Efflorescent
"Lie still, you idiot."
Through the fading haze of opiates and the haunting, vaguely familiar scent of flowers, Kerr was vaguely offended. Wasn't it usually... Blake who was being the idiot? Yes, yes, or Vila... Jenna... oh, and the rest, his head hurt too much to think of their names.
Then he opened his eyes - with an effort - and found plenty more to offend him. He was floating, it seemed, on drugs and pain and...
Purple and pink flowers.
"Bla..."
"And don't try to talk," his Fearless Leader wavered in front of him, and Avon could have sworn he was wearing... wearing...
No, the idea hurt even worse, and he closed his eyes again.
"We're safe here for a while, the owner is allied to local rebel groups," Blake's deep, hushed tones voice washed warmly over him, "at least, secretly. It's a pity you were injured back there - and we'll talk about that when you're strong enough - but he's agreed to put us up as long until the Liberator can sneak back through the blockade."
"Where -?"
"It's a floating resort for the local sentient flora, so it'll be comfortable, if somewhat..." Blake stopped, obviously searching for the right words. "In any case, Alphas can't be choosers Avon, so lie still and try not to bleed on the flowerbed, I've had to offer to pay for any damages from the Treasure Room."
Avon's eyes slitted open again... no, everything (including Blake) was still pink and petaled. And there were mirrors, vaguely flower-shaped mirrors at that, on the walls and oh god, the ceiling...
He stared in bleary horror at his own pale, semi-naked and silk-wrapped self, on a vast bed shaped like a local, infamous Venus Fauna-Trap, and surrounded by utterly cute pseudo-alien erotica (replete with disturbingly entwined pistils and stamens doing.. he didn't want to know what, strangely pornographic vines, and a disturbing number of very very long thorns). "What the -?"
"Your clothes were in shreds, Avon, even the leather," Blake sat down on the edge of the bed and held out a cup in the shape of a pink plastic lily. "Here, it's pink elderchampyn and bad pink elderchampyn at that but it will help."
"Nothing... will help," he tried for his usual acid but could only hear a watered-down whine in his voice. "Where the hell is...?"
"The honeymoon suite and for all our sakes, at least try to act grateful. It was Tiger Lil's own wedding that the Federation gatecrashed after all, and it and its wives were planning a week of total privacy and..." Blake waved a vague hand. "The story is we're newlywed fauna trying out the dark side of plant life."
"What?" Oh god, that shout really hurt, even more than the mental image...
Blake shrugged. "Local laws have no restrictions, gender, species or anything else - you saw Lil's wives -"
He had, and had been vastly amused. This was less amusing.
"So we'll be left very much alone."
He wasn't sure that was an improvement, and finding no words - at least, none fitting to the flowery folly they had found themselves in - downed the sweet ghastly liquid in one gulp, then dropped the cup and turned his back on the idiot who had, he was muzzily sure, had gotten them into this.
A vague, uncomfortable memory of being attacked by stormtroopers floated through the bubbles in his mind... and an even more uncomfortable one of being rescued (if one could call it that) by alien dahlia-shaped cherubs whose thorn-like weapons had accidentally made short work of his red leather...
Blake watched him mildly. "It could be worse," he said finally. "There's plenty of food and drink - mostly made of local skyweed flocks, we just have to be careful of the aphrodisiacs, they're for flora and far too strong for humans. There's a genuine reproduction 20th century hothouse bath which may help with your aches - though I was warned to watch the controls, the sprinklers are apparently also aphrodisiac - and this bed is far better than the last hideout we used -"
Grubby flagstones in an abandoned raid shelter, yes he recalled that all too well, and couldn't resist a slight sigh as he sank a little more into the roseleaf-soft (if still distressingly hued) cloud-mattress. Maybe he would survive a week in erotic foliage with his Fearless - and, they all believed, Almost Sexless - Leader... and he could always make Blake pay.
Later.
Much later...
The other man rose, using a warm but reassuringly casual hand to pat Avon's shoulder, almost as he would a pet, or even Vila. "I'm going to clean up - try and get some sleep."
He was too tired to retort, and rolled over, starting to drift back into the (now rather rosy and leaf-edged) darkness.
"Oh, yes" and Blake said, oh so casually, from the doorway. "and be careful of the controls, Avon. This model has - apparently - some interesting alien improvements on the usual range of sensual attachments... designed for plants with far less nerve endings than us, so much more powerful and very sensitive. Very sensitive. Try not to get yourself into something you're too weak to resist right now." There was a definite, almost wicked smile in that voice now. "At least not until I'm back to help you get out of it. You really aren't up to finding out that way what a liliatherium does for pleasure..."
-the end-