(Very Long) Author's Note: So, uh, it has been a while, and I am so very sorry for that. This school year was horrendously busy, and gave me horrible writer's block. However, both school and the writer's block are now over, and with any luck I should be able to get back to updating at least once a week. :) Any readers who stuck with me despite the hiatus, thank you so much. For your patience, I'm rewarding you with a chapter that's twenty plus pages long. Also, it has the longest Harry/Riddick interactions to date, in both Harry's and Riddick's perspectives.
Disclaimer: Some lines of this chapter were taken directly from the movie. No scenes, however, are the same in their entirety. I just liked some lines too much to leave them out.
Last chapter (a refresher, for those who haven't read in a while): Harry, Shazza, Fry, Johns, and the Imam and his boys find the settlement in the desert. Shazza works to get them a water supply—meanwhile, Harry tries to track down the source of a bizarre snake-like hiss he heard when they entered the settlement. Shazza and Harry talk, and form something like the beginnings of a friendship, only to be disturbed by a scream. They find out that Fry was the one screaming, in response to having found the transport ship wrecked, apparently beyond repair, leaving them trapped on the planet.
One reviewer (Fruitful Action) asked me a very long time ago if I would be willing to write from other character's perspectives. This chapter includes two new perspectives. If you especially like or dislike either of the new perspectives, tell me in a review, and I'll decide whether or not to write them again in the future.
That's it. I hope you enjoy, my lovely readers. :)
Panicking was easy, and panic cheap. Carolyn Fry hated having to admit that, in moments of stress, she almost always did just that—panic. At least, she had recently. In the simulators of early flight school, Carolyn had always been able to handle emergency situations well. Hell, even her first few piloting jobs had gone off without a hitch, and she'd even been commended by her boss for neat, calm flying. But the moment a job went wrong, and the pressure was on, Carolyn had felt all that calm slipping right away. Simulated crashes were distant, imagined things because you always knew you could survive them. Carolyn, watching the ground of a new planet actually come at her ship in real time, had fucked up, she could admit that—she'd panicked, and lost Owens. Up there, breaking atmo all too fast, it had been too easy to pull those switches; it wasn't like she knew anyone, wasn't like she cared about the passengers, and God, she was going to die otherwise, wasn't she? It wasn't until afterward, when she looked the passengers in the eyes and learned their names, that she realized only Owens' sacrifice had stopped her from becoming a murderer. And she'd promised herself quietly as she watched Owens die a gasping death that she would never panic like that again. She wouldn't.
Except she had. Somehow the ruins of the rescue ship had set her right off again, until she was a screaming, whining thing that was terrified only for herself. Somehow knowing that she, not the others, might be trapped on this planet indefinitely, had made her forget everything flight school had taught her. Crashes aren't always as bad as they seem, Carolyn. Always check the system computers before you declare a ship useless, Carolyn. Never say something is beyond repair until you're sure of it, Carolyn.
Once again, Carolyn Fry had fucked up.
She hesitated just inside the burnt hatch of the ship, one hand resting on the unblemished metal of the interior, and tried to talk herself into going outside. Was there a good way to word this? So, um, it looks like things aren't as bad as I thought—sorry for crippling morale and all that, just a mistake, I'm sure you understand. As if she hadn't told them all that what could have been their only hope for getting off the planet was ruined—as if she would have even thought to double check inside if the prisoner, Potter, hadn't looked at her with those big green eyes and asked, "Are you sure?" Carolyn was ashamed to admit she'd only looked inside to prove Potter wrong—her pride was on the line, and nothing more. Not like it would've been a good idea to find salvageable parts inside the ship anyway, or like there could have been emergency rations stored inside that they could put to use, or like as a pilot, Carolyn should've known to check anyway, damn it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now she had to swallow her pride and go out there. She tapped one toe against the floor of the ship and tried to tell herself she wasn't acting like a child afraid to be scolded.
"Fry," a voice came from outside the ship. Potter, she recognized, and felt her shoulders slump. "We can see your feet, by the way. Whatever you have to tell us, just...come out and get it over with."
So she did. She wasn't going to panic again, not over something this stupid. Carolyn was pretty sure she even managed to pass off her initial wince at seeing the expressions of the others as a brief pain from her eyes readjusting to the sunlight—it was dark in the ship, after all, and they had no reason to suspect otherwise. Not yet.
"So?" Shazza asked, sounding tired and exasperated and hopeless all at once. Her posture didn't look scared, though; she stood tall and solid, unmoved by the stress. There was a woman who wouldn't fall apart under pressure, and Carolyn would be lying to say she didn't hate the dark-haired woman a little for it.
Carolyn opened her mouth, then closed it. Shazza's dark eyes were drilling into her; she couldn't admit a fault under that gaze, or the other woman would take her apart for it. Instead she looked at Potter. Somehow talking to him felt easier, like she was just admitting a mistake she'd made privately, between the two of them, and the rest of the survivors weren't involved at all. Maybe it was because he was a prisoner, and Carolyn felt safe from him, or maybe it was because he was looking at her like a man who'd seen too much to judge her now. Whatever the cause, the words unstuck in Carolyn's throat. "It's possible," she said, "that I could repair the ship. Just possible—"
Her next words were lost in three childish whoops of joy, and Imam's soft prayer to God. Right. There were children here—she'd made three kids lose all their hope. Kids. Carolyn felt almost nauseous under the weight of that; she'd always prided herself on being good with kids, too. Well, there went another bit of herself that Carolyn had previously been so sure of. Maybe it was time for a little self-reevaluation?
Then Johns was talking, and he, unlike the kids, was not joyous. "How the fuck did you make that mistake, Captain?" I know you fucked up, he was saying without words. I know every time you fuck up on this planet, and don't forget it. Carolyn just kept looking at Potter's green eyes and tried to steady herself against the unchanging brightness of them. "You told us it was ruined. Destroyed, actually. Fuck, you made us think—"
"There are kids here," Potter snapped, breaking eye contact with her to glare down Johns. Carolyn knew just from Potter's expression that things had turned into a staring contest with Johns—Potter seemed to win, if the way Johns fell silent was any indication. Then Potter was looking at her again, and even if that metallic sound was Johns kicking a piece of rubble like Carolyn thought it was, it didn't occur to her to turn around. "So, Fry," Potter said, voice not quite gentle, but almost—Carolyn had to think for a second to find the word she wanted—lenient. As if he was pardoning her for her stupidity. Carolyn was horrified on principle to find that it actually made her feel better. "What happened?"
She took a deep breath, remembered that these people—most of these people, anyway, even if Johns seemed to be excluded at the moment—respected her, and didn't look at her shoes. "I said the ship was ruined because of the fire," Carolyn said. "Because if something in the engine lit, it would've burned the ship just like that, and made the whole ship useless." Her fingers clenched to nervous fists, which she only realized after they'd moved and it was too late to stop the gesture. "But I was wrong." Somehow saying it helped. Damn it all, Carolyn was a strong woman, not a scared little girl. She'd fucked up, and now she was admitting it, and that was all anybody could ask of her. Maybe she didn't quite look away from Potter, but she wasn't exactly hiding behind him either. "It looks like the crash started sparks on contact that burned the ship from the outside. So the hull isn't the prettiest thing I've seen in a while, but the engine and the inside still look intact."
"And you can fix it?" Shazza asked.
"If I've got enough scrap metal to piece the hull back together, and the batteries to run the ship," Carolyn added, because it was entirely possible she might not have even that much, "and the navigation system isn't completely screwed up, then yeah, I can fix it."
"The batteries from our ship," Imam put in, "they will work, no?"
Carolyn nodded. "The metal from our hull ought to be thick enough too, if we can peel it off in chunks. We'll need welding tools—"
"Have 'em," Shazza added in.
"—and some damn impressive luck," Carolyn finished, as if she hadn't been interrupted. "Not to mention at least a few weeks. But if we don't starve first, we could just get off this rock."
Carolyn Fry, bringer of hope. She liked seeing the expressions around her; she'd given them that enthusiasm. Now that they had a mission—now that everyone had a purpose—they weren't just lost anymore. They had a chance, and that made all the difference. Even Carolyn felt optimistic. Someday they might be able to get home, and wasn't that enough?
"I vote we set up camp here," Potter said. "There's already housing, and Shazza's this close to getting us drinkable water."
"Potter," Johns started, and Carolyn was reminded of the fact that Potter was, after all, their prisoner. It was strange that she'd forgotten, even for a moment. Shazza, though, cut the blue-eyed man off with:
"He's right. If we move everything over from the crash site, we could live here pretty comfortably—just 'til we starve, of course, but other than food, this place has everything we need."
"Dragging everything across the sand will take time," Imam pointed out, though Carolyn wasn't sure if he was saying it to support Johns' opposition to the idea or merely to point out a fact.
Shazza grinned. "Look at that old sandcat, there," she said, pointing; Carolyn looked where she indicated and noticed some sort of over-sand cart. "That'll hold plenty of cargo and all of us. Looks solar, too, so batteries aren't gonna be a problem given we don't seem to have a night here. Gimme a minute to get it up and running, and we oughta be good to go."
Just like that, they had a plan—Carolyn found she liked it.
...
Paris knew he was a coward. Actually, it was something he took pride in.
He'd had a grandmother—batty old woman, really, by the time he was of any age to remember her—who'd moved in with his mother when he was nine. His father had been long gone by that point; he'd been a coward too, and fatherhood had scared him off after the fourth son was born, which really just proved to Paris that cowardice was genetic to begin with. Taking care of four sons wasn't easy, or inexpensive, as Paris' mother had informed him all too many times—Paris remembered his mother working almost nonstop, in multiple, exhaustive jobs that left her too tired to do much of anything once she got home for the day. With all three of Paris' older brothers off at work during the summers, that had left only Paris to look after his grandmother.
The woman had been a nutter. There was no doubting that; half of what came out of the old hag's mouth was nothing less than absolute rubbish. Paris had spent the better part of his adolescence listening to one sort of crazy theory or another voiced in his grandmother's dulcet tones. Most of it had gone in one ear and out the other, lost forever to the ages—that much, Paris could say without any remorse. But one thing she'd said had stuck with him across time and space. He remembered it distinctly, because it had happened the day his eldest brother, Cairo, had been moving in to the dorms at the Police Academy, and he'd been left all day with the barmy old bat; when she'd insisted he sit down and listen to her, Paris had treated the request with a reluctant sort of acceptance.
"Paris," she'd told him, showing an odd bit of lucidity in even knowing his name, "listen to me, boy. Listen well. Your brother's off to be a good little cadet, to learn to police our streets and protect the good folk of our little world, and your other brothers after him, no doubt."
"Yes, gramma," he'd said, bored already. This had been a favorite topic of his mother's too, as he recalled—he'd spent the better part of a month being endlessly lectured on the nobility of his brother's choice of career. "Let me guess. 'Be a good citizen and follow in their exalted footsteps'?" Easier said than done, as Paris had well known. His brothers had been strapping, athletic young men, who looked as if they could have stepped off the recruitment posters for the Police Acad—Paris had always been mousy, lanky and largely unbalanced, more given to dusty books than feats of strength.
Instead his grandmother had snorted. "Are you crazy, boy? They give you a gun and you'll shoot yourself in the foot with it." Paris had blinked in surprise, insincere protest already on his lips, but she'd gone right on. "Silence your pride and listen. Your brothers are gonna police our streets, guns in hand, and take down criminals and murderers you'd be afraid to sneeze at. Maybe the first year won't kill them—hell, maybe ten years won't. But they'll walk awful close to death, boy, and they'll do it often." She leaned forward, arthritic hands gripping at Paris' thin, youthful fingers with a surprising amount of strength. "You call on death often enough, he gets to know your name—first and last, all nice and personal. He gets to know where you live, too. Soon enough he'll follow along just behind you, breathing down your neck. Maybe ten years won't kill 'em, but they'll start to feel death close behind, boy, and you remember that. And their time will come sooner than most, because death likes to keep his friends close." For a long minute, she'd watched Paris with a shadowed gaze that made him too scared to speak—he'd almost stopped breathing entirely by the time she said, absentmindedly, "Now where on all the planets did I leave those damned glasses of mine? London, fetch them for me?"
Nothing else the woman had ever said had made much of an impact on Paris—but that single conversation had stuck with him since, and he'd been no more than twelve at the time. When push came to shove, Paris had put a quick end to the family profession by becoming an antiquities dealer. His mother and brothers had hardly spoken to him after, but that was alright—he'd outlived all of them, and that certainly said something.
So, stranded on the foreign, desert planet that was becoming his worst nightmare, Paris elected to take watch instead of helping the prospector dig a grave. So, with something sharp to his throat and a voice in his ear, Paris had been terrified. So what? Jack, the infernal child, based his bravery on hero worship of people of dubious moral quality—when the child realized his idol was little more than a raving sociopath, they'd see where that bravery got him. And if Zeke decided to give some rest to the dead, so be it—Paris didn't believe there was such a thing as a restful afterlife. There was only staying as far away from death as possible until the very end of things; a life of cowardice was a life of peace, and a longer life besides.
Let Zeke dig the graves, disturbing the ground with his presence, moving corpses better left where they were. Paris, resting atop the ship and at a safe distance from the entire proceedings, would give death no reason to shadow his steps.
…
Sitting in the back of the sandcat as it raced over dunes, Harry looked up at the sky as the color of its light shifted gradually from blue to orange, and wondered what the hell he was doing.
The plan was simple: talk his way out of the handcuffs, help repair the ship when and where possible, get off the planet as soon as such an option becomes available. Straightforward, basic, and plausibly manageable, it was Harry's favorite sort of plan. Of course, it was the sort of plan that would, inevitably, fail somewhere, despite Harry's best intentions. There were three things, by Harry's reckoning, that might upset the plan—Riddick, the first, he'd find a way to deal with, and Johns, the second, he'd find a way to kill eventually. It was the third thing that proved more problematic.
The camp they'd discovered, with the wreckage of the rescue ship and the semi-functional water pump, was a good choice for a home base for the survivors. It came with shelters already made, enough space that they could all live in one location without stepping on each others' toes, and, with Shazza's help, a readily available source of water. Harry could think of no better place to live until they either got off this rock or all died of starvation. And there, at last, was the catch—the fact that without any food, the survivors couldn't hope to go on surviving for more than two weeks or so.
Was it even slightly possible that while they were all starving to death, no one would take notice of the fact that Harry, alone, was not dying? Oh, he would get to be as emaciated as the rest, there was no question of that, and he would suffer all the symptoms of starvation as the others did, but when it came down to the very last, Harry would not die. If enough died before him that his continuing life became suspicious, what would the others do to him? And, if they didn't harm him, how would he get off this planet alone, after they all had gone? Then, of course, there was the issue of Riddick, which tangled up everything else and made even more of a mess of things than they already had been.
Harry remembered Hermione's voice ever so fleetingly, spoken as clearly as if she had been sitting beside him. Over the sound of the sandcat's engine and the shifting of sand, he heard in memory, "It isn't anything more than a precaution, Harry, and we'll undo it as soon as everything calms down a little. You know as well as I do that it isn't really immortality."
He truly couldn't help but to snort in response—not really immortality. Had Harry remembered the reversing rites, that could have been true, but he'd trusted Hermione's memory at the time and not bothered himself. The only other option for mortality was one Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take. But it wasn't really immortality, of course.
Looking up at the strange mixing of blue-orange sky above, Harry tried to ignore the feeling of being watched he'd had ever since they left the settlement—and tried to ignore the fact that he found it almost comforting to know Riddick was following just out of sight. For now, he simply listening to the roar of the sandcat's engine and tried to plan for the impossible.
…
Shazza, too, knew Riddick was following them.
Oh, she hadn't known it at first, not for sure. Other than a vague feeling in the boneyard, she'd had no concrete proof that the murderer was nearby, and feelings in foreign places were easy to put down to nerves or stress. By the time they'd reached the settlement, she'd stopped feeling watched anyway, and had put it mostly behind her.
But when the same feeling returned as she piloted the sandcat over dunes, learning how the machine moved and shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun they were driving into, she gave it a little more credence. She wasn't alone, anymore—surrounded by the other survivors, and with her nerves more settled than they'd been since the landing, Shazza couldn't put the feeling down just to imagination any longer.
Still, though, she wasn't entirely certain until they reached the crashed cargo ship and came to a stop. Fry and Johns were the first to jump off, almost before the engine had stopped moving, and they went straight off towards the engine room of the ship, talking about batteries and energy capacity as they did. The Imam's boys shot off too, but they scampered in the other direction, in search of the former passenger compartment; Shazza knew they were probably looking for any emergency rations that might have been in the compartment, though she didn't expect them to find any. The holy man himself stepped off the sandcat more slowly, and made his way towards the tarp erected about thirty meters from the crash—from the way the tip of a shovel appeared over the dip of the land from time to time, Shazza was willing to bet he'd gone to consecrate the grave her husband was digging for the bodies of the passengers who hadn't survived the wreck. After a minute or two, the only people left in the sandcat were Shazza, who stayed a moment to clean dust off the sandcat's solar charger and check the machine more thoroughly, and Harry.
When Shazza looked up at last, satisfied that the sandcat was in working order and would likely stay that way, she realized that the chained man still had not moved. He'd been standing at the back of the cart, leaned against the metal post there so as not to tip over, and he was still there, some minutes after the sandcat had come to a stop. Shazza almost opened her mouth to ask if anything was wrong, but noticed his expression before she did and stayed quiet.
Shazza had felt fairly certain that they were being watched, but Harry's expression told her that he knew it for a fact. Head cocked gently to one side, a look of concentration on his face and his eyes shifting ever so slightly on around one area of raised stone structures a little ways back towards the direction they'd come from, Harry looked like he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly where Riddick was hiding. In that moment, Shazza didn't doubt that it was the truth.
So, Shazza did what she thought was best. "Harry?" she asked, and watched him startle out of whatever concentrated state he'd been in. When he met her eyes, she continued, "I'm going to take a look around, maybe start cutting metal off the hull. You should come, if you'd like to be helpful."
Harry steadied himself against the post and hopped down, managing to catch his balance without using his hands despite the sand shifting under his feet. He turned back to her when he was steady, and told her, "I wouldn't know what to do with a blowtorch if it hit me across the face."
Looking down at him, Shazza thought of the help it would be to have a man who'd confessed to being dangerous when protecting those he cared for, and who could evidently track Riddick at great distances, nearby. Besides, when he'd fallen asleep before, he'd snored gently; it was kind of endearing, and Shazza had considered keeping him around even then.
She hopped down beside him, and pointed towards the most likely section of hull. "You'll learn."
…
Funny thing was, Riddick never needed to touch 'em to make the people down at the ship scared to death.
He watched them and knew that. They were terrified of him—sentry twitching at his own shadow, the blonde always looking over her shoulder, Johns' hand never far from his gun. Riddick circled the ship, never too close, just watching. Watching them all startle at the sound of his name, at the sound of sand shifting, at anything. All he'd done was make an escape and keep close, and they were pissing their pants like he was the monster they'd thought lived in their closet when they were kids. It was funny. Pathetic, but funny.
His mongoose, though, that was different. Dark-haired man had hidden himself away inside the ship with the prospector, letting Riddick know where he was with the sound of a blowtorch but never coming into sight. Riddick knew, though. His mongoose wouldn't be scared. Not of Riddick. Whatever else he was afraid of, the dark-haired man had looked at Riddick and bared his teeth like another predator, not prey. It'd been a long time since Riddick had hunted somebody worthwhile—made things more interesting when they fought back.
Circling, watchful, Riddick saw the man coming long before the sentry did. Bloodied but alive, another survivor walking out of the dunes, right into a ship of people jumping at shadows. When the mousy man on watch heard and went stiff, Riddick knew things could go very wrong. Sentry slipped away from his post, into the ship below, and Riddick took his place. Settled in quietly, waited.
And they put on a hell of a show. Prospector went Amazon, wide-eyed and swinging a scythe—nearly took the man's head off before a kid screamed her to a stop. Then the prospector's lover finished what she started, three bad shots ending a life. The guilt and shock of the aftermath were showy, too; prospector covered in blood and trembling, her lover with his head in his hands, sentry shaking like he was caught in a wind.
Riddick smelled it just before his mongoose stepped out of the ship. Sweat, cinnamon, static electricity, and then the dark-haired man was pressing his shoulder gently into the prospector's, was turning the kid back inside and whispering comfort. Putting them back together again. He talked to the prospector until the blank look in her eyes went, and she turned back the way she'd come. Talked to her lover until the man's spine went straight again, and he clapped a hand on the black-haired man's shoulder and walked back to the grave. The sentry, shaking, went back to the ship at a few words.
Alone, then, his mongoose looked up, meeting his eyes, like he'd known Riddick was there all along. Looking just like he'd looked from the back of the cart, following Riddick with his eyes when Riddick should've been too far to follow. His mongoose frowned in disapproval, like this was Riddick's fault. Raised one eyebrow, looked over Riddick's position, mouthed the words, "Getting cocky," then turned around and went back inside the ship.
Sentry had left a bottle of wine behind when he fled. Riddick raised it to his mongoose's retreating back and smirked.
...
Harry's day had been going badly enough before he heard yet another set of gunshots going off—after that, the day descended straight into being called abysmal.
He'd been inside the ship with Shazza and the kid, whose name he'd learned was Jack, when the gunshots went off. It had been touch and go for a minute after the other survivor's death, but Harry had managed to pretty much talk everyone around and get them back to what they'd been doing. It was horrible that an innocent had been killed, yes, and Harry would have given them all the time they needed to mourn that loss in any other circumstances, but the fact of the matter was that they didn't have time that day for grief or guilt. They were all of them trapped on an alien planet, and the longer they took to get off it the more likely they all were to starve; it was imperative that everyone finish up what they were doing and head back to the settlement to start the repairs. With that in mind, Harry had done what he could to get everybody working and productive again. He'd been through two wars, after all—he was used to talking civilians down in combat situations.
Shazza, at least, had taken what he'd said to heart. She was already back to shaving off the plated layers of metal they would need to fortify the outside of the transport ship, her hands steady and efficient despite the grim look in her eyes. In all honesty, Harry was starting to really like Shazza. The woman was almost endlessly useful, and determined to do the absolute best she could; Harry respected that a lot. She reminded him a little bit of Hermione, in that she was also one of the most competent women he'd ever met. The fact that she'd been kind to him so far despite Johns' mistrust and the handcuffs around his wrists was fairly endearing too.
Harry couldn't say Jack was in good shape, necessarily, but then he hadn't expected the kid to be. He didn't know Jack that well yet, admittedly, but he could already tell the kid talked big and couldn't always back it up. The boy talked like he admired Riddick, but then flinched away from death; Harry could tell from Jack's wide eyes and shaking hands that this was the first time the kid had ever seen anything die. Jack was probably about twelve at the oldest, and hadn't learned to cope with anything so traumatic as another human being being shot, and Harry really wished he hadn't had to learn today. Still, that said, Jack was holding together, which was a point in the kid's favor. He sat inside the ship with Harry and Shazza, eyes a little glazed and words coming a little too fast, but he didn't cry or scream, and he managed to give Shazza a hand, so Harry figured he'd be okay given enough time.
Personally, Harry knew he wasn't being very useful. With the handcuffs still tight around his wrists, and his arms still held behind his back, Harry couldn't exactly lift tools or carry the metal Shazza cut down. The cuffs were starting to wrench his shoulders pretty badly too, which made him even less helpful than he might have been. Rather than getting in the way, Harry had chosen to sit down and just talk quietly with Jack and Shazza, careful to keep his voice even and calm. He could see that steadying their frayed nerves a little, and figured that was the best he could do.
All his hard work to get them settled was ruined, however, the moment the gunshots rang through the air.
Shazza was the first to react. "Zeke!" she said, eyes very wide, and was bolting out of the compartment before Harry had even managed to lurch to his feet. She had the door to the cabin thrown open by the time Harry was upright, and was out into the sand beyond before Harry could call out for her to wait. Zeke was probably the one who had sent off the shots, but it could have been Johns, or even Riddick if he'd managed to get his hands on a gun, and Harry wasn't sure it was safe for Shazza outside just then. It was too late, though—Shazza was already gone, and considering that Harry was already a bit fond of her, it wasn't like he could just let her go out alone.
Jack had started after her, but him at least Harry could stop. "Kid, wait," he said, "stay here."
"Somebody could be hurt!" Jack said, but slowed, one hand on the doorframe.
"Yeah, and it could be you next, so wait here." Harry had already passed the kid, almost falling when his feet hit sand, and cursing Johns again for the handcuffs. Balancing was harder than it looked when you were trying to run with your hands behind your back, damn it. He didn't stay to see if Jack listened to him, but considering the kid didn't go sprinting past him a few seconds later, Harry figured it was a safe enough bet that he'd stayed.
Catching up with Shazza was hard given her head start, but Harry made his best attempt. She'd gone straight off towards the grave her husband had been digging, which meant veering around the edge of the ship and taking off towards the other side. A sharp turn on sand, Harry learned quickly, was not his friend, not without his hands to steady him. Still, he managed not to fall, and by virtue of having longer legs than Shazza managed to almost catch up with her on the open space between them and the grave.
As such, when the figure standing in front of the grave came into focus for Harry, he knew Shazza's keen eyes had already picked him up. Against the white sand and white stone-like spires of the horizon, the person standing ahead of them was pretty hard to miss. Harry hadn't seen the man for long, but the broad shoulders and the goggles over the man's eyes pretty much gave him away in a heartbeat. "Riddick," Harry panted out under his breath, wishing he had to air to sigh. Why wasn't he running? "C'mon, run, you idiot."
Then Harry saw the blood around a hole at the bottom of the grave, and beside him Shazza let out a low, pained sound. They both skidded to a stop for the barest moment, both staring down at the bloody ground now about three yards away. "Zeke!" Shazza said again, and it sounded like a cross between a sob and a scream, her voice catching on the name. She looked up at Riddick at that moment, and let out a wordless shriek, her hands clenching into fists at her side.
Riddick finally, finally ran in the moment after that. Harry already knew the other man had moved too late.
Shazza was after Riddick like a shot as soon as he ran, and Harry couldn't keep up even though he'd starting moving barely a second later. He didn't think he'd seen anyone move the way Shazza did then, as if all her fury at her husband's death had converted into speed, her body overcoming the limits of the thin air simply by virtue of anger. Riddick was fast—he should be, with all the muscle he'd built up—but he moved like somebody more used to doing the chasing than being chased, and that made all the difference.
If there was even the slightest chance that Riddick might've gotten away, it was gone the second Johns entered the picture. Harry wasn't close enough to see how it happened, but he did see the results: Riddick fell like he'd been hit in the legs, and then Johns was standing over him, a baton in his hand.
Harry wasn't quick enough to stop the first blow Johns landed, or the second; he wasn't even there to stop Shazza, who drew back her hand and swung like someone with very little practice in fighting but one hell of a motivation to make someone else hurt. "You son of a bitch," Shazza yelled, even as the blow fell, "tell me what you did to Zeke!"
Harry did reach her before she could hit Riddick again. For a moment, he was tempted to let her. He hadn't seen what happened, didn't know if Riddick had had any part in killing her husband, but if the murderer had then Shazza was well within her rights. Harry would have let her, actually, if he hadn't looked down on Riddick at that moment.
He hadn't realized Johns had ripped off Riddick's goggles until he saw the bigger man on the ground, squinting up to try and see who was hitting him. It was the most vulnerable he'd ever seen Riddick. When Riddick was upright and free, there was no forgetting that the man was a predator, and one who enjoyed what he did—Riddick wouldn't let anyone forget, not with the way he moved, and not with the way he watched too carefully, like he was just waiting for the moment where someone wouldn't expect it when he came after them. It was different, though, when Riddick was on the ground, already trapped, not even able to see what was happening around him. He wasn't helpless—if Harry ever once thought of Riddick as being helpless, the man would probably kill him out of spite—but he was unprotected, and he was outnumbered. Harry hadn't entirely expected every one of his nerves to vibrate with the message of protect/guard/mine, but once they had he knew he couldn't let anyone hurt the man further.
"Shazza!" he called, wishing his arms were free so that he could just restrain her physically. Maybe she had a right to hit Riddick, especially if he'd killed her husband—and Harry needed to think that Riddick hadn't, that there was another reason for the blood—but Harry actually could not let her harm Riddick. It was that simple. "Shazza, stop." He pressed in close behind her, his side close against her back, hoping the contact would jar her out of her anger.
It did stop her from landing another blow, in that when she drew back her arm for the swing her elbow collided with Harry's chest. She'd drawn back hard, and the hit winded Harry a little, but it also caused Shazza to half turn around, blinking in surprise. Something about actually noticing there were other human beings around her seemed to cause a shift in Shazza; as Harry had thought, her frenzy had caused the world to narrow to just Riddick, and forcing that focus to dissipate seemed to remind her of why she had been so angry in the first place. "Zeke," she said, very softly, and this time the name was a sob. She shook once, hard, and lowered her head to Harry's shoulder.
Harry wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that—comforting crying females had never been a strong point of Harry's—but it was still infinitely better than anyone touching Riddick. "I'm sorry," Harry said, and lowered his head so his chin rested atop her head, the best substitute he could make for a hug. "I'm so sorry."
"Just kill him," Shazza said into the curve of Harry's neck, and it was only the sorrow in her voice that kept the protective part of Harry from acting up. "Just somebody goddamn kill him. Zeke..."
Harry stared Riddick down over Shazza's head. Even half-blinded, Riddick had turned to face Harry. For once, the man actually wasn't smirking or smiling like a shark—his face was blank, like he realized exactly what he'd gotten himself into. "Idiot," Harry said, under his breath, hoping Riddick had enough sight left without his goggles to make out the shape of the word on Harry's lips.
"Jesus, somebody has to put you down," Johns said, and brought his baton down across Riddick's head. Riddick lost consciousness a second after the blow landed, and Harry couldn't look away as it happened.
The only thing that stopped Harry from launching himself at Johns was Shazza, who was not only depending on him for stability at the moment but also physically between him and Johns. As it was, Harry couldn't stop himself from jerking from the effort it took to stay still, and his handcuffs groaned as his arms tried to pull apart. He did manage to stop himself before he dislodged Shazza—he did not manage to keep a low, growling sort of sound from emerging from his throat. Johns noticed both the movement and the sound, and gave Harry a disapproving look, the baton still poised in his hand.
"Don't touch him," Harry said, his voice lower and rougher than even he had expected. He met Johns' gaze and did not look away until the other man lowered his weapon. With Johns standing down, the whole situation changed. Now that there was no need for Harry to protect Riddick—and he was going to need to get that instinct under control, he knew he couldn't afford to attack Johns, not if he wanted to get out of his handcuffs any time soon—it was just two men and one crying woman standing around an unconscious form. Two women, actually: Harry realized that Fry had arrived at some point during the commotion, and was hovering awkwardly behind Johns, unsure of where she should stand. Harry looked down at Riddick and asked, "What are you going to do with him?"
"He's getting locked up back on the ship," Johns said, and moved to lift Riddick, gesturing to Fry that she should help him, "and so are you. Hurry up."
…
Riddick woke up slow. Real slow—the kind that comes with head wounds. He remembered Johns waving a baton around, which would definitely cover the head wound. Johns might've cracked his skull, if he was anybody else. One more thing to kill Johns slowly for, when he got around to it.
He didn't open his eyes. There was warmth across the back of his neck—sunlight—and he'd already done blind today. Didn't feel the need for the splitting headache that would come with doing it again. Anything he needed to know about where he was he could smell out, anyway. He'd need to find his goggles eventually, but for now they didn't matter.
They'd put him in the ship—he was chained, which meant they had something to chain him to. From the feel, they'd chained his arms to opposite poles or walls, sat him down on a stool. His legs, though, they'd left free. Stupid of them. With his legs free, Riddick could still stand, could still kick. It wasn't much to work with—not enough to get him free—but it did mean he could do Johns some damage, if the bastard came to gloat. Might even be worth the consequences to see Johns squirm.
He smelled metal, sweat, dry air, sand, static electricity, cinnamon. He smiled. "Mongoose. Come here often?"
Heard a sound like fabric rustling, metal clinking—his mongoose shifting to face him, maybe. "Very funny, Riddick," he said, in the same accented voice Riddick remembered. "Maybe next time you can just stop in for a visit without getting yourself beaten half to death first."
"You were worried," Riddick said. Didn't ask—it wasn't a question, not with his mongoose sounding like that. "I got you to thank for keeping me alive?"
"Yeah," the dark-haired man said. "New rule, by the way. Nobody kills you but me."
"Cute," Riddick said, and laughed.
"You're an idiot," his mongoose said. Sounded so dry, so serious. "I thought I said something about not getting caught by Johns, didn't I?" Then, after a second, "Riddick. What the hell did you do to Zeke?"
"The dead man? Nothing," Riddick said. His mongoose snorted, shifted again. "That's the truth. You already know I'm a killer. Why would I lie?"
"I don't know," the other man said. "But there was blood in the grave, and you were standing over it with a shiv. That really doesn't look too good for you," a pause, and then, sarcastically, "Viper."
Riddick liked it. 'Viper' sounded almost as good in that accent as his name. "What about you?" he asked, and grinned. "Think I killed him?"
"No," his mongoose said, quick, like he'd been thinking about it. "Zeke's gun fired multiple times. I know Zeke wasn't a good shot, but at that close of a range, at least one of the bullets should have hit you if you were going after him. That, and I know you didn't have time to hide the body, but Shazza was in here earlier, and I know they haven't found it yet."
"Shazza?" Riddick asked.
"His wife. The one who hit you, actually." Riddick remembered her, come to think of it. She'd been blurry, but he'd definitely gotten hit by a woman. His mongoose had stopped her, calmed her down—he was good at that. She'd cried on the dark-haired man. Riddick remembered his mongoose not looking too happy about that, either.
"Oh. The prospector." Not that he cared, much. The prospector wasn't Johns or his mongoose—she didn't matter to him here. "So, you believe me. Why does it matter?" Riddick asked
"Maybe because the others do think you killed him, Riddick," the black-haired man said. "We're trapped on a desert planet here. If they leave you to die, you probably will." Which was true, but then Riddick knew something his mongoose didn't—the price on his head was much higher when he was alive. He knew Johns wasn't gonna let a bounty like that slip away. Riddick was going to live for as long as Johns could safely keep him that way. But his mongoose wasn't done talking. "The reason why I care, personally, is that if you didn't kill Zeke, something else on this planet did."
It was good to see his mongoose wasn't an idiot. "There's definitely something else, lil' mongoose. I heard the whispers."
The handcuffs clinked loudly at that—his mongoose had scrambled up to attention, like his words were important. "Whispers? Like a hissing that turned into a screech at the end?"
"Exactly," Riddick said. "You've heard 'em?"
"At the settlement," the other man confirmed. "I tried to track the sound down, but I only heard it once." More rustling fabric. "Riddick. If whatever it is that killed Zeke was what took down the animals in the boneyard, then things are going to go very wrong here."
"Mm," Riddick said. "If you're right, the others are fucked. But not us." Because Riddick really didn't plan to die, and the other man's life was his. He'd protect the dark-haired man until the day he killed him.
"What, we're going to ask the giant predators to please leave us alone, because we have each other's deaths reserved?" His mongoose snorted. "I'm not seeing it, Riddick. We're both chained up and unarmed."
"So we get free," Riddick said, "and we go hunting."
There was a pause. Then, "You know, for a murderer, you're strangely optimistic. I don't—"
"Quiet," Riddick said, and the other man stopped talking. "Footsteps," Riddick said, now that he could hear them clearly. "Across metal, coming closer."
"A couple of people have been through while you were unconscious," his mongoose said, voice soft, like he wasn't sure if Riddick still needed the silence. Oddly considerate of the other man, actually. "Shazza came through twice, and Johns was by for an explanation. I think he was disappointed that he didn't injure you more badly than he did."
"Bastard would be," Riddick agreed, and then could tell from the sound that somebody else was in the room with them.
"Potter," the voice said—female, self-assured. The blonde pilot, Riddick remembered. And, apparently, his mongoose's name was Potter. Riddick didn't think it suited. "Is he awake?"
"Ask him yourself," Riddick said, amused, and turned to face the sound of her voice.
"Fry," his mongoose greeted. "Why are you here?"
"I need to know what happened to the body," the blonde said. So his mongoose had heard right—they hadn't found the prospector's husband yet. Interesting. "Riddick?" A long moment, and then the blonde sighed. "Fine, don't talk to me. I just wanted to let you know that there's a debate going on right now, about whether or not we'll just leave you two to die."
Riddick paused, sat up straighter. He hadn't thought of that. Johns needed him for bounty, but not his mongoose. Johns would never leave him, but the blonde had said they'd both get left behind, and his mongoose would still starve. That wasn't gonna happen. The other man died on this planet, it was gonna be at Riddick's hands, with Riddick's shiv in his spine—no slow starvation.
"Wait," Riddick said. Heard the retreating footsteps stop. "I heard whispers."
The blonde turned back towards him, footsteps light, tentative. "What whispers?" she asked.
Riddick couldn't resist. "The ones telling me to go for the sweet spot. Just to the left of the spine. Forth lumbar down—"
"Riddick," his mongoose said, very quietly.
He paused, sighed. Then he told the truth. "Whispers under the ground. As if there's something hungry down there."
"You're saying an animal killed him?" the blonde asked, voice all disbelief. "You're a murderer, and Zeke was alone—probably the first chance you had to kill someone here. You just told me about your sweet spot, Riddick. Do you really think I'm going to believe you never touched him?"
Riddick couldn't help a laugh. "All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I'd take that as a compliment. But it ain't me you've got to worry about now."
"Look at me and say that again," the blonde challenged. "Look me in the eyes."
"Thanks but no thanks," Riddick said, and smiled wide.
The blonde sighed. "Potter," she said, and wasn't it interesting that she would turn to his mongoose? The dark-haired man had been busy. "Do you have any idea of what happened?"
"I think Riddick's telling the truth," the other man said. "He didn't have enough time to hide the body, Fry. Shazza and I were there too soon after the gunshots went off."
"How do you know he didn't fire them himself?"
"Please," his mongoose said. "Like Riddick would get away with murder, find a weapon he could use to hunt more of us down, and then fire into the air just for fun and get himself caught. Do you really think he's that stupid?"
Riddick could hear the blonde turn to him. "You've got the wrong killer," he said. He could almost smell the way she wavered, could feel it in the air. She was starting to believe him, even though she didn't want to. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
"He's not in the hole," the blonde said, but Riddick could tell he had her. "We looked."
"Look deeper," he said. Smelled sweat in the air, sharp with fear, and knew she would do it.
"Potter," the blonde started, but his mongoose cut her off.
"I'll make sure he behaves. Go." Riddick heard her footsteps retreating back across the floor, through the door, away. "Though what she thinks you're going to do, all chained up like that, I can't even begin to say," his mongoose continued, once the woman was gone. Riddick just leaned back on his stool, made himself more comfortable. After a few minutes of silence, his mongoose finally asked, "Riddick?" Riddick grunted in acknowledgment. "Show me your eyes."
Riddick didn't say it was going to hurt—he was pretty sure his mongoose knew that. Black-haired man had seen Riddick squinting in the sun earlier, after all. But he didn't know why, and needed to.
Slowly, Riddick opened his eyes.
It burned—he'd known it was going to. Took a second to adjust, to see through the blur. When he could, he turned towards his mongoose.
Everything was too bright. His mongoose was brighter. Riddick couldn't explain why—it didn't hurt to look at, wasn't a sunlight sort of bright. The other man just seemed lit up, like there was something burning inside him that showed through his skin. The energy was brightest in his eyes. Riddick remembered that, from before, how his mongoose's eyes had shone, but it hadn't looked like this with the goggles. Without them, his mongoose's eyes were like stars, not painful to look at but nothing like eyes should be. Sweat, cinnamon and static electricity, Riddick thought. He'd be needing an explanation for the static electricity soon.
While Riddick had been looking at his mongoose, the other man had been doing the same. Staring at Riddick's open eyes, like he was fascinated. Like they were beautiful. Riddick wouldn't know. He hadn't seen himself clearly in a mirror since he'd had the job done—had no idea how the eyes had come out. But his mongoose stared. Then, completely without irony for the first time, the other man said, "Viper." Riddick grinned.
He smelled the kid—sweat, sugar, cotton—just before the kid spoke. "Where the hell can I get eyes like that?"
His mongoose jerked and turned to face the kid on the stairs. A weakness, not paying attention like that. Riddick was chained up, though, and couldn't use it, and he wasn't gonna let anyone else close enough to try. So, an excusable mistake, for now. "Gotta kill a few people," Riddick said, moving his eyes to the small shape of the kid.
Kid dropped down a step to the floor, metal clanging. "Okay. I can do it." Riddick knew better. Still adorable, though.
Riddick turned back to his mongoose and said, explaining, "Then you gotta get sent to a slam where they say you'll never see daylight again. So you dig up a doctor, and pay him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs."
"So you can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?" the kid asked, enthusiastically.
"Exactly," Riddick confirmed, and saw his mongoose understand.
Then the other man smiled, expression ironic. "And then you wind up on a planet with three fucking suns and no night, huh?"
"Life's a bitch," Riddick said.
"Amen," his mongoose said, and laughed.
...
In the end, it was Shazza who went into the hole.
She and Fry had had a bit of an argument over it—Fry was determined that she should be the one to go in, with Shazza equally set that it was going to be her. "I'm the captain," Fry said, arms crossed. "If anyone goes into danger it should be me." The strange thing Johns' reaction to this claim; Shazza happened to catch him out of the corner of her eye and realized he looked a little disbelieving, like Fry was making claims she wouldn't be able to back up. Shazza didn't begin to know why that was his reaction, but it was interesting. The part of Shazza that wasn't numb and desperately angry cataloged that for later consideration.
"Zeke is my husband," Shazza answered. "I need to know." That, in the end, ended the argument fairly conclusively.
They attached a cord to her belt, to pull her out with in case she got stuck. Shazza wasn't sure of what they expected to happen. She was a prospector, after all, an explorer and a settler—if they honestly believed a little bit of climbing through tunnels would be too much for her, they had no idea who she was. Considering she had not only the necessary skill to carry this out, but also a special motivation to finish this exploration—and, god, Zeke—Shazza was fairly certain the cord would be more a hindrance than a help.
She handed the cord off to the Imam; he was strong, for a religious man, and sensible enough not to pull her out if there wasn't an emergency. "Don't let this pull tight, but don't give it too much slack either," she instructed him, already looking at the hole and picturing what she might be getting into. "I don't want it getting caught on anything."
"Understood," the Imam said. He raised one hand and clasped her shoulder with it, smiling in encouragement. "You are very brave, Shazza."
Shazza turned back to him and raised one eyebrow. "Why? Because Riddick says there are monsters in the dark?" She wasn't going to believe that. If anything had harmed her husband, her bet was on it being Riddick. It was too convenient, for the boogie men under the hill to rise up and attack her husband just as Riddick arrived. No, she would always put her bet on a human killer. She would be completely certain of it, too, if it wasn't for the fact that Harry seemed to believe the murderer. So far, Harry had been the single most trustworthy person on this planet. That he suddenly believed Riddick's fairy tales was surprising, and a bit disappointing. Still, Shazza would go down the hole and see for herself—she knew Harry would believe her, if she told him she hadn't seen anything.
The Imam shook his head, though. "No. No matter what is under this ground, you are courageous because you must know, even if that knowledge is distasteful to you." His hand squeezed her shoulder gently, and then he released her. "I hope you are satisfied by what you find," he said, and nodded towards the hole.
Shazza gave one look around, taking in Fry, Johns, the Imam and Jack, all standing expectantly in front of the grave. Then she dropped down into the grave, brushed the last of the sand that blocked the hole away, turned on her flashlight, and began to crawl.
The tunnel she entered had a low ceiling, so much so that she had to stay on all fours for the first twenty or so feet. Trying to crawl with three limbs while she held her flashlight in her other hand was awkward at best, but Shazza ignored the difficulty of movement and carried on. Once she was past the first twenty feet, the tunnel opened up into a cave, with a ceiling high enough that she could stand upright within it.
Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn't been this. Just ten feet below the ground they'd all been walking on were a labyrinth of tunnels and caves. Shazza took a moment to look around and realized that more, similar caves branched off in all directions. She also found another hole in the ground, which dropped off maybe fifteen feet into another cave below. "My god," she said, looking down; the cave below her had yet another hole, which dropped into yet another cave, and it continued on even to the point where her flashlight stopped being able to pierce the darkness. The sheer number of caves that must exist were astounding—if Shazza hadn't known better, she would have said the entire planet was completely hollow.
All that was interesting, but it wasn't what she was here to find out. Dragging her attention away from the caves below, Shazza raised her flashlight and began to look around the area she was occupying. The walls of the cave were thin, and the spires on the horizon above were apparently hollow—and, more importantly, she couldn't find any sign of her husband.
"Zeke!" she called out, hoping that he might answer. "Are you anywhere in here?"
The walls echoed her words back to her, but her husband did not answer.
It took her five more minutes, after that, to find what she had been looking for. When she did, she wished she hadn't. Just a shoe, and mangled skin: Shazza hadn't ever wanted proof that her husband had been ripped apart. Numbly, Shazza turned away from the only remnants of her husband that she could find, fell to her knees, and threw up. Her mouth tasted disgusting after, but there was nothing to be done about that—it took everything she had to stop from vomiting a second time. Shazza rocked back on her heels, covered her face with her hands, and tried desperately to breathe.
She didn't cry; she'd already cried. Shazza had mourned Zeke already—from the moment she'd seen the blood, and seen Riddick, she'd known her husband was dead. Finding what was left of him, like this, was nothing but confirmation of what she'd already known. Shazza felt hollow, and terribly alone, but found that she could not cry. Distantly, she thought she might be in shock. It didn't matter.
While she kneeled in the cave, eyes closed against the dark, Shazza thought. It was true that Riddick was a monster; Shazza never doubted that. However, she'd seen Riddick above the grave, had seen that the only weapon he carried was a bone white shiv. What had happened to Zeke couldn't have been done with just a shiv. She hadn't looked for very long—god, how could she have looked—but she had formed a distinct impression that teeth and claws had been involved. Her husband had been devoured, she realized, and Riddick had had nothing to do with it.
In the very moment that Shazza first gave any credence to Riddick's monsters, she heard the first shriek.
Shazza didn't think, didn't look for them. She understood what she was up against, and she was not an idiot. The second she heard the sound, her eyes snapped open, and she was moving. There was the tunnel, but Shazza wouldn't be able to crawl back through it fast enough, not if there were many of them—and, having seen how large the caves were, Shazza didn't doubt that there would be. That left the spire, hollow at the top, with sunlight beckoning down. Shazza gave one quick tug to her line to ensure she had enough give, and then began to climb.
She was only just quick enough. The second after she had lifted herself entirely inside the spire, she felt the air shift just were her foot had been, as if something very large had lunged and only barely missed. "Oh god," she heard herself saying, but she was already climbing further, bracing herself against the circular walls and using any available handholds to pull herself up.
When her line snagged, Shazza was absolutely certain for just one second that she was going to die in those caves, just like her husband had. "No!" she said, a moment later, and then she turned her head towards the opening of the spire and screamed at the top of her lungs, wordless and loud, because she was not going to die.
She didn't know how long she stayed like that, clinging to the walls and screaming, fighting the force that had caught at her cord and was trying to pull her back down. All Shazza cared about was that, before she fell into the dark, a pickaxe crashed through the wall of the spire, and then there were hands reaching for her. Throwing her arms up, Shazza gripped the hands tightly and pushed off with her feet, helping the others in pulling her out of the hole.
She burst into daylight, with the Imam and Johns holding on to her so tightly that she thought she might have bruises, and had never been so glad in her life. "Cut the cord," she said, once her feet were flat on the sand, and returned both grips with equal force. "Don't let go of me until you cut this cord off, there's something pulling below."
Johns had a knife, and pulled it out with his free hand. Fortunately, he was quick with it. Just as Shazza felt a strong tug against the cord—probably strong enough to pull her back through the spire, into the caves below—Johns cut the cord. Unattached, it fell back through the spire and was gone from Shazza's view.
"My god," she said, and let go of Johns and the Imam to wrap her arms around herself. "I could be dead. I could have died."
A small hand wrapped around her arm, and Shazza looked down to see Jack. "I heard you, Shazza," he said.
"Thank you," she said, and then surprised even herself by tugging Jack close and wrapping one arm around him for comfort. "Thank you so much."
Jack smiled up at her, and stopped looking quite so wide eyed. "I'm glad you're okay," he told her, softly, like it was something to be embarrassed about. Then, because he was a child with the worst choice of role models, he asked, "Shazza? Was Riddick right about what's down there?"
Shazza looked up, and met Fry's gaze. The blonde looked shaken, as if she realized that she, rather than Shazza, could have walked into those caves. Fry seemed to realize that she probably would not have fared as well as Shazza.
"Yes," Shazza said, and then looked to Johns, because he had become their defacto leader, and this was something he would need to know. "Riddick's monsters exist." And, she added mentally, I owe Harry an apology.
…
Harry had almost fallen properly asleep by the time that Johns came to see them.
It had taken him well over an hour to even get comfortable. When Johns had locked him up, the blue-eyed man had removed his handcuffs, wrapped his arms around a pole, and handcuffed him again—so, now, not only were his hands caught behind his back, but they were also stretched at bizarre angles, causing the cuffs to dig into Harry's wrists and restricting any range of motion he might have had. As if that wasn't bad enough, Johns had used some of the same chain they'd tied Riddick up with to also hook his feet together. Essentially that left Harry half lying down and half sitting up, with his back straight against the pole and his legs splayed out in front of him. Overall, the effect was ridiculously uncomfortable.
Once he'd managed to find a position that neither wrenched his arms too badly nor caused his legs to fall asleep, it had been almost impossible not to just pass out. Harry had had a busy couple of days, especially when compared to the forced unconsciousness he'd experienced in the pod for who knows how long before that. The first time he drifted off and jerked back awake, Riddick had laughed at him. "Getting sloppy, mongoose," the bigger man said, still staring him down with those impossible eyes.
Harry had just snorted. Riddick was going to insist on calling him that, wasn't he? "Shut up, Viper," he said, drowsily, and was disappointed to find the sarcasm he'd meant to attach to the name almost entirely missing. "Everybody has to sleep sometime. 'M putting you on watch."
After that, Riddick had just ignored the way Harry shifted in and out of sleep. From the glimpses Harry got of him when he was awake, apparently Riddick was taking his job as sentry seriously.
It was a little terrifying, actually. Harry had no misconceptions about Riddick; the bigger man was a murderer, something of a sadist, and possibly a bit of a sociopath to complete the package. He was not, in any way, a nice man. None of that, however, explained exactly why Riddick had taken to him so quickly. Yes, the murderer had reserved his death—which was fairly twisted in and of itself, and probably should not seem as oddly sweet as it seemed to Harry—but this was above and beyond that. If Riddick was simply out for Harry's blood, he probably wouldn't put half so much effort into protecting Harry, or bothering to listen to him.
Harry was left with only one explanation for Riddick's behavior, and it wasn't one he liked. Already Harry himself had felt it twice, and far more strongly than he'd expected to. Though Harry wouldn't say he trusted Riddick, or even liked the man for that matter, he was already protective of the murderer, and—though he hated to admit it—a little bit possessive. Harry knew that if this kept up, he wouldn't be able to avoid it forever. He was going to try, though.
For a long while, Harry drifted like this, between considering what on Earth he was going to do with Riddick and light dozing—and, when he had finally reached what felt like actual sleep, Riddick said, "Wake up," and just moments later Johns entered the room.
Sleeping in front of Riddick was one thing; sleeping in front of Johns was a whole different class of stupid. Harry was awake moments later. He shifted as straight as he could, into a position that was far less comfortable and far more likely to earn some sort of acknowledgment from Johns. "So," he said, and tried to pretend he wasn't slumped across the floor in a completely undignified position, "I take it someone went into the hole."
Johns' eyes flicked to him, but they focused on Riddick a second later. Harry could already see how this conversation was going to go. "Shazza went down," Johns confirmed, as though Riddick was the one who had asked the question.
"Merlin," Harry said, under his breath. He'd forgotten, of course, that Riddick could hear him—come to that, Harry would need to find out at some point soon why Riddick's senses were so good— and the murderer shot him a questioning look about the exclamation a second later. Well, there was one more thing Harry would have to pass off as a quirk. "What did she find?"
"What you said she would," Johns answered, and Harry winced.
Riddick leaned forward, then, slowly; Harry knew he'd done it for effect because it made his chains scrape loudly against the metal holding them. "Why are you here, Johns?" Riddick said, his voice even lower than usual. "Thought you were gonna leave us to die. Or do you need us, now that you know we're not the worst things out here?" He smiled at Johns like a shark that scented blood, wide and toothy.
To his credit, Johns had the good sense not to say yes, not when Riddick looked like that. "It's going to go like this, Riddick. I'm going to set you free, and after that you are going to do everything I say. No chains, no shivs, and no goddamned sneezing without my permission."
Riddick turned to Harry, as if appraising him with those dark, ridiculously luminescent eyes. "And him?"
"Potter can stay," Johns said, and smirked darkly down at Harry. Harry pictured feeding Johns to a Blast-ended Skrewt and smiled brightly in return.
"No," Riddick said, and leaned back in his seat. "Protect yourselves. It's kinda cosy here."
Harry wished he was surprised. He also wished he had any damned clue of how Johns would react.
His answer came a moment later, when Johns frowned, one hand dropping to the holster of his gun. "That's not the deal, Riddick," Johns said. "Just you. Protect us while we're repairing the ship, and I might even stop chasing you when we get off this planet. I don't see anything to prove you didn't just die in the crash. Think about it."
Riddick just shrugged, another movement that made the chains clang loudly. "Two options, Johns. One, you kill me—ghost me, motherfucker, before I get to you. Leave him," and he indicated Harry, "to die. And then see how loud you scream when the whispers get you. Or, you let us go. I make sure nothing kills you in your sleep." His grin widened, and he said, "I probably won't even kill you myself."
"You don't get to set terms," Johns said, his teeth clenched. "That isn't how this goes."
"Two options," Riddick repeated, and waited.
Under his breath, Harry said, "My god, the testosterone," mostly because he enjoyed watching Riddick try to stifle a laugh.
Harry had seen a Muggle Western movie once, when Duddley was watching one on the telly and Harry had not been able to ignore the sounds. He didn't remember anything in particular about its plot—he did recall, though, one scene where two of the characters had faced each other for nearly fifteen minutes before ever drawing their guns. Duddley had apparently found this exciting. Harry had found it ridiculous, which was probably a good explanation for his complete lack of patience with the staring contest between Riddick and Johns.
"Johns," Harry said, and the blue-eyed man broke his gaze away from Riddick to turn reluctantly down towards Harry. "You need us. It's really that simple."
For a long moment, Johns waited. Then he drew his gun, spun it towards Riddick—
"No," Harry said, not loud but intent, because if Johns so much as tried—
—and shot the hook holding Riddick's chains to the wall.
Riddick, who had turned his head away from the shot instinctively, looked back at Johns. "Yeah, you're a big man," Riddick said, low voice mocking. Then he lunged forward, coming up to his feet in one motion, his chains dragging out behind him. The movement carried him close to Johns, who raised the gun to press into Riddick's chest. Riddick just smiled, rolled his shoulders, and said, "Now him."
Getting the handcuffs off was possibly the best thing that had happened to Harry since he'd landed on this planet. As soon as they were off, he shrugged his shoulders forward, trying to work out some of the ache the handcuffs had caused him. His wrists were red and raw from repeated impact with the cuffs. Johns wound up cutting off the chains that had bound his feet, and finally, finally Harry was entirely free.
"C'mon," Riddick said, and offered a hand to help him up.
Harry looked up at Riddick in disbelief, and then pushed to his feet on his own. He deliberately bumped his shoulder against Riddick's as he passed the larger man. "Keep up, Viper," he said, this time with all the sarcasm he'd meant to include the first time.
"Believe me, lil' mongoose," Riddick said, voice amused, "I'm going to."
…
After that, there was the usual chaos that comes of having to move a group of eleven people to a new place all at once. Or, actually, there was that chaos, with the added chaos of having both a serial killer and a number of unarmed civilians in their midst. Harry probably shouldn't have found the results as funny as he did.
Riddick of the visibly broad shoulders and absurd muscles was naturally assigned the job of carrying the sheet metal Shazza had cut off, as well as the heavier tools that would be needed. That was probably a wise choice, as it got Riddick a little out of the way. However, it also brought Riddick into regular contact with the antiquities dealer Paris, who had somehow wormed his way into having the easy job of arranging things on the sandcat. Watching the cowardly, bespectacled man stutter his way through interactions with Riddick was entirely too amusing to Harry, especially given that Riddick seemed to be using his best predatory grins to exacerbate the issue.
Harry, meanwhile, had decided to help Shazza carry the numerous bits of lighter equipment she thought the repairs might require. "Harry," Shazza said, when he approached. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you when you said you trusted Riddick."
The last thing Harry had been expecting was an apology. He blinked in surprise, but managed, "It doesn't matter, Shazza. You needed to know, either way."
"Maybe," she said, and then pointed to a series of metallic objects Harry couldn't recognize and said, "carry those." Things were okay between them after that.
As far as Harry knew, the Imam and his kids were in charge of packing their oxygen, the liquor they were using for hydration until they could get the water pump working, and the spare clothes they'd salvaged from the crashed cargo compartment. He hadn't kept tabs on Fry and Johns during the process of packing up the sandcat, but he assumed they were doing something mildly productive, unlike Jack, who largely stayed underfoot and was entirely too enthusiastic the whole time. When he wasn't shadowing Riddick's footsteps, he was tagging along after Harry—apparently, the conversation they'd had in front of the kid when they were locked up together had made the kid respect Harry a little more. Harry wasn't certain if he should find that flattering or terrifying.
Only at the very end of the packing did Harry find the last thing he'd been missing. He'd gone off on Shazza's orders to find Fry and Johns, and had located them in the engine room of the cargo ship, debating over whether they should bring batteries for the transport ship with them on the first trip or establish hull integrity first. Harry, who didn't really care one way or another, simply told them it was time to be heading out, and led them both towards the sandcat as they agreed to bring the batteries later.
It was then, as he led them through the ship to get outside, that Harry encountered his sword once again. It had deposited itself in the first passenger compartment, in the midst of all the rubble and open pods. This time, unlike all the previous ones in which it had found him, Harry actually had his hands free to pick it up. "So that's where you wound up," Harry said, and lifted the sword. It hummed in his hands, vibrating out a short greeting before falling still. Harry replaced the scabbard in his belt, where he had originally meant it to stay, and felt properly safe for the first time in days.
"That sword wasn't there before," Fry said, looking highly confused.
"Of course it was," Harry denied, and continued on his way.
The only thing Riddick had to say to the addition of the sword was, "Can you use that?" He was leaned against the sandcat, goggles over his eyes and a thoughtful look on his face, every inch the predator again. Harry was surprised to find that he actually liked the man better this way. Somehow it seemed more honest for Riddick to be visibly dangerous. Harry wondered how long it would take Riddick to find a shiv again.
"Wanna find out?" Harry said, and wrapped his hand around the hilt. The metal of the sword rang out under his grip.
"Someday," Riddick said, and sprung easily onto the sandcat. Harry followed after, grinning.
…
When everything was tamped down, and everyone situated, Shazza asked from the driver's seat, "Ready to go?"
"Yes," nearly everyone said at once.
"Sit tight, then," Shazza said, and led them away over sand dunes, towards the settlement that would be their home.
So there you are, dear readers—this chapter is twenty-three pages long, and will likely be the longest chapter I'll write for a while. If you made it this far, please take a second to drop me a review. As ever, knowing the opinions of my readers can only help to make me a better writer, and hearing from all of you makes my day. :)
This chapter stuck to Pitch Black's canon far more than last chapter—this is because, as of next chapter, I'm going to be diverging from movie canon for a very long time, possibly even permanently. These scenes will not be the very last ones you recognize from the movie, but there will be a large gap before the next ones. I hope everyone sticks with me, since we're finally getting to my favorite parts of the story.
I'm posting this chapter on a Monday, so, for now, that will be my weekly update day. If I find I'm writing quickly enough to cover two days a week, I'll change that schedule—for now, I'm promising another chapter a week from today. I know I was on hiatus for a ridiculously long time, but I now have both the time and inspiration necessary to regularly update this story, and I will stick to at least my once weekly update schedule for the rest of the summer.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. As ever, I responded to every reviewer who has their PM option enabled. For my anonymous reviewers and those with their PM's disabled: I appreciated every review you left me. Thanks also to anyone who favorited Lares or put it on their story alerts. If any of you have the time, please drop a review. :D
Next chapter~In which life begins in the settlement, Fry and Shazza attempt repairs, and there is a small problem in that they don't have any food.
