Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Lullaby for the Shattered Soul ❯ Cold Reed Solo ( Chapter 5 )

~Disclaimer:~ I don't own Cowboy Bebop, but I DO own Kirsche.

A/N: Woo hoo! The story's finally starting to pull together! Review and tell me what you think. ^____^

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Cold Reed Solo

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`Bell peppers and Beef. Again. Is that all the food we have on this damn ship?!' Faye thought sourly, leaning back in the chair and wincing at the awful taste in her mouth. Blech. Jet's cooking had definitely gotten worse. Maybe later she'd swallow some of the dust-bunnies that had taken over the space beneath the couch to get the nasty taste out of her mouth.

The sleeping form of Spike was sprawled out lazily on said couch, as usual, arms cocked at his neck and a cigarette held loosely between his lips as he digested his `food'. The fact that it tasted like burnt plastic mixed with God-only-knows what else didn't seem to bother him, or disturb what looked like a very deep sleep.

Kirsche, however, quite enjoyed the meal. It was better than the slop she'd eaten on Callisto, anyways. She sat on the steel coffee table across from Spike, long legs curled under her and watching some old movie on the static-ridden vid-screen.

They had already watched some weird movie called `The Lone Ranger', which Edward had been dying to see, and some other old movies that included `Indiana Jones', the entire `Star Wars' trilogy, and some other film with a suave British spy who single-handedly saved the world over and over again.

Half way during the movie marathon, Kirsche had looked back at Spike to see if he was actually paying attention. He wasn't. Lounging comfortably behind her and looking half asleep, Spike maintained an aloof languor that reminded her of a cat she had once. She told him so.

"You remind me of a cat, a tiger-striped cat."

Spike looked up in surprise, blinking at her in mild puzzlement. "Huh?"

Kirsche continued, smiling brightly. "Yes. You, my friend, are a tiger-striped cat."

"I hate cats." Spike lay his head back down lazily, exhaling a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling and not bothering to watch Kirsche's expression change to one of happy inquisitiveness to one somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

He sighed. "And what animal, pray tell, would you be?"

Kirsche chuckled dryly and winked at him. "I don't know, a minx, eh? Now shush, another movie's coming on."

This movie was very strange, a sad one about a pair of lovers who were never meant to be. There was a girl who was killed and her lover had died to be with her. Another girl loved him but knew he never loved her so she had to live knowing that he never would. It was originally in another language and the dubbing was awful, but it was still such a sorrowful story that Kirsche couldn't help but sniffle at their tragedy as she inattentively picked at the dried blood on her arms.

Faye watched her from her chair. The movie was just an old romance, nothing special, and Faye was getting extremely bored. She couldn't see how the mulberry woman was so captivated with it.

"Y'know, if you want you could go and take a shower to scrub off some of that blood. The bandages will dry, and you look like you could use a hot one."

Kirsche smiled gratefully and nodded, allowing Faye to lead her around the Bebop in search of clean towels and new soap. She noted silently that blood was continuing to seep through the fresh bandage and staining it bright red beneath her shirt; maybe a shower would be good before the rest of the Bebop noticed.

Finally, Faye led her to the bathroom, warning her that the showerhead had a tendency to fall off and that the knobs didn't always work. The mulberry woman nodded absently and headed in; loaded down with a thin towel and a bar of soap.

After a minute, she finally got the hot water to work, so she stripped down and stepped inside the rusty shower. Heaving an appreciative sigh as the hot water eased her aching muscles better than any massage and rinsed her clean of the gritty blood and sweat, she sat down on the warm tiles on the floor of the shower, letting the water pelt her face and body.

In the main room, Spike could hear the thrum of the shower running in the bathroom. It was probably Faye, using up all the hot water again. And he'd be damned if she left any left for the rest of the ship. That shrew could be so unbelievably and stupidly selfish sometimes.

With a smirk, Spike rose from the couch, depositing his cigarette in a random ashtray as he went. The tall, lanky cowboy slunk into the kitchen, peeking in first to make sure that no one was around before turning both knobs on the sink as high as the could go. Water poured out violently and steamed down the drain, and Spike grinned in smug satisfaction.

`Three, two, one…'

A piercing feminine scream rent the calm sleepy quiet of the Bebop and echoed through the walls. Jet stumbled out of his bonsai room, carrying one of the tiny potted trees in his robotic arm and holding a pair of dangerous looking hedge clippers in his other. He burst clumsily into the kitchen, followed by a disgruntled looking Faye. Her short violet hair was in disarray her eyes had dark circles around them.

"Who. Woke. Me. Up. You. Bastard. Spike." Faye grumbled sleepily. Spike blinked in surprise. If Faye wasn't in the shower, then who. . .

His thoughts were cut off when their very irritated mulberry haired guest entered the kitchen, draped in a thin, damp towel and dripping water everywhere. Her berry-colored curls drooped and sagged to her waste and hung in angry-looking snarls around her face.

`Nope,' Spike thought to himself as he backed away from Kirsche's enraged expression and balled fists. `Definitely not Julia.'

He had never actually seen Julia get mad before, but now he would have bet all the woolongs in the world that if she ever did, she would be scarier than the inner circle of Hell.

Spike held up his hands disarmingly, but Kirsche's death glare continued full force. Her voice was strained, as if she was clenching her jaw. "You. . . LUNKHEAD!!!"

"Lunk-head, lunk-head, bunk bed, Spike-person's dead. . ." Edward sang happily and clacked away on Tomato in the other room, using her toes as well as her fingers as she surfed through numerous files with ease. Damn genius kids. . .

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The digital clock by her borrowed bed blinked 2:31 AM. An eerie blue electric glow dimly lit the small room, accompanied only by the constant hum of the Bebop as it coursed through space. The mulberry woman sat up in bed, her long muscular legs curled under her comfortably as she stared into Tomato's glowing screen. Good thing Edward was a sound sleeper. She would never know Tomato ever left her side.

The mulberry woman was still wearing the shirt that Spike had given her, and her unruly pink curls were tied loosely at the nape of her neck. She had snuck into the Bebop's meager supplies and taken a fresh bandage, replacing her blood-saturated one on her own without the crew's knowledge. Having slipped herself a few pills to ward off the lethargy that came with blood loss, she found herself unable to sleep and thus decided to put the late hours alone to use.

Kirsche smirked to herself as her nimble piano fingers opened various files, until finally she opened the window she was looking for. A man with vindictive yellow eyes and long, wispy locks of white hair appeared on the glowing screen. His face was hidden by shadows that threw themselves over his face, but just the image and the name that went with it was enough to confirm it was he.

She gave him her most arrogant smirk at his stoic expression, biting back the fear that mounted in the back of her mind and whispering into Tomato's microphone so that she wouldn't wake the Bebop's crew.

"Greetings, Vicious," she chirped softly. The assassin growled back at her, the screen picking up his annoyance quite clearly.

"I gave you a job, McMae, I expected it to be done by now."

The mulberry woman waved her hand flippantly. "Yes, yes, I'm working on it. I'm on his ship at this very moment so keep your voice down."

Vicious' eyes blinked in mild surprise, but quickly changed to a mask of irritation. He was wary of the fellow mercenary. Though her reputation marked her as a woman of her word and a willing slave to her job, something about her seemed amiss. She was too careless, a mere child with a pretty face.

"The next time you call I expect Spike Spiegel to be dead. You hear me, McMae?"

Kirsche snorted indignantly. Usually her jobs let her call the shots, but the Red Dragon Syndicate was known for being power-hungry. "Sure thing, Vishy. You'll have his head on a silver platter by this time tomorrow night. However, I can't talk now, just called to give you an update."

The man's eyes darkened dangerously, causing a shudder to run down the woman's spine. "Good. Your payment, as discussed, will be sent to your residence on Callisto. Oh, and one more thing, Kirsche, if you value your life you will address me as Vicious. You are expendable. Keep that in mind."

The man's face became a white dot as he ended the transmission, leaving Kirsche scowling at Tomato's empty screen. Whatever compelled her to accept this job, she would never know.

Vicious more than lived up to his namesake, and she had spent most of her career avoiding the growing gang-wars between syndicates. But somehow, all of that was forgotten as the number of woolongs offered grew higher, and higher, and higher. . . Ah, she remembered now. That's why she took the job.

She scoffed at that. Maybe the reason she had taken the job was out of surprise that the legendary assassin and leader of the Red Dragon Syndicate, Vicious, would actually hire another assassin to do his work for him. It just didn't quite fit.

The way she figured it, it would have been more his style to go after this Spike-character himself, especially since it seemed to be so important to him.

She quickly deleted the history of her conversation with Vicious off the computer, covering up her tracks so that Edward wouldn't accidentally stumble upon it with her constant hacking.

Closing the laptop and setting it on the nightstand beside her bed, Kirsche leaned back into the cool sheets, yawning widely and pressing her head deep into a pillow that smelt faintly of cigarette smoke. The mulberry woman smirked as she slowly slipped into a dreamless sleep. This would be easy.