"Miscommunication" by sirli
SummaryRockstar Jack and escaped convict Riddick live together on a tiny ship. But personal issues and communication problems make both of them unhappy. How will they deal when the enemy strikes?
Rating: M for language, violence and adult themes. That's the way I like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jack, Riddick or anything related to their movies. But I would like you to drop me a line if you're going to use this story or parts of it (poems) somewhere.
JACK'S STUPID DIARY:
Sometimes, only sometimes, if I loose my guard, I dream of living some other life. We don't talk all that much – Riddick is not someone you'd call in touch with his feelings – so I have a lot of time to dream. I think of this perfect life that every girl wants for herself. Yeah, I am stupid and a part of me is still a completely ordinary every-day girl. So that secret part of me dreams on undying love for someone and of happy endings. As if that could ever happen!
I am almost 18. But I feel like I've been a grown-up for as long as I can remember. I guess I just never had the time to be carefree and not think about survival. Riddick doesn't see it that way, but what does he know about me anyway? We have lived together for the past 5 years ever since the crash, but he is just as much of a mystery to me now as he was back then. I figure it goes both ways.
Now he is sitting in the pilot's chair. If I wouldn't know better, I'd think he's sleeping. I can see him from where I am – laying flat on my stomach on my mattress in the main room. He knows I am watching him. He knows I am writing again. But as always, he doesn't ask a thing. It's hard to admit that he really doesn't care at all.
Jack placed another single sheet on top of many others and closed them to a heavy iron chest. Carefully she reactivated the bomb attached to it; so if any crazy fuck tried to open it without the 3 right codes, 9 digits each, he would be blown to pieces. And what's more important, the diary would burn to ashes. It was a clever little thing Jack had invented to protect herself and Riddick. She wondered if the explosive mechanism was the reason Riddick allowed her little weakness. Jack just needed to write down some things she felt with or thought about. That's how she dealt with it – one sheet with her soul per week.
Jack lifted the heavy box back to the corner between her mattress and the wall. All her other personal items were kept in two bags in the same corner. She dug around in one of the ready-to-go sacks and took her towel and soap. Without a single more word or look in Riddick's direction, she headed to the bathroom.
One of the little pleasures of having such an old shitty ship as theirs was the shower with actual water. Of course – if they would have something better than Mortimer Nova, she could maybe even have her own room plus to the sonic showers. To have a private place to call her own was something she had always wished for. But Jack knew better than to complain about it to Riddick. Having a mattress on his ship was better than being deserted somewhere. Yeah, Jack knew better than to become a whining burden.
And as long as I don't have to take my goddamned shower in front of Riddick, I really don't have a whole lot of reason to complain, Jack thought sarcastically. She took her time to wash herself and later to look at the small cracked mirror on the wall. Jack was still always surprised to see who looked back at her from the mirror. She still saw herself as a bold girl pretending to be a boy, scrawny and stricken. In reality she had finally blossomed. Jack's hair had grown back, and in order to prove Riddick she's not worshipping him anymore, she kept it long. Now it reached her mid back. Jack sighed and left the bathroom. Riddick was gone from the cockpit. There were two options as of where he had gone – to the kitchen or to the dojo. Jack listened, but couldn't hear any sounds of his whereabouts. Typical. Must be spacewalking, she told to herself, and immediately burst to laughter.
Having a dojo was necessary, no matter how little room they had on the ship. It was once designed for a bedroom, but Riddick had rebuilt it. He tended to get all freaky and shit if he couldn't release some of his extra energy and frustration. Even Jack found him scary sometimes when something in Riddick seemed to build up in him. Looked like the dojo helped though.
Jack sat back on her so-called bed and fished out a guitar-like instrument. That was her second and the last allowed weakness. She liked to write songs and to perform them. Not as if her audience was all that big – only her own ears. Riddick of course must have heard her over a hundred times, or know of her singles sold on every fucking planet in the galaxy. But did he say anything about my talent? Noooo…
Jack in fact had quite a name in the music world. Many of her songs were very popular. But nobody knew her identity, no one had seen her. She had never performed for masses, given interviews or met the millions of fans. She was the mystery rockstar known as Jack LaRock. When it had begun two years ago, Riddick's demand had been that she never – NEVER – expose who she is or what she looks like. If she did that, then Riddick couldn't care less what she did with her spare time.
Every now and then they would have little bit longer stops to get the supplies, or when Riddick had a job to do. Jack would record a domo then and post it from some planet they wouldn't be likely to come back to in near future to the record company. There, the demo would pass some miracle technical shit to sound as if it had been recorded with a band in the studio.
Jack thought with pity about all the credits the record company has saved on her untraceable account. Riddick had told her to not go near that money. It would raise questions if the account would suddenly be empty. Questions can be dangerous. And they don't need it on top of all the other shit flying around. Naturally she knew he was right. Jack could have afforded perfectly to split and leave Riddick alone. But she was afraid of the life without him. So it happened that a rockstar and the galaxy's most wanted criminal planet-jumped together and never discussed their choices.
Jack played a long intro on her guitar to find the right tune for the poem she had written earlier. Finally, her velvet, bit husky voice broke the silence.
You're body is the monument
built of southern continent.
Every muscle, every inch
of yourself makes you rich.
She had never been a shy girl. She didn't care if Riddick heard and thought she sucks ass. Her tone grew louder then and filled the main room; there was an erotic whisper in it when the subject needed.
Touching skin like you're the first
I feel more than normal thirst.
You are perfect, you are mine!
This is me – I'm alive!
As Jack finished the verse whit what sounded more like a threat for the mankind, Riddick walked in from the kitchen. He had been there to relax and have a drink. Now his silver eyes looked at Jack in the dim light as he leaned on the wall. She hadn't ever noticed, that Jack's singing voice always seemed to draw Riddick close. As the butterflies are drown to light…
Fire flowing in my veins
with your lips I play games:
soft, but tough,
tender, tough.
I demand for lover's proof!
You come in, blows off roof!
Starting slowly, raising speed.
You're my drug, yet my fear.
I feel something start to click
in my heart so I think.
Riddick wandered casually over to the cockpit, knowing he could still both see and hear her over there. He felt somehow…disturbed to hear her singing about this. Usually her songs were about darkness, danger, unhappiness. Never love of fucking.
Bodies climbing up the sky,
no one needs to be shy.
I love you and you need me,
it's so right for us to be
skin to skin and sleep in sweat,
me to be hot and wet,
you to raise and crab my tits
when desire ever hits.
Riddick sighed. Jack was a really good singer; he would be the first to agree to that. But hearing her voice imitate sex was – Riddick did not like it.
Body-mind mix
when desire hits.
I'm alive, I'm alive!
Monument – you're mine, mine, mine!
As her voice died down with the final, loud cry, Riddick stood up. He positioned himself in the doorway; arms spread to the both sides of the doorframe; and stared. "And what do you know about what you sang about in the first place, kid?" he asked mockingly.
Jack didn't put her guitar away. She sent him an absent-minded look and asked in return: "You really think I sit here a thumb up my ass all those nights you go out to deal with your carnal needs?" Actually, that's pretty much what she did. Jack was always too afraid that Riddick might take off without her if she's not there on the ship when he returns. But he doesn't need to know about this, Jack decided.
"Know so," Riddick told her with a gruff.
"Jack shrugged. "Must have done a lousy job following me."
That was the end of their conversation. Jack knew Riddick had often followed her when they had been on land. She had developed a 6th sense about him. So she knew when Riddick had watched her as she bought some personal items every woman needs; when she had gone to the record stores to buy empty discs for later recording and those of Jack LaRock's. She didn't make a big deal out of this. Jack knew that Riddick wanted them to be safe and therefore needed to make sure she doesn't do anything foolish.
But it all didn't mean that there hadn't been few dock-workers, who were eager to give her all the attention a girl needs. Jack was a lonely person, so she needed some flirt every now so often to get over her insecurities. It reassured her. Riddick doesn't need to know about these guys, Jack thought. It would only anger him. He doesn't see that I am more than a kid, doesn't see that I am a normal person with all that goes with it. He also doesn't need to know that I really am still a virgin, although with some fooling around experience. He'd have a great fun making a fool out of me.
Just in spite of him, Jack sang that song one more time. She found that she quite liked this one.
It was dark. That was always the first thing she noticed when she woke from yet another nightmare. For a girl who had spent most of the last 5 years in darkness, as the light hurt her protector's eyes, she was still embarrassingly afraid of it. The second thing she noticed was Riddick's hand on her shoulder. That was something she appreciated more than anything in her life.
"Go back to sleep," Riddick's calm voice told her. Other people would have not noticed that it held concern, but Jack did. He was laying beside her. His own mattress was placed to the opposite wall of the main room. Now he had come to lay next to her on his back, eyes closed. Jack had been tossing around in sleep and ended up on her stomach. Gratefully she sighed as she saw him there. Wiping away the tears nightmare had afflicted, she remained in the same position, and face turned to him, closed her eyes. But Jack couldn't go back to sleep. The creatures didn't hunt her anymore and the terrible feeling of being utterly lost was gone too. But sleep just wouldn't come.
Jack knew that Riddick could feel her every move, every breath she took. That's just Riddick. Always alert. Jack was afraid to jinx it just by thinking whether he would go back to his own bed to get some rest or have mercy and stay with her. She didn't want him to leave her. His heavy hand on her shoulder was sometimes the only thing keeping her sane. Jack would have liked to crawl closer as she did sometimes. She knew how good it felt to lay with his strong hands around her, his heart steadily beating under her ear. But their previous argument made her think twice. Jack couldn't handle if he would push her away.
"What's wrong?" Riddick asked. His sudden voice echoing in still air made Jack jolt.
"Nothing," she managed to answer.
Riddick didn't seem to believe it, since he turned to his side to look at Jack. His two shining eyes were like stars in the dark sky. Something to help navigate through the life, Jack wondered. They held eye contact for a long time, no words were necessary. His silver eyes and her green ones built a bridge in the night to unite two souls.
Finally she said: "Is it close to morning? I think I'm not sleepy anymore."
"No. What's bothering you?" Riddick asked. He didn't sound too eager to get the answer, but the mare fact that he had just asked, meant the world for Jack.
She thought about it for a while, trying to find the words. "Was my song really that off the mark?" she asked.
His hand that had moved from her shoulder to rest on her back as he had turned, twitched a little. Riddick hadn't been expecting this. "No, kid, it was dead on," he had to admit.
Jack didn't know how to take this. Riddick never lied to her nor did he sugar-coat anything. So the song must be true. She didn't want to go down the slippery road and analyze what it all meant in that case. What's the point anyway?
"When will we land?" Jack asked instead. Riddick had never tried to talk about ´the birds and the bees with her. Thank god! Maybe he thought a 13 year old runaway should know all there is to know about the sex act, Jack didn't know. But what she did know was that it would be wiser to change the subject and to not tempt fate.
"The morning after tomorrow. Early."
Jack nodded. "What do you want me to do?"
"Not to practice what you sang about," he stated with faked fatherly concern. That made Jack laugh out loud. Riddick just wasn't the type of a guy to nosy around, except when it was really important. It had been a joke. He continued with more serious tone: "Go clean the cargo hold tomorrow."
Jack smiled a little and nodded her head. "Good night, Riddick."
"Night."
Jack fought the sleep that now tried to pull her under; to make sure Riddick won't leave her. She wasn't going to be disappointed.