Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop.

A/N: Original completion date...just a few days, ago, actually: 7/31/11. My first nosedive into the jazzy world of Cowboy Bebop. I may decide to make a drabble series out of this if more ideas strike my fancy. If you decide to read the story, purty-pleez review!

Rated K+ for alcohol/drug references.

Bad Influences

There was a fourth cloud of smoke coming from the lips of one of the passengers aboard the Hammerhead. Spike Spiegel's eyes fell on the source of the haze as his ears picked up the hacking coughs convulsing the skinny frame of Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV. She was managing to keep her cigarette stuck in her mouth, though, somehow. Spike rubbed his fluffy hair.

"Geez." He stalked over to the girl and hit her on the back of the head. Not hard, but in such a way that her mouth popped open and the ciggie flew out.

"Spiiiiike?" Ed sang out plaintively.

"Will you knock it off?" Spike grumbled. "Smoking isn't . . . ladylike."

Edward stuck out her bottom lip. "You and Jet and Faye do it," she whined.

"Oh, don't listen to him, Ed," Faye advised her, breezing into the room with a cigarette in one of those long holders that looked so exotic as long as she was holding it. "Why should men get to do what the girls can't? How sexist."

"Sexist!" Ed repeated, rocking forward while holding her Indian-style sitting position. Her hand stretched out to the cigarette box, which Spike snatched up and pocketed before she could get to it.

"That's got nothing to do with it!" he defended himself. Jet entered the room then.

"What're you going on about this time?" the big man growled. He let his breath out in a puff of cigarette smoke.

Ed pointed at him and squealed with laughter. "Jet, Ed will bet that you let me do it, too! Like you! Oooh, ooh-ooooohhhh. . ." She let her voice trail off, as she had run out of rhymes and Jet was glaring in her direction.

"What's all this about?" Jet wanted to know.

"Ed's taken up smoking," Faye told him brightly. Ein barked as he floated through Spike and Jet's combined smoke trail.

"What?" Jet yelled.

"Now Ed will be just like youuuuu!" Edward squealed. Jet stumped over to her and grabbed her arm.

"Now listen here, Ed—you do not copy what you see us doing!" he admonished her. "Don't act like us, don't talk like us, and most of all don't think like us!"

"Role models, one and all," Spike cracked as he snuffed his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Models!" Ed echoed, smiling. But Jet shook his head.

"No. Promise me, Ed—promise me that you'll never end up like me, or Spike, or especially Faye."

"Hey!" Faye protested.

"Ed promises!" replied Edward without hesitation. She saluted and grinned winningly. "What Jet say, Ed do, is true. Yes!"

"Good," Jet grunted. He turned his head when he saw Spike pointing with a long finger.

"Hey. Isn't that vodka Ein's drinking?" Both of them squawked and leaped at the unfortunate dog that had been peaceably lapping at a puddle of liquor on the floor.

The Hammerhead continued to drift.

The End?