Trick or Treat

by ExquisiteIrony & TheThinGrayChi

"So besides these 'tricks', there were 'treats'?" Zhaan inquired.

John was still absorbed in watching the seemingly completely uninterested Aeryn and had to snap his attention back. "Yup. Sometimes, especially the kids, you get dressed up as scary or imaginary stuff," he explained as he dipped what he fancied to be French fries in what was a little like ketchup, doesn't know, doesn't ask, "and you go from one house to another, knock on the doors and they give out treats, candy and stuff."

"Yes," Zhaan was genuinely puzzled. "But what is the purpose?"

"Mmm." John blinked a moment. He glanced at Chiana, who sat munching hyper-attentively; Chi blinked in echo and tilted her head. "Well a lot of people used to get scared of Witches," John elaborated. "Old ladies or total babes with long hair or gray hair. Scary clothes. They supposedly did amazing things. Unnatural things."

"What are 'scary' clothes?" Chi asked with a healthy edge of skepticism.

"You'd make a hottie doll of a witch with a black pointed cap and your cape on, Pip."

Chi shifted excitedly in her chair "Whoa!"

"Or a near skeleton... Anyway I guess the whole witch, scary, supernatural stuff and post-Celtic rural New England trappings got spoofed that way and people had fun with knocking it off."

D'Argo just shook his head, annoyed if anything. Chi was amused though. "Sounds like fun," Chi enthused.

"Yeah I think you'd be a terror on the pranks angle," John chuckled to himself. "Lot of fun, Pip. Good stuff...scary music, ghost stories, songs, hunts, apples, pies... pumpkin."

Chi tilted her head: "You do what with your kin?"

A 'fry' fell from John's astounded open mouth. He soon recovered and shuddered. "Man. Aliens. Don't go there Pip. Pumpkin. Pies. A vegetable."

"Like Zhaan?" Chi asked, munching and gesturing to Zhaan with the fry in her upheld hand. She smiled in a moment, breaking Zhaan's stare into a laugh. Chi winked at her.

"Not as delicious," John winked to Zhaan himself, and she then arranged her dress in a flattered, haute manner. Aeryn gave him an un-entertained, flat look. "Naw, just a big roundish vege, makes a mush with a lot of savory spices, bake it on a breading bottom..."

"You told us about pies," Chi assured him. "Any of those spices we got taste like it?"

"Dunno. Let's see." He wiped his hands and followed Chi and Zhaan into the galley.

"Finally," D'Argo met John outside the galley. "We need to go over those charts."

"Right," John agreed, casting a wary look on the charts in D'Argo's hand. "Well, gotta give Chi something to do. She's going to make pumpkin pies for us. Sort of."

"She made sure you had those... 'fries' last commerce stop, even if nobody can stand them but you," D'Argo had him know. He was irritated.

John stashed the smile. "Yeah. She's a doll that way. Let's go see where we're stumbling into next."

"No! I have had enough of your insinuations, hu-man! We are not going there! You are trying to get us killed!" D'Argo roared. John tried again to slip out of the door before the hyper-raging Luxan lost it the rest of the way, but D'Argo cut him off again.

"Steady man, it's okay, we'll skip it!" John tried calming the lambasting Luxan. "That's cool with me."

"Betrayer! All of you!" D'Argo roared and reached for his Qualta blade. John barely made it to the door as D'Argo was reaching for his blade, scrambling down the corridors like never before.

Until he heared the robust wheezing laughter of D'Argo. John stopped in his tracks and tried to stay cool as D'Argo walked up and nearly crushed John under an arm he threw over John's shoulder. Eventually John began laughing along.

Aeryn appeared, clearly irritable. "Crichton. You said you were going to service that flying drenheap of yours. Well we should do it now while I can assist, before I have to service mine."

"Right with you there, Sundance. Hey, big guy, gotta go while the call is sounding, man."

"Gotcha," D'Argo aimed a finger in imitation of one of John's Earth ways. John didn't get away without a bone-jarring whack from the big guy.

"I can't see around this pod to adjust it, Aeryn," John pointed out, "just give me the damned coil whatchamajigger and adjust it for me."

Aeryn covered a snicker as she glanced to Chi, beaming mischievously, both waiting for John to take that supremely confident, totally unguarded drop into the seat of his module.

A squish followed his drop into his module seat, followed by a moment of silence.

"Aww man that is not what I think that was."

Another moment of silence followed.

"Aww man it - AAH - it is! Aeryn di -" he popped his head over the side to see both ladies laughing. "Chiana!" he hotly yelled.

"Don't look at me, Aeryn did it, it was her idea, it was Aeryn's idea, she just asked me to help it was not my idea. Aeryn's. Entirely."

He stared incredulously as Aeryn just barely held back the noise, if not all the action, of laughter. She nodded her head affirmatively. Her reddening face exploded into another round of laughter. "You should see your face! I told you it was a dren heap but you wouldn't listen to me," she barely managed to say through her laughter.

"Whatever Crichton," Aeryn brushed him off, annoyed, as they passed the doorway to John's room. "Just get into something clean and finish the servicing."

"Hey wanna help me?" he cheekily flirted to a sneer from Aeryn.

"Yeah, sure, no problem," Chi volunteered and started to follow him in, abruptly yanked back out by the arm and off with Aeryn.

John rifled through his selection of clothing, humming a mix of a few songs he'd partly forgotten. He parted another few articles to be confronted with a real corpse inhabiting his flight suit!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" he yelled. "Holy jeez man hooooooo!" he hollered, scrambling clean out of his room, barely avoiding the waiting Aeryn and Chiana. They barely contained their laughter.

"Where the hell did you get that!?"

"Rygel," Chi informed. "I ah, I gave him a little prank and to get out of it he... promised to provide something useful. So he decided a prank on you would be fun. So he produced that. Mummified. Don't ask me who that was, or where he got it. He probably thought it might be useful for scare tactics if we're invaded or something. Scary, huh?"

"Remind me to thank Rygel. In kind." John sharply returned into his room as the two burst into laughter over his expressions.

John emerged in new clothes to the sound of Rygel over the comm. "Crichton. Can you come to Zhaan's directly?"

"Hey Sparky. Just the man, frog, Muppet, whatever, I want to see."

But John's dastardly plans were put aside when he heard the strange chanting of Zhaan. Rygel was watching Zhaan through a wall opening, looking rather afraid.

The only light was a glow from Zhaan's quarters. John looked in to see the naked form of Zhaan standing before a lantern. Once he made it past the exotic spectacle of Zhaan herself, he noted the strange pulsing of the lantern, its odd light and a strange glowing mist hovering eerily over her outstretched hands.

"Man, who needs a witch," John breathed.

"Why, was the PeaceKeeper bitch that upset?" Rygel quietly asked. John chalked that one up to translator microbes and declined the impulse to give Rygel some more immediate threat. Both forgot the exchange altogether as a burst of light drew their eyes to the mist forming over Zhaan's hands. It suddenly formed shadows of them: Zhaan standing, and behind her, them watching her. Zhaan fluidly stepped over the lantern to stand facing them, lit from below and before, but neither John nor Rygel could stare at her body: her face was a wicked, eyeless mask of smiling menace.

"Come."

Both resolved to go.

"Come, I said," Zhaan seemed to materialize in a mist forming in the corridor before them. Both John and Rygel timorously moved backward, entered her room and approached the Zhaan before her eerily luminous lantern.

A stray, unbidden thought crossed John's mind: man, the movies never had a sorceress this weird and… hot. He shook the notion in a hurry with the slightest tilt forwards of her scary smile. Her eyes were blue and white, and centerless, he noticed to his horror. He knew well what red meant, but this?

"Breath deep, the gathering -"

"- 'gloom, watch lights fade in every room', yeah been there Zhaany, or whoever or whatever you are, just... play nice and give back Zhaan and we won't hurt you."

"Yes - begone foul spirit!" Rygel grandly proclaimed, from behind John.

She or it chuckled evilly, yet strangely whimsically. Suddenly they began to notice they were... floating in a cloud or something...

Zhaan entered the galley and lavishly inhaled the savory smells from the stewing mix on the boil. Chiana took a frankly appreciative overview of Zhaan au natural before approaching: "Have you seen Crichton? I commed him and just got some kind of weird noises."

"Ah, well, he isn't here my dear, at the moment. John will very soon recover with no ill effect whatever. As will Rygel. This smells delicious my dear. Kahlen bless your talents, you really should cook more often, my dear."

Chi shrugged in an affected attempt to be casually unaffected. "Just some things I picked up." She stepped up alongside Zhaan: "What did you do?"

"Some mental illusion, smoke illusions and Reflinith vapor I'm afraid."

"Refli - ...Zhaan! No way! But - you're okay?"

"It only affects animals. And don't worry, this variety is strictly fleeting and transient. I have them lying down. They will not be harmed. In minutes they will be 'good as new', as John says. And I had best make myself invisible," she added with a giggle.

"Yeah, and you have that luxury," Chi pointed out.

"You do that pretty well yourself," Zhaan teased Chi in turn.

"Yeah. I'll go watch for him, and let you know when he's coming."

"Thank you, my dear. Are you going to give him a 'trick'?"

Chi halted at the door, nervously: "Well, no, actually, I think he's probably had plenty." She walked on.

Zhaan smiled to herself sadly, and shook her head. "Poor child."

Chiana approached John as he walked down the corridor. John gave her a suspect gaze: "Chi, I'm not in the mood for a prank so whatever it is, just tell me and forget it." He stopped expectantly.

She smoothly walked to within a few feet: "Wasn't... I wasn't going to trick you." She smiled endearingly. "Not you."

Crichton's eyes were skeptical, but she was being honest enough, he sensed.

She softly placed her fingers in the palm of his hand. She avoided his eyes. "You get a treat." She nuzzled her face into his chest tenderly.

"Whoah-hohuh um," John stepped away backwards. "Pumpkin, that's um, that's..." he stepped farther, her hand reluctantly letting his hand slip away. "That's, hey I can't wait to try that pie you're making uh," he turned, then turned back again to point to her, "that's uh, t-thanks you're a treat all right," he winked. She smiled tightly back with small eyes and he walked away.

She faced a corridor arch and rested her face into it. She silently wept.

Crichton was plainly surprised to find Aeryn in the galley alone, taking a sample of a pie. "Here's one thing I never thought I'd see. You baking pies? You in the galley cooking at all? Aeryn, I am amazed," he chided. His impudence would have been intolerable to her, but for his cute and sexy approach to clasp his hands around her waist.

"I'm not. Chiana did. I'm taking a sample of this..."

"Pumpkin pie. Well, wannabe pumpkin pie."

She made all kinds of contorted unpleasant faces before deciding: "This is absolutely delicious. This is, mmm, I didn't think Humans had any taste."

"I didn't know Sebaceans had taste," he retorted, adding a splash of mock arrogance.

"She has no taste in food, but good taste in men," Chi chimed in, strolling in as they self-consciously separated. "Don't let me interrupt. Someone's gotta check the other pies. Uh, why don't you two go ahead and have that one," she placed the one huge pie she made special for D'Argo tenderly on the counter and glanced at them heeding her suggestion, walking the pie in Aeryn had in hand into the mess hall.

D'Argo strode into the galley to see Chiana's petite form moving to a tune she is softly chanting, so exactingly yet quirkily as she deftly decorated marjuls on a 'pie' thing of John's. He watched her for a few microts, then swallowed hard and spoke up: "Where is Crichton?"

She interrupted her slicing to hold up the knife, dexterously spin it and stop it in a point to the doorway to her left. "In there... having a treat nnnnno mistake," she informed in lusty, breathy tones. She picked up in regular tones: "Hey where's froggie? I got a pie for His Odorousness. Pumpkin pie topped with marjuls, perfectly inedible mmmbut I have a hunch the Royal Disposal will love it."

D'Argo eyed her back a few more moments, smiled and exhaled in fond amusement. "Well. I'm sure you'll find him if you follow your nose." D'Argo hummed a laugh and walked out.

Finished, Chi made to pick up the pie, but rubs her hands along her side and takes a tight deep breath in sensual heat, hearing the loving noises from the mess hall. After a moment more, she composed herself and headed out with the pie.

"Hey Ryge?"

"What do you want, Chiana? If this is a trick you bony ass -" his words were cut off by fingers clamping his lips.

"Clamp it Froglips, unless you want this pie in your kisser," she moved it before his face.

He lit up in ecstatic delight. "Ah! Marjuls!" Shrewd suspicion quickly took over: " ...on what?"

"Pumpkin Pie. It's an Earfth delicacy. For the better classes," she improvised. It helped.

"Hmmm. But if this is a trick -"

"Shut up, eat it and be grateful, Slimeball," she bent over and kissed his 'cheek'.

He munched on a marjul, watched her departing rear end and grinned, not unfondly.

Rounding the nearest intersecting corridor, Chiana smirked to herself.

The thack of pie filling masked the pop of the harmless explosion...

D'Argo stopped in his tracks at the entrance to his darkened room. Chiana stood before his bed, behind an enormous 'pie' set on a low table, lit on either side by torches from Zhaan's collection. The torchlight played beautifully over her face and smoldered in her black eyes. Her silvery slip was pulled low on her breast and both hands braced her in an aggressively sensual stance between the torch stands.

He approached timidly. Yes, timidly. She broke into a smile in spite of herself. He pulled up short: "Uhhhh - this isn't a 'trick' thing...?" he pointed a cautious finger.

"Naaw, 's more, ah, 'treat'. Only trick's gonna be satisfying your ah... appetites, big man. I think I got the right stuff here."

He swallowed a huge lump.

"Ah - hold still," John wiped the bit of pie from Aeryn's lip.

She promptly took another finger full bite of pie. "Mmm. Only thing I don't follow. Why would people go around doing dren like this to surprise people when everybody is expecting it?"

"Well, if it's good, it still works. Let me tell you..."

She smiled, teasingly: "I know that, but I was talking about your 'holloeen'."

He ran his fingers over his chin, a bit embarrassed: "Yeah well um, I don't know. Like I said, if it works it works."

"'If it aeint brake dun't fix it'" she quoted him. More or less.

"Yeah," he agreed, with flustered amusement.

Aeryn made an acknowledging nod and strode towards the galley: "I'm going to have that other 'pie'."

"Hey," John pursued and backed her into the doorway, blocking her way with both arms on either side of her. "How about dessert?"

She responded with a mildly annoyed 'what?' flinch: "'dessert'?"

"Remind me to explain that one sometime," John told her as he moved into a welcoming treat...

"All right... later."

~The End~