The Chronicles of Riddick: The Underverse

Many thanks to Ranni, Hellsraven, and ShadowRaven113 for the lovely reviews!! Everyone should thank ShadowRaven for nudging me into updating!!

see prologue for disclaimers et. al.
Chapter Five

Riddick slid from the bed as the sounds of the boy's parents moving around upstairs grew louder. He knew it wouldn't be long before the pup woke. He settled back onto the makeshift bed on the floor.

Xander stirred slowly, giving a jaw-cracking yawn as he sat up. He felt rested, in fact he hadn't sleep so well in years. Disoriented for a moment, he wondered where the hell he was, before memories of last night returned. He spun around to find the silver-eyed man watching him. Riddick. "Err, morning. I trust you found the accommodations to your liking? Umm, breakfast shall consist of whatever I can scrounge up after Tony and Jessica have cleared out."

Riddick said nothing, watching as Xander babbled. He wondered exactly how long the kid could hold his breath. He was betting it'd be for a good while. When he mimed eating Riddick finally had something to attribute the flow of words to. He gave a nod, and settled down to wait.

With a sigh of relief, Xander fled up the stairs as he heard his parents leave out the front. Xander didn't think he'd ever been so uncomfortable in his life. His visitor was evil. Fortunately it wasn't staking level evil, just that of your average cat. Riddick had watched him from the moment he'd awakened, like some giant cat. The silver eyes followed his every movement. He knew he couldn't take that for much longer. He had to have something that would capture the other man's attention. He paused on the basement steps, a thought occurring to him. He hurried the rest of the way up, and headed for the hall closet. He knew his aunt
Melinda had left some of his baby cousin's videos over from their last visit. He shuffled through the things on the shelf until he found the video, The Alphabet Jungle. It wasn't likely the man would learn English from it but hey it was a
start. Heading back through the kitchen he stopped long enough to grab a few granola bars, and a couple of sodas.

Riddick was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Xander grinned at his guest then handed him their breakfast.

Riddick took the stuff, ripping open the cellophane. He didn't even have to ask what it was. He bit into the bar, and grimaced. It was nearly as bad as space rations.

Xander inched around his guest and headed over to the television. It was old and had rabbit ears but it worked. His parent's used the basement as a den when his younger cousins were visiting. It wasn't often, but it did happen. He turned on the VCR, which was only slightly newer than the television and popped in the tape. He turned to Riddick, and had to bite down a yelp. The man was standing right behind him, and he hadn't even heard him move. "Keep that up, and you're gonna get staked," he muttered.

Riddick's gaze was focused on the television. He could see the images slowly coming in. He supposed it was an older version of a holo-vid.

Xander glanced from Riddick to the television. "Ahh, the power of the idiot box." Moving away, he found a chair and sat it in front of the TV. He motioned for Riddick to sit, when his guest was situated he took the opportunity to
disappeared upstairs to shower.

Riddick watched the plain two-d characters interact on the screen. It was obviously a program for children. But he suspected it was also educational. Normally, he'd object on principal but he needed to learn about this world and
this was a good way to do it.


Xander was ready in under twenty minutes. He didn't think he'd ever taken a faster shower. He didn't want to leave his guest alone for too long. Though how he was going to avoid doing that when he had school was a problem he still
hadn't solved. Xander paused at the bottom of the stairs, but maybe that wouldn't be a problem. Riddick had obviously learned how to operate the television with no trouble. Xander grinned, the electronic babysitter.
"Riddick," he said wanting to alert the man to his approach.

Riddick turned away from the television, gaze taking in the young man. He'd thought the clothing from last night was the result of a particularly long night. Obviously not, but then again he doubted the boy's parents were too keen
on providing anything better. Course he still looked decent, something of his warrior mentality still shone through. He watched as the kid settled onto the edge of the bed.

Xander stilled, the silver eyes were slightly unnerving. Though if he had to admit, they were beginning to grow on him. They looked damn cool. He shook himself, and motioned for Riddick to join him.

Riddick sat down beside him, and waited for Xander's next move. Xander dug through his schoolbag, and pulled out two notebooks. He handed one, and a pen, to Riddick. Using the pen he kept, he wrote down his name. "Xander," he said pointing to the letters. He then pointed to Riddick's notebook.

Riddick grinned; yeah the kid was smart, he thought. He quickly scrawled down his own name. "Riddick," he said, imitating Xander.

Xander dug out some of his stuff from patrol. A knife he'd kept after dusting a vamp. He pulled it out, and held it up. "Knife," he said. "Knife." Then wrote it down. And repeat.

Oh, Riddick liked this kid. A man after his own heart. The second thing established after names, weapons.

He slid out his shiv, balancing the blade on the flat of his hand before sending it dancing across his fingers. "Caedere," he said, holding it beside Xander's
knife.

Xander watched as the curved blade played over the man's hands. He'd seen Buffy with a bladed weapon, but her knife work fell short off this. After a moment, Riddick made it disappear again. Then his guest was writing the name down, and repeating its name.

Xander chanced being late to get a few more basic words. Food. Water. Basic body parts. And the numbers one through five. After that he set Riddick up in front of PBS. He hated to leave educating the man to TV, but hey if Big Bird was good enough for him....

***

If Xander was distracted during class before it was nothing now. He was antsy all day until lunch, and then he headed straight for the library. Except no one was there. He sighed; of course no one told him about the change in plans. As
there weren't many places to take lunch, he headed out to the quad. And there they all were. He hurried over to them. While he was certain that Riddick wasn't a demon, he was still the slightest bit unnerved by his appearance. Because
honestly, just because the man wasn't a demon didn't mean he had no connections to them. If nothing else he might have escaped from one of those hell dimensions
like Buffy had last summer.

"Guys..." said Xander.

"Xander. Boy, you're lucky you weren't at school last night. It was crazed," Willow blurted.

"Actually, I had a pretty interesting night myself," began Xander. "Which is what I wanted to talk to you about." He held out the notebook filled with Riddick's handwriting. "I was wondering if this was a language you recognized G-man?"

Giles took the notebook, giving it a cursory glance. His vision still funny from the blow he took last night. He frowned at the odd symbols. They looked like some child's idea of Latin, with some nonsensical characters thrown in.

Willow peered over Giles shoulder, "Hey, is that one of your and Jesse's attempts at making up your own language. I remember when you guys tried to learn how to write Vulcan."

Buffy scooted closer, blonde head tipping to the side. "Man, Xander your night was just filled with excitement."

Xander bit back a sigh. "No, Willow. I was doing some research and I found this language. Ya' know seeing as I was left out of the action," he snapped. "and I was just wondering if Giles recognized it."

Everyone except Buffy looked a tad guilty.

"I'm sorry, Xander. But I doubt it's a real language," said Giles, handing back the tablet. "Did you find it on-line somewhere? Amazingly enough, Willow's found various demon language listed on sites which include languages from television programs." Giles felt bad about having to disappoint the boy. Especially since it looked like Buffy was going to insist on relegating him to the role of research assistant-slash-snack-getter. He personally felt it was a waste, but then again the young man did have a tendency to end up in harms way.

"Man, Xander you've got to get your research skills up to par," muttered Buffy. "Klingon is not a real language. Demon or otherwise."

Xander stilled, for a minute he wished he could growl as impressively as his guest. Fine. If they didn't want to help, he'd do it on his own. He'd done just fine without them yesterday. He could continue to hold his own. Hell, he was all ready off to a good start. He'd started establishing a language with Riddick. He'd pretty much established he was a good guy. He hadn't woke up murdered in his sleep, though on the negative side his parents had still been alive. But other than that he'd been a good guy. "Ah, well," he said finally. "Better luck next time. I'm gonna grab a snack. Anyone want?"

There was a chorus of nos. And Oz's, "Oddly full."

Xander walked away, head all ready full of plans. He'd skip fifth hour to take a look in some of the more obscure demon texts. Plus, take a lesson from Willow's notebook and check out the internet. He probably should stop by the video store
on his way home, or maybe the library and see what kid videos they had. They were a good way to start.

***

Xander made his way home by way of Blockbuster and Sunnydale Public library. He hadn't found a trace of Riddick's language on-line or in Giles texts. He'd actually ended up skipping the rest of his classes to search. At first he'd been slightly disheartened. But then he'd decided to focus on the fact that he'd managed some form of communication. Heck, if push came to shove he'd just teach
him English.

Riddick heard the kid the moment he'd entered the house. He'd spent the day watching the television; and attempting to learn the language. English. It was just different enough from Standard to make it a pain to learn. A week or so and
he'd have it.

Xander didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or not as he entered the house to find his parents in their familiar places.

"Beer," grunted Tony as he passed by.

Xander didn't comment, just did as requested. He then headed upstairs to grab a few more of the essentials to take into the basement with him. He knew better than to wait for too long. Either Uncle Roary would start appropriating his
things or they'd be tossed willy-nilly down the stairs.

"Alexander," yelled his mother up the stairs. Xander came out of the room with a basket full of things. "You owe your uncle sixty for the tow."

Xander sighed; he hated having to dip into his road trip fund. But he reasoned without a car, there wouldn't be much of a road trip. "I know, ma. I'll pay him Friday."

Jessica nodded, following her son into the kitchen. "Be sure and take a few extra blankets it can get cold down there," she muttered as headed downstairs.

Yet again, Riddick was waiting for him. He had an idea the man knew it was him before he'd even opened the door.

"Xander," said Riddick, giving a nod of greeting. He'd decided meeting the young man was a good thing, no matter what Aereon's ulterior motives were. People like
Xander were few and far between where he came from. He had a feeling it was the case here as well. Hell, if he'd had someone like Xander around he'd probably have avoided Slam all together. He snorted silently. More than likely they'd have both ended up there. The Company didn't like being disobeyed.

Xander shot him a grin. "I see you've had a productive day. Alas, I have not. Spent several useless hours searching for your language but nada. Still, I got you a couple videos and found a primer at the library. So, we should have you
speaking English in no time."

Riddick sighed, a full day of television or not he still wasn't prepared for the flow of babble from Xander. He's pretty sure that even when he can finally understand English he's going to have a hard time keeping up with Xander babble.
At least he was used to it, after months on the ship with Jack he'd learned to tolerate it. The girl, once she'd gotten used to him, had talked non-stop. He figured he'd better get used to it again. The kid babbled non-stop and he'd just
met him. Once they actually got to know each other, Xander might never shut up.

Xander headed over to the tv, digging through his book bag for the videos. He intended to set Riddick up for a video fest, then slip out for patrol. He was supposed to meet the girls at Ryerson Cemetery. Sitting the half dozen tapes on
top of the VCR, he moved over to the table and pulled out a couple of pens, a notebook, and the primer from the library. His guest was obviously intelligent. He figured he could spend the next hour or so getting him set up learning how to at least write the alphabet, then when it was time to leave sit him in front of the TV.

Riddick followed closely behind Xander, and seeing the younger man pull out the writing supplies knew he was going to try teaching him the native language again. He figured it was as good a way as any to pass the time. He really should have gotten a better time table from Aereon. The vague year or so time limit was very annoying. With a disgruntled growl, he settled down to study.

tbc...

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