I'm not really gonna go extremely in depth about this story, I don't really feel like spoiling all the relevant parts. I just want to basically say that despite the introduction – it's not really a Spike survival story, well in any traditional sense (that will make sense later I hope), and I also want to say that the added character is by no means a self portrait, (although by saying that I've planted the idea in your head) but in the first chapter none of this will really matter anyway.

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Yong Man Blues

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Why in Gods name am I still alive? What happened to the dream? It was supposed to end. All things stop and start – don't they? Isn't that just part of being human? I was ready – I was done with it all – the book had been closed. Here I am though, trying to write chapters to a finished book. When you've been dead for so long – it's hard for being alive to mean anything. That's just the problem though isn't it? I'm just watching a dream aren't I? Nothing means anything.

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Just Another Drag

Jet looked at his watch, he'd been waiting for hours, well maybe 20 minutes, but when you're waiting – just flat out waiting – everything seemed that way. Everything took longer these days. Before it was all a blur, every day crashed into the next, no peace, no sleep, a calm moment was unnoticed in-between the chaos. He always thought of it as a pain in the ass, stressful and irritating, but to be fair it was damn appealing compared to all this damn well – waiting. That was post-spike life in a nutshell anyway – a drag – a slow dirge – a slow steady wait –a drag from a cigarette, a drag on his mind, a drag in his steps, one big drain on everything. Before when the shipped was packed, no matter how dull it seemed to get, there was always the squirming sensation of mobile life. It could have been Ed's spastic illogical ramblings mixed with what ever level of visual absurdities spat out of her computer, Ein's chattering and timed barks, the damn Wench kvetching non-stop about the most trivial of issues, another "plan" or lack of one from Spike which inevitably sent the whole thing spinning, and more often then not all these things at once. Truth is he fucking missed this silly shit – that was content – social ballast, the real stuff – what really made up days and inevitably a man's life. He was the only one who had and sense of calm – or at least desired it. However, he was now learning as much as he begged for peace and quiet – that he didn't mean much when it finally came. As he sank into the end of his thirties he was beginning to understand who he was, the caretaker, the nurturer, the clean up crew -- but all the slobs were gone now. Who was he supposed to clean up after? It's easy dreaming about all that silly shit; the "peace" that'll come when no one needs your services any more, when you'll be "free" of the responsibility and pressure, get some peace and quiet. Truth be told though, it's lonely and boring having no purpose to perform, and he hated admitting it, but not being needed was pretty damn frightening when you thought about it.

It was all gone now – and there wasn't much he could think about it, let alone say or do. Ed and Ein had taken off with that madman AppleDairy or whatever the hell he went by, and after Spike burnt out into glorious ball of death like he always wanted, well, Faye sure as hell didn't stick around long, and for once in his life – Jet just let go. It was all over, the ride was fun while it lasted – but things have to come to an end.

So here he was waiting, for another god damn bounty, it wasn't like he had went out and got a grey flannel suit and a 9-5 job, he still carried the same resume, but he was moving slower. He was going for smaller fries, easy catch usually, shit that Spike wouldn't have bothered with, but without all the backup and extra hands he wasn't going for the huge fish anymore. He was putting away for retirement now—cause he was alone and he wasn't getting any younger. It'd been six months since the shit got blown to pieces and he hadn't even left mars. He would like to check up on them sometime – the rest of the gang, but he knew in the end it was all over. There was nothing to be done though, all he could do was to "keep on keeping on" as they say.

It was hitting close to four o'clock now, the son of a bitch was supposed to walk by these districts, if he wanted to sell his loot – he just had to come by here, and night was out of the question, that's when the other gangsters would be looking for him. If he didn't show soon, he could forget the 100k. Fortunately though he didn't have wait too much longer, the blue hooded sweatshirt he had been waiting for became quite clear in the corner of his eye. He matched the image perfectly, the same crumpled hair – saggy jeans, and of course the extremely unfashionable blue hooded sweatshirt. The only question now was how to take him in. Now mater-of-factly the best way to do this would be to pose as the fence and take him in like that, but Jet knew as well as any chump on the street that he looked like the law, even though he wasn't anymore. So his best bet was the clear-cut approach. He smiled chuckling to himself as he walked towards the blue hooded sweatshirt. As he made his way across the man he whispered as lightly as some one of Jet's character could:

"Johnson?" he quietly asked.

The man stopped for a minute and began to turn around, that was enough conformation for Jet – his good arm swung back in a smooth motion, the blue-hooded chump had hardly completed the 180 turn when he felt the heavy blow of Jet's clenched fist collide evenly with the side of his cheekbones. His perceptions, along with his balance, did a nosedive into asphalt as he fell back on to the ground. Jet loomed over the disgruntled figure with the barrel of the gun aimed casually at him.

"This is the part where you cooperate, and I take you in okay?" Jet said in his best tough and cynical voice.

The hood was still rubbing his head and generally ignoring the severity of the situation when Jet noticed something again, coming in from the side, fumbling awkwardly and franticly, confused and frightened, but with guilt, and no doubt reaching for his gun. Shit, since when did these chumps start bringing along backup? Jet made the first move that he could think to make, taking a quick step forward he swung his metal elbow straight into his bumbling opponents face, the cracking noise followed by a gush of blood and a few flying teeth would have made him wince in sympathy but he was too preoccupied. He didn't bother to think if there was a third -- he just hit the ground as a few bullets whizzed over him. Gathering his surroundings as quick as he could he saw the blue hood trotting as fast as he could with a suit, who had squeezed off a few more rounds for cover fire. He took a few hopeless shots off with his pistol as they dashed towards the alley. Damn it, he thought to himself, this was shit, the chump who'd felt his metal arm looked pretty done for the day, but the target, along with the other half of his support, and who from the looks of it seemed to be the only competent one, were taking off. Nothing was working, again, it was like old times really, and Jet sorta wanted to smile. But he shook his head and pushed himself to his feat quickly as he grumbled to himself,

"You don't let go remember!"

He dashed as best as he could after them knowing full well it was likely a hopeless pursuit. The corner market he had hoped to find them at was located in an slightly off center part of town, and thankfully for that reason crowds were light, unfortunately he realized as he chased them along the boardwalk, that were more turns into alleys then parts that needed repair on his ship, and that was not a comforting thought on a lot of levels. The chump and his suit buddy were moving pretty fast, faster then he had been prepared to deal with today, he reluctantly admitted as he dashed behind them. Now naturally some of these turn offs were likely dead ends, but some were probably a damn good escape for them, but considering that they knew this neighborhood better then Jet, he was pretty much at their mercy. Seeing the well dressed man swing his gun backwards to set off some deterrent, Jet dropped behind a few crates as the bullets whipped by. He got himself back up only in time to see them dash into an ally followed by there pattering footsteps against the wooden ground. Shit, he'd lost them; waste of another day… but by some ungodly stroke of luck the footsteps stopped. The first thing he saw was the chump in the blue hood fly out of the alleyway landing back on the boardwalk with a thump, followed by a loud groan. Next thing was the clink on the ground and the following skid as the silver pistol of the suit slid down onto the street too. It's owner began to cautiously back out of the alleyway with his fists bawled up, prepared to throw a blow. The man who followed him however was not so well dressed, his hair was scraggly and somewhat matted at the end, his pants were wrinkled and hung awfully loose, and the baggy cord shirt on him looked even more warn. The man looked pretty young twenty, maybe twenty-two? Maybe not even that? He'd have passed nicely for a bum if he had a beard and 20 more years.

Whatever little Jet was able to discern about him in those few moments was quickly made irrelevant by a much more clear observation; man could this guy hit hard. He had been standing across from the man in the suit, staring at him, motionless, waiting for some kind of response, however when none came he made his first move so fast that Jet was thankful he didn't blink. His casual stance had flowed so quickly into a right uppercut that it didn't seem like there had been any transition at all, the suit's head dropped back and the rest of his body likely would have as well had he not caught a left leg in his lower stomach the following instant. Hopping back on to his left leg, his attacker made a full turn smashing his right leg straight into the chest of the suit, sending him sprawling backwards. The scraggly dressed man reacted even quicker, lunging forward and catching the suit by his tie and yanking him back towards him sending him a fist followed by an elbow with the same arm that held his necktie. Using his free hand he grabbed the suits left arm and sliding down slowly, flipped him over his shoulders severing any last hope of resistance from the foe as the suit hit the ground with an ominous thud. He held himself there for a while, still in completion of the throw, clearly some martial arts move, and now just standing observing his own form. Damn it looked cool, Jet thought, Spike used to do that shit too – just sorta stand there after he beat the shit out of somebody. He shook his head in irritation for thinking about him again, and began to walk towards the scruffy looking man, or really more like a kid, a punk-ass kid really. He was stopped in his tracks when he saw the "punk-ass kid's" rubber sole to his warn boot smack into the well dressed man's head, making sure when he woke up, well if he ever woke up, he'd have one hell of a headache. Jet finally reached him with some reluctance but he really didn't know where to begin.

"Damn…" he muttered to himself scratching his head.

"Yeah I thought you'd appreciate it," the kid said, seeming a little relieved, Jet couldn't help but be a little surprised, his voice was deep enough to match his toughness, but it contained a surprisingly level of warmth and inflection considering how he introduced himself, "I was waiting for you to get here, I would like some answers."
"Answers?" Jet asked, confused not so much by the question, or what he meant, but that this kid was implying they knew each other.

"Yeah," he said suddenly and harshly, "about how I got…" he trailed off catching a glimpse of Jet's puzzled look.

"What?" asked Jet again, this time with a little more force.

The scraggly dressed kid fumbled around some words for a while, crouching down in frustration and smacking his knees with his fists and shaking his head, till he stood up straight and finally spoke concisely:

"Sorry man, I thought you were somebody I else I guess, I dunno what's wrong with me I can't seem to remember to much of anything these days, hell I'm not even sure who I am!" he seemed to be smiling a bit now.

"Amnesia?" Jet asked, not really going for this story.

"That or a real bad hangover, I guess," the scraggly kid answered.

"Uh huh," Jet said chuckling, "I'm not really buying into this one."

"What's the difference to you?" he asked.

"Fair point," Jet conceded, "So you another cowboy?" he asked.

"Not really, what were these guys worth to you?" he questioned Jet, getting more interested.

"Uh," Jet sighed, he was basically going have to hand this one over to the punk ass kid, "Well the guy in the blue sweatshirt was maybe 100k, and if that suit's the Fence like I think he is, and plus the chump I nabbed down the road, your looking at well --hopefully twice that."

"Hrmm, I've always been a fan of simple math," he said, "Eh' how's about – we go fifty-fifty on this one?"

Fifty-Fifty? He would have considered himself lucky had this kid offered him thirty percent his way – this punk had done all the real work, and he was offering him half the reward! Jet let out a heartier grin than had escaped his lips since he laughed his head off with Spike on the last evening.

"Alright!" he said chuckling, "You've got yourself a deal!"

"Cool, we'll half to do the accounting from your ship," he said laughing a little too, he tugged his rags for clothes "As you can see I lack that sorta equipment around here."

Jet chuckled to himself again; this was turning out to be an okay day after all.

"Sure man," he said laughing some more, but then he stopped dead in his tracks, this kid had something more fishy than just the smell of his clothes going on, "My ship? Exactly what the hell do you mean?" This punk knew shit that as far as Jet was concerned, he shouldn't.

The kid went wide-eyed for a little bit, but it passed pretty quickly and went to a smile.

"Don't all you chumps have one?" he asked.

Jet shrugged he didn't really know what to make of this kid, or what to believe, he seemed more than a little weird, but surprisingly good hearted, and hell, generous too! There wasn't much explanation for his strange moments, but they didn't seem to pose much threat, and he was getting too old to regret things.

"I still don't buy it," Jet shrugged, "But whatever, let's go." He said as he reached for his handcuffs to collect the bounties.

"Like I said before man, what's the difference to you?" The kid was smiling again, grinning even, "but you've got to do me a favor."

Jet glared a bit, now he was worried.

"Huh and what's that?"

"Well I'm gonna need to borrow some cash for a haircut and maybe something to wear that doesn't smell like rotten fish," he said grinning more and more like a child,
"If that's cool with you?"

Once again Jet couldn't help but to laugh.