:::CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:::
There was the sounds of quiet, encompassing me, regulating me into a state of restless bliss. The flexible softness underneath my body cradled me and the support was welcomed readily. There was also the heaviness of a warm entity atop my legs and torso, surrounding me with memories of being locked in imaginary small spaces. I was once again tiny, made to feel insignificant. The air was pure -- too pure.
Then I opened my eyes.
The white brightness of it all was what struck me first. White walls. White sunlight. White sight. Through a maelstrom of lily and tired pity, I looked up at the white ceiling.
God. I hated hospitals.
I immediately let my eyes droop shut and with a tender kiss invited the smooth darkness. Clutching at the starched sheets, memorizing their brittleness, I attempted to open my eyes again. Painful. Painful. Painful. That was all that I could think.
And than the scent of forced clean and strongly impotent air swept through my nose, tingling my sinuses. I wanted to sneeze. But that would've hurt my burned throat even more, so I quickly inhaled the retched oxygen some more, until the urge was squelched.
Swallowing was also a trial. Staring weakly at the spotted and old ceiling, I tasted the polluted (with antiseptic) air, as it pressed into my tongue, slid down my esophagus like acid, hitting all the raw bumps. I no longer needed to sneeze; vomiting would be more like it. However, all that was there to discharge was the slippery, yellow breaking down agents of my stomach, which would do no good for my abused throat.
Sight. Touch. Smell. Taste. I always forgot the fifth. Sound. My five senses were all working...unfortunately. However, sound was just as unpleasant as the other ones. The muffled talking outside, in the hallways, much too powerful for the dead sensation that existed in the room, where only whispering would do. The almost silent swishing of a heavy door closing and the hurried steps of nurses and clicking clipboards. The PA system crackling some obscure doctor's name, while the food tray (that a week ago was probably used as a vehicle for cleaning supplies) went door to door. It was all so mundane yet...so there.
Gathering saliva in my mouth, I coerced it down my throat to soothe my smoldering pharynx. It did not help. All it did was seemingly open a (probably hallucinatory) wound, that swelled to the size of an infected cherry. Now the passage way was further blocked. Maybe I could suffocate this way.
I finally managed to keep my eyes open for more than five minutes. I was rounding ten. The ceiling wasn't much to look at, but I had counted fifty water stains. Probably sanitized water stains. I still didn't dare move, because I could feel it in my bones, that were shivering. My whole body, in fact, felt decrepit. My skin was insubstantial and it let in all the chill; my knees threatened to break if I attempted to stand, and so on. I was feeble, laying there on the small bed, trying not to float away.
Tremors warred in my veins, giving me the probable appearance of someone on the verge of collapse, even if I was not standing. Not to mention how my head felt. Fizzled from every hair root to the center of my throbbing brain was an explosion. My gray matter was on the fringe, waiting to ooze out of every hole in my face.
I was so caught up with the physical agony, I could barely think of the emotional. But, nonetheless, it was there, expecting to be acknowledged. I, however, was a coward in its face and refused to give it weight.
How can I think of it now, when I am so weak from trying to -
I strove to kill myself and I (predictably) failed. Was there anything I was capable of achieving? Aussitot dit, Aussitot fait. I was capable of being a mistake. Simple. I shouldn't ask myself questions, I could actually answer.
The white sunlight was alarmingly quick at turning into a macabre and sinful exposition of dark pinks and violets. Zemi. Goddamn planet was freakish even in the evening. I was just hopeful that the shadows, that were now milling around the creme ceiling, wouldn't suddenly turn into an array of rainbow colors. Thankfully, they remained dark and a shade of sinister.
How long had I just been laying there? No nurse even came to check on me. Strange.
I finally noticed my loosely bandaged upper forearm and felt the discomfort of a catheter in my vein, which shouldn't be felt, dripping needed glucose into my frailness. I flexed my fingers and was too disoriented and disgusted to pull out the contraception. Sighing loudly, I closed my eyes and wished for an infinite solution to a finite problem. Ow. Paradoxes like that hurt.
I tried to remember things I've seen or read or experienced but everything fell short. Everything I ever underwent was through others perspective. Being worried about how others processed information could do that to you. It was unhealthy but than again, I never thought I would make it so far. Actually I'm lying; I believed that having multi view vision would assist me in overcoming the challenges fate placed in my path, but I was mistaken. Fate won. It had known it. It had made it so.
'When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.'
That was basically my life. I wanted to be happy but I couldn't be good, so I took the alternate path, hoping for happiness in evil misery. Is that so hard to swallow? Well, I had found it, hadn't Riddick chosen to destroy it, which (by my logic) should sate me. But it hadn't.
I needed to stop pondering snippets from my dissociative consciousness; they made no sense and just popped in, trying to bring my attention to something I couldn't fully comprehend under the given conditions. I tried to summarize my life, but all that commenced was a self-pity fest. I tried to discover one word to define the expanse of my existence but all that I came up with: grief.
Except that little while with Riddick when -
But that was over. That Riddick had changed. I was back to the beginning. And beginnings were always full of naïveté and sorrow. Bittersweet. That is if you found innocence sweet; if not, just bitter.
What had I learned? Or better yet why was I thinking in terms of finality? I wasn't dead. Than why did it feel like it was over?
The beginning sure felt a lot like the end. Something to muse about later, if I wasn't sure I would forget. I itched to write this down somewhere, but it would've translated into a list of some sort, and I had given those up. Another vestige of me that I couldn't conjure up due to superficial pride. I was honest -- to myself.
'Like a fiend in a cloud, With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, From whence comforts have increas'd; For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain.'
I couldn't get it out of my diseased system. I hated the light because it meant I had wasted the night. Lost. I felt....I needed to get up. Now.
With horrid effort and clinched eyes, I tried to prop myself up. Hot heat spread up and down my arms as I supported my weight on them and by the time I had slid my lower body up a few inches, I had a collection of moist sweat on my forehead. Exhaling loudly, I relaxed my arms and rested the back of my head on the cold, steel bars of the headboard. I sagged a few inches when my shoulders slumped down, but I just ignored it (weary of having to go through the exercise again) and gripped the non familiar blanket at the sides of my hips.
Finally, satisfied with my position, I unscrewed my eyes and looked in front of me. A white wall. I didn't need psychic powers to foresee that.
One hand went to my hair, not surprised to find it disheveled and knotty. While I absentmindedly stroked the curls, my eyesight wandered over the breadth of the room I occupied. My worn-down eyes flicked from floor to ceiling to finally land on the far right corner, that was collecting the majority of shadows. I instinctively zoomed over to the far left corner and my stomach muscles clenched spasmodically from fright.
Fight or flight wasn't working properly, though, so all I managed was a sharp, quick intake of breath and the almost comical freeze of my hand, encircled in wavy strands. I caught myself and lowered aforementioned hand down, but not without a painful tug when it became coiled in some locks. In my desperation to not look foolish, I succeeded in ripping out some hair and holding it, in my palm, I got my hand down.
There, in the corner, was Riddick. Sitting with the shadows (possibly conversing with them), he looked like death. He accomplished looking lethal and at ease at the same time. Cerebral shiver.
His large form hid most of the chair he was sitting in, which surprisingly was black steel not white. Feet a good distance from one another, he had his knees laying open, not a vulnerable stance, though. His elbows were planted on the armrests and his fingertips were brushing the top of his knees, his arms only slightly stretching. The tranquil rhythm of his stomach rising and falling went well with his poise. As I moved further up his body with my inquisitive eyes, I took a shaky glance at his lips, which were closed but still full. Pouting would not be correct, however, not with Riddick's complete abandon of everything that was not pure.
When I finally reached his open eyes, I found myself at a lack of putrid oxygen and softly gasping. Okay. That was an exaggeration; I was not gasping. Did you actually visual my chest heaving and my lips parted? No. That would never be me. I wasn't that girl. You should know this by now.
I, however, swallowed and felt my lips go paper thin, trying to keep from saying anything rash. Blessedly, I never got the chance to articulate any stupidity.
"I had to have your stomach pumped," Riddick's broody voice reached me, skimming across my abdomen, which twitched in response.
I let my gaze depart from his intense stare and took in the ugly, white curtains, fluttering from the breeze that was coming from the open window. The sky had blackened, though some wisps of mauve still lingered. Decidedly prettier than before. Maybe only because the situation had changed.
My lips formed the word, but I hadn't intended the doughy, "Oh," to escape. It did and shattered any remnants of keeping the upcoming conversation rational. Maybe not a bad thing.
Unable to bear the practically laughable silence any longer, I said, "I remember. I was there," too bitterly than I had wanted. Defeat in another configuration.
I finally faced Riddick again and was taken even more aback by his self-composure but was put to ease by his deeply creased forehead, that gave him the countenance of someone debating a grave situation.
"Why would I have to have your stomach pumped, Jack?" he asked, with a tragic and dangerous form of ridicule. He knew the answer. He knew I knew it too. But he just had to ask. Torment the only way Riddick knew how. A parody of life.
Head swimming. What to say? What to say? His voice sounded so...so...like it had aged thousands of years...and was an open wound, being drowned in alcohol. It was not what I expected, so debilitating. That's what it was. Not a position you want to see Riddick in, definitely. Not when you, yourself, were breaking down.
All these thoughts came together at the same time until there was nothing left to do, except scream or -
I rolled unto my side, facing away from Riddick, and started to cry, because I thought I had killed him. Pretty idiotic, huh? But it was that asphyxiating sort of guilty responsibility that people feel when they do something truly vicious and have it thrown back in their faces. Blamed. But with reason. Not a fan of reason. But I was of justification and motive, so I was bound. I was crying.
I vaguely thought not to soil the pillow with my tears, but ultimately abandoned that idea with an incoming wave of sadness and contempt for myself. Now my throat was parched and flaming from the exertion and that just encouraged me to shed more teardrops. They dripped down my face and curved at my chin, falling on the pillow, staining it with dark splotches against its white cotton. No hiccuping was involved but my chin did tremble, exhibiting my emotional weakness. Sensitive for the Princess of Darkness, wasn't I?
A hand on the small of my back, however, negated the salty evidence of my susceptible nature. I bolted straight up and threw a dirty look at Riddick, meekly attempting to find culpability elsewhere. How had he moved so fast? Why was he here? What could I say to wound him?
Wiping wildly at my cheeks, I hoarsely asked, "How did you find me?" Hah. Beat that. That's what you get for saving me and ruining my suicide.
He let his arm go back down to his side and stood there, towering over me, making me visibly knot up and look for comfort in the folds of the bed. Then he shrugged his shoulders, seemingly disappointed with my useless question.
"It got really cold. I went to turn on the heat," he truthfully answered.
Cold? Well, yeah. Wherever I went the cold followed me like the plague. Should've thought of that.
My eyes must've taken on a dreamy appearance because Riddick shot through the stillness with, "Jack, what happened?"
Heh. What didn't happen?
Staring at him impassively, tears threatening to overspill down my cheeks, I said, "I wanted to..." My face crumbled and I felt my chin twitch. Gulping down the inclination to depression, I chose to remain silent.
"What?" the desperate concern was evident in his tone. Or was that just curiosity? Interest was always borderline.
"I wanted to feel...like life was crazy again." Oh yeah, nicely put.
I couldn't formulate the right words and Riddick's almost fighter stance was draining me. Looking at him through wet eyes was blurry and strangely the hardest thing I could remember doing. "I wanted to be in control of the pain...of loss," I informed him, with a voice heavy in anguish.
I chanced a look directly in his silver eyes and was seized by the absolute confusion there. It did not make me feel better to know that Riddick thought I was deranged. Prone to ataxic behavior, my fingers jerked a little and plucked at the scratchy sheet. It was not a slight movement and Riddick noticed it. I didn't care.
"You were being so protective of me...I couldn't handle it," I said, bringing his attention back to me.
That statement oversimplified it, though. It was so much more than just that. It was the power of creating disorder...it was the escape of having to go back to a life reminiscent of my old one...it was the destruction of easy solutions to problems. Though that was a hypocritical want, especially since I had tried killing myself. Life's irony sure was devilish.
Riddick looked concerned, under the coat of haze and tears my eyes presented me with. "Jack, I was just trying to make you feel better." His voice held the unmistakable decibel of accusation. That tiny grain of primal instinct to wash his hands of me made me smile for a millisecond.
I wanted to hug him to me, but he looked charged up on chaotic questions, and it was astounding that he didn't flicker with all that bottled energy. Instead I told him, "But you don't have to do that. To care for me is to hurt with me." Did that translate to what I hoped it would? I self-doubted myself more often than any thief or liar...combined.
"I don't understand," he firmly said, never wavering from his point of view.
He remained standing and I remained bonelessly propped up against the headboard. "I like the guessing...the rawness...I don't want to listen to lies to make me whole...having understanding of the bad, helps me go on." Talking in human speech patterns was never my thing, but that statement was pushing it. Did I get through to him?
He looked like he could get that. I knew than he could. I pleaded with my eyes that I was right.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said. "Sometimes the conflict whether to leave everyone on T2 was sweeter than actually doing it," he continued with a sick smirk and an obscene emphasis on 'sweeter.'
Underlying meanings and connections were made and all I could concentrate on was the memory of the almost gleeful expression he got referring to the 'sweet spot,' when we were back on that planet. This was the same thing, I quickly assessed. Glad to be of service, Riddick.
I sniffled and tugged on his hand to invite him on the bed, but he stubbornly refused to budge, and I experienced a lapse of stability and felt an overwhelming amount of deprivation at his rejection. As debased as it sounds, I actually savored that sentiment (maybe to get myself off on later).
"I'm sorry for trying to kill myself...I should've just told you this from the beginning." What? That you're insane, Jack? I belittled myself. That would've went over well.
"Yeah, Jack, actually you should've." Riddick crossed his arms over his chest and subconsciously flexed his forearms. "Would've saved you a lot of trouble."
Oooooh, he was pulling out the big guns. Guilt-trip with a side of future death threat. Nice. That did the trick, though.
"I know you only did that whole protection thing because you care," I tried to say irreproachably and get back into the game.
This seemed to soften him up just a tad as his arms relaxed, and it no longer looked as if his muscles might burst. That was it though; otherwise he was as stoic as ever. The man sure was militant.
He made his move, when my defensives were slightly down. "You know what should scare you, Jack?"
"Hmmm?" I said, waiting for some manlike revelation. What he actually said...well, scared me to put it simply.
"That when I hold you, you feel exactly like death," he disclosed, making it sound consequential with his deep voice and down tilted eyes. "And I love that..." he growled with an almost ocular shudder of enjoyment.
I audibly (to my ears) gulped and commanded myself to watch the play of emotions on Riddick's face, however hard that may be. Choosing to disconcert right back, I said, "Interesting. Because you feel exactly like pain and that is all that makes me tick." True enough.
I luxuriated in this...game we were playing. It felt up to par with the events that had led to this moment. This brutally real moment.
There was a sphere of silence that the room consisted of before Riddick spoke again. It was his move, after all. Would he try to take the queen?
"Then you'll love this," he said, almost perversely.
My ears perked up, but I didn't set my expectations too high. Time and practice had taught me that much.
"We've got no cash...there's a new merc after me and now probably you...I've got fuckin' blue balls...I have no idea what to get you for your birthday..."
I smiled in spite of myself.
"...And I just saw Imam on TV, announcing your kidnap and putting up a nice sum to get you back."
He rubbed his scalp in a mock contemplation gesture. "I don't know if I should just bring you in or not," he bantered. "And collect," he smirked. He gave me a look that challenged me to object.
Now with this (finally) candid admission, I wanted to kiss him. And a number of other misbehaving things.
Instead I replied with, "Sounds miserably wonderful." I didn't even know how he could've kept that in for so long and not lose it like I had. Or just murdered me.
And than the selection of worries and obstacles finally hit me, and I swore I was on cloud nine. Except my cloud nine looked abnormally bleak and stormy. Wasn't expecting anything less than perfect; I wasn't let down.
Riddick finally decided to open up the floodgates and they sure were flowing over me like sticky-can't-get-you-out-of-my-hair honey and infecting everything around me. It was engulfing me whole, and I reveled in its severe taste. This was not some fairy tale, and I appreciated that with every fiber of my black, little soul.
Riddick finally sat down on the foot of the bed, staring across at me. I picked up his hand and brought it to my lips. As a thankful token, I kissed the inside of his palm, before proceeding to run little circles with my tongue, tasting his skin. My eyes remained on him, as I spiraled around the deep set lines and followed his life line, contaminating it with my essence. Just a little jest. Done with his palm, I traced each finger with my tongue, pecking the tips with the utmost seriousness, accompanying the wet sound. Riddick was actually purring by the time I was done.
"Mmm, Jack...not in the hospital...we'd get into trouble," he said, as I went to pick up his other hand.
I lewdly smirked at him. "Don't say things like that...I just wanna do it more, you know?"
And him knowing was also a big excitement. Alertness in exposure. Something undeniably suggestive about it.
Suddenly, however, I frowned. I just thought of something. It hadn't occurred to me before, but now, with his flavor on my lips, it became painfully clear to me.
"Riddick, are you sure you want my life of misery?" I asked his content face.
He sighed. "I already have one, so sharing mine with yours is going to be interesting...that is if you can handle it," he smirked. Something about that smile made me think that maybe he wasn't joking when he asked if I thought I could handle his life. But I had to remain unflappable to prove myself.
"I've been practicing all my life," I said, my voice only slightly twanged by tiredness and an eternity of rehearsing that line in my head.
With that said, I resolved to slyly bring the conversation back to irregular tones. Something we could both take pleasure in.
"I wanna be your gum," I told Riddick.
"What?" he asked, getting used to my atypical speech.
"Ya know, like bubble gum -- how it starts hurting your jaw, face, temples after a while but you just can't throw it out because for some inexplicable reason you like it?" There -- now that was something Riddick could ponder. "Actually find pleasure in the pain...?" I tried again, coercing Riddick to answer.
All he said was, "How well you know me, Jack."
And that was enough. He knew the pleasure came from pushing to see how far you can survive with the pain. The knowledge always came with a price, and he understood that. And I did too.
Everything was at it seemed, and it was freeing. There was only a fleeting moment when we had tried to convince ourselves otherwise and that uncertainty had led us here. So we couldn't hold Black Fate against us or try to forget.
It was a part of me, a subtle yet meaningful part. I didn't have to change my fascination, undecidedly obsession, with agony as delectation and Riddick at last found someone suitable enough to accept his suffering into her veins and lave it with a much stronger solution -- sorrow.
This wasn't the end nor was it the beginning; it was just a reflection in Time.
I was battling hell, and it was wonderful...I was earning myself heaven.
FIN.
* * *
Author's Notes:
Aussitot dit, Aussitot fait is French and it translates to: No sooner said than done.
'When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy' is a quote from Oscar Wilde. Some of his works include "An Ideal Husband" and "Picture of Dorian Gray."
'Like a fiend in a cloud, With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, From whence comforts have increas'd; For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain' is from William Blake's poem "Mad Song."
I intend no copyright infringements with any of the quotations I used.
I'd like to thank all of my reviewers and say that it's been a pleasure writing this story, and I hope everyone got as much enjoyment out of it as I did penning it. Or maybe even something more that you can take to your everyday life.
I'd also like to mention that many might find this ending a bit abrupt or ominous, but I was going for something realistic -- not too sugary nor too bitter, since the tone of this story has always been obscure. If this feels like it needs a sequel or another chapter, good, because that's real life. Sometimes more time is needed for closure. Sometimes the afterlife is not even enough. And you can't possibly think that life for Riddick and Jack will get easier? No neatly tied bows for this girl.
* * *
There was the sounds of quiet, encompassing me, regulating me into a state of restless bliss. The flexible softness underneath my body cradled me and the support was welcomed readily. There was also the heaviness of a warm entity atop my legs and torso, surrounding me with memories of being locked in imaginary small spaces. I was once again tiny, made to feel insignificant. The air was pure -- too pure.
Then I opened my eyes.
The white brightness of it all was what struck me first. White walls. White sunlight. White sight. Through a maelstrom of lily and tired pity, I looked up at the white ceiling.
God. I hated hospitals.
I immediately let my eyes droop shut and with a tender kiss invited the smooth darkness. Clutching at the starched sheets, memorizing their brittleness, I attempted to open my eyes again. Painful. Painful. Painful. That was all that I could think.
And than the scent of forced clean and strongly impotent air swept through my nose, tingling my sinuses. I wanted to sneeze. But that would've hurt my burned throat even more, so I quickly inhaled the retched oxygen some more, until the urge was squelched.
Swallowing was also a trial. Staring weakly at the spotted and old ceiling, I tasted the polluted (with antiseptic) air, as it pressed into my tongue, slid down my esophagus like acid, hitting all the raw bumps. I no longer needed to sneeze; vomiting would be more like it. However, all that was there to discharge was the slippery, yellow breaking down agents of my stomach, which would do no good for my abused throat.
Sight. Touch. Smell. Taste. I always forgot the fifth. Sound. My five senses were all working...unfortunately. However, sound was just as unpleasant as the other ones. The muffled talking outside, in the hallways, much too powerful for the dead sensation that existed in the room, where only whispering would do. The almost silent swishing of a heavy door closing and the hurried steps of nurses and clicking clipboards. The PA system crackling some obscure doctor's name, while the food tray (that a week ago was probably used as a vehicle for cleaning supplies) went door to door. It was all so mundane yet...so there.
Gathering saliva in my mouth, I coerced it down my throat to soothe my smoldering pharynx. It did not help. All it did was seemingly open a (probably hallucinatory) wound, that swelled to the size of an infected cherry. Now the passage way was further blocked. Maybe I could suffocate this way.
I finally managed to keep my eyes open for more than five minutes. I was rounding ten. The ceiling wasn't much to look at, but I had counted fifty water stains. Probably sanitized water stains. I still didn't dare move, because I could feel it in my bones, that were shivering. My whole body, in fact, felt decrepit. My skin was insubstantial and it let in all the chill; my knees threatened to break if I attempted to stand, and so on. I was feeble, laying there on the small bed, trying not to float away.
Tremors warred in my veins, giving me the probable appearance of someone on the verge of collapse, even if I was not standing. Not to mention how my head felt. Fizzled from every hair root to the center of my throbbing brain was an explosion. My gray matter was on the fringe, waiting to ooze out of every hole in my face.
I was so caught up with the physical agony, I could barely think of the emotional. But, nonetheless, it was there, expecting to be acknowledged. I, however, was a coward in its face and refused to give it weight.
How can I think of it now, when I am so weak from trying to -
I strove to kill myself and I (predictably) failed. Was there anything I was capable of achieving? Aussitot dit, Aussitot fait. I was capable of being a mistake. Simple. I shouldn't ask myself questions, I could actually answer.
The white sunlight was alarmingly quick at turning into a macabre and sinful exposition of dark pinks and violets. Zemi. Goddamn planet was freakish even in the evening. I was just hopeful that the shadows, that were now milling around the creme ceiling, wouldn't suddenly turn into an array of rainbow colors. Thankfully, they remained dark and a shade of sinister.
How long had I just been laying there? No nurse even came to check on me. Strange.
I finally noticed my loosely bandaged upper forearm and felt the discomfort of a catheter in my vein, which shouldn't be felt, dripping needed glucose into my frailness. I flexed my fingers and was too disoriented and disgusted to pull out the contraception. Sighing loudly, I closed my eyes and wished for an infinite solution to a finite problem. Ow. Paradoxes like that hurt.
I tried to remember things I've seen or read or experienced but everything fell short. Everything I ever underwent was through others perspective. Being worried about how others processed information could do that to you. It was unhealthy but than again, I never thought I would make it so far. Actually I'm lying; I believed that having multi view vision would assist me in overcoming the challenges fate placed in my path, but I was mistaken. Fate won. It had known it. It had made it so.
'When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.'
That was basically my life. I wanted to be happy but I couldn't be good, so I took the alternate path, hoping for happiness in evil misery. Is that so hard to swallow? Well, I had found it, hadn't Riddick chosen to destroy it, which (by my logic) should sate me. But it hadn't.
I needed to stop pondering snippets from my dissociative consciousness; they made no sense and just popped in, trying to bring my attention to something I couldn't fully comprehend under the given conditions. I tried to summarize my life, but all that commenced was a self-pity fest. I tried to discover one word to define the expanse of my existence but all that I came up with: grief.
Except that little while with Riddick when -
But that was over. That Riddick had changed. I was back to the beginning. And beginnings were always full of naïveté and sorrow. Bittersweet. That is if you found innocence sweet; if not, just bitter.
What had I learned? Or better yet why was I thinking in terms of finality? I wasn't dead. Than why did it feel like it was over?
The beginning sure felt a lot like the end. Something to muse about later, if I wasn't sure I would forget. I itched to write this down somewhere, but it would've translated into a list of some sort, and I had given those up. Another vestige of me that I couldn't conjure up due to superficial pride. I was honest -- to myself.
'Like a fiend in a cloud, With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, From whence comforts have increas'd; For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain.'
I couldn't get it out of my diseased system. I hated the light because it meant I had wasted the night. Lost. I felt....I needed to get up. Now.
With horrid effort and clinched eyes, I tried to prop myself up. Hot heat spread up and down my arms as I supported my weight on them and by the time I had slid my lower body up a few inches, I had a collection of moist sweat on my forehead. Exhaling loudly, I relaxed my arms and rested the back of my head on the cold, steel bars of the headboard. I sagged a few inches when my shoulders slumped down, but I just ignored it (weary of having to go through the exercise again) and gripped the non familiar blanket at the sides of my hips.
Finally, satisfied with my position, I unscrewed my eyes and looked in front of me. A white wall. I didn't need psychic powers to foresee that.
One hand went to my hair, not surprised to find it disheveled and knotty. While I absentmindedly stroked the curls, my eyesight wandered over the breadth of the room I occupied. My worn-down eyes flicked from floor to ceiling to finally land on the far right corner, that was collecting the majority of shadows. I instinctively zoomed over to the far left corner and my stomach muscles clenched spasmodically from fright.
Fight or flight wasn't working properly, though, so all I managed was a sharp, quick intake of breath and the almost comical freeze of my hand, encircled in wavy strands. I caught myself and lowered aforementioned hand down, but not without a painful tug when it became coiled in some locks. In my desperation to not look foolish, I succeeded in ripping out some hair and holding it, in my palm, I got my hand down.
There, in the corner, was Riddick. Sitting with the shadows (possibly conversing with them), he looked like death. He accomplished looking lethal and at ease at the same time. Cerebral shiver.
His large form hid most of the chair he was sitting in, which surprisingly was black steel not white. Feet a good distance from one another, he had his knees laying open, not a vulnerable stance, though. His elbows were planted on the armrests and his fingertips were brushing the top of his knees, his arms only slightly stretching. The tranquil rhythm of his stomach rising and falling went well with his poise. As I moved further up his body with my inquisitive eyes, I took a shaky glance at his lips, which were closed but still full. Pouting would not be correct, however, not with Riddick's complete abandon of everything that was not pure.
When I finally reached his open eyes, I found myself at a lack of putrid oxygen and softly gasping. Okay. That was an exaggeration; I was not gasping. Did you actually visual my chest heaving and my lips parted? No. That would never be me. I wasn't that girl. You should know this by now.
I, however, swallowed and felt my lips go paper thin, trying to keep from saying anything rash. Blessedly, I never got the chance to articulate any stupidity.
"I had to have your stomach pumped," Riddick's broody voice reached me, skimming across my abdomen, which twitched in response.
I let my gaze depart from his intense stare and took in the ugly, white curtains, fluttering from the breeze that was coming from the open window. The sky had blackened, though some wisps of mauve still lingered. Decidedly prettier than before. Maybe only because the situation had changed.
My lips formed the word, but I hadn't intended the doughy, "Oh," to escape. It did and shattered any remnants of keeping the upcoming conversation rational. Maybe not a bad thing.
Unable to bear the practically laughable silence any longer, I said, "I remember. I was there," too bitterly than I had wanted. Defeat in another configuration.
I finally faced Riddick again and was taken even more aback by his self-composure but was put to ease by his deeply creased forehead, that gave him the countenance of someone debating a grave situation.
"Why would I have to have your stomach pumped, Jack?" he asked, with a tragic and dangerous form of ridicule. He knew the answer. He knew I knew it too. But he just had to ask. Torment the only way Riddick knew how. A parody of life.
Head swimming. What to say? What to say? His voice sounded so...so...like it had aged thousands of years...and was an open wound, being drowned in alcohol. It was not what I expected, so debilitating. That's what it was. Not a position you want to see Riddick in, definitely. Not when you, yourself, were breaking down.
All these thoughts came together at the same time until there was nothing left to do, except scream or -
I rolled unto my side, facing away from Riddick, and started to cry, because I thought I had killed him. Pretty idiotic, huh? But it was that asphyxiating sort of guilty responsibility that people feel when they do something truly vicious and have it thrown back in their faces. Blamed. But with reason. Not a fan of reason. But I was of justification and motive, so I was bound. I was crying.
I vaguely thought not to soil the pillow with my tears, but ultimately abandoned that idea with an incoming wave of sadness and contempt for myself. Now my throat was parched and flaming from the exertion and that just encouraged me to shed more teardrops. They dripped down my face and curved at my chin, falling on the pillow, staining it with dark splotches against its white cotton. No hiccuping was involved but my chin did tremble, exhibiting my emotional weakness. Sensitive for the Princess of Darkness, wasn't I?
A hand on the small of my back, however, negated the salty evidence of my susceptible nature. I bolted straight up and threw a dirty look at Riddick, meekly attempting to find culpability elsewhere. How had he moved so fast? Why was he here? What could I say to wound him?
Wiping wildly at my cheeks, I hoarsely asked, "How did you find me?" Hah. Beat that. That's what you get for saving me and ruining my suicide.
He let his arm go back down to his side and stood there, towering over me, making me visibly knot up and look for comfort in the folds of the bed. Then he shrugged his shoulders, seemingly disappointed with my useless question.
"It got really cold. I went to turn on the heat," he truthfully answered.
Cold? Well, yeah. Wherever I went the cold followed me like the plague. Should've thought of that.
My eyes must've taken on a dreamy appearance because Riddick shot through the stillness with, "Jack, what happened?"
Heh. What didn't happen?
Staring at him impassively, tears threatening to overspill down my cheeks, I said, "I wanted to..." My face crumbled and I felt my chin twitch. Gulping down the inclination to depression, I chose to remain silent.
"What?" the desperate concern was evident in his tone. Or was that just curiosity? Interest was always borderline.
"I wanted to feel...like life was crazy again." Oh yeah, nicely put.
I couldn't formulate the right words and Riddick's almost fighter stance was draining me. Looking at him through wet eyes was blurry and strangely the hardest thing I could remember doing. "I wanted to be in control of the pain...of loss," I informed him, with a voice heavy in anguish.
I chanced a look directly in his silver eyes and was seized by the absolute confusion there. It did not make me feel better to know that Riddick thought I was deranged. Prone to ataxic behavior, my fingers jerked a little and plucked at the scratchy sheet. It was not a slight movement and Riddick noticed it. I didn't care.
"You were being so protective of me...I couldn't handle it," I said, bringing his attention back to me.
That statement oversimplified it, though. It was so much more than just that. It was the power of creating disorder...it was the escape of having to go back to a life reminiscent of my old one...it was the destruction of easy solutions to problems. Though that was a hypocritical want, especially since I had tried killing myself. Life's irony sure was devilish.
Riddick looked concerned, under the coat of haze and tears my eyes presented me with. "Jack, I was just trying to make you feel better." His voice held the unmistakable decibel of accusation. That tiny grain of primal instinct to wash his hands of me made me smile for a millisecond.
I wanted to hug him to me, but he looked charged up on chaotic questions, and it was astounding that he didn't flicker with all that bottled energy. Instead I told him, "But you don't have to do that. To care for me is to hurt with me." Did that translate to what I hoped it would? I self-doubted myself more often than any thief or liar...combined.
"I don't understand," he firmly said, never wavering from his point of view.
He remained standing and I remained bonelessly propped up against the headboard. "I like the guessing...the rawness...I don't want to listen to lies to make me whole...having understanding of the bad, helps me go on." Talking in human speech patterns was never my thing, but that statement was pushing it. Did I get through to him?
He looked like he could get that. I knew than he could. I pleaded with my eyes that I was right.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said. "Sometimes the conflict whether to leave everyone on T2 was sweeter than actually doing it," he continued with a sick smirk and an obscene emphasis on 'sweeter.'
Underlying meanings and connections were made and all I could concentrate on was the memory of the almost gleeful expression he got referring to the 'sweet spot,' when we were back on that planet. This was the same thing, I quickly assessed. Glad to be of service, Riddick.
I sniffled and tugged on his hand to invite him on the bed, but he stubbornly refused to budge, and I experienced a lapse of stability and felt an overwhelming amount of deprivation at his rejection. As debased as it sounds, I actually savored that sentiment (maybe to get myself off on later).
"I'm sorry for trying to kill myself...I should've just told you this from the beginning." What? That you're insane, Jack? I belittled myself. That would've went over well.
"Yeah, Jack, actually you should've." Riddick crossed his arms over his chest and subconsciously flexed his forearms. "Would've saved you a lot of trouble."
Oooooh, he was pulling out the big guns. Guilt-trip with a side of future death threat. Nice. That did the trick, though.
"I know you only did that whole protection thing because you care," I tried to say irreproachably and get back into the game.
This seemed to soften him up just a tad as his arms relaxed, and it no longer looked as if his muscles might burst. That was it though; otherwise he was as stoic as ever. The man sure was militant.
He made his move, when my defensives were slightly down. "You know what should scare you, Jack?"
"Hmmm?" I said, waiting for some manlike revelation. What he actually said...well, scared me to put it simply.
"That when I hold you, you feel exactly like death," he disclosed, making it sound consequential with his deep voice and down tilted eyes. "And I love that..." he growled with an almost ocular shudder of enjoyment.
I audibly (to my ears) gulped and commanded myself to watch the play of emotions on Riddick's face, however hard that may be. Choosing to disconcert right back, I said, "Interesting. Because you feel exactly like pain and that is all that makes me tick." True enough.
I luxuriated in this...game we were playing. It felt up to par with the events that had led to this moment. This brutally real moment.
There was a sphere of silence that the room consisted of before Riddick spoke again. It was his move, after all. Would he try to take the queen?
"Then you'll love this," he said, almost perversely.
My ears perked up, but I didn't set my expectations too high. Time and practice had taught me that much.
"We've got no cash...there's a new merc after me and now probably you...I've got fuckin' blue balls...I have no idea what to get you for your birthday..."
I smiled in spite of myself.
"...And I just saw Imam on TV, announcing your kidnap and putting up a nice sum to get you back."
He rubbed his scalp in a mock contemplation gesture. "I don't know if I should just bring you in or not," he bantered. "And collect," he smirked. He gave me a look that challenged me to object.
Now with this (finally) candid admission, I wanted to kiss him. And a number of other misbehaving things.
Instead I replied with, "Sounds miserably wonderful." I didn't even know how he could've kept that in for so long and not lose it like I had. Or just murdered me.
And than the selection of worries and obstacles finally hit me, and I swore I was on cloud nine. Except my cloud nine looked abnormally bleak and stormy. Wasn't expecting anything less than perfect; I wasn't let down.
Riddick finally decided to open up the floodgates and they sure were flowing over me like sticky-can't-get-you-out-of-my-hair honey and infecting everything around me. It was engulfing me whole, and I reveled in its severe taste. This was not some fairy tale, and I appreciated that with every fiber of my black, little soul.
Riddick finally sat down on the foot of the bed, staring across at me. I picked up his hand and brought it to my lips. As a thankful token, I kissed the inside of his palm, before proceeding to run little circles with my tongue, tasting his skin. My eyes remained on him, as I spiraled around the deep set lines and followed his life line, contaminating it with my essence. Just a little jest. Done with his palm, I traced each finger with my tongue, pecking the tips with the utmost seriousness, accompanying the wet sound. Riddick was actually purring by the time I was done.
"Mmm, Jack...not in the hospital...we'd get into trouble," he said, as I went to pick up his other hand.
I lewdly smirked at him. "Don't say things like that...I just wanna do it more, you know?"
And him knowing was also a big excitement. Alertness in exposure. Something undeniably suggestive about it.
Suddenly, however, I frowned. I just thought of something. It hadn't occurred to me before, but now, with his flavor on my lips, it became painfully clear to me.
"Riddick, are you sure you want my life of misery?" I asked his content face.
He sighed. "I already have one, so sharing mine with yours is going to be interesting...that is if you can handle it," he smirked. Something about that smile made me think that maybe he wasn't joking when he asked if I thought I could handle his life. But I had to remain unflappable to prove myself.
"I've been practicing all my life," I said, my voice only slightly twanged by tiredness and an eternity of rehearsing that line in my head.
With that said, I resolved to slyly bring the conversation back to irregular tones. Something we could both take pleasure in.
"I wanna be your gum," I told Riddick.
"What?" he asked, getting used to my atypical speech.
"Ya know, like bubble gum -- how it starts hurting your jaw, face, temples after a while but you just can't throw it out because for some inexplicable reason you like it?" There -- now that was something Riddick could ponder. "Actually find pleasure in the pain...?" I tried again, coercing Riddick to answer.
All he said was, "How well you know me, Jack."
And that was enough. He knew the pleasure came from pushing to see how far you can survive with the pain. The knowledge always came with a price, and he understood that. And I did too.
Everything was at it seemed, and it was freeing. There was only a fleeting moment when we had tried to convince ourselves otherwise and that uncertainty had led us here. So we couldn't hold Black Fate against us or try to forget.
It was a part of me, a subtle yet meaningful part. I didn't have to change my fascination, undecidedly obsession, with agony as delectation and Riddick at last found someone suitable enough to accept his suffering into her veins and lave it with a much stronger solution -- sorrow.
This wasn't the end nor was it the beginning; it was just a reflection in Time.
I was battling hell, and it was wonderful...I was earning myself heaven.
FIN.
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Author's Notes:
Aussitot dit, Aussitot fait is French and it translates to: No sooner said than done.
'When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy' is a quote from Oscar Wilde. Some of his works include "An Ideal Husband" and "Picture of Dorian Gray."
'Like a fiend in a cloud, With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go; I turn my back to the east, From whence comforts have increas'd; For light doth seize my brain With frantic pain' is from William Blake's poem "Mad Song."
I intend no copyright infringements with any of the quotations I used.
I'd like to thank all of my reviewers and say that it's been a pleasure writing this story, and I hope everyone got as much enjoyment out of it as I did penning it. Or maybe even something more that you can take to your everyday life.
I'd also like to mention that many might find this ending a bit abrupt or ominous, but I was going for something realistic -- not too sugary nor too bitter, since the tone of this story has always been obscure. If this feels like it needs a sequel or another chapter, good, because that's real life. Sometimes more time is needed for closure. Sometimes the afterlife is not even enough. And you can't possibly think that life for Riddick and Jack will get easier? No neatly tied bows for this girl.
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