Girls and Boys

I want a girl with lips like morphine,
Knock me out every time they touch me.
I wanna feel a kiss just crush me,
And break me down.
Knock me out (knock me out),
Knock me out (knock me out).
Cause I've waited for all my life,
To be here with you tonight.
I want a girl with lips like morphine,
Blow a kiss that leaves me gasping.And I wanna feel that lightning strike me, And burn me down.

---

Faye looked up at him uncertainly as his words sank in. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. This was unfamiliar territory; Spike admitting to anything was unheard of, and him confessing to her was like a shock to the system. Of the two men aboard the ship, she least expected Spike to be the one to come looking for her – after all, Jet was supposed to be the sensitive one. His words left her feeling vulnerable, and she didn’t like him having that kind of power over her emotions. She couldn't think of anything to say, so she glared at him.

She slid from the stool and turned on her heels to walk away, knowing what his reaction would be when she turned her back on him.

Sure enough, she was stopped in her tracks when he grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. She whirled around to face him, green eyes blazing.

“Don’t walk away from me, dammit,” he growled, tightening his grip.

“Let go,” she snarled, pulling out of his grasp.

“So why the hell did you take off this time?” he demanded, glaring back. “What's wrong with you?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she snapped back, shoving him vehemently.

Spike stared back at her as he tried not to think about why he’d even gone searching for her. With Faye standing right in front of him with a smug look on her face, he wondered how he ever thought that he needed her. She is the biggest pain in the ass, he thought irritably. He frowned and grabbed her shoulders, trying to shake the answer into her. Faye gave a small grunt of pain until he lessened his grip. He bent down to look into her eyes, his own sudden anger dissolving at the doubt he saw there. She squirmed nervously under his intense stare but boldly kept her eyes locked on his.

“Why can't you just stay on the ship?” he sighed, conscious of how fragile she felt beneath his hands.

“Why can't you answer me?” she murmured as she dropped her eyes and edged away from him.

Spike tightened his grip, preventing her escape, and leaned forward to brush the corner of her mouth with his lips, smiling as she gasped and stared up at him.

“Does this answer your question?” he asked softly and swallowed her surprise with a kiss.

Little Girl Found

It's just one of those days where nothing feels right
It's just one of those days
I'm never going home
I walk among the ghosts
Of all my former loves
And all my future selves
This is the final straw
I'll take you by the throat
I'll shake you like a doll
Just feed my starving heart
Lyrics by Kill Hannah, song is The Collapse

---

Faye looked around for the bartender, raising her perfectly manicured hand for service. She slumped over on her barstool as she waited for him to refill her drink. She didn't know what to do now. She couldn't go back to the ship, not now, not when he was there. She had another dream last night, a memory from her life. She had been happy, vibrant, and she was loved. Then she woke up, and the realization hit her anew that she could never go back, she would never be that happy again.

The bartender refilled her glass, and she impatiently motioned him to remain as she lifted the glass to her lips, downing the contents in one gulp. She raised her eyes to him, waiting for another refill. With an impassive expression, the bartender poured her another, then moved away to tend to his other customers.

Faye took a smaller gulp, morosely returning to her thoughts. She hated when she felt like this, it wasn't like there was anything that she could do to change things. She hated the hopelessness of it all. She remembered reading science fiction as a teen. Well, she was in the future now, why the hell hadn't anyone in this god forsaken time period figure out how to travel through time? Wasn't that what the gates were for? This place was nothing like the worlds she had read about.

She knocked back the rest of her drink, hating herself for remembering. She would have been been better off remaining an amnesiac.

Dimly she heard the sound of the bar door opening. She halfheartedly hoped that one of them would come looking for her, but she didn't hold out too much hope for that. And the curly headed idiot only tolerated her because she made his nightmares disappear. What am I, some kind of stand-in dream catcher? she thought as she reached for her glass, forgetting it was empty. "Just like my life," she mumbled aloud. "Why should I go back there? They don't even like me that much anyway."

"You're wrong," a voice whispered in her ear. Startled from her reverie, she whirled around as the curly headed idiot himself took a seat next to her.

"What the hell are you doing here, following me?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Yes." He gazed at her intently, the mocking smile absent from his face. "I'm here to bring you home."

"Why?" she asked suspiciously, waiting for the punchline.

"I need you," he answered simply.

awa

been away awhile

Home

It's serious, I've got to find you
When I start to feel this way
You mesmerize me, all the time
And I'll hold on 'til tonight
But that's too long
'Cause you're an angel
Oh oh, you're an angel
My crazy angel
My crazy angel 

I hold on so hard
And pray that I won't say something wrong
I look at the stars
And dream that the universe was ours

My crazy angel

---

Hours later, Spike lay sulking on the cot in his too small room, trying to drown out the drone of Jet’s words with his own thoughts. It wasn’t working. 

My woman, he scoffed, recalling Jet’s directive that he had to go bring her back. Yeah, right. If Faye had been here to hear that conversation, she would have pitched a fit, and he didn’t need to guess whose head would have been directly in the path of her wrath.

He sat up and swung his legs to the floor, rubbing his head absently with one large hand. Midway through the gesture, he paused abruptly when he realized that it was exactly what Jet would do when he was worried.

Hmmph, I will not go chasing after her., he thought heatedly. She can come home on her own when she’s good and damned ready.

He glanced at the clock on his dresser, noting that it was long after midnight, and she wasn’t back yet. He got up and shuffled to the door. Faye did have a knack for getting into trouble when he and Jet weren’t around. She could have run into something that she couldn’t handle, and her pride being what it was, she’d be too damned stubborn to call for help.

Maybe she was in trouble.

Or maybe she wasn’t planning on coming back.

Well, damn.

Maybe he should just go find her.

Little Girl Lost

Open your eyes
we're here are you OK
I’d give all I have
just to get you to stay
for so many years in my dreams things were changing
but always your face was the same
I love you to death
love you to death
When you opened up
what you said it was so sad
that no one would notice
if you ran away
then your mascara it ran
don’t you vanish tonight I'm alive just to say
love you to death
love you to death

---

As the army of centipedes marched along his left side, inching its way up his back, he struggled to move. His eye twitched as the throng marched higher up towards his neck. Those bugs had been extinct since the Gate incident, so what were they doing on his ship, crawling on his body? He squirmed as one of the creatures veered off from the main battalion to appear on the right side of his neck, traveling up towards his mouth. In panic, his eyes shot open and he hazily grasped that it had been a dream.

The air in the room was oppressive, and as he wiped his hand across his brow, he was surprised by the amount of moisture that came away. It suddenly hit him that the ship’s ventilation system had malfunctioned. He’d just had the thing overhauled on Earth a few weeks back, waiting for Doohan to complete repairs (again) to the Swordfish. Nope, couldn’t be time for repairs already; the old man was pretty thorough. That left only one possibility.

“Faye...” Jet mumbled to himself as he slid his legs to the floor. He shuffled over to the door and banged the button to exit the room. He stormed down the corridor towards Faye’s room to chastise her about messing around with the ship’s controls, but stopped when he noticed her door was ajar. Faye guarded her privacy like a hawk and would never leave her door open, whether or not she was in the room. And he didn’t need to look in the hangar to know that her ship was gone. Frowning, he headed back the way he came to check the climate control panel. Yep, just like he thought, no coolant in the system.

That wench, he groused, slamming the panel shut. He heard the hiss of a door opening and looked down the hall to see Spike emerging from his room.

“Where the hell is the air on this dump?” Spike asked in irritation, one large hand pushing damp green curls from his face as he dragged himself over to Jet.

“One word,” Jet told him, choosing to ignore Spike’s insult to his ship. “Faye. And she took off.”

Spike's eyes narrowed. “Shit, where’d she go this time?” he demanded. “Damn woman waits until we're on the hottest goddamn planet in the solar system to suck out the coolant?”

“Go find her then,” Jet teased. “She's your woman.”

“Yeah right,” he scoffed, glaring at Jet. “As if.”

Jet disregarded the snide remark. “Anyway, somebody needs to go after her. You know that’s what she wants anyway.” He walked down the hallway and into the common room, dropping into a chair near the computer table.

Spike glanced disbelievingly after Jet. He followed him into the room, taking his own seat on the couch.
“So, what, we’re just gonna chase after her?”

“The girl has issues, you know that, Spike,” Jet chided him. “Every once in a while, she needs to be sure that we really want her here.”

Spike grinned. “Do we?”

Jet gazed at Spike, his eyes boring into the younger man’s. “Do you?”

Spike grin faded and he felt his face grow warm. “What are you saying, Jet?” he demanded.

“Well,” Jet began, rubbing his head and staring into space. “Let’s see, girl saves food for you when you come home late, soothes you out of those nightmares of yours almost every night-”

“Fuck you, Jet.”

Spike wasn’t surprised at how much Jet noticed, him being ex-ISSP and all. But he didn’t have to be so damned annoying about it.

“I’m just saying, seems like you’re the one who’ll suffer the most if we don’t go get her. If you don’t go bring her back.”

“C’mon Jet, you’re kidding right?”

Jet frowned. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Spike was silent, his thoughts flashing momentarily to one of his really bad nights. Faye had been right there to calm him, as she had been on so many other nights. As much as he hated to admit it, he owed her.

And yeah, Jet was right. He needed her.

Faye's Song

Froze in our memories again
Soon you'll forget but I just can't
I remember, remember everything
All the times when no ever came to get me
All the nights when I was scared
And when it got too weird
It was the songs that saved my life
It was the songs that saved me  
 

****

That was the problem - he remembered everything.

It was the song of Faye that he heard in his head. Whether stretched out on the couch in the common, or practicing his katas, it was Faye's song that was always foremost in his mind. It was Faye's song that kept the weirdness from overwhelming him. Her song was frozen in his memories.

The song of Faye bitching about the lack of heat on the ship, or the scarcity of food before a bounty.

The songs of Faye were playing in his head as he lay dying on the steps of the headquarters building, waiting for the blood to seep out as his life slipped away. The songs of Faye that gave him the strength to hold on, for just a little longer.

The songs that saved his life.

I Wish I Knew You

Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty,
Sounds of their breath fades with the light.
I think about the loveless fascination,
Under the milky way tonight.

Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.
Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Might have known what you would find.

And its something quite peculiar,
Something that's shimmering and white.
Leads you here despite your destination,
Under the milky way tonight.  
 

****

The Bebop passed through the hyperspace gate at Jupiter and began its slow descent through the atmosphere and through the cloud cover, eventually touching down in a spray of foamy waves on the Ganymede sea.

Ganymede was a place that the crew seemed to frequent more often these days, and as only passengers aboard ship, as Jet never failed to remind them, their opinion was not sought whenever they made the sojourn to the green planet. Faye thought that Jet was feeling more nostalgic, and she guessed that it was because of an anniversary of something lost, something that only he would know, and he wasn’t talking. But none of them really minded the diversion; although bounty hunting was a little more lucrative in the days since Ed and Spike had rejoined the crew, they all welcomed the chance to wind down and regroup.

Faye stretched out on the deck, a bright yellow beach umbrella shielding her body from the deck made almost unbearable by the midday Ganymede sun. Under cover of the dark sunglasses that adorned her face, she watched Spike as he sat fishing along the river's edge, feet dangling over the sides, toes just skimming the surface of the water. Every so often, he would dip a foot into the water, causing ripples to drift lazily away towards the sea, then return to his previous hunched posture, emptiness and longing radiating from him in dark heavy waves. She knew this was how he felt because sadness was a feeling with which she was quite familiar. She told herself that she wished she knew what it was that he was looking for, but deep down inside, she already knew.

The first months after his return, he had been uncharacteristically silent, almost like a ghost walking the ship. Faye and Jet had, in the first few weeks, given him his space, knowing what he had lost. But, by the fifth week, Jet had had enough. He gave an ultimatum - get an attitude change or get off the ship.

They went to Ganymede instead.

Bloodletting

It looked like the perfect day
in photos we were smiling
but something was wrong in you

inside you were suffering
lungs were barely moving
I wanted to comfort you ohh no
so I said shhhhhh

oh you'll fix all my cracked broken bones
and replace all my black poison blood

****

He awoke with a gasp. Struggling to breathe, he sat up as the sweat trickled down his neck, leaving the mass of mossy hair in damp curls. After what felt like an eternity, his constricted airway eased, allowing sweet breaths of air to enter his lungs. He inhaled a few shaky breaths as his body relaxed and wiped the sweat from his face.

Spike couldn't remember what he had dreamt, but he figured that it had something to do with his past life. Breathing deeply, he forced his mind to focus on anything else to chase the demons away. As he looked around the room, his eyes fell upon a photo taped to the wall above his desk. Although he was too far away to actually see the picture from the bed, the details were etched in his mind.

The picture had been taken a few months before, during a stopover on Ganymede. Edward had been running around the deck with a camera around her neck, taking pictures of the floor, the door leading to the storage area, Jet's cybernetic arm, Faye's suspenders, Spike's big feet. She now wanted to take "candy-dandy" shots of her Bebop "family," much to their consternation. No one particularly liked posing in front of a camera, and as much as told her so by their protests and their grimaces. Edward's usually impenetrable demeanor was absent; she had looked at them all with as if she wanted to cry.

Spike professed to dislike kids, among other things, like pets and tomboys, but his heart twisted at the look on Edward's face. So, exhaling in an overly dramatic huff, he sauntered over to Faye, and in a sudden move, grabbed her around the waist and proceeded to tickle her. As she sputtered her surprise, he peeked over at Ed, and with a nod of his head gestured to her. A huge smile plastered across her face, she rushed in closer and snapped the picture.

"Edward!" Faye complained in a mixture of giggles and fury. "Spike, if you don't get the hell off me…"

***

Spike smiled at the memory, but the dark edges of his nightmare seeped through to the surface, fraying his nerves. A sudden knock at his door caused his heart to race. Damn, I must be losing it, he thought, letting out a shaky laugh.

The door slid open and light from the corridor illuminated Faye as she poked her head into the room.

"I thought I heard something…" she paused when she saw his face.

He glared at her mutely.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded, walking over to him and leaning over to peer into his face.

He opened his mouth to fire off a retort, but for some reason, the words stuck in his throat.

"You okay?" she asked, uncharacteristic concern evident in her voice as she sat on the edge of the bed.

As he looked up at her he felt moisture welling at the corner of his eyes. Not now, he cursed to himself as a tear escaped down in cheek. Not in front of her.

Faye looked at him for a moment, then leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him. Spike closed his eyes and allowed himself the luxury of being enveloped in her warmth. She stroked his curls, comforting him as she chased his nightmares away.

"Shhh," she whispered. "Shhhh, it's okay."

Presence of the Past

The past comes back to haunt you, even when you acknowledge the part you played. He did.

Your presence of mind becomes a Presence in mind and body for good,
so you are less affected by the negative pressures and principalities.
Don't resent what comes to light.
Bear the pain of failings.
Don't blame anyone.
Be aware of your past.
As it comes to light don't force don't dig it up.
Be aware of your part of the past or present trouble or involvements.
Noting the compulsiveness of your own behavior and attitudes,
you might then have some compassion upon those
who mistreated you in the past.
Can't help yourself, realize that you condemn ourselves.

As the rain fell, the large heavy droplets pounded against his face so hard that they stung his face. He ignored the burning and trudged determinedly up the incline, the force of the wind threatening to bend his thin frame back the way he had come. In the distance, he could see the docked ship, its port bow shrouded in a thin layer of fog that had surfaced up as the sudden rain collided with the steamy atmosphere of Mars. He stopped to light up a cigarette, cupping his hands to shield the flame from the windy rain. He knew that he only postponing because he was not sure whether they would welcome the sight of him alive. Maybe they would think him a ghost. He realized that his obsession with the past that led to his actions were his to bear alone, even though, had he given them a chance, they would have had his back. And with the way that events had played out in the end, he had no one to blame but himself.

He tossed away the sodden cigarette and continued towards the Bebop. A dim light could be seen in the captain’s porthole, and he wondered vaguely if Jet was preparing the ship for departure. He reached the dock, and listened for signs of the ship powering up for takeoff. He noticed that the ship had been repaired since the Red Dragon assault. He ignored the anxiety he felt within and made his way to the entrance.

Hey Mom, I’m home, he thought wryly, a half-grin adorning his face as he prepared to enter.

Writing

Ooh the joys of writing, although you'd never guess it by the sparseness of my journal.