wander back to peace
summary: As you let your stomach bleed without a tourniquet, you point your finger up in gun-formation at the agents one last time like the space cowboy you never were, and bam, you drift off to sleep, without a care in the world.
In another world, they would have gone mad on that ship, together, and chased nobodies across the stars, together.
This is not that world.
You don't care, and maybe you never really did.
(You stumbled out of a cold alley, exhausted and wondering why you were still alive, why you still kept on seeing flickering images of a past you didn't want to see,
and you bump into a man with a prosthetic arm and soon enough you two are working as bounty hunters together, and you think, yeah, maybe you can live with this. Living off of cheap stir fry grilled over an exhaust flame that tastes like nothing, half the time wondering how the old rickety ship that your partner has even stays flying amongst the constellations (he insists that it's the best there is, but you know you've seen way fancier ships in your lifetime and with the right savings, you two could have bought a bigger, better one) (but you never did bother) (half the money went to damage expenses anyways),
and you pick up a dog on a bounty mission gone haywire and you come back wondering how the hell you manage to pick up this flea bag; all it ever does is bark at you, wake you from your sleep, but nope, your partner says that maybe you can keep it, because it's a data dog and a damn rare breed of Corgie, and you just throw your hands up and toss a magazine over your face, sinking back into the cough and letting loose a long, tired sigh,
and you get hassled by woman who came at you in a casino with sultry grins and devilish hands that pocketed money out of your earnings, talking sass back to you and coming at you with a bigger attitude than you ever wanted to deal with in your life. She kept coming back, kept coming back to bother you and your partner, and soon enough she just drops her ship off at the dock, walks right into the main room like she owns the place, picks some food of you and your partner's plate, and walks right into the shower. You and your partner look at each other wearily as the sound of the water begins to run and you sigh, again,
and then this kid just latches onto the ship and runs around like a lunatic, goggles strapped tight on her face, spandex-clad and tapping fingers endlessly onto her computer, a million smiley faces and a million cartoon-blob-aquatic forms taking over the screen amongst the endless network of data and information, and you think, okay, damn it, that is it, your partner's alright, but you can't handle the barking dog, the sassing woman, and now there's a kid that's on sugar pills twenty-four seven, and all three of them are running around on this ship and making your life crazy when really all you wanted to do was stumble out of that cold alley into wandering peace,
your partner's cooking was awful,
(you can't remember the last time you had so many hardboiled eggs cooked right, but no compliment jumps out of your mouth. There are five plates of them, only two of which were meant for you and your partner but you and your partner eat every last one of them, and each one tastes like shit, and the three others aren't there to agree with you)
you couldn't stand that dog,
(you grumble as you pour dog food into its plate, and it wags its tail excitedly at you. You just shake your head and walk off, dumping the can back into the trash, plop yourself down on the couch and listen to the dog eat hungrily)
you just wished that woman would leave
(you get up from the toilet, cigarette dangling in your mouth as you wash your hands, and suddenly she starts talking—she doesn't know who she is, there was a guy in her past life, real jerk he was, she wishes she knew about her past, why doesn't it even matter, she wishes she knew about her past—and you open the door, weary look on your face as she looks at you in indignation, and you tell her that the past doesn't matter much and should be forgotten, because secretly,
you don't want her to end up the same as you)
you wanted that kid to can it
(you look at her quizzically as she gives you the pinwheel, and the next thing you know it, there's graffiti written on the deck of your partner's ship that says "good-bye," with a smiley face splashed all over the bottom, grinning the same way that kid always did, weird cheek marks and everything, and you're waiting for your partner to yell out in good-natured anger that she can't just go around marking up the ship however she wants to, but there's nothing but silence)
you just wanted to be left alone, and you never really wanted any of these people to come wandering (over and over again without real denial) into your life (bringing some weird familial joy because you were never cut out for that crap).)
You tell your partner a story about a cat, and you figured he'll pick up that it's you; you eat his cooking one last time and it still tastes awful, tasteless, but you eat it anyways even though you're not really that hungry, and you two are laughing. Laughing like the days when it was just the two of you chasing nobodies across the universe, living off of cheap earnings and eating cruddy food all day.
She stops you with a gun to your head, but you know she's not going to shoot. She's yelling at you, asking why you're leaving, and you look her in the eye and tell herthat it doesn't really matter, but she's still screaming at you as you walk away, and there's gunfire to the ceiling, but you keep walking with the words you gave her about the past and present still itching in your eyes, (even though some part of you grinned when she said that the only place she could come back to was this ship) (smart girl, you think).
You spare a glance at the pinwheel at the head of the ship, and at the empty dog dish, think about the cigarettes you've shared with him, and her, but you keep walking forward, because they're all in the past now; she's dead and he needs to be killed, so they're going to be the future.
As you let your stomach bleed without a tourniquet, you point your finger up in gun-formation at the agents one last time like the space cowboy you never were, and bam
(somewhere, he's flying off into space and chasing another bounty) (somewhere, she's wiping away her tears and helping him with the next target) (somewhere it's running in circles around her as they come across another meteor) (somewhere she's grinning like an idiot and reprogramming the detector on her dad's system)
you close your eyes and drift to sleep, without a care in the world.
(somewhere, they're all slowly going mad on that ship, together, and chasing bounties across the constellations,
together.)
a/n: because I bawled like a baby the entire time Real Folk Blues was playing when Spike stormed the compound, and somehow this piece of writing came up, amidst my tears.
Criticism much appreciated!