Babblings of a Muppet-Loving Freak

For notes, see Chapter 1

( Chapter 6: When last we left our brave Jayne, he was fleeing Mr. Rochester’s bigamously lewd suggestions on grounds of his high moral character, thereby leaving himself friendless and destitute, stranded in a strange place with no recourse for his livelihood save the kindness of strangers. )

Go to Chapter 7

For notes, see part 1

( Chapter 4: That night Jayne went to sleep with a strange hope brewing in his heart... )

On to Chapter 5

For notes and other apologies to Ms. Bronte, see part 1.

( Chapter 2: When last we left young Jayne Eyre, he was being whisked away to a new life at Lowood, a cheap and unpleasant boarding school )

Onward to Chapter 3

Okay, this one came out to 300 words, so I guess it'd be a triple drabble, technically. This one is for venus_blue, who requested Jayne/Kaylee.

Pure Poetry

“Why can’t you just get your smarmy doctor boy toy to help you out with the gorram compressors?” Jayne muttered as he followed Kaylee into the engine room. “What? He too fancified to get grease under his fingernails?”

“No,” Kaylee said over her shoulder, her ever-present cheerfulness undented. “He’s just all thumbs with things don’t involve sewing folks back together. I ask him in here and he’d wind up setting the whole blame ship on fire like as not.”

Jayne snorted gruffly. “So what exactly is it I’m supposed to do?” he asked, staring at the complicated gizmos that powered Serenity. Mechanical things always made him a little queasy—well, except for guns.

“I need you to wrestle the compressor out of the main drive shaft. It’s stuck tight, and I can’t get it to move,” Kaylee replied, gesturing to a large copper sphere and some lengths of twisted piping.

“Right,” Jayne said, then wrenched it out in less than a second. “What next?”

“Uh, that’d be it,” Kaylee said in surprise. “Thought it’d take longer than that.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t,” Jayne scowled at her, then turned to leave.

“Hey, wait a sec!” she yelled after him. “You don’t have to run off right away!”

“What the hell I wanna stay down in the engine room for?” he snarled.

“Nothing down here interests you at all?” Kaylee asked, her face falling. “I mean… you know… nothing?”

Jayne gave her a hard squint as he tried to process her words. “You tryin’ to bark up my tree?”

Kaylee put on a hand on her hip in exasperation. “Duh!”

“Huh,” he said with a shrug. “Okay then. You want we should do it under the engine or in the hammock?”

“Be still my beating heart,” she laughed.

“So… engine?”

“Engine’s good.”