To Every Ending, There Is A New Beginning
By: Tiffany Mahala
Chapter Four: The Bacchanal
Vicious and I walked down to the local pub in silence. When I finally couldn't take the sound of the voices in my head I broke the silence.
"Vicious, what's really going on?" He stopped dead in his tracks and looked slightly over his shoulder. The wind had picked up and now engulfed us both as we stood alone.
"What do you think is going on, Spike?", his devilish grin had resurfaced and chills ran through my spine. I shook it off and shook my head as I walked up to him. He looked down towards the pavement as I stopped beside him and I think I startled him when I put my hand on his shoulder. He smiled and you know I don't care what people say, but smiles are contagious.
"Let's say we have a little drink." I offered.
"Okay, you're paying." I had no objections to that so we walked to a little place that Jet was always talking about. Charle's. The owner was the wife of a former colleague of Jet's. She was always cracking jokes and saying stuff that would make sailors blush. She was about the same age as Jet, I guess, and knew immediately what I was having when I sat down at the bar.
"Spike, hmm, so you'll have a bottle of Mariachi Bourbon and just by judging your friend here he'll have vodka. Am I right?", she sat the bottle of bourbon in front of me as Vicious looked up in astonishment.
"H-How. . ."
"How did I know what you were having? Well when you've been a bartender for as long as I have, honey, you can just about follow a stereotype for each drink." She laughed and left us to tend to another customer.
I knew Vicious couldn't hold his liquor as well as I could so I figured he would start talking more about 'his sister' after a couple of drinks. Little did I know, that since I hadn't had anything to eat before we left, I would get drunk just as fast as he would. Before long, all thoughts of Vicious' sister had been replaced by thoughts of 'the good ole days.' When we would mess with people's minds and just get our kicks.
--------------
We were about 22 when we first met in the syndicate and we hit it off instantaneously. We would plot out our small hits at Annie's; and my dad, Annie's brother, would just laugh as he would go off to do the bloody stuff. My father was Mao's right-hand man and Vicious looked up to him like he was his own dad. Though Vicious and I were close, he never spoke of his life before the syndicate except occasional speeches about how he fought in the war on Titan. Things would come between us. I mean besides the femme fatale. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and possibly become head of the Red Dragon, but I was becoming jaded of the gangster life. Vicious on the other hand wanted terribly to have the chance that I had had and felt betrayed, not only when not ask first but when not asked at all. Mao thought Vicious was a bit zealous when it came to our bigger hits. So you see it was not just Julia that we fought over. He resented me because I was given the chance to have something I knew he could never have unless he took it.
---------------
The communicator rang several times but we were too drunk to hear it. Vicious and I had already started a fight earlier when we sat to play poker with Jobin, Carlos, and Antonio. They apparently had never played with card sharks before and were irrate when they lost all their money to us. No hard feeling's though. We bought them a drink and argued a solid thirty minutes about how WE used to work on the gates. The next hour or so was a haze.
The next thing I knew we were trying our best to pick a fight with a big brawny guy by blantantly asking his attractive girl-friend out. Charle came over and sat us back down at the bar. I gave her a 'why did you do that? I was having fun.' look and she pointed to my coat pocket. The communicator was ringing once again and I answered forgetting the possible consequences of any of the Bebop members seeing me smashed.
"Where the hell are you? We've been trying to get a hold of you for two hours." Faye yelled over the small speaker. Even on the small screen of the comm. you could see her face turn red with every slurred word I said.
"Weee'reee at (hic cup) Sharleeeeeee'sssss. . .hehehe (hic cup)." I couldn't help but laugh because I thought it was funny that she was getting even redder. I suddenly felt the urge to vomit so I sprinted to the closest bathroom while Vicious spoke to Faye.
"Where did he go?"
"He's gone to serenade the porcelain goddess. By the way (hic cup) what is a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he laughed.
"That's it. . . .Jet!!!. I'm going to get these two." I had returned back to the bar and putting my arm on Vicious' shoulder leaned over to look at the monitor. Jet was standing there like a disapproving father and Faye was still yelling something I didn't quite hear due to Vicious' retching in the garbage can.
". . . .and you better just stand outside until we get there." I caught the end of Faye's speech now including Jet, much to his disliking.
"Okay mommy." I laughed as I made a half-assed salute and cut her off in mid-sentence.
"She looked serious. Is she always so. . . "
"Bitchy?"
"Well I was thinking more like. . termagant. But now that I think about it bitchy does have a nice ring to it."
We both laughed like we hadn't in a long time.
Vicious and I walked through the crowd and walked out into the brisk cool air. We chose to sit underneath the street lamp and began to sober up a little. (a little, mind you) It took Jet and Faye about fifteen minutes to drive down to the little bar and in that time we decided to revive an old but classic prank we used to play. As soon as they would pull up we would act so inebriated that they would go and buy us a coffee to sober us up. We didn't have to do much acting.
They pulled up to the curb in an old beat up 1985 Firebird. Faye was driving as Jet sat shot-gun. The car was an antique as far as I was concerned but Faye had a strange attachment to this relic.
"If you gotta puke, do it right now because you're not. .and I mean NOT going to screw this car up." She looked us over and prodded us as each word came out. We nodded and Jet got out of his seat to pull the seat up for us to get in.
"We're going to an all night coffee shop to get you half way sobbered up. Ed doesn't need to see you like this."
"Oh come on Faye. Ed as seen me bandaged from head to toe lots of times. But you don't want her to see me drunk?" I blurted out. She couldn't think of a good come back and I felt satisfied that I got the last word. Vicious had passed out and instead of going to a coffee shop we just went to the only place we ever called home, the Bebop. Faye parked the car and we all rolled out and made our way on the ship. Once inside Faye went to fix some coffee and I took a quick shower to wake myself up and to clean myself. Needless to say we did screw up the car.
Jet and Faye went to sleep what they could as Vicious and I poured ourselves coffee. We sat in silence staring at the table in the living room. I finally stretched out on the yellow couch and told him where the asprin was if he needed it. I closed my eyes and I heard him walk back to his room and close the door. I opened my eyes again and looked up to the ceiling fan spinning.
"Oh, damn. I can already feel the headache coming on."
AN: It took me almost three weeks to get this done and I'm still not satisfied with it. Oh well, I can finally get on with the story. ^_^ *Tiffany*
Chapter Four: The Bacchanal
Vicious and I walked down to the local pub in silence. When I finally couldn't take the sound of the voices in my head I broke the silence.
"Vicious, what's really going on?" He stopped dead in his tracks and looked slightly over his shoulder. The wind had picked up and now engulfed us both as we stood alone.
"What do you think is going on, Spike?", his devilish grin had resurfaced and chills ran through my spine. I shook it off and shook my head as I walked up to him. He looked down towards the pavement as I stopped beside him and I think I startled him when I put my hand on his shoulder. He smiled and you know I don't care what people say, but smiles are contagious.
"Let's say we have a little drink." I offered.
"Okay, you're paying." I had no objections to that so we walked to a little place that Jet was always talking about. Charle's. The owner was the wife of a former colleague of Jet's. She was always cracking jokes and saying stuff that would make sailors blush. She was about the same age as Jet, I guess, and knew immediately what I was having when I sat down at the bar.
"Spike, hmm, so you'll have a bottle of Mariachi Bourbon and just by judging your friend here he'll have vodka. Am I right?", she sat the bottle of bourbon in front of me as Vicious looked up in astonishment.
"H-How. . ."
"How did I know what you were having? Well when you've been a bartender for as long as I have, honey, you can just about follow a stereotype for each drink." She laughed and left us to tend to another customer.
I knew Vicious couldn't hold his liquor as well as I could so I figured he would start talking more about 'his sister' after a couple of drinks. Little did I know, that since I hadn't had anything to eat before we left, I would get drunk just as fast as he would. Before long, all thoughts of Vicious' sister had been replaced by thoughts of 'the good ole days.' When we would mess with people's minds and just get our kicks.
--------------
We were about 22 when we first met in the syndicate and we hit it off instantaneously. We would plot out our small hits at Annie's; and my dad, Annie's brother, would just laugh as he would go off to do the bloody stuff. My father was Mao's right-hand man and Vicious looked up to him like he was his own dad. Though Vicious and I were close, he never spoke of his life before the syndicate except occasional speeches about how he fought in the war on Titan. Things would come between us. I mean besides the femme fatale. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and possibly become head of the Red Dragon, but I was becoming jaded of the gangster life. Vicious on the other hand wanted terribly to have the chance that I had had and felt betrayed, not only when not ask first but when not asked at all. Mao thought Vicious was a bit zealous when it came to our bigger hits. So you see it was not just Julia that we fought over. He resented me because I was given the chance to have something I knew he could never have unless he took it.
---------------
The communicator rang several times but we were too drunk to hear it. Vicious and I had already started a fight earlier when we sat to play poker with Jobin, Carlos, and Antonio. They apparently had never played with card sharks before and were irrate when they lost all their money to us. No hard feeling's though. We bought them a drink and argued a solid thirty minutes about how WE used to work on the gates. The next hour or so was a haze.
The next thing I knew we were trying our best to pick a fight with a big brawny guy by blantantly asking his attractive girl-friend out. Charle came over and sat us back down at the bar. I gave her a 'why did you do that? I was having fun.' look and she pointed to my coat pocket. The communicator was ringing once again and I answered forgetting the possible consequences of any of the Bebop members seeing me smashed.
"Where the hell are you? We've been trying to get a hold of you for two hours." Faye yelled over the small speaker. Even on the small screen of the comm. you could see her face turn red with every slurred word I said.
"Weee'reee at (hic cup) Sharleeeeeee'sssss. . .hehehe (hic cup)." I couldn't help but laugh because I thought it was funny that she was getting even redder. I suddenly felt the urge to vomit so I sprinted to the closest bathroom while Vicious spoke to Faye.
"Where did he go?"
"He's gone to serenade the porcelain goddess. By the way (hic cup) what is a girl like you doing in a place like this?" he laughed.
"That's it. . . .Jet!!!. I'm going to get these two." I had returned back to the bar and putting my arm on Vicious' shoulder leaned over to look at the monitor. Jet was standing there like a disapproving father and Faye was still yelling something I didn't quite hear due to Vicious' retching in the garbage can.
". . . .and you better just stand outside until we get there." I caught the end of Faye's speech now including Jet, much to his disliking.
"Okay mommy." I laughed as I made a half-assed salute and cut her off in mid-sentence.
"She looked serious. Is she always so. . . "
"Bitchy?"
"Well I was thinking more like. . termagant. But now that I think about it bitchy does have a nice ring to it."
We both laughed like we hadn't in a long time.
Vicious and I walked through the crowd and walked out into the brisk cool air. We chose to sit underneath the street lamp and began to sober up a little. (a little, mind you) It took Jet and Faye about fifteen minutes to drive down to the little bar and in that time we decided to revive an old but classic prank we used to play. As soon as they would pull up we would act so inebriated that they would go and buy us a coffee to sober us up. We didn't have to do much acting.
They pulled up to the curb in an old beat up 1985 Firebird. Faye was driving as Jet sat shot-gun. The car was an antique as far as I was concerned but Faye had a strange attachment to this relic.
"If you gotta puke, do it right now because you're not. .and I mean NOT going to screw this car up." She looked us over and prodded us as each word came out. We nodded and Jet got out of his seat to pull the seat up for us to get in.
"We're going to an all night coffee shop to get you half way sobbered up. Ed doesn't need to see you like this."
"Oh come on Faye. Ed as seen me bandaged from head to toe lots of times. But you don't want her to see me drunk?" I blurted out. She couldn't think of a good come back and I felt satisfied that I got the last word. Vicious had passed out and instead of going to a coffee shop we just went to the only place we ever called home, the Bebop. Faye parked the car and we all rolled out and made our way on the ship. Once inside Faye went to fix some coffee and I took a quick shower to wake myself up and to clean myself. Needless to say we did screw up the car.
Jet and Faye went to sleep what they could as Vicious and I poured ourselves coffee. We sat in silence staring at the table in the living room. I finally stretched out on the yellow couch and told him where the asprin was if he needed it. I closed my eyes and I heard him walk back to his room and close the door. I opened my eyes again and looked up to the ceiling fan spinning.
"Oh, damn. I can already feel the headache coming on."
AN: It took me almost three weeks to get this done and I'm still not satisfied with it. Oh well, I can finally get on with the story. ^_^ *Tiffany*