Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Smoking Lessons ❯ Flower games ( Chapter 2 )

Smoking Lessons 3/?

Flower Games

By Nix

Disclaimers... I don't own Cowboy Bebop

Warnings... Uh.. Haven't written this chapter yet.. So hard to say.. Probably swearing, yaoi leaning, yuri reference, het droolings on Faye's part, Spike's still sick, Jet's thinking a lot… now that it's written.. definite JetxSpike leanings… *nods nods*

Flower Games

Jet didn't like it. Faye made a lousy nurse and Jet didn't like that either. He should have known picking Spike up and expecting him to be in one piece would be too much to ask of the universe. Spike was never in one piece after playing with Vicious. Jet just hoped like hell that the crazy bird toting blond was really dead this time, cuz he didn't think he could deal with another round of broke Spike. Hell, he wasn't completely sure he could deal with this round of it.

He ran it through his head, thinking, 'Gee, Spike, while we thought you were dead, Faye and I got drunk off our asses and decided we were both in love with you. Hangover's gone, but I don't feel any saner.' Yeah, that'd go over really good. Right up there with, "Gee, Spike, Faye wants to play with your gun, can she clean it for you?" Worse, Faye wanted to clean his gun, yes she did, and she was being really nice to him, even if she was a shitty nurse.

She had gone to bed, finally. Jet had sworn he wasn't cooking a damn thing. Edward didn't seem interested in eating. She'd been working on whatever it was she was doing for nearly six hours now and she hadn't eaten when he'd made pizza at lunch. Ein had eaten hers and Jet's. Faye had gotten the rest. Spike hadn't moved and Jet pretended like he was ignoring them all, but he was really watching Spike's chest rise and fall, sorting out his thoughts about what this rebellious desire to touch Spike's lips really was rooted in, what the hell it meant that he wanted to brush green hair away from the sometimes sweaty face.

Over the hours, he'd gone through moments of being just convinced that the skinny chest was going to go still. Spike had been his companion for well over three years, closer to four. It was companionship, he told himself, that was all he wanted. It was just that Spike had gone off looking for love, and Jet told himself that he was willing to give Spike anything to get him back, but just for his companionship. The human body didn't think nearly as neat and orderly as the human mind bent on logic though, and watching his friend breathe for six hours had given Jet plenty of time to think about things. It would be just like Spike, the damn vengeful bastard to nearly die, come back, only to convince Jet that it might possible to fall in love, to start feeling alive again, and then die. The little prick. The whole cosmic joke would be much funnier if it were only played on Faye. It would be much funnier if Jet didn't find himself looking at Spike in a whole different light.

Spike's body was slender, that blue jacket laying over his chest, over hips that had no curve to them. He wasn't at all female, not at all what Jet had been told all his life to desire. The pale sharp angles of Spike's face weren't beautiful like the lady who'd left him, not even like Faye was beautiful, but there was something in the strength of those soft lips, something in the way dark green eye lashes that fluttered occasionally that just wrecked Jet's idea of himself. He wanted to sit closer, to touch the sometimes irregular pulse with his fingers, his flesh fingers, and feel Spike's life was still there and he wanted to confess it all to him, to have the sarcastic and rough Spike tell him … what he wanted to hear, Jet really wasn't sure. Spike had asked if he were gay. Jet didn't know, but he was going to guess bi-sexual and Faye's damn questions too, top or bottom, and a there was this electric current of jealousy when he thought of Vicious kissing those thing pale lips of Spike's. Had Spike opened his mouth, accepted the kiss? Would it be a ferocious kiss, like two ships dog fighting? It would be the kiss of someone who would stand their ground, be equal, look a person in the eye.

Jet was a big man, muscular, hard as composite steel on both sides. He'd hurt Spike just holding him and Jet knew, sometimes he didn't judge his own strength well. He was a black bear to Spike's lean coyote. He'd never paid enough attention to his own looks. He thought, it was a way of punishing himself, for losses of the heart and of the body. Spike went for slender beautiful types, dangerous types, like Julia or Vicious. Jet wasn't gonna change, at least not much for Spike or anyone else. It was more than kisses he wanted, even though the thought of being.. touched that way by another human that he trusted, and even loved had taken a deep root now. More than that, more than physical, he wanted, and this was the hard part, he wanted someone to talk to, to be understood by. He couldn't say that he believed Spike could do that, especially not with his life and mind hanging on someone's rigged craps game, but if they could get him back, get him whole and strong again, then, then Jet wanted to give him the option.

"Jet person," Ed said, laying on her back, fingers moving through the air still, slowly though. "Ed is thirsty and Spike person needs water too. Almost done, have found a doctor."

That perked Jet up a lot, gave him something to do other than mull over his own thoughts and watch Spike breath. He sat up and rolled his shoulders, stretching some of the nervous tension out. "A doctor? For Spike?"

Ed nodded, her mouth hanging open as Jet's computer shifted screens to display a woman, Asian and familiar. "Hey! That's the doctor who worked on Spike in Little Beijing."

"No," Ed said, sighing softly, arms falling back to the floor above her head. "Ming Chrysanthemum, twin. She's waiting for us."

"Ed!" Jet was going to complain about her making decisions for him. He was the captain of this damn ship not her, but she'd already fallen into an exhausted sleep and really, he'd go back to Julia if he had to, to save Spike's life, but this doctor's address was farther out, out on Eropa. "What do you mean 'twin'? How much can we trust this woman?"

Ed pushed her goggles up and stared at Jet with tired, blood shot eyes, stared at him as if he'd gone completely stupid. "Twins! Like they're the same. One is Ming Chrysanthemum, the other Ming Hyacinth, like they were in their mother's tummy at the same time. Don't they have those on Ganymede?"

Jet groaned. "So can we trust her?"

"Trust her? Trust being far away. Bad people. But Jet-person, Spike person is dying." She let her eyes go closed, fingers twitching even as she tried to relax them. "Tired! Thirsty!"

And this was his function in life. Pilot the ship, dole out food, just fucking peachy.

On Eropa…

Ming Chrysanthemum sat at her computer wearing blue scrubs that had been in fashion with medical laboratory workers for hundreds of years. There really wasn't that much one could do to improve them, really. She had short blue hair with dark brown roots and headphones that clung to her ears like little balls of fairy dust, sparkling and jumping with the beat of her music. She wasn't much in favor with the people her twin worked for. She wasn't much in favor of them gaining more power than they had either, especially when it looked very like her sister was stealing her research.

The kid that had contacted her had sent some really interesting data, even if it had taken forever to receive it. It was really hard to believe and she was too angry to deal with more than just the data. It was a human experiment, raw and simple, live or die, just to see, she supposed. This guy, Spike Spiegel, he didn't seem so unique that he'd warrant this. Just a bounty hunter, at least at first look through the data, that's all he seemed to be. Okay, he had an interesting DNA pattern. A rare Venus mutation that caused green hair, meant his bloodline had probably been off Earth for quite a while. It was going to take a while to decode all the data she had, but it looked like a very advanced copy of organic data, the data from a human mind. She had speculated greatly about AI, about storing human memories, or retrieving them from damaged tissue.

Damaged tissue was exactly what this had been retrieved from, using a technique evolved from one she'd theorized and she could not believe that someone had done this or that the someone who did this traumatic and damaging thing was her very own twin. She closed her eyes in her goggles, slipped a little finger under the edge of one and rubbed her eye. The good news was, she could fix it, if she got to this guy soon enough. Maybe that would be enough of a slap in the face of her sister's employers. Whatever they'd wanted to whitewash out of this guy, well, she'd put it right back. Then she'd run away, as far away as possible, make herself a new name too. At least her research grant at the University of Eropa was about expired.

She blinked and refocused her eyes as a small instant message window opened up in her data stream. It wasn't any of the recognizable brands and certainly not something she'd authorized. "Hello flower of intelligence," the message said, from some idiot calling themselves Mpu.

"I don't cyber," she replied, looking for a ban button of some kind.

"Cyber? I want to help with Ed's project. I like your research. I have an idea how to help Ed's friend."

"Who the hell are you?" And then followed one of the most interesting conversations of Chrysanthemum's life and just a little experimentation on Hyacinth's Patient Alpha.

In Little Beijing…

Hyacinth saw that there was a huge influx of data into her sister's network. Then she realized that someone saw her watching and much to her great surprise, her back door into Chrysanthemum's system was abruptly terminated, but not before she realized what her sister was probably going to try to do. At least she knew where the Bebop was headed and that Patient Alpha had not yet died. She also knew that she had to tell her Mistress, even if she did not want to lose her twin's life.

Back on the Bebop ~

Jet had set the ship on course to Eropa. They'd hit the gate and be there within a day. Ed had disappeared somewhere, and Faye wasn't any where to be found. Even Ein had gone off with Ed, but the damn dog had looked back, giving Jet the oddest look. It made him wonder just what kind of thoughts Ein had about Spike's memories. Which lead him to the uncomfortable worry that maybe in that little canine brain, Spike's personality was looking out, watching Jet watch Spike breath, and understanding, understanding in a very adult human way just how Jet was looking at Spike.

"It's my ship," he said to the room, with an audience of just one half comatose Spike. He stood, pulled the table a little nearer the couch he had been sitting on and moved around to Spike's side. It was fate, all the demons of the universe working to get him into trouble, but just then Spike started to shiver, a fine sweat breaking out over his face, both hands coming up as if he could ward something off, some attacker in his dream or some inopportune memory.

Jet lifted him, half pulled him into his lap, holding him close to his chest. Awkward, it felt very awkward as the shivers grew stronger. Spike's chin tucked towards his chest, hair clinging to his cheeks, the back of his neck. Jet held, both arms around him, holding him as gently as he could, aware of the rip across his belly. After a few minutes, the shivering subsided, his breathing deepened, became even again. Jet found himself combing fingers through that fine green hair, telling himself that he was just loosening it up so it would dry faster.

Spike leaned into the touch, rubbing his head against the fingers in his hair, and slowly tilted his head back. He was pale, feverish, dark smudges under his eyes, but, Jet's heart about exploded, when he looked into those eyes. Spike was in there, he was himself in that moment, aware, not lost. Their eyes locked. Jet's hand came to rest against Spike's cheek, tenderly, apologetic for the touch he hadn't had permission for, and those shivering lips mouthed, "Don't let me go. Hold onto me, Jet."