Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Thank you so much for the encouraging response to Eyes: Part One! I'm so sorry for the delay - as I had planned to churn Part Two out within the same week - but y'know, 'the best laid plans' and all that nonsense. Regardless, if you're still reading... apologies and thank you for sticking around.

Anyway, it's done now.

And I like to think that's what counts ;)

Eyes

by Tince

River Tam wiggled her toes in preparation.

She had a divine imperative and she was going to fulfill it.

The plan involved a three-stage attack (and she couldn't help but think of it in anything other than such aggressive terms, which considering its target wasn't that much of a surprise).

Stage One: Shift eversoslightly to the right towards an uncomfortable and paranoid mercenary, pretending to clean his guns and avoiding eye contact.

Stage Two: Cause minimal disturbance to the seated merc in the execution of Stage One. This would be a little trickier to achieve than the movement itself, considering said mercenary was arguably one of the best trackers in the 'verse and noticed everything (well, almost everything, she though in wry amusement), and was more-than-a-little wary in her presence. With good reason, she couldn't help but smirk to herself.

Stage Three: Establish and then maintain maximum physical contact for as long as possible to achieve/fulfill The Objective.

Now as to what exactly The Objective was... River couldn't say. She could feel them moving towards it - together - slowly but surely and purposefully, as if it was the inevitable, unstoppable and the way in which things were supposed to fall into place. But what exactly it was, or what it looked like, she didn't know. All she knew was that, in this moment, achieving Stage 3 would lead her - them - closer to The Objective.

And besides, she wanted to touch him - to see, to feel for herself.

It had been like a special, oddly pleasurable kind of torture these past few months. Every time he looked at her - in what she thought was the way only he could - it was like she could feel his thoughts, caressing her, wrapping around her. Whatever it was that was growing between them - either he'd started thinking about her more or she'd started paying more attention to his internal Voice amongst the chatter... but she could feel the whisps of his thoughts, curling in and around her, in an acutely intimate way.

And it wasn't like when she would Read people - they weren't formed, complete thoughts, so much as the fragments and feels of emotions. The difference between a sentence and a song, she liked to think. But even that didn't feel right...didn't do justice to the sensation.

So after he'd brought her those apples (she knew they were for her, even if he tried to deny it), she'd tried to pin it down. What he made her feel exactly... and whether they were her feelings or his feelings or a little bit of both. He'd tried to avoid her at first, seemingly afraid to look at her, but after countless days and nights in her presence, he seemed to accept it as the inevitable and relax... a little bit.

And now, just like before, she could feel the waves and eddies of his thoughts move around her. Like she had tried to explain to the crew multiple times, the way emotions affected her... it was imprecise, unintentional and indescribable. When she wasn't trying to Read them and they still seeped in, it was because sometimes when they were very strong, too much to contain in just one head... they floated out.

His thoughts swam around her, altogether warm and somewhat sharp - but she wasn't sure exactly what they meant. She'd figured that closer physical proximity coupled with touch would illuminate the contents of his emotions (as well as heighten the sensations it caused). And so she waited as long as she could, remembering not to hold her body too still, to breathe in and out calmly, and when the tension ebbed from his body (she liked that could always just feel his physical movements, like they were too big and purposeful to be confined to just the visual sense), she made her move.

And all at once, she was pressed against his entire left side - shoulder to waist to hip to knee - and all she could think (in a voice that sounded strangely like the man's sitting next to her) was Ruttin' hell.

She'd expected to feel an amplification of his thoughts but she hadn't expected the same of her emotions. The warmth of his thoughts became heat and she felt that heat all over, spreading through her very veins. She could feel his breath speed up somewhat and his body go rigid, as if expecting her to move back, as if it were all an accident.

Before her courage failed her (and for some reason, she felt like it could at any moment), she moved her head closer and settled in. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a few seconds, she felt him release a breath, moving her slightly with it (which made her inordinately pleased, though she couldn't have said why).

In a few moments, he went back to cleaning the weapons and she closed her eyes, to focus on him around her.

Maybe it was the fact that she had been waiting for an opportunity like this for weeks, maybe it was the feel of his bicep brushing against her side, maybe it was because it smelled like gun oil and leather and Jayne, but all of sudden she could see it all, see it like they were her thoughts.

He wanted her.

Wanted her like she - all at once, realising and accepting easily - wanted him.

And she could see it there, emotions and thoughts suspended in time, memories and fragments of her... everywhere.

She was dancing; she was laughing with Kaylee; she was staring at him and he was trying desperately not to stare back; she was stripping a gun and cleaning it; she was smiling cheekily at him with his stolen hat plopped on her head; she was sitting in the cargo bay eating an apple... she was kissing him on the cheek, the scent of apples and gratitude in the air.

And so she sat, eyes closed, and breathed it all - breathed him and her and them - in.

A/N: So this is likely a fair bit less intelligible than Part One, which I justified on the grounds that Riv is a little more... erm, emotionally expressive than Jayne (as opposed to reflective of my scattered mental state). And I also like to think that River just gets it a lot faster than Jayne and doesn't fight it.

Reviewers get a 'Jayne' of their own, to scare/startle/seduce as needed (or wanted).