where have you gone
One Wednesday morning, Faye smoked twenty-three cigarettes. It’s not something that she’s proud of or was proud of - afterward she’d smelled like the inside of an ashtray and although she had never minded the smell of cigarette smoke before, showering twice and still combing your fingers through nicotine was enough of enough - and it’s not something she reflects on idly. Not because she smoked twenty-three cigarettes - 1.5 grams each, the lighter cool then warm and gold in her hand - but because she smoked twenty-three of Spike Spiegel’s cigarettes without having to fight him for them, because she loved him and he was dead.
Valentine was such a hilarious surname, she used to think, given her predicaments. Witney hadn’t exactly proved top notch material and all the men that she had in her life - since the day she flipped over a table at the cryo clinic to the day she shot five bullets into the ceiling when Spike Spiegel walked away from her - had never made enough of an impact for Faye to even consider justifying her own last name. She was a walking contradiction, yes, but a walking literary device wasn’t something she was ready to turn into.
Irony wasn't even funny when it was happening to the poor sap across from you, who told you that he had a son who died of thirst while he was stuck out on Ganymede somewhere. Some old sailor with a shuttered face had told her that once, and then he had laughed and bought her a drink and Faye had punched him in the jaw for even getting her half as involved in his life as she had been.
That was her problem with Spike: she was too involved, too close. It was fine when they were just partners, fine whenever they hated (tolerated, liked sometimes) each other. The day she realized that she was in love with him was the day everything fucked itself up beyond belief. Her hands had been sweaty and cold and her heart had pounded too hard in her chest when he stood too near to her, the only thing separating them the thin lines and arches of their space suits.
When Faye had taken her suit off later, her tank top had been soaked with sweat and her stomach was a jumble of nerve endings and car batteries shocking each other ruthlessly. She couldn’t sit next to him for weeks, couldn’t breathe the same air, had no words for the quips he threw her way. She was terrified, dumbstruck at her desire, faithless in her feelings. That was when she finally stopped believing in God.
No one of that caliber could possibly be so fucked in the head as to make Faye Valentine love a man like Spike Spiegel.
Spike Spiegel, who was doomed to die the moment he punched his way screaming out of his mother’s stomach.
Spike Spiegel, who burped in her face and put his dirty boots on the chair and who refused to use her lighter because he said he had too many standards and didn’t want any of the shit she had on her hands anywhere near his mouth.
Spike Spiegel, who fell out of windows through arcs of glass and came for her twice even though he said it had nothing to do with her, either time.
(Sometimes she likes to pretend he came for her, on Callisto, that Jet had only found her by chance and Spike had been looking with the intent of wringing her neck and holding her down and -
But that was a lie.)
Spike Spiegel, who didn’t hold her and always hurt her and who molded her into more of the defensive, controlling, understandably frightened insane burst of color that she had cumbersomely turned into.
Faye was every bit a product of her environment - smoking twenty-three cigarettes proved that well enough - but she was a fool and a liar if she told herself that Spike never did anything to shape who she ended up being. No matter how much she ended up hating him in the end.
That was part of the reason that she smoked all his cigarettes after she went to his funeral. The other part had something to do with some outstanding debt that he owed her over a card game and now that she had the option of collection, she was going to motherfucking collect. So she sat on the edge of the bed and dug through the small bedside cabinet Spike kept his shit in, and at the back of a pile of surprisingly clean socks, she found two packs of Marlboro Reds and started on them without hesitation, with vigor.
It was Wednesday, and she was still dressed in a smart gray dress, her hair out of her face and somber make-up on. Faye had almost worn just a leather corset and underwear only to spite him but thought that a man she loved deserved more respect than that, even if that man was Spike Spiegel. At least ‘loved’ was past tense. She refused to waste anymore time, from that moment on, on anything that would end up being impossible.
Besides, now that he was in the ground there was no point in using it presently.
After she smoked so many she was half-sick - twenty-three, only twenty-three, and that was how old she was, would be, if she hadn’t slept for so long; that was how old she felt, down underneath the lines under her eyes and the dirt and red polish under her nails; she was only twenty-three but so old and tired in reality, an eternity of sandpaper skin hiding underneath alabaster and daisy-white - Faye threw the entire pack away, flushed it down the toilet and showered under water so hot it scalded her skin almost to blister.
When she stepped out into the chilly air, the ventilation system was working for once, sucking up the steam, turning the fans, and her skin bumped and she stood staring at herself in the mirror. One hand held her pale pink towel, the other rubbed water from her hair. Her eyes were so green in the yellow light that she could see them behind the fog on the mirror, her hair so violet that it looked black when she turned to wipe that steam from the glass, her mouth a deep red slash of chapped lips and cigarette breath.
She hated what she saw. Behind the green, her eyes were red: not because she’d been smoking too much, but because she hadn’t stopped crying for two days. Her lips were chapped because she’d licked and pulled and bit at them too much. She looked exhausted, haunted by ghosts that weren’t hers. Faye looked weak. Like a woman who was falling apart under the weight of her own resistance. And she hated it. And in that moment, looking at herself, pulling her composure together there on the bathroom floor, she told herself she would never look that way ever again.
Even if she smelled like his cigarettes for two days after she finished smoking them. Even if she ran her fingers across the lines of his door and sat where his bandaged chest had lain on the mustard couch too many times for her to count. Even if this and even if that, she never looked like that again. She didn’t stop loving him, though, even if he was in the ground.
Faye had too many habits, and no matter how hard she tried, only some of them ever died.
character: Faye Valentine
fandom: Cowboy Bebop
prompt: quote: "I wake up some mornings hating me too." Rahm Emanuel.
word count: 1255
link: here.
Valentine was such a hilarious surname, she used to think, given her predicaments. Witney hadn’t exactly proved top notch material and all the men that she had in her life - since the day she flipped over a table at the cryo clinic to the day she shot five bullets into the ceiling when Spike Spiegel walked away from her - had never made enough of an impact for Faye to even consider justifying her own last name. She was a walking contradiction, yes, but a walking literary device wasn’t something she was ready to turn into.
Irony wasn't even funny when it was happening to the poor sap across from you, who told you that he had a son who died of thirst while he was stuck out on Ganymede somewhere. Some old sailor with a shuttered face had told her that once, and then he had laughed and bought her a drink and Faye had punched him in the jaw for even getting her half as involved in his life as she had been.
That was her problem with Spike: she was too involved, too close. It was fine when they were just partners, fine whenever they hated (tolerated, liked sometimes) each other. The day she realized that she was in love with him was the day everything fucked itself up beyond belief. Her hands had been sweaty and cold and her heart had pounded too hard in her chest when he stood too near to her, the only thing separating them the thin lines and arches of their space suits.
When Faye had taken her suit off later, her tank top had been soaked with sweat and her stomach was a jumble of nerve endings and car batteries shocking each other ruthlessly. She couldn’t sit next to him for weeks, couldn’t breathe the same air, had no words for the quips he threw her way. She was terrified, dumbstruck at her desire, faithless in her feelings. That was when she finally stopped believing in God.
No one of that caliber could possibly be so fucked in the head as to make Faye Valentine love a man like Spike Spiegel.
Spike Spiegel, who was doomed to die the moment he punched his way screaming out of his mother’s stomach.
Spike Spiegel, who burped in her face and put his dirty boots on the chair and who refused to use her lighter because he said he had too many standards and didn’t want any of the shit she had on her hands anywhere near his mouth.
Spike Spiegel, who fell out of windows through arcs of glass and came for her twice even though he said it had nothing to do with her, either time.
(Sometimes she likes to pretend he came for her, on Callisto, that Jet had only found her by chance and Spike had been looking with the intent of wringing her neck and holding her down and -
But that was a lie.)
Spike Spiegel, who didn’t hold her and always hurt her and who molded her into more of the defensive, controlling, understandably frightened insane burst of color that she had cumbersomely turned into.
Faye was every bit a product of her environment - smoking twenty-three cigarettes proved that well enough - but she was a fool and a liar if she told herself that Spike never did anything to shape who she ended up being. No matter how much she ended up hating him in the end.
That was part of the reason that she smoked all his cigarettes after she went to his funeral. The other part had something to do with some outstanding debt that he owed her over a card game and now that she had the option of collection, she was going to motherfucking collect. So she sat on the edge of the bed and dug through the small bedside cabinet Spike kept his shit in, and at the back of a pile of surprisingly clean socks, she found two packs of Marlboro Reds and started on them without hesitation, with vigor.
It was Wednesday, and she was still dressed in a smart gray dress, her hair out of her face and somber make-up on. Faye had almost worn just a leather corset and underwear only to spite him but thought that a man she loved deserved more respect than that, even if that man was Spike Spiegel. At least ‘loved’ was past tense. She refused to waste anymore time, from that moment on, on anything that would end up being impossible.
Besides, now that he was in the ground there was no point in using it presently.
After she smoked so many she was half-sick - twenty-three, only twenty-three, and that was how old she was, would be, if she hadn’t slept for so long; that was how old she felt, down underneath the lines under her eyes and the dirt and red polish under her nails; she was only twenty-three but so old and tired in reality, an eternity of sandpaper skin hiding underneath alabaster and daisy-white - Faye threw the entire pack away, flushed it down the toilet and showered under water so hot it scalded her skin almost to blister.
When she stepped out into the chilly air, the ventilation system was working for once, sucking up the steam, turning the fans, and her skin bumped and she stood staring at herself in the mirror. One hand held her pale pink towel, the other rubbed water from her hair. Her eyes were so green in the yellow light that she could see them behind the fog on the mirror, her hair so violet that it looked black when she turned to wipe that steam from the glass, her mouth a deep red slash of chapped lips and cigarette breath.
She hated what she saw. Behind the green, her eyes were red: not because she’d been smoking too much, but because she hadn’t stopped crying for two days. Her lips were chapped because she’d licked and pulled and bit at them too much. She looked exhausted, haunted by ghosts that weren’t hers. Faye looked weak. Like a woman who was falling apart under the weight of her own resistance. And she hated it. And in that moment, looking at herself, pulling her composure together there on the bathroom floor, she told herself she would never look that way ever again.
Even if she smelled like his cigarettes for two days after she finished smoking them. Even if she ran her fingers across the lines of his door and sat where his bandaged chest had lain on the mustard couch too many times for her to count. Even if this and even if that, she never looked like that again. She didn’t stop loving him, though, even if he was in the ground.
Faye had too many habits, and no matter how hard she tried, only some of them ever died.
character: Faye Valentine
fandom: Cowboy Bebop
prompt: quote: "I wake up some mornings hating me too." Rahm Emanuel.
word count: 1255
link: here.