He was trying so hard to be quiet, concentrating so fully on the vaguely realized world of half-seen images and memories and fleeting desires rushing through his head, biting down gently on his lip to hold back breath that wanted to escape in gasps and moans, that he never heard the soft footpads that crossed the room and stopped next to his bed. The muted sounds of skin on skin -- both real and imagined -- rushed in his ears, and he had no attention left for the almost-silent presence beside him.

* * * * John

I never really fantasize when I do this. It's a release, really. Tension, stress, all that energy that gets coiled up into complex knots in my gut, my brain -- I just let it all go and just be. There's so much comfort in the physicality of it -- I just let my mind go south, sort of float along on a stream of images -- things I've done, things I've always wanted to do. Disconnected flashes that

(Thighs wrapped around my waist)

(A mouth, open and wetly gleaming, teeth feral and hungry)

(Slick slide of animal warmth and wet along my cock)

that never have a face or even a gender, really, assigned to them. Just bursts of sense, sensation, not really so much images as /impressions/, like staring at the sun for too long; like something in your eye that you can almost see but floats away if you try to concentrate on it; like a voice in another room you can almost hear, but not well enough to make out the actual words.

Since I came back, since the Chair, I feel like I'm only half-alive. I've done some stupid things, done some things that make me wonder if I came out of all that with a fucking deathwish -- and I do this to make myself feel something. To prove I'm /alive/ -- to prove I /can/ feel.

It isn't what I really want, to be alone and grasping uselessly at some kind of -- of affirmation that I'm /real/. I want -- God, I want someone real and warm and who isn't afraid to almost break me to prove I'm not broken -- and Aeryn can't give that to me. She has too many ghosts of her own to deal with, I guess. So over and over I lie here in the dark with my own ghosts and try to make some warmth in all this cold.

Maybe that's why I did what I did when I realized there was someone watching me.

* * * *

Some soft noise intruded on John's consciousness, and he opened his eyes.

D'Argo was standing by the bed, eyes locked on John's face. In the scant light filtering through the cell's doors from the corridor, John saw that he looked /intent/, as if he could not bring himself to look away. Confused, still half in the pleasant nothing he'd been inhabiting, John drew his hand uncertainly away from his softening cock, reached abortively for the blankets and sheets that had slid down his legs.

What stopped him was some unreadable change in D'Argo's expression. Some break in the mask of deadly concentration on the Luxan's face -- some spark that had never been there before, but that transformed the glowering, unmoving stone into something that made John think of yearning, of need, of hopes that would die in the light of day. /It was all in the eyes/, John thought distantly. /Only his eyes look different/.

John lay unmoving on the bed, transfixed by D'Argo's eyes. He knew he should pull the sheets up, make some lame joke, anything to break the insupportable /possibility/ that was taking up so much of the space between them, cripple it before one of them could begin this, whatever /this/ was, and hurt each other. He knew instinctively that /any/ word would do it, break the thread stretching from one to the other, snap the thread of desire that was, impossibly, taking on warp and weft and weaving itself into being. Something that fragile couldn't support something so hard and loud as a word.

/Do I want to?/

/Do I want to stop this?/

/No./

/Do I want this?/

/Yes. God, yes./

John realized he did not want to stop this, whatever /this/ turned out to be. He needed this, this something that he had not been able to name before. He wanted this, wanted /D'Argo/ -- he had known /that/ for a while, but he had willfully ignored it. He had known it dimly while he was protesting so loudly over Nilaam /touching/ D'Argo, daring to lay her hands on him, shame him. He had known it, but it was easier to just live around it. Easier not to question it and only let it in around the hazy edges of fantasy while he touched himself in an empty bed.

D'Argo seemed to read some of this in John's expression, maybe scented some of it in the air -- and it cracked that stony expression open a little bit more, made him nod to John, made him drop to his knees beside the bed.

John read what he thought that nod said -- /Don't stop, go on/ -- and after one terrifying moment when he hung indecisively between /going on/ and /stopping/, briefly considered speaking and driving D'Argo away with a word, any word at all, he laid his head back, closed his eyes, and reached for himself.

* * * * D'Argo

There are times when I think John is right about me -- that everything I do is based on instinct. I was not thinking, precisely, when I couldn't stand to lie in my cell and listen to him anymore. I wasn't thinking when I went to his quarters, meaning just to stay out of sight and watch what I have lain and listened to, over and over.

I can lie to myself and say it started because I listened to him, heard the quiet noises he tried to stifle, heard the slide of his hand over his own skin -- but it was more than that. It started long before, and I can no more explain it than I can fly. I can say it was because I could smell the musk from his skin, the pungency of his release, night after night, but that would not be true, either.

It just is, this desire I have for him. I have never desired another male before, and when he first came aboard, if I had known what he would become to me, I would have laughed. I am not entirely sure anymore if I know what he is to me /now/.

A marvelous mystery, a confusion, a /temptation/.

All those things and more.

I thought that perhaps after the disaster with Nilaam, his strident protectiveness of me, he would speak of it, that he felt the same -- folly to think that maybe it was me he thought of when he tortured me with his pleasure, arns after everyone else slept, while I pictured sleek limbs tensed with the effort of staying silent, saw

(the muscles of his back trembling as I rear over him, thrusting deeply)

(my hand locked into his sweat-slick hair as he kneels in front of me)

( head thrown back, droplets of sweat glimmering on the cord of muscle in his throat, howling as he comes)

images in my head fueled by the sounds I could not help hearing. The first few times, I lay still as stone, just listening, unable to breathe, to move. The first time I touched myself while I listened, doubled the experience and rode my own waves of pleasure as he groaned quietly in his cell, I knew I was lost.

/Lost./

I stayed away as long as I could.

I knew it was madness, from the first step I took outside my cell, till the moment I stood in the doorway of his and looked greedily at what I had imagined. Insanity. And having looked once, I was like the princess in the story my old nurse told us, who disobeyed and looked on her husband's face as he lay sleeping -- discovering he was a god, discovering that once seen, she could not unsee it -- she was blinded by it, made to live for the rest of her life with his face in all its searing brilliance before her, robbing her of her sanity.

I could not, if I should live for a thousand cycles, unsee what I saw then, either. He was all corded, tensed muscles and feral teeth cutting into his lower lip and /golden/ in the light from the corridor. Nude and golden-pale.

I walked like a puppet, drawn along on my strings, until I stood by his bed. He arched his back, groaning behind clenched teeth, and I must have made some answering noise, because his eyes flew open and he looked up at me, hand dropping away from his cock.

I tried to look stern, pretend that I only came to make some complaint about his noise, to say something gruff about letting the rest of us sleep, but he looked -- he looked so needy, so startled and /innocent/, almost, that I could not say anything.

I wanted so badly to leave.

I wanted so badly to stay and just watch him, watch and see if he looked just as I had pictured when he came, when he abandoned himself to it and closed his eyes and hovered almost painfully at the edge of the sharp drop down to explosion, release.

He widened his eyes just a little, and I realized with terrifying clarity that he /knew/ what I was thinking.

Maybe not all of it, since the watchfulness had not totally left his eyes, the fear of -- me? Of what I might say? -- being discovered like this still lingering, touched with something that looked almost like lust, deepening the blue of his eyes to something that frightened me and drew me in. I tried to read the expression in his eyes, and I thought -- /hoped/ -- it said, /Should I?/

I nodded dumbly, and when he reached for his cock, laid his head back and closed his eyes, I knew I was doomed.

No, that is not the right word.

/Ensnared./

Without realizing, I had dropped to my knees by the bed, my fingers locked stiffly on the edge of the mattress. I was hopelessly lost, and when he began to move his hand, touched himself with abandon as if I were not there, I gave up all hope of ever finding my way again.

* * * *

As John relaxed into the bed, almost lazily touching himself, slide of his hand down the length of his shaft and back up somehow graceful and languid, D'Argo tightened his hands on the edge of the mattress, locking them down, willing himself not to reach out and touch the sweat-sheened skin. He was afraid that a touch would spook John, startle him out of this.

And /this/, the display he watched, was beyond all the imaginings of all the nights he had listened, been a silent participant. John behaved as if he had forgotten he was being watched, as if nothing existed for him but the pull and give of skin over skin. Close by, close enough to see fine dots of sweat on his upper lip, close enough to be intoxicated by the musk from his pores, the sounds that had been muted and distant, tormenting, were almost shockingly loud and almost more than D'Argo could withstand.

It was somehow more intimate than the most fierce coupling, to be able to watch this dance of skin and muscle, to see what John looked like when he was alone, when he was lost inside the fantasies in his own head.

Breathless, D'Argo watched as the lazy strokes sped, becoming frantic and convulsive, watched as John, head thrown back, droplets of sweat glimmering on the cord of muscle in his throat, cried out and arched off the bed, spilling pearly beads of come on his belly and hand.

When John opened his eyes, gasping harshly, the room was empty.

John

I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid of what I might see -- I'd kept them closed the whole time, and while I was in it, while I was letting him /see/ me, see /everything/, the idea that he was watching was almost too much. I had to go slow at first, because I was afraid I would come just from the knowledge of his eyes on me.

Then when it was over and I was lying there, feeling sticky come cooling on my skin, I did not want to ever open them again. If I don't look, I don't have to know. I don't have to risk seeing disgust.

Or anger.

Or -- and this is what scared me the most -- I didn't have to risk seeing that he still wanted me.

The idea was too big, too strange, to even consider after the heat of it had passed and it was all over with. What had driven me crazy while I was doing it scared the piss out of me afterward.

When I finally did open my eyes, he was gone.

The next day, it was if it never happened. I waited for him to say something, and he would glance at me occasionally out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't say a word other than /Can you pass me that wrench, John?/ and /Did you ask Pilot about the atmospherics on Tier Eight?/ and /I'm going to work out, do you want to come with me?/

I mean, he hadn't gone back to treating me like the dumb human, like he did before the Gammac base, and he didn't completely ignore me, so I finally decided to be grateful for that and just deal with it. Except for the little sidewise glances he gave me when he thought I wasn't looking, things went right on the way they always had.

Life on Moya settled into its predictable routine: weekens of tedium, too much time spent checking over the module for want of anything better to do, broken by some dire emergency that if I had seen it in a movie would have made me sneer with disbelief.

Welcome to life in the Uncharted Territories, with your host, John the Lost, Fucked-up Human.

Trying to keep Chiana from making a Nebari grease-stain out of herself at the bottom of the Lost Boys' and Girls' Happy Pit took up some of the time and kept me from worrying about this /thing/ with D'Argo too much. Tripping out on magic mushrooms was a good distraction, too -- just one of those things I've done that makes me wonder whether I'm a few cans short of a six pack these days.

D'Argo never mentioned it, and I sure as hell never brought it up -- so I thought it was just a momentary aberration, on both our parts. I had just about decided to put it completely out of my mind -- except, of course, when I jerked off late at night, which had gone back to being just as frequently as ever. I couldn't do it without picturing him watching me, since it happened.

That was what I was doing when I heard a noise beside my bed, a familiar, stealthy noise that just about stopped my heart.

He didn't just watch, that time.

* * * *

D'Argo simply stood there, watching John watching him, and John smiled, one corner of his mouth quirking up. Without speaking, he slid over on the bed, never letting go of his own cock, still slowly pumping it with one hand.

D'Argo nodded, settling himself on the edge of the bed in the space John had made for him. John reached out to him, taking one of D'Argo's hands in his, and for a moment they stayed that way, hands joined, D'Argo's eyes fixed on the rise and fall of John's stroking hand, his gaze flicking up occasionally to John's face, his own expression guarded but somehow hopeful.

When John tugged on his hand, D'Argo hesitated a moment before leaning in toward him, stopping when their faces were inches apart. He looked into John's eyes, consideringly, and John could sense the moment when they both made it past the barrier of weeks of silence about this and came into the clearing where a decision was made.

Silence was broken, not with words, but with hungry, moaning gasps as D'Argo swooped down onto him, kissing the breath out of John's lungs and pushing John's hand away from his cock, only to grasp it possessively with his own hand.

Confusion of tangling limbs, a short, silent, furious battle of wills -- a struggle for alpha status, the right to be on top, in control, that ended with John still pinned under D'Argo, the sheets slithered to the floor, D'Argo's sleeping breeches ripped halfway from him and John stroking D'Argo's cock aggressively, looking up at him with an /I dare you/ expression on his face.

Growling, D'Argo pulled back from him, drawing a protesting sigh from John that spiraled up into a hoarse groan as D'Argo drew back only far enough to plunge his mouth down on John's aching cock. D'Argo knelt between whorishly spread thighs, pushing them apart even farther, fucking John with his mouth as if he were bent on killing him, destroying him, tearing him down and remaking him.

John moaned low and continuously under his breath, an endless spill of words that hitched and caught with every vicious downsweep of D'Argo's mouth on his cock.

/Oh God/ and /Yes/ and /You're fucking killing me/ and broken repetitions of /So good, so good/ and /Please/ and /Shit, yeah/ and /Baby/ and finally, finally -- /Love this, so good, love you/ --

Something broke, almost audibly, and D'Argo ripped his mouth away from John's cock and surged up to cover John's mouth with his as if to silence those words, and he wrapped his arms around John, dimly aware of the human's arms wrapping around him, and they rolled, desperately grinding against each other. It was over, just that quickly, with that first contact of heated, bare skin and cocks sliding against each other.

Panting harshly, John opened his mouth to speak, and D'Argo kissed him, almost frightened that John might say something, something awful, and he was not sure which would be worse:

/"This was a mistake,"/

or

/"I love you,"/

so he kissed him to shut him up, to forestall the moment when John might say one thing or the other, and they fell asleep that way, mouths pressed together. John woke up once during the night, tickled awake by D'Argo's mustaches against his face, and he smiled and lazily kissed one corner of D'Argo's sleep-loosened mouth and went back to sleep.

When John woke up again, he was cold, the sheets were kicked to the floor, and the bed was empty.

He dressed, went in search of D'Argo, trying to still the voice in his head screaming that maybe D'Argo didn't /want/ to be found, maybe he didn't /want/ to have done what they had.

/Too fucking bad. It's done, and I want to know one way or the other./

He found him in the maintenance bay they used for workouts, off in the corner, as far from the PeaceKeeper mat as he could get as if having to stand on it would contaminate him somehow. He was dressed, just like always, gloves on and knife at his belt just as if last night, spent naked and wrapped in John's arms, in John's bed, had never been. He had his back to the door, moving in a slow, graceful sword exercise. The huge blade moved like it was floating, as if it weighed nothing, and D'Argo followed it, broad shoulders twisting under the coat, feet planted, body above them moving as languidly as if he were under water.

John had seen him like this a few times before, performing the graceful postures that reminded him of TaiChi, and he very much thought that this was D'Argo's way of meditating. After the nightmarish payment D'Argo and the others had made to Namtar, D'Argo had spent arns obsessively going through these exercises, pushing himself until he trembled with exhaustion, coat soaked with sweat, face pale. As if he thought he could purge himself, punish himself, wear himself out with the same blade he had used to commit his crime.

/Does he think that's what it was? Something he has to make himself pay for?/ Did D'Argo regret last night so badly that he had to punish himself for it? The look on D'Argo's face as he had stood beside John's bed, the way he had seemed unable to control his actions -- in the time that John stood now, watching D'Argo, his brain replayed the night before, substituting what he had thought was /love/, was /desire/, with compulsion, unwanted obsession. Mechanical need, not affection. Replaced desire for /him, John Crichton/, one specific and wanted lover, with a lust that once satisfied with /anyone/, anyone at all, was an embarrassment, an aberration.

/Well, Johnny -- now you know, one way or the other. Forget it, move on. Last night was just a one time thing, wasn't it? Right?/

/No. I went and fucking fell in love with him and oh God, I am frelled, he doesn't want to see me again -- /

John squared his shoulders, shoved that thought away as hard as he possibly could. /Fuck it. We live on the same fucking ship, let him deal with it. If he doesn't want -- doesn't feel the same, then I can deal with it./

/Right/, sneered a small voice in his head. /You fell in love, and may I remind you what that means for you, Johnny-boy?/

(a staggeringly huge sense of completion, a sense that yes, fucking yes, this is it, this is what I want, what I need, and oh God his face, his face as he came, shuddering in my arms, want this forever -- )

/Shut up. Suck it in and say something to him, dumbass./

"Hey."

"Hey." D'Argo did not act startled, as if he had known John had been standing there all the while.

"Look, D'Argo, I wanted to talk to you about last night."

Without turning, D'Argo said, "I don't want to talk about it -- " and before he could finish his sentence with /just yet, I need to think/, John was cutting him off.

"Fine," John said coldly, his words clipped and careful as if he did not trust himself to say anything else other than, "Consider it never talked about again."

Before D'Argo could turn, stop him, explain, sweeten his words with some kind of apology, John was gone and he was alone.

Afterward, John no longer spoke to him. He said things to him, of course; spoke in his direction when it was required; but his words were always freighted with sourness and hidden hate and ruin, and D'Argo accepted it. He tried, gods, he /tried/ -- he made every effort he could to reach out to John and explain, even when John would not allow it in so many words, only in the spaces between them.

* * * *

D'Argo

"This defense screen is pretty much fried. I'm not even sure it's worth fixing," John said, and I could hear the sideways meaning behind his words. Just like every other conversation we have had in the last two weekens, there are hidden dangers under every word from his mouth. I have tried to get him to come out and talk to me about it, cease this endless cutting and bloodletting of his, the way he flays me alive with simple, seemingly casual sentences, but he refuses. Pretends he has no idea what I'm talking about.

He is the most stubborn creature I have ever met.

Almost as stubborn as I am.

After trying over and over to get him to let me explain, I have given up. For now. Sooner or later, I will finally wait him out. He will weaken, relent, and let me finish saying what I wanted to say.

I wasn't ready to talk then, not so soon. I am now. I am ready to tell him that I regret leaving before he woke, but that it was unbearable to lie there and watch him sleep, to hear over and over in my head his voice saying that he loved me.

Those words clarified some things for me, and hopelessly confused others. I had wanted to believe it was only lust that made me go to him, made me slide into his bed and try to drown myself in what I had come to realize, quite against my will, that I wanted so badly.

It wasn't.

Only a fool would think that once would be enough, that what I felt was only lust. Only a fool would continue to plunge headlong into madness once he tasted it and knew it for what it was -- ruin, destruction.

Love.

Until I can make him understand, this is all I have left.

His hurt.

His stubbornness, only matched by my own.

My regret.

So I listen to his words, and hear the truth under them, and try to respond, as well as I can, with my own.

/I'm not even sure it's worth fixing. I hate you. You can't fix this, fix what you did to me, so fuck off and stop looking at me that way./

"There's no harm in trying." /I'm sorry. I want to try to fix it. Please let me try./

If he will ever let me, I /will/ try.

END "Little Pieces of the Nothing"