Pretty in Punk 3/6 by Thea and feldman
Jun. 22nd, 2005 10:21 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
Part 2/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
***
D'Argo hits the doorpad and nothing happens. He growls, shoves the strap of his pack higher on his shoulder and slams his hand against the pad again. Nothing. Frelling carrier tech; everything's either sharp or bulky, black or red when it isn't grey, and uniformly boring even when it works properly. What good's a ship you can't talk with?
He lays his palm on the lock and barks, "Override!" voice raspy dry from too much yelling and not enough sleep. He just needs to lie down for an arn or two before meeting the guys at the pool. Water and friends are the only things he can't get on Moya, the things that make staying on a carrier worth the aggravation, make putting up with the cramped quarters and the drenhead cadets worthwhile. The door slides open and D'Argo stumbles through, propelled by weariness and his heavy pack.
The conversation stops with his entrance.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in."
D'Argo fights the yawn, face squinching as his jaws stretch open behind closed lips.
"I remember that face." His mother crosses her arms. "He used to make that face right before he needed changing."
His dad chuckles as he strips the pack from his shoulders and pushes him toward bed. Not the cadet cot against the far wall, but the big bed, covered in fur and murmuring sweet comfortable nothings to D'Argo.
"Just gonna lie down for a few minutes. Gonna go swimming."
"Understood, son." His mom pushes him down and tugs off his boots. "Just a few minutes."
"Guys...make a team, y'know? Tel'cademy needs a team." The bedding is cool against his cheek. There's a tug beneath him and half the coverlet lands over him. "Swim team."
"He looks so innocent."
"He looks like a burrito."
"B'rrito?"
"Like a gwiero."
D'Argo's too snug and comfortable to take offense. Instead he thinks of how yummy the gwieros on Hyneria were. He flickers into dreams of Papa Ryg's country estate, his parent's voices filtering through in a fading undertone.
"He does, a little; a boy-filled palace treat. So. Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
"You don't have to do this, you know."
"I do. I'll give it this chance, I'll keep my end of the bargain. But I can't risk it again, Aeryn."
"Fine. Then let's do this."
His dad sighs, muttering, "Now I know how Snuggles felt."
He doesn't have a clue as to what his parents are talking about, doesn't care exactly. They sound more like them now, teasing and easy with each other, pushing and pulling and in tune like the Prowler when it's just been repaired, when it hums in perfect pitch.
He feels his mom touch his forehead to brush his hair back, feels her cool lips on his cheek and then their footsteps disappear. He thinks of water and Hyneria, swimming in the palace pools, Papa Ryg sneaking him marjoules and tiny cakes when no one was looking. The prerogatives of royalty, he'd said.
The other guys can swim, but none of them have seen Hyneria, they don't know how to hold their breath in a rhythm so that it cycles through, keeps you buoyant, follows your stroke. He's got lungs as strong as any Sebacean, and he kicks ass in the freestyle crawl and the breaststroke. When they start the team... he drifts off to thoughts of cheering crowds and competition, cutting cleanly through water and winning, beating the crap out of the cadets who learn to swim only because they have to and then still think they're so much frelling better than everyone else.
***
She puts in the orders to the tech herself, not quite trusting John or the medical staff to submit the proper paperwork for the procedure without specifics.
Sterilization is unusual, a request for one unheard of on a command carrier, and while he adamantly wants this absurdity, she knows he's nervous. He fiddles with his belt, joggles her arm, talks too loudly as they wait for the approval. Bravado propels him as much as determination and he's still unintelligible to most Peacekeepers when the bravado's at its worst. The med techs don't care much what they do, a task is a task, but the command structure still reviews every request in the queue and there remain issues of lingering resentment and distrust. She wants him sterilized, not castrated.
She doesn't mention that particular possibility to John, knowing it'd be a cheap shot. Doesn't mean she's not tempted though.
They sit in the waiting area until the med tech comes for them. He leaves them alone in the room, and when John takes off his pants, sits on the table in his t-shirt and shorts, his black socks incongruous with his pale legs, she feels a flutter of compassion and a wave of sorrow. She doesn't intend to have offspring with other men should she outlive John, and so this pregnancy will be her last chance for another child. If the fetus dies, that will be it. She has faced far worse things, but it bites a little, stings with the removal of possibility.
John offers up his hand and she moves towards him, sliding his thigh between her legs and stroking the back of his neck. She presses her lips against the softness of his hair and he wraps his arm around her waist, holding her to him. "This is gonna hurt like a mother, isn't it?"
She pulls back, raises an eyebrow. "That would be my guess," she says, fighting back a dark grin. She's not looking forward to labor with anticipation, either. Hurt like a mother, indeed.
"It's the right decision," he says, voice heavy and determined. She doesn't argue with him. It's his choice as much as release the fetus was hers. Control of their bodies, their lives. It's something they fight for everyday. She cannot condemn his choice even though she doesn't like it, can't deny him the right.
The surgeon enters and she steps away from John, staying close enough so that he can reach for her if he wants to.
"Take them off," the physician says, voice colorless.
John removes the shorts, looking terribly vulnerable bared to the room. The surgeon injects something into the join of his thigh and he twitches. Lifting up his testicles, the surgeon slides the thin laser into position and flicks it on.
"Goddamn sonofabitch," John growls, but doesn't look at her. He only grunts the second time.
And it's done. He's no longer able to produce children.
"You'll be numb for the next arn," the surgeon warns, "and then there will be more pain. I wouldn't...put unnecessary strain on it if I were you." With a perfunctory keying of a datapad, he leaves.
John's face is ashy, his trembling fingers as likely from the shock as the anesthetic. "Think I need a little help here, baby."
Aeryn helps her husband dress, carefully sliding the zipper up, buckling his belt. She runs her hands over the small of his back, soothing him as she soothes her son when he's overly tired or hurt.
John pulls her towards him, clinging to her. "Didn't think it was going to feel like that," he says, mouth moving against her cheek.
"No," she says, "Neither did I."
***
John shakes the boy's shoulder. "Hey, sleepyhead."
D'Argo mumbles and humphs into the covers, curling away from consciousness. John pulls the fur off and starts tugging at the sheet wound around his son.
"Come on, D', day shift's half over and I'm sick of taking your messages."
There's an inquisitive grunt.
"Your crew have been comming you for arns now. Last I heard it sounded like they were heading toward the pool."
That flips the switch from curl to stretch, limbs angling out in sweeping arcs that propel him off the edge of the bed. Planned or not, he lands on his feet and heads toward the fresher without opening his eyes.
John ambles to the console and lets the kids know they'll be there in half an arn. He adjusts the small cold pack tucked in his shorts, looking forward to hanging out in the cool buoyant water of the pool.
Since they're going to be on the carrier for the duration, he might as well take the opportunity to work with these kids face to face as much as possible. Too much of this teaching gig happens over vid. The nature of the telacademy is ad hoc, catch as catch can and run from a distance, and it's the best option available for families on the move--even when mediated by long-range communications, it's the most diverse education they could offer D'Argo--but John likes being able to be in the same room with his students for a change, being able to offer them something more than assignments and tests on a console. He enjoys showing them how to do something physical that they didn't think they could do, loves the looks on their faces when they get it.
Swimming is just a way to teach them how to get along with each other in real time, work together toward a goal.
Sportsmanship, friendly competition, negotiation on a micro level; he's a co-ed, co-species coach working the Romeos and Juliets while Aeryn handles the Whatsits and the Capulets. Johnny Radiation teaching good citizenship through Little League. He knows that the coda to his reputation, for anyone who still cares, is that he's brain damaged and pathetic, a sad hollow shell of an outlaw living out his years on his wife's good graces. It's reduced the number of folks looking to make a name by killing him. Conflict mediation among teenagers is more his speed anyway; they tend to be more coherent than governments.
He's got twenty-odd kids, boys and girls and some in-between modes, from a handful of species. Enough for a decent intramural program even if none of the carrier cadets sign on.
Who knows when the team will be able to reassemble again, but that's a concern for later, the least among many. For now they can practice and maybe have a meet or two before they split off to their respective ships and lives and solitary consoles where, if they're lucky, they can see a small holo image of their classmates if the local telecom net can handle it.
D'Argo pops out of the fresher, hair as unruly as before. John intercepts him at the door, using all of his will not to hobble. "Shower."
"I'm going to the pool, I'm just gonna get wet again--"
"Technically true, but I'm not taking you anywhere when you stink."
"I showered yesterday, I don't stink."
"Want me to comm mom, have her be the judge?"
He glares at the floor and trudges back to the fresher.
"Hurry it up, I called practice in a half an arn."
"Yeah yeah."
John parks himself on a chair and tries not to dwell on his crotch. Aside from the initial piercing pain, it's not as bad as he'd feared. When he rummaged in the first aid kit for the cold pack he'd found a packet of an analgesic he recognized, so he's been sailing along on that for a few arns now. He might even eat later on today.
Now they just need to get Aeryn through this pregnancy safe and they can both concentrate on finishing what they started with the boy, do all they can to send a good man out into the universe.
A good woman too, maybe, if they get the chance. A daughter. He promised Aeryn he'd prepare for the best outcome.
He's in the middle of the grocery list when D'Argo emerges from the fresher. Over a thousand microts in the shower and the kid doesn't look a hell of a lot cleaner, but odds are he smells better than he did when he went in. It's a marvel and universal fact that teenage boys have a fear of soap that rivals the fear and intrigue of girls, yet they'll stand under the spray until an entire cargo ship of hot water passes down the drain.
"Where's Mom?" D' shoves his towel and flipflops into his rucksack, wriggles back into his t-shirt.
"Board meeting."
His son rolls his eyes. “No, really.”
"She's securing the arrangements for our extended visit, setting up some meetings while we're here. You know how everything's gotta be cleared through command, even when they have no objections. PKs are hell bent on bureaucracy. Makes the US government look positively impromptu in comparison. Course, the White House doesn’t send people to jail for frelling up a shipping invoice."
His son ignores him, used to the rambling by now. "So what're you doing?"
John hauls himself up, shoves the list into his own bag. "Grocery shopping. You and I are gonna go grab some gear at the end of the month."
"Field trip?" His son's smile is joyous and bright, a version of one of Aeryn's good day smiles.
John grins back and tries not to limp as he follows D' out the door. "Field trip."
***
They're greeted with jangling noise, high-fives for the boy, yells and catcalls, hollers of "Hey Commander" and "Yo, Mr. C, what's up." None of these kids speak English except for his son, and the translations are probably hysterical. They're parroting back D'Argo's suggestions and seem pleased with them. A few of the older Sebacean girls, fourteen or fifteen, bodies developing and minds light years ahead of their males peers give him knowing smiles, and he fights back a grin.
It's the innocence more than anything. The female cadets don't look at him like that, don't flirt. To them, he's still a killer, a traitor, someone to fear and loathe. Aeryn was one of those cadets, he knows; she followed orders, hated who she was supposed to hate, lived and breathed flight and fight, probably recreating already at that age.
These girls, well, he really doesn't want to know anything about their sex lives, but he can see in them the curiosity that he recognizes as part of growing up in a free society, growing up with the room to explore the tangles of that curiosity, to tease and play with both their bodies and their minds, to be smart and sassy and explore and flirt with their old man of a swim coach who they see as an easy mark, unthreatening and harmless.
If this daughter thing works out, when she's fifteen he's going to frelling lock her in a cell on Moya until puberty passes and he can select a nice boy for her with whom she will never, ever have sex. And with his genes and Aeryn's combined, she'll probably pick the lock and shoot her way to the nearest port of call long before that.
The group is rambling and noisy and rowdy, a little shoving here and there, a little honest trash talk and it's time to get this party started.
"Twenty laps, warm up with all four strokes. We're gonna do some sprints and some drills and then maybe have a little contest."
The giggling turns into splashes and slaps of water as the kids peel off the edges, slipping into the pool like slick glittery fish. He looks at them in wonder before he strips off his t-shirt and eases his own body into the cool water of an empty slow-side lane.
He takes a couple of easy laps in the slow lane, trying to not get slapped too much by the wake of young bodies with way too much energy knifing through the water. He's not up for much exercise, but the flutter kick doesn't hurt too badly and he needs to stretch out the muscles that his wife wore out the night before. The pain is worth the trade off of freer muscles, and he'll tuck the ice back later.
He's got a list of stuff worked out of the things they'll need for a new infant, and he wishes that it felt giddy and joyous, like D's birth had. But he remembers the hubris too well, the absolute certainty that one birth was very much the same as another and the absolute sucker punch shock of getting through yet another random firefight with only a few grazes and then Aeryn's body saying fuck you both very much.
He remembers the blood loss and her ash white face, eyes glazed, the light in them dimming out because they didn't have access to anything more than cotton padding until they could repair the conduit lines for starburst.
It was a toss up whether or not to use the kill-shot and wake her up once they'd starburst to the nearest system, once they had access to a real doctor, and maybe she wouldn't have lost so much blood if they hadn't waited so long, hadn't held out hope that the gush of blood wasn't the end of that particular child.
He nearly lost everything that day. He still feels damned lucky they got through it only a little worse for wear. She roused like a trooper when the doc jabbed in the revival shot, recovering with her usual carrier-born swiftness, and they decided never to risk her health or her life again.
He does an easy flip turn, sucks in his breath as his body suggests that swimming wasn't such a fabulous idea. He turns onto his back in a lazy backstroke down the length of the pool, hissing a little as the pain recedes, as he puts the memory and the fear away.
"Hey Kai, why don't you stretch a little more, your dorsal arms look a bit stiff. Once everyone's warmed up we'll do A and B relays."
Kai sighs heavily, sloshing toward the poolside to work on his arms.
He doesn't really mind that his rep is gone, doesn't mind not being John Crichton, scourge of the universe, he likes living in his wife's shadow. He's so damned proud of Aeryn, surprised and pleased and proud that her fine mind has allowed them some diplomatic immunity. He's pretty sure that a few strings got pulled, a few hints whispered about, and that in the beginning it was fear as much as anything that got the Crichton/Sun duo in the cabinet rooms and embassies. One too many outbursts on his part had cemented the idea that he was still a cowboy but useless now, an eccentric appendage to the real brains.
He'd been a hotshot for most of his life, young and bright, he'd had a small flurry of media attention, had been the star of the show before becoming Mr. Most Wanted, and he's pretty damned content these days to just take the ride, care for his family, and practice peace on a smaller scale. It stings once in a while, but it's a burn he can live with.
Live being the operative word. Still, they have to be careful. Not everyone's happy to have the past behind them, and there are still bounties for his head and for Aeryn's in certain jurisdictions. He doesn't even kid her about her price being higher now. She doesn't think it's funny.
He teaches physics, sure, theoretical science and inter-dimensional mathematics, but he doesn't touch on wormholes as anything other than theory. And he doesn't talk to anyone about the way they still dance in his head sometimes like a junior prom tease, awkward with potential; the way he knows, if he tries, that he could work it out again. Maybe not sniff them out like sugar glaze and sea salt, maybe not ride that scent like a rollercoaster, but figure them out and make 'em work. He isn't limited, and the knowledge had always been there. Before Furlow, he'd been on the right track. But it isn't something he talks about to anyone, not even Aeryn, not now. If it ever becomes an issue...well, they'll deal. They're good at dealing.
He completes another lap, a little breathless and questioning his choice to exercise, then hauls himself out of the pool, fires up the lap timer and writes the sets on the board, gives the kids a couple thousand microts to finish the drills.
D' finishes first in his lane, shaking water off his hair like a young seal. He's growing so fast these days, gangly and a little awkward, but a bright beautiful regular kid. He looks over at John and sends a splash of water towards him, a bit of a challenge, a good-natured dare.
"All right, " John says, when they're red-faced or blue-faced or white-faced with exertion. "We're gonna learn to play a game."
The kids split up into a group at each side of the square pool, colored patches on their suits designating each five-being intramural team. John reaches into his gear bag for a handful of marker tags and he can see the kids tense, feel them rev their engines waiting for the light to turn green.
He leans against the wall panel casually, keying in a series of currents and jets that will turn the pool into an ever-changing body of active water. PKs learn how to swim because they may need to deal with rivers, floods, and tides, so while their training pool didn't come with pre-marked lanes, it does have a "rapids" setting. John keys in a twenty-minute sequence and starts the jets, tossing a handful of markers into the water as it begins to churn.
Speed is one thing. "On your mark."
Agility is another. "Get set."
Teamwork yet another. "Go!"
The kids kick off into a seething mass of water and flailing limbs, chasing after the tags which sink or float or drift in the currents depending on their variable mass. Soon tags fly through the air, each one a point only if it lands safely on that team's side. Kai-sen isn't so fast in the water, but he specializes in catching tags lobbed by other teams, intercepting them and whipping them to his own side.
John readies another handful of marker tags, vigilant for any sputtering or foul play. It's been weeks since he's had to drag anyone out for air, but only a few days since the last elbowing incident. Water is far easier to navigate than other people, with their flailing limbs and emotional passions, but he figures this ad-hoc swim team is more than just an exercise in keeping everyone busy.
The universe isn't about straight lines and speed, after all. It's teamwork and bruises and keeping your eyes on the goal without kicking someone in the face.
***
"Love is like teamwork, son."
D'Argo eyes squint as his eyebrows rise, bracing for the pain of embarrassment, the awkward travail of another Serious Talk.
"When you love someone, you take care of them and let them take care of you; friendship is the most important part of it. If you aren't friends...lemme start over."
D'Argo rests his forearms along his thighs, limbs angling in to take up less space, as if he could plane through the conversation faster that way, as if it were a patch of murky water to get through.
"It's three things, son; sex, friendship and love. When you've got all three firing there's nothing that can beat it. Two out of three ain't bad," his dad pauses to smile, "but if you have to pick one, make it friendship. That's the most important part."
"Not love?"
"Love on its own will make you crazy, no question about it, and sex can complicate it beyond all reason. Sex on its own can make you relaxed, but lonely. But friendship, all on its own, can keep you going through the worst of your life."
He's not planning on falling in love with anybody until he's well into his thirties, but since his dad's being so frank he might as well get his reaction on the other options. "Sex and friendship?"
"Is a workable thing, when you start off as friends. You have to know how to be someone's friend before you can tackle love or sex without anyone getting hurt. Even then, you can still get hurt, you just have a better way of talking to each other about it."
"Nebari contagion, pregnancy, Ilanic tanka-pox."
"Easier to avoid than to deal with--but you also need to take care of your heart, and be responsible with the hearts of other people. Feelings are easy to hurt, and sometimes love just sucks, there's no other way around it. But if you start from friendship and treat each other honestly and fairly, you've got a way to work it out."
"Be friends first." D'Argo nods, imagining himself stroking through the last metra of murky water toward clean and clear. "That makes sense."
"Good talk, son?"
"Yeah, dad."
"Go clean up. If we're late for dinner your mom will eat our plates, too."
D'Argo focuses on his food during dinner, knowing that it'll be mom's turn next. They used to talk to him both at once when these things came up, but dad would get too flustered and they'd end up discussing all kinds of other things instead of boy/girl stuff. D's the one who started asking them questions one on one, and they followed suit as the years went by. While it means he often has to suffer through two conversations instead of one, at least they're a lot more clear, and over much quicker.
A few days later mom takes him to the shuttle pod for a maintenance check, making him wriggle into the spots that her growing belly now keeps her out of.
"Your father said you two had a good conversation the other day."
D'Argo scratches his shoulder blade against the deck, squirming in the tight space under the navigation panel. There's an overflow circuit that tends to stick open, so he's cleaning the old layer of grease off to hit it with a lighter valve lube. "Yeah."
"Sex and love and friendship, right?"
"Yeah, and friendship is the most important, the one to start off with."
"Seems easy, doesn't it?" His mom hums. "Did he happen to tell you that he and I started off with the sex first?"
Mom talks are exponentially more awkward and painful than dad talks--but she usually comes across with better info. He shifts his boots, glad that most of him is tucked under the panel where he can't see her. "Yeah?"
She laughs, "Oh, yes." He can hear her take his jacket and settle on the deck. "Sex was the easiest thing for us; at first it's what kept us coming back to each other as we figured out the friendship thing."
He turns the rag, methodically wiping grease from the trip circuit. "When did you know you loved dad?"
There's a thoughtful silence and D'Argo forgets to breath until she finally speaks. "I'm not sure, really. I didn't want to love *anyone*, and so for a long time I convinced myself that I didn't. Then I tried to convince myself that it didn't matter. Then it hurt too much to think about at all."
"So it was just sex and friendship."
"Sometimes just one or the other. On good days, both."
"On bad days?"
"On bad days there was only the love, and that's not enough to do anything except hurt like hell."
He tries to imagine it, and even with the tension between them about the new baby, he can't picture them as anything other than what they are to each other. "If you were friends before, how could you not be later?"
"Your dad and I...we were kind of like the situation on this xeno-carrier. Uneasy allies. Friends who misunderstand each other, and hurt each other on accident. People who had to learn how to talk to each other and be with each other, who had to work it out from the bottom up."
"But you kept trying."
"We did. Over and over until we figured it out."
He drops the rag near his shoulder and plucks the tube of valve oil, squinting as he applies a thin drip around the trip circuit. "Because of the sex or the love?"
"Because we had the chance to put it all together." She lays a warm hand on his shin, just above the tongue of his boot. "If we weren't afraid to take it."
That's what sticks with him later, that the whole boy/girl mess was enough to make his own mom afraid--maybe the only thing that ever did--but she kept working at it until came out right.
~*~con't tomorrow~*~
Next part here
by Thea and feldman
Part 1/6 located here
Part 2/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
***
D'Argo hits the doorpad and nothing happens. He growls, shoves the strap of his pack higher on his shoulder and slams his hand against the pad again. Nothing. Frelling carrier tech; everything's either sharp or bulky, black or red when it isn't grey, and uniformly boring even when it works properly. What good's a ship you can't talk with?
He lays his palm on the lock and barks, "Override!" voice raspy dry from too much yelling and not enough sleep. He just needs to lie down for an arn or two before meeting the guys at the pool. Water and friends are the only things he can't get on Moya, the things that make staying on a carrier worth the aggravation, make putting up with the cramped quarters and the drenhead cadets worthwhile. The door slides open and D'Argo stumbles through, propelled by weariness and his heavy pack.
The conversation stops with his entrance.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in."
D'Argo fights the yawn, face squinching as his jaws stretch open behind closed lips.
"I remember that face." His mother crosses her arms. "He used to make that face right before he needed changing."
His dad chuckles as he strips the pack from his shoulders and pushes him toward bed. Not the cadet cot against the far wall, but the big bed, covered in fur and murmuring sweet comfortable nothings to D'Argo.
"Just gonna lie down for a few minutes. Gonna go swimming."
"Understood, son." His mom pushes him down and tugs off his boots. "Just a few minutes."
"Guys...make a team, y'know? Tel'cademy needs a team." The bedding is cool against his cheek. There's a tug beneath him and half the coverlet lands over him. "Swim team."
"He looks so innocent."
"He looks like a burrito."
"B'rrito?"
"Like a gwiero."
D'Argo's too snug and comfortable to take offense. Instead he thinks of how yummy the gwieros on Hyneria were. He flickers into dreams of Papa Ryg's country estate, his parent's voices filtering through in a fading undertone.
"He does, a little; a boy-filled palace treat. So. Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
"You don't have to do this, you know."
"I do. I'll give it this chance, I'll keep my end of the bargain. But I can't risk it again, Aeryn."
"Fine. Then let's do this."
His dad sighs, muttering, "Now I know how Snuggles felt."
He doesn't have a clue as to what his parents are talking about, doesn't care exactly. They sound more like them now, teasing and easy with each other, pushing and pulling and in tune like the Prowler when it's just been repaired, when it hums in perfect pitch.
He feels his mom touch his forehead to brush his hair back, feels her cool lips on his cheek and then their footsteps disappear. He thinks of water and Hyneria, swimming in the palace pools, Papa Ryg sneaking him marjoules and tiny cakes when no one was looking. The prerogatives of royalty, he'd said.
The other guys can swim, but none of them have seen Hyneria, they don't know how to hold their breath in a rhythm so that it cycles through, keeps you buoyant, follows your stroke. He's got lungs as strong as any Sebacean, and he kicks ass in the freestyle crawl and the breaststroke. When they start the team... he drifts off to thoughts of cheering crowds and competition, cutting cleanly through water and winning, beating the crap out of the cadets who learn to swim only because they have to and then still think they're so much frelling better than everyone else.
***
She puts in the orders to the tech herself, not quite trusting John or the medical staff to submit the proper paperwork for the procedure without specifics.
Sterilization is unusual, a request for one unheard of on a command carrier, and while he adamantly wants this absurdity, she knows he's nervous. He fiddles with his belt, joggles her arm, talks too loudly as they wait for the approval. Bravado propels him as much as determination and he's still unintelligible to most Peacekeepers when the bravado's at its worst. The med techs don't care much what they do, a task is a task, but the command structure still reviews every request in the queue and there remain issues of lingering resentment and distrust. She wants him sterilized, not castrated.
She doesn't mention that particular possibility to John, knowing it'd be a cheap shot. Doesn't mean she's not tempted though.
They sit in the waiting area until the med tech comes for them. He leaves them alone in the room, and when John takes off his pants, sits on the table in his t-shirt and shorts, his black socks incongruous with his pale legs, she feels a flutter of compassion and a wave of sorrow. She doesn't intend to have offspring with other men should she outlive John, and so this pregnancy will be her last chance for another child. If the fetus dies, that will be it. She has faced far worse things, but it bites a little, stings with the removal of possibility.
John offers up his hand and she moves towards him, sliding his thigh between her legs and stroking the back of his neck. She presses her lips against the softness of his hair and he wraps his arm around her waist, holding her to him. "This is gonna hurt like a mother, isn't it?"
She pulls back, raises an eyebrow. "That would be my guess," she says, fighting back a dark grin. She's not looking forward to labor with anticipation, either. Hurt like a mother, indeed.
"It's the right decision," he says, voice heavy and determined. She doesn't argue with him. It's his choice as much as release the fetus was hers. Control of their bodies, their lives. It's something they fight for everyday. She cannot condemn his choice even though she doesn't like it, can't deny him the right.
The surgeon enters and she steps away from John, staying close enough so that he can reach for her if he wants to.
"Take them off," the physician says, voice colorless.
John removes the shorts, looking terribly vulnerable bared to the room. The surgeon injects something into the join of his thigh and he twitches. Lifting up his testicles, the surgeon slides the thin laser into position and flicks it on.
"Goddamn sonofabitch," John growls, but doesn't look at her. He only grunts the second time.
And it's done. He's no longer able to produce children.
"You'll be numb for the next arn," the surgeon warns, "and then there will be more pain. I wouldn't...put unnecessary strain on it if I were you." With a perfunctory keying of a datapad, he leaves.
John's face is ashy, his trembling fingers as likely from the shock as the anesthetic. "Think I need a little help here, baby."
Aeryn helps her husband dress, carefully sliding the zipper up, buckling his belt. She runs her hands over the small of his back, soothing him as she soothes her son when he's overly tired or hurt.
John pulls her towards him, clinging to her. "Didn't think it was going to feel like that," he says, mouth moving against her cheek.
"No," she says, "Neither did I."
***
John shakes the boy's shoulder. "Hey, sleepyhead."
D'Argo mumbles and humphs into the covers, curling away from consciousness. John pulls the fur off and starts tugging at the sheet wound around his son.
"Come on, D', day shift's half over and I'm sick of taking your messages."
There's an inquisitive grunt.
"Your crew have been comming you for arns now. Last I heard it sounded like they were heading toward the pool."
That flips the switch from curl to stretch, limbs angling out in sweeping arcs that propel him off the edge of the bed. Planned or not, he lands on his feet and heads toward the fresher without opening his eyes.
John ambles to the console and lets the kids know they'll be there in half an arn. He adjusts the small cold pack tucked in his shorts, looking forward to hanging out in the cool buoyant water of the pool.
Since they're going to be on the carrier for the duration, he might as well take the opportunity to work with these kids face to face as much as possible. Too much of this teaching gig happens over vid. The nature of the telacademy is ad hoc, catch as catch can and run from a distance, and it's the best option available for families on the move--even when mediated by long-range communications, it's the most diverse education they could offer D'Argo--but John likes being able to be in the same room with his students for a change, being able to offer them something more than assignments and tests on a console. He enjoys showing them how to do something physical that they didn't think they could do, loves the looks on their faces when they get it.
Swimming is just a way to teach them how to get along with each other in real time, work together toward a goal.
Sportsmanship, friendly competition, negotiation on a micro level; he's a co-ed, co-species coach working the Romeos and Juliets while Aeryn handles the Whatsits and the Capulets. Johnny Radiation teaching good citizenship through Little League. He knows that the coda to his reputation, for anyone who still cares, is that he's brain damaged and pathetic, a sad hollow shell of an outlaw living out his years on his wife's good graces. It's reduced the number of folks looking to make a name by killing him. Conflict mediation among teenagers is more his speed anyway; they tend to be more coherent than governments.
He's got twenty-odd kids, boys and girls and some in-between modes, from a handful of species. Enough for a decent intramural program even if none of the carrier cadets sign on.
Who knows when the team will be able to reassemble again, but that's a concern for later, the least among many. For now they can practice and maybe have a meet or two before they split off to their respective ships and lives and solitary consoles where, if they're lucky, they can see a small holo image of their classmates if the local telecom net can handle it.
D'Argo pops out of the fresher, hair as unruly as before. John intercepts him at the door, using all of his will not to hobble. "Shower."
"I'm going to the pool, I'm just gonna get wet again--"
"Technically true, but I'm not taking you anywhere when you stink."
"I showered yesterday, I don't stink."
"Want me to comm mom, have her be the judge?"
He glares at the floor and trudges back to the fresher.
"Hurry it up, I called practice in a half an arn."
"Yeah yeah."
John parks himself on a chair and tries not to dwell on his crotch. Aside from the initial piercing pain, it's not as bad as he'd feared. When he rummaged in the first aid kit for the cold pack he'd found a packet of an analgesic he recognized, so he's been sailing along on that for a few arns now. He might even eat later on today.
Now they just need to get Aeryn through this pregnancy safe and they can both concentrate on finishing what they started with the boy, do all they can to send a good man out into the universe.
A good woman too, maybe, if they get the chance. A daughter. He promised Aeryn he'd prepare for the best outcome.
He's in the middle of the grocery list when D'Argo emerges from the fresher. Over a thousand microts in the shower and the kid doesn't look a hell of a lot cleaner, but odds are he smells better than he did when he went in. It's a marvel and universal fact that teenage boys have a fear of soap that rivals the fear and intrigue of girls, yet they'll stand under the spray until an entire cargo ship of hot water passes down the drain.
"Where's Mom?" D' shoves his towel and flipflops into his rucksack, wriggles back into his t-shirt.
"Board meeting."
His son rolls his eyes. “No, really.”
"She's securing the arrangements for our extended visit, setting up some meetings while we're here. You know how everything's gotta be cleared through command, even when they have no objections. PKs are hell bent on bureaucracy. Makes the US government look positively impromptu in comparison. Course, the White House doesn’t send people to jail for frelling up a shipping invoice."
His son ignores him, used to the rambling by now. "So what're you doing?"
John hauls himself up, shoves the list into his own bag. "Grocery shopping. You and I are gonna go grab some gear at the end of the month."
"Field trip?" His son's smile is joyous and bright, a version of one of Aeryn's good day smiles.
John grins back and tries not to limp as he follows D' out the door. "Field trip."
***
They're greeted with jangling noise, high-fives for the boy, yells and catcalls, hollers of "Hey Commander" and "Yo, Mr. C, what's up." None of these kids speak English except for his son, and the translations are probably hysterical. They're parroting back D'Argo's suggestions and seem pleased with them. A few of the older Sebacean girls, fourteen or fifteen, bodies developing and minds light years ahead of their males peers give him knowing smiles, and he fights back a grin.
It's the innocence more than anything. The female cadets don't look at him like that, don't flirt. To them, he's still a killer, a traitor, someone to fear and loathe. Aeryn was one of those cadets, he knows; she followed orders, hated who she was supposed to hate, lived and breathed flight and fight, probably recreating already at that age.
These girls, well, he really doesn't want to know anything about their sex lives, but he can see in them the curiosity that he recognizes as part of growing up in a free society, growing up with the room to explore the tangles of that curiosity, to tease and play with both their bodies and their minds, to be smart and sassy and explore and flirt with their old man of a swim coach who they see as an easy mark, unthreatening and harmless.
If this daughter thing works out, when she's fifteen he's going to frelling lock her in a cell on Moya until puberty passes and he can select a nice boy for her with whom she will never, ever have sex. And with his genes and Aeryn's combined, she'll probably pick the lock and shoot her way to the nearest port of call long before that.
The group is rambling and noisy and rowdy, a little shoving here and there, a little honest trash talk and it's time to get this party started.
"Twenty laps, warm up with all four strokes. We're gonna do some sprints and some drills and then maybe have a little contest."
The giggling turns into splashes and slaps of water as the kids peel off the edges, slipping into the pool like slick glittery fish. He looks at them in wonder before he strips off his t-shirt and eases his own body into the cool water of an empty slow-side lane.
He takes a couple of easy laps in the slow lane, trying to not get slapped too much by the wake of young bodies with way too much energy knifing through the water. He's not up for much exercise, but the flutter kick doesn't hurt too badly and he needs to stretch out the muscles that his wife wore out the night before. The pain is worth the trade off of freer muscles, and he'll tuck the ice back later.
He's got a list of stuff worked out of the things they'll need for a new infant, and he wishes that it felt giddy and joyous, like D's birth had. But he remembers the hubris too well, the absolute certainty that one birth was very much the same as another and the absolute sucker punch shock of getting through yet another random firefight with only a few grazes and then Aeryn's body saying fuck you both very much.
He remembers the blood loss and her ash white face, eyes glazed, the light in them dimming out because they didn't have access to anything more than cotton padding until they could repair the conduit lines for starburst.
It was a toss up whether or not to use the kill-shot and wake her up once they'd starburst to the nearest system, once they had access to a real doctor, and maybe she wouldn't have lost so much blood if they hadn't waited so long, hadn't held out hope that the gush of blood wasn't the end of that particular child.
He nearly lost everything that day. He still feels damned lucky they got through it only a little worse for wear. She roused like a trooper when the doc jabbed in the revival shot, recovering with her usual carrier-born swiftness, and they decided never to risk her health or her life again.
He does an easy flip turn, sucks in his breath as his body suggests that swimming wasn't such a fabulous idea. He turns onto his back in a lazy backstroke down the length of the pool, hissing a little as the pain recedes, as he puts the memory and the fear away.
"Hey Kai, why don't you stretch a little more, your dorsal arms look a bit stiff. Once everyone's warmed up we'll do A and B relays."
Kai sighs heavily, sloshing toward the poolside to work on his arms.
He doesn't really mind that his rep is gone, doesn't mind not being John Crichton, scourge of the universe, he likes living in his wife's shadow. He's so damned proud of Aeryn, surprised and pleased and proud that her fine mind has allowed them some diplomatic immunity. He's pretty sure that a few strings got pulled, a few hints whispered about, and that in the beginning it was fear as much as anything that got the Crichton/Sun duo in the cabinet rooms and embassies. One too many outbursts on his part had cemented the idea that he was still a cowboy but useless now, an eccentric appendage to the real brains.
He'd been a hotshot for most of his life, young and bright, he'd had a small flurry of media attention, had been the star of the show before becoming Mr. Most Wanted, and he's pretty damned content these days to just take the ride, care for his family, and practice peace on a smaller scale. It stings once in a while, but it's a burn he can live with.
Live being the operative word. Still, they have to be careful. Not everyone's happy to have the past behind them, and there are still bounties for his head and for Aeryn's in certain jurisdictions. He doesn't even kid her about her price being higher now. She doesn't think it's funny.
He teaches physics, sure, theoretical science and inter-dimensional mathematics, but he doesn't touch on wormholes as anything other than theory. And he doesn't talk to anyone about the way they still dance in his head sometimes like a junior prom tease, awkward with potential; the way he knows, if he tries, that he could work it out again. Maybe not sniff them out like sugar glaze and sea salt, maybe not ride that scent like a rollercoaster, but figure them out and make 'em work. He isn't limited, and the knowledge had always been there. Before Furlow, he'd been on the right track. But it isn't something he talks about to anyone, not even Aeryn, not now. If it ever becomes an issue...well, they'll deal. They're good at dealing.
He completes another lap, a little breathless and questioning his choice to exercise, then hauls himself out of the pool, fires up the lap timer and writes the sets on the board, gives the kids a couple thousand microts to finish the drills.
D' finishes first in his lane, shaking water off his hair like a young seal. He's growing so fast these days, gangly and a little awkward, but a bright beautiful regular kid. He looks over at John and sends a splash of water towards him, a bit of a challenge, a good-natured dare.
"All right, " John says, when they're red-faced or blue-faced or white-faced with exertion. "We're gonna learn to play a game."
The kids split up into a group at each side of the square pool, colored patches on their suits designating each five-being intramural team. John reaches into his gear bag for a handful of marker tags and he can see the kids tense, feel them rev their engines waiting for the light to turn green.
He leans against the wall panel casually, keying in a series of currents and jets that will turn the pool into an ever-changing body of active water. PKs learn how to swim because they may need to deal with rivers, floods, and tides, so while their training pool didn't come with pre-marked lanes, it does have a "rapids" setting. John keys in a twenty-minute sequence and starts the jets, tossing a handful of markers into the water as it begins to churn.
Speed is one thing. "On your mark."
Agility is another. "Get set."
Teamwork yet another. "Go!"
The kids kick off into a seething mass of water and flailing limbs, chasing after the tags which sink or float or drift in the currents depending on their variable mass. Soon tags fly through the air, each one a point only if it lands safely on that team's side. Kai-sen isn't so fast in the water, but he specializes in catching tags lobbed by other teams, intercepting them and whipping them to his own side.
John readies another handful of marker tags, vigilant for any sputtering or foul play. It's been weeks since he's had to drag anyone out for air, but only a few days since the last elbowing incident. Water is far easier to navigate than other people, with their flailing limbs and emotional passions, but he figures this ad-hoc swim team is more than just an exercise in keeping everyone busy.
The universe isn't about straight lines and speed, after all. It's teamwork and bruises and keeping your eyes on the goal without kicking someone in the face.
***
"Love is like teamwork, son."
D'Argo eyes squint as his eyebrows rise, bracing for the pain of embarrassment, the awkward travail of another Serious Talk.
"When you love someone, you take care of them and let them take care of you; friendship is the most important part of it. If you aren't friends...lemme start over."
D'Argo rests his forearms along his thighs, limbs angling in to take up less space, as if he could plane through the conversation faster that way, as if it were a patch of murky water to get through.
"It's three things, son; sex, friendship and love. When you've got all three firing there's nothing that can beat it. Two out of three ain't bad," his dad pauses to smile, "but if you have to pick one, make it friendship. That's the most important part."
"Not love?"
"Love on its own will make you crazy, no question about it, and sex can complicate it beyond all reason. Sex on its own can make you relaxed, but lonely. But friendship, all on its own, can keep you going through the worst of your life."
He's not planning on falling in love with anybody until he's well into his thirties, but since his dad's being so frank he might as well get his reaction on the other options. "Sex and friendship?"
"Is a workable thing, when you start off as friends. You have to know how to be someone's friend before you can tackle love or sex without anyone getting hurt. Even then, you can still get hurt, you just have a better way of talking to each other about it."
"Nebari contagion, pregnancy, Ilanic tanka-pox."
"Easier to avoid than to deal with--but you also need to take care of your heart, and be responsible with the hearts of other people. Feelings are easy to hurt, and sometimes love just sucks, there's no other way around it. But if you start from friendship and treat each other honestly and fairly, you've got a way to work it out."
"Be friends first." D'Argo nods, imagining himself stroking through the last metra of murky water toward clean and clear. "That makes sense."
"Good talk, son?"
"Yeah, dad."
"Go clean up. If we're late for dinner your mom will eat our plates, too."
D'Argo focuses on his food during dinner, knowing that it'll be mom's turn next. They used to talk to him both at once when these things came up, but dad would get too flustered and they'd end up discussing all kinds of other things instead of boy/girl stuff. D's the one who started asking them questions one on one, and they followed suit as the years went by. While it means he often has to suffer through two conversations instead of one, at least they're a lot more clear, and over much quicker.
A few days later mom takes him to the shuttle pod for a maintenance check, making him wriggle into the spots that her growing belly now keeps her out of.
"Your father said you two had a good conversation the other day."
D'Argo scratches his shoulder blade against the deck, squirming in the tight space under the navigation panel. There's an overflow circuit that tends to stick open, so he's cleaning the old layer of grease off to hit it with a lighter valve lube. "Yeah."
"Sex and love and friendship, right?"
"Yeah, and friendship is the most important, the one to start off with."
"Seems easy, doesn't it?" His mom hums. "Did he happen to tell you that he and I started off with the sex first?"
Mom talks are exponentially more awkward and painful than dad talks--but she usually comes across with better info. He shifts his boots, glad that most of him is tucked under the panel where he can't see her. "Yeah?"
She laughs, "Oh, yes." He can hear her take his jacket and settle on the deck. "Sex was the easiest thing for us; at first it's what kept us coming back to each other as we figured out the friendship thing."
He turns the rag, methodically wiping grease from the trip circuit. "When did you know you loved dad?"
There's a thoughtful silence and D'Argo forgets to breath until she finally speaks. "I'm not sure, really. I didn't want to love *anyone*, and so for a long time I convinced myself that I didn't. Then I tried to convince myself that it didn't matter. Then it hurt too much to think about at all."
"So it was just sex and friendship."
"Sometimes just one or the other. On good days, both."
"On bad days?"
"On bad days there was only the love, and that's not enough to do anything except hurt like hell."
He tries to imagine it, and even with the tension between them about the new baby, he can't picture them as anything other than what they are to each other. "If you were friends before, how could you not be later?"
"Your dad and I...we were kind of like the situation on this xeno-carrier. Uneasy allies. Friends who misunderstand each other, and hurt each other on accident. People who had to learn how to talk to each other and be with each other, who had to work it out from the bottom up."
"But you kept trying."
"We did. Over and over until we figured it out."
He drops the rag near his shoulder and plucks the tube of valve oil, squinting as he applies a thin drip around the trip circuit. "Because of the sex or the love?"
"Because we had the chance to put it all together." She lays a warm hand on his shin, just above the tongue of his boot. "If we weren't afraid to take it."
That's what sticks with him later, that the whole boy/girl mess was enough to make his own mom afraid--maybe the only thing that ever did--but she kept working at it until came out right.
~*~con't tomorrow~*~
Next part here
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Date: 2005-06-29 04:54 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly! He's the reluctant revolutionary, and even in PKW he does what he does because Aeryn asks, because rolling the dice is the only way to possibly gain the chance of seeing that baby grow up.