Different
By Tiriel
NC-17, m/m, language, violence
Pitch Black is the fandom here, folks. Riddick is a bad, bad boy. This is pre-film, Johns' POV, massive spoilers, even more for the unrated version than for the rated one.
I'd always kind of wanted to write Pitch Black slash, mostly because Riddick is so damn hot, but I never really had any ideas that I liked. But my dear dear friend and talented collaborator, Ellie, asked for Vin for her birthday. I didn't have any ideas at the time, so I offered her a story from a different fandom as a birthday gift. But then, the night before her birthday, I was thwacked upside the head by the idea for this story. I can't supply Vin, of course, but I've given her Riddick. So, here you go, darling, I hope you enjoy and that this birthday is the first of many great ones.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, they aren't mine, they aren't mine. But I'd be willing to take them as a loan and return them only slightly used. They belong to others and I'm not making any money, here or elsewhere, so don't sue.
Ellie, honey, this is for you. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
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Different
By Tiriel
There are a lot of reasons why people die. Most of them die because they're old or sick. Some die to save other lives, like Fry did in the end. Some die for no good reason, just dumb fucking luck, like those poor bastards whose stasis pods happened to be in the wrong part of the ship when it crashed. There are lots of reasons. I died because I was an addict.
I'm not talking about the morphine. Yeah, sure, the reason I didn't kill the creature that got me is because I loaded up with the wrong shells. Yeah, sure, if I hadn't had the shit on me in the first place I never could have made that mistake. Call it cosmic fucking irony if you like, but I say that if that one hadn't got me the next one would've, or the next, or the next, or whichever one happened along first when I ran out of ammo. Riddick sure's hell wasn't going to lift a finger to save me, and neither were any of the others. There's no way I could've gotten out of there alive.
So when I say I died because I was an addict, I don't mean because I was a hype. Everybody's hooked on something. Some people stick with one thing, like that morning cup of coffee. Others switch from one thing to another. Quit drinking, start smoking. Quit smoking, start chewing gum. Quit chewing gum, start gambling. Quit gambling, start shooting up. Whatever it takes to lose the jones, get a rush. Before the pain that brought me to morphine, I was hooked on something else, and if it hadn't been for that I never would have been on that stinking planet in the first place.
I never planned to work a whole career as a bounty hunter. I went in thinking I'd bring in a few big scores and quit. But along the way something happened and after a while it was all I knew. I couldn't break my pattern, let it go. I needed it. Not the money or the chase or the capture. I needed the sex. That was my drug of choice in those days.
It started out as a strategy, a way to get a man's guard down so it would be that much easier to cuff him and bring him in. Keep the risk down and the payoff high. But then I got to like it. And then I got to crave it. I mean, I could still have sex the normal way, with people who weren't wanted fugitives, but it just wasn't the same, wasn't as good. But it was okay, because I never ran out of criminals to hunt and I always got what I wanted. And then he came along and fucked it all up.
It worked like a charm, up until that night. All I had to do was find them and let human nature do the rest. Didn't matter who the target was, it was always the same.
I'd find him in a seedy bar in some shithole of a spaceport. They always end up in a bar somewhere sooner or later. I'd settle in on the stool next to him, order a drink, and smile. Most of the time I didn't even have to make the first move. They usually jumped at the bait before I had the chance, and quicker than you could say "Want to get out of here?" we'd be headed for a back room or a dark corner where we could be alone.
I thought about it a lot at first, why a man fresh out of prison, on the run, would want to hook up with me. Even when I don't dress the part of a cop or merc, most people still smell it on me. So why would a fugitive go anywhere with me? I never came up with a good answer, so I stopped thinking about it. Maybe it was the pull of the familiar. These men have spent so much time inside that maybe prison guards are all they know. They're used to being told what to do. Whatever the reason, all I had to do was find them and the rest was easy. Oh, sure, once or twice there was somebody who didn't want me, and those were easy, too. All I did there was back off and wait for them to get drunk. But those were the exceptions. The rest of the time they went for it.
I got off on it, and so did they, up until the point where the cuffs went on. Sometimes even then. That's what I was addicted to, and the thrill of it was what kept me in the game. I got what I needed from them, brought them in, and nobody ever even heard about how I did it, how I brought in so many dangerous men and never got hurt, not even a scratch. I wasn't telling, and they were always too ashamed to admit they'd been fucked as well as fucked over. I got mine, they got theirs. And it should have been that way with Riddick.
But it wasn't. It was all different with him.
Looking back, I realize that he probably made me long before he got to the bar. I was following him through a crowd at what I thought was a safe distance. People just got out of his way, leaving space on all sides of him like they knew somehow that he was dangerous. Leftover instinct from the caveman days when our ancestors had to hide from tigers, maybe. And he sure's hell moved like a predator, quiet and smooth and purposeful. He went into that seedy spaceport bar, just like all the rest, and I waited around outside for a few minutes before following him in.
It was crowded in there, too, but there was still space around him at the bar. I slid into that space, letting my thigh brush his as I did. He glanced over at me, first sizing me up and then, after I smiled, undressing me with his eyes. The bar was dimly lit, and he wasn't wearing his goggles. I could see those freaky-ass silver eyes of his, but I didn't know what they could do. His illicit surgical modification hadn't made it into his file yet.
"He likes knives," I thought, something in his gaze reminding me of that fact, which *had* been in his file. I ordered a beer and dropped my hand to his knee. I'd just started to slide it upward when he put his hand down firmly on top of mine. It was warm and rough and he used just enough pressure to send a message. Then I heard his voice for the first time.
"I don't want any company." That voice sent a shiver through me. It was danger and power and raw sex all rolled into one.
I leaned in closer, breathing in his scent. He must have showered not long before I'd picked up his trail, because he didn't have the stale sweat smell of space travel hanging on him like I'd been sure he would. He smelled like soap and the beer he was drinking, with just a little hint of something metallic mixed in, like he'd spent so much time in chains that the smell of them was still with him. He smelled good.
I spoke softly. "I'm not for sale. When I see something I like, I go after it, that's all. Don't you ever get urges?"
That earned me a chuckle, low and dark and dry, almost inhuman somehow. "All the time. All the time." His grin was all teeth and it would've marked him as a killer even if I hadn't already known.
"You want to get out of here?" He'd released my hand, and I slid it up his leg, letting it rest just next to his crotch.
He studied me for a moment, then, with a jerk of his head that told me to follow him, he slid off the barstool and walked toward a doorway at the back of the room. I followed in his wake, tingling with anticipation. We entered a dimly lit hallway and continued down it until we reached the first open door.
I thought he'd be like all the rest. I'd have him on his knees as soon as we were alone. I'd get a little head and then fuck him. After I'd come, before I'd even pulled out, I'd have the cuffs on him and my weapon drawn and he'd never even know what hit him. That was my routine, my ritual. But like I said, Riddick was different.
He didn't turn on the light, just slammed the door shut behind us. I could feel the heat of his body nearby, but when I reached to touch him he was gone. "Where are you? Don't fuck around with me." I did my best to keep my sudden uneasiness out of my voice.
"I thought you wanted to fuck around," he said, and then he was pressed against me from behind. His hands ghosted along my sides, a sensation that was just short of ticklish. I hadn't even heard him move.
I was fool enough to think I was still in control of the situation.
His hands became a substantial pressure on my body as his arm went around my waist and he ground his crotch against my ass. Tightening his arm around me, he thrust upward once, twice. I could feel his hard cock against me through our clothes and I knew what he wanted. He gave my groin a quick squeeze, and before I could even open my mouth to tell him that I didn't get fucked, he was gone.
"Take off your clothes," he said from somewhere to my left. His voice had dropped even lower than before, and his words were slow and deliberate.
"Only if you do," I said, still trying to get control of the situation.
"Of course. We wouldn't get very far if I didn't. And you do want to, don't you? Get very far. I promise, we'll both have a good time. Now strip."
I was left feeling like I'd given him exactly what he wanted, but I did it anyway. I moved carefully toward where I thought the bed should be. Once I'd found it, I took off my clothes quickly, piling my things on the floor within arm's reach of the bed.
I straightened up, straining to see or hear some clue as to where he was. Nothing. I was just about ready to put my pants back on and get out, make another try later. I should have. I didn't do it because I was letting my dick do most of the thinking. As nervous as I was getting, I was more turned on than I'd ever been. Maybe it was the junkie in me, looking for a bigger and better thrill. Either that or it was his voice.
"Well?" I asked into the darkness. Knowing what I know now, I have a clear picture of him circling me in the dark, looking at me the way a starving man looks at a steak. But all I knew then was that I couldn't see or hear him. I might as well have been alone in the room, until he spoke again.
"What's your name?" His voice was right next to me.
"Johns. What's yours?"
"Riddick." He ran a hand over my chest and down, stopping just above my dick, which was sticking almost straight out in front of me. I could feel a drop of precome trickling down the shaft toward my balls, leaving a sticky trail. Finally he moved his hand down. "You scared of me?" he growled as he started to stroke me.
"No," I lied, swallowing a lump in my throat. I reached for him, but he slapped my hand away.
"You should be," he whispered. Then in one smooth movement he sent me tumbling onto the bed. I landed on my stomach, and he was straddling me before I could move. He'd stripped, too, and all of his skin was warm against mine the way his hands had been. He stroked my back with one hand, half soothing, half holding me down as he moved further down until he was between my spread legs.
"I don't--" I began, and he interrupted me.
"Don't take it up the ass? Nobody does, until the first time."
I could feel his breath as he spoke, hot against the skin of my lower back. He moved even lower, spreading my legs further apart. I shocked myself by bucking upward at the sensation of his breath on the crack of my ass. In response, the rationalization came loud and emphatic into my mind. "It doesn't really matter, as long as I bring him in." Fact is, I was his to do with as he pleased, and he knew it. I'd lost even the illusion that I had any control over the situation.
He licked one long, slow stripe along my skin, balls to asshole, pausing there for a moment before continuing upward. It was the first and only time he put his mouth on me, and it was like the scorching heat of sunlight on a desert planet. Warm skin, hot mouth, it was like he burned with his own fire. He took his hand off my back, certain now that I wouldn't move, and I felt one finger slip into me.
I only had a split second to wonder where he'd gotten the lube before he started to move his hand. I squirmed against him, pushing back when he tried to withdraw. He had to put his other hand against my ass and hold me down while he pulled out his finger and replaced it with what had to be two, maybe three.
"Hungry?" he asked, and I nodded into the mattress, not even sure exactly what he meant, but sure that I *was* hungry, that I wanted to touch him, feel the rock-hard muscle of his body under my hands. I wanted to lick him all over, find out whether or not I could taste as well as smell the metal of the chains he'd worn so often, take his cock so deep into my throat that I'd be fighting to breathe. I wanted it all, and most of all I wanted him to fuck me. I moaned. He put his other hand over my mouth, rubbing my lips until I parted them. He slipped three fingers of that hand into my mouth just as he pulled the fingers of his other hand roughly out of my ass and filled the new emptiness I felt with his dick, sinking all the way into me with one stroke.
I bit down on his fingers with the shock of it, of how big he felt inside me and just how good it was. I heard him panting as he pulled me up to my hands and knees without removing his hand from my mouth.
I sucked and licked at his fingers as he started to move, driving into me in a hard rhythm. I sucked as hard as I could, biting down from time to time as he hit an angle that was just right. A spike of anxiety hit me every time I bit him, but he didn't seem to mind.
It went on until I lost all track of time or place. I was just sucking and sucking on those fingers as he pounded hard into me. I was sure that the mattress had to be soaked with the precome dripping down from my cock, which slapped against my skin untouched. My arms buckled under me and he held me up with one arm, tight like an iron band around my chest. Every time I thought I couldn't possibly climb any higher, that I was going to finally come, it turned out that I was wrong.
It just kept building, getting even better until I was sure that when I finally did come I would explode into dust. And then I felt him coming, a throbbing feeling inside of me, and I did explode. At least it seemed that way. He held me up as we rode out the last of it, shuddering, my eyes squeezed shut and his breathing rough in my ear. Then he pulled his fingers from my mouth and his dick from my ass and let me flop down into the wet spot on the mattress. He lay down next to me.
It took at least a minute before I remembered. I reached over the side of the bed toward my clothes, finding my pants and reaching into the pocket.
"You know what the first thing you learn in prison is?"
My spine stiffened and my heart thudded in my chest. My pocket was empty. It was all gone. The lube he'd used had been mine, which meant--
"Lose something, Johns?"
--no cuffs, no gun, he'd taken it all. He'd known all along. The adrenaline jolt hit me the same instant as the knife. I felt the impact of it first, and then the pain, bright and sharp and as impossibly intense as the pleasure I'd felt just a few minutes before.
The low rumble of his voice as he hissed a few last words into my ear was the only thing I heard. "The first thing you learn in prison is to never turn your back on anyone. Especially not a man who can see in the dark."
I woke up in the hospital. Lucky, they called it, but I disagree. It'd been a busy night at the bar, I'd been found not long after he'd left me. But doctors in a spaceport like that one aren't exactly high-class, and between his shiv and theirs it took me a while to get back on my feet. When I did, I had a scar on my skin and a one-inch fragment of the blade under it as permanent reminders of that night.
I tried to go back to it, to my usual way of capturing fugitives, but I just couldn't. It was never the same. He'd ruined it for me. And by then I was hooked on the morphine anyway, the sweet release from pain that it gave me. So it didn't matter so much. I made it my mission to find him and bring him in.
So, you see, it wasn't the needle that killed me at all. It was the sex. If I'd gotten out, if I hadn't been addicted, someone else would have gone after Riddick. And it all would have been different.
The End