An Angel's Descant

by Taryn Montgomery


A Cowboy Bebop Fanfic


Disclaimer: Cowboy Bebop is the property of Bandai Entertainment and Sunrise Productions.

Author's Notes: This isn't really strictly speaking a fanfic, or even a story. It's more of a descant intended to kind of overlay Spike's memories
from "Ballad of Fallen Angels", or alternatively, "Jupiter Jazz II". If you haven't seen either episode, this is probably going to make no sense
whatsoever. If you have seen them, then you're already not going to expect this to make sense anyway, right?

I also haven't seen beyond the episodes that are currently commerically available, so I don't know the whole background to the
Spike/Vicious/Julia triangle. Since no one else seems to either, I feel absolutely no remorse about making things up.

Consider yourself warned.

*******

Falling...

Shards of glass rain down towards me, the colors reflecting the light of the streetlamps like a glittering fall of diamonds, like rose
petals drifting through the mist-laden air.

Above me rises a face framed by pale hair, achingly familiar even from the ever-increasing distance.

Long blonde hair framing a beautiful face-

Julia

-no, that isn't right at all. Wild strands of pale hair caught in the wind, lifting away from the sharp high angles of the cheekbones and the cruel
mocking tilt of the mouth.

Vicious

Why did it have to come to this? Why did everything have to change?

Why?

Drops of blood spill over my eyes, painting the falling glass in crimson.

The shots of a gun, the absence of Vicious' familiar form guarding my back.

Alone, deserted, beaten.

A halo of light framing a rescuing angel on a dark rainy night. A halo of gunfire and blood framing a demon from the past, laughing as he fades away
from sight.

Pain, pain chased away by the crystalline sound of the angel's song. The song haunts my dreams, a wordless lullaby to calm my tattered soul safely
into sleep.

Pain chased away by the devil's rough hands sliding over smooth naked flesh, callused from years of sword practice. Hands that could be so gentle and
loving. Hands that could kill, the ultimate betrayal to the one whom mattered most, the one who gave us both a chance at life.

Pale hair caught the light, one turning golden as her smile under the flickering lights in the smoky bar, one turning sliver in the moonlight as it fell across the dark skin of my chest.

"When angels are forced out of heaven they become devils."

No, Vicious, no, it didn't have to be this way. We had choices. We all had choices. Why couldn't you just see.?

"I'm just watching a bad dream I never wake up from."

Every night is the same. Every night when I close my eyes; her song and his face. Ghosts from the past come to haunt me. I'm dead and gone to them.

Why can't the past just die?