Disclaimer: Don't make me laugh.
A/N: Hi there everyone! I know I don't use this portion of the chapter much, and I have my own reasons, but I can't deny a reviewer their answer!! By the way, everyone is so great. You wouldn't believe what those reviews do for me. Here's a dirty little secret: sometimes after really bad days at school I just go read them and then I feel better and start running around like crazy. Okay, that wasn't so dirty, and it wasn't really a secret, but my parent's expressions are quite priceless. ^-^
Anyway, the point of the note… Night Skye Tears- the quote used in Chapter 2 is actually made up by yours truly… I hope it wasn't too awful or anything. I write poetry a lot on the side, so I decided to throw that little tidbit in. I thought it fit the chapter well.
Tee hee. I love you reviewers. I love answering you. I love the way you write me notes while I'm in class and whisper at me to procrastinate. You give me bad grades and distractions and this terrible egomania that needs to be looked at. HEE HEE HEE!! *runs off… around the house… again…*
UPDATE 12-31-03: Okay. Hi there, guys. I just wanted to update this to explain about this chappie. I'm terribly sorry about the format. I haven't figured out how to fix it, and as you can see, all the other chapters are normal. If anyone has ANY ideas on how to fix this annoying little glitch, please let me know, either through e-mail, review, whatever. For now, however, I humbly ask your pardon and suggest making the font bigger on this page (check the upper right corner of the site). Thank you.
New Deep
Chapter 4:
~@~@~@
Eyes wide open, I can't see
Eyes wide open, what you mean
Eyes wide open, I can't seem to be
My eyes wide open, I can't see
Eyes wide open, what you mean
Eyes wide open, I can't seem to be
Eyes wide open
-Goo Goo Dolls
~@~@~@
The bullets pierced my body one by one, puckering the skin and then snapping it, blowing a hole the width of my thumb where they entered. Blood that had been flowing as peaceful as a forest stream exploded violently outward, through the new, unnatural orifices. Only then, as pain began, as the lead slugs bit through the tissue-thin layering of organs, splintering bones, digging a new windpipe to my lungs, did I cry out.
But the gasp was short because even then was the air whistling out around my ribs like a thief through castle gates.
My lips, chapped with the newness of death, continued to move, contorting into a rictus of pain. I wasn't even aware of what I was trying to say, only that it was terribly important. My head was swimming. I'd never felt death this close before. Even on the edge, even running the line of the cliff, I'd never felt this close. Because this time, there was no way out.
And he was just standing there, this expression on his face that I would never be able to describe to anyone because I had no idea what it meant, except that it meant that he was standing there, watching me fall in slow-motion. Watching me die when he needed to live.
And all I could see in my last moments was the color green wrapping itself around him like a cloak, like it was who he was supposed to be, and the aura of yellow as my hand stretched out to him. His eyes were wide open, perfect, clear, full of all that hidden emotion I would pry and scream and claw to get even a hint of. Right now, though, it was all plain in his elegant, masterly created eyes, being offered up to me freely. How sweet, I thought sardonically and longed to land him one of those scathing remarks we both were fond of. Longing to start one of those layered, I-hate-you-I-love-you fights, exquisitely attentive on the other's reactions, gauging each other like no one else could.
And now, I was pulled by his beautiful dual-toned eyes. One real. One fake. One for the present. One for the past.
And for the future… nothing.
Oh god.
"Keep… running… Spike!"
Oh god.
~@~@~@
I was drifting, floating endlessly in a void of darkness. It went on forever and I could neither move nor find anything solid to latch onto.
I'm here.
Green, brown, the touch of a lightest blue seen only in the birth of morning.
Hold on, Faye. I'm here.
I couldn't hold on. I couldn't. There was nothing here to grasp. Nothing to cling to. I was going to fall. No. Not fall, because there was nothing to fall from. I was only going to linger, trapped in an agony between living and dying, suspended without a touchstone.
Faye. Open your eyes, Faye.
I don't have eyes. I can't, I scream silently, I can't.
Faye. Hold on. I'm here.
Let me help you.
Blue returns like a lover's caress. And then brown, as though it had always been there.
Last, last… bittersweet and last is the green.
Lente, lente o duclis nox... lente, lente.
I open my eyes.
~@~@~@
Plunging my face into the ice-cold water filling the sink, I cleared the sweat out of my pores but found once again I simply couldn't clear my mind of the night's dream. I braced my face inches above the water, contemplating submersing it like I'd seen Spike do when he had hangovers, but the idea was simply too inelegant to entertain.
I leaned over to pick up the towel and dry my face off gingerly, the wounds barely healed and raw as a horse's ass. Jet had protested furiously when I started getting up and moving around a week ago, absolutely positive I would only open the injuries again. And I would have proven him wrong. I would have. If only for my stupid temper.
Hmph.
The point was, a week later I was finally up and about, moving around cautiously but more and more as the days went by.
As the days went by.
I rubbed the soft yellow towel over my face, scrubbing hard get the sleep out of my face. The little sleep that I was getting; the past three weeks had seen me wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling with my dreams contending for the most horrific, the most violent, the most frightening place in my brain. They were not the same each night, but nearly so.
Rougher than I meant to I grabbed my toothbrush and smashed our crusty toothpaste over the bristles. Soon my mouth was as full of lather as a rabid dog and I spit, alternating inspecting and admiring my pearly teeth. It was my private joke to think that few people could reach my age and keep their teeth as sparkling as mine. Laughing one of those secret, desolate laughs, I reached for my makeup.
It was really only out of habit that I continued wearing it. There was no real reason to. I certainly wasn't going to be bounty hunting any time soon, nor did I have anybody to impress. But I couldn't bring myself to look as wretched on the outside as I felt on the inside.
He… was still unconscious.
Jet crashed his fist against he door. "Oi! Faye! Get your scrawny ass the hell out of there! You take forever!"
I pressed a fist to my heart, demanding it to beat again. For a moment, I had heard his voice on the other side of the door, crossly yelling at me like he did every morning.
Flinging the door open in Jet's face, almost breaking his nose, if he hadn't had good reflexes, I sauntered out, the remaining clean towel slung over my shoulder. "It's all yours," I said, feigning agreeability though secretly pleased at using all the hot water as well as the last of the shampoo. He surprised me by snatching hold of the towel and yanking it out of my hands.
"I'll be needing that," he said wryly, and slammed the door. "The water's on the stove," he called tonelessly. I winced. We should clean his wounds and wrap new bandages on every day; at least that's what Jet had said. He generally knew more about these types of things than I did, but whenever he mentioned it, I saw what he was trying to hide behind his eyes.
He'd lost hope.
-Bullet holes, long jagged rips I knew would scar, bruises that just wouldn't heal, the sickening give of certain bones, sudden coughs and more blood against his lips, twisting, turning, nightmares without escape, groans as new places were reopened, insensible fevered whisperings…
The tremble of my hand against his cheek.
"I inspected his eyes, Faye… -and they're not gonna heal."
Dark night, I was tempted to tape my eyes to keep them open. I didn't want to close my eyes and see the nightmares. I wanted to keep them open, on his face, watching him, watching him, watching him-
"Faye… You can stop now." Jet said carefully in the morning.
"What do you mean?"
He looked at me painfully. "…Nothing."
And night again, confused with day, because it was all the same, all filled with the same face, the same motions, the same bruises and wounds, the same aching-
-I just can't give it up-
"Jet, can you hit a store today and pick up some thread and antiseptic?"
Silence.
"Fine. I'll do it."
-I just can't give him up-
"Spike, Spike, you're killing her." Jet's words.
-He's not going to wake-
"…rumor of Red Dragons, up and alive again, been asking around 'bout some things…"
-I just can't give it up-
You're eyes are always bound in the morning.
I've been dead inside-
"Ow!" I jerked away from the pot and popped burnt fingers in my mouth. Damnit. How stupid could I be to pick up the water without gloves? "Great start to the morning," I muttered grimly, sliding my hands into the fish-shaped potholders Jet vehemently denied buying, and picked up the linen rolls with a free pinkie. We were getting low on our stock of First Aid and our cash. Not a good combination when one had become an absolute necessity.
"Maybe I could be a little stingy on the bandages today… he wouldn't mind," I smirked to myself, wondering what caustic retort Spike would come up with if he was awake. Something suitably dry and scathing.
Something like-
"Faye. I can't see."
~@~@~@
You're dreaming again.
That was the first thing that came to my mind.
But he was there, sitting up, fingers clumsily touching his face, pausing each time they reached the binding I'd wrapped around his eyes like they were afraid to move any further. He was still there when I closed my eyes and opened them again. He was still there when I felt the pot slip from my fingers and violently crash to the floor, scalding water rushing everywhere.
I heard him speak once more.
"Faye… Faye… I can't see."
I couldn't speak. This was a dream. I knew, Jet knew. Spike would never wake up.
"Faye? Faye!" He said it like I was the only thing he knew.
My knees hit the floor, the world whirling. He was standing up, but he couldn't balance and I saw him grimace at the pain. "Faye!" He called, "Faye!"
He stumbled, tripped at the table and collapsed on hands and knees. "Faye… where are you? I- I can't see- I can't-"
I leaned back, against the wall, limp and lifeless. He went forward, on his hands and knees until he touched the water and inhaled shakily, but kept moving. "Faye? Where-"
His searching hands touched my foot and stopped for a moment. Then he kept moving forward until I raised my hand and placed it against his white-striped chest to stop him.
For a second, all I could feel was the rapid pound of his heart against my palm like wild animal, frightened, trying to get free.
"Spike…"
"I- I can't…"
"You're blind."