180
...so i look like a lobster yay! \o/
*curses the sun*
and you want to know the funny thing? the sunburn isn't even FROM the beach >.<
inspiration hit at 3 in the morning. it gets too choppy towards the end, but what the hell, he's in a coma and i was asleep... heh, i'd never written anything for bebop before...
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He realized many, many things while he was asleep.
You'd think being unconscious would put a damper on your ability to think in general. But no, they do say people in a coma are aware of their surroundings, and can still hear and feel to a certain extent, right? So why wouldn't they think? Nothing much better to do inside your own head than sit there and ponder on the meaning of your existence. Among other things.
He'd never realized that he focused so much on her, until then. A different her. Not the woman that became the center of his life so long ago. The one he loved. The one he killed. The one he died for. That woman was a key piece in his life, a piece that was now gone, leaving a huge, gaping hole inside his chest. A shadow he clung to, because he knew no other way to live. He knew no better way to live.
He clung to her memory even after she left him, when life was no better than simple inertia. And he clung to her memory even after she died, when every moment was just ticking closer to his own death. Because all the sadness, the rage, the confusion that boiled inside him as he understood that she was dead; what had fueled his movements towards revenge, towards closure... it wasn't sadness, or rage, or confusion. Not at all. It was just numbness. The life of a man lost-- a miserable existence, but a life nonetheless, congealed into a feeling of nothing as he understood that... she was dead.
And Julia took him with her.
He'd said, many a time, that he was killed once before... by a woman. But he hadn't, until now. Or maybe that was just what his life was about: to die for her.
He'd come to the conclusion that he hadn't been really alive, after all.
But it wasn't her he meant.
Because, as if his life wasn't ironic enough, there was a second woman. One that he never cared to meet, and never cared to feel anything about, in his numbness. But, true to her pushy personality, she poked and poked and poked, until she became someone, to him. Perhaps this happened unintentionally, for she was as lost in the world as he was, perhaps more. And in his lackadaisical way of living, he never thought her very important. She was just another face that crossed orbits with him, but didn't affect him in his road to nowhere. Someone who could be useful, and not much else. And it was true, he didn't care about her. Didn't give a shit about her because he was dead, or dying at least, and after Julia there was no point.
It wasn't until that very moment he realized otherwise. She'd slipped under his radar, and lodged herself in his empty life, against his will. Looking back was something he did constantly: looking discretely over his shoulder to confirm that he was being followed; looking back at his past and staying locked there. Now that he looked back, he saw her, and saw how somewhere along the line, she had gained a special importance; he saw it all in a new light and admittedly, he felt foolish. Not that his sheepishness mattered much because, well, he was in a coma and nobody could really tell.
But he saw it now. It was all innocent enough. He'd never realized that he focused so much on her. For he didn't care, not at all, but he thought about her constantly. And it wasn't like he didn't know he was thinking about her, no; it was a conscious decision. For everytime she spoke in angry or frustrated tones at him, everytime she moved ungracefully or abruptly, everytime she acted selfishly or unrefinedly, everytime she looked like she didn't know what she was doing or like she didn't understand what was happening... Everytime, he told himself just how different from Julia she was.
That was the one thought that prevailed throughout most of his experience with her. And it was important, because it meant she wasn't important. She wasn't Julia. She was completely different from Julia. You might even say they were complete opposites. Beside Julia, she was nothing. And he could continue having her in his periphery as long as he could continue floating down the road he had no other choice but to follow, because Julia had left him no other choice. It was the thought that they were so different that let him not care enough that he could deal with her, and her presence, and her attitude. For in the end, she didn't matter, for she wasn't Julia.
What he realized now was that even when he kept comparing her to his former lover all this time, and she always came short... even if his image of her was simply deprecating... even if he couldn't take a look at her without seeing her as Not Julia... Now he realized that the simple fact was that he was still thinking about her. Constantly, even.
Even as he left her, that one last time he saw her-- he didn't care, he still left, he knew what he had to do and nothing else mattered... he left, and he should have had his mind on one thing, and one thing only, and yet the thought still made an appearance: Julia wouldn't have done this. Julia would've understood. But she doesn't, because she's not Julia.
He couldn't believe it now, when he looked back at it. At that moment, the thought that she was different ran through his mind, and that could only be because he paid attention to her words, and her desperation, and her bullets. Before rushing off towards destiny, the man who traveled the world without a care actually paid attention to something. She did matter. It was strange, and he didn't see it until he died, but now he felt like an idiot.
"You know, Spike... I don't know what it is that makes people fall in love with you. You're lazy, arrogant, and you don't care about anyone but yourself..."
Pride was a funny thing, and Tunnel Vision might as well be his middle name. For he could admit somewhat freely that he considered Jet a friend. Or at least as close to a friend as his dettached soul could have. But yes, Jet was a good man, and he had no problem admitting it. The kid and the dog... well, for the most part they'd just been there, but they'd always been more Jet's problem than his, so he didn't see anything wrong with them being there. When it came to her, however, admitting any sort of affinity with her was almost like pulling teeth. That should've been his first clue, really. She wasn't Julia and he wouldn't let her become another Julia. Yet life had screwed him over so many times, he should've known it wouldn't just let him off easy when such a colorful opportunity presented itself.
"You're an expert at running away, you don't give a shit about anything and still somehow everybody around you gets hurt. And then you go off, leave it all behind, run to get yourself killed. No matter what nonsense you spout to validate your actions, you still know how it's going to end, and you don't care. You're a disaster... several disasters just waiting to happen, actually."
Oh, yes, these two women were very different. Where being with one felt like everything made sense, being around the other brought up thousands of questions each day, things you didn't know or understand but felt compelled to discover. Where being with one felt like calm, like peace, like nothing could harm you, being around the other made you feel dizzy, like you were losing control, but the adrenaline rush was exhilarating. While one could take you in and take care of you, help stabilize you, the other one needed you as much as you needed someone, but it gave you a purpose. One was like a breath of fresh air, a splash of cool water that soothed your wounds and made you feel content; the other one was like a drug that you couldn't get enough of, even if you rejected the dependence. One made you need nothing else; the other one made you want to have everything.
"But still... you're so fucked up and for some reason, I don't know, people still care about you. They still try to help you. Maybe they still think they can save you..."
He realized it now. Useless as it was, for he was stuck in a void within himself, but he got it now. He tried so hard to keep a distance between those two women, a world of distance, and in the end it was what made them different that endeared them to him. That was then, this was now. He didn't know this feeling could be so much different than before, didn't think it was possible, that's why he hadn't seen it, but now he did. He'd underestimated his ability to feel-- practically thrown it out the window when Julia left him-- but his silly human nature had crept up on him and made him care. Change could not be stopped. He ignored the present because it was different, but nobody ever said different was bad. Now he knew.
"But you know what, Spike Spiegel? That's not me. I don't want to save you... and I don't want to be in love with you anymore!"
For Julia made him feel like he would die without her... but Faye made him want to live.
"...But I can't stop..."
When he finally opened his eyes, she wasn't there.
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it hurts to blink. thank god for lidocaine.
proof that halloween is too closely related to harry potter, and that i'm way too obsessed, and need to start doing something productive with my life --> HEART, MIND & SOUL: a fansite for the trio.
p.s.: happy birthday, uryuu-kun! ^.^ *fangirls*