That night she dreamt of stars
by ParesI
That night she dreamt of stars.
Her garter had left a red welt and she'd smoothed it with her own warm fingers and her hand had smelled like gun oil, but not like Spike.
In the end, she hadn't been able to shoot him, and he hadn't even... She'd thought he might have. Maybe if she'd been able to work up a few tears, instead of shaking rage. That internal quake had sent her shot wide. All her shots wide of him.
Strangely, Jet, too reeked of gun oil. She'd found him polishing the windows and staring at nothing, leaning heavily on his crutch. He smelled like gun oil and acrid cleaning solution and dry, flaking blood under the hospital gauze.
She'd led him limping to her bed and he'd petted her hair as she'd shivered beside him, his pneumatic arm tireless and cold against her shoulder, her throat, rubbing soothing static into her plum black hair.
She licked at Jet's stubbled throat, set her teeth against it and worried it, and he never murmured, never pushed her away. If she cried now, it was too late, and Jet wouldn't care. She could do Jet's crying for him.
"The old man said his star would fall. That he'd dreamed it." It was the only thing Jet had said when she'd taken his hand and drawn him away from the blank window.
Jet did not kiss her, did not undress her, did not close his eyes. Her yellow suit was wrangled off over her own head by her own hands, and his warm hand, his living one, cupped her chin as she rode him, and she bit at his fingers until they were bloody and he never moved them.
She felt raw and dry and powerless, and she couldn't come, wouldn't come this way. Jet was silent and forgiving beneath her and she hid her face under the raspy shadow of his beard.
They lay still, and she could hear the whir of Jet's false arm, and she could feel his pulse jump under her lips.
Spike's eyes were two different colors, but she hadn't been able to see herself in either one.
In a romance, the kind she'd read on Earth at school, his hand would have stroked her cheek, and he would have slipped an arm around her waist. He would have still ignored the gun, though.
His hand would have been high on her back, between her shoulder blades, the other slipping up under her hair, fingers cradling the back of her neck.
Faye Valentine herself preferred to eschew the tender words that might have been spoken for the taste of his tongue, for the kind of kiss that slid through you like sweet, poisoned wine.
She closed her eyes, Jet all around her on the empty ship, and wondered why he'd let Spike go.
Somewhere on the planet below, Spike was dead or dying, and he hadn't kissed her, had never kissed her, never would.
Somewhere, his star was falling.
II
She woke up in the dark, the BeBop only an invisible echo around her. As she moved, the ship swallowed every sound she made like pebbles dropped in a well. She felt like a fucking ghost, because even after she'd turned the lights on, her bedroom looked abandoned: it could have been a rundown hotel room anywhere, but for the metal walls. The walls were the same temperature as the room's air, which meant they were cold enough to make her nipples stiffen, but she found the contact reassuring enough that she dragged her hand along the wall on her way to the head.
Predictably, her hand was grimy by the time she got there, but she found that reassuring, too. Washing her face and hands in tepid water that smelled like old pipes and cheap purifying chemicals was at least familiar. But still, the only sounds she heard were her own, and it was beginning to make her nervous. What if she was dead, and hell was the lonesome click of her own heels, the sound of her own heart beating in her ears? What good was an empty shell to drift around in, able to touch things, but always alone?
Then the gluey smell of cheap noodles frying in sesame oil. Refusing to be relieved, she followed it, casually making her way to the common room, finally hearing Jet scud around in the galley.
He cooked a lot, for a guy. Cooked a lot, even for a guy who had only himself to cook for. Now.
Because she was leaving, wasn't she?
I can't believe I'm still here, she thought.
"Well it's not what I expected, either, but wattaya gonna do?" Jet's voice had more gravity than the BeBop did, and was just as tired. "Noodles?"
A thin white chinica plate heaped with spindly, colorless noodles was held before her. She took the plate and drew the chopsticks from under his thumb. The noodles weren't bad-- if you ate them fast enough. He gave her the eye for a long, critical moment before folding his arms and slumping heavily back against the cooking counter.
"So. You leaving?" He kept his eyes on the galley's smooth floor, and she halted, noodles dripping from her chopsticks, mouth crammed full.
"Well, not this second." Whether he could understand her around the sesame noodles wasn't really her concern. Christ. Couldn't he at least have waited until she was done eating to start, you know, making her plan? She swallowed the rest of her breakfast and he held up a patient hand for the empty plate. He still wasn't looking at her, and she was glad.
He turned to set the plate in the disher, and when his back was to her she said, "Soon. Next planetfall. Where are we going anyway?"
"Nowhere special. Drifting," he added after a pause.
Drifting. Faye decided to trade in her existential angst for hostility, and was happy to drop her weirdly meek desire to stay on in this old rustbucket, just... to stay close to someone she didn't owe money to. Well, a lot of money to.
"I guess it's pretty lucky we haven't been pulled into some planet's gravity well and incinerated, then! Some captain you are, Jet."
Jet just nodded absently.
Nonplussed, Faye clicked her chopsticks together and eyed the wok full of still-steaming food.
"Go ahead," Jet said listlessly, and limped out into the kitchen.
She heard him flop on the awful yellow couch and attacked the remaining noodles. When she had the last clump gripped in her chopsticks, she had a pang of remorse. Jet, cooking for himself, alone on the BeBop, a crutch under one arm. Jesus, that was depressing.
"Sure you're not hungry?" No answer. "Jet?"
When there was no response, she finished the last bite without regret. She'd given him his chance, after all.
Then there was nothing to do but wander into the common room herself.
Jet lay on the couch with the crutch on the floor beside him, his robotic arm flung across his eyes. A suspicion that he might be crying sparked her flight response, but the impression was fleeting and she settled warily on the coffee table, instead.
"He was an idiot," she said flatly. She preferred anger to Jet's obvious mourning.
A small exhalation of air, the hint of a smile.
"Funny. Except for the deathwish and the dick, he was exactly like you."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"A selfish bigmouth with no past, a hollow leg and one hell of a tough guy act. Never planned anything, just counted on luck to save his ass when his ammo ran out. Figured he could get by forever on judo and a pretty face." He moved his arm and focused on her, eyes glinting. "Sound familiar, Faye?"
She felt her hands clench on her knees.
"He was a jerk! He didn't care that he would hurt us, he just went and did his thing and... and..."
"And you're just like him." Jet's eyes were closed, and the words were so slow and heavy, she half-wondered if he was talking in his sleep. "Every time either one of you left this ship, I figured, well, I guess it's for good this time. But you kept coming back. Like stray cats."
For several minutes, neither of them spoke. The common room didn't seem abandoned, but to Faye's eyes, it had the anonymous air of a station lobby. With fewer newzines and manga flyers. Jet was kind of a cleanfreak, so there was no dust, no empty instanoodle cups, not even dog hair. She could almost picture Spike slouching in the corner chair, complaining.
"How long did you know him?"
"Met him maybe six months before we ran into you. We were both trying to round up the same hacker anarchist thug. Giri Sang something-or-other."
"Why'd you partner up?"
Jet shrugged.
"I'd been flying solo for three years. I was tired of eating alone. He looked hungry."
"Was he your lover?" She had been waiting to ask that question.
"No, Faye." His voice sounded softer, ground down.
"Never? But you wanted him, right?"
Jet took the question more placidly than she'd expected, and rubbed the bridge of his nose before answering.
"To tell you the truth, in the early days, I thought about it some." He said finally. "But not because I wanted him. I was just hoping to settle him down a little. Thought maybe he was looking for an anchor. Turns out he just wanted a ferryman to take him across the river."
Faye tilted her head, fuzzy on the reference but grasping its meaning anyway. She also spied another helpful little gap she could prize open and poke around in.
"Bullshit," she said with some satisfaction. "You wanted to nail him because you wanted to nail him. Don't give me any of that 'for his own good' crap. Of course you wanted him. I remember that pretty little mouse of yours. You had a total big daddy thing going on there, and she knew it, and that's why she split. Spike? Me? You couldn't control us, and you liked it that way." She heaved a disdainful sigh. "Figures. Cops always have authority kinks."
"Kinks?" He sounded offended. How a big buff guy like Jet could constantly sound like a scandalized little old lady was beyond her.
"Kinks, old man," she asserted.
He turned his head to glare at her.
"I'm half your age," he pointed out.
"Oh, fine, get technical." She pouted for a moment until she tagged the thought that had been eluding her. "Wait a minute. Last night. It wasn't some comfort thing--" She felt her eyes widen in outrage.
Jet sat up so fast he almost blurred. His hands, one warm, one cold, closed on her upper arms and he leaned toward her, slow and implacable.
He kissed her until her heart raced and her lips were raw, and when he let her go, he smoothed her hair with his robotic hand and said, "I was with you, Faye."
Her knees trembled, and she stuttered, "But-- but you said I was a selfish bigmouth with a hollow leg--"
"I also said the only difference between you was a deathwish," and he unholstered the gun she had on her hip, setting it with a solid click on the table beside her, "and a dick." He ran his warm hand along the inside of her thigh and she closed her eyes. She felt him lean close again and his breath was hot in her ear when he said, "Stay."
"Okay," she whispered.
*
Later, she woke up on the couch to the racket of cookware, the flaring hiss of hot oil. The smell of gluey noodles frying made her stomach rumble; she licked her lips and found she was thirsty, too.
He met her at the galley door with a full plate.
"Jet. What if we went to Earth? For a while."
"There's no guarantee Ed's still there, Faye."
"Then we can track her," Faye insisted. "I mean, it's kind of in our job description, isn't it?"
"I guess so. She may not want to be found," Jet cautioned. "She's a weird little kid, Faye."
"Yeah, well. She'll want to know. About Spike."
Jet nodded gravely, the spark in his eye dimming.
"And maybe she misses us. Or Ein does. He was the only one who never complained about your cooking, anyway."
"You don't like it, you can cook," Jet replied placidly, handing her her chopsticks.
"Jet, are you sure..." Her stomach twisted a little. "Are you sure he's dead?"
He took the plate from her, folding her into his arms, face pressed against her hair, and she knew the answer. The BeBop held the two of them in a cloud of sesame oil and recycled air, and she clenched her hands in Jet's frayed vest and bit her lip.
Behind her eyes, she saw Spike's star fall.
END
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