1Taking a Swim in a Fountain…
By ixchup (story idea by DekotaSkye)
Rating: PG for grossness and some cursing
Author Notes: DE dropped her drabble on my lap in an attempt to jolly me into writing. It worked and I thank her for her pointy stick. This story stems from a challenge by Jude that I totally went sideways on.
"Jude worked out that John Crichton according to the Farscape time line would be 34 this year... but that is besides the point
So my challenge if you choose to accept it: It must be a humorous fic about John, Aeryn, D'argo and Chiana, searching for a Longevity treatment for John that lengthens his life span to that of a Sebacean. The funnier and more absurd the treatment the better. Oh and it must have a small shippy scene too!
It MUST contain the line "Keep still! This won't hurt a bit" and the treatment must work too."
Acknowledgements: I don't own Farscape and I'm just borrowing the players and will put them back safe and sound when I am finished.
"I'm 33 for a moment
Still the man, but you see I'm a they
A kid on the way
A family on my mind
I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life
15 there's still time for you
Time to buy, Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star
15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live" – Five For Fighting
She stood there with her slim white shoulders angled up supporting her sharply muscled right arm as she ran the brush through her shining brownish black hair. Her figure was slim masking the powerful talent for violence within its curves. The wounds from her Scarren captivity reddened her side but were now barely visible. She healed so rapidly that it was hard to believe that just two weekens ago she was lying sweating and hallucinating on that bed with him at her side wondering if she would ever be the same. He smiled at her resiliency. He should never doubt his alien lover.
In spite of the new crisis and that frelling pooka's reappearance to remind him of his responsibilities, John felt happy for the first time in a long while. There was just one niggling worry marring his joy at having Aeryn back almost whole and ready to bust heads at his side. John pondered the vagaries of time as he sat watching her ministrations from his view on the bed. He shook his head. Just that morning time he discovered the second grey hair in his head. He couldn't really blame it on time dilations and wormhole affects. There she stood with her youth stretching far ahead of her and here he sat with a damning genetic death sentence hanging over his graying head. Just contemplating the turning of time's wheel dulled his joy in watching her. He sighed and twisted his neck to shake off his depression. There was no fixing the situation so he just had to make the best of the four-score and seven years he had.
"Hey babe, what say you and I take the grocery run. I need some dirt time."
"You know I have those neuro-electric conduits in the Hammond-side maintenance bay to repair, John." Aeryn turned her head away from the mirror and looked at him with her lips pursed. "Pilot said the planet was nothing to speak of anyway. All mud and vegetation. Rygel would be better suited for this run. Why are you so anxious to go?"
"Yeah, well the Degobah aspects haven't escaped me, but I just gotta get off this boat. It's been weekens that we've been running and as much as I love watching Chiana and D'Argo knoodle, avoid Zhaan's bare-assed chanting, and gag at Rygel's eating his way through our larder, I really need some air. I wanted to share some quality time with my favorite kick-ass warrior." John looked down at his fingers twirling the errant hair.
"It'll just have to wait. Ship first, you know that, John." Aeryn put down the brush and leaned down to shimmy into her leathers without a shred of self-consciousness. John grinned at the view of her dance. His depression fled as he jumped up to assist her by wrapping his arms around her waist as she struggled to close the clasps while slapping his playful hands away from her belly. As usual, Aeryn won the battle by pushing him away while secretly enjoying the feel of his hands as they wandered up her sides towards her breasts his fingers gently circling the scars while his lips played a tune on her neck and earlobe. "John, we have work to do. Save your rutting instincts for later." Aeryn smiled at his puppy-dog look as she spoke the seemingly harsh words and he knew she somehow had caught his sarcastic bug. Turnaround was just fair play.
"Yeah, well if you keep up that slithering neither one of us will get any work done today," he stated while now playing with the errant tendrils that had escaped her loosely tied-back hair while still rubbing her waist band with his other hand. John reluctantly released his hold on her waist and stepped aside to let her pass. He really had all of tomorrows now that she had truly let him into her world. She was all business now. She nodded at his repost but gave no quarter.
"Well, I'll just have to get my favorite traveling companion to come with," he said as he stood in the cell doorway, still hoping for a change in her decision, but no such luck. He sort of expected as much. His Aeryn was all duty first, playtime later. He shrugged as he walked away from her quarters to search out Chiana.
Chiana sighed as she leaned back to rest her head on her Luxan lover's strong chest. His arms circled her slim waist as his fingers absent-mindedly played with her fingers where they nestled in his. The past weeken was harrowing in the extreme. She was just a narl herself and there she had almost become a mother. Disease, kidnapping, puke, intoxicating beverages, filth, darkness, and then rescue…all in a day's work on Moya. Chiana sighed again.
"What is on your mind, Chiana?" D'Argo rumbled from where her ear nestled.
"It-it's such a life we have, D'Argo. Here we are safe on Moya but I can't stop thinking of how close we were again to loosing it. Our luck is dren, isn't it?"
"Well, we just have to make the best of the time we have and leave the future to the oricans and wild Nebari females," D'Argo smiled down on her white hair which as usual flew every which way after their loving.
She leaned her head back and to the side to catch of glimpse of his smile through his beard and smiling in response, she buried her cheek in D'Argo's shoulder and sighed again. D'Argo wasn't sure whether her sighs were those of contentment or reflections of his own exhausted worry over his friends and their beleaguered relationships. He shook his tenkas back over his shoulder, brushing Chiana's face in the process startling her with the vehemence of his action. She blinked and shook herself to shed herself of all of the dren roiling around the ship.
"He-hey D'Argo, Moya is due for some refreshment time before we leave on Crichton's totally farbout adventure. How 'bout you and I have some fun down there? What do ya say?"
"Chiana, we don't need your kind of fun at the moment. I want us just to drop down, grab supplies and that new filter for Moya and get the hezmana out of Drodge, as John would say."
"Awwww, D, I wanna see some action. I've been kidnapped, drugged, almost been pregnant, and then almost died from Noranti's dren. Don't we deserve some time off? I'll just go and find Crichton. He needs some time away from all this dren."
"Chiana…" D'Argo called, but the Nebari had already lifted herself off his lap and was out the door with his call echoing in the suddenly empty cell.
Chiana skittered down Moya's golden corridors her thoughts on raslaks, bodies, and new sights and smells to be had. She suddenly found strong hands grasping her shoulders and she instinctively whipped out her knees and stuck out. John howled in angry pain and collapsed into himself grasping his privates and staring at the now startled girl.
"Chiana, what the f—frell! Oh my god that hurts! What did you go and do that for? Sheesh!" he gasped as he tried to dim the sharp shock to his system.
"Sorr-sorry Crichton. You were suddenly there and I guess I just did what I do. You know me, kick, kiss, or cry… Wanna come down and play?"
John sucked in a huge gulp of air and slowly straightened up. He adjusted himself and grinned at Chiana. "You know the "boys" could have done without the surprise, but yeah, I was just coming to look for you."
"Drad. I'll just get my traveling things and meet you down at the transport pod. This'll be so bletz." Chiana continued her glide down the hall as John looked on with a bemused smile and serepticiously rubbed himself.
"I'm getting too old for this shit," he whispered.
"Mud and mud and more mud," John muttered as he tried to scrape the clinging stuff from his boots on the scrapper that rested just outside the door of the bar Chiana had located. It was a non-descript stucco-like structure with weathered grey walls covered in chipped paint that looked like it once upon a time featured some sort of green-skinned slit-nosed froggy critters coupling in impossible positions in the ubiquitous sludge. John shrugged at the erotic fresco with its missing pieces. The story of his life. As long as the place served some sort of rot-gut, he would be happy. Chiana skipped on ahead, for once her wary looks were replaced by the old slyly sensual glances of old. John smiled and shrugged.
John leaned his chair so that its back rested on the grubby peeling wall and blinked bleary-eyed at the scene before him. The various concoctions bought by Chiana were mixing sluggishly in his stomach and the bottles, twisted containers, and metallic cups lay discarded on the slick table.
Chiana leaned on the counter of the bar and glanced at the green-skinned native beside her. "You-you really are 400 cycles old! You don't look like you are even old enough to drink intoxicants safely. That is so drad. Is that natural?" She asked slightly slurring her words as she leaned her face closer into the creature's personal space. She could smell either a scam or a wonderful opportunity blossom here.
The obviously intoxicated creature grasped its goblet of thick greenish-brown liquid with its webbed three-fingered fist and tilted its slight body towards the Nebari. "Confidentially, my age is a gift of our gods. I'm not supposed to divulge state secrets to those who have not been initiated, but … for you, my dear," His wide-mouth puckered as they stretched out to touch her grey lips.
Chiana squelched a shudder and let him kiss her hungrily. She purred after recovering from the wet sliminess of his touch, "Tell me more, I love secrets. How do you stay so young at your age?"
The alien giggled drunkenly and whispered in her ear. Chiana's eyes widened as she grasped the most blek news she had heard in cycles.
John rubbed his aching eyes seeking to correct his double-vision. That last drink of greenish-brown milkshake really packed a punch. He glanced blearily over to where Chiana was conversing with the gollom-looking critter and waved. She smiled and picked herself off her stool. She obviously was doing way better than he was at the moment. John jumped as Chiana seemed to reappear at his side. "Do-don't do that little girl. You almost gave me a heart attack."
"Hey, old man," Chiana giggled in his ear as she pushed her chair closer to where he sat. "I just learned the draddest thing. Would you believe that the Kotesh I was speaking to is over 400 cycles old?"
"Chi, I wouldn't know what a Kotex looks like at 4 cycles old," John grumbled.
"They-they have some sort of bath that takes off the years and gives you at least a hundred cycles of time. More time. Think about it, Crichton."
John swayed in his seat and grinned at the two Chiana's as they rolled in and out of his vision. "Sure, Pip, whatever," he slurred and then jerked upward as she pulled him up by his outstretched arm where it lay on the table. "What the frell!"
"Come on Crichton. It'll be the blekest. Let's get you some youth, old man."
John shrugged and figured if he went with Chiana he could keep her from getting in over her head, or his head, or somebody's head. How did he get into these situations anyway?
John and Chiana followed the Koteshi as he moved rapidly in and out of the crowds of his fellow amphibians. The mud squelched under both the alien's webbed feet and sloshed and bubbled over the Moyan's as they ducked to avoid low-hanging signs and the arms and legs of passer byes and sought to keep up with their quickly moving guide. The Koteshi gestured frantically as he quickly ducked into another brown-grey stuccoed abode almost completely indistinguishable from all of the others on the street. "Quick, before we are seen," he stuttered.
John ducked his head to avoid banging it on the low-lying lintel. He pushed Chiana's head down just as she was about to follow suit. She nodded her head acknowledging the quick save as she stopped suddenly in the doorway and stared at the crowd of aliens who stood as if at attention around the smoky room. Frowning, John tapped their guide on the shoulder and whispered, "What's with the welcoming committee?"
The Koteshi seemed to grin showing blackened pointed teeth and a very thin pointed tongue that he used to quickly lick his thin lips. "Ah, my lovely Chiana wished to see how we remain so young. I will show her and her esteemed companion. Come, see for yourself the goddess in the pool. Bathe in her loving embrace. Taste her essence. Become young again."
John backed away from the stench that accosted his nose. He was not sure why he hadn't noticed it or the bubbling slurping sounds that emanated from deeper in the room. Chiana pulled at his arm, stopping him in his retreat. "Crichton, didn't I tell you this would be drad. It could be the solution to your problem. You know, the gray hair thing you don't want anybody to notice that you are upset about?"
John shook his head mutely as he began to hear chanting in a sort of gargling throaty baritone.
"Old man, it's just mud. The Koteshi says it is warm and very comfortable. It's just the thing to turn tired old bones young again. Don't you want to have as many years as possible with Aeryn? With us?"
John turned away, his body already swaying from the heat and smell. He was definitely too drunk. He was even contemplating this spa from hell. Nah, nope, not gonna do this." His better, more rational side was finally resurfacing from his drunken stuper. "Pip, I know there are no secrets on Moya, but this is definitely not the solution. Nothing can make me take a swim in here. Nothing."
The Koteshi stood waiting now tapping his webbed foot with impatience. "The gentle being is being given a very large gift. We will not wait long for his decision. But you cannot leave this place if you do not partake. Our secret is sacred."
"Pip, not leave? Nobody said anything about not leaving," John yelled at Chiana as six larger and noticeably well-armed Koteshi suddenly appeared in front of the door blocking their exit.
"Crichton, I-I didn't know anything about this. Honest. Let's just do this thing and they'll let us leave. Look, take the honor. Do the swim. It is for your benefit."
John sighed as he once again met his old friends rock and hard place. He turned to Chiana while the lithe fingers of several Koteshi stripped him down to his underwear.
"Chi, his friends better not hold up rings and whisper 'my precious' or I'm outta here, Ponce de Leon be damned."
Chiana lounged on the side of the gurgling pool and watched as John slowly lowered himself into the slime-filled mess. Each plop of a bubble brought the smell of rotten death and destruction to her nostrils. Lucky that Crichton's nose was more deficient, she thought to herself. Chiana didn't know if she would have the nerve to swim in that muck. Rygel would just love this place, she thought as she tried to hide a smile from her grimacing friend.
John shivered in the hot soup as he lay on his back and floated. Waves of brown putrescence cascaded over his shoulders and splashed into his eyes and nose. He gagged and struggled as dozens of small hands pushed his head and body down under the mud. He felt himself loosing consciousness but was suddenly released in the nick of time. He bounded upwards with a squishing splash and gasped the methane-reeking air. "What the frell! Chiana, nobody said this was John the Baptist time, here. Let me out now."
"No, gentle being. If you leave now, you will die. Do you not feel the glorious mud sapping your energies, pulling your age out of your bones. Sixteen arns must you stay soaking. Six tumblers of special nutrients must you drink to become whole." The leading Koteshi (not that John could tell them apart from where he struggled in the arms of six burly amphibians) signaled to one of its servants who waited by the side of the pool close to where Chiana lay struggling to hold in her whoops of laughter.
The first glass of gak made his gorge rise simply from its consistency. He just could not get his mouth to open until two of the Oliphant wanna-bes caught him by the shoulders and plugged his nose forcing him to open his mouth or be asphyxiated. He fell back into the primordial ooze as the molten sludge hit his stomach. He could feel his bones melting and his guts rise up to his throat but his sudden enervation did not allow him to move. So he swallowed the bile and closed his eyes as he floated. He was lost in a dream of Aeryn and the baby. He felt her kiss his graying grizzled brows and run her fingers over each wrinkle surrounding his dimming eyes. The cataracts were bothering him that day and he could barely see his son and daughter-in-law as they bent over his face where he sat . He raised his crooked crippled fingers to stroke her hand. The arthritis was also sending sharp pains through is knees and shoulder and he shuddered and tried not to groan as he brought her hand down to his lips. Aeryn and his children smiled at his efforts. He closed his eyes and the world whirled away.
The next cup of slop came as a complete surprise because he found he did not even have the strength to refuse the straw that was forced between his clamped lips. Someone pressed on his chest and another squeezed his cheeks causing most of the dren to flow sloppily down his throat into his gullet where it played havoc with his stomach. He heaved but hadn't the strength to bring it back up. They released his head and as it fell back into the pottage he grinned thinking he was like that stone in the soup. But nobody brought the spoon. Aeryn was back again with her grandchildren and he couldn't see them anymore but heard their glad cries as they crowded around his bed. He tried to reply, but the words wouldn't come from his frozen lips. He smiled at his beautiful bride. Had they really been together for forty years? It seemed like only yesterday he was watching her comb out her long black hair as he admired her white shoulders and lean torso with its healing wounds from the Scarren gynecological examinate table of horrors.
He couldn't remember the third or fourth glass of shit-on-a-shingle, but his body did. He ached from tip to toe. His eyeballs hurt and his spine creaked and broke as he struggled sluggishly to find a comfortable position. The orcs were basting him with the marinade again and he hoped that the George Forman treatment would be over soon so he could get back home to Moya. Moya, home. They seemed so distant when all he could really remember now were glimpses of Mom with her wild-ass trips to the palm reader where he would tag along because what else could a 10-year old do? Mom, sitting waiting for word about Dad who was off doing astronaut things again and scaring the dren out of the rest of them. Chasing Livvie around the living room while Six Million Dollar Man played in the background. He could be re-built…stronger, faster, better. Susan said that Lee Majors was bitch'n but John really liked Jamie Sommers better. He preferred blonds even at the advanced age of 13. Livvie didn't have an opinion but just tagged along and teased him unmercifully about his crush. Hawkeye better hurry up with that surgery because he was due back to the front and he knew that that sexy major nurse Hot Lips Houlihan would be there to treat him right if he just was nice to that stupid boyfriend of hers. What was his name? Oh yeah, Frank Burns played by that ass Larry Linville— dead now. So was Harry Morgan and David Ogden Stiers was doing Disney. And Mom just sat and flipped the cards seeking answers where no one could predict safety.
John gagged at the stench of the vomitous mud as it oozed over his face. He tried to shake the shit out of his eyes but hadn't the strength to raise his arms from his sides where they seemed as if they were frozen like an insect in amber—yeah, insects in amber. Alex loved amber jewelry and he could just afford the price of that necklace that she said she loved but gave back to him the day they separated. He still had it somewhere. He should give it to Aeryn.
The fifth cup had to be given intravenously through a hastily cut hole in his stomach. He didn't feel anything but Chiana almost gagged at the site of the Koteshi performing the surgical incision without anesthetics or sanitation. His blood ran down his belly and mingled with the mud turning it a putrid yellowish bronze. This was getting out of control. She grabbed the Leader and shook him but he calmly and firmly loosened her hands from his shoulders. "Stop this dren now! You are killing him!" she cried and slammed her fist into his stomach. But the Leader just smiled showing blackened fangs and gave no reaction to her violent and ultimately futile assault.
"What was started must be finished. He must die to be reborn young again. You were informed and you agreed to the rites. Be calm. All will be well for your Sebecean companion."
Chiana swallowed and tried again. This time she would use other wiles. She sidled up to the slimy-skinned alien and rubbed her cheek against his ear-flaps. "I'll give you whatever you want if you release my friend. He-he's not Sebecean. Take take me and let him live, please."
The Koteshi looked Chiana up and then down and then ran his prehensile tongue completely around her face; reaching her in spite of her rapid withdrawal. "You body-breeders do not interest me. We were just looking for the opportunity of trying our youth rite on non-Koteshi. You were an opportune pair. Now, go away or my acolytes will forcefully withdraw you from the poolside. I will inform you of when you can come and take him."
Chiana crouched down, imprisoned by her loyalty to her friend as well as by the strong arms of the two Koteshi who held her tightly. Twelve arns and John Crichton lay comatose in the mire.
He dreamed of Aeryn and home and his thoughts flew through his life. DK and dates, drunken parties with astronaut groupies mingled with long nights of computations, pizza, and coffee. His red T-bird glistened in the light of Kanvia's nightclub scene as he stuck a lobster on his head and swore that he was his twin. Toasters and John Bobbit flashed by and he still hated that shocking pink coat and pants. He had a child out there he would never see and still Aeryn grasped his face in her hands comforting him and stilling his fears. He played football and called the winning touch down as Livvie flew into his arms—or was that Chiana the day he came back with that bastard Crais? He couldn't tell anymore but his head hurt like a bastard and he couldn't feel his limbs and his stomach seemed to be playing its own bossanova while Lucy ran her fingers over his lips with her own type of oils. He saw red roses everywhere and red apples and Alex who melted into Aeryn. Always Aeryn. He ran his thumbs over her cheeks wiping away her tears and hugged her to him because he thought he had lost her forever. And his eyes had no sight now and he was going to the light but leaving his Snow White and he cried.
They dosed him with the last of the potions at 16 arns and gently lifted him out of the antediluvian ooze on to the warm stones surrounding the pool. He didn't move a muscle as they gently rubbed the crud off his body and face. Chiana crouched near him and softly called his name but got no response, not even a twitch. "Is is he alive?" she asked the closest Koteshi? The lithe grey-green toad pointed to the slight pulsing on Crichton's neck as indication that he still lived. She turned John's head back and forth and starred at its lighter reddish-brown color and increased length. That definitely wasn't there before. The small laugh lines surrounding his eyes were lighter and fewer and his face seemed rounder. It was almost as if he had dropped the last three years from his life. She swallowed and prayed, with their sort of luck, that he hadn't also lost the memories that came with that time. She just had to hope that this "cure" wasn't worse than the disease. To distract herself she picked up his hand where it lay on the stones and began to play with his fingers. There was no sign that he noticed. The blood continued to periodically drip from the wound in his stomach were they had recently pulled out the feeding tube.
One of the Koteshi roughly pushed her aside so that they could turn the beleaguered human and wash his back. Chiana pushed back but could not budge the alien from his place. John never moved. Then, the six larger creatures brushed her out of the way and surrounded Crichton. Grunting, they hoisted him up and carried him over to a dias where candles guttered in the gloom and smoke that continued to fill the room. The glops and plops of the pool's contents continued to echo amidst the continued bull-frog croaks that stood for chanting in this bizarre cathedral to eternal youth. Chiana shuttered as she watched helplessly while John as laid spread-eagled on the alter. For that was what it was, an alter. She tried to move forward but found her way blocked by two of the creatures she now considered to be the bouncers of this party. "Do not interfere or your friend is doomed," droned the Leader as he passed her on his way to the raised platform. Chiana watched as he raised a large ceremonial knife with a wickedly carved blade that looked like a lightening bolt. The Leader had clothed himself in brown shiney leather and gold-encrusted robes from somewhere when she had been distracted by John's lack of motion. The chanting grew louder as John's head was raised and a white opaque liquid was forcibly poured down his throat. He coughed and gagged and viscous sticky drops sprayed from his lips but he then lapsed back into his previous unconscious state. The smells of the now hordes of Koteshi who surrounded the alter was overpowering. It was as if Rygel had cloned himself hundreds of times and each Rygel had eaten pot fulls of marjouls and were sunning and fumigating himself in that vacuum-sealed area she had been thrust into with the toad when Moya was in labor. Chiana smothered an inappropriate giggle and tried not to breath in through her nose. Suddenly, the knife slashed downward into John's stomach and he arched is back as it bit deeply over the feeding tube wound. He screamed and squirmed in agony as brownish-black sludge burst from the new wound and ran down the surface of his bed of stone into containers lining the floor all around the dias. The slurping mess continued to pulse out of the wound mixed with his blood and white mucus. The smell was worse than before and the steam rose obscuring John from her sight. Several of the acolytes picked up the buckets containing the secretions and dumped them into the pool. Chiana gagged when she realized just what filled the pool. John's head lolled to the side and his hands flopped off the sides of the alter. The deed was done.
"You make take your friend now. He has survived the rite, blessed by the goddess, and should live a long and fulfilled life. Go while we let you and never return. We have what we need to continue." The Leader motioned to the large acolytes again to lift the man from the alter and follow Chiana out the door.
Chiana yelled, "Wait wa-wait a frelling minute! John Crichton is barely alive here. You can't leave him like this. What what am I supposed to do?"
The Koteshi had already turned his back and forgotten her presence. Chiana dejectedly followed the Koteshi and their unconscious load. She indicated the location of the transport pod. She was in for a dren-load of trouble from a certain former Peacekeeper and this time she felt she had earned it.
"Nothing, I guess. Just, nothing," she whispered to herself. "Crichton is just gonna have to survive. That's all there is to it or my name is… what does John call it, oh yeah, mud." Chiana giggled nervously and sighed. She hiccupped with anxiety and glanced at the entourage. Some play time. As D'Argo likes to say, same dren; different planet. The dren is gonna hit the fan.
They laid John on the floor of the transport pod and silently exited even before Chiana could acknowledge them. The wound in John's stomach was bleeding freely now and he tossed and turned his head as sweat formed on his brow. Chiana knelt and tried to wipe away the blood with her gloved hand, but to no avail. So she dragged him up and on to the co-pilot's chair and strapped him in as well as she could and began the pre-flight check. Now she hoped he wouldn't wake until they were home on Moya. Takeoffs and landings were not her strong suit.
Chiana rubbed absent-mindedly at the welts rising on her white satin skin. The smell in the sealed transport pad was a miasma of mud, pus, mucus, and blood along with occasional farts and burps as John exuded the last of the foul drink and soak. He never regained alertness but she could tell he was trying by the frowns and groans he was expressing.
John felt like he was sitting in the middle of one of those hot spas his parents like to visit in the Ozarks when he was a young teen. Only this one was extra special and had an Indian bed of nails under the muck. He remembered back then that he had gotten too close to the spurting sulfur spumes on one of those trips and burned his hand badly. His dad ran him to the emergency room and he was patched up but the second-degree burn stunk to high heaven and hurt like shit. He hadn't heard the end of the teasing from his sisters for months afterwards. He could hear somebody giggling and cursing and he could feel an intense pressure on his chest and abdomen, but he couldn't figure out why or who. He flexed his fingers and gritted his teeth at how stiff they felt. And yet, and yet, he felt invigorated.
"Well, screw this, I just gotta get up and out of whatever dren Chiana has gotten us into," he thought sluggishly. He remembered the last field trip with his adventurous Nebari sidekick as he thought he heard the rumble of the transport pod around him.
"Oh god I hope she hasn't purchased another one of those weird plant blobs and I'm in some sort of Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum house of prostitution up to my eyeballs in mule sweat." John forced his eyes open and through the blur thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of white hair but he was too stiff and sore to turn his head. "Pi pi Pip!" he moaned. "Wha- wha' th- the frell ha- happen'd?"
His slurring speech gave Chiana time to compose herself. "Hey old man. I'm glad that you decided to join the land of the living. Too much raslak doesn't mix well with that green-brown stuff you were drinking."
"Cu- cut the crap, Chiana! This is more than a really bad hangover I'm feeling." John glanced down at his bare stomach and blanched. "Chiana! I'm cut here!"
"Um, remember that thing, that thing where I told you I found, I found how you could, you could get young again?" Chiana hoped and prayed to whatever gods continued to listen that John would stay at least a little calm. But she knew that the way the gods frowned on them, there was no such luck so she just plowed on ahead.
"Well, you did it. And, and, um, well, things sorta went to hezmana as usual, and well, alls well and here we are." Chiana looked at him and grinned a sick grin.
John winced at the strain but turned his head and stared at Chiana. He couldn't believe that the mud and guts and pain actually happened, but like most things in this twisted up part of the galaxy, it surely had. He felt drained and light as if he had lived those fifty or sixty years and had been reborn somehow. Hollow yet fulfilled. It was a weird feeling sort of like rattlers but without the dread. He closed his eyes to assess the location of his ghoul, but Harvey was quiescent. He hoped that his "rider" would stay that way for awhile. He needed the time. Time. It seemed from what Chiana said that he had time now. He grinned and then chortled and then couldn't hold the sick mirth inside.
"Oh, this is just choice. Pip, the next time I get a mid-life crisis, for god's sake just get me a Nehru jacket and beads or that jag I'd looked at once—the the one with the leather interior. I didn't need this dren. Harvey's on my back and Scorpy is probably spilling the beans and I'm sitting here in my birthday suit feeling like shit, as usual and smelling, oh mama I smell. But, on the other hand, what else is new?"
Chiana looked down at the pod's control rod and then back up at John's face which was now covered with the tears of his rant. Yup, she was right, he couldn't stay calm. Hezmana! This was only a mud bath and some chanting and look what it got him. She decided to say nothing and let him get all his dren out.
"Pip, as much as I really appreciate the birthday present, I don't' remember anything about the party. What happened after we entered the Seven Dwarf's house and I sat on the chairs that were too small? I figure you owe me a big one. You, my dear pest, get to tell our warriors why I am persona non-gratta. D'Argo is going to be able to smell me a parsec away. I semll worse than granny. You get to play tiddly winks with our resident mom and dad while I rest, bathe, and revitalize."
John tried to shrug and groaned as he felt the full force of the wound in his stomach as well as the nausea that rose up and almost engulfed him. "On second thought, I need about twelve liters of blood and a couple of Tylenol. Signal the witch and then you play hide and seek with Aeryn."
Chiana felt awful for the dren she had caused for John. As usual, what sounded liked a great plan when south. Well, then it went north. She sucked up her guilt and stated "Sounds like, like fun, old man. I'm just glad you're back." She would take the penalty and just be glad that Crichton saw the sick humor in the situation. Now, if she could just get rid of the smell and the rash she would be okay.
"Chiana, I hope you have John in that pod with you. You both are in big dren!" Aeryn's voice echoed in the pod. John and Chiana looked at each other and couldn't contain themselves.
"Oh dren!"
Chiana tapped the comms and took a deep breath to contain herself, "Hi Aeryn. Yes, John's with me but we've run into some trouble and need D'Argo to come and help us." She figured her normal kick, kiss, and cry routine would be the best tactic. John looked at her and said nothing but his eyes continued to smile.
When Chiana bounded down the steep stairs from the pod she was confronted with two very annoyed Moyans. "He- hey, D'Argo, Aeryn. John needs some help. He can't mo-move so well at the moment."
D'Argo snorted and stormed up the stairs with Aeryn following close behind. "Chiana," she said, "We WILL have words about this later."
Inside the pod, they found John leaning into the straps that still held him in the chair. He had fallen asleep. His arms and hands crossed his abdomen but when Aeryn released him from the webbing, they fell to his side revealing the bloody mess. Aeryn hissed and tried to pick him up but with her current debilitation from the Scarren bed, she lacked the strength. "Oh, my blazma's knees, he reeks!" D'Argo backed up away from the unconscious man.
He then sucked up his nausea at the unbelieveable smells eminating from the chair and pushed Aeryn aside. Turning his head away, he picked his friend up gently. At the bottom of the stairs he grunted at Chiana and stormed out of the hanger with his prize. Aeryn followed him out of the pod but halted at the bottom of the stairs.
Chiana turned to follow D'Argo and John to the infirmery but Aeryn motioned the Nebari to stay. "I have a few words to say, Chiana."
"I, um, I kinda figured you did, Aeryn." Chiana mumbled and chewed on a piece of hair that had fallen into her face.
"You had no right to let John give in to his fears. You two are a disaster together. You are a plague. You have no brains, just impulse. What in Cholak's name where you thinking? He doesn't need to get stinking drunk right now. What happened down there?"
"Aeryn, I know you have been through hezmana. I can't begin to comprehend what it was like. We were so scared and lost while you were gone. John, well John just held it together barely. All he would do was stare at a stupid vid that Pilot captured and drink and zone. He wouldn't sleep. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't talk. Hezmana! He offered wormhole tech to Scorpy to get you free. He gave his soul for you! And I watched and couldn't help help at all. Just hold his hand and give Sikozou dren and watch some more. So, I- I felt we needed some play time. Some, some adventure. Yeah, you know me, I wouldn't let John get hurt on purpose. But he was feeling so worn and old. He kept it all quiet, at usual, but I knew."
Aeryn looked down and rubbed her stomach where the healing sores still ached. She sighed and pursed her lips at Chiana's words. "I understand the need, Chiana, but to give in to it, that's another thing. What went on down there? How did John get wounded?"
"Well, we were drinking, um, a lot, and I- I caught up with a local who said he knew of a place where you could get young again. You know, add on the cycles of life. I- I wanted Crichton to see his kid grow up. I - I wanted you guys to have a long life together. So, I- I sorta dragged John along and before I knew it, those frelling Koteshi had him in this muddy dren drinking this sludge stuff and then they cut him and here we are."
"Yes, here you are. Chiana, John might die from that wound and then where will I be? Scorpius is in the hands of the Scarrens. War is about to break out and you take John into danger again. I know he only went with you to keep you safe. You are so so," Aeryn paused. She had no words to encompass her anger, fear, and yes, outrage. "It is going to take a lot of time before I trust you again." Aeryn stormed out of the hanger leaving Chiana staring at the floor. She stood there a long time.
John sat in the Center Chamber nursing a cup of water. His skin was reddened and he itched from rashes on top of rashes. He was tired of lying in his quarters staring at the ceiling while waiting for the aching pulsing to subside in his gut. So he had pulled himself off the bed and pushed himself to dress and shave. But he had startled himself earlier when he looked in the mirror. He had that innocent look back that he hadn't seen in himself since DK surprised him a few months before his trip in the Minnow with an official over-age drinking card. John never had looked his age, but these past few years had made him feel them. He needed to live.
So here he was, somehow young again with a future ahead of him. He sighed and swallowed some more water. Man, he was thirsty. He continued his ruminating. This past few weeks while he was chasing down Aeryn had depleted the dregs of his energy and he had felt at least 100 years old. But now, for some reason, now he felt like he did that fateful day on that tiny ship. He smiled and then grimaced at the lousy taste in his mouth. He could still fell the mud.
Cool arms encircled him from behind and a luscious flow of black-brown hair tumbled over his shoulder. He leaned back and caught the lips of his lover in his own while she reached down. He shivered and jumped slightly as her hands touched the bandage that encircled him from diaphragm to crotch. "Careful there, this old man's got some wounds, babe."
"Don't old man me, you deficient Human. You still haven't heard the last of your little field trip. But I will tell you this. You are no more an old man than Chiana is a virgin. Come here and I'll prove it to you."
"Gently, Aeryn, gently," he said as he allowed himself to be lead out of the chamber. They could forget their troubles for awhile and he thought that maybe, maybe for the first time he did have a long future with his warrior princess.