Disclaimers... humph, fine. Break a girl's heart.
A/N: Good... grief... This chapter required precisely FOUR rewrites. Four. And that was scrapping entire chapter-length scripts... *sob*... unbelievable...
Soooo!! Keep your eyes open, people! Teh heh. Things are a little fishy on the Bebop.
Ocelot- No WAY am I giving up such an important plot point!! MWA HAHAH!!
~@~@~@
New Deep
Chapter 5
~@~@~@
These wounds won't
seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me
-My Immortal
~@~@~@
My toes passed the edge of the cliff, and I stared ahead, unaware of the murky jade of the sea, roiling with white crests and depths that changed to the blackest of any night seen above shore. Jagged rocks pushed out of the ocean like straining fingers, sometimes submerged in the writhing body of emerald, sometimes rising above its prison. I inched forward and the screams of tumbling pebbles were devoured by the roar of the unchained beast below.
I was blind. I could not see the trap.
I believed I wore wings strapped to my shoulders.
I believed I could fly.
So I stepped forward into the empty air…
"You're blind."
…and I fell.
~@~@~@
"Where am I?" It came from his lips harsh, like an old scab ripped off by careless fingers.
My hand dropped from his chest like it turned the skin of my fingers to ashes. "The Bebop. You're on the Bebop."
Something indescribable came over his face and altered it. Inside me, I felt an emotion I could only vaguely identify as fear begin to grow. "Where am I?" he repeated, wincing at the pain of speaking from broken cheekbones.
"I told you. The Bebop." Keep the tremor out of your voice.
"Where's Vicious?"
"Dead." Don't stop breathing.
"Li?"
"Dead." Don't look at him.
"Julia?"
"Dead." Please. Stop.
His hands, with all the gentleness of a sakura blossom, fluttered across my face, as if to learn my features by touch. "Faye Valentine?" he whispered.
I closed my eyes. "Alive. I'm alive."
The next question surprised me, perhaps because his hands were cleverly playing decoy through my hair so that when they touched the wall and bunched, I was completely ambushed.
"Spike Spiegel?"
"What?" I went rigid.
He pressed his forehead against my own. "I… don't…. believe you…" He drew each word out, like they all had some separate meaning. My mind wheeled.
"I don't believe you." He repeated it, face contorting.
I closed my mouth, gaping at him like the clubbed fish I felt like. "Spike, what are you- you're-"
He reared a fist back and brought it crashing next to my cheek, sending my hair fanning upward with the speed of his blow. "Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"
"Spike, stop it!"
His other fist mirrored the first, sending a jolt through me, from both the closeness of the blow and the tremor of the silver wall itself. I was sure he was leaving crater-like dents. "Where am I? Where am I?"
"The Bebop- you're- listen to me-"
"Shut up, I don't fucking believe you!! What happened to me, why can't I-"
"-you're fucking- blind, I-"
"-you fucking liar!"
Slam, slam.
His fists crunched into the metal grayness that comprised Bebop's walls like they would break down the blackness that restricted his world. He beat and pounded and slammed and his words poured over me and my violet hair was swept up in his chaos and scarlet blood ruptured through the skin of his knuckles and flared, spackling the white skin of my cheeks.
…I sat there…
… And took it.
I took it… because I wondered how he could control his fists so that they never ever touched my body.
Because I wondered if I could deal with death and rebirth and death and rebirth like him.
Because… if they could have, would his eyes have had tears in them?
…When he slowed and then stopped, his bleeding hands now like his bleeding body, his arms collapsed to my shoulders. He felt my flinch: I saw it in his misshapen face. His body was curved, crumpled, rolled inward with an untouchable desolation. It lent a sense of seclusion- our bodies, bent together, cocooned in the natural disintegration of our confusion and despair. He was shaking and bleeding and pathetic and spent and the last thing holding him up was my shoulders. I let go of the fear that had not actually been building inside me, and I locked my arms around his back.
That was the final straw for him, and he crumbled into my body.
I dragged him closer, his head tucking instinctively in the crook of my neck, the heaviness of his breath discovered by the skin there.
We were silent for a moment- he entirely exhausted; I entirely defeated.
Then I felt his body shake, tremors wracking through his chest and arms like small earthquakes on the larger-than-life man. He turned his nose into my throat and it was wet and cold.
"Spike, are you..." I trailed off, shocked and wordless.
His voice was thick. "I'm not," he denied, even as his arms pulled tighter around my waist, drawing me closer so that with each hitching breath I was confused as to whether it was mine or his.
I was subdued, slightly awed to be in the presence of such an outpouring of emotion from him. "Yes you are," I said softly- so softly I barely heard it.
He shook his head, "I don't cry." He was wrapped around me so tightly I thought I'd never get loose. It was strange, it was frightening. It was such a pure admission of need, when Spike was a man who never needed anything. In my lifetime, I've never felt that wanted, and somehow, no matter how I tried to convince my heart, I didn't think he'd act like this to Jet.
He was so thin. He was always skinny and lean, but now his ribs stuck out at odd angles, cutting into my arms. I'd never been in so much contact with him at once. Of course there were the fleeting glances of skin on skin as we passed each other cigarettes or guns, yet... right now, his chest... pushed against mine each time he inhaled.
I was forgetting to breathe as I simply felt, unable to move past the timeless moment. But, as if to remind me of whom I was and who he was, I felt blood creep across my forearm and I was jerked into the present. "Oh fuck, Spike!" I groaned, and unwound my arms from his back like lightning. With the loss of support, he slumped further against me and I feared he was skirting unconsciousness again. "You're bleeding all over the place, you lunkhead. Shit. Oh, shit."
"No I'm... not..." He muttered, fading in and out as his limbs went slack.
Fear trickled through my veins and I laid him down on the floor, positive that to lift him would only split the injuries further open. He moaned when his back touched the cold surface; I slipped a hand behind his head to ease it down. "Um, stay there! I'll be right back!"
I dashed over to the table, scooping all the First Aid tools into red stained arms, and ran back to him. Landing heavily on my knees, I dumped everything next to him, hands flying to his chest where the flow was the fastest. Immediately, I grabbed the scissors and sliced through the bandages, and set to peeling them off him.
"Fucking hell," he whispered, arching up as scabs tore off in the process.
Calm as possible, I pressed down on his shoulder, "You have to relax or you'll make this harder on yourself when I start stitching them up."
His hand came up, latching onto my wrist with almost painful force when I ripped the rest of the wraps off. "What- do you... mean?" He gasped out. "Stitching them- arrgh!"
I bit my lip. "Shit! Hold still, idiot!" I spat at him, only half-aware, focused on closing the gap in his crimson skin. "And let go of my hand!" For the first time in his life he listened to me, his hand falling to the floor boneless. I hardly noticed, only aware that I had my hand back, and used it to pinch the wound closed, the other one making quick work with the thread. I darted from wound to wound with a professional composure surgeons would be proud of, and within moments I was finished with him. The amount of practice I had gained while he was unconscious gave me a skill with First Aid that was almost ridiculous.
I collapsed onto my butt with a hefty sigh and caught my head with my messy hands. "You really know how to mess yourself up," I said tiredly, the adrenaline high rolling out of my body like the tide.
His breath was shallow, his skin pale. "Is it that bad?"
"Oh, not really, I suppose. Considering you've soaked not only yourself but me with your own blood," I rolled my eyes.
He chose to ignore me. "Where did I get hurt?"
I threw him an incredulous glare he naturally couldn't see. "You mean you can't just... tell where it hurts?"
"Everything hurts," he said tonelessly.
Sobered, I lightly touched his injuries, my fingers little butterflies. "This was a shallow cut, but this one was much deeper. This one looked like a bullet hole, or something- same as the ones here, here, and here. That's a rib- broken, I think it was." My hands moved upwards, and hesitated before brushing across his cheek. "The bone was snapped." A finger slid down his nose. "You always break your nose." I sat back before realizing what I had missed; he was still waiting. "I don't know... what happened to, to..." I meant to just touch his temple, indicating his eyes, but of its own accord my hand came to rest on his forehead, brushing back his slightly damp hair before jumping up, like it was scalded.
"You must know, I mean, you were there and you ought to remember right, I didn't think that," I babbled on to cover the embarrassment of my action. "You couldn't possibly, because, it wasn't like-"
"Is that all of them?" He asked, cutting off my tirade.
I inhaled, thankful he didn't say anything. "Mostly. There are some on your back too."
He seemed to switch to a separate conversation. "I don't know how that happened."
I stopped, confused by what he meant, before comprehension dawned on me, stunning me into wordlessness. His eyes. "You must." Something like that would be hard to forget.
He shook his head. "I remember the fight perfectly. But I don't remember... getting even half of my injuries."