Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters and universe of Farscape are the property of the Henson Co.
Time Frame: AU, after Bad Timing but before Peacekeeper Wars
Note to readers: I wrote this a long time ago when we hadn't heard about geometric pregnancies and PK Wars hadn't happened yet. In fact, I discovered it on my computer and it was 90% done. So I revised it a little and added an ending.
Public Displays of Affection
by CrystalMoon
John blinked, trying to focus his eyes. The purple lighter fluid he’d been sipping had just caught up with him, and he thought he saw Aeryn standing across the table from him, twisting Rygel’s ear and hissing something that was making Rygel’s earbrows twitch in displeasure.
John set his glass on the table carefully, using both hands to make sure he actually put it on the table and not half on the table like he’d done last time, giving his foot a nice bath in the stuff. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he found Aeryn still there, which was good. And Rygel was still there too, which was, well, not so good.
D’Argo laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “How do you like the yeebro,” he asked, slurring his words and breathing licorice-flavored lighter fluid straight into John’s face.
“Whoa, Lassie, breathe somewhere else.” John waved a hand, trying to disperse the smell.
“Where would you have me breathe?” D’Argo leaned forward and deliberately exhaled a big moist breath right by John’s nose. Then he guffawed and clapped John on the shoulder, sending him crashing against the table and bruising his chest on the sharp edge.
“Ow,” John said, rubbing the spot and struggling not to collapse under the now madly giggling D’Argo who was still leaning on him. “I think you’ve had enough of that dren.” John tried to reach for D’Argo’s drink, but D’Argo held it easily out of reach.
“Ah, John,” he said, wiping laughter tears from his eyes. “I am drunk.”
John smirked. “Ya think?”
“Are you drunk?”
John licked the licorice from his lips. They were almost completely numb. “Just about.”
“Then you need to drink more. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been able to get drunk without worrying about Scorpius or wanted beacons or one of your frelled up plans?”
“Hey, not all of my plans are—“
“Monens,” he said, pulling his hand off John’s shoulder to stare at his fingers. “Five monens.” He held up all five fingers. “Five.”
“Really?”
“Or is it four?” D’Argo paused to bring his thumb down, the result of which he proudly held up for John. “Four, but only if you don’t count that drink by your friend Jim.”
John squinted at D’Argo, tilting his head. “I don’t have a friend named Jim.”
“Bean. Jim Bean. That guy who makes his own alcoholic beverage.”
“Oh,”
“His name is right on the bottle, John.”
John snapped his fingers. “Yeah, I remember now.”
“You really should pay more attention to your own culture.”
“I know.”
“It’s shameful.”
“Okay.”
D’Argo threw back the rest of his drink. John took a long sip of his own, noticing how his tongue was numb now. Good-n-Plenty with a kick. He licked the sweet stickiness from his lips again and glanced around the bar. Aeryn wasn’t near Rygel any more. Ol’ Sluggo was all by himself, popping a candied eyeball and chewing contentedly. A real eyeball covered in syrup. It was just one more gross “delicacy” John wished he’d never heard of out here.
Where had Aeryn gone? he wondered. He craned his neck and squinted through a waft of bluish smoke from the cigars that the natives smoked on this planet. It was settling over their table, smelling like Noranti’s breath when she forgot to use a dentic.
But all he saw were aliens talking over the pounding music, just like the bar scene from Star Wars. Snouts to the left, rainbow scales to the right. Large fly eyes blinked behind a black carapace, mandibles twitching in time to the music. A whole table of raspberry Jello blobs made squishing sounds near the bar, as if they were laughing uproariously at a joke. Is that how Jello laughed?
John rubbed his temples, trying to clear his mind. What was he looking for again? Oh yeah, Aeryn.
Someone threw a long slim arm around his neck, squeezing tightly. “How’s it going, Crichton?” purred Chiana in his ear. “Can you still feel your body?”
John poked at his stomach, his chest, and then his arm. He grinned into her face. “Oh yeah, baby. I can still feel it. It feels good.”
“I bet.” Chiana tilted her head as she ran her hand down his arm. “I’d love to find out for myself, but you see, there’s this big bad ex-Peace Keeper that would be real unhappy if I did that.”
John pouted. “But wouldn’t it be worth the risk?”
Chiana laughed and smacked him on the back of the head. “Uh, no.”
“I should be jealous,” said D’Argo, peering at John. “How come I’m not jealous?”
“’Cause you’re too dren-faced, big guy.”
“Oh, right.” D’Argo nodded and downed the rest of his drink. He waved for the server to bring them another refill.
“I’m going to kill that green slug,” said Aeryn suddenly on John’s right. She pulled up a stool, clutching a bottle of an orange liquid in her hand. She slammed the bottle onto the table and plopped on the stool, unconsciously placing her free hand on her pregnant belly. “Do you know what he did? Do you?”
“Uh, we’re going to go dance now,” said D’Argo, eyeing Aeryn and tugging Chiana by the elbow.
“He frelling ruined my deal with the engine dealer, that’s what.” Aeryn pulled the cap off her drink and took a sip. Then she grimaced and swiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I was all set to get new reverse thrusters for the prowler, at an unbelievable price. But because Rygel had tried to rob him earlier in the day, the merchant refused to deal with me. Said we were a band of marauders, and he didn’t do business with the likes of us.”
“I did not try to rob him,” shouted Rygel over the music, his chest puffed out. “I tried to strike a fair deal. Don’t blame me if you can’t negotiate with an experienced trader.”
Aeryn rose out of her stool and reached for Rygel’s ear, but he managed to duck out of her reach. “One more word, Rygel. Just one more, and I’m frelling coming over there.”
“And what? You’re in no condition to do anything,” he pointed to Aeryn’s protruding belly.
“Oh, is that what you think, hmm?” Aeryn started to go around the table, but John jumped up and grabbed her arm.
“All right, truce.” He pointed a finger at Rygel. “Sluggo, you just keep your big mouth shut, and consider yourself lucky that I don’t feel like spending the rest of my evening getting you to a diagnosan.”
Rygle hmpphed several times and smoothed down his earbrows in indignation, but he kept his trap shut. John tugged Aeryn back to her stool.
“Sit.” She did so. “Now, drink this orange whatever it is.” He handed her the bottle and watched her take a sip. “That’s better.”
Aeryn rolled her head around her neck. “He deserves to die. Painfully. With a plate of marjoules just out of reach.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“With his possessions being sold off one by one.”
“Hmm mm.” John rubbed the back of her neck. “Tough day?”
Aeryn sighed. She took another sip of her orange concoction and then turned the bottle around to read the label. “What is this? Juice? I want a real drink.”
“Well, you can have a real drink in, oh, about three months.”
Aeryn gave him a disgusted look. “What are you drinking?”
“Yeebro.”
She raised an eyebrow and leaned toward him. “Come closer,” she said, her voice low and sexy in a way that never failed to turn him on. He leaned forward, and she placed a hand on the side of his jaw and drew him toward her. As they kissed, Aeryn’s tongue darted into his mouth, and John relaxed into it. The yeebro haze, the smoke, and the music reminded him of high school make out sessions, and he vaguely wondered if Aeryn had ever made out at a party while music pulsed in the background.
“Mm,” she murmured when they pulled away. “Yeebro.”
John blinked at her.
Aeryn licked her lips, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“You mean you kissed me to taste –“
She raised an eyebrow and then leaned in for another kiss.
“Digusting,” said Rygel. “I don’t know why you body breeders have to pollute my line of sight with your filthy habits.”
John rolled his eyes. “Just look away, Rygel.”
“Why should I have to look away? This is a public establishment, and I should be able to enjoy myself the same as everyone else. And I do not enjoy watching you and that Peace Keeper shoving your tongues down each other’s throats.” Rygel sat up straighter in his sled and looked down his snout at them.
“Whatever,” muttered John. He tucked a lock of Aeryn’s hair behind her ear and combed his fingers through it.
Aeryn just kept her eyes on John. “Drink,” she said, and handed him his glass.
“No, uh uh, no way.” He grabbed the glass and set it back on the table. “You are not getting any more. One taste is enough.”
Aeryn frowned and shoved the glass back in his hand. “One more taste is not going to harm the baby, for chellnik’s sake. Stop being so overprotective.”
“I am not *over*protective,” said John, trying to force his brain to work. “I’m just protective. How a man should be with his woman.”
“How a man should be with his . . ." Aeryn repeated slowly. “Like when I prevented that trader from blowing your brains out at the last commerce planet because he thought you were being rude to his mate?” She quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah.” John leaned in and started nibbling on her lips. “Like that.” He pulled her in for another kiss, enjoying how the room began spinning around him, the smoke tickling the back of his throat, the music pulsing.
“Not again,” said the Rygel, slamming his hand on the armrest of his sled. “If you have no respect for me, think of the other customers in this establishment.”
Aeryn pulled back from John and glared at Rygel. “So this bothers you, does it?” she said, her eyes narrowed to slits, her jaw tight.
“Yes, it does.”
“And you would like us to stop?”
“Yes, I would.”
Aeryn grabbed John’s face and crushed her lips to his. John thought that he should protest, but he couldn’t think of a single reason to push Aeryn away while she was kissing him, especially when his blood alcohol content was probably off the charts, and the whole thing felt like a dream. Just as suddenly, she was pushing him away.
“Is that what you want us to stop, Rygel?” said Aeryn.
Sparky gave her a horrified look.
“Or is this it?”
Then she grabbed John again and began nuzzling his ear, tickling him just behind his lobe, and kissing the side of his neck until he thought his eyes would roll back in his head permanently with pleasure.
“Help,” John heard Rygel say, as if from a great distance. “Help! A mad sebacean and a drunk human are about to fornicate.”
“Or this?” Aeryn pulled John’s t-shirt from the front of his pants and ran her hands up his stomach to his chest, throwing a leg over his and rubbed his calf with her heel.
“O-kay,” said John, “Aeryn, honey, I think you’ve made your point.” He tried to push her away, but his yeebro-filled arms felt like spaghetti. As Aeryn kissed his throat and his jaw, her hands working their way to his back, John seriously wondered if she’d try to have sex with him right there in the bar. And he wondered if he’d try to stop her. The yeebro certainly hadn’t inhibited anything below his belt, that’s for sure.
“Sheeyah,” said someone right next to them. John opened his eyes. Chiana and D’Argo were staring at them, their mouths hanging open in matching ovals. Aeryn paused in her kissing to glance at them, her hands still up John’s shirt.
“They’re mad, I tell you,” shouted Rygel. “Mentally damaged. Didn’t I say we should have taken a vacation two weekens ago? But did anyone listen to me, of course not!”
D’Argo glanced at everyone. “He did say that.”
Rygel hmphed and set his stubby fingers on the controls of his sled. “If anyone needs me, I shall be in my room.” And with that, he spun his sled and whirred into the crowd.
Aeryn untangled herself from John and straightened her hair. “D’Argo, Chiana,” she said, nodding to both of them as if they were neighbors passing on the street. Then she picked up her bottle of juice and tilted it back until she’d drunk the whole thing. “I’m heading to our room now. Coming, John?”
John nodded numbly, struggling to pull down his shirt. What the hell had just happened here?
“I’ll see you there then.” And with a swing of her hair, Aeryn melted into the crowd.
“What was that all about?” asked D’Argo, taking a seat in his old stool.
“I don’t know,” said John, tucking in his shirt, “but I think I was used.”
Chiana laughed and wormed one gloved hand around D’Argo’s neck, playing with the braids on his chin. “It’s terrible to be used,” she purred.
“Terrible,” said D’Argo with a faraway look in his eyes. He blinked slowly at John, as if just noticing him again. “Why aren’t you halfway to your room by now?”
“Yeah, you don’t want Aeryn to get mad again,” said Chiana, licking one of D’Argo’s tankas. D'Argo's eyelids fluttered and he actually moaned.
John slid from his chair, suddenly feeling sympathy for Sparky. After waiting for the room to stop spinning, he threw back one last shot of yeebro, deliberately leaving the sticky sweetness on his lips. Hey, he thought, weaving through the Mos Eisley crowd on the way to their room, what kind of man would he be if he couldn’t bring home a little present for his woman?
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