A/N: This is dedicated to Sullen Gurl, my partner in severe lack of R/F suffering, and hayj for being awesome enough to create the characters and the setting and letting me play with them!
DISCLAIMER: yeah, not mine (and there's plenty of it), no profit!
WARNING: Mature themes ahead! And a whole lotta silliness.
Richie B. was drinking milk right out of the jug and wolfing down some of Aunt Izzie's sponge cake when, while regaling his suspiciously contrite I'm-staying-at-home-to-help-you-mom! sister and hard at work puttering-in-the-kitchen-after-vandals-broke-loose-in-it mom, he suddenly found himself saying:
"Like he's a god on the streets and a demon in the sheets."
Carolyn blanched and then whipped around holding a skillet like a weapon her children knew better it could turn into.
"Where did you hear that?!"
Now, Riddick had his moments, true, which generously, Carolyn tried to understand. Despite the specifics of his birth and the stigma that he had carried into his adult life because of it, he'd grown into family life quite easily. Carolyn had always feared that a wife and children would prove to be heavier chains that he'd been used to carrying, but, bar the usual domestic spats – something Izzie insisted were healthy, normal and, at times, supremely orgasmic experiences – Riddick had been, to her knowledge, to this day, loyal.
Faithful.
Like a dog.
But couldn't men dissociate between love and sex? Between the spiritual and the flesh? Riddick wasn't big on all things spiritual, as the Necromonger debacle had irrevocably proven, and he wasn't a big fan of oaths either, though Carolyn had always assumed that when the children came along Riddick had somehow pledged his body – his flesh, his blood – to her. Sure, their sex life had never lacked a bit of – okay, a lot of – spicing up, but lately, even with the kids all grown up and pursuing their own interests – some of which, Carolyn, unlike Riddick, had no intention of ever finding out about – she'd been tired and he'd been out in the jungle, doing…stuff.
Carolyn quickly glanced down her body. Her hands were covered in soap suds and her attire, although not so different from what Sanctuary folks were used to wearing, was still baggy and dull. She dreaded to think what lay beneath it, her bony knees being the least of her worries. She'd been mother to ravenous wolves and four babies later her body was starting to show. And just the other day, she'd caught herself looking at wrinkles around them baby blues and the white in her hair.
Stuff it, Fry, Riddick can't see that! But he was usually so observant, so in tune to her emotions, had she been projecting some negative vibes? What if…
"Sheesh, Jack really needs to cut his fuckaton shorter. This is getting riddicu…sorry, Mother, stupid!"
Usually, Carolyn didn't condone Zoey's foul mouthing, but suddenly, she could glimpse a silver lining. Maybe this wasn't…
"But they weren't talking about Jack!"
Two pairs of startled eyes, one blue with disbelief, the other brown with mischief, stared accusingly at Richie B.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Impervious to the mother-on-the-prowl tone Carolyn used to lure her more gullible children on the rocky road to guilt town, Richie B. carried on enthusiastically:
"Oh, they were talking about Marcus. You know, ever since Ari got him to help out with the roads up the western slope. It's hot out there, he's mostly down to his slacks, all that muscle he's packing out for public display, Ari getting all wound up…Word gets out, you know."
Zoey roared with laughter.
"I'll be damned! He finally got to tap that skinny…"
"Zoey!"
"…grab that skinny…"
"Zoey Riddick!"
"…go all sweetlike on her…"
"Why, you little hooligan!"
"Mom, I'm obviously editing as I go! I didn't say Marcus fuc…Ow, ow, Mom, that hurts!"
"Good!" Carolyn huffed, and then deflated like a skewered balloon. She plopped down on the remaining chair, next to the offspring of her womb, who weren't nearly as commiserating as they should've been.
"How am I ever going to face your Aunt Izzie? Christ, Royce is gonna flip!"
"You could always send Dad in. He'd be game."
"Yeah, for Aunt Izzie's sniper rifle!" Richie B. pointed out, not unrealistically.
"Ari is what, fifteen?"
"Sixteen, Mom, and hung up on Marcus for so long she must've been primed and ready to… "
"I'm not listening to this anymore!"
Carolyn was working herself into quite the headache. With her luck, soon, she would be learning Zoey was becoming active on more fronts than one. With that in mind, she eyed her daughter suspiciously, but the silver twinkle in her brown eyes was dancing with mirth, not coyness.
"Aw, Mom, it's no fun if you give in so early. The broomstick hasn't even made an appearance yet, though, let me tell you, that skillet you were waiving around had distinct possibilities."
"Why", Carolyn sighed dejectedly, "why must you be so like your Father? Where did my fucking genes go?"
Both children went silent and somber like two rocks warming in the sun coming in through Carolyn's clean kitchen windows.
Then, Richie B. swallowed the last morsel of sponge cake and reached with his long hands for the glass jar on the counter, tilting his chair back on its hide legs in a gesture Carolyn had berated him for time and time again.
He dropped the jar on the table and Zoey pushed it towards her mother, scolding as she did so:
"You used a swear word. That's a credit in the jar."
Carolyn smiled.
After all, it takes two to breed monsters.
Later that evening
Normally, when a man comes home at night to find his wife naked in the bedroom, he'd call himself all kinds of lucky and gear up for some crazy sex. But when Riddick opened his bedroom door to find Carolyn buck naked in front of the full length mirror, fondling her breasts in a clinical sorta way, he suspected a trickeration.
Nonplussed, Carolyn asked, turning this way and that, like she was trying on an imaginary dress:
"Do you think I look like a goddess on the streets and a demon in the sheets?"
"What have you been doing on the streets?!"
So, yeah, he'd been gone a little while, but surely Carolyn wouldn't… I mean, those were laugh lines around his eyes, not wrinkles, and those pounds he'd put on were muscle mass, not fat, no matter what Royce said!
Weren't women supposed to be about substance and not packaging? And he was stock full of substance, down to very hilt of it, dammit!
Carolyn smiled sweetly in the mirror at his set jaw and determined look in his eyes.
She shivered prettily and braced herself for impact.
"Wouldn't you like to know…"
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the house
Richie B. was dreaming about Aunt Izzie's sponge cake when he momentarily lost the ability to breathe due to a strategically placed pillow over his head. With reflexes honed by a childhood spent in the death trap that was the Riddick household, he lashed his hand right at the ticklish spot his sister had involuntarily divulged when he'd been shorter than her.
"Why you little!" Zoey growled and when the pillows were properly thrashed and the cover ripped down the middle the younger Riddick kids sat down next to Richie B.'s cot, listening to the not so quiet night.
"You just had to open your big mouth!"
Richie B. grinned:
"Do I get to name this one?"
Zoey shuddered.
"We are getting a dog. We are so getting a dog. When you came along, I thought we were getting a dog!"
"So, they have a healthy, if not somewhat loud, sex life. That's score…two for them!"
"A dog, Richard! Say it with me!"
Richie B. patted his sister's long suffering head.
"Come on, let's go kill shit and earn you that dog! They'll be at it until morning."
"…okay."