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selenakEdited: Still at someone else's laptop, but on a more permanent basis. Which meant I could download Semagic. So, properly cut and already slightly corrected, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ide_cyan, I present:
.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that two middle-aged ambassadors in possession of credits must be in need of companionship. The Wa’tia’ru prided itself of having “everything, for every taste”, and pointed out that that even Pakh’mara returned from their establishment, all needs satisfied, which took some effort and not a little bribery, considering their rumoured cannibalistic eating habits and their mating preferences. It hadn’t taken Londo long to figure out one of the ways the Wa’tia’ru managed to achieve this. After all, he himself was what Sheridan, in one of his less diplomatic moments, had called “a con man who would sell used star furies if they hadn’t made him ambassador”. They used human telepaths, of course. Telepaths who were on the run from the Psi Corps and would do anything for some cash and a place to hide; anything would include suggesting to customers they had consumed one thing, when it really had been another, no matter how one defined consumption.
Londo didn’t mind a clever pretense ever now and then, as long as he was the one pulling the strings. Which meant that Vir had made it clear to the management they would be monitored the entire time by an independent telepath. This, naturally, was also illegal, but given that President Sheridan currently indulged a considerable sized group of illegal telepaths on board, and would do anything rather than call in the Psi Corps, there was not much the management could do about this.
All of which meant that the young women who draped themselves around Londo and G’kar the minute they entered had to be the genuine article. The intermingling of perfumes and warm skin, of silk and, so alien, long, rich hair was a good way to remind oneself one was alive again. Londo sighed and repeated what he had said to G’kar all these years ago, when they had cordially despised each other, but before there had been any blood shed between them:
“Of all good things in life, are females not the finest?”
Apparantly, G’kar also remembered, for he replied as he had then, with some regretful nostalgia:
“On that, Mollari, we can agree.”
In those days G’kar had had what Vir, blushingly, had described as “a vivid social life”. Michael Garibaldi, who was not the blushing type, had once complained that “this guy scores more than any of us”, a remark which wasn’t that difficult to translate even without expertise in Earth slang. But the war which had changed so many things also brought a rather obvious dilemma for G’kar. Transforming himself first into a resistance leader and then into a religious icon was a distinct drawback if one also was burdened with ethics which forbade the exploitation of admiring female followers. And these days, pretty much every Narn had started to turn into a follower. Londo admired the way Sheridan, who was faced with a similar dilemma, dealt with this; he had married the only woman on the station who was as venerated and could not possibly be called an underling. But there was no similar solution in sight as far as G’kar was concerned.
Now, given that the blackmail material they had collected on each other when blackmail was still the name of the game had revealed G’kar to have a considerable fondness for females outside of his own people, the problem should not have been that big, for G’kar’s messianic reputation had not yet jumped species, but Londo had a hunch those pesky followers weren’t exactly encouraging non-Narn females to give G’kar more than a look.
The girls were too clever to pretend not to recognize them, or to appear over-awed; they struck a nice balance between teasing and proper respect, and still managed to get drinks ordered before they were properly seated. Londo was impressed, though he could tell already he wouldn’t follow up on it. Not that he had G’kar’s problem. Far from it. An imperial future positively encouraged people, up to and including the wives he had already divorced in mutual loathing to show up in his bed at the most surprising times, and nobody expected him not to take every advantage of them. But for all the opportunities, he found himself less and less interested. Perhaps it was simply age, that and good old fashioned precaution, given that murders in passion had a grand tradition among candidates for the throne. Perhaps it was because the one woman he truly longed for would never return to him, not ever. In any case, he still enjoyed the sounds of female laughter, the way women moved, the lights reflecting on their skin and the sparkle in their eyes. And he could tell G’kar did, too.
After the girls had declared they would order the food since they could judge best what was fit for two such extraordinary gentlemen, and had rushed off to corner the waiter, G’kar leaned back. They were seated in a corner, well-positioned to watch the show on the small stage which consisted of an expert mixture of hologramms and actual performers. As far as Londo could tell, the fertility dance presented right now was anatomically possible, but only just.
“You know,” G’kar said, “I can never make up my mind whether you are extraordinary foolish or just intermittendly inspired, Mollari. Did you really think you can distract with this?” He gestured. “There is nothing here I haven’t seen when you were busy running away from your debts.”
Londo shrugged. “You have this strange idea, G’kar, that one has to start a new life in the most unpleasant manner possible, just because it happened that way to you. I don’t see why. Not that I blame you if you got another impression, under the circumstances, but we Centauri celebrate life. By living.”
The ever changing lights from the stage turned to a bright yellow then, and the contrast of G’kar’s two eyes, the natural red and the artificial blue, was more startling as ever. He looked at Londo and shook his head.
“You are not living. You are still running away.”
Unexpectedly, this stung. “Oh, I’ve stopped running a long time ago”, Londo replied quietly. “Believe me.”
The girls returned then, with some more drinks and the promise of delicacies to come. The one with the purple hair, whose name was Dina, sat next to Londo and kissed him, and her lips had the taste of purple, too; fading sweetness which only comes when you no longer need it.
“Is it true somebody tried to kill you the other week, Ambassador?” she asked, her fingers deftly trailing inside of his jacket.
“Somebody always tries to kill him,” G’kar interjected sourly before Londo could reply. “He finds more people who want to kill him by the hour. He makes them. It’s what he is best at.”
Londo raised his eyebrows. “Ah, but there is one talent I lack. Somehow I don’t manage to get myself captured by asking the most dangerous maniac of the galaxy for directions.”
Dina looked from one of them to the other, and her friend, who showed great talent by exposing a considerable amount of skin next to G’kar’s armour without getting scratched, burst out laughing.
“How long have the two of you been married?” Dina asked, amused.
G’kar glared at her. Londo’s first impulse was to glare as well, but then he realized the opening she had provided him with.
“Oh, we’re not married. He only slept with my wife a couple of times.”
The whole evening was already worth it, if only for G’kar’s priceless expression. The girls both looked intrigued.
“Mariel isn’t exactly noted for her discretion,” Londo added drily, ostensibly addressing them. Was it the stage music, or did he actually hear G’kar grinding his teeth? Probably the former, but oh yes, this had been one of his better ideas. He was prepared to bet any sum G’kar was now rapidly calculating when Londo had found out, and whether any of Mariel’s actions had been on Londo’s instructions.
G’kar’s companion for the evening, who had introduced herself as Lyris, apparently arrived at the conclusion it was time to demonstrate some solidarity and came to his rescue. Or maybe she decided that since Londo provided the cash, it was worth playing up to him, and he would mind less being teased.
“Did you join them?” she asked breathily. Londo, who had just started to drink from the glass Dina had handed him, spluttered and coughed before he caught himself.
“My dear, that would have been…quite the murderous exercise.”
“Station gossip missed this completely”, Dina said to G’kar, whose continued glower was only slightly marred by the fact one of his eyes could not really express anything. “We didn’t know you were interested in… Centauri, Citizen G’kar. In that way, I mean.”
“I was interested in a great many things before realising I was squandering my life,” G’kar replied, “but unlike certain other people, I grew up.”
“That was when he decided we should both die in an elevator, together, while he was singing songs for me,” Londo added helpfully.
At this point, dinner arrived. The girls had chosen wisely, though G’kar probably would have eaten anything just to prove his disdain for the topic at hand. While he crunched a couple of Orion nuts, Londo treated himself to some ripe, decaying spoo and felt better by the second.
“Are you still sleeping with Ambassador Mollari’s wife?” Lyris asked innocently.
“They are divorced,” G’kar returned, and would undoubtedly launched into another homily of having grown beyond affairs for political benefits, but Londo was quicker.
“So that is why you aren’t seeing her anymore?” he asked, faking indignation. “Poor Mariel. Well, you know, if it has to be one of my wives, you could try Timov, though that would really mean crossing the line between bravery and suicide. Mariel needs poison if she wants to kill someone, but Timov? She can eviscarate anyone merely by using her tongue.”
Dina made a face. “And here I thought the Drazi were the ones into tongues.”
G’kar ignored her. “She could have done us all a great favour and eviscarated you years ago”, he said archly. “What a great benefit to the universe that would have been.”
“Why didn’t you?” Londo asked. The laughter, whistles and chatter around them from everywhere else in the room continued, but the girls, sensing this wasn’t part of the game anymore, grew quiet. G’kar inclined his head.
“Is that why you brought me here?” he asked back, sounding genuinenly curious.
“Maybe I just wanted us to have a pleasant evening,” Londo replied, and signalled the girls to withdraw, which they did, without any fuss or bother. They really deserved an extra tip. “Maybe I can sense there won’t be too many of those left. We Centauri can, you know. Maybe I wanted to return the favour of your behalfs on the part of my soul. I never claimed I wasn’t petty. And yes, maybe there are some questions I want to ask.”
“Questions are good start on the path of enlightenment”, G’kar said neutrally, but he leaned forward, and Londo, who had years of experience reading G’kar, knew he was hooked. “Not that I actually expect you to go there, I suppose. They are few constants in this universe, but your spectacular ability to make the wrong decisions is one of them.”
“Well then. I am a gambler, so let us play a game. An earth game. Truth or Dare, G’kar.”
ide_cyan, I present: .
It is a truth universally acknowledged that two middle-aged ambassadors in possession of credits must be in need of companionship. The Wa’tia’ru prided itself of having “everything, for every taste”, and pointed out that that even Pakh’mara returned from their establishment, all needs satisfied, which took some effort and not a little bribery, considering their rumoured cannibalistic eating habits and their mating preferences. It hadn’t taken Londo long to figure out one of the ways the Wa’tia’ru managed to achieve this. After all, he himself was what Sheridan, in one of his less diplomatic moments, had called “a con man who would sell used star furies if they hadn’t made him ambassador”. They used human telepaths, of course. Telepaths who were on the run from the Psi Corps and would do anything for some cash and a place to hide; anything would include suggesting to customers they had consumed one thing, when it really had been another, no matter how one defined consumption.
Londo didn’t mind a clever pretense ever now and then, as long as he was the one pulling the strings. Which meant that Vir had made it clear to the management they would be monitored the entire time by an independent telepath. This, naturally, was also illegal, but given that President Sheridan currently indulged a considerable sized group of illegal telepaths on board, and would do anything rather than call in the Psi Corps, there was not much the management could do about this.
All of which meant that the young women who draped themselves around Londo and G’kar the minute they entered had to be the genuine article. The intermingling of perfumes and warm skin, of silk and, so alien, long, rich hair was a good way to remind oneself one was alive again. Londo sighed and repeated what he had said to G’kar all these years ago, when they had cordially despised each other, but before there had been any blood shed between them:
“Of all good things in life, are females not the finest?”
Apparantly, G’kar also remembered, for he replied as he had then, with some regretful nostalgia:
“On that, Mollari, we can agree.”
In those days G’kar had had what Vir, blushingly, had described as “a vivid social life”. Michael Garibaldi, who was not the blushing type, had once complained that “this guy scores more than any of us”, a remark which wasn’t that difficult to translate even without expertise in Earth slang. But the war which had changed so many things also brought a rather obvious dilemma for G’kar. Transforming himself first into a resistance leader and then into a religious icon was a distinct drawback if one also was burdened with ethics which forbade the exploitation of admiring female followers. And these days, pretty much every Narn had started to turn into a follower. Londo admired the way Sheridan, who was faced with a similar dilemma, dealt with this; he had married the only woman on the station who was as venerated and could not possibly be called an underling. But there was no similar solution in sight as far as G’kar was concerned.
Now, given that the blackmail material they had collected on each other when blackmail was still the name of the game had revealed G’kar to have a considerable fondness for females outside of his own people, the problem should not have been that big, for G’kar’s messianic reputation had not yet jumped species, but Londo had a hunch those pesky followers weren’t exactly encouraging non-Narn females to give G’kar more than a look.
The girls were too clever to pretend not to recognize them, or to appear over-awed; they struck a nice balance between teasing and proper respect, and still managed to get drinks ordered before they were properly seated. Londo was impressed, though he could tell already he wouldn’t follow up on it. Not that he had G’kar’s problem. Far from it. An imperial future positively encouraged people, up to and including the wives he had already divorced in mutual loathing to show up in his bed at the most surprising times, and nobody expected him not to take every advantage of them. But for all the opportunities, he found himself less and less interested. Perhaps it was simply age, that and good old fashioned precaution, given that murders in passion had a grand tradition among candidates for the throne. Perhaps it was because the one woman he truly longed for would never return to him, not ever. In any case, he still enjoyed the sounds of female laughter, the way women moved, the lights reflecting on their skin and the sparkle in their eyes. And he could tell G’kar did, too.
After the girls had declared they would order the food since they could judge best what was fit for two such extraordinary gentlemen, and had rushed off to corner the waiter, G’kar leaned back. They were seated in a corner, well-positioned to watch the show on the small stage which consisted of an expert mixture of hologramms and actual performers. As far as Londo could tell, the fertility dance presented right now was anatomically possible, but only just.
“You know,” G’kar said, “I can never make up my mind whether you are extraordinary foolish or just intermittendly inspired, Mollari. Did you really think you can distract with this?” He gestured. “There is nothing here I haven’t seen when you were busy running away from your debts.”
Londo shrugged. “You have this strange idea, G’kar, that one has to start a new life in the most unpleasant manner possible, just because it happened that way to you. I don’t see why. Not that I blame you if you got another impression, under the circumstances, but we Centauri celebrate life. By living.”
The ever changing lights from the stage turned to a bright yellow then, and the contrast of G’kar’s two eyes, the natural red and the artificial blue, was more startling as ever. He looked at Londo and shook his head.
“You are not living. You are still running away.”
Unexpectedly, this stung. “Oh, I’ve stopped running a long time ago”, Londo replied quietly. “Believe me.”
The girls returned then, with some more drinks and the promise of delicacies to come. The one with the purple hair, whose name was Dina, sat next to Londo and kissed him, and her lips had the taste of purple, too; fading sweetness which only comes when you no longer need it.
“Is it true somebody tried to kill you the other week, Ambassador?” she asked, her fingers deftly trailing inside of his jacket.
“Somebody always tries to kill him,” G’kar interjected sourly before Londo could reply. “He finds more people who want to kill him by the hour. He makes them. It’s what he is best at.”
Londo raised his eyebrows. “Ah, but there is one talent I lack. Somehow I don’t manage to get myself captured by asking the most dangerous maniac of the galaxy for directions.”
Dina looked from one of them to the other, and her friend, who showed great talent by exposing a considerable amount of skin next to G’kar’s armour without getting scratched, burst out laughing.
“How long have the two of you been married?” Dina asked, amused.
G’kar glared at her. Londo’s first impulse was to glare as well, but then he realized the opening she had provided him with.
“Oh, we’re not married. He only slept with my wife a couple of times.”
The whole evening was already worth it, if only for G’kar’s priceless expression. The girls both looked intrigued.
“Mariel isn’t exactly noted for her discretion,” Londo added drily, ostensibly addressing them. Was it the stage music, or did he actually hear G’kar grinding his teeth? Probably the former, but oh yes, this had been one of his better ideas. He was prepared to bet any sum G’kar was now rapidly calculating when Londo had found out, and whether any of Mariel’s actions had been on Londo’s instructions.
G’kar’s companion for the evening, who had introduced herself as Lyris, apparently arrived at the conclusion it was time to demonstrate some solidarity and came to his rescue. Or maybe she decided that since Londo provided the cash, it was worth playing up to him, and he would mind less being teased.
“Did you join them?” she asked breathily. Londo, who had just started to drink from the glass Dina had handed him, spluttered and coughed before he caught himself.
“My dear, that would have been…quite the murderous exercise.”
“Station gossip missed this completely”, Dina said to G’kar, whose continued glower was only slightly marred by the fact one of his eyes could not really express anything. “We didn’t know you were interested in… Centauri, Citizen G’kar. In that way, I mean.”
“I was interested in a great many things before realising I was squandering my life,” G’kar replied, “but unlike certain other people, I grew up.”
“That was when he decided we should both die in an elevator, together, while he was singing songs for me,” Londo added helpfully.
At this point, dinner arrived. The girls had chosen wisely, though G’kar probably would have eaten anything just to prove his disdain for the topic at hand. While he crunched a couple of Orion nuts, Londo treated himself to some ripe, decaying spoo and felt better by the second.
“Are you still sleeping with Ambassador Mollari’s wife?” Lyris asked innocently.
“They are divorced,” G’kar returned, and would undoubtedly launched into another homily of having grown beyond affairs for political benefits, but Londo was quicker.
“So that is why you aren’t seeing her anymore?” he asked, faking indignation. “Poor Mariel. Well, you know, if it has to be one of my wives, you could try Timov, though that would really mean crossing the line between bravery and suicide. Mariel needs poison if she wants to kill someone, but Timov? She can eviscarate anyone merely by using her tongue.”
Dina made a face. “And here I thought the Drazi were the ones into tongues.”
G’kar ignored her. “She could have done us all a great favour and eviscarated you years ago”, he said archly. “What a great benefit to the universe that would have been.”
“Why didn’t you?” Londo asked. The laughter, whistles and chatter around them from everywhere else in the room continued, but the girls, sensing this wasn’t part of the game anymore, grew quiet. G’kar inclined his head.
“Is that why you brought me here?” he asked back, sounding genuinenly curious.
“Maybe I just wanted us to have a pleasant evening,” Londo replied, and signalled the girls to withdraw, which they did, without any fuss or bother. They really deserved an extra tip. “Maybe I can sense there won’t be too many of those left. We Centauri can, you know. Maybe I wanted to return the favour of your behalfs on the part of my soul. I never claimed I wasn’t petty. And yes, maybe there are some questions I want to ask.”
“Questions are good start on the path of enlightenment”, G’kar said neutrally, but he leaned forward, and Londo, who had years of experience reading G’kar, knew he was hooked. “Not that I actually expect you to go there, I suppose. They are few constants in this universe, but your spectacular ability to make the wrong decisions is one of them.”
“Well then. I am a gambler, so let us play a game. An earth game. Truth or Dare, G’kar.”
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 02:14 am (UTC)untilcertain other people, I grew up.”Unlike.
Have you got a beta-reader? (I'm not offering -- I haven't watched B5 in far too long.) BTW -- if English is not your language, then what is your language?
German
Date: 2003-07-31 05:00 am (UTC)My usual beta is unfamiliar with B5, alas. In any case, once I've finished, there will be redrafting and the like before this thing gets posted anyway. Thanks for pointing out the mistake!
no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 08:12 am (UTC)And, I like the idea of a psi-brothel. Very plausible, in a sick kind of way.
The marriage line...
Date: 2003-08-01 05:37 am (UTC)Psi-brothel: given the situations telepaths are in in the B5 universe, it does make sense, yes.
Lookit me!
Date: 2003-07-31 12:47 pm (UTC)Melon!
Date: 2003-07-31 12:51 pm (UTC)Truth or Dare?
Date: 2003-07-31 07:33 pm (UTC)You included the marriage joke, Londo's wives, and spoo! Now I'm just going to settle in and wait patiently for the game.