A/N: This is just another one of my psychobabble-esque oneshots I wrote while I was in French... I have a lot of them that I never post, but I figured since Lucifer's Garden won't be updated for a while, why not? I like this one okay, i guess... This isn't the same quality I try to get for my full stories, so don't worry. :) This is another short one, less than 530 words. And you thought Some People was tiny. :) Thanks everyone who reads this, Lucifer's Garden, and Some People, and cookies for everyone who reviews! I love you guys a lot, and merci mille fois pour tes temps!
Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop. Or anything else, really. Hmm.
Flare
The day he realizes it is indistinguishable from the others. It's just another string of hours in transit, another chain of moments lost to the darkness of space. There is nothing remarkable, there is nothing unique. But then again, the most beautiful of thoughts come when there is nothing left to say.
He is on the couch, watching her smoke. She's draped herself across the chair, her hair falling thick and heavy, brushing the floor, the smoke from her cigarette reaching out to the metal ceiling. His eyes linger on her stomach, pale and bare. Her legs, long and bent at the knee. And then her green eyes, open and empty.
The realization settles on his mind like a butterfly. Beautiful, soft, not meant to be understood.
She will die.
It takes a moment to sink in; he isn't used to brooding on the mortality of men. He has been alone for so long that other people's lives have become distant, unimportant. Only his own looming death is of any matter, and he understands that that which does not kill him is only postponing the inevitable. He will die, and Vicious will be the one to do it. Because in the end, only Vicious can. And that is fine. He understands. But it somehow feels wrong to know for sure that she of all people, is on the same road. That she, of all people, will grow old and die.
Some kind of strange, unsettling sorrow seeps quietly into his stomach as he watches her chest rise and fall. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. He tries to match his breathing to hers, tries to reach out and understand her. In a kind of offbeat way, she seems too strong for death. Too strong for a lot of things.
Him included.
Maybe, if they had met before Vicious and the syndicate, things would have been different. If they had somehow skirted around Julia, they would have ended up friends. Lovers, maybe. It isn't such a bad thought. But then it is, because they hadn't skirted around Julia, and in the end, Julia is the real issue at hand. She has captured him, and he isn't going to let her go.
So there they sit.
Just two people, a man and a woman, breathing in time. He will, without a doubt, be the first to go. Then the dog, then Jet, and then years and years later, she will die, too.
And that's fine.
Their breaths fall out of sync and Spike Spiegel lets himself smile. It's good to know that at least someone is on this road with him, hurtling at light speed towards whatever the hell comes after life, after death. Even if, in this moment, she doesn't know he's even in the room. Her mind lingers on Callisto now. Probably with Gren. And his, of course, chooses to stay on Mars with Julia, in the fleeting seconds of their happiness. Russet eyes grow hazy, and he is lost to his past.
Somewhere, out in the coldest reaches of space, a star flares.
A split second later, it is gone.