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So,

kangeiko, who just wrote a classy Centauri story from the point of view of the lady who donated her dress during the Na'Toth rescue in season 5, issued a challenge. She wanted kisses written, not kisses as foreplay to sex but as an end to themselves, and whom did she name as the people supposed to kiss
but Londo and G'Kar on the one hand and Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane on the other. Four gentlemen I'm very fond of.

Now. The terms here were rather specific. Kissing and descriptions of same. But curse it, I'm the Victorian maiden of fanfic. (Not a pun on

kangeiko's first name.) I can do innuendo, I can do dialogue, I can do afterglow, but I suck at actual sex scenes, which is why I usually don't write them. Fine, I thought, but surely I can write kissing. Hah. Alas, the results were all dialogue and minimal kissing description again. Still. Here they are. Aliens first. Remember in season 5 when Londo leaves Babylon 5 for good, G'Kar hadn't told him he'd come along, explaining to Delenn he'd spring that little surprise en route. So this is what happens when G'Kar shows up in the transport to Centauri Prime:

When G’Kar sat down beside him, Londo groaned.

“Go away,” he said. “There is no necessity for this any more. After all, my people are the criminal outcasts of the galaxy, yes? No need for symbolism. Stay here with the righteous.”

“Your people always were criminals,” G’Kar corrected, “and that is why I am coming with you. You need a bodyguard, now more than ever.”

“I need to be left alone,” Londo muttered, and something in G’Kar clenched. He had accepted for a while now that it was his curse to care about what happened to Londo Mollari. Of course, he always had done, but indulging in happy fantasies about painting the station’s walls with your enemy’s blood was decidedly easier to bear than the awkward realisation that there was little he would not do to keep the most infuriating fool in the galaxy, who had above all a spectacular talent to make the wrong decisions, alive and well.

For a moment, his hatred for Londo was as sharp and fresh as ever. It had been easier the other way, and it would not have changed if the man hadn’t kept making demands for conversation and company when he had no right to. This weak and doomed man, who had sold his soul a long, long time ago.

“Mollari,” he said, and then gave up on speech altogether. Instead, he leaned over and put his hands on Londo’s shoulder. Londo looked at him, puzzlement and a strange expectation in his eyes. The memory came back, the memory of that image he had found in Londo’s mind when he had done his best to tear it to shreds; one of the shards had shown him his own face, years older, his own hands, strangling the life out of Mollari. The memory did not soothe him; if anything, it increased G’Kar’s anger. As if anything true would ever have been revealed to so decadent and unspiritual a people as the Centauri.

But there was no future which could not be unwritten, and G’Kar was writer enough to know it. He also knew fate gave you other tools to write with than just a pen.

Pulling Londo closer, he only intended to change that look in Londo’s eyes to surprise, to get an admission that not all things were pre-ordained. Instead he found himself breathing in stale brivari, the air of exhaustion, for Londo had not slept during the previous night, waiting for the testimonies, and some damnable Centauri perfume. And then he felt Londo’s mouth on his lips, sharp Centauri teeth making the too soft skin bearable. Taste of blood and defeat demanding to be licked away, and G’Kar unwrote both.

“You will never be alone again.”
***

Next we get to the Alias pair which isn't meant to be. See, on the one hand I don't see Jack 'n Arvin as slashy. Personally, I blame Victor Garber for giving off straighter than straight vibes most of the time, because they certainly have the long and convoluted backstory, the intense relationship (in season 3, it was my main reason for watching the show), the mutal betrayals and live savings tango, etc., etc. As of the the new promo, they even have a bathroom scene. So, on the other, every now and then I just want to see a good writer pull that pairing off, because on the page, or website as it were, we don't have the problem of Victor Garber. But I'm not that writer, don't look at me. I totally chickened out and went for the preliminaries again. But it did allow me to use an observation of

andrastewhite's about the relationship. This one is set post-Hourglass at any later point of the show you want it to be, including this week's promo-advertised bathroom scene. (Because we all know he's not gonna kill him.)

“Tell me why I haven’t killed you yet,” Jack says, and it’s a mark of his exhaustion that he asks. Arvin watches him, all dark eyes and focused attention.

“Because,” he replies in his reasonable, quiet voice, the one he uses for everything, from orders to torture and assassinate to invitations to dinner, “you need someone to forgive you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Arvin moves towards him. He’s small for a man, wiry, yes, but even when they were young, it had never been difficult to overpower him physically during training exercises. And still, he never needed to resort to any of the more obvious psychological ploys to get the upper hand. That is the trouble with Arvin Sloane; he is never obvious. Cut off one of his limbs – which Jack has done –, stitch him back together – which Jack has also done -, and even his scars become weapons in a considerable arsenal.

“No, you never would,” Arvin says, and Jack stares at him in disbelief. “Beg for my pardon. You wouldn’t ask. But you need it.”

You had an affair with my wife, Jack thinks, but doesn’t say it. You took my daughter and made her into a killer before she was ready, but he doesn’t say that either. You betrayed your country, but that is almost an afterthought. His patriotism dried up bit for bit in the various cells his country put him in, and these days it is almost reduced to nothing.

He doesn’t flinch when Arvin’s hand, fingers broken and reset a dozen times, touches his face.

“There isn’t anything you’ve done,” Arvin says softly, the way he usually sounds when he’s either completely insane or about to reveal the results of an inspired masterplan, “that you haven’t done to me. But I don’t think any of the others is willing to forgive you, and even if they were, you wouldn’t accept it from them.”

The truly artful liar, their teacher used to say, lies with the truth. Jack looks at Arvin and recalls the savage satisfaction of putting him through his execution and of resurrecting him later, at his convenience. At moments like these, it is tempting to do that again. It’s strange, though, that it doesn’t occur to him to leave out the resurrection this time.

“I don’t need it from you, either,” he says, because he, too, is an expert of lying with the truth, and just because what he does need is to have the last word for once, he cuts of any further retort in the traditional way. Arvin, who never can decide whether to cast himself as Judas or Jesus, should appreciate it.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: As Time Goes By

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

monanotlisa.livejournal.com

Arvin, who never can decide whether to cast himself as Judas or Jesus, should appreciate it.

Stunning. Nothing short of gorgeous; your Jack and your Sloane never fail to amaze me. All these complexities, but you manage to capture so many in so few words.

Thanks.

(Now go read my ficathon entry. & ;-)

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Men, Kissing

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