Session 39

"Ed has the pops-corns!" There was not enough warning as she vaulted over the back of the couch, a trail of debris spilling out of the bowl in her wake.

Faye and Jet just barely took cover as the impromptu acrobat executed her move, landing on top of the table with the bowl held above her head triumphantly.

In an overly dramatic voice she declared, "Edward presents the movie snackies!"

Picking up some of the snack rain, Faye heaved a sigh. "You do know you're supposed to actually pop popcorn. These kernels will just break our teeth."

Jet flopped his head back. "I knew when I heard someone rifling around in there I should have gotten up and checked. The price of a moment's laziness."

Lowering the bowl, Ed peered into it before turning it over. Nothing fell out. The un-popped kernels lay in a trail from the galley. Ein snuffled one of them, picked it up and crunched before spitting it out with a rude snuff!

Jet pushed up from the couch, tossing the remote aside, movie time would have to wait. "I'll go get the broom."

As he wandered toward the galley, Faye muttered, "Next time, kiddo, just ask us. How did you get this anyway? The canister is way up … "

The moment he came around the galley corner, Jet slapped his forehead. All over thousands of un-popped kernels littered the floor looking like a knobby carpet. It wasn't a word that escaped him, more of a sound.

Faye clicked her tongue, "Now you've done it, you broke Jet."

Not even turning, he called over his shoulder, "Ed, we're gonna need the shop vac for this. Gah! How did it get in the stove burners? This is going to take forever!"

Cartwheeling down the hall, Ed laughed the whole way. Hot on her heals Ein dashed to follow her, the click of his claws fading.

Faye wandered to the doorway and leaned against it. "Well, it's a good thing this got noticed. Can you imagine coming in to make coffee all bleary-eyed in the morning? This is a prime recipe for a bruised rump."

Folding his arms over his chest he grunted, "You gotta work on your bright sides."

She was about to reply when the slap of bare feet down the hall turned her head. "That was fast, even for Ed."

"Faye-Faye, Jet-person!" She came barreling around the corner, dancing in the doorway. "Ein says to come quick."

Grumbling, Jet stomped his foot down. "We have a mess to clean up, thanks to you. We don't have time for your silly distractions!"

One finger hung out of her mouth. "Ein says Spike-person is a dog but he shouldn't be."

What did that mean? A dog? The possibilities turned around in his head before the meaning struck him. Spike is on the floor!

He raced down the hall toward the crew quarters, a fair distance from them he heard the muffled complaints in a familiar voice. "Getoffame! Gah! Stop with the tongue!"

There at the base of the stairs lay a panting Spike, assaulted by the furiously licking Ein and powerless to do much about it. At least he seemed to be ok.

"Seriously Spike-o, what are you doing out here?"

"Pbbbt! Ein, knock it off! I can't breathe!" He pushed the dog back.

Padding in a little circle at arms length, Ein sat on his rump and wiggled back and forth furiously.

Spike attempted to push up with his right arm, the less-muscular limb shuddered before giving out. Rolling his eyes, he glared up from the floor. "Why'd you keep sticking me in that room?"

"You needed a quiet place to recover, it was nothing personal. Besides, it is your room." He'd been anticipating this stunt far sooner, Spike's own body had limited his action.

Still trying to get up and failing, he grumbled, "Quiet place, hah! Since when have I ever needed a quiet place?"

At the top of the stairs Faye folded her arms. "Since your life-saving operation. You really should still be in bed."

He narrowed his eyes. "I'm not a baby."

She smirked at him. "Then why are you on all fours like one?"

Holding up a hand Jet cut her off with a stern glare. Step by step he went down the flight to where Spike scrambled, panting each breath as he tried to get up and failed. Standing over him Jet softened his voice, "You could have hurt yourself. You're not strong enough to do this on your own yet."

Faye cleared her throat, "Honestly, it is impressive he made it that far."

"Not helping. Go help Ed fetch the vacuum and get that mess cleaned up." He eyed her until she touched Ed's shoulder and the girls disappeared into the ship. Crouching down he sat on the lowest stair and held out a hand.

Spike glanced at it, flatly ignored it, and grunted as he attempted every feasible combination of limb positions—each one getting him absolutely nowhere. At last he hung his head, gasping.

Saying nothing, Jet nudged his hand against Spike's shoulder.

With a trembling hand, he reached up and took it. Carefully, Jet hauled Spike up to a standing position, bracing him on his own shoulder as they shuffled along out to the living room. Spike panted, "Don't … tell … anyone … "

A knowing smile spread. They'd figure it out on their own, but Spike was still concerned about it. He patted the arm over his shoulder. There wasn't much muscle there yet, but at least the skin wasn't as dry and flaking now. Even more important, at least Spike wasn't attempting to do any martial arts routines yet.

In front of the couch Jet kicked it and sent the kernels flying to the floor before carefully lowering Spike down. He laid back, huffing and puffing, looking a bit flush as he sunk down.

The couch potato planted, now that was a familiar sight.

"Hey, I need to go make sure the girls aren't dismantling the galley. You ok?"

He nodded.

Walking into the galley Jet heaved a sigh. Ed merrily swept the kernels out from beneath the shelves and appliances while Faye ran the nozzle of the shop vacc making a loud ruckus as it sucked up the mess. This was going to take a while. With a towel he pushed the rogue kernels out of ingredient jars, dug them from the burner guards of the stove, and hunted them down from the upper reaches.

I should put up No Trespassing tape across the door. How many times can they trash this place? Wait, I really don't want to know the answer to that.

The vacuum shut off. "All done!" Ed danced around. "Let's make pops-corns!"

"It's all inside the shop vac. We can't make it now."

"Nyoooo!"

A rumbling sound echoed through the room. Faye cocked her head. "Ed, I thought you shut the vacuum off."

"Ed did." She hung a finger from her mouth, the sound continued. Following it out into the living room she giggled.

They found her perched on the back of the couch. There Spike snored rather loudly, completely slack and melded into the embrace of his favored furniture. Ein lay in front of the couch, glancing up before resting his head in his paws.

Ed mimicked the dog and grinned. "He's not lonely no more."

Stiffening a bit, Faye stepped closer, "What?"

"Spike-person." Ed waved a hand over him, her fingertips catching his hair and stirring it. "Ein says he was lonely in his room, wanted to come out of isolation. Says he muttered it a lot when he was half awaksies. Spike-person's happy now, well … he's sleepy too. And noisy."

"He should be." Jet folded his arms. "That's the most he's walked since. And on his own, no less."

"You know," Faye flopped down into the chair, "things finally feel closer to normal again. Everybody is where they belong."

They most certainly were. For once Jet was thrilled with having the singular problem of finding a place to sit on his own ship.

The piercing squeaks and squeals from the pair of bickering compys somewhere on the bridge were a perpetual distraction as Jet bent forward trying to catch what Faye was saying on the other end of the call. He caught every other word.

"... I ... the … . The … was … douche … Smelled … sun … bologna."

His lip lifted as he eyed the squealing pair of compys wrestling all over the place and sending the game pieces from a long abandoned shogi game on the floor. "Hang on a minute, Faye. I need to make an adjustment."

Their furious match sent them careening toward Jet. Uncaring which it was, he reached out and seized the neck of one with his metal hand, closing it like a clamp. The compy struggled and kicked at the air. The other one took a few steps backward, tucking its head and stooping. Wise decision. When the captive compy continued to hiss and shriek he heaved it over his shoulder.

"Eeeeeeeeeeee!" Thud! Tink tink tink … blessed silence. That would teach the little pest. If the other compy's didn't repair it, Jet could when his temper cooled. If he felt like it.

"You were saying?" He folded his arms across his chest peering back into the screen.

Faye raised an eyebrow. "I'll be back after I collect the payment and get my ship deep cleaned. Sorry, but a girl's gotta maintain her stuff. I can't leave the Red Tail smelling like lunch meat."

"Don't use too much of the dough. Remember, we need it."

"Back to being a tightwad, I see."

"Just get back here as soon as you can." The screen went dark and he leaned back in the chair. Days had passed since Spike had forced his way out of being kept in his room. In a way it was a better arrangement, he was closer to the bathroom, the only place he'd been escorted to and back before. He'd been mostly sedentary, only wandering a bit but ultimately not making it very far. The lack of stamina was a blessing at the moment, limiting the amount of trouble he could get into to the space of the living room. Stairs were an issue, and those steps surrounding the room kept his ass corralled

But his activity level meant absolutely no double team for bounties. One of them had to stay behind now due to his increased mobility. Today Jet had drawn the short straw left on lunkhead sitting duty. At least now that he had dealt with the troublesome duo quarreling on the bridge he had a bit of quiet time.

Leaning back he closed his eyes for a what felt like a moment.

A moment too long … he sat up with a start at the sound of something sliding across the floor echoing down in the living room.

"What the … " Jumping out of the cockpit he dashed down the stairs hoping to find Ed messing with something, or perhaps Ein having lost his favorite squeaky ball under something and frantically trying to get it.

Halfway down his hopes were dashed, the harsh breathing was undoubtedly Spike's. Great, what's he up to now?

Reaching the bottom of the steps he locked onto Spike, the contents of the small fridge in the living room tossed all over. His hands gripped the back of it as he tried to wrench it away from the wall. That was unlikely to work, Spike could barely pick up Ein's plastic dog dish, his attempt to throw it had been … amusing. The mini-fridge refused to yield to him—to his growing frustration.

"Spike, what are you doing?"

Giving it a final jerking tug he released it and staggered on his feet until he faced Jet, one hand braced against the wall he hunched over panting every breath. "Where is it?"

"What? I need more to go on than 'it'."

His eyes swept around the living room, high and low. He hovered his other hand in front of his face as if holding something and tipped it. "Thirsty."

On the floor there were plenty of bottles filled with a variety. Everything from water to green tea. Jet gestured to them but never got anything more out.

"You're hiding it from me. I know you are!" Spike locked eyes with him. "What gives you the fucking right! The beer, the whiskey … where is it?"

He held his hands wide. "I'm sorry. It's all gone. I had the compy's round it all up."

"All of it?" His eyes widened, he lurched forward.

"Every last bottle. It's for your own go—"

With a growl Spike leaned forward and charged. All things considered it was a fairly effective shamble. Drawing back his left fist he threw a wild punch at Jet. He caught it, deflecting the clumsy blow easily. It lacked Spike's typical force. But the failure only poured fuel on the fire. Spike threw a series of sloppy blows, each one losing power. His stance grew ever wider and precarious.

Jet stood there taking the blows into his own hands like a boxing coach. Unfortunately, that was not what was going on. "Knock it off." Another one. "Calm down!" Another. "Spike, you're gonna hurt yourself!"

"Asshole!" Spike shouted, throwing a punch and extending too far. This time Jet didn't catch the blow, he caught Spike and grappled him as he shouted, "Why did you—? How could you—?"

"We've already been through this." His tone grated, having rehashed this many times before, sans the blows. This was gaining a momentum he didn't like. This wasn't Spike pushing himself. "The alcohol had to go!"

"No it didn't have to! You never asked me." He spat, his eyes darted about, unable to fix on a single object in his frenzy.

"Acting like this you're really going to say I didn't have to?" Jet shifted his grip and held him up against the wall. "The fact that I've only just finished picking stitches out of you answered that."

"So? You've done that before."

His knuckles flared white. Why was this not sinking in? "Not like this! Not for this reason. It was killing you! You can't drink right now. You're still recovering."

He snarled and drew his fist back striking at Jet's face. By now there wasn't even enough force to move it. But the intention was laid bare.

Hauling Spike up by his t-shirt Jet felt the heat burn on his face. "You stubborn moron! I almost lost you! I almost lost you to the reckless damage you've done to yourself. Don't you realize you're like a brother to me? I won't lose you again!"

Whether he was getting through or Spike had simply spent all he had it was hard to tell. He slumped in the grasp, the fire dwindling in his restless eyes. Slowly his head tipped down, one hand brushing against his belly. "Jet … I … " He stuttered a bit more but nothing more intelligible came out.

As Jet released his hold carefully Spike sank down to the floor guided by his hands. He leaned back against the wall, hands limp in his lap. His gaze captive on them. Kneeling down, Jet rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Why do you even give a shit?" Spike murmured, "I've damaged everything I've touched … my life is … worthless … "

The squeeze of his hand stopped the run away train. "Pard, every one of us here is part of each other's world. So I don't want to hear that bullshit about a life's value. I don't know what keeps messing around in that head of yours, but I don't care what it says. I know who you are to me. That's what matters." Jet lifted his chin with a finger. "There's another way that doesn't threaten lives to deal with the bullshit that fate throws at us, and we're gonna find it. We're gonna find this together. You hear me?"

His eyes … at first they met Jet's, then slowly the wide-eyed stare drifted off to the side … to … nothing. When Jet looked over his shoulder to confirm they were still alone he swore he caught Spike muttering.

"Yo Spike," Jet snapped his fingers in front of his face, "I said 'you hear me'?"

He blinked, his eyes refocused in a sudden jerk. It had to be the medication. The sedative was gone now, but he still had a few others. That must have been it, side effects.

Tucking his hand behind Spike's head, he pulled him closer to his own shoulder. Who cared, no one would see this. Worn out Spike didn't even fight it.

"You're a brother to me. I won't let you self destruct. I'm never going to give up on you, you hear me? Never."

See You Space Cowboy