Doldrums: A Cowboy Bebop FanFic by Paranoid Schizophrenic
1: Doldrums
Spike was sitting on the faded orange couch, watching T.V. Well, not really watching T.V, more like reclining on the couch, looking cool, with the T.V incidentally going on in the background. Oh yeah, and he was bored. Very bored. But then again, when you're space-boat-thing runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere, what the hell else are you going to do but chain smoke until the cows go home?
So that's what he was doing. Chain smoking until a couple of cows went home.
He'd already cleaned his Spartan room, mopped off the Swordfish II, and even cleaned the living room. With cleaner. Damn, he was bored. When the hell is Spike Spiegel, the man himself, going to CLEAN a living room? He even did a good job of it too, so far as to clean out the smoke smell from the furniture. So now, here he was, too tired to practice his martial arts, too bored to think up something creative, and too lazy to do anything but look cool, which, by the by, was his specialty.
Oh well. And with that, Spike Spiegel, hero, hunter, and cowboy extraordinaire, leaned farter back, and began to count rotations of the ceiling fan.
…1…2…3…4…5…6
__________________
Faye was sitting in the tub, in a fantastic display of fan-boy audience orientation. She was busily doing a whole lot of nothing, being too tired, too pretty, and too sexy to do anything else. Not like Spike. She saw him walking around earlier with a spray bottle and a roll of paper towels, looking like he was going to clean something. Pretty crazy.
So here she was, letting the water run cold again. It didn't really matter anyway. As Jet had explained to her once: "The ship itself is a closed circuit ecosystem. The air we breathe, the fluids we drink and give out, and the water which you take baths with are all recycled, put through the grinder, and spat back out again, with the minty-fresh tang of metal piping to flavor it for you. Even the soapy crap Spike leaves behind when he cleans the Swordfish gets evaporated sooner or later, and gets put back into the system. Solid wastes…"
He rambled on for a bit after that. That had been this morning… or something like that. It was hard to tell. It would be another month until they reached Mars, and had already been one month.
Oh well. With that last thought stuck in her mind, Faye Valentine (though not really Valentine) got out of the tub, tied on a dusty towel, and went off to her room.
__________________
Jet was sitting in front of his bonsais looking rather pleased with himself. He really was enjoying the silence of the past few weeks. Quite a welcome change from the helter-skelter gunning and running of the last two years with Spike. It was a chance to reflect, get nostalgic, and do old guy stuff. Like trim the bonsais. They had been growing too much over the past few years, and needed cutting back. With a little more care, he would have them looking beautiful again.
When Jet wasn't working on his plants, he was avidly working on poetry and the fine arts. Ever since his arm had been taken from him, he had taken an interest in playing the piano. His doctor had recommended it as an exercise for the fine-motor control of his arm, and he had been playing ever since. It was calming, even though he had to go into the far back room where nothing was to practice without the others hearing. He was quite skilled now, able to play any of hundreds of songs in his extensive memory.
Sad that the others didn't have a musical talent. He might be able to pull together a decent trio or even a quartet if they got Ed something to play. Then they might be able to get a real cash flow going, with gigs going on in nightclubs and even playing in stops at railway stations.
Oh well. And with that, Jet got back to his bonsais, wondering idly what in the world Spike had done with the cleaning stuff this morning. Then, he got up and went out to get lunch ready.
__________________
Ed, the kid whiz, was pretty happy. She had rigged together a Deep-space transmitter, and was having a lively conversation with her freed computer friend, Mpu, or Michael as he liked to be called now. Apparently, after she had freed Mpu from his satellite over Earth, Mpu had quickly risen as a computer programmer for some corporation based on Mars, and had also quickly learned hundreds of new computing languages, making himself compatible with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. He was pulling down a fairly high income, and working "from home" for his company, who didn't really care who or where he was as long as the job was done.
"Mpu, Mpu, what's new what's new?"
"Nothing much Ed. Still hanging out on the Bebop?"
"Yaya, always with the bounty hunters."
"You know, you could always come live with me on Mars. I have a nice estate for visitors and business people."
"No thank you, Mpu. I'm having too too much fun fun on the Bebebebop!"
"Ha ha, still interesting over there eh? Alright, I won't push you. It's not like I have any real food around anyway. So, Edo, tell me what you've been up to so far."
"Well…"
Long story time….
__________________
…146…147…148…149…150…
Funny… one hundred and fifty rotations per minute per hour per day for the past thirty-four days makes... 7344000 rotations for the entire time we've been on this ride with no gas…
Spike had tried very hard to construct his thoughts enough to do simple math, and was quite pleased with himself now that he had. Math had never really been his strong suite back in school, with more of his talent leaning toward musical pursuits and being a gangster on Mars. Priorities, priorities.
Now though, he enjoyed mostly…
"Hey, Faye. I can see right through that damp towel."
…more interesting pursuits which would lead to his…
"SHUTUP, FLUFFY HAIRED FREAK!!!"
…eventual happiness.
"Dear god…"remarked Faye as she walked into the living room, prepared to beat the hell out of Spike. "It's…clean?
"Oh yes," Said Spike, relishing each moment of Faye's indecisiveness with greedy eyed pleasure.
"…You did this?" said Faye, still very much bemused.
"Oh yes."
"…How…why…when…huh?"
"Oh yes."
"I can't believe it. Did you do all of this for us?"
"Oh yes."
"Thank you! Now I don't have to worry about getting my clothes dirty anymore!"
"Oh yes."
With that, Faye left the room forgetting totally about her incredible amount of visibility with shocked numbness. Until Jet saw her.
"Hey Faye, put some clothes on."
"Shut up baldy."
Jet shook his head slowly and walked upstairs into the living room on his way to the kitchen. On his way, he ran into Spike, reclining on the sofa.
"Hey Spike."
"Hey Jet."
"Thanks for cleaning up a bit in here."
"Sure."
"Try to make it a habit."
"Hah, yeah right."
"Ok, I'm going to start on lunch now, care to come along and learn how to cook?"
"…Sure."
Spike used a titanic effort sitting up, and it took him a moment to recover before following Jet into the kitchen, where he then began to learn the secrets of cooking with a blow torch.
It has been commented that cooking with a blowtorch is not really a culinary art, however it is just damn fun. This is true, however when you add a psychotic dream-land-half-awake-chain-smoker to the mix, the end result is not so good. However, add on top of these "qualifications" that Spike had in fact been cleaning regularly the Bebop for 24 hours, and had been FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS while doing it.
This sadly leads to the same result.
"Don't char the kabobs!!! We're going to eat those, dammit!!!"
"Gotcha, gotcha…."
"I mean it!"
Good fun.
TBC? I dunno…. Should I?
1: Doldrums
Spike was sitting on the faded orange couch, watching T.V. Well, not really watching T.V, more like reclining on the couch, looking cool, with the T.V incidentally going on in the background. Oh yeah, and he was bored. Very bored. But then again, when you're space-boat-thing runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere, what the hell else are you going to do but chain smoke until the cows go home?
So that's what he was doing. Chain smoking until a couple of cows went home.
He'd already cleaned his Spartan room, mopped off the Swordfish II, and even cleaned the living room. With cleaner. Damn, he was bored. When the hell is Spike Spiegel, the man himself, going to CLEAN a living room? He even did a good job of it too, so far as to clean out the smoke smell from the furniture. So now, here he was, too tired to practice his martial arts, too bored to think up something creative, and too lazy to do anything but look cool, which, by the by, was his specialty.
Oh well. And with that, Spike Spiegel, hero, hunter, and cowboy extraordinaire, leaned farter back, and began to count rotations of the ceiling fan.
…1…2…3…4…5…6
__________________
Faye was sitting in the tub, in a fantastic display of fan-boy audience orientation. She was busily doing a whole lot of nothing, being too tired, too pretty, and too sexy to do anything else. Not like Spike. She saw him walking around earlier with a spray bottle and a roll of paper towels, looking like he was going to clean something. Pretty crazy.
So here she was, letting the water run cold again. It didn't really matter anyway. As Jet had explained to her once: "The ship itself is a closed circuit ecosystem. The air we breathe, the fluids we drink and give out, and the water which you take baths with are all recycled, put through the grinder, and spat back out again, with the minty-fresh tang of metal piping to flavor it for you. Even the soapy crap Spike leaves behind when he cleans the Swordfish gets evaporated sooner or later, and gets put back into the system. Solid wastes…"
He rambled on for a bit after that. That had been this morning… or something like that. It was hard to tell. It would be another month until they reached Mars, and had already been one month.
Oh well. With that last thought stuck in her mind, Faye Valentine (though not really Valentine) got out of the tub, tied on a dusty towel, and went off to her room.
__________________
Jet was sitting in front of his bonsais looking rather pleased with himself. He really was enjoying the silence of the past few weeks. Quite a welcome change from the helter-skelter gunning and running of the last two years with Spike. It was a chance to reflect, get nostalgic, and do old guy stuff. Like trim the bonsais. They had been growing too much over the past few years, and needed cutting back. With a little more care, he would have them looking beautiful again.
When Jet wasn't working on his plants, he was avidly working on poetry and the fine arts. Ever since his arm had been taken from him, he had taken an interest in playing the piano. His doctor had recommended it as an exercise for the fine-motor control of his arm, and he had been playing ever since. It was calming, even though he had to go into the far back room where nothing was to practice without the others hearing. He was quite skilled now, able to play any of hundreds of songs in his extensive memory.
Sad that the others didn't have a musical talent. He might be able to pull together a decent trio or even a quartet if they got Ed something to play. Then they might be able to get a real cash flow going, with gigs going on in nightclubs and even playing in stops at railway stations.
Oh well. And with that, Jet got back to his bonsais, wondering idly what in the world Spike had done with the cleaning stuff this morning. Then, he got up and went out to get lunch ready.
__________________
Ed, the kid whiz, was pretty happy. She had rigged together a Deep-space transmitter, and was having a lively conversation with her freed computer friend, Mpu, or Michael as he liked to be called now. Apparently, after she had freed Mpu from his satellite over Earth, Mpu had quickly risen as a computer programmer for some corporation based on Mars, and had also quickly learned hundreds of new computing languages, making himself compatible with both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. He was pulling down a fairly high income, and working "from home" for his company, who didn't really care who or where he was as long as the job was done.
"Mpu, Mpu, what's new what's new?"
"Nothing much Ed. Still hanging out on the Bebop?"
"Yaya, always with the bounty hunters."
"You know, you could always come live with me on Mars. I have a nice estate for visitors and business people."
"No thank you, Mpu. I'm having too too much fun fun on the Bebebebop!"
"Ha ha, still interesting over there eh? Alright, I won't push you. It's not like I have any real food around anyway. So, Edo, tell me what you've been up to so far."
"Well…"
Long story time….
__________________
…146…147…148…149…150…
Funny… one hundred and fifty rotations per minute per hour per day for the past thirty-four days makes... 7344000 rotations for the entire time we've been on this ride with no gas…
Spike had tried very hard to construct his thoughts enough to do simple math, and was quite pleased with himself now that he had. Math had never really been his strong suite back in school, with more of his talent leaning toward musical pursuits and being a gangster on Mars. Priorities, priorities.
Now though, he enjoyed mostly…
"Hey, Faye. I can see right through that damp towel."
…more interesting pursuits which would lead to his…
"SHUTUP, FLUFFY HAIRED FREAK!!!"
…eventual happiness.
"Dear god…"remarked Faye as she walked into the living room, prepared to beat the hell out of Spike. "It's…clean?
"Oh yes," Said Spike, relishing each moment of Faye's indecisiveness with greedy eyed pleasure.
"…You did this?" said Faye, still very much bemused.
"Oh yes."
"…How…why…when…huh?"
"Oh yes."
"I can't believe it. Did you do all of this for us?"
"Oh yes."
"Thank you! Now I don't have to worry about getting my clothes dirty anymore!"
"Oh yes."
With that, Faye left the room forgetting totally about her incredible amount of visibility with shocked numbness. Until Jet saw her.
"Hey Faye, put some clothes on."
"Shut up baldy."
Jet shook his head slowly and walked upstairs into the living room on his way to the kitchen. On his way, he ran into Spike, reclining on the sofa.
"Hey Spike."
"Hey Jet."
"Thanks for cleaning up a bit in here."
"Sure."
"Try to make it a habit."
"Hah, yeah right."
"Ok, I'm going to start on lunch now, care to come along and learn how to cook?"
"…Sure."
Spike used a titanic effort sitting up, and it took him a moment to recover before following Jet into the kitchen, where he then began to learn the secrets of cooking with a blow torch.
It has been commented that cooking with a blowtorch is not really a culinary art, however it is just damn fun. This is true, however when you add a psychotic dream-land-half-awake-chain-smoker to the mix, the end result is not so good. However, add on top of these "qualifications" that Spike had in fact been cleaning regularly the Bebop for 24 hours, and had been FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS while doing it.
This sadly leads to the same result.
"Don't char the kabobs!!! We're going to eat those, dammit!!!"
"Gotcha, gotcha…."
"I mean it!"
Good fun.
TBC? I dunno…. Should I?