I'm back! I have to admit, I wasn't really feeling this story at first, and it took me all week to write the first chapter, but I feel like with all new stories, the beginning is one of the hardest parts. You have to try and grab your audience, you have to get your tone down and set a precedent for the rest of the story, and you have to wait until your roommate is awake so that you don't feel guilty typing and maybe keeping her up all night. Also, you have to be well fed or you can't think right, it's something like this in my head when I try to write on an empty stomach: Okay…so Faye is fixing up Spike and then…maybe they're hungry…I'm hungry…I wonder if there's any cookies left. Yeah…it doesn't get a lot done. Also, a friend and I are collaborating on this music video, so the free time I usually get for writing has been kind of infringed upon in that respect. I don't mind or anything, but sometimes I feel like if I don't write I'll go insane. It's like…my medication or something. I think I better end this intro on that weird note…
*****
One More Try
Part 2
*****
"Take off your pants." I ordered the stubborn man who was sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette and doing his best to pretend he didn't notice me prodding at halfway healed wounds on his arms.
"No way." Spike wasn't wearing his usual jacket and slacks since they were still full of holes from his escapade a couple of weeks ago. I had offered to mend them, but of course that only convinced Spike that he was entirely capable of dealing with that issue on his own. I wasn't sure of his progress, but the fact that he was still lounging around in this work-out pants and a wife beater told me that he wasn't finished yet. I kind of doubted that he'd even started, though the mental image of Spike sewing up the holes in his clothing was somehow extremely amusing to me, so I hadn't offered my help since then.
"Don't be an ass." I chided him, moving to get to his left shoulder. It was doing a lot better, even though it had been the most difficult of all his injuries to deal with since it had grown slightly infected because of the length of time that Lee had left the bullet in it. I had removed the gauze only the day before, and it was now covered in a thick bit of padding taped to his shoulder neatly. I peeled the tape back, considering when it might be ready to have the stitches removed. "Take them off." I prompted, acting utterly disinterested in his argument except for the strong poke I gave his shoulder, coaxing a loud yelp of pain out of the man.
"Dammit, don't do that." Spike shot me a glare, using the excuse of stamping his cigarette butt out in the ashtray to scoot a bit away from me. I sighed slightly, wondering at how much less crowded the ship might be without Spike's ego and his pride.
"Take them off and I won't." I offered, making it seem like a fair choice. I might let him try to fix his clothes on his own, that was funny. But I didn't want to walk over his dead body on the way to the shower because he was too stubborn to let me do what I felt was one of the few things I could manage to do well without having to shake my ass. I mean, we might not have liked Jet's cooking, but we didn't go and kick him out of the kitchen. That was his thing, and this was mine.
"Go away." Spike leaned back on the couch and I rolled my eyes at him in irritation. Seriously, the man was completely obnoxious. It wasn't like I was really bothering him. If I was, he would have just gotten up and left a long time ago. He just loved to make me fight every inch of the way. Sometimes I wondered if it would really be that bad to let him get gangrene or something like that. Maybe then I'd get a little more respect and cooperation. As it was, I felt like every time I tried to do my unofficial job, it was like forcing medicine down a spoiled child's throat.
"Take off your pants so I can finish and I will." I tried to sound calm. I was the reasonable one in this situation, after all. He was just behaving like a five year old.
"I don't need you poking me. I'm perfectly fine." Spike reached for where his cigarettes would have been in his jacket pocket. Of course, his hand found nothing but the thin cloth of his undershirt, so he paused before brushing at it as though he was smoothing out some invisible wrinkle like that had been his original goal.
"Fine. Then take off your shirt so I can check your side." I compromised again. See? I was the reasonable one. I was always the reasonable one.
"What, are you obsessed with me?" Spike cracked, a smug smile pulling up on the corners of his mouth. "You keep trying to get my clothes off." There was a challenge glinting in his eyes. Damn him. He knew that I couldn't back down when he made that face. It was infuriating.
"Spike, take them off right now!" I stood, stomping one of my white boots down angrily. Boots always make really satisfying noises when you're angry.
"You want them off, try to get them." Spike's smile widened as he crossed his arms behind his head. Damn that man! He was enjoying this!
"Don't test me, Spike." I warned him, shaking a finger as though it might make him listen to me. Of course, he just started laughing at me.
Now, I try to be a patient, reasonable woman the majority of the time, but every person has their breaking point, and Spike specialized in reaching mine about five times a day just to show that he could. I'm well aware of the fact that my best course of action in this situation would be to simply ignore him, but it's hard to ignore someone whose chosen purpose in life seems to be driving you completely insane. Also, it's hard to think clearly when you're practically seeing red. And that's why, instead of stomping off with my dignity intact, I threw the ashtray at his head and kicked him in the shins before lunging at him.
"Shit, Faye!" Spike jumped up at the impact and attempted to escape, but I was too fast for him. "Crazy fucking bitch!" he struggled as I pulled at his collar in an enraged attempt to get him to do what I'd been telling him to do for almost ten minutes now. Take off his damn shirt. At least I wasn't pulling on his pants, because at that moment, right as Spike was starting to wriggle away, leaving me pulling his shirt over his head, Jet entered the room.
"What's going on in here?" Jet's hands were on his hips, a spatula in one hand, an apron tied around his waist, and a stern look on his face. We both froze instantly, turning to look at him, me with fistfuls of Spike's shirt, and Spike with his head finally peeking out from under the hem of the shirt that had been just been pulled over his head, but still had a hold on his arms. Somehow, I suddenly felt extremely foolish, and I stepped away, letting Spike's shirt drop to the ground. Before I could offer a highly embarrassed explanation as to why he'd just walked in on me ripping Spike's shirt off, Jet shook his head and sighed deeply before turning back around. "Never mind. Sorry I interrupted, I just thought you'd guys want to do that in your rooms."
"We weren't doing anything!" I immediately called after the man, but Spike was no help, he picked up his shirt and pulled it back on over his bandaged chest, laughing at me before leaving the room.
I hate that man so much.
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"You didn't have to fight me on it." I snipped one of the sutures that helped stitch closed the gash Spike had received just below his right knee. Altogether, that particular wound had required twenty-two stitches that I now had to remove one at a time. I was on number three. It had been two days since Jet had walked in on our embarrassing fight in the living quarters of the Bebop, and I had moped for some time afterward. Although Spike had seemed to think it was all pretty funny at the time, he didn't resist when I finally approached him once more with a medical kit, having decided that no matter how the man infuriated me, I had a job to do, and I would do it.
"You didn't have to pelt me with the fucking ashtray." Spike almost reached up to touch the lovely black eye I had managed to give him as a result of my outburst. "I was just giving you a hard time."
"I know." I admitted a bit grudgingly. "But you really pissed me off." I pulled out the fifth stitch, taking care to do it smoothly and quickly while not yanking on it. I was very good at taking out stitches, and Spike never seemed to feel it when I was doing it. I suppose it helped that I'd had so much practice, but it was still something that I took an odd sort of pride in being able to do well.
"You know, it's not like I've never had to take care of myself." Spike pointed out. Somehow, that comment, although perfectly obvious to me and to him, was a bit painful to hear. I'd never been officially designated as Spike's nurse or anything, and I suppose I had always felt we had a silent understanding on the matter. Jet had been more than willing to hand that responsibility over to me, and I suppose it made me feel as though I was really earning my keep. I helped out in other ways, I suppose. When we went out after a bounty, I was always right beside Spike with Ed and Jet back at the Bebop helping us from there.
I guess I should have been satisfied with that, but the fact of the matter was that even though I would never want to admit it to Spike, I almost always felt like I was the backup, the unnecessary extra. Most of the time, I was sure that he could have carried things out without my help. The only time I was really helpful was when I was made to flaunt myself as a distraction or temptation to some potential bounty. I didn't have Ed's information network, or Jet's gift for organized strategy, or Spike's fighting ability. I could kick some ass, sure, but anyone I could take out wasn't any sort of challenge to Spike. So when I discovered that my small, adept fingers could do something more helpful than get someone off, I quickly became attached to that. I decided that if they needed me to keep Spike from dying every time he acted recklessly, I would really be a part of the crew. They'd need me like I needed them. After all, the Bebop was all I had left.
"I know." I finally responded, pausing as I looked at the ninth stitch. I'd continued to work as I had thought about Spike's comment, but now I pulled back a bit. I was kneeling on the ground in front of Spike, who was sitting back on the couch, his legs bare and his pants pooled in a small bundle next to me. I looked at the pair of medical scissors I was holding, long handles with short, sharp blades. I had always thought of them as my scissors, but as I looked at them, I realized that they'd been on the ship a lot longer than I had. Jet had probably purchased them, as Spike never liked to buy sensible things like medical supplies. They weren't really mine, and I wasn't the only person who ever had used them. And I realized then, staring at those scissors, that they didn't need me on the Bebop, and they never would. I had nothing to offer, I was just what Spike always had called me, a mooch, a waste, worthless. I didn't belong on the Bebop. And yet, I had nowhere else to go. What was I to do?
"Faye?" Spike's voice broke my train of thought, and I blinked back the wetness that had been gathering in my eyes, looking up at his mismatched mahogany eyes. "Why'd you stop?"
"I…did you want me to finish?" I know it wasn't fair to ask him such a loaded question. He didn't know that I was asking if they really even needed me, if they wanted me to stay, if he wanted me to stay. "I thought maybe you would just like to do it yourself." Spike considered me for a long moment, and then he smiled in a way that I don't think I'd ever seen before. It wasn't mocking, it wasn't cruel, it wasn't sarcastic, and it wasn't fake. It was warm and friendly and good and everything I'd never associated Spike with. Not to say that I'd hated him before that. I never really knew how I felt toward the man with the unruly dark-green hair. But in that moment, he seemed like a different person than the one I knew, and all at once he was the same. It was like a layer had been peeled away and I'd seen the totally honest center of what Spike was. It was a good thing he was the one talking then, because I don't think I could have found my voice.
"I didn't mean that I didn't want you to do it. I was just saying you shouldn't feel like you're forced to." Spike's smile faded only moments after it appeared, but I'd already filed it away as something I never wanted to forget seeing. "It's a lot better when you do it, anyway. Jet was all thumbs, and I never had an eye for small work."
"Thanks." That was all I could say, but I think that I was probably smiling like an idiot for at least an hour after that. It was probably the closest Spike had ever come to giving me a compliment, and it was one of the few times in all my memory of him that he had spoken to me with sincerity. Right when I'd been flooded with doubts, it was like Spike had somehow known what was troubling me, and his seemingly clumsy words of praise had been a beacon of hope for me. It sounds really cheesy, I know, but I couldn't help it. I had come to expect nothing but teasing and torture from Spike, and when he finally said something nice to me, it was almost too much for me.
That night, after finally coming down from the euphoria I'd been feeling ever since Spike and I talked, I realized for the first time that I was in love with him. It was something that kind of drifted through my mind as I lay in bed, getting ready to fall asleep. You know all the random thoughts that go through your mind then, when you're too tired to edit out the extraneous bits of information? That's when I first realized it, and I think I nearly jumped out of the bed, I was so shocked at the idea. I got to sleep, though, feeling a bit sad knowing that my feelings would never be returned. After all, we were barely friends at this point. Spike couldn't stand me, and all he cared about was a dead girl I'd never measure up against. It was kind of depressing.
But that's my life.
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After I realized how I felt, it didn't make much of a difference in my daily routine. Seriously, I knew it would never amount to anything, and actually thought it was kind of funny. The ultimate irony, you know, me falling for a guy that wasn't interested at all. So I decided that I shouldn't act, shouldn't cause any friction or tension or whatnot. After all, I was enjoying my partially reunited family, since there were still two members missing. I was happy to have Spike back, and since I knew I was in love with the asshole, it didn't give me such a complex to admit that I liked having him around. But I didn't want to fuck things up, so I decided to just act naturally.
This mainly involved fighting with him on a near hourly basis. Sometimes, when he really pissed me off, it was almost as though I couldn't recall why I liked him at all and then out of nowhere, something really stupid like the way he quirked his head at me or how he glanced at me while taking a drag of his cigarette, something like that would make me realize that this was Spike, and I was in love with him.
It wasn't long before I amended that to desperately in love. I don't think I can be held responsible for this, however, as Spike is extremely hot, and somehow when he's an asshole, and you should be pissed at him, he looks about three hundred times hotter. And then when he's halfway nice…I won't even get into my pathetic ecstasy over that side of things. Let's just say I was feeling kind of like I was back in high school sometimes, it was that ridiculous. I could just see it all being made into a daytime drama all about this slut girl who sees the error of her ways when she meets this bad-ass guy and falls in love with him. Except, in a television drama it would either end with them all dying, or him falling in love with her too.
I knew the second one wasn't going to happen, and I sure as hell hoped I wouldn't be dying anytime soon, so it wasn't really like a television drama after all, I'm just trying to point out that I was feeling like an idiot, and I wasn't acting much more intelligent than I felt. Of course, damn Spike would notice this. The one time he pays attention to me, it's when I'd really rather he not notice a damn thing about me. Because god, if he knew…I wondered if he'd torture me until I couldn't take it, or just give me a good twenty-four hours to leave on my own. I knew that I could hope he'd let me go quietly, but that kind of idea was just me trying to fool myself. Spike thrived on my pain, and I knew better than to expect mercy from him.
He knew something was up, however, and let me just tell you that it's really unnerving to have the person you're secretly in love with sit there and stare at you like they're trying to figure out what it is that's got you acting all weird. Basically, my nerves were already shot from trying to act natural in the first place, and the fact that he still knew something was up and was trying so hard to figure it out on his own was pushing me over the edge.
An explosion was brewing, and I was powerless to stop it.
I know, you're thinking that I sound really overdramatic about how I was getting a bit more moody than usual, but you have to understand what it's like to have your emotions in total control and to know that pretty soon, someone was going to set you off without even realizing that you were ready to blow. Now, the worst part of this was that I was so pissy, I could have cared less if this was true or not. In fact, I kind of looked forward to the moment where I could let go and take out all my pent up frustration and tension on whoever set me off. Especially since there was really only one person who could set me off, and in my opinion, he was responsible for my frayed nerves in the first place.
The only part of it that I disliked was that I couldn't really tell when I'd go off and lose control. I mean, Spike and I still fought about mundane shit all the time, and I treated it like so much of my routine. Every time he said something or did something to set me off, I wondered if this time, it would be the last straw. But it never was, and it was starting to make me nervous. I started to think that fighting with Spike had become so routine for me that it was no more irritating than any other little thing, like having to wait for my coffee to brew in the morning, or being perpetually unable to keep track of a lighter for an hour before I lost it. I was really starting to need to let loose. It was like some sort of release for me, and I was only getting angrier because of the fact that I couldn't reach the point where that tense rope inside of me would snap and let me get back some semblance of calm in my life.
And then I had a really shitty day, and I finally did reach that point. Looking back on it, I'm a little embarrassed, but at the time I was too angry to care about how I must look to everyone else. I think that I knew I was about to lose it from the moment I woke up and found that Ed and Ein had returned while I was sleeping. This in itself did not upset me, and it might have pleased me just a little bit had the circumstances been different. As it was, I nearly fell out of bed, as I oftentimes did when I first woke up (I'm not much of a morning person) and saw that on the floor, there was a very familiar Welsh Corgi with one of my white boots latched firmly in between his steadily chewing teeth.
"What the hell?" I grumbled. I was angry, but not awake enough to shout at this point. It struck me as bad that my boot was being destroyed, and good that Ein had returned, but beyond that, I was utterly baffled as to what I should do. "Drop it, Ein." I knew the dog was a genius, so if he didn't drop my shoe, I'd know that he was mad at me for some reason, or just feeling like he wanted to be kicked. Lucky for Ein, common sense told him to let the shoe go and trot out of the room just in case I realized how angry I should be about his behavior. Still confused and mildly irritated, I walked out of the room in my bathrobe as I did every morning, heading to the kitchen to start the coffee brewing before I took a shower.
"You're up." Spike nodded to me as he nursed a steaming mug of coffee as he sat on the couch with his feet on the table. Now, usually Spike didn't wake up until after me, which suited me just fine because even though he would make coffee so that I didn't have to wait for it, he also took a shower before me if he got up first, and he always made sure to use all my hot water. I spared him a roll of my eyes to indicate that I didn't care that he was eyeing my robe in a way that seemed to indicate that he was amused at having ruined my chances at a hot shower.
"Don't talk to me before I get my coffee." I snapped at him as I walked past.
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you." Spike nodded toward the kitchen. "Ed's back."
"So?" What did I care that she was back? That had nothing to do with my current top priority, to get a hot cup of coffee and take my time drinking it so that maybe the hot water supply would have a chance to be replenished.
"She wanted to make you coffee." Spike offered me an amused grin. "It didn't turn out."
"Oh jesus." I felt the slight tension that was forming in my muscles increase at that damned cheeky grin. "What happened?"
"Faye-Faye! I'm back!" Ed came barreling out of the kitchen before I could get an answer, but the brown stains all over her shirt gave me an idea. "Did you miss me?"
"Ed…what did you do?" I tried to keep my voice calm, and I think the fact that I managed not to sound as though I was three seconds from strangling the strange girl was a good measure of how happy I was to see that she had returned to the Bebop.
"Oh…um…I had an accident." Ed looked contrite, and as that was a rare enough occasion, I was immediately alarmed, brushing past her to gape at the disaster that had taken place in the kitchen. "I was making the coffee machine better but it didn't work out. I think I added too much power. Don't worry, though! I'll make a new one!"
"G…great." My lip twitched slightly at the sight before me. Everything was covered in still dripping coffee, and where the machine had once stood, comfortingly offering the promise of fresh caffeine to all those who saw it, there were only a few scraps of unrecognizable plastic and glass. Further debris littered much of the kitchen floor, and I wondered at the fact that Ed didn't seem to be injured. Turning to confirm that she didn't have any bits of glass embedded in her legs, I saw her disappearing from the room looking a bit less exuberant than usual. It seemed that she understood at least slightly how important coffee was to me. But she wasn't there for me to get angry with. There was only one other person in the living room at the moment, and the way he was sipping at his own cup of coffee suddenly seemed to be the ultimate insult to me.
"You should see the look on your face." Spike chuckled slightly, leaning back and cradling his hot mug between two hands. "Priceless." He sighed then, looking at where I stood, still incapable of speech, but the fury within me must have been visible by then in my trembling fists and my clenched jaw. However, Spike didn't seem to notice this, and if he did, I don't think he realized exactly how angry I was at the moment. "I warned you, though. You know Ed. That's why I got my coffee before she could make it 'better.' Some things just aren't worth risking."
"Spike…I really…hate you right now." That was all I managed to grit out, but I think that it's admirable that in my state, I didn't shout. Yet. I was being really fair with him. He still had a chance to save himself or escape. He could have offered me the last of his coffee, and though it wouldn't have made my morning any better, I suppose it would have softened me up.
"Jealous? Well, I thought of getting a cup for you, but this is just so much more fun." Spike teased me then; obviously not smart enough to realize that this was not a good plan. I was about five seconds from making an attempt on his life, and there he was, egging me on.
"Spike…I think…I'm gonna take a shower now." I was barely holding onto my control at that moment, stomping out of the room as though I could assuage my anger if I made a loud enough noises.
"Good luck, I don't think there's any hot water left!" Spike called after me as I opened the bathroom door and witnessed the shambles he'd left it in. I was so close to killing him…so close.
"I hate him…" I growled, tossing my robe to the floor and climbing into the shower for one of my record one minute showers that managed to be so fast not because I was skilled, but mostly because I was freezing my ass off and didn't want to suffer any more than I absolutely had to. I had thought when I stepped into the shower that maybe there'd be just a little hot water left, and that I'd be feeling better when I got out of the bathroom. Perhaps Spike would not have to experience my wrath just yet. But no. Freezing cold. I hated him so much.
"Hurry up, I need to use the bathroom!" there was impatient knocking, and the last voice that had a right to lodge any complaints with me reached my ears. I believe that this was when I began to see red.
"That's it!" I shrieked, barely throwing my damp robe on before I opened the door and lunged at the surprised and slightly fearful looking Spike Spiegel. "Bastard!" I reached for his throat, snarling viciously as I felt myself lose control of my anger, kicking angrily as he barely stopped my hands from reaching their goal, holding them tightly by the wrists and trying to avoid getting injured by my madly scrabbling fingers. At that moment, I was very glad that I took the time and care to keep my nails long. Now if I could have only reached his face, I would have scratched his eyes out. "Let me go!" I cried out in frustration. I'd landed one good kick in his shins, but after that initial strike, he'd recovered from his shock and held me back far enough that I wouldn't be able to kick him again. Of course, there wasn't a lot of room in the hallway, so he'd ended up pushing me against the wall in his attempt to get me away from him. If I levered myself away from the wall just right though, I knew I could kick him again.
"Faye…what the fuck?" Spike was obviously alarmed at my sudden burst of violence, but I could have cared less what he thought at that point. Pushing back against the wall with a rolling motion of my body, I kicked at the same time, hitting him squarely in his previously injured thigh. Judging from the look of pain that flashed across his features, it was still pretty sore. "Dammit! That fucking hurts!" he cursed as he took in my momentarily smug grin at having overcome his hold just enough to inflict further damage. I was still scrabbling against his hands, trying desperately to reach him when he suddenly did something that I didn't expect at all. He pressed his body against me, effectively trapping me against the wall as he pinned my hands on either side of me. "Calm down!" he ordered, and even though the contact had been unexpected enough that I was momentarily confused and a little less forceful in my struggles, his words incensed me further, and I was again fighting him with everything I had.
"Get off me!" I snarled, my entire body writhing and bucking against the irritatingly resistant barrier that held it in place. Now, you have to realize that I wasn't actually thinking this whole thing through before I acted, so I didn't even realize that my robe was coming loose as I struggled until the odd look Spike was giving me finally registered in the part of my brain that was still observing my surroundings as usual. I'd seen that look before, but never on his face. It was then, as my anger suddenly started to dissolve under the force of my rising shock at the situation that I realized how close I was to being entirely naked, my cleavage more than partially visible in the gaping opening of my robe. Besides that, I'd been wriggling against him in anger, but I suddenly realized how all the bucking and writhing could have been easily misinterpreted. Especially by a guy.
"Stop…that." Spike ground the words out, and I could have sworn there was the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks. I did as he said, but not because he told me to, but because of the fact that I was extremely embarrassed and more concerned with trying to cover my barely concealed chest than exacting my revenge at the moment. However, that was a bit of a challenge considering the fact that I currently couldn't really move or use my hands.
"Let go." My voice shook slightly, but considering the fact that Spike was currently looking at me with that look in his eyes, I think I did a pretty good job of keeping myself calm. I'd never seen that look in his eyes before, and even though I'd tried to imagine what it might be like in some of my more pathetic moments, the way his real eye was swirling in contrast to the unchanged artificial eye just made it that much more intense. I'd known Spike for almost a year, and this was the first time I'd seen that look coming from him. It was exciting, but at the same time, the way he had me pinned against the wall scared me just a little bit. In my previous experiences with Spike, he was a very nonchalant guy, and it was very difficult to get him to display honest emotions. So far, my only successes had been basically limited to anger, and in those rare moments when I made him cross the line between irritation and outright rage, I'd learned that once you actually got Spike Spiegel to be honest, it could be just a little bit frightening how strongly he displayed his emotions. More than once, I'd thought that some ill-timed comment on my part would end with Spike throttling me to death, even though he'd actually never hit me. He had once thrown a spoon at me, but it had scared me much more than it had actually hurt me. Also, once he'd returned to himself, Spike had been so ashamed at the violent outburst that he'd apologized to me. I definitely remembered the apology, as it was something I rarely got to hear from him.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I had suddenly realized that I was pinned to the wall by a man who was looking at me like he might throw me down and take me whether I wanted it or not, and since the man was Spike, I didn't doubt that he just might do exactly that. As I said, it was exciting, but it was also really scary to think that I had just inadvertently caused him to even consider forcing himself on me. But then again, if he couldn't even bring himself to hit a woman, could he really bring himself to just take her? Without asking? I didn't really believe that he would, and even though I knew the effect I had on most men, I knew that Spike wasn't like most men. After all, this was the first time he'd looked at me with that thoughtless, lustful look in his eyes, and it was so unexpected that I froze, only struggling slightly before I realized that all my wriggling had been what started this problem in the first place. And that's when I felt something very hot and very hard pressing into my stomach insistently. I wished at that moment that despite all my past knowledge of men and their bodies, I could have fooled myself into thinking that was a perfectly innocent gun barrel or something that was just barely digging into the top of my hips.
And then, before I could repeat my request to be released, or even decide exactly what I should do in this new, wholly unexpected situation, he bent down the slightest bit, and suddenly his lips were on mine.
*****
The End (Of Part 2, That Is)