I've debated about posting this on here for a while now, but what the hey... It's set some time around season 4 :)



The Problem

John Crichton was annoyed. Very annoyed. And not just in a “Pip and Rygel snuck into my quarters and snurched my stuff” kind of way. His fists were clenched, his jaw was set. This was not gonna be a good day.

Pilot could sense there was a problem from the moment the human walked in. This wasn’t the happy-go-lucky, what’re-we-going-to-do-today Crichton that Pilot actually quite liked (even if he was bemused by him most of the time). It wasn’t the other Crichton – he was dead, which made it impossible. It wasn’t even the Crichton that Pilot had thrown off Moya, along with D’Argo, not so long ago. This was a different beast altogether.

Crichton stomped up to Pilot, but stopped short. He didn’t jump up and perch himself on the edge of the control panel like he usually did (for which Pilot was actually quite grateful), he just stopped and gave Pilot the strangest look.

Pilot didn’t pretend to be able to understand other beings. Generally he thought the crew quite liked him, cared for him and respected him (apart from when they cut off one of his arms), but most of the time he found himself caught in the middle of their petty bickering. He’d even made them choose a captain (their choice had quite surprised him), but it didn’t seem to be making an awful lot of difference.

Sometimes he considered himself to be quite perceptive, but most of the time he was just happy with Moya. This was one of those times.

“Pilot?”

Something about the way Crichton said it made Pilot look up. It had been an odd tone of voice, almost like he was in pain.

“Yes, Crichton?” Pilot answered hesitantly.

Crichton sighed and threw his arms up in the air. “Pilot, we’ve got a problem.”

Pilot paused for a moment and then returned his attention to the controls. “Moya is not aware of any problems,” he observed. “What is the nature of this… problem, Commander?”

Crichton had started pacing. He made a strange face, came back over to Pilot and said quietly, “It’s kinda personal.”

“…Personal?” Pilot maintained his focus on the controls. He couldn’t understand why Crichton would come to him about a personal matter. Unless, of course, the human had alienated everyone else on board Moya, which was entirely possible.

“Yeah, personal,” Crichton reiterated in a slightly peevish tone. “You know, the kinda thing Jim Kirk would tell Bones but not Spock, Buffy would tell Willow but not Giles, Martha would tell the Muffins...”

“I’m not quite sure I follow you, Commander.”

“Didn’t think so,” Crichton muttered, pulling that face again. “It’s something I can’t tell anyone else, really, understand?”

“You wish to starburst?”

“No.” Crichton looked confused for a moment. “No! I don’t want to starburst! I just wanted some advice from someone I could rely upon to be… discrete. Not tell anyone else. Comprende?”

Pilot looked up. “I believe I understand, Commander.”

“Good, good! ‘Cos it’s kinda embarrassing and I’d really, REALLY like to keep it just between you and me.”

“My discretion is assured, Commander, although may I suggest that you would be better off consulting one of the other crew members, perhaps Aeryn or Noranti?”

“You want me to ask a woman?!” Crichton's voice went up an octave as the sentence progressed. He almost laughed. “No. Nooooooo, no, no. Not gonna happen.”

“Then, perhaps, Ka D’Argo…”

Crichton’s shoulders slumped. “You’re not going to help me, are you? Okay, fine, I’ll go ask D’Argo.” He turned to walk out.

As Pilot watched him go, Crichton’s voice drifted back towards him. “But if I tell D’Argo and word spreads, you, me and Winona might have to have a little chat!”

The door swung shut behind the human. Pilot stared at it for a moment, grumbled a sigh, shook his head and gave his attention back to the Leviathan.





D’Argo was in his quarters. Chiana was there, too. They were only talking, though, not quite like the last time Crichton had walked in on them.

Pip looked up at him as he entered the room, a big grin on her face, an excited and hyperactive tone to her voice. “Hey, Crichton! D’Argo was just telling me about the time on Aurelius VII when one of his tenkas got caught in a door and…”

“D’Argo, can I have a word with you?”

Chiana stopped talking, a rarity in itself, shocked at the way Crichton had ignored her. She glanced at D’Argo. The Luxan was giving her an equally surprised look.

“That’s really not very polite, John,” he observed in a remarkably restrained voice.

Chiana had returned her attention to Crichton and was looking daggers at him. “Hey, if you want me to leave just say so,” she told him.

Crichton raised his hands in supplication. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just really need to talk to D’Argo.”

She leaped off the chair into a half crouch, straightening up slowly, barely a centimetre from Crichton’s face, looking him over, sizing him up, enticing him. “You want me to leave,” she said again, this time in a husky voice, “just say so.”

Crichton held her eyes for a second longer than was necessary, playing along with the ritual. Then he said, “I want you to leave,” and took her arms to ease her away. She was smiling a small smile at him.

D’Argo sighed. “John,” he said reasonably, “you might as well just say what you have to say – you know she’ll only go out into the corridor and then listen anyway.”

Crichton rolled his eyes at the ceiling in an “Oh no, here we go” fashion as Chiana whirled on D’Argo with a snarl and a “Frell you, you fekkik!”

D’Argo stood up resignedly, wagging his finger at her. “Just because you waved your loomas in my face doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’ll do as soon as you walk out of that door!”

Chiana went nose to chest with him. “Yeah? Well just because you’ve got mivonks it doesn’t mean you’re not a greebol!”

They both stared at her.

“I knew what I meant,” she muttered.

D’Argo gestured towards the door. “Chiana, would you mind…?”

She headed for the door, saying to the Luxan, “Don’t expect to see my loomas again anytime soon.”

“Don’t go snurching my stuff!” Crichton called after her as she went. “That’s us,” he observed after she’d gone, ”happy families.”

D’Argo sighed again. “I swear, John, that little tralk is going to drive me insane.”

Crichton managed a weak smile. “You and me both, big fella, you and me both. Now about this - ”

“But I love her,” the Luxan continued. “You have to understand that more than anybody else.”

“Of course I do, but – “

“I mean, you’re more driven by your biology than any other creature I’ve ever met,” D’Argo chuckled, sitting down again.

“Thanks,” Crichton said sardonically. “And I’m not a creature, I’m a human. Hu-man. Jeez, I would’ve thought you’d’ve got that by now.”

“But then love isn’t about biology. You probably haven’t worked that out yet. Biology is just sex.”

“Yeah, that’s fascinating, big guy, but – “

“Chiana and I have GREAT biology,” D’Argo added wistfully.

John raised his hands to stop him going any further, pulled a face, clicked his fingers, then said, “Is that the time? I’m gonna go find Rygel.”

D’Argo settled back with a small smile, not really aware that Crichton had departed.




Chiana was outside in the corridor. She’d been trying to eavesdrop but, after D’Argo had said he loved her, she’d kind of lost track of what was going on.

Crichton rushed past her.

“Where are you going?” she called out.

“To find Rygel!” he yelled back.

“I’ll come with you!”

“No!!”




“I have no interest in your miniscule problems, Crichton,” Rygel said around a mouthful of food.

“Of course not, Sparky,” John replied, throwing a discarded cracker across the table in the vague direction of the Hynerian’s plates, “stupid me, thinking you might want to help a friend in need.”

Rygel’s head shot up, food flew in various directions. “Just because we’re on the same Leviathan it doesn’t mean we’re friends. I keep telling Pilot that, but he never listens. No-one ever listens to me. I told Pilot to make me captain, that way you’d have to listen… but of course, he wasn’t listening.”

“We all listen to you, Rygel, we just choose not to follow your orders. If Jean-Luc Picard had been Hynerian nobody on the Enterprise would’ve made it so, either.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rygel muttered, stuffing more food into his mouth, then looking for more.

Crichton decided to leave. “I can hear the violins, Buckwheat.”




Aeryn Sun was on the control deck reading the notes Crichton had given her to help her learn to speak English. She thought it was going quite well, providing she knew her ankle from her elbone.

When Crichton walked in she looked up with a smile. She’d been waiting all morning for him, having got up early feeling a little queasy. It had passed soon enough but she hadn’t felt like returning to bed. And the view of the nebula ahead was spectacular.

“John!” she greeted him, happily.

“Aeryn, you’re my last resort,” Crichton informed her urgently as he walked over.

She was slightly taken aback. “That’s… good to know?”

He started to sit down beside her, changed his mind, looked out at the nebula. Then he said, “I’ve got a problem, and it’s kinda sensitive.”

She thought for a moment, not quite sure how to tackle Crichton in this mood and in this place. Then she quietly closed the book, put it down and stood up. “Whatever it is, we’ll face it together,” she told him, calmly and seriously.

He turned to look at her and, as he did so, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

“But maybe,” she whispered, “we should go to your quarters first.”

He still seemed distracted, and it wasn’t because of the touch of her breath on his cheek. “Why?”

“Well,” she smiled, “I was hoping you could help me get out of these pants…”

Suddenly Crichton threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, thank God!” he cried.

Aeryn took a step back, frowning slightly. “What?”

Crichton pointed, laughing. “You need help getting out of your leather pants, too!”

“I thought you wanted sex,” Aeryn said, bemused.

“Honey, I’m a human male,” Crichton replied, still laughing, “I always want sex. At the moment, it might be a bit of a problem.”

“Because you can’t get your leather pants off,” Aeryn said matter-of-factly, filling in the blanks. “I don’t have that problem.”

Crichton stopped laughing. “I thought you just said you wanted help getting out of your pants?”

Aeryn nodded, “Because you wanted sex.”

“No! I can hardly bend my knees! I think my pants have shrunk!” Crichton looked down at himself. “Either that or I’ve swelled.”

“Because you wanted sex.”

“No, honey, that’s not what I meant.” He looked exasperated. "Why does everyone think that the only thing I'm interested in is sex?"

“You just admitted it."

He glared at her.

"Anyway," she continued, "I'd like to know why I was your last resort? Did you ask Chiana for sex? D’Argo? Rygel?”

John laughed again, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Aeryn, I haven’t asked anyone for sex, I tried to ask them to help me out of these pants because… well, hell, it’s embarrassing and I didn’t want to ask you.”

“But it wasn’t embarrassing to ask everyone else first?”

“Well, yeah. But I only asked the guys.”

“Oh,” Aeryn said, not really understanding.

“So you’ll help me get out of these damn things?”

She folded her arms and gave him an appraising look. “If that’s what you want,” she shrugged.

He nodded vigorously. “It is most definitely what I want.”

“You could always ask Scorpius.”

The smile on John’s face turned to an expression of minor disbelief. “You want me,” he asked through gritted teeth, “to ask Scorpy?”

“Yes.”

“To help me get my pants off?”

"Yes."

"What the hell makes you think I'd ask Nosferatu for anything, let alone help?"

“Well, why not? You’ve asked every other male on this ship, haven’t you?”

And suddenly John realised his fatal error.

“I mean,” Aeryn continued, her voice rising as she headed for the door, “you may as well ask Chiana and Sikozu before you ask me! And Noranti! If I’m going to be your last resort I may as well be the very last!”

John watched her go then turned back to the nebula. “Oops,” he observed sagely.

Yep, today was going to be one helluva day. If he could have sat down he would have.