Title: With Meaning for xterm
Fandom: Cowboy Bebop
Pairing: Spike/Vicious
Word Count: 925
A/N: In the poll she chose Spike/Vicious and Mugen/Jin with clarion. I chose Spike/Vicious, obviously. ;) I'm cheating too. :p This is a scene that won't be in Tharsis Sforzando, if I ever get back to it. ;) Right after Spike makes his first kill.
Clarion: brilliantly clear; also : loud and clear
Spike stumbled over the ledge of each step as Vicious dragged him by his shirtsleeve up the stairs to his small apartment. He managed to keep his feet under him all the way to his bedroom, until Vicious threw him roughly onto the bed. He hit it hard. The mattress screeched in protest and knocked the air out of him when it made contact with his back. He lay where he was and stared at the ceiling. He held his breath and refused to breathe in for as long as he could, trying to determine how long it would take to die that way naturally. Trying to reconcile natural death with having your life cut short by the sound and smell and feel of gunshots.
The smell was what Spike remembered the smell most vividly. It filled his nostrils, even here, blocks and blocks from the job. He choked. He sat up and leaned over the side of the bed, dry heaving. Vicious made a disgusted grunt in the back of his throat and stayed at his place in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.
"I told Mao you couldn't do it. You're just a punk bar fly and a delivery boy. It doesn't matter that you got lucky that one time, I still had to clean up the mess. I will not spend my entire life cleaning up after you."
Spike looked up at him and wiped his mouth with his wrist. "I don't fucking need you here, so you can leave already, if I'm that big of an inconvenience." He would rather be alone, but he knew if he was alone he would do nothing but lie in bed and see that man behind his eyelids. The bullet hole in his skull taunting him and dripping blood in metronome time.
Vicious uncrossed his arms and remained in the doorway. He started playing absentmindedly with the handle of his katana, thin fingers tracing the threading the butt to the hilt and back. Spike had noticed before he'd even spoken to Vicious how his hands always seemed to gravitate to the weapon. This man wouldn't understand, he was made for killing.
"It's not like I want to be here anyway. I was happy before you hunted me down, wouldn't leave me alone. I was my own person. I refuse to heel and be a dog for Mao or you or anyone."
Vicious smiled then. Spike had never seen him smile before. It was terrifying. The smile, which was more of just a quirk of the lips, was devoid of emotion. It was just a mannequin's grin, a hard imitation of real life. "You think I want to be here babysitting? I've told you before; I do what I'm ordered to."
Spike gave half a laugh and leaned forward, palms down on his knees, flexing his fingers and his calf muscles. He was shaken, but he could still sense a fight. "And you're happy being a dog?"
"Happiness means nothing to me. I don't understand why you're hung up on it. My life has meaning and that will suffice." He looked Spike over. "Do the women and the bar fights give you meaning, or are you content to be nothing?"
They stared at each other across the small space, Spike a fidgeting herd animal caught alone and Vicious a jungle cat lazily eyeing his prey. There was a sound from outside of the room, someone down the hall shutting a door, and it served as a starting gun to them both. It was the briefest of flurries of motion and when it was finished Spike had Vicious' throat at arm length, the pads of his fingers pressing in to the skin, and Vicious had his katana out, the tip of the blade biting lightly into Spike's belt. For an eternity after there was nothing but ragged breathing and tense muscles.
"Don't think about anyone else," Vicious said, and Spike didn't understand the context. He squeezed Vicious' throat just to see what would happen. Vicious pulled his katana back. He swept a leg behind Spike and knocked his knees out from under him, and they both fell backwards onto the bed.
Vicious pushed the butt of the katana into Spike's still wounded shoulder. Spike winced and let his eyes follow the blade, clean and shining, up towards the ceiling. He hadn't taken his hand from Vicious' throat and he could feel the blood as it pulsed through the veins under his fingertips. Vicious was alive after all. "Anyone else but who?" he asked.
"Yourself," Vicious said. Spike breathed in and out evenly, trying to meditate his mind away from the pain and the killer on top of him. When he didn't answer Vicious continued. "You're all you have, especially in this life, and if you give half a damn about anyone else they'll only get in the way." Vicious pushed himself up so that he was no longer laying flat against Spike and moved his knee forward so that it pushed Spike's thighs apart. "Do you understand?"
"I heard you," Spike bit out. "Loud and clear."
"Good," Vicious said. The pain in Spike's shoulder flared, but he could no longer feel, hear, or smell the gun. The only thing Spike could feel, hear, or smell at the moment was Vicious. Spike rolled sideways, breaking out of Vicious' hold and sending him face first into the mattress. He stood up and rolled his shoulder and wondered briefly if Vicious ever made any exceptions for his own rules.