Disclaimer- Cowboy Bebop isn't mine.
There Is No Pride In Love
No Escape
Chapter four
(Spike's Narrative)
I opened my eyes hoping to find that waking up had all been one big nightmare. I wished that I was somehow with Julia, somehow really and truly dead in my own mind as well as in the eye of time. But opening my eyes meant I was opening my heart back to reality where the wind burned old wounds like salt on cuts. I didn't want to know reality then, just the surface of what I wasn't ever going to have was just enough to keep me from wanting anything but death. But death I could never have, and I accepted that, I had a hard time not to.
Light flooded my vision and the first person I saw was Faye. She sat in a chair, a bandage over her forehead and faded bruises shoving roughly through her pale smooth skin. She was sleeping; head bouncing as she snored quietly, and when I looked into her folded hands I saw she carried a gun lightly with slender white fingers.
I don't know why the scene hit me, why her part in trying to protect me made me inwardly shake, but I did know that for once in my life I felt safe, no edge to the life that never wanted me.
My heart monitor beeped next to me as I took a deep breath and tried to sit up. My legs and arms were tired, weak, and it irked me that I could barely move. It hurt. Yes, working tired muscles wasn't the most delightful thing in the world, but my determination made me careless of what my body screamed to me in rivets of pain. I sat up with great effort, and grunted as pain shot up from all directions. Not an angry pain, but a protesting pain from all my limbs that had fallen in sync with the rhythm of sleep.
Faye must have heard me shuffling around but didn't move to help me. She sat back with a tight smile on her face as I squirmed to get comfortable. "Stop staring," I said with an edge. "It makes you look as if you're some kind of psycho." I shifted and smiled with old humor.
She flashed a grin and shrugged. "I wouldn't tease me if I were you. You're the one in the bed that can barely move. I, on the other hand have another cup of ice cold water in which I have no problem in dumping over your head." She smiled with the same ignorant smile and I laughed, grateful that she didn't treat me any different than before. It was as if time hadn't come for us and I had been with her the whole time I had been away.
"Jet?" I asked looking around the room filled with sun. White, so Goddamned heavenly white, and there Faye sat black jeans with a black tank, wearing a yellow shirt over her shoulders. I had to blink before realizing she was wearing one of my old shirts.
"Jet's out looking for some food; he was here for a while but got hungry." When she noticed me staring at her she gave me a skeptical eye and growled. "What?"
"Is that my shirt, Faye?" I could feel the little part of my old temper rocket towards its peak.
She looked down at the yellow shirt as if she just noticed it and fingered the collar with a quizzical look. "Hmm? Oh yeah," she said laughing. "I guess this is your shirt." She smiled at me and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning in closer to give me an original mocking smile. "But you're really in no position to ask for it back, now, are you?"
I growled. "Faye, you really are a pain, you know that?"
She smiled and crossed her arms, putting her gun in a shoulder holster she wore inside my shirt. "Of course I know that, Spike." But I sensed a hesitation in the reserve of her words. There was something in the hint of her voice that made me stare at her, really see her as she yawned and stretched. Something was different about her and I didn't know what.
"Faye, I got you a cappuccino. I didn't know if you wanted anything else," a voice said around the corner of the curtain. I recognized Jet's voice and felt a sense of relief that I hadn't known I needed until calm solitude washed over me and relaxed my tense muscles. Jet walked around the corner, his blue eyes soft, a little older as he gave a Styrofoam cup to Faye, a message passing between the two before Jet noticed I was sitting up.
"Hey, bud!" Jet exclaimed, his eyes smiling the way they always did when the man was happy.
"Yo," I replied waving a weakened hand. Faye stood, gave a Jet a look, then walked out of the room, glancing at me briefly before walking past the curtain, opening and closing the door as she left.
"It's been awhile, Spike," Jet said sitting down on the chair Faye had vacated. He smiled and put down a bag he had brought in with him. I could smell the delicious scent of meat and subconsciously my mouth watered.
"Food?" I asked, feeling my stomach growl with heated hunger.
"Eh?" Jet looked down at the bag he brought and smiled. "I don't know if you can eat that kind of food yet. I mean they've been feeding you out of a tube for about two years now." Jet smiled and rested his elbow on his knee, prompting his chin on his metal arm. "Your stomach might not be able to handle it."
"Jet, I need meat," I moaned.
He sighed. "Can you try to focus on what I am saying instead of thinking about your stomach for a second?" He looked more than serious and I tried to think of him and what he was saying that way but all I could think about was what kind of meat he had in that bag that smelled so damned good!
"Do you know where you are?" Jet stared at me.
"No," I said semi-conscious of actually speaking. I wanted food, and Jet had food. I just wanted a little piece, just one little piece of juicy food. My stomach growled in agreement.
"You're in the Red Dragons Headquarters."
Suddenly the growling in my stomach stopped and all I could hear was the beating of my heart. "What?" I asked trying to convince myself that I hadn't heard what Jet just said. I had run for so long to get away from this hell hole! I had loyalty, but no ties to this god forsaken place! My blood chilled as my jaw clenched and I stared at Jet, waiting for him to reply.
"You heard me."
"Yeah, I guess I did," I said staring away from Jet, eyes unfocused as the past played in my mind and in my eyes. It was all glossy, as if reality didn't exist and memories did. Julia, Vicious, Shin, Lin…. I didn't want to remember anymore. Thinking of the past reminded me what I didn't have but should have had, and what I desperately wanted but no god wished to give me. "So what the hell am I doing here, Jet?" I asked with the same coldness I always chose to have with him whenever he tried to discuss my past before.
"Shin is the leader now. As far as I know he brought you here and has kept you alive these last two years." Jet looked at my face, tried to read what I was thinking, feeling, but I knew that all he saw was a blank wall with nothing written on it except for perhaps my name and the initial man I was.
"I'm not sure if I should thank him or kill him," I muttered to myself as I put a hand to my forehead, my fingers stiff, my arms cracking with the lack of use. Then understanding that Shin was alive made me open my eyes and stare at Jet. "Shin's alive?"
Jet smiled. "You're a little slow today, bud."
I smiled and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the back of the hospital post. "Well, that may be." Then I wanted a cigarette, and it seemed just in that moment that the last time I had had one was too long for my tastes. "Cigarette?" I asked Jet without opening my eyes.
"I'm not sure if you can have that either." I heard a shuffle and then the crinkling of the plastic. Then I was holding the long slender drug that proved to me that just by holding it I was holding a little piece of clam that I didn't have at the moment. "But its you're funeral if you die suddenly." Wouldn't that be my luck?
I opened my eyes as Jet handed me his lighter. I lit up as if I had yesterday, as if I didn't really *need* the cigarette, just wanted it, and smiled with contentment as the smoke invaded my senses, wiping out the smell of the hospital. "So, back at the Red Dragons, huh? I never thought…" I trailed off lost in a reverie of everything that had happened in the walls of the syndicate that had made, taken, and broken everything I was and never was.
"There's not much to say, and we haven't seen each other for so long." Jet muttered to himself.
"What happened to Faye?" I asked, maybe not out of concern but definitely out of curiosity. I pictured her the first night I woke up, saw her ugly bruises, her obvious pain that caused her face to constrict when she walked- something that seemed much better than before. Despite the fact that I hated the way Faye looked everyday, she had looked more than bad when I first saw her. But she looked healthy and stronger today, her purple hair brushed neatly, the bruises faded on her face, her limp not really a limp but a stumble in step. "Better yet," I said focusing on the smoke I blew out through my mouth. "What happened to the both of you in the time I've been sleeping?"
"Wanna hear a semi-long story?" Jet asked staring out the window behind him.
I puffed at my cigarette. "I got time."
"Me too."
~`~`~`~`~
Faye walked down the corridor of the hallway, her purple hair dusting over her face as she walked down to the center lobby and out the door. The steam from her cup whispered through the air, and the tears in her eyes blurred the images that it made in her mind. Spike's face, Spike's eyes, Spike everywhere, and he was alive, it wasn't the images of a dead man anymore and after the six days since she first found him to e alive everything had turned into a semi reality that made her hallow inside, hallow in chest where the loss had been hidden deep inside her.
Then her mind veered to Alexa and she saw the woman jumping out the window, wondering to the gods of the universe if she was live or dead. Faye forced herself to keep her head high, trying to keep herself believing that her protector was alive watching over her, keeping her safe from the man that scared her from deep inside the walls of her soul.
She walked out of the Red Dragons, her hair blowing the wind as she stared at the passing cars. She took out her key and walked to the curb where she had parked her Red Tail, smiling at the fact that a police officer was standing by it trying to find a license plate. "May I help you?" Faye asked sweetly coming up beside the woman and leaning on the yellow glass of her ship.
"You're parked in a no parking zone, miss." The officer stared at her through blue sunglasses and Faye immediately got the initial impression that the officer was all high and mighty on her little sleigh of dominance. A regular power tripped ego was the firth thought that came to mind and Faye converted from playful-annoyed mood to bitch-annoyed mood in a matter of seconds.
Faye looked at her ship incredulously. "Well, so it is." She looked back at the officer and smiled innocently. "Damn, I didn't really think you police officers were observant enough to notice. Guess I was wrong." Faye smiled and popped her pod open. She moved to step up into it, black boots shinning on metallic silver as she stepped up and was pulled back with such force she almost fell splat on the pavement.
"You have to pay a fine, miss." The police officer was rather angry Faye noted with satisfaction. Through the sunglasses she could see the woman trying to remain civil.
"Really?" Faye seemed to think this over then glared at the woman with narrowed green eyes. "Well, I don't want to," she hissed and with that jumped into her ship and inserted the key, closing the hatch before the woman could scramble into her cockpit. She looked at the woman and stuck out her tongue as she ignited the engine and blasted off, turning on her radio and blasting it loud. She smiled and tapped her fingers against her dash board as the bass shook her windows, the blue open sky welcoming her as she let freedom take wing and pull her free from the confusion of thoughts.
Then the red flashing lights started and she was being called through the music. "Stop and land or we will be forced to fire!" Came a distant voice and Faye cursed as she turned down her music to concentrate. Then, smiling, she increased her speed, knowing one speed racer wasn't going to take her down. She sped down the horizon and then the bullets started hailing from behind her and she dodged. Two years ago she had been novice at flying, now she was an expert and dodged and countered attacked better than the greatest pilot.
She grinned at the sky, turned on her music loud again and went in and out of buildings, laughing at the stupidity the cops were using, firing at her in the regions of a civilian area. She shrugged as a side of a building exploded into red angry flames and proceeded to out fly the single space cruiser.
She looked back and then felt instant impact as bullets hailed at her from the front. She cursed angrily as a space cruiser came from the front and another from the side as she forced her ship downward out of the range of fire. So now there were three fighters, she could handle that, but she wasn't sure if a civilian plane could handle the bullets and suddenly felt the guilt of having to be responsible for the human lives lost in a small scrimmage.
She moved to open sky then and led all the ships that had been pursuing her in the city to an open field fight. They were talking to her again but her music was too loud for her to hear them. When she glanced in the rear view mirror she could feel her heart stop. She immediately shut off the music and cursed incoherently. There were about twelve ships on her tail, all had ceased shooting as she turned her ship around and stood suspended in mid air as a voice broke into her intercom. "We know who you are, Faye Valentine. We have records on your debts and would like you to come with us quietly. We demand you turn yourself in quietly."
Faye growled. So the miss priss of a cop knew how to identify ships without the ignition key somehow. Well that was fine with Faye, she didn't give a damn about the odds, she actually liked it when things were stacked against her. It worked more to her side of luck then anything. She armed her guns and opened fire, reckless, feeling indifferent, not caring because it seemed to her that she had faced death once and nothing compared to it was anything like what real fear she had felt when she stared the Grim Reaper in the eyes.
They opened fire back and she felt her ship rock back and forth as bullets penetrated her shields. She fired and laughed as she did so, feeling crazy, feeling calm, feeling anything but the fear she should have been feeling. She fired, shot three ships down, and worked on the rest. Emergency lights flashed but she didn't care, she was gaining momentum with the rockets and bullets that cut through the cheap ass cruisers. Four went down, unable to fight.
Faye began to sing and hum to the soft music she had turned down and smiled as she raised the volume one more time. Her right engine took a critical hit, but she moved support fro her left into the damaged area and got a pretty good balance as she continued to fire. Four more ships left the battle, one more to go. She smiled and knew even with the red flashing around her she could take this one. She blasted her music to its peak and moved to charge. She pressed the trigger to fire, and she spat nothing.
"Damn!" She hissed as she hit the trigger again. Nothing. She was out of bullets and rockets. The cruiser fired and she could feel the impact of every bullet as she tried to dodge with her minim access to agility. She could see the men inside the cockpit and cursed seeing the woman with the blue sunglasses smiling as they moved in…
Bullets fired from no where and Faye glanced over her shoulder and saw a sleek black space fighter coming straight for her. She didn't scream only tried to dodge it, but its pointed nose caught her right engine and she felt the force fling her foreword. She hit the dash board with her head and she could feel the pain echo through her brain as she spun in the air, half her engine flying into pieces as the lights in her cockpit flickered and stopped. Her ship staggered in the air and through the blinding red pain she tried to keep it a float.
The black ship destroyed the space cruiser and red angry flames were all that was left of it when Faye raised her head. Through black spots of her vision she saw the black ship coming towards her again and she braced herself, but it lost its speed and came up beside her as her ship staggered in the air. It shot out safety wires and hooked them onto her ship as it came up along side her. She tried to see her rescuer and found only black loving unconsciousness when she tried to see through the silver mono-pod.
~`~`~`~`~
Alexa sat, her black hair covering her face in shadows as she squirmed to break the thick chains that bound her. They were too thick for her to break, too tight for her to shake free, but she had rubbed her wrists against them for five days and finally got her wrists to bleed enough for her to get enough on her hands to slip them off painfully. It would have been easier if she didn't heal so quickly, if after every scratch her skin didn't mend together and became whole again, but after five days of persistent pain and rubbing the wounds became raw and unable to heal. She guessed she would have scars for more than a couple months after it all was over.
She leaned against the wall, gasping in pain as she twisted her arms, throwing her head back as the single blade through her chest stuck through her body, the tip hitting against the wall behind her as she forced her hands through the small opening he had left for her. The blade moved and she grimaced, her eyes leaking tears she had been holding back since he started torturing her. With one last effort, pull and twist she broke her wrists free, and the chains that had bound her wrists clattered to the floor.
She sighed and breathed deeply as the smell of her blood all over her sickened her. She took a breath before looking at her torn wrists that were covered in old and new blood and growled with hate and pain. The skin was already healing, but the pain was more intense than even the wound the sword from her chest made. She pulled at the hilt of the damned silver blade and pulled, her chest caving in with pain as she hissed, pulling hard and efficiently as it clattered to the floor, blood leaking out of her as she screamed. Even as she fell foreword on the ground, she could feel the gap in her body disappearing and she sighed as the pain echoed away ever so slowly. She then worked on her bound feet that were bound in the same chains that had bound her wrists and took the knife to them. With a couple quick slashes she broke free and stood, her body aching and tired as she stood in the empty room of a mad man. Nothing lay on the wooden floor, or on the wooden walls. The only thing that stood alone in the room was a single table covered with pictures of Faye, herself, and many of his other victims he had recently killed.
// "It's been awhile."//
His voice echoed in her head as she walked over to the photographs and remembered how she had gotten where she was. In his insane world of pain and hate…
//"Not long enough."// She had replied. She had jumped out Faye's window, landing on the balcony of the room below her, seeing him on the roof twenty stories, cursing as she jumped to the next balcony, climbing until she had reached the roof, thanking the gods that she was in the older building of the Red Dragons, knowing the newer building was sleek without anything to grasp on from the outside.
Then she had stood before him, anger pulsing through her at the site of the blood on his hands. He had smiled, his eyes blue, so blue, the same blue of the summer mornings they used to share together. His eyes turned the pure white of intense anger and he smiled as he stepped towards her. //"You don't mean that,"// he had said trying to hide the fact there was pain in his voice.
Once she had loved him, once she had wanted him to love her. Once upon a time. Somewhere in-between sex and the abuse, his love had turned wicked and somewhere along the line she had lost all hope of a happily ever after. She had wanted to make it work, had tried, but she didn't want to wake up and see him staring at her, angry because she didn't get up before him to make breakfast. She didn't want to feel his slap against her skin for talking to another man. She didn't want to be anything other than the woman she was. She didn't want her relationship to turn into a revision of her past. She didn't want to be used and abused again. She'd gone through it once, never again.
//"I mean that with every bit of my heart."// She had tried not to cry, but her tears had turned her vision into a swimming pool of pain and memories.
//"I loved you once."// He said softly.
//"Once- that was long ago."// She let the wind take her hair and wash it around her face.
//"I wasn't like this before I met you."// He had looked at his hands with his inhuman white eyes. She had felt the guilt wash over her and shook her head, tears escaping the corners of her eyes. No he hadn't been like that until they had had sex, and when his strength had began to slowly rise she had known that something had happened to make him like she was. Guilt made her as condemned as he was, and once again *they* had screwed her again. Even after running away from *them* they still controlled her life, and she only blamed one person- the same person she had trusted as much as she had loved Rain. She had shaken her head then, not wanting to think about *him*.
//"You knew that you weren't normal. You never confided in me about it. I loved you too much to care."// He had turned from her then to look out at the sky. //"Was that my folly? Trusting in you?"//
She had felt her sobs rip her throat and shook her head. //"No, it was mine."//
Then he had turned back to her and drew his gun even as she drew hers. //"Guns won't work."// He had said without emotion.
//"I know."// She had replied.
And then he had shot and so had she. The blood flew past his shoulder and she felt the tranquilizer hit her in the heart. He had been prepared and she, on the other hand, had not been. He had walked up to her when she put her gun down and smiled, the white shinning with triumph. She had felt the drug slowly take effect on her body, though she could heal fast enough, drugs tended to remain her system longer than usual. Weariness was taking over her and she could see the black spots playing over her vision as she tried to remain standing.
//"You were careless."// He said, his lips against her ear as he walked behind her and held her shoulders. He kissed her neck and she forced herself not to flinch. Everything went gray as she tried to hold onto reality.
//"You didn't have to tell me, I already knew that."// Her voice had sounded so distant.
//"I love you, Alexa."//
//"I hate you."// She had hissed before she fell back into his arms and lost consciousness. When she had awakened, he had been sitting at the table looking at the pictures. Despite herself, she had groaned and he had turned his blue eyes soft and caring. The man she once loved stared back at her and in her semi-drunken state it made her smile.
//"Rain.."// She had whispered then stopped when she realized the situation. When she tried to move she had found she was bound and screeched at him for him to let her go. He had only smiled as he walked and picked up the sword he had had lying in the corner of the room. He licked the blade and his eyes turned white and she had inwardly shivered.
The blade had found itself in her chest before she could even react.
Pain, cold and heated had shot through her and she had screamed shamelessly. He had retracted the blade and run her through before she could finish the first scream and she had screamed again and again as the blade claimed her body more times than she could count. It hurt, hurt deeper than any wound he inflicted upon her to see his face so full of hate. It hurt so damn much and as the blood rain down her legs to the floor and onto red rimmed reality she had cried, not for him to stop but for all that she had lost.
He didn't speak as he ran her through one last time, his eyes glowing with rage, his mouth grim as she stared up at him, pain all her body was, inside and out as feelings consumed her and made her die with everything that should have killed her. And he had changed back to the real Rain she once knew, he loving Rain whose tears fell on brown tanned cheeks, for her, for him, for all they had once shared. He had touched her tear streaked face, kissed her lips, and then eyes turned white again and he pulled her head back as she shut her eyes tight, feeling his hand trace her neck, her windpipe underneath the pale skin. She wasn't scared, didn't fear death, but knew if he pulled one last time she would be free, guilty for all that she was leaving behind, but free, so free..
And then he had kissed her neck, nipped lightly and got up, moving from her. The window on the wall to the left glowed with city lights and he stared out, his reflection watching her own in the clear window. He didn't want to kill her, and yet he wanted to hurt her, and for five days she had gone through the kind of hell only torturing books had recorded.
Alexa stood now and stared at the pictures, growling as she flung the table to the side of the room, causing it to clutter in splintered pieces to the floor. She could feel her heart break as a picture of her and Rain holding hands on the beach fell at her feet. She picked it up, put it in her pocket and turned to the window, smashing it with her fist, the shards of glass falling in slow motion. Blood splattered its last bit of resistant on the ground that would take no more and she turned to kick open the door that lead to a hallway of the dusty old apartment building Rain had used to live.
Grasping the photograph in her pocket she flew down the hallway, jumped the ten flights of stairs and landed with a thud, her heart beating with love, hate, and adrenaline. With one swift motion she kicked open the front door and was home free. But then she saw Rain's ship coming in for a landing, his ship hauling Faye's red Tail, and Alexa suddenly felt all energy leave her. No matter what, her fight to escape was far from over.
A/n- Sorry I didn't write in so long, I didn't have time to look this over. ::my broken record line that Shelley keeps on laughing at:: Ciao. Hope y'all liked.
There Is No Pride In Love
No Escape
Chapter four
(Spike's Narrative)
I opened my eyes hoping to find that waking up had all been one big nightmare. I wished that I was somehow with Julia, somehow really and truly dead in my own mind as well as in the eye of time. But opening my eyes meant I was opening my heart back to reality where the wind burned old wounds like salt on cuts. I didn't want to know reality then, just the surface of what I wasn't ever going to have was just enough to keep me from wanting anything but death. But death I could never have, and I accepted that, I had a hard time not to.
Light flooded my vision and the first person I saw was Faye. She sat in a chair, a bandage over her forehead and faded bruises shoving roughly through her pale smooth skin. She was sleeping; head bouncing as she snored quietly, and when I looked into her folded hands I saw she carried a gun lightly with slender white fingers.
I don't know why the scene hit me, why her part in trying to protect me made me inwardly shake, but I did know that for once in my life I felt safe, no edge to the life that never wanted me.
My heart monitor beeped next to me as I took a deep breath and tried to sit up. My legs and arms were tired, weak, and it irked me that I could barely move. It hurt. Yes, working tired muscles wasn't the most delightful thing in the world, but my determination made me careless of what my body screamed to me in rivets of pain. I sat up with great effort, and grunted as pain shot up from all directions. Not an angry pain, but a protesting pain from all my limbs that had fallen in sync with the rhythm of sleep.
Faye must have heard me shuffling around but didn't move to help me. She sat back with a tight smile on her face as I squirmed to get comfortable. "Stop staring," I said with an edge. "It makes you look as if you're some kind of psycho." I shifted and smiled with old humor.
She flashed a grin and shrugged. "I wouldn't tease me if I were you. You're the one in the bed that can barely move. I, on the other hand have another cup of ice cold water in which I have no problem in dumping over your head." She smiled with the same ignorant smile and I laughed, grateful that she didn't treat me any different than before. It was as if time hadn't come for us and I had been with her the whole time I had been away.
"Jet?" I asked looking around the room filled with sun. White, so Goddamned heavenly white, and there Faye sat black jeans with a black tank, wearing a yellow shirt over her shoulders. I had to blink before realizing she was wearing one of my old shirts.
"Jet's out looking for some food; he was here for a while but got hungry." When she noticed me staring at her she gave me a skeptical eye and growled. "What?"
"Is that my shirt, Faye?" I could feel the little part of my old temper rocket towards its peak.
She looked down at the yellow shirt as if she just noticed it and fingered the collar with a quizzical look. "Hmm? Oh yeah," she said laughing. "I guess this is your shirt." She smiled at me and rested her elbows on her knees, leaning in closer to give me an original mocking smile. "But you're really in no position to ask for it back, now, are you?"
I growled. "Faye, you really are a pain, you know that?"
She smiled and crossed her arms, putting her gun in a shoulder holster she wore inside my shirt. "Of course I know that, Spike." But I sensed a hesitation in the reserve of her words. There was something in the hint of her voice that made me stare at her, really see her as she yawned and stretched. Something was different about her and I didn't know what.
"Faye, I got you a cappuccino. I didn't know if you wanted anything else," a voice said around the corner of the curtain. I recognized Jet's voice and felt a sense of relief that I hadn't known I needed until calm solitude washed over me and relaxed my tense muscles. Jet walked around the corner, his blue eyes soft, a little older as he gave a Styrofoam cup to Faye, a message passing between the two before Jet noticed I was sitting up.
"Hey, bud!" Jet exclaimed, his eyes smiling the way they always did when the man was happy.
"Yo," I replied waving a weakened hand. Faye stood, gave a Jet a look, then walked out of the room, glancing at me briefly before walking past the curtain, opening and closing the door as she left.
"It's been awhile, Spike," Jet said sitting down on the chair Faye had vacated. He smiled and put down a bag he had brought in with him. I could smell the delicious scent of meat and subconsciously my mouth watered.
"Food?" I asked, feeling my stomach growl with heated hunger.
"Eh?" Jet looked down at the bag he brought and smiled. "I don't know if you can eat that kind of food yet. I mean they've been feeding you out of a tube for about two years now." Jet smiled and rested his elbow on his knee, prompting his chin on his metal arm. "Your stomach might not be able to handle it."
"Jet, I need meat," I moaned.
He sighed. "Can you try to focus on what I am saying instead of thinking about your stomach for a second?" He looked more than serious and I tried to think of him and what he was saying that way but all I could think about was what kind of meat he had in that bag that smelled so damned good!
"Do you know where you are?" Jet stared at me.
"No," I said semi-conscious of actually speaking. I wanted food, and Jet had food. I just wanted a little piece, just one little piece of juicy food. My stomach growled in agreement.
"You're in the Red Dragons Headquarters."
Suddenly the growling in my stomach stopped and all I could hear was the beating of my heart. "What?" I asked trying to convince myself that I hadn't heard what Jet just said. I had run for so long to get away from this hell hole! I had loyalty, but no ties to this god forsaken place! My blood chilled as my jaw clenched and I stared at Jet, waiting for him to reply.
"You heard me."
"Yeah, I guess I did," I said staring away from Jet, eyes unfocused as the past played in my mind and in my eyes. It was all glossy, as if reality didn't exist and memories did. Julia, Vicious, Shin, Lin…. I didn't want to remember anymore. Thinking of the past reminded me what I didn't have but should have had, and what I desperately wanted but no god wished to give me. "So what the hell am I doing here, Jet?" I asked with the same coldness I always chose to have with him whenever he tried to discuss my past before.
"Shin is the leader now. As far as I know he brought you here and has kept you alive these last two years." Jet looked at my face, tried to read what I was thinking, feeling, but I knew that all he saw was a blank wall with nothing written on it except for perhaps my name and the initial man I was.
"I'm not sure if I should thank him or kill him," I muttered to myself as I put a hand to my forehead, my fingers stiff, my arms cracking with the lack of use. Then understanding that Shin was alive made me open my eyes and stare at Jet. "Shin's alive?"
Jet smiled. "You're a little slow today, bud."
I smiled and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the back of the hospital post. "Well, that may be." Then I wanted a cigarette, and it seemed just in that moment that the last time I had had one was too long for my tastes. "Cigarette?" I asked Jet without opening my eyes.
"I'm not sure if you can have that either." I heard a shuffle and then the crinkling of the plastic. Then I was holding the long slender drug that proved to me that just by holding it I was holding a little piece of clam that I didn't have at the moment. "But its you're funeral if you die suddenly." Wouldn't that be my luck?
I opened my eyes as Jet handed me his lighter. I lit up as if I had yesterday, as if I didn't really *need* the cigarette, just wanted it, and smiled with contentment as the smoke invaded my senses, wiping out the smell of the hospital. "So, back at the Red Dragons, huh? I never thought…" I trailed off lost in a reverie of everything that had happened in the walls of the syndicate that had made, taken, and broken everything I was and never was.
"There's not much to say, and we haven't seen each other for so long." Jet muttered to himself.
"What happened to Faye?" I asked, maybe not out of concern but definitely out of curiosity. I pictured her the first night I woke up, saw her ugly bruises, her obvious pain that caused her face to constrict when she walked- something that seemed much better than before. Despite the fact that I hated the way Faye looked everyday, she had looked more than bad when I first saw her. But she looked healthy and stronger today, her purple hair brushed neatly, the bruises faded on her face, her limp not really a limp but a stumble in step. "Better yet," I said focusing on the smoke I blew out through my mouth. "What happened to the both of you in the time I've been sleeping?"
"Wanna hear a semi-long story?" Jet asked staring out the window behind him.
I puffed at my cigarette. "I got time."
"Me too."
~`~`~`~`~
Faye walked down the corridor of the hallway, her purple hair dusting over her face as she walked down to the center lobby and out the door. The steam from her cup whispered through the air, and the tears in her eyes blurred the images that it made in her mind. Spike's face, Spike's eyes, Spike everywhere, and he was alive, it wasn't the images of a dead man anymore and after the six days since she first found him to e alive everything had turned into a semi reality that made her hallow inside, hallow in chest where the loss had been hidden deep inside her.
Then her mind veered to Alexa and she saw the woman jumping out the window, wondering to the gods of the universe if she was live or dead. Faye forced herself to keep her head high, trying to keep herself believing that her protector was alive watching over her, keeping her safe from the man that scared her from deep inside the walls of her soul.
She walked out of the Red Dragons, her hair blowing the wind as she stared at the passing cars. She took out her key and walked to the curb where she had parked her Red Tail, smiling at the fact that a police officer was standing by it trying to find a license plate. "May I help you?" Faye asked sweetly coming up beside the woman and leaning on the yellow glass of her ship.
"You're parked in a no parking zone, miss." The officer stared at her through blue sunglasses and Faye immediately got the initial impression that the officer was all high and mighty on her little sleigh of dominance. A regular power tripped ego was the firth thought that came to mind and Faye converted from playful-annoyed mood to bitch-annoyed mood in a matter of seconds.
Faye looked at her ship incredulously. "Well, so it is." She looked back at the officer and smiled innocently. "Damn, I didn't really think you police officers were observant enough to notice. Guess I was wrong." Faye smiled and popped her pod open. She moved to step up into it, black boots shinning on metallic silver as she stepped up and was pulled back with such force she almost fell splat on the pavement.
"You have to pay a fine, miss." The police officer was rather angry Faye noted with satisfaction. Through the sunglasses she could see the woman trying to remain civil.
"Really?" Faye seemed to think this over then glared at the woman with narrowed green eyes. "Well, I don't want to," she hissed and with that jumped into her ship and inserted the key, closing the hatch before the woman could scramble into her cockpit. She looked at the woman and stuck out her tongue as she ignited the engine and blasted off, turning on her radio and blasting it loud. She smiled and tapped her fingers against her dash board as the bass shook her windows, the blue open sky welcoming her as she let freedom take wing and pull her free from the confusion of thoughts.
Then the red flashing lights started and she was being called through the music. "Stop and land or we will be forced to fire!" Came a distant voice and Faye cursed as she turned down her music to concentrate. Then, smiling, she increased her speed, knowing one speed racer wasn't going to take her down. She sped down the horizon and then the bullets started hailing from behind her and she dodged. Two years ago she had been novice at flying, now she was an expert and dodged and countered attacked better than the greatest pilot.
She grinned at the sky, turned on her music loud again and went in and out of buildings, laughing at the stupidity the cops were using, firing at her in the regions of a civilian area. She shrugged as a side of a building exploded into red angry flames and proceeded to out fly the single space cruiser.
She looked back and then felt instant impact as bullets hailed at her from the front. She cursed angrily as a space cruiser came from the front and another from the side as she forced her ship downward out of the range of fire. So now there were three fighters, she could handle that, but she wasn't sure if a civilian plane could handle the bullets and suddenly felt the guilt of having to be responsible for the human lives lost in a small scrimmage.
She moved to open sky then and led all the ships that had been pursuing her in the city to an open field fight. They were talking to her again but her music was too loud for her to hear them. When she glanced in the rear view mirror she could feel her heart stop. She immediately shut off the music and cursed incoherently. There were about twelve ships on her tail, all had ceased shooting as she turned her ship around and stood suspended in mid air as a voice broke into her intercom. "We know who you are, Faye Valentine. We have records on your debts and would like you to come with us quietly. We demand you turn yourself in quietly."
Faye growled. So the miss priss of a cop knew how to identify ships without the ignition key somehow. Well that was fine with Faye, she didn't give a damn about the odds, she actually liked it when things were stacked against her. It worked more to her side of luck then anything. She armed her guns and opened fire, reckless, feeling indifferent, not caring because it seemed to her that she had faced death once and nothing compared to it was anything like what real fear she had felt when she stared the Grim Reaper in the eyes.
They opened fire back and she felt her ship rock back and forth as bullets penetrated her shields. She fired and laughed as she did so, feeling crazy, feeling calm, feeling anything but the fear she should have been feeling. She fired, shot three ships down, and worked on the rest. Emergency lights flashed but she didn't care, she was gaining momentum with the rockets and bullets that cut through the cheap ass cruisers. Four went down, unable to fight.
Faye began to sing and hum to the soft music she had turned down and smiled as she raised the volume one more time. Her right engine took a critical hit, but she moved support fro her left into the damaged area and got a pretty good balance as she continued to fire. Four more ships left the battle, one more to go. She smiled and knew even with the red flashing around her she could take this one. She blasted her music to its peak and moved to charge. She pressed the trigger to fire, and she spat nothing.
"Damn!" She hissed as she hit the trigger again. Nothing. She was out of bullets and rockets. The cruiser fired and she could feel the impact of every bullet as she tried to dodge with her minim access to agility. She could see the men inside the cockpit and cursed seeing the woman with the blue sunglasses smiling as they moved in…
Bullets fired from no where and Faye glanced over her shoulder and saw a sleek black space fighter coming straight for her. She didn't scream only tried to dodge it, but its pointed nose caught her right engine and she felt the force fling her foreword. She hit the dash board with her head and she could feel the pain echo through her brain as she spun in the air, half her engine flying into pieces as the lights in her cockpit flickered and stopped. Her ship staggered in the air and through the blinding red pain she tried to keep it a float.
The black ship destroyed the space cruiser and red angry flames were all that was left of it when Faye raised her head. Through black spots of her vision she saw the black ship coming towards her again and she braced herself, but it lost its speed and came up beside her as her ship staggered in the air. It shot out safety wires and hooked them onto her ship as it came up along side her. She tried to see her rescuer and found only black loving unconsciousness when she tried to see through the silver mono-pod.
~`~`~`~`~
Alexa sat, her black hair covering her face in shadows as she squirmed to break the thick chains that bound her. They were too thick for her to break, too tight for her to shake free, but she had rubbed her wrists against them for five days and finally got her wrists to bleed enough for her to get enough on her hands to slip them off painfully. It would have been easier if she didn't heal so quickly, if after every scratch her skin didn't mend together and became whole again, but after five days of persistent pain and rubbing the wounds became raw and unable to heal. She guessed she would have scars for more than a couple months after it all was over.
She leaned against the wall, gasping in pain as she twisted her arms, throwing her head back as the single blade through her chest stuck through her body, the tip hitting against the wall behind her as she forced her hands through the small opening he had left for her. The blade moved and she grimaced, her eyes leaking tears she had been holding back since he started torturing her. With one last effort, pull and twist she broke her wrists free, and the chains that had bound her wrists clattered to the floor.
She sighed and breathed deeply as the smell of her blood all over her sickened her. She took a breath before looking at her torn wrists that were covered in old and new blood and growled with hate and pain. The skin was already healing, but the pain was more intense than even the wound the sword from her chest made. She pulled at the hilt of the damned silver blade and pulled, her chest caving in with pain as she hissed, pulling hard and efficiently as it clattered to the floor, blood leaking out of her as she screamed. Even as she fell foreword on the ground, she could feel the gap in her body disappearing and she sighed as the pain echoed away ever so slowly. She then worked on her bound feet that were bound in the same chains that had bound her wrists and took the knife to them. With a couple quick slashes she broke free and stood, her body aching and tired as she stood in the empty room of a mad man. Nothing lay on the wooden floor, or on the wooden walls. The only thing that stood alone in the room was a single table covered with pictures of Faye, herself, and many of his other victims he had recently killed.
// "It's been awhile."//
His voice echoed in her head as she walked over to the photographs and remembered how she had gotten where she was. In his insane world of pain and hate…
//"Not long enough."// She had replied. She had jumped out Faye's window, landing on the balcony of the room below her, seeing him on the roof twenty stories, cursing as she jumped to the next balcony, climbing until she had reached the roof, thanking the gods that she was in the older building of the Red Dragons, knowing the newer building was sleek without anything to grasp on from the outside.
Then she had stood before him, anger pulsing through her at the site of the blood on his hands. He had smiled, his eyes blue, so blue, the same blue of the summer mornings they used to share together. His eyes turned the pure white of intense anger and he smiled as he stepped towards her. //"You don't mean that,"// he had said trying to hide the fact there was pain in his voice.
Once she had loved him, once she had wanted him to love her. Once upon a time. Somewhere in-between sex and the abuse, his love had turned wicked and somewhere along the line she had lost all hope of a happily ever after. She had wanted to make it work, had tried, but she didn't want to wake up and see him staring at her, angry because she didn't get up before him to make breakfast. She didn't want to feel his slap against her skin for talking to another man. She didn't want to be anything other than the woman she was. She didn't want her relationship to turn into a revision of her past. She didn't want to be used and abused again. She'd gone through it once, never again.
//"I mean that with every bit of my heart."// She had tried not to cry, but her tears had turned her vision into a swimming pool of pain and memories.
//"I loved you once."// He said softly.
//"Once- that was long ago."// She let the wind take her hair and wash it around her face.
//"I wasn't like this before I met you."// He had looked at his hands with his inhuman white eyes. She had felt the guilt wash over her and shook her head, tears escaping the corners of her eyes. No he hadn't been like that until they had had sex, and when his strength had began to slowly rise she had known that something had happened to make him like she was. Guilt made her as condemned as he was, and once again *they* had screwed her again. Even after running away from *them* they still controlled her life, and she only blamed one person- the same person she had trusted as much as she had loved Rain. She had shaken her head then, not wanting to think about *him*.
//"You knew that you weren't normal. You never confided in me about it. I loved you too much to care."// He had turned from her then to look out at the sky. //"Was that my folly? Trusting in you?"//
She had felt her sobs rip her throat and shook her head. //"No, it was mine."//
Then he had turned back to her and drew his gun even as she drew hers. //"Guns won't work."// He had said without emotion.
//"I know."// She had replied.
And then he had shot and so had she. The blood flew past his shoulder and she felt the tranquilizer hit her in the heart. He had been prepared and she, on the other hand, had not been. He had walked up to her when she put her gun down and smiled, the white shinning with triumph. She had felt the drug slowly take effect on her body, though she could heal fast enough, drugs tended to remain her system longer than usual. Weariness was taking over her and she could see the black spots playing over her vision as she tried to remain standing.
//"You were careless."// He said, his lips against her ear as he walked behind her and held her shoulders. He kissed her neck and she forced herself not to flinch. Everything went gray as she tried to hold onto reality.
//"You didn't have to tell me, I already knew that."// Her voice had sounded so distant.
//"I love you, Alexa."//
//"I hate you."// She had hissed before she fell back into his arms and lost consciousness. When she had awakened, he had been sitting at the table looking at the pictures. Despite herself, she had groaned and he had turned his blue eyes soft and caring. The man she once loved stared back at her and in her semi-drunken state it made her smile.
//"Rain.."// She had whispered then stopped when she realized the situation. When she tried to move she had found she was bound and screeched at him for him to let her go. He had only smiled as he walked and picked up the sword he had had lying in the corner of the room. He licked the blade and his eyes turned white and she had inwardly shivered.
The blade had found itself in her chest before she could even react.
Pain, cold and heated had shot through her and she had screamed shamelessly. He had retracted the blade and run her through before she could finish the first scream and she had screamed again and again as the blade claimed her body more times than she could count. It hurt, hurt deeper than any wound he inflicted upon her to see his face so full of hate. It hurt so damn much and as the blood rain down her legs to the floor and onto red rimmed reality she had cried, not for him to stop but for all that she had lost.
He didn't speak as he ran her through one last time, his eyes glowing with rage, his mouth grim as she stared up at him, pain all her body was, inside and out as feelings consumed her and made her die with everything that should have killed her. And he had changed back to the real Rain she once knew, he loving Rain whose tears fell on brown tanned cheeks, for her, for him, for all they had once shared. He had touched her tear streaked face, kissed her lips, and then eyes turned white again and he pulled her head back as she shut her eyes tight, feeling his hand trace her neck, her windpipe underneath the pale skin. She wasn't scared, didn't fear death, but knew if he pulled one last time she would be free, guilty for all that she was leaving behind, but free, so free..
And then he had kissed her neck, nipped lightly and got up, moving from her. The window on the wall to the left glowed with city lights and he stared out, his reflection watching her own in the clear window. He didn't want to kill her, and yet he wanted to hurt her, and for five days she had gone through the kind of hell only torturing books had recorded.
Alexa stood now and stared at the pictures, growling as she flung the table to the side of the room, causing it to clutter in splintered pieces to the floor. She could feel her heart break as a picture of her and Rain holding hands on the beach fell at her feet. She picked it up, put it in her pocket and turned to the window, smashing it with her fist, the shards of glass falling in slow motion. Blood splattered its last bit of resistant on the ground that would take no more and she turned to kick open the door that lead to a hallway of the dusty old apartment building Rain had used to live.
Grasping the photograph in her pocket she flew down the hallway, jumped the ten flights of stairs and landed with a thud, her heart beating with love, hate, and adrenaline. With one swift motion she kicked open the front door and was home free. But then she saw Rain's ship coming in for a landing, his ship hauling Faye's red Tail, and Alexa suddenly felt all energy leave her. No matter what, her fight to escape was far from over.
A/n- Sorry I didn't write in so long, I didn't have time to look this over. ::my broken record line that Shelley keeps on laughing at:: Ciao. Hope y'all liked.