Subtext Warning: Yep, there be subtext here, so if you are under 18, or subtextual displays of intimacy between two consenting adult women are illegal in the state/country in which you live, or if you are offended by tit, ah, I mean IT, read no further.

Author's Notes: Here we go again folks, by popular demand, I present to you, the following. I may just have been a one off thing though...What the hell am I on? I guess I'm having a bit of a pick at the cliche thing here too...

Acknowledgements: Once again to Justin and Richard, after all, they were the people who started this. Also to Kamouraskan for kind of prompting the title of this one .

Feedback: If you think I have been misinspired, or have a couple of roos loose, or simply wish to inspire me further, I'm at archaeobard@hotmail.com

Xena stood woodenly outside the tavern, leaning up against the cold stone wall, hoping against hope that some from the chill would seep into her body and relieve the rampaging lust coursing through her veins. I wasn't working. Always a woman of action, Xena was having a hard time controlling what she wanted to do most at that moment. Well, she wanted to do a couple of things actually, but they couldn't be done in public.

Gabrielle must have been insane, completely bonkers, to have spoken as she had. Had she no idea what her words could do? The warrior knew the woman was a talented bard, probably the best, but that display was beyond her normal scope. Maybe the bard was thinking of branching out? Xena groaned at the thought and closed her eyes at the mental images Gabrielle had conjured up. Once was enough, the warrior decided, although she desperately wanted more.

"Hey! There you are!" a slightly annoyed voice crept into Xena's mind as she felt a stab of adrenalin strike her in the heart.

"Just getting some, ah, fresh air." The warrior tried a lopsided grin that came out all wrong.

"Xena," Gabrielle placed her hand on her hip, "you're right next to the stables," she gestured with her free arm, "there's nothing fresh about it." the bard continued in the same tone of voice.

"Helps clear the sinuses Gabrielle." Xena said, sucking in a huge lung-full of the manure tainted night air, suddenly feeling rather dizzy.

"Well, come on back inside, we still have to set the scene." Gabrielle said turning to go, but the warrior pulled her back with a rough hand.

"The scene?" she growled, frowning down at the bard.

"Yeah, you know, where this whole thing takes place."

"Where it takes place?" the warrior queried, a small glint of fear flickering in the back of her mind.

"Yes, where, it just can't be meaningless, it has to have a setting, a mood, a...a stage!" Gabrielle gestured broadly.

"Yeah, some performance." the warrior mumbled as she threw out her hand in resignation, indicating that she would follow the bard back inside the tavern. The why was beyond her.

"So," Gabrielle stated as she settled into her chair for the second time that evening, "the scene..." she trailed off with a wicked grin.

Xena immediately grabbed her port and downed a healthy swig, or maybe not so healthy.

"I've got these two lovers going at it, right?"

"Going at it?" Xena asked, hoping to put off the inevitable.

Gabrielle gave the warrior a blank look as if to say, 'What? Don't tell me you've never heard that term before?'

The warrior shrugged and downed some more port.

"Alright, making love, doing the nasty, the beast with two backs, you've gotta know what I mean."

"Oh yeah." Xena licked some of the sweet port from her lips as if it was blood.

"But where are they doing it? That's the important thing." Gabrielle jabbed an index finger into the top of the table to emphasis her point.

"I have no idea."

"Of course you do, use you imagination, inside or outside?" Gabrielle asked.

The warrior frowned a moment, wondering how she should take that question. Deciding Gabrielle's mind was not attached to pot of pig swill, she queried, "Uh, outside?" not really knowing what she was getting herself into.

"Ooo, good choice!" Gabrielle beamed, "Now that opens up all sorts of opportunities."

"It does?"

"Most definitely." Gabrielle leaned her arms out over the table, "Are our two lover's entangled on a river bank, squirming nakedly beneath the waters of a lake, sliding together under a waterfall, or bathing sweatily in a natural hot spring, with steam and fragrant oils?" The bard downed the remainder of her port at this moment.

Xena squinted over the bard's shoulder in an attempt to delay the images that were trying to flood her mind.

"Ah, maybe I should have said inside." Xena tried to backtrack without much success.

"Now that is an even better choice." Gabrielle grinned and motioned to the bar for more port.

Xena's shoulder's slumped slightly, her normal erect posture, sagging beneath the weight of self torture.

"Go on." She gestured vaguely with a hand.

"Here you can include all sorts of things, additional characters, tavern brawls, things like that. You with me?" the bard asked.

"Yeah." Xena snapped her eyes back to Gabrielle and wished she hadn't. The look a rapture on the young woman's face was enough to make Xena, well, have to bolt outside again. Yet, the warrior held her ground.

"Good, but you don't really want that, because if it's erotica, those things are going to detract from the main point of the exercise, which is?" the bard asked looking with raised eyebrows towards the warrior.

"Ah, doing the nasty?" Xena asked feeling as if she was being tested, and oh yes, she was being tested.

"Perfect! We'll make a writer out of you yet Warrior Princess."

Xena grimaced slightly at the implication.

"So, the scene for the copulation?" the bard asked hopefully.

"Don't look at me."

The bard frowned for a moment and rephrased her question.

"Okay then, let's start with the foreplay, where's that going to start?"

A wicked grin crossed the warrior's lips in an instant and was gone. She leaned forward in her chair and narrowed her eyes.

"How about a tavern?"

Gabrielle stuck her lower lips out slightly and nodded slowly.

"Okaaay, not a bad choice, but you can't just have the two them sitting there talking."

"Why in Tartarus not?"

"It's boring, same deal as the descriptionless nipples." Gabrielle said as a new round of port was brought over to the table. The bard took the mugs and set one beside herself and Xena. She smiled her thanks to the tavern girl who blushed a delightful shade of pink and disappeared faster than a Maenad at a Dionysian festival.

"But Gabrielle, surely that depends on what they were talking about?" Xena asked with a sly smile.

"No, not really, it depends rather on what they do." Gabrielle said matter of factly.

Xena raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath before launching herself off the nearest verbal cliff.

"What exactly would they be doing?" she asked in a husky voice.

"Well," Gabrielle began slowly, taking a mouthful of port, "take you and me as an example right?"

"Uh-huh..."

"We're sitting here, having a quiet drink, but I'm not trying to seduce you or anything."

"No." Xena mentally rolled her eyes and slapped her forehead.

"But if I were." The bard paused a moment, "I wouldn't be sitting all the way over the other side of the table for a start."

"You wouldn't?"

"No, I'd sidle my chair just a little closer, so I could look at you more effectively and draw you in, like this." the bard said, shifting her chair to more of an angle so she could lean a little closer to the warrior.

Xena clenched her teeth defensively against her better judgement and went with the flow, so to speak.

"So you'd get...closer." she mumbled softly.

"Oh yes, close proximity of the seducer to the seducee is essential." the bard agreed enthusiastically, locking eyes with the warrior.

"And why exactly is that?"

Gabrielle looked at Xena as if she was the densest person who had ever lived.

"Several reasons," she began, she took a sip of port and began, "One, so I could let the closeness tease you, you know, you'd be able to feel my body heat, but not me, like this." The bard shifted her

chair around again, so the warrior and the bard were sitting pretty much side by side.

"See what I mean?" the bard continued as her body warmth proceed to permeate the surrounding air around Xena's side.

Xena swallowed once and cleared her throat.

"Yeah." It still came out like a croak.

"And not only that, but you also have my-"

"Smell." Xena broke in absently.

"Well, I was going to use the term scent myself, but you've pretty much got the idea." she said happily.

"At least someone has." the warrior mumbled quietly.

"Sorry, didn't quite get that?" The bard frowned and cocked her head to one side slightly.

Xena took in a deep, shuddering breath, and shook her head. It was all she could do to stay still.

Gabrielle shrugged slightly and continued, "Then I suppose I'd have to initiate some form of bodily contact."

Xena's eyes widened slightly.

"Like, I dunno, casually rubbing my leg against yours or something similar, like this."

Xena jumped slightly when the warm flesh of the bard's thigh seemed to caress her own.

"That would be bodily contact, yes." she managed to grate out.

Gabrielle frowned slightly up at the warrior.

"You okay, you've got that look again."

"Really." The comment was dry, but that was all.

"Yeah, uh, where was I?" the bard asked, momentarily distracted.

"Oh, bodily contact."

"Right," this time it was the bard's turn to clear her throat, "then I suppose I might put my arm around you and draw you close to me." However Gabrielle made no move to initiate the next step.

Xena smiled out of the side of her mouth, "You mean like this?" she asked, wrapping a strong arms around the bard's shoulder.

"Um, well, not quite, I was kind of thinking...lower." The bard's frown deepened slightly.

"So, like this then?" Xena continued, enclosing the bard's waist in her grip, hand curled around so her palm was flat against the woman's stomach. She felt Gabrielle's stomach muscles twitch slightly for a moment.

"Yeah." Gabrielle breathed.

Xena's smile widened, this may not have been such a bad idea after all. "And then what would you do?"

"Well, I suppose I might kiss you if I liked you enough." the bard responded in a slightly shaky voice.

"If." The warrior intoned, in her most alluring manner.

"Yeah, if."

"What makes an 'if' a 'yes'?" Xena asked.

"Well, the way you make, ah, made me feel I suppose." The bard shuddered briefly as Xena let her fingers roam softly over her midriff.

"And how's that...you suppose?" There was no getting out of this one for the bard.

"Well," deep breath, "uh, aroused." The bard licked her lips and looked up to the warrior, a slight hint of confusion reflected in her eyes.

"And if you were aroused, you would kiss me? Is that what you are trying to say?"

The bard blinked once, then twice, mentally assessed her physical state and boldly reached up to grab the warrior behind her neck, before dragging her down for a scorching kiss that left both of them breathless.

When they finally broke apart, Gabrielle smiled feebly for a moment before drawing in a long breath.

She frowned slightly at how they had come to this before speaking.

"Ah Xena?" she asked, shifting weakly in the woman's embrace.

"Yes Gabrielle."

"Didn't you say something about giving me a...a...hand earlier?"

Well, that's that then. Should I continue? Or should I leave it hanging?

Cheers,

until next time,

Archaeobard.