The Last Time I Died, Pt. 2
Title: The Last Time I Died
Author: Aeneas
Pairing/Character: Riddick/Buffy
Word Count: About 17,900
Rating: R
Summary: After the defeat of the First Evil, the universe has plans for Buffy.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through Chosen and Chronicles of Riddick.
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox, I just play there. All things belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy and David Twohy/Universal, respectively.
A/N: Challenge prompt was - “There is no death, only a change of worlds.” American Indian Proverb, Duwamish. Note to the requester, I tried Angel meeting Riddick first and got completely stuck at about 10,000 words. This was intended to be a much shorter alternate fic when it became apparent that I was going to miss the deadline. Famous last words.
Night in the Underverse lasted for nine days, if one bothered to count by Helion Standard days. Once the countdown to dusk began, Riddick found that his skin would crawl and his sleep was increasingly invaded by the echoing shrieks of the creatures from T2. Suspicion gnawed at his unconscious until he began to doubt the dying orange sun would ever rise again. Restless and haunted, he preferred not to hunker down inside the Basilica and wait for daylight, and instead, he ventured out into the black to hunt.
That he had proven to be useful in the Underverse was a crime Vaako would never forgive. He had no doubt that Vaako had meant to kill him upon crossing the Threshold, and probably still intended to, but night vision was invaluable in a world with long periods of darkness. Approaching armies and treacherous landscape were only two parts of the equation. He had directed the Commanders through maze-like canyons and provided information about the movements of the enemy armies. It was ironic that the Necromonger equivalent of heaven consisted of endless battles in which they ceaselessly sought to destroy each other.
Another advantage of his scouting missions, and the true reason behind them, was the chance that somewhere in the burnt out terrain, he might find Kyra. It was slim at best but kept his mind focused on a goal.
“Ow!”
He paused to glance back at the petite blonde who had insisted on following him. It took a concerted effort not to order her back to the ship. She’d probably just ignore him anyway. Of all of the infuriating people he’d encountered, she tried his patience more than all of them combined.
“Are you sure this is the right way? I can’t see anything and even I can tell this way sucks.”
Waiting for her to get close enough that he could keep his voice low, he tugged none too gently on the tether stretched out between them to get her moving in the right direction.
“You’re asking for it,” she muttered. Her fingers slid down the tether until connecting with his hand and then she pulled away. “Are the moons going to come back up any time soon? This is ridiculous.”
“Could’ve stayed on the ship.”
“And watch Dame Vaako prance around? I’d love to put her and Cordelia in the same room and see who won BitchFest oh-three,” she huffed as she sat down on a rock large enough to serve as a seat.
The sliver of admiration in the midst of his annoyance was what kept him from wringing her neck. When he’d told her that the Earth was long gone, she’d cried silently for several hours before falling asleep curled up on his bed. Once she woke, she had demanded that she be given something to do and she’d been game for anything he’d thrown at her, even if it meant trekking across a foreign land in the pitch black. She talked enough to fray all of his nerves but she never lagged behind.
He forced his mind back to the idle conversation, scanning the horizon as he spoke. “Who’s Cordelia?” He’d tried ignoring her at first but that only made her more determined to annoy him.
“A girl I went to school with. She didn’t really understand the whole concept of tact or subtlety. Xander dated her but that kinda fell apart after she caught him with Willow. You remember who Xander is, right?”
It took several deep breaths to loosen his grip on the rock he had picked up with the intention of throwing at her. “No.”
“Carpenter? Saved the world when Willow went all veiny?”
Right. Something about a witch and the end of the world. He was convinced the woman was completely insane. If it weren’t for the fact that keeping her around made the vein in Vaako’s neck stand out, he wouldn’t bother. The other redeeming feature was that she seemed to have inherent skill with weapons. Turning Vaako’s own spear against him, the knife throw that had very nearly found its mark. Whether or not she actually understood what she had done, it was impressive. Now if she would just stop talking.
“Are we going to sit here all night?”
Stone ground together as the rock in his hand fractured and split, the unlucky victim of his displaced annoyance. He eased out of his crouch and started toward the hills he could see in the distance. The ground was still relatively flat and easily navigated in darkness. For most of the night, he’d been tracking a band of Necros with a particularly devious Commander.
The hills rose with a gentle incline, sweeping up to a curved bluff that acted as a pivot point for the howling winds. He slowed his pace, more cautious now that he had to choose his steps more carefully to avoid making unnecessary noise. Not realizing he had slowed, Buffy collided with his back.
“One of these days I’m going to put a bell around your neck, Riddick,” she whispered sourly.
“Pay attention.”
“You’re the one who can see. I’m trusting you not to walk me off a cliff.”
“Don’t tempt me.” He ignored her scowl, clearly visible with his shine job, and tugged on the tether to bring her around to his side. She wasn’t afraid of him, which was intriguing.
Over the edge of the bluff was a sloping canyon that narrowed to a slot on their left but swung wide on the right, following one of the many small creeks as it gurgled across the plain. Less than a half mile away, where the creek merged into a larger river, he could see the dancing light of a campfire. The raiding party had been pushing hard to cover ground, making it difficult to track them. Lucky for Riddick, they couldn’t continue to the left so their path would have to deviate down across the plain or follow the meandering path of the river.
That he’d managed to stay on the fringes of the war was due solely to the battle of wills that he fought with Vaako every waking moment. If the Commanders had their way, they’d land dead and center in one of the enormous battlefields to the south of their camp. Riddick had only ventured there a limited number of times, preferring to stick to the open spaces where he didn’t have to travel through endless fields of bodies. He wasn’t looking for a weakness that he could hand to Vaako to exploit in battle; he just wanted one glimpse of the face that kept haunting his dreams.
“Is that them?” Buffy asked quietly.
“Yes.” At this distance, he couldn’t see much more detail than she could. Movement, figures with two distinct legs, and the gleam of metal weapons in firelight. “We need to get closer.”
“I hate it when you say that.”
“Here.” Gathering up the slack in the tether, he pressed it into her hands and took hold of her wrists. “I’ll lower you down.” She shifted around in front of him, her concentration focused on the ravine wall as he eased her over the edge. Once she had her feet planted against solidly against the rock, he used the tether to lower her the rest of the distance. It was close and the rope was taut when she reached the bottom.
Climbing down after her was trickier, searching out hand and footholds in the darkness. There were times when he had to feel his way down rather than using his eyes. He felt her hand brush against his calf to let him know he was close to the bottom and pushed off to jump the rest of the way. Boots crunched against gravel and shale; the gurgling of the creek was louder and water splashed when he took a step forward. He was surprised that she wasn’t complaining about the water; the natural rivers in the Underverse were always cold as ice and she complained about everything else.
They followed the trickle of water through the narrow gorge until it opened up into meadows of dense grass. The constantly howling wind provided more than enough sound to mask their footsteps but he still kept low to the ground in case the Necros had scouts of their own.
He tugged the tether to get her attention. For once, she didn’t start yammering about him trying to boss her around and held still while he untied the harness around her waist. When he was close to her, his knuckles brushing against the soft fabric of her tunic, he remembered how small she was. Slender and delicate like a bird with golden feathers and a very annoying squawk.
“How am I supp--”
“Try to keep up,” he interrupted before she could get any momentum.
“I can’t see in the dark! You are the most infuriating, overbearing…man.” The stream of insults turned into muffled cursing and splashing water.
With growing frustration, he turned around and pulled her out of the small creek. “Can’t have you tied to me once we get close, you’ll just get in the way.”
“I’ll get in the way? I’ll have you know--”
“Do you ever shut up?” he hissed.
“Believe me, the only reason I’m sticking around is to annoy you. God, is it always about you?”
Several deep breaths were all that kept him from breaking that slender neck and the rest of her just for good measure. He kept moving, this time trying to put as much distance between them as possible in case she stumbled over anything else and alerted the raiding party to their presence. The flickering of the bonfire cast flickering and increasingly golden light over the harsh ground. There were only a handful of men, lightly armored to enable faster speeds on foot.
He circled around the edge of the shadows, shiv in hand and scanning for anyone who wasn’t paying attention to the surroundings. Once it started, it would become chaos in a matter of seconds. The more blood he could spill before they realized there was a fox in the henhouse, the less likely it was that the blonde irritant would end up with a knife in her throat. Muscles coiled and ready, he crouched down in one of the darker patches of shadow and steadied his breathing in preparation.
“So what’s for dinner?” Buffy stepped into the light with a bright, vapid smile. “I really hope it’s not rat. I am so sick of rat, aren’t you? And really, the rats on this planet are totally greasy and gross. I would kill for a Big Mac. If you guys actually had Big Macs, that is. You haven’t been holding out on me, have you?”
Riddick was more than tempted to stay where he was and let the Necros tear her to ribbons if it would shut her up or knock some sense into her head. She ducked the first warrior’s attack with ease, stepping to the side and shoving the end of his own spear into the side of his head. Without making a sound, he caught the nearest Necro by surprise and slit his throat before he could alert the others. At the edge of his vision, he saw Buffy take a blow to the face and stumble back. He twisted away from his opponent, crunching bone and armor as he yanked the Necro’s arm against the joint.
“Do you know how hard it is to find comfortable clothes in this hell?” Buffy shouted furiously at her attacker, stripping the torn fabric away from her skin and tossing it away. Her foot connected squarely with the center of the man’s chest and he flew backwards, crashing into the bonfire.
The rest were quick work, unprepared for the attack, and littered the ground as cooling, human shaped boulders. He dragged the smoldering corpse out of the bonfire before it smothered the remaining flames and prodded the logs until they were burning brightly once again. Buffy was eying her handiwork with satisfaction, nudging a few of the bodies as if looking for another chance to fight them. Just exactly she’d managed to toss a fully-grown man as if he was a mere rag doll was one more question he needed answered.
“He tore my sweater.” She sat down beside him, frowning and shaking her head at the ripped cloth. Her bare arms and shoulders were pale gold in the firelight, small fingers working at the tear.
“More of those back at the ship,” he answered noncommittally.
“But this one was already broken in. The stains were familiar, I’d even named them.” She smiled, wide-eyed, up at him. “Kidding.”
He turned a long blade of the black grass between his fingers, watching it burn and smolder in the flames. “What are you?”
“I’m annoyed that guy ruined my sweater. Are we going to be killing any more of those? Cause that was hardly enough to justify ruining a perfectly good piece of clothing. Where I come from there are these things called malls, and they have racks and racks of real clothes. Nothing like this--”
“What are you?” he cut her off with a growl.
“Oh. You mean that. It’s a long story.” Her laugh was far too light and strained.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“It’s nothing, really. One girl in every generation chosen to slay vampires and demons, yada, yada, big evil, yada, yada. Very boring. There are musty, old books involved and stuffy British guys who wear tweed. You wouldn’t be interested.”
The blade of grass turned to a wisp of ash slipping through his fingers and fluttering away in the current of the heat coming off the fire. Vampires, demons. He’d heard strange and wild stories from one prison to the next, most finding their source in idle cell chatter to pass the time. Everything else that came out of her mouth was alien; he wasn’t sure why he’d expected this to made sense. For the moment, it was just as likely as any of the other outlandish possibilities so he left it at that.
When he didn’t answer, she dropped the sweater into her lap and stared at him. “What about you? You’re no slouch in the hand-to-hand events yourself. A little rough on the technique but we can work on that. What’s your story?”
“Escaped convict, murderer,” he said with a smirk.
His past had never come up before. In all her words and stories of where she’d come from, this was the first that she had questioned his history. Now that she had, he was surprised to realize that her disinterest in his past had been a relief. No questions to answer or judgments passed that he didn’t care about but noticed nonetheless. Convicts were subhuman, barely on the same level as pack animals and lab rats. There were people in the universe who cared about what happened to the rats, but no one cared about the convicts.
“That’s…exciting,” Buffy said with forced cheerfulness. “So you got out of jail and got upgraded to Lord Marshal?”
“Cut my way out of Butcher Bay a long time ago. Kept the mercs off my neck, staying on a goddamn ice planet, until these guys showed up.” There was no reason to mention planets with screeching monsters or the little girls who came with them; sitting around the campfire dredging up old memories wasn’t how he wanted to spend his night.
Buffy continued to ask questions, holding her hands out to the fire to warm them. “But you’ve got family somewhere, right? Everyone’s got family.”
“Necros killed them all.” Another vague answer that only contained part of the truth. He bristled at the vague feeling crawling under his skin that squirmed suspiciously like guilt; the hope that he’d find Kyra, and the only family he knew, in this hell was beginning to fade. There was no reason to tell her anything at all about his past or his life, even less reason to talk about a heritage he didn’t understand and a fate he hadn’t asked for. None of this had been his idea and he didn’t want to be the savior of any universe; and he really didn’t want to talk about his feelings.
She seemed to understand for once and ceased bombarding him with senseless questions. The crackling of the fire laid over the howling wind filled the silence comfortingly without being dominating, allowing him to keep thinking about his next move. One raiding party down, the choices were either keep searching or return to the Basilica. Too long away and Vaako would slip his leash, but staying with the Necromongers would never find the haystack needle he was looking for.
“Think this is any good?” She held up one of the skewers, wrinkling her nose at the roasted animal flesh left uneaten due to the sudden death of its owner.
“Probably not.” The creatures living on the wickedly sharp grass were barely worth eating, tough and grainy in texture. Beneath the surface were larger, burrowing rodents with sightless eyes that made a decent enough meal for a group of men. That this raiding party had been reduced to eating the lesser prey meant they were either in a hurry or incompetent.
Her delicate nibbling at the carcass reminded him that staying out longer would require finding more food to augment their few remaining protein bars. Unlike some of the other groups, this raiding party had traveled light for speed, catching food to eat on the way. He moved away from the fire to look over the weaponry left behind. The spears were long, barbed at the end, and would be useful for catching one of the burrowers. If Buffy could toss a grown man through the air a good fifteen feet then she might actually be useful in procuring better food.
She noticed what he was doing but didn’t stop eating. “I hope you aren’t going to ask me to carry those back. Are we headed back now?”
No decision had been made yet so he ignored her and continued to rifle through the scant belongings of the dead men. Very little was useful, which made him apprehensive. Traveling light was one thing, traveling with only the bare essentials was entirely different. This lightness of load belied a desperate need to move quickly, to meet a deadline or to escape a pursing enemy. A simple raiding party would have been more heavily equipped in preparation for long excursions without support.
“Throw a girl a bone, Mister tall, dark and completely non-communicative.” She tossed the skewer, tiny rabbit bones still clinging to the rod, onto the ground beside the fire and licked her fingers.
The trust in her eyes was strange and unexpected. She continued to follow him out into this harsh world, letting him guide her over terrain she couldn’t see for herself, and now faced the question of their next move completely unruffled. Perhaps she simply didn’t care what path they chose, all of them were equally far from the sunny California world she had come from.
Instead of answering her query, he tossed her one of the dead man’s water flasks and a spear. The flask was larger than the one she had and he no longer believed she couldn’t carry the additional weight. “Let’s move.”
She rolled her eyes but took the spear and slung the flask over her shoulders without any snide comments. Before he could say anything, she was reaching for the tether and looping it around the harness belt she wore. Once it was securely attached, she looked up at him expectantly, waiting for the signal to move. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why her imperturbable acceptance made him question the wisdom of turning his back on her. Anyone who had nothing to fear and nothing to lose was a liability.
They followed the winding river as it cut into the plain, grass and brush scraping against their legs and crunching beneath their boots. The wind was warm against his skin, smelling of sulfur and the earth it came from, belched out in bursts of lava heated steam. He always steered clear of the volcanic areas, avoiding their deep chasms and ever-changing terrain because they were dangerous and reminded him of Crematoria.
“Where are we going?” Buffy asked; her voice reminding him that she was there. When he didn’t answer her, she tugged on the tether to get his attention. “I get that you’re into the whole laconic thing but, at this point, you’d give Oz a run for his money. Since my iPod got swallowed up in a Hellmouth and this silence is really bugging, we have to talk about something.”
“Not the way I see it.”
“Come on. Don’t they talk in prison? I saw the Shawshank Redemption and they were totally talking.”
As usual, he had no idea what she was rambling about, but he’d go back to slam before letting her know that occasionally her babbling was more appealing than the silence of hell. Then there was the fact that he wasn’t sure of their destination himself. Between not wanting to return to the Basilica and the nagging questions raised by the dead raiding party, he had set off to follow their tracks without much thought of where they would lead.
“Did they send you to prison for being infuriating?” she snapped at him.
“They were moving too fast for a raiding party. Something had them running,” he answered carefully, torn between wanting her to shut up and not wanting to return to complete silence.
“Oh. Don’t suppose you have any ideas about what that might have been? I mean, just because I haven’t seen any big uglies doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“Could just be another Necro group.” He hadn’t seen any native animals worth running from but, as she so oddly said, that didn’t mean this world didn’t hold more secrets. It certainly wouldn’t be the first planet that only looked innocent in a certain light.
The river curved back toward an outcropping rocky cliffs; he stayed with it. Loose soil along the bank was easier walking and muffled their footsteps. Once along the cliff base, they would have cover within feet if they came across the unexpected and needed a place to hide. The final advantage was that he expected to find the telltale mounds of rodent burrows before they reached the rock face. Dawn would spread over them once the moons finished their last arc and they were less than a day’s hike from the Basilica, so there was no hurry to return. Vaako certainly wouldn’t miss either of them.
He was so focused on the ground ahead of them, scanning the rustling underbrush for signs of edible life, that he didn’t notice Buffy falling behind until the tether jerked taut. She was still as a statue, staring into the night with intense concentration.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh. There’s something out there.”
Frowning, he turned in the direction she was facing and searched the horizon for motion. There were trees and more grass; nothing but the sound of the river tumbling over rocks and the whispering wind. Despite seeing nothing, the look on her face kept him searching every inch of the landscape.
“You sure?” he asked softly.
“I hope not.” Her brow was furrowed, head cocked to the side as she listened to the wind. “We need to find somewhere to hide…maybe they won’t notice us.”
“What, exactly, won’t notice us?”
“Just get us somewhere safe and I’ll tell you what I think it is.”
Safe was a matter of opinion but he took her seriously and turned back toward the cliffs ahead. Her hand hooked loosely around her arm, trusting him completely not to walk her blindly into the river. He picked up the pace, focused on the jagged edge of the outcropping and dark shadow that could be a cave. It would put solid rock at their backs and give them a good view of the plains.
The ground turned rocky and littered with broken bits of shale that slid under their weight. Her grip tightening on his arm was the only indication that she couldn’t see where to put her feet. Above them, he caught sight of a narrow ledge skimming along the entrance to a hollowed out section of cliff. He couldn’t see the back of the cave and that meant there would be room for two bodies at least. Pausing long enough to pick out a route up the nearly vertical rock, he stopped her from continuing forward.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Have to go up and there’s only room for one.” He took her wrists and guided her hands to his back. “Try not to strangle me.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said wryly as she climbed onto his back, holding their spears awkwardly between them.
She was lighter than he’d expected; her arms carefully slung around his shoulders and away from his neck. When there was enough clearance between her knees and the rock, she kept her legs wrapped around his waist. Her skin was soft against the back of his neck and her hair tickled his scalp. By the time he put his feet on the narrow ledge, he was more than a little rattled by the heat of her body. Shuffling to the side, he eased into the cave and turned to let her slide off onto relatively flat ground.
“It’ll look like a man. Upright, two legs, two arms,” Buffy began as soon as her feet hit the ground. “But it’ll be faster and move differently. And they’re damn hard to kill.”
“What are they?” He settled into a crouch at the edge of the cave, watching the plain stretching out in front of them.
“Giles called them Turok-Han, the vampires that vampires fear. The usual things kill them, it just takes more effort. And I don’t think we’ll be getting much help from the sun in this place. Stake to the heart, decapitation.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Trust me, they’re out there. I’m the Slayer, I can feel them.” She sounded unusually weary and defeated. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she was curled into a ball against the back wall of the cave. “Maybe I brought them with me, maybe this is where they came from. Wouldn’t that be karma? The First is probably laughing his ass off about now.”
He didn’t answer and didn’t figure she was actually looking for a response. If she was right and there were creatures lurking out there that were bad enough for her to fear them, then he’d keep his eyes open until she said otherwise. The petite blonde hadn’t batted an eyelash at an entire Necromonger army and she certainly wasn’t afraid of him, which meant these Turok-Han were creatures to be reckoned with. They could afford to spend a few hours tucked away in the shadows.
“Tell me more. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”
She sighed heavily. “Basic vampire stuff. They drink blood and like to kill things. Better vision, sense of smell. The smell thing is a little creepy, especially when vampire ex-boyfriends are involved. Fast, strong. These things have skin like stretched titanium and enormous rib cages, makes it hard to stake them. I’m going to suggest the decapitation option.”
“Could you be wrong?”
“If we’re lucky.” She rubbed her arms and curled up tighter against the rock. “Too bad those guys weren’t running from dragons or King Kong. That would be easier, believe me. Just one of those things kicked my ass more times than I care to admit. And I’ve faced giant snakes, Hell Gods, and more demons than you can even name.”
“Still trying to wrap my brain around the part where you’ve seen demons.”
“No one wants to know what lives in the dark. Except you, I guess. You did do the eye thing to yourself, didn’t you?”
He hadn’t told her the history of his eye shine but he wasn’t surprised that she’d managed a shrewd guess. Blonde and annoying she may be, but he was getting the sneaking suspicion that she might know what she was talking about when it came to the strange and unusual. If she was right then their only hope was staying downwind of the creatures and laying low until they passed by. Unless she was crazy. He hadn’t ruled that out either.
The wind changed direction, shifting to blow fine grains of soil and the smell of sulfur directly into the cave. Eddy currents whirled around his ankles, tugging at the fabric and brushing cold, invisible fingers against bare skin. He kept still and alert on the off chance that she wasn’t insane.
Buffy broke the silence, her voice despondent and tight, as though the words were brittle enough to snap in the wind. “I thought it was finally over. Sure, there’s no mall and no Starbucks. But no vampires either. The only thing that didn’t completely suck in this whole world was that I didn’t have to be the Slayer. And now? Now there’s nothing here that doesn’t suck.”
“Keep it down,” Riddick told her irritably. “Not interested in getting eaten because of you and your self-pity.”
“Self pity? My entire planet is dead.”
“So’s mine.”
“Yeah, but you don’t care,” she huffed, turning her face away from him. “I lost my friends and my family. All you’ve got to lose is an army of fashion rejects who hate you anyway. What are you even doing here? Why not take a ship and leave?”
“Looking for someone,” he answered without thinking.
“Someone?” Unable to see him, she frowned in the direction of his voice. “Who someone?”
That was trickier to answer. Kyra was one of very few marks on the side of humanity that he had, a single drop of blood in the entire bucket that didn’t screech for revenge. He’d failed her, no doubt about it; he just wasn’t sure if he’d failed her that day in the Basilica or if the failure had happened years earlier on Helion Prime. Simply coming into contact with him had set her on a path of brutality and eventual death. At first, it hadn’t felt like too much to hope for to find her here in the Underverse, but staring out into the harsh night, he didn’t know if hope could survive in the face of so much darkness.
“Riddick?” Buffy’s gentle prodding reminded him that she was there, her hand on his shoulder and a concerned expression on her face.
“Family.” It was the simplest answer that still carried the ring of truth. Kyra,
Imam, and the rest of the survivors of the crash on T2 had been the closest to family he’d ever known. Dysfunctional, destructive, and fucked up, but family nonetheless.
“That’s why you don’t stay on the ship. That’s what you’re really looking for out here, isn’t it?”
“Necros made her one of them. She should be here. Somewhere.” The wind snatched his words away and made him sound lonelier than he’d let himself feel in more years than he could remember. With the backdrop of darkness that smelled of sulfur and desolation, it was unsettling to hear the dying hope in his own voice. Even more disconcerting was knowing that she could hear it as well.
“You know, it’s been a while; I could be rusty. Maybe I was wrong, maybe there isn’t anything out there.”
He didn’t waste time telling her to be quiet. The moment he saw something move that wasn’t a tree branch he clapped his hand over her mouth to shut her up. Her hair brushed against his face as he leaned in to whisper against her ear. “Try to keep that pretty mouth shut, Slayer.”
There was more than one of the creatures, moving silently through the brush with an unnatural loping stride and twisting hunch through the shoulders. Deceptively slender in build, even from hundreds of feet away he could tell that they were built for slaughter. Heads bobbed and swayed like more animated version of the lensors, sniffing the air for a hint of their quarry. The scent of blood from the bodies lying to the north pulled them up river and away from the cave.
He waited, hand over her mouth, until he could no longer see them moving through the grass. Once they were out of sight, he became aware of Buffy pressed against his side, warm and smelling of musk and women’s skin. He slid his hand away from her mouth slowly, keeping his thumb against her lips to signal her to remain quiet.
“You called me Slayer,” she whispered.
“Said that’s what you were.”
“You believed me? No one ever believes me. At least, not the first five hundred times I tell them.”
Her skin was silk against the rough skin of his palm, one small hand pressing flat against his back and the other gripping his forearm tightly. The wide-eyed gaze made her blindness that much more apparent. Completely lost in the darkness, unnatural strength or not, she was holding onto him without hesitation. The irrationality of it kept him frozen in place; he couldn’t understand or accept her blind faith that he wouldn’t snap her neck. There had been moments when it had been a tempting alternative to listening to her inane chatter.
“Say something.” Buffy’s gaze lowered, the tips of her lashes glinting white and purple with his eye shine. “Because if you don’t…I think I might kiss you. Which is a world of bad because I don’t even like you.” Contrary to her words, she was leaning into his hand, eyes half closed, and lips moist and parted as they pressed against his thumb.
He didn’t pull his hand away and didn’t say anything. Every possible motivation cycled through his head, every way she might be trying to manipulate him into turning his back long enough for her to bury a knife in it. Breath and wind were warm against his face as she leaned closer and brushed her lips against his. Her fingers skimmed lightly along his arm and over his shoulder, coming up to trace the lower edge of his goggles.
“I just made everything weird, didn’t I?” She cringed when he didn’t respond. “I’m such an idiot. You aren’t…I mean, you are into women, right?”
“You talk too much,” he growled and pushed her away with his elbow.
Buffy’s wounded expression disappeared quickly. She scowled at him and retreated to the back of the small cave. “Is that why Dame Vaako hates you so much? Let me guess, she caught you and the hubby in a less than dignified position.”
With a single angry slice, he cut through the tether, grabbing one of the spears and stepping out onto the narrow ledge. “You’re on your own, Slayer.”
“Riddick? Where are you going?”
He moved quickly along the edge and began the careful climb down the side of the cliff. Another minute with her and his hands would be wrapped around her neck, choking the life out of her. That was the best-case scenario. She was spinning him around enough that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill her or fuck her.
“Wait! I can’t see anything! Riddick!”
Once his feet reached the bottom, her voice was barely a whisper lost in the wind and he pushed away any trace of guilt threatening to manifest. The moons would be back up in a few hours for their final circle before dawn came and they would be enough light for her to find her way down out of the cave. He had no intention of spending hours trapped in a cave listening to her babbling.
If she really was the Slayer, whatever that was, then she certainly didn’t need him to keep her alive. And if she wasn’t, whether or not she survived the night wasn’t his problem.
Keep reading...
Author: Aeneas
Pairing/Character: Riddick/Buffy
Word Count: About 17,900
Rating: R
Summary: After the defeat of the First Evil, the universe has plans for Buffy.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through Chosen and Chronicles of Riddick.
Disclaimer: Not my sandbox, I just play there. All things belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy and David Twohy/Universal, respectively.
A/N: Challenge prompt was - “There is no death, only a change of worlds.” American Indian Proverb, Duwamish. Note to the requester, I tried Angel meeting Riddick first and got completely stuck at about 10,000 words. This was intended to be a much shorter alternate fic when it became apparent that I was going to miss the deadline. Famous last words.
Night in the Underverse lasted for nine days, if one bothered to count by Helion Standard days. Once the countdown to dusk began, Riddick found that his skin would crawl and his sleep was increasingly invaded by the echoing shrieks of the creatures from T2. Suspicion gnawed at his unconscious until he began to doubt the dying orange sun would ever rise again. Restless and haunted, he preferred not to hunker down inside the Basilica and wait for daylight, and instead, he ventured out into the black to hunt.
That he had proven to be useful in the Underverse was a crime Vaako would never forgive. He had no doubt that Vaako had meant to kill him upon crossing the Threshold, and probably still intended to, but night vision was invaluable in a world with long periods of darkness. Approaching armies and treacherous landscape were only two parts of the equation. He had directed the Commanders through maze-like canyons and provided information about the movements of the enemy armies. It was ironic that the Necromonger equivalent of heaven consisted of endless battles in which they ceaselessly sought to destroy each other.
Another advantage of his scouting missions, and the true reason behind them, was the chance that somewhere in the burnt out terrain, he might find Kyra. It was slim at best but kept his mind focused on a goal.
“Ow!”
He paused to glance back at the petite blonde who had insisted on following him. It took a concerted effort not to order her back to the ship. She’d probably just ignore him anyway. Of all of the infuriating people he’d encountered, she tried his patience more than all of them combined.
“Are you sure this is the right way? I can’t see anything and even I can tell this way sucks.”
Waiting for her to get close enough that he could keep his voice low, he tugged none too gently on the tether stretched out between them to get her moving in the right direction.
“You’re asking for it,” she muttered. Her fingers slid down the tether until connecting with his hand and then she pulled away. “Are the moons going to come back up any time soon? This is ridiculous.”
“Could’ve stayed on the ship.”
“And watch Dame Vaako prance around? I’d love to put her and Cordelia in the same room and see who won BitchFest oh-three,” she huffed as she sat down on a rock large enough to serve as a seat.
The sliver of admiration in the midst of his annoyance was what kept him from wringing her neck. When he’d told her that the Earth was long gone, she’d cried silently for several hours before falling asleep curled up on his bed. Once she woke, she had demanded that she be given something to do and she’d been game for anything he’d thrown at her, even if it meant trekking across a foreign land in the pitch black. She talked enough to fray all of his nerves but she never lagged behind.
He forced his mind back to the idle conversation, scanning the horizon as he spoke. “Who’s Cordelia?” He’d tried ignoring her at first but that only made her more determined to annoy him.
“A girl I went to school with. She didn’t really understand the whole concept of tact or subtlety. Xander dated her but that kinda fell apart after she caught him with Willow. You remember who Xander is, right?”
It took several deep breaths to loosen his grip on the rock he had picked up with the intention of throwing at her. “No.”
“Carpenter? Saved the world when Willow went all veiny?”
Right. Something about a witch and the end of the world. He was convinced the woman was completely insane. If it weren’t for the fact that keeping her around made the vein in Vaako’s neck stand out, he wouldn’t bother. The other redeeming feature was that she seemed to have inherent skill with weapons. Turning Vaako’s own spear against him, the knife throw that had very nearly found its mark. Whether or not she actually understood what she had done, it was impressive. Now if she would just stop talking.
“Are we going to sit here all night?”
Stone ground together as the rock in his hand fractured and split, the unlucky victim of his displaced annoyance. He eased out of his crouch and started toward the hills he could see in the distance. The ground was still relatively flat and easily navigated in darkness. For most of the night, he’d been tracking a band of Necros with a particularly devious Commander.
The hills rose with a gentle incline, sweeping up to a curved bluff that acted as a pivot point for the howling winds. He slowed his pace, more cautious now that he had to choose his steps more carefully to avoid making unnecessary noise. Not realizing he had slowed, Buffy collided with his back.
“One of these days I’m going to put a bell around your neck, Riddick,” she whispered sourly.
“Pay attention.”
“You’re the one who can see. I’m trusting you not to walk me off a cliff.”
“Don’t tempt me.” He ignored her scowl, clearly visible with his shine job, and tugged on the tether to bring her around to his side. She wasn’t afraid of him, which was intriguing.
Over the edge of the bluff was a sloping canyon that narrowed to a slot on their left but swung wide on the right, following one of the many small creeks as it gurgled across the plain. Less than a half mile away, where the creek merged into a larger river, he could see the dancing light of a campfire. The raiding party had been pushing hard to cover ground, making it difficult to track them. Lucky for Riddick, they couldn’t continue to the left so their path would have to deviate down across the plain or follow the meandering path of the river.
That he’d managed to stay on the fringes of the war was due solely to the battle of wills that he fought with Vaako every waking moment. If the Commanders had their way, they’d land dead and center in one of the enormous battlefields to the south of their camp. Riddick had only ventured there a limited number of times, preferring to stick to the open spaces where he didn’t have to travel through endless fields of bodies. He wasn’t looking for a weakness that he could hand to Vaako to exploit in battle; he just wanted one glimpse of the face that kept haunting his dreams.
“Is that them?” Buffy asked quietly.
“Yes.” At this distance, he couldn’t see much more detail than she could. Movement, figures with two distinct legs, and the gleam of metal weapons in firelight. “We need to get closer.”
“I hate it when you say that.”
“Here.” Gathering up the slack in the tether, he pressed it into her hands and took hold of her wrists. “I’ll lower you down.” She shifted around in front of him, her concentration focused on the ravine wall as he eased her over the edge. Once she had her feet planted against solidly against the rock, he used the tether to lower her the rest of the distance. It was close and the rope was taut when she reached the bottom.
Climbing down after her was trickier, searching out hand and footholds in the darkness. There were times when he had to feel his way down rather than using his eyes. He felt her hand brush against his calf to let him know he was close to the bottom and pushed off to jump the rest of the way. Boots crunched against gravel and shale; the gurgling of the creek was louder and water splashed when he took a step forward. He was surprised that she wasn’t complaining about the water; the natural rivers in the Underverse were always cold as ice and she complained about everything else.
They followed the trickle of water through the narrow gorge until it opened up into meadows of dense grass. The constantly howling wind provided more than enough sound to mask their footsteps but he still kept low to the ground in case the Necros had scouts of their own.
He tugged the tether to get her attention. For once, she didn’t start yammering about him trying to boss her around and held still while he untied the harness around her waist. When he was close to her, his knuckles brushing against the soft fabric of her tunic, he remembered how small she was. Slender and delicate like a bird with golden feathers and a very annoying squawk.
“How am I supp--”
“Try to keep up,” he interrupted before she could get any momentum.
“I can’t see in the dark! You are the most infuriating, overbearing…man.” The stream of insults turned into muffled cursing and splashing water.
With growing frustration, he turned around and pulled her out of the small creek. “Can’t have you tied to me once we get close, you’ll just get in the way.”
“I’ll get in the way? I’ll have you know--”
“Do you ever shut up?” he hissed.
“Believe me, the only reason I’m sticking around is to annoy you. God, is it always about you?”
Several deep breaths were all that kept him from breaking that slender neck and the rest of her just for good measure. He kept moving, this time trying to put as much distance between them as possible in case she stumbled over anything else and alerted the raiding party to their presence. The flickering of the bonfire cast flickering and increasingly golden light over the harsh ground. There were only a handful of men, lightly armored to enable faster speeds on foot.
He circled around the edge of the shadows, shiv in hand and scanning for anyone who wasn’t paying attention to the surroundings. Once it started, it would become chaos in a matter of seconds. The more blood he could spill before they realized there was a fox in the henhouse, the less likely it was that the blonde irritant would end up with a knife in her throat. Muscles coiled and ready, he crouched down in one of the darker patches of shadow and steadied his breathing in preparation.
“So what’s for dinner?” Buffy stepped into the light with a bright, vapid smile. “I really hope it’s not rat. I am so sick of rat, aren’t you? And really, the rats on this planet are totally greasy and gross. I would kill for a Big Mac. If you guys actually had Big Macs, that is. You haven’t been holding out on me, have you?”
Riddick was more than tempted to stay where he was and let the Necros tear her to ribbons if it would shut her up or knock some sense into her head. She ducked the first warrior’s attack with ease, stepping to the side and shoving the end of his own spear into the side of his head. Without making a sound, he caught the nearest Necro by surprise and slit his throat before he could alert the others. At the edge of his vision, he saw Buffy take a blow to the face and stumble back. He twisted away from his opponent, crunching bone and armor as he yanked the Necro’s arm against the joint.
“Do you know how hard it is to find comfortable clothes in this hell?” Buffy shouted furiously at her attacker, stripping the torn fabric away from her skin and tossing it away. Her foot connected squarely with the center of the man’s chest and he flew backwards, crashing into the bonfire.
The rest were quick work, unprepared for the attack, and littered the ground as cooling, human shaped boulders. He dragged the smoldering corpse out of the bonfire before it smothered the remaining flames and prodded the logs until they were burning brightly once again. Buffy was eying her handiwork with satisfaction, nudging a few of the bodies as if looking for another chance to fight them. Just exactly she’d managed to toss a fully-grown man as if he was a mere rag doll was one more question he needed answered.
“He tore my sweater.” She sat down beside him, frowning and shaking her head at the ripped cloth. Her bare arms and shoulders were pale gold in the firelight, small fingers working at the tear.
“More of those back at the ship,” he answered noncommittally.
“But this one was already broken in. The stains were familiar, I’d even named them.” She smiled, wide-eyed, up at him. “Kidding.”
He turned a long blade of the black grass between his fingers, watching it burn and smolder in the flames. “What are you?”
“I’m annoyed that guy ruined my sweater. Are we going to be killing any more of those? Cause that was hardly enough to justify ruining a perfectly good piece of clothing. Where I come from there are these things called malls, and they have racks and racks of real clothes. Nothing like this--”
“What are you?” he cut her off with a growl.
“Oh. You mean that. It’s a long story.” Her laugh was far too light and strained.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“It’s nothing, really. One girl in every generation chosen to slay vampires and demons, yada, yada, big evil, yada, yada. Very boring. There are musty, old books involved and stuffy British guys who wear tweed. You wouldn’t be interested.”
The blade of grass turned to a wisp of ash slipping through his fingers and fluttering away in the current of the heat coming off the fire. Vampires, demons. He’d heard strange and wild stories from one prison to the next, most finding their source in idle cell chatter to pass the time. Everything else that came out of her mouth was alien; he wasn’t sure why he’d expected this to made sense. For the moment, it was just as likely as any of the other outlandish possibilities so he left it at that.
When he didn’t answer, she dropped the sweater into her lap and stared at him. “What about you? You’re no slouch in the hand-to-hand events yourself. A little rough on the technique but we can work on that. What’s your story?”
“Escaped convict, murderer,” he said with a smirk.
His past had never come up before. In all her words and stories of where she’d come from, this was the first that she had questioned his history. Now that she had, he was surprised to realize that her disinterest in his past had been a relief. No questions to answer or judgments passed that he didn’t care about but noticed nonetheless. Convicts were subhuman, barely on the same level as pack animals and lab rats. There were people in the universe who cared about what happened to the rats, but no one cared about the convicts.
“That’s…exciting,” Buffy said with forced cheerfulness. “So you got out of jail and got upgraded to Lord Marshal?”
“Cut my way out of Butcher Bay a long time ago. Kept the mercs off my neck, staying on a goddamn ice planet, until these guys showed up.” There was no reason to mention planets with screeching monsters or the little girls who came with them; sitting around the campfire dredging up old memories wasn’t how he wanted to spend his night.
Buffy continued to ask questions, holding her hands out to the fire to warm them. “But you’ve got family somewhere, right? Everyone’s got family.”
“Necros killed them all.” Another vague answer that only contained part of the truth. He bristled at the vague feeling crawling under his skin that squirmed suspiciously like guilt; the hope that he’d find Kyra, and the only family he knew, in this hell was beginning to fade. There was no reason to tell her anything at all about his past or his life, even less reason to talk about a heritage he didn’t understand and a fate he hadn’t asked for. None of this had been his idea and he didn’t want to be the savior of any universe; and he really didn’t want to talk about his feelings.
She seemed to understand for once and ceased bombarding him with senseless questions. The crackling of the fire laid over the howling wind filled the silence comfortingly without being dominating, allowing him to keep thinking about his next move. One raiding party down, the choices were either keep searching or return to the Basilica. Too long away and Vaako would slip his leash, but staying with the Necromongers would never find the haystack needle he was looking for.
“Think this is any good?” She held up one of the skewers, wrinkling her nose at the roasted animal flesh left uneaten due to the sudden death of its owner.
“Probably not.” The creatures living on the wickedly sharp grass were barely worth eating, tough and grainy in texture. Beneath the surface were larger, burrowing rodents with sightless eyes that made a decent enough meal for a group of men. That this raiding party had been reduced to eating the lesser prey meant they were either in a hurry or incompetent.
Her delicate nibbling at the carcass reminded him that staying out longer would require finding more food to augment their few remaining protein bars. Unlike some of the other groups, this raiding party had traveled light for speed, catching food to eat on the way. He moved away from the fire to look over the weaponry left behind. The spears were long, barbed at the end, and would be useful for catching one of the burrowers. If Buffy could toss a grown man through the air a good fifteen feet then she might actually be useful in procuring better food.
She noticed what he was doing but didn’t stop eating. “I hope you aren’t going to ask me to carry those back. Are we headed back now?”
No decision had been made yet so he ignored her and continued to rifle through the scant belongings of the dead men. Very little was useful, which made him apprehensive. Traveling light was one thing, traveling with only the bare essentials was entirely different. This lightness of load belied a desperate need to move quickly, to meet a deadline or to escape a pursing enemy. A simple raiding party would have been more heavily equipped in preparation for long excursions without support.
“Throw a girl a bone, Mister tall, dark and completely non-communicative.” She tossed the skewer, tiny rabbit bones still clinging to the rod, onto the ground beside the fire and licked her fingers.
The trust in her eyes was strange and unexpected. She continued to follow him out into this harsh world, letting him guide her over terrain she couldn’t see for herself, and now faced the question of their next move completely unruffled. Perhaps she simply didn’t care what path they chose, all of them were equally far from the sunny California world she had come from.
Instead of answering her query, he tossed her one of the dead man’s water flasks and a spear. The flask was larger than the one she had and he no longer believed she couldn’t carry the additional weight. “Let’s move.”
She rolled her eyes but took the spear and slung the flask over her shoulders without any snide comments. Before he could say anything, she was reaching for the tether and looping it around the harness belt she wore. Once it was securely attached, she looked up at him expectantly, waiting for the signal to move. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why her imperturbable acceptance made him question the wisdom of turning his back on her. Anyone who had nothing to fear and nothing to lose was a liability.
They followed the winding river as it cut into the plain, grass and brush scraping against their legs and crunching beneath their boots. The wind was warm against his skin, smelling of sulfur and the earth it came from, belched out in bursts of lava heated steam. He always steered clear of the volcanic areas, avoiding their deep chasms and ever-changing terrain because they were dangerous and reminded him of Crematoria.
“Where are we going?” Buffy asked; her voice reminding him that she was there. When he didn’t answer her, she tugged on the tether to get his attention. “I get that you’re into the whole laconic thing but, at this point, you’d give Oz a run for his money. Since my iPod got swallowed up in a Hellmouth and this silence is really bugging, we have to talk about something.”
“Not the way I see it.”
“Come on. Don’t they talk in prison? I saw the Shawshank Redemption and they were totally talking.”
As usual, he had no idea what she was rambling about, but he’d go back to slam before letting her know that occasionally her babbling was more appealing than the silence of hell. Then there was the fact that he wasn’t sure of their destination himself. Between not wanting to return to the Basilica and the nagging questions raised by the dead raiding party, he had set off to follow their tracks without much thought of where they would lead.
“Did they send you to prison for being infuriating?” she snapped at him.
“They were moving too fast for a raiding party. Something had them running,” he answered carefully, torn between wanting her to shut up and not wanting to return to complete silence.
“Oh. Don’t suppose you have any ideas about what that might have been? I mean, just because I haven’t seen any big uglies doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“Could just be another Necro group.” He hadn’t seen any native animals worth running from but, as she so oddly said, that didn’t mean this world didn’t hold more secrets. It certainly wouldn’t be the first planet that only looked innocent in a certain light.
The river curved back toward an outcropping rocky cliffs; he stayed with it. Loose soil along the bank was easier walking and muffled their footsteps. Once along the cliff base, they would have cover within feet if they came across the unexpected and needed a place to hide. The final advantage was that he expected to find the telltale mounds of rodent burrows before they reached the rock face. Dawn would spread over them once the moons finished their last arc and they were less than a day’s hike from the Basilica, so there was no hurry to return. Vaako certainly wouldn’t miss either of them.
He was so focused on the ground ahead of them, scanning the rustling underbrush for signs of edible life, that he didn’t notice Buffy falling behind until the tether jerked taut. She was still as a statue, staring into the night with intense concentration.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh. There’s something out there.”
Frowning, he turned in the direction she was facing and searched the horizon for motion. There were trees and more grass; nothing but the sound of the river tumbling over rocks and the whispering wind. Despite seeing nothing, the look on her face kept him searching every inch of the landscape.
“You sure?” he asked softly.
“I hope not.” Her brow was furrowed, head cocked to the side as she listened to the wind. “We need to find somewhere to hide…maybe they won’t notice us.”
“What, exactly, won’t notice us?”
“Just get us somewhere safe and I’ll tell you what I think it is.”
Safe was a matter of opinion but he took her seriously and turned back toward the cliffs ahead. Her hand hooked loosely around her arm, trusting him completely not to walk her blindly into the river. He picked up the pace, focused on the jagged edge of the outcropping and dark shadow that could be a cave. It would put solid rock at their backs and give them a good view of the plains.
The ground turned rocky and littered with broken bits of shale that slid under their weight. Her grip tightening on his arm was the only indication that she couldn’t see where to put her feet. Above them, he caught sight of a narrow ledge skimming along the entrance to a hollowed out section of cliff. He couldn’t see the back of the cave and that meant there would be room for two bodies at least. Pausing long enough to pick out a route up the nearly vertical rock, he stopped her from continuing forward.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Have to go up and there’s only room for one.” He took her wrists and guided her hands to his back. “Try not to strangle me.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said wryly as she climbed onto his back, holding their spears awkwardly between them.
She was lighter than he’d expected; her arms carefully slung around his shoulders and away from his neck. When there was enough clearance between her knees and the rock, she kept her legs wrapped around his waist. Her skin was soft against the back of his neck and her hair tickled his scalp. By the time he put his feet on the narrow ledge, he was more than a little rattled by the heat of her body. Shuffling to the side, he eased into the cave and turned to let her slide off onto relatively flat ground.
“It’ll look like a man. Upright, two legs, two arms,” Buffy began as soon as her feet hit the ground. “But it’ll be faster and move differently. And they’re damn hard to kill.”
“What are they?” He settled into a crouch at the edge of the cave, watching the plain stretching out in front of them.
“Giles called them Turok-Han, the vampires that vampires fear. The usual things kill them, it just takes more effort. And I don’t think we’ll be getting much help from the sun in this place. Stake to the heart, decapitation.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Trust me, they’re out there. I’m the Slayer, I can feel them.” She sounded unusually weary and defeated. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she was curled into a ball against the back wall of the cave. “Maybe I brought them with me, maybe this is where they came from. Wouldn’t that be karma? The First is probably laughing his ass off about now.”
He didn’t answer and didn’t figure she was actually looking for a response. If she was right and there were creatures lurking out there that were bad enough for her to fear them, then he’d keep his eyes open until she said otherwise. The petite blonde hadn’t batted an eyelash at an entire Necromonger army and she certainly wasn’t afraid of him, which meant these Turok-Han were creatures to be reckoned with. They could afford to spend a few hours tucked away in the shadows.
“Tell me more. I want to know what I’m dealing with.”
She sighed heavily. “Basic vampire stuff. They drink blood and like to kill things. Better vision, sense of smell. The smell thing is a little creepy, especially when vampire ex-boyfriends are involved. Fast, strong. These things have skin like stretched titanium and enormous rib cages, makes it hard to stake them. I’m going to suggest the decapitation option.”
“Could you be wrong?”
“If we’re lucky.” She rubbed her arms and curled up tighter against the rock. “Too bad those guys weren’t running from dragons or King Kong. That would be easier, believe me. Just one of those things kicked my ass more times than I care to admit. And I’ve faced giant snakes, Hell Gods, and more demons than you can even name.”
“Still trying to wrap my brain around the part where you’ve seen demons.”
“No one wants to know what lives in the dark. Except you, I guess. You did do the eye thing to yourself, didn’t you?”
He hadn’t told her the history of his eye shine but he wasn’t surprised that she’d managed a shrewd guess. Blonde and annoying she may be, but he was getting the sneaking suspicion that she might know what she was talking about when it came to the strange and unusual. If she was right then their only hope was staying downwind of the creatures and laying low until they passed by. Unless she was crazy. He hadn’t ruled that out either.
The wind changed direction, shifting to blow fine grains of soil and the smell of sulfur directly into the cave. Eddy currents whirled around his ankles, tugging at the fabric and brushing cold, invisible fingers against bare skin. He kept still and alert on the off chance that she wasn’t insane.
Buffy broke the silence, her voice despondent and tight, as though the words were brittle enough to snap in the wind. “I thought it was finally over. Sure, there’s no mall and no Starbucks. But no vampires either. The only thing that didn’t completely suck in this whole world was that I didn’t have to be the Slayer. And now? Now there’s nothing here that doesn’t suck.”
“Keep it down,” Riddick told her irritably. “Not interested in getting eaten because of you and your self-pity.”
“Self pity? My entire planet is dead.”
“So’s mine.”
“Yeah, but you don’t care,” she huffed, turning her face away from him. “I lost my friends and my family. All you’ve got to lose is an army of fashion rejects who hate you anyway. What are you even doing here? Why not take a ship and leave?”
“Looking for someone,” he answered without thinking.
“Someone?” Unable to see him, she frowned in the direction of his voice. “Who someone?”
That was trickier to answer. Kyra was one of very few marks on the side of humanity that he had, a single drop of blood in the entire bucket that didn’t screech for revenge. He’d failed her, no doubt about it; he just wasn’t sure if he’d failed her that day in the Basilica or if the failure had happened years earlier on Helion Prime. Simply coming into contact with him had set her on a path of brutality and eventual death. At first, it hadn’t felt like too much to hope for to find her here in the Underverse, but staring out into the harsh night, he didn’t know if hope could survive in the face of so much darkness.
“Riddick?” Buffy’s gentle prodding reminded him that she was there, her hand on his shoulder and a concerned expression on her face.
“Family.” It was the simplest answer that still carried the ring of truth. Kyra,
Imam, and the rest of the survivors of the crash on T2 had been the closest to family he’d ever known. Dysfunctional, destructive, and fucked up, but family nonetheless.
“That’s why you don’t stay on the ship. That’s what you’re really looking for out here, isn’t it?”
“Necros made her one of them. She should be here. Somewhere.” The wind snatched his words away and made him sound lonelier than he’d let himself feel in more years than he could remember. With the backdrop of darkness that smelled of sulfur and desolation, it was unsettling to hear the dying hope in his own voice. Even more disconcerting was knowing that she could hear it as well.
“You know, it’s been a while; I could be rusty. Maybe I was wrong, maybe there isn’t anything out there.”
He didn’t waste time telling her to be quiet. The moment he saw something move that wasn’t a tree branch he clapped his hand over her mouth to shut her up. Her hair brushed against his face as he leaned in to whisper against her ear. “Try to keep that pretty mouth shut, Slayer.”
There was more than one of the creatures, moving silently through the brush with an unnatural loping stride and twisting hunch through the shoulders. Deceptively slender in build, even from hundreds of feet away he could tell that they were built for slaughter. Heads bobbed and swayed like more animated version of the lensors, sniffing the air for a hint of their quarry. The scent of blood from the bodies lying to the north pulled them up river and away from the cave.
He waited, hand over her mouth, until he could no longer see them moving through the grass. Once they were out of sight, he became aware of Buffy pressed against his side, warm and smelling of musk and women’s skin. He slid his hand away from her mouth slowly, keeping his thumb against her lips to signal her to remain quiet.
“You called me Slayer,” she whispered.
“Said that’s what you were.”
“You believed me? No one ever believes me. At least, not the first five hundred times I tell them.”
Her skin was silk against the rough skin of his palm, one small hand pressing flat against his back and the other gripping his forearm tightly. The wide-eyed gaze made her blindness that much more apparent. Completely lost in the darkness, unnatural strength or not, she was holding onto him without hesitation. The irrationality of it kept him frozen in place; he couldn’t understand or accept her blind faith that he wouldn’t snap her neck. There had been moments when it had been a tempting alternative to listening to her inane chatter.
“Say something.” Buffy’s gaze lowered, the tips of her lashes glinting white and purple with his eye shine. “Because if you don’t…I think I might kiss you. Which is a world of bad because I don’t even like you.” Contrary to her words, she was leaning into his hand, eyes half closed, and lips moist and parted as they pressed against his thumb.
He didn’t pull his hand away and didn’t say anything. Every possible motivation cycled through his head, every way she might be trying to manipulate him into turning his back long enough for her to bury a knife in it. Breath and wind were warm against his face as she leaned closer and brushed her lips against his. Her fingers skimmed lightly along his arm and over his shoulder, coming up to trace the lower edge of his goggles.
“I just made everything weird, didn’t I?” She cringed when he didn’t respond. “I’m such an idiot. You aren’t…I mean, you are into women, right?”
“You talk too much,” he growled and pushed her away with his elbow.
Buffy’s wounded expression disappeared quickly. She scowled at him and retreated to the back of the small cave. “Is that why Dame Vaako hates you so much? Let me guess, she caught you and the hubby in a less than dignified position.”
With a single angry slice, he cut through the tether, grabbing one of the spears and stepping out onto the narrow ledge. “You’re on your own, Slayer.”
“Riddick? Where are you going?”
He moved quickly along the edge and began the careful climb down the side of the cliff. Another minute with her and his hands would be wrapped around her neck, choking the life out of her. That was the best-case scenario. She was spinning him around enough that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill her or fuck her.
“Wait! I can’t see anything! Riddick!”
Once his feet reached the bottom, her voice was barely a whisper lost in the wind and he pushed away any trace of guilt threatening to manifest. The moons would be back up in a few hours for their final circle before dawn came and they would be enough light for her to find her way down out of the cave. He had no intention of spending hours trapped in a cave listening to her babbling.
If she really was the Slayer, whatever that was, then she certainly didn’t need him to keep her alive. And if she wasn’t, whether or not she survived the night wasn’t his problem.
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