"/Pssst/. Hey, you -- the one staring holes in the floor. C'mon."

"What?"

"Let's go, man. We're outta here."

"What are you talking about? Go where?"

"Anywhere but here. You need to get out of here, and if I have to listen to much more of Aeryn and Chiana bitching at each other, I'm gonna go postal. I snitched the keys to the transport, we can roadtrip it down to the commerce planet and hopefully get plastered. Whaddya say?"

D'Argo opened his mouth to protest, to put forth all kinds of logical reasons why he shouldn't, if he had understood John correctly -- which was never easy -- go and get stinking drunk. Instead, he stood up, grabbed his Qualta blade, and said, "Sure."

"Good deal."

* * * *

"This," John said expansively, his wide-flung arm indicating the whole of the bar and its occupants, "Is just what we needed." A powerful beat pounded, almost drowning out his words, and D'Argo had to lean close to even hear him above the din of something John had pronounced "just like rave music." Once he had leaned in to hear him, he found he didn't mind standing so close -- despite his oft-repeated, mostly joking comments about the human's strong scent, he found it quite pleasant: deep and rich and musky, not entirely dissimilar from the smell he associated with himself when he was aroused.

Ever since John had come on board, this smell, this association, had confused him, irritated him, taunted him. It was so strange to associate something so personal, something so sexual, with this alien. If he was to be honest, it had sparked fantasies he would never in a thousand cycles have been able to admit to, fantasies of all the things he wondered about John, some of them silly, some of them distractingly intense, becoming almost obsessive.

He was attracted by the human's arms first -- strong, and well-defined, and covered with a dusting of hair, and D'Argo could have told you with his eyes closed exactly at what point on John's arms the hair thinned out and left only smooth, fine-grained skin: right below the hem of his T-shirt sleeve. He had seen John bare-chested, and knew similar hair graced his upper body, concentrated on his pectoral muscles and over the muscles of his belly.

What fascinated D'Argo was the thin trail of hair that disappeared below the waistband of his pants. Luxans had virtually no body hair, and none on their genitalia. Did John? What kind of pattern did that hair form -- did it trail off completely? Or form a tight nest of curls around his cock, catching and holding more of that intoxicating scent of his, just waiting for D'Argo to bury his face in it and --

"Hey! You okay?" John yelled in his ear, and D'Argo jumped, flushing.

"Fine!" D'Argo hollered back, and turned away to the bar to order another drink. When he turned back to John, the human was swaying to the music, bouncing his head and twitching his hips in a manner that should have seemed a little silly and undignified but utterly failed to be anything of the sort.

"Cool," John answered, and leaned back against the bar behind him, bracing his elbows against it and surveying the crowd around them, eyes never stopping. He also never stopped moving in time to the music, and just watching him, D'Argo mused that he had never felt less cool in his life, if John meant a cool-headed temperament and not some vague, indefinable state of affairs that he had never been able to clearly explain to D'Argo whenever he used that word.

Despite the rocking, jerky movements of his head and body, John looked graceful, almost feral, with his gaze directed out onto the press of people on the dance floor as if searching for prey. The skirt of his long leather coat was casually pulled back over his pistol -- a new development, John carrying a gun, and one that D'Argo was not entirely comfortable with -- and John looked as if the bewildered, lost creature that had first been brought aboard Moya had never even existed. Clad in slick Peacekeeper leathers and with a watchful cast to his eyes that was also a new development, this was a John Crichton that drew D'Argo even more powerfully than before.

A warrior, like himself.

But broken, somehow. Since he had been a guest of the Peacekeepers, and of Scorpius, John had changed in some fundamental way. Not a scrap of the innocence that had first startled and then beguiled D'Argo remained. All that was left was hardened, cleansed by fire and pain.

And this was also something D'Argo saw in himself.

John straightened up, and D'Argo was once again struck by the impression that he was watching a predator scent its prey. John reached down and flipped his coat back over his pistol, turned to put his drink on the bar.

"I'm gonna go dance, okay?" John yelled in his ear, and D'Argo nodded, watching John glide into the crush of dancers and reach out to touch the shoulder of a dark-haired female. She turned to him, smiled widely, began to move in tandem with him, leaning up on tiptoes to speak into his ear.

D'Argo swallowed a rush of hatred and jealousy that surprised and frightened him. Turning away, he angrily tossed down his drink and ordered another.

John had never given any indication that he mated with males, or was even interested. For all D'Argo knew, it was a taboo among humans, or worse, a crime. There was no reason to believe that he would understand D'Argo's culture, that he would be able to accept casual pairings among warriors, friends. He might be angry, appalled, should D'Argo even hint at it.

The more he brooded over it, the more furious D'Argo became -- at himself, for this childish stupidity, at the dark-haired woman John was dancing with, at John himself. By the time John had been gone for half an arn, D'Argo had worked himself up into a towering rage and had drunk himself nearly stupid blind into the bargain. Thus, when a tall biped walked up to the bar and shoved him as he crowded into the line of patrons ordering drinks, D'Argo was more than happy to pick a fight.

He stood nose-to-nose with the other man, growling insults and casting aspersions on the marital state of his parents at the time of his birth. Soon enough, his adversary looped a wide, drunken punch at him, and as drunk as he also was, he didn't dodge it quick enough and ended up with a bleeding, cut lip. Hissing, he prepared to launch himself at the other man.

Before he could, another figure jumped between them. Bellowing at the top of his lungs, John shoved the other man back and stood protectively in front of D'Argo.

"Get your fucking hands off him, you son of a bitch!" John roared, and D'Argo realized distantly that it had been a long time since he'd heard John curse in his native tongue, untranslated by his microbes.

"You mean his frelling hands -- " D'Argo began, drunkenly wanting to make sure he understood John. It seemed vitally important that he understand everything about John that he could.

"Shut up, D'Argo," John said shortly, and turned back to the other man. "If you touch him again, I'll kill you." He stood braced, with his shoulders hunched, sweeping his coat back away from his gun again, hand hovering over the grip. The other man took one look at this smaller but ferocious-looking being and turned on his heels, stumbling away into the crowd.

"Asshole," John spat, and turned back to D'Argo, surveying the damage. "Shit, your lip is bleeding."

"It's fine," D'Argo said, reaching up to finger the cut, and John swatted his hand away.

"You're drunk off your ass, boy. Damn, what did you do, swim in the stuff?" John pinched D'Argo's lower lip between his fingers, squeezing to stimulate the bleeding, berating D'Argo in a low, affectionate tone the whole time.

D'Argo was suddenly reminded of Lo'laan -- how she had cared for him the very same way when he cut himself while working the fields of their farm, admonishing him to be more careful. When the blood was clear, John gave one last pinch and withdrew his hand, reaching for a paper napkin from the bar and first wiping the rest of the blood from D'Argo's face before using it to wipe his fingers. D'Argo simply stood still and watched him.

"Thanks for saving my ass and taking care of my cut, John, since I'm too frelling drunk to do it myself," John muttered after a moment. He glanced up at D'Argo, waiting to see if D'Argo would catch it. When he didn't, he grabbed D'Argo's arm and propelled him over to a table in the far corner, where they would be shielded from the crowd and the din by a partition.

"Sit," John ordered, and D'Argo sat. John hooked his chair around to straddle it backwards, looking intently at D'Argo.

"You must really be drunk. You haven't even yelled at me for breaking up your little boxing match."

"I was doing all right."

"Yeah, right," John said, and reached across the table to gently touch D'Argo's cut and now swelling lip. "That guy could have hurt you." His fingers lingered a little longer than necessary, and then John tried to jerk his hand back abruptly, face coloring. Before he could, D'Argo seized his wrist, holding it tightly, feeling John's skin almost burn beneath his fingers.

John again tried to yank his hand back, growling under his breath when D'Argo refused to let go. All at once, it was as if the scent around John intensified, the one that made him think of rough loving and sweet, utter absorption in the pleasures of the flesh mingled with the scent of the woman John had danced with, and the high, sharp smell of aggression from John's intervention in the fight, all boiling off of him and hitting D'Argo like a physical blow.

The combination of the three was almost more than he could bear -- sex and jealousy and battle all distilled into the man sitting across from him, his face angry and confused and /needing/.

"Why do you care so much, John?" D'Argo asked, finally releasing John's hand when John tugged roughly and glared at him.

"I just do."

"You threatened to kill that man," D'Argo mused out loud, "And you wanted to kill Nilaam for hurting me -- I smelled it on you. Am I wrong?"

"No, I -- I just didn't want..." John trailed off, head down, looking away from D'Argo, and D'Argo smelled the change in his scent, attuned as he was to it from nearly a full cycle of living side-by-side with him, being hyper-aware of it, always half-maddened by it. The smell of desire both intensified and changed -- and D'Argo realized, with a sense of amazement and wonder, that it was not John's natural scent he was reacting to. It was actual /desire/, a separate component from any of the scents of John's skin or hair or sweat -- desire, directed at /him/.

"I just -- they had no right! Either of them," John said roughly. "They had no right to -- to put their hands on you." /When I couldn't/, the scent pouring off of John whispered soundlessly.

Was it possible? Had John wanted him all this time, had spent the last cycle living in the same state of half-crazy need that D'Argo had, every time he was near him? Was that the source of this intensity, of John's almost crazed, protective possessiveness when Nilaam had first humiliated him and then claimed him for hers?

Without thinking, he got up from the table and grabbed John by the shoulders, hauling him to his feet. Dragging John behind him, he stalked toward a hallway leading into the deeper recesses of the bar, and he straight-armed open the first door he saw.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" John demanded, grimacing when he was thrust roughly against the wall in what appeared to be a restroom. "Is this one of those hyper-rage things? If it is, you need some serious Prozac, D'Ar -- "

"You want me, don't you?" D'Argo asked, and stumbled backward when John planted his hands in the center of his chest and shoved with all his strength.

"Don't. Just shut up, right now," John said, his voice low and deadly, straightening his coat and pushing away from the wall, moving towards the door. D'Argo caught him by the arm, not letting him move away, and John stared straight ahead, refusing to look at him, speaking again in that low, venomous voice.

"If you don't let me go, I'll leave. I swear it. I will walk out that door, and you can subtract one human from Moya's crew. /Now let me go/."

Shocked, D'Argo dropped his hand, and John stalked toward the door. He stopped in front of it, spoke without turning around, his head bowed, the cords of tendon in his neck taut with strain.

"This -- none of this leaves this room. I don't ever want to talk about this again, understand? Once we get back to Moya, we will never mention this again." He raised his head, staring fixedly at the scarred metal of the door, his neck and shoulders still tense and sharply outlined.

"John --" D'Argo began helplessly. This was not supposed to happen this way, not at all. He knew he should do as John asked, stop here and now, never allude to it again -- he might be grievously offending him, suggesting that John had broken some deadly taboo among his people -- but he could no more stop himself than he could stop wanting him.

"I want you. I have from the beginning. If I have offended you, if I misunderstood, I apologize." He lowered his head in shame, resisting the urge to throw himself to his knees at John's feet and beg for forgiveness, for as much of John's anger and rage as it took to make things right between them.

"You...want me," John repeated slowly, still showing D'Argo his back.

"Yes," D'Argo said miserably, wishing he could take back the last few microts. He would happily give up ten -- twenty -- cycles of his life to make this have never happened.

John stood frozen, for an endless string of moments, the tension building in his frame until it seemed as if he would simply fly apart into pieces. When he did move, it was to whirl around and lunge at D'Argo, grabbing him by the front of his tunic, slamming him against the wall.

Even as his head struck the wall, D'Argo felt absurdly relieved. He could deal with John's anger -- he would stand still and let him vent it, take whatever beating he had earned at the human's hands, and be glad. This, he understood -- but John's frozen, cold fury, his threats to leave him, leave Moya -- that he had neither understood nor wanted to ever see again.

John stood there for a moment, breathing harshly, his hands fisted in D'Argo's tunic, his face flushed and his eyes wide and intent, searching D'Argo's. D'Argo tried to relax, waited for the moment when the first blow would land, and when John pulled at him roughly and kissed him, as violently as if he had struck him instead, he experienced a single moment of confusion before instinct took over and he was returning the kiss with all his strength.

All thought and reason fled, burned away into need, a crushing, obliterating need to take and give back, both of them as intent on sating what had suddenly become a huge, almost killing desire as if they were locked in battle. D'Argo felt the cut on his lip split open again and begin to bleed, and he did not care. He felt as if he were already dying, as if every moment up until this moment had meant he was starving for not having felt this, and losing his life in the moment of it would be better than never having it at all.

John wrenched away from him, stared around frantically, and when he spotted a line of stalls along the side wall, he pulled D'Argo toward one of them, shoving him into the cramped space, falling with him when the backs of D'Argo's knees hit the lip of the bowl and he sprawled into a sitting position on it. The stall door slammed behind them, and D'Argo braced one foot against it, holding it closed.

John was on his lap, kissing him again, hands pulling at clothing, his own and D'Argo's. He buried his face in the hollow of D'Argo's throat, and he could hear John saying something, over and over.

"I didn't know. I thought you didn't want me. I thought it was stupid, that you'd never -- "

Fumbling, John opened the lacings of D'Argo's breeches, unfastened his own pants, thrusting up and forward to bring his cock into contact with D'Argo's. One hand was wound into D'Argo's hair. The other he wrapped around both their lengths, trapping them together and pumping furiously. The gasped, broken sentences he had been murmuring against the side of D'Argo's throat became groans, and when D'Argo felt John's teeth fasten on his shoulder to stifle a howling cry, felt the shaking of the hand carded into his hair, he cried out hoarsely and spilled into John's hand, feeling John do the same.

Breathless and suddenly aware of all the bruises, the aching muscles that he would have from this, he sat with John draped over him, feeling John's soft, spiky hair tickling his cheek, feeling John gently stroking him. John pulled back, all of the angry passion gone but replaced by a look of wonder and honest confusion that D'Argo was sure was echoed on his own face. After a moment, John laughed and reached out to touch D'Argo's cut lip, then looked down between them. "We look like we got in a fight in a whorehouse."

D'Argo reached out, repeating John's delicate touch to his face, and wiped at the clear blood that was smeared across John's cheek. "I suppose we do."

D'Argo snorted laughter then, imagining just what the others would think when the two of them staggered back on board, stinking of blood and come and half-drunk. When the two of them slept in the same bed. He couldn't imagine any other way that he /could/ possibly sleep, not after this. Maybe not ever.

"So what happens now?" John asked, mostly serious but with a dazed, happy look in his eyes that left D'Argo absurdly touched and aching.

"Now," D'Argo answered, leaning forward to kiss him, gently and with the force of everything he felt behind it, "I have to see if I can even stand up -- I think you broke me."

"Oh, you think so? Anything I can do to fix it?" John murmured, and D'Argo laughed and grabbed his roaming hand before he started it all over again.

"Later. In our bed, next time," he said, and watched John's face for any sign that he did not want that, didn't want to make a habit of this.

"Good deal," John said, smiling.

END