Fic: Habitual (B:tVS, Pitch Black)

[jedibuttercup]

PG-13; B:tVS/Pitch Black. 300 words. (Follows "Beautiful" and "Instinctual")

Riddick gets to know his unexpected passenger a little better.

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Title: Habitual
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Riddick gets to know his unexpected passenger a little better. 300 words.
TtH100 Prompt: #73, Worship
Notes: Post-"Chosen" and "Pitch Black" (2000); pre-"Chronicles of Riddick" (2004). Follows "Beautiful" and "Instinctual". Also fits a TTH FFA prompt for Buffy & Riddick.

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It's an acrid stench, human fear. Unpleasant to the nose detecting it as the emotion is to the one who feels it-- or so Riddick has heard. He can't remember the last time he quailed in the face of any challenge, and the anxiety of the sheep around him is like a fine wine on his tongue.

It's more satisfying than sex, more energizing than the coppery taste of fresh blood, and since the day he made his first kill he hasn't met anyone who didn't exude it around him. Even Jack, all hero worship and makeshift goggles, still feared him underneath-- even when they'd said their goodbyes on Helion Prime.

Finally meeting an exception to the rule has thrown him more than he'd like to admit. This tiny slip of a woman with more grace in her walk than the broken pattern of her speech is more like him than anyone else he's ever met, predatory and powerful and the last of her kind. She follows him around his ship like a half-wild, starving kitten, gradually gentling to his touch but always ready with her claws. She hasn't given him her name yet, but he knows it's only a matter of time; when she cries out quietly in her sleep, the shadows in her eyes following her into dream, she turns in his direction.

It's dangerous to let people close to him-- dangerous to them-- but she has nowhere else to go. And truth be told, Riddick's starting to get used to her company. Maybe he's slipping, but he's starting to look beyond the next meal again, the next free moment; he can think of worse things to do in his self-imposed exile than getting to know a beautiful woman.

Especially one who'd come with her own warning label.

-~-

(x-posted to tth100 & riddick_fanfic)

Comments

[maevebran.livejournal.com]

Nice.

[vegmb.livejournal.com]

If this is the result of you being emo from lack of comments to your fic, I may never comment again. (Not that I'm that good at commenting as it is. For the record, I really enjoy your writing. I am just a bad reader and don't tell you as often as I should. Things are ususally old when I read them due to lack of time online lately.)

[jedibuttercup]

> If this is the result of you being emo from lack of comments to your fic, I may never comment again.

Hee. Glad you liked it. Though, please, feel free to comment whenever you choose: I can certainly conjure up enough emo-ness in RL to fuel this kind of fic-writing mood from time to time. *lol*

> For the record, I really enjoy your writing. I am just a bad reader and don't tell you as often as I should.

Thank you. But don't call yourself a bad reader! Something like one in one hundred people, I think I heard, actually comment on any given story they read online. By those standards, I'm actually doing pretty well on the comment-front. And responses like this certainly make up for any lack. =)

[aadler]

Hmm. I read the first two parts, now I’m here. Not sure where this is going (are you?), but it’s definitely interesting so far.

[jedibuttercup]

> Hmm. I read the first two parts, now I’m here. Not sure where this is going (are you?)

Well... I have some ideas, in rough timeline format. I have a hard time sustaining the mental space necessary for me to write from the Riddick or broken!Slayer POVs, though, so I doubt I'll ever write anything long in this 'verse. But I find the idea rather fascinating, so more drabbles are very likely.

> but it’s definitely interesting so far.

Thank you.

[tpeej.livejournal.com]

WOW! Great story.

[jedibuttercup]

Thank you. =)

[tpeej.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome.

[cissasghost.livejournal.com]

Your Riddick voice is just absolutely perfect, as it was in the preceding two. Thanks for continuing this, it's nifty!

-Sonya

[jedibuttercup]

> Your Riddick voice is just absolutely perfect, as it was in the preceding two.

Thank you! He's a hard character for me to get a handle on, nearly as much as River Tam, but like her, he's a character I'm very fond of. I'm glad to hear I'm doing him justice.

> Thanks for continuing this, it's nifty!

You're welcome. I doubt this will be the last piece I write in that 'verse, but it may be awhile before the next one.

[wolf-j.livejournal.com]

I just finally got the chance to read these - internet time's hard to come by, lately, and brain power even harder - and I really enjoyed them. It's a fascinating crossover, one I never thought of. I really like the ideas that Buffy dreamed about the Slayers in her absence and that the designated target of the Slayers changed with the times.

[klash.livejournal.com]

Oh you MUST write more of this. Pitch Black is my all time favorite movie and blending it with Buffy was just the most scrumptious eye candy I have hand in a long while.

[basilio-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Loved it :D