B5 Fic: Pillowtalk // War Crimes
Title: Pillowtalk
Fandom: B5
Summary: Londo & G'Kar have a post-coital conversation.
*
100fandoms #72 'fixed'
"Curious," Londo murmured drowsily.
"What is it, Mollari?" It was three in the morning, station-time. By all that is right and holy, talking should not be allowed to occur at this hour. Briefly, G'Kar wondered if it would be acceptable to silence Londo in some non-lethal way. Say, smothering him with his own pillows until he passed out.
Not that G'Kar would gain any pleasure from that, of course. But they had another Council meeting early on and, really, Londo had to be the only being on the face of the universe that wanted to talk. Not about anything important, mind you - talking about important, classified things during the post-coital glow was practically a requirement in dealing with the Centauri - but to simply talk. Although, to be fair, it was hard to tell what was important or trivial when it came to this particular Centauri. Thus far, he had gone on at some length about an ancestor of his who had kept a wonderful garden, and had been executed it for it by the then-emperor in a fit of jealousy. This didn't surprise G'Kar particularly, given what he knew of Centauri emperors, but he said nothing. This ancestor's remaining family had burned the garden in memory of their patriarch's passing (and, Londo speculated, to keep it out of the emperor's hands).
"An interesting story, I'm sure," G'Kar had said at the time.
Londo frowned at him in the darkness. "It occurs to me that I would perhaps have liked a garden, G'Kar."
G'Kar had tried to think this through but, no, whichever way you looked at it, it made no sense. "Why?"
Londo had been silent for a long while. Then, "it doesn't matter."
G'Kar had let the matter drop, but it had nagged at him. Come morning, he had asked about it to be met with a blank stare.
And so it went on: pointless anecdotes and speechifying and endless prattle, and G'Kar shook himself awake for it each and every accursed night, trying to sort through the verbal debris. "What is curious?" He asked, finally, weary.
Londo prodded the centre of G'Kar's chest. "It is curious that you do not have much feeling here."
G'Kar really wanted to get back to sleep. "Not all species are built as the Centauri, you know. This must have come as a great shock to your race, so focused are you on your own reflections..."
"Our reflections are fair enough to merit it," Londo said, unperturbed. He stroked again, his fingers splaying out slowly, fingerpads investigating the hard, defined muscles spanning G'Kar's chest.
In truth, G'Kar barely felt the touch, and so it came as a shock to suddenly jolt awake to the feeling of Londo's inquisitive fingers at his side. "What are you doing?" He hissed and wriggled free.
Londo's look was throughful as his touch returned to the centre of G'Kar's chest. "And yet you are sensitive at your sides. Most peculiar, don't you think? Most bipedal species have equal, if not greater, sensitivity in the central areas of the torso."
This was definitely a conversation that fell into the 'not important' category. Or, rather, it was important, but insofar as G'Kar being able to wriggle himself free of it. "Not all Narn are the same," he said finally, grasping for something more final and coming up empty. "Can this exploration of yours possibly wait for a more reasonable hour, Mollari?" Nothing. "Mollari?"
"Of course," Londo said quietly. He was silent for a moment then, seeming to pull himself together, humour entered his voice in a manner so artificial he may as well have yodelled. "I'll leave you to your beauty sleep, G'Kar - the Great Maker knows, you need it."
"Finally," G'Kar muttered, and closed his eyes.
He managed to last all of three minutes. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Londo mumured.
"Well, are you just going to let it drop?" Or spring it on me at some other point, when you judge me to be even more susceptible than I am now?
Londo opened his eyes and looked at him, surprised. He propped himself up on one elbow. "I will not speak of it again, G'Kar," he said, slowly and quietly.
G'Kar studied what he could see of his expression in the near-total darkness. "Why?"
Londo rolled his eyes. "Great Maker, you are dense. Because you want me to, you great lumpen idiot!" He flopped back down and pulled the covers up over his head. "I'm going to sleep, now, G'Kar. Waking me will incur my continuous ill-humour during breakfast."
Centauri!, G'Kar had been about to say, exasperated, but it was really only, Londo! Which was something else entirely, it appeared.
He rolled over and tugged some of the covers free of Londo's grasp. "Stop stealing all of the covers, they are not worlds for your kind to claim," he muttered.
"Thief," Londo mumbled back, but surrendered a bit of fabric.
"Hedonist."
"I'm not the one cuddling."
"No, you're the one sleeping in silks."
"And you're the one stealing them."
"Be quiet. I'm going to sleep, now."
"Great Maker, would you shut up??"
*
fin
***
Title: War Crimes
Fandom: B5
Summary: Londo does a bit of digging. Companion piece to Pillowtalk.
*
100fandoms #71 'broken'
What Londo knows a great many things about the Narn-Centauri war. Well, both wars, really. The second one he witnessed first-hand, and the first one he studied as a small child. His father had contracted a series of appropriate tutors for the House Mollari's heir apparent, and they had spent a great deal of time and energy instructing the young Londo in the rudiments of behaviour. The first things he learned related to the proper comportment of young Centauri, including the correct dress for a variety of occasions. Given his family's limited means at the time - his marriage to House Stera's youngest girl would not be finalised for several decades yet - this meant a great deal of emphasis on the how one is to wear the priceless antique pins and cravats and other bits of wardrobe accessories, rather than which of the many dressmakers to contract.
The tutors covered mathematics and physics, of course, and biology and enough chemistry for him to pass all the required exams for the military. They also covered history, albeit in a little too much detail for the Head of House's liking. Of course, there was little they could do when their young charge showed such a genuine interest and, moreover, why would they wish to? Educated by the Academy in all of the arts and condemned to spend their days teaching table manners, who could blame them for taking an interest in a child that genuinely wanted to know?
Londo didn't want to just learn about the Centauri successes that were on his syllabus, but about all of it. He wanted to know about the trade routes that had initially existed, before the Centauri invaded, and the peculiar lack of Narn telepaths anywhere. He wanted to know about the cannibalistic tendencies noted by various Centauri visitors to the place, and where the misapprehension that the Narn ate Centauri flesh had first come from. He wanted to know about the initial bombardment of Narn from above, and the final, inevitable realisation by Central Command that they could not subdue a world from above.
Finally, Londo wanted to know about the guards and the soldiers that were sent down to the planet surface. Having never left the Homeworld, when he closed his eyes he would imagine a place much like Centauri Prime, lush and green, and soldiers dressed in the only uniforms he had thus far seen. In his eyes, Centauri in the garb of the Royal Guards wandered a garden-planet, and the natives there -
the natives there -
The natives there were not happy.
We had to cleanse the planet, his tutor said somberly. And there is only one way to accomplish that, while keeping the planet habitable. Can you think of what it is?
Londo thought. Kill everyone? He hazarded.
The tutor smiled. But what will you do with the bodies? How will you stop them from polluting the rivers, and drowning the cities?
Londo's brow furrowed as he thought. Don't kill everyone, he decided at last. Kill only the children. And stop them from having more children.
The tutor nodded, pleased. Londo smiled, happy to have gained his teacher's approval. They went on - strategy, tactics, operations - and moved on to geography, soon enough. Which world was conquered next, what spices and silks were made Centauri (albeit from a distant corner of the empire), what the Royal Court thought on it - on and on and on, until any other child would have thrown up his hands and demanded time to himself.
I have always had responsibilities, Londo once said, and it was the truth. He studied as his tutors wanted, and he learned well. One footnote in history - barely noted in Centauri texts at all - had thrown up a scandal in the Royal Court, when the censure of the Minbari was threatened. Londo did not know much of the Minbari, save their reclusiveness. Why had they emerged from hiding? What had the ground-troops done to enrage them so?
Stop them from having children, he had suggested to his tutor, and the Centaurum had decided to do precisely that. It was a long-view approach to the situation, when the number of Narn would have to be gradually reduced to a manageable level. Better to deal with it through birth-control, the Centaurum, in its infinite wisdom, decided. It is less visible, and less bloody, and it will lead to less resistance. And so they had planned and executed just this premise, down to the very last letter - until the Minbari had intervened and threatened action until the policy was reversed.
Policy? What policy?
Try as he might, there was no record anywhere of what policy the Centaurum had voted in then overturned so hurriedly. There was no mention of it anywhere, other than the fact that, ten years later, the birthrate was still the same but the child mortality rate had risen by 1800% in a world that doted on its offspring.
And, still, in the archives, in the files, in the texbooks - nothing. Even at Academy, later (with his father's disapproval withering his spirit a little more each day) - at Academy! The one place on the Homeworld where nothing is ever expunged - there was nothing. Whatever had been done to the Narn to make them start killing their children, the Minbari threat had stopped... and silenced. Nothing in the Empire held such records when Londo had looked, then looked again, then again.
By the time it occurred to him that he was in a position to look once more - and to perhaps break through this silence, for the sake of an itch forty years past - he found himself too busy. Always, too busy. Is this not the case? Ambassador, Royal advisor, Prime Minister - is his time not eaten up enough already?
(And did the second Narn-Centauri war not produce enough atrocities for even the most ardent history student to study?)
And, in truth...
... in truth, he had all but forgotten it himself. There. Isn't that odd? Something that had fascinated him so much as a child, it passed so easily into nothing...
"Curious," he whispered in the dark. Beside him, G'Kar was mostly asleep, his breathing low and regular. Londo had been dozing too, turned to one side, a hand against G'Kar's chest.
At the sound of his voice, G'Kar stirred. "What is it, Mollari?" He asked wearily. "What is curious?"
Londo frowned a little. His hand had been against G'Kar's chest for some time, yet the Narn had not reacted. How odd. "It is curious that you do not have much feeling here." Twice as odd, perhaps, because the torso of a Narn male had just as many nerve endings as that of a Centauri one. He knew. He'd looked it up one evening, furtively reading a biology text while Vir prattled on from the other side of the room about the Gaim ambassador's latest request for a photo op.
G'Kar sighed loudly. "Not all species are built as the Centauri, you know. This must have come as a great shock to your race, so focused are you on your own reflections..."
"Our reflections are fair enough to merit it," Londo returned automatically. His fingers wandered, almost of their own volition, to G'kar's sides, where the hide was a little thicker.
"What are you doing?" G'Kar demanded, squirming.
"And yet you are sensitive at your sides. Most peculiar, don't you think? Most bipedal species have equal, if not greater, sensitivity in the central areas of the torso." Odd, Londo thought, odd. His hand returned to G'Kar's chest, feeling the small, tight ridge of a nipple. Odd, Londo thought, odd and smooth and not at all like a nipple should be. With the artificial half-light of the dim parlour lamp still slanting through the room, it was so smooth it caught the light, yet there was the raised ridge to it, wasn't there? Almost like -
His hand moved to the other side, palm flat. Smooth, smooth, almost slick, in fact, and a ridge, raised vertically, this time.
Abruptly, he was wide awake and cold all over.
G'Kar was silent for a long time. "Not all Narn are the same," he said finally. "Can this exploration of yours possibly wait for a more reasonable hour, Mollari?"
Let it drop, Londo heard, loud and clear. And, more, from textbooks and G'Kar and himself, things no species should ever do -
stop them from making more children //
i watched as my father died, and the pouchlings he carried starved to death, unable to nurse //
this is an abomination! the grey council will not stand idly by while - //
The birth rate, he thought, dizzy. The birth rate didn't fall, not by much, not so it was noticeable.
Oh, but the child mortality rate rose. It rose because the Centauri are efficient in the machinery of war, so efficient that the Minbari intervened.
And, beneath his hands, scar tissue where nipples should be, something so obscene that not even the Narns could bring themselves to articulate it.
Beside him, G'Kar turned slightly into his touch, sighing a little. "Mollari?"
"Of course," he said faintly.
*
Fandom: B5
Summary: Londo & G'Kar have a post-coital conversation.
*
100fandoms #72 'fixed'
"Curious," Londo murmured drowsily.
"What is it, Mollari?" It was three in the morning, station-time. By all that is right and holy, talking should not be allowed to occur at this hour. Briefly, G'Kar wondered if it would be acceptable to silence Londo in some non-lethal way. Say, smothering him with his own pillows until he passed out.
Not that G'Kar would gain any pleasure from that, of course. But they had another Council meeting early on and, really, Londo had to be the only being on the face of the universe that wanted to talk. Not about anything important, mind you - talking about important, classified things during the post-coital glow was practically a requirement in dealing with the Centauri - but to simply talk. Although, to be fair, it was hard to tell what was important or trivial when it came to this particular Centauri. Thus far, he had gone on at some length about an ancestor of his who had kept a wonderful garden, and had been executed it for it by the then-emperor in a fit of jealousy. This didn't surprise G'Kar particularly, given what he knew of Centauri emperors, but he said nothing. This ancestor's remaining family had burned the garden in memory of their patriarch's passing (and, Londo speculated, to keep it out of the emperor's hands).
"An interesting story, I'm sure," G'Kar had said at the time.
Londo frowned at him in the darkness. "It occurs to me that I would perhaps have liked a garden, G'Kar."
G'Kar had tried to think this through but, no, whichever way you looked at it, it made no sense. "Why?"
Londo had been silent for a long while. Then, "it doesn't matter."
G'Kar had let the matter drop, but it had nagged at him. Come morning, he had asked about it to be met with a blank stare.
And so it went on: pointless anecdotes and speechifying and endless prattle, and G'Kar shook himself awake for it each and every accursed night, trying to sort through the verbal debris. "What is curious?" He asked, finally, weary.
Londo prodded the centre of G'Kar's chest. "It is curious that you do not have much feeling here."
G'Kar really wanted to get back to sleep. "Not all species are built as the Centauri, you know. This must have come as a great shock to your race, so focused are you on your own reflections..."
"Our reflections are fair enough to merit it," Londo said, unperturbed. He stroked again, his fingers splaying out slowly, fingerpads investigating the hard, defined muscles spanning G'Kar's chest.
In truth, G'Kar barely felt the touch, and so it came as a shock to suddenly jolt awake to the feeling of Londo's inquisitive fingers at his side. "What are you doing?" He hissed and wriggled free.
Londo's look was throughful as his touch returned to the centre of G'Kar's chest. "And yet you are sensitive at your sides. Most peculiar, don't you think? Most bipedal species have equal, if not greater, sensitivity in the central areas of the torso."
This was definitely a conversation that fell into the 'not important' category. Or, rather, it was important, but insofar as G'Kar being able to wriggle himself free of it. "Not all Narn are the same," he said finally, grasping for something more final and coming up empty. "Can this exploration of yours possibly wait for a more reasonable hour, Mollari?" Nothing. "Mollari?"
"Of course," Londo said quietly. He was silent for a moment then, seeming to pull himself together, humour entered his voice in a manner so artificial he may as well have yodelled. "I'll leave you to your beauty sleep, G'Kar - the Great Maker knows, you need it."
"Finally," G'Kar muttered, and closed his eyes.
He managed to last all of three minutes. "Well?"
"Well, what?" Londo mumured.
"Well, are you just going to let it drop?" Or spring it on me at some other point, when you judge me to be even more susceptible than I am now?
Londo opened his eyes and looked at him, surprised. He propped himself up on one elbow. "I will not speak of it again, G'Kar," he said, slowly and quietly.
G'Kar studied what he could see of his expression in the near-total darkness. "Why?"
Londo rolled his eyes. "Great Maker, you are dense. Because you want me to, you great lumpen idiot!" He flopped back down and pulled the covers up over his head. "I'm going to sleep, now, G'Kar. Waking me will incur my continuous ill-humour during breakfast."
Centauri!, G'Kar had been about to say, exasperated, but it was really only, Londo! Which was something else entirely, it appeared.
He rolled over and tugged some of the covers free of Londo's grasp. "Stop stealing all of the covers, they are not worlds for your kind to claim," he muttered.
"Thief," Londo mumbled back, but surrendered a bit of fabric.
"Hedonist."
"I'm not the one cuddling."
"No, you're the one sleeping in silks."
"And you're the one stealing them."
"Be quiet. I'm going to sleep, now."
"Great Maker, would you shut up??"
*
fin
***
Title: War Crimes
Fandom: B5
Summary: Londo does a bit of digging. Companion piece to Pillowtalk.
*
100fandoms #71 'broken'
What Londo knows a great many things about the Narn-Centauri war. Well, both wars, really. The second one he witnessed first-hand, and the first one he studied as a small child. His father had contracted a series of appropriate tutors for the House Mollari's heir apparent, and they had spent a great deal of time and energy instructing the young Londo in the rudiments of behaviour. The first things he learned related to the proper comportment of young Centauri, including the correct dress for a variety of occasions. Given his family's limited means at the time - his marriage to House Stera's youngest girl would not be finalised for several decades yet - this meant a great deal of emphasis on the how one is to wear the priceless antique pins and cravats and other bits of wardrobe accessories, rather than which of the many dressmakers to contract.
The tutors covered mathematics and physics, of course, and biology and enough chemistry for him to pass all the required exams for the military. They also covered history, albeit in a little too much detail for the Head of House's liking. Of course, there was little they could do when their young charge showed such a genuine interest and, moreover, why would they wish to? Educated by the Academy in all of the arts and condemned to spend their days teaching table manners, who could blame them for taking an interest in a child that genuinely wanted to know?
Londo didn't want to just learn about the Centauri successes that were on his syllabus, but about all of it. He wanted to know about the trade routes that had initially existed, before the Centauri invaded, and the peculiar lack of Narn telepaths anywhere. He wanted to know about the cannibalistic tendencies noted by various Centauri visitors to the place, and where the misapprehension that the Narn ate Centauri flesh had first come from. He wanted to know about the initial bombardment of Narn from above, and the final, inevitable realisation by Central Command that they could not subdue a world from above.
Finally, Londo wanted to know about the guards and the soldiers that were sent down to the planet surface. Having never left the Homeworld, when he closed his eyes he would imagine a place much like Centauri Prime, lush and green, and soldiers dressed in the only uniforms he had thus far seen. In his eyes, Centauri in the garb of the Royal Guards wandered a garden-planet, and the natives there -
the natives there -
The natives there were not happy.
We had to cleanse the planet, his tutor said somberly. And there is only one way to accomplish that, while keeping the planet habitable. Can you think of what it is?
Londo thought. Kill everyone? He hazarded.
The tutor smiled. But what will you do with the bodies? How will you stop them from polluting the rivers, and drowning the cities?
Londo's brow furrowed as he thought. Don't kill everyone, he decided at last. Kill only the children. And stop them from having more children.
The tutor nodded, pleased. Londo smiled, happy to have gained his teacher's approval. They went on - strategy, tactics, operations - and moved on to geography, soon enough. Which world was conquered next, what spices and silks were made Centauri (albeit from a distant corner of the empire), what the Royal Court thought on it - on and on and on, until any other child would have thrown up his hands and demanded time to himself.
I have always had responsibilities, Londo once said, and it was the truth. He studied as his tutors wanted, and he learned well. One footnote in history - barely noted in Centauri texts at all - had thrown up a scandal in the Royal Court, when the censure of the Minbari was threatened. Londo did not know much of the Minbari, save their reclusiveness. Why had they emerged from hiding? What had the ground-troops done to enrage them so?
Stop them from having children, he had suggested to his tutor, and the Centaurum had decided to do precisely that. It was a long-view approach to the situation, when the number of Narn would have to be gradually reduced to a manageable level. Better to deal with it through birth-control, the Centaurum, in its infinite wisdom, decided. It is less visible, and less bloody, and it will lead to less resistance. And so they had planned and executed just this premise, down to the very last letter - until the Minbari had intervened and threatened action until the policy was reversed.
Policy? What policy?
Try as he might, there was no record anywhere of what policy the Centaurum had voted in then overturned so hurriedly. There was no mention of it anywhere, other than the fact that, ten years later, the birthrate was still the same but the child mortality rate had risen by 1800% in a world that doted on its offspring.
And, still, in the archives, in the files, in the texbooks - nothing. Even at Academy, later (with his father's disapproval withering his spirit a little more each day) - at Academy! The one place on the Homeworld where nothing is ever expunged - there was nothing. Whatever had been done to the Narn to make them start killing their children, the Minbari threat had stopped... and silenced. Nothing in the Empire held such records when Londo had looked, then looked again, then again.
By the time it occurred to him that he was in a position to look once more - and to perhaps break through this silence, for the sake of an itch forty years past - he found himself too busy. Always, too busy. Is this not the case? Ambassador, Royal advisor, Prime Minister - is his time not eaten up enough already?
(And did the second Narn-Centauri war not produce enough atrocities for even the most ardent history student to study?)
And, in truth...
... in truth, he had all but forgotten it himself. There. Isn't that odd? Something that had fascinated him so much as a child, it passed so easily into nothing...
"Curious," he whispered in the dark. Beside him, G'Kar was mostly asleep, his breathing low and regular. Londo had been dozing too, turned to one side, a hand against G'Kar's chest.
At the sound of his voice, G'Kar stirred. "What is it, Mollari?" He asked wearily. "What is curious?"
Londo frowned a little. His hand had been against G'Kar's chest for some time, yet the Narn had not reacted. How odd. "It is curious that you do not have much feeling here." Twice as odd, perhaps, because the torso of a Narn male had just as many nerve endings as that of a Centauri one. He knew. He'd looked it up one evening, furtively reading a biology text while Vir prattled on from the other side of the room about the Gaim ambassador's latest request for a photo op.
G'Kar sighed loudly. "Not all species are built as the Centauri, you know. This must have come as a great shock to your race, so focused are you on your own reflections..."
"Our reflections are fair enough to merit it," Londo returned automatically. His fingers wandered, almost of their own volition, to G'kar's sides, where the hide was a little thicker.
"What are you doing?" G'Kar demanded, squirming.
"And yet you are sensitive at your sides. Most peculiar, don't you think? Most bipedal species have equal, if not greater, sensitivity in the central areas of the torso." Odd, Londo thought, odd. His hand returned to G'Kar's chest, feeling the small, tight ridge of a nipple. Odd, Londo thought, odd and smooth and not at all like a nipple should be. With the artificial half-light of the dim parlour lamp still slanting through the room, it was so smooth it caught the light, yet there was the raised ridge to it, wasn't there? Almost like -
His hand moved to the other side, palm flat. Smooth, smooth, almost slick, in fact, and a ridge, raised vertically, this time.
Abruptly, he was wide awake and cold all over.
G'Kar was silent for a long time. "Not all Narn are the same," he said finally. "Can this exploration of yours possibly wait for a more reasonable hour, Mollari?"
Let it drop, Londo heard, loud and clear. And, more, from textbooks and G'Kar and himself, things no species should ever do -
stop them from making more children //
i watched as my father died, and the pouchlings he carried starved to death, unable to nurse //
this is an abomination! the grey council will not stand idly by while - //
The birth rate, he thought, dizzy. The birth rate didn't fall, not by much, not so it was noticeable.
Oh, but the child mortality rate rose. It rose because the Centauri are efficient in the machinery of war, so efficient that the Minbari intervened.
And, beneath his hands, scar tissue where nipples should be, something so obscene that not even the Narns could bring themselves to articulate it.
Beside him, G'Kar turned slightly into his touch, sighing a little. "Mollari?"
"Of course," he said faintly.
*