FIC: Starvation, Riddick, Pitch Black
Title: Starvation
Author: houses
Universe: Pitch Black
Disc: not mine
Rating: PG
Pairing: Riddick/Fry
Notes: Written for the Unloved Fandom Pairing Challenge
Word Count: 573
Riddick had three concretes in his life, but he knew these things like they were carved into the stone of his soul.
He was a man apart, not like the swarms of humanity he preyed on every day. He hunted them on instinct, ever watchful. They were not like him; they were weak, food for the predator inside him.
He would kill again, because he could not be otherwise. He felt the violence coiled in his hands, a hunger that would not sleep, and he enjoyed his work.
And lastly, people just didn’t touch him, not like that, not like she did.
Even as he moved through the crowded cities of the central planets, the people would brush by him, always moving aside but never knowing why. They were like children at the zoo who know instinctively that the pretty tiger in the cage is for looking, not touching, for fear of being eaten.
A well-meaning social worker once said, while trying not to really see that the boy in her care was already showing signs of the man he would become, a child could die of touch-starvation. The woman patted his shoulder briskly as she said this, fingers stiff, and would not meet his eyes. The small boy he had been did wonder if a little part of him had died, dumped into that trashcan with his umbilical cord around his neck. Maybe that was the reason he felt loose inside his skin. He remembered looking up at that woman and knowing then that he had the power to instill fear.
He had not died in the bleak aftermath of his birth. In the dim times, with dusk around the corner and dawn far away, he thought the missing piece was that part that would care if he slit another throat. Maybe he would have felt compassion for his victims, been horrified at the blood smeared on his hands, his clothes, his lips.
He certainly didn’t miss it then.
And he had touched other women before: a good fuck is a good fuck, after all, sweat slick and fury hot. He thought the way they smelled like sea-washed hope was delicious and craved the feel of their hair sliding across his skin. But there was always something missing, a taste on the back of his tongue that left him unsatisfied and drove him out into the night to find other, darker, amusements.
He didn’t know what it was then, but he did now.
Because when Fry wrapped her slender arms around him, trembling with fear and fatigue, and demanded he not die, he realized what true touch was. It was more than skin on skin in a bit of rough and tumble or the awkward touch of a frightened creature. It was warm strength shot through with the fear that someday, someone would take him away. That he was something to be missed when he was gone, not just to be enjoyed while was there. He was no longer the monster to be feared, he had become more.
When she was ripped away up into the death-drenched sky on the whisper of ravenous wings, Riddick understood that he had been shattered and rebuilt in the blink of an eye. He knelt in the drenching rain, covered in mud, and screamed in fury at the dark.
Because deep inside, he knew he could no longer just be Riddick.
He had to be more.
Author: houses
Universe: Pitch Black
Disc: not mine
Rating: PG
Pairing: Riddick/Fry
Notes: Written for the Unloved Fandom Pairing Challenge
Word Count: 573
Riddick had three concretes in his life, but he knew these things like they were carved into the stone of his soul.
He was a man apart, not like the swarms of humanity he preyed on every day. He hunted them on instinct, ever watchful. They were not like him; they were weak, food for the predator inside him.
He would kill again, because he could not be otherwise. He felt the violence coiled in his hands, a hunger that would not sleep, and he enjoyed his work.
And lastly, people just didn’t touch him, not like that, not like she did.
Even as he moved through the crowded cities of the central planets, the people would brush by him, always moving aside but never knowing why. They were like children at the zoo who know instinctively that the pretty tiger in the cage is for looking, not touching, for fear of being eaten.
A well-meaning social worker once said, while trying not to really see that the boy in her care was already showing signs of the man he would become, a child could die of touch-starvation. The woman patted his shoulder briskly as she said this, fingers stiff, and would not meet his eyes. The small boy he had been did wonder if a little part of him had died, dumped into that trashcan with his umbilical cord around his neck. Maybe that was the reason he felt loose inside his skin. He remembered looking up at that woman and knowing then that he had the power to instill fear.
He had not died in the bleak aftermath of his birth. In the dim times, with dusk around the corner and dawn far away, he thought the missing piece was that part that would care if he slit another throat. Maybe he would have felt compassion for his victims, been horrified at the blood smeared on his hands, his clothes, his lips.
He certainly didn’t miss it then.
And he had touched other women before: a good fuck is a good fuck, after all, sweat slick and fury hot. He thought the way they smelled like sea-washed hope was delicious and craved the feel of their hair sliding across his skin. But there was always something missing, a taste on the back of his tongue that left him unsatisfied and drove him out into the night to find other, darker, amusements.
He didn’t know what it was then, but he did now.
Because when Fry wrapped her slender arms around him, trembling with fear and fatigue, and demanded he not die, he realized what true touch was. It was more than skin on skin in a bit of rough and tumble or the awkward touch of a frightened creature. It was warm strength shot through with the fear that someday, someone would take him away. That he was something to be missed when he was gone, not just to be enjoyed while was there. He was no longer the monster to be feared, he had become more.
When she was ripped away up into the death-drenched sky on the whisper of ravenous wings, Riddick understood that he had been shattered and rebuilt in the blink of an eye. He knelt in the drenching rain, covered in mud, and screamed in fury at the dark.
Because deep inside, he knew he could no longer just be Riddick.
He had to be more.