Lucifer's Garden
A/N: Holy cow! So when I posted This Is How We Cope (read it!) and said I may get this chapter done tonight, I didn't actually think I would... Well, I did! Yay! Happy New Year! I'm sorry this took so long... This is a transitional chapter. We're moving from what I consider to be exposition to the acutal meat of the story, so this is an awkward one. I really don't like it, but I'm pretty sure it's the best a chapter like this can be. A lot of you didn't like Jude, but she is a pretty important character. I'm sorry if y'all hate her... She gets better once we develop her a little. Bear with me, here. :D I'm sorry if any of you were confused by the 'Stay away from my girls' comment in the last chapter... That wasn't Alex in love with Faye, it was Alex rubbing Faye in Spike's face. Sorry! And thanks to everyone who reviewed any of my stories! You guys are all that keeps me going sometimes, and I'm really happy you liked ch. 3. That makes all of it worth it. Blood, sweat, and tears go into this, baby. Thanks for reading! I'm actually in Venice right now and it's about 2:00 AM on New Years Day, so I'm especially happy to have this done. Bedtime! Yay! Enjoy, guys. Luv ya!
Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop and I'm too tired to come up with a clever disclaimer
Chapter Four:
The Salvation Waltz
Feeling unknown and you're all alone
Flesh and bone by the telephone
Pick up the receiver, I'll make you a believer
Take second best put me to the test
Things on your chest you need to confess
I will deliver, you know I'm a forgiver
-Depeche Mode
Footsteps. Loud and sharp, the unmistakable sound of practical shoes on too-cold stone. The people in the pews listened but did not look, focusing their eyes straight ahead, almost afraid to see her at all. Their beautiful cage of a cathedral was dark, madly air conditioned, and victim to the grimly flattering glow of candles spread throughout the nave. And still those footsteps came, strong and deliberately intimidating.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
She was making her way to the altar. The gun was warm in her hand and almost sickeningly comfortable, cocked and ready. It flashed in the candlelight. She exhaled and her breath formed a white cloud before her face. It was cold. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the people shivering, fighting hard against the twitching of their muscles, clenching their teeth with the effort. A hundred silver crucifixes caught the light as their owners shook, a hundred breaths condensed in the air. A sleek black eyebrow twitched and she had to remind herself that they were unimportant. Useful, yes, but just a means to an end. Just sinners afraid of death and what came after it, looking for the only redemption the grime of Tharsis City could offer them: her.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Her footsteps stopped short as she reached the altar, echoes still slipping through the room. The woman who followed behind her stumbled to a halt, her heels scraping the smooth grey stone as she struggled to stay upright and a reasonable distance away.
"Kneel." The words spilled from her lips like chiffon, settling lightly over the men and woman in the pews. They remained still; only the woman who had trailed down the aisle sank to her knees. She turned to face her then and it was hard not to wretch at what she saw. The woman was, without a doubt, more disgusting than most. Her skin was pasty and her dyed black hair was lank, brown eyes clouded. She looked exhausted in a way that only came from years spent in the back of cars with strangers, from hits of Red Eye just to get through the day. Her name was a mystery, not important enough to inquire after. And there she kneeled, practically salivating, awaiting whatever forgiveness the woman with the gun could offer.
"You have sinned."
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
"Yes, Sister. I have." The woman practically moaned, turning those sickly brown eyes to her again.
"You seek redemption."
"Yes, Sister. I do."
The echoes faded into silence. The pause squeezed the air tight and she could feel her stomach turn at the sight of this woman so broken. When she spoke again, it was airy and ever-so-gentle.
"You shall be punished."
"Yes, Sister. I know."
The woman's brow creased then, a sad smile crossing her weary face. At one point, she might have been attractive. Beautiful, even. But in all honesty, no one cared anymore. Not one soul.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
"I will deliver you."
"Please, Sister… Please. Save me."
"Say it." Short and clipped, hollow in the absolute chill of the cathedral.
"I have sinned. Please, forgive me. Please, redeem me. Please, Sister Amelia. Please save me." Sick brown eyes begged, pleaded. Fat beads of sweat broke out on the woman's forehead as the frigid barrel of the gun pressed soft flesh.
"I pray the Lord takes you into his embrace."
She pulled the trigger.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
And then the footsteps again, marching down the aisle. Someone would clean up the mess once she was gone, just like they always did. And the woman's life would end uncelebrated, as they always did. And the people of Mars would sit and watch with that sick kind of fascination, wishing they too had the courage to be delivered.
Just like they always did.
As she made her way purposefully towards the towering doors of the cathedral, her eyes cold and focused straight ahead, she couldn't help but smile the slightest bit.
The people sitting in the pews saw that smile. Saw it, and did nothing.
Amen.
The morning of June 1st found Faye Valentine regretting the decision to ever get out of bed. She stood on the island of her shadow, black against the green of the tennis court, a racket gripped in her right hand. Her eyes were on the ground, her dark hair tied back, her very white tennis dress short for no particular reason. Across the net she could hear Jude, beautiful in the clean morning light, laughing and talking to one of her friends. Bijoux, maybe. Faye hadn't bothered to pay attention past the initial handshake. Beatrice King, the matriarch of the household, sat on the sidelines in a flirty black sundress with a matching hat, cold blue eyes hidden behind very dark shades, a rapidly condensing Diet Coke held casually in one neatly manicured hand. It was a morning just like every other morning since Faye had moved in; a light breakfast, a little tennis, maybe some shopping or lunch out with Jude's friends. The sheer repetition of it made Faye want to blow her own brains out, and she had seriously considered it once or twice, but there were too many perks of the deal to take the easy way out. And if she went a little insane, who would know the difference anyway?
Not that she had been particularly sane to begin with, considering the ease with which she had let Spike Spiegel back into her life. A pass that would, without a doubt, come back to bite her in the ass.
"Faye, are you ready?"
Faye's head jerked up and her eyes met Jude's. The younger woman had shoved her friend, a nondescript brunette, off the court and was bouncing a bright yellow ball, her mouth turned up in a sweet smile.
"Yeah, sure." Faye muttered, not really loud enough to be heard. Jude must have gotten the message because a moment later the ball was whizzing through the air at her head. Faye swung her racket and managed to send it back across the net. The volley continued for a few moments but Jude eventually won the point, if only because Faye didn't really give a shit either way. Her mind was still trying to wrap itself around the previous day, struggling to get past the warmth of Spike's skin against hers so that she could even begin to process the long term effects of his not-so-unexpected return. On some level, Faye had always known he would show up again; the solar system was too small for someone like him to fade into eternal obscurity. Even if he did manage it, Jude and Beatrice would hunt him down and drag him back into society, if only because they felt it would be worth their time to see him wander out one morning without his shirt on.
Not that she cared what they felt. They could both drop dead and it wouldn't do anything but make her life that much easier.
And maybe it was sort of worth it.
"Game point." Jude said from across the net, voice cool, one arm raised in premature victory. Her body was angled in a way that made her look like a strangely graceful puppet with half-slackened strings. Faye glanced sideways at Beatrice, a little miffed at the snide smile on her plastic lips. Jude would win because Jude always won at everything. Faye had learned long ago that to try was useless, just like trying to get her fiancée's mother to tolerate her was useless. So she just shrugged to herself and turned a neat circle on her toe, moving towards the center of the court to get the stupid game over with. She hated tennis anyway.
Ten minutes and a hell of a lot of scuff marks on her new shoes later, Faye had indeed lost the game. Big fucking surprise. As she wandered over to the sidelines, wiping her brow and trying to ignore maybe-Bijoux's nearly hysterical laughter as she went, Faye had to wonder at her bad mood. In all honesty, she didn't hate Jude that much. Yeah, it sucked to go out in public with the most beautiful girl on Mars. And sure, the way she talked about Spike was fucked up to say the least. But she wasn't that bad. Not really. She was sharp, sharper than Faye at least, and sweet when caught in the right mood. Now Beatrice on the other hand…
"Faye, sweetest. Could you come here for a moment? While Judith is speaking with Bijoux?" An involuntary wince crossed Faye's face as Beatrice King's voice slithered the three or so feet between them and oozed into her ears.
Beatrice, on the other hand, was a bitch.
"Sure." Faye drawled, turning the wince into a smarmy smile, her eyes narrowed almost dangerously as she wheeled around to face the figurative head of the household.
"So Faye." Clipped and paired with the stickiest smile Faye had ever seen, the comment was made threatening in the most demure of ways. "I've been thinking."
"Have you, now?"
"Yes. About you and Alexander."
Shit.
"That's nice."
Beatrice let loose a light, long perfected laugh before her reply. "Of course. Faye, sweetest, you never met Alexander's father, did you?"
Faye blinked. A long, awkward moment passed in relative silence, broken only by Jude and Bijoux's jabbering behind the them. No, she hadn't met Alex's dad. From what she had heard he had been a lunatic asshole, but his wife's adoration of him was legend.
"No. Unfortunately not." Faye drawled as her mind began to function past her apprehension.
"He was a great man. The most handsome man in the solar system. Smart as a whip."
"So I've heard."
"Do you know what I used to do, Faye, angel? I used to bring him lunch at work. We'd have a kind of picnic in his office." A sickly nostalgic sigh. "It was just the sweetest thing."
Faye winced. "Yeah. That's cute."
"And you know, Faye, Alex reminds me of his father sometimes. Maybe he would like it, as well."
Two frozen appeared on two faces. Two sets of eyes narrowed. Faye reached up and tugged her hair out of it's ponytail, squirming as thick hair blanketed her neck and shoulders.
"I'm sure he would."
"I've had Nathan whip up a little picnic basket for you to take to Alexander this afternoon. You two can eat in his office, take a little time off. Of course, I would bath first if I were you, Faye."
"Thanks Beatrice." Faye spat with the sweetest of smiles. "That sounds great." She turned sharply on her toe and exhaled, glad to be done with the conversation and wondering if Beatrice had any actual idea of what her son did for a living.
"Faye!"
Damn it.
"Yeah?"
A pause. "You can call me Mrs. King."
Faye Valentine deflated.
Bitch.
There were papers on the desk. Lots of papers, all neatly stacked and perfect black on white. Figures, mostly. Disgusting numbers, hopelessly tragic and empty, lists under headings that ran along the lines of 'Men Lost' and 'Body Count'. There was a folder, too, and a pen and something that might have been a photograph once upon a time. In the top left corner there was a light but it was turned off and behind was a window with the whitish and sort of sheer curtains drawn. And across the desk was a woman, was Amber, seated neatly in a guest chair, her brown hair fighting a losing battle against the humidity.
Spike Spiegel didn't give a shit about any of it. Alex could go to Hell for all he cared, could take Faye and Jude and Amber and the entire establishment with him. This was punishment and it was fucking sick and Spike didn't want to be here. Tharsis made his stomach turn and administrative work was mind numbing and his foot was falling asleep. The numbers, so black against the white of the pages, so mechanical about the stories they told, were giving him a headache and everything was wrong in the most fundamentally wrong way.
And maybe, just maybe, Alex had known what he was doing all along.
Then again if he had, Spike wouldn't have been at that desk, in the 'new and improved' syndicate building, watching Amber try to pull her rebelling hair into a braid or a ponytail or anything that would work with her. Because if Alex had known what he was doing, Spike never would have needed to get involved with the reformed Red Dragons in the first place. It just… wouldn't have been necessary. He probably wouldn't even be alive. But there he was, everlasting proof that Alex King was just a pretty little rich boy playing organized crime and Spike was no good at running a business, even one he had been involved with on some level or another for years and years.
Spike had to take a moment to fully appreciate how completely shit his life had become. But then Amber spoke.
"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
Spike quirked an eyebrow and glanced up at her, taking a stack of papers and putting them in the folder just to look busy. "About what?"
She was blushing. "Alex and… well, you know."
He smiled slightly and that must have put her at ease a little, despite how his eyes involuntarily narrowed at her. "That's okay. I don't mind. I'm happy for them."
And in his better moments, he was. More shuffling of papers followed, hand in hand with a moment of doubtful silence. "I'm not quite sure I believe that." Amber said finally, sardonic and so sharp that it took Spike a second to realize it was she that had spoken.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Spike countered easily, picking up the photograph and examining it. It was kind of blurry and he wondered idly if he needed glasses. He decided he wasn't quite that old yet and let the picture fall back to the desk, a lost cause.
"You've never done anything just for the hell of it, whatever you might say. Come on, Spike. All that effort? You've got to be at least a little angry."
Spike quirked an eyebrow and smiled the slightest bit. "I think you're overestimating the level of affection between Faye and I."
"Sure, Spike. Whatever you say." She was smiling a kind of shrewd smile he had never seen before. Spike grinned and held his hands up in mock defeat.
"You weren't around in the old days. I can't blame you for that."
Amber narrowed her eyes at him playfully. "People change, Spike."
Spike's eyes flickered to the desktop and were greeted by numbers. He could feel a headache coming on. "Circumstances change, Amber." He replied very carefully. "Never people."
"I think you're wrong."
"And I think Faye and Alex won't last a year. They can do whatever they want, but I won't be around for her to come running to when this blows up in her face."
Hesitation. Brown met blue and Spike knew immediately he had said something wrong.
"Spike…" Amber's brow was furrowed and her voice was low bordering on reluctant. "I hate to tell you, but Alex King is rich as the devil and handsome as sin. Maybe she won't want to give all of that up. And maybe there are more factors than you know." She drew another breath and opened her mouth to speak again, but she must have thought better of it. Her lips sealed and the air pushed itself out of her lungs in an almost frustrated sigh. Amber stood and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of her jeans, sticking one in her mouth and lighting up.
Spike was silent for a moment, watching her through half-lidded brown eyes, hands folded neatly in his lap. "Finish," He said very calmly, giving her the smallest of smiles. "What were you going to say?"
Big blue eyes turned to him, disinclined under a carefully arched eyebrow. "You haven't exactly been good to her, Spike. I don't expect you to understand because you weren't here when everything happened, but…" A pause as she gathered her thoughts. Amber's eyes moved back to the carpet. "You're my friend Spike, and I love you to pieces. But you have to know that there's no reason for her to go back to you. Especially after what you did."
"She was never with me, Amber." Spike said quietly. Amber's cigarette slipped from her fingers but she didn't move to pick it up. The rug smoldered at her feet.
"Exactly."
Spike let his eyelids slide closed and moved his hand up to scratch the back of his head. As long fingers tangled in wild hair, nails digging into the flesh of his scalp, he was silent. He could smell the carpet scorching but didn't really give a crap either way. Alex would just replace it if necessary. He was taking the moment to think about Faye, really think about her, because she deserved at least that. Amber was right; there was no reason for her to ever want to speak to him again, and he should have considered himself lucky she had taken the time to come and see him at all. But when it came down to it, he wasn't. All it had done was reminded him how easy things had been last time despite the Red Dragon fiasco, and shown him just how false all of that had been. Because here he was again.
But loyalty had always been his fatal flaw. And so it would remain.
Russet eyes snapped open. Amber was standing very still, watching him with very sad blue eyes. "You can take the rest of the day off if you want, Beaumont." Spike said languidly, giving her a lopsided grin to ease the lines of worry on her face. "I couldn't have done it without you."
A corner of Amber's mouth twitched. "Done what?"
"Fucked up so badly." He said with a casual shrug.
"Somehow I think you'd have managed." She said sweetly, inclining her head as a sign of respect. It was then she bent and picked up the cigarette, crushing it smoothly in Spike's ashtray with a smile. "But I think I'll stick around anyway, just incase you need some more help in that department."
Amber was out the door before Spike could even say goodbye.
Judith Roxanne Monticello-King held the vial up to the light. It flashed red and she had to smile. Fucking beautiful.
"And you shall shed red tears," She laughed wryly, darting a glance at her best friend. The girls were alone in Jude's bedroom, adrift on a sea of peach floral brocade and very white carpet. "This should be fun."
"It's good stuff," Bijoux Valois affirmed a little vacantly, picking absently at the bedspread. "That's what Audrey said."
Jude cocked an eyebrow. Audrey knew what she was talking about. "Do you want it?" she asked, offering the vial to Bijoux. The other girl sat up and cocked her head, her brow furrowed.
"What about you?"
Jude shrugged one shoulder. "I have some stuff to do later. And I've got something else, anyway. Alex just got it and gave some to me."
"Something new?"
"Yeah. Brand new."
Brown eyes widened. "What is it?" The vial flashed crimson as Jude laughed and tossed it to Bijoux, who caught it and hugged it to her breast.
"Like that," she said with a head jerk towards the liquid clasped in her friends hands. "But stronger."
"Red Eye?"
"No. Bloody Eye."
And they laughed like it wasn't the same in the end, anyway.
"I'm really sorry Miss Valentine, but Mr. King isn't in his office right now."
Faye was silent for a long moment, her eyes narrowed almost dangerously. "Excuse me?"
Alex's secretary's brown eyes widened slightly, a nervous smile plastered on her lips. "He's been in meetings upstairs since eleven. I'm really sorry, Miss Valentine…" She trailed off.
A flick of her wrist and Faye was checking her watch, her mouth twisting into a snarl as she caught the time. Eleven forty five. Fuck. The perfect window of time had passed, and now she was bordering on incompetent. Green eyes darted back up to meet brown once more. "Do you know how long he'll be gone?" Her left had tightened its hold on the picnic basket she carried, her hip popping involuntarily. Beatrice had sent her on this fucked up little errand almost an hour ago, but the traffic had been bad bordering on ridiculous, and now Alex was in 'meetings'. Alex didn't go to meetings. Everyone knew that. Faye sincerely doubted he even knew what one was in the business sense of the term.
"I'm so so sorry Miss Valentine, but I have no idea."
"You can call me Faye if you want."
"Oh… Okay Miss Valentine. You can take a seat if you want. I'm sure he would like to see you…"
It was very hard for Faye to keep from laughing. It was impossible for her to imagine Alex actually wanting to see her, and she wasn't about to waist precious brain cells trying. There was no reason for her to stay, anyway. She had better things to do with her life than waiting for Alex to wander past his office for coffee, especially when the spawn of Satan, otherwise known as Beatrice, was making even that ten times more difficult than it would ever have to be.
"You know, I don't think I'll stick around." She heaved the picnic basket into the secretary's arms. "Could you just make sure he gets this? Tell him it's from me." Faye did her best to smile past her irritation, although in some small way it was a relief to have Alex gone. It just made everything that much faster.
"Oh, sure Miss Valentine. I'll let him know." The secretary's eyes were getting bigger by the minute, and a very satisfied Faye watched almost triumphantly as the petite woman began to retreat back into the safety of what passed as her office. The door clicked closed, leaving Faye alone in the hallway.
A job well done.
She turned neatly on her heel, her smile fading fast from her lips. She didn't know why she had anything to prove to Beatrice, but still Faye found herself fighting to gain her approval, her respect, her admiration. It was bullshit and she knew it, but that didn't seem to be making much of a difference.
Faye reached the end of the hall quickly, the combined effects of her quick steps and Alex's compulsive need to be close to the elevator. Her thumb pressed the call button and she hung back, crossing her arms almost self-consciously under her chest. She shifted her weight and back again. Glanced back over her shoulder at the very empty hall. It was as she slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans that she saw it. A wooden double door with gold embossed letters that read:
Spike Spiegel
Administration
Spike's office. Faye took a step closer, wondering idly if he was there, what he would be doing if he was. Paperwork, probably. Lots and lots of paperwork. And maybe smoking, too, if he had started again. She had, and it just served as one more reminder her very perfect life two years ago had been painfully temporary. But still she lingered, her eyes glued to the door, the doorknob, the first letter of his name. Her mind was spinning with possibilities. The curiosity was devastating. The ding of the elevator arriving was what drew her out of her meditation, but by the time she ripped her attention from the shiny gold S the doors were sliding closed, ushering the plush box to another floor. Too late.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck.
Faye's hand was on the doorknob before she could register what she was doing, the metal cool against the sensitive flesh of her palm. And then she was twisting and watching the movements of her own arm with a kind of sick fascination and counting the seconds until it would be too late to run. Excuses were flooding her mind. They were all crap and she knew it.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck fucking hell. Fuck. She was fucked.
The door was open just enough to gather what was beyond it, and Faye could see an office. Large, relatively bright, nicely furnished. There were a couple of bookshelves scattered around the room, a big leather chair in one corner, and a polished wooden desk in the center dominating the space. But her eye was drawn straight to the window behind it because that's where Spike was, his shoulder pressed to the glass as he looked out at an angle. The late morning light was catching beautifully in his hair and making it almost green, playing across his features to make them sharp and very definite, almost like he was carved into stone. Faye felt the feeling drain very slowly from her body from the top down, her eyes locking onto his lithe form and refusing to go elsewhere. She sensed herself moving forward, her palm flat on the door to push it further open, but those sensations were very distant. Her entire consciousness was focused on Spike and trying to draw the moment out as long as possible, desperately seeking to make his rough beauty tangible. He must have felt her stare; with a slow, deliberate turn, his eyes caught hers and held them, one hand sliding into his pocket and his mouth screwing up into a cool, almost mocking smile.
"People are gonna think something is going on if you keep coming to see me like this." Spike's voice was smooth and very concise, pushing Faye into a good mood so his words hardly sunk in.
"Since when did you care what other people thought?" Faye took a step forward, popping a hip and watching him, her own voice sounding very far away. He was backlit now, deeply shadowed by the grungy Tharsis light but enchanting all the same. He looked like an amateur photograph, hazy but artistic in its own way.
"I'm starting to think you don't know me as well as you let on."
"Does anyone?" A quick smile to match Spike's, but Faye couldn't hold it for long. Too much effort, too little reward. He probably couldn't tell the difference, anyway. Spike gave her a little laugh and moved away from the window, his other hand finding a pocket as he came to stand beside his desk, dark eyes looking Faye up and down less than subtly.
"If you're here to give me another of Alex's little messages, forget about it. I'm not interested."
"I'm Alex's fiancée, not his envoy."
"Hey, I'm just learning from the past." One eyebrow rose neatly. "Isn't that what you people have been telling me to do this whole time?"
Faye assumed 'you people' meant her and Jet. She bristled slightly, but she could tell by his tone he was joking in that fucked up way of his. "You are an incredible asshole. Do you know that?"
"You're the one that came to me, Faye. And if it doesn't have anything to do with Alex, I'm not sure I have time." Spike smirked suggestively and stretched his arms up to lock his hands behind his head. He watched her and she squirmed under his gaze, glaring back. His voice was light and amused as he replied, "How can I help you, Faye?"
She just sighed loud and long, an overly theatrical display of all the sorrow and regret she didn't feel. "I'm sorry Spike," Faye said, flipping her hair back and grasping at straws. Any excuse to get away would work. "But you can't. As much as I know it must pain you to see me go, I must leave you now. There just aren't enough hours in the day." A blush and a wave of her hand left Faye free to make her escape, wondering at how that had passed for an excuse at all. She was at the door when Spike spoke again.
"Is the wild calling you?"
"You bet it is."
"Well in that case, maybe I should show you out. You know, considering that you came all the way here just to see me, it seems a waste to just go now."
"Don't flatter yourself," Faye said smugly, pivoting to face him. "I'm here to bring Alex lunch. He wasn't there." If the new bit of information fazed Spike at all, there were no visible signs.
"He's never there," Came the easy reply. Spike started towards the door and Faye, just to maintain a reasonable distance from him, moved out into the hallway. Finding nothing there to distract her, she pressed the call button on the elevator a total of four times. Spike just watched her in silence as she did so, his hands busy closing the door to his office. But then the door was shut and the elevator was called, and all that was left to do was wait.
No one spoke. The pair stood silently against the wall, close enough for discomfort on Faye's part but not anywhere near touching. Awkward. When the elevator finally arrived, the signature ding! heralding the sliding open of the doors, Faye was the first off the wall and the first in, eager to get this over with. Spike had always made her vaguely uncomfortable, and now more than ever she wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately for her, the elevator was a contained space and Spike seemed to have a knack for getting the empty ones. Faye hit the button that would take them to the lobby, content to spend the long ride down in absolute and incredibly uncomfortable silence. Her eyes fixed on the screen above the doors as they locked in place, shutting her in. They began their descent.
One floor down. Spike took a spot next to Faye, slouching against the richly upholstered wall. He reached up to scratch his wild mess of hair and the sound of fingernails on skin made Faye squirm.
Three floors down. She shifted her weight and he did the same. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he began to search his pockets.
Four floors down. It was a pack of cigarettes he had been searching for. Faye was a little taken aback as he pulled a white cylinder from his crumpled pack and put it in his mouth, lighting it quickly and beginning to puff. The NO SMOKING sign on the wall across from them glared.
Seven floors down.
"You started smoking again." Faye said suddenly, a little put out. She turned her head to look at him and he smirked, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth and holding it like she used to hold her joints in high school.
"Yeah."
" Me too." That admission hurt a hell of a lot more than it should have. In some fucked up way it felt that they had given up on life, on health, on each other.
Ten floors down. Spike offered her his cigarette. Faye took it, taking a long drag before handing it back. It slid between his lips and she shuddered, wanting to touch him so badly it hurt. Fuck. The next time he handed it over, thirteen floors down, she make sure their fingers brushed. Spike just cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
At fourteen floors down the elevator jerked to a halt and two women got on, both dressed in expensive grey suits. They held pistols in their hands and were doing routine maintenance, checking clips and triggers and barrels. They each gave Spike a nod of recognition and stepped in, continuing their conversation.
"… and I told her that the shipments had to been in right on time because-"
"Yeah, the window."
"Exactly. But she said to me…"
Spike turned to Faye, the cigarette hanging from his lips. "So you and Jude are buddies."
"You know, she talks about you a lot."
"What does she say?"
Faye grinned, a little surprised that he wanted to know. Maybe she really didn't know him as well as she let on.
The women continued.
"You know Gabi, don't you? The bitchy receptionist?"
"Yeah. Didn't she sleep with Jake?"
"After the divorce. So Gabi called my secretary last night, and…"
"I don't think I'm allowed to tell you." Faye replied smugly, relishing the power. Spike just shrugged, his nonchalance putting a serious damper on her fun.
"I'll find out somehow." He shot her a meaningful look. "I always do."
"Do you now?"
"I do. One way or another." A wink. Beautiful.
Ding!
Faye tore her eyes away from Spike to see the elevator doors opening to reveal the lovely lobby of Red Dragon Incorporated, bustling and shiny and very a la mode. The two women stepped out into the throng, their continuing conversation drowned out by footfalls and chatter, lost to the general commotion. Spike was next out, the cigarette still in his mouth, his hands in his pockets again. When Faye didn't follow immediately, choosing instead to fish around in her purse for her own pack of smokes, he turned back and gave her a look. She heaved a sigh and followed, trailing after him as he pushed through the freakishly crowded room. There was hardly room to breathe and Faye might have lost Spike if he wasn't so god damn tall. The fact that he wrapped a hand around her wrist to pull her along behind him, while it did nothing to establish her independence of him, was easily overlooked in the general unrest.
"What the fuck is going on here?" Faye managed to communicate to Spike in one of the rare moments he turned back to her. He just shrugged and moved ahead, giving her a smile like he would a pat on the head to a worried dog. They must have been almost to the door when Amber caught up with them, panting and tussled.
"Spike!"
They stopped abruptly as she emerged from the crowd. Her eyes were wide and her hair was a complete mess. Faye couldn't deny that she got some kind of perverse pleasure from seeing her such a wreck; they had never gotten along all that well.
"Hey Amber," Spike said smoothly, debonair as all hell. "What's happening here?"
Amber shrugged, looking around them at the mass of people milling around with guns glimmering in their hands. A kind of bubble had been formed around the three of them, maybe a sign of respect for Spike, although Faye didn't particularly want to dwell on it. "It's another protest. Alex called for all the reinforcements and then left. No one knows exactly what's going on."
"What does it look like outside?"
"Typical mob scene, maybe on a kind of bigger scale. Nothing to be worried about, I don't think." Amber flashed a weak smile.
Spike craned his neck subtly and scanned the room. "Do you think you can take care of it for me?"
Amber's blue eyes shot to Faye, looked her up and down almost pityingly, and she nodded. "Sure I can. I don't think it's a very big deal. But I'd take the back way out if I was you, Spike. She's kind of a public figure." She said with a head jerk towards Faye.
"Great. Thanks Amber." With a nod of goodbye, Spike was moving away with his hand still wrapped tight around Faye's wrist, not even bothering to let her know just where they were going. But all of that was distant; no matter how hard she tried, Faye couldn't look away from Amber, so weary amidst the movement. It wasn't until she was lost to the crowd that Faye could turn away, but even then she could feel the heavy, sinking feeling she only got when something poignant was looming.
The day would not end well.
Alex always had an extra car or two outside the building just in case, and today was no exception. Spike had pulled Faye from the building and into a shiny black luxury sedan before she could argue, although as he did it he wasn't sure why he was so concerned. She had proven to him time and time again she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, even if she did get a little scraped up along the way. Now, fifteen minutes into the ride and seated amidst black leather and chilled champagne in the back of the car, Spike worked hard to keep his eyes out the window. His spent cigarette was somewhere in the street behind him, but Faye had found her own pack and was puffing happily away. The smell was making him sick and he chocked it up to her girly brand, if only because he couldn't think of any other reason. It couldn't be anything psychological, surely.
"Are you sure it was such a good idea to leave Amber all alone?" Faye said suddenly and he could feel the tension around her crack, like she had been brooding for a long time. He shot her a sideways look but she didn't notice, focused instead out the window. Her cigarette was poised between two fingers and she looked very romantic and silhouette-esqe, side lit as she was.
"What are you talking about?" Spike replied lazily.
"She looked tired. Worn down."
"I'm sure she is."
"So you just leave and hope she comes through it alright?"
A shrug. "She said she could handle it."
"And you believed her?"
"Sometimes you just have to run with it, Faye."
Faye scoffed and took a long pull on her cigarette before rolling down the window and tossing it out to join Spike's in the road. The wind and the smell of mown grass whipped around for a moment, catching in her hair and dragging it in a beautiful halo around her face before it was sucked up by the vents and compromised, sterilized, and spit back out with an extra kick of new car smell. Spike's eyes moved away from her face and back out the window, tracing the power lines as they turned onto Coltrane Avenue. Billion woolong houses whizzed past with nothing more than a second glance.
"I think we need to talk."
Spike started, cocking his head so he could see her. "Excuse me?" Green met brown.
"I said I think we need to talk."
"Sorry, Faye, but those are six words I never thought I'd hear from you," He replied with a chuckle. He found himself digging for another cigarette for lack of anything better to do. When Faye finally handed him one, he couldn't quite bring himself to smoke it. Instead, he slid it very discreetly between the seat and the door. Gone for eternity. Or at least until Alex had the car detailed.
"Last year was a mistake. You know that, right?" Faye still wasn't looking at him. He deserved that at least, didn't he?
"That depends," Spike replied. "Which part?" Heat was rising on her face, spreading from the bridge of her nose across her cheeks and down to her throat. He followed it with his eyes, his throat clenching uncomfortably as the flush crept past her collarbone.
"Come on, Spike." She murmured.
Ah. That part. He just shrugged, letting his goofy grin dominate his face. "I don't know, Faye. I kinda liked that part." She shot him a sideways glance and he winked at her, all in the name of fun and games. Faye did not, however, seemed amused. Her left eyebrow twitched. Oops.
"It was stupid. Let's forget about it, okay?"
"Forget about what?" Their eyes met for another millisecond and he could see she understood. Faye nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the window. Spike was left at the mercy of his thoughts. Something about writing off whatever had happened last year didn't sit well with him; maybe Amber was kind of right when she said he never did anything just for the hell of it. But sitting next to Faye in the car, watching from the corner of his eye as the pink flush bled from her skin, he knew he had to let it go. It was one night, one more stupid thing he had done. It was over, they couldn't take it back (although he probably wouldn't if he could), and it was time to recognize it would never happen again. In the end, it was just like Faye said: a mistake. It wouldn't happen again because it couldn't. Spike wouldn't let it, if only because that would jeopardize everything he had striven for for so long now.
It was as Spike's rumination trickled to an end that the car jerked to a halt. He refocused his eyes to see that the car had pulled up to Alex's front door. Spike pushed open the door before the driver, currently helping Faye out, could offer his assistance. With his hands once more in his pockets and his shoulders slouched, Spike began his walk up the front stairs to the door by way of the porch. Of course, Jude was waiting.
"Spike!" She cried, flinging the door open and rushing down the stairs with her three dogs barking at her heels. The two Tibetan terriers Beatrice had given her as gifts a few years ago, named Shampoo and Jeremy upon their arrival, hung around the top step and watched with vague interest as their mistress flew down the steps and launched herself at Spike, wrapping her arms around his neck. The third dog, a bulldog named Winston because of tradition alone, charged on bowlegs to bite Spike's ankle with a mouthful that might have killed a lesser man. He was a foul dog, a gift of goodwill from Alex to his little sister, and the most valuable canine on all of mars, possibly with the exception of Ein. He was also, unfortunately, the absolute ugliest and probably the stupidest too. But it wasn't the dog Spike was focused on.
"Hey, Jude…" He laughed for lack of anything else to do. He refused to take his hands out of his pockets, making her embrace an awkward one that knocked them down a couple of steps. Spike could tell from her voice and the way she hugged him so close that she was high and it depressed him just a little bit. Jude was young, beautiful, had everything laid out at her feet. There were a lot of ways to live a life like that; it was one hell of a waste to spend it like she did. And of all people, Spike would know. "What did Alex give you this time?"
She laughed in his ear and it was a beautiful sound, drug induced or not. "Bloody eye…" She whispered in his ear, her breath hot on the side of his face. Spike nodded his understanding and pushed her off him very patiently, trying very hard to ignore how huffily Faye stalked up the steps past them, moody and trailed by Shampoo and Jeremy as she strutted into the house. When Spike turned his attention from her retreating form to Jude, now standing expectantly a few inches before him and easily six foot two in her heels, the difference was staggering. Jude was still her usual perfection, but her blue eyes were so bloodshot it made Spike sick with memory. Thick veins were standing out, glaringly red against the perfect white of her eyes. Bloody-eye indeed. A slip of the hand and Spike had produced a vial of very thin red fluid from the back pocket of Jude's jeans, holding it up to the sun and squinting to get a better look. She was a surprisingly calm junkie considering the concentration and quality of the drug pinched between two of Spike's fingers, but that wasn't necessarily unexpected coming from Jude. Spike had to remind himself that Jude's addictions, whatever they might be, weren't his problem. Especially as Alex burst out the front doors, cold and steely with a cell-phone in a death grip in one hand. Spike's eyes flickered to him and he could feel himself go cold.
Something was very wrong.
"Did you leave the building today? When you knew what was going on?" Alex spat as he neared Spike and Jude on the steps, kicking an inquisitive Winston away. With a squeal the dog waddled back inside the house, but Spike wasn't so lucky as to be discarded so easily.
"Jude is high. You know that, right?" Spike said very deliberately. Alex just glanced over to his sister, now standing on the bottom step and braiding her hair while looking pensive and poetic, and nodded.
"Of course I know. Now answer the question you son of a bitch."
Very, very wrong.
"Amber told me she could handle it." Spike said, calm as he could possibly be with the sneaking suspicion that something very bad had happened.
"Well," Alex replied, his voice icy and seething as Spike had never heard it before. "I'm glad you're so easy to convince, Spike-o. Because that was Amelia today. Amber is fucking dead."
Even in the sticky June heat, Spike Spiegel was numb.
Dead. That was an awfully strong word.
A/N: Alas! The last Amber/Spike 'And How Do You Feel About That?' talks! sniffles I did have my reasons for doing what I did, including the fact that Amber wasn't actually supposed to be in Lucifer's Garden at all. I was having trouble with the first chapter and, what do you know! putting Amber in solved all my problems. It's also a plot device, now that I think about it. :) I hope you liked, and I also hope your champagne buzzes last longer than mine. :D J/K. I'm not buzzed. Mostly. :)
Love you guys so much! I really appreciate the reviews, I don't think I will ever be able to express to you how much. Thank you!
Rock on,
Lucy