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remix_reduxTitle: The Job (Big Little Man Mourning Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriusblcksbbth
Summary: Jayne knows the job has to be done, but he's having trouble doing it alone.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Warnings: Character death
Spoilers: Through the movie, Serenity
Title, Author and URL of original story: Mourning, bylunarknightz
Jayne was a big man, and people tended to equate his overabundance of muscle with an underabundance of tact. As a general rule, they were right. He didn't see the point in pussyfootin' around an issue just to be polite. Many a man had died because they was tryin' to be polite, a good number of them shot dead by Jayne's own hand. Some folk had a natural tendency to ask first, shoot later. Jayne had been reared in the tried and true method of shoot first, interrogate the survivors later. It was Exhibit A in the reasons why he wasn't pushin' up daisies of his own.
Then there were some folk who just didn't understand the need for some good old fashioned violence. Take Wash, for example. He was always a soft little fella; not much more muscle on him than on the crazy girl. Probably less. But then, the crazy girl had just slaughtered a roomful of Reavers with nothing but a couple of blades and a flexible dancer's body. Wash had learned to survive on wit, agility, and the presence of a warrior wife who could hand Jayne his own liver on a silver platter and make him eat it even as he died from the blood loss. She was one helluva woman, that was for sure. What she saw in Wash Jayne would never understand, but it must've been something pretty damn deep.
Which was why there was no way in hell Jayne was going to ask her to help him put the little man in a box.
There wasn't a whole lot of blood. The spike had killed the pilot instantly, and what blood there was had seeped out without the benefit of a pumping heart to keep it flowing. Still, there was something... unnatural about seeing the little man so... still. No drumming fingers, no tapping toes. No stupid little jokes about Jayne's limited vocabulary. He was white as a sheet, lips and fingernails blue, blond hair unnaturally bright against his faded skin.
Jayne had never had a problem around death, but he had a hell of a problem with THIS death. It just weren't right. At least the Preacher got to fight back; land a few good shots at the sumbitches that shot up Haven. But all Wash got was a busted ship and a spear through the gut. How was that right? Wasn't that what all this was about? Doing something right? If this was what happened when you did the right thing, Jayne was all for sin and damnation.
He leaned over the pilot's body and gave the spear an experimental tug. It was stuck fast and didn't budge. A bolt of pain lanced through Jayne's wounded shoulder and he grunted, letting go of the rough, splintery wood. "Sorry 'bout that," he muttered before remembering that Wash was dead, and the only way he'd be hearing Jayne's apology was if he had a comline in the afterlife.
"Huh. If anyone did, it'd be you," Jayne muttered.
He stepped back and stared down at the dead man. Something hot and hard shifted in his chest, and he swallowed down a burn in his throat that he hadn't felt since Canton. The word dead felt weird in his brain, and he was having a hard time matching it up with the man in front of him. He kept thinking of other words to describe the situation: bad, ugly, dumb, wrong, hard, stuck, trouble. The word "dead" kept skimming past his eyes like a half-remembered conversation, making his stomach convulse.
It was easier to think about it if he just thought of it as a "job." He couldn't do this job himself; not with a busted shoulder. He was going to need help, and there weren't a whole lot of people he could ask. Mal was half-dead himself, swearing up a blue streak in an Alliance medical facility. Inara was with him, but Jayne wouldn't have asked for her help anyway. She was a flowery woman, not made for rough work like this. Same went for Kaylee, though the girl knew plenty about getting her hands dirty. It just didn't sit well with him, thinking of her getting those coveralls of hers covered in the little man's dried, jellied blood.
Another burning swallow, and a hard squint against the blur.
Zoe was out of the question. Even if she weren't the little man's missus, she was wounded pretty badly herself. Jayne didn't want to think what would happen if the woman saw her husband like he was right now; dead and blue and still as stone. She was a tough woman, and Jayne didn't much fancy having to watch her eyes die like someone snuffed out her inner candle. He was giving her a wide berth this time around.
Little Crazy? What if she took a look at the carnage and got it in that wooly head of hers that Jayne was a Reaver and he'd killed Wash? Oh no. This job was going to be hard enough without having to fend off loony geniuses. River the Reaver-Killer was out.
That just left one person. Jayne swore under his breath and flopped down in the co-pilot's seat. "I'm gonna have to ask Simon, ain't I?" he said, addressing the question to Wash's dead ears but half-expecting the pilot to answer him anyway. When he didn't, Jayne decided to keep talking to cover the absence of a response. "Suppose it makes sense, him bein' a doctor and all. Suppose he'll know the best way to get that... thing... outta you without tearin' you all up. " The thought of hurting Wash any further made him uncomfortable. He knew it was stupid to think of it as "hurting" when the man was stone dead, but he still couldn't think like that. He kept expecting the little man to sit up and give him a big, goofy grin, like it was all some huge practical joke. "Ha! Gotcha! Isn't this spear a great gimmick? Picked it up at a joke shop when we were on Persephone. I tell you, if you could see the look on your FACE..."
A few minutes passed before Jayne shook himself, turning back to the task at hand. "Well, my daddy always told me that idle hands are the devil's work. I wonder sometimes what he'd think of what I do for a livin', but it doesn't keep me up at night. Man's gotta make a livin'; that was somethin' else he taught me."
He shut up. What was he doing, talking to a dead man? He was going nuttier than Little Crazy.
He pushed himself back to his feet, careful not to tear the stitches in his shoulder. Pausing a moment, he gazed down at the top of Wash's head. The last time he'd been in this cockpit, the little man had been guiding Serenity into Mr. Universe's atmosphere. He realized, with a pang of something dark and painful in his gut, that he hadn't even noticed the pilot at the time; he'd been too focused on all the hairiness going on outside the cockpit window. He didn't have a lot of regrets in his life, but that... That was going to be one of them.
"Be back soon, little man," he muttered. "Gotta fetch the Doc, then we'll get you out."
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. The man was dead.
He was dead.
D-E-A-D.
Nope. Still couldn't see it. Not when he'd seen little girls kill raving monsters, and a crew of pisspoor smugglers break a government like a piece of dry kindling under jackboots. He'd gotten so used to seeing impossible things that it seemed only natural for the dead to come back to life. When he walked out of this cockpit and made his way toward the Common Room, he was going to hear Wash start laughing, hooting and hollering about what a great joke this all was. The thought was so powerful that Jayne almost let himself believe it.
But as he left the cockpit in search of Simon, the only sound he heard was the echo of his own footsteps, and the hollow memory of Wash's laughter ringing in his ears.
THE END
Author:
siriusblcksbbthSummary: Jayne knows the job has to be done, but he's having trouble doing it alone.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Warnings: Character death
Spoilers: Through the movie, Serenity
Title, Author and URL of original story: Mourning, by
lunarknightzJayne was a big man, and people tended to equate his overabundance of muscle with an underabundance of tact. As a general rule, they were right. He didn't see the point in pussyfootin' around an issue just to be polite. Many a man had died because they was tryin' to be polite, a good number of them shot dead by Jayne's own hand. Some folk had a natural tendency to ask first, shoot later. Jayne had been reared in the tried and true method of shoot first, interrogate the survivors later. It was Exhibit A in the reasons why he wasn't pushin' up daisies of his own.
Then there were some folk who just didn't understand the need for some good old fashioned violence. Take Wash, for example. He was always a soft little fella; not much more muscle on him than on the crazy girl. Probably less. But then, the crazy girl had just slaughtered a roomful of Reavers with nothing but a couple of blades and a flexible dancer's body. Wash had learned to survive on wit, agility, and the presence of a warrior wife who could hand Jayne his own liver on a silver platter and make him eat it even as he died from the blood loss. She was one helluva woman, that was for sure. What she saw in Wash Jayne would never understand, but it must've been something pretty damn deep.
Which was why there was no way in hell Jayne was going to ask her to help him put the little man in a box.
There wasn't a whole lot of blood. The spike had killed the pilot instantly, and what blood there was had seeped out without the benefit of a pumping heart to keep it flowing. Still, there was something... unnatural about seeing the little man so... still. No drumming fingers, no tapping toes. No stupid little jokes about Jayne's limited vocabulary. He was white as a sheet, lips and fingernails blue, blond hair unnaturally bright against his faded skin.
Jayne had never had a problem around death, but he had a hell of a problem with THIS death. It just weren't right. At least the Preacher got to fight back; land a few good shots at the sumbitches that shot up Haven. But all Wash got was a busted ship and a spear through the gut. How was that right? Wasn't that what all this was about? Doing something right? If this was what happened when you did the right thing, Jayne was all for sin and damnation.
He leaned over the pilot's body and gave the spear an experimental tug. It was stuck fast and didn't budge. A bolt of pain lanced through Jayne's wounded shoulder and he grunted, letting go of the rough, splintery wood. "Sorry 'bout that," he muttered before remembering that Wash was dead, and the only way he'd be hearing Jayne's apology was if he had a comline in the afterlife.
"Huh. If anyone did, it'd be you," Jayne muttered.
He stepped back and stared down at the dead man. Something hot and hard shifted in his chest, and he swallowed down a burn in his throat that he hadn't felt since Canton. The word dead felt weird in his brain, and he was having a hard time matching it up with the man in front of him. He kept thinking of other words to describe the situation: bad, ugly, dumb, wrong, hard, stuck, trouble. The word "dead" kept skimming past his eyes like a half-remembered conversation, making his stomach convulse.
It was easier to think about it if he just thought of it as a "job." He couldn't do this job himself; not with a busted shoulder. He was going to need help, and there weren't a whole lot of people he could ask. Mal was half-dead himself, swearing up a blue streak in an Alliance medical facility. Inara was with him, but Jayne wouldn't have asked for her help anyway. She was a flowery woman, not made for rough work like this. Same went for Kaylee, though the girl knew plenty about getting her hands dirty. It just didn't sit well with him, thinking of her getting those coveralls of hers covered in the little man's dried, jellied blood.
Another burning swallow, and a hard squint against the blur.
Zoe was out of the question. Even if she weren't the little man's missus, she was wounded pretty badly herself. Jayne didn't want to think what would happen if the woman saw her husband like he was right now; dead and blue and still as stone. She was a tough woman, and Jayne didn't much fancy having to watch her eyes die like someone snuffed out her inner candle. He was giving her a wide berth this time around.
Little Crazy? What if she took a look at the carnage and got it in that wooly head of hers that Jayne was a Reaver and he'd killed Wash? Oh no. This job was going to be hard enough without having to fend off loony geniuses. River the Reaver-Killer was out.
That just left one person. Jayne swore under his breath and flopped down in the co-pilot's seat. "I'm gonna have to ask Simon, ain't I?" he said, addressing the question to Wash's dead ears but half-expecting the pilot to answer him anyway. When he didn't, Jayne decided to keep talking to cover the absence of a response. "Suppose it makes sense, him bein' a doctor and all. Suppose he'll know the best way to get that... thing... outta you without tearin' you all up. " The thought of hurting Wash any further made him uncomfortable. He knew it was stupid to think of it as "hurting" when the man was stone dead, but he still couldn't think like that. He kept expecting the little man to sit up and give him a big, goofy grin, like it was all some huge practical joke. "Ha! Gotcha! Isn't this spear a great gimmick? Picked it up at a joke shop when we were on Persephone. I tell you, if you could see the look on your FACE..."
A few minutes passed before Jayne shook himself, turning back to the task at hand. "Well, my daddy always told me that idle hands are the devil's work. I wonder sometimes what he'd think of what I do for a livin', but it doesn't keep me up at night. Man's gotta make a livin'; that was somethin' else he taught me."
He shut up. What was he doing, talking to a dead man? He was going nuttier than Little Crazy.
He pushed himself back to his feet, careful not to tear the stitches in his shoulder. Pausing a moment, he gazed down at the top of Wash's head. The last time he'd been in this cockpit, the little man had been guiding Serenity into Mr. Universe's atmosphere. He realized, with a pang of something dark and painful in his gut, that he hadn't even noticed the pilot at the time; he'd been too focused on all the hairiness going on outside the cockpit window. He didn't have a lot of regrets in his life, but that... That was going to be one of them.
"Be back soon, little man," he muttered. "Gotta fetch the Doc, then we'll get you out."
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. The man was dead.
He was dead.
D-E-A-D.
Nope. Still couldn't see it. Not when he'd seen little girls kill raving monsters, and a crew of pisspoor smugglers break a government like a piece of dry kindling under jackboots. He'd gotten so used to seeing impossible things that it seemed only natural for the dead to come back to life. When he walked out of this cockpit and made his way toward the Common Room, he was going to hear Wash start laughing, hooting and hollering about what a great joke this all was. The thought was so powerful that Jayne almost let himself believe it.
But as he left the cockpit in search of Simon, the only sound he heard was the echo of his own footsteps, and the hollow memory of Wash's laughter ringing in his ears.
THE END
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