#your relationship would bud from spike's repeated trips <3

[stargazer-dreamer]

Erratum Discussions

character: spike spiegel

reader: gender neutral

content warnings: implied/referenced self-harm. intrusive thoughts. inability to move on (from past relationships)

notes: also on ao3. 1k+ word count. “spike centric” in a way that’s more about spike and less about the reader

Page after page, it’s hard to move on. It’s hard to find out who you are, and what you are, and why you are, and where you are, and—

Spike tries. He tries so hard. Page after page.

---

He likes to read, occasionally. It’s no good to train only the body, after all.

Not every bookstore was the same—big or small, cluttered or pristine—but there was something about that particular one, the one that sold them used, located down in the asteroid belt, that he found himself traveling to more often than not, when he found the need for something new.

If he were an honest man, he would wager that it would be more accurate to say that his visitations were for a particular person and not the selection in which they sold. Paperbacks, worn and pre-thumbed, with the corners bent, and notes scribbled in the margins—he had no part in any of that. No; while it was true that Spike enjoyed a good book here and there, he could not possibly work through the text at the rate he was buying them.

He is not an honest man. He would walk in, nonchalant, and browse the selection. After a while, scanning the shelves, he would end up near you; he’d strike up a harmless conversation—“Have you read this one?” “Does this sound interesting to you?” And, well, he couldn’t just leave empty-handed, right? His nightstand became cluttered, and the coffee table grew unusable. The bridge, the workshop, the glove compartment in Swordfish. He bought a bookshelf.

“I get good recommendations when I go there,” he argued, trying to be nonchalant about it when Jet had figured it out.

They were a poor choice of words, Spike realized, when his partner said: “Sure,” with an amused smile playing along his lips; humor and warmth dripping thick in his voice. “Book recommendations. I understand, Spike—that’s your business.”

“No, really,” he suddenly felt like a school-child; the overwhelming urge to defend himself, violently. And it would be a while longer yet for him to fully understand exactly why he was feeling this way, but—“Books. I go there for books, Jet. Books. Why else would I go to a bookstore?”

“Yes, I get it,” Jet still looked at him in a way that pissed him off. “Books.”

Despite the teasing remarks, Spike held firm in his stance. He even believed it himself, for a time. There could not possibly be any other feasible explanation as to why he kept coming back to this specific location, on this small of a settlement, so far out and away from their usual haunts, than the particular selection they held.

Not so soon after his previous relationship. Not when his heart still beated for her. Not when she still appeared in his sweetest dreams. No, this could not be that, especially when he did not know you and you did not know him. Strangers—less than so. You only spoke to him pleasantly because it was your job, and it was his own disillusioned mind that saw it as anything more.

So, he stopped going. He worked through a stack or two of paperbacks, crumpled and tattered. Life resumed as usual.

But he missed chatting with you. After your attention was on him, he would ease the conversation out of the confines of the small store—“Life treating you well?” “You ever worked out your situation?” And the two of you would talk; minutes, sometimes up to an hour, the clock ticking away until the old manager would come out from the backroom and tell you to get back to work. 

There wasn’t much work to do, you had told him, after the manager would hobble back out—probably off to go play solitaire on his outdated computer—and it would be just the two of you, once more. Update the database, tidy up the shop. Foot traffic was slow, most days. You would rather be talking to him, you had said, once, offhand.

Perhaps you were simply indulging him. Maybe he was too friendly. All the more reason to stay away. He didn’t want to appear as a creep. He didn’t want to appear desperate.

Not after her. Not after he couldn’t stay away.

Jet seemed to pick up on the lack of asteroid belt-related trips. Before, Spike would find a multitude of excuses to go. Now, he came up with reasons to avoid it entirely.

“There’s nothing there,” he would say, deliberately avoiding his partner’s eyes. “Not even any good bars—hey, why don’t we hit some bounties? We could use the extra money.”

But that pocket change used to go towards his collection of books. After amenities and necessities, he would spare some for the trip he would inevitably take; paperbacks in the back of his mind and you at the forefront. Always.

It slowly dawned on him that he didn’t have many hobbies, outside of that. He would drink, he would smoke, go out and play pool. He didn’t know if he even liked reading, if he were being completely honest. It was just something that he’d always done, after they taught him how. Something that they said he was good at. A good hobby. Enriching. Enlightening.

She had even appraised his collection, that first night she came over. Spike wondered—if he went back, would that apartment be empty? Those shelves he had spent years filling; text after text, ripped to shreds, left to cover a landfill—or did they preserve it? Collecting dust and bad memories, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Waiting for what?

He looked at his room aboard Bebop and found it mostly empty; his closet, his bed. Not much had changed, except the fact that everything had changed. He looked at his bookcase. He wondered if you would praise it, just like she did. Or would you look at it with disgust? Would you scan the titles and recognize every letter—every stain and scuff—and tell him he was a freak? To stay away from you. To never speak to you again.

Spike closed his eyes and stared into the abyss. He came out on the other side and saw only himself. Like looking at a mirror. He wanted to shatter it; to throw it against the wall and watch the splinters crack his reflection—he wanted to grab the shards and watch him tear himself to shreds. Hundreds, thousands of pieces, so broken and battered that no one could ever dream of repairing it ever again. To see his hands wet with it, to hold it tighter, to stop waiting around and finally finish the job himself.

Kicking, and screaming, and dry-heaving, Spike wanted. He wanted—

He didn’t know what he wanted. Perhaps he never did, at all. A man, with his two own eyes, sitting there on the piano bench; sitting, and reading, and waiting, and wanting, and singing—grab a glass because there’s going to be a flood!

Spike knew one thing for sure: he was always good at reading. So, he read. He worked through a stack. Then another. Life resumed like normal. Bullets, and blood, and books, and blue.

He thought of her. He thought of taking her home, to his apartment too big for him, and her looking at his shelves, all in a neat little line, backs against the walls, in every room. With bated breath, he would watch her. He imagined her eyes, wide with disgust and blue, and she’d turn to him and say, “Freak. You’re such a freak.” And that would be that. Finally.

He thought of you. He thought of you and he thought of you and he thought of you and he thought of you and he thought of you and he thought of you and he thought of you and he—

And he wanted.

No, Spike is not an honest man. He never has been. But he likes to read, occasionally. It’s no good to train only the body, after all.