Desperado

by Diane Kelley

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from the movie Pitch Black nor those of the movie Chronicles of Riddick, nor do I own the song Desperado. I just felt it fit the character well. It's a little first person introspective bit from Riddick's POV

Desperado

Why don't you come to your senses?

You been out riding fences for so long now

Running. . .it seems all I ever do anymore. Running away from Toombs and the others who care more about making money and the Almighty Dollar than they do about the people they hurt or the lives they rip apart. Maybe, maybe running from myself some too. Carolyn challenged me once to rejoin the human race. I told her the truth as I saw it at the time. I wouldn't know how. Funny thing is. ...I think I did just that when I left for Jack. ..left so she could grow up in a decent home with a man who loved her as much as he had his own.

Oh you're a hard man

But you got your reasons

The things that are pleasin' you

could hurt you somehow

I close my eyes against thinking of her sometimes. That kid, she was the only one willing to look past my reputation from the very first and see the kindred soul beneath the front. Everyone else saw Riddick, the escaped killer. But I wasn't the real villian this time. Things aren't always as they seem. mr. Shiny Badge wasn't the hero he seemed to be. And me, I wasn't the monster they thought they saw. Feels a little wierd, knowing I saved lives there on that damn dustball.

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She'll beat you if she's able

The queen of hearts is always your best friend.

It seems to me some fine things

have been laid upon your table

but you always want the things you can't have

I always watched, from the outside, always from the outside, watching the rest of the humanity go about their daily lives, when I was younger I always wondered why I was fated not to have that. Imam tried to tell me about God. Hell, I know all about God. . ..God's the one who pissed on me the day I was thrown into a liquor store dumpster half-strangled with my own cord tied around my neck. I have plenty of reason not to like Him.

Desperado Oh you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger

are drivin' you home

I always wondered what "Home" felt like. ...I had a taste of that with Carolyn. ...just enough to make me want more. ..Fuck, it hurt when she was torn out of my arms. More than I ever let on to anyone. Just isn't my way to let others know I'm hurting. Pain is just a weakness other people can use against you, and Mr Skullfuck can't affford to have any weaknesses.

Freedom, sweet freedom is just some people talkin'

Your prison is walkin' through this world all alone.

Alone. I've always been alone, and I guess it's my fate to always be alone for the rest of my life. Can't let anyone else get too close, I'd just get 'em killed, like I did the woman who took me in and raised me. ..like I did Carolyn.

Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime

The sky won't snow the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the nightime from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feelin' goes away?

Heart feels empty now. Got nothing left but darkness. ..bitterness. ..hurt. First two people in this life to see me not for who I am on the outside but for who I had the potential to be. ..first two to BELIEVE in me. ...one's dead. . .and I'll probably never see the other again. You're laughing Your ass off now, aren't ya, God? Saying "Yeah, let's smack this guy in the balls one more time and see if he can survive it." Well, got news for ya. ..I'm alive, but this heart is dead.

Desperado

Why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences

and open the gate

It may be rainin'

but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you

before it's too late

I'm sorry. ..Carolyn, Jack, Imam. ...I couldn't be what you wanted me to be. Without you, I'm just not strong enough to change. . .so I guess I'll just do what I have to and be who I've alwys been. Richard B. Riddick.

Note: This takes place shortly before getting caught the first time by Toombs at the beginning of CoR.