Excursion

By Starzki

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah. Don't send money. Whatever.

Jet had no idea why he ever contemplated agreeing to this. It was something akin to torture. He could only plead temporary insanity that he ever thought an evening out with his crewmates with a little of the hard-earned cash from the latest bounty head would be anything but a comedy of errors. He should have known from the start. It had, after all, been a suggestion from Ed.

- - -

"Ed wants to see a mooo-vie!" the gangly girl exclaimed bovinely earlier that afternoon. Jet was having a weak moment. For once, the entire team had worked together and the hit had gone down without a hitch. Ed had provided all of the information, Faye had been bait, Spike had done the takedown, and Jet had aptly served to referee/translate/mediate the interactions between the team. The whole operation had been seamless, a brilliant success. The bounty had been pretty big, too. There was enough to overhaul the Bebop, restock the storerooms, and some left over for each of the bounty hunters. Indeed, they had had a rare happy ending.

So, when Ed had begun bouncing off the walls after seeing an online advertisement for a recently released movie, Jet didn't immediately identify the situation as the unmitigated disaster it was destined to be. But, truthfully, neither had anyone else.

Both Faye and Spike were equally jazzed at having finally accomplishing something so financially significant. There was the rare hazy-happy afterglow of satisfaction of having money lining their pockets and they were both getting along and surprisingly pleasant to be around.

Just as Jet was feeling at the very apex of paternal pride over his brood and predicting many more successful cowboy ventures, Ed announced her desire to go out to a movie. Jet smiled, considering it.

"It's been so long since I've seen a movie, I don't even know what's out there," commented Faye, appearing game for the idea.

"Me, neither," said Spike amiably. "It sounds kinda fun to take a night off."

Even as the words left his mouth, Jet didn't recognize them for the folly they were. "Why don't we all grab some dinner out and check out the movie theater?"

But in all honesty, it did seem like a good idea at the time.

- - -

The plan had been simple enough: Find a place to eat that everyone agreed on; find a nearby theater; watch a movie.

The friction had begun, primarily between Spike and Faye, minutes into their foray into decent society over where to eat. By the time they were seated at a casual-but-upscale Japanese restaurant, their snipes at one another were getting vociferous. By the time they left (er, were escorted off the premises by a cleaver-wielding Japanese cook), the four were picking off rice, various concoctions of raw fish, fish eggs, and vegetables from their clothes because of an Ed-initiated food fight. Spike and Faye had eagerly participated. Jet, as per usual, had been caught in the crossfire and had not spared the indignity and humiliation of guilt by association with his social grace-lacking cohorts.

Wending their way through the nearby movie theater parking lot, the foursome read the titles of the movies from afar from the brightly lit marquee. A deluge of recent releases filled most of the theaters' twelve screens. Only one movie was predicted to be popular enough to be shown on more than one screen.

"Well, which one do you guys want to watch," grunted Jet, still surly and wishing the night was already over. No amount of celluloid and test-screened zaniness could possibly eradicate his foul mood.

"Ed wants popcorn! Ed is very excited!" chirped Ed, sprinting with hyperglycemic vigor in figure eights around the parked cars and mono racers. "Ed is going to the mooo-vies!"

"Ed better frickin' sit still during the mooo-vie," mumbled Jet under his breath. "Or else Jet will be tying Ed to the seat."

"I'll see anything with action and gratuitous nudity," stated Spike who was meanly delighted by Jet's consternation. And he had secretly declared himself winner and reigning champion of Martian food fighting. He was in top form.

"Hmph," grunted Faye, who still had a gob of tofu from the miso soup stuck in her hair. "What's On Two Screens? It sounds weird. What's it about?"

Spike, Jet, and Ed each froze mid-step. Ed cocked her head at the marquee again quizzically. Jet immediately dissolved into giggles, finally feeling the night would at least be good for a laugh.

After a second's hesitation, Spike smirked and resumed walking toward the ticket counter. "For the love of humanity, Faye, don't breed."

The end.

A/N: I felt like trying to write a comedy. Did I succeed?