"Okay, everybody, listen up. I'm in charge here for the next few arns, and I am not in the mood to take any crap from y'all."

Standing in the doorway to Command, the stranger had a gun in each hand, pointed in the general direction of the crew, who stood frozen around the strategy table. Aeryn was the first to make a move. Her hand dropped to the pulse pistol holstered at her side, and as she began to draw it, the female intruder heaved an aggrieved sigh and fired the gun in her left hand.

"I just knew you would be the one to give me shit."

Aeryn stumbled back, staring down in shock at the feathered dart protruding from her shoulder, then swooned back against John, who lowered her carefully to the floor.

"What the hell did you do that for?" John yelled, hovering over Aeryn's unconscious form protectively, cradling her head.

"She's a pill," the stranger said dismissively, reaching behind her back to shove the dart gun into the clamshell holster on her belt. "She annoys me. I mean, come on, you aren't gonna tell me you've never wanted to just smack her sometimes, Crichton."

"That's true," John said thoughtfully, and stood up, letting Aeryn's head thwack onto the floor.

"There's my boy. Ah, ah, big fella. Put your hands at your sides before I let some light through Blue here." The barrel of the gun still in her right hand came to rest on Zhaan, and D'Argo dropped his hand away from his Qualta blade with a hiss of anger.

"Who are you? What do you want with us?" Zhaan asked.

"I'm the writer, and I'm sick and tired of trying to come up with a workable plot for these two idiots," Aiobheann replied, gesturing toward John and D'Argo with her free hand. "I want to see some hot first time monkey love, and by Goddess I'm gonna get it. Fuck the plot."

"Huh?" John said.

"You're cute, flyboy, but you ain't too bright. Look, here's the deal. The rest of you get lost, and I take these two with me. They will be returned, unharmed but very sweaty, in about two arns. That's it. Ice Queen there will have a good nap, Zhaan can go off and meditate, and Sparky and Pip here can go snurch something."

"What if we do not cooperate?" D'Argo asked suspiciously.

"Then I start shooting people. It's no problem as far as I'm concerned. I'll just slap an AU label on this story and it'll be like it never happened. So. Do we have a deal?"

John and D'Argo glanced at each other, then back at Aiobheann. She hitched herself up on the edge of the strategy table, tapping her foot impatiently. John had just begun to get the first faint glimmerings of a clue, and he had a really bad feeling about all this. D'Argo stood with his mighty brow furrowed, deep in thought. He stumbled upon the same clue that John had, although he had a much better grasp on the slippery little thing, and he scowled at Aiobheann menacingly.

"So? I'm not getting any happier here, people. When the writer's not happy, bad things happen. Yes or no?" Aiobheann snapped, dark brown eyes blazing.

John and D'Argo glanced at each other again, clue now perfectly and horrifyingly fully formed in both their minds. As one, they said, "No!"

Aiobheann sighed gustily. "Fine." She turned and shot Rygel out of his chair. Before the Hynerian had even stopped twitching, Chiana was gleefully rummaging through his pockets.

"That's supposed to motivate me? I've wanted to do that for the longest time!" John cried.

"Don't piss me off, Crichton. A pissed-off fanfic writer with PMS is not something you want to see. Do I need to plug Pip here, too?"

Silence.

"Hey, don't everybody rush to my defense or anything!" Chiana said, tucking the jeweled clasp from Rygel's robe into her cleavage.

"We're thinking." Zhaan replied.

"Oh godammit, I don't have time for this." Aiobheann sighed, reaching around behind her back. She produced the dart gun again and shot John and D'Argo with it, flinching when they both dropped like sacks of grain. She walked over and prodded both of them with the toe of her sneaker, grunting with satisfaction when neither moved.

"Fine, they wanted to play hardball." She holstered both guns and looked up at Zhaan and Chiana. The Nebari thief was practically twitching, eager to go through their pockets as well.

"Ok, ladies. Let's negotiate." Aiobheann said.

* * * * * * *

John woke up by slow degrees, bemused by the weird dream he'd just had -- some lady had come on board the ship and threatened to kill them if he and D'Argo didn't...oh, fuck. He reached out a hand to feel the warm lump next to him on the bed, praying harder than he ever had since he was seven years old and /really/ wanted a Hot Wheels for Christmas. /Please, God, don't let that be what I think it is.../

God had apparently gone off for His Wednesday golf date, because John screeched and flung himself off the bed when his brain finally deciphered what he had just grabbed ahold of. He found himself bareass naked and sprawled on the floor, butt smarting and probably bruised, staring up at D'Argo lying similarly bareass on the bed, snoring away.

"Don't blame me, sugarbuns. You just /had/ to do this the hard way, didn't you?" said a voice from behind him. He turned to see Aiobheann sitting across the room, gun lying on the table next to a can of Dr. Pepper and a pack of Kools. She saw John looking and picked up the gun, waving it toward the bed. "When the big lug over there wakes up, you and he are gonna get to know each other a lot better. And don't think I won't shoot either of you -- nicking an arm or a leg isn't gonna hurt the parts I mean for you to use."

John stumbled to his feet, hands fluttering at his sides as he tried to decide whether to cover himself or not.

"Don't even think about it, babe. I'm admiring the scenery." Aiobheann said with a predatory smile that made John's blood freeze.

"How did we get here?" John asked, as he looked around and realized they were in his own quarters.

"Your friends were surprisingly easy to bargain with. In return for their help getting you two all the way in here, I let Chiana have a go at your pockets, and I promised Zhaan she could read this later. Who knew she was such a voyeur?" Aiobheann laughed, casting another of those assessing glances at John. "Actually, if I'd known she'd get such a kick out of helping get you guys naked, I would have tempted her with that. By the way, she said the second look at you was the better one. Apparently you've put on some muscle since the premiere."

John turned his back on her, clapping his hands over his ears. "La la la, I'm not listening!" he said loudly.

"Stop the frelling singing." D'Argo muttered. "What happened? Were we attacked?"

"Um, sort of."

D'Argo cracked open one eye, peering past Crichton to the gun-wielding woman behind him.

"How bad is it?" he asked in a low voice.

"Pray for death." John answered.

"I was afraid of that. Do you suppose we could gnaw our wrists open?"

"Sleeping Beauty awakes! OK, guys, let's get this show on the road."
Aiobheann rose from the chair and moved up behind John, giving him a not-too-gentle shove toward the bed. "Hop on top, sweetcheeks."

"Please, can't we just --"

"Nope."

"I mean --"

"Nada."

"But --"

"No. N-O. Ride 'em, cowboy. And make me believe it."

"Shit." John felt the cold barrel of a gun pressing into his back, and that decided him. He crawled gingerly onto the bed, kneeling astride D'Argo's legs. He had no idea where to look, except that anywhere but at the wall seemed like a very bad idea. He was very aware of the gun pointed at him, and the woman holding it. He was also, he came to realize with a shock, very aware of just how warm D'Argo's skin was against the insides of his thighs. His cock twitched, beginning to take an interest. /Traitor/, he thought. His cock merely ignored him and went on figuring out what was what.

"Well?"

"Well what?" John snapped. "This is not my usual territory here!"

"You look like you're adjusting just fine, though." Aiobheann said, pointedly gazing at Mr. Happy.

John began to think stern thoughts about the conversation he was going to have with Mr. Happy when this was all over.

"I hate you," John muttered at his cock, who was very interested by now, seeing as how he hadn't been used for much other than pissing for going on eight months or so.

"My, testy, aren't we? The way I see it, I'm doing you a favor here. maybe once you get laid properly, you'll stop being so snotty. Quit stalling and get on with it."

"Can I at least get some direction here?"

"Kiss him. And I don't mean any old dry-peck-on-the-cheek-for-your-maiden-aunt, either. I wanna see some tonsil prospecting going on."

John looked down at D'Argo, who had his eyes squeezed tightly closed. Closing his own eyes, he leaned down and planted his lips on D'Argo's. /Uh-oh, I think that was a tactical error/, John thought. As he bent over, his cock brushed up against D'Argo's, and Mr. Happy put on his game face and dived wholeheartedly into the action. Instinct took over and he found himself thrusting a greedy tongue between D'Argo's lips, only slightly surprised to find it met with equal ardor by its counterpart.

John's last coherent thought was /Fuck it. I'm a nineties' kind of guy, what's a little sodomy between friends?/ He began to enthusiastically try to suck D'Argo's face off, and when he felt D'Argo's hands come up and grab solidly onto his ass, he gave up on thinking
as an unnecessary distraction.

* * * * * * *

"Hey, gimme one of those," John said.

"They're methol," Aiobheann replied, rocking her chair back to reach behind her for the pack of cigarettes on the table. Her chair was right up against the edge of the bed, where she had been sitting with her elbows propped on her knees throughout the whole show.

"I don't care. That definitely calls for a cigarette."

"Had fun, did you?"

"Well, I wasn't too sure about it at first, but I have to admit...that was pretty fucking good."

"How about you, D'Argo?" Aiobheann asked, looking up from holding the lighter for John.

"I still do not understand why I had to bottom." D'Argo grumbled.

"Don't whine. We went through this before -- you were a soldier." Aiobheann said.

"That still doesn't mean anything." D'Argo grumped, swatting at John with one hand for groping him and fanning cigarette smoke away with the other.

"C'mon, big guy. A bunch of soldiers, living in close quarters for months at a time...you can't tell me you never let anybody in through the back door before." John said.

"No, I didn't." D'Argo insisted sullenly.

"Oh yeah? So why were you screaming 'Ride me like the bitch I am, Daddy'?"

D'Argo blushed. "It...seemed appropriate."

"Speaking of bitches," John said, "Where's Aeryn? Shouldn't she be awake by now?"

"Oh, I heard the girls saying something about tying her up so she couldn't interrupt you two lovebirds...and that they had some plans of their own for her. I thought Chiana mentioned something about a double dildo she snurched at the last commerce planet. Since you boys have been such good sports, I think I'll take my leave and see what the ladies are up to."

Aiobheann wandered off down the hallway, moving in the direction of the feminine gasps and moans drifting down the corridor.

"Well." John said, lying on his back next to D'Argo and staring up at the ceiling. D'Argo lay next to him, also on his back, eyes trained above him.

"Well." D'Argo echoed.

Silence for a few microts.

"Wanna fuck again?" John asked finally.

"I guess." D'Argo answered. "But this time, you're /my/ bitch."

"You're on."