My Bebop Love Tune
Chapter Two
By: Captain Scarlet Penguin Keeper
Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop, or Spike Spiegel, for that matter, though that is a shame, he would be such fun to have around.
Spike swung his long legs around to the floor beside his bed and ran his hands through his hair, fingers catching on unruly tangles that he would tackle after his shower.
He looked back at his bed, not very comfortable at all, but all he had, and certainly better than some of the places he'd slept in all of his years.
Faye opened her eyes; they were sticky with too little sleep. The smooth steel ceiling of her room greeted her gaze, right cheery.
Maybe she'd take a shower, if she hurried she could probably get to it before Spike did, with that thought, she hurried out of her bed.
Spike opened his door and walked down the hall, towards the bathroom. He heard a door open behind him and rested comfortably in the thought that he would get to the shower first. Nevertheless he picked up his pace marginally.
Faye got out of her door and turned towards the bathroom, she saw with anger that Spike was already almost there. She was fixing to run when she saw that in preparation for the shower, he'd taken off the pajama pants and was only clad in a pair of boxers, navy blue.
She was momentarily struck dumb by the sight, and she stopped in her tracks. The muscles of his back moved lazily as he walked, he wasn't tense right now, but you could tell they were there. The muscular thighs came out of the shorts, tan and remarkably smooth. Scars laced most of his flesh. Identifiable entry and exit bullet wounds all around his back raised silver patches that were strangely in place on his body.
One cluster interested her in particular, near the small of the back, like the fate of God; they were closely bunched together, but every one of them conveniently missing the spinal cord. It almost seemed sometimes as though Spike wanted to die. So maybe this once in a purple moon occurrence of aim, was proof that Spike had done the gods some awful grievous wrong, and this was their way of spiting him.
The sharp bite of lust touched her lower belly. Faye felt persuaded to attack the cowboy walking rather speedily towards the bathroom, throw him down in the hall and get to know every scar on that damn body.
Right before she touched the hem of his boxers, reality gave her a cruel slap in the face, simultaneously telling her that this was Spike, the annoying lunkhead and that the lunkhead was going to get to the shower before her.
Faye's head came back into play quickly and she jogged down the hall, he was almost there.
Spike's mood took a turn for the better, he was going to get the first shower, and he would feel slightly better after he washed the previous night's dreams off. He turned to enter the bathroom and a purple and white blur sped passed him in the door.
A moment later, he found the door closed in front of him, with the sound of running water coming from behind it. Honestly, he should have run.
Jet listened to the sound of the slamming door and the running water. This race would one day get old, but hearing the anguished cry of the day's loser was always pleasant.
After said cry was let loose, Jet grinned, sounded like Spike had lost today. 'Bout time too, he'd been on a winning streak for a week and a half.
Noting that the loser always opted for breakfast before washing, Jet left the bonsai room and headed for the kitchen, the coffee was already made, he just had to configure something for breakfast; it was probably going to be ramen, as usual.
Just as he pulled the box out of the cabinet, the fore-predicted sound of footsteps came from down the hall.
His green haired partner came in the kitchen, found a mug and poured himself some coffee. He seemed absent, marking Spike usually wasn't a chatterbox, but he didn't seem particularly interested in participating in life right now.
"Want some breakfast, Spike?"
Spike seemed to snap out of his thoughts and come back to the present,
"Sure, what're we having?"
Jet lifted a sardonic eyebrow, "Ramen, what else do we have."
"Of course, I should have guessed, alright then."
Jet chose to ignore the sarcasm and continued on preparing the artificial flavored noodles. Better to have imitation, than nothing at all, he supposed.
Spike had just sat down at the table when out of nowhere, a whirlwind attacked, "Gooooooooooood morning Spike person!!!!"
Spike took another sip of his coffee, relatively unalarmed, "Good morning Ed."
Ed was walking around on all fours on the kitchen floor, sniffing an imaginary trail, "Ed has sniffed out bounty, great biiiiiig bounty!!!!"
Spike looked up with the first real sign of interest so far, "Big bounty, how big?"
Ed's nose lifted from the floor, "50,000,000 woolongs, yes, wanted dead or alive."
Jet looked down at the packets in his hand, "fifty million woolongs, we could have real meat for weeks."
Spikes eyes gleamed with the thought of action, action and real food, the only things that really seemed to get him excited, "What's the bounty's name Ed?"
"Bounty is called Joseph Rorke, Spike-Person, and he's on Ganymede, yep," she said while walking back to the living room and her tomato on her hands.
Spike stood up carrying his coffee and followed her into the main room. He sat down on the worn yellow couch and put his legs up on the coffee table, ironically, he didn't put his coffee there, that, he rested on his leg. He leaned his head back and asked, "What did this guy do that was worth so much to the ISSP?"
"Ed is not sure, there wasn't a description. Ed looked deeper, but all she found were things about a TIGER and how Rorke-Person was a key operator in running it. How do you run a tiger Spike-Person? Ed thought they ran themselves."
Spike didn't answer, his head had snapped up from the couch when she'd mentioned TIGER and now he was miles away on a business building on Mars.
Faye chose that moment to come out of the bathroom, dressed in her barely-there suit with wet hair. She walked into the main room and threw her towel at the back of Spike's head, "shower's yours lunkhead."
When he didn't respond, she en route to the kitchen, "Spike?" He spoke, but not to her.
"Ed, when you read about this tiger, was it in all capital letters?"
"How did you guess?"
Spike put his coffee on the table very slowly, then he leaned his head forward into his hands, "No, oh God, not now, no."
Faye was getting worried, and she was raring up for an interrogation, when he stood up speedily and ran to his room. A few minutes later he emerged in his suit and he walked towards the dock, "I have to go, I'll be back."
Faye watched him leave, unpleasant memories of a night not too long ago that had ended with several gunshots and Spike leaving the Bebop in a very similar manner.
She went into the kitchen, where Jet had gone back to cooking after watching the exchange, "What was that all about?"
He didn't turn from the pot of water, "I don't know. I know what you're thinking, but he said he'd be back and that's a lot better promise than we got last time."
Faye sat down at the table with the cup of coffee she'd just poured, "I know, can't help but wonder though."
"Oh, by the way," Jet said, ladling the ramen into two bowls, "Ed found a bounty worth fifty million woolongs."
Faye spit a spray of coffee back into her cup, "Fifty million?"
"Yeah, that's what Ed and Spike were talking about, name's Joseph Rorke, can't find out what he did to piss 'em off though, all Ed could find was that he was a main operator for TIGER, whatever that is."
Jet set (he he, lets fly) down the bowls in front of them, "Don't worry about him, eat your breakfast, and go on with life."
Faye brought a few spoonfuls of the long noodles to her mouth, then she let the spoon rest in the bowl, with her hand still attached. A minute of silence was born and killed and when it was put to rest, she raised her eyes to look at Jet, "He dreams about when they took him, you know."
Jet's head pulled back from the bowl, and he considered her, "I suppose I guessed he would, he's strong, but he's not impervious."
"It wakes me up, I don't think he knows I know, he can't keep it silent forever, I think its killing him."
"Spike's not the kind to share, it's just not what he does, if he doesn't talk about it, than he's dealing with it silently."
"If he doesn't talk about what they did to him, eventually, it'll eat him alive."
"Maybe that's what he's waiting for. He never did tell us if he found out the answer."
Faye's eyebrows turned down in confusion, "The answer to what?"
Jet resumed eating, "Whether he was dead or alive."
Faye continued as well and they sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes until Jet got up and put his bowl in the sink and left the kitchen.
Faye was left alone. Her thoughts came up from the back of her mind, brutal gang-bangers intent on cornering and battering their defenseless prey. A fight with fists, she could handle, but from your thoughts there is not one place where you can hide, its humanity's unfixable plight.
They'd heard about what had happened that night on Mars from the news. It was everywhere on the local stations, "One man whirl of death destroys syndicate building, no sign of a body, but several witnesses swear, he didn't come out."
Jet had nodded once at the t.v. as if respecting its decision, and gotten up and gone to his bonsai room.
Faye hadn't been so understanding, she'd stared in shock at the television as if waiting for the reporter to stop and look up, cackling wildly, and shout, "Gotcha!"
It hadn't happened.
Spike returned three months later, in sorry condition; bruises of many colors replacing his skin, three broken ribs, two internal injuries, and a partridge in a pear tree. He'd stumbled from the hangar like a mummy, a wraith without a mind or soul, just a single purpose.
What was left of his blue suit wasn't much to speak of, a few tatters that he probably hadn't thrown away because some remnant of his mind remembered human modesty.
The eyes that had assured Faye that he knew he was going out to die that night were glazed over with pain. The body of her former comrade ran on a cousin to autopilot, towards the yellow couch, where Ed was sitting with Ein.
The red head jumped off the furniture and watched Spike walk towards it. When he reached it, he fell on it, a move that had gone brutally fast for the slow speed at which he'd been moving.
Faye hadn't moved until that moment, but when he hit the yellow, she had jumped from her seat and gone to him, kneeling next to the couch. He'd looked at her, somewhere in his good eye she saw recognition. Then the lid had come down and he was lost from her, into a land where she couldn't follow.
All she could do now, was help Jet heal him, and hope he'd have more to say later.
Faye picked up her bowl, her appetite somewhat dulled by the type of food, and subject of thought, and she put it in the sink next to Jet's.
A rare moment of whimsy came upon her and she turned on the water, preparing to do the dishes. She held her hand under the water, waiting for it to heat up, while she thought about things. It had been under there for 6 minutes before she realized that she'd used all of the hot water for her shower.
The faucet handle squeaked rustily as she turned it off and she turned from the sink with a sound of disgust. Couldn't even be nice without interruption lately. Life, right now anyway, was not going at all as desired.
Maybe her karma would've been better if she'd let Spike have the shower.
Chapter Two
By: Captain Scarlet Penguin Keeper
Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop, or Spike Spiegel, for that matter, though that is a shame, he would be such fun to have around.
Spike swung his long legs around to the floor beside his bed and ran his hands through his hair, fingers catching on unruly tangles that he would tackle after his shower.
He looked back at his bed, not very comfortable at all, but all he had, and certainly better than some of the places he'd slept in all of his years.
Faye opened her eyes; they were sticky with too little sleep. The smooth steel ceiling of her room greeted her gaze, right cheery.
Maybe she'd take a shower, if she hurried she could probably get to it before Spike did, with that thought, she hurried out of her bed.
Spike opened his door and walked down the hall, towards the bathroom. He heard a door open behind him and rested comfortably in the thought that he would get to the shower first. Nevertheless he picked up his pace marginally.
Faye got out of her door and turned towards the bathroom, she saw with anger that Spike was already almost there. She was fixing to run when she saw that in preparation for the shower, he'd taken off the pajama pants and was only clad in a pair of boxers, navy blue.
She was momentarily struck dumb by the sight, and she stopped in her tracks. The muscles of his back moved lazily as he walked, he wasn't tense right now, but you could tell they were there. The muscular thighs came out of the shorts, tan and remarkably smooth. Scars laced most of his flesh. Identifiable entry and exit bullet wounds all around his back raised silver patches that were strangely in place on his body.
One cluster interested her in particular, near the small of the back, like the fate of God; they were closely bunched together, but every one of them conveniently missing the spinal cord. It almost seemed sometimes as though Spike wanted to die. So maybe this once in a purple moon occurrence of aim, was proof that Spike had done the gods some awful grievous wrong, and this was their way of spiting him.
The sharp bite of lust touched her lower belly. Faye felt persuaded to attack the cowboy walking rather speedily towards the bathroom, throw him down in the hall and get to know every scar on that damn body.
Right before she touched the hem of his boxers, reality gave her a cruel slap in the face, simultaneously telling her that this was Spike, the annoying lunkhead and that the lunkhead was going to get to the shower before her.
Faye's head came back into play quickly and she jogged down the hall, he was almost there.
Spike's mood took a turn for the better, he was going to get the first shower, and he would feel slightly better after he washed the previous night's dreams off. He turned to enter the bathroom and a purple and white blur sped passed him in the door.
A moment later, he found the door closed in front of him, with the sound of running water coming from behind it. Honestly, he should have run.
Jet listened to the sound of the slamming door and the running water. This race would one day get old, but hearing the anguished cry of the day's loser was always pleasant.
After said cry was let loose, Jet grinned, sounded like Spike had lost today. 'Bout time too, he'd been on a winning streak for a week and a half.
Noting that the loser always opted for breakfast before washing, Jet left the bonsai room and headed for the kitchen, the coffee was already made, he just had to configure something for breakfast; it was probably going to be ramen, as usual.
Just as he pulled the box out of the cabinet, the fore-predicted sound of footsteps came from down the hall.
His green haired partner came in the kitchen, found a mug and poured himself some coffee. He seemed absent, marking Spike usually wasn't a chatterbox, but he didn't seem particularly interested in participating in life right now.
"Want some breakfast, Spike?"
Spike seemed to snap out of his thoughts and come back to the present,
"Sure, what're we having?"
Jet lifted a sardonic eyebrow, "Ramen, what else do we have."
"Of course, I should have guessed, alright then."
Jet chose to ignore the sarcasm and continued on preparing the artificial flavored noodles. Better to have imitation, than nothing at all, he supposed.
Spike had just sat down at the table when out of nowhere, a whirlwind attacked, "Gooooooooooood morning Spike person!!!!"
Spike took another sip of his coffee, relatively unalarmed, "Good morning Ed."
Ed was walking around on all fours on the kitchen floor, sniffing an imaginary trail, "Ed has sniffed out bounty, great biiiiiig bounty!!!!"
Spike looked up with the first real sign of interest so far, "Big bounty, how big?"
Ed's nose lifted from the floor, "50,000,000 woolongs, yes, wanted dead or alive."
Jet looked down at the packets in his hand, "fifty million woolongs, we could have real meat for weeks."
Spikes eyes gleamed with the thought of action, action and real food, the only things that really seemed to get him excited, "What's the bounty's name Ed?"
"Bounty is called Joseph Rorke, Spike-Person, and he's on Ganymede, yep," she said while walking back to the living room and her tomato on her hands.
Spike stood up carrying his coffee and followed her into the main room. He sat down on the worn yellow couch and put his legs up on the coffee table, ironically, he didn't put his coffee there, that, he rested on his leg. He leaned his head back and asked, "What did this guy do that was worth so much to the ISSP?"
"Ed is not sure, there wasn't a description. Ed looked deeper, but all she found were things about a TIGER and how Rorke-Person was a key operator in running it. How do you run a tiger Spike-Person? Ed thought they ran themselves."
Spike didn't answer, his head had snapped up from the couch when she'd mentioned TIGER and now he was miles away on a business building on Mars.
Faye chose that moment to come out of the bathroom, dressed in her barely-there suit with wet hair. She walked into the main room and threw her towel at the back of Spike's head, "shower's yours lunkhead."
When he didn't respond, she en route to the kitchen, "Spike?" He spoke, but not to her.
"Ed, when you read about this tiger, was it in all capital letters?"
"How did you guess?"
Spike put his coffee on the table very slowly, then he leaned his head forward into his hands, "No, oh God, not now, no."
Faye was getting worried, and she was raring up for an interrogation, when he stood up speedily and ran to his room. A few minutes later he emerged in his suit and he walked towards the dock, "I have to go, I'll be back."
Faye watched him leave, unpleasant memories of a night not too long ago that had ended with several gunshots and Spike leaving the Bebop in a very similar manner.
She went into the kitchen, where Jet had gone back to cooking after watching the exchange, "What was that all about?"
He didn't turn from the pot of water, "I don't know. I know what you're thinking, but he said he'd be back and that's a lot better promise than we got last time."
Faye sat down at the table with the cup of coffee she'd just poured, "I know, can't help but wonder though."
"Oh, by the way," Jet said, ladling the ramen into two bowls, "Ed found a bounty worth fifty million woolongs."
Faye spit a spray of coffee back into her cup, "Fifty million?"
"Yeah, that's what Ed and Spike were talking about, name's Joseph Rorke, can't find out what he did to piss 'em off though, all Ed could find was that he was a main operator for TIGER, whatever that is."
Jet set (he he, lets fly) down the bowls in front of them, "Don't worry about him, eat your breakfast, and go on with life."
Faye brought a few spoonfuls of the long noodles to her mouth, then she let the spoon rest in the bowl, with her hand still attached. A minute of silence was born and killed and when it was put to rest, she raised her eyes to look at Jet, "He dreams about when they took him, you know."
Jet's head pulled back from the bowl, and he considered her, "I suppose I guessed he would, he's strong, but he's not impervious."
"It wakes me up, I don't think he knows I know, he can't keep it silent forever, I think its killing him."
"Spike's not the kind to share, it's just not what he does, if he doesn't talk about it, than he's dealing with it silently."
"If he doesn't talk about what they did to him, eventually, it'll eat him alive."
"Maybe that's what he's waiting for. He never did tell us if he found out the answer."
Faye's eyebrows turned down in confusion, "The answer to what?"
Jet resumed eating, "Whether he was dead or alive."
Faye continued as well and they sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes until Jet got up and put his bowl in the sink and left the kitchen.
Faye was left alone. Her thoughts came up from the back of her mind, brutal gang-bangers intent on cornering and battering their defenseless prey. A fight with fists, she could handle, but from your thoughts there is not one place where you can hide, its humanity's unfixable plight.
They'd heard about what had happened that night on Mars from the news. It was everywhere on the local stations, "One man whirl of death destroys syndicate building, no sign of a body, but several witnesses swear, he didn't come out."
Jet had nodded once at the t.v. as if respecting its decision, and gotten up and gone to his bonsai room.
Faye hadn't been so understanding, she'd stared in shock at the television as if waiting for the reporter to stop and look up, cackling wildly, and shout, "Gotcha!"
It hadn't happened.
Spike returned three months later, in sorry condition; bruises of many colors replacing his skin, three broken ribs, two internal injuries, and a partridge in a pear tree. He'd stumbled from the hangar like a mummy, a wraith without a mind or soul, just a single purpose.
What was left of his blue suit wasn't much to speak of, a few tatters that he probably hadn't thrown away because some remnant of his mind remembered human modesty.
The eyes that had assured Faye that he knew he was going out to die that night were glazed over with pain. The body of her former comrade ran on a cousin to autopilot, towards the yellow couch, where Ed was sitting with Ein.
The red head jumped off the furniture and watched Spike walk towards it. When he reached it, he fell on it, a move that had gone brutally fast for the slow speed at which he'd been moving.
Faye hadn't moved until that moment, but when he hit the yellow, she had jumped from her seat and gone to him, kneeling next to the couch. He'd looked at her, somewhere in his good eye she saw recognition. Then the lid had come down and he was lost from her, into a land where she couldn't follow.
All she could do now, was help Jet heal him, and hope he'd have more to say later.
Faye picked up her bowl, her appetite somewhat dulled by the type of food, and subject of thought, and she put it in the sink next to Jet's.
A rare moment of whimsy came upon her and she turned on the water, preparing to do the dishes. She held her hand under the water, waiting for it to heat up, while she thought about things. It had been under there for 6 minutes before she realized that she'd used all of the hot water for her shower.
The faucet handle squeaked rustily as she turned it off and she turned from the sink with a sound of disgust. Couldn't even be nice without interruption lately. Life, right now anyway, was not going at all as desired.
Maybe her karma would've been better if she'd let Spike have the shower.