Just a weird little ficlet. Please review.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Chronicles of Riddick/Pitch Black universe.
Her eyes.
That's what first catches his attention as he walks into the crowed bar. Though he cannot know their colour he sees a simple sadness in them. The sadness of a hard life lived half way. She looks so out of place in the dingy establishment that he almost feels sorry for her. Almost. Her clothes are certainly grimy enough but her face is innocent and kind in design, not cold and predatory like the other serving girls. She is by no means beautiful, no; her eyes are a little close together, her cheeks a little to red and her mouth a bit too small. And yet she was the most alluring woman he has ever seen, though she does not seem to be conscious of it. Her own luminous eyes do not catch the not-so-subtle glances that follow her where ever she goes.
His eyes soon join the other spectators around the room, how can he not watch her. Her soft, yet pronounced curves and easy smile are a welcome break after weeks of sharp corners and jagged edges of a cell block.
When she brings him the ale he had bought only so that she would come close enough to smell, she gives him a perfectly sincere smile that caused the bags under her eyes to wrinkle slightly. She should not have wrinkles under her eyes. She is barely out of her teens. But then, as he gazed at her further he realizes that the creases suit her, made her real and not just a dream his lonely mind had conjured up. Her sent made her real too. Nothing special, just sandalwood shampoo and innocence lost.
He wonders how she would taste, but then hangs that thought by its own fantasy. She is not a street whore; he should not think such things of her.
Suddenly a sound in the other room, from his vantage point he can see a tall man back hand her and shove her out of the kitchen.
She returns to his table, her smile diminished. Unable to stop himself he grabs her arm saying 'come with me.'
She regards him a couple seconds; something in his voice makes her consider it. 'I cannot.'
'Come with me.' his voice is ragged, pleading, begging.
She smiles sadly a shakes her head causing her hair to bounce around her too thin shoulders.
She leaves him then, her ragged skirt swaying gently.
He stays the night. He should go; he should be in the wind and a hundred planets away by now. She returns to his table but does not speak. Only a tiny secret smile to adorn un-rouged lips.
When she leaves he follows. He does not hide, instead dares her to confront him, challenge him and be disgusted by the beast that lies beneath a man's flesh.
She knocks and a makeshift door opens. Money and a child are exchanged. A little boy still too small to walk alone. Same eyes, same smell, same blood.
He smiles. Almost. She's not going anywhere. The child pulls her hair and she smiles tenderly smoothing back his soft baby hair.
He ducks into an alley and presses his muscled back against the cool brick and mortar.
He should leave, but he is drawn to her. She has no money. That much is obvious. He has thousands secreted away. He doesn't need all of it. His face twists in a snarl what is this? Compassion? Sympathy? Or gods forbid it, a trace of humanity?
No it can't be. He has to be drunk. Drunk and stupid. He needs the money.
She needs it more a voice in his head whispers. Shut up he snaps at it. Still...
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She wakes up to find mercury eyes staring down at her. Somehow she is unsurprised to find the copper skinned man looming above her cot. She doesn't speak, unwilling to wake her son. He drops a point card on her chest and stalks off into the darkness. Her weary eyes cannot follow him so she doesn't try.
Blinking she picks up the card and stops breathing. Ten thousand points. Enough for a home for her son. Clutching the card in her small hands she falls back into a gentle slumber, unable to shake the feeling that she is being watched by molten silver eyes behind hidden black goggles.
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Three months have past when he finds himself in her bedroom. She has bought a small house on a small planet far from the trash dump she was working on. She has a steady job and her son is learning to walk.
He's been keeping tabs on her as best he can from half a galaxy away. But he finds himself drawn to her still. She enters the room and doesn't even flinch at his presence.
'Thank you' she whispers, smiling her sweet smile. She shows no fear, and he can smell none on her.
He shrugs his massive shoulders, uncertain. She glides closer, growing bolder. She is touching his arms his chest and lower.
Suddenly she's in his arms and underneath his massive bulk and he feels alive for the first time since he was born.
Later they lay awake in her too small bed and he asks the question that's been gnawing at his mind since he first met her.
She answers 'blue.'