The sound echoed off the walls of the cargo hold as though it would never stop. The roar was somehow more than bestial but undeniably had its origins in a man. A large man, in fact. A large man, broad in muscle and rather scruffy in appearance, hunched over a crate that had nearly fallen on his booted toes. So heavy was the crate, in fact, that strapping Jayne Cobb was unable to move it more than a few yards before something egregious went wrong in his body and he dropped it.

Wash, wearing an aberrantly concerned look on his otherwise jovial face, was immediately beside Jayne, a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted, shaking Wash off. Jayne straightened up very slowly, his right hand pressed against the crease that joined leg, hip and abdomen. He winced.

“Um, no, I don’t think you are.”

“I’m thinkin’ maybe I pulled somethin’.” Jayne began moving awkwardly away from the boxes. Wash stayed close to him, hands floating near Jayne’s body, hesitant to anger the mercenary by touching him out of an unmanly sense of concern.

“Do you want me to help you to the infirmary, have Simon look at you?”

“No, gorram it!” He swung an arm wildly to his side to shoo Wash away. “I’m fine. I’m just gonna go lay out for a while.” Jayne continued to grumble as he limped out of the cargo hold. Once he was in the corridor, and out of Wash’s earshot, he groaned loudly through gnashed teeth, “Liu kou shui de biaozi he houzi de erzi”. {“son of a drooling whore and a monkey”} It suddenly seemed like a very long trek from the common room to his bunk nearest the bridge. He didn’t even want to think about the ladder.

It would turn out that the walk was nearly tolerable but the ladder was sheer torture. Jayne felt as though he were being stabbed each time he extended his leg even slightly, and he knew of stabbing from personal experience. By some luck he could not reconcile, he was finally on his bunk. Jayne drew his knees up to his chest and locked them there with muscular arms. If not