Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Evil Angel ❯ me or them ( Chapter 5 )

Spike 5.5

He heard the door opening, but couldn't summon up enough energy to do more than open one eye. She stood there in the door way to the sterile medical room and he slowly got both eyes open, saw her as she was now, but also in some sepia toned memory. Now she was tall, hair pulled up and done elaborately with ebony hairpins, strands of black pearls. She wore a red satin jacket with black dragons woven into flight over her shoulders, down the curves of her sides. He remembered those boots too, glassy black leather, red dragons, and that memory sparked his drugged and shocked mind. The Red Dragon Syndicate, Vicious, Julia, this woman was Julia, but the Julia he remembered was softly, shoulders sloped a little, hair down in large blond curls, body gentle, nursing him back to health. It had been one of the first kindnesses he could remember. Confused, not entirely sure he was really still alive, he licked at the dryness making his lower lip ache and watched her.

She stood there, watching him and he wondered what she was seeing. He remembered.. healing on a couch, so many times that the memories ran together, remembered feeling different than this, feeling as if the couch belonged to him, not like now where there was some need to justify his right to the space on this hard bed. A crack at the side of his mouth drew his tongue, and he licked at the coppery blood there, wishing he was on that lumpy couch instead. She took one step inside the door, the pearls and trinkets in her hair clinking softly, softening the sound of her boots on the tile floor. He remembered watching her fall, holding her in his arms. "You're alive." It was a simple statement, a fact with many meanings.

"So are you. Surprised?" She asked and her voice was different now as well, the same, but colder, distant, pure Martian nobility with just a very slight hint of Mandarin. It was the voice of a princess.

"Did you learn to speak peasant for me?" His own voice felt raspy, rough, very peasant like.

"No." Now her voice was the one he remembered, rich and compassionate, the voice that had cradled him in his dreams so many times in the last years. "That was for Vicious. Spike," she started, then paused, the back of her fingers touching his cheek, wiping away the blood from his cracked lip. With her other hand, she lifted a plastic glass from the table and guided the straw around to his lips. "Here, drink."

Her fingers smelled like jasmine, as if the scent of flowers just naturally clung to her fingers and he sucked the water, at first just to keep her fingers near him. Water spread cool though his mouth, down his throat, seeping into him and drawing energy up, until he pushed the straw out with his tongue and moved a little, very carefully. "What happened?"

"It does not matter," she said, reaching for his hand, the same hand that Faye had held a couple hours earlier. "Your body is healing very quickly. Soon you must chose your path, Spike."

Not as drugged as he had been, he still could not remember clearly. They'd been together on the roof, right after.. Annie.. and he closed his eyes, shifting a little, weight on his elbows as he tried to sit up, only to find her hand on his chest, pressing him back. "Lay still, Spike. Soon, you can get up."

"How long," he asked, remembering a bit more, remembering the katana that had sliced though is middle. "Vicious?"

"Vicious is dead. Truly dead. Your wounds will be completely healed within hours, all of them."

Now that Spike didn't believe. He had a feeling that his heart would never heal, not when he understood the reason all the pieces didn't fit. "You? You were shot. You died."

"I know," she said, her little fingernail under hooking the black silk frog closure at her throat, letting the red silk fall open, laying over the curve of breasts, around the pale bareness of her belly. "I died in your arms and I was together with you, where I will always be," she said, letting the red satin slip from her shoulders, her voice the voice he knew, not the voice of a Martian princess. "So then I am an angel, an angel untouched by time or place, who may think only of her heart and of the heart of her knight. Is that not possible?"

Spike had worked his way up to his elbows, unwashed hair clinging to his face, the back of his neck, a paper hospital gown sticking under his back and ripping as he rolled a little, putting all his weight on the elbow near her as he reached out to her. "We will always be untouched by time or place, Julia. I love you."

She meet his fingers, laying palm against palm and smiled sadly. "Don't. Don't talk of love. Love is always a lie and angels never lie." With her other hand, she pulled out one, then the other of the pins holding her hair and the golden blond fell like a waterfall of silk around her shoulders. She let her arm fall straight and the red satin slipped down, pooling around one elbow, held up by her other arm, her hand against Spike's. "Lay back on the bed, Spike. You must not strain yourself."

"Julia?" He didn't understand, really, all thoughts of wounds or weakness lost in the rising passion he felt for his angel. She moved her hand from his palm to his shoulder and guided him back, then pulled the sheet and blanket away, tossing them to the floor behind her, then letting both arms fall and the red satin dropped with it. One of Spike's hands went to his face, pulling at the oxygen tubing still at his nose, but she stopped him from removing it, her fingers gently pulling his away. "Why?"

"Because your body is running at a very high metabolic rate as it heals and the higher oxygen content will make that easier. I shouldn't be here now. I shouldn't do what I want to do." She smiled softly, just the lift of a corner of her mouth and he reached to touch her face, run his thumb along the line of smile that he'd seen in his dreams, all the dreams he could remember.

"You are just as I remember. Julia, whatever you want, I want that too."

"No," she said, not clarifying at all, but turning to kiss the pad of his thumb, to flick her thumb over it, then draw him into her mouth, tongue swirling suggestively around, over the edge of his nail, then along the fingerprint and he moaned low and male, primal. She closed her teeth on him then, holding him firmly, gently in her mouth as both hands reached behind her back and unzipped her pants, letting them drop to her ankles.

His eyes snapped open as she trailed her nails lightly over the inside of his thigh, up under the paper gown to where his leg met body, then very lightly up hardness that lifted up to meet her fingers. Now she nearly snarled, moaning unwillingly, her eyes holding his as she reached to the collar of his gown and ripped. The muscles of his chest flexed as he arched up to meet her and she bent, devouring his lips, teeth to lips, leaving him no space for breath as she knew his mouth, memorized it, stole it from him, swallowed his cries and all the energy he could put into returning her kiss.

She buried fingers in his tangled hair, holding onto him as if she could stop time, hold him forever, make the kiss last a life time. He reached back to her, palm against the side of her face, gentle just as she'd remembered, kind, too kind, too sweet, thumb rubbing her cheek, wiping away tears he wouldn't understand. She put one knee on the bed, stepped out of her pants and onto the bed, straddling him easily, her wet hunger resting on him, sliding along his length like a promise that would never know the bounds of reality.

Finally she broke the kiss, sitting back on him lightly, boots pressing against his bare thighs, panting softly as she let her fingers trail down his chest, around his nipples, then quickly back to his face, over all the contours and lines of his face, the expression of his personality as he responded, lifted to reach her touch, as his moaning breaths melted around her fingers. And they said nothing to each other, no words, as she sat back, let her eyes flow over him and he rested his hands on her knees, trying to raise his strength, to rise to be her knight, her lover. She closed her knees on him, slide higher, down again, frosting him with honey, but not inviting him within yet.

The disinfected from the surgery clung to his body, staining it with a reminder of mortality, of reality, and she let herself understand her options, her consequences as she traced gentle finger tips over the pink puckered scar across the whole front of his belly, just below his belly button, a centimeter wide and hiding technology advanced enough to be illegal and priceless. The scar was only a few hours old, less than a day, and she knew, knew even though she hadn't asked him yet, that it would be the only time she would see it. This scar was her scar, even though no real scars would ever mar her body, this, this was her scar. Suddenly, rushing, she leaned forward and caught his mouth again, his hands finding their way to her hips and she slide down on him, encasing him within herself, squeezing him tightly as she slide back down on him.

Timeless love should have lasted for hours, days, echoed itself many times over, but his body had enough stamina to be alive and little more and her heart had the power to believe only for so long. How many strokes it took for time to end, she didn't count, but as he released into her, she released as well, released her passion, hot and convulsing, milking him and hiding the milky pearls of his body deep within her. He wrapped both lanky arms around her as she lay down on him, her legs stretching out, so that he held her, enwrapped her, and for just such a short second, he was her knight, her protector and she was not the woman who would rule Mars, Venus, Earth, humanity. "Spike, would you stay here with me, no matter the cost?"

"I would stay with you even if this were to be my last breath, Julia. I will give all that I have for you. Just tell me what I must do," he said, still struggling to regain his breath as he kissed her hair, her forehead.

"Spike," she whispered. "Your friends are here. I can, perhaps, hide you. You will never set foot outside, never leave the quarters I give you. You will not be free, but to do that, your friends will," she paused and sought a way to tell him that she would kill his friends painlessly, that they would feel no fear, no pain. "I can have no witnesses of this. Only one person will know you live."

"Jet," he said, holding her a little tighter, "And Faye. They…."

"It would be easy, a small price. You and I, forever. Even normal aging is over come. You will be safe, wealthy, protected."

He shifted a little, frowning. "But a prisoner and my friends will die? Is that what you're offering me, Julia? Who are you?"

She sat up then, face pale, and caught up the sheet from behind her, drawing it around her body. "I told you that it doesn't matter. You may leave with them, but the price of that is your memories, every last one of them. You will have to relearn everything more advanced than lifting a fork to your mouth. Your life or theirs, Spike. Stay with me."

Pulling away more, one arm across his belly protectively, he drew his knees up, not caring really that he was naked, that his own seed was sticky against his chest. "I don't know who you are! Julia! Julia!" He said her name as if he could invoke the spirit of the woman he'd known and dreamed about. "Julia, these are my friends and I love them."

"Love," she spat, pure princess accent now, as stepped off the bed and reached for her pants. "Love. Love is like recycled air. Everyone gets a little. I have what I wish from you then. Do you wish to be mine, or will you go with them?" She turned to the computer on the table by his bed, called up the camera that showed the inside of their room, hoping she sounded suitably harsh, cold, as untouchable by feelings as she needed to be. "They will suffer for taking care of you. Life without power is always full of suffering. Let them sleep while you stay with me. Do not make them suffer."

Spike looked where she pointed and there, Jet kissed Faye, and he felt like his heart had suddenly more daggers in it, like his heart knew new ways to break. Faye and Jet? Jet, he let the man's name rock over his feelings, and he wanted the man happy, but there was a flare of jealousy as well. Hurt makes for the desire for revenge and he tried not to, tried to keep his eyes from letting tears fall, but they came anyway, burning like some Venus allergy to living, racing down his cheeks, bleeding his soul away. They didn't need him as he was, if he had no memories he'd be less suffering for them than if he were to be near and feeling this.. this thing he couldn't explain. "I would rather start over free than be the lap mutt of a lying princess," he hissed, hoping it hurt, hoping it sent daggers back.

"Fool," she said, poison ice. She tapped the screen connecting to a different source. "Clear the Bebop for launch. Make sure they are all on it. I will bring Patient Alpha to the docking bay myself."

"Acknowledge, Mistress," returned a voice that Spike didn't know.

And he found himself shivering, naked and covered in goosebumps, arms across his chest. "Do I get a shower and a cigarette?"

"No." She reached into the table's drawer and with drew a pair of goggles, smaller than Ed's, set up with eight separate data input spikes curving inwards from the outer edges. "Well, leave me then. Put these on, Spike. You have to do it willingly or it will destroy your mind completely. Put them on, press the button on the side and then there's no turning back. You don't have to, really. I will forgive you."

He reached out, fingers shaking, throat tight. "Let them go, let them leave, safe. And don't lie to me!"

"I will always lie to you, Spike, after this. But I will not lie over this decision. They will die. I can't have them as witnesses as long as you retain your memories. You are my rival. It is you that I should kill, but I can not bring myself to do it." She reached out to brush away tears, but he pulled back, wiping the back of his hand over his face, and feeling like a child.

Without another word, he put on the computer goggles, switched them on, saw a bright light, bright enough that for just a fraction of a breath he thought his eyes would be burned out and then… nothing.