Us Together

I do not own Cowboy Bebop.

Know that you'll be the only one ...

Spike closed the door to her room, careful not to wake her. It was too early to be awake but he couldn't sleep with so many thoughts racing through his mind. He made his way into the common room and sank into the cushions of the yellow couch. Jet was already up; he could hear him in the kitchen as the sounds and smells of brewing coffee wafted towards him. He picked up the pack of smokes from the table and pulled one out. He lit up, thinking about the events of the previous day. Me and Faye. The words sounded foreign in his mind. He tried them out again, this time aloud. "Me and Faye." A smile drifted to his lips as he mouthed the words

Jet emerged from the kitchen holding two cups of coffee.

"You say something?" he asked as he handed him a cup. Spike shook his head as he tried to wipe the smile from his face. Jet stared at him a moment, then sat back, the two of them drinking coffee and smoking in a companionable silence between friends. After a while, Spike spoke.

"Jet." He took another pull from his cigarette, and lay back against the sofa, staring up at the rotating ceiling fan. "About Faye. She … I don't think she's ever been … with anyone before."

Jet nodded. "Kind of figured." He took a gulp of his coffee, wondering where this was leading.

Spike glanced at him, eyebrows raised. "You knew – and you didn't tell me?"

Jet paused, then turned to Spike as if talking to an idiot. "And I should have told you that why exactly?"

Spike's cheeks turned crimson and he looked down in his lap. "At first she … thought I only wanted …" he took a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaled, finally looking up, meeting Jet's gaze steadily.

Jet supressed his surprise that Spike was telling him even this much. Although they had a pretty good relationship, subjects of a personal nature were usually left unspoken. And Spike was so damn closed-mouth about personal things, him bringing up anything about him and Faye, well, that must mean that he cared about her more than he'd realized. Jet recalled the last time that Spike had talked like this, with that same retrospective, melancholy tone, it had been about Julia, just before he'd single-handedly instrumented the the fall of the Red Dragons.

"Faye can be a real bitch sometimes," he said, taking a long deep drag from his cigarette as he glanced at Spike.

Spike smiled as an image of a fuming Faye flashed in his mind. "Yeah. Definitely a woman with attitude."

"But," Jet continued, looking at Spike. "That's just the attitude she puts on when she feels the most insecure. That wench has been kicked around so much that the only way she knows how to protect herself is to keep her fangs bared at all times."

Spike fell silent, pondering Jet's words. What Jet said about her was true, and if he hadn't known before, he certainly knew after their night together.

He recalled the times he'd teased her mercilessly, knowing she'd come right back at him with a retort of her own. What he hadn't realized was just how much his words had stung. Now that he thought about it, he realized that the more caustic her comebacks, the more hurt she had felt inside. Thinking about it now made him feel guilty. And Spike Spiegel had never felt guilty about anything he'd done or said in his whole life ... except for now, when it came to Faye. She was changing him.

And he wasn't so sure if he liked it, but yeah, he could live with it.

-End