Pretty in Punk 2/6 by Thea and feldman
Jun. 22nd, 2005 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feldmanPretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
Part 1/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
Despite the fact that they're only allied-guests aboard the xeno-carrier, the med tech and the surgeon give Aeryn the first class Peacekeeper treatment.
John had been expecting something as quick and businesslike as the first examination, but releasing a stasis involves a lot more of the ceremonial paperwork that PKs seem to attach to anything important. He waits at the edge of the cubicle with D'Argo, cooling their heels as Aeryn becomes Queen for the Day, or perhaps Pregnancy Princess for the next six weekens. The actual moment of the embryo's release is hard to spot amid scans, documentation, and the bureaucratic pomp of status transition.
The officer of the day is called in to negotiate the delicacies of Aeryn's strange new position as both allied-guest and actively-gestating. The older woman keys in her codes, imprints her chop, and with a there-but-for-the-grace-of-Cholak nod toward Aeryn goes back to her regular duties.
In exchange for the failed contraceptive implant Aeryn receives boosters, supplements, a schedule of check-in dates; she even gets a chit for uniforms and a special meal ticket, equipment and provisions for her mission.
John is proud of himself for not thinking *suicide* mission. He can be a team player when he has to be.
Over an arn later she hops off the exam table and tucks her temporary ident chip into her shirt. The bandage on her arm from where they dug out the implant is stark green against her regular cream and black. She controls the grin, but John recognizes it as her pre-battle expression, the one that greets the prospect of kicking some ass.
She meets John's gaze, then D'Argo's. "Father. Brother."
Widower. Orphan. John shakes himself, reminds himself again to give her this chance. Daughter. Sister.
When Aeryn scans her new chip in the mess she's issued a regular meal and a gallon of water. The hunger won't start for a few more days, but the thirst is legendary. Toward the end with D'Argo she only woke up to pee, re-hydrate and kick ass. Her water jug attracts a certain kind of distanced respect from the men, and winces of schadenfreude from some of the women.
John hears the word 'throwback', and steers his son a little faster toward the sectioned-off tables.
"They mean us, don't they, Dad."
"Yeah, D', but don't worry about it. It's just a few brown shirts running off at the mouth, that's all. They haven't read the more recent memos from HQ."
"They should play the Sprek game, then they'll find out about variation and hardiness and how you have to keep a deep pool to work with or your Sprek'll die off when you move up to the next level." D'Argo launches into a monologue about Sprek and his best bud/mortal enemy Kai-sen that reassures John of his son's own hardiness.
Aeryn eats with them at a leisurely pace, excluding the greedy gulps with which she drains her jug. Afterward, she takes D'Argo to the docking bay to re-tool her Prowler for dry-dock, and John codes a message for Pilot and Moya.
They won't be meeting up at the rendezvous as soon as they'd planned. John asks them to stay close, if they can. In the worst case, if that happens, he wants to take D'Argo home as quickly as possible.
***
"Ge-ji's guardian's said D' could bunk there for the night," John says. "Have a free-for all in the allied section. Stay up 'til the wee small hours hyped-up on Jolt and video games. There's a bunch of 'em who aren't hanging around for summer school and this is apparently a tradition of sorts."
Aeryn looks at her son, who is caught somewhere in the desire to be with his friends and the need to see things through here with his parents. She is grateful for his love, his concern, but the attachment is still a new thing for her to parse, a child's love for family, her child growing into a man. At his age, she'd been carrying a pulse rifle for cycle, had been testing for combat, and lived with the idea that she was part of a unit and was to fight and die for the glory of that unit. She was loyal to a concept, to the prospect of protection and action. There was no mother, father, brother or sister to cling to, to rebel against, to love. Crechelings, cadets, aren't given things to love that don't lead back to duty, to the Peacekeepers. That's not what she wanted for her son, and yet the niggling disquiet remains.
She worries frequently that they haven't done enough to prepare D'Argo for the harshness of the universe, for the random twists of fate and bad luck. She doesn't want him surprised. But she also doesn't want him living and growing in fear either. They made that decision cycles ago, to keep him safe, to keep him wary and aware and ready for action, but to keep him as innocent as possible considering his parentage, to offer him a life that she'd never had, the kind that John valued as the thing that made him into who he is.
They have the chance now to bring those things to another child, to offer up what they've learned so far, to give some of that love to a new member of their family, and she wants to take that chance, wants to see reflections of John and herself in a girl, wants to give D'Argo more of what John had.
She glances across the communications console at John, at the curve of his skull, the sprinkling of silver hairs around his temples, a few threaded through his hair, lightening it. She resists, for the time being, the urge to smooth her hand over that curve, to hold him against her, to feel the sweet skin of his neck under her fingertips. He's not in a mood to be touched. He would allow it merely to still D'Argo's fears and she doesn't want that. John holds his jaw hard, so much running under the surface of those lines, threading through his strong shoulders, his strong heart. He's angry about this decision, scared. He's putting up a united front for their son, but the two of them are going to have to hash this out while she still has the energy for patience and humor.
"Let's gather your things," Aeryn says finally to her son, as John downloads the rest of their communications onto a chip to read at a later time. He nods, "Mail call's done. Nothing urgent as far as I can see."
D'Argo glances between his folks for a moment and is reassured by Aeryn's smile and by John's nudge against his shoulder. Or perhaps the lure of arns spent devoted to the Sprek game is enough to dissuade him of the idea that his parents are going to do anything he'd be interested in.
On the way back to quarters, Aeryn asks him if Geji has also been working with the Sprek and John barks out a sharp laugh, winning him a matched set of glares from mother and son.
"Ge-ji was top in the class most of the term," D'Argo says, waxing enthusiastic, "but he's too careful. He makes sure that there's depth and breadth, but he's afraid to take chances, so his societies get overly populated, get caught up in the wrong stuff and get wiped out by diseases or other cultures."
He proceeds to launch into a lengthy and complicated explanation of how the Sprek development has evolved between the members of his peer group, an explanation that loses her long before he's gathered pajamas, dentic and a change of clothing for the morning. She glances at John, who leans against the doorway, and he gives her a real grin.
"You asked," he mouths, gleeful and a little taunting. "I've been dealing with this all term."
Ge-ji's guardian has an evening planned for the boys – controlled chaos, a set of boundaries beyond which they are not to leave. Aeryn hears her name whispered, about, shuffled between the gawky angles of adolescent boys and John pokes her in the side with his elbow.
"You made quite a stir last night," Ge-na says. "They're sort of in awe."
Aeryn hides a smile, sees her son nodding to another boy.
"Let's go," John says, low in her ear. "They can't actually tell him his mom's cool when she's in earshot."
Aeryn rests her hand on her son's shoulder, feels the smooth young skin of his neck, and he gives her a bright grin as he shrugs off her touch. "See you in the morning, Mom."
She knows it will embarrass him, but she can't help herself. She pitches her voice low. "I love you."
He blushes, eyes darting to the side to make sure no one has heard her. "Yeah," he murmurs, "me too."
John waits until they're out of earshot to make his first foray and she's absurdly grateful, her mind on the child growing inside her and on the child she's just left alone with his peers.
He speaks right after they turn the corridor, his tone ragged. "You're still ready to risk all that for a possibility?"
She's never shied away from John, and they've lived and loved for a long time. So she tells him the truth. "Yes."
And they are off.
For a few tiers the only noise between them is the striking of his boots on the deck, his usual soft-footed strut now hard and angry. If she were closer, if they weren't moving through corridors and dodging around crew, she's certain she could also hear his teeth grinding.
She'd speak, but there's nothing for her to say. She's said her piece and acted accordingly, what's left is to see it through so that everyone is safe at the end. He'll talk when he wants to; she's assured of that.
He veers back to the mess instead and she follows him through the line, scans her temp ident chip and lugs another jug of water back to their quarters, the silence between them a truce. The door slides shut and he locks it as he always does for the night when they bunk aboard a carrier. She waits a moment, then goes to the head. Water in, water out, it becomes like breathing during the first and fourth quadmesters. Perhaps Rygel did so well with D'Argo at first because he was constantly diving for pieces of his parents, immersed in the healing waters of seas now long since boiled away.
She remembers watching the boy playing in the palace pools, careful hands cradling a tadling like his Papa Ryg had held him. Her son will have a baby sister, a bigger family than just the two of them. He will.
She takes a deep breath and heads into the main room. John's sitting on the bed, waiting, his open stare meeting up with hers as soon as the door slides out of the way, more than perfect aim, more like magnets clicking together.
"I sent a message to Moya." The anger remains, tucked inside instead of pounding through his boots. "She and Pilot will stay close."
"That's good. The carrier will be running through training exercises for the time we'll be here; she won't be led anywhere dangerous following us."
John stands and closes the distance, looking down at her and speaking in a measured tone. "If his mother dies, this is the last place I want my son to be."
There's a flicker of an image, John leading an evacuation of two from a carrier of tens of thousands, fleeing to Moya as one retreats from a field of heavy losses. "You're being ridiculous."
"And you," his voice rips raw from his throat, anger and fear breaking out in the safety of their locked quarters, bursting out finally in the small safe space left between them, "you are being far more selfish than I ever gave you credit for."
Then he hasn't been giving her credit enough, she thinks. She's had a child to stay close to him, to have a family of her own making. If that first choice wasn't selfish she doesn't know the definition of the word. And if he doesn't know her reasons, then his own selfishness, his own fears are masking his reasoning.
She fires back, "You are blowing this out of proportion--"
"No, I'm not," he growls. "I watched my mother die, Aeryn. Watched cancer eat away at her, knowing I couldn't do anything. And I wasn't a boy, I was a grown man and it still hurts. You don't just get over losing a parent."
She narrows her eyes, "I am aware of that, but I think you are inflating the risks."
"Don't you remember last time?" he shoots back, body braced and aggressive, using his larger mass as a tool.
She resists rolling her eyes, knowing he needs this fresh and harsh and raw, in the open, before he'll come to terms with a decision already made. "We were under enemy fire, and my body rejected the pregnancy John. It was that simple. We were in battle and we had no medical resources. It was bad luck and bad timing and there is no chance of those circumstances being repeated."
"Bad luck," his voice rises, "bad timing. Shit, Aeryn, it wasn't just one of our dumb ass plans going wrong."
"Yes," she hisses back, "it was. It was the two of us taking a risk that shouldn't have been a risk, and having it go pear-shaped. We assumed, because the worst thing that happened with D'Argo was him being gestated in a Hynerian and birthed in a firefight, that the next child would be just as effortless. And we were wrong. Bad luck, bad timing."
He stalks away from her, seeking distance in the small quarters.
"It's not that simple, Aeryn. Things could go even worse here. Hell, we haven't had a major disaster in almost a cycle. This is like asking for something to go horribly wrong. So what the hell is worth that risk? Because you proving to the frelling universe that you can have another child, that you can beat our bad luck sure as hell isn't worth the risk of you dying and leaving D'Argo alone." He swallows heavily, sorrowing slipping in behind the anger, "Leaving the both of us alone."
It makes sense, the anger, the assumptions. And he's not wrong. But he's not right either. He hasn't been out there for almost a cycle.
She bites back her own instinctive anger, tries for calm, tries to summon up the cycles of growing together, of acting in accord, parents, partners, lovers and friends. "Maybe you're right, and I'm acting selfishly. I won't deny that. But..." she pauses, thinks about how she wants to say this. "Right now, he's unique in the universe. And I don't want him to be...alone. The only one of his kind. This wasn't an active choice, but now we can give him that. The chance to have someone else out there who is like him."
"And so you're betting the mother he has on the sister he might not get." John rubs his forehead, takes a step to the side. "He needs *us*, Aeryn, more than some weird ideal of 2.4 kids and a picket fence and a dog named Snuggles."
"John, you're--"
"*Us*, both of us." He turns back to her, expression caught between demanding and pleading. "Maybe on this carrier he'd already be pulling duty shifts and working toward a rank promotion--he's not a carrier kid, he's our kid, and he's very much *still* a kid, no matter how much he's grown in the weeks you've been gone. He's the first priority, we decided that long ago, and he still needs you."
"I'm not volunteering for a suicide run, here, John. I'm on a fully-crewed command carrier on a training mission." It's the best place for her to do this, all things considered, and he simply won't see it. "Even if things go completely wrong I'm not going to die--I didn't die before and we were under the gun without any resources."
"It's tempting fate, Aeryn."
That makes her snap, pulls her close to get into his face. "Frell fate--what did fate ever do for us? Nothing. We do for ourselves, and if I want a daughter I'll damned well have one."
"That's just great, that's fucking fantastic." He mutters it as he drops onto the bed, as if the anger is too big and he's suddenly too tired to move it. "What are you gonna do for an encore, huh? Saw yourself in half and turn into rabbits?"
She takes the moment to swig a long draught of water, the thirst like at itch that keeps flaring. "You can spend the next six weekens pouting if you want to, it's not like it matters at this point."
"No it doesn't, because you've made the decision for all of us." He pops back to his feet. "Screw the people who care about you and need you, you're gonna do what you want!"
She slams the jug down, slopping water on the table. "You said it was my decision to make--"
"I thought you'd make the right one--serves me right to assume, huh?" He pulls his jacket from the chair and huffs the rest as he punches his arms into the sleeves. "Well that's it, I'm not the captain here but I do have *some* authority left."
"Where are you going?"
"Med bay."
"What the frell for?"
"You won this round, you do whatever the frell you want, I can't stop you." He strides back, slipping the last phrase into the air like a shock charge that doesn't detonate. "But I'll be damned if it'll happen again."
She pounces on the concession. "So you admit there could be a next time, that this pregnancy is not tantamount to suicide like you keep blathering about."
"No, Aeryn, *no* next time. I'm closing up shop, shutting down the factory, taking the boys to the vet like a responsible pet-owner--ain't no way we're doing this again no matter what happens."
Sterilized, like a soldier with a lethal mutation or a radiation injury. She imagines the officer of the day coming in to verify the odd request, which is slightly more believable than imagining John submitting to such a procedure. "You can't be serious."
"Try me." He palms the lock and she slams her hand on it again. The door gives a little whine from the conflicting commands.
This has gone too far. "Take off your jacket."
"It's a simple equation. You can't make the sane decision then it's up to me to take that choice off the table."
"Take your jacket off. *Now*, John."
"Get away from the door."
"Fine." She feints away and trips him. "But no one leaves until we settle this."
He catches one of her ankles in both hands and crooks his leg up to pop her behind the other knee, and she lands across him, her palms slapping the deck behind her.
They've spent too much time wresting for fun over the years, reflexes bent toward each other's familiar moves, and their grappling pauses with him on his back and nestled between her legs, her boots tucked under his thighs for leverage that she usually uses to more pleasant ends.
He rises up, hands propped behind himself. Her skin is flushed, pink on the bones of her cheeks, the heels of her boots digging into his hamstrings. They've had a decent run of luck recently, and he'd almost forgotten how she'd occasionally scare the piss out of him. She watches him with angry eyes, bright skin and willful enough to be a force of nature. He sweeps his hands into her hair, cradling her head and feeling the tension in her neck and spine, and he kisses her as if it were the last time, as if she'd come back from the dead again, as if they only had another few moments.
Maybe that's all he does have with her. As angry as he is, as petrified as he is underneath that, he doesn't want her to leave like that.
She allows the kiss for more than a few microts, bleeding off some of his need and his fear, her tongue cool in his mouth, and then she shoves him down, bouncing his head off the decking.
"Frell you John. You've already made your decision, is that it? Got it in your head that I'm going to die."
His head is ringing, and he hears outrage in her voice, hears her intimate, utter knowledge of him. He's never stopped clinging to her when desperation edges in. He can be angry, terrified, pissed off or shattered, dying, and he finds her, finds her mouth and her skin and her strength, draws from it. Even now, prone and furious, needy and longing and wanting to shake her as much as frell her, he draws from her ferocity, her steel spine and rigid determination.
"I'm preparing for the worst," he bites back, "covering our bases. Strategizing Aeryn. Frell, you're the one who taught me to do it."
He's quick and he knows her body, her flashes of distraction, knows that in the early stages of pregnancy her reflexes are still faster than his, but her attention is a little scattershot. He grabs her wrists and with a hard jerk hauls himself back up flush to her body. He gives in and shakes her a little, and she glares, hot and hard.
Lust flares and flutters and she cants her hips against his, stirring him. "Goddammit," he growls. "That's a sucker punch."
Her eyes slit, catlike and fierce, and this could go from fighting to fucking with a flick of a eyelash, with a slow blink and a rougher kiss. He's not ready to concede yet.
"We promised each other a life together." He says, grip still tight on her wrist but thumb stroking the skin. " No more Butch and Sundance and a hideout in Bolivia, no unnecessary risks. A life, together. Out here."
"We take greater risks everyday," she insists, and he can see that part of her believes this. "Do you honestly think embarrassing a senior member of the Kai cooperative wasn't a risk? That being on this carrier isn't a risk? Training militia pilots to blast each other to pieces until a bigger threat comes along?"
"They're acceptable risks, things we do because they're worth doing. Well, maybe not drag racing with Kai-tyil, but the rest of them. We're doing our part, doing more good than harm, and I can't believe that you think that putting yourself in unnecessary danger is a risk on that same level. It isn't anything more than selfish Aeryn, it's willfulness, stubbornness, a signature Aeryn Sun 'I'm not going to lay down and have the universe dictate the terms of my existence' move."
She shakes out of his grip, angling her body so that she knees him in the ribs and he woofs out in pain, gasping for air and slapping her thigh with the flat of his hand. "Christ, you play dirty."
She stands over him, staring down. Enigmatic as she reaches for the water jug, taking a swig of it, drinking more deeply when the sip fails to satisfy her thirst.
He isn't ready to relent but he's already lost the fight, only one more volley to offer up. He can play dirty as well. "I've lived without you Aeryn. I know what it feels like, to look at you and not see any trace of the woman I that I love, just a body. I've seen you dead because of my weaknesses. I've been left behind more than once, and I do not fucking want to repeat that process." He leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, looking up at her past his furrowed brow. "But this isn't just about me."
She tips the water jug and pours it onto him. He bellows, sputters, wipes the water out of his eyes, and wonders if that's going to be it. That jug looks like it'd make quite a dent in his skull.
"I need more water," she says, voice gravel rough.
He stands, shaking water from his hair like a dog, and reaches slowly toward the jug. She lets him disarm her, watches him walk to the basin to refill it, and accepts the heavy jug with a nod. He watches her make a healthy dent in the water, remembering the stunned looks the Luxans had given her when they were rescued from the Scarrans and she'd divided her time between reloading and cycling half their water supply through her kidneys. The hunger will hit her in a few hours, and after that he'll be lucky to have six full weekens of dread ahead of him.
Back on earth he wouldn't even have been invited to his wife's baby shower; here in the UTs he's become something of a specialist in firefight gynecology. He shucks his jacket, throws it on a chair, and waits for her to finish.
Time-out is a skill as hard earned as not walking away, like scratching *around* the mosquito bite instead of digging into it until it bleeds. It's taken them years to learn to how to fight, to secure a space for it between them. It's a kind of ceremonial combat, marital sumo with unspoken rules, honesty above all; cheap shots are foul play that only docks your own score. It's taken them years to work it out and it still takes focus from both of them, still too easy to slip into the previous reflexes, comfortable and dangerous. Hurtful. It's damned difficult to hurt and not let yourself hurt back. To trust, even when you disagree.
She's locked him in, wanting this settled before the pregnancy gains too much momentum, before she can't afford the distraction. She wants him solidly behind her, wants him to trust. She wants him to give her this chance. But it's such a huge risk, and he doesn't think she appreciates the damage she could do, doesn't think she's thought out what her death would mean.
John activates the console, clearing the space of lesson plans and messages. He opens a clean file, fingers negotiating the Sebacean keypad easily even if they stab harder than necessary. She sets the jug down and reads over his shoulder, the intro lines of the last will and testament of Aeryn Sun.
She exhales hard and sharp through her nose. "You won't let this go, will you?"
"Be prepared."
"I'd like to see you prepare for your daughter just as thoroughly."
His fingers pause. It feels like a cheap shot, but it's honesty. "I'll worry about the kidlet if you worry about D'."
"I worry about the both of you, but I refuse to let that paralyze me. Unlike you, I have faith in the people I love."
"Then why is the door locked?"
"Because you're being irrational."
"There you go."
She shoves him out of the chair, her viciousness barely contained, and he relinquishes the seat with a flourish.
"You're the one who said we don't need pets and fences and all that human dren; now you want me to do this 'testament' thing as if it makes any difference--"
"Makes a difference for me, and for D'."
"Knowing what to do with my possessions? How could that help?"
"Don't give a damn about your *stuff*, woman. What I need you to put down on paper are the things you won't be able to tell him if you're dead two monens from now."
"The only things either of us have held back from him are the things that would hurt him."
"So he's full up, then, is he? Has all the love he needs from you?"
There's a pause while their internal referees both call the shot. Close, but still fair. When she speaks her voice is low and thick. "I can't put love into a computer file."
"Hopes, dreams, wishes. This is your chance to put them down. When he graduates from the telacademy--what will you say? When he gets his heart broken, when he wins, when he loses, when he goes off to live his own life, when he makes you a grandma; what will you say? Put it down now, while you can."
She turns to him. She's caught up enough on her thirst to spare water for her eyes. "And you? Since you've all but buried me?"
He lets the beat pass, looking at her, looking to her. "About you? What'll I tell our son about you?"
She lifts one shoulder and he knows it's only part of what she meant. Learning to fight has been almost secondary to learning how to include another person, another thought and another duty in the space between each other. So much loss, death and near death, so much absence that the danger of being irrationally consumed, of destroying the universe for one another had loomed large. They fought against that, found a place for rationality in love, but it was a struggle. Everyday it was a struggle to not just hole up, backs to each other, backs to the wall and not think of anything else but danger, and a fragile peace that existed because of how close they'd come to taking away choice from everyone.
So what would he say to his son about his mother? What does he know of her wishes and fears and hopes for their kid? What would he say about what Aeryn was to him? The fight's gone out of him. He's still raw and jittery, but he's done leveling hurt on her. He's not gonna back down on this particular exercise, but maybe it's something they both should have done cycles ago.
He kneels done in front of her, hand on her thigh, fingers against the sweep of her jaw, the silk of her hair grazing his fingertips.
"I'd tell him that there was this astronaut who went for a ride one day and got lost, wound up in the middle of a firefight, woke up to the girl of his dreams."
She quirks her mouth, unimpressed. "He's heard that story. He remains dubious."
John's eyes shadow. "I got others. I've got a small yacht full of stories about his mom - about her courage and stubbornness and humor, about that look you get on your face when your about to lay down the law, the way your mouth curves the same when you're flying hard and fast as when you're coming."
She snorts with laughter, rubs her eyes with the back of her knuckles. "I doubt he'd want to hear that. I'm not certain I wanted to hear that, but it does explain your occasional reaction to..."
He squeezes her knee. "I'll tell him about the moments of watching you with him, watching you both focus so intently on something that the rest of reality tunes out. How he's the only thing in the universe that makes you forget the gun at your hip, how your whole face gets the same sense of wonder on it as his does when he makes a discovery, how you've never stopped growing beyond what you thought you were and what you could be." He feels the tears in the back of his own throat.
She presses her fingers to the hollow of his throat, narrows her eyes, "And you," she says, "what do you want to know from me?"
She strokes his neck, his temples with her cool fingers and lets his hand brush her chest as it makes a path down her body to mirror his other hand on her thigh.
He looks up at her, squints a little. "We haven't kept secrets in a long time Aeryn, and whatever secrets are still out there are better off lost, I think. I know you love me, love our son, know you've made me a better man. I don't think there's more I need to know."
She shakes her head at him, bends her neck gracefully, kisses him hard and hot and sweet. His hands tighten on her thighs and she slides her tongue into his mouth, possessive and sweeping. He groans against her, slides his hands up so they curve around her hips, thumbs sweeping into the vee of her legs.
"Perhaps," she whispers against his jaw, moving her mouth to nip the skin of his neck, "We can work out this testament verbally before I commit it to paper."
"Negotiate terms?" he chuckles, fingers brushing over her sex, catching her hitch of breath.
She tweaks a nipple through his shirt. "Mm-hmm."
She stands, pulling him from his knees and wincing at the creak of his joints. He shrugs. She strips off his shirt and draws a nipple into a hard suck, steering him toward the bed alcove.
"You were saying?" He walks backward as she unfastens his belt and his fly, pausing as the heels of his boots thud against the low alcove platform.
"I'll do this thing for D'Argo, for you. I'll record as many messages as you want." She caresses his hands as he returns the favor, unbuckling and unzipping her. "But I need one thing from you."
"What's that?" He sits on the step to unstrap her boots and then kicks his own off. She waits until he joins her next to the bed, each of them tossing aside the last bits of clothing, the last shreds of distance.
She pushes him down hard enough to bounce, then sits astride him, the beginnings of humor in her eyes clouded by the whisper of need in her voice. "You have to get everything ready for her."
"You know I'll give you everything you need, everything I can." He pulls her chest to chest with him, her hair falling down around their faces soft and dark. For a moment they simply breathe, skin to skin. "I don't want to lose you, I'll do whatever it takes."
"I know that." She slides her cheek along his. "What I'm asking you do to is prepare for the best, while I prepare for the worst."
His eyes leak from the corners, the words mere breath between them. "Whatever you want from me, just stay."
She nods, rubbing a stubble burn into her cheek. She rises up on her knees, positioning his hardness lengthwise between her lips and beginning a thoughtful stroke, taking them away from that raw edge with a tentative hint of humor. "We'll need supplies. She'll need a name. I want you to take care of both."
"I will." His eyes are dark as he shifts in counterpoint.
"Let's see." She licks her palm and slips it around the head of his cock, using the leverage to rock his length against her clit. "As for everything else, you can have my Prowler and tools. But my guns are strictly for the boy."
He slaps her ass and she squeezes in return, making him shudder beneath her.
"Pulse cannon's almost as big as he is," John quips, "We'd have to get him a cart to haul it around," and then moans as she sinks down on him, tilts her hips forward, her neck a smooth curve. She hums, rocks her pelvis, squeezing him. Her hands weave through his, settle his grip on her waist and he presses down until they're melded together as tightly as possible, the muscles in her thighs taut with the strain.
"I want him happy, healthy," she says. "I want you happy and healthy." She runs her hands up over her body, cupping her breasts and he slides the heel of his hand over her clit. He loves this part, not just the sex, but knowing this body, her body, knowing her pulse and reaction, the texture of her skin, the grip of her sex, the line of her thigh and the curve of her ass. He loves her, knowing her, loving her, and being pissed off at her, it's all one. He's so very grateful to have this thing here with her, this marriage in all it's various states of learning and negotiation.
He's sinking into himself, drifting in the pleasure, trying to drift away from his wariness and fear. She slides her fingers underneath his, steering his way over her clit and he chuckles. "You just can't let someone else drive, can you?"
She leans back, hands on his thighs, rhythm steady.
"If I do die," she says slowly, "I think you should tell him everything. Tell him who we were, what we've done. Maybe not now, but later. I'd like him to be proud of us."
It chokes him up, and he wants a flurry here, the fury of passion, the humor of Aeryn doling out guns and leather and steel. "He's proud," he says, and then bucks up with his hips, rolling her over to her side and sliding out of her.
He nuzzles against her lips with an appreciative moan, and she lets him taste her, lets him suckle at her clit while her fingers try and fail to get a solid grip on his hair. Too short at the temples, enough that the white hairs sparkle in the light. He's reverent and slow, savoring her, just barely enough friction to keep her interested.
He splays one hand on her belly, pressing down as he slips a finger in below his tongue. That's better, that's something she can work with. She slides the sole of one foot up his side, then props it across his back. He settles on the bed, his manner as leisurely as his attentions, one leg crooked to the side.
The angle of his hip beckons, and she pushes her other foot toward the inviting niche between fur coverlet and fuzzy groin. Her toes find him, silky skin and hardness buried in soft bedding. They both moan. He matches the rhythm of her instep, stroking her with tongue and fingers. Orgasm flares hot orange on the horizon, there for the taking, and she grasps a handful of his hair to tilt his head to the side, to aim him and to catch a better view of the slow thrust of his ass as he grinds his cock against the soft arch of her foot and he responds, quickens the pace to shove her over the edge.
She's still panting as he wipes his grin, kneeling back with that beautiful cock waiting for her to come back and play.
It's been too long since they've had time like this, time to frell for arns, to frell until they have friction burns and their muscles shake and their ears ring. It's a good way to begin.
As if she needed an excuse, seeing him like this before her. Vulnerable and fervent, his body an offering and a challenge, textures and tastes that are more erotic for being familiar; she knows how to make him respond, his body trusts her touch and leans into it. Home is where this man is, delightful and welcoming despite the occasional storms.
She rises up on her knees and throws an arm around his shoulders, kissing him with a languor that flaunts her afterglow. She wants to see him go off, wants to watch him gasp and spurt. He belongs to her, and she can fly him as well as any ship. She cradles his balls in her hand and smiles when they roll and tighten, when he moans into her mouth.
He moves his lips to her neck and she nudges him to widen his thighs, to let her press her sex against the taut muscle there. His hand sweeps her back, sweeps over her ass, comes back to tangle in her hair and she grips him tightly, feeling the heat and the hardness, the ridges of veins and the smooth silk of him against her touch.
He watches her stroke him, hips bucking forward in short erratic thrusts of excitement. She eases the pressure, slips her fingers over his balls again, slides lower to stroke the thin, fine skin behind, to press up and into him and he growls, moans in her ear.
"Bad angle for that kind of play," he whispers. She grins at him, continues to stroke and he sits up on his knees, grasping her around the waist to keep her pressed to him, his thigh between her legs, her body at enough of an angle that she has room to stroke him fully. He holds her up, holds her steady, panting slightly, hands lazily stroking her breast, her shoulder, slipping into her mouth to be suckled. She moves her hand back to grasp him as she slides down his back with the other, taking a moment to squeeze the firm pliant muscle of his ass.
She's spent whole weekens of her life watching his ass, watching his ambling cocky stride. She's yet to tire of the sight or the feel. She delves further, between his cheeks, pushing up with enough pressure to make him groan, to shove his hips forward, his cock forward in her grip and it's a circuit, a surefire, ignition and light and he yells as she presses, tugs, strokes, as she sucks his thumb into her mouth with that hand framing her jaw and throat, his other clutching her waist as he comes, hot and thin and sticky against her hip. His face is lax, so lovely as he comes down, twitching and relieved, eyes half lidded, glassy blue under the lashes. He pulls his thumb away, brushing it against her teeth, damp fingers over her cheeks and he kisses her, messy and lush. She shivers, insatiable and longing, happy to be here with him, to love him.
"Love you," he murmurs, tugging her towards him to press against his body, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, to fuse to her, sweat and semen and sex clinging to them, her skin sticky, his hot and damp and musky.
"Shall we take this to the shower then?" she asks, low, when she's sure she's got breath enough, when she's ready for sounds beyond his breath and his touch.
"Got a better idea, c'mon," he says, and slides off the bed, hands still on her waist, still guiding her. She follows willingly as he draws her to the fresher, and cocks an eyebrow as he gestures to the large deep basin newly installed in the corner.
"It's got a bathtub, " he says, as if it's the most surprising thing in the world. "A real tub, not like those weird troughs we've got on Moya. They installed 'em a few weekens ago at the request of some of the delegations who have serious water issues. But we get one, too." He waggles his eyebrows.
Aeryn rolls her eyes. Cycles ago, a Peacekeeper with only one future, she'd looked at sex only as release, as a biological function, something pleasurable and necessary and little else. Mixing this bright ridiculous joy with the physical pleasure, the layers of laughter and absurdity that come with knowing a body and a person so intimately, not just moments spent with a comrade but a lifetime spent with a friend and lover, sometimes it still surprises her, the way that sex mixes with all these other parts of their life together, how it reflects and is reflected in everything between them, how inseparable their love is from anything they do together.
He opens the tap and adjusts the temp, fingers sweeping through the stream of water. "I'll make it worth your while, baby."
She smiles.
***
Next part here
by Thea and feldman
Part 1/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
Despite the fact that they're only allied-guests aboard the xeno-carrier, the med tech and the surgeon give Aeryn the first class Peacekeeper treatment.
John had been expecting something as quick and businesslike as the first examination, but releasing a stasis involves a lot more of the ceremonial paperwork that PKs seem to attach to anything important. He waits at the edge of the cubicle with D'Argo, cooling their heels as Aeryn becomes Queen for the Day, or perhaps Pregnancy Princess for the next six weekens. The actual moment of the embryo's release is hard to spot amid scans, documentation, and the bureaucratic pomp of status transition.
The officer of the day is called in to negotiate the delicacies of Aeryn's strange new position as both allied-guest and actively-gestating. The older woman keys in her codes, imprints her chop, and with a there-but-for-the-grace-of-Cholak nod toward Aeryn goes back to her regular duties.
In exchange for the failed contraceptive implant Aeryn receives boosters, supplements, a schedule of check-in dates; she even gets a chit for uniforms and a special meal ticket, equipment and provisions for her mission.
John is proud of himself for not thinking *suicide* mission. He can be a team player when he has to be.
Over an arn later she hops off the exam table and tucks her temporary ident chip into her shirt. The bandage on her arm from where they dug out the implant is stark green against her regular cream and black. She controls the grin, but John recognizes it as her pre-battle expression, the one that greets the prospect of kicking some ass.
She meets John's gaze, then D'Argo's. "Father. Brother."
Widower. Orphan. John shakes himself, reminds himself again to give her this chance. Daughter. Sister.
When Aeryn scans her new chip in the mess she's issued a regular meal and a gallon of water. The hunger won't start for a few more days, but the thirst is legendary. Toward the end with D'Argo she only woke up to pee, re-hydrate and kick ass. Her water jug attracts a certain kind of distanced respect from the men, and winces of schadenfreude from some of the women.
John hears the word 'throwback', and steers his son a little faster toward the sectioned-off tables.
"They mean us, don't they, Dad."
"Yeah, D', but don't worry about it. It's just a few brown shirts running off at the mouth, that's all. They haven't read the more recent memos from HQ."
"They should play the Sprek game, then they'll find out about variation and hardiness and how you have to keep a deep pool to work with or your Sprek'll die off when you move up to the next level." D'Argo launches into a monologue about Sprek and his best bud/mortal enemy Kai-sen that reassures John of his son's own hardiness.
Aeryn eats with them at a leisurely pace, excluding the greedy gulps with which she drains her jug. Afterward, she takes D'Argo to the docking bay to re-tool her Prowler for dry-dock, and John codes a message for Pilot and Moya.
They won't be meeting up at the rendezvous as soon as they'd planned. John asks them to stay close, if they can. In the worst case, if that happens, he wants to take D'Argo home as quickly as possible.
***
"Ge-ji's guardian's said D' could bunk there for the night," John says. "Have a free-for all in the allied section. Stay up 'til the wee small hours hyped-up on Jolt and video games. There's a bunch of 'em who aren't hanging around for summer school and this is apparently a tradition of sorts."
Aeryn looks at her son, who is caught somewhere in the desire to be with his friends and the need to see things through here with his parents. She is grateful for his love, his concern, but the attachment is still a new thing for her to parse, a child's love for family, her child growing into a man. At his age, she'd been carrying a pulse rifle for cycle, had been testing for combat, and lived with the idea that she was part of a unit and was to fight and die for the glory of that unit. She was loyal to a concept, to the prospect of protection and action. There was no mother, father, brother or sister to cling to, to rebel against, to love. Crechelings, cadets, aren't given things to love that don't lead back to duty, to the Peacekeepers. That's not what she wanted for her son, and yet the niggling disquiet remains.
She worries frequently that they haven't done enough to prepare D'Argo for the harshness of the universe, for the random twists of fate and bad luck. She doesn't want him surprised. But she also doesn't want him living and growing in fear either. They made that decision cycles ago, to keep him safe, to keep him wary and aware and ready for action, but to keep him as innocent as possible considering his parentage, to offer him a life that she'd never had, the kind that John valued as the thing that made him into who he is.
They have the chance now to bring those things to another child, to offer up what they've learned so far, to give some of that love to a new member of their family, and she wants to take that chance, wants to see reflections of John and herself in a girl, wants to give D'Argo more of what John had.
She glances across the communications console at John, at the curve of his skull, the sprinkling of silver hairs around his temples, a few threaded through his hair, lightening it. She resists, for the time being, the urge to smooth her hand over that curve, to hold him against her, to feel the sweet skin of his neck under her fingertips. He's not in a mood to be touched. He would allow it merely to still D'Argo's fears and she doesn't want that. John holds his jaw hard, so much running under the surface of those lines, threading through his strong shoulders, his strong heart. He's angry about this decision, scared. He's putting up a united front for their son, but the two of them are going to have to hash this out while she still has the energy for patience and humor.
"Let's gather your things," Aeryn says finally to her son, as John downloads the rest of their communications onto a chip to read at a later time. He nods, "Mail call's done. Nothing urgent as far as I can see."
D'Argo glances between his folks for a moment and is reassured by Aeryn's smile and by John's nudge against his shoulder. Or perhaps the lure of arns spent devoted to the Sprek game is enough to dissuade him of the idea that his parents are going to do anything he'd be interested in.
On the way back to quarters, Aeryn asks him if Geji has also been working with the Sprek and John barks out a sharp laugh, winning him a matched set of glares from mother and son.
"Ge-ji was top in the class most of the term," D'Argo says, waxing enthusiastic, "but he's too careful. He makes sure that there's depth and breadth, but he's afraid to take chances, so his societies get overly populated, get caught up in the wrong stuff and get wiped out by diseases or other cultures."
He proceeds to launch into a lengthy and complicated explanation of how the Sprek development has evolved between the members of his peer group, an explanation that loses her long before he's gathered pajamas, dentic and a change of clothing for the morning. She glances at John, who leans against the doorway, and he gives her a real grin.
"You asked," he mouths, gleeful and a little taunting. "I've been dealing with this all term."
Ge-ji's guardian has an evening planned for the boys – controlled chaos, a set of boundaries beyond which they are not to leave. Aeryn hears her name whispered, about, shuffled between the gawky angles of adolescent boys and John pokes her in the side with his elbow.
"You made quite a stir last night," Ge-na says. "They're sort of in awe."
Aeryn hides a smile, sees her son nodding to another boy.
"Let's go," John says, low in her ear. "They can't actually tell him his mom's cool when she's in earshot."
Aeryn rests her hand on her son's shoulder, feels the smooth young skin of his neck, and he gives her a bright grin as he shrugs off her touch. "See you in the morning, Mom."
She knows it will embarrass him, but she can't help herself. She pitches her voice low. "I love you."
He blushes, eyes darting to the side to make sure no one has heard her. "Yeah," he murmurs, "me too."
John waits until they're out of earshot to make his first foray and she's absurdly grateful, her mind on the child growing inside her and on the child she's just left alone with his peers.
He speaks right after they turn the corridor, his tone ragged. "You're still ready to risk all that for a possibility?"
She's never shied away from John, and they've lived and loved for a long time. So she tells him the truth. "Yes."
And they are off.
For a few tiers the only noise between them is the striking of his boots on the deck, his usual soft-footed strut now hard and angry. If she were closer, if they weren't moving through corridors and dodging around crew, she's certain she could also hear his teeth grinding.
She'd speak, but there's nothing for her to say. She's said her piece and acted accordingly, what's left is to see it through so that everyone is safe at the end. He'll talk when he wants to; she's assured of that.
He veers back to the mess instead and she follows him through the line, scans her temp ident chip and lugs another jug of water back to their quarters, the silence between them a truce. The door slides shut and he locks it as he always does for the night when they bunk aboard a carrier. She waits a moment, then goes to the head. Water in, water out, it becomes like breathing during the first and fourth quadmesters. Perhaps Rygel did so well with D'Argo at first because he was constantly diving for pieces of his parents, immersed in the healing waters of seas now long since boiled away.
She remembers watching the boy playing in the palace pools, careful hands cradling a tadling like his Papa Ryg had held him. Her son will have a baby sister, a bigger family than just the two of them. He will.
She takes a deep breath and heads into the main room. John's sitting on the bed, waiting, his open stare meeting up with hers as soon as the door slides out of the way, more than perfect aim, more like magnets clicking together.
"I sent a message to Moya." The anger remains, tucked inside instead of pounding through his boots. "She and Pilot will stay close."
"That's good. The carrier will be running through training exercises for the time we'll be here; she won't be led anywhere dangerous following us."
John stands and closes the distance, looking down at her and speaking in a measured tone. "If his mother dies, this is the last place I want my son to be."
There's a flicker of an image, John leading an evacuation of two from a carrier of tens of thousands, fleeing to Moya as one retreats from a field of heavy losses. "You're being ridiculous."
"And you," his voice rips raw from his throat, anger and fear breaking out in the safety of their locked quarters, bursting out finally in the small safe space left between them, "you are being far more selfish than I ever gave you credit for."
Then he hasn't been giving her credit enough, she thinks. She's had a child to stay close to him, to have a family of her own making. If that first choice wasn't selfish she doesn't know the definition of the word. And if he doesn't know her reasons, then his own selfishness, his own fears are masking his reasoning.
She fires back, "You are blowing this out of proportion--"
"No, I'm not," he growls. "I watched my mother die, Aeryn. Watched cancer eat away at her, knowing I couldn't do anything. And I wasn't a boy, I was a grown man and it still hurts. You don't just get over losing a parent."
She narrows her eyes, "I am aware of that, but I think you are inflating the risks."
"Don't you remember last time?" he shoots back, body braced and aggressive, using his larger mass as a tool.
She resists rolling her eyes, knowing he needs this fresh and harsh and raw, in the open, before he'll come to terms with a decision already made. "We were under enemy fire, and my body rejected the pregnancy John. It was that simple. We were in battle and we had no medical resources. It was bad luck and bad timing and there is no chance of those circumstances being repeated."
"Bad luck," his voice rises, "bad timing. Shit, Aeryn, it wasn't just one of our dumb ass plans going wrong."
"Yes," she hisses back, "it was. It was the two of us taking a risk that shouldn't have been a risk, and having it go pear-shaped. We assumed, because the worst thing that happened with D'Argo was him being gestated in a Hynerian and birthed in a firefight, that the next child would be just as effortless. And we were wrong. Bad luck, bad timing."
He stalks away from her, seeking distance in the small quarters.
"It's not that simple, Aeryn. Things could go even worse here. Hell, we haven't had a major disaster in almost a cycle. This is like asking for something to go horribly wrong. So what the hell is worth that risk? Because you proving to the frelling universe that you can have another child, that you can beat our bad luck sure as hell isn't worth the risk of you dying and leaving D'Argo alone." He swallows heavily, sorrowing slipping in behind the anger, "Leaving the both of us alone."
It makes sense, the anger, the assumptions. And he's not wrong. But he's not right either. He hasn't been out there for almost a cycle.
She bites back her own instinctive anger, tries for calm, tries to summon up the cycles of growing together, of acting in accord, parents, partners, lovers and friends. "Maybe you're right, and I'm acting selfishly. I won't deny that. But..." she pauses, thinks about how she wants to say this. "Right now, he's unique in the universe. And I don't want him to be...alone. The only one of his kind. This wasn't an active choice, but now we can give him that. The chance to have someone else out there who is like him."
"And so you're betting the mother he has on the sister he might not get." John rubs his forehead, takes a step to the side. "He needs *us*, Aeryn, more than some weird ideal of 2.4 kids and a picket fence and a dog named Snuggles."
"John, you're--"
"*Us*, both of us." He turns back to her, expression caught between demanding and pleading. "Maybe on this carrier he'd already be pulling duty shifts and working toward a rank promotion--he's not a carrier kid, he's our kid, and he's very much *still* a kid, no matter how much he's grown in the weeks you've been gone. He's the first priority, we decided that long ago, and he still needs you."
"I'm not volunteering for a suicide run, here, John. I'm on a fully-crewed command carrier on a training mission." It's the best place for her to do this, all things considered, and he simply won't see it. "Even if things go completely wrong I'm not going to die--I didn't die before and we were under the gun without any resources."
"It's tempting fate, Aeryn."
That makes her snap, pulls her close to get into his face. "Frell fate--what did fate ever do for us? Nothing. We do for ourselves, and if I want a daughter I'll damned well have one."
"That's just great, that's fucking fantastic." He mutters it as he drops onto the bed, as if the anger is too big and he's suddenly too tired to move it. "What are you gonna do for an encore, huh? Saw yourself in half and turn into rabbits?"
She takes the moment to swig a long draught of water, the thirst like at itch that keeps flaring. "You can spend the next six weekens pouting if you want to, it's not like it matters at this point."
"No it doesn't, because you've made the decision for all of us." He pops back to his feet. "Screw the people who care about you and need you, you're gonna do what you want!"
She slams the jug down, slopping water on the table. "You said it was my decision to make--"
"I thought you'd make the right one--serves me right to assume, huh?" He pulls his jacket from the chair and huffs the rest as he punches his arms into the sleeves. "Well that's it, I'm not the captain here but I do have *some* authority left."
"Where are you going?"
"Med bay."
"What the frell for?"
"You won this round, you do whatever the frell you want, I can't stop you." He strides back, slipping the last phrase into the air like a shock charge that doesn't detonate. "But I'll be damned if it'll happen again."
She pounces on the concession. "So you admit there could be a next time, that this pregnancy is not tantamount to suicide like you keep blathering about."
"No, Aeryn, *no* next time. I'm closing up shop, shutting down the factory, taking the boys to the vet like a responsible pet-owner--ain't no way we're doing this again no matter what happens."
Sterilized, like a soldier with a lethal mutation or a radiation injury. She imagines the officer of the day coming in to verify the odd request, which is slightly more believable than imagining John submitting to such a procedure. "You can't be serious."
"Try me." He palms the lock and she slams her hand on it again. The door gives a little whine from the conflicting commands.
This has gone too far. "Take off your jacket."
"It's a simple equation. You can't make the sane decision then it's up to me to take that choice off the table."
"Take your jacket off. *Now*, John."
"Get away from the door."
"Fine." She feints away and trips him. "But no one leaves until we settle this."
He catches one of her ankles in both hands and crooks his leg up to pop her behind the other knee, and she lands across him, her palms slapping the deck behind her.
They've spent too much time wresting for fun over the years, reflexes bent toward each other's familiar moves, and their grappling pauses with him on his back and nestled between her legs, her boots tucked under his thighs for leverage that she usually uses to more pleasant ends.
He rises up, hands propped behind himself. Her skin is flushed, pink on the bones of her cheeks, the heels of her boots digging into his hamstrings. They've had a decent run of luck recently, and he'd almost forgotten how she'd occasionally scare the piss out of him. She watches him with angry eyes, bright skin and willful enough to be a force of nature. He sweeps his hands into her hair, cradling her head and feeling the tension in her neck and spine, and he kisses her as if it were the last time, as if she'd come back from the dead again, as if they only had another few moments.
Maybe that's all he does have with her. As angry as he is, as petrified as he is underneath that, he doesn't want her to leave like that.
She allows the kiss for more than a few microts, bleeding off some of his need and his fear, her tongue cool in his mouth, and then she shoves him down, bouncing his head off the decking.
"Frell you John. You've already made your decision, is that it? Got it in your head that I'm going to die."
His head is ringing, and he hears outrage in her voice, hears her intimate, utter knowledge of him. He's never stopped clinging to her when desperation edges in. He can be angry, terrified, pissed off or shattered, dying, and he finds her, finds her mouth and her skin and her strength, draws from it. Even now, prone and furious, needy and longing and wanting to shake her as much as frell her, he draws from her ferocity, her steel spine and rigid determination.
"I'm preparing for the worst," he bites back, "covering our bases. Strategizing Aeryn. Frell, you're the one who taught me to do it."
He's quick and he knows her body, her flashes of distraction, knows that in the early stages of pregnancy her reflexes are still faster than his, but her attention is a little scattershot. He grabs her wrists and with a hard jerk hauls himself back up flush to her body. He gives in and shakes her a little, and she glares, hot and hard.
Lust flares and flutters and she cants her hips against his, stirring him. "Goddammit," he growls. "That's a sucker punch."
Her eyes slit, catlike and fierce, and this could go from fighting to fucking with a flick of a eyelash, with a slow blink and a rougher kiss. He's not ready to concede yet.
"We promised each other a life together." He says, grip still tight on her wrist but thumb stroking the skin. " No more Butch and Sundance and a hideout in Bolivia, no unnecessary risks. A life, together. Out here."
"We take greater risks everyday," she insists, and he can see that part of her believes this. "Do you honestly think embarrassing a senior member of the Kai cooperative wasn't a risk? That being on this carrier isn't a risk? Training militia pilots to blast each other to pieces until a bigger threat comes along?"
"They're acceptable risks, things we do because they're worth doing. Well, maybe not drag racing with Kai-tyil, but the rest of them. We're doing our part, doing more good than harm, and I can't believe that you think that putting yourself in unnecessary danger is a risk on that same level. It isn't anything more than selfish Aeryn, it's willfulness, stubbornness, a signature Aeryn Sun 'I'm not going to lay down and have the universe dictate the terms of my existence' move."
She shakes out of his grip, angling her body so that she knees him in the ribs and he woofs out in pain, gasping for air and slapping her thigh with the flat of his hand. "Christ, you play dirty."
She stands over him, staring down. Enigmatic as she reaches for the water jug, taking a swig of it, drinking more deeply when the sip fails to satisfy her thirst.
He isn't ready to relent but he's already lost the fight, only one more volley to offer up. He can play dirty as well. "I've lived without you Aeryn. I know what it feels like, to look at you and not see any trace of the woman I that I love, just a body. I've seen you dead because of my weaknesses. I've been left behind more than once, and I do not fucking want to repeat that process." He leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, looking up at her past his furrowed brow. "But this isn't just about me."
She tips the water jug and pours it onto him. He bellows, sputters, wipes the water out of his eyes, and wonders if that's going to be it. That jug looks like it'd make quite a dent in his skull.
"I need more water," she says, voice gravel rough.
He stands, shaking water from his hair like a dog, and reaches slowly toward the jug. She lets him disarm her, watches him walk to the basin to refill it, and accepts the heavy jug with a nod. He watches her make a healthy dent in the water, remembering the stunned looks the Luxans had given her when they were rescued from the Scarrans and she'd divided her time between reloading and cycling half their water supply through her kidneys. The hunger will hit her in a few hours, and after that he'll be lucky to have six full weekens of dread ahead of him.
Back on earth he wouldn't even have been invited to his wife's baby shower; here in the UTs he's become something of a specialist in firefight gynecology. He shucks his jacket, throws it on a chair, and waits for her to finish.
Time-out is a skill as hard earned as not walking away, like scratching *around* the mosquito bite instead of digging into it until it bleeds. It's taken them years to learn to how to fight, to secure a space for it between them. It's a kind of ceremonial combat, marital sumo with unspoken rules, honesty above all; cheap shots are foul play that only docks your own score. It's taken them years to work it out and it still takes focus from both of them, still too easy to slip into the previous reflexes, comfortable and dangerous. Hurtful. It's damned difficult to hurt and not let yourself hurt back. To trust, even when you disagree.
She's locked him in, wanting this settled before the pregnancy gains too much momentum, before she can't afford the distraction. She wants him solidly behind her, wants him to trust. She wants him to give her this chance. But it's such a huge risk, and he doesn't think she appreciates the damage she could do, doesn't think she's thought out what her death would mean.
John activates the console, clearing the space of lesson plans and messages. He opens a clean file, fingers negotiating the Sebacean keypad easily even if they stab harder than necessary. She sets the jug down and reads over his shoulder, the intro lines of the last will and testament of Aeryn Sun.
She exhales hard and sharp through her nose. "You won't let this go, will you?"
"Be prepared."
"I'd like to see you prepare for your daughter just as thoroughly."
His fingers pause. It feels like a cheap shot, but it's honesty. "I'll worry about the kidlet if you worry about D'."
"I worry about the both of you, but I refuse to let that paralyze me. Unlike you, I have faith in the people I love."
"Then why is the door locked?"
"Because you're being irrational."
"There you go."
She shoves him out of the chair, her viciousness barely contained, and he relinquishes the seat with a flourish.
"You're the one who said we don't need pets and fences and all that human dren; now you want me to do this 'testament' thing as if it makes any difference--"
"Makes a difference for me, and for D'."
"Knowing what to do with my possessions? How could that help?"
"Don't give a damn about your *stuff*, woman. What I need you to put down on paper are the things you won't be able to tell him if you're dead two monens from now."
"The only things either of us have held back from him are the things that would hurt him."
"So he's full up, then, is he? Has all the love he needs from you?"
There's a pause while their internal referees both call the shot. Close, but still fair. When she speaks her voice is low and thick. "I can't put love into a computer file."
"Hopes, dreams, wishes. This is your chance to put them down. When he graduates from the telacademy--what will you say? When he gets his heart broken, when he wins, when he loses, when he goes off to live his own life, when he makes you a grandma; what will you say? Put it down now, while you can."
She turns to him. She's caught up enough on her thirst to spare water for her eyes. "And you? Since you've all but buried me?"
He lets the beat pass, looking at her, looking to her. "About you? What'll I tell our son about you?"
She lifts one shoulder and he knows it's only part of what she meant. Learning to fight has been almost secondary to learning how to include another person, another thought and another duty in the space between each other. So much loss, death and near death, so much absence that the danger of being irrationally consumed, of destroying the universe for one another had loomed large. They fought against that, found a place for rationality in love, but it was a struggle. Everyday it was a struggle to not just hole up, backs to each other, backs to the wall and not think of anything else but danger, and a fragile peace that existed because of how close they'd come to taking away choice from everyone.
So what would he say to his son about his mother? What does he know of her wishes and fears and hopes for their kid? What would he say about what Aeryn was to him? The fight's gone out of him. He's still raw and jittery, but he's done leveling hurt on her. He's not gonna back down on this particular exercise, but maybe it's something they both should have done cycles ago.
He kneels done in front of her, hand on her thigh, fingers against the sweep of her jaw, the silk of her hair grazing his fingertips.
"I'd tell him that there was this astronaut who went for a ride one day and got lost, wound up in the middle of a firefight, woke up to the girl of his dreams."
She quirks her mouth, unimpressed. "He's heard that story. He remains dubious."
John's eyes shadow. "I got others. I've got a small yacht full of stories about his mom - about her courage and stubbornness and humor, about that look you get on your face when your about to lay down the law, the way your mouth curves the same when you're flying hard and fast as when you're coming."
She snorts with laughter, rubs her eyes with the back of her knuckles. "I doubt he'd want to hear that. I'm not certain I wanted to hear that, but it does explain your occasional reaction to..."
He squeezes her knee. "I'll tell him about the moments of watching you with him, watching you both focus so intently on something that the rest of reality tunes out. How he's the only thing in the universe that makes you forget the gun at your hip, how your whole face gets the same sense of wonder on it as his does when he makes a discovery, how you've never stopped growing beyond what you thought you were and what you could be." He feels the tears in the back of his own throat.
She presses her fingers to the hollow of his throat, narrows her eyes, "And you," she says, "what do you want to know from me?"
She strokes his neck, his temples with her cool fingers and lets his hand brush her chest as it makes a path down her body to mirror his other hand on her thigh.
He looks up at her, squints a little. "We haven't kept secrets in a long time Aeryn, and whatever secrets are still out there are better off lost, I think. I know you love me, love our son, know you've made me a better man. I don't think there's more I need to know."
She shakes her head at him, bends her neck gracefully, kisses him hard and hot and sweet. His hands tighten on her thighs and she slides her tongue into his mouth, possessive and sweeping. He groans against her, slides his hands up so they curve around her hips, thumbs sweeping into the vee of her legs.
"Perhaps," she whispers against his jaw, moving her mouth to nip the skin of his neck, "We can work out this testament verbally before I commit it to paper."
"Negotiate terms?" he chuckles, fingers brushing over her sex, catching her hitch of breath.
She tweaks a nipple through his shirt. "Mm-hmm."
She stands, pulling him from his knees and wincing at the creak of his joints. He shrugs. She strips off his shirt and draws a nipple into a hard suck, steering him toward the bed alcove.
"You were saying?" He walks backward as she unfastens his belt and his fly, pausing as the heels of his boots thud against the low alcove platform.
"I'll do this thing for D'Argo, for you. I'll record as many messages as you want." She caresses his hands as he returns the favor, unbuckling and unzipping her. "But I need one thing from you."
"What's that?" He sits on the step to unstrap her boots and then kicks his own off. She waits until he joins her next to the bed, each of them tossing aside the last bits of clothing, the last shreds of distance.
She pushes him down hard enough to bounce, then sits astride him, the beginnings of humor in her eyes clouded by the whisper of need in her voice. "You have to get everything ready for her."
"You know I'll give you everything you need, everything I can." He pulls her chest to chest with him, her hair falling down around their faces soft and dark. For a moment they simply breathe, skin to skin. "I don't want to lose you, I'll do whatever it takes."
"I know that." She slides her cheek along his. "What I'm asking you do to is prepare for the best, while I prepare for the worst."
His eyes leak from the corners, the words mere breath between them. "Whatever you want from me, just stay."
She nods, rubbing a stubble burn into her cheek. She rises up on her knees, positioning his hardness lengthwise between her lips and beginning a thoughtful stroke, taking them away from that raw edge with a tentative hint of humor. "We'll need supplies. She'll need a name. I want you to take care of both."
"I will." His eyes are dark as he shifts in counterpoint.
"Let's see." She licks her palm and slips it around the head of his cock, using the leverage to rock his length against her clit. "As for everything else, you can have my Prowler and tools. But my guns are strictly for the boy."
He slaps her ass and she squeezes in return, making him shudder beneath her.
"Pulse cannon's almost as big as he is," John quips, "We'd have to get him a cart to haul it around," and then moans as she sinks down on him, tilts her hips forward, her neck a smooth curve. She hums, rocks her pelvis, squeezing him. Her hands weave through his, settle his grip on her waist and he presses down until they're melded together as tightly as possible, the muscles in her thighs taut with the strain.
"I want him happy, healthy," she says. "I want you happy and healthy." She runs her hands up over her body, cupping her breasts and he slides the heel of his hand over her clit. He loves this part, not just the sex, but knowing this body, her body, knowing her pulse and reaction, the texture of her skin, the grip of her sex, the line of her thigh and the curve of her ass. He loves her, knowing her, loving her, and being pissed off at her, it's all one. He's so very grateful to have this thing here with her, this marriage in all it's various states of learning and negotiation.
He's sinking into himself, drifting in the pleasure, trying to drift away from his wariness and fear. She slides her fingers underneath his, steering his way over her clit and he chuckles. "You just can't let someone else drive, can you?"
She leans back, hands on his thighs, rhythm steady.
"If I do die," she says slowly, "I think you should tell him everything. Tell him who we were, what we've done. Maybe not now, but later. I'd like him to be proud of us."
It chokes him up, and he wants a flurry here, the fury of passion, the humor of Aeryn doling out guns and leather and steel. "He's proud," he says, and then bucks up with his hips, rolling her over to her side and sliding out of her.
He nuzzles against her lips with an appreciative moan, and she lets him taste her, lets him suckle at her clit while her fingers try and fail to get a solid grip on his hair. Too short at the temples, enough that the white hairs sparkle in the light. He's reverent and slow, savoring her, just barely enough friction to keep her interested.
He splays one hand on her belly, pressing down as he slips a finger in below his tongue. That's better, that's something she can work with. She slides the sole of one foot up his side, then props it across his back. He settles on the bed, his manner as leisurely as his attentions, one leg crooked to the side.
The angle of his hip beckons, and she pushes her other foot toward the inviting niche between fur coverlet and fuzzy groin. Her toes find him, silky skin and hardness buried in soft bedding. They both moan. He matches the rhythm of her instep, stroking her with tongue and fingers. Orgasm flares hot orange on the horizon, there for the taking, and she grasps a handful of his hair to tilt his head to the side, to aim him and to catch a better view of the slow thrust of his ass as he grinds his cock against the soft arch of her foot and he responds, quickens the pace to shove her over the edge.
She's still panting as he wipes his grin, kneeling back with that beautiful cock waiting for her to come back and play.
It's been too long since they've had time like this, time to frell for arns, to frell until they have friction burns and their muscles shake and their ears ring. It's a good way to begin.
As if she needed an excuse, seeing him like this before her. Vulnerable and fervent, his body an offering and a challenge, textures and tastes that are more erotic for being familiar; she knows how to make him respond, his body trusts her touch and leans into it. Home is where this man is, delightful and welcoming despite the occasional storms.
She rises up on her knees and throws an arm around his shoulders, kissing him with a languor that flaunts her afterglow. She wants to see him go off, wants to watch him gasp and spurt. He belongs to her, and she can fly him as well as any ship. She cradles his balls in her hand and smiles when they roll and tighten, when he moans into her mouth.
He moves his lips to her neck and she nudges him to widen his thighs, to let her press her sex against the taut muscle there. His hand sweeps her back, sweeps over her ass, comes back to tangle in her hair and she grips him tightly, feeling the heat and the hardness, the ridges of veins and the smooth silk of him against her touch.
He watches her stroke him, hips bucking forward in short erratic thrusts of excitement. She eases the pressure, slips her fingers over his balls again, slides lower to stroke the thin, fine skin behind, to press up and into him and he growls, moans in her ear.
"Bad angle for that kind of play," he whispers. She grins at him, continues to stroke and he sits up on his knees, grasping her around the waist to keep her pressed to him, his thigh between her legs, her body at enough of an angle that she has room to stroke him fully. He holds her up, holds her steady, panting slightly, hands lazily stroking her breast, her shoulder, slipping into her mouth to be suckled. She moves her hand back to grasp him as she slides down his back with the other, taking a moment to squeeze the firm pliant muscle of his ass.
She's spent whole weekens of her life watching his ass, watching his ambling cocky stride. She's yet to tire of the sight or the feel. She delves further, between his cheeks, pushing up with enough pressure to make him groan, to shove his hips forward, his cock forward in her grip and it's a circuit, a surefire, ignition and light and he yells as she presses, tugs, strokes, as she sucks his thumb into her mouth with that hand framing her jaw and throat, his other clutching her waist as he comes, hot and thin and sticky against her hip. His face is lax, so lovely as he comes down, twitching and relieved, eyes half lidded, glassy blue under the lashes. He pulls his thumb away, brushing it against her teeth, damp fingers over her cheeks and he kisses her, messy and lush. She shivers, insatiable and longing, happy to be here with him, to love him.
"Love you," he murmurs, tugging her towards him to press against his body, thigh to thigh, chest to chest, to fuse to her, sweat and semen and sex clinging to them, her skin sticky, his hot and damp and musky.
"Shall we take this to the shower then?" she asks, low, when she's sure she's got breath enough, when she's ready for sounds beyond his breath and his touch.
"Got a better idea, c'mon," he says, and slides off the bed, hands still on her waist, still guiding her. She follows willingly as he draws her to the fresher, and cocks an eyebrow as he gestures to the large deep basin newly installed in the corner.
"It's got a bathtub, " he says, as if it's the most surprising thing in the world. "A real tub, not like those weird troughs we've got on Moya. They installed 'em a few weekens ago at the request of some of the delegations who have serious water issues. But we get one, too." He waggles his eyebrows.
Aeryn rolls her eyes. Cycles ago, a Peacekeeper with only one future, she'd looked at sex only as release, as a biological function, something pleasurable and necessary and little else. Mixing this bright ridiculous joy with the physical pleasure, the layers of laughter and absurdity that come with knowing a body and a person so intimately, not just moments spent with a comrade but a lifetime spent with a friend and lover, sometimes it still surprises her, the way that sex mixes with all these other parts of their life together, how it reflects and is reflected in everything between them, how inseparable their love is from anything they do together.
He opens the tap and adjusts the temp, fingers sweeping through the stream of water. "I'll make it worth your while, baby."
She smiles.
***
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