Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Once More, With Pirates ❯ Away From Me ( Chapter 9 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Well, it looks like Spike and Fullmetal suffer the effects of too much Gagh; and Faye and Jet get caught in the crossfire. So to speak. This chapter�s not all fun and games though. Things start to get a little more serious.

*****Speaking of Gagh� Remember the Gagh? Well, aside from the �aftermath�, dragonnan was inspired by the scene of Fullmetal downing a slimey serpent worm. The results were wonderful, and you can find them here: w w w. dragonnan. deviantart. c o m (without the spaces). Go! See! Comment!*****

Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction / Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Sci-fi / Drama | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 11.10.2005 | Updated On: 11.10.2005 | Pages: 4 | Words: 4.1K | Visits: 540 | Status: Work In Progress

A/N: Well, it looks like Spike and Fullmetal suffer the effects of too much Gagh; and Faye and Jet get caught in the crossfire. So to speak. This chapter's not all fun and games though. Things start to get a little more serious.

Speaking of Gagh… Remember the Gagh? Well, aside from the `aftermath', dragonnan was inspired by the scene of Fullmetal downing a slimey serpent worm. The results were wonderful, and you can find them here: w w w. dragonnan. deviantart. c o m (without the spaces). Go! See! Comment!

And references to “Play Me Some More of that Old Blues” by dragonnan have finally found their way into the story. But there will be more. It plays an important role in the timeline. If you haven't read that story yet…go do it!

And as for the Gagh? I think I've taken the “Eat slimey-squirmy things to prove how macho you are” joke as far as it can go.

Chapters: 9

Word Count, This Chapter: 2294

Word Count Total: 26,780

Words Left: 23,220

Away From Me

Crawling through this world as disease flows through my veins; I look into myself, but my own heart has been changed; I can't go on like this; I loathe all I've become - Evanescence (Origin)

Jet was sitting at the table in the common room, contemplating his coffee, and working on waking up. He didn't think he would fall asleep so quickly, nor sleep so soundly as he did. He wasn't even certain how he ended up with the extra pillow, and he wasn't going to ask. He could hear Faye in the shower on her side of the suite, but he had no idea where Spike had run off to. He wasn't too worried, though. How much trouble could he get into on this ship? He thought.

The main door slid open, and he looked up to see Spike and Fullmetal. They both looked like they'd taken one turn too many on a centrifugal spinner, too. Spoke too soon, Jet thought.

“Spike? You okay there, Buddy?”

A rather distressing sound erupted from the lanky man's stomach, and he looked a little green all of a sudden. “Too much Gagh,” he groaned, then ran off for the bathroom. At least Jet hoped that was where he was headed. Especially with the most unfortunate noises coming from the vicinity.

Jet wasn't sure if he heard Spike correctly, and turned to Fullmetal. “Gagh?”

The boy became a noticeably richer shade of green all of a sudden, and Jet pointed toward the other room in the suite. “That way.”

Fullmetal dashed in the direction indicated, and Jet remembered an instant before she screamed that Faye was in there already. He winced, and heard her stomp out. Then he did a rather remarkable imitation of a turtle as she sputtered furiously, and incoherently. He chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw that she was unarmed, and at least covered in a towel.

After a few false starts, she finally pointed back toward her room, and said, “Jet, there is a short, blonde, teenaged boy throwing up in my bathroom. Care to tell me why?”

He pulled at the collar of his shirt, and grinned nervously. “Too much Gagh?”

Faye's eye started to twitch dangerously, and Jet mentally ticked off who was going to get what when he died; but he was rescued at the last minute by the doorchime. “Come in! Please. I need witnesses.”

Data came in, and Faye growled. She spun on her heel, and stomped back to her room. Jet watched her retreating back and saw catastrophe an instant before it occurred.

Neither of them was watching where they were going. Fullmetal was staring at the deck, looking pale and weak, and Faye was glaring over her shoulder at Jet when they collided. The boy looked up when he made contact, and it took a moment for it to register in his brain just what his eyes were on. But owing to his height, there was only one place for them to go.

And if Jet lived to see a hundred, he will never, ever figure out how what happened next, happened. And if he lived that long, he knew it would still make him laugh.

The instant Fullmetal realized where he was looking, he jumped back as if burned, jerking his automail hand up instinctively, and somehow snagging Faye's towel with it. She stood there, in all her glory, balled fists jammed into her hips, and seething. Jet could swear he would have heard the moisture still on her sizzling and evaporating, had he not been laughing so hard.

The boy was frozen in shock, but he was still a healthy teenaged boy, and his eyes had a mind of their own as they traveled down, went exceptionally wide, then snapped back up. He quickly went through the full spectrum of red, including a couple shades that Jet didn't know existed.

Faye leaned down and glared at the boy. Then she snatched the towel from his hand, and snapped, “Do you mind?” An instant later, her door slid shut, leaving a very stunned, and very red teenaged boy in her wake.

Soon though, the shock wore off, and he returned to sickly pale, and his eyes heavy-lidded. Jet jerked his thumb at the other room, and said, “Get in there and get some sleep, Ed. There's an extra bed, I'm sure Spike won't mind.” The boy didn't even try to argue; a testament to just how bad he felt at the moment.

After Fullmetal left the room, Jet faced Data. “So,” he said. “Just what is Gagh?”

0o0o0

Spike woke up a couple hours later to hear his name being bandied about in the other room. He listened and realized it was Jet and Data talking about his last meeting with Vicious. His hand slid across his abdomen, lightly brushing over the line of puckered skin where Vicious' blade eviscerated him.

I died that day. He never let himself forget that; reminded himself every time he woke up, and realized that he was still alive after all. He still dreamed about that night. The flash of light across the blade, the burning sensation as it sliced his flesh, the white-hot pain as he held his intestines back from spilling… the growing, icy chill as his life fled. Each time he had the dream it was as crystal clear as if he were living it over again.

The months following his death had remained a blur. Flashes of light; unfocused snapshots. He knew what had happened because Jet and Faye told him. But he was never really certain if some of his memories were his, or not. Technically he shouldn't have remembered anything while he was in the tank at Mechatronics, Inc. But there were moments; there were flashes. It was when he had those little flashes that he felt most like a ghost.

And the moments when he felt like a ghost, he would look at the faces of those closest to him, and remind himself that he was alive. Others, not quite as close by, reminded him, too. He still kept in touch with Hollis, after all. And VT would get him drunk when they found themselves with time to spare and were in the same sector. Then she would always buy him a Prairie Oyster afterwards.

He held up his left hand, and tried to see the faint silver line across the palm in the dim light. There was another reason he reminded himself that he was still alive. Another reason to be grateful for that life. He'd made a promise.

He glanced over to the other bed, and saw the boy sound asleep. A boy who had not yet made the blood oath, but will. If this timeline moves the way it should, he thought.

A memory drifted though his mind, of a conversation he'd had more than a year ago, and hadn't thought of since:

“Something happened. Except it hasn't happened to you, yet.”

“What happened, Ed? Or what will happen?”

“I can't tell you any more. You made me swear on our blood oath. Even though I hadn't made the oath yet”

At the time, Spike just thought that he made Ed swear because of the bizarre nature of the incident. Because wrapping his brain around the fact that the boy had spoken to his future self was more than he could deal with at the time, and his future self would know that.

But now he knew that telling him… warning him would be deadly. He saw what Q did to Alphonse. He knew he could do much worse, if he thought mere humans were stacking the deck.

But he still warned me, didn't he? he thought. And it was a warning that I knew my earlier self would heed, because I told him what to say.

“You told me that you lost one of your eyes in an accident, and that ever since, you saw the past in one eye, and the present in the other.”

“I never told you that, Ed.”

“Not yet, you haven't.”

Spike lay on his back, and stared up at the ceiling. I don't see that way anymore, he thought. But I would never believe Ed if I told him anything else. Not then.

He was the only one who knew that Ed, Al, Hughes, Havoc and Mustang would make it back safe and sound. But that didn't make much sense, because he knew that if Q knew he'd reassured the boy, he would change the outcome; and in order for Spike to send the warning back, he would have to also tell Ed he was going to make it home safe.

Something else needs to happen, he thought. Sending that warning was a big risk. It has to be more to it than just fortune-telling. Somewhere in that warning is a message. Something we'd be able to use, to defeat Q.

The argument was circular. He was stuck, and didn't know which direction to go from there. He needed to take a walk, to clear his head. And he desperately needed a cigarette.

As he sat up, he glanced at the peacefully sleeping boy on the other bed, and scowled as a strange feeling of genuine affection swelled within him. What the hell is it about kids named Ed, anyway?

0o0o0

Sounds of gunfire and explosions were muted thunder in the distance, but inside the tent all was silence. She could smell the age and sweat of the canvas, the sun-scorched sand beneath her bare knees, and the reek of too many different cheap colognes used to cover the smell of unwashed bodies.

All she could see though, were hard, narrow, amber eyes, set deep in a sun browned face.

“I'll do what you want, and I won't fight you,” she said. She looked away from him; from the eyes that bore into her flesh. “But I won't ever do it willingly.”

“You just did.”

She felt shame heat her flesh.

McKenna's eyes snapped open, and she tensed. She sensed she wasn't alone in the darkened room. Her eyes slid to the side, and met another pair. She jumped off the bed and backed against the wall. She tried to call out, but she suddenly had no voice.

“Lights, full,” the figure still reclining on her bed said, and the lights came up.

She grabbed her throat, and continued to try and call out, even as she knew she wouldn't be able to. Her eyes never left the man on her bed, dressed in a blue State Alchemist's uniform, perfect all the way down to the braid on the shoulder, and the silver pocket watch. But this was no Alchemist.

He watched her with amusement, as she panicked and struggled to speak. His eyes danced with malicious glee, and his mouth quirked in an arrogant, petulant smirk, as she slid down the wall and fell trembling to the deck.

“You didn't really think I'd let you call for help, did you?” Q said as he slid off the bed, and knelt down next to her. “Not that you need it.”

He leaned close and spoke in low, intimate tones by her ear. “You've always been able to take care of yourself, haven't you?” he said, as his hand gripped the back of her neck, and his thumb pressed lightly on her throat. “You've always done what you needed to get what you wanted.”

He slid his thumb up her throat, under her chin; inhuman strength forcing her head up. His eyes were intense as they locked on hers. “You never thought about how your actions affected anyone else, did you?”

Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw set. Q smiled, and released her throat. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “Your burden, your choice. You knew what you were doing. You've said it all before.”

He set back on his haunches, crossed his arms over his knees, and tilted his head curiously. “You humans are all alike. You think too small. And you, of all people, should know better.”

She shook her head, still confused. Know better? Know what? she thought.

He came forward on his knees, and grabbed her face in one hand. He was close enough that she would be able to smell him; to feel his breath on her face… if there had been any breath, or any scent about him. “You're willing to do what you need to, in order to get what you want. Are you willing to do what is necessary, in order to make things right?” He leaned in closer, and whispered in her ear; a tone that was almost intimate. “Are you willing to sacrifice your very existence, in order to save three universes?”

He stood, and said, “Time's wasting, McKenna. You now only have 36 hours.”

Silence echoed in the room. She was alone again.