| Subject: some revisions - again (r) |
Author:
shrift
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Date Posted: 06:33:30 06/11/02 Tue
In reply to:
Shrift
's message, "Farscape thingamabob" on 18:15:45 06/10/02 Mon
I'm not sure about the last sentence right now.
And I've done a lot of shuffling of scenes for greater impact and coherency. Dunno if I should have let things alone, or not.
***
TITLE: Convergence
AUTHOR: Shrift
E-MAIL: darth_shrift@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: All roads lead to Rome.
NOTES: Spoilers up through season 4, "Crichton Kicks"
One nearly-broken eyestalk, and a carbon burn on the side. The Klingons hadn't killed his little pal, and that was enough to make him happy as a clam, these days.
Rygel's snoring made him happy. Sikozu being frelling *quiet* for once made him happy.
The bruise on Chiana's cheek didn't make him happy, but if everything suddenly started coming up roses, John thought he might have a heart attack.
His old pal held still for him while he taped up its eyestalk.
He'd tried to teach it something else. Had a lot of time on his hands, after all. Not much else to do but wander around in search of food, and scribble wormhole equations on the bulkhead. After he'd figured out how to mix the paint, anyway.
Paint.
Joey Swinehart ate paint chips as a child. Teachers made him stop in second grade. Joey'd moved away in the third. John always wondered how he turned out.
'Cause John, John didn't eat paint, but he sure turned out twitchy.
The abandoned barrels of raslak probably hadn't helped.
Hindsight. 20/20. And he'd given the big, mean Klingon doggy some hindsight.
But yeah, he'd tried to teach 1812 something else.
He had sung everything in his repertoire at the little critter. The Kinks. Eagles. Etta James. The Beatles. ZZ Top. Johnny Cash. Marvin frelling Gaye.
Nada. No joy.
Then he started whistling while he worked, and the thing just lit up one day, squeaking like a broken shopping cart. DRD head-butted his boot, and synthesized a few bars back.
He wasn't about to argue the merits of classical music over the Rolling Stones with a tiny, barely alive machine that'd just given him the thrill of his frelling *life*.
Listening to the same overture over and over and over -- well, that wasn't what had driven him mad. Any music was good music, and his momma didn't raise him to be no uncultured boy.
Actually, he wasn't quite sure which thing had driven him mad, this time.
Abandonment? Not knowing? Losing his entire family again? Aeryn maybe possibly being something like pregnant?
He'd done the Robinson Crusoe bit before, and hadn't lost so much control.
That was before the Chair. Before Harvey. Aeryn dying, then Zhaan in her place.
Before a whole lot of dren.
So maybe he really wasn't crazy.
Maybe it just felt really good to dance again without anyone watching.
Well, except for Harvey.
***
*Wake up, John.*
"Eat shit and die, Harv."
On the beach next to Aeryn, skin sun-warm, air salty. She was ignoring him again, too busy reading _Anna Karenina_, her hand curled over her stomach.
He couldn't remember why he'd pictured her in pigtails. Leftover Gilligan thing, maybe. Always did have a thing for Mary Ann.
So much for the three hour tour.
*You must wake up, John.*
And then Harvey was standing there, wearing Bermuda shorts and a pair of Blu Blockers. Sipping at a Cherry Coke slurpee, the bastard.
"What do you *want*?"
*No need to take a tone, John.* Harvey grinned, his black lips pulling back over sharp teeth.
John rolled from his side onto his back, propped up on his elbows. Spluttering in his own damned daydream. "What are you trying to be, my mom?"
Harvey didn't stop smiling. *I believe the phrase is, 'if the shoe fits...'*
John wiggled his toes. "I ain't wearing no shoes, Harv."
*Have it your way.* Harvey rolled his eyes, and walked back towards the surf. *If you prefer to asphyxiate when there's a leviathan nearby--*
John sat up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up the happy train."
Harvey looked over his shoulder. His Bermudas were flapping with the wind. *You must wake up, John.*
***
Chiana whimpered in her sleep, and curled in closer, her cool nose pressing into John's neck. Making hurt little noises in the back of her throat that his microbes couldn't translate, and talk about situation normal. A woman he cared about was hurting, and he couldn't do jack shit to fix it.
Months since he'd so much as spoken to someone who wasn't dying, and now Chi's body was pressed tight against him. Laying on his aching back on a clear spot of floor, a gold blanket wrapped around them both like a gaudy cocoon.
John wondered what they'd both turn into come morning.
Funny, though. She hadn't tried anything, hadn't flattened her little gray palm against his crotch and smiled like old times.
He thought maybe she was a little broken from life this time around. He would cry for her, if he could cry anymore. Chiana would probably appreciate the sentiment more than anybody else on Moya.
Anybody who used to be on Moya.
He didn't cry anymore, so thinking about it was pointless. And those roads led back to his personal Rome: Aeryn.
Now he had to make his roads point somewhere else. Barcelona, or Miami, maybe. Somewhere other than her.
Chiana's hair tickled his chin, and he reached up to run his fingers through the silky fluff of her hair. Chi burrowed closer, using him like a big teddy bear. Something the old Chi would never admit to needing while she was awake.
The old Chi would have been all over him like white on rice. Except John was the only one on the ship patting his own ass, and he had to admit that it was a nice break from the Captain Kirk thing that had been dogging him for cycles.
The old Chi didn't have such a hard time looking him in the eyes.
But this Chiana had said, "Please. Just... don't make me sleep alone. Please, I--"
And this John had said, "C'mere." He said, "Shhh. S'okay." And, "Love you, you know that, right?"
This Chiana had rubbed out her gray tears on his T-shirt, and shuddered. "Yeah."
She fell asleep after an arn. His arm was numb from her weight.
John hoped that if she dreamed, she dreamed of something happy. Her elbows were sharp, and he liked his ribs intact.
***
"What on Erp are you doing?"
John glanced over his shoulder, bright sunlight making him squint. "Making a sandcastle, babe."
Aeryn twitched her lips, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. "Tide will just wash it away, you know."
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. Wet sand rubbed at his skin. "It's fun, Aeryn."
"Seems like a waste of time to me."
"Well, babe --"
*She has a point, John.* Harvey stared at him from across the sandcastle, diligently carving out a turret with a spoon.
"Who asked you?" John said.
*No one asked me, John.* Harvey said. He turned his head, and nodded at the hissing ocean. *The tide is rising.*
A wave of foam-tipped seawater slid across the beach. The outer castle wall closest to the ocean sagged, and crumbled.
"Told you so," Aeryn said, paper crackling as she went back to her book.
*The castle is as unsalvageable as the Command Carrier.* Harvey stood up, and brushed damp sand off his leather pants. *I think margarita shooters are in order, don't you, John?*
***
John was stretched out on top of the console, watching the Pilot's nodding head as she dozed. Chin propped on his forearm, his arms folded. Chiana had her head resting on the small of his back, her fingers idly plucking at his tool belt.
By all rights, she really shouldn't have felt so safe with him. Not when weird pulsar rays could turn him into an abusive would-be-rapist, too.
But he didn't bring that up, and neither did she. Casual cruelty didn't work so well when he used it on his friends.
He had enough guilt stored up for three politicians, anyway.
"What the yotz is going on with you, two, anyway? Afraid of the dark now, are we?" Rygel said, his thronesled hovering down the catwalk.
John glared.
Rygel grunted. "Oh, please. It's not like it was the end of the world."
"You were there," Chiana said, her voice vibrating a little against John's back. Felt weird.
"C'mon, Rygel," John said.
"Yes, I was there, and the little trelk --"
"Sparky!" John yelled. Rygel closed his wide mouth, and blinked. "Leave it, Sparky. Just... leave it."
Rygel harrumphed, and turned his thronesled around, grumbling as he left.
"Thanks," Chiana whispered.
"Anytime, Chi."
"Yeah," she said. Her hand slid along the back of his thigh. At first he thought she was checking on the doggy bite, but her hand kept creeping up to what any guy recognized as the no-longer-just-friends zone.
"Chi --" he said. His heart sped up a little in anticipation. Or panic.
Pretty much a toss-up.
"Yeah?"
And her tone was so blank that John couldn't tell what the hell was going on, so he reached back and put his hand on top her hers. Kind of awkward, but his shoulder could take it.
"You don't have to," he said. Desperately hoped it was the right frelling thing.
"Okay," she said.
She didn't move her hand, just kept it there, high on this thigh.
They just sat there, breathing in and out, waiting for the Pilot to wake up again.
***
Aeryn stood in the water, waves crashing up over her hips, and washing over her swollen belly.
"How's the water?" John called. He nudged a sand crab off the bright pink beach blanket.
She didn't turn around. "It smells funny."
John breathed in deeply, turning his face into the sun. "Smells just fine, to me."
Smelled like home.
"Yes, of course it does," Aeryn said, a fist on her hip, staring over her shoulder. "I don't like it. It itches."
"Babe --"
*Your turn, Crichton.* Harvey held his cards close to his chest.
John flipped up his sunglasses to stare at her, and then squinted at his hand. "Uh, got any sixes?"
Aeryn came out of the water, the bottom of her bikini dark from the water. She walked farther down the beach toward the lighthouse pier, her sandals dangling in one hand.
"Aeryn?" John called.
*Go Fish,* Harvey said triumphantly.
***
He was in the zone, swimming in the deep end of thoughts like pure math, when Sikozu's shriek ripped him off track like a scratched vinyl record. Zzzzip.
A thick line of black paint went right through the equation he was a ball hair away from finishing.
What *was* it with the redheads?
John blinked, his eyes scratchy and dry. Been staring at the door too long. "Girls?"
Sikozu screamed again, backing up. With her good hand, she socked a right hook into Chiana's jaw. "Get off me, you trelk!"
Not again.
He stood up, thighs wobbly, knees aching, skin pulling apart along the edges of the bite wound. "Chiana!"
Christ, he was definitely too old for this shit.
Chiana screamed when he hauled her back in a bear-hug, her legs kicking out, hair getting in his mouth.
"Chiana," he said into her ear. "What the frell is going on?"
"Don't touch me again." Sikozu tossed her red hair over her shoulder, and huffed out of the room. He could see her scaling the corridor walls.
"Let go of me," Chiana said.
John released her, and stepped back as she spun around. "Chi?"
"I don't like her," she said. Her hair covered her eyes, elbows back, balanced on her toes.
Fight or flight. And the way things were going lately, Chiana was planning on another fight with corkscrew-curls.
John sighed, and passed his hand over his eyes. "Yeah, I get that, Pip, but the Tonya Harding routine is gettin' kinda old."
She shook her head. "I see..."
"Pip?" John opened up his arms, and Chiana grabbed onto him. She shoved her face into his chest, arms like iron bands around his waist.
"I see her. I see her. She's going to--" she said.
His stomach bottomed out, and he felt like his head smacked the roof of a car with no shocks. "What do you see?"
Chiana pulled his head down, and kissed him.
She tasted like Sweet Tarts edged with Sour Patch Kids.
"No, I don't want to see anymore, John," she said. "I don't want to."
John pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I don't want you to, either."
He'd been intending to ask Chiana to brave blindness for a glimpse of the future.
But John's words weren't just another little white lie, because he won't be asking where Aeryn is.
He finally got the point; Aeryn didn't want to be found.
-end-
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