Bad: Chapter 10
"Well maybe I'm just thinking that the rooms are all on fire
Everytime that you walk in the room
Well there is magic all around you, if I do say so myself
I have known this much longer than I've known you "
- Stevie Nicks
Spike thought perhaps he should just stay in his room for awhile. Every time he ventured out into the world shit seemed to go horribly wrong for him.
Something had changed. Some magical foreign particle had entered into his universe, something noxious that could glide through the air, tearing tiny holes through the layers of flesh and metal that had taken shape around him—holes that just grew and grew and didn't seem to stop. Now there were just empty voids where it had come and gone, black nothingness that could never be recovered.
He pushed himself out of bed, feeling cranky and uncomfortable for having slept in his clothes, and stripped down to his boxers. He lit a cigarette and sat, elbows on his knees, on the edge of his bed, testing his bruised face to find the source of the most pain.
He'd slept. The sensation of waking from a deep sleep had seemed so unfamiliar to him that for a moment, in the bleary haze of sleep inertia, he had been certain that he had died. It seemed to him that he had never felt more light and peaceful, and yet there was also a feeling doom that seized him. He jolted awake, feeling that he'd just escaped some unnamed horror that was more infinite, more incomprehensible than anything he could ever hope to imagine.
That aside, he felt pretty fucking good.
The taut razor wire that had been drawn down the length of his spine had snapped in an instant of pure grace. He felt so much less aggravated and tense—so much more Spike. Although, he couldn't help but wonder if his relief was truly the result of a few blessed yet forgettable hours of sleep or the fact that he'd awoken with a raging hard-on. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself just how worried he really was, but since being injured he'd yet to experience an arousal in any capacity and the most primal of male fears was beginning to eat away at him. What would have been the point of fighting to live if he could never get it up again?
His groggy trance was thrown as he heard a single tap against his door. He rose and approached the source of the noise, standing in the center of his darkened room, waiting for a moment to see if it recurred. When it did not, he tapped the interior control panel, opening the door, suspicious of what was on the other side. He peered out just in time to see Faye's retreating back waltzing unaware toward her room.
"Hey."
She jumped but paused long enough to compose herself before turning to face him.
"Hey."
"Did you knock?"
She opened her mouth a whole second before she spoke. "I was going to, but I figured you were still sleeping."
"What's up?"
"Nothing. I just thought I should check and see if you'd gagged on your own vomit or something."
"And then you...what, decided you didn't really care?"
"Why are you always such an asshole?"
"I'm good at it, I guess."
She cocked an eyebrow and jutted her hip in annoyance. "Ten points."
He leaned forward against the inside of his doorframe, his bare chest pressing against the cold metal, watching as she spun on the rubber heel of her boot, returning to her own world—one he realized he had no honest notion of.
"When is Spiegel scheduled to come in?"
"Next Friday."
Miles was not pleased. He leaned back in his dark oak chair, the one he'd inherited from the recently ousted DA Jackson Haremore
It was not lost on Miles that perhaps the only reason he'd been elected to his current office was because the recent ex-Mrs. Haremore had testified in divorce court that her husband had taken her to a number of upper crust orgies and attempted to coerce her into acts of supreme debauchery. If Miles' personal quest to go down in history as the one man who stood up to corruption in his city wasn't already a big enough motivator to press hard and fast on this thing with the Red Dragons, then proving to himself and all of the talking head political jerkoffs that he hadn't been made DA simply because his predecessor was a depraved sex addict of the highest order most certainly was.
"That's not good enough. We needed him here yesterday."
The detective was unimpressed with Miles' facile understanding of how to deal with perps.
"He lives on a ship that never stays in one place for more than a few days. He poses a huge flight risk. We've found that if we allow them to come in on their terms, they feel less pressure and are less likely to flee."
"This investigation has barely begun and it's been three months since the incident occurred. We need to rope this thing in fast."
"All due respect, sir, Spiegel has been a civilian for a long time now."
Miles leaned forward over his desk. In his opinion, police sentimentality was one of the root causes of corruption. They were always willing to give even the biggest fuck-ups a pass just for being a "stand-up guy." To Miles, there was very minimal distinction between a good guy and a bad guy. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the decency that seemed to exist in even seasoned criminals—it was just that it didn't really matter. Crimes were crimes because they infringed on the rights of others, because they eroded society at the core. There were no two ways about it. If these folks were truly honorable, they would accept that they deserved to be punished and stand tall when their time came.
"And before he was a civilian, he was a thug who muscled people at the behest of bloodthirsty mob bosses who think they are kings among men. Narcissists who laugh as they steal from people like you and me because they see us insects to be stepped on. Men that abide it are at the very least cowards. Men who support it—they're unprincipled criminals who you can be assured have a long history of things to atone for. Some crimes can't be forgotten, no matter how long it's been since they were committed."
The detective sighed. "How do you even know Spiegel is your man?"
"I don't know that he is. But when I meet him, he'll tell me."
"Do you ever think you're a horrible person?"
Spike had been watching their waiter hustle around the diner, wiping tables, refilling ketchup bottles, never stopping to chit-chat with the other workers who were all sitting at the bar, smoking. They were the only two guests in the whole restaurant, yet this young kid was working like it was lunch hour. Spike was attempting to decide whether or not he admired the kid or pitied him.
"What?"
"Forget it."
"I said 'what?'."
She'd been embarrassed to ask the question to begin with. She was always reluctant to reveal anything personal to Spike, to invite any conversation about what she thought or how she felt. He was such a flip asshole, and he trusted her about as much as he trusted a poisonous snake that he'd been locked in a ten foot by ten foot room with. Likewise, anything or anyone that got near Spike seemed to be subject to potential calamity or sorrow, and Faye had little faith in Spike's willingness to empathize with her should she experience any of this as a result of entering his stratum.
Still, she had found that since her decision to leave had been made, she was becoming braver, more curious. She had things she wanted to say, questions she wanted to ask of him, and as far as she was concerned, there was little reason left to be modest.
She let her head fall back and then forward again, displaying her frustration at his listening skills.
"I said: do you ever think you're a horrible person?"
He smiled roguishly, lifting a fork with a speared triangle of pancake to his mouth, "Trying to tell me something, Faye?"
Again, she let her head fall back against the pink and green striped upholstery. "You're an awful conversationalist, you know."
Spike studied her. She seemed to have given up her strand of inquiry and was now distantly surveying their overachieving waiter.
She was fucking beautiful. And worse, she had now developed that sad, painful beauty that he found so completely alluring.
Since she had moved onto the Bebop, Spike had done his best to cultivate a safe divide between himself and Faye. She was an enemy to the life that he pictured for himself—the one he'd dreamed of for so long. Yes, he'd sat at her blackjack table, and yes he'd done it because he distantly hoped in that distinctly male way that maybe he could pick her up, but that didn't make her special. He had the same whimsical daydream about every beautiful woman he crossed paths with. He didn't think in his wildest dreams that he'd actually end up having to share space with this creature. He'd never lived with a woman in any sense before, and being forced to see her parading around the ship in a bathrobe or having to smell her flowery shampoo in his shower was not something he was prepared for.
Lucky for him, with every petty theft of their shared resources or every histrionic outburst, Faye made it that much easier for him to keep his distance. Behind those striking emerald eyes and underneath that lovely porcelain skin was a dreadfully imperfect person whose flawless exterior belied all that lay beneath. Her greed, her selfishness—they made her far less attractive to him.
Even still, he recognized that the remote expanse between them was something that he chose to reinforce even now. Despite Faye's apparent defects of personality and how terribly he knew he would pay for it later on, it would be easy to give in to her charms. Very easy. And after that there would be no going back. Not for her, and especially not for him. She would drive him crazy the same way Julia had, and he would never recover from it.
His clinical analysis of the situation had the favorable effect of diminishing any temptation he might have ever felt, the power of it deflated by his logical approach, and day-to-day, it was mostly forgotten. But there were times, like now, when none of that shit mattered.
Sitting with her in a dim, empty diner at 5 a.m., the sky beginning to lighten ever so slightly, his sudden and potent desire was like acid in his mouth. A single erection had managed to turn him back into a 14-year-old boy. How embarrassing.
"Are you okay?"
"What?"
"You had this dead look in your eyes."
"Tired."
She stretched. "It's late."
"Why did you ask me that question?"
"What question?"
Spike made an annoyed face.
"Oh, that."
"And?"
"I don't know. It was just a question." She looked down at her hands, scraping dirt from under her fingernails. "I guess I've started to realize I'm not really such a nice girl."
"Do you really want to be one?" Spike asked sharply. Yet another one of Faye's countless flaws was that she seemed to be quite proud of her con artist status, eagerly demonstrating it whenever the opportunity presented itself. It was like her way of saying, 'you'll never get one over on me, so don't bother trying.'
She shrugged, not looking up, still picking her nails, an action which unwittingly heightened her allure.
"I'm not a nice guy. But I guess I'm not the worst. So what?"
"That doesn't seem to make a difference for you. Practically everybody that meets you wants to be your best friend. Even people who want to kill you love you."
"I think that's a bit of an exaggeration."
"I don't."
"So, what, you want to be more liked? I ask again: do you really care about that?"
"No, it's not that. I don't care about being liked."
"Then what?"
"I just don't want to be bad anymore. But maybe it's in my nature. And you can't change that."
In his newly rested mind, it all made sense. It wasn't Faye he was jealous of—it was Jet.
His mind began to race as all the pieces of the puzzle fitted themselves together. His passive anger, his suspicions, his guilt. They pooled sourly in his stomach, and he hated himself for all of it. Hated how distrustful he'd been of Jet, hated how he was betraying the memory of his recently dead lover, hated that despite knowing what an awful disaster it would be, he wanted to possess Faye in a way no man ever had.
This was not a new desire. In some unspoken way, she'd been marked as his since she'd entered their lives. Jet knew it, and Faye knew it, too. Their closeness had upset the tacit dynamic that had been established long ago, and this was the result. He'd never planned to act on his lust—quite the opposite, in fact—but his entitlement had now pushed him to a point of no return.
"Are you fucking angry?" she asked incredulously.
"No," he said severely, throat dry.
"I shouldn't have said anything. You never think anything but the worst of me."
He shook his head, aggravated beyond words. "I need you to tell me right now about this lawyer and the money you're looking for."
"Why do you…?"
"I'm serious. If you want my help, I need to know."
"I didn't say I needed your help. I was offering to help you."
"Don't be a fucking baby. If that was the case you would have done it already. You didn't get this idea overnight."
She stared at him, her eyes fiery pits of jade. "You wouldn't understand."
"I'm trying. Very hard. But I'm losing my patience."
She sighed deeply, blowing air from her lips. "This is going to sound awful."
"Faye—"
"Let me fucking speak." She looked down at the table, attempting to start again. "My family on Earth, before the accident, we were very wealthy. Not just a little. A lot. My dad, he had all sorts of investments, bonds, all sorts of shit. I had a trust in my name."
Spike watched her, realizing where this was going.
"Anyway, I remember it all. So I'm going to find it, and I'm going to get out of this shit life, and I don't care if it makes me a bad person because I already am one."
Spike cast his eyes skyward, noticing the orange line of sun forming on the horizon in his periphery.
"Jesus, Faye."
"I'm leaving."
She began to push herself up from her seat, but his hand shot out, gripping her forearm, holding it to the table.
"Sit down."
She jerked her arm away from him, causing the dishes on their table to clatter.
"Get over yourself. It's not that bad. I just couldn't believe you were so bent out of shape about it. Maybe it's in bad taste, but with money problems like yours you'd be stupid not to do it. And if it's yours, then don't feel bad about it."
For a moment, he thought she might cry.
"But we have to muscle this asshole lawyer into helping us, maybe even kidnap him, I don't even know."
"So we'll be bad guys for a little while. You said it yourself. How can we do any worse?"
