Chapter II: And Justice For All
[Metallica - And Justice For All]
Spike's oblique reverie led his limp form to the heavens above. The light of what he so desired penetrated his eyelids though they lay closed. Warm droplets of rain trickled over his skin, by the divine wind worn frigid before their leave from his neck. It was, in all aspects of enigma, illusive. There was no distinguishing how long he was devoured by his recollections until they turned wickedly towards actuality. The euphoric effect of his breathless, bloodless fantasies began to wear away when he realized that his prior daydream had held some vain prophecy.
{Matte, I can… feel the rain...} Spike struggled to inhale through the distinctive taste of his own blood as it welled in his throat. The liquid was thick and warm, hindering his breathing and rousing the muscles in his throat to spasm. He could do nothing other than curse to himself, to damn whatever godly hand decided that he wouldn't die. Another dire wave of pain coursed through his incapacitated body with the second stifled cough. Fire was scorching the carnage of his stomach when tensed, and thankfully, the pain beckoned a slow unconscious slumber.
--and for the first time since he could remember—
--Spike held the same visual plain in both eyes.
The past had collided with the present and laid beautifully entwined before him in a harmonious display. He saw Jet lean back through the entranceway of the kitchen, casually taking a glance towards what had come to be a reckless, but close friend. The white apron was tied loosely and shrouded his clothes, giving him the appearance of one of the quaint chefs that only seem to find a niche in tiny out of the way restaurants. With a careless flick of the wrist, he sent his famous meatless Qing-jiao-rou-si through the air; and with another maneuver of his hand, caught the small blanket of food in its place at the center of the pan.
An ingenious Ed scampered through the ship on her hands and knees with Andy's cowboy hat secured over her unruly carrot-orange mane. A few stubborn strands of hair had escaped the brim of the hat when she reared onto her knees with a loud screech, a familiar mutt unwillingly playing the role of `rider`. Whimpering, Ein's nails dug into the back of her shirt, the little Corgi clinging for dear life while she leaped over the couch in a single bound. All that was seen being a blur of the brightest gold, alight with an innocent mischief all her own.
He saw Faye. The soft jade eyes staring into his with more emotions than he could decipher in a thousand years, yet none at the same time. She was the ideal symbolic structure of all that was corrupt in this world. She was greedy with a haughty sense of self, and he was quite confident that she could surely manipulate the devil himself if given the opportunity. Why his thoughts lingered on her for such a long while was a mystery to him, and he refused to allow it to be anything more than his own driven appetite for a decent challenge.
Muted sobs fluttered softly through his ears, close enough to be heard yet too distant to touch, and too ambiguous to be identified. His first reaction was to call for Julia, as if by some kind twist of fortune she'd be alive and at his side, waiting for him to awaken in the comfort of her apartment on the avenue. The vivid feel of her soul slipping through his grasp alone enough to make whatever ribbons remained of his gut lurch sorely. He couldn't summon the strength to open his eyes. Every extremity and pore became as heavy as the weight of sin. Managing another short, sharp breath, a sweet aroma eased his lungs. Not to say that this didn't further perplex the fuck out of him. {...Faye!?}
Beneath her palm and the layers of material crumpled within, she felt the aggressive start of his body that accompanied a rasp for air. Her eyes widened in misgiving trepidation, dismissing all the remains of tears to bewilderment. Simply blinking, she brought her ear over the indenture of his spine. Instantaneously, her head jerked up at a jumbled exhale, her anxious and blatantly shocked gaze darting to capture her comrade. "He's breathing!" she laughed with almost a schoolgirlish squeal in grateful disbelief. "Kami, Jet!! He's alive!!"
She couldn't suppress the puzzled grin any longer and let it dance exuberantly from ear to ear. It took a few moments for her words to come to any sense whatsoever on Jet's end. Hell, for all he knew, she could have just reached a more advanced stage of hysterics. But then there was the matter of her smile. Rarely had he ever seen Faye genuinely smile in oppose to the hellish little way she smirked just for GP. No, no, the closest thing anyone got to a smile was that almost childish cheeky grin when she wanted something substantial or needed to be bailed out. Clearly, neither case was applicable here.
Breaking into nothing modest of a sprint, the Black Dog himself, despite his wound and crutch, climbed the elegant staircase. Without a second thought, his wooden aide clattered abandoned on the plush red carpeting, and he knelt beside his fallen partner. His muscular arm reached forth, middle and forefinger extended beneath the frame of Spike's jaw, and Faye's utterly contagious expression molded the sullen corners of his mouth into one of equal magnitude. "Why that son of a bitch, I'll be God damned!"
~*~
In the days that passed, Spike laid motionless in his hospital bed, wired in every place fathomable through I.V's and tubes of such nature that he was positive were placed in certain areas just to piss him off immensely. Breathing, though, had become more a comfortable routine with the help of mild narcotics. In fact, he was convinced that the only effect of the sedatives he wasn't fond of was the way his thoughts, at times, divulged in disarray and distortion. Over thinking things never did give an optimistic outlook on his broken pride.
Not all was bad, though. It's not like he was alert and aware of his surroundings for more than a few hours in the day, but from what he could soberly establish, someone usually occupied his room. This either made him feel compelled to do one of two things: A) smoke, and 2) roll over and call the nurse for another dose of morphine. The latter of the two being when Faye was there, which, to his surprise, happened to be most of the time. She'd obnoxiously poke at the wires in his arm, toy with the position of the bed, and feed him an onslaught of rude, sarcastic comments as just part of her good wholesome nature. But, it was when he mimicked the tactic of his childhood more commonly known as 'sleep' that he was intrigued by her presence.
{I'm enjoying her company??...Holy shit I really need to get off these drugs.}
Fading in and out of his conscious mind he would hear the quieted clap of her boots against the linoleum, but she would always slip them off if she thought he was asleep. It was routine that she seat herself in the same reclining easy chair at his bedside and fiddle with her deck of cards. He assumed that nine times out of ten she was practicing her devious thieving casino strategies. He could hear the soft rush of the cards when the air passed between them as the split deck meshed together into one before it was bridged and parted again. The other one out of ten, she would talk to him almost--dare he even think it--kindly. She wouldn't lose all character, however. She'd be telling him about how ludicrous the price of cigarettes were, and how, when he got back to the ship, he would owe her for 'Every God damned pack I've smoked.'
Jet's heavy footsteps fell strange through the barren corridor, receiving only a few ill coughs and lewdities on a patient-to-nurse basis from a room he passed in compensation. It was around six-thirty in the afternoon, and he concluded that all the lazy personnel that stalked the halls like vultures behind a woman's car at night anxious for her to give them their next meal, had taken their happy asses home. Home. To their families, their girlfriends, or quite possibly their extensive pornographic viewing collections. Either way, it was home, and why that word seemed to ridicule him, he didn't bother to dwell on.
He peeked curiously into the doorway, judging from the silence that Spike had insulted her and she had taken vengeance by ripping open the bullet wound again. It was somewhat disappointing what he actually did find; Faye sat somberly with her elbows resting on her knees and her intense gaze fixated on the pattern of the wallpaper. The heaviness of her brow line over brooding eyes was something of an unusual sight bestowed upon her. The slight purse of her lips reflecting how even a woman as shallow as that could be drowned by her own thought process once in a while.
Jet cleared his throat a little, calling her name for the second time, a bit louder than he had the first. She responded by straightening her posture and laying her hands in place of her elbows on her knees. Reluctant to leave the floral décor of the wall, her eyes met with his. When someone's known Jet for a decent amount of time, they learn to establish the differences in his quiet personas. She filed this uncomfortable silence underneath the 'Faye, get the hell out of here' type category and rose to her feet. Her blank expression was ever present over her features, her daze averse to dissipating as she snatched up the fresh pack of cigarettes from the night-table.
As if his vitality depended on the verge of tobacco, the sound of Spike's one pleasure left in life under the fingers of another had bolted his eyes open.
"Welcome to the land of the living there, Speigel." Jet chuckled gruffly and sat in place of the woman, settling his back into the cushion of the chair and speculating the beginnings of a quarrel. He was almost relieved that signs of normality were being shown.
Spike's eyes narrowed in blatant annoyance and shot Jet a sharp look, then shifted to Faye peevishly. Briefly, he wondered, if telekinesis was actually more than fairytales of the Pokemon sort. At this point he was desperate for every last stick of poison in that pack, so surely there was no harm in trying anyway. {Alright now voodoo powers...uncurl the fingers around Daddy's last pack of sanity...} His eyes bulged furiously from their sockets and one bushy eyebrow was lowered slightly further than the other. The tip of his tongue poked through his strained lips, which went hand in hand with the deep shade of ruby his face was flushing as it tremored in unreserved concentration. Wrinkled folds of skin were deemed a whitish color where they met and lapped in feud with one another.
She glanced back from over her shoulder and caught the seething glower with an audacious smirk. "Calm down, ass. I'm only taking a couple." Insisted the antagonist. Knowing very well that there was really nothing he could do about his current situation, Faye beat the top of the pack against her palm to evenly distribute the tobacco. This was a relatively customary practice, but the way she articulated every stroke just happened to work him up a hair more each repetitive time. Extra care was taken to further taunt him by peeling the red string that bound the pack with slow perfection. It's not like she could help herself, teasing the bastard was just incredibly entertaining, especially when he was this irritable.
That was it.
As of now, Miss Valentine had just made her death wish.
This had topped the tangerine incident.
"Besides, you owe me." She reminded him in a rather matter-of-factly tone. With that, The Shrew took her pick of the litter and tossed the lot back onto the faux wooden finish of the night-table before proceeding out of the cubicle.
He watched her with a trivial twitch of the muscle at his lower lid until the last of her shadow was swallowed by the hallway's offensive white light. He'd have to plot revenge later. {Wench}
"Wench" Came another one of Jet's husky chains of laughter. Being of the philosophical train of thought, bickering between the two of them was a reassuring indication considering the circumstances. Of course, it was evident that Spike was irked by far more than his lack of nicotine, but it was to be expected. Thing was, he couldn't find the sugar coated words of wisdom like he normally would; and soon enough, his chuckle inevitably lost itself in a dense cloud of tension that loomed overhead. There wasn't much a man could say to someone who would make love to death if he had the chance, which is just about the only thing Spike hadn't done yet.
Spike, on the other hand, lay on the bed staring at his last eighteen remaining cigarettes in disbelief. One thing that a person would have to fully comprehend if they were to merely even dream about weaving through the mess that was Spike Spiegel's mind, is that he often is, by choice, oblivious. {Heartless woman...} He continued to pout to himself, the silence a familiar aspect of the lecture process which he was sure was about to follow.
"Ever hear that one story about the fish, Jokutto, Spike?" Jet's voice tenderly began.
He knew very well where this was leading; straight to hell and back. "No, but I have this sneaking suspicion that you're going to tell me anyway."
"There once was this stream fish named Jokutto. And, as you know, fish are turned out on their own from the moment they hatch. Now this Jokutto, he wasn't your ordinary fish. He wanted, more than anything, for life to be a challenge. So the little fish decides that his serene home in the river just isn't what he wants and he decides to roam the ocean, where he heard anything can come true. The problem is, even though he learned to adapt to the salt of the sea, he'd keep getting ensnared by the fishermen's net. The first time, he was caught and sold as a pet. After his escape, it happened only once more, and he was brought home to the fisherman's daughter. She was very lovely, and also very nice, and as soon as Jokutto explained his ambitions, she liberated him. But now, since Jokutto could evade the nets, he grew bored with the ocean. Ultimately, he decided to go on land to prove that he could make his own fate." His tranquil crystalline orbs met with the oddly matched pair that Spike owned. His voice as smooth and eloquently pronounced as he ended from which he began, never faulting. Not surprisingly, all this earned was an honestly confused look from underneath disheveled pine locks. "Do you know what happened when fate kicked Jokutto in the ass, Spike?" Layman's terms it was, then.
"Of course" His expression was still. His intoxication level was at the point of no return, and with that, went what little of his sanity he had been blessed with. "The fish felt deceived by the very laws of physics and had to spend the rest of his days trying to determine what kind of vast conspiracy went on over his head.
"Spike"
"Jet"
"Naturally, he died, but he was given the gift of reincarnation into a prosperous king many years later, perhaps the reason being because the fish had been mourning the death of one of his duplicitics for all the years she was living. Maybe he was granted his second chance to truly become alive."
~*~
Vilification. It struck him as something astonishing that one word could describe so much by reasoning with so little. This was far from the first time he had felt betrayal, his arm, and his love were both lost to the contemptuous evil of the word. Jet began walking absently as his thoughts badgered him. He wasn't sure where it was he wandered, or where it was he wanted to bring his nomadic tendency, the urge to search for reason just became overwhelming. He pondered as to why a man with an untold future would retch it into abyss because of the regrets he unveiled in his past; over ghastly remnants of mourning.
Vilification, however, invoked corroboration. Justification as to why something so petty was brought blindly by one who was, in his own right, virtuous. Grieving is in no way feeble minded, but yearning, lingering, on something that will never be, is foolish. Beyond foolish, even. Spike, in all ways, dreaming, awake, enlightened, alive, or even dead, all that kid was, was damn troublesome!
~*~Author's Notes~*~
Glossary:
"Matte" – "Wait"
If anyone was wondering, the "tangerine incident" is in reference to Session 20: Pierrot Le Fou, where a bandaged Spike goes to reach for something of citrus nature, and Faye takes it, sits down, starts making a few witty comments, eats his orange, and then walks away and leaves the peel on his head. I only put this here because when I read to revise, I had no idea what the hell I was talking about, so if you got it the first time around, I admire you. XD