Title: <???>
Series/Sequel: Alien Anatomies, part 1
Author: WitchQueen
E-mail: witchqueen@poboxes.com
Author homepage: http://www.slashx-files.com/wq/
Fandom: Farscape
Pairing: John Crichton/Ka D'Argo
Keywords: pre-slash, angst
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: full frontal nudity, no sex
Date: <???>
Status: beta
Archive: not yet
Disclaimer: All or most of the characters in this story are the property
            of the makers of Farscape. The sexual organs of the aliens 
            are original to me, and I would like to be asked before 
            people use them.
Notes: I wanted to show that aliens would not have human-like genitals.
       Crichton wanted a friend.  We're working on it.
Summary: Zhaan insists everyone learns about everyone else's body.  
         Aeryn is disgusted, John is enraged, and D'Argo is aroused. 

"Damnit, Zhaan, breathe!" John whispered. He shook her one last time.
The limp blue body beneath him stiffened and then Zhaan began talking. 

He couldn't understand the first few words. Zhaan's voice was a harsh,
dry growl. The last few words were crystal clear though. "... three
microts. And then you die." She opened her eyes. 

They were purple. 

He fled. 

** 

"Crichton," whispered Pilot. "You can come out now. She's calmed down
considerably in the past three arns." 

John said nothing. He didn't know how Pilot had figured out that he was
in this particular room, but he was positive that noone knew exactly
where he was hiding. The last time they had told him D'Argo had calmed
down considerably, he'd been bitten. He vaguely thought that it had been
intended as a sexual advance, rather than violence, but it just went to
show that he couldn't trust Pilot to tell him if anyone had calmed down.

"John," Zhaan called for him. "I really am no longer angry. You shoved
me out of a healing mediation and grabbed a bundle of nerves that
stimulate aggression simultaneously. I'm all right now. My eyes are a
clear, bright blue now, and I forgive your ignorance." 

John considered. Zhaan sounded in control of herself, which meant she
wouldn't attack him unless she wanted to. And she said she'd forgiven
his ignorance. Further, this particular hiding place always made his
feet fall asleep; most of his weight was resting on his ankles. He stuck
his head out. 

Zhaan grabbed it and grinned. "That doesn't mean I can allow the
situation to continue." 

** 

Crichton around and realized, for the fourth time in the past arn, that
he was sitting around, naked, with four naked wanted criminals and a
clothed deposed monarch. Very forcefully, the universe had reasserted
that it was a very peculiar place. Crichton was cross-legged, on the
floor of the center chamber playing Zhaan's twisted version of 'show and
tell' mixed with 'doctor', and he couldn't decide whether to be
fascinated, tittilated, or mortified. He looked across the ragged circle
at Zhaan, Chiana, and Aeryn, all naked and beautiful to his human eyes,
and realized that he had stopped being aroused half an arn ago. 

He tried to refocus his attention on D'Argo's ... it could only be
called pontificating on the Luxan reproductive system. Zhaan had decided
that the easiest way for each of them to explain to the others the
particulars of their respective species was to group the explanations by
function. They had started with respiration and were drawing to a close
with far more information than Crichton ever wanted to know about how
his crewmates, theoretically at least, got it on. As they had for all
the other systems, Crichton would go last, right after Ka D'Argo, who
appeared to be finally winding down. "So the mother's blood vessels
withdraw from the birthing sac about two days from the end of the 100
day pregnancy. The sac detaches from the thorax on day one- hundred-one,
and the twins, one of each gender, are cut out of it. And the process
begins again." 

"Wait a minute," said Crichton. "Both males and females have penises and
vaginas, right? So how do you know who's a girl and who's a boy? Or is
that something you decide later or ... ?" 

D'Argo sighed and looked down at his crotch. Near the top there was a
hole, obscured by what appeared to be a double circle of reddish-brown
eyelashes. About four inches below that, there was a three-inch flap of
skin which bore a strong resemblance to a kilt pleat, in Crichton's
twisted little mind. "Do you see a penis here?" 

"No," drawled Crichton, wondering if this was some sort of trick
question. 

"Neither do we. Female penises stick out from their bodies, kind of like
yours. But their vaginas have a tight ring of muscle at the top that has
to be loosed with a combination of conscious control and penile orgasm.
Mine is open, with just the mivonks covering them. The initial genital
is very vulnerable, which makes sense because all of the genetic
information is passed through the primary genital." 

"Oh," said Crichton. He hadn't asked the question because he was all
that interested in finding out. After all, he'd yet to meet a female
Luxan, it seemed unlikely that he would be helping one give birth. He
was trying to figure out if he could handle the fact that big, butch,
warrior D'Argo was fuckable. He had a vagina. Even if the vagina ended
in a layer of skin wrapped over a nerve cluster, instead of a womb, and
even if, in the normal course of events, only penises attached to women
would be inserted in it, it meant that D'Argo was fuckable. And Crichton
didn't know if that changed everything, or anything, between the two of
them. This newfound fuckability of D'Argo's was the most disturbing
revelation of the day. Not as sobering as Aeryn's explanations of
Sebacean anatomy and the dawning realization that the differences
between their two superficially similar species were great enough that
they could very easily have killed one another through ignorance. Not as
sobering, but infinitely more disturbing. 

"John," Zhaan broke through his reverie. "Do you have any other
questions?" 

"No, I'll get started now," he said. He started talking about puberty
without really paying attention to what he was saying. It didn't seem
very important to him. What chance was there that his shipmates would
ever come across an adolescent human? 

He couldn't take his eyes off D'Argo. He kept them locked on the
mustache and beard, traveling up and down the length of facial hair. He
had learned how not to stare at a woman's breasts, no matter how
intriguing. He could apply the same self-control in this new need, to
keep from staring at a man's crotch. 

He realized that the others were staring at him expectantly, that he'd
run through his limited store of knowledge about the development of
secondary sex characteristics and the compulsive thoughts caused by
hormone rushes. He had better start saying something else. "These," he
said, spreading his legs and grabbing his balls, "are testicles. They
are extremely delicate, sensitive to both pressure and temperature. They
can ascend into to the body somewhat, in response to temperature change
or emotional distress, but I can't consciously control the process.
Sperm, small cells with cilia, the male contribution to the reproductive
process, are produced here. The sperm are carried out of the body in a
sticky, white fluid called semen. Semen is ejaculated through the penis.
During arousal, penile tissues are flooded with blood, and the blood
vessels are constricted so the blood doesn't flow out again and the
penis remains erect. With sufficient stimulation, the sperm-laden semen
is expelled, in something of the same way urine is, if you remember from
before." He took a breath, preparing to launch into a description of the
ovaries and vagina, but Aeryn opened her mouth first. 

"That's disgusting. You expel liquid wastes and reproductive material
through the same hole!" She got up and left. 

Everyone else was frozen where they sat. They had each had moments of
nausea today, examining the many and varied ways evolution had acted on
their various homeworlds. But they had managed to keep it ... distant,
impersonal. Aeryn had been the first to explain what a Sebacean meant
when she said, "breathe," and had adopted the same clinical tone she
might have used for instructing someone on weapons maintenance. They had
all followed her lead. And this little outburst was totally unexpected. 

So was the second. "Yeah, well fuck you, Aeryn, up your tight little
Peacekeeper ass!" Crichton stalked out angrily, in the opposite
direction. 

"Well. Now that this little ordeal is over," grumbled Rygel, "I'm going
to get something to eat." He set action to words and floated off towards
the galley. 

"Chiana, I wish you would --," Zhaan looked around, bemused. Chiana had
apparently slipped out without drawing attention to herself. "Pilot,
what is Aeryn's present location?" 

"She's in her quarters." Zhaan stood up, and grabbed her robe from the
table she had left it lying on. While her culture had no nudity taboo,
she found Moya's internal temperature a little too cool most of the
time. To be truthful, she meditated naked mostly because it bothered the
others so. 

"I would not follow her there, Zotoh Zhaan." 

"And why not, Pilot?" 

"Because from what the DRDs are reporting, Chiana has followed her and I
don't believe they would wish to be intruded upon. Officer Sun seems ...
distraught." 

"Distraught?" repeated Zhaan. 

"And young Chiana is," he paused. "Comforting her." 

"Comforting her?" 

"If you're going to insist on playing echo chamber games, kindly do it
elsewhere," rumbled D'Argo. "I'm trying to think." 

"Oh, of course," said Zhaan. Her voice was a little strange, and when
D'Argo looked at her, her skin had a slight green tinge. He wondered if
this was the equivalent to that thing Crichton did so often, what was it
called? Blushing. He wondered what could make an 800 cycle old former
tenth level Delvian Pau blush and decided it was probably just the
lighting. 

His thoughts returned to their former path, namely John Crichton. He
hadn't really thought about what it meant that Crichton was male, or
what he knew of Sebacean physiology, before today. He knew that few
other species in the galaxy had the double genital arrangement of the
Luxans. But he hadn't really considered before today that Crichton would
have a cock, that Crichton could frell him without special equipment. 

He hadn't the least idea if the fact that Crichton could frell him meant
that he would. It was difficult, impossible really, for D'Argo to figure
him out. The human didn't want control of the ship, but at the same
time, couldn't follow the others' lead. His smell around Aeryn was
extremely confused, one minute the musk of desire, another the tang of
fear, and in another instant the subtle, inviting scent put out around
siblings and friends. At least, that's what D'Argo thought Crichton's
scents meant; that's how he would have interpreted them coming from a
Sebacean, and Crichton's actions at the time seemed in accord. 

And now D'Argo wanted him. It was insane really, because all of
Crichton's good qualities, his generosity, his innocence, his tendency
to blunder into a situation without proper reconnaissance, they all made
him a horrible warrior. A good person, but a bad warrior. And D'Argo
should want a warrior, shouldn't he? 

Then he remembered Lolaan and realized that he had done this before,
been attracted to good people who should not be interested in him. At
least, it was D'Argo's impression that Crichton was only interested in
females, but he realized that he did not actually know if this was true.
Perhaps, he thought, he should go find Zhaan. Crichton seemed to confide
in her, and she would be comforted by the thought that *someone* was
still seeking out her sage advice. But first, he was going to have to
find some clothes. 

** 

John stopped for a second, to stretch. He had started running around the
perimeter of the this empty cargo bay a quarter-arn ago and his leg
muscles were starting to cramp a bit. He tried to let his mind go blank
for a moment, keep it perfectly clear for the length of his stretches.
When he stood up to run again, he let whatever he was feeling surface,
just bubble up to the top as he took off. 

It was a hell of a way to discover one was hurt, rather than furious.
Aeryn had insulted him in a way he could not answer. And, yes, it felt
bad that her obvious visceral disgust meant he would probably never
sleep with her, but his broader, more important question was, would he
ever sleep with anyone again? 

"Shit, that hurt!" His last stride had been in perfect form, until his
leg smacked into a shelf projecting out from the wall at knee height.
"Where the fuck did that come from?" He sat down and ran his hands over
his face. He stopped to look at them when he realized his cheeks were
wet. He couldn't see anything on his hands, and then he realized he was
crying. "There is no one here like me." 

Then he turned around, looking at the cargo bay, looking at everything
that was different from how it owuld be on Earth. It was all familiar to
him, all of it. He even knew what the majority of it was called and used
for. "I am an alien here. If I go home I'll be an alien. I am Michael
Valentine *fucking* SMITH!" he screamed. 

"Who is this Fucking Smith?" asked Chiana. 

"Jesus H. Christ, kid!" shouted Crichton. "Why'd you sneak up on me?" 

"You would have heard me if you hadn't been screaming about this Fucking
Smith. Who is ... ?" 

"In a story. He was a human, raised by Martians. When he returned to
Earth, he was eventually torn apart by a mob." 

"Ah." Chiana nodded wisely. "You are screaming because you think your
people will kill you if you do make it home." She grinned. "I understand
that." 

"I am screaming because I'll never get laid again." 

"I can take care of that.  You'd be endebted to me, but not a lot.  I
might actually enjoy frelling you."

"I don't know how to break this to you, Chiana, but thelonger I know
you, the younger you seem." And the more unbalanced, he thought. "There
is a strong taboo against sex with children on my planet, and I don't
think I could perform with you, kiddo."

"Well, frell you!  You won't have sex with me, Aeryn won't with you,
Pilot and Rygel are completely incomaptible, and Zhaan thinks of you as
a son.  Although, come to think of it, I don't know what sort of incest
taboos the Delvians have.  Anyway, your best chance at ever having sex
again is Ka D'Argo.  Luxan males usually like aliens with penises."

"I don't know if that's true for D'Argo," said Crichton mildly. "He
married a Sebacean female." His face had lost all expression and he
blinked a few times. "Perhaps I should start with Zhaan."

"Might work.  You're both pining over Aeryn, anyway.  I don't know why.
She's really pretty boring in bed."  Chiana's tone was simultaneously
sly and contemplative.

Crichton's was simply enraged.  "You're sleeping with her!  You!"  He
turned around and hit a wall.  He hit it again.  He hit it twice more.

"Please desist, Crichton!" said Pilot.  Crichton whirled around faced a
circle of vicious DRDs.  Blinked.  "If you continue to hit the wall with
that force you may damage Moya and will certainly injure your hand."  He
blinked once more.

His hand hurt.  The pain rolled through him in huge, red waves.  "Ice."
That would stop the pain.  He left the cargo bay to search for ice.

***

D'Argo turned around, finishing the end of his training exercise.  He
realized that his weapon was now pointed at Aeryn, who had not been in
the training room before, and pointed it at the floor.

"I shouldn't have been able to sneak up on you like that," she said
mildly.  She rubbed her right shoulder absentmindedly.  "I could have
killed you with a throwing knife."

"Yes," he said, except that I knew it was you from your smell.  Did
Chiana give you that bruise?" he asked, pointing with his now empty left
hand at the shoulder she'd been massaging.

"Yes," said Aeryn.  "We got into it a little after I ran out.  Why do
you ask?"

"Like I said.  I can smell you.  I can smell her on you.  And I can
smell what you were doing.  Is she your comforter?"

Aeryn's expression changed.  Before she had been the picture of sleepy
curiousity.  Now she was alert.  "She's agreed to perform those
services, yes, but I don't own her.  She's a person.  Why?"

"It's not an exclusive relationship?"

Aeryn cocked her head. "No, not with Chiana, not with anyone.
Peacekeepers don't have those sorts of relationship; you know that."

"Does Crichton?"  He was trying very hard to smirk, but he could tell
from the expression on Aeryn's face that he wasn't altogether
successful.

"You want Crichton for your own comforter, don't you?"  Aeryn's smirk
was much more genuine.

"I have no need for a living sex toy.  And Crichton has proven himself
smarter, fiercer," a breath, "and more honorable than a comforter can
be."  He nodded, eased himself and his weapon into a more combat-ready
stance.  "I do want to have sex with him."

Aeryn eased her body into a position of military rest, and then bent her
head, something not a part of the standard formation.  "When you leave
his bed," she said softly, "please tell me.  I need to ap-," a swallow.
Her muscles visibly tensed.  "I agree with you that Crichton is a not a
comforter.  Nor is he repulsive to me, despite what I said earlier.  I
need to explain some things to him."

***

Meals the next day were not a tense affair.  Pilot took it upon himself
to send DRD's with drinks and food cubes to individual quarters for
breakfast, and staggered his reminders about repair tasks so that lunch
was eaten in shifts:  Zhaan and Rygel, Chiana and Aeryn, D'Argo and
John.

"D'Argo, can I ask you a stupid question?"

"In what way would this differ from your usual questions?"

"Nevermind.  Just forget it."  The human shoved a food cube in his
mouth.

"No.  John.  I apologize.  It was a poor joke.  Please, ask your
question."

"It's not so much a stupid question as a rude and personal one.  I
shouldn't have asked to ask it, anyway."

"Then we will make an exchange.  You will ask me this question, and I
will answer honestly.  At some later point, you will answer a very
personal question of mine."

Crichton looked the Luxan up and down.  "You have some devious plot
going on in your head, and I can't figure out what you think you can get
from me."  He picked up a food cube, one that was covered in sauce.  He
wiped the sauce from one side and proceed to lick his finger. He started
at the base, near his palm, in short, firm, overlapping strokes.

It reminded D'Argo of nothing so much as a child with frozen likoberry
juice on a stick.  The sweets were simultaneously a treat and a test,
for the high acidity which produced a pleasant tickling on tongue and in
throat was a severe irritant to Luxan tentacles.  Crichton's look of
intense concentration was bizarrely homelike, and D'Argo wondered if the
human would get the same look while penetrating a lover.

He jumped like he'd been bit and growled, "Not everyone is a single-
minded merchant like Rygel.  Ask your question, Crichton."

"You ... your wife.  How did you--," stupid giggle.  "She was Sebacean.
She didn't have a penis."

"The qualta blade."

"You used that thing for a DILDO!"

"It is longer than it is wide.  Are not all such things vaguely sexual?"

"But, but it's BIG, D'Argo!"  Arms flung out as far as he can reach.
"And it's sharp and pointy and transforms into a ray gun."

"It is a Luxan warrior's tool for living.  We use it for many things."

"But, D'Argo, I saw--," vague gesture towards the Luxan's hips, "and
it's *too* big--," again, arms spread wide, "and--." Pause, eyes
narrowed, finger pointing accusingly. "You're putting me on! You told me
you would answer honestly. I'm disappointed." Crichton got up from the
table, turned to leave, turned back and reached for a food cube.

D'Argo placed his hand over John's. "I did not lie. It is a sword and a
ray gun and a dildo and many other things besides. There are many things
about me, John, that you do not know." He stood, brushed his hand up
Crichton's arm, over his shoulder, and firmly grasped the back of his
head. "Come to my room, and I will show you how to use a qualta for
pleasure instead of war." He skimmed his hand down the center of John's
chest, lightened the pressure over his stomach, and finally let his hand
simply hover above John's sex.

Then he walked in the direction of his quarters.  Once his back was
safely facing Crichton, he released a breath and a huge grin, and
rubbed, ever so lightly, over his vagina.  He hadn't had so much fun
since that Peacekeeper guard, just before the escape.

Crichton gulped air.  He let of of the food cubes and wiped his hands on
the side of his leg, just above the knee, as far away from nipples,
cock, and ass as he could reach without bending over.  When he finally,
finally, his breathing under control, he walked over to what he called
the fridge, but was really a much more spectacular Peacekeeper
appliance, and got a glass of cold water.

"He made a pass at me," announced Crichton, to no one in particular.

"Are you going to take him up on it, John?" asked Pilot.

The spilled water did an excellent job of shrinking his half-hard penis,
but his heart rate and breathing sped up above the levels caused by
D'Argo's little performance.  "Have you been frelling spying on me,
Pilot?  How much of that did you see?  No, scratch that, it was
obviously too much.  Don't watch me any more today.  I'll open the doors
manually, so just stop looking where I am."

He stormed out. About halfway to his own cell, he realized he would have
to pass D'Argo on his way, and he really did want to know how you turned
a sword into a dildo, even if he wasn't sure about the other thing. So,
he walked up to D'Argo's door and waited for it to announce him to
D'Argo, when he realized that Pilot had turned off the monitors since he
was here, and pressed the panel which opened the door manually.

D'Argo was humming quietly to himself while he unbraided his hair.  It
was half undone and Crichton realized three new things about it.  There
was a hell of a lot more hair than hea had expected, it was a lot
curlier than he had thought, and it was beautiful.

"Can I comb it for you?" he asked, and blushed.  Blushed harder because
he hadn't the least idea why he was blushing.

"Why are you here, John?" asked D'Argo.  His voice was neutral, neither
a growl nor the coaxing sweetness of his singing voice.

"You invited me to come and see how you turn a weapon into a dildo," he
answered, a little testily.

"No, John.  I invited you to have sex with me.  Why are you here?"  His
gaze was steady and firm, but Crichton did not feel ljudged.  He felt
like D'Argo found him absolutely fascinating and was paying attention to
nothing but him.

"I don't know," Crichton said, very softly.

"What do you know?"

"I'm lonely."

D'Argo nodded, patted the bed.  "Come here, sit next to me."  Crichton
did, positing himself facing the larger man, with their legs stretched
out side by side.  "Why are you lonely?"

"I'm an alien.  Everywhere I go, people assume I'm Sebacean, and if I
explain where I'm really from it doesn't mean anything.  And should I
return to Earth, I'll be an alien there too, because no one from my
planet has visited other planets, let alone traveled in a living ship or
used a dentic.  I'm lonely because I can't call any of you friends,
exactly.  Zhaan is almost motherly to me, when she's not pulling her
psychosavage routine.  I had thought Aeryn and I were at least friends,
maybe more, but what she said yesterday makes me so *fucking* mad, I'm
surprised I'm not the incredible hulk.  Rygel and Chiana are incapable
of having friends, Pilot's all wrapped up in Moya, ha ha, and you ...
You are an enigma to me.  Why did you ask me here?"

"I want to have sex with you."  His tone was mild, instructive, as if to
a child.

"Why?"

"You're attractive, physically compatible, and gentle.  Tearing can be
deadly, so I look for gentleness in sex partners."

"Not because you like me as a person."  Crichton turned, put his feet to
the floor.  "I think we're looking for different things here.  I want a
friend, you want a fuck buddy.  I'm sorry."

"Your people do not have sex with friends?"

"What?" said John.

"Humans. You don't have sex with friends? Peacekeepers do not, but
Peacekeepers don't have friends, they have comforters. Other Sebaceans
do. Lo'Lann was my closest friend, and I hers. Is there a reason we
could not be friends and have sex with one another?  I am tired of my
qualta blade.  I want to have sex with a person.  Why not you?"

"I don't --.  That's not all there is to it, D'Argo.  The idea of having
sex with a man is new to me."

"Men do not have sex with other men on your planet?"

"Some men do.  I haven't been one of them."

D'Argo nodded, paused, then carefully lay a hand on John's lower leg.
"I do not object to having friends with whom I do not have sex, John.
Let us see if we are friends, and then we will see if we can be lovers."

"Okay."

Some minutes passed, and nothing was said.  The two men looked around
the room and darted glances at each other.  Crichton began twitching, a
few tics with the eye, then a nervous wriggle of the fingers, then he
scrunched his toes several times.  D'Argo grabbed his foot when he
looked like he was going to start kicking.

"My hair," he said.

"What?" asked Crichton, distractedly.  He was trying to remove his foot
from the Luxan's death grip, without much success.

"Help me with my hair.  It has to be unbraided, then there's a special
comb, and then rebraiding.  It can take arns to do by myself."

"Is this the sort of thing Luxan friends would do with one another?"

D'Argo nodded vigorously. It was more the sort of thing that one Luxan
would do to seduce another, but what Crichton didn't know wouldn't hurt
him.

"Primate grooming.  I can handle that."  He kneewalked to the other end
of the bed.  "Scoot up so I can sit behind you."

The End