Written for Starburst Challenge #84: Summer's Coming.
The challenge called for the cooking of some kind of meat, a non-female in a bikini, some kind of fireworks and for someone to drink a gallon a sweet tea.
The Luxan home world was nothing like John expected. When Aeryn asked him what he had expected he found himself describing storm-swept cities, shrouded in darkness and warriors facing off against each other in ceremonial battle; shouting, fighting and protecting the Honour of their Fathers.
Klingons basically; with tankas.
Aeryn, who for once understood the reference, gave him a look that conveyed both a sense of deep and unwavering love and the conviction that he might just be the dumbest sentient creature this side of the galaxy. John was grateful for the first thing and struggled to disagree with the second.
In fact D'Argo's birth planet, largely untouched by the ravages of the war, was a revelation; rich in every conceivable aspect. The throngs of well-dressed people going about their business in the Capital's bustling streets exuded good health and the confidence that comes from knowing exactly who you are and exactly where you belong. John rode out a pang of envy as he watched them from the window of the Luxan transport.
The Capital city too was a vibrant cacophony of colour; elaborate Celtic knot structures in reds, golds and greens, sprang up from the ground in corkscrew spires that blurred the lines between the fabricated world and their lush natural surroundings. All set under a sky as clear and primary blue as a child's painting. It was everything Star Trek had promised from an advanced alien world.
There were even flying cars…well, sorta.
It was the first time John really, truly appreciated just how primitive Earth was compared to civilised Galactic society and that he'd spent four cycles living out in the boondocks.
The Luxan government greeted them in lavish style as triumphant warriors. Afterwards D'Argo's family-his surprisingly short father, his impressive statuesque mother and a sister who reminded John so much of Olivia it hurt-welcomed them with open and genuine affection. Primed in advance by the Luxan military, and led by Rygel doing his best 'Dominar of 600 billion subjects' spiel, they avoided saying, or doing, anything to piss anyone off.
For once there were no explosions.
They spend the first night doing the diplomacy dance. Rygel was in his element schmoozing like a pro. He greased the pole that would, he hoped, lead to a Luxan alliance and help firmly entrench his victorious return as Dominar of the Hynerian Empire. The rest of the crew wore matching rictus grins as they endured having to spend too much time on their best behaviour. Thankfully, respite came when the next evening they travelled to D'Argo's family home, which was located on the edge of a small city to the south of the planet's largest continent.
The house—if you could call it so simple a thing as a house—was a wide sprawling single-storey complex occupied by multiple generations of D'Argo's big, rowdy extended family. After introductions to a dizzying procession of relatives the whole ensemble (John, Aeryn and Baby D'Argo along with Rygel, Noranti, Stark and Chiana) were given a large open plan suite to share near the heart of the home. Rygel grumbled at the indignity of having to bunk up with the lower orders, but he gave that up after Aeryn threatened to sew his lips together (John's sotto-voce query as to when Aeryn had ever been near a needle and thread earned him a similar threat and a formidable glare.)
The suite was elegant and simple; the living area furnished with low comfortable sofas and large expensive looking rugs; Luxan art and artefacts covered every wall. A dining area boasted a scrubbed wooded table that could have accommodated a small army. A single sleeping platform luxuriously draped in furs and cushions and blankets took up half the suite. It was separated from the living areas by a latticework of intricate carved wooden partitions that looked as if they had grown in-situ. Their beauty and organic elegance reminded John so much of Moya.
And really, they would have appreciated it a lot more if they weren't so exhausted.
As it was the weary travellers took one look at the platform and collapsed on to it in a heap. They moved only for necessary bodily functions until the next morning.
John woke to the sound of bustling people barging about without a care for the snoring pile of beings strewn across the room. Although, when he sat up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and the drool from his mouth, he realised that the snoring pile had consisted entirely of himself.
"Good morning." Aeryn's head popped around the partition, "you seemed restless last night so we let you sleep in."
"Oh," said John with a drowsy wave of his hand, "thanks."
John contemplated the layer of fur that had grown over his tongue during the night and wondered if he could get a gallon of whatever it was Luxans had in place of coffee. First he obeyed other parts of his body and slouched into the suite's sybaritic bathing area. He emerged a short time later feeling fresh and clean and ready to face the trials of the day.
He found Aeryn and Chiana getting ready in the living area assisted by a couple of D'Argo's female relatives. D'Argo's sister was in the middle of the complex process of cinching Chiana into a corseted bodice of a rose pink robe.
Aeryn was...Aeryn was wearing a….well…it looked a hell of a lot like a black and gold bikini. Crafted in leather and metallic fabric and accessorised with elaborate gold bangles and anklets. She stood barefoot with her hands on her hips like Princess Leia's scarier sister. An elderly Aunt was busy braiding her long black locks into elaborate Luxan style loops draped in a halo around her head.
"Nice threads," said John after he'd rolled his tongue back inside his mouth.
Aeryn raised a brow and looked down her body, "I assume you're talking about these under-garments?"
"Yeah!" he said with a salacious grin, "can we keep them? I think we should keep them!"
"Sure, yours are right there. I'm sure D'Argo's family will allow to you keep them if you wish."
"Not what I meant," John smirked and wandered over in the direction of Aeryn's finger.
There on the table was another set of rose pink robes. They were looser and with more elaborate embroidery than the girl's dresses and-John's heart sank-came with an almost identical black and gold bikini.
John picked up the garment with the tips of his thumb and forefinger. Thin black leather straps joined the scraps of shimmering gold fabric; the bottoms looked a more roomy than the girl's set, but the triangles that made up the top were noticeably smaller.
"I am not wearing this!" he cried in appalled horror.
"Yes you are," Aeryn countered as she was strapped into her dress, "it's traditional ceremonial dress for the Luxan funeral rite; you will offend everyone if you don't wear it."
"How will they know? It goes under the robe, right?"
"I will know. And If I have to wear it," she said in a tone that brooked no argument and sheltered no mercy, "So. Do. You."
"I don't know why you're objecting, Crichton." Stark appeared around the corner, resplendent in black and gold, "It's really quite comfortable."
John's jaw dropped as he faced the true meaning of the term banana hammock. Or more accurately-John thought in astonished fascination-plantain hammock. He slumped into a chair and buried his head in his hands.
Half an arn later John stepped out of the chamber dressed in the Luxan costume; loose pants tucked into his usual black boots topped by a wide soft jacket embroidered in elaborate gold thread. The jacket exposed an uncomfortable expanse of chest, which he couldn't help noticing sprouted a lot more hair than any other male in attendance (he had tried to wear a T-shirt underneath, but Aeryn threatened to rip it from his back...and not in a fun way.) The most comfortable part of the outfit was, John was somewhat disturbed to find, the banana hammock.
John took in his strange little family. Rose pink suited none of them, but he had to admit they made a pretty handsome ensemble. Even Noranti had been persuaded to bathe and sported a corseted dress, hair in braided loops, just like Aeryn's. For once she actually looked like a kindly grandma, instead of a total fruit loop.
It could, John reflected, have been much worse.
After a capacious breakfast that made even Rygel's eyes bulge the entourage headed on out to the cremation site. There was no body, of course, but the Luxan race glorified their warriors and were well practised in memorialising those who died across the galaxy; far away from home. They assembled along the bank of a wide, fast river where D'Argo's family had built an elaborate funeral pyre.
An Orican led them in a short, solemn ceremony and spoke of love and loss and sacrifice. Around them other softly smouldering pyres lined the riverbanks for hundreds of metres; a sharp reminder that while the planet's surface may have escaped the ravages of war its people had not.
D'Argo's parents set the pyre alight and John watched on with Aeryn at his side; their fingers entwined together in a tight grasp. At his other side Chiana—hollow eyed and subdued—let him wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her in close.
The small crowd stood in silence as the fire took hold, throwing out heat and crackling in the cool morning air. The quiet, understated dignity of the occasion surprised John…another thing he hadn't expect from the Lux—
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
John flung Aeryn and Chiana to the ground and threw himself across them in response to the sound of a blast so loud it shook the ground and made his ears ring. In the ensuing silence he looked up to find the congregation all staring at him...a sea of shocked faces, wide-eyed and slack jawed.
"Crichton!" Rygel lowered his throne sled and hissed at him, "What in the hezmannah are you doing?"
"There was an explosion!" he hissed back in a desperate, but now somewhat uncertain, tone. He clenched his fists to stop them shaking.
"Those," said Rygel, "were fireworks. The Luxans set them off to send the souls of their dead to the ancestors."
"Well…it was really loud," John protested and tried very hard to keep the quiver from his voice.
"It has to be loud, John," Aeryn said in a gentle voice; her fingertips brushed against his temple, "D'Argo died so far away."
"Oh," John whispered as he helped the girls up from the ground. He spent the rest of the service trying not to look anyone in the eye.
By the time they had got back to the complex John had recovered his composure. Everyone broke into their separate family units, disappearing to change before convening in the large open air quad in the centre of the complex. What followed a Luxan funeral, it seemed, was a Luxan party.
The similarity to the family gatherings of John's childhood was remarkable. Elderly relatives gave orders and opinions to the legion of children of various sizes who played nosily around the quad. The women stood around in small groups and gossipped. The men sat around in bigger groups and gossipped more. A gaggle of teenagers of both sexes spirited away the baby and treated him like a little Prince; they deigned only to return him for milk and diaper changes. And since John wasn't packing the milk, he got the honour of doing the diapers.
John handed a fresh and fragrant baby off to an eager Luxan youth and went to join Aeryn. He found her sitting under a shaded flower covered pergola sheltering from the heat of the day.
"Hey," he said as he sat beside her, "everyone else is changing, so I reckon we can get out of these clothes now."
"I'm fine John, but you can change if you want."
"Maybe," he drawled as he coiled a lock of hair which had come loose from her braid around the tip of his finger, "you can come help me."
"John, we are at a funeral," Aeryn sighed in disapproval, but didn't stop him playing from with her hair.
"Funeral's over, baby. This is a party."
Aeryn fixed him with the deep contemplative gaze of a parent torn between decorum and the opportunity provided by an unexpected baby sitter and an empty, lockable, bedroom.
Opportunity won.
They strolled with exaggerated nonchalance back to their room where John worked hard at honing the very necessary skill of removing his wife's bikini with his teeth.
Sometime later they emerged ruddy cheeked and smiling. They had changed into their more comfortable leathers.
"You know," John whispered to Aeryn as they entered the hall, "we're keeping that bikini. Yours I mean. Not mine."
"I don't think so, John." she called over her shoulder as she headed off to reclaim her son.
"Oh, c'mon! What about the anklets?" John's teeth grazed his lip as he held his arms wide in an amused and expansive plea, "can we at least keep the anklets?"
Aeryn's lips twisted into a smile, but she disappeared without supplying him with an answer.
John wandered through the quad with a happy, comfortable swagger. An intoxicating smell drew him towards the centre of the quad where two large circular braziers were the focus of a small crowd. Around each one a small and serious group of Luxan males tended the fires. They argued in heated, yet friendly, terms over seasoning and technique while cooking a batch of the biggest steaks John had ever seen.
"Oh my god!" John said as his face split into a watermelon grin, "looks like we got ourselves a real home-style bar-bee-cue here."
"It is traditional," said one of the males, "to braise meat at such an occasion."
"Well, that sounds just perfect," John agreed, giving the man a hearty slap on the back when his eye caught something else, "and what is this?"
John pointed to a pitcher full of amber liquid and ice that looked for the entire world like a gallon of sweet tea.
"That is dumas leaf tea," said the male, "it is also traditional and sweetened with the nectar of the—"
"I don't need to know!" John interrupted, "just lay it on me."
And so, to his great delight, John was furnished with a huge steak and tankard of tea.
More people arrived as John tucked in to the Rygel sized slab of meat and chugged his way through about a gallon of sweet tea. Around him the gathering picked up the pace. First there were songs then, as the sun dipped below the horizon, music gave way to stories.
D'Argo's family went first and spoke of his childhood; they spun a picture of an intense little boy with a wicked sense of humour. In their tales that boy grew into a proud and fierce warrior grievously wronged by the Peacekeepers.
Nobody mentioned Lo'lan.
Rygel recounted the tale of their escape from the Peacekeepers; weaving a tapestry that pictured himself as a great mastermind and D'Argo his brave and fearless wingman. It wasn't quite how John remembered it, but for once he kept his mouth shut.
Stark and Noranti led some kind of bizarre experimental theatre with their tale of the battle of Qujaga. D'Argo's relatives erupted with gleeful laugher at John and Aeryn's impromptu wedding in the temple pool and applauded at the birth of baby D'Argo. John sat with an arm draped around his wife who, in turn, cradled their son, smiled along with them.
They listened in silence as Stark recounted, with eloquence and empathy, D'Argo's death.
Soon all eyes turned to John expecting him to speak.
He was quiet for a long while; it seemed like an occasion for sharing the good times, but John struggled to remember a time that didn't end in disaster, death or an embarrassing trip to the clinic.
So he told them of the lava planet and the Tarkan hoard.
Once he got started John became more animated as the story of Noranti's vomit candy and Rygel's near fatal bathroom break soon had everyone laughing (which just goes to prove that everyone loves a fart gag.) He wove a tale that made D'Argo more heroic than he was, John dumber than he was and Rygel almost explode with self-important rage.
Aeryn, hearing this for the first time, watched on with bright eyes and a somewhat dazed smile.
When Noranti threatened a re-enactment of her honey-to-the-bee dancing John drafted Chiana in to recount her story of using D'Argo's vomit to activate Lo'la. Despite her initial reluctance she soon got into the tale to the great delight of the audience; when she jumped up on the bench and yelled, "Get your own vomit!" D'Argo's grandma fell of her chair from laughing.
Afterwards he felt better for having done it. To have talked about his friend; shared his memories and celebrated his life.
"We should talk more," he said to Aeryn as they wandered back to their chamber late in the evening, "Y'know, about everything. Everyone."
He expected her to roll her eyes and make some comment about Humans and their inability to keep their mouths shut. Instead Aeryn stopped and regarded him with her quiet and serious eyes.
"Yes," she said, "I think you're right."
"Huh," John said with a breathy laugh, "Guess it had to happen sooner or later."
That night they all slept together in two huddled piles covered in furs and blankets, surrounded by the susurration of soft snoring and snuggling people.
Exhausted, but alive and mostly whole.
And for the first time in cycles John felt safe and slept well.