take it all with a grain of salt and let me now what you think.
Rating: PG-17
TBO pt.IV
Fluids.
(Pilot's Chamber - a few microts after TBO3)
A veritable swarm of DRDs surrounded the hunkering bodies of the little Nebari and Officer Sun. For once, it wasn't Pilot's doing.
/Yes Moya, I know./ The waves of worry had been washing over him for the past weeken in an ever increasing spiral. /I feel her pain as well. But she will not listen to us. Or anyone else for that matter. It is as if she wanted to open up one microt then retreated into a shell of her own the next. I fear I am having the same success as young Chiana./ Then again...
***
'I love sex.'
/What?!! Wait a micr.../ 'Aeryn?' She had given in finally. Watching Aeryn suffer, holding her while she was keening, had broken down her already meager defenses and Chiana joined the flow of tears. But this she wasn't expecting. 'Aeryn what did you say? 'Cause I thought I heard...'
Aeryn'voice was stronger this time. Resigned. ? 'I love sex. That is how all of this started.' Her face turned upwards to meet Chiana's incredulous eyes. 'I am as female as you Chiana. Only not as obvious about it.'
Oh, this was good. She had no idea where it had come from, and meeting Pilot's eyes across the chamber Chiana was sure neither did he, but this was way too good. She hoped he had the sense to record it.
'What? You think because I was a Peacekeeper I was less inclined to have a good time with a male? Or more than one?' The Nebari's eyes just grew wider and wider with each declaration. But Aeryn seemed not to notice the reason behind it. 'It was because I was a Peacekeeper that I valued every encounter. And actively looked for the oppotunity to recreate. I loved it. Relished it. But that's all it was. Sex. And then it all changed.' The wariness that had invaded her eyes before seeped through once more. Chiana listened on, mesmerized. 'An inferior species crashed into my life turning everything upside down. I was declared irreversibly contaminated and set apart from my own race forever! I would never know the touch of another Sebacean male again. That, I resented very much.'
Her breathing was becoming more labored as she reminisced. Aeryn took a deep breathand cosed her eyes, trying to calm her frayed nerves. After a microt, she opened her eyes again and continued. 'But John was here. He was always around. It seemed as if everything revolved around him one way or the other. Whether good or bad, he was at the center of things at all times. Amazingly enough, he came through it all with ease. He laughed for the most ridiculous reasons and faced every ordeal, every setback with a smile on his lips. And I couldn't help but notice how much he resembled a Sebacean male. He was alien, to be sure. But he looked so Sebacean. So much like home. And I was so lonely.' Her voice faltered a little, but she kept on going. 'It took me some time to accept the idea of recreation with him. You know what Peacekeepers think of inter-species mating. But I needed a male. And there was no way back for me. So I made up my mind to approach him about it. Then Gilina showed up. And I knew it wasn't about sex anymore.' Aeryn seemed calmer now. There was a rueful smile on her lips. That, at least, was something. Chiana breathed easy for the first time in she didn't know how many arns. She sat back and let the former PK lean on her. She wanted to know what had brought this confession on, but at the same time she very much wanted to hear it all. Smutty details included.
Aeryn gathered her freefalling hair in a lose braid before continuing. Her hands still trembling occasionally. She resumed her tale as she finished tucking a few stray hairs behind her ears. Something John normally... /No, don't go there yet./ Thought Chiana. /Give her time./
***
As Officer Sun's deeptoned voice carried over to Pilot, he couldn't help but wonder if, throughout the cycles, they had come to know Aeryn at all. Every word she uttered, every moment remembered, it seemed to be someone elses life. Commander Crichton surely had, but then again, Comander Crichton had died. And the one left to them all had had too much happen to him, and too much rejection from the object of his desire to truly know her as he should have. And now Pilot was not sure Crichton would ever get the chance he so desperately wanted.
***
'You see Chiana, recreating is not about feeling. It's about relieving tension. About pleasure. Adrenaline. Recreation is more often than not fast and violent. You do it and that's it. So you can imagine my surprise when I felt jealous of Gilina. I didn't even know what jealousy was let alone how to cope with it. I only knew seeing them together made the pit of my stomach burn and made my whole body tense inmediately. Not only that, but I felt an irrational rage at John. He was the cause of that feeling. I didn't know how but he was to blame. So I acted accordingly. That, in a not-shell as he would say, is my story with John.
Through Gilina, Namtar, that time in the Flax,' /The flax? What happened in the flax?/ Chiana's mind was reeling. It had all gone absolutley not as she intended. Now she was learning all this about the mindfrell relationship of all relationships, when all she wanted was to help these two to actualy have a relationship. But first they had to save John from himself. 'Katralla... I was even jealous of you at one point. Oh, how I wanted to space you for trying to frell MY male.
This was all a little too much fro Chiana. She came here to convince Aeryn to help them bring John back, not to play Zaahn to the emotionally unstable Sebacean. But she had the feeling interrupting her right now would only cause more problems. Frell!! Why couldn't anything ever go the way they planned?
Aeryn's voice brought the young Nebari out of her reverie. 'It wouldn't have mattered, you know? No matter which John had come aboard Talyn, it would all have played the same. I was ready. I was ready for anything to happen. Anything. You remeber what you said to me a few solar days before we parted? You were right. I needed a good frelling.' Chiana's jaw dropped so fast the only thing preventing it from falling on Moya's floor was the fact it was still attached to her. Oblivious to her stricken face, Aeryn plowed on, her eyes gleaming. 'And he gave it to me. Oh, did he ever. Two cycles of pent up fluids, passion and total consuming lust went out of the air lock the moment I gave in to him. he ws so good. And it didn't matter one drannit. What did matter were his arms around me. His breath on my neck. The steady rythm of his heartbeat during the sleep cycle. He showed me what love was. He taught me how to love. And I learnt to be loved.'
/Oh, goddess./ To say Chiana was uncomfortable would be an understatement. She wanted to sink through the leviathan's floor to some dark, murky corner of the sentient ship. /Where are the Peacekeepers when you really need them?/ Cycles running from them and not a decent Marauder in sight now that she could use one. Figures. She didn't even dare to look at Pilot. SHE was scandalized. And she'd done everything possible with her body at least once. Pilot must be hiding beneath his op-table by now.
Aeryn was a nova by now. Nothing could stop her tirade. 'What the frelling human didn't teach me was to cope with the loss of him. Loss wasn't covered in his crash course on emotions. Even my mother's death was nothing compared to the feeling of utter desperation and loss which filled me as he died. Because when I thought she had died, He was by my side to support and guide me through it.' She was trembling again. But Chiana suspected the reason was much more visceral than the previous attack had been. 'No. We didn't cover loss. The rythm of life in Talyn was so frantic we never had time to dwell on the deeper feelings. He taught me about multiple orgasms and oral sex. I learnt to crave his touch as he petted me. I learnt to listen to his pleasure and mapped every tiny metrac of his body. I discovered the joy of simultaneous climax and to look into his soul as he bared it when he let himself melt into me. But I didn't learn about loss. Because we couldn't fathom losing one another. I couldn't.' Aeryn had gradually become more subdued and once more fell silent. As if her strength had left her.
/Now./ Thought Chiana. /But how do I tell her? Never mind. It can't be that difficult./ But before she could open her mouth to speak, Aeryn's voice filled the chamber once more.
'The same way I couldn't face him when I returned. I wasn't strong enough. He was there in front of me and all I wanted was for him to take me in his arms and hold me. I wanted him to frell me to the point of exhaustion, where I wouldn't see his face again. But all I could see was His face, feverish with radiation, slowly losing all vitality. It would have felt like frelling a corpse. how sick is that? I needed to sort myself out. They both melted in my mind to form only one image. And that was the problem. Because if they were
the same, which of course they were, I could never feel his touch on me again. I would never be held in is arms. And I so wanted to be held, Chiana.' Aeryn had begun sobbing again, letting the tears trail her cheeks as she continued talking.
'I want him back, Chiana.' By this time Aeryn was practically wailing. She was crying so hard. 'I want to be loved by him again. Please tell me what is wrong with him. What can we do?' Her eyes told of a desperate hope. Clinging to any and all possibilities. Drawing her in. Hezmana, she didn't even have to ask or cajole her. Was this how John did it? Just listening? Amazing.
Now it was her turn to be supportive. 'Aeryn, he never stopped loving you.' Chiana new Aeryn by now, and did not believe for a moment she ahd thought that love lost. But now was not the time to dwell on that. 'Look, Jool has found out what the problem is. And there might be a cure. But we need your help for it to work. No, John needs you. Will you help?' She had her arms around Aeryn by now. At once supporting her tall frame as well as her now fragile self. She kept her eyes on those of her Sebacean friend. If she wasn't a friend after this, when would she be? She saw the resolve come back slowly into them. Felt the strength return to her stance. A determined look came over her features as she stood erect and, to Chiana's surprise, hugged her.
'Let's go find Jool.' She said. And with a nod towards Pilots towering figure, they left the chamber.
***
A myriad of emotions swam over Pilot's mind as he commiserated with his ward. /Yes, Moya. I do believe there may still be a chance for John./
***
TBC
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