Okay, I thought that I'd made it apparent that Spike would be a bit…off in this fic since um…his girlfriend just died and all that, but apparently I was too vague on that point, so I guess I'll just have to be a lot more redundant in the future. Thus the specially written intro which basically just sums everything up…again. Yeah. You can skip it if you want, but it's kinda a good look at Faye's perspective on it again, but sure, whatever. So hopefully, after this, if I hear someone telling me that Spike is being too emotional or whatever, I can tell them to shove it up their ass cause it's pre-established. Unless you think he'd be happy that Julia died and he went and killed his former best friend. I'm willing to listen to counter arguments on the topic, but as I've heard none that tell me why he should still be a nonchalant badass all the time…
*****
One More Try
Part 4
*****
There was a pretty strongly established daily routine on the Bebop, strange as that may seem considering the dynamic lifestyles of bounty hunters, but that's how it was. That's why we were all pretty sensitive to anything big that might happen among the crew, as it tended to upset that routine. Julia's death definitely had that effect, and the fact that Spike was changing his routine and acting differently as he tried to deal with his grief cause a sort of upset amongst the entire crew. Okay, so mostly the thing of it was that I'd come to rely on Spike's predictable moods and habits, and it really bothered me when things shifted.
He was spending an unprecedented amount of time in his room, and not only that, his door was almost always locked. The fact that he was physically denying us entry to his room when he usually only used it for sleeping, and even then he sometimes crashed on the couch…well, it was a bit strange, and more than a little suspicious. So I decided to investigate this issue…okay, so I sat outside his room with my ear pressed to the door, but it was all out of perfectly understandable concern. I didn't spend long hours eavesdropping, but it was actually pretty boring. He didn't seem to be doing anything in there, so why the locked door? And then, one afternoon, I heard this strange snuffling noise, and even though it was hard to tell, I figured out that when he locked himself in his room, he was spending his time away from us to grieve for Julia, and that I was actually bearing witness to Spike Spiegel crying. And as unbelievable as that sounds, it was the truth. He never let himself get loud about it, so I wouldn't have known if I hadn't spent so much time eavesdropping, but every once in a while, he'd go to the bathroom after having a good cry, and even though he looked perfectly normal to someone who didn't know any better, I could tell that his eyes were just a bit red, and I knew it wasn't from our mutual bad habit of smoking.
At first, it was strange to know that Spike, who had always struck me as very nonchalant and aloof, cried on a regular basis. I mean, it's not like he did it every day or anything, but the fact that he'd do it up to twice a week…that was a big thing for Spike. He was obviously very broken up about what had happened to Julia, and I sometimes wondered if perhaps he held lingering regrets of Vicious' death. After all, they had been best friends for some time before that whole problem with both of them sleeping with the same inadvertently manipulative woman. Yes, it was all very enlightening for me. Spike could actually feel things so strongly that he would cry. I suppose that I must have suspected as much. After all, as I've said before, he was a very passionate man once you got him to admit his feelings to himself so that he could release them. I can't even count the number of times his anger has scared me half to death even while it was strangely satisfying. And of course…there was the infamous Rape Kiss. So I guess I was aware of the intensity of his emotions, but I just never thought that he could have quite so many. I'd basically limited the Spike Emotional Spectrum to anger, lust, and maybe the occasional moment of supreme happiness, probably at my expense. I never thought of him feeling sadness, of him grieving and feeling regret.
After all, this was the man who had insistently told me that I shouldn't linger in the past, and that such things didn't matter. Of course, I was already aware of his hypocrisy in this respect because of the whole Dead Julia/I'm Going To Kill Vicious scenario, but I never thought he would hold onto the past so tightly. And then he started getting hurt. On purpose. Now, I realize that I go on and on about how careless Spike is, and how he just doesn't care if he gets killed, but I mean that in a complete jest. This was serious. I started to believe that Spike was actually hoping that one night, he'd pick a fight with a bunch of big guys and he just wouldn't come out of the bar alive. Too bad for him that he has that ridiculous ability to survive things that would kill almost anyone else. Oh well, it was nice to know that he'd keep coming home again, even if he was somewhat the worse for the wear, but I would have preferred it if he only got his ass kicked on occasion, when he really was accomplishing something in the process. It's not that I liked having to fix him up all the time, but it would have been strange if Spike was suddenly so cautious that nothing bad ever happened to him. It would have worried me just as much as the bar fights were.
He was talking to me more, also. It was weird, but I actually enjoyed that part of things. I think that's the only reason I was able to make an attempt at pinpointing the source of his destrcuctive behavior as I bound his injuries one night. And then I got him to agree that he'd stop it, and silly me, I actually believed things would get better after that. But what happened only one week later? I'll give you one guess.
"Faye-faye's up late." Ed observed as she looked up from Tomato's screen for a brief once-over of the living room, her adopted bedroom since there weren't enough sleeping quarters for all of us and she didn't seem to care. I sometimes wondered if she actually slept. I'd seen her napping a couple of times, but I was unsure about the whole concept.
"Yeah, Spike's out." I told her, sighing deeply. I think that of all the crew members, I actually had the least trouble talking to Ed honestly. It was probably due to the fact that I didn't really believe she'd go telling Spike everything I said, and beside that, we were both girls…if a little bit far apart on the spectrum of femininity. "I wanted to stay up until he got back. If he's out fighting again, he'll just wake me up as soon as he gets back anyway."
"Maybe Spike-person likes you to stay up." Ed suggested, sounding as though she was making a completely offhand comment.
"Why? So I get pissy and yell at him?" I joked, snorting slightly. Spike would probably think that was a good plan. What that man did for fun…
"When Ed was at the shelter, the Sister-lady always stayed up if one of us was gone late." Ed explained as though this was exactly the same.
"Um…what does that have to do with anything?" I was a bit confused. This was why I avoided intellectual conversations with Ed. She thought in a way that I just couldn't follow.
"Ed liked Sister-lady. She made good food." At least she was sitting in one spot while making utterly no sense at all. It was hard enough to follow her when she was a little mellower, as she was right then. It was impossible when she was displaying the boundless energy that she seemed to always have in secret reserves.
"Yeah, well…that's nice." I decided to not put too much effort into trying to figure out the logic behind what Ed was saying, so I just rolled my eyes and pulled out a cigarette, looking around for my lighter, which of course, I couldn't find. I was convinced that lighters had some vendetta against me, and refused to stay put whenever I tried to keep them for longer than an hour. "Shit…" I muttered. Where was Spike when I really needed him?
"H…hey." I heard the shaky voice and looked up to see Spike stumbling in. It struck me as odd that I hadn't heard him land, but then again, I had been occupied trying to understand what the hell Ed was talking about, so it wasn't that surprising.
"So." I stood up, forgetting my cigarette and resisting the urge to run over and check the limping man for wounds right away. "What have you been up to?"
"Nothing." He was obviously drunk, and you should know that it takes quite a bit of liquor to make Spike obviously drunk. He also seemed to have something wrong with his right arm and there was a bruise forming across his left cheek.
"Yeah. I bet." I stepped forward, meeting him on his way to the couch, reaching up gingerly for his bruised cheek while rising up on tiptoes. "You were fighting, weren't you?"
"Whaddya think?" his words were slightly slurred, and I pursed my lips before turning my attention to his arm, pulling at his jacket to see if I could get a good idea of what the problem was without forcing him to take it off. "Leggo."
"Come here." I pulled him to the couch and sat him down. Ed, I noticed, was watching us with boundless fascination, as though this was more entertaining than anything else she could think of. "I thought we talked about this." I was more than a little upset. He had as good as promised me he'd stop doing this sort of thing, and it had only taken a week for him to break that promise.
"It wasn't my fault." Spike offered me a grin, as though that would make anything better.
"Yeah, I'm sure that you just fell, and your fists happened to land on some guys' chins or something like that?" I pulled at his jacket insistently until he took it off, grumbling slightly and flopping back in the couch. I left the room momentarily to grab the medical kit as well as to give myself a few moments to calm down. There was no reason to get so upset about a dislocated shoulder and a bruise or two. Spike had suffered far worse before, and this was in no way a life threatening condition. But the fact of the matter was that he had definitely told me that he wouldn't go around picking fights anymore, and he was still doing it! Sure, he'd cut back for a few days, but he was still back to square one at the moment.
When I came back to the living area, Ed had returned her full attention to Tomato, and Spike was dozing lightly, as though he were trying to sleep off all the liquor he'd taken in. "So, how many guys this time?" I asked, my tone clipped as I sat down and started rubbing his shoulder to loosen up the muscles enough that it wouldn't hurt so bad when I snapped his arm back into it's socket.
"That hurts." Spike pouted. Only when he was drunk did Spike truly pout. It was pretty funny. "Don't rub so hard. Can't ya do it nice?"
"I don't know." I responded. "Can't you go a week without getting your ass kicked?"
"That guy deserved ta get beat up." Spike informed me. "Asshole."
"What'd he do? Look at you?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
"He was…this tall." Spike told me, lifting his left hand for me to see how far above his own head the man had stood. I was unsure as to whether he was trying to impress me with the size of the man he'd fought with, or if I was supposed to take the man's size as the reason for the fighting in the first place. "An…he had friends…five…no…maybe three…I dunno."
"Spike, I should just lock you up." I told him, deciding that he could take the pain of having his shoulder reset. With a sharp yank and then a well-aimed pressure, it popped back into place. I remembered when I used to think resetting shoulders was difficult, but it seemed so long ago. "You'll get yourself killed one of these times, and you won't even care."
"Well…nah much I can do if I'm aready dead." He pointed out in his inebriated tone. He had winced when I set his shoulder, but Spike didn't remember pain for very long when he was drunk. It was convenient for me that way.
"Don't you care?" I chastised him, making his jacket into a temporary sling until his arm felt better. "Or do you want us to be as miserable as you are right now?"
"Mmm…I dunno." Spike seemed a bit confused as well as slightly amused by this idea. Not that I was terribly surprised, considering the fact that he was drunk.
"Go to bed. I'll bring you some ice for your face." I decided that it was time for the conversation to end, as it obviously wasn't going anywhere.
"Don…tell me what ta do." Spike spent some time getting to his feet and then looking as though he was about to simply fall back over, but he did manage to start walking toward his room in short, misguided steps. I decided that if he ran into the wall, it would serve him right, so I let him continue as I went and made a quick ice pack for him. As I went back through the living room, Ed addressed me once more.
"Spikey came back!" she jumped over Tomato so that she could cut off my path for the moment. "Is Faye-faye glad?"
"No, I'm pissed off." I told her. "Stupid man went out and got himself beat up again."
"Maybe cause of Faye-faye." Ed explained, though it was hard to take anything she said seriously when she was doing a handstand and looking up at you through her bangs.
"I'm sure. I think the only thing he does because of me is take up all the hot water in the morning." I told her before moving past her and taking the ice pack to Spike's room, where he had collapsed on his bed, utterly ruining my sling as he lay right on his damaged arm. I sighed slightly before entering the room more fully. The lights weren't on, but you could see well enough thanks to the light in the hallway. "Doesn't that hurt?" I asked the lightly dozing man as I prodded his side to try and get him to roll on to his back so that I could put the icepack on his cheek.
"Unngh." Was the only response he gave me, moving slightly but not rolling over at all.
"Come on, Spike. Your arm'll hurt like hell if you sleep on it, and I need to make sure your face doesn't get swollen." I informed him, maintaining my calm demeanor reasonably well.
"This…snothin." He grumbled, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow he was speaking into.
"I'm sure. Now roll over before I really hurt you." I lifted one leg to knee his side firmly. It wasn't like I was kicking him, I was just trying to get my point across.
"Stop it." There was no fight in his response, and it was only moments before he had rolled over and was looking up at me groggily. "Crazy fuckin…ummm…"
"Bitch?" I supplied helpfully as I sat on the edge of his bed and tried to re-sling his arm. Of course, this was a losing battle, so I finally settled for laying it up across his chest before I pressed the icepack to his cheek and settled down to wait for him to fall asleep. That should be long enough that it wouldn't swell up terribly the next day. "Just do me a favor and go to sleep."
"What…cha worried?" his voice was intended to be challenging, but it came off more as confused. He was reaching for my face and I ducked out of the way of his hand, as it looked like he couldn't properly judge the distance and might just end up poking my eye out. "Ya got…hair." He pointed, indicating the bangs that had fallen across my eyes. I smiled slightly, using my free hand to brush the strands away.
"Thanks." I reached down with the same hand, straightening Spike's own bangs as well as I possibly could.
"Your hands…cold." He closed his eyes at my touch. "Feels good."
"Little hot?" I asked, pressing my palm to his forehead. He was a little warm, but it was likely only the liquor. "How's that?"
"Better." He answered, sounding content and almost sober. I didn't bother to mention that the icepack on his cheek was probably a lot more cooling than my hand on his forehead. Instead, I decided to treat myself to a few moments of intimacy, or at least some semblance of it. Curling my fingers, I edged them back through the curly head of hair, combing through the thick strands slowly. Spike rumbled slightly, and I assumed that he was expressing his approval of the situation since he was still relaxed and utterly unresisting.
"Your hair is soft." I told him, my voice becoming gentler now that we were getting along for the moment. "I never thought it would be soft."
"Julia…liked my hair." He was halfway asleep, and I don't think that he was really thinking about what he said before he said it, but I could hear the regret in his tone, the utter sadness, and I realized that Spike would always love Julia, even if he got over her death, it would always be with him, and he would always miss her. I wished in that moment that he would care about me half as much. That would make me feel as though my life had really been worth something.
For the time being, however, I satisfied myself with the feel of Spike's hair under my fingers as he slowly fell asleep. Shortly afterward, I stood to leave, even though I didn't want the moment of contact to end. At least I could know that I didn't disgust him totally. That was something.
----------
"Feeling better?" I asked, my tone remaining admirably neutral as I sipped my coffee from the couch where I was bundled in my bathrobe and addressed the man who was just stepping out of the bathroom, clad only in a towel around his waist. I pretended that I couldn't see the slightly swollen bruise under his eye and waited for an answer.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Spike grumbled. He was always terribly grumpy when he had a hangover.
"You were in fine form last night." I teased him as he trudged through the living area on his way to the kitchen, obviously on his way to the coffee maker. "The aspirin's behind your coffee cup. I thought you might want some." I raised my voice slightly as he disappeared into the kitchen.
"God…I don't even remember how I got home last night." Spike returned to the living room, taking his customary spot on the couch, not caring that he was sitting right next to me with his dripping hair, wearing only a towel.
"Oh, don't worry." I smiled wickedly, taking a slow drink of coffee. "Buck seemed like a nice enough guy. By the way, he left his phone number."
"Wh…very funny, smart ass." Spike shook his head slightly, obviously wanting to avoid any really sudden movements. "So…any reason my arm hurts like hell?" he asked.
"You came home with a dislocated shoulder. I did my best, but you ruined my sling, so it's your own fault." I told him pointedly. "How's your eye?"
"Not too bad." He reached up and touched it gingerly. "You ice it down?"
"Yeah." I sipped my coffee again, looking at the liquid as though it was extremely fascinating. "Spike?"
"What?" he asked me, his tone unreadable.
"Why do you do it?" I asked, trying to keep the serious concern out of my voice, but I could tell I wasn't doing a very good job. "I mean…do you seriously not care what happens to you?"
"Look," Spike had turned to face me, even though I was still pretending to stare at my coffee. "I told you I'd be careful. I just…last night, I got a little drunk. That's all."
"But I thought…" I began, but he cut me off, impatient with my concern which was, apparently unwanted and unappreciated.
"Look, you don't have to stay up late waiting for me like some nagging mother." Spike's voice was harsh, and I suppose that after the previous night, I had expected at least a bit of graciousness from him. "I'm not a fucking baby."
"I know you're not a baby!" I slammed down my cup, spilling warm coffee over my hand and not caring. "I don't think it's fair that you're mad at me for being concerned about you! You're the one that's a fucking drunken brawler! I think I have reason to worry about you!"
"I'm not a fucking drunk!" Spike argued, wincing slightly at the pain the volume was causing his already throbbing head.
"Then what do you do almost every fucking night?" I wanted to know. "Look, Spike, I understand that you're all broken up about Julia, but it's been almost six months! That's half a fucking year! You can't keep doing this shit! I refuse to be your fucking nursemaid!"
"Then just leave me alone!" Spike stood up. "I was just fine without your help!"
"Fine!" I sat back, crossing my arms.
"Fine." He stormed out of the room, slamming his door behind him. I was full of righteous anger at first, but when I heard his lock click shut, I began to feel a bit guilty. Spike was going to cry now, I was almost positive. That's what I had decided he did when he locked himself in his room. Added to that, it had been my fault for bringing up Julia, just as I'd told Jet I wouldn't. He had been impressed with me when I agreed to leave the subject of the dead woman alone. He'd said that I'd be good for Spike…What would he say now?
I was so immature. I was no better than Spike. When it came to arguing, I'd snatch at anything that would hurt him, anything that would get a real response. I had started the conversation knowing that Spike was still very sensitive on the subject of his dead girlfriend, but I had still let myself become angry, had let myself rub in his face that very thing that had been causing him so much pain. What was wrong with me? I told myself that I was in love with him, and yet I couldn't stop myself from hurting him in any way that I possibly could.
Standing up, I decided to do something utterly unprecedented. I was going to apologize to Spike. Without being told to. It was somehow difficult to make myself move across the room and down the hallway to his door, but it was even more difficult for me to raise my fisted hand and knock on that door weakly. I felt sick to my stomach, as though there was no torture worse than what I was forcing myself to do right then. Or was I simply sick from guilt at how I was treating Spike? Whatever it was, I wanted to get it over with.
"Spike?" My voice trembled, annoyingly enough. I hated sounding weak and unsure of myself. "Can I come in?"
"Go away." For some reason, that muffled response made me feel like I really was some nagging mother and Spike was my deviant child, and the thought brought the briefest amused grin to my lips, but as soon as it was there, the thought flitted away and I was licking dry lips, placing a hand on the door as though I could reach him.
"Spike?" I repeated. Would he really force me to do this in the hallway? Where anyone could hear me? I was sorry, but I didn't think I was that sorry. "Just for a minute?"
" Why? So you can bitch at me some more?" his voice was bitter, angry, and for once, I wasn't pleased at my ability to garner an emotional response from him. I just felt that much worse about the things I'd said to him.
"Spike…please." Something about my tone of voice must have told him that I was actually being sincere for once, and it must have impressed him, because a few moments later, the lock clicked open and he turned the knob, allowing me a view of him in his undershirt and boxers.
"What is it?" His voice was a bit rough, and I realized that I must have been right. Perhaps he had been crying. And it was all my fault. Somehow, the idea of making him cry didn't strike me as the good thing I had thought it would be. So, he cared about what I said, and I had taken a cheap shot and struck at the one thing that could even possibly make him upset enough to cry. I felt like the biggest bitch in the universe. And knowing that he'd even maybe been crying…I didn't even think about what I was doing, but suddenly, I was lunging at him, my arms wrapping around his torso and my face pressing to his chest as I hugged him tightly.
And once I was there, with my arms around him, I couldn't just let go. That would make it utterly obvious that I was not planning to hug him in the first place, and then I would be forced to let Spike witness me blushing. I despise blushing even when no one can see it, so I refused to let Spike witness my embarrassment. So instead, I decided to just apologize and get the hell out of there before he could think of what was happening. "I'm sorry, Spike. I didn't mean it." There. That hadn't been terribly hard.
But then I encountered a problem, an unforeseen hitch in my plan to apologize and run off. First of all, I was decidedly distracted by the smell of Spike's skin and the surprising softness of his worn shirt under my cheek. This kept me in place for far too long, and then when I was finally in control of my faculties enough so that I could have made my escape, his arms suddenly cut me off, wrapping around me as his face pressed into my hair.
Oh my god. I could have died happy right then. Spike was hugging me. On purpose.
"Sokay." His voice was slightly muffled as he spoke into my hair, but I could have cared less if he was capable of speech at all at that point. I certainly wasn't able to make any noises whatsoever, though I might have been able to manage a surprised yelp if I had really wanted to. What the hell was going on, anyway? Had I stepped into some strange bizarro world where Spike hugs me and accepts my apologies without rubbing my nose in the fact that I had done something wrong? Weren't we supposed to be yelling at each other right then? Shouldn't we be shooting childish insults back and forth until Jet stormed in on the scene and broke things up before someone was injured? I would have pinched myself, but I did not want to risk ruining everything by letting go of him.
I wanted that hug to last forever. It was the sweetest, purest thing I'd ever shared with Spike…no, with anyone in my entire life, and I never wanted it to end. Of course, something was bound to interrupt us at one point. This thing happened to be a redhead wearing spandex and an old shirt.
"Faye-faye and Spike-person are hugging!" she was obviously excited at this very rare spectacle, and I couldn't blame her. After all, it wasn't something that had ever happened before, but as soon as we heard her, it ended, both of us flying apart.
"Ed…did you want something?" I asked her. I wanted to strangle her at that moment, but I suppose we can't always have what we want whenever we want it.
"Spike and Faye! A bike in May! That likes to neigh! A pike's in the waaaay!" and with that, Ed ran off. I glanced up at Spike, but as soon as I felt my cheeks heating, I left his room and went to hide in my own.
I was so in love.
*****
The End (Of Part 4, That Is)