Author's Note: I'm doing my best to capture their personalities, but I kinda feel like I'm failing. I know there were some mistakes in the last story, but I was just starting and just a bit rusty. I think I get progressively better as this goes on. If you like what you read, let me know. Oh and every chapter has a title based with a Christmas Carol/song. This one is 'We Three Kings', the first chapter was 'O Come, All Ye Faithful' and so on and so on. Cowboy Bebop was a series driven not only by the character's but by music and I'm trying to keep with that, however subtly.



Chapter 2 'We Three Kings'



The trio trooped into the tavern. They made an almost humourus group, garbed each to the nines.....in winter clothes. Jet was the most bundled up, his toque pulled low around his ears, to protect his balding head.

Faye slid into her booth and she let her eyes case around, bits of her purple hair exposed for all the see. She gave a slight sneeze, and then her lithe body convulsed with a sneeze.

"We know you don't like the cold Faye, you don't need to remind us all the time," Jet sighed as she sat down next to her. "My joints are killing me, but you don't see me complaining, do you?"

"Sounds like you are, old man," Spike offers in his deep sly voice, looking sidelong to his partner as he sat down next to him. Jet merely grumbles and all three loft their arms, hailing the bartender simultaneously.

Mutinous glares were spread between the three, all of them badly needing the alcohol to warm their half-numbed bodies.

But Faye had the upper hand, the bartender being male and she being one of the few females. Her free hand crept up her large grey coat and she deftly unzipped her jacket, her other hand, along with Spike's and Jet's still extended, desperate, for the bartenders notice.

And after serving an old regular at the end of the bar he sauntered towards the trio, casting his brown eyes across the strangers. They spelt of space and recycled air. Which meant bounty hunters.

"What can I get you?" he leans against the bar, casting his brown eyes upon the pretty thing across it.

"Uh well...." Jet looks around nervously, especially at Faye, who's jaw seemed to have become unhinged, and her eyes were staring at him widely.

'Well if it's mostly men, I guess you have to adjust,' she conciles herself softly, and slowly her jaw closes.

"A gin, I suppose." Jet conceeds eventually, and then, with a glance to his companions he offers a faint; "And some information too."

"We don't take too kindly to your kind here." The lean bartender warns Jet, as he pre-cleans the class before setting it upon the bar before the man. He begins to pour his drink, dropping in some ice.

"What kind is that?" Jet asks casually, and with a flick of his hand out of the bartender's sight he shoo's Spike and Faye.

"You know what I mean," he mutters softly, watching his partners seem to wander off. First the woman out the door, and after the green haired one wandered around, poking at the jukebox with old broken records, he departed.

"No, I don't," Spike offers lightly as he places the folded bill upon the table. He had smaller ones in his pocket, but he felt this larger one would entice a more favourable answer.

The 'tender picked up the bill and snapped it between his fingers, thin and bony, his thumb rubbing across the ink. He knew what he was doing, it was obvious, and he was doing it well.

"This planet's....popular....with criminals," the bartender starts, his eyes jerking about the bar, but the sole patron, his regular, was already asleep, his nose dipped inside his drink. "'Retired' criminals for the most part, who want to just lay low, live the easy life and not have to worry."

"So criminals retire by raising reindeer?"

"No, that's just one old guy that really does it. But it's a huge business, and a lot of people get employed."

"What's his name?"

"Old Man Christmas, is what we call him."

"Why do you call him that?" Jet was positively perplexed, his drink rest upon his lips but lowered, un-sipped.

The 'tender paused and a thoughtful expression flickered across his face, the skin made harsh across his cheeks from years of harsh winds.

"I....really don't know. Everyone's just always called him that. My parents did it, and I guess their parents did it too."

Jet merely waved his words away, and lifted a hand up to rub the back of his neck.

"Well we came looking for some old guy named Kris Kringle. Apparently he's supposed to have been seen here. Seems to like red and white," Jet trailed off as the 'tender merely shook his head. "Nothing?"

"No, it's not that. I just can't tell you," and the 'tender abruptly set Jet's change before him and turned away, walking to the old patron and jostling his shoulder.

Jet leaned his large body back, blowing air out from his lips and rubbing the back of his neck even more. Great, loyalty to a criminal.