Last Dance Redux 1

Author: Evilgrin
Title: LAST DANCE-REDUX
Rating: NC 17, for het sex, gore, violence
Fandom: PB, no TCOR
Pairing: Riddick / Jane Adams(OFC)
Disclaimer: I don’t own Riddick, but I sure do love to play with that man more than can be deemed healthy. All the other characters are purely out of my brain. “Last Dance” was originally meant to be an extremely starkly written short story. I decided to dust it off and play with it again. Some of you might remember the story. Well, don’t be all that surprised if I up and decide to wreak havok with my own damn plot, mwahahahhaah. I can’t sue myself, as I’d just get all my own junk back, so, I figger that takes care of the disclaimer part of this programme.
Summary: Riddick is at the end of his rope, with nowhere left to run. Does he take a chance on a pilot?
Archive: FDB, VX
Feedback: In this thread only please. No shreds; I write for fun only
Note: there will be flashbacks in the story, I’ll put little dividers like the one you see below, so you get an idea when I’m doing something weird…Riddick POV is written in italics, and yes, I agree, it’s weird

::ONE::

If I can’t stop this bleeding, I’m going to die in this filthy back alley like a fucking animal. They’d probably leave me here like garbage, except they’d still get half a bounty for bringing me back dead.

Outpost 17, been here for a while. Probably too long. I got comfortable. Sloppy. Maybe I’m just too damned old to keep doing this. Maybe just tired of running. A chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere, dragged out here so that miners with the Bellstar Mining company wouldn’t R&R anywhere else. It used to be that a merc would get his throat cut damn near the moment he landed here, a lot of miners being ex-cons with shine jobs. Used to be a safe place to go to ground. A lot has changed. Got sold out. Worse, I didn’t get tipped off about being sold out either.

Cold is setting in. Doesn’t have much to do with the temperature either, not under this fucking sun. Shock. I’ve lost a lot of blood already. If it was only a cut across my upper thigh, it wouldn’t be so bad, at least it would be a clean wound. Shot. Through and through, so no bullet to worry about, but it ripped the hell out of my leg, and I haven’t been able to get it patched up, other than tying the leg off.

Already been running on the wound a day, trying to get to the docks and get off this fucking rock. I can hear them, at the end of the alley. Only three left, of their four man crew. Killed the one that shot me. Should have been faster and killed him before I got shot. Gutted him and left him outside that bar. Don’t like that the kill was so public. Makes it a little hard to go quietly. Getting slow in my old age. Fucking mercs aren’t even trying to be quiet about it.

You’ve rested enough old man. Only a few streets from the docks. These fucking mercs had to have a plan for a pilot, a ship. Just a matter of who’s going to get there first.

The wall shouldn’t have given me any trouble. Only about eight feet. Razor wire at the top. There was a time when I wouldn’t even have thought about it. Course, there was a time when a four man crew would have been an insult, instead of something to be worried about. Land on the leg on the way down, opening a new cut across the arm, clipping it on the wire on the way down. Biting my hand to keep from yelping. Doesn’t matter, they’ve heard me anyways.

I can hear two of them, coming over the wall after me as I make a break for the end of the alley. Fuck, who am I trying to kid. I can barely keep on my feet. It’s not just pain. Blood loss, shock, the beginning of an infection. Be pretty goddamned surprised if I last the week, at the rate this is going. Leaning on the side of the alley, trying to get to the docks, any way I can. Get a ship, get this mess cleaned up before it kills me. Try to plan where the hell I’m going to run to next. I’m kind of running out of options. Except maybe the riskiest option.

Get to the mouth of the alley when the third merc circles out in front of me. I’m not going to die in chains.

“You just run out of road, boy.”

“Fuck you.”

“Time enough for that when you get where you’re goin’.”

“And that would be where, exactly?”

“Epsilon 4. You’re going to spend the rest of your days with a bit in your mouth, Riddick. Those military doctors are going to have a field day with you.”

Mercs just love to rub your face in it when they’re about to send you somewhere diabolical. Didn’t think I’d ever say Slam wasn’t such a bad place. Almost like home, compared to Epsilon 4. Where I’d get turned into a goddamned lab rat, stuck in a maze with thousands of other lab rats. Bitted and sedated. Until my mind was turned into refried beans by all the chemicals they doped me up with. Still, Epsilon 4 is three weeks away. A lot of time for something to go wrong.

They have to get me off this rock somehow, and none of these guys looks like a pilot. Not exactly a short hop, either. Three weeks in a ship with these mercs. Three weeks for this leg to heal. If I keep running, I’ll be in worse shape, and will definitely not be ready for it when that one thing goes wrong that I can use to my advantage. I’m not going to die in chains. But I’m not going to die in an alley, killed by rookie mercs that happened to get the drop on an old man, either.

I hate the feel of the cuffs, when it comes. Don’t see too many options that will leave me alive. I can’t help but fight when the bit goes in. I always do, always will. I expect the beating. Doesn’t mean I like it, but I expect it. Nothing I haven’t taken before. Just remember every fucking hit, because they’ll pay for every single one of them.

“Let’s get him back to the warehouse, if we’re going to play with him, boys. Our flight’s not til three in the morning.”

next…