This story takes place before the series, so there are no spoilers to worry about.

This is the eighth story in the Tales series. The rest can be found here:

River, Wash, Mal, Kaylee, Zoë, Simon, Inara, Book

Rated PG-13 for language and violence.

Thanks go out to my much appreciated beta-ers.

Go-se=Crap

Mei Yong Ma Duh Tse Gu Yong=Motherless goat of all motherless goats

Cheong Bao Ho Tze=Monkey raping

Ta Ma Duh=Dammit

Nee Tzao Se Mah?=You wanna die?

*****

Jayne Cobb had an awful rutting headache.

Every time he tried to sit up in the bed, it just got worse. Somebody was playing some damn music or other outside, and the light he’d forgot to turn off flat hurt his eyes. No doubt about it, Jayne was suffering from one of the more violent hangovers he could recollect.

He knew that he was back in his hotel room on the second floor of a piece of go-se hotel on Boros, and he could see stars outside his window. He’d been on Boros to run a freelance job for some guy named Nakamura. They’d robbed themselves a nice, fat bank on one of the backwater towns and he’d had coin to burn. After the job, Jayne had needed to flex his legs some, but he was still smart enough to get himself a room to recover afterwards.

He knew that he’d spent most of last night and a good chunk of this morning in a bar called the Flameout. It wasn’t the type of place that he’d bring his mother, but it suited him just fine. It was the sort of place where a man could get himself a good drink and a good fight, if he wanted. And it was clear that he’d gotten himself nice and drunk at that very establishment.

Trouble was he couldn’t remember much beyond that.

Ah, screw it all. The way Jayne figured, if he couldn’t remember what he’d