River hangs from the pull-up bar in the makeshift gym on Serenity. Her eyes rest on the inverted image of Riddick as he stands telling Jayne about his third prison break.
"Mei mei! We're getting ready to settle on land for a few hours, do you need drugs to block out the sounds?"
River rolls her eyes at Simon and pulls her body up in a crunch type motion, but she lets her core stay tight and lifts a hand to position herself so she sits atop the bar, facing the wall. She speaks to the metal, "Negative brother boob. We settle for a job, one she will be needed on. If she is stuck with needles and pins she will be less effective and then there will be crimson not caused by her dance of leafs and ribbons."
Simon blinks at his sister, concern written on his face as he steps closer, wanting to protect her though she was as sane as she ever would be and the only time she took the meds was when they were used against her to ease the worries of her crew-pack-family.
Across the way from River, Riddick lifts an arm to bar Simon back and Jayne smirks at him.
"She's sayin' no doc, moonbrain means to keep crew blood unspilled an' way I see it means I ain't gonna be getting' hurt. So, leave 'er be pansy ass or we're gonna start thinkin' ya gots a itch to have us bleedin' and such."
Simon glares at Jayne for his words and then at Riddick for stopping him. When he turns to look at his sister she is no longer on the bar but right before him, an inch away from the arm before him. He jumps and takes a step back, unnerved by his baby sister and the way she moves-it reminds him that she is no longer just a graceful ballerina girl, now she is a witchy assassin weapon.
River's eyes glass a bit with tears as she looks at her brother and she glances down. "She thanks the reaper and the guard."
Riddick's eyes narrow behind his goggles, see the silver hues lighten in the girls eyes and he stays quiet but pushes the doc farther back. Jayne grins, "Go'n to do yer part Simon, we'll handle the tough stuff."
Simon turns away, rushes from the cargo bay and to the engine room to help Kaylee with anything that may go amiss in Wash's landing.
Riddick watches River as Jayne watches Simon leave. When Jayne turns to the witch she's hanging from the bar once more, dress pooling around her waist as a belt holds her blades and the dress down just above her belly button. She wears dancer's shorts beneath and Jayne growls to see his gun strapped on her thigh.
"If you try to take what is hers she will spill your blood and allow our targets to reopen the wounds once on Amadeus."
Riddick's booming laughter makes Jayne scowl and River smiles at him but he seems to ignore her and his mind is only a hum to her. A hum that changes, that she dances to but a hum that does not share with her his thoughts on anything. It seems if he wished it he could silence his mind completely from her but he hums and River can hear the messages he conveys with the tones and melodies in the hum, can hear if he needs a spot to aim at or wants her to play as a distraction so he can be the reaper.
"That is my ruttin' girl on your thigh an' iff'n I gotta come over there you're gonna be the one blooded bit. Give. Me. Back. My. Rosa."
River sighs, flips from the bar and steps once toward him. Suddenly, she bolts and runs out the hallway and Riddick laughs quietly, looks to Jayne. "Seems she ain't scared of you guard."
"Can it."
"Bit needs a thrashin', she just been causin' stir all gorram too much 'round here." Both men ignore the captain and Mal huffs, leans against the rail as Inara stands with him. "Why's it I keep them around?"
"Public relations and familiars to dance with your witch."
"Oh. Right. Ruttin shame there's real reasons."
Riddick doesn't glance up at them, instead looks toward the hall behind Jayne where the witch's smell of opium and burned blood filters through. "You think havin' me on your side ain't too shiny cap'n, I can walk off and you can look forward to the interestin' day when we meet again."
Jayne snorts, mutters to just Riddick, "Ain't likely you'll walk off what with your bein' kinda tied to a little demon."
"I will end you."
"She scares me more than you do."
Riddick keeps quiet as Mal laughs tightly and Inara says something about him being on their side and miracles or fate or some such.
But his focus is on the girl skulking in, quietly behind Jayne.
A pale hand flashes around his side and Jayne jumps and drops a hand to his gun with a startled grunt, then freezes as he sees Rosa in River's hand.
He snatches it and glares at the chuckling Riddick as he turns to River.
"Ain't so crazy, crazy. See reason when ya know I'd ruttin' skin ya alive."
River's eyes narrow and she strikes out at Jayne, a fist to his jaw and he sees red.
Riddick grabs a hand to the nape of his neck and squeezes, knowing by now the primal warning is all that works when he's seeing red.
"You're clouded when it comes to her Jayne."
Jayne frowns at that and blinks clear the red.
"Look closer." Riddick growls.
Jayne looks at his gun and then at River and she raises her leg and her dress skirt shifts and bunches around her thigh. The silver gun still cuddles into its holster and shines against her black encased thighs.
River's eyes are still narrowed and Jayne growls begrudgingly as Riddick releases him. "Fine."
"Say it guard."
"Ruttin no way in gorram hell."
"Fine."
Jayne is quiet, not ready to apologize and not at all prepared for River to let go of the fight he thought was brewing so soon.
A moment of silence passes, in which Riddick moves to the punching bag and starts going at it.
"That's it?"
River smiles, floats to the bag and with a jump lets Riddick's punch place the bag just so under her feet so she pushes off, sending it back toward the reaper and her body is high enough that she grabs the chains the bag hangs from. Pulling with just her arms she goes up and up until the six chains attached to the bag become the one chain attached to the ceiling and she lets her legs clamp the silver between her thighs before she lowers her torso to hang free.
Mal and Inara are gone, otherwise frantic screams for her safety would abound and Jayne stares and gulps as Riddick keeps punching, harder now to try and keep himself from staring at the witch. Every hit swings her and River's eyes close and she sings quietly to herself, the words of the reaper's hums that she crafts for herself. She doesn't know he hears her just as he smells her, just as he always knows where she is or how he thinks on her so much that his beast and man had decided she was theirs.
Jayne shifts, "This seems bad."
Riddick punches harder and grins, "She's gonna take her pay from you on the job. Watch out, she might be a little behind in her warnings."
River snorts and Riddick looks up as does Jayne.
"She is not so low as to let another do her job. She is not so nice as to let another make what is hers hurt. Retribution shall be paid, but only when the guard is not required to keep the world spinning."
Jayne gulps and cusses a string of Mandarin, a mix of phrasing stolen from Riddick, adapted by River and worthy of clearing out a room of criminals with heads ducked and blushing.
"River! I'm ruttin' sorry!"
River opens her eyes, twists her back a bit and looks down at them. A smile covers her face and her eyes are almost all black from her strong emotions, pupils dilated as she speaks, "That won't help you now guard."
The reaper laughs and the hum shifts, more bass and heavier, darker, drawn out with the contrast of a high bell seeming to echo with every breath.
It's after the job runs smoothly and Wash has them up in the air that Riddick appears at the door of the infirmary.
Simon turns from the table where a body supports a sterile, white sheet. He glares ice at him and Riddick keeps his face clear as his beast growl in him.
A hand lifts and settles on Simon's arm, squeezes and he nods and leaves.
Riddick looks at the alert River and he sniffs the air, knows she's refused drugs. He moves closer and tries to see the wound that should be his.
"Don't look."
Riddick ignores her and his hand grabs the sheet back and when he pulls it back she hisses a breath and turns her head away from him.
River lays stiff and tries to ignore Riddick. It's easy, he's not in her head but for the deep hum that is slow and sorrowful now with the harsh edge of anger.
Riddick ghosts a hand over River's stomach, she's bare but for the shorts, a black sports bra. Her blade belt had been shot through and Kaylee had taken her gun and the ruined belt and dirty blades to clean them for her sister-in-law. Riddick knows by memory that the shot hurts like a bitch and he knows the surgery is a beast of pain with drugs, without he imagines she must be in a fevered world of torture. Because she took his bullet.
A growl starts in his chest and River clenches her jaw, "The reaper was not heeding her warnings, he was focused on killing the one who kept saying the witch would be a good pet and the guard and captain a good fertilizer. The pig man was sighting you, shot to the back just so, you'd be paralyzed but still feeling. They wanted torture."
Riddick places the sheet back and River looks at him now. He sees her eyes darker, knows they must be mostly black now and her muscles are all tense.
His silence beckons her on, the hum grounds her through the haze of anger and pain.
"I would not allow those surfs to touch and tarnish what is mine."
The voice is like a sharp blade on ice and he inhales the heady scent of her, the opium and burned blood twining with smoldering cinnamon clove and the ice of the last second's thought before death.
It hits him.
And by the way her dark eyes look away she knows just by the tilt of his head that he knows.
Jayne strides toward the engine room, glances in and sees no Kaylee. He moves to Inara's shuttle and knocks.
"Enter."
Jayne walks in, sees Kaylee and Inara sat around a towel with River's weapons and holders between them.
He sets by them and Inara smirks to him. "Riddick?"
"With 'er now."
Kaylee sighs, "Other's are gonna throw a fit when it happens."
Zoe's voice answers and Jayne glances at her as she waddles to them with a hand over her belly all full of kid, "Because they're big idiots with their heads up their asses."
Inara nods, thinking of her lover and Kaylee's husband, of Zoe's husband.
"Way I sees it, shoulda happened a lot earlier. Know how irritatin' it is to be doin' weapons maintenance in the kitchen just 'cause the reaper wants to be close to her? Or how iff'n she goes out or Simon sticks her he gets so tetchy I gotta hide the gorram weapons?"
Kaylee giggles at Jayne's words.
"Twas fate that brought the reaper to the witch, twas a twist of the threads that made their cord and braided them together for all eternity, a fate and a twist crafted by the hands of hell that applaud them when they dance with ribbons and leafs."
Inara's voice is absent and her hands rub a blade clean.
Jayne tilts his head and scowls as Kaylee explains to him an' Zoe, "Words to some song Riv keeps singin' when Riddick's near and he looks at her every couple of minutes."
Zoe smirks, "How ya know where he's looking when his goggles are on?"
Jayne grabs the blade belt and stands to go mend it best he can, trying to help erase the event and to make amends with River so she wouldn't want to collect her pound of flesh. "When he looks at River, when he thinks on River, he shifts. The beast comes out I guess, he gets a bit rougher around the edges and ya can always tell if he's thinkin' someone's offended her or if someone's done something don't sit with him. He grabs a blade, the one she gave him from her pair during the fight wit' the operative's sweep team."
The three women are silent, remembering when the anniversary of the events of truth came about and with them a sweeper team and a cage. A cage with a man that tore out of it and grabbed River right off the ground and slammed her into a wall as purplebellied soldiers tried to kill the others. They don't know the part of the story that was the exchange of Riddick from the sweeper's team to theirs but it was one that was permanent and private.
Riddick crouches by the table and tries to see River's eyes as she squeezes them shut and he sees her muscles start to shake.
"Lights. Thirty."
As his command is answered by the lights of the infirmary lowering he lifts his goggles off and tilts his head till he's mirroring River.
"You thought I was going to die."
River tries to scoff and make him think he speaks ill but it sticks in her throat. She hopes his thoughts name the sticking to the wound in her stomach. "She wishes to rest."
"Ah, and there it is."
Her eyes snap open with a glare and they are lighter silver and he knows she's less weapon and more woman and he hates it when she cages herself more than he hates it when the stupid brother of hers cages her with pricks and pills.
"Here we go again, you just shuttin' off your emotions and instincts. You always separate yourself with that she and her ruttin shit, when you're you, you're the weapon and the witch and the ballerina of hell."
River swallows and then she lets her anger flare, shoves away her fear for him and the scent of her ice leaves as Riddick can smell more smoldering.
"I kinda want to be more than this." Her words are hissed and Riddick snorts, knows she means she's tired of their only interactions being when they're working and when they're fighting each other.
"So take it easy on me!"
River rolls, drops off the table and stands, kicks the sheet away and stands in the shorts and the bra and the bandages bleeding red. She glares at Riddick with black eyes and screeches, "I'm afraid you're never satisfied!"
"Here we go again," Riddick stands and then in a move that surprised River he pushes the exam table out of his way and nearly pounces on her, pressing her to the wall and trapping her with hands that frame her head. "We're sick like animals, we play pretend."
River shakes confronted by him so gently, their fights were always blow on blow, never once did they pull punches. After all, he was the reaper and she was the angel of death, the familiar to the witch-they fit together when chaos came.
"This ain't our dance Richard."
"Hard to share something with you when you don't let me know who the fuck you are River."
Their words are spat, names used in anger because they never use the labels given by others on each other-they only use the truth, not the wishes of others.
"You're just a cannibal! Eat up the world, play with toys of broken shame!"
The scream echoes through the infirmary and Riddick growls low. River is angry, she was only his toy when he was ready to fight with her. Otherwise, he ignored her and their only interaction was his humming. He never spoke to her unless needed, he never sat with her freely or tried to be her friend. He was friends with every other person of their crew-pack-family but her and she had been the one to bring him into Serenity!
Riddick's low words pull her away before she gets to the memory of a moment when he was much less gentle and she was still between the wall and his chest.
"You're just an actress! Dance on the world's stage, caging yourself and trying not to let your tears hit the ground!"
River pushes against the wall as if recoiling from fire and her stomach is aching so bad and the fire of anger is smoldering in the air. Angry tears well in her eyes and she is so determined not to let him see them she lifts her fist and slams it to his jaw, sends him stumbling as she shakes.
"I'm afraid."
The whisper stills him as he turns back to her shaking form. His eyes look into her dark and light orbs, sees the pool spill down her cheeks.
"I won't get out alive."
"No." His voice is firm but she ignores him and goes on.
"I won't sleep tonight." She swallows and her arms raise to cross and her hands settle on opposite shoulders as her being feels like it's splitting and the fire in her stomach means nothing.
"I won't sleep and I won't feel and I won't be real. I'll be the ballerina sitting in silence. I'll be the the witch sitting without familiar. I'm afraid and I'm lost because the cage is so big I'm never sure where it ends and I begins until the emotions are so strong and it's as if I'm breaking the cage just to dance out the feelings."
Riddick understands her words and the man and beast are shaken to her his witch's words.
He moves to her, grabs her as she shakes and crushes her to his chest as her arms go slack and she lets her wet cheek rest on his shoulder.
Simon nearly sprints to the infirmary at the sounds of yelling and screaming but stops at the top of the stairs at the sight of Zoe and her mare's leg.
Mal skids in next and Wash follows him.
Calmly, Inara's voice speaks, "We're gonna leave River and Riddick be. Dinner is ready, time to eat."
The three men turn from the scary and pregnant amazon warrior woman and they see Jayne, Kaylee and Inara before them.
"Are you ruttin' kidding me?"
Kaylee rolls her eyes at Mal.
"They need this cap'n. I made stew, I already saved theirs for later now come on."
"I'm going to check on my sister!"
"No, ya ain't doc. Get your ass following yer wife 'er I'ma haul ya there by the neck."
Mal twitches for his gun but Zoe's barrel pressed to the nape of his neck stops him. Kaylee comes over, plucks his gun away and hands it to Inara.
"Shiny. Now, I want you to follow your wife Simon, Zoe, bring my lover to dinner please. Wash, I trust you've sense to escort me?"
Wash flails for words still and he blinks at the sight of Inara handling Mal's gun. Mal curses the day he set out to teach Inara how to really wield a gun but he took it back just as quick as he remembered that was what had them together now, that first day and the ones it caused.
"Yes ma'am."
Below, a crack sounds and worried looks pass. Jayne waves them off, "Just Riddick's jaw. Didn't hear a break, bet Riv jus' cracked him one."
"They kill each other, all of you are gonna be in a world of hurt."
"Mal, please, they belong together. Hopefully, this will show them the truth."
They sit at the table, some forced and some at ease. Zoe keeps her gun in her hand as the other holds her spoon and her husband shifts about as he eats. Mal glares at his lover and the gun she twirls absently as she eats daintily and pretty like. Kaylee chatters away as her husband steams and glares at his bowl. Beside him, Jayne holds a knife just resting on the back of his chair.
River finally pulls her arms free from between them and now her hands are on his shoulders and she pushes at him to try to get free without the violence she's too drained to handle right now.
Riddick holds her steadily as she makes soft noises, sobs and angry cries. Her movements are weak and he knows she's probably so exhausted from telling him the truth that she ain't got fight left to deal with him how they usually deal.
"I want some more witch."
River stills and then sets her chin in a stubborn show she won't talk more to him, won't give him more knowledge of the true witch, won't give him her mind and soul.
"What are you waiting for?"
River struggles on exhausted and Riddick moves and presses her to the wall, slides his arms from around her and instead plants his palms wrapping about her naked waist just as he'd wrapped them so tightly, with different intentions, around her neck that first time they met.
Riddick paces the cage, paces and paces as he is transported. They'd trapped him, trapped him after some signal came over the screen in his ship and he'd been frozen. Subliminal work, they'd strolled right in and drugged him with a new cocktail mix, one he wasn't immune to. Yet.
They'd made him their pet, he did clean up and he made a mess doing it.
He didn't know the target but he was resigned to the fight, the routine. Get out, sight target and kill. Then there'd be whispers and he'd black out till he woke in the cage.
A life he was living with no escape for two months.
He'd been told to watch for a slip of a girl, she'd be the biggest threat and she was his target.
He feels the cage settle and hears the guns that are his announcers.
The bars in front slide and the steel door swings open and he charges.
He sees her immediately and he roars as he pounces and grabs her round the throat and squeezes, slams her back into the nearest wall.
Her eyes are wide and he sees the light in them change to dark hues as she stays still in his grasp, not fighting as he slowly squeezes.
They are all that exist right now.
As he stares into her eyes he doesn't notice her hand raise and snatch his goggles as they scratch his cheek. The lights are low and her hand just settles resting on his shoulder as she looks right into his eyes.
"What are you waiting for? Take a bite of my heart tonight."
He squeezes harder, wants her to shut up because that voice is sinking into him like a hot cinder into ice.
"I want some more."
He gives her more, pulls her from the wall and slams her back and squeezes. Her eyes flutter closed but her hearts thrumming and her scent, oh, her scent was all kinds of opium and burned blood and smoldering cinnamon clove and he could smell her adrenaline and faintly the traces of something he'd never encountered before.
"It ain't pain reaper. It's magic, it's..." He was squeezing and she smiles at him. She opens her eyes and that's the first and only time he puts up the blocks that leave her with just a hum in her mind, the blocks that never once wavered or fell. His grip loosens because he'd just wanted to see her eyes and now he's letting her talk.
"It's the scent of a beast, a weapon. Angel of death, smelling of hell. Sulfur and dirt, roses and mint. Powerful blood smell, cut with the sweet sugar of cotton candy."
And because she named it, he knew the smell. Unlike anything he'd ever encountered.
Around them, chaos but neither notices.
His head moves close and his forehead presses to hers. "I'm here to kill you witch."
"You're here to dance."
He growls and squeezes but she rolls her eyes as she lifts a hand to push at his wrist.
"Not as a puppet or pet for the same men who once controlled me," he nearly drops her at that, reinforcing his walls but she only knows the fact because it was so obvious due to the scene. "You came to dance with me."
Riddick does let go then and her hands move quick, slamming to his jaw and then lowering to her thigh, lifting her dress.
"The hit was for repayment for the suffocating."
"Tit for tat."
"Yes." He admires the expanse of thigh as he also looks over the blades on her thigh. She pulls two matching blades, he watches her twirl the shivs. "You take this blade, you won't ever be able to put it down reaper. It will be your scythe, you will use it to cut the bars of your cage and the throats of your supposed masters and then you will be another familiar to the witch."
Riddick wraps his hand around hers over the shiv she holds out. He squeezes until she bleeds and holds her gaze. Letting go, he takes the now bloody shiv and brings it to his mouth, flicks his tongue out and tastes her blood and all the scents it contains. Her hand flashes up and scores a cross over his heart, her bloody palm floating to cover the wound as she raises her red blade up and darts a pink tongue to taste him. They stare each other to the soul, heart pounding at the most intimate exchange ever had been in.
"Tied and sealed in blood reaper."
"Time to dance angel."
And they did, staying close together and cutting down each others enemies. It was afterward that she walked over to him as he was free, beast and man running wild in him. She shook her head when he offered the blade back, sliding hers into its spot. She stepped close and whispers, "Said goodbye to my heart tonight."
Riddick grins as her fingers dance across his only wound from the fight, a thin line of blood on his cheek.
"Said hello to mine tonight."
It's their shared stare that keeps the crew from approaching as Mal and Jayne clean up the mess and Simon soothes the others, mainly Kaylee.
It was the moment they were truthful, the first and the last.
Riddick looks over River as he projects the memory. She's silent and she ignores the need to mull over how he can keep up walls but still connect and give her only what he wants her to see.
She shivers. "Here we are again."
"Feel the instincts kicking in, smell 'em." He dips his head and the scents of River drug him till her purrs and the vibrations in his chest make River shiver once more.
She recoils from this, wants to hide and Riddick snarls to smell her icy fear-weaker than when she jumped in front of the bullet with his name on it but present.
"It's getting heavy and I want to run and hide."
"Want to run and hide?"
"I do it every time, you're killing me now. I have to let go."
Riddick growls and his head buries in her neck as his hands squeeze her hips and there will be bruises later but she's seen to it his jaw won't close right for a few days.
"I won't be denied by you, the animal inside of you."
River closes her eyes, squeezes them shut. She lifts her hand and laces her fingers on his nape, dips her thumbs to circle the pulse point behind his ears.
Like a lover soothing a beast.
"I want some more."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
It's his challenge, he wants her to take what she wants because he's unsure if he's on the same dance as she is. She can't see his mind and it scares her to be lost as much as it scares her that he can always find her, the real her.
"For you to take a bite of my heart tonight."
Riddick growls and his body pushes closer.
He smirks against her skin, uses his hold on her hips to lift her up and she stays limp and shaky in his grasp as she is held so she's his height. He dips his head and his mouth settles over her heart, he bites down till he tastes her blood and then his tongue wipes away the drops. He pulls back and sees the mark he's left. His eyes lift to hers and she's biting her lip as her scent drips with the magic she'd shown him.
"Saying goodbye to my heart tonight."
His mistake was making it sound like it'd be her saying the goodbye but he can't correct himself because she is recoiling and her fists are pushing him away until she drops to the ground and she tries to leave as she burns in shame, knowing he knows her wants and having to bear his marks even though he plans to keep himself whole and unmarred.
Riddick grabs her arm, "Hush, hush,"
River tries to pull free and then whirls, a fist to his jaw, "The world is quiet." She spits the words and he knows the quiet is because she ain't in his head and he almost wants to let her in to see the truth but he don't want to frighten her with what's in his mind. Those walls protected her, not him.
"Hush, hush," he tries again, grabs her wrists and lifts them over her head.
River cries out at the pain in her stomach and she breaks out with sweat all over as the pain makes her head swim.
"We both can't fight it."
She thinks the words are from her head and suddenly the world is spinning and it's dark.
Riddick lowers her and releases her, catching her before she falls and he cradles her to his chest.
"It's me that made this gorram mess." His voice is angry now and she twitches in her dark slumber. "Why can't you understand?" His hand pushes her curls back from her sweat shined face. He moves to the stairs, goes up them and toward his bunk. "I won't sleep tonight. I won't sleep till you wake up and understand." His words are a promise and the body relaxes in his grip as he settles on his bed and holds her close, fingers dancing over her features as he memorizes them.
River opens her eyes silently, feeling pain and remembering what caused it. From the bullet to the blacking out and her face burns in fresh shame and Riddick smells the scents he could track across the skies if it meant he'd reach her.
She shifts and her hand moves to raise to her stomach but she stills as she feels for the first time her hand held gently in someones.
She turns her head and meets Riddick's eyes.
She groans and her head drops with a thud against his chest as she squeezes her eyes shut. "Oh, here we go again."
"Listen angel,"
"No! She will not listen! She has been honest and she has bumbled through a dance that you are making up just to see her reactions and she is tired of you being the only one allowed the be a liar and she is not going to allow you to act until she is shamed once more!"
Riddick growls and his hand moves to knot in her hair, he lifts her head from his chest and locks eyes with her as she glares and tries to pull, his hand following so as not to hurt her too much but he puts his forehead on hers and his hand holds her from moving back or turning.
"I want some more of you witch, I want your honesty. I want you."
"What are you waiting for? I said goodbye to my heart long before last night."
He takes the permission and his lips slide against hers. The kiss is hungry and dangerous and she tastes so much stronger than she smells that Riddick pulls away because now he's the one bumbling for the steps to their dance. River lifts her head and kisses him again and the hold on her hair tightens as it feels as if he's lose control and hurt his witch.
River gasps for breath as she breaks the kiss now, her eyes open and meet his and he's tense and she knows his fear for her. She grins and her free hand raises to his nape, drags him down and as they kiss she fights him for dominance and her nails score into his neck as he hisses pleasure and she shows him just how strong she is, she shows him that they were made to dance together-the reaper and the witch, moving to the rhythm of hell.
Riddick pulls back and breaths against her lips, "Ain't a thing in this 'verse gonna take you from me. You're mine now little angel."
River giggles and pecks his lips, trails her lips to the scar she gave him the first time they met, the cross she scored over his heart. "You've been mine. I was just waiting for you to learn the steps to our dance."
Riddick's dark chuckle makes her shiver and she settles against him, both sleeping soundly in each others arms as the crew mills about, waking up.
"Can I please go check on my sister now?"
Simon's voice is desperate, Jayne'd sat up on the couch with Boo as the others slept all over the commons.
Zoe arches her back and winces, Wash immediately puts his warm hands atop her shirt and he rubs her back.
"Fine, they should be seein' the truth by now."
Inara nods to approve Jayne's words and Mal and Simon jump up but Wash stays with Zoe, having talked with his lamby toes about the two crazy killers. He understood.
"Uh," Kaylee cautions as they head toward the infirmary. She throws a thumb over her shoulder, "They went to the bunks."
Mal fumes, "Come again?"
Kaylee gulps and looks at her feet but Inara wraps an arm around her shoulders and speaks with ease, "They went to his bunk."
"If he hurt one hair on her head-"
"Shove it, of course he hurt her. She paid him in spades, I'm sure. It's their ruttin dance ya idjit."
Simon glares at Jayne and rushes behind the others to Riddicks bunk. It's open and the ladies climb down first. Wash next, followed by Jayne and Mal. Simon braces himself for the worst and goes downt he ladder, freezing at the sight.
"Wow."
His sister and the escaped murderer are cuddling and sleeping.
Bruises cover his mei mei's hips and it looks like a bite mark on her left shoulder. On Riddick, his jaw is all kinds of colors and blood runs on his neck.
"They're so cute!"
"Took 'em long 'nough."
"Bi zu Jayne, or I'm lettin' my angel collect her due the minute she wakes up."
Jayne steps back toward the ladder as Riddick speaks, eyes still closed. He's ready to bolt if the little demon who owns his friend wakes and remembers he owes her a pound of flesh.
"Awake. But as the man named Jayne saw to our peace, I will not collect the debt for we are even. Besides, I wish to return to sleep. Pleasant dreams and symphonies for our dancing."
Riddick chuckles and shifts, the injured woman settling tighter against him and Mal clears his throat.
"If ya'll plan to be sharin' a bunk now I plan on a new rule: any babes ya'll have ain't so much as lookin' at a weapon till they's at least teens."
River snorts, "That would mean my child could not see me."
"This is very weird. And very good. But weird. Wait. They can't have kids." Riddick and River look at Wash and he shakes his head, frowns, "I don't have enough dinosaurs to hold over more than two..."
River giggles and Riddick shakes his head.
"Hey! When we hittin' land Mal? I can pick up the new tub of dinos from Zo's mom. Then we'd have enough for, what, five kids lamby toes?"
"Or six if you didn't wanna play."
"So five."
"Five."
River sighs as they all ramble and she looks at Riddick. "Just want to sleep. But no, they're already expecting us to have three or four kids. I'm shot, ya know. I can't be making babies at the moment, I can only handle dreams at current conditions."
Riddick nuzzles her cheek and nips her skin playfully. "Glad you ain't scared of the truth."
In their dreams, for they were shared now, he could hear her mind and she could hear his.
"Never scared of her beast."
"Good. But, iff'n ya got notions of kids I'm sayin' this-you won't be leavin' my sight the second your scent changes. No way in hell anything's gonna happen to you an mine."
By now, the crew is climbing out of the bunk and River giggles as she shakes her head, "Silly reaper, our children will be warriors of hell just as their parents."
Riddick growls as he flips her beneath him and her stomach flips, not from her wound but from her want for her mate.
"Gonna have to be careful girl, I ain't 'xactly good with controllin' myself with you, specially now your mine."
"I can be very careful. Don't worry, I'll be sure to keep control of you reaper. Just promise you'll keep control of me so I don't slip back into the cage."
Riddick kisses her, opens his mind to her without the dreams and is surprised to find that her mind is open to his even though this is real life and not their dreams. The kiss is the promise and their ownership over each other is the bridge, twisting together their strings and burning them together with the dancing flames of hell.
Inspired by: Animal by Neon Trees.
Disclaimer: Just the idea is mine, the words of the song aren't. The characters sure as shittin' ain't either. No coin is made, just warm fuzzies that make me smile secretly as I sip my coffee.