Who: Riddick riddickr & Elaine Mallory ssadabsiannataz What: Good Evening When: Backdated, Wednesday, September 23, late night Where: Elaine's house Rating: Audience Discretion is Advised Warnings: Stalker!Riddick, general threats, unpleasantness, and well, it's Riddick. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
People liked to think they were safe. It was about a feeling to them. They needed to think there weren't any bad people out in the world. No one wanted to imagine there were real monsters out in the world. All the monsters were supposed to live in their televisions, on their silver screens, or as features during their newscasts. It wasn't supposed to be possible for them to show up in all their glory on their front lawns. Animals like Riddick were meant to be kept caged, away from good people.
Shame Riddick had never really gotten that memo.
Sitting in the lawn, he tossed pebbles at the woman's window until he heard movement from the inside. Could be Elaine was interested in saying hello after all. There might be hope for his evening's entertainment. Riddick wasn't willing to pass up the chance to talk to her. It seemed she had more friends up her sleeves than he'd thought, too, which was its own interesting side story. They could talk as far as he was concerned. Talking was better than sitting outside with nothing to do except watch.
"Good Evening."
He called it out loud enough to attract attention though he wasn't exactly hiding. Riddick figured there was a chance the woman would try to turn him into a slug. Could be better than what he was doing at present. Could be worse. Worse would be a hard row to go. Riddick had already seen as bad as it could get. Slams came and went, but they weren't as bad as it could get. As bad as it could get? That was sitting alone in the dark wishing for something other than his own dark thoughts for company.
"Think you could spare a few minutes to talk with me?"
~*~
Elaine knew first hand what the evils of the world were. Safety was relative and rarely as constant as she would hope. She’d been on the receiving end of some pretty bad things in her time, so she tried, in whatever way possible, to keep her home secure. Extending that protection outside of her home was always the hard part. She couldn’t control that much.
She sighed as the pebbles hit her window. Repeatedly. She’d hoped he’d just go away. But he was just out of range of the slug ward, and too close for her to use any of her other magical traps. She had no desire to remove her poor cats from the equation and damage her house any.
Finally she got up from her work and opened the door, watching a pebble bounce as she did so. Elaine sighed patiently and shook her head at him. He was incorrigible and made her think of everything bad in the world, while at the time being curious enough to keep her from turning him into a slug. Or something else.
“I suppose that is possible.” she mused as she shut the door behind her, a wave of her hand brought up those wards as she moved towards the garden, muttering softly as she went. “Well come on then.” she gestured towards a stone bench and table in the garden.
~*~
Elaine was the kind of woman who brought up interest without making him uncomfortable. Riddick normally didn't want to learn anything about another person he couldn't observe on his own. It seemed Elaine was an exception to the rule for him. He was willing to get up and heel like a good boy so he wasn't missing the party. She was worth a little effort on his part. That was why he was still sticking around instead of fleeing for easier targets or just running in general. There were plenty of places to run to as well.
"Is it okay if I sit at the table with you?"
They could talk anywhere as far as Riddick was concerned. He wanted to do a decent turn with her. Elaine was a nice girl who deserved him being decent with her seeing as she had yet to turn her witchy friends or powers on him in spite of a lot of provocation on his part. He was hardly being kind to her or contributing to her mental well-being. Riddick would have pulled back on her except---he didn't want to pull back. It'd been too long since something or someone had caught his attention.
"I'm not interested in driving you crazy. I'm just---interested. In case there were questions regarding my motives."
~*~
Elaine settled down on the bench and leaned her forearms on the table. She watched him like a hawk, but she was a tired hawk. Sleeping hadn’t been coming easy and she hadn’t wanted to make her own potions. Not with people lurking around. She lifted one hand and ran it through her hair, smoothing out some tangles as she pondered what he could possibly want with her.
“Come, sit. I won’t turn you into a slug for sitting here.” she said with a hint of a smile, it was just barely there, a whisper of one. But there.
She couldn’t figure out why she was so interesting. She lived a relatively boring life now. She’d long ago decided she’d had too many interesting days. She didn’t need anymore. Well, perhaps she did, she did live in Orange County, and this place rarely let people live too boring lives.
A one shouldered shrug was her reply to him. “For whatever reason I have caught your curiosity. It could be much worse, so I’m willing to tolerate your company for now.” although her gaze softened just a little bit, that ghost of a smile still there. She folded her hands back on top of the table and looked at him.
~*~
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
Riddick settled across from her. His bulk made the distance between them seem inconsequential. It'd been a long time since he'd shared a table with anyone, female or male. Riddick figured the last time would have been in some slam or another. Cafeteria duty. There was a thing about keeping the animals in line in the zoo. He hated being an animal in a cage maintained by some fucking keeper.
Elaine didn't make it seem as if they were playing at civilization.
She made it seem as if they were simply being friendly.
"What's it like to be a witchy woman? Is that too personal a place to start?"
They had no real history to go by. It wasn't as if Riddick knew her better than what he knew from her observable life experiences. She had a problem with talking from what he could tell. There were few words he'd heard coming out of her place. Riddick could stand to hear a few more from her. Elaine had a nice voice. She should talk more as far as he was concerned though he was hardly going to say that to her when she was being sweet with him. What did he want to do? Piss her off?
Not when she was playing nice.
Not a chance.
~*~
Elaine looked him over as she tried to think of why he'd even be curious about her. She couldn't come up with a good line of reasoning, besides the fact she lived away from people and on her own. She only had the luxury of two small cats to keep her company. They were easy keepers, safeguarded from animals by charms, they wandered freely.
She rarely talked to people now that her phone kept dying whenever she'd use it outside a circle, so she'd set up a permanent circle inside for her computer and prayed they continued to function.
Elaine tried to decide if he was teasing her or not and decided against not. It brought a tiny smile to her lips, a faint glint in her eye. "It is not all that it's cracked up to be, if you're looking for an honest answer."
Her fingers drummed silently on the table top. "It requires a great deal of patience."
***
Patience was something Riddick had plenty of without even calling up on his reserves. Elaine didn't have to worry about him or his patience. He'd wait for her to talk about whatever she wanted to talk about in her own time. As long as she wasn't about to curse him? Riddick was fine sitting there all night simply looking at her. She had the kind of energy which made a person feel good. Riddick felt good basking in her energy if nothing else. There was something nice in sitting across from her.
Like a person.
"Oh?"
Sometimes Riddick found it was easy to prompt a further explanation simply by offering to listen. People didn't listen to one another nearly enough. They were too fixated on their own issues, their own problems, their own lives. It was too much to ask for them to take a moment of their precious time to hear how the other side lived. Riddick had nothing except time on his side. He could offer as much of it as was necessary to give her a chance to speak in case she wanted someone to simply listen.
Folding his arms in front of himself on the table, Riddick offered a half smile, less of a smile and more of a smirk. It was funny to think he had managed to become someone she was willing to talk to in her garden. There was nothing other than civility in their tones. If anyone was watching them, they would have believed the pair of them were involved in a civil relationship. They could have passed for friends or simply two people who wanted to spend time together in the privacy of Elaine's garden.
~*~
Elaine was comfortable with silence and after his question, she let it linger for a few moments. She really had no idea why she was talking to this man who basically stalked her. She couldn’t fathom why she would even bother chatting it up with someone like him. She’d never been a chatter box, which saved her in the long run, but she was polite, and could keep up a simple conversation as long as necessary.
“There is a lot of planning.” she said by way of explanation. She really didn’t want to go into details, because she didn’t understand it herself. She willed her hands still as she looked up at him. “It’s a complicated thing that I don’t fully understand.” she shrugged as if it was no big deal to not understand.
Elaine was weary of pebbles being bounced off her windows. She’d much rather indulge the man than be slowly driven batty by the sound of pebbles plinking against glass. The garden was a safe zone, within her territory but not the heart of it. She didn’t have to let him in that far. Just enough to be civil, polite and allow some measure of companionship without giving up too much either.
“What about you? What affords you the time to sit out here?” she asked with one brow arched upwards, she never met his eyes, she’d learned quickly that even here, in this place, things that affected her in her dreams affected her here. The last thing she wanted was a soul gaze with this man.
~*~
Shrugging a shoulder, Riddick stated, "Lack of interest in civilization. When one doesn't need much, one doesn't need to put much effort into getting things."
He didn't need to work a job to survive. There were plenty of places which would feed a man like him if he'd do some heavy lifting or simply play the heavy for a night. Riddick had been paid for nothing other than walking next to a man to a meeting before. He was an animal who had his uses. No one got too interested in his business so no one cared if he was sleeping outside, in an abandoned building, in someone else's warehouse, or not sleeping at all since it could be really fucking overrated.
Survival wasn't about money the way people erroneously believed.
They were trained by society to think they had to have luxuries like cell phones, internet access, cable television. Air-conditioning. It didn't strike them their ancestors had lived without any of those things perfectly fine. California had been founded by the roughest people to settle the States. They'd been driven West trying to find gold, digging deep into the earth to try to strike it rich; none of them had come out to the Golden State looking for an easy road to travel on. Riddick was no different than those original settlers in that respect.
He didn't expect anything to come easy in life.
If it came easy, it likely wasn't worth coming at all.
"You're the first witch I run across. Met some strange people living on the fringes. Guess I am one of the strange ones come to that. It is what it is, right?"
~*~ Elaine smiled a bit. "Ah. I see. Not one for the urban life then. I can understand that." She had seen the best of humanity but she had lived the worst.
She thought avoiding people was the best recourse. She didn't trust many. Tortured overseas, betrayed here at home, even her own family has thrown her away. She preferred the company of her cats and nature to humanity.
Elaine smiled a little more. "It is what it is. This area the strange tend to congregate, the odd seems to happen and life changes. I can't say there are many witches in the world. Wish I'd known I was one when I was overseas."
A frown turned her lips down, a tired look in her eye. "My apologies."
~*~
People didn't apologize to Riddick on a regular basis. He couldn't suppress a full smile from blooming on his face, his features seeming even more exaggerated in the dark. What could he say to that from Elaine? She had no reason to apologize to him from what he could tell. He was the one inconveniencing her life, not the other way around. Elaine had become his personal pet project while she was still only a woman trying to live her life. Riddick knew what he was doing was hardly fair.
He didn't really care either.
Fair was for people who lived better lives than him. Nothing had been fair in Riddick's life since he was born. He had learned there was no such thing as 'fair' before he had learned how to spell his own name. School had been the kind of hard knocks for Riddick. He'd been taught by some of the world's worst how to be among the world's worst. No one had ever thought to show him anything other than how to survive in a dog-eats-dog world. Kindness had been something Riddick hadn't seen until after he was already a man of legal majority.
"What are you apologizing to me for? I'm the one bothering you, right? Shouldn't I be currying your favor so you don't turn me into a slug or something?"
~*~
She blinked at him for a moment, then burst into an airy but pleasant laugh. Her eyes sparkled for a moment before she regained composure. "I need not burden a stranger, a stalker no less! with wishes and regrets." A shrug lifted one shoulder as she pushed stray hair from her face.
"That is what I apologize for. " a hand lifted, stalling any words on his part. "I'm far likelier to fry you then turn you into a slug." A wicked smile curved her lips, more spark in her look than there was mere moments ago.
"You're an interesting distraction from my simple life. I've left most interesting things behind, but it's almost pleasing to see interesting things can still happen."
Elaine had left her foster home without a hesitation, unwanted she'd taken care of herself from early on. She tried to rise above it, took a small pleasure in doing things she had talent in. She snubbed her poverty stricken beginnings. But she'd paid for that in blood.
Now she tried to lead a simple life. She only kept internet for the network and to submit her work through. She had no tv, no a/c, and tried to power her life with only nature. She'd become a relative hermit.
~*~
Her joy was infectious. Riddick let out a booming laugh of his own as he realized she thought she was burdening him with her regrets when he needed her to distract him from his own. They were a pair weren't they? It was hardly natural for two people as strange as them to find one another in the world, but they had and Riddick wasn't willing to give up on her until she made it abundantly clear she wanted him gone from her life.
In spite of what he might have let her believe, Riddick wouldn't actually stalk her to the point it made her beyond uncomfortable into scared territory or worse.
Driving the woman crazy wasn't on his agenda.
Riddick didn't even have an agenda in all honesty.
He just needed a distraction.
"You are a very welcome distraction yourself. I tend to absorb electricity well so if you accidentally fry me? I'll forgive you for it. It's likely I'll deserve it."
~*~
Elaine smiled gently, unsure of what he thought was so funny. She wasn’t too worried, not in the long run, but it was strange behaviour. She was getting used to it, though, because he hadn’t made any motion to hurt her. She felt maybe it was alright to be polite and cordial.
She’d regret it, or not, later.
“I would suggest not testing that theory, though. I would be terribly upset to hurt someone who really didn’t deserve it. In fact I’d feel pretty awful.” she smiled faintly, fingers moving up to run through her hair again. Elaine rubbed her temple for a moment then looked up at him.
“Did you want anything to drink? I don’t have a lot here, but I don’t mind sharing.” she said honestly, lifting her head just enough to really look at him. She didn’t want to look him in the eye and soul gaze the man, but she wanted to see him better than she had.
~*~
Riddick stood and stretched. He gave her a small grin as he tried to keep from saying more with his body language than he wanted to express to her. They were still new to one another. It was nice to think they could become old hat, but no one kept Riddick around long enough for an old hat standard.
"I think I'll settle for what company and conversation you've offered me so far. Maybe next time I'll take you up on a drink. As long as you promise it's not going to be poison or some kind of potion to turn me into a newt."
He was hardly joking.
Paranoia had kept him alive when nothing else could.
There had been too many people who'd wanted him dead for him to think the world was a good place. Even good people like Elaine would do terrible things if they were pushed far enough---Riddick was only hoping he never pushed her too far. He didn't want to break her or make her something other than how he'd found her. All he wanted was the chance to spend time with someone who didn't want him dead. Someone interesting who didn't want him dead? Well, Riddick didn't believe in miracles but he did believe in getting lucky.
"Been a long time since I cared who saw me watching in the dark. I care when it's you. Don't wait until you want me dead to tell me to fuck off. Just tell me. I'm not unreasonable. Not for some people."
He gave her a slight salute before heading off into the dark, leaving her to her thoughts.