not_that_spike | (no subject)

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"Okay, check it out." He's never been big on the whole shut your eyes and don't open them until I say so thing. For one, it's annoying as hell and for another, who can stand it anyhow? But still, this was kind of worth a little bit of surprise.

In Beth's arms, Junior's eyes go wide and she lets out a perfect "ooh." As if in all her year and a half of wisdom, she remembers this place? He doubts it; they've been to a hell of a lot of places in her short lifetime and not all by choice. But this place is kind of cool: it's far enough outside Paris so not very many people just happen by but they can still be in the city in just under twenty minutes at a leisurely walking pace. One thing he's noticed on this trip is that it's the cities where people have congregated, and out of necessity. When half a planet's population just drops dead, it leaves a lot of empty space. Outskirts that used to be convenient when everyone drove are now considered too far out, a pain in the ass, dangerous. Even with bicycles, people want to be where other people are and he kind of can't blame them. There's safety in numbers: call it a tribal mentality or whatever, but the human population as a whole has reverted back to that in a lot of ways.

One bounty hunter displaced in time and space happens to think that's just about perfect: it means he's got fifteen or twenty minutes of space between him and most visitors and if he's here, he can take off that cloak and just be himself. Spend some quality time with his woman and their little aijou and not have to worry about someone knocking at the door to take a census or any of that shit. And this place... well, it's pretty cool. Like a lot of once-valuable (and now largely useless) properties outside Paris it's built of stone, which keeps it warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's all on one floor which means no stairs to navigate with a sleeping Junior, and almost all of the windows are still intact. The setup's cozy too: there's a working kitchen, two bedrooms right next to each other, living room or parlor or whatever the fuck the French call those salles, and a bathroom.

With a working toilet.

They passed by this place on their trek into Paris however long ago it was -- months now -- and he took notice of it then but never figured they'd be sticking around long-term enough to warrant a return trip. But now that it looks like they'll be here for a while, why the hell not? They have to live somewhere, and he'd just as soon it be a place where he can actually take off the damn cloak once in a while.

"I may just be a humble bounty hunter, ma'am, but I think I'm going in for a new career as a real estate agent." There's even a yard -- overgrown and its stone walls in need of a bunch of repair work -- where they could grow... uh... tobacco. Yeah, that's it. And fly off into the sunset in their personal spacecraft-built-for-three some day. "What do you think? Too far from the bright city lights?"

Shit, he could even smoke here... if he could get his hands on any cigs.

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"Who can resist hidden treasure?" She grins, her fingers hooking through Spike's. "Not me."

And from the looks of things, Junior'd be along for the ride even if they were walking straight into the path of a tornado. She gives Beth a big grin, her little fingers curled around Spike's rolled-up jacket sleeve.

Personally, she's tired. Inside and out. She's not quite at her thinnest since the plague, but she's pretty close. Her wrists are almost done healing after all the straining against the rope she did when Alter and friends tied them up, and Nat and Ciba left for Russia just two days ago.

Part of her thinks it's stupid that it feels so much like the end of an era, but... it does.

Their little fantastic four has split in two.

And Yorick. There's something sad and tired in his eyes that wasn't there when she first met him, and she's not so sure being reunited with Beth Deville has been the happy ending he was probably hoping for.

The thing about all this that she likes best -- aside from the fact that they all seem to have finally earned the ability to live without fear of any goddamn armies following them around -- is that she's been seeing a hell of a lot more of Spike lately.

As they walk toward the kitchen, she unlaces her fingers from his, but it's only so she can sling her arm around his waist. "Have I mentioned I like you better visible?"

Yeah, he... loves her. He loves her so much and it's been a long time since they met and he can still remember the thrill he felt the first time she touched him. It wasn't that he fell in love with her right away -- he's almost not that kind of a guy and Julia had just... well... yeah -- but nothing's ever really kept him from flirting when he's felt like it, and he felt like it with her.

He also remembers the first time his fingers traced that scar across her face. When he ever found out that just a few feet away from where he was lying, that soldier threatened to reopen Beth's scar... hell, it's probably a good thing he was unconscious or the ending to that story probably would have been a little bit different. No one gets to fuck with his Beths on his watch. Only after they've taken him out of the picture, he guesses, because try as he might, he's no superhero. Hell, he isn't even much of an ordinary hero. Getting stuck out here with no way back wasn't his first choice: he was being selfish and trying to grab a little extra time with his Beths, that's all. But he's sure glad he did it that day instead of waiting around for some next time that probably never would have come.

"When I was little, I used to think being invisible would be cool. You know, be able to listen in on peoples' conversations, go places without being seen, sneak into movies, steal things, all that shit. And it is kind of cool, but I'm pretty damn sick of it. I guess I like me better visible too."

"Peek-a-boo," Junior says with a giggle. "Bis-ble. I see you."

"Hey. Surprise, Kicking Bird. I see you too."

(His Dad probably would have been nicer if they'd had a daughter instead of a son. Junior's never getting treated the way he was treated.)

He speaks conspiratorially to Beth Junior. "We're going to have to play hide-and-seek with your mom one of these days. What do you say we check out all the rooms in this place?"

It ought to be a little unbelievable that this place is in the kind of shape it is, but he's still learning about this world, and this country in this world too. His arms tighten around both Beth and Junior as they make their way down the skinny hallway, stopping in front of a door. "What do you think, Slim? You want to put money on finding clean sheets in the linen closet?"

It'd be good to make sure there's no rats nesting in there or anything, although he really hasn't seen too many of those for a while. It's hard to maintain a species when there are no males around. Extrapolating from that concept, he gives Junior a quick little squeeze: he never thought he'd be glad to have a kid in his arms, but now he can't imagine what life would be like without her.

Without either of them. If he has to hide here in France till he's old and gray and crusty as Doohan, he'll do it... if it means he gets to stay with Beth and Beth.

She smiles to herself and lets her side bump against Spike's. It always was a giant long-term game of peekaboo to Junior.

Now little Beth might be so used to it that she'll start wondering why they're playing less often.

At least she finds Spike so engaging she won't mind much.

Reaching over, she pushes a little brown curl out of Junior's face. "What money?" One corner of her mouth curls. "I could bet some cigarettes."

He'd probably like that. They've been using them a lot more for bartering than smoking since they've been out here, and it's had to have been even worse for him than it has been for her.

He always used to smoke like a fucking chimney.

There are times when she misses seeing a cigarette between his lips or dangling from his fingers. It was his natural state.

"As long as they're not Gitanes, you're on." Yeah, a Marsboro would be good about now, but he hasn't risked even bringing a pack of those out here. If they ever get back to the future...

Yeah, right. He can deal with the Gauloises instead: they're only smokes.

The linen closet, as it turns out, has been emptied out. Nothing but dust and spiders in this thing; that's almost disappointing. "No buried treasure here. Damn, Junior, we're going to have to hunt a little harder. What do you think?" He bounces her a little in his arms; the wide grin on her face is the only answer he needs. "What's behind Door Number Two? Let's find out."

The second closet's also empty, except for a few dusty old towels and an old window fan. It's a big closet, though. Walk-in style, and that's pretty handy. When he was a kid he would have made it into a play fort or some shit like that, and they could still do that. "Hey. Beths. This is one of those fun closets." There's a single light bulb for an overhead; he pulls the chain on it.

"Light," Junior says.

"Yeah! Light bulb." She's so smart, but how could she not be with Beth for a mother? Crouching down, Junior still in his arms, he moves that dusty old window fan out of the way.

"Hey, check this out. There's another little door back here." It's kind of stuck; he tugs at the old crystal doorknob pretty hard. Dust and spiders and all sorts of shit creaks on out of there and he's prepared for whatever might be back there: old dead things or old forgotten things or a hell of a lot of nothing.

The one thing he isn't expecting is an awfully familiar set of sounds: automatically, he reaches for Beth's hand.

She freezes, startled, and her hand closes tightly around Spike's.

There's nothing -- short of a crazy soldier carrying off her baby, anyway -- that could budge her from right where she's standing, and she shows no signs of moving closer to the door or letting go of his hand.

It's been months and months, and she never could've expected this.

Maybe she was right way back when it occurred to her that there was no way she'd be able to stay out in space with Spike because she didn't belong there. Maybe this would've happened there the same way it's happening here: an open door to periodically steer them back.

Maybe there's no fucking rhyme or reason to it.

All she knows is they're not going anywhere. She liked living at the bar, and she's more than thankful that she found the place through the doorway at St. Bernadette's when she did. And she'd be thrilled to go back, sure, but she's done with living in a state of uncertainty and not knowing if they'll even be let out once they're let in.

Now that they've found Yorick, she can't just disappear with Beth Junior.

Huh.

How 'bout that.

The way Beth clutches at his hand tells him something and maybe if he was a little smarter he'd be able to read her mind real well, although he has an inkling of an idea what she's probably thinking. The whole reason they're here in the first place is because she wanted Junior to meet her biological father, and now that they've found and met Yorick, it's not the end of the story. How could it be? They're... tied to him, tied to this place, or at least two of them are.

It could be that he's free to walk -- or crawl -- right the fuck through the door this very second and never have to see France again. Of course, that might mean he never gets to see Beth and Junior again too.

For as long as he's been able to remember, he's fucking loved taking risks and meeting challenges. There isn't a single damn one that's presented itself to him that he's ever shied away from. But when you go through life without anything to lose, it's easy to take risks. Now, there's more at stake.

"Well, shit."

Giggling, Junior starts in. "Shit, shit, shit." That makes him laugh a tiny bit; his arm tightens around her.

"Beth Junior, don't talk like me. You know that." He peers forward, looks through the door -- it's the bar, all right -- then looks up at Beth. Slowly, he lets go of her hand and reaches for the door... and pushes it shut. Hell, that's its own kind of risk, he guesses.

"You'd think I'd have learned by now, right? When a door's being stubborn, I'd better not fuck with it."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Like that coming from Junior was unexpected. She covers her little mouth with her hands and grins like a damn Cheshire cat; he absently presses a kiss to her pudgy baby hand. He stands, moves that fan back to cover up the door, and takes Beth's hand in his again.

"So much for finding smokes, but what the hell, right? See if it's still there later."

He's... made his choice: he goes where Beth goes and that's all there is to it. He goes with her until the day she tells him not to and even then he might do it anyway. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time.

It's instinctive for her to smile when Junior keys in on just the right words to parrot back at them, but she's... well, she's relieved that Spike's not suggesting they see what happens with the bar. But beyond that, there's just something about the situation that isn't quite sitting right with her and won't be dismissed as easily as the door was closed.

Even so, she hasn't changed her mind about how great this house is. They can keep that door in the closet barricaded as long as they want to, if the opening to the bar even stays there.

And it's going to have to prove it can do just that before she's willing to take Junior and go back for a visit.

"I've still got an unopened pack stashed away just for you." She snatches the little hand Junior reaches out, but her eyes linger on Spike. "And we'll think about that door later if we need to."

She's pretty damn sure she's entitled to her skepticism.

There's only one thing he wants to do right now and that's let Beth know he's with her on this one. It isn't that he doesn't trust the door or thinks they'll get trapped at the bar this time any more than they got trapped there after they found the door at the church in Paris, but... it's actually real simple. If she's not ready to go, he's not ready to go.

He loves her.

"Junior, cover your eyes a second." He's just teasing but Beth Junior takes him seriously and puts her hands over her eyes so he takes advantage and moves right in and gives his Beth a soft kiss, on the lips and everything. That's... pretty much all he really wants right now.

End of the universe or outside Paris doesn't really matter, as long as they're together. Later, when Junior's asleep, he'll tell her that in those exact words.

And maybe he'll even show her how much he means it: it's been a tough year for intimacy, but they've survived. They've made it. And he really doesn't care where they are: Paris now, Mars or Venus in 2071, the end of the damn universe whatever year it is there, if years matter, or back in time for him or her. One thing he's learned is what's really important, and it's not the ease and convenience of the place they called home for a long time. It's being with the woman he loves, and her -- their -- daughter.

"Peek-a-boo, tiny kick-boxer. You can uncover your eyes now. Your mom's an angel, and she saved a pack of smokes for me. I'm going to take her up on that right about now."

He presses a kiss to the top of Junior's head, then turns and gives Beth a little look of her own. "We can talk about it later if you want, or whatever. I hear I'm easy, so long as you're named Beth."

She's grinning when he kisses her -- sometimes Beth Junior's such a literal little thing -- and she certainly doesn't close her own eyes when he gets close enough to kiss her.

Absolutely not. She wants to see him.

"Lucky for me." She always was a sucker for those significant looks he tends to give her. "A cigarette break and then time to head back?"

It's times like this that she misses having a good cell phone plan with the coverage to match. She'd give Hero a call, tell her exactly when they could be expected back at the apartment.

As soon as they get this place cleaned up a little, checking in with her will be something to do because they want to and not because it's necessary. She finds herself simultaneously looking forward to more time to herself and hoping Hero doesn't plan to wander too far off now that the hunt of Yorick's over.

They've been traveling together so long that anything else feels kind of odd now.

"I'll get the diaper bag."

It's where the secret pack of cigarettes is hidden away, and she set it down in the living room when they started their tour.

"Let's go with Beth, Junior. We don't need to stand here in a closet and smoke. No point in turning the place into a chimney." He looks down at little Beth in his arms and his heart just fucking melts: she's such a little sweetheart. Yeah, whatever it takes to stay part of things with her. If it means giving up what's behind that closet door... well, he already made that decision a while ago and he might have a few regrets, but they're only little and insignificant ones. He's already asked and answered the bigger questions for himself: hell, he thought he was dead when he first got to the bar anyway, but time's proved differently and he's glad about that.

Following Beth back into the living room is one of the easier decisions he's ever made, and he kicks that closet door closed behind them.

"No smoking for you, Beth Junior." There are wooden chairs here; he takes a seat on one of those and watches Beth move so seamlessly around the place. He can see them here -- if it's what she wants.

"You know, Slim, if you'd rather find a place in the city..."

Yeah, he knows, it means living in that cloak again. But if that's what it takes... not that he's entirely selfless, but out here he doesn't have much of a choice, does he. The word on the street is that Yorick was able to wander around Paris relatively unmolested after the Israeli army went home, so there's no reason he can't do the same thing.

Even if he would make the ugliest girl in Paris... and he takes a little bit of comfort in that fact, too.

In the middle of fishing the cigarettes out of her bag, she pauses and turns back toward him long enough to give him a very pointed look.

Not lacking in affection, but it gets her opinion across.

"I certainly wouldn't."

In twenty minutes, she can walk to within a few blocks of the apartment building they've been living in since they got to Paris. She'll be walking a lot, but she'd be walking no matter where they lived and she's beyond used to it by this point.

They're convenient to the city without being right in the heart of things. There's privacy out here. Spike's guaranteed to attract attention anywhere -- just like Yorick -- but since the Israeli chicks have cleared out, nobody else seems to have stepped up to take their place.

In fact, the women of Paris, for the most part, seem to be pretty damn accepting of Yorick.

They'll manage here.

Pulling out the pack of cigarettes, she smiles at him. "It'll be the nicest place I've ever had."

Except for maybe their home at the House of Arch, but that's kind of in a class of its own.

"Shit, it'll be the nicest place I've ever had too." Aside from Tom and Door's house, but that's magic so it doesn't count. It's better than any of the places his parents moved him to; better than the Dragons boarding house; better than his crappy apartment in Tharsis; better than the Bebop, even. And because it's going to be one of the nicest places he's ever had, he'll trade her a clean-up session later for a smoke now: those things are treats and he's pretty damn sure the last time he had one was way before the shit hit the fan with Alter and the Israeli army. It might even have been back at the House of Arch last time they were there.

How 'bout that.

As Beth unwraps the cellophane from around the pack -- shit, they won't even be stale cigarettes, and what a treat that is -- and hands him one, he gives Junior a kiss and sets her in Beth's arms. Yeah, she's got to have the nanobots too, but he doesn't really want to smoke right in her face or anything. Fishing in his pockets for his lighter -- it's the one thing he always carries with him beside his gun -- he steps back, opens a dusty window, and lights that smoke. It tastes like the proverbial million Woolongs, but he's got one ear trained on the noises going on outside. Right now they're all natural: wind rustling, the occasional something falling out of a tree or whatever, but no people sounds and definitely no approaching Israeli army sounds.

That's good. He's glad that little chapter is over. He's not much of a caveman type, but he can protect his Beths at this place.

Yeah.

He still thinks that loving Beth's the best thing he's ever done. Nothing else he's ever accomplished in his life can hold a candle to all of this.

"Hi, sweetheart." She can't help but smile when Junior's little arms wrap around her neck hold on tight. Wrapping her hands around her daughter's sides, she tickles until the hold on her neck loosens and then raises her up into the air until she giggles and swings her back down, holding her less than a foot off the ground.

(It's definitely time to get a haircut.)

Little Beth would get a kick out of riding with her hotshot pilot of a surrogate father, no question in her mind about it.

The two of them are practically cheek-to-cheek when she turns to Spike, watching him smoke by the open window with no small amount of appreciation in her eyes.

He's probably even leaner than he was when they first met at the bar, but there's still nothing she'd like more than to tug him toward her by the goddamn skinny tie he hasn't worn regularly since he got stuck out here with her and spend a couple of good hours cataloging every minute physical difference she can notice about him.

It'd be practically therapeutic.

But until she gets the chance, she... kind of loves him more than ever, and she knows it.

"Is it as good as you'd imagined?"

She can almost live vicariously just by watching him.

Almost.

"Close." There's something that would make it a hell of a lot better, and that's if she was right here in his arms. But this will do. For someone who's smoked since he was... what, fifteen? this is the longest he's gone without it. Funny how a guy can think he can't possibly get along without his favorite crutch only to find out it doesn't matter so much after all.

Especially when a better crutch comes along, and that... is how he feels about Beth and Junior.

"But yeah, I think I could get used to it all over again."

It's a sweet little moment, seeing Junior's face pressed up against Beth's like that

(click)

and it isn't so damn hard to commit that scene to memory, even when the thought of a way back home sitting in the back of the closet keeps nagging at his thoughts. Fuck it: whatever happens happens and they'll either go sometime or they won't, and it'll only happen for a good enough reason and he knows it. He also knows that being out here's changed him, probably forever if not for the better. For a lack of a better way to phrase it, he's been on forced pilgrimages before but this... well, shit: he has the best damn reasons in the whole world to keep putting one foot in front of the other and wake up every morning, and they're both here in this room with him. Everything else is just circumstance but Beth and Junior... they're his family and he's had precious little of that his whole life and isn't ready to give it up.

Nope, the bar can wait. This is what counts. One smoke ring hits its target and floats lazily through another before he turns toward Beth and holds out the lit cigarette to her. And he smiles, because he's about to say something he hasn't had much of a chance to say the past year.

"Want some?"

That's the guy she fell for in the first place, all subtle smiles and idle smoke rings and casual come-ons and that easy willingness to share his cigarettes with her.

"I don't think I could turn down an offer like that."

With one arm safely wrapped around Beth Junior, she reaches for the cigarette, and her fingers aren't too shy to linger against his longer than they need to.

It's just a quick lungful of smoke and a longer, almost luxurious exhale -- soke! is the word on little Beth's lips while she watches -- aimed away from the little girl holding on to her so tightly.

She walks right up to the window beside him before she gives the cigarette back, and when she does, she takes a cue from him. Just as he did to her once upon a time when he had broken ribs, she raises her hand to her cheek and taps her index finger against it in open invitation.

Like he can resist that. There's so much unspoken intent in way he leans in to steal that kiss right off Beth's cheek that it's nothing short of shameful. At the same time, it's everything at once: he loves her and loves her and loves her, and then he has to laugh -- out loud and everything -- when Beth Junior mimics the tap to her own little cheek.

Yeah, she gets a kiss too. He may be a hell of a stubborn S.O.B., but deep down inside there's this part of him that just about no one gets to see. Jet saw it... maybe once or twice. Faye never did. Julia... well, she was a different story altogether. But Beth? She gets to know all about it, all about all of him.

"Kiss," says Junior with a little bit of delight. "Now peek-a-boo?"

He knew she was smart. "Soon, toughest kickboxer in the west. Soon." He kind of wonders how long it'll be until he can make the walk from here to downtown Paris or downtown to here without the cloak. He hopes that happens soon too. But first he's going to finish this cigarette, damn it, because it's been so long since he was able to just stand around and smoke one. He's... not a selfless person. He's never been a selfless person: there's a hell of a good personal reason behind all the things he does. Sometimes, over the course of the years, it's been no fear of death making all his decisions, or maybe even a little bit of a death wish doing it for him. Sometimes it's been apathy. Sometimes it's been wondering if it was all just a big fucking dream, and the more things he does, the more chance he has of waking up and figuring it out.

So yeah, staying out here with Beth and Junior instead of crawling through that small door and back into the bar isn't something he's doing out of the goodness of his heart; there are plenty of people who'll say he doesn't have any of that. The truth is he's here because it's where he wants to be. Because he's already lost the one person who meant more to him than anyone else in the world, and he had to lose her three fucking times and it never got any easier and... he's not doing it again. In fact, he'll do pretty much anything to keep from losing Beth.

When the cigarette's done and ground out underfoot, he nods to Junior. "Now it's time, cowgirl. Ready?" He gives his own Beth one more kiss -- on the lips this time -- before putting on that cloak again. That whole concept of things being both blessing and curse flits through his mind and threatens to lodge there before he reminds himself his favorite deadly sin is the sin of overanalysis.

"Spi all gone." Junior's pronouncement would be a lot more solemn if it wasn't followed by a huge yawn and the telltale heavy eyelids indicating it's probably nap time. It's just one of those things he'd convinced himself he'd never ever know about, but now takes as a matter of course.

"If it wouldn't look ridiculous, Slim, I'd push the carriage back."

At least they have a carriage.

She smiles as Junior leans against her sleepily. "It's tougher than that to get rid of a good bounty hunter, sweetheart."

Maybe there is a little bit of pride in her voice. She can't help it. As far as she's been concerned, it's never really been her place to be proud of Spike.

But she is anyway.

"It's okay," she directs to where Spike disappeared, slinging the straps of the diaper bag over her shoulder and letting little Beth nestle her head in the crook of her neck. "I don't mind pushing the carriage. But if we ever want people to think this house is haunted, I'm leaving the work to you."

"It'd be a hell of a way to keep people away."

Beneath the cloak, there's a huge fucking grin on his face. He runs a little checklist in his mind: get locks for the door, fix those broken windows, get clean linens. Hell, get cleaning supplies and fuck if he knows why that sounds like it might be fun for a change, but anything beside living in this cloak is going to be fun for a change.

What he's most looking forward to are quiet evenings here with Beth and Junior... and nights with Beth again when the little one's asleep. Yeah, that'll be nice: it's been a long time since he hasn't had to sleep with one eye open, listening for stray sounds that mean cover the fuck up and be quiet.

Yeah. He's looking forward to nights just like that. This place isn't Venus and it's not the House of Arch, but they'll make it theirs. As they step outside and shut the door behind them, Junior's eyes close hard and he decides what the hell, no one can see him anyway: he leans over and kisses both Beths invisibly, then falls into step next to Slim for the walk back to the city.

He's pretty sure Hero will be interested in hearing about what they found in that closet.

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