Crais slouched down in the pilot chair of Talyn, reveling in his freedom to do so. There were no superior officers here to reprimand him, no ambitious underlings searching for signs of weakness. Just he and Talyn cruising through the uncharted territories... young as he was, Talyn was already far better company than any Peacekeeper ever had been.

Crais smiled and pulled his hair free of its tight queue. His hair fell about his bare shoulders--the stiff uniform with the tight collar had been the first thing to go, replaced with worn black trousers and a gray undershirt. He could feel his constant low-grade headache easing as the tension left his temples. Like the uniforms, Peacekeeper hairstyles were not designed for comfort. He wondered how many other comforts the Peacekeepers had designed out of his life.

They'd claim none, of course. Leave abounded with "comfort": drink, music, rich food, lesser-status Sebaccean men and women, all the comforts missing from home. Home was *not* included in the list of comforts. Homesickness was put in the category of weakness. Along with slouching.

He sighed and let his spine bend further. He'd never much wanted to go home, not once his brother had come to serve under him. Just as well, since he was as likely to see Tauve alive again as his family's farm. Crais felt the dark gray of depression pulling him in. No, he thought. Go there and you won't pull yourself out for cycles. And there's no junior officers here on whom to vent his emotions.

He smiled. So *that's* what his lieutenants were good for. Although, for losing leviathans run by a largely untrained, undisciplined crew they were also without peer. No, he didn't want to think of Peacekeeper strengths, but weakness. What other weaknesses had he missed?

Unbidden, a memory of John Crichton appeared in his mind. " . . . shack up with a super model, but you are not taking the Porsch." Crais wondered briefly why he'd want to live with a large design prototype of some sort, and why Crichton called Talyn "Porsh." But his mind soon went back beyond Crichton's words, to how he'd looked as he'd said them. The man was so Sebacean-looking, so demonstrably *not* Sebacean. The rules against mingling with other species was even firmer than the rules against mutinying and ship stealing. Crais rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. Crichton was a wonderfully powerful man. Crais's shoulder still had twinges from their last fight. His desire for this strong human would be considered a terrible weakness by High Command. A terrible, wicked, delicious weakness. Crais licked his thumb and let his hand roam with his thoughts.

How would it feel to have Crichton here, under his control? Literally under--hmmm, perhaps not right away. He pictured those large, capable hands ghosting over his stomach, his chest, skimming over his nipples and along to his throat. Crais halted, uncomfortably aware of just what Crichton would likely do if Crais's throat were in his hands. He pushed that thought from his mind.

Moving a hand back to his mouth, Crais licked his thumb again and ran it along the neckline of his undershirt. Crichton's tongue there--yes. Crais moved his fantasy back on track, closing his eyes to better imagine Crichton's head moving lower, his mouth closing around a patch of shirt and, beneath it, a rapidly puckering nipple. Gods the man had a mouth on him. Crais plucked at the nub and the squeezed harder, until the tender flesh burned beneath his fingers. Crichton's lips--oh, that mocking, angry mouth would be hard, bruising, punishing.

Crais dragged his hand away and hit the arm of the chair with it. He hissed as the blood flowed back to his swollen nipple. Punishment was *not* where he wanted his mind to take him. The erection tenting his trousers suggested otherwise, but Crais tried to ignore that detail. "Crichton under me," he muttered to himself, willing the picture to form, "red-faced and moaning against the mattress." His fingers moved down to trail against his swollen erection. "Begging me for it." But even in his mind's eye, the face Crichton turned towards him, looking up from the bed, was mocking, not desperate.

"You gonna paint a picture or get down to business?" Crichton's voice whispered in his mind.

"Frell it!" Crais dragged off his sweaty undershirt and threw it to the floor (covering and confusing a DRD which promptly ran into his bare ankle). Even in his fantasies the human was a frustrating bastard. "Forget him," Crais told himself. He tried to switch mental tracks to Aeryn Sun. She'd been intractable lately (another problem he could trace back to Crichton), but she'd been a good Peacekeeper pilot once--malleable to the point of selling out her lover to get on his good side.

Crais built a mental image of Aeryn. She knelt before him in a spotless uniform, her hair pulled back tightly, spine ramrod stiff. At his nod she unfastened the front of her uniform top, baring her breasts to his gaze. Crais unfastened his trousers and pushed them down to pool around his bare feet. His dream Aeryn lowered her eyes as he brought his stiff cock to her mouth. Without a word she drew him in, running her tongue around the crown, flicking it against that spot just below the head, then pulling him deeply, deeply into her throat.

Crais moved his hand faster, waiting for the ball-tightening tension to draw him in. There, almost . . . there . . . Crais bit his lower lip in frustration.

"She may be what you want, but she's sure not what you need." Crais could hear Crichton's voice as clearly as if he'd spoken in his ear. The mental image of Aeryn kneeling dissolved to Crichton standing before him in that borrowed Peacekeeper uniform. "Let's explore this weakness of yours," murmured Crichton, pushing at Crais's shoulders.

Crais slid to his knees on the floor in front of the chair. His hand worked roughly, frantically, his knees spread wide, cushioned by his crumpled trousers.

His unruly mind placed Crichton kneeling behind him, between his legs. Crichton gently drew his hair back over his right shoulder, delicately baring his neck only to clamp down in a bruising, possessive bite. The fastenings of Crichton's uniform scraped against Crais's shoulder blades. Crichton's hands grasped his hips and pulled him against a large, firm bulge.

"Ever since I met you," growled Crichton, "you've been trying to screw over me and everyone I know. It's time to give a little something back."

Crais shook his head. "No, I . . ." Crichton's warm fingers grazed against his opening, making him shudder. "Yes, Bialar, you." The fingers left, cloth rustled. A warmth returned, thick and relentless, pushing past the ring of muscle and deep, deep inside him. Crais grimaced as the room narrowed down to the friction of his hand in front of him and the burn behind him. A twist of flesh against his prostate and he was there, sobbing, coming face down on the floor.

Crichton's sardonic image disappeared as Crais's vision cleared. He pulled his cramped fingers from his ass and pushed his hair out of his face with his other, even wearier hand.

It took him two tries to stand. As he mopped the floor with his undershirt, Crais realized that sex with an imaginary Crichton had left him feeling weak as an infant. And he wondered how whether he was strong enough to be weak with the real Crichton?

--fin--