A/N- Sorry this is so long (got carried away)... But I really tried, please no harsh flames though they are allowed.... As you know Spike is extremely hard to wirte, and I know he is very OOC, but I tried....
There Is No Pride In Love
I've had bad dreams too many times,
to think that they don't mean much any more.
Fine times have gone and left my sad home,
friends who once cared just walk out my door.
~Eric Kaz and Libby Titus~
Prologue
~Decision~
The world was glossy, it didn't really seem real. But then again it had never seemed that way anyway. My fingers were numb, my heart felt frozen, and the past invincibility of knowing if I died, if I gave up the life that was once nothing more than a dream that soon became a nightmare without a point, came all rushing back to me like a tidal wave of exhaustion. If I died now I wouldn't be loosing much. I'd just wake up and dream again, and if my eyes didn't open... They just didn't open.
I held her in my arms, her hair spread over my hands like liquid gold as blood mingled in the rain on the concrete at my feet. Her face was upturned as red streaked over the creamy skin, marring what had already be secretly marred inside and what had been trying to heal so desperately on a cold heart trying to feel warm. I wasn't able to heal her, but she had healed me somehow, gave me a dream and love, and now it was being washed away in the rain as if it all really didn't matter.
Her body lay out on gray cement as I cradled her head in my arms, lingering on the warmness that I would miss forever that was rapidly slipping from my grasp. Everything had been edged on gray with her, around her, next to her. She had always been dangerous, she had always been vulnerable, and death had chased her into gray forever. It chased me, it chased everyone.
Her mouth was slightly opened, waiting for a breath, a movement that never came. I touched her hair wiped it from her face, and entangled my fingers in the silken gold they held. Her eyes, they weren't quite closed, they stared past dark lashes into a place I wanted to go now, wanted to descend to, or was it ascend?
It's all just a dream... Her words echoed in my head.
The skies stared down at me, hating me, laughing at me, cursing me. They damned me, they damned her, and the scoffed at us, they scoffed at everything she meant to me and took her away so fast I never got to say good-bye.
The rain wasn't letting up, the winds weren't quieting as I lost her soul to something that had been inevitable from the start. The buildings loomed over my shoulders, prison bars of the world I wanted to escape... That I had once thought I was going to escape with her by my side. But now it would have to be a different world to escape, one unknown to me even as I tried to find something left inside her vacant eyes that once were warm but now had gone cold.
She had been my dream, she had been the point, she had been the key, and I had based too much on her frail shoulders. But I had believed...
Vicious...
I had believed in him too!
It hurt to think that I would never hear her voice again, never hear her laughter, or her cries. Memories, mine and only mine, would be the lost remnants of what we had had... and what we had never had a chance to take. But it hurt even more to think I had trusted in him, I had believed unknowingly that through the deception, and the love that he had tainted, he had taken, and he had envied, there was some ground for peace... Someday in my wildest dreams.
But there was no room for peace as I stood, my hair plastered to my face, the heat of my eyes purging the happiness I had known only for a short while once again in her presence. The flashes of the past mingled with the truth of now as my eyes stared foreword, the skies closing in on me with a certain warning I chose to ignore.
I would never forgive him for taking her.
Most of my life I had been dead, most of my life I had been invincible to everything because I hadn't cared enough to think what would happen if I died. I had been invincible before her because I hadn't feared death. But then she walked in and then I found I had reason to fear death- if I died I wouldn't have her by my side...
I had cared...
I had dreamed...
I had run...
But then I had lost...
And now I hurt and hated.
She had been the best thing in my life. The only good thing in my life.
I touched my arm where some of her blood had streaked over it. The rain was falling hard, my clothes were running with water as I stared at the red stain. It was fading as rain took over washed it clean, as the last of my grief washed away, and like the blood had been replaced with water, my grief had been replaced with hatred.
Vicious...
I couldn't feel my body, but somehow I was running through the door I had come from, down the stairs of Annie's store I had shot from without a second thought. My own gun rested in my hand like a cold remembrance of what I was leaving behind...and what I was facing...
The hate, it was all I could feel, all I could see as I fired at a figure that loomed in the shadows of my vision, of my mind that worked and decided without my consent, without my heart in each action. Each decision I didn't feel like I was making more than just moving along with, letting the hate flow, the rage boil and take over.
They had killed her... He had killed my dream, and they were all going to die for what they took from me.
I was on the landing of the stairs, chest tight, gun ready to fire seeing images of the past through my left eye as I shot another one of the Red Dragon's agents that stood on the first landing before me. Julia racing up behind me as we ran, bullets raining over my head and through her golden hair ... golden hair now covered in blood...images raced through me, in me, hurt me, hated me...all his fault! Everything I saw, all the blood, everything was because of him... And the hate, I couldn't deny it, every time I pulled the trigger on my gun, the blood that was spilled was his in my eyes.
The stairway filled with enemies as I shot and dodged bullets meant to retaliate life for life, not death for life.
"The party's over, bastards," I muttered as I pulled the trigger over and over again. I heard the firing and felt nothing but raw steam and rage that burned my limbs and scorched the air around me. All the while I saw her beside me, kissing me, holding me, loving me... making my life complete somehow...
No tears burned my cheeks, and for every tear I didn't cry, didn't know how to cry, the fire burned brighter in my soul. Blood, bright and red, like hers flashed through present and past as the darkness of the hallway filled with it, drenched the innocence no longer a sanctuary here. Bullets rained past me, I couldn't tell who was shooting, who was there, how many there were, but I didn't care, I couldn't care! I was invincible once again like the past, I had nothing more to loose and nothing more to gain...except the satisfied feeling of knowing his blood ran cold before mine.
Then the rush stopped, the screams, the yells I heard in my mind stopped, and I was alone, I was totally alone with sanity to coldly shun me away. I stared at the empty hallway, bullet scars of my own bullets streaking the walls but no other traces of bullets shared mine. No bodies lay on the broken ground, no silence was ever greater even as the wooden beam above me creaked, the winds blowing as broken glass clattered somewhere in the distance.
I had been living a memory in the present. Everything I had seen, everything I had shot at had been everything I had been running away from but now had to face...
Lucky me, I thought bitterly as I stared at the gun in my hand. The clip was empty. I had been shooting blanks for some time.
A gap in my chest opened and I sighed. I couldn't just accept the dream was ending... But it was, whether I liked it or not... My mind couldn't accept it, my past couldn't accept it...
Time to go end it, I thought softly. Time to accept that the dream has ended.
She was waiting for me, and to get to her I'd die a million deaths. I already died more than once to see her again.
But there was one last place to go, one last good-bye to make, one I wasn't really going to say but one that I knew would be known.
Annie's store gave me one last cold embrace as the wind blew one more time.
I walked on the broken glass, past Annie's closed eyes and lifeless body, turning away with a silent prayer and then a finality that told me it was all in the past now, I needed to live the future. I stared at the scattered books, pages askew, covers torn to pieces, and then I met the eyes of Mao Yenrei, even in a simple faded photograph on a torn wall across from me he stared through me- he always did. For a second I stared at him, seeing him in my mind's eye as the father I never had, the mentor I always needed, my friend that didn't hate me. And then I saw Annie next to him, smiling, eyes bright not lifeless as they were now. They were both dead, and soon I knew I would be just like them- another faded photograph, a faded memory lost to time.
I walked passed the clutter, the blood, the bodies of my past. I slipped out of the door, reaching in my coat for an extra clip, replacing my empty one quickly as I walked out of my past and finally accepted my future- the beginning of the destruction of the Red Dragons, and the end of the battle that ended my dream, and thus began my death...
~*~*~*~
The food was disgusting, but it was the last time I was going to eat it so it was the best meal I ever ate. I began walking away after describing myself and my life, my love and my beliefs descriptively through a story of cats.
In spite of myself I laughed. My heart and everything inside wanted to be forgotten if only for a little while. And cats, I hated cats, and I had used them to describe my life. But why not cats? I asked myself. They were smart, they had nine lives and I had ten million... at least I had ten million.
Our laughter faded away.
The silence started then, filling the Bebop's living room the way no noise loud enough ever could.
"Hey, Spike, I just want to ask you one thing," Jet said softly, seriousness invading my world of small peace.
I stopped, not answering, my eyes hidden as I kept my hands buried deep into my pockets.
"Is it for the girl?"
I stared at him then, took him in for what he was. A run down cop who knew his shit, a bounty hunter who was no better than I was, another human being, another person to place my trust in. The only true friend I ever had. His metal arm gleamed, his blue eyes intense as they waited for my answer, not wanting to look at me, knowing that if he stared into my eyes that good-bye's would not be enough to say all the things we should.
"She's dead. There's nothing I can do for her now." I said turning and walking away, Julia's eyes flashing through my mind, her touch, her smell, her voice already fading in my mind like an old record that lost it's shimmer and glamor.
I walked through the door and found a gun neatly pointed at my head a second later. I didn't flinch. I knew who it was, and I didn't care about her enough to shrink away. I knew she wouldn't kill me even if she was uncertain herself. I stared at the wall in front of me and refused to gaze into her eyes that wanted to look into mine and find the truth that wasn't there.
"Where are you going?" Her voice was full of accusation as if everything that happened had been my fault. "Why are you going?" Her voice was gritty with emotion, emotion I would have rather have not known about. But I couldn't feel anymore, I was numb to everything except the hate, the silent passive feelings of knowing it would all come down to one thing, death."You once told me to forget the past because it doesn't matter." She shook her head as if trying to clear it before gazing at me with hate. "But you're the one still tied to the past, Spike!"
I turned to her, faced her head on with emotions cold and bleak and pushed my face close to hers. The past of yesterdays played over my left eye, seething into my soul, trying to break the ice there. "Look at my eyes, Faye," I said softly but sternly. She tried to turn away, scared of the fact that she was actually looking there, the depths of the bastard who was apparently ruining her life. "One of them is fake because I lost it in an accident." My voice was soft, lifeless. "Since then I've been seeing the past in one eye and the present in the other so I thought I could see only patches of reality, never the whole picture." I had seen, I had known, I had lived everything, and deep down I didn't want to know it would all end someday. Deep down I didn't want to believe Julia would go away and leave me with a hate so strong the only way to take it away would be to kill him.
The patches of reality mixed with my dream and the past I wanted to escape but couldn't.
Faye's emerald eyes filled with tears. I caused so many in my life and yet hers effected me like I had seen none in my life. "Don't tell me things like that," she said lying. She wanted to know, but she didn't want to know and understand and then say good-bye. "You've never told me anything about yourself don't start now!"
But it was too late, I started, I had to finish. I saw the images in my mind, held on to them like I had nothing else to hold on to. "I felt like I was living a dream I'd never wake up from," I said distantly, Julia's words echoed in my mind like a forgotten prayer. Its all a dream.... Then a flash of light and I saw her face, white and pale, streaked with blood. "Before I knew it the dream was all over." I smiled disdainfully as if accepting when I hardly wanted to as I pulled my face away from Faye's, satisfied that even if she didn't understand, she knew, now, the man I was inside.
I began to walk away.
"My memory finally came back." She said softly.
I stopped.
"But nothing good came of it. There was no place for me to return to."
No place to go but the forgotten places in our minds, I thought idly.
"This was the only place I could go to. Now, you're leaving just like that!" Bitterness filled the air. "Why are you going? Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Throw your life away like it was nothing?!" Her voice rose to a note of desperation that tried to reach my heart, but it was too late my heart was gone, swallowed by a hole so big it consumed even my humanity.
I couldn't catch the hold of her pain, I didn't want it. But it didn't matter anymore, death mattered. If I died then I knew it was all worth it to live for Julia. I had to die to know that I lived, to know that the dream could end and that I could not wake up from it. "I'm not going there to die." I said harshly. Then my tone changed for a wistful reason I barely understood. Julia's face was so close in memory.... "I'm going to find out if I am truly alive." Julia smiled, waved, laughed. "I have to do it, Faye." I said with determination that sought to make her understand.
I heard the gun click as I began to walk away, heard the shots but didn't flinch. She wasn't going to be the one to kill me... no she was just another person hurt in my life.
~*~*~*~
So all that I thought of as I stared into his black eyes of nothingness, destruction surrounding our final battle that needed no words to know we were both going to die tonight. His sword lay under my hand, blood running down my body, so many dead because he wanted me to fight him, wanted me to kill him or resurrect what I represented in death- Life.
Hate, rage, regret, they suffocated the air, made it hard to breathe. The heat of anger rose in me, seethed out my eyes, flared out my nose, bit my tongue and made it bleed as my wounds cried for justice.
"Julia is dead." I said with so much hatred, so much conviction that it didn't even cross my mind that her demise might have been my fault. "Let's finish it," I ground out through my teeth, overriding the pain my body screamed to me.
I threw him his swords and he threw me my gun.
He slashed.
I shot.
Blood circled the air as if it owned it.
He fell.
He did not get up.
For a while I stared down at his dead body, knowing that it was done, that the blood slashed across my open stomach was the end of me, if only I could just give up, give up the dream that had turned to a nightmare that didn't want me there anymore. He was dead, my once loyal friend was dead, but I didn't care. It was over.
My dream was ending...
I walked down the stairs, smiling, knowing that all the dreams I ever lived and ever gave up was nothing now. Pain didn't matter, the one big ache that my body had become didn't seem real anymore. I was wandering on the edges of life, ready to fall. Death didn't care how long it took for me to fall as long as I fell, but I didn't care either way. I closed my eyes, opened them, smiled as I stared at the few watching me and pulled my gun out, not knowing it was only my fingers aiming not a weapon. I was seeing the past again, seeing Vicious as his eyes narrowed when we reached for our weapons. "Bang," I said imagining him falling one more time, reliving one more past that I could finally give up.
Then I fell into oblivion.
~*~*~*~
The light was warm, I tried to turn away. But when I opened my eyes the pain was gone and I saw Julia, her eyes pleading with me to stay away, to not go towards her. We were surrounded by light, the whole world was a silver glow of nothing and as I looked down at myself I realized I wasn't really there, just transparently visible.
I reached for Julia whose form was just as translucent. Something filled me, peace perhaps, that I could finally be with her, finally hold her freely.
She shook her head, golden hair flying around like expensive waves, too rich for my meager fingers.
Frustrated, I reached for her again but she only shook her head in the same response.
I want to be with you, I tried to shout but no words echoed around me, only silence, dead silence that made me deaf.
She shook her head again and began to fade, arms outstretched as if she wanted one last embrace, one last touch before we said good-bye one more time- before we parted for another eternity. My heart ached for her, my soul shouted that this wasn't fair, that even in after life we couldn't be together.
Then I fell into blackness and all I knew was the longing I had for her to be by my side once again...
"A choice, you have a choice," a voice with an elemental sound said softly as if waking me from a sleep so dark and deep that only coaxing would awaken the dreamer.
I could feel myself, but not really. My body was there but it wasn't, I could feel it but I couldn't. What? I asked in my mind.
Then I saw the images. Faye, Jet, Ein, Ed and .... Shin? They were all suffering, I felt their pain, felt everything so forcefully that I cried out and cursed so loudly the silence that was once loud turned quiet and angry that I invaded it's space.
Blood, screams, hurt, everything that belonged to the other world that wasn't mine became mine in that instant. I tried to shake my head, shouted for the images to stop, but they kept coming, the pain increasing in a form that wasn't there but was known.
"Stay here," the voice cut through the chaos, the blood, the screams, the death as my body vibrated with pain, not my own. "And your friends meet this fate." After another second the images vanished along with the pain that still vibrated through my bones.
"Leave here and you forfeit..." The voice trailed off but in the darkness I saw Julia, form white and coming closer until she was close enough to touch. Her eyes were sad, her tears splintering my heart shattered and pieced together so many times it was pointless to even try to break or fix it anymore. "There is a good chance you may never see her after this," said the voice softly.
I could never forfeit her. I could never risk never to see her again.. But then I saw Jet, I saw Faye, I saw Shin, I saw all that I would be able to prevent. A duty that I was obligated to fulfill but didn't want to.
She saw me trying to make the decision and then she was reaching for me, touching my arm, reassuring me for some reason. I wasn't leaving, though. Didn't she know she didn't have to reassure me? And then I saw something her eyes, and I couldn't place it.
She wanted me to go...
I shook my head. I couldn't, I wouldn't leave her again. We had this chance to be happy why not take it? Why not be selfish just this once?
She shook her head.
Because we can't be, her eyes said. She touched my cheek and I grabbed for her hand and placed mine over hers. I kissed her palm as she smiled sadly at me. One more time I was saying good-bye. But her eyes turned back to the reassuring look. We'd find each other again, we would.
Keep believing just like I kept dreaming when we were alive. Keep believing that when I went I could look foreword to her arms holding me for eternity.
I decided.
She faded. And I reached to late for a kiss that was already gone.
"You have decided." The voice said softly.
I tried not to let bitter thoughts encircle my heart.
"You will be called back to the arms of Death when you fulfill your obligation." The voice spoke with force, but there was and undertone of pity.
I don't want your damn pity, I thought.
"I never gave it." The voice bit back angrily and threw me into a wind that spun me in circles, head over feet, painfully as I slowly lost consciousness.
A/N_ no time to look over.... sorry.... ^_^;;;;