TITLE: "Something, Somewhere"

AUTHOR: Aiobheann

PAIRING: John/D'Argo

RATING: Hard R for language, nekkidness, and a bit of soft-focus male/male loving.

SUMMARY: PWP, Humor, Romance. Answer to the Out-of-Context Quote Challenge. John wants to know where they're going, and D'Argo almost misses the clue bus.

NOTES: I finally finished something! Wheeee! I was beginning to think I would never finish another story again. This is yet another pop-tart of a fic, featuring my favorite kind of John and D'Argo: Bickering!lovers John and D'Argo. Enjoy, and make sure to brush your teeth afterward -- all this sugar can't be good for your oral hygiene.

DISCLAIMER: I disclaim all knowledge of the dirty clothes shoved under my daughter's bed, of who shot JFK, and why cats will invariably move from the linoleum to the rug just especially to hack up a hairball where it will make the worst stain. I also disclaim all ownership of John and D'Argo -- they belong to Henson and Sci-Fi, and no copyright infringement is intended by
their use here, yadda yadda yadda. Only the words are copyright Aiobheann, 2000.

ARCHIVE: Yes, Virginia, there will be an Archive update, and when it happens, this story can be included in
it. Please archive at WWOMB, too, PEJA. Thanks

FEEDBACK: Gimme a fix! diva@sonoratx.net

SOMETHING SOMEWHERE

By Aiobeann

"D'Argo?"

"mmmph."

"D'Argo, are you awake?"

"mmmphh. no."

"Liar."

Another grunt emerged from D'Argo's side of the bed, this one more emphatically irritated.

"D'Argo -- "

"*What?*"

"We need to talk."

D'Argo unclasped his arms from around John's body, rolling away from him in aggravation. He had been asleep, happy, warm, sated -- humans apparently maintained a much higher body temperature than most other similar species, and John was wonderful to curl up around, except when he insisted on putting his cold feet on D'Argo's legs.

How humans could simultaneously have the most deliciously warm bodies and ice cold hands and feet was a mystery to D'Argo, but John's good points as a bedmate -- he was a generous, inventive lover; he had nice-smelling hair for D'Argo to bury his face in while he wrapped himself around John's body from behind; an intriguing scattering of crisp, short fur over his chest and limbs that felt nice under sleepily stroking hands after making love -- usually outweighed his bad points.

Usually.

Said bad points included not only startling D'Argo into sudden wakefulness when a pair of frigid feet insinuated themselves between his calves, but a horrible tendency to wake D'Argo out of a sound sleep and force him to speak coherently.

"You can talk. I was enjoying *not* talking. I was, in fact, enjoying *sleeping*, but I suppose that's not going to happen now, is it?"

"Do Luxans not have any concept of pillow talk?" John asked.

No answer was forthcoming from his bedmate -- just a long-suffering sigh of epic proportions.

"Well, you're one romantic bastard, aren't you?"

"Did you wake me up to ask me rhetorical questions, or was there a point to this?"

"The point is that we need to have to have The Talk."

"The...Talk," D'Argo echoed slowly. This did not sound promising, from his point of view; in fact, it sounded like some human form of torture, rather than a simple conversation. Possibly even worse than just being awakened and made to speak intelligently when all one wanted was to sleep the sleep of the just and the well-fucked, or -- gods forbid -- worse even than Death by Cold Feet.

"Yeah, The Talk." John rolled over and turned the bedside lamp on, at the lowest setting, its dim glow lighting his features and highlighting the expression of determination he wore. "You've never had The Talk before?"

"No," D'Argo answered grimly. "I suppose I'm going to have it now, aren't I?"

"Uh-huh," John said, just as grimly.

Sighing heavily, D'Argo sat up against the wall at the head of the bed, letting the sheet puddle around his hips, and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting with fatalistic patience for John to get on with it.

'Well, The Talk is an important ritual in human romantic relationships. Somewhere along the line, in between going to bed together for the first time, and either picking out china patterns or breaking up, whichever comes first, two people who are sleeping together have to have The Talk. Usually it's the female of the couple who brings it up, but since neither of us is female, and since you aren't the most emotionally clueful person in this bed, it looks like I'm going to have to be the one to ask."

"Ask what?" D'Argo said suspiciously.

Sitting up against the head of the bed beside D'Argo, John took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. "Where is this thing going?"

"What thing?"

"This thing."

"I'm lost already, John."

"Of course you are," John sighed, a resigned tone creeping into his voice. "Is this how Alex felt when she tried to talk to me? I swear to God, I take it all back -- every single time I made fun of her for reading those "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" books, I take it all back. I mean, this is the story of my life: 'I'm From Earth, My Boyfriend Is From -- ' ...where the *hell* are you from anyway?"

"Lux Prime."

"Lux Prime -- for God's sake, it sounds like a laundry detergent!"

D'Argo decided that questioning John on that assertion would only draw the conversation out even further, and wisely choose to stay silent.

"Okay -- 'I'm From Earth, My Boyfriend Is From Lux Prime.' No wonder we can't fucking communicate! You're from an entirely different planet, literally."

D'Argo raised his eyebrows skeptically. "I know we're from different planets, John -- what does this have to do with this *thing* you mentioned, and how am I supposed to know where this *thing* is going if I don't even know what *it* is?"

"See? That's another problem right there! You're so frelling dense that you don't even know what's going on here!"

John had progressed from resigned determination to yelling, and this irked D'Argo even more. A quarter arn ago he'd been happily asleep with his arms wrapped around someone he'd spent considerable time frelling until he'd turned into a moaning, squirming pile of John-goo, and now he was awake, cold, confused, and yelling just as loud as John was.

"Well, if you would just *tell* me what's going on here I'd know! And maybe I wouldn't be so frelling dense if you hadn't woken me up in the middle of the night!"

"All right, you want to know what's going on here?" John said belligerently.

"Yes! I'm dying with anticipation to know what's going on here, the suspense is unbearable, so why don't you enlighten me?" D'Argo said as snidely as he could manage while sitting naked next to his lover in the midst of a conversation that he was enjoying just about as much as he'd ever enjoyed, say, eight cycles of prison. It was quite a disadvantage to work against, but D'Argo managed to bear up under the pressure quite nicely, injecting enough venom into his tone to make John's lips tighten into a small, severe line of anger and his eyes slit down to a hateful glare.

"Oh, so Luxans don't have any concept of pillow talk, but I see you can do *sarcasm* just fine. Did somebody have to look up all the big words for you? Here's another vocabulary word for you, Tentacle Boy -- *relationship*. Ever heard of that one? Need a definition?" John sat up in bed as well, leaning toward D'Argo and yanking the sheet away from D'Argo's lap.

"A *relationship* is what's going on here, asshole! Both of us in this bed, your cock in my ass and vice versa -- ring any bells? There's a relationship of some kind going on here and all I want to know is where the fuck it's going!"

"*That's* what this is about?"

"That's what this is about."

"And you couldn't just *ask* me?" D'Argo growled, exasperated.

"I thought I *was*! Apparently not -- apparently I've been swapping bodily fluids with a total idiot who can't even understand what I mean when I ask him a simple fucking question!"

"Do you even want to hear my answer?"

"I don't know, D'Argo, but give it a shot anyway. My expectations are so low by this point that I probably wouldn't be surprised if you dropped a twenty on the nightstand and skipped out before I woke up in the morning."

"It's going somewhere," D'Argo said, in a quieter tone of voice.

"Somewhere," John echoed, his voice now dangerously calm. "Where? Like Des Moines, Iowa? Somewhere like the corner store for a pack of cigarettes? Like out for a walk? Where the fuck is *somewhere*?"

"Somewhere...permanent."

"Permanent. Like...like a commitment?"

"Something like that."

"Something like what? Like not fucking anyone else, or like...like love?"

"Like...love."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You love me," John said, and it was not so much a question as a quiet, slightly stupefied restating of the facts.

"Most of the time, yes, when you aren't waking me up to yell at me at odd hours of the night." D'Argo reached over and held out his hand to John, who considered him and his outstretched hand musingly for a moment before sliding over and sitting hip-to-hip with him against the wall. D'Argo lowered his face to rub his cheek against the top of John's head, breathing in the familiar scent and relishing the soft brush of the human's short hair against his cheek before he said, "Is this where you were wanting things to go?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Can you say it, though? I mean, if it isn't too much trouble to talk to me in the middle of the night, you know."

"You mean say that I love you?"

"Yeah, that."

"I love you."

"Love you, too. Would you be willing to repeat that with your pants on?" John said, and D'Argo could hear the smile creeping into his voice.

"Well, if it's human custom, I suppose I could -- "

"No, I just meant that I wondered if you meant that only here -- you know, in bed."

"In bed...out of bed," D'Argo said, turning so that he could pull John astride his lap and run his hands down John's back to cup his ass. "On the floor...in the shower...up against the wall...I'll say it anywhere you want...I can make an announcement, if you like."

This last was breathed against the skin just below the line of John's jaw, and John shuddered, laughing. "Later. I'm more interested in the...um...God...in the shower idea." He rolled his hips against D'Argo's, a slow and nasty bump-and-grind. "Wanna get dirty with me while we get clean?"

"Always."

"Is always part of the somewhere that this thing is going too?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Good."

John gave another one of those slow, grinding thrusts, and then backed off the bed, pulling D'Argo with him. "Let's go use up all the hot water before anyone else gets up, okay?"

D'Argo allowed John to pull him toward the shower, hampering his progress as much as possible by grabbing and stroking anything he could reach, and happily followed John somewhere he was sure they would both enjoy.

END

"Something, Somewhere"