Humiliation

Humiliation

The card reader beeped obnoxiously.

The cashier glanced surreptitiously at him for the fourth time.

Jet glared at the machine and only barely managed to school his expression into something less antagonistic when the cashier cleared her throat to get his attention.

"Sometimes the reader doesn't quite..." She trailed off, cheeks flushing with color.

There was a line of people queued up behind him. A bag boy patiently waiting to see what to do with the groceries he'd already carefully put into the paper bags at the end of the conveyor belt. A manager slowly making their way down the aisle of checkout lanes.

He knew better. The cashier was trying to be kind, to offer him an out... as if it was technology's fault that there wasn't enough in the account to cover what he'd painstakingly gathered (he'd done the math in his head the entire time, adding taxes and subtracting discounts, and still somehow he had misjudged...) ...but Jet knew the humiliating truth.

Well. Nothing to be done for it. Taking a deep breath in, he considered quickly what all was in the bags. What could he do without? What would subtract enough from the total to allow him to depart with his dignity in shreds but at least something in those sacks to feed his crew?

To feed Ed mainly. The other two could take care of themselves well enough. Even Ein was no slouch at hunting when the hunger was too much.

So, doing his best to ignore the judgmental stares that may or may not be aimed at him from the folks behind... he stepped up to the bagger and gestured curtly at the conveyor belt.

"Sorry bub, lemme just go through these and give a few things back to the lady here..."

His ears were ringing too much to hear the garbled tunes playing over the grocery store speakers. The cashier was staring down at her drawer to give him a semblance of privacy. And he did his utmost to shut out and ignore the rest of the populace of the place.

Wasn't the first time.

Probably wouldn't be the last time.

Still, the churning gut and the aching chest and the tension in his jaw... all of these kept the humiliation of the moment stacked on him like a scarlet letter.

Man, he hated being poor.

Obsession

"What is your obsession with chasing pain?"

"What?"

"You heard me. You're addicted to getting hurt. Not because you want some pills either. So... what is it? Why do you keep showing up at my doorstep with more broken bones than whole ones? With more bruises than a boxer?"

Spike winced as he shifted on the bed, the box spring creaking ominously beneath him.

Julia pursed her lips and simply raised a cool eyebrow, leaning further back to indicate she would not be helping him sit up.

Her passive aggressive approach always amused him. It didn't even matter that everything was on fire in his body. He gingerly tugged at the sheet pooled across his lap, pulling it up and over his exposed midriff, and despite the high quality thread count it still tore at every single invisible shard of glass lodged in his skin. Glass from the broken window had been the least of their concerns - his or hers - when he had so many other wounds to address.

He wondered what she would do if he admitted that half the time he showed up was because he'd let himself get hurt. Take the punches, get touched up by the girl. Not his best plan but so far it had been working out okay.

Besides, beating others up - and getting his shit rocked in turn - was a good way to keep his mind off other stuff. Worry over Vicious, who'd been sent to Titan to orchestrate some drug deals with the government no doubt. The other man hadn't revealed what his mission was but Spike was no fool despite evidence to the contrary. Vicious had always been better at organizing new clients. But war was war and people died every day in combat situations whether here or there... at least here they'd had each other. He watched Vicious's back and Vicious watched his. And sometimes he watched Vicious sink into his own obsession... Red Eye fueling a dangerous rampage... and sometimes Vicious watched him sink into the murky confines of a bottle. Red Eye had already cost him an eye. He wasn't gonna keep going and continue to lose senses or limbs. Vicious could handle his high better... it made him even more lethal and considerably unstable. Probably half the reason why the Van sent him away. Sure, it could work in their favor to have more addicts scattered from here to Jupiter space but it also meant they might be able to wash their hands of Vicious entirely.

Spike missed his brother. He could always corral Vicious when things got too messy. And Vicious, even after a hit, could keep Spike out of trouble.

It's not that he was addicted to pain.

It's just that getting hurt served so many purposes.

Being lost in the moment, nothing else to think about but the here and now and how to survive the next five minutes.

Entering into a stupor of agony where he could acknowledge nothing except the sheer discomfort radiating from whatever cuts, burns, bruises, or broken bits he'd gained.

Getting fixed up by Julia's steady hands, soothed by the melody of her humming.

His obsession was with her, truthfully. This living contradiction... leather catsuit wearing sniper capable of donning a simple dress and apron like the homeliest country girl he'd ever envisioned while reading old Earth novels in the library (that he'd sneak into after hours as a kid, unwilling to believe places like that genuinely welcomed any and all souls during normal business hours) ...she was soft curves and hard lines, gentle yet sadistic (oh he was well aware of how she and Vicious spent nights together)... she was a joker, pulling silly pranks to make them smile, but she was also devastatingly haunted at times.

He craved the missions they got to spend together and the downtime they managed to steal once in a while. Bringing her back to the present moment with him, banishing that far away look from her beautiful blue eyes, distracting her with the urgent need to stop the bleeding before he quite literally bled out...

Okay so he probably took things too far too often. But she was so good at toeing the line of torture it was no wonder she was also absurdly capable as a medic.

And if he died in her arms, in her care...

Well, there were worse ways to go.

Heaven lay in her gaze. Hope beckoned when he heard her dulcet tones. A future away from all the gore and the senseless violence and the dark methods of escape they used... it was possible. It had to be. What cruel world would deny a happier fate to her?

One day he'd be brave and tell her how he felt. Tumble into the sheets with her, showing her all the tenderness that Vicious never cared to express. He'd be the one taking care of her someday... taking her away from these lonely nights and into some bright dreamy ever after.

Vicious was gone, perhaps for good. Spike's heart was as broken as his body. But in the absence of his partner and friend... there was still this beguiling angel. His reason for living (his reason for continuing over and over and over again to endure more suffering than any sane person ought to) ...the jewel of the syndicate... this devil that he dared to love.

Watching the feral child tear into the food on the table made Jet feel very uneasy.

The boy... no, girl... the child was so scrawny. Skin and bone and bright hair and wide-eyed innocence...

She devoured every scrap of food that had been on the plate and then licked the plate clean more vigorously than he'd ever seen even Ein take to a dish.

It spoke of a level of starvation that Jet himself - despite any grumpy complaints Spike might have to the contrary - had ever experienced.

Sure, there had been some lean times. Meals of vegetables but no protein, meals of cup noodles and not even vegetables to go with, meals of single ingredients (could it even be called a meal? it had to count) but typically it was only a few hungry hours - days at most - before they'd snag a bounty and could get some grub.

This kid... hell, she might have been LIVING off actual grubs.

The ruins where she'd been hiding... there were no fields there. No gardens. No grocery stores or convenience stores or anything except broken buildings and rebar and rubble.

The effervescent attitude of the child was mind boggling. Hunger tended to make Jet (and Spike and Faye for that matter) as cantankerous as all get out. Sniping at each other, fighting over the last bean, full of attitude if not food. Most of their arguments happened when no one was adequately fed.

The cheer of this frighteningly thin child was disconcerting.

Maybe she truly was an alien after all.

He could hear her stomach grumble from across the room and felt a pang of sorrow at her plight.

Spike had already scarfed down his food and disappeared into the bowels of the ship. Faye had also dined and dipped - using up all the hot water in the shower from the creaky sounds of the pipes. Ein was still sniffing curiously around the newcomer.

Spearing a bit of potato onto his fork, Jet heard a growl from the dog. "Ein!" He snapped.

The dog made a sad whine at Jet's tone.

A childish giggle. "Wasn't Ein woof-woof!" The girl chirped. "Just Edward's belly monster!"

His gaze jumped to the rail-thin girl. Aghast, Jet looked down at his plate. He'd been so intent on watching the kid chow down that he'd only poked around his own portion. He looked back at the girl.

His stomach gave a gurgle but not so much like voicing his own appetite as it was commiserating with the emptiness of the other stomach in the room.

"Hey, kid."

Ed glanced at him, retracting her tongue from the plate and back into her mouth. "What, what?"

He tossed his plate onto the table between them. "Here. Finish this off for me, would ya?"

Delight sparkled in her eyes. "Oh, oh! A kindness! Edward knew Bebop-Bebop was the place to be!" She gave him a deep bow and got to work immediately with shoveling the food into her mouth with both hands as fast as she could chew or at least swallow. He wasn't sure if she was chewing at all.

The hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach was growing bigger with every bite she took.

Who would leave a child to starve? To fend for themselves on this miserable rock with no way to grow their own food... to gradually wither and wilt and slowly sadly pass from existence into a horrible aching death...

Clearing his throat gruffly, Jet got to his feet. "I'm uh... I'm just gonna fix up another plate. You uh... well, if you're hungry later, there'll be more to eat in the fridge, okay?"

The girl's eyes grew even wider, saucers of gold gleaming with amazement.

"Bebop-Bebop... what a place of wonder..." she breathed.

Jet suppressed a shiver.

What kind of a life had this poor creature lived before this?

Seeing Double

Convenience Store | Loneliness | “Leave no trace behind, like you don't even exist.”

She never drank.

Okay that wasn't true.

But she never drank like this.

She hadn't lied when she told Spike that him returning was worse on her than the booze but hitting the bottle as hard as she had wasn't doing her any favors either.

It certainly wasn't helping with the knowledge of what brought this ghost back to her door, haunting the sidewalk of her convenience store like he'd never left at all.

His repeated glances at the photograph on the counter stung each time.

Of course he'd be drawn to the image. It was his family, his blood. It was HER family.

The loneliness of the past few years threatened to wash her away.

Spike's return was like a tsunami... crashing ashore and destroying the house of cards she'd built over the past few years.

Spike's death had been brutal. It had left a new Spiegel-sized gap in her heart to pulsate alongside the older wound that another Spiegel man had made.

But something about Mao's reaction to it had given her an impractical hope that she valiantly denied for three years.

Mao's belief in Spike's survival had seemed preposterous. A way to deflect the misery of his passing into something manageable. And that seemed to help Mao even if everyone else gave him looks of pity. Even if Annie herself thought he was crazy to have faith in that desperate hope.

And then things had fallen into a routine much like life always did in the aftermath of tragedy. She moped and did her best to move on. The syndicate itself had seemed to reel from the unexpected loss of one of its star recruits and gradually it seemed like the Dragon was ready to evolve. The bloodshed between rival syndicates wasn't sustainable. There had to be an end.

It did not surprise her that Mao would be one of the capos to advocate for this. It gave him purpose, gave him an end in sight.

And then it got him killed.

Grief rose up, thick and cloying, and she barely managed to gulp down the bile it brought along.

She already regretted giving Spike the information she had. But it was unavoidable. He'd have pestered it out of her sooner or later, he'd always been good at that, and the alcohol had only accelerated the time between his question and her inevitable response. Part of her figured he'd already had an idea of the truth and just needed to hear the words from her lips to be certain. Besides, her place was the best source for ammunition and that was something he'd need in spades.

Had she sent him along to a new death?

Did it matter anyway?

Everyone she ever loved had left her. Violence stole all of her loves. The world was a sick sad place and she was tired, so tired, of watching everyone choose the hard path to Hell.

But what else could she do? She was as tied into the system as anyone else.

Gulping once more to settle her riotous stomach, she reached for the bottle again.

Spike had taken the shot meant for Mao earlier. Fine.

She'd just have to take one for both of those fools now.

Wake Up

He wondered when it had truly started.

There was an undeniable allure to being mysterious.

Julia had gobbled up that bit about his eyes seeing the past and present... Faye meanwhile had seemed... sort of... betrayed by it.

Everything about the way he'd left her was unresolved and poorly done.

He'd been so confident that it was all about to be over. No one walked into the Red Dragon headquarters on a murder mayhem spree and lived to tell about it. Making it all the way to the top to confront Vicious had been a miracle - gifted to him by Shin, at such a terrible cost.

So he'd approached her, intent on stealing a kiss before he left. One little taste of those inviting lips... after all their time together, the teasing and banter, the push-and-pull of their not-quite-friendship... to give himself a bit of closure on that unread chapter, to give her a glimpse at what could have been...

But she'd pulled back and he'd caught himself in time. Loomed over her instead and gave her that line he'd once used on Julia in a much more playful setting.

And she had reacted with such outrage. Uncomfortable at the thought that he was giving her a piece of himself before taking the rest away. And he realized that's exactly what he'd been about to do. It's all he was capable of doing. To kiss her then would have been cruel. So he took a step away in every sense possible... told her how life itself was too unreal to be true...

Before he could walk away she bared herself to him in the most vulnerable way possible. Her admittance demanded something of him. A truth that he meant as a lie. Or had it been a lie he meant as the truth?

Sometimes he couldn't tell.

The dismal reality was that his fate was sealed. And if he didn't go, then their lives were forfeit.

Simple as that.

Jet understood.

But fate had decided to smile on him after all. Perhaps the universe had seen enough death in that building... so many lives destroyed by the syndicate, so many more that would fall if Vicious had his chance to rule...

All he knew now was pain.

Vicious had assumed Julia's death would wake Spike from the sentimental dream of forever after hand-in-hand... the impossible dream that had never been on the table at all.

In reality, it was Vicious's death that ended the nightmare of Spike's previous life.

And although everything throbbed and stung and ached and burned and brought new meaning to the word torment... there was something more...

A voice, humming. Not off-key but not in the same key as Julia had once hummed...

The same peaceful glimmer of a welcome back that he'd heard the last time he regained consciousness on the ratty couch of the Bebop.

The pale face of an angel who played at being a devil as often as possible.

Faye, blue-green eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Mouth trembling as she strove to contain her emotions.

The humming stopped.

"You're finally up, huh."

Awake. Alive. And finally ready to admit that all he could see in either eye was her and the unknowable future that stretched out before them...