One-shot: Jayne, Where's Your Shirt?
Title: Jayne, Where's Your Shirt?
Author: just_unravel
Rating: PG
Pairings: Rayne-ish
Disclaimer: I'm not even going to pretend I own these characters.
A/N: Something silly to make up for the angst. Another plotbunny borne from a conversation with thecricket, because she and I have decided that every role that Adam Baldwin plays should require him to be shirtless. Seriously.


"Jayne?" Mal asked when he saw his hired gun walk into the mess.

"Yeah, Mal?" Jayne replied, though clearly distracted in his own confusion.

"You wanna tell me why yer walkin' around my boat without a shirt?"

"I can't find 'em."

"Which one?"

"All of 'em."

"All of...All yer shirts are missin'? How?" Mal questioned in disbelief, because he was not sure he believed what he was hearing.

"Don't rightly know. I'm guessin' someone took 'em," reasoned Jayne.

"You don't say," Mal sarcastically replied. He watched as the merc opened all the cabinets in the kitchen. "I don't think they're in there."

Ignoring the captain, Jayne continued his search of all the cabinets and closets in the mess but to no avail. It was during his inspection of all the furniture in the room when Kaylee and Inara entered. Both were astonished to see the half-naked merc on his hands and knees looking underneath the couch, and they failed miserably in their attempts to hold back their laughter.

"Jayne..." Kaylee said in between giggles, "Where's your shirt?"

She received a growl as a response.

"Now, Jayne, there's no need to direct your anger at Kaylee. Just tell me, where were you when you last saw your shirts?" Mal patronized.

"Har-har. Aren't you just hi-larious?"

After turning over every rock in the mess, Jayne made his way out the door. The three left behind immediately followed, curious as to where his shirts actually were. Methodically, Jayne went from one part of the ship to the next, investigating behind, in, and over every nook and cranny. But the only thing he left with from each room seemed to be another crew member. Mal, Kaylee, Inara, Simon, Zoe, Wash and Book were all trailing him like a band of lemmings.

During all of this, Mal made a mental note to get Jayne to clean the boat. Not necessarily as punishment since the merc wasn't entirely breaking his "no nakedness" rule on purpose, but because Jayne seemed so efficent going through the ship and finding odd places where Mal never thought to clean.

Suddenly, Jayne turns around and looks over the gathered crew behind him. A scowl started to cross over his face. He turned on his heels and determinedly marched towards to passenger dorms. His quickened pace made the others stumble and bump into each other as they tried to keep up, knowing that he somehow figured out the location of his missing apparel.

When he reached his destination, he roughly slammed open the door to River's room. "Gorramit!"

Each crewmember of Serenity peered around Jayne's sizeable form and froze in bewilderment. There, on the bed, was a sleeping River, lying comfortably on top of all of the big man's shirts. She was even clutching some to her chest.

Another bellow from Jayne in the doorway startled River awake. She looked at him with glossy eyes and a smile and greeted him with a simple and entirely innocent sounding, "Hi."

The merc stalked into the room, grabbed as many shirts he could in both hands, and made his way through the crowd of laughing hyenas.