How Many Days?

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn wasn't aware of how long she slept. A long time. The sleep was broken up by nightmares, brief moments of consciousness that quickly slipped away as her body forced her into rest. Maybe she was just that tired, maybe she just needed it. Or maybe the nightmares kept her from really resting as she should have been, so she slept longer to compensate.

Once or twice, she woke up to find Riddick at her bedside, one firm hand on her shoulder as though to keep her from levitating off the mattress. She was barely awake long enough to acknowledge him. The nightmares were awful and persistant - pitch black and full of viscous blood. She couldn't see anything, but she could hear everything, smell it, feel it, the tearing flesh, the cooling rock under her hands, the screeching and hissing. Now and then, a hand would come out of the dark and haul her to her feet, pulling her out of the dream.

When she finally came back to herself, rested but disoriented, it was dark outside and she had no sense of time, didn't know if it had been hours or days. The light at the ceiling still filled the apartment with a sickly glow and she turned slowly onto her back, finding herself achy and stiff, as though she'd been rigid and tense the whole time. She cleared her throat and blinked slowly, not even sure if Riddick had kept his word, if he had stayed by his side the whole time.

Comments

[seesblind]

Fry’s sleep has been broken and restless for the most part, something he knows because he’s never been too far away. There are moments when she drifts off completely, when her muscles untense and Riddick is sure she’s forgotten everything bad that’s happened to her. But as soon as she does it seems the nightmares return, and by the end of the night he wonders just how much rest she’s gotten.

“You awake this time?” Riddick stands in the doorway, the light from outside filtering in through the thin curtains. He wonders how it is he became a guardian, her screwed up angel watching over her. He wants to ask her about the dreams, about his own dreams of the place that isn’t that world, the place he can see them when he sleeps.

[notyourcaptain]

"I think so." Her voice was hoarse and her mouth tasted like death. She made a face as she slowly pushed herself upright. God, her back ached. Carolyn groaned softly and lifted a hand to rub at her eyes. "How long was I asleep?"

[seesblind]

“Maybe 8 hours. You were restless.” He doesn’t say more, letting her assume what she will about him watching her rest. He moves across the room, sliding the curtain open to let in more of the light, carefully looking away from the window. “You were dreaming.”

[notyourcaptain]

She blinked stupidly at the light, eyes narrowing against it, and reached up to push tangled hair away from her face. "Eight hours." It hadn't felt like eight hours. It felt like years. "I don't know if I feel better, or shittier." A wry laugh followed and she tried to clear her throat, but was unsuccessful. "Dreaming, huh?" She could only imagine what she might have said to him in the darker hours of the night.

[seesblind]

“Dreams or nightmares.” He doesn’t really see much of a difference between the two things, always so close in his own experience. “Might be worse before you get better.”

“The shower is across the hall,” he says as he heads back out of the room. There’s more to say, to ask her if she’ll be alright, to tell her that she called out his name and others during the worst parts of her rest. He’s sure they won’t like any of the answers. “I’ll make you a key.”

[notyourcaptain]

She would remember shouting his name, because she woke up to the sound of her own tears and his hand against her forehead. Carolyn watched him go, rubbing at her eyes. Worse before it gets better. She wasn't sure she could imagine better right now. At least worse would be different.

"You're actually going to let me stay here," she called to his back. "Why?"

[seesblind]

Riddick has always lied as easily as he’s breathed. He can make the truth suit his purposes or spin an entirely new world to suit his needs. It’s telling that he pauses before answering Fry, not sure of an answer to give her.

“I have them too. The dreams.” Dreams of her hand slipping from his, of his scream echoing through the night air. He sees Kyra jumping toward him, sees himself swinging ahead of the sun on Crematoria trying to outrun it in order to save her. These things have never haunted him before. “Maybe you’re not the only one who needs it.”

[notyourcaptain]

That startled her, and it showed on her face. "What could I possibly do for you?" It didn't make sense. He'd never needed her. She'd only ever come begging to him.

[seesblind]

He turns, catching the look that she’s giving him. Riddick isn’t sure he can explain, rubbing his hands over his face, pushing up his goggles to rub at his eyes. “Give both of us some peace.”

How exactly is another story. He just knows he’ll sleep better knowing she’s safe. “Do you ever have dreams, not about this place? About somewhere like this.”

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn rubbed at her eyes too, trying to parse this out. "I don't know," she admitted, "maybe? They're muddled. Things I don't recognize, but..." she sighed and slid to the edge of the bed, legs swinging over the side, "not that planet, not the monsters. A city." A city she'd never been to.

[seesblind]

“A city.” He repeats her words dully. It’s not just him, then. There are more things he remembers, sitting on a rooftop with Kyra, men in capes playing at being vigilantes. He sees her, too, Fry. She’s the thing he sees the most. “We were both there. You had the scar.”

He could trace it out, and he’s never seen it. Riddick is sure that he has traced it out, more than once. “Jack was there. Kyra, she calls herself.”

[notyourcaptain]

Kyra. The name made her frown as she realized that when she'd woken up feeling Riddick's hands on her, it had been a part of the dream. Carolyn couldn't help the slight flush in her cheeks, but she was mostly confused. They were sharing dreams?

Her hand went over her stomach, pressing over the scar he was talking about. "What the fuck is this?"

[seesblind]

"I don't know," he admits, not bothering to prevaricate. It's worrying, remembering these things and knowing she does too. Riddick watches her, not moving from the door. "Memories. Dreams. Both."

[notyourcaptain]

"Memories?" she laughed, "memories of what." More was coming back and she had to look away. She could remember his hands smoothing over the scar and it sent a shiver up her spine. That had never happened. Right?

[seesblind]

"Gotham," he says, voice low and rough. The memories getting stronger, becoming many where there had been few. He remembers pulling her into his lap, her hands pushing off his goggles as their lips met. Riddick remembers scaring her, trying to keep her safe, mixed up thoughts for a mixed up city.

It's nothing that should have happened. His muscles are tense, needing every bit of his legendary willpower in that moment. "It was called Gotham."

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn's eyes squeezed shut and she turned her head, almost as if struck. This was impossible. This was impossible. "Gotham-" she repeated, fingers curling in the blankets where she sat. Screaming at him, crying over him, waking up with his arm over her waist, fever hot and lifted in his arms. It was all interspersed with blue blood, Shazza screaming, and being yanked backward, out of Riddick's arms.

"This is impossible," she whispered, eyes still closed.

[seesblind]

Connections are dangerous things, caring for people is a thing he's avoided. No one has broken his barriers before her and then Kyra. The realisation of how completely those walls had been torn down is deeply disturbing.

"This place is impossible," he points out, taking the few steps across the room he needs to. Riddick brushes his hand over her hair, his fingers trailing down her neck to rest on her shoulder. The touch is tentative, strange and yet familiar.

[notyourcaptain]

A gasp left her lips before she clamp down on her immediate reaction to the touch and her eyes flew open. Immediately she met his gaze, shock obvious in her expression and head tipped back in reaction to the touch. "We-" his hands, sand under her fingernails, Johns' - flushed and angry, getting up in her face, Riddick lifting her bodily onto a kitchen table and sweeping plates to the side, "these are just dreams."

[seesblind]

Riddick doesn't want to tell her about his dreams, about the things he remembers and the way people have spoken to him. "You ever have dreams like this before?"

He can still feel her hand pulling away from him, stolen by one of those things on that planet. Just as he can remember the taste of her skin, the softness of her hands against his chest. Riddick meets her eyes, his fingers curling under her chin. "You really believe that?"

[notyourcaptain]

Her breath was starting to pick up and she didn't like it. "No," she breathed, "but this doesn't make sense." Carolyn wrapped fingers around his thick wrist, pressing over the ridges of bone, but she wasn't pulling his hand away. If anything, she was on the verge of tugging him closer. "You're telling me we have...all these, these memories that we both forgot?" And how could she forget? The more that came back to her, the more she missed them. Holding him in her arms as he shook with some emotion she'd never seen in him before. Her name on his lips.

[seesblind]

"Something made us forget." Just like something has delivered them, first to Gotham and then to here. Being manipulated and controlled this way makeshim angry, a dangerous sort of anger that he's rarely let himself feel. Riddick fights against it, the touch of her hand helping to ground him.

It's enough to press him down toward her, for him to touch her skin, to cradle her face in his hands. This he remembers, and he wonders how he could ever forget.

[notyourcaptain]

"Riddick-" her voice broke and she was horrified to hear tears behind the name. Carolyn blinked quickly, her grip tightening. Having him closer made it harder. There was a war happening in her mind - the memories stoking a need for him in her gut, not just to have him touching her, but simply having him around. But this was Richard Riddick. She ran when he killed Johns. She didn't trust him, didn't know him. But she could also remember feeling his heartbeat hard against her cheek, and the memory was dark, no lights on in that run down apartment while he held her. What she didn't remember was feeling afraid, not then. Now, was a different story.

[seesblind]

"You should shower," he repeats his words from earlier, taking a deep breath before he pushes back to his feet. This is too much for them both, Riddick needs time to process this, to get his control back.

[notyourcaptain]

"Riddick-" she didn't know what else to say besides his name, but she didn't want him to go. Carolyn found herself completely overwhelmed with no idea what was happening, but she did know the idea of bearing it alone was agonizing.

[seesblind]

"I'll be here," he says to her, sure that he knows what she's thinking. It comes from knowing her, here and apparently in Gotham as well. "Can't get rid of me that easily."