The Darkness Calls

Title: Phantom mate

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the craziness that spews out of my head. All characters belong to their respective owners. That means I own nothing and have zero money. . .
Author notes & Warnings: M/M fanfic. No Beta. Be afraid. My mood affects my writing

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Days later
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“What the hell you do to Riddick?” Jack growled as she plopped down into the seat across the table from Xander. Xander sighed unhappily and sagged in his seat like a plant that got no sunshine.

“Nothing. I’ve done nothing.” After all the silver eyed man needed space so his anger could lessen. Being around Xander just confused him and what confused Riddick pissed him off.

“Bull!” Jack locked eyes with Xander, her eyes full of anger and his sad as can be.

“Riddick is just . . . We had a little argument and now we’re not talking.” Riddick’s not talking. Xander had tried over and over to get the silver eyed man alone to talk about the bond, about them, but the other would hear none of it. The only thing Xander did was piss him off. So Xander took the hint and didn’t actively find the other man. Riddick didn’t avoid Xander but made it clear with his cool looks and warning growls that he was not interested in anything he could say. Xander sulked like the third wheel at a party. ‘I just want one chance to explain. I didn’t know a lot about my kind before I shipped out . . . I didn’t know coupling again would cement the bond for good, for keeps. Make it a forever till death thing, not till it was already in place.’

“Well whatever you did you better knock it off or else!” Jack growled softly and tried to scowl deeply as she twisted a butter knife between her fingers and dropped it. She was trying to act like Riddick and it just made her look like a skinny knobby kneed puppy trying to be tough. Xander’s lip twitched.

“Right . . . sure. Whatever.” Jack left in a huff.

**
Xander walked into the infirmary like a man going to his funeral. ‘I’d rather be going to my funeral at least I’d get flowers.’ Xander thought sourly as he entered the room and met Fry’s smug eyes. Her eyes screamed ‘I win you lose!’ Xander could smell Riddick’s smoky scent in the room; the man had been in the room but left before Xander entered. Xander’s tail drooped and dragged lightly on the floor. He said nothing to Fry as he placed a hand on her stomach and started healing her, she was well enough to leave the infirmary now. “Now you can get out of the bed and be a bitch somewhere else. You can go spread your negative energy and make someone else’s day suck. Be careful I won’t touch you to spit on you much less heal you again. You get hurt you deal with it.” With that said Xander marched out of the room.

Entering the control room Xander check the monitors and all the readouts. “Computer how are we doing? Anything you need to inform me about?”

~Everything is operational Captain Alea’xand’r. Nothing is amiss with my systems or our flight path. ~

“Good.” Xander left the room and headed for the galley. Maybe something sweet would lift his mood? As he entered the room Xander stilled in the door and his tail bristled like it was shoved in a light socket. Fry was in the galley and she was holding Oren, a very unhappy but not yet crying Oren. Xander unsheathed his claws as he marched toward her with barely veiled hate. Carefully Xander snatched Oren from her lose hold making sure to claw her as he did it a talent he now shared with house cats.

“What the hell?!” Fry held her slightly bleeding hand to her chest and glared at him. “I just got out of the infirmary! Jerk!”

“Why were YOU holding my kit?” Xander hissed.

Fry sniffed. “He’s not yours. *Shrug* Imam told me to hold him while he went to the bathroom.”

Xander’s bristled fur flattened a bit but he was still peeved. “He is mine. Among my kind giving a child life, carrying a child, and helping birth one makes a piece of that child yours. Milithre babies absorb a bit of the energy from the first person that touches them that’s why most births are between the pregnant milithre and the mates. I kept Oren alive and I helped him come into the world. On planets that follow milithre law and uphold them I have as much right to him as any other guardian. Oren is mine and I don’t want you to touch him again! Ever again!” Xander just wished he could say the same about Riddick.

Xander left the galley with his tail thrashing like a whip and Oren tucked comfortably against his chest. He couldn’t keep Fry away from all his family but he could at least keep her from his kit.

**

Riddick watched the whole little confrontation between Fry and Xander from a comfortable shadowy corner and frowned at the intensity of it. Fry wouldn’t hurt the brat but Xander didn’t want her to even look at him. Riddick shook his head and used his shiv to cut off another piece of ham he got from the flash freezer, it tasted a bit like rubber but it was still meat. Riddick still had no fucking idea about what he was going to do about his cat problem. He wanted the cat, needed him to a point . . . He belonged to Riddick. Riddick just didn’t like or want to belonging back. It just wasn’t how he did things. He wanted the cat’s body, the sex, and his company . . . it was the emotional crap that threw him and made him as uneasy as pretty mouthed fresh meat in slam. What the hell could he do with love? With caring? With compassion? With a need so fragile and beautiful it hurt him and made him bleed in a place he couldn’t protect? Riddick never felt emotions like the ones the kitty was forced out of him. Forced out of him like square pegs out of round holes. It felt good even as it hurt.

He wanted the cat to be his but he didn’t want to belong to Xander. To be owned back . . . Riddick shook his head at the fucked up thought. ‘Am I too much of a scared shit fuck to belong?’ Riddick snarled at himself mentally. He wasn’t scared of anything he just didn’t want to care! And he did belong to something! He belonged to the dark, to his animal instincts, to freedom. A bond would tie him down, slow him down, and cost him more then he’d ever want to give up. If he gave all that those emotions wanted him to then what? Something vital to him would end up with the cat if he gave into soft emotions and he didn’t like it, didn’t like trusting another with his back. It was like giving another predator his only shiv!

Riddick looked toward the door and to the person he wanted/needed/couldn’t have then he looked at Fry who was easy/there/could have and who he understood. Xander wanted something deep, so deep in an emotional cesspool Riddick worried about drowning in it. It could make him too complacent and get him killed. Riddick looked at Fry. Fry just needed a hard humping to get her ramrod hard spine to loosen and melt some. Fry fit in his world like a shiv did or mercs or running did. The Riddick was an animal with animal needs and Fry was a good bitch. . . Xander was starting to turn him into someone he never was . . . Richard, the piece of him he never looked into. Never wanted to. Where Xander wanted to go with him lay things he didn’t touch and soft things that were not for him and were never for him. Not even as a child did he get them sweet soft things. His life had always been about hard lines to cross, hard decisions make, and harder choices to take.

Looking at the door Riddick wished the kitty kept things simple between them, wished that they could go back to before when kiss’ were just mouths locking together and fucking was the same. Where he was Riddick’s hot tumble and nothing of Riddick belonged or wanted to belong to Xander . . . He fisted his hand into his pants tempted to go after the cat anyway, maybe he could pretend nothing changed? If he closed his mind off that fucking bond wouldn’t touch him then he could forget about it. Riddick shivered with disgust at the thought, he had never ignored facts or reality. Hoping, wishing, pretending was for the young and weak.

Riddick silently snarled at himself and shook his head. He couldn’t go there! He couldn’t fix shit and right now he wanted nothing to do with soft things being offered to him on a silver platter! ‘A too fucking good to be true platter.’ Riddick thought sourly. Standing up Riddick walked over to Fry and with careless grace jumped over the narrow metal table and straddled the bench Fry was sitting on. “Glad you’re healthy.” He grumbled as he snatched a seasoned potato from her plate. It tasted bland but at least it tasted like a potato.

“Me too. It took forever.” She said as she curled her thin arm around her plate.

“Hn.”

Spearing ham and round potato on her fork Fry chewed it while she kept sneaking looks at Riddick. Shifting in her seat and shifting her food away Fry gave Riddick a shy look. “I was gonna take a walk around the ship to check it out. I’ve heard there are a lot of secret compartments on Firefly ships. Want to come?”

Riddick shrugged a uninterested expression on his face. “Nothing better to do on this scrap heap.” Fry’s eyes lit up and Riddick had to wonder why? As he took her hand and pulled her to her feet he wondered what happened to the tough as nails bitch that stood up to The Riddick? Where was the woman that ran through the flesh eating darkness with a bottle of fucking glow bugs? The one that stood in the rain and demanded he help her? He looked into her pleased blue eyes and wondered why she was acting like a true animal-like bitch in full blown estrus? “You good Fry?” He tipped his head to the side as he looked at her.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She smiled, her cheeks flush and eyes full of sparking heat like a school girl with a new crush.

Riddick raised a brow at the lust flaring in her eyes. He half wondered if she had blood besides human in her to act so . . . horny-animal-bitch-like. Quite a few known humanoids where closer to their baser natures. Riddick sniffed the air and could smell the heat of Fry’s scent curl around the room like a thick fog. “I mean . . . you well? You’re acting not yourself.”

She blinked the fire in her eyes dimming. “I’m fine . . . I just need to be around you and the others . . . We survived something crazy and I’m feeling a bit edgy.”

Riddick shrugged as he walked ahead of her as long as she went back to normal soon he didn’t care.

**

With little Oren tucked into his nest of blankets and sleeping like an angelfish Xander curled up on his own big bed and thought about the last few days. Riddick was with Fry now. Xander didn’t know if they were together sexually since he was too afraid to use his senses or gifts to find out. Xander was afraid of what he would do if he found out that they were together THAT way. He is a newly bonded milithre after all; he could go into a killing rage over his mate. Riddick could easily defend himself from Xander but Fry would be dead before she could blink . . . If Xander returned home a killer there would be talk and a blemish on his family name . . . plus he didn’t go through all the work of healing the wench and have her dead by his own claws.

Xander frowned. ‘Fry’s been acting weird . . . Almost like an unstable milithre with a mate.’ From his childhood memories Xander remembered a young male milithre soldier who acted much like Fry did with his mate. The guy had acted like a female tiger in heat and acted extremely dependent/territorial of his mate. Xander picked up his cracked vid and started scanning over the data on surrogates and the children born of them. Xander raised a brow and clicked on an interesting article about the effects of human babies born from milithre bodies. ~It was once thought of that human babies born from a milithre’s body come out completely unchanged by the process but that is untrue. Milithre have a deep bond with their young even before they are born and it matters not if that young is theirs genetically. A bond forms when the fetus gains awareness of self, carrier and child search each other out. This type of bond also forms between a mother of a different species and a milithre fetus. Human children born of milithre carriers will have high intelligence, an awareness of compatible lovers, strong emotionally, and an awareness of milithres; some children even develop low level mental gifts. One negative that must be mentioned is something called phantom mate . . . Human babies born of milithre can sense compatible lovers but sometimes they feel a connection so strong that they obsess over it gaining an almost milithre type mindset to a bond mate. Human children are not milithre and they do not have bonds or mates unless they are to be mated with a milithre or another species that bond mentally. Phantom mate is rare and affects 1 out of 5000 births; usually it affects a child compatible with a person of a bonded pair or a pair starting the bonding process. Such a situation can turn into a hurtful obsession and in one case it resulted in death of the child and physical/mental scarring of the milithre. If such a problem should arise the child may not even know it and should be informed then removed from temptation they’re not completely in control of. Other then that small problem children born of milithre benefit from the bond with their carrier. ~ Xander thumped his head on his pillow and groaned. “Great. Just great.”

**
Amusement shot through Riddick as Fry climbed into his lap and started kissing along his neck till she reached his mouth. She let out a loud moan as she pushed her pelvis against Riddick’s and started hiking up his shirt. Riddick liked the motion, liked her enthusiasm, but found her high moans and possessive hold annoying. Grabbing her head by her hair Riddick took over the kiss and thrush his tongue in; if this is what she wanted to do he had to drive. Forcing her head to tilt just a bit he fucked her mouth with his tongue, mapping it and lapping up the sweetness inside. Fry moaned and humped against him like a needy teenager. One of her hands clawed at his back till it hurt and the other pulled at the buttons of her pants like she couldn’t wait a moment longer. Riddick let his tongue danced lazily with hers for a moment before gently but firmly pushing her away. He looked her over. Only a moment into what he would call a good kiss and she was burning up for him. He should be pleased with getting that type of reaction without trying but . . . it felt off. A little sour like meat just starting to go. “Riddick?” She murmured as she licked at her wet swollen lips.

Sliding easily out from under her Riddick stood up. “Going to get something to eat.”

Fry frowned from her place on her bunk, ‘How could Riddick think about food now?’ “Why don’t we have sex? Where in an empty room with a bed. Why not?” She asked bluntly since just moments ago that seemed to be where they were heading.

Riddick looked over at her and raised a brow, damn did he like the balls Fry had but . . . he wanted the pain in the ass that tackled him in the rain, the woman that would have been a challenge if he wanted her. “You tell me?”

“Because of the cat?” She hissed her eyes alit with rage.

“Hardly.” Riddick snorted, if he wanted to lay another a past bed warmer could hardly stop him. “You’re acting like a drugged up backwater brothel girl. Anyone I fuck is willing and all there in the head for the ride.” With that said Riddick left Fry upset and confused.

Riddick stepped out of the room and looked into the shadows. “You should hide in the light if you don’t want me to see you.”

“I know.” Xander said softly as he stepped out of his dark corner.

“So you wanted me to see you? Where you watching? Wanted to see me fuck her?” Riddick smirked finding the thought not half bad.

“No.” Xander growled his tail thrashing back and forth.

Riddick leaned against the wall and crossed his arms a bored look on his face. “Then what do you want, milithre?”

‘Milithre, not pussycat or kitty?’ Xander sighed at the cold tone of Riddick’s voice, he missed the teasing nicknames. “I just wanted to tell you that Fry isn’t acting herself because she is born of a milithre’s body. A milithre was her surrogate.”

“Yeah and?” Riddick waved his hand in a ‘get on with it’ gesture.

“Every once in a while people like her suffer something called phantom mate. It happens when someone she is very compatible with mates with a milithre. She has a strong urge to make you hers . . . It might have had a little to do with our immediate dislike for each other too, a little, maybe? I don’t think Greg would have let her work on the ship if her dislike for milithre kind went as deep as it does with me. She and I are like two big cats fighting for the same space and mating rights. I don’t think she has a fucking clue and if she does it’s the childhood romantic version of what’s really going on. That whole finding true love type thing from fairytales. She’s obsessed with you because she’s attracted to you and you’re my mate, my bonded mate.” Xander looked at Riddick with sad brown eyes.

Riddick frowned not liking the news or the beaten droop in Xander’s stands and eyes. ‘He looks tired.’ “Really? Hmm.” Riddick started heading for the kitchen at a lazy pace. “Guess I’ll avoid her and you.”

Xander bit his lip and blinked his eyes rapidly, he did not want Riddick to smell tears. ‘Stupid bond making me all emotional!’
**

Riddick didn’t like cat and mouse games especially when he had to be the mouse. It grated on his nerves something fierce. Avoid the kitty and his sad eyes, avoid Fry and her needy scent, and avoid nosy question from a holy man, and avoid the brat and her whining/pouting. Riddick ignored Jack as she looked at him with a pout on her face. “Why do you leave when Fry comes in the room? I thought you liked her?” *Pout and lip quiver.*

Shoving his bowl of flash cooked cheese pasta away from him Riddick strode out of the kitchen and left Jack to her moping. Riddick headed straight to the control room, he needed to know when he could get off this tub and away from all these complications. “Ship! How much longer till we reach the planet? Can you speed it the fuck up?”

The ship beeped and pinged. ~27 days till we reach Helion Prime. We are 6 days into our flight path and will be in range of radio communication within six hours. ~

“Anyway you can speed this up?” Riddick growled.

~ I could boost my engines power-~

“Do it.” Riddick snarled. He needed off this floating cage before he goes mad and kills someone!

**
Riddick entered the kitchen and sat down only to have Imam sit down with him. “What do you want holy man?”

Imam looked at Riddick silently for a moment before he spoke. “I imagine a man like you would have very little fear, my friend. You face things, terrible things, and do not flinch-“

“I sense a big fucking but?” Riddick smirked like he didn’t care.

“Yes. You fear little to nothing but that which those around you seek. You seek the dark where others seek the light. I yearn to one day find love and peace where you run from it and fear it.” Imam gasped when a shiv appeared under his throat. He sat very still.

“I think we’re done talking, Imam.” Riddick stood up and started heading out the door.

“If another where to woo the one you run from would you let it happen? Would you let another person kiss, hold, and make love to the one you run from?” Imam asked with a raised brow as he rubbed at his throat.

In his head ‘NO! NO! NO! FUCK NO!’ roared, Riddick sighed at his instincts kicking him hard in the balls. “What do you think?” Riddick muttered darkly his grip tightening on his shiv.

Imam hummed softly. “I think you should stop running, my friend. It is pointless.”

‘And do what? Be a boyfriend? Get a job? Buy a little house and live happily ever after? Have a family?’ The thought was laughable in that sad never going to happen type way. Riddick frowned as he stalked down the dark hallway. He couldn’t fit into that type of mold but maybe someone could fit into his? A running partner would be good to have.

**
Xander held Oren gently against his chest as he headed to his rooms for a well earned rest. He had been up for fourteen hours straight taking care the ship, checking up on the boys in cryo, and caring for Oren, so now he was ready for naptime. Xander turned the corner to his room only to run into a wall of solid hot flesh and muscle. Riddick.

“We need to talk.” The man growled.

Xander groaned tiredly and wanted to thump his head against something hard. ‘Now he wants to talk after days of hide and seek?’ But Xander was a sucker for fixing his family problems so immediately perked up and looked at Riddick with a mixture of hope and anger. The silver eyed man looked as bad as Xander felt, like trampled dog shit on a busy walking path. “K, let’s talk.” He says as he places Oren in his blanket nest for a nap.

“I need to know three things.” Riddick said in a smoky voice that made Xander shiver with want and annoyance.

“Ok, shoot.” Xander would do anything or say anything to get out of the purgatory their relationship was in. Either his mate had to step up or tell Xander plainly that it was over for them. Riddick avoiding him just plain hurt and the thought of him with another- *Hiss!*

“Did you know I was you’re mate-thing before I fucked you on the planet?” Riddick looked at Xander with intense silver eyes.

Xander shifted under that heavy look. “N-no. I felt something for you but . . . no, I didn’t know for sure. I wanted you, had to have you.” Xander blushed and wouldn’t meet the man’s eyes.

“Hn. *Smirk* Had to have me, huh?” Smug shit eating smile.

“Yeah . . .” Xander bit at his lip then huffed out a breath. “What other thing did you need to know?”

“Anyway to break a bond?” Riddick raised a brow when Xander gave a slight flinch.

Xander sighed and shrugged halfheartedly. “I don’t know. Maybe. Even if there is a way I won’t sever it myself! You can find someone to do it!” But Xander knew in his heart if Riddick asked it of him . . . If it is possible. Xander sagged a bit.

Riddick narrowed his eyes but said nothing more about that. “You said I’m one of your mate-things. One of um? You have more you’re not telling me about?” *Growl*

Xander raises a brow at the wave of dark possessiveness that washes over him like a heavy blanket. Xander answers hesitantly unsure of how the silver eyed man would take it. “Um yeah. I can sense our bond is not yet complete because there’s another person that needs to be part of it.”

Riddick grit his teeth. “You expect me to have another person tagging along behind me? To share you?”

Xander’s eyes widened at the distaste in Riddick’s emotions. “It wouldn’t be like sharing Riddick. Whoever our other mate is would be yours too! You’ll want him as much as you want me.” Then Xander narrowed his eyes and a soft purr-like growl rumbled in the back of his throat. The hair on Xander’s tail stood on end and lashed back and forth like a whip. “You don’t seem to mind being shared.” *Hiss!*

Riddick doubted that. Riddick could hardly believe the magnitude of his want for the cat, could hardly believe he was giving in. He was a mess with just one mate-thing, two would fucking kill him. Riddick raised a brow at the angry snarl and the jealous glint in the kitty’s eyes. “You think I was fucking her?” Riddick wanted to laugh.

Xander nearly flinched. “Yes? I see you with her. She hangs all over you and you let her. I didn’t want to take the chance that you are, um, you know. Doing her. I shut off my senses around you and HER and I haven’t used my empathy. I don’t know if you fucked her because if I find out I’ll probably kill her.”

Zings of lust shot through Riddick at the possessive snarl at the end of ‘kill her.’ Riddick smirked. “Really? How interesting.”

Xander gave Riddick the evil eye. “Oh shut up!” Xander started pacing like a caged tiger making Riddick grin.

“I’m not ‘doing her.’” Xander gave Riddick a doubtful look. Riddick shrugged. “We’ve locked lips and she humped up against me. No fucking.”

Xander felt the truth in that and relaxed a little but still had to fight the urge to find Fry and claw her pale face off. Xander grit his teeth and resisted the urge to rub up on Riddick and cover his mate in his scent. Fry’s flower and sweat scent was all over Riddick while Xander’s own was fading, even Jack and Oren had a stronger smell left on Riddick then Xander. “You visited Oren when you avoided me?”

Riddick shrugged. “Like him.”

Xander’s lip twitched. “Yeah, Oren is a cute little bugger.”

“So now that I’m with you will Fry be normal again?”

Xander bit at his lip. “I don’t know. She might need to get away from us to be ok.” Xander shifted on his feet and looked at Riddick equal parts hopeful and doubtful. “Are you really?”

Riddick tipped his head to the side. “Really what, pussycat?”

“With me?” Xander said in a hesitant voice.

“Said I was. Not going nowhere right now. I do what I say.” Riddick stepped closer to Xander till they were only inches apart. Till their breath mingled.

Xander swallowed a lump in his throat. “Then I gotta tell you something important. I’m-“ The ship lurched and started to shake, the lights turned off and the emergency red light blinked on, a red alert squealed through the ship like a wounded animal. Xander stumbled into Riddick as the ship lurched again. “DAMN IT!” Xander snarled at the buttmonkey timing.

“Control room.” Riddick said as he headed quickly for the exit. Xander nods as he gathers a cranky and frightened Oren up into his arms. On his way to the control room Xander hands Oren off to Imam and chases after Riddick. The computers in the control room are blaring loudly and small lights are flashing.

“Ship what’s going on?” Xander asked with wide eyes.

~We appear to be under attack. I am being pulled into another ship, Captain Alea’xand’r.~ The ship shook as it took another blow from whoever was attacking them. ~Grappling lines have attached to my hull.~

**
Deep in space a leviathan of a ship floated among the asteroids waiting like a spider in its wed. Silently it waited as easy prey moved closer. The mistress of the great ship looked out her view screen and smiled a grin full of teeth and little else. ‘Perhaps this stray lamb holds a prize?’

“Should we intercept them, my Lady Chillingsworth?” Asked her second in command Junner.

“Yessss. I want to know why such a familiar ship is in my territory.” The lady of the great bounty hunter ship lay back in her cushioned seat and sighed as she watched the view screen with the small ship entering her asteroid field. Why was a bounty hunting ship she hadn’t seen in 22 years returning now? She grinned. “I can’t wait to find out . . .”

Two large grappling lines shot out from the mother ship and hook deep into the hull of the firefly. Slowing the line started to get pulled in.

*
Holding onto a bulkhead as the ship shook Xander pressed the button to open the metal screening over the control room windows. His eyes widened at the sight of a very large round ship floating among the asteroids.

“Merc ship.” Riddick snarled.

“Riddick, what do we do?”

“We wait. Gather everyone up and be ready to fight.” The Riddick said coldly.

******
Review! Review!

Moonkat: I curse the Riddick cartoon movie! I watched it twice and i have to add Jack's first kill. Plus it is how Riddick meets Toombs the merc and i find that one line about Riddick being an artist funny/amusing.


!!Teaser for next Chapter!!

“No! How I was born has nothing to do with this! This is real! Real!” Fry hissed as she waved the gun around wildly.

“It’s my bond with Riddick you feel. If you would just close yourself off to it you would feel it is not yours.” Xander gritted out as he hid behind a bulkhead.

“Riddick is mine!” Fry snarled as she bared her teeth at where Xander’s voice was echoing from.

“How so?”

“I saved him! He’s mine!” She screamed as she shot her weapon into the darkness, bullets pinging off pipes and railing.

“Really? Well I saved you does that make you mine? Hell I saved them by picking them up on the sol-track shipping lane! Do I own them? I must own everyone in our group by your way of thinking!” Xander taunted as he slipped out of his safe corner to a safer one.

!! End Teaser !!

Moonkat:Does it make you want an update now? Am i evil or what? Thanks all of you that review my story and yes I'm Merkat on Twisting the hellmouth. ^_^