Five Things That Never Happened to Carolyn Fry (And One That Did):
With thanks to ilyena_sylph for help on one.
1. Her hand is on the handle to purge when she stops, makes herself breathe through adrenaline and her hindbrain screaming to pull it, asks herself if she *has* to -- captain's dead, Owens is useless, if anybody's in charge it's her, and purging paying passengers breaks so many regs she couldn't count them with the fingers and toes of everybody on this ship.
She isn't sure how long she spends thinking, five seconds or ten or twenty. Too heavy in the ass, her nose has got to come down, and they're going to be landing too damn soon for a purge now to do any good.
Fuck,, Carolyn thinks through the noise of the ship screaming through atmo, and pulls the handle anyway, tries to fly, because she's damned if she's dying without a fight.
2. Carolyn always wanted to fly. She'd look up at the stars shining up there and tell herself she'd be darting in and out of the worlds she knew were somewhere she couldn't see, darting like some fast little bird, and then her momma would holler and she'd get her eyes back down on the ground where her feet were and back to working.
Problem with flying is it takes money to learn how to work a ship. Money it turned out they didn't have. Carolyn didn't know what had gone wrong, 'cause they weren't so poor when she was a kid, but by the time she's old enough to try for a license all she's got to try it with is herself.
So she goes looking for something to do, some way to earn herself off the heavy ball of rock and water, up to the black.
Carolyn's always been good with her hands, especially in a fight, and it turns out there's places that pay good money for a pretty little blonde who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty if that's what it takes.
It ain't the stars, but money gleams as shiny in her hand as any fucking star glows in the dark, and Carolyn's getting used to the taste of blood in her mouth.
3. Carolyn isn't sure what Riddick is thinking, "how interesting," purred out like some tree-cat back home.
She isn't sure what 'interesting' means, aside from his knife off her throat and him still staring down at her, pressing her into the mud. She isn't really sure she wants to.
But Jack and Imam Abu are running out of time too damn fast for Riddick to have himself a staring match. So she twists under him, trying to fight off his weight, because what the hell is he going to do? Put his knife to her neck again? Slit her throat like he had some nameless other pilot? She doesn't have anything so valuable in her life, either.
Riddick growls, deep in his throat, and moves to pin her down harder, hand spreading over her collarbone as she struggles under him.
Fucker, he's got a good, solid hold on her, and she -- isn't getting up fast enough unless he felt like letting her. Carolyn goes still, snarling up at him. "Planning on letting me up anytime soon, Riddick, or we just gonna let them die by default?"
Riddick looks down at her, and his head tips to the side as he looks her over. "Interesting, indeed," he drawls out slowly, and his weight shifts, his hands sliding to pull her up and onto her feet as he picks himself up -- and brings her with him.
Hell if she knows whether that was a no or not, but at least she's on her feet now. Even if he still hasn't let go of her, and she'll be on her back again -- she just knows it -- as soon as she gives him one reason to put her there. "Are you," she says clearly, "Coming back with me?" She'll beg again if he makes her, and she knows where that's gonna go.
She'd rather order, and she knows where that would get her, too.
But she'd promised them.
His hands are hard enough to bruise on her upper arms where he'd hauled her to her feet, and the look on his face... she doesn't know what that is. Not just the curiosity he'd had a minute ago, something differe -- so fucking fast runs through her head as she feels his mouth hard over hers before she even knew he'd moved.
Wet, cold skin, but his mouth is hot, and slick with rain. Fuck, she's crazy, but she opens her mouth anyway to lick at the water on his.
His tongue swipes across hers, hard, a fast, strong brush that pushs into her mouth, his hands sliding off her shoulders and in along her back.
She doesn't know what damn noise she just made, some choked fucking gasp of a sound, but she twists closer to get her hands on him, gripping his sides, spreading her fingers over the skin of his back. Something in the back of her head, maybe his fucking whispers, says clearly, Fourth lumbar down.
He holds her harder, hands gripping the sharp juts of her shoulderblades, as his mouth seals over hers tighter.
His back is smooth under her hands, cold and wet with the rain still coming down, and when his grip on her tightens it only makes her press closer, stroking her tongue over his. He doesn't taste like blood, just water and a ghost of pricey alcohol -- Parris' pricey alcohol, shit, Jack and Imam Abu, and they don't have time for her to lose her fucking mind like this.
She jerks herself back -- tries, at least, Riddick's grip is harder than Johns' -- and scrapes her teeth over his lip, scratches short nails over his back, as close to his sweet spot as she can get.
She feels the snarl against her mouth even as sharp teeth sink into her lip hard enough to draw blood, even as his skin jumps like a live wire under her hands, and her head half-spins as he yanks her away from him with the hands in her shirt.
Her breath is coming fast again, her chest heaving, but she manages to get a hand between them to wipe at her mouth, smearing blood over her lip and cheek and the back of her hand. "Are you," she forces out, watching the shine of his eyes and his twisted snarl, her voice almost not shaking at all, "Coming with me?"
He looks at her, that snarl easing off his face, and nods once, letting go of her to dip and pick up the light he'd thrown at her.
More light's better than none -- Carolyn goes after her grub-bottle, making her breath come slower, running her tongue over her bitten lip, spreading her hand over the light from her bottle to shield his eyes. Rainwater and weak, watery blood. She doesn't see the attraction. Maybe blood's an acquired taste.
Maybe it just needs peppermint schnapps.
4. "Good girl," Riddick says behind her, his voice dragging over her terror and guilt like his damn knife over skin.
There's nothing she can hear but the rain and her own sobbing breath. She can't even hear him moving, but she knows he's still behind her.
He doesn't touch her again, now that she's on her feet and moving on her own. Her skin's cold where he had had his hands on her.
The door slides shut behind them, and she hits the floor on her knees, shaking with the gut-wrenching ache. She's no better than Johns, when it came down to it. Sixty-five kilos of gutless white female.
Carolyn doesn't retch, but her throat burns with the alcohol she'd drunk earlier, and it takes effort to keep her mouth clamped shut. But damn him and damn her, she's not crying in front of Riddick again.
He gives her a minute before he's crouching in front of her. She swallows it down, all of it, and lifts her face to look at his half-shut, glittering eyes.
"You're the pilot here, Carolyn," sounding almost amused, like he thinks this is funny.
He can pilot, too, but she doesn't say that. He's testing her, prodding to make sure she knows he hasn't forced her into anything, and he knows she knows it.
Her choice. Just like it was her choice to purge the passengers, and it hadn't been her choice to have even some of them live.
She chokes down the tears and gets to her feet, wiping rain and snot and tears off her face. Doesn't stagger or slow when she starts moving, and shoves past him to the pilot's chair.
He lets her.
Her eyes are dry as she powers up and gets them away.
5. She's got her mouth open to tell Johns everything, spill her guts about how it was Owens that saved them, not her, because at least then nobody will be thanking her for it. His badge gleams in the light, and she shuts her mouth, turns her head away. The passengers were already dead, but the Company won't see it that way and maybe the law won't either. Johns doesn't need to know how far Carolyn will go if she's pushed hard enough.
He's pushing at her, knowing there's something she's not telling, and Carolyn is snarling back at him -- pain, pain like ice, and it takes her a second to realize that the heat spreading over her back is blood.
Riddick, Johns is saying, his eyes wide and blue, and Shit, Carolyn thinks, her knees giving out, sagging back against the skeleton behind her and the knife in her back, guess I died for one of them after all.
6. He's *heavy*, gone stupid with shock and blood loss, but she's not leaving him if she has to drag him -- I said I'd die for them, not you, isn't sure if she's saying it aloud or not, knowing that she's thinking I'd die for you but don't you fucking make me, when he's on his feet, and if he's on his feet he can make it.
He's just staring at her, clutching at her, his eyes blown wide with pain and surprise -- for a second, she can maybe see what his eyes looked like before the shine job.
She barely has time to see him snarl before she's moving, flung sideways with him, a slash of ice down her side -- bleeding, she's bleeding, *fuck* there was one of those damn things behind her, Riddick saved her life.
Rolling up on her feet again, and he's snarling next to her and she can hear herself growling. She'll die for them, even for him, but she's dying on her fucking feet.
She isn't sure who grabs who first, but they're running now, and when she stumbles he just drags her until she finds her feet again; when he trips and tries to fall, she yanks him back up and keeps running.
The ship is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, a circle of light in all this fucking dark. Jack had to have been watching for them, Carolyn thinks fuzzily, because he -- she -- is racing out waving the glowworm babies. She nearly drops it when she grabs Riddick, helping Carolyn help him get inside. The imam already has the door shutting behind them.
They're in, Riddick stumbling to his knees and Carolyn going down beside him, when he grabs her shoulder and growls in her face, "Not for me!"
She doesn't have any more fear left, all her terror wrung out of her, and she presses her palm to the gash in her side, Imam Abu already moving on it with skin sealant, and she laughs at him while she gets back on her feet to fly them the hell off this rock.
1. Her hand is on the handle to purge when she stops, makes herself breathe through adrenaline and her hindbrain screaming to pull it, asks herself if she *has* to -- captain's dead, Owens is useless, if anybody's in charge it's her, and purging paying passengers breaks so many regs she couldn't count them with the fingers and toes of everybody on this ship.
She isn't sure how long she spends thinking, five seconds or ten or twenty. Too heavy in the ass, her nose has got to come down, and they're going to be landing too damn soon for a purge now to do any good.
Fuck,, Carolyn thinks through the noise of the ship screaming through atmo, and pulls the handle anyway, tries to fly, because she's damned if she's dying without a fight.
2. Carolyn always wanted to fly. She'd look up at the stars shining up there and tell herself she'd be darting in and out of the worlds she knew were somewhere she couldn't see, darting like some fast little bird, and then her momma would holler and she'd get her eyes back down on the ground where her feet were and back to working.
Problem with flying is it takes money to learn how to work a ship. Money it turned out they didn't have. Carolyn didn't know what had gone wrong, 'cause they weren't so poor when she was a kid, but by the time she's old enough to try for a license all she's got to try it with is herself.
So she goes looking for something to do, some way to earn herself off the heavy ball of rock and water, up to the black.
Carolyn's always been good with her hands, especially in a fight, and it turns out there's places that pay good money for a pretty little blonde who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty if that's what it takes.
It ain't the stars, but money gleams as shiny in her hand as any fucking star glows in the dark, and Carolyn's getting used to the taste of blood in her mouth.
3. Carolyn isn't sure what Riddick is thinking, "how interesting," purred out like some tree-cat back home.
She isn't sure what 'interesting' means, aside from his knife off her throat and him still staring down at her, pressing her into the mud. She isn't really sure she wants to.
But Jack and Imam Abu are running out of time too damn fast for Riddick to have himself a staring match. So she twists under him, trying to fight off his weight, because what the hell is he going to do? Put his knife to her neck again? Slit her throat like he had some nameless other pilot? She doesn't have anything so valuable in her life, either.
Riddick growls, deep in his throat, and moves to pin her down harder, hand spreading over her collarbone as she struggles under him.
Fucker, he's got a good, solid hold on her, and she -- isn't getting up fast enough unless he felt like letting her. Carolyn goes still, snarling up at him. "Planning on letting me up anytime soon, Riddick, or we just gonna let them die by default?"
Riddick looks down at her, and his head tips to the side as he looks her over. "Interesting, indeed," he drawls out slowly, and his weight shifts, his hands sliding to pull her up and onto her feet as he picks himself up -- and brings her with him.
Hell if she knows whether that was a no or not, but at least she's on her feet now. Even if he still hasn't let go of her, and she'll be on her back again -- she just knows it -- as soon as she gives him one reason to put her there. "Are you," she says clearly, "Coming back with me?" She'll beg again if he makes her, and she knows where that's gonna go.
She'd rather order, and she knows where that would get her, too.
But she'd promised them.
His hands are hard enough to bruise on her upper arms where he'd hauled her to her feet, and the look on his face... she doesn't know what that is. Not just the curiosity he'd had a minute ago, something differe -- so fucking fast runs through her head as she feels his mouth hard over hers before she even knew he'd moved.
Wet, cold skin, but his mouth is hot, and slick with rain. Fuck, she's crazy, but she opens her mouth anyway to lick at the water on his.
His tongue swipes across hers, hard, a fast, strong brush that pushs into her mouth, his hands sliding off her shoulders and in along her back.
She doesn't know what damn noise she just made, some choked fucking gasp of a sound, but she twists closer to get her hands on him, gripping his sides, spreading her fingers over the skin of his back. Something in the back of her head, maybe his fucking whispers, says clearly, Fourth lumbar down.
He holds her harder, hands gripping the sharp juts of her shoulderblades, as his mouth seals over hers tighter.
His back is smooth under her hands, cold and wet with the rain still coming down, and when his grip on her tightens it only makes her press closer, stroking her tongue over his. He doesn't taste like blood, just water and a ghost of pricey alcohol -- Parris' pricey alcohol, shit, Jack and Imam Abu, and they don't have time for her to lose her fucking mind like this.
She jerks herself back -- tries, at least, Riddick's grip is harder than Johns' -- and scrapes her teeth over his lip, scratches short nails over his back, as close to his sweet spot as she can get.
She feels the snarl against her mouth even as sharp teeth sink into her lip hard enough to draw blood, even as his skin jumps like a live wire under her hands, and her head half-spins as he yanks her away from him with the hands in her shirt.
Her breath is coming fast again, her chest heaving, but she manages to get a hand between them to wipe at her mouth, smearing blood over her lip and cheek and the back of her hand. "Are you," she forces out, watching the shine of his eyes and his twisted snarl, her voice almost not shaking at all, "Coming with me?"
He looks at her, that snarl easing off his face, and nods once, letting go of her to dip and pick up the light he'd thrown at her.
More light's better than none -- Carolyn goes after her grub-bottle, making her breath come slower, running her tongue over her bitten lip, spreading her hand over the light from her bottle to shield his eyes. Rainwater and weak, watery blood. She doesn't see the attraction. Maybe blood's an acquired taste.
Maybe it just needs peppermint schnapps.
4. "Good girl," Riddick says behind her, his voice dragging over her terror and guilt like his damn knife over skin.
There's nothing she can hear but the rain and her own sobbing breath. She can't even hear him moving, but she knows he's still behind her.
He doesn't touch her again, now that she's on her feet and moving on her own. Her skin's cold where he had had his hands on her.
The door slides shut behind them, and she hits the floor on her knees, shaking with the gut-wrenching ache. She's no better than Johns, when it came down to it. Sixty-five kilos of gutless white female.
Carolyn doesn't retch, but her throat burns with the alcohol she'd drunk earlier, and it takes effort to keep her mouth clamped shut. But damn him and damn her, she's not crying in front of Riddick again.
He gives her a minute before he's crouching in front of her. She swallows it down, all of it, and lifts her face to look at his half-shut, glittering eyes.
"You're the pilot here, Carolyn," sounding almost amused, like he thinks this is funny.
He can pilot, too, but she doesn't say that. He's testing her, prodding to make sure she knows he hasn't forced her into anything, and he knows she knows it.
Her choice. Just like it was her choice to purge the passengers, and it hadn't been her choice to have even some of them live.
She chokes down the tears and gets to her feet, wiping rain and snot and tears off her face. Doesn't stagger or slow when she starts moving, and shoves past him to the pilot's chair.
He lets her.
Her eyes are dry as she powers up and gets them away.
5. She's got her mouth open to tell Johns everything, spill her guts about how it was Owens that saved them, not her, because at least then nobody will be thanking her for it. His badge gleams in the light, and she shuts her mouth, turns her head away. The passengers were already dead, but the Company won't see it that way and maybe the law won't either. Johns doesn't need to know how far Carolyn will go if she's pushed hard enough.
He's pushing at her, knowing there's something she's not telling, and Carolyn is snarling back at him -- pain, pain like ice, and it takes her a second to realize that the heat spreading over her back is blood.
Riddick, Johns is saying, his eyes wide and blue, and Shit, Carolyn thinks, her knees giving out, sagging back against the skeleton behind her and the knife in her back, guess I died for one of them after all.
6. He's *heavy*, gone stupid with shock and blood loss, but she's not leaving him if she has to drag him -- I said I'd die for them, not you, isn't sure if she's saying it aloud or not, knowing that she's thinking I'd die for you but don't you fucking make me, when he's on his feet, and if he's on his feet he can make it.
He's just staring at her, clutching at her, his eyes blown wide with pain and surprise -- for a second, she can maybe see what his eyes looked like before the shine job.
She barely has time to see him snarl before she's moving, flung sideways with him, a slash of ice down her side -- bleeding, she's bleeding, *fuck* there was one of those damn things behind her, Riddick saved her life.
Rolling up on her feet again, and he's snarling next to her and she can hear herself growling. She'll die for them, even for him, but she's dying on her fucking feet.
She isn't sure who grabs who first, but they're running now, and when she stumbles he just drags her until she finds her feet again; when he trips and tries to fall, she yanks him back up and keeps running.
The ship is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, a circle of light in all this fucking dark. Jack had to have been watching for them, Carolyn thinks fuzzily, because he -- she -- is racing out waving the glowworm babies. She nearly drops it when she grabs Riddick, helping Carolyn help him get inside. The imam already has the door shutting behind them.
They're in, Riddick stumbling to his knees and Carolyn going down beside him, when he grabs her shoulder and growls in her face, "Not for me!"
She doesn't have any more fear left, all her terror wrung out of her, and she presses her palm to the gash in her side, Imam Abu already moving on it with skin sealant, and she laughs at him while she gets back on her feet to fly them the hell off this rock.