Originally posted 10/20/2003This wasn't an easy birth, this one made me crazy.....just ask the poor Bunnies who had to put up with me whining and sniveling and threatening to trash it all weekend. (Special kudos go to shipsister for IMing with me at 4 a.m. her time.... )
But I think even with all the trauma (or maybe that's drama! I seem to be a drama queen from time to time!
), it came out okay. And much better for all the extra work....
Thanks especially to Loco, Atana, Shipsister, scrubs and CrystalMoon for thoughts and suggestions.
Rating: R (for sex)
Setting: Immediately post Twice Shy
Spoilers: Through Twice Shy
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no disrespect intended! Love 'em to pieces!!!!!
Enjoy, I hope.....
Reconnecting
After one last heartfelt kiss, Aeryn Sun let go of John Crichton and fled down Moya's main corridor, an incredible jumble of agony and ecstasy. Her heart soared, because John had admitted at last that he still loved her, not only loved her, but held her above all else in the universe.... Her mind told her logically that with Scorpius still on board, discretion, secrecy, was a small price to pay, now that she knew that John loved her. But her body -- every cell in her body screamed at her as she walked away from the man she loved beyond hope. After all this time, and all the sorrows they'd been through, she wanted him so badly, she was truly afraid she would have taken him there in the hallway, no matter the potential cost, no matter the potential for being seen, if she hadn't left when she did.
She breathed in great gulps of air as she strode down the corridor, unwilling to go back to her quarters, which would only seem that much more empty now that she knew John wanted her as much as she wanted him.
And he did want her, she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. She had felt it in his trembling body, in the way he hadn't made any attempt to hide the fact that he was standing at attention, but instead had pulled her tightly against him, the contact leaving him gasping for breath. But when she'd made a move to stroke him, he'd somehow found the strength to pull away from her, shake his head, and point at his comms.
Bastard! she thought now as she continued to walk, laughing inside as if he'd been deliberately teasing her instead of looking out for their safety.
As much as she thought John was being over-cautious, Scorpius clearly was listening in on the comms. The half-breed's question to Pilot had been too well-timed to be a coincidence, though to what purpose, Aeryn wasn't at all sure. But, John was the one who was the keeper of knowledge that could change the universe. It was his right to make the decisions on how to protect it.
And she had brought Scorpius to Moya, so she would pay the price.
She'd stopped trembling, but she was still breathing hard as she walked, and she hoped if the sound was audible over her comms, anyone listening in would take it for misery. After all, supposedly she'd just accepted that she'd lost John Crichton for good.
She was beaming to herself, remembering the smile of approval on his face when she'd volunteered, for benefit of unseen listeners, "There's nothing more between us," when she rounded a corner and nearly ran into Chiana.
Frell! What was she doing out and about at this hour?
Both women skidded to a halt just an arm's span apart and stared at each other. After a moment, Aeryn ventured, "Chiana! I'm sorry. Are you all right?"
Chiana eyed her with suspicion. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Are you? You look....flushed." She cocked her head with genuine concern.
Belatedly, Aeryn remembered that Chiana's encounter with the treacherous arachnid had stripped the Nebari of her sexuality. Getting it back might have made her all the more aware of desires, stifled or otherwise, whether they were her own or other people's. That was all Aeryn needed.... Frell. No,
not frell, do not go there, she told herself sternly, feeling her cheeks heat up. Frell!
"Aeryn?" Chiana prompted. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yes," Aeryn said with determination. "I'm fine, just couldn't sleep, wanted to walk a bit." And then it occurred to her that here was a perfect opportunity to continue the charade of having broken up with John for good. She did a mental about face and bit her lip as if in distress and said softly, "It's over."
Chiana blinked. "What?"
"It's over. Me and Crichton. He's never going to forgive me."
"You're giving up? Just like that?" Chiana fairly gasped. "You said you'd never give up! You said it would take time! What about all that stuff you did, like learning English? Like talking to his family -- to that Caroline trelk? And wormholes! You just have to give him more time! He'll come around!"
Aeryn tried hard to keep from wincing. If she'd truly been giving up on John, Chiana's opinion would have cut her deeply. As it was, she knew that Chiana would expect tears. She couldn't conjure them, not with relief and joy so sharp in her mind and her heart, but perhaps she could summon some of that righteous anger she'd so recently turned on John. "Chiana, the man is taking drugs to forget about me! He's got that old witch giving him frelling
drugs! Does that sound like he's
ever going to be willing to give me another chance?"
"Aeryn, you just gotta wait a little longer. Let him get over what Talikaa did to him. Whatever he said to you, it wasn't natural! She took his hope!"
Hezmana, the girl was persistent! Chi had been Aeryn's sole support in her quest to regain John's trust, possibly in part out of guilt for her part in the baby fiasco, and Aeryn hated deceiving her now. But just as she was about to reiterate, "It's over" and stalk off, a movement in the corridor some twenty motras behind Chiana caught her eye.
It was John, staring at her in a way that suggested he was trying to tell her something on the sly.
Aeryn's breath caught in her throat, and she tried not to give his presence away to her companion. Surely he couldn't have failed to hear their voices, entering the hallway from a side corridor so close to them. What was he thinking?
While Chiana continued enumerating the reasons why Aeryn shouldn't give up, behind her John jerked his head sideways sharply, indicating he wanted Aeryn to come to him. She could feel his desire crackle across the distance, and she hoped Chiana wouldn't notice her response. When John saw that she understood, he ducked back into the side corridor.
Aeryn turned her attention back to Chiana, who didn't seem to have noticed her momentary distraction. She had to get away, now! Her body was screaming at her again, wanting John, and knowing how very nearby he was.... Once again she regretted lying to Chi, but her priority would always be John, and the girl literally couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. She cut in sharply, "Leave it be, Chiana."
Chiana looked at her incredulously. "But--"
"John's made his choice, and I have to accept it. We don't always get what we want."
"This is so wrong, Aeryn--"
Aeryn closed her eyes against frustration of more than one kind. She shook her head, opened them again, and said firmly, "We're done talking about this. I'm going now." She pushed past Chiana as she would have anyway if she hadn't been playacting, and walked down the corridor, praying the girl would give up.
"We're gonna talk about this some more when you've had time to come to your senses!" Chiana called after her, then muttered something undoubtedly uncomplimentary under her breath.
Aeryn rolled her eyes and headed towards John's hiding place as fast as her shaky knees would allow. There was no way Chiana was going to let this go.
The moment she turned into the side corridor, John grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into his embrace and the Nebari was forgotten.
"Idiot!" she whispered affectionately, too happy to be back in his arms to be angry at the risk he'd taken. "What if she'd seen you!"
He hugged her tightly, then shrugged and breathed softly in her ear, "Then I would have given you the evil eye and gone the other way!"
It was a reasonable reply, but his flip tone upset her after all. She kept her arms wrapped around him -- as if she could have let go after waiting so long to hold him -- and her comms was pressed between their bodies so that low sounds should be inaudible. She pulled her head back so she could see his eyes, and he could see her lips. "I need to know the rules, John," she enunciated softly. "I'll do whatever you want, but I need to know the rules. And if you're going to take risks like that when you don't need to, we may as well just take our chances with frelling Scorpius instead of playing this game."
He accepted the rebuke with a nod that went a long way towards mollifying her, especially once he planted his hands on her rear and pulled her even more tightly against his body. They both shivered, feeling every curve and bulge.... "Just this once," he whispered, "we deserve it."
And they did. By Zhaan's goddess, she thought, they did. She sighed deeply and leaned her head on his chest, breathing in the scent of John Crichton, appreciating his warmth, and feeling warmth of another kind spread through her body. "We've got to get out of this hallway," she said in an urgent undertone. "And hide our comms somewhere the DRDs won't find them."
John nuzzled the top of her head and breathed deep before he murmured, "Left mine in my quarters."
"Hmph," she snorted soundlessly. She had no idea how he managed to sound smug at that low volume. "You came prepared, did you?" That just left hers to get rid of....
"Boy Scout motto," he told her, and she wondered what that meant, but she was getting tired of both waiting and conversing. There were better things he could be doing with that beautiful mouth.
So, she managed to peel herself off of him, and murmured insistently, "Come on!"
"God, yes," John whispered, and tugged on her hand so she had no choice but to follow him through a maintenance corridor and down one tier, breathing heavily, while they looked for somewhere, anywhere, with some privacy. Their quarters weren't safe, and they needed to stay away from cells occupied by any of their shipmates as well.
Aeryn was aware only that the one point of contact between them was burning hot. Heat radiated from his hand to hers and out through her body -- and watching his arms and face redden, she could see the same heat spreading through his body as well.
"Oh, Baby," he groaned as he pulled her into a storage area filled with crates and boxes and she helped him close the door behind them.
She managed to remember with some small corner of her mind that it wasn't safe to talk openly. "Shh, shh," she whispered, putting one hand on his lips to silence him and struggling to remove her vest, and its attached comms badge, with the other.
"Yeah, yeah, quiet," he acknowledged breathily, and dashed across the room to the far wall with Aeryn at his heels, pulling open a box at random.
Understanding without having to be told, she folded up the vest carefully, with the communications device to the inside, and placed it in the box, surrounding it with some of the contents for extra soundproofing. John put the lid back on as noiselessly as possible, and led Aeryn to the other end of the room, which was screened from the door by some of the crates.
Quite suddenly, they were alone, no prying eyes or ears, just the walls, each other, and their long-suppressed desire.
For just a microt, they hesitated, looking at each other, the cycles of pain and grief and confusion standing between them, and then Aeryn sucked in her lower lip and gave him a look of pure seduction -- and reached for the zipper on her shirt and pulled it down in one swift move. The shirt fell open, and they both gasped as her breasts appeared, nipples already firm, and the spell of hesitation was broken.
"Oh, God, Baby," John moaned, and pulled his own T-shirt and vest over his head hastily as a unit while Aeryn frantically pulled at her shirt, getting her arms caught in folds of clingy fabric as the long sleeves doubled backwards.
The effect was to nearly shackle her arms behind her, and she grunted in frustration as she continued to tug, trying to pull her arms out of the ends of the sleeves.
"Here, here, let me," John said, tossing his wadded shirt and vest to the floor and reaching for her with trembling hands.
She waited, bouncing impatiently, while with some fumbling, he freed her from her restraints.
The moment her hands were free, Aeryn launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and assaulting his mouth with hers as if she was attempting to devour him whole. The feel of skin against skin, of her aching breasts against the soft hair on his chest, the warmth of John's erection pressed against her belly, only added to the fire.
He groaned incoherently into her mouth and threaded his fingers through her hair, holding her face tightly against his, exploring her mouth with his tongue.
The warmth suffusing her and pooling between her legs became intolerable. Desperate to consummate this new relationship
now, she reached between his legs and stroked him. This time, he didn't stop her, but arched into her caresses, breathing hard, and his knees buckled, just a little.
He let loose of her hair then, and pulled his head back far enough to get a good view of her face.
"I love you," she breathed, a dazzling smile on her face.
"Oh, Baby. Oh, Baby," he murmured between breaths, shaking his head in wonder. "I love you too."
It must have been the last needful thing, the exchange of those precious words, because after that, time passed in an impassioned blur of zippers and buckles and boots and clothes being tossed carelessly around the room until there was nothing left to stand between them, and they lost themselves in taste and touch and tangled limbs and the joy of becoming one.....
* * * * * * * *
They crested together, too soon, perhaps, but with an intensity that left both of them gasping with delight and fulfillment.
John actually managed to return to the here and now first, and with a grunt, rolled them over, still joined, leaving Aeryn sprawled atop him, her cheek resting on his sweat-covered chest.
She moaned contentedly and stretched, using every sense she had to drink in the sight, smell, feel, taste of the man beneath her, even the sound of him, heart beating rapidly beneath her ear....this man whose absence from her life this past cycle had left a gaping hole, now filled with his heart as well as his body.... Words were still not possible, so she turned her head slightly and kissed his chest.
He ran his fingers up and down her back, catching them from time to time in strands of damp, dark hair. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," he said, voice rumbling low in her ear, pressed to his chest.
"What?" she said, unsure from his tone if he was happy or sad.
He pulled one hand out of her hair to gesture around them at the crates, the scattered clothes, the storeroom floor they lay on....
Was that all? "What, there was supposed to be music and candles and all that yotz?" she said gently. He was quiet so long it occurred to her that he might be thinking that was something she'd learned from his twin. She lifted her head up to look at him. "I did just spend an awful lot of time on your homeworld, you know," she reminded him. "It was very enlightening."
After a moment he let out a short bark of a laugh., and shifted his position, bearing her weight. "It could at least have been softer. Are you all right?"
She grinned at him. "It could have been softer at that," she agreed. "But I'm fine." Back when she was a Peacekeeper, before John Crichton had turned her life upside down, on occasion she'd recreated in far less pleasant places than this.... And besides, this was different. It wasn't recreation. She got up on her elbows so he could see her face. "It was perfect. You, me, our love. It was perfect." Her eyes bored into his, daring him to disbelieve her.
After a few microts, he smiled, a genuine smile that reached his eyes. "Okay, Baby. Perfect."
"I knew you'd see reason," she teased, and put her head back down on his chest.
He went back to stroking her hair and finally said, "We can't do this again until things change. Not very often, anyway," he backpedaled.
Well, she'd asked for the rules. She would abide by them. It was enough to know that John loved her, and they were together again. It was more than either of them had had this morning. "I know," she assured him, smoothing the hair on his chest.
He hugged her, tightly, and kissed the top of her head gently. "I love you, Aeryn."
"I love you too," she said, thrilled to be able to say it, and have him listen. "But I suppose we'd better get back to our quarters before someone misses us." She sighed and rolled off of him and began to gather her clothes, assuming they should leave separately.
John watched her hungrily, as if memorizing every square dench of her body, and she reveled in
that, too.
"We'll fix this," he promised, still studying her without making any move to get his own clothes on, which left her to enjoy the view.
She stopped tugging on her boot and with an impish grin announced, "I could space Scorpius for you."
John laughed, as she'd hoped he would, but shook his head. "Wish it was that easy."
She didn't bother to answer that. They'd find chances to talk, she'd get him to explain what he was planning to do about Scorpius, and she would help. Together they'd solve the problem.
Problems. That reminded her... "Chiana's probably going to come looking for you on my behalf. She's really upset we...broke up," she said with an apologetic quirk of her mouth. She was surprised how hard that was to say, even knowing it was a protective ruse.
John grimaced slightly and sighed. "I'll handle her." He shook his head. "D'Argo's probably going to say it's about time I moved on, that's not going to be any easier to deal with."
Aeryn looked away, pretending to make sure she had all her clothes, so he couldn't see how much it stung to be reminded that the Luxan felt so strongly that she was bad for his friend. At least
John was willing to give her another chance. She meant to make the most of it....
Fully dressed now except for her vest, which remained in hiding with her comms badge, she turned back and reached a hand down and pulled John to his feet, still gloriously naked. "You are beautiful, you know," she said softly.
In response, he bent down and kissed her gently, lovingly. The passion they'd just spent still boiled beneath the surface in them both, but for now, satisfaction ruled. "Go get your comms," he told her, nodding towards the box they'd left it in. "Wouldn't want to forget it down here."
"Next time," she told him, heading across the room, "warn me that you're planning to frell my brains out, and I'll leave the frelling thing in my room!"
"Be prepared," he quoted, voice slightly husky with an emotion Aeryn couldn't quite name. It could have been sadness, or desire, or regret -- or something else entirely. It worried her a little, this quiet mood of his, but at least she could feel it again, the connection between them she'd feared was lost forever. He'd trusted her enough to allow this communion. They'd sort the rest of it out in time.
She opened the container and retrieved her vest, and put it on, adjusting it to hang smoothly without zipping it up. John was back in their corner now, beginning to get dressed, and she walked partway across the room to catch his attention. When he looked at her, she mouthed, one more time, "I love you."
With a wicked grin, he glanced pointedly down at the bulge in his underwear. He looked back up at her and mouthed, "Love you too!"
It was all she could do to keep from laughing, so she waved him back behind the crates and headed out into the corridor.
Happy for the first time in nearly a cycle, Aeryn headed to her quarters to replay every microt of the past few arns in her head, burning it into her memory for the frustrating times that would certainly lay head.
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