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By the time he gets back to Moya’s shuttle there’s definitely something weird happening on the planet. The market they’d been there to buy from had been closed for days and wildlife was more aggressive than you’d expect from such a stable planet. All the trees in the clearing where Crichton left the shuttle have gone from a plain enough green to a dusty red and the new growth makes navigating his way back a pain in the ass.
Strangest of all: on his way a local asks, without mincing her words, if he’d like to join her orgy.
“Wow, that is such a kind offer,” Crichton says, caught between laughing and preparing to run. She’s holding a very pointy farming tool and her eyes are all but black. “But I’m actually spoken for. You have fun though.”
She gives him a surprised look and then to his relief simply nods. “I hope your partner has a forceful endurance.”
“Uh, sure.” Crichton waves and walks backwards into the shuttle. “Have a good orgy!”
“Hey Crichton, what gives?” Chiana asks when he finally returns to Moya. She catches up with him almost as soon as he gets off the shuttle and wraps herself around Crichton’s arm. “You smell like the hot side of my hometown.”
“Did your neighborhood smell like a guy who has twigs and pebbles up his ass?” Crichton asks. He runs a hand over his head and a red dust cloud falls around him. It makes his nose itch. “Where’s Aeryn? She left the planet first, have we picked her up yet?”
“Nah, still no sign. But seriously—“
He shrugs Chiana off. “D’argo!” he yells, heading to Command.
“Yes, shut up. We’re working on it,” D’argo snaps. “Pilot, can you—“ He turns to Crichton suddenly, expression quizzical like he has no idea who Crichton is.
“What? Did I grow another head down there?”
“You smell like a Hynerian whorehouse,” he mumbles, sounding distracted.
“No I don’t.” Crichton sniffs himself. “I smell like I’ve spent a few arns getting lost in a moving forest and sweating my pretty butt off.”
Rygel hovers over like D’argo said the magic words to summon him. “Frell me sideways, he does smell like a Hynerian whorehouse! Admittedly not a very good one—“
Crichton slaps a hand over his mouth. “Okay, point made. I must have…frell, there must be something in the air down there. That does explain the overly friendly local.”
“You can’t smell that?” Chiana asks. “You’re stinking up the whole dang room!”
“Well—“
D’argo snorts. “Between this and your terrible vision I worry about your species.”
“Okay, okay. Make fun of me later.”
Both Chiana and D’argo continue to stare at him. D’argo is frowning with his hand frozen over the control panel. “Huh,” Crichton says slowly. “Definitely not a fan of that.”
Chiana leans in to give him a contemplative sniff and Crichton pushes her away by the shoulders. There’s red dust under his finger nails and along his palms. He tries to rub them off on his pants.
“Right, how are you guys feeling?” Crichton asks. “Is the smell making you extra randy? Any of you out for my skin?”
D’argo grunts. “No way.”
“Maybe a little,” Chiana says with a rueful smile.
“Fine, maybe a little,” D’argo admits. “But I’ve got it under control.”
“Oh yeah, me too. Totally.”
“Of course.” Crichton sighs and gives Rygel a poke. “What about you, short stop? Can you keep it in your robes?”
“Ha! You think i haven’t been exposed to thousands of much stronger aphrodisiacs in my life? Hundreds of thousands?” Rygel scrunches up his face. “Besides I’ve thrown up things more sexually appealing than you.”
“That’s a little hurtful but great. Let’s keep this ball rolling so we can all get away from this drenhole of a planet. Alright?”
There’s a magnetic storm over the area where Aeryn’s Prowler landed, which is why communication is so difficult. He manages to get a garbled message about her riding it out in a cave before the line goes dead again.
“Lo’La might be able to manage through the storm,” Crichton says.
“And it might crash and kill us both,” D’argo says. He’s pointedly looking away from Crichton. “Aeryn is fine. She can wait a solar day.”
“Oh come on, what if the storm just gets worse?” Crichton walks into his line of sight and D’argo gives a low snarl before turning away. It turns into a brief chase of him trying to get in front of D’argo. “Maybe storms on this planet last forever. There’s been a storm on the fifth planet from my sun for a few hundred cycles!”
D’argo grabs him to stop their awkward dance. “We’re waiting until the storm ends. In the mean time you can stop smelling like you’re in heat.”
“Gross.” Crichton sniffs himself again. He still can’t smell anything.
D’argo doesn’t budge on waiting and Pilot seems to think the storm is showing slow signs of weakening so Crichton gives in. His presence in Command is clearly annoying D’argo so he heads to the kitchen where Noranti inhales once and then promptly ties a green vegetable under her nose.
“That bad?” Crichton asks.
“Not at all!” Noranti says, tying a second one so she can situate them under both nostrils. “Very pleasant actually! Perhaps a tad too pleasant.”
Crichton heads to the water room.
He didn’t realize how badly he needed a shower until he’s actually under the spray and sees nothing but red going down the drain. The dust—probably the spores that changed the trees' colors and made casual orgies par for the course—wash way easily enough. He sniffs himself when he’s done and while he still can’t smell the spore he doesn’t reek of sweat anymore.
It’s just as he’s leaving the water room that he bumps, quite literally, into Scorpius.
“Ouch, watch it.” He rubs his shoulder. “Your Xenomorph suit isn’t very comfortable on delicate skin.”
“My apologies,” Scorpius says, though Crichton had been the one to walk into him. “Sikozu and I took a look at the spores you left in the shuttle. You weren’t so foolish as to bathe, were you?”
Crichton frowns. “No, I’m not that foolish,” he says uneasily. He’s not wearing anything but a towel and is visibly dripping down the hall. “Why? How bad would that be? Hypothetically?”
“Do they not have aphrodisiacs on your planet?”
“Not real ones. Hell if I know why everyone out here just assumes I know things and can smell stuff.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “My eyes are up here.”
“I thought so,” Scorpius says, eyes still on Crichton’s body. “The enzymes in most aphrodisiacs are worsened by exposure to water so—“
Crichton might not be wearing anything but he still has his pulse pistol tucked into his armpit. He draws it now and takes a step back from Scorpius. “How hot do I smell right now, Scorpy?” he asks, voice going hard.
“Sebaceans have a natural immunity to many poisons.”
“That’s not what I asked and more importantly you’re only half Sebacean.”
“Yes,” Scorpius muses idly. He looks up at Crichton then, eyes calm and unreadable. “I would suggest quarantining yourself until the effects fade. No more than 48 arns. And perhaps praying to whatever benevolent Earth deities you have that Moya’s filtration system completely neutralized the spore before circulating it around the rest of the ship.”
Crichton starts to back away, pulse pistol still held high and towel gripped tight at his waist. His comm is in his room. “Ask Glinda the Good Witch for a hand, would you?”
“If you mean Noranti then yes, of course.” Scorpius follows his retreating steps.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Crichton fingers the trigger. “Listen up, Killer Croc, if I so much as hear the squeaky leather of your exoskeleton before this thing wears off Winona is getting you right between the eyes. Got it?”
“Of course.” Scorpius smiles politely. “I’d run along if I were you before any of your friends catch your scent.”
Crichton runs for his quarters. The water room isn’t far but Chiana all but tackles him on the way, hopping onto his back with a whoop and a giggle.
“Where are you up running off to?” she asks, wrapping her legs around him.
“Pip, now is not the time! You really don’t wanna do this.” He staggers over to his door, trying to gently shove Chiana off.
“Course I do!” Chiana says, nuzzling his face. She breathes in deep at the junction of his neck and shoulder and moans quietly. “I always want you, even though you’re so stubborn and hung up on Aeryn.”
“For the love of—“ he throws Chiana off as delicately as he can and backs into his room. Chiana follows him in before the door shuts. “It’s just the spore frelling with your brain. Go back to your room and everything’ll be fine.”
“Why are you always like this?” Chiana whines. He can see her nostrils flare as she breathes in deeply and then shudders. “You’ll kiss me and hold me like you wanna ride me to the other side of the universe and then you just push me off. It’s not fair.”
“You know I’m in love with Aeryn.”
“Oh, come on! You guys aren’t even together right now!” She slinks in closer and grabs one of his hands. “Bet we could make her jealous. Maybe I’ll even be a better lay than her, who knows? You sure as hezmana won’t unless you try.”
“Tell you what Pip.” Crichton pulls his hand away and keeps backing further into the room. “You come and proposition me when this thing wears off and l’ll think about it. Okay?”
“No, frell. I need it now.” She makes a sudden move like she means to tackle him onto the bed and Crichton raises his pulse pistol.
“Chiana!” he yells. Chiana freezes.
“Come on, Crichton, what’s that about?” Her voice goes gentle and coaxing like it always does when she’s comforting someone who’s frightened. “It’s just me. It’s Pip. That’s not so bad, is it? That’s not worth killing me for, is it?”
“That’s not—“ he swallows around the lump in his throat. “I don’t wanna shoot you.”
“Then don’t. I’m your friend I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Crichton shakes his head. “I’m not going to have sex with you. You’re a smart kid, you know how to take no for an answer.”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Chiana says and Crichton can see now that her pupils are more dilated than he’s ever seen them. He lets her push the pulse pistol aside and kiss his face.
“I haven’t—listen to me already, since Grayza I haven’t—“ Even as he makes the admission he can see that even being prepared to shoot Chiana might not have been enough.
Chiana stares at him and her dark eyes are shiny and wet. “I’ve gotta, Crichton. You can’t smell yourself but I need it. I feel like I’m gonna catch fire if I don’t.” This time she kisses him on the mouth and when he doesn’t make a move to stop her she keeps going.
It’s far too gentle. Chiana pushes him onto the bed and kisses him like they’ve got all the time in the world. She presses her body against his and grinds sinuously against him until his dick gets hard all on its own. All the while she whispers see, just like that and it’s okay, it’s okay into his ear.
When she deems him ready she throws aside the towel and her pants and climbs into his lap, trembling and whispering to him and rubbing herself along his bare skin like a cat.
Chiana's loud as she rides him, which Crichton already knew from hearing her with D’argo. Hot and loud and tight around him. Overhearing them together however didn’t brace him for the disconcerting way her insides move around his cock. It’s weird and hot and makes him feel like he’s Boba Fett being digested. He shouts when he first feels it. Later he finds it vaguely fascinating as an evolutionary way to encourage conception but in the moment Chiana has to cover his mouth to get him quiet again because once he starts shouting he can’t seem to stop.
Crichton doesn’t try to hold out the way he normally would but even after he comes she stays on him, rocking and back and forth on his softening cock and lying out on top to kiss him and stroke him for so long that he gets hard again while still inside her.
You’ll get hard again for me, won’t you Crichton, Grayza had said as she scratched her nails along his chest. You’ll do whatever I ask you too.
“One more time, Crichton?” Chiana asks, pleading. She throws her top off then and places Crichton’s hand on her chest. “Please, please?”
“And lo’ he is risen,” Crichton mumbles.
“You’re not mad at me are you?” Chiana asks afterwards when both of them are dressed and standing by the door to his room.
“No, Pip. I’m not.” Crichton is surprised to find it’s completely true. The place in his brain that used to be full of alarm bells is silent at that revelation.
Chiana looks a little terrified. “Okay, ‘cause I tried to make it good for you too. I haven’t been with a human before obviously but if I hurt you or anything or-or my fluids are toxic to you and you break out into hives—“
“Chi,” he says, feeling a new resolve wash over him like after he’d had his first session in the Aurora Chair. It’s a sort of comforting hopelessness that reassures him this isn’t going to kill him but it’s still going to happen again and he can’t stop it. He kisses Chiana on the forehead. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to need to sleep for the next ten cycles maybe, but I’m fine.”
Chiana gives a relieved little laugh and then leaves.
Crichton gets as far as lying down on his bed before he realizes that someone else is in the room. He starts reaching for his pulse pistol before he realizes it’s Sikozu. He has no idea when she got in or how long she’s been on the ceiling.
“Well if it isn’t the girl wonder,” he says, tucking Winona back under his pillow. He lets himself laugh. “I thought a superior being like you’d be above the pleasures of the flesh.”
Sikozu drops down to the floor. “I am,” she says firmly, like Crichton can’t see her sweating bullets. “I can more than resist the allure of your stupid plant.”
“So you’re just here to window shop?”
He sees Sikozu swallow and swears he can feel the heat of her flush from all the way across the room.
“I’ve analyzed samples of the spore you carried in. It’s simple and not deadly. My body can resist it. But doing so is making me inefficient in my regular duties. Rather than spend the duration of this time…distracted. It’d be easier to simply alleviate the symptoms.” And then with distain. “Take off your clothes.”
“Not if you’re going to say it like that, Sputnik,” Crichton says, hands on his hips. “Ask a little sexier and maybe I’ll consider—“
He’s interrupted by Sikozu yanking his shirt over his head, having cut the distance between them in an instant. He grunts in annoyance as it’s tossed aside and Sikozu shoves him back down on the bed, climbing over him.
“Sexual contact isn’t necessary to end the symptoms,” she says. “Not that I’d allow any part of you inside me. The spores should leave my body and return to yours through nothing more than skin to skin contact.”
“That sounds just great,” Crichton says. His voice is muffled halfway through the sentence as Sikozu rolls him onto his face. He can hear her starting to undress.
“You will not move,” she says, yanking his boots and then his pants off. “You will not attempt to touch me. And you will not masturbate.”
Crichton laughs. “You think you can stick to your own rules?”
“I am not like Chiana.” She rolls him forcefully onto his side and slots herself up behind him. Her body isn’t quite as soft as Chiana’s and she wrestles him against her like she shoving a socket into place. “I can control myself.”
For about half an incredibly awkward arn they do exactly that. Sikozu lies behind him, naked and fuming, while Crichton whistles and wonders if DK stopped taping episodes of Voyager for him just because he’s supposed to be dead. He notes the increased speed of Sikozu’s breathing like it’s nothing but background noise.
“Why are you like this?” Sikozu says suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“Like what? Cute? Obnoxious? Brilliant? I’m a multifaceted man.”
Sikozu tightens a hand on his waist.
“Oh, you mean sexy.”
“Your personality is repulsive and you’ve got a suboptimal brain capacity. You would make an inferior mate so I should not be attracted to you.”
“Blame it on the funky plants if you want to, Leeloo.”
Sikozu shoves him onto his back and climbs over him. The pattern of red across her face also covers her chest and waist. He’s checking to see if they’re also on her legs when he sees that Sikozu is actively dripping.
“Jesus, Sputnik. Is that normal for your species?” he asks. Sikozu does nothing but scowl and climb up the bed so that her thighs are bracketing his face.
“Do not touch me,” she says, lowering herself over Crichton.
“I’m getting some mixed signals here. Did you want me to eat you out or did you want me to avoid touching you?”
Sikozu answers his question by sitting on Crichton’s mouth and pinching his nose shut.
“Oh god—“ he starts to say but everything else is muffled beneath Sikozu, wet on his tongue. He nearly chokes at first.
Sikozu grinds impatiently down on his face until Crichton gets with the program and starts licking at her on his own. She tastes like absolutely nothing and is so wet that she gets his face slick within seconds.
There was a time when Crichton did a chemical analysis of everything he came into contact with before putting it in his mouth, he remembers with a muffled, hysterical giggle. New realities were cropping up every day.
Crichton has never gotten complaints when he’s done this in the past and as it turns out Sikozu has a hair trigger when it comes to orgasms and doesn’t take long to finish. Her weight lightens for a second as she loses gravitational control and nearly floats off him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks when Crichton turns his face away to breathe. She’s a little out of breath but hardly looks like she’s done. She turns Crichton’s head back into place and shifts her thighs around him, anchoring herself against the wall so she doesn’t float off. “You can’t possibly think that poor showing was enough.”
You can do better than that, Grayza had said soothingly as she made Crichton crawl to her on his knees and bury himself in her thighs.
“Silly me,” he mumbles, setting his mouth on Sikozu’s cunt again.
Sikozu continues coming quickly but takes no time to enjoy the afterglow, already pushing Crichton to continue by the time one orgasm hits her. Right around the seventh time she gets off Crichton is pretty sure he’s set a personal record for longest time between a girl’s thighs. Around the tenth his jaw really starts hurting.
“You’re seriously still going?” he asks. He pulls at her thigh, trying to coax her off his face. She doesn’t budge and merely slaps his hands away.
“I told you not to touch me.”
“Seriously, how long are you going to be?”
“I feel sorry for the women on your planet if this is the best you can do.” She shifts around to grab Crichton’s restless hands and pins them down by his head. “Hold out your tongue and be quiet if you can do nothing else.”
Crichton does as requested.
Under normal circumstances he actually enjoys giving oral and for Sikozu’s first couple orgasm Crichton is actually a little hard. That doesn’t last long though, and by the time D’argo interrupts them, wild eyed and pissed, he’s been completely soft for a long time.
“Well hey D!” he cheers as Sikozu scrambles off him. “Couldn’t wait your turn?”
D’argo actually growls at Sikozu and yanks her clear off the bed. Crichton manages a laugh as he crawls into her vacated spot. He has time to wipe his face and make plans to clean his ruined sheets before D’argo’s weight is on top of him.
“Alright, you animal,” Sikozu says grabbing her clothes. D’argo clearly isn’t listening and doesn’t seem overly concerned with waiting for her to finish dressing and leave before he’s grabbing Crichton in the good bits.
“Woah now, easy on the—I said easy on Crichton Junior, okay?!” he says, wiggling under D’argo’s grip on his cock. He’s never seen D’argo quite so incoherent outside of a hyper-rage but that doesn’t exactly seem to be what’s going on with him.
It’s close enough to a hyper-rage that Crichton keeps nice and pliant while D’argo yanks his clothes off, staring down at him all the while like he’s waiting for Crichton to try and make a run for it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Crichton says. “I get it. I’m the scarlet woman today. Not exactly the most heroic role but my life is just full of surprises.”
D’argo grunts which he thinks means an agreement and flips him easily onto his stomach.
The thing about being fucked by D’argo is that it shouldn’t make him think of Grayza at all. It’s not just the cock and the tentacles that he keeps rubbing against Crichton’s back like a cat on a post but masturbatory, but how rough and loud the entire thing is. Crichton does think that’s sort of appropriate. He should be bruised up and sore and used till he can’t hold himself up.
D’argo has enough sense left in him to bring some healing gel which he immediately spreads along Crichton’s hole with as much patience as he can properly muster.
“She didn’t even hurt me that badly,” Crichton says. “She hardly touched my ass and she definitely didn’t have a dick. So what gives? Why am I still thinking about her?”
D’argo makes a low incoherent noise and drags the head of his cock along Crichton’s cleft. It’s the same sort of noise he makes if Crichton tries to steal something off his plate. A sort of soft warning. This must be the funniest context Crichton’s heard it in.
“Damn, D,” he says, holding himself steady as he feels the head of D’argo’s cock at his entrance. Crichton’s seen it enough times in the water room to know it’s as big as the rest of him. “Not gonna wine and dine me first? No foreplay? Just straight for the action?”
D’argo responds first with a growl and then with a very growly, “I’m trying my best here, John.” Which is about all he manages before pushing right into him.
“Haa,” Crichton gasps, falling onto his elbows. The gel numbs his entrance up and heals any potential damage that D’argo does but his insides still feel raw and unprepared. “I don’t think…this is legal in Florida you know,” he adds, voice straining. D’argo doesn’t seem to hear him.
For what it’s worth D’argo seems to be going as slowly as he can at first, though the spore clearly makes him shake with his need. It’s almost flattering if Crichton pretends it has anything to do with him.
“I won’t say I haven’t thought about it,” he says aloud as D’argo flips him onto his back. “I mean what healthy man of science hasn’t given it some—ah—consideration here or there.”
Grayza had made him admit to as much. She’d asked about all the most private fantasies he’d had and offered to make them come true. And Crichton, with his head full of Heppel oil, had thanked her for it.
D’argo shifts one of his legs over his shoulder and the new angle makes his toes curl.
“It’s just that, you know apart from the whole legality thing, Uncle Sam really doesn’t like it when the boys he sends to space wanna kiss other boys—ah fuck, oh god—and like. My planet’s still a little backwards like that.”
D’argo picks up his pace around then and for a while Crichton’s mind almost manages to go blank.
It’s apparently too much to hope that Luxans don’t last long—it made sense when Chiana walked around glowing when she and D’argo had been dating—but Luxan stamina really is something.
Crichton doesn’t realize he’s passed out until he’s jostled awake by D’argo’s cock. He’s got no idea how long he’s been out but D’argo is still going at it so it doesn’t much matter. He decides not to think about if D’argo didn’t notice he was unconscious or is just too far gone to care.
After he comes D’argo picks up his conversation skills and manages to look a little concerned.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” D’argo asks, voice soft. He’s rubbing healing gel on a nasty bruise on Crichton’s thigh. His ass aches but he can get to that on his own.
Crichton winks at him. “Peachy keen, jellybean.”
“If you say so.” He inhales deeply, eyes still dark. His hand slips absently from Crichton’s thigh down towards his crotch. “So, um.”
“If you want to go again then go again,” Crichton says.
D’argo is already up on his knees as he asks, “you don’t mind?”
It’s not as bad as being a decapitated statue at the bottom of an acid pit, Crichton thinks, spreading his legs over D’argo’s hips again. Or as bad as Harvey trying to turn his brain into soup because he thought Scorpius had been killed. Or as bad as watching himself fuck Grayza with absolutely no control over his own body. If he’d chosen this, if any of his friends had been physically able to choose this, he might even have liked it.
“Yeah, D, let’s get this show on the road,” he says.
D’argo only has one more round left in him before the spores apparently leave his system. He’s slightly more gentle the second time and even jerks Crichton off too. It’s not so bad. He doesn’t come but it’s not so bad.
“Do you need anything?” D’argo asks gently, sitting beside him on the bed.
“A goddamn nap.”
D’argo nods. He places a warm hand on Crichton’s arm. “I can stay. If that’s what you want.”
Crichton waves him away. “Get out of here, man. Go stare at the planet till Aeryn materializes.”
“Alright.” He awkwardly drapes part of the blanket over him and then stands there looking pensive.
“We’re good,” Crichton says. “Shoo. Go do some captaining.”
And so D’argo leaves.
He wakes up to the sound of his door opening and struggles for a few seconds to open his eyes. He’s still lying at the foot of the bed where D’argo left him and he’s a little lightheaded. He tilts his neck backwards and sees Scorpius standing by the door.
“Oh, of course you’re here,” Crichton says with a grin. “My day wasn’t good enough already so why wouldn’t you show up?”
Scorpius is smiling back at him. “You seem to be in high spirits. I believe you promised to shoot me in the face if I approached you earlier.”
“You know me, Scorpy. I’m a flexible man with a generous spirit. So. Lemme guess: your alien half is too strong for you, Mr. Spock, and you and I need to go for a tussle.”
Scorpius just smiles as though he’s holding in some snide comment at Crichton’s expense. Which he probably is. He stands by the bed so he’s nearly over Crichton. “An appealing prospect.”
“You're just not very well put together. Well, have at you then.” Scorpius leans a knee on the bed until he’s close enough to be directly above Crichton’s upside down face. “De ja vu,” he mutters.
“Are you offering, John?”
“Yeah, why not? Half the ship’s already had a taste. Why not the worst frelling person in the galaxy? I haven’t had a nightmare about you in a quarter cycle. I’m overdue.”
Scorpius just stares at his face, not even bothering to look at D’argo’s handy work or his naked body.
“What’s the hold up? You’ve wanted a piece of me for cycles.”
“Have I?”
“No need to be coy, old buddy. You’ve been trying to get inside me since the moment we met.” He hooks his fingers into the top of Scorpius’s armor and gives him a vicious yank. Scorpius allows it and braces himself over Crichton’s prone form. “I bet it gets you all worked up that Grayza got to me first.”
Scorpius says nothing at first but does scratch lightly at Crichton’s head like he’s some kind of pet. Normally he’d probably find this horrifying but now, well, it’s soft and kind of relaxing.
“You think about her quite a lot, don’t you,” Scorpius says quietly.
“More than Lucky Charms, less than The Wizard of Oz.” Crichton shuts his eyes.
“What Grayza does is intentional.” There’s a long thoughtful pause before Scorpius says with a discerning level of insight, “What the spores are making you do to your friends is not. You are nothing like her.”
Crichton’s eyes snap open.
“No, no, no.” Crichton flings the blanket off and sits up on his knees. “Absolutely not! We are not going to play Dr. Lecter and Clarice no matter how comfortable you made yourself in my frontal lobe! You don’t get to try to make me feel better!”
He shoves Scorpius backward.
“Now, I am not in the mood for you rattling around in my brain or conversations filled with innuendo. So what’s it gonna be?!”
Scorpius stares at him flatly, both hands raised in a placating gesture. Then his eyes flit down to Crichton’s naked body.
“If you insist.”
To start with Scorpius gives him what Crichton has come to think of as a Scarran kiss. He holds Crichton’s face still while his tongue runs up along the bridge of his nose. His tongue is rough against the skin and almost tickles.
“I think I hate cats now."
“You’ve an interesting smell about you,” Scorpius says before licking him again.
“Yeah, duh, that’s the problem. Have you been dozing off in class?”
“Not the spore,” Scorpius says, lowering his mouth to Crichton’s, “the smell of all your friends on you.”
“Figures. That’s Sikozu you’re sniffing by the way. Your girlfriend was trying to water-board me with her pussy.”
“Evidently.”
Crichton’s rational brain manages a flinch when Scorpius actually kisses him on the mouth. It’s calm and level, human enough lips held over alien teeth. Unlike with Chiana he has no problem holding himself back. His skin is faintly cool from the suit and it all feels absolutely nothing like anything he’s ever felt before.
Crichton pulls away, and while he can feel Scorpius’s hunger for him it isn’t much stronger than usual. “Oh you sneaky bitch. The spore isn’t affecting you at all.”
“I never said it was.”
He huffs in disbelief. “You’re just here because it’s Crichton hunting season.”
“You’re the generous one who made yourself so available.”
Crichton feels faintly dizzy with stupid, reckless desire and relief at not having gotten at least one person with the spores. This was bad. Even when he can’t quite hear alarms ringing in his Cronenberg of a brain he’s got the common sense to know that he shouldn’t do this.
Scorpius is careful with his teeth when kissing him but eager with his tongue like he’s trying to get a particularly thorough taste. His cooling suit isn’t any more comfortable now and still incredibly hard on his skin.
Right around the time that Crichton gets into his head to think fine why not and kiss him back he’s being shoved onto the bed. In a flash of panic he thinks about grabbing Winona but Scorpius takes hold of his thighs and pulls him closer with a definitive growl.
“Play nice now, Scorpy,” he says.
“Is that what you want?” Scorpius asks.
Crichton scoffs. “When you say it like that.”
The inside of Scorpius’s mouth is cool at first and though Crichton assumed his body would be too tired to get hard again he manages it anyway. As Scorpius continues his mouth grows warmer around him. The temperature is climbing much faster than usual, getting higher with his obviously mounting excitement.
“This is such a bad idea,” Crichton says shifting his cock deeper into Scorpius’s mouth. In response Scorpius runs the sharp edges of his teeth lightly over it.
Crichton shouts in alarm but shit if the adrenaline doesn’t make him harder.
Scorpius damn near sets up camp between his thighs, clearly enjoying the hell out of getting him ramped up with the threat of his teeth and then letting him settle. If nothing else he’s always been good at driving Crichton nuts.
“You…stay down there much longer I’m gonna start charging you rent,” Crichton says breathlessly.
Scorpius makes an appropriately obscene noise as he pops off his cock. “Did you want more, John?”
“I’ve already committed to the bit.”
“Hm,” Scorpius says, like that’s exactly the response he expected.
Turning onto his knees isn’t a big deal. He’s damn near giddy thinking about what Scorpius is going to feel like inside him. D’argo was big but not shaped particularly strange. He can’t imagine what a being like Scorpius has.
As it turns out he has to keep wondering because Scorpius’s tongue is what he finds himself acquainted with.
He flails at once and all but shoves Scorpius away. He can’t help it. He only just discovered anal this is definitely too much. Scorpius only pins his hand down on his lower back and returns his hot tongue to Crichton’s hole.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Now I know you can’t do that in the south.”
Scorpius is unrelenting and Crichton is still loose and fucked out. The healing gel has long since evaporated and he can feel each tiny flicker of his tongue against his sensitive hole in spine tingling clarity.
“Try to hold still please,” Scorpius says, sounding infuriatingly calm. Crichton does no such thing and Scorpius only tightens his grip on his arm. Normally he hates being reminded of how much stronger than him Scorpius is but right now it’s doing weird things to him that he does not care to interrogate.
As slow and methodical as Scorpius is being Crichton can feel how hot he’s getting through his gloves so he knows that this is effecting him too. He might be the only one moaning, the only one all but screaming his head off but he’s not the only one effected.
He tugs at Scorpius’s hold but is unable to free his right hand. At this point he’s on the verge of tears, cheek pressed to the bed. He doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed as he chokes out, “I can’t. Scorpius. Scorpius.”
“Yes?”
“Please, for god’s sake.”
Scorpius makes a pleased sub-vocal noise almost like a purr and wraps a hand around him. “Since you asked so nicely." His breath is hot.
Crichton is already close but he doesn’t come until Scorpius bites down on his ass.
“I’m not returning the favor,” Crichton says into his pillow when his brain stops floating around space. He thinks it’s only a few minutes later. Unfortunately Scorpius hasn’t left yet.
“I don’t expect you to.” From his voice he gets the impression that Scorpius doesn’t mind at all. There’s a faint whirring noise that he assumes is Scorpius swapping out his cooling rod.
“Ah, that’s right.” Scorpius says, placing something by his head. “Noranti wanted me to give you this.”
Crichton lifts his head and stares at the nondescript jar. He laughs. “To counteract the spore? Way to bury the lead.”
“I did intend to bring it up before you distracted me.”
From amidst his soiled blankets he hears Pilot’s voice on the comm. “Commander? You asked to be informed when we had news of Officer Sun.”
Crichton withholds a flinch. He doesn’t look at Scorpius as he picks up the comm. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“The storm moved faster than anticipated and her Prowler has just left orbit.”
“Alright. Thanks.” He tosses the comm aside and reaches for the jar. “On your way, grasshopper. Nothing sexy about VaporRub.”
“Of course,” Scorpius says, the pinnacle of manners. He stops at the door. “Though of course there’s no hurry for you: as I said, Sebaceans are immune and you won’t be able to corrupt Aeryn.” Scorpius tilts his head meaningfully. “Unfortunately for you.”
This time Crichton does shoot. Scorpius doesn’t flinch as the blast hits the wall just over his head.
Crichton is clenching the jar in his left hand so hard his knuckles hurt. “Leave,” he says evenly.
Scorpius doesn’t need to be asked twice.
Crichton coats himself in Noranti’s funky Vaseline and gets dressed. He’s exhausted but his body is hardly sore which is a weird disconnect. Well, it made the day that much easier to forget. He heads down to the hanger.
“You smell like garbage,” Aeryn says by way of greeting, climbing out of her ship. She’s probably soaked down to her socks and looks exhausted.
“Yeah, so will you in a minute,” Crichton says, holding up Noranti’s jar. “There’s something weird happening on that horny planet and odds are you’re dripping with it.”
“Aphrodisiacs?” She takes the jar and drops her sodden jacket to the floor. “That’s just great. It’s not enough that I have to spend two days listening to the local wild life frell in a hurricane, now I have to smell like you?”
“Yup.” He politely looks away as Aeryn rubs the balm under her shirt.
You love me, don’t you? Grayza had whispered to him that day and Crichton had said he did, over and over. He couldn’t help it. It’d been true.
Aeryn is just as he left her: brave, beautiful and distant. There’s no evidence at all that she’s been inundated with the spore. No fierce beautiful eyes fixing themselves on him, no hungry look and flared nostrils. No jumping him and taking what Crichton would be more than willing to give her and only her. Just a normal grumpy Aeryn.
He’s more than a little disgusted to realize he’s disappointed.