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[bountyhead]

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[tigerstripe]

[ one eye in the past, one eye in the present. or the future. it's difficult to tell, really, when life is categorized by bounties, hit-men, syndicate members, and the inky black of night turned sleep. he'd left the bebop with gunfire ringing hot and loud in his ears, faye's voice cutting through the hiss.

you've never told me anything about yourself, so don't tell me now. why do you have to go? where are you going?

this was the only place i could go.

he could smell the gunpowder all the way to the cathedral. it cut through the dust, the shouting, the blood. even when his gun went off for a final time, the shot kicking him backwards, he could taste the gunpowder in the stale air of the bebop on the back of his tongue. watching as blood bloomed from vicious' chest, for a moment he could see julia, in stark relief against the stained glass. like she'd been depicted there years and years ago, an ikon of victory for the syndicate.

when he falls, it feels like everything happens in slow motion. feels like he moves through time and space as though on some drifting cloud. he closes one eye, peering up at the window he'd seen julia's face in. the eye in the past sees nothing but dark, shadows, fractured glass and the smoke from fires. the other? glass. smoke. fire. the round hull of a spacecraft, flitting against the sky.

maybe it really was just some wild dream, after all.

he can't help but laugh to himself when he aims his hand out at teh syndicate and the lights of the same spacecraft blind him. bang, he's sure he says, before everything, past and present, swirls into dark around him - only the taste of gunpowder left on his tongue.

he dreams, at first, of voices - a familiar shrill voice (spike you better not die, dammit), a man and woman (his injuries are severe), the beeping and whirring of machines and the flash of white light and the smell of antiseptic. his eyes flutter in and out of the dream - people asking his name, where he's from, what happened, how did he get like this. all this through the ring of gunfire. and he slips away again.

when he does wake up, truly wake up, it's a hospital room. the cathedral has been left behind, so has the fighting, the blood, the gunpowder. his whole body hurts in a way it hasn't in a very, very long time. bandages, dressings, machines, needles. the blankets around him feel suffocating, but he's impossibly cold so he'll deal for now. he wiggles his toes, his fingers. they're still attached, so that's a good sign. he's definitely not on the bebop, and certainly nowhere near syndicate headquarters.

(he'd be tied up and tortured, if that were the case).

he groans, turning his head and trying to blink through the haze of the overhead lighting. his mouth is dry - like the sands on mars once upon a time and even though he can't put together when or where or why he is, when his head lolls to one side, he sees her. faye valentine - the girl with no home, the girl with no memories - waiting at his bedside, exhausted and cold. he tries to sit up, but immediately his body protests and leaves him humbled on his back, like a dog left to die on the side of the road.

there's blood on her shoes. blood on the floor of the hospital room. his eyes shift to his own bandaged body, where blood seeps through in some places. hell, he's not even sure he wants to wake her up to whatever it is he's experiencing now.

he should disappear while her eyes are closed. leave her committed to his memory, when things seemed so clear and sure. vicious is dead, now, isn't he? he has to be. and if spike is alive, then...

shit. ]

You're gonna get wrinkled and ugly sleeping like that.

[bountyhead]

[ she often dreams of the shadowed silhouettes of her parents. they stand a small distance away and say nothing. a disconnection that keeps them apart. and then they disappear from sight. in their absence, her longing grows twice its size, and she's forced to run from it. more running. all she does is run. in her dreams. in her real life. her legs give out and she stumbles to her knees, now victim to her longing which quickly moves in to envelop her, strangle her. she chokes for air, tries to tear at phantom hands that she discovers to be her own wrapped around her throat. a disembodied voice encourages her to breathe. she starts to cough. keep breathing, it says. that's the trick. in a single inhale, her vitality replenishes, and her hands fall away. her longing slithers back to its corner. she comes to a stand and lifts her head only to be silently greeted by... him.

you're not dead, she says. he responds with a lopsided smile. it's annoying. endearing. he wasn't a shadowed silhouette. i want you to say it, voice unwittingly stern, she's desperate for him to speak, to do something in fear that he may disappear just like the others. tell me you're not dead!! and so, he opens his mouth.

" ̷Y̷̷o̷̷u̷'̷r̷̷e̷ ̷g̷̷o̷̷n̷̷n̷̷a̷ ̷g̷̷e̷̷t̷ ̷w̷̷r̷̷i̷̷n̷̷k̷̷l̷̷e̷̷d̷ ̷a̷̷n̷̷d̷ ̷u̷̷g̷̷l̷̷y̷ ̷s̷̷l̷̷e̷̷e̷̷p̷̷i̷̷n̷̷g̷ ̷l̷̷i̷̷k̷̷e̷ ̷t̷̷h̷̷a̷̷t̷. "

... but she can't make it out.

inexplicably, her eyes snap open and drift by degrees to find spike lying there, watching her. she becomes frozen, frantically trying to piece reality from her dreams to make sense of what she was seeing. it's the antiseptic smell that both draws clarity to her and makes her want to hurl ( she hasn't thought of food since they arrived at the hospital but she's starving ). when she inhales, it's shaky, and her gaze is a startling green against the reddened sclera of her eyes which are round and glossy with what could be unsolicited tears prickling her. now they're watching each other, the whirs and beeps of the machines filling in for the silence that's overcome them. her brows knit so tightly together that it forms a crease, and she frowns. ]

Spike... [ her voice is small and brittle, uncharacteristic to her usual shrill, breaking with a mixture of exhaustion and disbelief. a small part of her worries that he won't answer when she asks him, ] ... you're really awake?

[tigerstripe]

[ there's a moment of disbelief when he thinks she might not wake up. that she might just stay curled up and snoring in the hospital chair. it would be on brand for her really, not that he's paid any mind. when her eyes open, a blurry sort of emerald in the fog of his own vision, he's absolutely certain he smells gunpowder again.

memory will be the death of him. ]

If I'm not then I'm gonna need to talk to the doctor - should figure out what good shit they have me on so we can haggle it later.

[ his voice runs ragged, filled with the gravel of fatigue, injury, and dry air. he still can't put one piece together in front of another - the puzzle itself is a little unclear - but he sighs and turns his head back to the ceiling, frowning at how bright everything feels. ]

Are you really awake?

[ there's something low, almost playfully wry the way he says it. he shouldn't joke about dreams, about the past or future. now now. not with her - did her eyes always look so sad? ]

If not, I think we're both having some psychedelic nightmare.

[ everything hurts, everything is hazy and there's nothing about this situation that will ever be normal again. he turned his back on the bebop to find answers to a life he knew he could never truly uncover. vicious, julia, the syndicate - a myriad of decisions he made and ones that will live in his bones for the rest of his life. just like the pretty woman with the sad eyes, pointing a gun at his face.

would it have been better if he flinched? if he turned around and told her the answer to her question, even if he didn't know the answer himself? but here he is - laid out in a hospital bed and helpless, with the tired and worried face of faye valentine with a voice small enough to slide right under the first layer of his skin and settle there.

damn it.

she's been there longer than that, and he knows it. ]

So you really want me to answer that question? Pretty sure I broke a rib or two.

[bountyhead]

[ at least, had he flinched, it would've signaled her to fight harder. the refusal was hers; she doesn't accept his reason for leaving. doesn't accept his death. the unraveling of her home that comes with that. the gravity of which smothers her even still right here in this cold hospital room. a lapse in eye contact and she feels a tear race down her cheek. she wipes away any sign of it with a quiet sniff and wills herself to calm down. breathe.

moving her body helps: her legs unfurl and she stretches a little before pushing herself up from out of the chair. she welcomes the ache in her legs as she walks over to the side table where she's grabbing the handle of a plastic jug— ]

I think you should stop talking and have some water.

[ —and carefully pours into a small plastic cup. shut up you stupid idiot, are the words dancing behind her teeth, laced with the anger that now simmers beneath her grief. she doesn't want to risk the tremble in her voice. all the relief that comes with spike being alive and awake will play as a buffer until it swells out of control. and it will. eventually.

somehow it's easy for her to approach his bedside, cup in hand, and look down at him, at his eyes. hardly enough light to notice the difference in color—now that she knows that about him, she can't help but look for it. her expression is a mix of doleful and tired. she's without her headband so loose strands feather out freely as she peers down at him. she refrains from darting her gaze too much. ]

Think you can manage on your own? [ is he able to do a simple task like drink from a cup? if not, then: ] I can help.

[tigerstripe]

You're just saying that to shut me up.

[ it's a dry croak, a sad attempt at amusement, because seeing the dark circles under her eyes does something painful in his chest. he went to fight vicious, to put an end to all of it in the end, and what? who really won, now? he looks up at faye, the collateral damage, and sighs as she pours the water.

but he begins the arduous task of sitting up, of trying not to think about the ache in his back, his side, his gut as he slides up to sit. broken bones, a few ribs definitely, maybe even a fractured elbow, some angry gun wounds in his chest. his head hurts - concussion. who knew a fall could be so terribly bad at the end of it all?

he should have died.

he knows that, now.

spike muscles his way through it with a grimace and a shuddering release of air. already it's exhausting, and sitting up feels like it was never meant for him by the way his body protests. ]

Gimme a sec.

[ catch his breath, one, and to ignore the look in her eyes. her hair is loose, headband gone, and although he knows by the look and shape of her that the woman is faye valentine, he can see himself reflected back in the green of her eyes. neither of them are who they were yesterday, and it shows in the haunting of their bones. ]

I think I can drink water on my own. Don't trust you not to drown me.

[ he reaches for the cup but his fingers quiver, and at first he sits it on his thigh, eyes falling to the ripples. for a moment he's sure he can see a rose in the rain, a flash of blond, the gritted teeth of a man turned assassin. the past. when he looks back up, the purple of her hair is there instead, and his fingers have wrapped around hers on the cup before he finally pulls away and drinks from it.

the present.

then: ]

How long have we been here? Couldn't keep track of time with all your snoring. You should really get that looked at while we're here.

[bountyhead]

[ she gives spike that second; waits to hand off the cup she cradles in her hands while watching him struggle to sit up. breath indrawn, urgency pressing into her spine trying to get her to move, to help him, but she remains static. everything in her too afraid to touch him, let alone assist him in drinking water. she would, if she really had to, but part of her is relieved that he wants to do it himself, ignoring how much it bothers her seeing him wade through so much pain just to ready himself, and the fact he might not want her help at all.

spike's smart mouth does wonders easing faye away from that empathy, however. behind those green eyes, she's imagining throwing the water at him and the cartoony YOW!! to follow after the cup flies out of her hand and bonks him on the head. a flittering exchange of touch pulls her from the daydream as spike takes hold of the cup, and she searches herself for the snark to match his own. ]

Fine then. Don't say I never tried to help.

[ actively trying to avoid a wall of emotion, faye backs off, though, physically, not too far—she scoots the chair closer to his bedside and takes a seat. sinks her bones into the cushions and runs a hand through her hair. tender and unkempt and unlike the faye valentine he knows. she still exists below the surface where her anger festers.

her shoulders roll in a halfhearted shrug at his question, barely registering his comment about her snoring. ]

Roughly 18 hours. Probably more. I've lost track. [ her head tilts back and she closes her eyes. ] You were in surgery a long time. The doctor came by a few hours ago to check in. Nurses say your vitals have remained steady, though sometimes your pulse and respiration rate would increase out of the blue. I'm guessing a bad dream.

[ she says it with a nonchalance that would suggest she knows about his reoccurring spell of bad dreams. lurking for too long when he was napping on the couch, always with some sense of regret, playing witness to whatever ghosts he was fighting. with a sigh, she wills herself to move, opening her eyes and lifting her head to look at him. ]

Want me to get the nurse?