Talking In Your Sleep

Jet is worried, though he acts as if nothing is wrong.  I've noticed how he lingers in the hall before entering this room, and how his gaze automatically strays to watch your chest rise and fall rhythmically in sleep.  He'll complain a bit, about how even though sleep is often times the best medicine, you should have already had enough stocked up in the three years it was just the pair of you on this ship.  He changes your bandages with more care than I've seen him give anything, save for maybe those shrubs in that little room, and it's clear that he loves you like a son, like a comrade.  It sometimes amazes me how you have that affect on people.  Wayward souls are just drawn to you, like moths to a flame, and somehow we all end up caring for you in our own special way.  Either that or hatred blossoms.  There have been quite a few lowlife bums who've hated you before they've died, typically by your hands or the shot from your gun, small wonder why.

      I've always liked moths.  They're like lost and battered butterflies with the glitter from their wings gone and their stunning color bled away.  Maybe they just remind me of myself, or maybe I'm just strange.  Jet repaired the minor damage to your ship already.  It wasn't more than a few scratches and the like, probably from some upstart little gang looking to put their mark on something.  He was muttering something about how much you'd care if your 'baby' had a dent or the like.  Considering the shit you normally put that mono-racer through it seems highly unlikely that you give a damn at all, but I guess that's just the way you are.  Act like you hate what you won't admit to loving, act like you don't care and maybe someone will believe your act, hell, maybe one day you'll believe yourself.  I won't though, I'm too much like you, and I know all the tricks of the trade.

      A thanks is in order, I do believe.  You saved my life, after all.  That Vicious, his name spooks me even now that I'm here on the Bebop and safe.  That is a man capable of very bad things, a man who, oddly enough, reminds me of you in a few ways.  Or maybe I just see some of you in everyone I have the fortune or ill luck to meet.  There's something deep between the two of you, something dangerous.  I'd say that it's a woman, but that doesn't seem very likely.  You, Spike, have never seemed the type of guy to fall hard enough for a woman to go through all the hassles involved.  But still …everything is possible after all.  I know that if I asked you, you wouldn't tell me a damn thing and maybe it isn't my business anyway, seeing as how I got myself in trouble in the first place, but I still feel as though I deserve to know.

      Call me selfish, call me jealous, call me whatever you want to.  You've been sleeping for so long, too long, even I'm becoming concerned.  You're one of the few people in this world I trust, Spike, you're one of my ties to humanity, compassion, friendships, one of the ties I don't want broken.  I'm not ignorant though, I know that everything will fray one day.  You're a fatalistic kind of guy, like an angst-filled teenager drawn to trouble and the allure of life-or-death adventures.  You're one of a kind, that's for sure, and I know all the kinds in the deck.  I've always been good at cards, and not just because I cheat.

I heard you talking in your sleep
Is there anything that I can do
I don't believe we've had a word all day
'Bout anything at all
I heard you talking in the night
That's right, yes I heard ya call
Though I could hardly hear the name you spoke
It's a name I don't recall

Is this a good sign or a bad sign?  You're no longer resting easily, that's all I know for sure.  Thrashing in your sleep isn't good for someone with more broken bones than good ones and even as I gently restrain you, I have to restrain myself from bending closer to your mouth, from trying to hear the name you mumble so desperately.  It's a name that would likely answer some of my questions, it's a name that probably explains – at least in part – your mysterious tie to Vicious, and it's a name I don't want to know, not at all.  So tell me then, why did I defy myself and listen?

      Julia.  I think I once knew a Julie …no wait, it was Juliana.  Well, I guess I was right.  It is a woman.  Jesus, Spike, don't you know that woman aren't to be trusted?  You poor bastard.  I wonder what she looked like …I wonder how she acted.  I wonder …you're still in love with her, aren't you?  Of course you are, despite the anxiety in your voice as you call for her, despite the subdued anger and the genuine astonishment, you love her.  It's as plain as day, dammit.  How could you?  How could you fall in love?  I thought you were better than that, Spike, I though you were a stronger person.  God, I thought you were smarter than that!  Ugh, you lunkhead.  If I really am right, if this Julia woman is the dreadful link between you and Vicious, then I am certain that she and your blasted love for her will prove your undoing.  I though you had more sense than that.

I heard you softly whisper
I reached out to hold you near me
Then from your lips there came that secret
I was not supposed to know

Why did I have to be in here?  Why am I so stupid?  I shouldn't have been watching over you, I should have just pretended like you didn't matter.  I shouldn't have come closer, when you began to whisper softly, in a voice like tears, I shouldn't have held you close and soothed away your fears, like a mother coaxing a child back into sleep.  Was it a nightmare?  Or was it a dream that was impossible to reach?  With you, it was probably both.  Why couldn't you just shut up, Spike?  You never talked that much before …I never wanted to hear those things you said.

      So she scorned you.  They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  I suppose that life hath no misery like a man scorned.  You poor, poor bastard.  Suppose she did love you, suppose she did actually care …though I doubt it.  That name …it seems glossy, like the glitter and rainbow stripped from the butterfly's wings.  Screams of a butterfly echo in my ears, screams of a young woman with nowhere to go, no one to trust, screams of a butterfly, screams of myself.  But wait, no, no that isn't right …I'm not screaming now, it's you.

      The silence in this room seems forbidden and it's closing in on us like walls, compounding my own quiet fears, making a prison of bandages and blood, gravelly voices and the names of doom.  I don't like this, Spike; I don't like this at all.  You rescued me from Vicious, though I'm not about to disillusion myself by believing that saving me was the sole force driving you to that cathedral.  You managed to get me out of there though, away from the bitter phantom calling to you in a voice from the past, away from the icy eyes and the slow smile that still sends shivers down my spine.  Why can't you wake up and save me from this?  Save me from you, Spike, oh god please, save me from you …

I heard you talking in your sleep
Is there anything that I can say
I don't believe we've had a word all day
'Bout anything at all
I heard you talking in the night
That's right, yes I heard ya call
Though I could hardly hear the name you spoke
It's a name I don't recall

Playing cards has become a tedious monotony.  The same symbols, black and red, on pale white, the same ever-changing patterns, drawing a different card at each hand and playing them against each other.  Solitaire is a lonely game, but I'm a lonely girl.  You're breathing is becoming labored again, and I'm afraid of what that means.  Will you yell again for the woman who cannot answer?  Hold on, Spike, hold on to us here, not to a fleeting fancy, not to a dream that cannot be real.  This is so hard, Spike, to feign not caring, to keep my eyes on the cards instead of on you, to drown the shattered silence, broken by your frantic screams, by the whimpers dribbling soft and ghostly from your lips, to cover the tears in the empty quiet with a simple melody repeating on end.

      I can't remember where I first heard this tune before, but it doesn't matter because now you're sleeping peaceful, while I sit here and play.  You'll be strong tomorrow, Spike, I know you.  You'll see another day; I just wish you would open your eyes today.  Against my wishes, my gaze is drawn back to your face, by the pain of your expression and I am not sure if it is real pain from your wounds plaguing you, or the haunting pain of a past you cannot escape.  Either way, it hurts me to watch you battle dreams, to be denied paradise even within the comfort of your mind in sleep.

      Jet came here the first time you were hollering, thinking something was wrong, maybe thinking I had done something, who knows with him.  Now, he's just gotten back with some food.  I can hear him in the kitchenette, frying up our supper.  You may not be a big fan of Jet's cooking – and I can't imagine anyone who is – but I know that hunger gnaws at you all the time.  If I didn't know better I would think you were anorexic, but you can't be anorexic on a ship where you never know when your next meal will be.  It's been three days, Spike; it's been too long.  Come back to us, back to the world of the living, wake up and rejoin us here.

      There is tension on this rusty old bucket of bolts, possibly because I'm not a good traveling companion and possibly because Jet heard me call the Bebop that.  Oh well, what's he going to do, throw me off the ship?  I think you'd support that, but I don't care.  This is my home for now, a place I feel connected to, it's the only familiar thing I have.  Promise me you won't go and leave me, Spike, you can't leave me disconnected here, promise me that you won't!

I heard you talking in your sleep
Is there anything that I can do
I don't believe we've had a word all day
'Bout anything at all

Humming makes me feel slightly better, and it looks like it comforts you as well because the frown on your forehead is fading away and you seem to be resting easier.  There's something else as well though, something a person can only notice after being an observer for so long.  When a person sleeps, it is obvious.  They breathe in a set pattern, automatically, like you've been doing for the past seventy-two hours, when they're awake it's different because they are commonly occupied in some manner and so their breath might be a bit forced or rushed.  Sleep is calm, sleep is natural, and I can tell that you're coming to.  Maybe you're awake already and you just want to pretend otherwise for a while.  How many times have you really been awake when I thought you were sleeping?  There's one time I remember, when I was talking softly to myself while you were dozing on the couch, we had fought earlier and were nursing our private wounds, letting our anger dissolve so we could interact like regular people once more.  I think you were awake then and listening to me.

      The thought is a bit disconcerting and at the same time reassuring.  This little song makes me feel as if I'm wrapped in warmth, similar to being in your lover's arms or safe on mother's lap, a homey sort of song, but thinking about you makes it foreign and I think my voice just went off-key.  But that doesn't matter, I can tell now you're awake.  It's a bit startling to say the least; I guess I was immersed in my own little world for too long.

      I smile a little and make my voice sound light, unconcerned.  "So, you're awake, eh?  About time.  You've been sleeping for three days."

      The bandages over your mouth make your words jumbled, something that both irritated and relieved me when you had been speaking before in your sleep.  I didn't want to hear what you had to say then, but it was, at the same time, the only thing I wanted in the world.  With some difficulty, you managed to raise your arm and gestured for me to come closer.

      I'm scared of what you want.  I want things to be normal again; I don't want to confess to have heard the things you talked of while asleep.  Please say something normal like 'since when do you watch me sleep' or 'you'll never win at cards' something familiar, something I can work with.

      "You sing off-key."

      Bastard.  That wasn't quite what I wanted to hear, but at least I can work with it.  If you're well enough to be awake, then you're well enough to handle the loss of your pillow and some punishment.  I happen to like my singing, why should I give a damn if you don't?  Eat feathers, lunkhead.

I do not own 'Cowboy Bebop' or Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels, although I'm soon going to own one of the CDs with the songs from that particular session.  Oh, I love the music of Cowboy Bebop!  Anyways, the song used in this short story is 'Talking In Your Sleep' by Gordon Lightfoot.  Please read and review this little Faye vignette, I like to hear what people think of what I write.  Oh, just a bit of information, I should have the third chapter of 'Okay …3, 2, 1 …Let's Jam' by the 23rd of this month, if I can.  My schedule is pretty hectic, but I will always make the time for Bebop!

See you, Space Cowboys!