Just Flesh and Blood Exist - Riddick and Carolyn

[notyourcaptain]

She had been here for weeks now and had barely spoken to anyone. Carolyn had taken to long, long walks, wandering the city and the country outside, but always watching the sun. There had been one close call, one time she'd gotten lost and had experienced one long panic attack as she rushed home, certain she wouldn't make it back before the sun went down. She hadn't realized, until then, just how much of a mess she was. Sleeping with the lights on hadn't seemed like an issue - she just fell asleep with them on, it wasn't purposeful.

Except it was, and the thought of being caught outside at night had filled her with a terror so deep she'd spent the rest of the evening locked in her bathroom, where there were no windows. Sleep wasn't coming easily, but the food here was better than anywhere she'd stayed in a while, so it wasn't hard to make herself eat.

Carolyn spent most of her time working out. It was how she'd gotten through the academy. Fighting got her in trouble back then, so she burned off aggression in running, or boxing. She couldn't break the noses of the bastards who gave her shit, so she bruised her knuckles on a bag.

The park was nice. The air was clear and people generally left her alone. The sun came encouragingly down through the trees as she ran, keeping to the paths, enjoying the way sweat ran down her back, between her shoulderblades. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was in a hospital somewhere. But this place wasn't too bad - so long as she kept herself out of the dark, and out of trouble.

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[seesblind]

An apartment, penned in with those walls around him, each block filled with people who might as well be cattle not realising they were in another kind of cell. It was a prison they’d all accepted, but Riddick hadn’t. He’d checked it out in case there were any clues, but beyond that he hadn’t spent more than a couple minutes inside. There wasn’t any way he was going to stay in a box that had been assigned to him, no matter the comforts.

He’s set up on the edge of downtown, handing over cash for a dingy apartment that’s better than anything he’s used to even still. The landlord doesn’t ask for a name, and that’s the way Riddick likes it. Money will keep him quiet, and money is something he’s never had much issue coming by.

He still doesn’t spend much time there. Riddick is convinced he can find a way out of this place, that he can find a way back to Crematoria. It doesn’t matter how long it take, he’ll wait it out. He’s good at waiting.

The park is as good a place as any to waste a few hours. People wander through, and he takes an interest or doesn’t, sometimes following them, sometimes just hanging back, blending into the background and the trees.

Until he smells her. It’s unmistakeable, the scent of her sweat. Riddick scans the paths, seeing her coming over the hill.

“Impossible,” he growls, stepping out of the trees, stepping into her path. “You died.”

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn did not like the small scream that left her before she could stop herself. She came to a skidding halt, sneakers kicking up dirt on the path as she kicked herself into reverse, backtracking away from him.

Her heart was pounding when she finally stopped, arms slack at her sides, but shoulders tight. Chest heaving and sweat sticking her hair to her forehead, Carolyn stared at the man in front of her, blinking once or twice to see if he would disappear. There had been a fair amount of dreams starring Riddick, but she wasn't asleep now.

"And if you're here, maybe that means you're dead too," she said eventually, voice raspy with labored breath.

[seesblind]

Dead, but not stupid. Riddick doesn’t do anything but frown, but there’s a sense of relief that runs through him at her reaction. She’s fighting off something, fighting demons of her own. It's another thing they have in common, demons to fight. Even if some of his are because of her. Her death and that damn promise.

“Nah,” he drawls, crossing his arms over his chest. He watches her every move, wondering if this is some Necromonger trick. His senses tell him that she’s real, that it’s her, even as he steps up to her to catch another whiff of her. She’s definitely real, his senses don’t lie, he trusts them. “Dead’s boring.”

[notyourcaptain]

"I think I'd know better than you," she said, taking another step back as he stepped in, keeping the space between them. Retreating, maybe. Right now she doesn't care. Even with the sunlight pouring down, making the crisp air bright, she feels vulnerable in running clothes and caught unaware. How is he here? Why is he here? Of all places. It couldn't be random, could it? Whoever was orchestrating this whole insane asylum had to have done it on purpose. "Dead's dead. It's not boring, it's not exciting. It's just dead."

[seesblind]

"You would know better than me, wouldn't you?" But if she was dead, what was she doing here. Riddick keeps the dance up, moving when she does. He's sure he can close the gap if he needed, but right now he doesn't. He knows that it's her, and that she's scared, worried, panicked. "You look pretty good for someone who should be dead."

[notyourcaptain]

"Yeah, well, the last time you saw me I was covered in a blue shit and had a gaping wound in my gut so it's not that hard." Carolyn gritted her teeth when he took that next step. Of course. Of course. This time she held her ground, chin tipping up just a touch, defiant. "You look the same."

[seesblind]

"Funny. Last time I saw you, you were dead. Now you're not." He doesn't show it, but it still has him feeling like a wound has been torn open. It was something that he'd long thought scabbed over, but it looked like the scab wasn't as strong as he'd wanted.

Riddick smirks when she doesn't move away from him. "Been a few years."

[notyourcaptain]

She eyed him with a narrowed gaze, leaning back just barely without moving her feet. "Years." Carolyn tried to search his face, tried to see the years he was talking about, but he really did look exactly the same. And of course, she couldn't see his eyes. "What do you mean, years."

[seesblind]

“What do you think I mean?” There’s a standard year, even if some planets don’t hold to it. Based off a place like this, probably, a place so out of date and time that it shouldn’t be used as a basis for anything. “Five years on an ice planet, a cold hell trying to distance myself, to make sure no one went after the kid or the holy man. Until someone came after me.”

[notyourcaptain]

"You're coming from...from years after-" For some reason, that scared her more than anything in this freak show yet. She had died. Riddick had seen it happen, and then the world had kept on going. Planets kept on turning. Suns kept on rising.

Carolyn sidestepped and started past him, her face suddenly pale and drawn.

[seesblind]

She moves and his hand is there, his fingers tight around her arm stopping her from leaving. "I'm coming from years after you died, you mean."

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn's stomach gave a heavy lurch when his hand closed around her arm and her weight leaned into it, pulling on his grip without really struggling. She didn't look up at him when she spoke.

"Yes. Years after I died. You want to hear me say it?" She couldn't process this. She had know way to really comprehend what it was that had happened. She couldn't even remember it, and here he was, making her talk about it, say it out loud.

Typical.

[seesblind]

“What I want is to know how this place brings people back from the dead.” Even more than how it brought them here, that was something that shouldn’t be possible. This place wasn’t some Necromonger trick, that much he’d decided on, but her being alive seemed to be.

You shouldn’t have died in the first place. Those are words he won’t ever say, not out loud as much as they echo in his mind as loud as gunfire.

Riddick lets her go, his hand dropping away as quickly as he’d grabbed her. “See you haven’t stopped running.”

[notyourcaptain]

"Good one." She reached up, rubbed the spot where he'd grabbed her, but didn't step back this time. "Good way to distract myself. I'm not convinced this isn't purgatory, or something. Maybe you're dead. Maybe you just don't know it."

[seesblind]

“I’d know if I was dead,” he growls at her, his face expressionless and unreadable. It’s the one thing he’s managed to hold on to, that if he were dead, he wouldn’t be some place like this. “This isn’t hell.”

[notyourcaptain]

"You'd know, huh?" Carolyn actually laughed, surprising herself. "This might be hell. Or maybe you aren't as bad as you want everyone to think. Maybe this is heaven, which would probably make it hell for you." Looking satisfied with this, she sidestepped again, looking to pass him by.

[seesblind]

He’s seen those half-dead things that get pulled back from the Underverse. There’s nothing human left to them, their souls stripped away. No, this isn’t hell, not for him, not for anyone. A cage, maybe, but hell is something different. “You think you made it to heaven?”

[notyourcaptain]

She looked up at him, startled by this, and for a moment, seemed almost wounded.

"No," she said after a pause, frozen in spot, "no, I don't."

[seesblind]

"Didn't think so."

Heaven in his mind was a very dangerous place. Made to live in the image of a God he hated, it would be worse than hell, she had been right about that.

She was right about more things than he liked to admit. "You should go. Get away from people like me."

[notyourcaptain]

That got him an eye roll. Carolyn turned to face him again, setting her hands on her hips. She was quiet for a while, her breath in clouds in the cold air between them.

"Where are you staying? Because I'm assuming you haven't been living in the apartment given to you."

[seesblind]

It's him who's turned away from her now, taking a few steps. "Have a place out near Harbor and Carnaby. You'll find me if you need to."

[notyourcaptain]

"You can't do anything to me now, Riddick," she called after him, unimpressed with the people like me comment. After all, hadn't they discovered that they were birds of a feather on that fucking pit of a planet? "I'm dead, remember?"

[seesblind]

"Don't feel dead." It's the easier answer, easier than saying that he never wanted to do anything to her. That he never wanted to protect or save her either, and that it's her fault somehow for the guilt he feels. Easier, but not entirely the truth.

[notyourcaptain]

"Funny, I do." She spread her hands. "This place, the weird people who live here, can't leave, no explanations." Carolyn set him with a sharp, annoyed look. "If it isn't heaven, hell, or purgatory, what the fuck is it?"

[seesblind]

He turns to look at her, sizing her up slowly. She's still as fit as she was on that planet, her hair almost the same length. He wonders if she has a scar, or if that's vanished too along with anything that makes sense.

"Whatever it is, I intend to find out."

[notyourcaptain]

"Yeah, I bet. Riddick the problem solver." A wave of bitterness sudden filled her from the gut up and Carolyn couldn't help the way her lip curled into a sneer. "Big fucking hero." Carolyn could feel him sizing her up and it pissed her off, made her want to fight, made her want to prod him into something other than placid indifference, the way she'd prodded all those other men - teachers, lovers, friends, didn't matter. Prodded them into losing it.

[seesblind]

She almost manages to goad him into losing his temper, his fingers clenching tight. Almost, but he pulls back at the last moment, even though he still growls at her. "I never said I was a hero."

[notyourcaptain]

She could hear the growl, see the way his shoulders pull tight. Reactions like that always filled her with a sick kind of glee and this was no different. "Of course not. You're just going to figure this place out, right?" She waved at the park around them, hating herself even as she swallowed back a pleased laugh at the anger in his eyes. Carolyn wanted his hands on her, she realized. Maybe she wanted proof she was alive. "Save me, this time. Like you should have."

[seesblind]

His control wasn’t so easily won then. There weren’t a lot of things that could make Riddick irrational and angry, but Fry dying was one of those. She shouldn’t have died, not for him and not for anyone. Things out of his control usually didn’t bother him, he found a way to make events work to his advantage, or got out of the way and watched things implode. Carolyn wasn’t like that, and neither was Kyra.

“Like I said, find me if you need me.” No answer to his question, his voice so low as to be little more than a rumble. Riddick stalked away from her, not willing to take his anger out on her, not willing to scream that she shouldn’t have died and that he hadn’t been able to save Kyra either.

Stay away from Fry, he told himself, knowing that he wouldn’t. He’d follow her, make sure she was safe here. Just next time he wouldn’t be seen.

[notyourcaptain]

Carolyn did laugh this time, watching as he walked away. The joke was - would either of them actually stay away? That seemed unlikely to her and yet she couldn't think of a circumstance in which she would be willing to go looking for his help. Not unless the sun went out and hammerheads showed up. She supposed anything was possible, but she couldn't let her mind turn to that.

"Yeah," she said, barely loud enough for him to hear as he left, "I'll find you when I need you."