Legacy: Fightin’ Words

Spoilers- see previous chapters

Disclaimer- hey, guess what? They still don’t belong to me and I’m still not making any money from this.

Summary- Hobie wants to learn how to fight. Maybe he shoulda just asked his Ma.

xxx

Feeling eyes burn into his back for the umpteenth time that night Jayne growled and threw down his fork. “What?”

Hobie ducked his head down. “Nuthin’.”

“You been followin’ me round all gorram day and staring holes in my back.”

Hobie fidgeted awkwardly. “Um, I was just wonderin’….”

Jayne huffed. “What, boy?”

“Iffin you and Mal would teach me how ta fight?”

xxxxx

Hobie groaned as he hit the well-padded ground. He hauled himself to his feet. “Ow.”

Mal smirked at him. "Come on, boy. You said you wanted to learn how to fight."

"How to fight, not how to git hit."

"Two sides of the same coin, Junior. Gotta learn how to block and how to take a punch fore you learn to hit. Punching won't do ya no good if ya can't take a love tap like that."

“Weren’t no love tap,” Hobie grumbled.

Jayne chuckled meanly. “Gotta put some force behind it, boy. Gotta be even enough to hurt a man, make him think twice.”

Hobie shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to know how to fight, yeah. But hurt someone?

"I just wanna learn to defend myself is all. I don't wanna hurt no one."

"It's all about the hurtin', kid. That's where the fun is."

“Look,” Mal said, “when we done trained you up you can choose if you wanna hurt someone or not. Till then, hit Jayne.”

“How?”

Mal sighed. “However you want.”

“Kaylee told me to just close my eyes and swing.”

“That’s one way. Don’t know if it’ll work or not.”

Jayne smirked.

Hobie closed his eyes. He swung his fist out in a wide arc. Amazingly, his fist slammed into Jayne’s head. Jayne’s eyes opened wide with shock before they glazed over. Jayne fell to the ground.

Hobie stared down at Jayne in shock. “I got 'im! I got 'im!”

Mal grinned. “Sure did. I was you, I'd start runnin' now.”

xxxxx

Jayn