What do you abstain from?”

“Just about everything.” Jayne smiled wryly at him.

“Don’t you ever get tempted to misbehave?” Mal brushed past, swimming close to the man’s left flank then moving away a little. Wo de tian a, the preacher was an enticing sight, standing waist deep in the water, his nipples stiff little peaks just begging to be sucked on.

“Course I get tempted.” Jayne dived into the water, the fabric of his white cotton skivvies clinging transparently to his buttocks and setting off a reaction in Mal’s own underwear. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have needs.”

“So.” Mal edged the conversation a little closer towards sexing. “What do you do about them?”

“Fix myself up like everyone else does, I reckon.”

Mal could see the blush running hot around the back of Jayne’s neck and it was truly the most arousing thing he’d ever experienced. “Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, Shepherd. All men have to take themselves in hand. That’s if they ain’t got no-one else to do it for ‘em.”

Jayne looked anxiously over at him and Mal had a feeling he wasn’t the only one with a solid length of prick standing upright in his underwear. “Race ya,” he said, slowing things back down. He wanted to be certain Jayne’s balls were brim full of come before he made his move proper. That way he’d never get shot down. The more he watched the preacher, the more he knew that the man would take to sly sexing like a duck to water.

“To that promontory,” said Jayne, excitement written all over his face as he pointed out a strip of rocky ground that jutted into the lake.

The preacher just loved company and Mal had a sneaking suspicion that he didn’t get enough of it most times. “You’re on,” he shouted and struck out for the miniature headland, loving the feel of the water sluicing around his supercharged body.

It was an even match; Jayne was just a body length in front when Mal reached out, making a grab for the man’s kicking ankles and hauling him backwards. Jayne roared and dipped down beneath the surface, coming up and attacking Mal with a fierce wrestling hold.

They tussled in the water; Mal’s cock rubbing up against wet cotton shorts, his hands inching round and palming the swell of the man’s buttocks and then grazing over a ji ba which was as stiff as a board and poking up over the waistband of those see-through shorts. Jayne was certainly well-endowed and Mal was hard pressed not to dive down and take him in his mouth. Instead he ducked beneath the water and swam through Jayne’s open legs, feeling the man tremble with fear laden excitement as Mal’s back rubbed against his aroused private parts.

“I believe I win.” Mal hauled himself out onto dry land, knowing full well his cock was distending the front of his underwear. He held out a hand to the preacher who gingerly took it and allowed himself to be helped out of the water.

“You cheated,” Jayne said accusingly.

“I used my initiative.” Mal stripped out of his shorts in matter-of-fact fashion then, discarding them, he lay down on a warm, flat rock, squinting to see Jayne’s reaction.

The preacher was all undone by the look of things and he was a gorram pretty sight. “That ain’t decent,” he muttered.

“For heaven’s sake.” Mal chose his words carefully. “Is being naked a crime now? I ain’t lying here in wet skivvies unless you can quote me the exact passage which says how wrong it is.”

Jayne lay down next to him wriggling about and trying to get comfortable. “It ain’t being nude that’s wrong.”

“Well then.” said Mal shielding his eyes from the sun with his forearm. “Take ‘em off, preacher man, unless you want to be riding back home with chafed nethers.

“It’s being naked with another person.”

“Why? Because you get a hard-on from it?”

“Maybe.”

There was that blush again which set Mal’s pulse racing. “It’s natural, Jayne. And if it’s natural then it ain’t wrong. Now take your skivvies off before your balls get even more wrinkled from the damp.”

There was a rustling sound followed by a soft squelch as wet material landed on the ground then Mal took a peek and saw Jayne’s prick for the first time in all its true glory. And what glory it was, rising up from a nest of curly dark crotch hair then curving up toward his navel in a gentle arch, pink and stiff and proud. Even more wonderful a sight was the hood of skin stretching tight over his swollen knob then shrinking back in and forming a little tube for the piss to gush out of. Ye su! Mal was itching to play with it, but there was no way that Jayne was ready for full on sexing just yet.

He reached a hand down to scratch at his balls, watching out of the corner of his eye to see if Jayne was looking. Once he was certain that the preacher was being reeled in like a catfish, he squeezed at his sac then ran his fingers up his stiff shaft, rubbing a thumb over the excitable ripple of puckered flesh until his cock dribbled with anticipation.

Gripping his shaft with his right hand, Mal rolled over to one side so he was facing Jayne then he put on a show of falling asleep, his eyes half-closing, free hand sheltering them from the glare of the early morning sun.

Watching through his lashes, he saw Jayne stroke a palm over his knife and then move on up his thigh and over his flank, rubbing in circular fashion on his belly and ignoring the stiff cock that encroached upon that territory, his fingers missing the tip by just a fraction of an inch.

Mal’s balls swelled. Making this soft sleepy sound, he humped his fist ever so slightly, giving just enough of a hip thrust to be noticeable -- if a person was looking his way. However, the snoring coming from next to him indicated, without a doubt, that he was not the object of anyone’s attention. It was a pleasant task to be jerking cock out in the open and Mal would have enjoyed it greatly if he’d been alone. But to have this big naked delight of a man lying no more than a foot away from his side and entirely oblivious to his attentions was frustrating in the extreme. Harder than he’d been for a long while, Mal continued to work at his prick, however he was a stubborn man and out and out unwilling to bring himself over the edge in such solitary fashion. He would have Shepherd Cobb before the day was over if he had to get down on his knees and pray for it.

The warm air and the gentle lapping of the water had a lulling effect on Mal, if not on his libido, and he opened his eyes to see the sun bearing down on him from a completely different angle in the sky. At some point during his dozing he’d rolled onto his back and, looking down, he saw that his body was rosy red from a slight sunburn. His hand was still wrapped around his cock which flexed determinedly against his fingers. He gave it couple more strokes and then let go, kneeling up and looking over at the shepherd to see whether he too had suffered from the rays of the sun.

The man was brown all over and must spend a large amount of the summer season in the nude. Mal throbbed at the idea of the preacher wandering naked through the woods stalking his prey and stiffened up even more, if that were possible. Straddling that big hot body, he teased his shaft along the soft lump of curled over cock flesh and felt it begin to swell at his ministrations. Soon Jayne’s penis was thickening up to full erection yet, however excited he might be, Mal began to feel a twinge of something unforeseen. This was wrong even by his estimation and his moral compass had been dysfunctional ever since he could remember. With one last delicious thrust, he stood astride Jayne and bent over, shaking the big man’s shoulder. “Hey! Wake up, Shepherd. We’ve slept the day away.”

Big blue eyes gazed up at him in shocked amazement and Mal wondered whether they were focusing on his face or the jutting prick that loomed over him.

“Hell, Mal! What time is it?”

“Don’t rightly know, but it’s gone noon, that’s for certain.”

Jayne reached down instinctively to rub at his hard penis then took his hand away as if he’d been bitten.

“Told you before, there ain’t no shame in touching one’s own parts.” Mal smiled, encouraging him to keep going. “Gotta keep yourself clean down there, ain’t you? What with that big flap of skin covering you all up.”

Jayne looked embarrassed, but then, most unexpectedly, wrapped his hand back around his length, tugging at the hood until his knob appeared, dark red and glistening in oily fashion.

Mal almost licked his lips at the sight of that sweet virginal flesh.

“Ma was all for circumcision but Pa wasn’t too keen on having us boys chopped about. Said it took the fun out of things.” Jayne worked the skin back and forth a little. “I was gonna get it done a few years back, but then I changed my mind. Chickened out I reckon is a better term for it.”

Tamade! If the man didn’t stop jerking it like that, Mal was gonna spontaneously combust all over him and that wouldn’t be any fun at all, not for either of them. He never thought in a million years he could get so het up over talk of foreskins.

“I’m hungry. Let’s head back to the camp,” he said, day-dreaming that he was living out here permanently with Jayne, both of them up for as much sexing as they could get. Holding out both hands, he pulled the big man to his feet and, momentarily, their bodies were close enough together so that their cocks made slight contact.

Turning away as if he’d been struck by lightning, Jayne slid otter-like into the water and Mal looked beside him at the man’s balled up underwear which remained behind. Leaving both pairs of shorts as a flag to mark the occasion, Mal dived into the lake and set off after the preacher who was making headway towards land with strong fast strokes.

Unable to catch up, Mal’s plan to engage Jayne in more underwater wrestling was a no go and he sloped out of the water, bending over double to catch his breath, giving the preacher a good view of his arse.

“You got food with you?” he asked as he fetched the brown sack from his saddle bag.

“I usually catch myself something and cook it here.” Jayne pointed his toe at the remnants of a fire. “Today I’ve been lazy so I shan’t get to eat.”

“Here.” Mal passed over a beef sandwich laden with mustard. “I’ll exchange that for a swig of water from your canteen.”

“Thanks.”

In no time at all Jayne had wolfed down one sandwich and was halfway through his second. He looked up to catch Mal perusing him appreciatively, but didn’t comment on it. Instead he stared up at the sky. “It’s too late in the day to do any more hunting, but I can show you the local beauty spots if’n you ain’t in a hurry to get back.”

Right now Mal could think of only one thing better than horseback riding with Jayne and it didn’t seem as if he was making much headway with that. Maybe his seduction would stand more of a chance later on when evening drew in.

“I’d like that very much,” he answered, passing over another sandwich.

After finishing off the food and packing away the weapons, Jayne checked to see that the deer carcass was keeping cool enough in the water. “We’ll leave it here and collect it on the way back,” he said, straightening up and standing proud, finally at ease with being naked in the company of others.

Mal wasn’t certain whether this was a good sign or not, but at the very least he got to appreciate the view when Jayne bent over to see if their clothes were dry.

The preacher threw him his garments then looked out toward the peninsula. “I left my underwear over there,” he said with such a sad look that Mal couldn’t help but smile.

“Same here,” he replied. “I blame you for racing off as if a pack of hellhounds were after you. You could always go back and get ‘em, or just do like I am and go without.

Hell! Mal was stiffening up again already at the idea. He struggled into his breeches and forced his erection inside the fly, fastening the buttons with difficulty. It didn’t help that Jayne was watching his every move.

“We’ll have to take a slow ride,” the preacher said. “Otherwise we’ll wind up with blisters in the most unmentionable places.”

“Suits me,” said Mal, amazed that the man would even consider going without skivvies.

Mounting his horse, he waited for Jayne who was refastening his knife around the thigh of his beige pants and pulling on his grey clergyman shirt. The preacher left the collar unfastened which gave him a slightly wanton look and caused Mal to press the heel of his palm against his erection. More oversexed than ever, he wiped the sweat off his brow and tried not to think about going down on that big unfixed cock that was so near and yet so very far away from him.

~~****~~

They trekked through the dense forest keeping at a slow pace. The cool woodland air was a delight and Mal found that he was enjoying this trip back to the simple days of his childhood. There was something to be said for having a sojourn away from thieving and killing. As the day wore on and they travelled higher, stopping to look at mountain views and white water that rioted through the valley, Mal realised that he’d been thinking less and less about what was in Jayne’s pants and more and more about the preacher himself.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked, looking sideways at the man.

“Nope.”

There was clearly more to this than met the eye to this, but the brevity of the answer told Mal that this was all he’d be getting for now. “It’s a pretty place alright.”

“Pretty and quiet and that’s the way we like it. Some say it’s a mite dull but I don’t find it that way at all.” Jayne took a swig from his canteen and passed it over. “What’s Praxia like?”

For a moment Mal was stumped. He was so used to being himself with this man that the lies had drifted away into mist.

“Don’t know,” he answered truthfully, not wanting to tell any more stories than were necessary.

“Do you like it peaceful or will you be craving a little action?” Jayne turned his horse around and they cantered side by side back down the bridle path.

Mal thought things over for a while. “I’d be lying if I said I lusted after a quiet life,” he replied eventually.

“A thrill seeker huh?” Jayne fixed his gaze upon him and Mal felt transparent beneath that steely blue appraisal.

He thoroughly enjoyed his life as an outlaw miscreant; never happier than when he was stealing and fighting or causing general mayhem. He and Zoë travelled the verse in their run down old ship, living like pirates or soldiers of fortune, wanting nothing more than a good payout at the end of a job. He liked being free from the limitations of morality. Granted, he’d never go out of the way to hurt someone, but that didn’t meant to say he wouldn’t kill for cold hard cash. This shepherd made him feel wrong somehow. And that weren’t a good thing.

“Most school teachers I know tend to be lovers of libraries over gambling dens.” Jayne looked inquisitively at him.

Mal didn’t answer. In point of fact he refused to answer and instead he took a drink out of the canteen, handed it back with a nod of thanks. “So does Bonneville get busy on U-Day?” he asked changing the subject with one of his trademark smirks. “Do folks get all gussied up and celebrate?”

“Some do, some don’t,” replied Jayne. “Some get to spend the day acting as peacemaker.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing your mediating skills tomorrow then.” Mal reached over and patted the preacher on the shoulder. “I would offer to help, but I ‘spect I’ll be otherwise engaged.”

“I ‘spect you will be too,” replied Jayne, shooting Mal a knowing grin that made him burn hotter than hell.

It was as if Jayne Cobb was spending the day learning him inside out. This was an uncomfortable thought to say the least, but it was impossible to deny that it played its part in stirring Mal’s nether regions up to a frenzy.

~~****~~

Just before sundown they arrived back at the campsite. Jayne collected the deer carcass from the lake then wrapped it in sacking and roped it to his saddle whilst Mal checked the area to make sure they’d left it as it should be. Without further ado they made the short journey back to Bonneville, stopping off to deliver the venison to the butcher’s shop.

“Think they were expecting more meat,” said Jayne as he climbed back into the saddle. “Normally I spend less time sleeping and more time hunting.”

“My fault,” said Mal.

“No apology necessary,” Jayne glanced at him. “I enjoyed the company.”

“Me too.” Mal had enjoyed it a little too much perhaps.

“Want to see my place of work?”

Mal would rather see the man’s bedroom, but right now he’d take any morsel that was on offer. “You know, I’d like that a lot,” he said, slapping the preacher on his back.

The look of pleasure on Jayne’s face was unnerving. Mal didn’t have friends and he didn’t have relationships. He and Zoë were a pair of loners who were so alike they’d forged an easy going working partnership. Now he was beginning to fall in like with Jayne Cobb a lot. Question was did he like him well enough to leave him alone the way Inara had advised.

They dismounted outside a small chapel that was illuminated by ghostly white up-lighters, tethering the horses to the railings.

“You can go straight in,” said Jayne as Mal waited outside the big double doors for him to open up. “We don’t keep the church locked. No need to.”

Mal entered the building, another twinge of guilt travelling around his body as he took stock of any valuables that had been left around. Best he just get to sexing the preacher man up as soon as possible and be on his way before any real damage was done. One thing he did not need was a rebirth of his conscience.

“Beautiful, ain’t it?” Jayne surveyed the inside with pride, leading Mal around the small wooden church and pointing out the painted friezes and the detailed carvings.

“Quite a sight,” said Mal truthfully. “It ain’t old though.”

“No. The original church got burnt down during the war complete with some soldiers that were hiding in it. Townsfolk raised this building as a tribute to them that were killed and since then have spent their time making it prettier.”

Mal stopped looking at the silver goods on shelves.

“They also built a fine rectory next door,” continued Jayne.

“Wouldn’t mind seeing that if it ain’t too late for you?”

“Not a problem. Don’t sleep too good at nights. Probably why I napped so long today.”

“I blame all that abstinence.” Mal patted him on the shoulder. “Knew it weren’t good for your health.”

“Good for my spiritual health though and that’s what matters.”

Mal noticed though that Jayne didn’t shrug away from his touch. Instead he leant into it like he was leeching some kind of comfort from that innocent back pat. Squeezing the muscled shoulder, Mal tried to imagine what it would be like to be without human contact, sexual or otherwise. Unthinkable was the first word that came to mind.

“Soon as we get the horses stabled I’ll take you home and see if I can find anything stronger than lemonade that’ll do you as a night cap.”

“Lemonade’ll be just fine,” said Mal thinking back to the way the preacher had licked the juice off his lips. Lemonade was something he’d been itching to taste since then.

Jayne switched off the interior lights until nothing was visible but the small red glow from where the sacrament was kept.

“I love this place,” he said with a small sigh of satisfaction.

Once the doors were closed and the two men were leading their horses away from the church, Mal was filled with a profound sense of relief. He wanted to bed the preacher more than ever and religion meant not one single gorram thing to him, but seeing Jayne Cobb on his beloved home ground had played havoc with Mal’s emotions.

The stable was far more of a comforting atmosphere, with its animal warmth and smell of clean straw. Mal relaxed as soon as he heard the soft whinnying of the horses and once Jayne’s mares were bedded down and supplied with feed and water, Mal looked appreciatively around at the other occupants of the loose boxes. This was far more beautiful to him than any triptych or carved wooden icon.

“Thanks for today,” he said and meant every word of it.

“You’re welcome.” Jayne’s voice was low and rough, quiet so as not to disturb the horses, and it had an aphrodisiac effect on Mal better than any Chinese remedy or whorehouse popper.

The man was close enough that Mal could feel his body heat and smell all that sexed up pheromone that he was giving off in waves. Reaching out with both hands he palmed Jayne’s cheeks, pushing forward and threading his fingers into dark wavy hair. Then, acting on pure male instinct, he reeled him in, lips brushing against beard, mouth open and wanting as he took that first serious step toward having his way, kissing the shepherd with sweeping, darting strokes of his tongue.

Jayne stumbled and, just for a moment, pressed up against the stable wall, he kissed back, sucking on Mal’s tongue like he was the sweetest of treats. Then it was over and Mal was the one stumbling backward, pain blossoming in his chest from where the preacher had slammed those big fists hard against his ribcage.

“I think we’re done,” said Jayne in that husky voice that still had a direct route to Mal’s balls even though he was laying there humiliated in a pile of fresh hay.

~~****~~

Mal had given it his best shot and that was all a man could do. It wasn’t the perfect end to the perfect day that he’d envisaged, and the truth of it was that alongside of having a pain in his chest from where Jayne had taken his hands to him, he was also left with a definite empty feeling. This loneliness was made all the more worse when he lay in his bed listening to Zoë and her barman humping all night long. He could masturbate, but it seemed all manner of wrong to get off to the sounds of his best friend rutting.

Making sure the alarm clock was silenced, Mal wrapped the pillow around his head and fell into a restless sleep, woken every couple of hours by ecstatic cries of completion coming from the room next door. This made for some spectacular dreams--horny combined with terrifying--and Mal opened bleary eyes to the bright light of morning with a feeling of desperation and a steadfast ache in his balls.

U-Day! And because of Zoë he was forced to be a bystander, watching all the ructions from the sidelines. By choice, he’d hide up in his room, but then, when trouble inevitably broke out, if he weren’t to be seen his partner would find some way to prove that he was behind it. The only pleasure he was likely to be getting in the near future was taking that platinum away from her and he was damn sure it was going to happen.

Dressing in his best clothes, he braced himself ready to face the day and took to the stairs, unexpectedly inundated with several avenues of conversation as soon as he reached the lobby.

“Breakfast has almost finished serving, Mal.”

He nodded his thanks to Inara and headed in the direction of the bacony aroma, bumping into Zoë on the way.

“Morning, Cousin,” she said, looking and sounding well satisfied and full of life.

“Haven’t seen much of you, Virginia. Been practicing your teaching skills on this ‘un?” Mal’s gaze slid from Zoë to the barman, Wash. He should have been angry at them for keeping him awake two nights running, but he was too tired to kick up a stink and, in truth, the look on Zoë’s face melted his heart a little. At least one of them was getting some.

“Shuttle’s fixed, Mr Himmelgott. I got her all hammered out and I tweaked your engine so she’s running like a hummingbird.”

Gorramit! Was he ever going to get to breakfast? The mechanic stood in his way, still dressed in overalls, but clean one’s this time. “Thanks, little Kaylee,” he said forcing a smile onto his face. “I’ll fix you up with the money after I’ve eaten.”

“Tomorrow if’n you don’t mind waiting,” replied the girl. “Today’s a holiday and I intend to spend it getting the doc to notice me at last. I swear he hasn’t had sex since he’s been here these past six months. I been watching.” Kaylee pointed out a slim dark young man, who was standing talking to Inara. “That’s my Simon. Ain’t he swai.”

Mal nodded appreciatively. “He ain’t short on looks that’s for dead certain.” Feller looked clean and smart and he set Mal’s sly senses a tingling straight away. He’d make a hefty wager Kaylee’d never bag her doctor in a month of Sundays.

Finally reaching the food, which was laid out in hot platters on top of a long counter, Mal took a plate and heaped it up with thick slices of bacon and French toast. Adding sausage and syrup to the mix at the last minute he then sat down to eat at a quiet table in the corner. Once breakfast was done, he took a newspaper from the pile and, armed with a mug of coffee, slunk off to the bar.

“We ain’t open yet,” called Wash. “Why don’t you see what’s happening in town?”

Made! Mal wanted to stay as insignificant as possible. “Just wanna have a read of this somewhere out of the way, if I won’t be in anyone’s way.” As soon as he spoke these words he caught sight of Jayne Cobb over the far side of the room. The man looked his way and tipped his hat, that blush staining all the parts of his face that weren’t covered by his neatly trimmed goatee. Mal felt his belly squirm and had a definite feeling that he wasn’t over his crush on the preacher just yet.

He forced yet another smile onto his face and hid behind the newspaper, managing to remain that way for the entire morning and a fair ways into the afternoon. By tomorrow he and Zoë would be free of this hellhole and on their way back to Serenity. How he longed for the solitude of his ship right now.

“That’s him,” came a voice, but Mal didn’t pay much attention to it. The saloon had filled up and there were plenty of people arguing away about battles and squadrons and other such nonsense.

“Look! That’s the feller you got posted all over the cortex.” Mal looked up and saw the wizened face of that old goat, Hanrahan. The man was standing in front of him with a sneer twisting his lips and a party of half a dozen Alliance troops at his rear.

“Malcolm Reynolds?” said the officer, pushing past Hanrahan.

“’Fraid you got the wrong feller, son. My name’s Horace Himmelgott and I’m nothing more than a school teacher just passing through. Who is this Reynolds you’re after?”

The shot came from the staircase. Mal had no idea who’d fired it and it didn’t appear to hit anyone, but it distracted the purple bellies long enough for him to take a running dive out of the saloon window, wincing as his arm was sliced by a shard of glass. Rolling over, he crawled away and hid behind a stack of barrels in order to think this mess out.

“By my reckoning, you owe me a passel of money.” Zoë ducked down beside him.

Mal grinned ruefully. “And you can have every last piece of it if you figure a way to get us from here to the shuttle.”

“We can go around back of the brewery and up over the roof of the forge,” said a voice from next to him.

What in gorram hell was that barman doing here, wondered Mal.

“After then we have to take our chances crossing the street.” Wash shrugged.

Mal peered out over the top of the barrels and a shot whipped his hat clean off his head. “We got a problem,” he said looking at his two companions. “There’s a whole troop of soldiers out there now and it seems to me they mean business.”

“Maybe they’re a little sore at you for blasting that platoon to pieces on the way here.”

“Shouldn’t’ve followed us, should they?”

“Think they would have learned by now.”

Wash cracked his knuckles and looked at the two of them. “So then,” he said “What’s the plan?”

“How fast can you run, honey?” asked Zoë.

Things were going fine right up until the moment that Mal felt the unmistakable searing agony of bullets entering his side. Unfortunately it happened as they were making their way along the ridge of the blacksmith’s forge.

With a squawk of fear, Mal took a tumble off the low roof and landed twisted over in heap on the compacted earth. Within seconds Zoë was by his side and Wash was covering them, firing the pistol best he could manage in order to buy some time.

“It’s clicking, but there’s no bang,” he yelled, looking around at them, a worried expression on his face.

Zoë threw him Mal’s pistol.

“Can you move?”

Mal looked blearily up at the woman. “Have to say it ain’t feeling much like it, Zo. You gotta get the shuttle and get the gorram hell out of here.”

“I ain’t leaving you.”

“No choice.” Mal was finding breathing and talking and staying alive to be pretty much impossible at the moment.

“There’s always a choice. Mal!”

Mal could hear gunfire happening, but he couldn’t see much of anything. The world seemed a long way away right now.

“Go. I’ll take care of him.”

“I can’t.”

“Go with Wash. Come back when it’s safe.”

Mal had a wild notion of who was doing the speaking, but it must have been a hallucination. Next thing he knew he was travelling upwards and the pain was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

“Best if’n you try not to stay awake for this part,” said that voice and, for once in his life, Malcolm Reynolds did as he was told and passed out.

~~****~~

Mal had been floating endlessly on a sea of pain for what seemed like years. For a while he was so adrift that he imagined himself to be back on Shadow, tucked up warm in his mother’s bed recovering from the ague. He’d thought he was going to die then too.

Later, when reality encroached upon him again and he found that he was instead in the care of Shepherd Cobb he wasn’t certain how to feel. Weak and wounded was not a state he liked to be in, especially when memories returned fully and the knowledge that he was stuck here in Bonneville hit home.

“You gotta eat.” Jayne was sitting on the bed a bowl of broth in one hand and a spoon in the other.

“If I eat I’ll vomit and that’s going hurt like a bitch, so no thank you.”

“I swear you are the most awkward person I’ve ever had to deal with.”

“Maybe so and I’m sorry, but as soon as Zoë gets back here I’ll be out of your way.” Jayne looked concerned and that sent a shiver running down Mal’s spine to add to the ones that he’d been living with for a while now. “She did get away okay?”

“Yep. Radioed back to Kaylee to say that she and Wash were safe.”

“There’s a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.” The shivering wouldn’t go away just like when he was young and Mal pulled the blankets tight around him.

“Whatever you’ve done, Mr Reynolds, seems like the government are gorram keen to get you bound over for it.”

“Huh?”

“Troops ain’t left Bonneville since U-Day and your ‘cousin’ says that all the rocks in the area are heaving with ‘em.”

It wasn’t the thought of causing folks trouble that sank Mal’s spirits further, it was being trapped here, dependent on the preacher for every little thing. “So what you’re saying is that I’m humped.”

“What I’m saying is that you have some time to get well before you go off and do whatever you do that sure as gorram hell ain’t school teaching.”

The look made Mal wither inside and, feeling too crook to think of anything else to say, he slid back down into the bed and turned onto his good side.

“Meantime you gotta eat.”

“No. I ain’t gotta do anything.”

“I been taking care of you for the past week while you was out of it and I ain’t stopping now.”

A frozen hand gripped Mal’s shoulder, clawing at him like the reaper and Mal wished wholeheartedly that it was.

“Wo de ma! You’re burning up.”

Mal tried to keep hold of the bedclothes, but they were dragged away from him as he was pushed this way and that in the bed, his entire body screaming with pain.

“This wound ain’t looking good, that’s for certain.” Jayne rested a hand on Mal’s brow. “I gotta leave the covers off you to make sure you don’t overheat.”

“Cold.” Mal shuddered.

“Do as you’re told. I’m off to fetch the doc. Things ain’t right inside of you.”

Mal tumbled back down into a sea of icy misery, head pounding like he’d been hit by a mule. The more people knew of his whereabouts, the more likely it was that he was gonna end up in prison for the remainder of his life. If he had the energy, he’d high-tail it out of here, but even trying to move his head sent a burst of pain whizzing through him.

There was a door slam and a shuffle of footsteps and then Mal quaked when he heard one of those polished accents that placed the visitor as having been bred on one of the Core planets.

“Shepherd, this is the man that the troops have been searching for.”

“I know that, Doc.”

“Why is he here?”

“That I’m not certain I do know.”

There was a deep sigh and Mal knew it came from Jayne.

“I made a promise to a friend of his that I’d keep him safe ‘til she found a way back. By the look of his wounds I ain’t doing too good a job of that.”

Mal kept his eyes closed and let himself be manoeuvred over onto his belly. He tried to repress any sign of weakness but it was sheer agony as the doctor examined him.

“The infection is quite bad. I need to remove any fragments of bullets that are embedded.”

“Where’ll you do it?”

“I don’t think we have much choice, do you?”

There was another of those sighs and Mal hated himself just a little bit for getting the preacher mixed up in all of this.

“I need to fetch some things from the surgery. I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”

“I appreciate this, Doc. I’d also appreciate you keeping it on the down low.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, verging on a snort of laughter from the doctor. “I have no desire to do any favours for the Alliance. You have my word on that.”

The door slammed once again and Mal dared to open his eyes and look over at the big man who was opening drawers and taking out clean linen.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Part of my job, is all.”

“Not so.”

“We’ll talk more when you get well. Ain’t no point in us having this out now, Mr Reynolds.”

Mal was about to push for answers--this way he could blame anything he said on the effects of his fever--but he was disturbed by the clatter of footsteps on the stairs.

Kaylee came barging into the room. “Feds are doing a house to house.” She bent over double panting for breath. “Simon’s holding them up; telling him he’s here on account of you being ill, Shepherd, but he ain’t gonna be able to hold ‘em back for long.”

“Lao tian!” Jayne paced the room.

“They’re certain he’s still in town. I reckon someone must’ve told ‘em he weren’t on that shuttle.”

Jayne sat on the bed and placed a hand gently on Mal’s arm. “I got to get you moved. Reckon you can cope with it?”

“Move me where?” Mal wasn’t certain he could cope with anything right now.

“To a place you’ll be safe.”

Kaylee looked out of the bedroom window. “They’re ‘bout here, Shepherd.”

“Come on then, girl. Help me get him downstairs.”

“Couldn’t punch my lights out for me, could you, Jayne?” Mal tried for a smile as he sat up.

“’Fraid that’s against my religion.” Just for a second Mal caught a glimpse of that broad grin. “But it’d be a lie to say there aren’t times I haven’t been tempted.”

The double speak had Mal confounded and he was still trying to decipher it when he found himself upright and being hauled through passages and down steps into what felt like a tomb. Jayne lowered him carefully down onto the narrow bed then spoke to the mechanic.

“Stay here with him and I’ll get rid of the feds.”

As Jayne left he flicked on the lights and shut the door tight, sealing them inside the tiny windowless room. Kaylee looked as apprehensive as Mal felt.

“Where in the gorram hell is this?” he demanded wrapping the blankets around him to ward of the chill.

“I ain’t sure. I did hear that when the church was built they put in some kind of hidey hole and escape tunnel so as no-one would ever get burned alive again.” The girl gulped. “Though war’s over now so that kind of thing won’t never be happening again.”

“No such thing as never,” said Mal, closing his eyes and trying not to think of some of the Alliance attrocities he’d witnessed firsthand. “Zoë is safe?” It weren’t that he didn’t trust the Shepherd; he just needed to make doubly sure.

Kaylee had her ear to the door listening for the sound of footsteps. “Yep. Her and Wash got clean away and she sent me a wave to confirm she was back on your ship.” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide with wonder. “A Firefly! What I wouldn’t give to see her.” The girl sighed dreamily.

“I promise you this. As soon as I get the chance, I’ll take you on a full luxury cruise of the system. Only Serenity ain’t so much about the luxury, but she’s mine and that makes her pretty enough in my eyes.”

“You sound like you’re in love with her?”

“Reckon it’s the closest thing to love I ever felt.” Mal fought the urge to fade out to black, mostly for Kaylee’s sake. He could see how frightened the little girl was at being trapped down here and if he went and died on her she’d most likely fall to pieces.

“Hush! I can hear footsteps.” Kaylee picked up a piece of iron piping from a rack of shelving and raised it above her head. When the door opened suddenly she was so hyped up with adrenaline she came close to whacking the doctor around the back of his neck.

The man turned and gazed at her and Mal decided that his first impressions may well have been the wrong ones. They seemed quite struck on each other.

“Sorry, Simon,” she said dropping the metal pipe on the clod floor where it landed with a dull thud.

“You’re full of surprises today,” he answered, raising an eyebrow. “The whole town’s full of surprises for that matter.”

“Can you see well enough to operate on Mr Reynolds, Doc?” said Jayne interrupting the small talk and frowning with impatience.

“Again we’re left with no choice. We can’t take him back upstairs.”

“Even after you told ‘em I was sickening for smallpox?” Jayne creased up with mirth. “The look on their faces.”

Simon smiled, proud of his own bravado most likely. “They’ll still be nosing around for a while longer I imagine.” He looked down at Mal. “You’re the man of the hour, Mr Reynolds. Everyone’s wanting a piece of you.”

Mal would have liked it better if they didn’t. Then he thought about the big Shepherd and the way he was taking care of him and wished, just for a moment, that Jayne was one of those doing the wanting.

Simon pulled up a chair next to the cot and sat down on it. After stripping away Mal’s undershirt, he placed a doubled up sheet over the mattress and instructed him to turn onto his belly. With swabs loaded up with antiseptic, he removed the dressings and cleaned every inch of exposed skin, the combination of cold air and alcohol making Mal shiver uncontrollably.

“What have you done to make the Alliance hate you so much?”

Mal could just about see the doctor’s expression from out the corner of his eye. It was made up of intrigue and respect and that wasn’t what he was expecting from this prim Core boy.

“What haven’t I done?” he answered, wincing at the agony shooting out from his wounds. “There ain’t many of their bases I haven’t found my way into.” Mal was busy thinking he could grow fond of that look of admiration when the next question came at him from out of left field.

“If I save your life, will you help me rescue my sister?”

He wasn’t expecting to have to bargain for his surgery.

“Ain’t the time for that, Doc,” growled Jayne. “Man isn’t in a fit state to help you with River and he won’t never be lessen you get a move on and clean his innards up.”

There was a hiss as medication hit skin and Mal began to feel decidedly blurry on the matter.

“I can help, Jayne. I can do anything. I can…”

~~****~~

Healing was sure as heck taking a while! Mal woke most days with a muzzy head, trying to deal with pain that hammered into him like nails, but at least now he wasn’t a shivering wreck on the point of vomiting all the time. However, as his health slowly began to improve, his mental state went on the decline.

“How you feeling today, Mr Reynolds?” Jayne perched on the side of the cot, running a hand over his forehead to check his temperature.

“Rutting horrible.” He glared at the floor. “I remember when you used to call me Mal.”

“That was when I misguidedly thought I knew who you were.” Jayne pulled down the sheet and examined the bullet wounds. “Reckon the doc’ll be pleased with your progress.”

Mal felt the heavy weight of depression dragging him down. These four narrow walls were closing in on him and the lack of natural light was just plain wrong. How could a man mark the passage of time without seeing the world outside?

“I need to get dressed so I can wave Zoë.”

“If’n you want to get her killed, you can.” Jayne stood up and paced the dirt floor. “Town’s still full of purple bellies and like as not they’re monitoring all comms out of here. We don’t have a way of masking an outgoing signal. We’re just simple law-abiding folk.”

The constant digs at him were starting to hurt more than his stitches. Mal hauled himself up to his feet, not caring about the fact that he was wearing nothing more than a pair of simple white under-shorts. It was by no means easy trying to support himself on a pair of legs that felt as if they were made of rubber. “If I can’t get off this planet then I can at least get out of this place.”

“Doc’s put a smallpox quarantine order on the church grounds to keep you safe.” To Mal it looked as if the shepherd was enjoying the torture just a little too much. “He’s the only one allowed in and out. It backfired some ‘cause the feds have us under watch.”

“Well then, least you can do is get me somewhere I can see.” It was a mercy plea.

Jayne looked pensively at the door. “I reckon you should be safe enough in the house by now.” Unexpectedly he looped an arm around Mal’s waist. “Come on then, Reynolds. Let’s get you back into the light.”

This time Mal was well enough to see exactly where it was he’d been hidden. Tomb was right. The room was a tiny cell located behind the main wall of the small underground crypt. No wonder Kaylee had been so nervous down here. An upright coffin concealed the entrance to a narrow passageway. “This place is a whole load of crazy.” Mal was quite speechless.

“Crazy can sometimes keep a feller alive and free.”

Jayne’s hand dug into sore ribs and Mal felt suitable chastised.

“I didn’t mean no disrespect by that.”

“Way I see it, you mean a whole lot of disrespect most of the gorram time.”

Mal’s spirits sank when he couldn’t think of one single comeback to this. He concentrated instead on walking, biting into his lip so he didn’t yell out as aching muscles and newly formed skin complained about being put to use.

The journey was a slow one. Breathing deep hurt like a bitch and the steps seemed more like a mountain climb. It was surely a lifetime ago that he’d been horse riding and swimming whilst contemplating taking this man to bed.

“Not much further now,” said Jayne reassuringly as Mal wilted against his side. “Remember it was you that wanted out.”

“And I ain’t going back down there neither,” puffed Mal. “They can drag me to prison first.”

“Chufei wo si le!”

Sinking into the soft mattress was like falling into a piece of heaven. Mal let out a grateful sigh and then looked around him. It was the room he’d been in before and it was unmistakeably Jayne’s. Mal had no idea how he knew this with such certainty.

“I don’t need to take up your bed space,” he said.

“Don’t get visitors so I ain’t never gotten around to kitting up the other rooms.” Jayne pulled the covers over him. “I can rest my head just about anywhere though.”

“No you can’t.” Mal hadn’t forgotten the comments about insomnia.

“Well, no I can’t.” Jayne half-smiled. “But in that case I don’t have much need of a bed, do I?”

If he’d been his old self, Mal would have had the urge to show Jayne exactly why he had need of a bed, but right now he was too weak to contemplate anything other than vague notions of how it would be to sex up the big man.

The shepherd indicated a bedpan and a bottle on the nightstand next to the bed. “I’ll leave you to do your business while I see about fixing us something for dinner.” He smiled distantly. “Kaylee’s been leaving food parcels in the lych-gate. That girl’s a sweet one for certain.”

As Jayne left the room Mal found himself overcome with a ridiculous amount of jealousy. Even if the Shepherd harboured feelings for the little mechanic he wasn’t going to act upon them. And anyway Kaylee was head over heels in love with the doctor.

Mal reached for the bottle, testing his stitches and finding that the wound sites were hurting a little less now he was resting in comfort. Pulling down his shorts, he pissed into the glass container, wishing that the day would soon come when he could go to the bathroom and relieve himself in private.

Placing the receptacle carefully back where it came from, Mal stared at its contents. He had a definite feeling that he was never going to win over the Shepherd whilst the man was forced to deal with his body fluids.

“Got mutton stew cooking for dinner,” said Jayne a while later as he came into the room armed with a bowl of water and a wash bag which he placed on the dresser.

“You don’t have to go to any trouble on my account.” Mal felt that depression hit him again like a grenade. He needed to be away from here. Out in the black. Free.

“It ain’t no trouble. It makes a change having someone to care for.” Jayne picked up the urine bottle. “Left you some things here so you can shave and wash. I’ll be in to take care of the rest later.”

Bed baths! Not something Mal relished the idea of. Jayne must have been keeping him clean up to this point, but he didn’t remember much except for spells of agonising cold and a fervent relief that it was over. Now he’d regained his senses he had a feeling things would be far more awkward.

Sitting up, Mal angled the small mirror on the nightstand so he could see his reflection. He lathered up then swiped the razor blade across his cheek, trying not to look at his sallow complexion and thin face. How long had he been stuck here? Surely the feds wouldn’t still be searching for him? Fair enough, he’d taken a fair weight of platinum from under their noses and killed a few of them in the process, but it wasn’t exactly grand larceny. Well, not when you looked at the big scheme of things, anyhow.

Mal was just finishing up brushing his teeth when the shepherd returned, quicker than he expected.

“I’ve just had word from Kaylee who says that your friend Zoë'll be making her way back within the next fortnight. Alliance are slowly clearing out from the sector.”

Two weeks! Mal weren’t gonna be able to stand being cooped up for that long. His downcast face must have given his feelings away.

“Now I thought you’d take that as good news.” Jayne replaced the bowl of water with a fresh one and wiped Mal’s chin down with a towel, staring at him with a confused expression. “I don’t come anywhere near to understanding you, Mr Reynolds.”

“My name’s Mal.”

“Is it?” Jayne pulled away the bedcovers and rolled Mal onto his side, removing the dressings and washing around the damaged flesh with soft strokes of a cloth. Swiping the wounds over with some kind of antiseptic, he taped sterile pads of gauze in place and encouraged Mal to turn onto his belly with a gentle push.

“My name’s Malcolm Reynolds. I was born on Shadow and I make my living taking what doesn’t belong to me. You can ask Inara if you want a second opinion.”

“It ain’t none of my business what you do, or what you’ve done in the past.”

“Not gonna try and save me then, preacher?”

“Don’t reckon there’s much point.”

Gorramit! It seemed that Mal had finally met his match as far as stubbornness was concerned. Jayne Cobb was in a full on sulk with him and the man weren’t shifting an inch. “No, there ain’t no point in you trying to prepare me for heaven, but I thought we were learning to be friends. Friends don’t judge other friends.”

Jayne finished washing his back, the passage of the wash cloth becoming rougher and rougher as the conversation went on. He then yanked at Mal’s shoulder, pulling at him until he was supine and vulnerable, staring up into furious eyes that were like chips of ice.

“You call this being judgemental? I take you into my home. I keep you safe. I get you fixed up. And after…”

Jayne stopped speaking, lost for words. Restraining the ones that were on the tip of his tongue maybe.

“Doing good works ain’t the same thing at all.” Mal’s depression was shoved out of the way by a sudden rush of anger. “You might be tending to me, but while you’re doing it you’re looking down on me from your gorram pulpit. How high up are, Jayne Cobb? High enough to despise me because of what I do for a living? Or are you more concerned about the fact that I kissed you?”

Jayne looked away.

“I reckon I hit the nail on the head, didn’t I, preacher? I dared to think impure thoughts about a virtuous man of the cloth. Well sorry, but I don’t happen to think like you. I ain’t ashamed of wanting a man… even a gorram shepherd. I ain’t ashamed that my prick swells up like it’s supposed to over the idea of sexing with another person. I ain’t ashamed about spilling my sperm where I choose. I’m no gorram piece of rock and neither do I want to be.”

“Shut your mouth.” Jayne leant over him, muscles in his arms bulging. “I ain’t prejudiced or ashamed.”

Mal wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss that mouth or punch it until it bled. He might not be feeling his old self, but the excess emotion had him all fired up and his heart was beating away like a drum.

Unexpectedly Jayne took the decision away from him, leaning in closer and pressing his lips against Mal’s. With just a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Mal opened his mouth whilst remaining as passive as a lamb. If Jayne Cobb wanted him then he was sure as hell gonna have to learn the art of seduction.

The waiting was worse than any level of hell. If Mal had been fit enough he would have pinned the preacher to the bed and shown him exactly how good it felt to be sexed up by another man. ‘Though that weren’t quite the truth ‘cause more than anything now Mal wanted Jayne to want him. He prepared himself for the inevitable, trying his hardest to keep silent, but, as stupid as it might turn out to be, in the end he had to say something.

“Wanting another person ain’t wrong,” he muttered, near enough still to breathe the air expelled from the preacher’s lungs. “We ain’t designed to be solitary creatures.”

Jayne pulled back a little and looked down at him, eyes as wide as saucers, but instead of running away as Mal had expected, he closed the gap, the tip of his tongue reaching out and tracing the circle of Mal’s parted lips. The kissing was slow and nervous to begin with, but that made it so gorram erotic that it near enough set Mal’s nether regions alight. Ignoring the jarring of torn muscle fibre, Mal hooked an arm around Jayne’s neck, drawing him in closer and from that moment on everything became a fiery blur.

All nerves pushed aside, Jayne reached down, shoving underwear away and wrapping his fingers around Mal’s cock. He pulled at it dry to begun with, sending Mal flying with raw forceful jerks, then, spitting into his palm, Jayne began to work him with an iron grip that was wet and hard and so rutting good it made Mal want to sing out with relief. They’d been too long waiting for this. Face scorched by the roughness of the beard, Mal let Jayne have at him, his body arching upward, willing to take as much of this crazed sexing as he could get.

Jayne’s hips bucked, fucking against Mal’s undamaged flank and with hands that were shaking from the pain and the sex and the wildness of it all, Mal unfastened the preacher’s pants and pulled him free of his clothing. Squeezing hard at Jayne’s balls, he ran his fingers up and down the length of that fine cock, letting the skin glide over the sticky-slick head, pulling and twisting and dragging his hand up and down over that shaft until there was nothing left of either of them but this furious upward climb to orgasm. It was so gorram delicious that Mal could’ve drowned in it.

There wasn’t room for words: just grunting and panting, the sloppy squeeze of palms against pricks and the slither of tongues and lips. Mal wasn’t certain where pain ended and pleasure began, but when muscles contracted and his come pumped free in burning hot shocks of delight he knew that the agony was worth it -- although he was certain he’d pay for it.

Shifting a little, he slicked his hand with a dollop of his own spunk and used it to lube Jayne up. Two rough strokes and the man was coming, heaving against Mal and humping into his fist, as pretty a picture as Mal had seen for a while, clothes a mess and face all twisted up with passion. He could stand to see him like this often.

Working Jayne down, Mal looked into eyes that were bright with a palette of fear tinted wonder. “Did that feel wrong to you?” he asked, grimacing as he lay back down on the bed, his wounds crying out from the abuse they’d been through.

“Can’t say as it felt right.” Jayne stared dubiously down at the splodges of semen adorning the front of his pants.

“Was it good?”

Jayne looked at him and there was a wealth of words contained in those eyes, but Mal needed a dictionary to decipher them. “Good ain’t everything,” the preacher said eventually, getting up off the bed. “I need to wash.”

Mal watched him go wondering how much more of a mess he could get himself into this week. Usually his disasters were all about thefts and gun fighting and, sure enough, this one had started out that way, but it had since moved on to a whole new level. Turning over onto his good side, sleep beckoned him in and Mal accepted it willingly. That way he could stop thinking about being stuck in a house with a man who appeared to despise him more than ever. A woman scorned may well be a dangerous thing, but a man scorned just wanted to get the gorram hell away.

~~****~~

The gentle shoving was annoying but persistent.

“You been napping long enough,” said Jayne. “Doc’ll be along soon and I’m guessing he’d be pretty shocked to see you in this kind of a state.”

At least he wasn’t being ignored. Rolling over onto his back, Mal winced as a few belly hairs tugged free from where they’d been welded on to the sheet then tucked his hands behind his neck, about ready to start up a conversation. Words failed him however when, without warning, Jayne stripped off bedcovers and underwear at one fell swoop.

“Ain’t no point in blushing about it now,” the preacher said matter-of-factly. “Can’t take back what we did.”

“Would you want to?”

“Need to think on that a while yet.” Jayne began washing him down thoroughly with a soapy cloth. “The shepherd part of me has regrets.”

“And what about the man part?”

“My man parts ain’t up for discussion.”

The hint of a wink and the warm wetness of the bed bath set up a fluttering in Mal’s belly -- it weren’t exactly unpleasant being naked and tended to this way.

“I’ll leave your wounds for the doc to dress.” Jayne dried Mal carefully with a towel then fed his feet into the legs of some clean underwear. Wo de ma! He was wearing a pair of the preacher’s shorts. For some reason, that seemed to be more of a sin than rubbing at the man’s cock. Mal was screwed.

“Get up so as I can put fresh linen on the bed. Doc mightn’t take kindly to the stains on these sheets. He’s a good man, but a mite priggish.”

Standing up was an uncomfortable experience, mostly because Mal couldn’t help but guffaw with laughter at the situation. He wobbled precariously like a newborn foal, grabbing the bedpost for support with Jayne’s too large shorts hanging off his hips, all the while thinking about the irony of that prim preacher joking about prudishness. It would have been even funnier if Mal couldn’t see the hint of a wry smile twitching at the corners of Jayne’s mouth.

“There, you can get back in now. You’re as decent as you’re ever likely to be.”

“Which ain’t saying a lot,” said Mal, finishing off his part of the double act as he sank back onto the soft mattress with a groan of pleasure.

Jayne perched next to him, passing over a glass of water which Mal accepted gratefully, but then the door opened and Mal looked up startled, droplets of drink splashing onto his bare chest.

Simon Tam peered nervously into the room. “There was no answer so I came on in. I hope that was alright?”

“Fine, Doc.” Jayne stood up taking the glass from Mal. “I’ll leave you to examine your patient and make a start on the vegetables for supper.”

As Jayne left the room Mal found himself feeling a little awkward. Jayne knew the ins and the outs of him; the bad and the worse. Simon knew next to nothing and that made for an uncomfortableness between them.

“Turn over on your side, please, so I can check how you’re healing up.”

Mal did as he was told, heaving in required breaths when the stethoscope pressed against his chest and back.

“What have you been doing? These stitches aren’t far from tearing open.”

“Nothing more than a little stretching.” Mal felt an unexpected flush rising up to his hairline.

“You’re supposed to be taking things easy.” Simon redressed the injuries and with a hand to his shoulder rolled Mal back over. “If I had menders you’d be as good as new by now. Still, at least there was no real damage. One more day and you’ll be able to take some gentle exercise.”

“Are the feds still on the lookout for me?”

“There’s a definite presence in town, yes. Have you heard any more from your friend?”

“Haven’t heard much since being stuck here.” Mal wasn’t entirely happy about trusting this Core boy just yet. He may not have turned him in so far, but that could be just a ruse to net Zoë as well.

Simon sat in the chair beside the bed, one leg crossed politely over the other. He tugged at his knuckles making each joint crack in turn -- a vicious sound that was painful to Mal’s ears. “Mister Reynolds, do you remember my asking you for your help?” he said eventually.

Mal thought back to early days spent here when he was as sick as a distempered dog. “I recall you saying that you had no fondness for the Alliance, but that’s about it.” He frowned because there was something else niggling away at him and yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“My younger sister River is in trouble.”

Now it was coming back to Mal: this fancy Core boy looking down at him, pretty eyes chock full of admiration over his nefarious exploits. “And this matters to me for what reason, son?”

“She’s intelligent, genius in fact, and because of this she got chosen to attend a government run school for gifted kids,” continued the doctor, all the while staring at Mal in this unnerving fashion. “My parents thought it was a fantastic opportunity. They still do. The letters from her seem to imply that all is well, but they don’t know her like I do.” He stopped and chewed on his lip. “She sent me messages, coded so they’d be passed by the censor. She desperately needs help. If I leave her there much longer I doubt there’ll be anything left. She’s changing.”

“So how come you’re hiding out here on this backwater ‘stead of finding a way to get her out?”

“I tried that on my own and failed badly so I took the first job in this sector that came available. The school isn’t that far distance wise and at least here I have a hope of finding people to help me who aren’t keen on the government. People like you, Mr Reynolds.”

Once again Mal thought about the things he’d seen and the stories he’d heard: ‘bout how reavers weren’t what they seemed and how Blue Sun had a secret side to it that was nothing more than despicable. He thought back to how the Alliance had dealt with the Independents who’d risen up against them, slaughtering them like animals.

“Why should I help you, doctor?” he asked wearily, dazed from the after-effects of suddenly giving a damn.

“Because you can access these kinds of places and because I have money to pay you -- a lot of money.”

Mal considered the matter for a short while. “Maybe I can help. There’s a place for you on my ship, depending on whether I can get back to her that is.” It was the credits had swayed Mal over. Without doubt.

Simon smiled and it was an unusual sight to see that pinched pale face light up with happiness. “I don’t know how to thank you, Mr Reynolds.”

“You can show me your gratitude by keeping us patched up. You’d be stunned to see how often Zoë and I end up with bullet holes in us.”

“Knowing you just a small amount, I don’t think that would amaze me in the slightest.” Simon’s smile grew just a little wider.

Mal could hear the unmistakable sound of Jayne’s heavy footprints tramping along the corridor and was outlandishly happy when the shepherd blustered into the room, slamming the door behind him.

“How’s our outlaw doing then, Doc?”

“He’s good,” replied Simon as he packed dressings and scissors back into his black leather case. “Better than I’d hoped for in fact.”

Jayne frowned trying to decipher the look that passed between the other two men and it tickled Mal to think of the Shepherd getting all het up with jealousy. It weren’t a bad thing in his books.

“You’re welcome to stay for a bite of supper, Doc.” Jayne slung an arm around Simon’s narrow shoulders and now it was Mal’s turn to feel tetchy.

“It’s kind of you to offer, but Kaylee’s already invited me over to have dinner with her and her parents.”

“Well now, you make sure and have a good time there,” said Jayne.

“And keep your guard up in case of attack,” added Mal, enjoying the look of bafflement on the young man’s face. Simon was one oblivious young man.

“Pay no attention to him, Doc.” Jayne grinned. “He ain’t in his right mind most of the time. Come on, I’ll show you out.”

“Be seeing you, Mister Reynolds,” said the doctor with a wave of his hand and Mal nodded in response then lay back down, wriggling to get comfortable in the nest of pillows whilst wondering what it was about Bonneville that seemed intent on sending his life flying off down unknown paths at every twist and turn in the road.

“How would you feel about getting up for supper?” asked Jayne, poking his head ‘round the door. “Simon reckons you’re fit enough.”

Mal just about grinned his face off. “Ask me first how I’d feel about having a soak in the tub.”

Jayne shrugged. “I’m happy to carry on giving you bed baths, but I can see as how you’d want to get cleaned up proper.”

Mal was struck down with a sudden case of instant erection while Jayne--unaware of the effect he was having--just carried on speaking.

“Doc says the stitches are most of the way healed up so I’ll get to running it for you then see about finishing off supper.”

“You’d make someone one heck of a good wife.” Mal was smirking, although truthfully he wouldn’t be averse to having this kind of attention lavished upon him all the time. It pushed each one of his internal buttons to think of the shepherd running around seeing to his needs -- ‘though in his head the man would be doing it naked.

Jayne looked at him through half-lidded eyes and that made Mal’s thoughts turn to rutting. Heck! Right now, just about everything made Mal think of rutting. He was, without a doubt, feeling better.

“When I get sick it’ll be your turn to look after me.”

“Do I get to give you bed baths?” Mal couldn’t get enough of playing with this man and from the look in them blue eyes the feeling was a mutual one, but then Jayne turned serious and Mal had a notion that the spell of flirting was over.

“I don’t reckon so.” The shepherd lowered his gaze. “Gotta say, there ain’t gonna be a repeat of what happened between us.”

Mal was gunned down again and it hurt a load even though he’d been expecting nothing more. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want it.”

“Because you think it’s wrong to want it.”

“Because I minister to these folks and they deserve more.”

“They deserve a happy man who can sleep at nights. A man who can talk his way through whatever guilt he’s feeling and not let it fester inside o’ him.”

The preacher glared at him. “I don’t have no guilt. You’re the one who’s stored up a whole mass of that.”

“Wrong.”

“Well, you sure as gorram hell should have done by now.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“It ain’t exactly a surprise to find out you don’t have a conscience.” Jayne strode out of the room, anger and frustration written all over his face, but was back a short while later carrying a towel, all calm and collected as if nothing had happened between them. No arguing, no sexing, no nothing. “Bath’s ready. Room’s two doors down from this one.”

“Thanks.” Mal used the nightstand as a support to help him up to standing.

“Your pants are clean over there,” Jayne pointed at the closet, “and there’s a shirt of mine I left for you to wear. Your own one was ruined.”

“Jayne?”

“Will you be okay getting in and out of the tub?”

“I’ll manage. Look, Jayne-”

“Just holler if you need me.”

Mal couldn’t take any more of this false politeness; it wasn’t his way and he couldn’t give two hoots for etiquette. Say what needs saying. Do what needs doing. That was his strategy for life and he was happy with it.

“Listen, Shepherd, I ain’t gonna act as if there’s nothing between us.”

“Why? You fixing on staying? Have you taken a fancy to living the quiet life here in Bonneville? Not gonna find many thrills in this neck of the woods.”

Jayne threw the towel onto the bed, striding out of the room and slamming the door behind him leaving Mal alone to think over the preacher’s words. What were his intentions? He’d been so busy fighting to get into the man’s pants that he hadn’t even taken time to consider things.

A soak was as good a place as any for pondering stuff over.

Opening up the door, Mal peered left and then right. The bathroom was easily picked out by the billows of steam drifting up into the air. Testing out the limitations of his body, he stretched to ease aching muscles then ambled down the corridor and entered the misty atmosphere, leaving his towel on the wooden hanging rail and peering into the tub. The bath may have been easy to locate, but it was going to be a bitch to actually get in.

Stripping off, Mal surveyed the water, a finger of dread inching its way up his spine as he wondered whether he’d survive this experience. Reavers suddenly seemed a whole lot more appealing to him. Testing the temperature, which was about perfect, he pulled off his freshly applied dressings and gingerly stepped into the tub, using the sink as a prop. Submerging into the water, he began to relax a little as the pain and the confusion ebbed away. He’d told Jayne that men weren’t solitary creatures and yet to all intents and purposes he himself lived the life of a loner. Thing was he’d never be willing to give up Serenity for anything. Without his freedom Mal was nothing; whether he was doing good works or bad works along with it was insignificant.

After washing every inch of his body with a bar of soap, Mal studied the fresh puckered scar on his arm that he’d incurred from crashing through that window and wondered how long it’d be before every inch of him was scarified. The wounds all had a tale to tell and Mal could recite the story of each one. He’d had a busy life, and a tiring one…

“I don’t understand.”

“Huh?” Mal sat up in the cooling water and looked around him blearily. Jayne was leaning on the door jamb with a look of amusement on his face.

“Every time I come to see you you’re either asleep or partway there. Surely a man like you should have too much on his mind to get a good night’s rest?”

“Ironic ain’t it.” Mal smirked. “With you finding that sleep don’t come easy. Which one of us has the guiltier conscience, I wonder.” Not expecting an answer, Mal slid about in the tub, trying to find purchase on the slippery surface, but his fingers were too pruned up to work properly. “Help me up, will you?”

Strong arms dragged him to his feet and Mal was taken back to a feeling of sanctuary as he was lifted free of the tub. He had no time for that kind of gou shi. “Hey! I ain’t a child so don’t treat me like it.”

“You was the one asking for help.” Jayne dried him off with a towel, examining his back to see if the wounds had suffered after being soaking for so long. “Reckon it’s best to let them dry out and I’ll dress them tonight for you before bed.”

Mal made a sudden grab for the towel and wrapped it tight around his waist, not wanting Jayne to see how affected he was by these simple words. “I’ll get dressed,” he said gruffly and scuttled away to the bedroom wondering when he was going to come to his senses and stop behaving like a swooning girl. It didn’t help having all this attention lavished on him. Made him weak. Made him want things that weren’t possible.

“Supper’s ready whenever you are,” called Jayne, looking as bemused as ever at the sudden change of mood.

“Won’t be long.” Mal slammed the bedroom door, leaning his back against it and barricading himself inside. Confusion weren’t the word for how he was feeling. He wanted a rut with Jayne so bad he could taste it and at the same time he wanted to leave him alone and escape as soon as was humanly possible. But even when he’d got away from here Mal had a feeling he wasn’t ever going to be that same person he had been before. It wasn’t just the promises he’d made to the doc over helping him save his little sister, it was things he’d seen here in Bonneville; simple things that had made him view the world from a different perspective.

Pulling on a veneer of his old self, Mal looked in the mirror as he fastened up the buttons on the military style shirt, wondering how a two day flirtation had turned into this muddle. Still, thinking positive, it was good to be up and dressed and feeling vaguely human. Once again Mal braced himself for the onslaught, heading for the stairs and looking around him at the interior of the rectory. He’d not paid much attention to the place in the past.

The house was built in traditional wooden style, big, light and airy, but with none of that fancy adornment that had covered the inside of the church. There were pictures hung on the walls, some religious, some country scenes, a few paintings depicting some of the more famous battles of the war. Nothing, however, that made it stand out as belonging to a preacher. Same could be said for the downstairs with its pale walls, plain rugs and watercolour pictures, but, despite its simplicity, something about the place sang out that it was Jayne’s home. It was a feeling more than anything, same as Mal had got as soon as he’d opened his eyes and looked around the bedroom.

Finding his way to the kitchen was easy enough; he just had to breathe in the smell of cooking and follow his nose. Standing in the doorway, he watched as Jayne filled a jug with water and opened a bottle of beer. “I expected moose head and bearskin rugs what with you being such a fine hunter and all.”

Jayne laughed. “I ain’t corny enough for you then? Maybe I got a room full of trophies elsewhere.”

“I doubt that, though I’m faintly certain you got a stash of weapons. That piece you lent me was a fine old one.”

“Belonged to my grandfather. One of the few family things I got left.”

Jayne had revealed very little about himself so far and, perhaps because of this, Mal found the peeling back of each tiny layer genuinely interesting. It could be because they were trapped here together, isolated from the rest of the world except for the occasional visit from Simon Tam, but it was odd that it affected him so much, especially when he was used to living in confinement on Serenity.

Easing himself down into one of the kitchen chairs, Mal rested his elbows on the table and watched as Jayne took out silverware and glasses then dished up the stew and vegetables. “Looks good,” he said, gazing at the heaped up plate and knowing he was never going to eat all that.

“Not gonna threaten to throw up again?” Jayne sat down and looked at him with those pretty eyes all bright with laughter.

“I was not in my right mind then.”

“Are you ever?” Jayne filled up the glasses with water

“Not recently I don’t think.” Mal forked up some of the meat and potatoes. “This is real good.”

“Doc left some painkillers for you if’n it begins to hurt after being up and about a while. You can either have them or the beer.”

Mal was feeling more than comfortable right now and his eyes were drawn to the brown glass bottle with its sheen of condensation.

“I’ll hazard a guess at this.” Jayne shoved the beer toward him.

Mal harked back to his childhood, sitting around the table with his family eating real food and sharing conversation. Him and Zoë just ate protein mush and talked about the next job. ‘Though things might be different from now on if Zoë was truly as smitten with her little man as she seemed.

“I blame this place.” Mal took a swig of beer from the bottle and licked the foam away from his lips, noting that the preacher watched every swipe of his tongue.

“Blame what now?” Jayne looked up in puzzlement.

“There’s something in the water in Bonneville makes us all behave a mite strangely.”

“Ain’t arguing with you about that.” Jayne looked back down at his plate. “Weren’t like that ‘til you and that girlfriend of yours swung by. What did you come here for anyways?”

Mal wasn’t about to bother with lies or half-truths any more. “Stole some money, shuttle got damaged in a fight with the feds,” he said. “Landed here, it being the nearest habitable rock, killed some feds, stashed the gear and holed up in Bonneville waiting for the ship to get fixed.”

Jayne frowned. “Guess I can’t accuse you of being deceitful no more.”

“Nope.” At least things were out in the open.

The silence that followed wasn’t particularly comfortable and maybe that was for the best. Mal finished up his meal and drank the rest of his beer and when he got to his feet he felt oddly light-headed and must’ve looked that way too.

“You can rest up in there if’n you’re tired.” Jayne pointed to the door that led through to the parlour.

Mal wasn’t exhausted in the slightest, but at least it was an excuse not to be in the same room as the disapproving preacher with his gorram snooty ways. He’d offer to help clear away the dishes, cepting he didn’t want to right now.

The living room was the same as the rest of the house, bright and plain and full of evening sunshine. The windows looked out to the rear of the property and it wouldn’t take a lot to open one and climb away to freedom. He contemplated escape for a while.

“Feds may be watching from all angles so I’d take a step back if’n I was you.”

Mal couldn’t suppress the rumble of frustration. “I can’t deal with this any longer.”

“It’s your choice.”

Mal laughed and even to his ears it was bitter sounding. “Changed your tune some, Shepherd. If I recall correctly you said before you’d do anything to stop me going to prison. Now you’re as happy as a pig in shit to see me bound over.”

“You have a bad habit of putting words into my mouth. I’d quit that if I were you.”

It was almost a threat. Maybe there was a darker, dirtier side to the man that he’d kept hidden away up until now. Mal had known all along from that prickling conscience of his that the preacher wasn’t lily white through and through.

“Just saying is all,” he replied as pleasantly as possible, standing back a little from the glass and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Why are you so proud of your wrong doings?”

“I ain’t proud, I’m just accepting of who I am. Why are you so ashamed of yours?”

Jayne slumped down on the couch, curling in on himself like a wounded animal. “How d’you do it?” he asked, sanctimonious mask giving way to expression of intense unhappiness.

“Do what?”

“Just carry on after…”

“After what?”

“After people die at your hand. You’ve killed and killed and yet it’s like nothing about you's been changed.”

Up to this point Mal had been hanging on to the right side of furious, but now he was being pushed over the edge. Jayne was making out like he was some conscience free serial killer and it weren’t that at all. “I ain’t the murdering gan ni niang you reckon I am.” Mal began to tot up the number of people he’d killed and then stopped all that shi when the number got too high. “I do what I must to survive. The verse ain’t pretty, Shepherd. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend all is well, but that don’t mean it is. You ain’t gonna change things like that.”

“You telling me that you make more of a difference than I do?” Jayne unfurled himself from his hunched over position and snorted with a degree of distaste and disbelief.

“Most likely. Effects of what I do can be seen, yours not so much. But in truth it ain’t none of my business, Shepherd. You go ahead and hide here for the rest of your life, flagellating yourself by doing without everything that could make you happy. Me? I intend to go full throttle forward and smack the verse around some in the process. It’s what I do.”

Jayne stood and walked over to the window, looking out and surveying that small world of his restlessly. “It ain’t about punishment.”

“You dead certain o’ that?” Mal approached him, anger diminishing some as he looked into eyes that were jam packed with self-reproach. “You ain’t gonna make things right this way. What’s done can’t be undone by choosing to be miserable.”

It could be said that this was the typical Mal Reynolds approach to seduction and maybe it was. He’d used his silver tongue to win many a battle in the past. Forcing his lips against Jayne’s he kissed the man hard on the mouth. “This ain’t going to harm anyone.” His tongue slipped inside that warm wet cavity. “Nor is doing without it gonna save the world.”

Dropping to his knees and grimacing a little at the burst of pain, Mal unfastened Jayne’s pants and pulled them and his shorts downward. The blood pulsed below the surface of that thick piece of meat and it twitched and stiffened in front of Mal’s eyes. Reaching a hand out, he jacked the Shepherd to full erection, peeling the skin back and watching pre-come form into a juicy little droplet at the tip of his slit.

“I could suck you off now with a promise that it won’t make a blind bit of difference to the state of the verse.” He licked all the way up the shaft with the flat of his tongue. “Or I can walk away leaving you unsatisfied and miserable until your balls are so full you have to sneak off to jerk away that embarrassing hard on in some dark corner.” Taking the knob of that cock inside his mouth, he gave it one fierce suck then pulled free. “Your choice, Shepherd."

“People died because of me.” Jayne closed his eyes, warding off bad memories most like.

That wasn’t the answer Mal had hoped for. Conversating wasn’t easy when you were on your knees with a beautiful bare prick an inch away from your lips. “Did you mean it to happen?” he asked.

“No.”

“Will this make any difference to what’s passed?” Mal took Jayne into his mouth, throating him until he was so full of cock he could just about lick Jayne’s balls. He wasn’t reformed enough to want to talk philosophies of life when all this goodness was on offer.

“No.” Jayne’s negative came out as half-imperative and half-groan.

Mal pulled most of the way off. “Want me to stop?”

“No, gorramit it. Just suck it.”

Mal didn’t need to be told twice and went straight to town on that cock, playing with the skin and lapping at the head, using vacuum suction and long slow licks. He toyed and teased and then just sucked the hell out of it at it with deep swallows and a squeeze of the balls that made Jayne cry out and thrust violently, twisting his fingers into Mal’s hair and rutting the hell of out of his mouth like there was no tomorrow and never gonna be another one.

He came with a burst of expletives and a shudder that was verging on frightening it was so powerful. Mal swallowed and jerked and jerked slower and then sank onto his haunches and licked the dribbles of spunk away from that softening prick whilst rubbing at his own hard-on which was still encased modestly inside his clothing.

Mal stood up on shaky legs and leaned in to kiss the other man. “I want you, Jayne Cobb, and the world won’t change for the better or worse because of it.”

Jayne kissed him back hard and forceful and in truth it took Mal by surprise. Expecting nothing more than to be shoved away, he thought he’d end up being the one jacking his cock in the dark, but the way Jayne was ripping at his shirt buttons made it seem as if that weren’t to be the case. Pants came next, the shepherd tearing at his fly until the material ripped. Mal’s cock jerked in appreciation and he joined in with the undressing frenzy, dragging the clothes off Jayne’s back and pushing down his pants and shorts as far as he could get them with a foot.

They sank to the floor, kissing each other with these sloppy wet mouthfuls of tongue, hands rubbing and teasing in frantic fashion like dead men walking, taking a last gulp of life before the noose.

By now, Mal was aching to grapple with Jayne proper, but he weren’t gonna do it dry. Racing to the kitchen, whilst freeing himself from what clothes still remained, he grabbed a bottle of oil from the counter, pouring some into his cupped palm and slicking it over himself with a couple of strong pulls. By the time he returned Jayne was laying there naked and spread out for him and, laotian ye!, he was a sight to behold, all dark hair and muscled handsomeness.

Dropping to his knees Mal hefted Jayne’s legs up onto his shoulders then buried his face in crotch, running his tongue downwards into that taboo crevice then teasing the hole with the tip of his tongue until the shepherd was thrashing his head and mumbling away in a combination of Mandarin and gibberish.

Freeing himself from the painful weight of Jayne’s legs, Mal sat up on his haunches, oily fingers replacing tongue as he stretched the man open enough for a comfortable rutting. Taking his time was nigh on impossible, but he managed it, fucking Jayne with his hand while he leant over and sucked on those swelling nipples, thinking about anything that would take his mind off coming.

As soon as Jayne was relaxed enough Mal withdrew his fingers, coating every part of their lower regions in heady scented olive oil. Then, covering the shepherd with his body, Mal circled his hips until the head of his cock found its own path to that puckered little indent. “Soon as I get inside you I ain’t gonna be able to stop,” he warned, “so I don’t want you going all Miss Mary on me and crying out that you’ve been violated by the wicked outlaw.”

Jayne laughed and gulped and looked up with that strange half-lidded gaze which sent an extra flurry of blood southwards down into Mal’s prick. “No worries there,” he said, his words coming out all deep and mellow, sticky sweet with arousal.

Mal bucked his hips a little and the head of his cock slid partway in. “Long as this ain’t about finding your true self ‘cause I ain’t a one for fixing people.” Another slight shove drove Mal further inside that hot and slippery channel, into vise-like, vice-like heaven.

Jayne gritted his teeth. “Maybe this is about me wanting to have you one time before you go careering off into the black.”

The words caused an involuntary reaction in Mal. Muscles hitting spasm mode, he arched his back and thrust his pelvis, and once he was fully seated inside Jayne it was better than good. In truth it gave him a sense of victory to be here on the floor of the rectory with his cock buried deep inside the god-fearing preacher, but it wasn’t just that. There was something more, only he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what it was just yet.

Jayne snarled, gripping Mal like one of them constricting snakes and it took a while for him to ease off enough for Mal to even think about fucking him.

“Anyways,” said the big man, his smile lost a little with his face all contorted up with the pain from being taken this way, “I think it’ll take more than one rut to fix me.”

“I can maybe manage a few more if that’ll help.” Mal grinned, wide-mouthed and honest.

“Might just hold you to that.”

Gorramit if this wasn’t the strangest sexing Mal’d ever experienced in his twenty years of sharing bodies. It was also, without a doubt, the most horny he’d been for it.

His cock full to bursting point, he eased back and then slammed in hard, trying to hit that sweet spot without putting too much strain on his wounded parts. It was gonna prove impossible to keep this up for long. Needing both arms to support his weight, he wasn’t even able to finish Jayne with his hand.

“Gonna have to see to yourself,” he said though clenched teeth as he was sucked back inside Jayne’s body. Christ! Rutting with a man was a whole world of delights that he’d forgotten about. Women weren’t keen on taking it up their backside, not when they had a pussy and a clit to give ‘em pleasure and, in truth, Mal’s preference was to feel a male body, hard and tight, big and solid around and beneath him.

Jayne took himself in an oily fist, working his softened off prick back up to hardness and slipping that hood of skin back and forth over his knob until Mal had to look away, the sight being far too erotic for him to cope with right now. “Y’alright?” he asked, pushing Jayne’s knees a mite higher and angling the strokes of his prick upward a ways. The improvement was obvious.

"Laotian ah… Aiya... Made...” The list went on.

“Good?”

Jayne panted; face reddening as he worked hard at his cock. “Good ain’t the word for it.” He just about managed to force the words out between breaths.

Mal was gonna make some smart ass remark about how sometimes good was everything, but the time for talking had passed. With his body screaming to get to climax before it fell apart, Mal began rutting for serious. Neck arched back, he powered inside Jayne’s body, pulled in that by that wave of coiled muscle until he was flying on autopilot, his hips heaving and his brain exploding with pleasure. Grunting, he felt the orgasm begin somewhere deep inside him and, driven to new heights by the pain, he rammed into Jayne’s sweet spot over and over as the warmth of his come washed over him like a summer tide.

Collapsing down onto an equally sweaty body, he felt Jayne’s arms curl around him and didn’t complain, despite the twinges of pain.

“You didn’t come,” he mumbled once he could think straight again.

“I ain’t a young man, you know.”

“Nor a virgin neither.”

Jayne pushed him off, eyes narrowing as he stood up and sidled away. “Gotta wash up,” he muttered, using that customary excuse that Mal was coming to know and hate.

“Yeah, you do that, Jayne, and when you come back you’ll’ve hidden away all that emotion of yours away; squashed it down into some secret murky part of you.” The words may have seemed angry but Mal’s gentle tone of voice was an indicator of his true mood. Jayne was exasperating, but little by little he was begin to learn the man, if not understand him. “Seems I ain’t the only one with a habit of lying through his back teeth.”

Jayne paused on his way out the door. “I never said I was a virgin.”

“But you implied it enough and that makes it same as a lie by my estimation.”

Jayne turned to look at him; that haunted expression back on his face. “I gotta get cleaned up. We’ll talk some after.”

Mal sighed and said no more, letting the shepherd run off and come terms with things in his own way and time. He got slowly to his feet and stretched both arms out toward the ceiling, wincing when he pushed himself too far, then with nothing better to do he tidied a little and carried the bottle of oil back to the kitchen, almost letting it slide through his fingers the glass was so slippery. Having cleaned it off and returned it to its rightful place next to the condiments, he set about giving himself a quick rub down, using a ragged towel he found in one of the drawers as a wash cloth.

“Could get used to the sight of you naked in my kitchen.”

A pair of arms slid around him and Mal didn’t know what to make of the penitent kiss to the back of his neck. Nor the softly spoken words of affection that followed.

“I’m sorry, baobei.”

Mal turned within the circle of arms and, even though he was six feet in height, felt positively dwarfed by the shepherd. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Jayne. But you ain’t doing yourself any favours with this carry on.”

“I owe folks here. Want to be the kind of man they can look up to.”

“So you choose to forgo life and take up God as a sole occupation.” Mal shook his head. “Have you ever thought that maybe they look up to you already because of who you truly are -- the man they can see hidden inside? No-one gives a rut whether their preacher is celibate, nor what his preferences for sexing are neither.”

Mal was no fool; he knew the reasons behind this charade were a whole lot deeper than the shepherd was letting on, but there was no point in pushing. Jayne’d tell him the whole story when and if he was ready to let go of the hurt.

They kissed once more--beard brushing against five o’ clock shadow--and it was so gorram easy to do now they’d got started on it. Maybe if he’d had a Jayne to fall for early on instead of an Inara then his life would have turned out different. Mal doubted it greatly though -- unless he could’ve persuaded the big man to share his bunk on Serenity. Now that would have made for some interesting ways to pass time out in the black.

“I fetched you some fresh clothes from my closet. Your others were a mite shredded.” Jayne flushed and indicated a pair of beige coloured breeches complete with suspenders and another of those dark blue shirts on the table. “They should fit. I’ve gotten a lot heavier since I used to wear ‘em.”

It was only after Mal had got dressed and they were sitting down together drinking coffee and doing some small-talking that he noticed Jayne wasn’t wearing his cleric’s outfit. The loose work pants and form fitting t-shirt looked better than right. Sexing up a shepherd was a fun new kink to play with, but the man beneath that collar was turning out to be a whole lot more than that.

~~****~~

“Far as I can see there ain’t a sign of any purple bellies around no more,” said Jayne after he’d shut all the windows and closed the drapes. “Reckon your Zoë’ll be able to land safe pretty soon.”

Mal was in two minds about that situation, but at present he was more focused on what this coming night would bring with it to be bothered with weighing up escape plans. “We’ll think on that when it happens,” he said, heading for the stairs and wondering whether Jayne would be keen on sharing a bed with him. “You gonna see to my dressings?”

“I am, though I’m not sure you’ll be needing any.” Jayne grinned. “You seem fixed up good to me.”

Just making it as far as the second floor of the house was tiring Mal out and he couldn’t wait to do some bench pressing and drag himself back to physical fitness. “I’m out of shape,” he grunted, fatigue from the earlier sex taking its toll and making him testy.

“If the Alliance are gone maybe we can take a hike out tomorrow. See what the doc says in the morning, eh?”

After the usual night time rituals Mal lay naked on his belly in the bed, Jayne sitting to one side and examining his wounds.

“I’ll put some fresh pads on these just to be safe. Don’t want you tearing out no stitches while you’re sleeping.”

Mal nodded, letting his mind wander as he enjoyed the feel of Jayne’s hands tending to him. It sparked a fire in his belly, but there was none of that uneasiness accompanying it no more. The sexual attraction was a given. It seemed as if God had stepped aside for a while in the Cobb household.

“Doc’s done a fine job of mending you,” added Jayne.

“When I leave, he’s going with me.”

Jayne’s hands stilled. “The business with his sister?”

Mal nodded. “He’s paying me to get her out of some school.”

“That boy’ll be sorely missed. Took us an age to get a qualified doctor to come here.”

The hands took to rubbing at Mal’s shoulders, squeezing at his muscles until he groaned out from the pleasurable release of tension and almost missed Jayne’s next words.

“Reckon Kaylee’ll miss him more’n most.”

Mal had been quietly pondering over some ideas regarding the mechanic. “I may be asking her to come along too.”

Jayne fell into a sudden silence and stretched out on the bed, pulling the covers over them then reaching out a hand to turn off the light. “There ain’t gonna be much of Bonneville left once you’ve done plundering it.”

“Ain’t forcing no-one to do nothing; that’s not my way. Just giving folk a choice is all.”

Jayne turned slowly onto his side and Mal spooned up behind him, clasping an arm around that firm belly. He should’ve been thinking ‘bout more sex, but it was so gorram good just to have someone to hold that within seconds he was basking in contentment and edging towards sleep.

~~****~~

Mal woke with a start. He was lodged up tight against Jayne’s big body, his erect cock nuzzling into the crevice of the shepherd’s arse and would surely go to hell for this, but right now he couldn’t stop himself.

Remembering there being some antiseptic cream on the nightstand, he reached out, fumbling for the tube then flicking the cap open, and squirted a dollop into his palm. It was cold and he almost yelped as he smeared it over his cock. Squeezing out another glob of the cream he made sure to warm it first between his hands before rubbing it into Jayne’s crack.

“What the-?”

The nudge of cock against a ring of tight muscle had woken Jayne up, but, once he came around, the man settled back against Mal with a contented sigh.

“Just relax,” murmured Mal, kissing every inch of exposed skin then reaching around to fist Jayne’s cock. “Let me do all the work.” With steady inching movements he eased himself inside, taking his time and letting Jayne become accustomed to being full of him again.

Handling the shepherd’s cock was still an adventure for Mal. He loved the feel of that loose hood of skin and the newness of the head as it peeked in and out from its covering. His mind flooded with images of the preacher lying there nude on that rock and before long Mal was deep in fantasy and fucking Jayne with long smooth strokes, timing the action of his hand to perfection to keep everything perfectly synchronised.

It was almost a simultaneous orgasm. The sound of Jayne’s sleepy moans and the feel of his spunk gushing out over skin and sheets was enough to jump start Mal’s climax then, immediately afterwards, they fell back to sleep soaked with sweat and come.

~~****~~

The next time Mal awoke it was to sun blazing in at the open windows and Jayne bringing him a much needed cup of coffee.

“Got a little horny last night, did you?” The shepherd smiled down at him, all sparkling eyes and bright satisfied smile.

“Getting a little horny right now,” said Mal, making a grab for Jayne.

“You better hold that thought, baobei, because the doc’s waiting to give you the all clear.” Jayne peeled a strip of dried semen off Mal’s arm. “I told him you’d come downstairs to see him.”

“Aiya!” Mal remembered the last time the doctor just walked in on them. “Good thing you were up and about when he called. We could have given him the shock of his life.”

“Or the hard-on of his life.” Jayne smirked.

“You ain’t helping none, Jayne.” Mal glared down at the way the sheet was tenting. “Doc may think I got designs on him if I go downstairs in this state… ‘stead of designs on you.” This time he made a successful attack, pulling Jayne down onto the bed and straddling his body.

“Y’aint gonna do them stitches a power of good with all this horsing around.”

Mal couldn’t bring himself to care much, not when he had a big man trapped between his thighs. “I noticed you slept good last night.”

“Maybe I’ll sleep good all the time while you’re here.”

Mal shut the shepherd up with kisses. Just a few days playing at being one half of a happy couple would do him. He hoped so anyhow.

Winning the tussle--mostly because of Jayne taking too much care with him--Mal lay sprawled on top of that body ready to take victor’s spoils, his naked cock resting against Jayne’s clothed one.

“This ain’t sensible,” said Jayne. “Doc could come up any minute to find out where we’re at.”

“Not noticing you pushing me off.” Mal gave a sudden thrust and the pair of them groaned loudly in unison then checked themselves.

“Think you may have a point though.” Mal dismounted from Jayne and the bed. “Reckon I’ll go have a long cold shower while you keep our medical man busy.”

Wrapping a towel around his waist Mal escaped to the bathroom and did just as he’d said, turning on the faucet and letting the cold spray of water dampen down his arousal. This game he and Jayne were playing was a thrilling ride, his thoughts were full of the man all the time. At first, it had purely been a physical thing, but, as time passed, he found himself more and more drawn to his strength and quiet compassion. Didn’t mean that them big muscles and handsome looks didn’t still play a major part in his attraction though. In fact he was looking forward to the day when he’d be strong enough to take Jayne on in some full force rutting. He’d pictured it in his head; the two of them grappling naked with each other and then humping like animals. Gorramit! Mal turned the faucet on a little more and directed the stinging needles of ice at his crotch in order to rein in his excitable parts. Five minutes of water torture later, he was numbed up enough to get dried and dressed and go downstairs to meet with the doc.

Simon Tam was facing Jayne across the kitchen table, and the way the pair of them were leaning in toward each other it looked as if there was some pretty deep conversating going on.

“Morning! Hope I ain’t disturbing anything deep and meaningful between the two of you?”

“Zoë spoke to Kaylee last night and was given the go ahead to come here.” Jayne stared down at his mug of coffee.

Mal paced the kitchen floor, his socked feet making slight patting sounds on the tiles. “Gorramit, if only you’d’ve got some way of communicating with the outside verse, Jayne. Relying on second hand information always ends up in disaster.”

“If you’re implying that Kaylee isn’t to be trusted, you couldn’t be more wrong.” Simon looked daggers at him. “Of course now that the Alliance troops have gone, perhaps you can sit in her shop and wait to hear from your friend directly.”

Mal hadn’t meant to cause offence and felt unusually penitent at doing so. “Didn’t mean anything by it. You folks have been nothing but good to me. All of you.” He and Jayne shared a look that was loaded with intent. “I reckon I’m just not used to taking a back seat at planning. Getting a little stir crazy here.”

“Let me examine those stitches,” said Simon, pushing the chair back forcefully and proving that he was still a little irked by the insinuations of untrustworthiness.

Mal slipped his suspenders down and unfastened his shirt then bent over the table so the doctor could check over the wound sites.

“You heal fast, Mr Reynolds. Almost as good as new.”

“Thanks to you.” Mal winced as the doctor tweezed away the remnants of the stitches. “Has Zoë said how soon she’ll be getting back here?” he asked as he buttoned up his shirt.

Jayne poured him a cup of coffee. “Tomorrow night so Kaylee said, ain’t that right, Doc?”

“Yes. She said they’d be landing at the clearing by the caves.” Simon turned to Mal with that uncompromising gaze of his stuck firmly on his face. “And our arrangement? Is that still in place?”

“I ain’t the reneging kind.” Mal smirked. “Unless a better offer comes my way.”

It was apparent from the affronted look on the doctor’s fact that, in addition to being oblivious, he was also lacking a sense of humour.

“Where I come from people stick to their word,” the young man muttered.

“I reckon Mal here was just pulling that fancy pants leg of yours.”

As Jayne refilled Simon’s coffee mug--in the unlikely event that extra caffeine would help defuse a rocky situation--the doctor looked up warily.

“I’m sorry for overreacting, but the truth is I’m scared. Every day that passes means that worse and worse things are being done to River. It’s imperative I get there as soon as possible.”

“This urgency of yours won't put my ship in jeopardy I hope.” Mal sipped his coffee thoughtfully.

“That would hardly be of benefit to me or my sister.”

“I take your point. Look, Simon, I’ll do my level best to help you get your sister away from that place. You have my word on that.” Mal reached out a hand toward the young man who shook it gratefully.

“I appreciate it, Mr Reynolds.”

“Now that that’s all agreed upon, do I get signed off the sick register?”

“You do, but you’d best stay clear of lifting weights or taking part in contact sports for a few weeks.”

“No wrestling then?”

“Definitely not.” Simon looked shocked.

“Gorramit!”

Mal couldn’t resist. The amused look on Jayne’s face was a spirit-lifting sight and he almost managed to repress a snort of laughter at the raised eyebrow from the doctor.

Simon Tam looked curiously at both men and then shrugged. “I have a surgery full of sick people waiting for me so I’ll leave you in peace. Zoë said she’d try and wave later this evening with more details so either Kaylee or I’ll be in to tell you the news. Unless you do want to spend the day in the mechanic shop, that is?”

Mal could think of more interesting ways to pass the time. “I reckon it’s best I keep a low profile in town,” he said, eliciting another over-the-shoulder smile from Jayne who was on his way to show Simon out.

As soon as they were alone the atmosphere became highly charged.

“I ain’t happy about you leaving,” muttered Jayne in between rough kisses.

“Could come with me?” It was something Mal had been thinking over for a while now. It was the first time he’d been brave enough to broach the subject though. He weren’t the kind of man who enjoyed getting the brush off.

“My place is here,” said Jayne matter-of-factly.

“And mine ain’t.”

Theirs was a lose-lose situation and one that would have been quite misery making if it weren’t for the fact they’d both been accepting of it from the beginning of this humped up relationship. Would they have ever become this close if he hadn’t been injured? In Mal’s eyes it was unlikely to say the least. Fate had dealt a pretty raw hand.

The kisses heated them both up to melting point and having Jayne pressed up against the counter top made Mal’s thoughts turn instantly to rutting. He slid a hand between their bodies, unzipping Jayne’s pants and slipping inside, his fingers rippling over that cock until it stood upright like a ram rod. Reaching into his pocket he took out the tube of antiseptic ointment he’d picked up from the bedroom, but was restrained by Jayne who clamped both hands down onto Mal’s wrists.

“Thought you were itching to get out of here?” The preacher’s voice rumbled like thunder on a humid summer day and it made Mal feel hotter and stickier than ever.

“Itching for something,” he replied dropping to his knees and taking the whole of that thick shaft into his mouth.

“Aiya! Enough of that, baobei.” Jayne let go, shuddering from the effects of the slow sucking assault Mal was making on his cock.

Fingers rubbed at Mal’s scalp, twining into his hair and Jayne’s voice was becoming more breathless by the second. “Seems to me we ain’t got a whole lot of time left. Been thinking ‘bout that day up at the lake…”

He groaned loudly as Mal swallowed, his throat muscles constricting like a vise around the shaft. Damn, it felt good to have a good solid length of prick to go down on. Sucking cock had been his first experience of sexing and he’d loved it ever since.

“You listening to me?”

Mal hummed an affirmative and got a whimper of pleasure in response.

“Been thinking about you laying there all naked and hot in the sun. We can’t go back there ‘cause of staying clear of town- Gorramit, Mal! You’re too rutting good at this.”

Jayne leant back on the counter, hips thrusting involuntarily, eventually collecting himself enough to speak again. “The back of this property leads right down to river. It’s quiet. No one ever goes there but me, dong ma?”

Mal stood up, leaning against Jayne to give his shaky legs a rest. “Can we go now?”

“Sooner the better.” Jayne circled his hips, erection grinding against Mal’s then with a sigh he tucked himself reluctantly away inside his pants.

They’d moved forward a long way from the time when the shepherd was so lost inside himself he was near enough frigid.

“No dog collar again?” Mal fingered the neckline of the tee-shirt, dragging Jayne’s closer and kissing him delicately on the lips so the man could taste his own flavour that lingered there.

“We’re still under quarantine.” Jayne licked away the remains of pre-come from Mal’s mouth. “Way I see it that means vacation.”

“Happy holidays.” Mal may have been laughing hilariously at the notion, but it was the same for him. No robbing or killing and the only shooting to be done was of the pleasurable kind. These were strange lost days they were living: times when an outlaw and a preacher could risk everything to be together as men.

~~****~~

They left immediately, taking with then nothing more than a couple of canteens of water. It would have been good to saddle up the horses and go for another day’s ride out into the wilderness, but, as Jayne said, there was no point putting themselves, and others, in jeopardy.

“We truly safe here?” asked Mal as he looked down the hill at the river that wound through the valley as sleek as a ribbon of silk.

“This is part of church property. I’ve never seen anyone all the years I been living in Bonneville.”

“And what do you come down here for?”

“Fishing mostly,” said Jayne with a broad grin, implying that angling wasn’t featuring heavily in his plans for today. “It’s a pleasant enough spot to wile away a few hours.”

“Hoping so.” Mal looked worriedly down at the acres of meadowland. “Have to say it’s looking a mite open. For us to be ‘open’ in, I mean to say.”

“Trust me, baobei.” Jayne reached out and rubbed the small of Mal’s back with the fleshly heel of his palm.

Mal was coming close to being that swooning girl again. This kind of outward affection was getting to him, reaching inside to parts that had been closed off for a long time. Sooner he got away from here the better. Last thing he needed was a long distance qing ren.

The weather was hot and sultry and even the river appeared to be too lazy to move. Turgid and dark, it lapped against the edges, flowing so slowly it seemed as it was on the point of stopping altogether. They walked along the bank for some distance until a dense thicket came into view.

“Them trees make you feel safer?”

Mal could tell Jayne was laughing at him, but sexing up the town shepherd in full view of his congregation was not high on Mal’s to-do list for the day. The woods were a fair distance from the riverbank, but they provided enough cover to set Mal’s part tingling in anticipation.

This must be Jayne’s preferred area for fishing. There was a small landing stage built out into the river with a skiff moored to it. Mal walked out onto the platform and squatted at the end, dangling his fingers into the water like he was tickling for catfish. Bonneville brought back a flood of good memories. Not that his childhood was an idyllic one by any stretch, but, viewed in retrospect, life always seemed that bit shinier.

“Penny for ‘em.” Jayne sat next to Mal, unlacing his boots and pulling them and his socks off.

“You’re the one supposed to be doing the sharing.” Mal squinted from the shine coming off the river and looked sideways at the preacher.

“’Bout ready for some of that.” Hooking an arm around Mal’s shoulders, Jayne dragged him closer, almost causing him to topple into the water.

He ended up straddling Jayne’s lap and hanging precariously over the edge of the platform. As one of them big hands held tight onto him and the other delved into his pants, Mal found himself in the unusual position of being the seduced one. Jayne worked him up with slow dry pulls that set senses reeling and his own hands wandered, skimming under that tight old tee-shirt, fingers pinching and tweaking at Jayne’s nipples until the man swore softly and leant forward, hunting for Mal’s mouth. The kissing sparked off the beginning of that countdown to lift off and it was gonna be all over for Mal if he didn’t do something soon. His struggle to get free ended with him taking an unexpected backwards tumble into the river accompanied by a guffaw of laughter from Jayne.

Mal surfaced, coughing and spluttering, then, once he’d regained his breath, he tugged off his clothes and threw them into a pile on the platform. “Ain’t certain why you’re the one doing the laughing when I’m the one doing the skinny dipping.” Hell would freeze over before he failed to get the last word in.

Setting a fast pace, Mal ducked down into the cool dark water and swam against the flow in order to give his out of condition body a much needed long stress free work out. It was so good to move again that he almost forgot the reason for coming down here, that is until he surfaced and caught an eyeful of Jayne all stripped off and laying out on the grass.

Sneaking up on the shepherd wasn’t an easy task to achieve when he was dripping with river water.

“Gorramit, Mal, you’re cold.” Jayne opened one eye sleepily then pulled his hat down over his face.

“Thought you were itching for some fun?” Mal shook himself off like a wet dog and then straddled the preacher, much the same way he’d done on their day’s hunting in the woods. Next to the man lay that little tube of antiseptic cream and the sight of it made Mal bust out in a flush of wicked delight. “Rescued this from my pocket, huh?” he said, pushing Jayne’s hat to one side and waving the makeshift lubricant in front of his eyes.”

“Reckoned we might find a use for it.” Jayne snatched the tube from Mal’s fingers. “But not with you laying over me all wet and slimy.”

“I ain’t slimy, you big hundan.”

“Trust me, you’re slimy.”

Going against all of Simon’s advice the wrestling began in earnest, the two of them rolling over in the grass until somehow Jayne ended up between Mal’s legs and Mal’s cock ended up in Jayne’s mouth and the swiping sucking blow that followed was close on heaven. Mal could think of nothing other than that voluptuous climb to orgasm until something began to nag at him. A feeling, a vague sound maybe?

“Shepherd!”

“Shepherd Cobb!”

Jayne was oblivious, fully intent on sucking that orgasm out of his body, and it took all of Mal’s self-restraint and strength to shove him away.

“Listen,” he said frowning at the angry look on Jayne’s face.

“Laotian bu! It’s Kaylee,” said Jayne getting dressed at break neck speed.

Mal retrieved his wet clothes from the platform and struggled into them.

“Gotta say it's kinda hilarious.” Jayne smirked at Mal, who was less than thrilled at the feel of the soggy pants clinging to his softening ji ba.

“Funny to you maybe.”

“Shepherd!”

“She sounds more than a mite upset.” Jayne looked worried and, strapping his belt back on, he headed off in the direction of Kaylee’s voice with Mal following a few paces behind, dragged down by the weight of his waterlogged clothing.

The girl ran toward them, relief evident on her face as she approached. “Shepherd, things have gotten all humped up and I reckon it’s all my fault. I weren’t as smart as I thought about keeping the signals from Zoë locked up tight.”

“Catch your breath then tell us everything,” said Jayne.

The girl clung to the preacher who held her steady as she recovered herself. “Inara’s been suspicious of a couple of guests for a while now and she’s been keeping an eye on them. Anyhow, one of the whores, Nandi, overheard them talking and it turns out they were Alliance men undercover. Inara told Simon who passed word to me, but then them purple bellies found out that Inara knew too much and they took her in for questioning. Simon tried to stop ‘em and he’s been arrested too.”

The girl dissolved into unhappy tears and Jayne rubbed at her back, trying his best to give her comfort. “It ain’t your fault. You were just trying to help.”

Mal was awash with another bout of guilt and just ‘cause he was feeling it more often now didn’t mean he was growing to like it. “It’s my fault and I’ll fix it,” he said, striding out toward the house and trying to formulate a spur of the moment rescue plan in his head, even with next to no information to go on.

Jayne was after him in an instant. “Stop going off all half-cocked. Y’ain’t gonna help anyone like that.”

“Inara and Simon don’t deserve to be mixed up in this.”

“But they chose to be.” Jayne grabbed him by his arm, voice lowering to a murmur. “Do you want me to hang on tight to you in front of Kaylee? ‘Cause I will if I have to.”

Mal fought for a while longer and then wilted. He knew Jayne was right, but the notion of Inara getting hurt trying to save him? Well, that just weren’t going to happen.

“We need to get back to the rectory quick,” said Kaylee, brim full of melancholy. “On account of Bonneville not being the purple belly free zone we thought.”

They tramped up the hill in silence, Jayne in the middle, keeping a close eye and a guiding hand on the other two, and it was a relief once they made it safely back to the house, bolting that heavy door behind them and keeping the outside world at bay for the now of things.

“What’s gotta be done?” asked Jayne.

Mal considered things. “First off we need to get word to Zoë not to come here.”

“How about we send two waves?” Kaylee brightened up from her mope. “I reckon I can ramp up security enough so that one can be masked telling Zoë to land the shuttle in the woods out back of here somewhere. Then we can send the other the same way we always did, arranging a false rendezvous point a ways from town.”

Mal was impressed. “You ain’t just a pretty little grease monkey are you? That way there’ll be a reduced presence in that Alliance base and we can have Zoë and Wash to help us get Inara and the doc back.” He found himself spilling over with adrenaline and tried to repress the loon-like grin. A fight was a fight and, boy, did he love a good one, whatever the circumstances.

Kaylee left immediately, keen to set wheels in motion, and that left the two men wandering around the kitchen like restless spirits.

“Us against the Alliance seems piss poor odds to me.” Jayne filled the coffee pot.

“I don’t take note of them things.”

“Coming from a gambling man that sounds a whole lot of strange.” Jayne cocked his head to one side and looked curiously at Mal.

“I fix my own odds. Ain’t gonna get far in life trusting solely in Lady Luck.” Mal resisted the instinct to catch hold of Jayne’s hand. “However, weapons I do deal in and it appears we might be short on them. ‘Less Zoë’s taken to carrying to flying Serenity’s armoury around in the shuttle for day trips.”

“I got weapons,” said the shepherd in a low voice.

~~****~~

Mal was certain that Jayne had kept a fair sized stash of guns, but he wasn’t expecting the firepower of a small military arsenal.

“It’s a hobby,” said Jayne defensively as he sat around the kitchen table, smudged up with oil, parts for a laser sighted rifle laid out in front of him. “Better ‘n drinking or gambling.”

“Or rutting.” Mal ran his hands over the Jayne’s shoulders, squeezing at the solid muscle.

“You need to quit that now with Kaylee due back here any time,” growled Jayne. “Lessen you want her to look through the window and discover us in a compromised position on the table.”

That gruff sounding voice worked away at Mal like a dose of liquid sex. “I’m beginning to not give a damn,” he answered, leaning over, licking open-mouthed kisses up the back of Jayne’s neck.

“Gorramit.” Jayne turned in his seat, arms reaching out and grabbing hold of any body part he could lay hands on. His lips pressed against Mal’s, tongue swiping in, licking and sucking, and the kisses that followed were more foreplay than making out.

Hell! If they could just have one hour’s peace. “Could go upstairs for a spell?” Mal suggested hopefully, his cock a column of aching flesh in his pants, balls clenched up with urgency. Pre-fight jitters always worked him up the same way and having a qing ren close at hand only served to intensify the feelings.

“Now ain’t the time for it.” Jayne pushed him gently away. “Fact is our time’s almost come to an end.”

That was as good as a bucket of ice water. Mal sat at the far end of the table, his head in his hands.

“It ain’t that I want it to be done with.” Jayne’s voice was full of concern.

“I know and I understand,” said Mal, looking up. “Don’t mean I have to like it though.” Elbows on the table, he rested his chin upon laced fingers. “Now give me some weapon to tend to ‘fore I go out of my mind with the waiting.”

The whole armoury was shining by the time Kaylee appeared, knocking at the kitchen windows and frightening the shi out of them both.

“Bit jumpy for folks on a rescue mission, ain’t we?” smirked Mal as he unbolted the door and let her in. “Reckon we should cut down on the caffeine.”

“All set up.” Kaylee bounced into the kitchen, worries about Simon and Inara apparently offset by her success at sending out the signals. “Least I think so.”

“So, care to let us into the plan?” Mal pulled back a chair for her.

Kaylee ignored his attempt at being gentlemanly and leant over the table, spreading out a map across the surface. “Sorry, but we ain’t got none of the fancy stuff you space ship folks are accustomed to.” Mal smacked her on the butt and she giggled. “Now this here’s the Alliance base.” She pointed to a spot about ten clicks to the east of Bonneville, “And the false R.V. point is here.”

Mal nodded. It was close to where they’d originally landed. Good thinking on Zoë’s part in case the feds had been tracking the shuttle back then. “Where’s the actual rendezvous?”

“Just coming to that. Patience is a virtue, Cap’n.”

Mal chewed at a nail thoughtfully. Captain had a certain ring to it. He caught Jayne smirking at him and hoped the man wasn’t reading his thoughts.

“Zoë’s landing about three clicks south of here in two hours time. We meet her and Wash then drive to Alliance base--it’s only an outpost so hopefully it ain’t the most secure of places--rescue Simon and Inara and then come back here.” Kaylee dusted off her hands. “Easy as pie.”

“Drive to the base?” Jayne looked at her quizzically.

“I brought my tow truck here off road and parked it on the track.”

“I’m taking a preacher and a mechanic to rescue a doctor and a companion from an Alliance prison… in a tow truck?” Mal wasn’t quite certain of which way was up any longer.

“That’s about it.” Kaylee hopped up onto the counter top.

“Cunning ain’t it?” said Jayne dryly. “‘Cepting you forgot to mention our secret weapon, the bartender.”

~~****~~

The tow truck wasn’t as terrifying an idea as Mal’d thought. It was just a big old beast used for retrieving broken down farm equipment mostly, but Kaylee had souped it up and tended to it like it was her own baby.

“Ain’t she pretty?” said the mechanic, full of love and Mal reckoned now that this was why Kaylee was one of the few people who didn’t find his affection for Serenity a mite quirky.

“I ain’t got a lot to work on here in Bonneville and I’d give my eye teeth to actually get my hands on some real fun stuff ‘stead of just reading about it. I got to take a look at a Gurstler engine off a crashed fed ship once.” She sighed happily at the memories.

“Promised you a ride on my boat, didn’t I?” Mal smiled at her, jostled around in his seat as they drove down the bumpy track toward the rendezvous point in the woods.

“You meant it?” She lit up. “Shiny! I thought you was messed up from all them smoothers.”

“If you’re as good at fixing things as you say you are I could maybe even offer you a job.”

Kaylee gulped. “I’m good at what I do, Cap’n. I swear I am.”

“And I reckon you are, little girl.”

Mal looked to his right at Jayne and it was then that he noticed the shepherd wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the conversation happening around him; instead the man was staring over his shoulder at a set of crates which were strapped to the rear of the truck. “Hope the cables’ll hold them in place,” he said, gazing at the metal trunks full of weapons with the look of a worrying parent.

Mal shook his head. Wasn’t it written in stone that he was supposed to be the crazy one around here? Zoë’d get a gorram shock to come back and discover that his brand of feng le had been pushed into second place by a gun-toting preacher with an inclination for sly sexing.

Kaylee parked the truck out of sight under the overhanging brow of a small ridge. “Now I guess we sit tight and wait for your friend,” she said chewing her nails anxiously.

“Best if’n we get kitted up ready just in case the feds did get wind of this.” Jayne opened the door and climbed out, striding purposefully ‘round to the back of the vehicle.

“I can say without hesitation that your shepherd is the strangest preacher I ever met up with.” Mal said, looking behind him through the glass and watching the big man opening up the crates in order to coo over his toys. No wonder he had a fondness for hunting. Mal had been so off course thinking it was just a reason to get naked outdoors.

“We like him the way he is.” Kaylee smiled at him. “I think maybe you do too.”

Mal shut up talking. Instead of thinking up some vague response to Kaylee’s intuitive guesswork, he wiled away the time pondering over the best way to get Jayne’s story out of him. There was something deep going on with that man and he’d be damned if he was gonna leave this rock without finding it out. Whose deaths was he responsible for?

“You do like him, don’t you?”

Mal swivelled on the leather seat and watched as Jayne strapped all manner of weaponry to his body. Before they’d left he’d changed back into his grey shirt and collar and to see a clergyman all kitted out this way was confusing… amongst other things. “Jayne Cobb’s a good man,” he said without answering her question. “A mite unorthodox, but good as gold at heart.”

“Big empty heart too, I reckon. Needs filling, just like Simon’s does.”

Kaylee looked out of the window, sunny expression sliding away into abject misery and Mal bit back the words he was about to snap at her. After all, the girl was just wanting to play matchmaker and fashion out some kind of happiness for everyone. It was pointless, but it wasn’t a crime.

“You gonna get yourself armed up?”

The voice coming from the open window beside him startled Mal out of his fit of day dreaming and when Jayne opened the door for him in polite fashion he clambered out of the truck.

“I can do that, you know,” said Mal as Jayne knelt, strapping webbing onto his body and fitting him with more guns and knives than he’d ever need if he was taking on Alliance headquarters. “Desperate outlaw here.”

“Well, just plain old fashioned desperate here.” Jayne adjusted the lie of his cock and squinted up at Mal with a half-smile on his face. “Ain’t nothing hornier to me than seeing you like this,” he murmured in a low voice.

Holding a knife between his teeth he tightened the strapping on Mal’s left leg, and, feeling his own cock pulse with anticipation, Mal frantically tried to figure out a way to sex Jayne up one last time.

“Ain’t gonna happen however much we want it.” Jayne inclined his head upward and Mal watched the shuttle descend, bringing with it finality to the games they’d been playing. It was a mighty frustrating way to end this short-lived relationship of theirs and Mal felt… well, fact was he didn’t know what he was feeling.

The craft landed neat as a pin and Mal was impressed to see Zoë’s piloting skills had improved since she’d been out on her own. Then the shuttle doors opened and Mal noted with a fair amount of surprise that it was in fact the bartender, Wash, who was sat at the helm.

“Turned out to be a dark horse,” said Zoë with a grin as she disembarked. “I think he’s a keeper.”

“And I think you’d still be saying that if he were next to useless, Zo.”

“You may not be wrong about that.” Zoë smiled affectionately at Wash as she watched him fight to unbuckle himself from his seat. “Good to see you mended, Sir. Seeing as the feds are on our tail, reckon we should high tail it out of here and head back to Serenity quick as possible.”

Mal turned to Kaylee who was holding one of Jayne’s laser pistols like it was a poisonous spider. “You didn’t fill her out on all the details then?”

“Thought it best not to over the comm.”

“Good thinking, little Kaylee.” Mal looked at Zoë. “Thing is we got some rescuing to do here before we leave.”

“Rescuing, Sir?”

“Inara and the town doctor have got themselves in a predicament on account of me and I ain’t going ‘til I get them out of the clutches of the feds.”

“You ain’t?” Zoë raised her eyebrow. “Really you ain’t?”

“Really I ain’t.” Mal frowned. He hadn’t changed that much in the couple of weeks he’d been here.

“And here I was thinking all that platinum stashed away in the hills would be your priority.”

“Not so much since you gave away them co-ords as the location for the false landing.” Mal shrugged. “Anyhow I got us a plenty better earner figured out. Only thing is he’s locked up in an Alliance jail cell so the quicker we quit flapping our mouths and the sooner we get down to that gorram rescuing the better.”

“Seconded, Cap’n,” said Kaylee, trying to shove the pistol into the holster that Jayne was fitting around her narrow waist.

“Too big,” the shepherd grunted, adding extra holes to the belt with the tip of his knife.

“Captain?” Zoë smirked.

“Kaylee’s signing on as crew and, far as I recall, a crew needs a captain.” Mal had forgotten how Zoë had a habit of smirking and questioning his decisions a lot. He’d missed her.

“Does a crew need a shepherd as well?” she murmured in his ear.

Maybe Mal hadn’t missed Zoë that much. “No, it don’t,” he responded a mite more huffily than he’d meant to. “Ain’t nothing between me and him other than a whole lot of gratitude, dong ma?”

“Understood, Sir. You ain’t sweet on Shepherd Cobb.”

Mal glared at the troublesome woman.

“Weapons are all here if anyone needs any.” Jayne scanned the horizon. “Night’ll be setting in fairly soon so it’s best we get moving.”

“Still say he’s mighty useful for a preacher man,” said Zoë suspiciously.

“Agreed.” Mal looked back at the shuttle. “Now your feller might be good with piloting, but it seems he’s stuck figuring out the harness. Reckon you should go help him out before we end up having to leave him here in the dark.”

Zoë frowned at Mal and then at the one man struggle in the cockpit and then at Mal again before going to help Wash.

~~****~~

Had to be said, Mal felt more like he was heading off to some keg swilling yahoo party in the woods. Kaylee’s truck had a mighty fearsome roar to it when she gave it some revs and he couldn’t see a way how they could get within a click of the base without alerting everyone to their presence, but, when needed, the vehicle ran smooth and relatively quiet. They made their way across the dirt tracks, Mal riding shotgun, Jayne in between them navigating, with the other two sitting on the steel crates in the rear and hanging on for their lives.

“Good that I don’t get travel sick,” yelled Wash through the open rear window of the cab.

“Good that you know to keep quiet when we’re a quarter a mile from a base full of soldiers.” Mal winked. As if Wash shouting would be heard above the noise of the engine. Still, it didn’t harm to keep the bartender on his toes.

Wash saluted. “Being quiet now, Captain Reynolds, Sir, yes Sir, Sir.”

Mal hadn’t made up his mind whether he liked the little man a whole lot or actually found him the most irritating hundan alive. Not that it mattered what he thought.

“Can’t go much further in the truck,” said Jayne, switching off his maglite and stuffing it into his pocket.

Kaylee turned off road into the forest and watched despondently as the others camouflaged her baby with branches. “Don’t scratch her,” she muttered.

“Want the feds to appropriate your truck as well as your swai doctor?” asked Mal.

“No!” Kaylee stuffed a fist to her mouth as if that would silence the loud exclamation after the event.

Mal smiled nervously. There was a reason he and Zoë had worked alone for so long.

Darkness was upon them fully by this time and as they approached the outskirts of the base Mal was hit by the usual jolt of adrenaline. The base was indeed low level security. There were towers, but they looked to be unmanned at present -- in fact everywhere looked to be unmanned except for the entry gates which were guarded by three or four disinterested troops. Still, getting in would be no problem. As far as Mal was concerned there was always a back door, whether it be to military installations or government computers.

“This way,” he hissed, skirting the perimeter and keeping to the edge of the woods.

“Can’t see a single guard,” murmured Zoë. “But along with that I can’t see another way in or where the cells might be.”

Mal looked up at the branches of the tree nearest to them. It wasn’t ideal for climbing but it was possible. He was about to shin up the trunk when Jayne handed him a pair of nightvision binoculars with a terse, “These might help some.”

“Thanks,” he replied, stowing the glasses inside his coat then placing his right boot into the cup of Jayne’s laced hands. With a shove Jayne helped him up to the lower branches of the tree and once he’d found a secure position he scoped the area out with optical then thermal imaging before climbing back down the trunk and grazing his forearm up some in the process.

“I should have done that,” muttered Jayne. “I clean forgot that you weren’t fit.”

“Fit enough,” answered Mal with a reassuring slap on the man’s back, letting his fingers linger a while. In truth it felt rutting good to have someone care about his well being.

Motioning for everyone to gather around, Mal began to describe the layout in a low voice. “The prison section is on the eastern side of the compound. The only way in is the over the wall, but the good thing is that the rear of the base mostly blacked out.”

“Guess they weren’t expecting to have to protect themselves from a town full of hicks,” said Kaylee with a nervous giggle.

“That and a bunch of them’ll be waiting to ambush us up at the caves.” Mal looked at his watch with an immense amount of satisfaction at the thought of all them troops squatting in the brushwood for no reason. “Shuttle should be landing there in an hour or so.” He grinned.

“’Round to the back and over the wall then,” said Zoë. “That ain’t exactly difficult, but then what?”

“Rescue Simon and Inara,” said Kaylee, waving her laser pistol around in a startling manner until Jayne stowed it back in the holster for her.

“And run like hell?” queried Wash with a wry smile.

Mal nodded. Funny how most of his plans ended this way. The Devil was in the details and he weren’t fond of dancing with that old hundan.

“Hopefully dodging the gunfire this time, Sir.” Zoë gave him a look.

Mal nodded again. Although the after effects of his injuries had been more than pleasant, he’d not enjoyed the initial pain. He weren’t one of them masochist types, that was for dead certain.

Sticking to the edge of the forest, they made their way around to the dark side of the complex then approached the wall. It wasn’t high--no more than six feet and with no sign of broken glass or razor wire protecting the top--but it’d be difficult for the shorter members of the party to climb. Mal looked at Wash and Kaylee, but before he could say anything the little mechanic was onto him.

“I ain’t staying here, Cap’n.  I can get over that wall with a leg up and I ain’t intending to be a liability.  You said I was on your crew and I mean to be useful.”

“They’ll be fine, Sir,” added Zoë with a look that told Mal to keep his mouth shut.

Doing just that, Mal wondered which one of them should get to be called captain.

Without waiting for orders Zoë was over the wall in a flash. “Clear,” she murmured in a voice just loud enough to be audible.

Mal followed, ignoring the offer of a leg up from Jayne, his newly knitted muscle complaining fiercely at the overexertion. Suppressing a groan of pain he landed heavily next to Zoë who looked a little concerned.

“You alright?”

“Just dandy,” he answered, feeling his side to make certain that the skin hadn’t split open; it sure as hell felt like it. “I’ll be even dandier once this is over with and I’m back on my boat.”

Kaylee appeared at the top of the wall and Mal waved at her frantically before she stood to full height. “Just hang on to the top and then drop down,” he instructed.

The girl did just that, looking as proud as a peacock that she’d come this far at proving herself to be a hero. Wash followed, that same expression fixed firmly on his face, and then bringing up the rear came Jayne, shirt rucked up and an expanse of tanned skin on display for Mal to ogle.

“Seems to me your God’s performed nothing short of a miracle getting us this far, Shepherd,” he said with an accompanying smirk. Jayne’s simple answer was a shock to Mal’s system.

“A little prayer goes a long way.”

With that Jayne touched the tiny emblem of a crucifix that was pinned on to his breast pocket and for the first time in a while Mal was reminded of the man’s faith. Their vacation was well and truly over.

“This way,” said Zoë tersely, taking point and waving them between the deserted barrack huts with the barrel of her gun.

As they ran stealthily through the compound, Mal came to realise more and more how low his fitness level was. Every deep breath resulted in an agonised clenching in his chest and he was unsure how long he’d be able to keep going.

“Y’okay?” asked Jayne, slowing his pace.

“Fine,” Mal snapped, the pain adding extra bite to his answer.

“No you ain’t.”

“Well, I ain’t comfortable, but neither am I falling apart so let’s just get this done with,” Mal muttered. “Forget me and keep Wash and Kaylee covered.”

“Zoë can do that. I ain’t leaving you behind.”

“You’ll do as I tell you.”

“Then you can go to hell ‘cause I ain’t leaving you behind.”

“Down!” hissed Zoë, indicating a pair of soldiers who were coming their way.

She hustled Wash and Kaylee around the back of a row of dumpsters while Mal and Jayne, who were trailing the other three by some way, ducked behind a low wooden fence.

Mal checked to see how close the guards were, watching them for a moment as they stood talking to each other. Once convinced that they were out of earshot, he put to words what was preying on his mind. “I ain’t certain you’re not going to turn out to be the liability rather than me or Kaylee. In earnest, Jayne, you have so many issues going on inside that head of yours that I don’t think you know which way is up. I’m thinking it’d be for the best if you turn tail and head back to your pretty little church right now.”

Jayne stared at him. “I ain’t got a problem.”

“Can you kill a man if needs be?”

“Done it before.”

“And yet you’re still moping about it now.”

“Nowhere near as clear cut as that.” Even in near darkness Jayne looked torn up and as miserable as sin.

“If you’re here on some misguided notion that I need someone to look after me, you couldn’t be more redundant if you tried.”

Jayne leaned in closer, one hand splayed on the ground to support him. “Listen up, you arrogant piece of shi , Simon and Inara are my friends, townsfolk I minister to, and if you think I’m only here to keep your arse from getting shot to gorram hell, well-”

Mal closed the gap between them and kissed the man hard and swift on his lips. It was brief but passionate and afterwards, hunkered down with an array of weaponry squashed between them, they rested foreheads together.

“Got things to talk through with you and I ain’t leaving Bonneville ‘til they’re said.” Mal spoke in a hushed voice, breathless for too many reasons to sum up right now.

Jayne kissed him back, fierce and determined, his tongue pushing its way between Mal’s lips and it was succinct enough for Mal to know the shepherd’s feelings on the matter.

“Sir?”

There was a pause while the two men looked at each other and then Mal peered over the fence.

“Clear,” said Zoë with a nod.

Wounds still hurting like a bitch, Mal was relieved to make it as far as the entrance to the jailhouse. He peered inside and saw at least two men present on guard duty.

“Things may get a sight more tricky from now on,” he murmured.

Kaylee was kneeling, prising open a small junction box with her knife, “Can I borrow your flashlight, Shepherd,” she asked.

The big man handed it over.

“If’n you just wait a while I can maybe make things less tricky,” she mumbled, holding the maglite between her teeth and peering in at the wiring.

“Ain’t got time, little girl,” said Jayne throwing a concerned look in Mal’s direction. “I’ll take the big ‘un and, Zoë, you can get the other,” he added. “Rest of you can cover us.”

“Little bit longer,” muttered Kaylee. “Just got to figure out the scheme.”

“Like Jayne said, we can’t hang around,” said Mal. Weighing up the situation he’d quickly come to the conclusion that like it or not--and he surely didn’t like it--Jayne’s solution was the only option available to them. He may have been foolhardy, but he wasn’t crazy enough to think he was ready for a full on fist fight. “Go,” he hissed, covering with his rifle and following on behind, with Wash left protecting Kaylee while she worked at whatever it was she was doing.

Mal watched with grudging admiration as Zoë and Jayne took out the two guards; Zoë silencing her man with a quick fire round from her electron pistol while Jayne relied upon more basic methods, knocking the other guard out with a precise blow to the back of his head from the butt of his pistol.

“Clear,” said Zoë.

“’Nara?” Mal looked up and down both corridors.

“In a cell, Malcolm,” came that sarcasm-laced voice from behind the one of the metal grill doors. “Did you think I’d be hiding in the closet?”

“Hey, missy, if you want out I suggest you keep that tone out of your voice or I might find someone more polite to break out of jail.” Mal stared at the keypad on the door and tapped out a rhythm on the bars as he tried to recall the newest of the fed codes. “I’ve heard there’s a pretty doctor locked up somewhere.”

“Too pretty for you,” laughed Inara.

“Excuse me, but-” Simon was interrupted by a buzz and then a clanking as the entry doors to the cell section sprang open.

“Looks like I ain’t forgotten everything useful” said Mal, striding along the corridor and peering behinds bars to find Inara and Simon who were staring at him with equally impatient looks from the bunk of their shared cell.

“How are you both today then?” he said.

“Better than you by the look of things, said Simon, his eyes glued to the red patch that was staining the side of Mal’s breeches.

“Why d’ya think I’m springing you?” Mal grinned, although it was becoming harder and harder to smile through the pain. “Food good? Last time I was holed up in an Alliance jail, I swear they fed me the slops the pigs refused to eat.”

All the time he was talking he was tapping away at the keypad on the cell door and becoming more and more frustrated at the blinking red light.

“Gorramit!” He aimed a fierce and agonising kick at the electronic lock.

“I think security is a little greater than-”

When the door sprang open Mal entered triumphantly and Simon was silenced for the second time in less than five minutes, but then a shrill alarm sounded out and steel shutters descended, trapping the three of them inside the six by six box.

“Mal Reynolds to the rescue.” Inara shook her head. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”

“I thought you said there wasn’t an Alliance base you couldn’t gain access to?”

If Simon hadn’t had such a look of worry on his face then Mal could easily have punched him for that smartarse tone. “I’m in, ain’t I?” he muttered. “I never said out was as easy.”

There was a slamming on the heavy shuttering. “Hey, Mal! Zoë’n I are stuck tighter than a rat in a trap here. Got any ideas?”

It was good to hear that familiar rumbling voice even if the man was in an equally difficult predicament. “Not as such, Jayne. ‘Less you remembered to bring the acetylene cutters.”

“’Fraid not.”

“We’re looking humped, Sir,” shouted Zoë.

As shots fired off outside, Mal reckoned that his partner was more then likely right and when everything went pitch black he was even more convinced that they were all done for.

“Mal?”

Inara sounded scared. That was something very new and Mal didn’t like it. Nerves shot to pieces, the sudden rattling sound startled him into an actual jump then, once he realised it was only the shutters raising, he fumbled his way forwards, colliding with a mountain of solid warm man.

“You’re hurt bad.” That voice was still full of caring.

“Just torn up some is all. I’ll be fine.”

“Soon as we get out of here you get the doc to fix you up again, you hear,”

“I’m hearing you clear.”

“Any thoughts on the getting out part, Sir?”

“I’ve tripped the power and comms for the whole camp, Cap’n.” The Maglite lit up a small area but it was enough for Mal to make out the mechanic’s face. “If’n you’d have just waited five.”

“Thanks, Kaylee,” answered Mal a mite sheepishly. He was gonna have to learn to have faith in his newest crew member’s skills.

They hurried away from the prison block before any other troops arrived, Zoë leading the way with the others following in a line after her.

Coming to a halt outside one of the disused barracks, Mal scoped the area using the night vision glasses. There were bodies mustering along the walls of the compound and it didn’t look as if they’d be able to leave the same way as they’d come in.

“Could take one of the vehicles from the mech pool?” suggested Zoë.

Mal zoomed in with his binoculars. “That’s one area they’re keeping a tight lockdown on.”

“I could cause a diversion,” said Jayne. “Don’t reckon there’s that many men left on the base so it wouldn’t take much.”

“And how are you intending to do that, Shepherd? Gonna organise a baptism party?” Pain and frustration had a habit of making Mal tetchy.

“Got a couple of smoke canisters and grenades on me,” said Jayne. “Figure they might do it. I’ll run straight for the main gates setting off a smoke screen. You head for the motor pool, pick up a jeep or a hover and drive like gorram hell out of here, picking me up along the way.”

“Fine ‘cepting I’ll be the one doing your part.”

Jayne snorted with laughter. “And how are you gonna manage that when you can barely walk?”

“He’s right, Mal,” said Zoë calmly. “Question is can you do it, preacher?”

“Worth a try, I reckon. I know some about ordnance.”

“Figured you did,” said the woman.

Hazy moonlight lit up the surrounding area enough for Mal to make out Jayne’s silhouette. He grabbed his arm and edged him one side far away from the group so they could exchange a few private words.

“This is gorram foolish even for me,” he muttered.

“Good thing it ain’t you doing it then.”

The humour in Jayne’s voice was all about reassurance, but it didn’t do a thing to settle the queasiness in Mal’s belly.

“If you get hurt…” Or worse. Mal swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Then you get to nurse me better.”

“I’m better in bed than beside it so you be safe. We got things to talk out, remember.”

Jayne gripped his hand tight, forearms lifted, thumbs crossed and it was a promise, a vow that had Mal hurting deep inside. Pulling the big man into a hug he held on tight, weakened emotionally and physically by blood loss and fear.

“I’ll do my best,” murmured Jayne, his lips grazing Mal’s cheek.

It was the nearest they could get to a goodbye kiss in the midst of this chaos.

Breaking free from the big man, Mal tried not to think and tried not to feel the pain that was eating him up from the inside out.

“Wait five after the first explosion then head for the pool,” said Jayne.

“We’ll wait two,” said Zoë emphatically. “Good luck, Shepherd.”

Mal couldn’t watch the big man go. Instead he raised the field glasses to his eyes and kept them fixed on the garage. There was a cloud of thick white smoke and then the roar of a low grade explosion and Mal watched as thermal images of bodies raced out from the motor pool.

“Go!” he yelled, ignoring any previously arranged timescale.

The place was almost deserted; a couple of rounds dealt with the remaining guards then Zoë hustled everyone inside the hangar-like building.

“How are you holding up, Mr Reynolds?” asked Simon as Mal leant against the corrugated wall, breathing heavily, barrel of his gun raised heavenward.

“Not great.” Mal was now certain he wasn’t going to be able to keep this up any longer.

“Kaylee, I need that flashlight here stat,” yelled Simon.

The mechanic hurried over, handing the maglite to the doctor. “The hover’d be best for speed but I can’t get it started in time. Truck’ll be slower but she’s ready to go now and we can fit everyone easy.”

“Do it then, Kaylee.” Mal hissed as Simon pressed him up against the wall and checked out his injuries.

“Laotian ye! I need something to bind these up with now.”

“Ain’t got the time, Doc.”

“Might be a choice of taking the time or dying.”

“Right now I’ll choose death.” Mal tucked in his shirt ignoring the wet stickiness of the material. “After we get out of here I’ll lay down for you as often as you like.”

A utility truck roared to life and Mal watched as Wash assisted Inara into the back then climbed in after her. Forcing his legs to move, he allowed Simon to help him towards the vehicle.

As much as Mal wanted to be in the front he knew he’d be more use in the back. Zoë’d be far better off taking shotgun right now. Biting his lip to silence a yelp of agony, he let Wash pull him up inside the covered rear then wedged himself into as comfortable position as possible, propped up between the bench seat and a mound of tarpaulin.

“Shoot everything you see that ain’t Jayne,” he yelled as the truck drove at high speed out of the pool, heading for the gates of the compound.

The air was a mess of chemicals and dust and Mal struggled to retain his composure.

“Mal?” Inara’s voice was cooling and pleasant, an oasis of calm, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to hear right now.

“Keep shooting, ‘Nara.”

Ripping a hole in the canvas cover of the truck, Mal switched to his submachine gun, pumping out bullets with accuracy at any purple bellies who emerged through the smoke.

They were closing in fast on the exit, but there was still no sign of the preacher. Then, through the swirling smoke, Mal saw the electric yellow glow of a chemlight.  If anyone was going to have glowsticks on them it’d be Jayne.

Making his way to the forward half of the truck, he ripped more canvas with his bayonet and leant out dangerously far, Simon lurching towards him and hanging onto his waist to anchor him safely inside the truck.

“Zo!” Mal yelled, bashing on the side of the door with his fist.

The woman looked around in confusion, almost catching him with the butt of her rifle.

“That way,” he shouted, indicating the fading yellow light just to the east side of the exit.

“Yes, Sir.”

Zoë disappeared back inside the cab then immediately after that the truck changed direction and Mal stared into the fog of war, trying to pick out the shepherd amongst debris, human and otherwise.

“Jayne,” he shouted at first sight of that hefty body laying face down in the dirt. He would have done anything to jump out of the truck, but his legs had turned momentarily to lead.

Zoë was first to Jayne’s side quickly followed by Wash. It was a victorious feeling when Mal saw them help the man to his feet.

“He’s fine,” said Inara gently.

“That he is.” Mal could have sang out with happiness when Jayne joined him in the back, but he wasn’t love struck enough to have been overly gushy on the subject. Not in public anyhow. “Now can we please get the gorram hell out of this place?” he snapped. “Rescuing ain’t my style.”

“I think you could be wrong about that, Malcolm.” Even in the semi-darkness, Inara’s knowing smile was a mite disconcerting.

Up ‘til now Mal hadn’t dared risk a glance in Jayne’s direction and the shepherd looked to be feeling the same way, leaning out and throwing his final grenade in the direction of the security gates as soon as they were safely through. But once the explosions and the rattle of gunfire had stopped, the big man clicked the safety on his assault rifle and approached Mal, collapsing down next to him on the wooden bench seat. The other occupants huddled a strategic distance away.

“Told you I’d be okay.”

“You did too,” answered Mal. “And you weren’t wrong. I’m beginning to think God is keeping an eye out for you.”

“God wouldn’t be too keen on watching over a man doing a whole lot of killing.”

“Way I look at things there’s killing and then there’s killing. Today we done the good kind.”

“You reckon?” Jayne looked at him quizzically, thrown about a little as the engine coughed unhappily.

“I do.”

“Never looked at things that way.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Then maybe I’ll try.”

This was all fine, but it weren’t the conversation Mal had been wanting, and try as hard as he might he couldn’t think of any way to bring that one about. Soon as they got to the shuttle then that’d be it for ’em. Over.

“You can write me,” said Jayne tentatively.

“Qingwa cao de liumang!” The things that needed to be said weren’t gonna be best done by biannual correspondence. He had no urge to be the man’s pen pal.

“Mal?”

“It ain’t you I’m mad at, Jayne.” Now that he’d been sat a while Mal wasn’t feeling quite so faint. Neither was he feeling as faint-hearted as usual. “Come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“I need you to.”

“Don’t push me on this.”

“Short of kidnapping you it’s the only option I have.” Mal tried to find a smirk but that was an impossible task. These muttered conversations carried out in public were aggravating him beyond all reason and when the truck began to choke and then judder it was almost a welcome distraction.

“What’s up?” asked Wash.

“Sounds to me like we’re out of fuel,” said Mal. This was one of them annoying details it was easy to forget when boosting yourself a getaway vehicle.

The juddering became worse and finally the engine coughed and spluttered and ground to a halt. Within seconds Zoë and Kaylee appeared at the back.

“Gas?”

“Sorry, Cap’n.” The mechanic looked down at her boots.

“Not your fault.” Mal got up from his seat and edged his way carefully to the exit. The bleeding had dried up and he was hoping to keep it that way. There was no worse sensation than leaking out a whole load of blood. Gingerly, he hopped down from the open backboard. “Options?”

“We could go an’ get my truck?” suggested Kaylee.

Zoë shook her head. “Walking straight into an angry platoon of purple bellies is not my idea of a fun night out.”

“Then I guess we have no choice but to get to the shuttle by foot,” said Mal, not looking forward to a walk in any direction.

“Can you manage that?” asked Simon.

“Just gonna have to.”

“Direction won't be a problem,” said Jayne as he loaded his weapons. “Just keep to the tree line and follow the river. Shuttle should be about two clicks from here.”

Right now two clicks was all the way to hell and back as far as Mal was concerned.

“I’ll keep with you,” said Jayne. “Carry you if’n I have to.”

“Not gonna happen.” Mal smiled wanly at him. “I’m okay. I ain’t good at playing the hero, you know.”

“Outlaws don’t tend to make the best champion types.” Jayne grinned, brushing his hand against Mal’s back. His fingers drifted downwards and, even in this situation, Mal still managed to feel vaguely turned on.

“Watch your step, preacher man, or I’ll drag you into the woods and have my way with you.”

“And don’t that sound good right now.”

Everything about Jayne ticked all Mal’s boxes: the banter and the companionship just adding to the immense physical attraction between them. Gorramit, he’d never wanted to have these kinds of feelings for anyone.

The walk wasn’t impossible going; the ground was even and Mal kept up a relatively fast pace at the back, but staying close to the others. All was looking good until the roar of hover motors indicated they weren’t alone.

“North into the woods,” yelled Jayne, taking Mal’s arm and helping him along.

“We’re cut off.” Zoë came to a dead halt and looked out at the open meadow in front of them. Two hovers were already patrolling the area near the river.

“Gotta get to the church,” shouted Jayne, his left arm supporting Mal as the two men headed across the open meadow.

“Feng le preacher. Gonna get us killed.” Zoë looked at them from where she was crouched down in the trees.

“Just do as he says,” yelled Mal, firing off shots at the feds with his revolver as he made a valiant effort to run for the cover of the buildings.

Wash watched as Kaylee and Simon ran up the hill then looked imploringly at Zoë.  “Come on!” he urged.

With a frown she did as he asked and, bending over low, followed him up to the top of the ridge, guns blazing as she went.

Thank Christ the church was kept unlocked. Practically falling up the side steps and in through the transept door, Mal ushered the others inside while Jayne hunkered down behind a low brick wall, keeping the feds at bay with a barrage of bullets.

Worried that their luck was about to run out, Mal ducked down and slapped Jayne around the rear to get his attention. “Get inside now, you big hundan,” he hissed, “’less you want us both killed out here.”

Once the two of them were safe they joined the others in securing the building. Heavy pews were stacked against the doors and the moment there was nothing more to be done, Zoë stood glaring at Jayne, her hands set belligerently on her hips.

“Great idea! What do we do now? Sit and wait for them to blow a hole through the wall?”

“Get out through the snazzy secret passage that we’re hoping they haven’t heard about would be my choice,” said Wash. “There is a secret passage isn’t there?” He looked at the shepherd, eyes wide with anxiety.

“There is for certain ‘cause I been in it,” said Kaylee proudly.

Jayne walked over to the lectern and from the depths of its ornate wooden structure pulled out a crow bar then, stepping down from the plinth, he walked to the furthest edge of the west transept and levered out one of the stone slabs from its bed.

“Always meant to have some kind of mechanism to open this up, but never got around to it,” he said. “Hoped it would never be needed. It’s gonna be a bitch to secure.”

Wash looked down at the stone steps leading to a subterranean vault. “Is there any kind of light down there?” he asked.

Jayne handed him a couple of chemlights. “Not straight off, but once you get further in there is. There’s a room sandwiched between the crypts. Best if you wait in there.”

Wash took the sticks from him and looked dubiously down into the hole. “Rotting corpses in the dark, my favourite,” he said with a grimace.

“Folk down there are long dead. Just dust and bones is all that’s left of them,” said Jayne.

“Oh good, I feel a whole lot better now,” said Wash, urging Zoë to the front and handing her the chemlights, “After you, honey.”

“Gee thanks.” Zoë snapped a stick and descended into the darkness below, the eerie glow coming up from the hole more than a little disturbing. Wash looked at the pit once again before gritting his teeth and climbing down.

“I ain’t scared,” said Kaylee a little too merrily to be convincing. “Come on, Simon.”

Mal watched Jayne wander away into the main body of the church, looking around at the painted frieze like he’d never seen it before.

“I should see to Mr Reynolds’s injuries first,” said the doctor.

“They’ll wait,” said Mal. “I got some talking to do.”

“But?”

“The private kind of talking.”

“Come on, Simon,” insisted Kaylee. “They’ll be along in their own good time.”

The doctor gazed in consternation at the two men then, with an expression of slow realisation filtering through onto his pretty features, he disappeared all of a sudden down into the entrance to the crypt.

Filled with a flood of relief at finally getting some peace, Mal sank down onto the altar step and watched as Jayne stopped his prowling and came to a halt next to the shifted stone slab.

“You need to go now.” The man stared blankly down into the hole in the floor.

“We need to go I’m thinking you meant to say.” Mal could see what moonbrained notion was inside the preacher’s head and he weren’t gonna let him move any further in that particular direction.

“Someone needs to close up. Can’t do it from underneath.”

“I don’t reckon you know that to be the truth at all.” Mal could hear the voices of the fed soldiers gathering outside and he had a worrisome notion of what they were about to do. History loved to repeat itself. “Come with me and try at least.”

“I ain’t leaving.”

“They can get themselves another shepherd.” It was long past time for some truth telling. “But I can’t get myself another you.”

Jayne looked at him like he was cracking up on the inside. “I owe folks,” he said, his voice all strangled up with guilt.

“I ain’t such a dumb son of a bitch as you think, Jayne. I figured out a while back you’re one of them Browncoats got trapped here during the war.”

In truth Mal had worked it out just a few scant minutes ago, but the story had been sitting there waiting for him to piece together for a while.

“The only one.” Jayne approached him, funereally slow. “Let me take a look at them wounds.”

Mal pulled back his coat and shirt then turned so Jayne could see the extent of the damage.

“They need seeing to real quick. Best if you get down into the crypt and let the doc look after you.”

There was an odd crackling sound from outside and Mal knew in his heart that those gorram purple bellies had fired the church just as he reckoned they would. “You ain’t staying here.” He got painfully to his feet, reaching out for Jayne, his hands resting on the man’s shoulders.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong ‘cause I ain’t leaving. Not this time.”

“Making yourself miserable weren’t easing your guilt enough so now you’re reckoning on dying for the cause. That ain’t a God-fearing thing to do in my opinion, preacher.” Leaning in close, Mal studied the man. “Are you even a preacher?”

The catcalls from the soldiers was being drowned out by the whoosh of flames as they caught a hold of the wooden timbers.

“Just started out as a town shepherd before the war.” Jayne was looking right at Mal, but with this glazed expression on his face. “Then when the Alliance came to Nova wreaking their usual kind of havoc I joined up with the Independents. Was platoon sergeant as well as being padre.”

“Sir?”

Zoë peeked out from the hole in the floor, but Mal silenced her with a hand. He wasn’t gonna die here--no-one was gonna die here if he could help it--but the shepherd had been carrying this load for too long now and he was gonna buckle under if he kept struggling on. If talking didn’t work then plan B was to use the electron pistol that was tucked away in his pocket to stun the man and drag him clear.

“What happened here, Jayne?”

“Our platoon had been transferred to a different quadrant and on the way we picked up a faint distress call. We landed just outside Bonneville, but there were too many purple bellies. I made the wrong decision.”

“Townsfolk don’t seem to think that.”

“Townsfolk feel as guilty as I do I reckon.” Jayne studied the floor. “When we were overrun they told us to take shelter in the church. I heard the troopers outside then it started getting like an incinerator as the building caught fire proper. Couldn’t see straight, smoke burning my eyes and filling my lungs but then I found what I’d been looking for. I opened up the crypt and called to my men and I swear I heard them. Heard Braxton answering back to me and Fields telling me he was on his way.  Heard ‘em all…”

Jayne stared at him with them vacant deep water eyes until Mal was chilled to the bone.

“It was so gorram hot, hotter than hell and the smoke was burning me up, making me choke, making me retch. I waited and I yelled and I waited some more, but then when I couldn’t breathe no more I slid the vault door shut. I put my hands over my ears but I could still hear the screaming as they burnt up to cinders. Can still hear it now when I close my eyes.”

“Jayne,” said Mal, pulling the man close to him. “For fear of being a broken record, why is hurting yourself gonna bring your squad back?”

The church was filling up with wood smoke tainted with chemicals from the paint. It was hard to see and harder to breath and Mal was feeling decidedly woozy.

“I was a mess when they pulled me out of that crypt,” continued Jayne. “People here in Bonneville nursed me back to health. They built up this church and made it a memorial to them who died. I owe them, Mal.”

“So come with me down this gorram hole of yours and pay your dues by being their celibate holy man for the rest of your days. You ain’t gonna work off that debt by dying. Your excuse is plain old fashioned shi. You feel bad and you wanna die ‘cause of it. Don’t think you’re the only one who’s been so pent up with depression they’re set on a path of suicide.”

“Not so.”

“Self-destruct ain’t always about drinking oneself into an early grave.”

“I ain’t certain…”

“If you ain’t certain then come with me.”

If they waited about any longer the speechifying was gonna be a case of too little too late. The church was alive with fire, flames dancing up the aisle pews like a drunken wedding party and soon their only means of escape would be cut off. Mal either had to convince Jayne to leave immediately, or stun him and risk the chance of not being able to shift that big deadweight body.

“If you die in here then I die with you. If you come with me then we both live and you get to choose what to do next.”

Ripped in two from pain and surrounded by flames was hardly the way Mal had imagined his most romantic kiss would come about, but when his grimy dry lips met up with Jayne’s, it was better than anything he’d dreamt of as a lovestruck kid.

"Reckon you're right. I’ll come with you.”

“Xie xie.” Tired beyond belief Mal let Jayne be his prop, guiding him through the billow of smoke and flames. It seemed fitting. The initial stages of this rocky relationship of theirs had been all wrong somehow, but the latter part had been a case of getting to know each other intimately. And, along the way, Mal had started thinking about others.

“Sir?” Zoë was waiting for him and helping him down into the dark dank air of the crypt.

Others who’d been there for him all the time.

“Jayne?” he hollered as the hole was sealed and the soft darkness became a deep pitch black.

“'M here, baobei.”

~~****~~

When Mal awoke he was back in that tiny box of a room curled up on a way too small army cot. His muscles were stiff and his side still hurt, but his head was no longer that vacuous hole in space.

“Hello there, Mr Reynolds. How are you feeling?” The doctor loomed over him protecting him from the glare of the bulkhead lights.

“Why does everyone keep asking me how I am?”

“Because you almost died from blood loss. Kaylee here's been nursing you, keeping your fluids up.”

“Thanks, little Kaylee.” Mal’s voice came out like a croak.

“You’re welcome, Cappy.” The girl's expression was shiny and happy and made Mal forget she had just called him the most annoying name ever.

Parched from thirst Mal sat up in the cot taking a bottle of water from the doctor and drinking it down deep. “Where’re the others?” he asked.

“Seeing if it’s safe out,” said Simon, sitting next to Mal and checking his pulse. “Last time they looked the rectory was filled with purple bellies plundering stuff.”

“So Jayne ain’t got much left then?” Mal felt bad for him remembering how nice his home had once been.

“I think he has a whole lot more than he started with.” Kaylee smiled at him.

Wash stuck his head around the door. “All’s good to go, guys. Nandi told Inara that that feds cleared out of town soon as they’d finished looting the shepherd’s house.”

“They left with a warning though,” said Inara from behind him. “Said if any of us had escaped the fire we were all to be considered criminals of the state. We have a price on our heads.”

Mal couldn't help but snigger a little.

“Me!” Inara looked at him in horror. “A common criminal.”

“Not so common, ‘Nara. Not with all that companion training. Reckon you’re a high class criminal myownself.”

“Malcolm,” she snarled and it had to be said it was kind of a turn on.

“You can always rent out one of my shuttles for business purposes.” Mal was feeling better by the minute.

Inara examined her nails. “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.”

“Well then, we have a deal as soon as we can agree on payment.”

“Is that all you ever think of?” Inara rolled her eyes.

“Not all.” Far from all in actuality, and right now Mal was set to find out what had happened to that other thing his brain had a tendency to focus on a lot of the time.

He swung both legs around to the side of the cot then pulling on his pants, which he'd found in a convenient heap on the floor, he got slowly to his feet.

“What are you doing?” questioned Simon.

“I have a sudden fervent desire for confession.” Mal winked at the doctor.

The floor was cold and he looked around for his boots squeezing bare feet into them and zipping up the sides. The room was overcrowded and smelt of earth and sweaty humanity and Mal was glad to be out into the cool dankness of the crypt. Even more so when he was accosted by Jayne.

“Mal!”.

That big deep voice rumbled low and soothing and Mal knew he shouldn’t like it when the man called him that, but there was no denying that he did. “Take me to bed, preacher.”

“Thought you’d be wanting us to get away from here in that shuttle craft of yours.”

Mal’s grin went from ear to ear and he was glad it was dark so no-one could see how dumb he must look. He’d been convinced that, whatever the circumstances, the preacher was permanently glued to this town.

“That’s if’n you want me still.”

“Oh I want you, Jayne. But right now I want you naked in that big old bed of yours. You ain’t had the pleasure of seeing my tiny bunk on Serenity.”

“Had the pleasure of you though.” Jayne kissed him deep and thorough. “Want the pleasure of you again and again.”

“Suggest you get a room, Sir.” Zoë was silhouetted in the doorway.

“’Bout to, Zo and don’t be disturbing us for a while now, you hear.”

It wasn’t the easiest of tasks getting out from the subterranean levels and up into the light. It was even harder negotiating the stairs with lips locked together in limpet fashion.

The bedroom was a ransacked mess. ‘Bout the only thing in it that wasn’t smashed up was the bed, but that was all they needed and they fell onto it, sucking at tongues, fingers pulling at clothes and scrabbling to get each other naked. Mal wondered when smoke and sweat and dirt had become so erotic: when pain stopped being an issue and all he cared about was having his mouth on Jayne’s and his hand wrapped around that ji ba.  With Jayne laying next to him, eyes half-closed, shaking and coming and jerking him hard with a tight wet fist, Mal knew somehow that having a qing ren was only going to be a good thing. And when Jayne slid down between his legs, sucking him deep into his mouth, Mal knew that they’d fight and sulk and fuck hard to make up, but the caring wouldn’t go away however mad they were with each other.

The sex was over quick for both of ‘em. Jayne fell asleep immediately, piled up against him, arm wrapped tight around his body, and as Mal breathed in the smoke he knew that even if things did begin to fall apart he’d remember the smell of burning and know to make things right.

~~****~~

They left Bonneville in the early hours of the next morning: a preacher, a mechanic, a bartender, a doctor, a companion and two outlaws. Truth of it was they were a party of seven outlaws now.

As the sun appeared over the ridge of the rectory roof Jayne stopped and turned hefting his bag onto his back and his rifle on his shoulder then took one last long look up the top of the hill, gazing at the smoking remains of the church.

“Any regrets?” asked Mal.

“Just about a million, but I’m starting to find them easier to live with, thanks to you.”

“I’ll keep working on making you a worse man and you keep working on making me a better one and sooner or later we might both get fixed.”

“As long as the fixing still involves some good hard rutting then I’m up for that.”

Jayne was pushing all of them buttons again. Mal adjusted the position of his cock and picked up one end of Jayne’s weapons trunk. “Between you and Inara I don’t reckon we’ll have any room for smuggling cargo on my boat.”

The woods were peaceful. Bonneville was a pretty little town and there was a part of Mal that’d miss all the memories it had brought back, although it had to be said he was as happy as a mud lark to see the shuttle nestled safe and sound inside that clearing.

Once all the gear was loaded and the seven of them were squeezed in between the gaps, Mal came to the conclusion it was more like a family outing than a group of desperadoes on the run from the law. When Wash automatically took the helm he frowned some, but as they broke atmo, speeding like they were in some top class Alliance fighter, Mal had to admit that Wash was a bartender with a flair for flying ships as well as mixing cocktails.

“Is that her?” gasped Kaylee as she gazed out at the Firefly in close orbit around one of the smaller satellites. “Is that Serenity? She’s so shiny.”

“You paid money for that?” Inara looked doubtful.

“She looks a little tired,” said Simon cautiously.

“She don’t appear to have no guns.” Jayne peered at the ship.

“She’s freedom,” said Mal, an inexorable smile breaking out on his face as Wash docked perfectly and he was able to set foot on his boat for the first time in weeks. “Welcome home.”

DONE