TITLE: "Dark Brothers"

AUTHOR: Aiobheann

PAIRING: John/D'Argo

RATING: NC-17

WARNING: Death Story, Violence, First Time, Angst, Non-Consensual/Rape, Language, Explicit M/M Sexual Activity.

SUMMARY: Alternate Universe. The Blood Brothers bond, through a glass darkly.

WARNING: This is a VERY dark story. It's nothing like what I usually write. There is a major character death contained herein, and the violent rape of a major character as well. If any of these things squick you, please do not read this story.

NOTES: I owe a debt to WitchQueen -- a story idea she discussed with me the other night put this idea in my head. I hope you don't mind, darlin. Once I sat down to write this, it was as if I was simply transcribing, and my Muses were very insistent that it be finished in one sitting. This story is also my way of putting paid, finally, to something that happened to me a long time ago.

Fiction as therapy, I suppose. I won't ask you enjoy this -- but I hope that you do read it. There will be happier fic forthcoming, I promise -- I just needed to do this.

DISCLAIMER: Farscape, John, and D'Argo are the property of The Jim Henson Company, and no copyright infringement is intended by their use here.

ARCHIVE: Farscape Slash Archive, Smutscape, WWOMB. All others, please ask.

By Aiobheann

"Crichton! *Crichton!* You can't hide from me -- I know every inch of this ship, and I can smell you. Don't make me come and find you myself."

Panting harshly, Crichton rounded another corner and looked around desperately for a hiding place. D'Argo's voice followed him no matter where he went, and D'Argo himself seemed to be staying no more than a turn of the corridor or so behind him.

*Like a cat playing with a mouse*, he thought, swiping with a grimy, sweaty forearm at the blood trickling into his eye from underneath the makeshift bandage he'd tied around his forehead. A single strip ripped from the tail of his T-shirt wasn't enough to staunch the flow from a split scalp, but there was no time to stop and tend to it. He'd been on the run for almost three arns, and he despaired of being able to stay ahead of D'Argo for very much longer.

He was already hopelessly lost, deep in the twists and meanderings of the unused corridors on Moya's lower tiers. The air down here was stale, and a fine film of dust overlaid every surface. Twice he'd crossed corridors he'd already been down, and the sight of D'Argo's larger boot-prints tracked into the dust on top of his own had set off a shiver of atavistic fear. It was the skeletal caress of the hand from under the bed skating across a bare ankle. It was the roar of the beast just beyond the circle of the fire's safety.

"*CRICHTON!*"

Closer, much closer. He had stayed in one place too long.

His gaze lit on a grating down low, near the floor: one of Moya's access tunnels. He dropped to his knees, skidding to a stop in front of the grating, grasping it with hands that shook with the beginnings of blood loss shockiness and metallic-tasting fear.

*Head wounds always bleed like a motherfucker*, his mind chimed in nonsensically. *I won't bleed to death. I can't bleed to death. How can I be bleeding to death while I'm hiding from someone whose Rygel imitation I laughed at over breakfast this morning?*

He pulled desperately at the grating, features set in a rictus of effort, and when it came free, he fell backwards, landing on his side with his face pressed against the floor. The pounding of feet communicated itself through the floor like the thunder of an oncoming train, and running boots rounded the corner, sweeping into his vision and spurring him to fling the grate aside and dive at the hole in the wall.

He felt his T-shirt scraping up his sides, felt the unforgiving mouth of the tunnel catching him solidly at mid-chest and

(*I won't fit, oh god I am *so* fucked*)

holding him there, trapped. Strong hands grasped his calves and hauled him out, the sides of the access port gouging and tearing at his ribs. Cornered and desperate, he came up fighting wildly, swinging in D'Argo's grasp like a child, his feet barely touching the deck.

"*Let me go, goddammit!*"

Without responding, D'Argo flung him against the wall and was on him before he could scramble away, one forearm braced over the back of Crichton's neck, bearing him down to the deck and grinding his face into the floor.

"Submit," D'Argo growled into his ear, and there was no kindness or mercy in that voice.

"Fuck you," Crichton ground out. "Fuck you, I don't even know what this is about, just let me go you fucking son of a bitch!"

"*Submit*," D'Argo insisted, and ground his hips against Crichton's buttocks, leaving no doubt as to what manner of submission would be required.

"**NO!**" Terror and fury lent new strength to Crichton's struggling, and he managed to dislodge D'Argo from his back, kicking him in the face as he scrambled away.

With a deafening roar of rage, D'Argo snagged his ankle and pulled him off his feet. Crichton slammed to the floor, the cut on his scalp making violent contact with the deck and sending new freshets of blood streaming into his eyes. D'Argo rolled him over and straddled his waist, pinning him down.

Wiping dark black blood from his lip, split where Crichton had kicked him, he contemptuously smeared it across the rags that were all remained of Crichton's T-shirt. "You'll pay for that, Little Brother."

"I'm not your fucking *brother*," Crichton spat back at him.

"You will be," D'Argo replied coldly. "You declared yourself my ally. If you hadn't done that, the Oath could have been avoided. But now..."

He rose and dragged Crichton to his feet with him, propelling him ahead of him down the corridor like a trainer with a large, stubborn dog, grasping him firmly by the scruff of the neck.

"*I saved your life!*" Crichton cried desperately. "I thought we were friends -- why are you doing this to me?"

"It's already been set in motion, Crichton -- you declared yourself my ally," D'Argo repeated implacably. "The call of my blood and the demands of the Oath can't be bought off or set aside. You will submit to me, or die."

"What fucking Oath? I don't understand any of this, D'Argo!"

D'Argo shoved him, hard, into an unused storage chamber and turned to shut and lock the door behind them. "You don't have to understand anything, Little Brother." He stood there for a moment, considering Crichton, who was crouched on the floor, huddling protectively over his bruised ribs, blinking up at him through a caul of sticky drying blood obscuring his features. He pinched the edges of his cut lip together, squeezing until the blood ran clear, and then flicked the viscous droplets from the tips of his fingers as he approached Crichton.

Crichton straightened up as best he could, looking up at D'Argo looming over him.

"If you would just *explain* this, I know we could talk about -- "

"I don't need to explain anything to you. I *own* you, and you'll do as I wish -- with none of this frelling talking you do so much of."

"You don't own me!" Crichton shouted, suddenly furious.

"You're wrong, Little Brother -- I *do* own you, and I owned you from the moment you asked to be my ally."

Something in Crichton snapped. "*Stop calling me that!*" he roared, and surged up off the floor, hands clawed, reaching for D'Argo's throat. D'Argo simply backhanded him, knocking him back to his knees. He fisted one hand in Crichton's hair, untying the laces of his breeches with the other.

Crichton saw and craned his neck to stare up at D'Argo, teeth bared in an unconscious, feral snarl. "You try to stick anything in my mouth and I swear to you -- I fucking *swear* -- I'll bite it off."

"You won't," D'Argo said confidently, and bent down to grab one of Crichton's hands. He pulled it up over Crichton's head, bending the fingers back, straining them to the limit. Crichton bit down on his lip, teeth still bared, determined not to make a sound. The snap of one of his fingers breaking was clearly audible.

"How many more must I break, Little Brother?"

Crichton growled at him, wordlessly, and D'Argo grunted and methodically broke two more of Crichton's fingers before he relented and begged him to stop.

"Ah, *God*, stop, okay? I'll do it, I swear, I'll do it -- "

"You bite and I kill you."

Without releasing his hand, D'Argo guided him forward with the hand still twined in his hair. When Crichton gagged at the first invasion of D'Argo's cock, shoved deep into his mouth and almost into his throat, he bent the fingers in his grasp warningly, and Crichton mewled in pain, fighting to master the reflexive gag and behave.

It seemed to go on forever, Crichton's world narrowing down to the raving, sickening pain in his fingers, the ache of his jaws, the taste and bulk of the cock forced into his mouth over and over and over. Just when he thought he would go mad, when he feared he would be forced to rebel, bite and be killed just to end it, D'Argo pulled away and pulled him to his feet by the hair.

He was flung over a waist-high container at the back wall, his pants roughly ripped down. At the beginning, when the pain was worst, he cried, and ranted, and swore. Later, he quieted, going limp and pliant, his eyes staring ahead of him, at the wall and beyond it, the rest of his face blank and almost thoughtful. Recognizing the signs of the submission the Oath demanded, D'Argo ended it, withdrawing and setting Crichton back on his feet.

He had to be helped to rearrange his clothing; the T-shirt was destroyed, hanging in rags and tatters from a soiled ring of collar, dingy and splattered with both Crichton's own blood as well as D'Argo's. Easily led and silent, Crichton avoided looking at anything but the wall just past D'Argo's shoulder as his palm was sliced open and held against a matching cut in D'Argo's palm.

The Oath was completed, ritual and blood had been satisfied, and D'Argo could feel the flames of his hyper-rage dying down, guttering to embers. He led Crichton back to his quarters, listening carefully for any sign of the others. They would not understand -- it wouldn't do to have the new-sworn Oath disturbed by an angry scene with Aeryn or Zhaan. When Crichton was -- recovered -- he would explain it, explain why he had done it, in a way that simply had not been possible with the violence of his blood calling and singing and urging him on.

Once in D'Argo's quarters -- where he would sleep now -- Crichton simply stood in the middle of the floor until D'Argo pushed gently on his shoulders and made him sit on the bed. Before leaving to gather Crichton's belongings from his old cell, he cleaned him up as best he could. It was like manipulating a large doll, for Crichton moved and turned only when directed to, his gaze still locked somewhere faraway.

On his way down the corridor, D'Argo stopped at a waste portal and dropped in the bloody T-shirt and blood-stained pants. The blood worried him, but Crichton had once explained to him that humans did not suffer from wound toxicity as Luxans did -- the wounds on his scalp and hand seemed to have clotted over, and the bleeding from their coupling seemed to have stopped as well, so D'Argo was fairly certain that he would not die. He hoped the strange silence his Little Brother had slipped into was due to the blood loss. He assured himself that it *must* be -- humans were undoubtedly weaker and frailer than Luxans. He would simply watch over him carefully.

When he returned with fresh clothing, Crichton seemed to have roused from his silent state only a little -- only enough to flinch helplessly when D'Argo put his hands on him to dress him when it became clear that orders and directions would not make him move on his own. He wrapped Crichton's broken fingers, deciding to have Zhaan examine them tomorrow -- she would be able to make sure they healed properly.

He kept Crichton away from the others for the rest of the activity cycle, knowing that there would only be questions and anger. It had to be done, he insisted to himself over and over, still seething at a low burn, feeling the last vestiges of his hyper-rage make him territorial and jealously protective of his new Brother. *They wouldn't understand -- it had to be done for us to live on the same ship*.

That night he slept with his Brother beside him -- a Brother who lay silent and still, who refused to answer his questions or accept the increasingly gentle caresses D'Argo offered as his hyper-rage receded for good.

He awoke in darkness, the bed beside him empty. The possessive hand he had kept on Crichton even in sleep lay on the coverlet, fugitive warmth there from Crichton's body already seeping into the cool air. D'Argo turned over and saw Crichton crouched by the side of the bed, the scant light from the hallway illuminating features that were still blank, but a frightening sort of blankness: a blankness that was all burned-out husk and desperation. D'Argo's Qualta blade was in Crichton's hands, and when D'Argo turned over to face him, the point of the blade hovered close to his throat.

"Crichton, I --"

"Why don't you call me Little Brother?" Crichton said musingly, and the point of the blade edged closer.

"Crichton -- *John* -- let me explain."

"You don't need to explain anything to me," Crichton mocked quietly, throwing D'Argo's own words back at him. "You *own* me, remember?"

"I'm sorry," D'Argo said finally.

"Are you," Crichton said.

After a moment, he lowered the blade, leaning it carefully against the wall at the head of the bed. He went into the bathroom, and D'Argo watched Crichton's reflection, just visible in the mirror, examine his cuts and bruises, lift his broken, clumsily-wrapped hand and stare at it. The sight of a matched set of finger-shaped smudges -- bruises left by *his* hands, gripping him and holding him in place -- standing out lividly on Crichton's hips pained him, and he closed his eyes. He kept them closed while he listened to the water in the shower run interminably, as if Crichton was trying to scrub off the marks, the taint, of D'Argo's touch. The susurration of the water didn't quite hide the sound of Crichton crying.

Later, when Crichton returned to the bed, smelling clean and warm, the impulse to touch him -- gently, as if gentle touches could unmake the past -- was overpowering. The memory of his Brother holding his own blade to his throat, coldness and hate in his eyes, stopped him, and he settled for putting his hand on Crichton's side, just above his hip, and leaving it there. If Crichton had reached down and removed it, he would have accepted it, and left it at that. He didn't. A shudder twisted through Crichton, and the skin beneath D'Argo's hand rippled like water, but Crichton made no effort to disturb it. They slept that way, Crichton with his back turned, D'Argo with one hand on him, hopelessly.

The next day, Crichton was as talkative as usual. It was only when his eyes turned to D'Argo that he fell silent, earning concerned glances from Zhaan, frustration from Aeryn. The warrior in her sensed that something was wrong, badly wrong, and wanted to hurt whoever had done this thing. Crichton said only that D'Argo had gotten a little rough because of his hyper-rage, and explained away the cuts, the broken bones, as if they were the result of good-natured horseplay.

Deprived of a target for the anger she felt -- and thought was irrational, unfounded -- Aeryn seemed to make an effort to do as John asked and let the subject of his injuries, his behavior towards D'Argo drop. Only Zhaan continued to watch both of them carefully, and lavished affection and concern on Crichton, intuiting that no questions she had would be answered.

The outward signs healed -- Crichton's hand mended well under Zhaan's care, and the only remnant of the cut on his scalp was a small shock of white hair over the scar. Crichton continued to sleep in D'Argo's bed, and the others pretended to ignore that he did. In the dark of their quarters, D'Argo's attempts to touch Crichton, to temper the necessary violence of the Oath's swearing with gentleness, were met with quiet sufferance. D'Argo grew so sickened by the quietly angry, patient way that Crichton tolerated these caresses that he soon stopped touching him at all. He thought briefly of moving into another cell, leaving Crichton to sleep alone in this one, but decided that it was his punishment to stay.

Besides, they had sworn the Oath. They were bound together for all time by blood. He could no more choose to leave his Brother than he could choose to stop breathing. Only death could separate them. At times, it shamed him that he wished it would.

Life went on. Nights passed, spent sleeping in the shadow of his Brother's hate, which seemed to grow inversely with the depth of the helpless, crushing love D'Argo had come to feel for him. He had failed, had broken something that his culture and ways had never prepared him to see as fragile. Another warrior -- another *Luxan* warrior -- would have understood, and accepted. Brave though Crichton might be in his own way, he was not a Luxan.

Despite that, D'Argo loved him. Loved the broken pieces, mourned them, and hated himself for being the instrument of that crime.

When Crichton became aware that his Brother loved him, it only deepened the anger in him. He showed it in small, petty ways -- and it made D'Argo despise himself more that his Brother seemed to fear him as well as hate him, and allowed himself to strike back in only the smallest ways for fear that D'Argo would hurt him again.

Nothing changed. D'Argo began to fear that there would never be a breaking point, that Crichton and he would continue to exist in this limbo of love met by equal hate for as long as they both lived.

The breaking point did come, but quietly, as unobtrusively as the look in Zhaan's eyes when she and Crichton returned from the Delvian temple. It was an eerie echo of the dispassionate, almost bored loathing in his Brother's eyes.

She knew.

She and Crichton had shared Unity. She knew everything that had happened as surely as if she had lived it. The look in her eyes pinned him, held him still while Crichton walked past him, and then returned with his belongings in his arms. She stared at D'Argo for a moment longer, and then turned to follow Crichton.

D'Argo knew without asking that they were going to the hangar. He knew even before Pilot's quiet announcement that a transport pod had left Moya, and that his Brother was gone.

He went to his quarters. If he breathed deeply enough, he could still find Crichton's scent clinging to the bed sheets, to the walls. He focused on that, savored it, while he methodically unbraided his mustaches, laid out his Qualta blade. Postponing for the moment, he walked around aimlessly, touching the surfaces of table, chairs, bed, imagining that he could feel the minute traces of the sweat and oil left by his Brother's hands as he had lived in this room with him.

Forgotten in the drawer of the bedside table, he found Crichton's silver puzzle ring, its meaning long-ago explained to him, before the Oath. He carried it back to the table with him, wrapping the chain around his hand. Crichton had told him it was for luck -- he hoped that it would give him luck, too, and make his aim true and spirit strong as he picked up the blade and turned it, finally, toward his hearts.

END