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Spike is exhausted and fucking starving by the time the Bebop lands on Earth. He lets Miles and Doohan deal with hauling the Swordfish into the hangar and sneaks into the ship, jacket slung over his arm, feet dragging. All he wants is to eat a cup of ramen, drink something strong enough to chase the adrenaline out of his limbs, and go the fuck to bed.
Of course, he runs into Jet. He always runs into Jet exactly when he doesn’t want to. It makes sense—the Bebop is Jet’s ship. He knows everything that happens inside her halls. Including when Spike is just trying to keep his head down.
Spike tenses up, just slightly, when Jet steps into his line of sight. He’s going to get chewed out, probably, for taking a blind risk, for being careless, for scaring Jet—
Jet’s arms wrap around him, pulling Spike close, one hand at the back of his head and the other between his shoulderblades, pressing him tightly to his chest.
“Jet?” Spike asks, doing his damndest to not let it show in his voice that his throat is suddenly, unbearably tight. “What’s this about?”
It’s not like Jet hasn’t hugged him before. They sleep together, for fuck’s sake. They’ve lived in each other’s pockets for three years. It’s not like Jet doesn’t touch him.
But it still makes his heart jump, being held. Like he’s a kid, or something. Or someone’s boyfriend. Someone whose earned or deserves being wrapped up in warmth and pressure.
“Don’t you ever , ” Jet says, his voice fraught with distress. “ Ever do that to me again.”
Spike’s shoulders relax, because there’s the scolding he was expecting, much easier to weather than the hug. Except the hug gets tighter, too. Jet’s breath is warm and quick against Spike’s neck. Spike can feel his hands in vivid detail through his sweat-damp shirt.
“What do you want me to say?” Spike asks. Jet doesn’t want him to apologize. He never does. Spike’s tried, and Jet always just scowls at him and brushes it off. It’s hard to apologize for something like that, anyway. For inconveniencing Jet with the fact of his existence, sure, but for risking his neck for a bounty? That’s just his job.
“I don’t know,” Jet mutters, into Spike’s neck. He sounds upset. Really, genuinely upset, and between that and the hug, Spike’s starting to get the urge to shove him off and flee. But that would just make things worse. “You almost died , Spike.”
“Emphasize the almost instead, big guy,” Spike replies, to hide the discomfort crawling up his spine. Sure, fine, he almost died. He’s ‘almost died’ more times than he can count. He’s starting to think—no, that’s a lie. He’s thought for years that he’s already dead, living out some vague, purgatorial dream.
Jet finally loosens his grip on Spike, but only enough to pull back and look him in the face. His eyes are panic-wide, his jaw quivers slightly. “I was going to have to sit there and watch you die, Spike.”
Spike’s heart skips a beat. This feels like an ultimatum. Feels like Jet telling him to get his shit together or stop haunting Jet’s ship.
“I can go,” he says, before Jet can say it. “Just let me pack.”
Jet seizes him by the shoulders. “You’re not going anywhere,” he says, loud, the panic in his eyes cutting into his voice, and Spike can’t help but flinch. Jet relents, just slightly, but he keeps hold of him. “That’s not what this is. I’m not asking you to go anywhere. You asked why I grabbed you like that and I’m telling you. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I think you might be in the wrong line of work,” Spike manages. “Or the wrong partner.”
To Spike’s horror, Jet looks thoughtful at that, rather than pissed. Like he’s actually considering showing Spike the door. He starts thinking about how quickly he can get his things together, if he can get away with taking any of Jet’s clothes, since they’re just about all he wears other than his suits.
“Jet,” he starts.
Jet kisses him. Less jarring than the hug, and somewhere near the appropriate level of enjoyable, but it still sends a frisson of panic up Spike’s spine, because he absolutely cannot do this.
It’s one thing to think he’s going to die, one thing to hear the engines of the Swordfish sputter and fizzle and feel the nose tip despite his grip on the throttle, it’s one thing to sit back and light a cigarette and feel some of the tension finally seep out of his shoulders, one thing to hear Jet over the comms and know that he’ll be the one drinking from the bottles Spike keeps behind the fridge, the good stuff, the funeral booze, he calls it, if he’s feeling particularly maudlin, it’s one thing to finally have the quiet awakening in sight after so long in this noisy dream—
Quite another for Jet to be right here, warm and solid and so jarringly real , wrapping his arms around him and kissing him and shoving it right in Spike’s face that when he dies, it will not be the clean exeunt he dreams of. He’ll leave damages when he goes—like he always does.
It’s far easier to be dead than it is to have survived, Spike knows that. He just wishes it were easier to put out of his mind, wishes Jet didn’t wear his heart on his damn sleeve. Wishes neither of them cared as much as they do.
It shouldn’t bother Spike as much as it does, how much he’ll hurt Jet with his death. It’s Jet’s fault, anyway—he’s the one who decided to get fond of the hitchhiker he picked up, the one who decided to keep Spike even after he turned out to be, well… himself . He’s the one who cares so much that Spike is regularly blinded by it.
It’s not Spike’s fault.
It will be Spike’s fault when he dies, though—Spike knows his way out of things as well as he knows his way into them. He just doesn’t take the outs, because maybe this time it will stick, and his head will go quiet and he won’t wake up to the Bebop’s fan spinning overhead and his body wrapped up in gauze by Jet’s ever-steady hands.
Jet’s hands, Jet’s heart, Jet’s eyes on him, pinning him down. Jet’s mouth a breath away from his, Jet’s voice saying don’t do that to me again before pressing his lips back against Spike’s.
The worst thing is, Spike could get used to this. Has gotten used to this. To being cared about, to being tended by gentler hands than the Syndicate’s doctors, to being kissed like this, like it matters that no one’s lip ends up bloody.
“I’m sorry,” he says, into Jet’s mouth, because he is, he is sorry, he’s sorry that he’s who he is, he’s sorry they met (no, he wishes he was sorry they met, but he’s selfish), he’s sorry he’s somehow ended up tangled in Jet’s heart.
The inevitable would hurt much less if Spike had stayed alone.
It would have come much sooner, too.
“That doesn’t help, Spike,” Jet says, like Spike knew he would. “You’ll keep doing it, and sometimes I won’t be there to—”
He cuts himself off with a sigh, half frustrated and half something in the ballpark of miserable, directing his scowl somewhere past Spike’s head.
You want to protect me, Spike would say, if honesty were on the table, You’ve saved me a few times and you want to keep doing it. You’ve decided that you can. That you should. You shouldn’t—not just because you can’t. I’m not worth that. I have nothing to give back. It’s safer to give up on me.
Honesty would fracture this gentle thing they’ve managed to coax up out of their respective wreckages, though. So Spike doesn’t say that. He just lets his coat spill from the crook of his arm onto the floor and steps up into Jet’s space.
Jet’s hands drop from Spike’s face, and he feels the loss acutely in the fraction of a second before Jet’s arms close around him again, pulling him close, one hand sliding down his spine and the other lingering at his hip.
Spike’s skin is starting to prickle, oversensitive, but he lets himself be held, his own hands still jammed in his pockets, swaying into the touch to let Jet know that he’s not disinterested, just… whatever he is. Himself, as damning as that is.
Jet should really just let him die, one of these days. Spike just has to try harder to convince him. Or end up in a situation like this one, where he can’t be saved. This was a good one—Doohan was the one screwing things up, this time.
(It’s nice, vaguely, to know that Doohan still likes him enough to haul his ass out of the fire, even after Spike took the Swordfish and went back to the Syndicate without so much as a goodbye.)
Jet’s still kissing him, slow and sweet and unbearably gentle, the only harshness to it the slight rasp of his beard against Spike’s skin. Then he stops, leans back, and puts his hand on Spike’s face again.
Spike realizes, belatedly, that he’s trembling. Just a little—not enough to be visible. But enough for Jet, pressed so close, to feel.
“You okay?” Jet asks.
No, Spike’s not. He’s alive, for one thing—but Jet would fuss if he said that, so he can’t. He can’t take any more fussing, not today.
Jet knows, anyway. It’s not a secret. They just don’t need to talk about it.
“I’m hungry,” Spike says, instead of if you didn’t want to get hurt, you should have abandoned me sooner , because as much as he thinks Jet should leave him, he’d rather have dinner first.
Jet must see something in his face, because he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t push the subject. Just kisses Spike again, chastely, and lets him go. “Take a shower,” he says. “You smell like the desert.” His expression goes soft, in that achingly caretaking way that makes Spike squirm, as much as he aches for it. “Dinner soon.”
Spike says something back, some quip, but it doesn’t really matter. Jet’s let go of him, Jet’s turned away to walk toward the kitchen, and Spike’s not real anymore. He lights a cigarette with hands that seem huge and clumsy, breathes in, drifts away with the smoke.
It goes on. It just goes on.
He could resent Jet for that, but he’s too tired.