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Retro-vertigo	By : spaceoddity Category: 1 through F > Firefly Views: 1952 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Firefly universe, with the exception of original characters & settings, is owned by Joss Whedon. Not for profit.

Chapter List
- 1-Ch. 1
- 2-Ch. 2
- 3-Ch. 3
- 4-Ch. 4
- 2
- 3
- 4
Translations:
- “ghuh”= big brother
- “se duhng” = gang/crew/band;
- “mei mei” = little sister
- “pischouette” = little girl
- “dôn” = don't
- “Duhn ruhn”= of course
- “Mais...”= “Well...”
Ch. 3
***
If you were dreaming,
you'd know how long the night was.
***

Jayne Cobb—who had been napping on a sofa in the common area of Serenity's lower level—now bolted upright out of a dead sleep. Force of habit caused him to grip the hunting knife at his side.

The merc glanced quickly around. Seeing no immediate threat, he stood and checked his flanks. Next he peered into the infirmary, then checked the stairwells to the upper decks. The cargo bay appeared empty. And when he saw no evidence of anyone in the corridor to the passenger dorms, Jayne sighed and scratched the back of his head.

As he shoved his knife back into the tan leather sheath, the last remnants of a dream exploded into his consciousness. But the more Jayne tried to recall what had happened, the faster it all slipped away from him.

All he could remember was Perrioc, the small fishing camp on the edge of the swampy forest back home. The perfect spot for partying after hours, long as a man weren't afraid o' snakes an' gators.

And Li was there. Christ.

It wasn't exactly out of the ordinary for Dax's little sister, with her bewitching, mismatched eyes, to have been down Perrioc at any given time. She had tagged along with her ghuh and his se duhng almost everywhere they went for as long as Jayne could remember.

Once, Liana Laveau was gone for a whole summer, and upon her return to Grand Isle, the small island fishing port on Acadiana from which they hailed, Jayne began noticing Li as more than just Dax's mei mei. O' course, it helped that the girl had finally grown a pair of tits.

If she weren't wild before she'd left home—was more of a pest than anything, Jayne recalled, his eye twitching—then she sure as shit was once she'd come back from Town.

Liana took to wearing these skirts that showed off just enough of her stocking clad legs to make her older brother want to kill her. She'd learned how to fight and how to roll spice. Not to mention, the first time Jayne listened to a song she'd written, he'd been impressed enough to want to write a bass line. Which, he reasoned now, had nothing to do with the fact that Shin Shimazu had already added a piano part.

Jayne pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger—his memory had suddenly flashed back to the muddy banks of Perrioc once again. But this time, it was the night Li had returned by boat from her summer in Orlyn. The guys and him had just finished a gig down at T-Man's...

It was well into the night; the after-party had just gotten into full swing.

Jayne, Dax, and Sammy were sitting on a felled tree farther back into the woods, away from the bodies crowded round the fire. Dax was telling him and the guys how different his sister was acting....

And then the girl appeared from the smoky shadows behind them, startling them when she spoke.

“...An' when I ax' her 'bout it,” Dax was saying in a low voice, “she just tell me—”

“Tells you what?” Liana interrupted at once, sneaking through the shadows.

Startled, Sam jumped. Jayne and Chris gave the smaller man a dirty look.

Li hurled the glass bottle in her hand out into the woods, where it smashed against a tree, then turned liquor lit eyes on Dax. Jayne had never seen her trashed before, and he didn't much care for the other guys taking such obvious notice of the girl. But Liana had turned her full attention on the four tight-lipped men.

“Hey, never mind her,” Li said then, making a face. With a mischievous grin, she added, “Ya'll wanna get high?”

“Mei mei,” drawled Dax, his eyes darting back to Liana. “You didn' really bring somethin' back wit you from ol' Orlyn Town, did ya?”

Li grinned, pulling a small pouch from a pocket sewn into her short, billowy skirt.

“Mais bien entendu.” She sang, waving the bag in front of Dax's face. She then quickly snatched it away when he tried to reach for it. “Didn't believe me, did ya?”

When she turned her eyes on him, the glitter in her gray-violet gaze made the breath in Jayne's lungs still for the length of a pair of heartbeats.

“I did, too!” Dax argued, grabbing for the pouch again. With a sneer, his sister jerked it from his reach once more.

“You did not,” she insisted. “Or else ya woulda made me give it to yall sooner.”

“Ah, come on, Li...”

Jayne took the scene in with amusement. He already had one rolled, so he pulled the cig out of his breast pocket.

“That's right,” Jayne spoke up then, his eyes narrowing as he stood and considered the girl before him. He couldn't help silently appreciating the knitted, red and black striped arm warmers she was wearing. She looked real cute in 'em.

As he offered Li the spice Jayne added, “I hear you smoke now.”

Liana only stared at him as she put the cigarette to her lips. Jayne struck a match for her and stared back as she tossed her hair from her face, then leaned in close to his cupped hand to light the cigarette. Li looked frankly up at him as she took a deep drag, blew the pungent smoke over his shoulder.

“So?”

At that point, Dax leaned forward and snatched the pouch from her fingers, held the leaf up for inspection. Jayne didn't give Li a chance to notice.

“So,” he replied with a mischievous grin played up by firelight. He took a small step closer toward her. “What else is new, pischouette?”

As it happened, a lot was new, but she'd had no intention of letting anyone in on what it was.

Jayne knew she'd had it hard growing up. When they were young, Dax told him about their parents' murder/suicide. Dax and his sister found their 'ol man hanging by his neck from a beam in the old barn at the end of Satiny Lane. This was after they'd found their mother shot through her heart with a .357 revolver slug.

Her brother was always real protective of her because of this, Jayne mused. Dax had threatened Jayne and the guys more than once about getting involved with Li. But when she'd returned to Grand Isle from her summer in Orlyn years ago, Dax couldn't help expressing his own concern at his lil' sister's odd behavior and distance.

And Li never wanted to talk about it, just like she'd never talk about that night the Reavers...

Well, even Jayne didn't like to talk about Reavers.

But when Jayne found out the real reason she was wearing arm warmers and long sleeves in the middle of summer, he'd gone red with rage. He'd never believed she'd possessed that much malevolence or hatred...

At once, another thud had Jayne looking up at the corridor that led to the passenger dorms with a frown. He figured it had to be River knocking about and causing trouble. Intending to give her a piece of his mind, he approached the corridor silently.

When he rounded the small bend to the left, he saw a light shining from one of the rooms on the upper deck. The room belonged to River Tam's, nor to her brother and Serenity's fancy pants doctor, Simon.

When did we pick up passengers? Jayne wondered. How long did I sleep??

Jayne kept his back to the hull as he slowly climbed the ladder. On the gangplank, he gave pause. His nostrils flared. As the draft from a fan built into the ceiling gently passed over his head, Jayne Cobb suddenly detected a chillingly familiar scent wafting on the air. With a frown, he peered cautiously into the room.

Her back was to him, and she was on tiptoe, her arms outstretched as she tried to place a black case in a high overhead compartment built into the hull. Her black boots didn't have much heel to them, Jayne noticed, as his eyes traveled up the backs of her legs. They were encased in black stockings; a short, pleated, black and blue plaid skirt hung round tantalizing hips. A dark blue, long sleeved jacket covered her torso and arms.

Jayne rubbed his eyes. He thought he was dreaming again as he squinted at the petite young woman standing at the other end of the small room.

Her auburn hair was longer than he remembered—it spilled over her slender shoulder blades—but everything else seemed exactly the same.

And that smell.

The smell of sweet fields, and green things, and graveyard shrines back home...

Have to know...

Jayne began walking slowly through the doorway.

“Need a hand with that, darlin'?”

He was still stepping toward her when she spun around to face him. He halted in the middle of the room, watching her mismatched eyes widen and her plump lips part on a silent gasp. The case in her hands fell to the floor with a soft thud. Jayne couldn't hide a grin.

“Y-y-you're here,” Liana stuttered.

“In the flesh.”

***
There is no safe way out of here. No passage below the dungeon.
No mother ship will save you. So goes the rapture of Riddley Walker.
***

Liana had to fight the sudden urge to reach up and touch her ear. She began hearing a high pitched whine, almost like the hearing exams she was administered as a child. She often felt her super-sonic hearing was attributed to her hearing implant going screwy. Other times, it felt like an alarm bell, warning her of some impending doom.

She frowned at the stutter in her voice. Li had expected to run into Jayne again, one of these days. After all, they hailed from the same hometown. She was bound to run into him on Grand Isle at one point or another. His mama still sent greeting cards to Li's auntie on New Year's.

But the small transport vessel that Shin had commissioned to take her and the band back to Acadiana was the last place she'd ever thought to see this dark haired man.

“Jayne Cob,” she recovered thoughtfully. How many years...

“Liana.”

His voice seemed to come out in a hoarse sort of whisper. They stared each other down for a long, tense moment. However, when he finally reached out, as though to touch her, Liana tensed and took a weary step back.

Jayne frowned; his large frame blocked the sliding wooden door from view. Li was a bit surprised to see the goatee around his lips and chin, but his deep green eyes and incorrigible grin were unmistakable. This man was Jayne, all right.

Jayne had played in her brother's band when they were in school. Well, Liana thought wryly, till they both quit school.

At that, an old thought entered her mind then: how much she had resented the very man, standing before her now, back then. Somehow, she still remembered that her brother had dropped out right before he would have been a junior student in their secondary school; she would have been a freshmen, as well as the fact that she would have had an older brother to traverse the corridors with during those seemingly awful years.

But Dax had met Jayne Cobb about a year prior, started a band with Chris Gautreaux, Skinny Sam, and eventually, Shichiro Shimazu. And, just like that, both Jayne and Li's big brother decided to drop out of school.

They had all practically grown up together. But now, she didn't know what to say to the man standing before her. She hadn't spoken to Jayne in over five years, and although the years looked to have been kind to him, she didn't really know if she knew the man in front of her. Once, he'd known her better than anyone. But now...?

“What're you doin' here?” Li finally said after a palpable silence. She had already accepted that her only practical escape route was cut off.

Pretending to act unaffected, she bent down to retrieve the case at her feet. Jayne anticipated her movement and got to it first. When Liana moved to take the container away from the man, he snatched the long metal case from her reach. She huffed audibly.

“Was just thinkin' 'bout ya, actually,” Jayne replied honestly, arching his eyebrows as he smiled even wider. He then, turned the small case in his hands, examining the metal clasps and hinges. He held it to his ear shook it. Frowning now, he held the case up for inspection.

“How did ya get here Jayne Austin Cobb?”

Liana almost stamped her foot like a child; she couldn't help the rushed statement. This was too odd a coincidence for her right now. She couldn't even track him down when her brother died. And now he was standing in front of her, acting like it was old times again!

Typical. Liana relaxed the fist she hadn't realized she'd made.

Jayne popped the latch on the case saying, “I'm just tryin' to help, Li. Ain't no need fer hostilities. Whatcha got in here?” he asked, a mischievous twinkle in his green eyes.

“Mind ya business, Jayne. Give it back!” Again, Li balled up her fist and punched him straight in the arm. Jayne lifted the box above his head, his green eyes glittering and his lips curled into a smile. To Liana, it looked like the smile of a wolf who had its pray.

“What?” he asked now, mock innocently. “Somethin' ya don't want me t' see?” Jayne locked eyes with her, then lifted the lid. When he dropped his gaze momentarily to what was inside, he frowned, then captured her now amused gaze.

Inside the metal case was a slightly smaller wooden box.

“If ya wanna help me,” Li responded curtly as she pointed toward the compartment she was too short to reach. “Den put it up dere an' leave it alone.”

“Duhn ruhn,” Jayne muttered. He re-latched the lid and took a step closer.

“When did ya come aboard, anyway, Li?” he asked now, as though he just remembered what day and time it was.

Liana was relieved that the preliminaries were out of the way, but she became irritated at the seeming fact that Jayne Cobb was now expecting answers from her that he had no intention of answering himself.

She sidestepped so he could get to the shelf and used to opportunity to take another few steps closer the doorway. Her act was simple. Short, sweet, and above all, uncensored.

But there was no frigging way she was going to let the rest of the guys see her acting like a child in front of Jayne frigging Cobb.

“A few days ago,” she finally answered begrudgingly. She gave him a hard stare.

“What about you, Jayne? How long have you been here?”

“On Serenity?” the merc replied. He was rubbing his chin as he turned to face her. “Bout a year, I guess.” His face took on a thoughtful look that almost made Liana want to giggle at him. His eyes screwed up and his mouth contorted into a dumb, ape-looking appearance. Exactly as she remembered him. This moment was fleeting, however, as a new realization came to her.

“A whole year, Jayne?” Liana was stunned.

“Yeah, somethin' like that. Hey, Li...” Jayne said, almost urgently now, his hands coming to rest on his hips. Suddenly, his features became shadowed with concern as he moved closer to her.

“You ain't travelin' alone, are ya?”

Liana glared.

“So what if I was?” she retorted. “I s'pose can travel alone iffin I wanna. You ain't my daddy.”

Damn the man for bringing out her whiny inner child. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want to be having this conversation with him as though everything was as it had once been between them. Too much had changed for her in over half a decade.

But he was still the same old Jayne.

“You ain't,” Jayne decided firmly, his eyes narrowing. “Who's with you?”

Li lowered her eyes. She didn't have the heart to tell him who wasn't with her. She turned her back to him and took a step toward the door. Then she paused and threw a look at him over her shoulder.

“Mais...why don' you come see for yourself?” With that, she turned, walking through the door and onto the gangplank.

Liana Laveau left a stunned Jayne Cobb standing in her wake, looking around the room she now occupied before stepping his own feet quickly to catch up with her.

A.N. The lyrics at the beginning of the chapter are How Long the Night Was by Deadboy & the Elephantmen (or maybe it was Dax Riggs solo, I'm not exactly sure [help me out here, Dax Riggs ^^]) from the 2007 album “We Sing of Only Blood or Love.” Also, The Rapture of Riddley Walker lyrics appear courtesy of Clutch from the 2007 album “From Beale Street to Oblivion.” May I take this moment to quickly remind the readers that this fanfic is not for profit and lyrics are used with artistic license. To any artist whom may have a problem w/ that, I encourage you to drop by my FB page, where I will be happy to discuss the matter further, and to hopefully make an arrangement that will be mutually benefaicial—beneficial!! I mean, mutually beneficial. Freudian slip. My bad, yall. ^^;. Hear that, various artists? I said ARTISTS. NOT Lawyers. You can go fuck your lawyer. *grin*
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