Bad: Chapter 9
"Her room is painted Heron Blue
Lit by candlelight and chandelier
And from her headboard perched so high
A million dreams have passed her"
- Sun Kil Moon
"You have a nice profile."
"What?"
Spike leaned up from where he'd been lying and brushed his fingertip down her nose. He'd been admiring her dark silhouette against the blue light softly illuminating the gauzy curtains, plumes of smoke hanging almost motionless around her in the stillness of the room. She looked like a European model from the 20th century.
"Your nose, your mouth. They look nice. From the side."
Julia passed him the cigarette she'd been smoking, and they lay back down together, her head on his shoulder.
"You're sweet."
"Don't let that get around."
"Mr. Tough-Guy."
"That's why I wear leather jackets. That's what tough guys do. Didn't you know?"
She chuckled.
"Men are all the same. Hard on the outside, fragile on the inside."
"That's a hell of a thought."
She ran her hand over his chest, almost longingly.
"It's how it is. Men don't know how to handle what they feel, so they have to hide it."
Spike was dubious about her certainty on the matter, but didn't voice his dissention. He enjoyed hearing what she had to say, enjoyed knowing what was in her mind. Julia was a closed book in many ways, and he didn't want to discourage her from sharing herself.
"And what about women?"
"What about them?"
"I've met a lot of women who could do with learning a little restraint," he said, recalling a couple of clingy broads who just couldn't seem to help themselves no matter how many ways he found to say 'no.'
"They can if they choose to. They can choose to be whatever they want. Women are all liars."
"Are you?"
"All women are. It's their nature. You can't change something's nature."
The conversation was beginning to creep into troublesome territory. He felt it best to discontinue any further inquiry else he feared he would begin to ask all those unanswered questions, the ones that were stirring inside him, the ones he pressed down hard all the time. Perhaps there was some validity to her assertion after all.
"Maybe I should get hurt again."
"Why do you say that?"
"I liked having you take care of me."
She looked up at him then, and he saw what he was certain was love in her eyes.
"You don't have to get hurt for that."
He kissed her slowly, achingly, feeling the love he had seen.
"When people don't sleep they start going a little cuckoo."
"You're not behaving like a complete basket case."
Through some act of God, they'd managed to lift Spike out of the Swordfish and carry him back to his room. It had been a perplexing adventure. After spending half an hour attempting to rouse him, they discussed the pros and cons of leaving him where he was. The logistics of first getting him out of his ship and then carrying him through the labyrinthine set of corridors between the hangar and his room seemed like an impossible, byzantine task. Somehow, after an hours worth of heave ho-ing, they managed to gracelessly dump him into bed. Jet took on the unsavory task of removing the tissues covered with dried blood from his nose while Faye took off his shoes.
Exhausted and somewhat demoralized, they retired to the bridge. Jet was plugging in data for their next flight plan while Faye had her feet propped up on the console, a magazine in her lap. Jet hated that but said nothing.
"I don't know. All the stuff that's happened. Maybe he's just lost it. He's got all sorts of shit swirling around him all the time," she said, twirling her index finger in the air.
"Everybody's got that."
Jet hated gossiping this way, but he couldn't help it. Faye was a talker, and there was a topic orbiting their sphere that warranted legitimate discussion, though Jet was typically of the opinion that talking tended to do little to improve such situations and only served to enhance the inherent melodrama of the crisis at hand.
"He lost his woman."
Her tone was casual, but Jet was still surprised that Faye brought Julia up. There had been no mention of her at all in the months following the siege on the Red Dragon headquarters. Still, their one conversation about her had never left his mind in all that time. Faye's description of her had burned his ears and nested itself in his brain. It was in that moment that he felt he would lose Spike forever. It was also when Faye all but confirmed her growing attachment to Spike. The sad envy was easily apparent in her words.
"Ordinary. The kind of dangerous, beautiful ordinary that you just can't leave alone. Like an angel from the underworld or maybe a devil from Paradise."
Faye didn't seem to realize that her characterization of Julia was also quite befitting of herself. He supposed that was the moment when Faye had become truly endeared to him. Beneath the smirking glamour queen persona, she was just like any other girl.
All of this had been borne from a single conversation about the mysterious blonde. Maybe she was the reason Spike was losing it. Her effect on their lives seemed to run far deeper than he'd even taken the time to consider. Jet remembered how wildly Spike had behaved when he caught a whiff of her presence on Calypso. Perhaps his current demeanor was a mutation of that, spinning infinitely out of control as there was no longer any potential resolution to it. Julia was dead, but Jet surmised that the spell she'd cast on Spike had not been broken with her passing.
"When someone you really love dies," Faye continued, "it changes you."
Jet opened his mouth to reply, knowing full well that her words were and extension of her own grief, but before he could speak, she dropped her magazine on the console and left.
She really was just like any other girl.
Regardless of what happened with her blackmail scheme, Faye had decided to move off the ship after all this shit was done.
She really had no idea what she was going to do or what she really wanted for herself. She was still attempting to reconcile her two extremely disparate lives and was far too confused on exactly who Faye was to know what the future would hold. That said, she knew what she didn't want.
She didn't want to lie, cheat, or steal anymore—at least not in the way she'd grown accustomed to.
Since awaking alone and fearful in this unfamiliar new world, she'd come to learn the virtues of cutting everyone off at the knees to win the race. It was her conclusion that staying a step ahead in the game was the only way to win, and the only way to stay ahead was play dirty. While she did not doubt her current approach was indeed the most appropriate for fast and guaranteed advancement up the food chain, she had begun to notice pangs of guilt and embarrassment now that she was actually taking the time to think about her past misdeeds.
She'd never allowed herself to think too much about how what she'd done might have affected the people she'd disenfranchised. That wasn't to say some of them didn't deserve it—they were just as dirty as she was. But there were more than a few she'd ripped off that were in straits even more dire than her own, and no doubt her actions had aggravated their circumstances.
Regardless her regrets, she knew her connivery would be a difficult impulse to unravel. This wasn't just a strategy; this was a paradigm, conceived out of necessity in response to lessons learned hard.
Living a lifestyle such as theirs provided her both an abundance of opportunities and justifications to continue practicing the art of deceit, and at this point it was both Spike and Jet's expectation that she would attempt to beguile them and everyone else whenever it suited her. She'd recognized the subtle accusation Jet had made earlier today when he questioned why she had withheld information regarding Edward's whereabouts, and, frankly, she didn't blame him. Although it had not been her intent, her actions had been shifty. They would never be able to see her as an honest person even if she meant them no harm. For that reason, she would never be free of this precedent as long as they were her companions.
She pressed her forehead against the cold metal door of Spike's room, thankful that perhaps he'd finally be able to get some real rest, even if it wasn't acquired through traditional means.
She'd miss them, yes, but it was all for the best.
