Here's a shortie for you all. No plot, just a two-shot. I always felt like doing something like this. Hope it's as awesome in your heads as it is in mine! Heehee!

By the way, Cowboy Bebop does not belong to me. I am but a whimsical writer merely manipulating, er, um, borrowing, the wonderful characters from the series. It would be wonderful if I did own them though...

Legitimate Reasons

Romanii

Doubtful. Skeptical. Fearful. These were Faye Valentine's general feelings toward men. Given all the romances she'd had in the past, most of which she couldn't remember in very vivid detail, Faye had legitimate reason for harboring such negative feelings. All her life, she had been the girl that everyone wanted because of her beauty. This, technically, wasn't such a bad thing. She vaguely remembered how boys would stand before her, nervously averting their eyes and shifting their weight, stammering meek invitations to upcoming school dances. She was nice about it. In middle school, she had not quite acquired the womanly elusiveness nor the venomous tongue that would soon be seen as a natural gift.

Blurred memories of her high school years came to mind occasionally; as the boys grew bolder and more confident, naturally, so did she. Thus, her days of playing hard to get had begun. Her game play was soon perfected. She remembered swishing her hips, making the hem of her uniform skirt dance lightly around her thighs, enticing the guys she showed interest in. She eluded and ignored the ones that weren't her cup of tea. With some effort, Faye remembered that guy who had asked her to the senior prom. The kid's name was Caleb Grant. He had been unofficially deemed the hottest guy in school by many fan girls, and he was admired by the teaching staff for his courtesy and good grades. Although no one would have guessed it, Faye had been a passenger on the Everybody-Loves-Caleb bandwagon. Like Caleb, Faye had been considered the hottest girl in school, by boys and girls alike. Ironically, there had been bets going around as to whether or not the school's power couple would appear arm in arm at the prom. They did. Money was exchanged.

There was a slight disadvantage to being so socially powerful; power corrupts. Faye new that that boy had only wanted one thing from her in particular. So did many others. It was then that Faye had adopted the attitude that men were OK to have around once in a while, but ultimately, they were no good. Later on, Faye did her fair share of experimentation, but kept this philosophy close to heart.

Half a century later, her philosophy was challenged. Upon waking from her cryogenic sleep, Faye was introduced to a kind, sweet and good-looking attorney, Whitney Haggis Motsumoto. This man had been loving and genuine to her, seemingly wanting nothing but to help her pay off her accumulated hospital debt through legal action, and to help her through the loss of her previous life. She loved the fact that he wasn't just one of those hands-off attorneys with tons of clients like the lawyers on television. He gave her his undivided attention. She could find no fault in him. She had fallen in love. She felt remorse at the occurrence of his untimely death, touched that he had left her with all of his assets. That is, until she discovered these assets were nothing but more debt. Devastated and hurt, Faye dismissed him as nothing but the ruthless con artist that he was.

Over the following years, men came and went. Shady men. Men that she didn't quite trust. There was Gordon, the casino mogul that she had struck a deal with. She trusted him to alleviate her ugly debt, but that was as far as it went. Too bad things didn't turn out the way they'd planned. Upon meeting Spike and Jet, at the very least she felt relatively comfortable around them. After all, it was never her intention to stay with them.

Faye had believed that men were generally liars and cheapskates. Discovering that Whitney had not died in a fiery death was the icing on the cake, solidifying her beliefs. As far as Spike and Jet were concerned, however, she realized that they never lied to her. At least not about anything serious. In fact most of the time, they were brutally sincere. The men's honesty, coupled with the fact that they seemed to be fairly decent as far as men go, no perversions or hyperactive libido, intrigued her. Initially she thought that they would at least have a long-term goal of getting her into bed, but alas, they seemed more like he-man women-haters if nothing else. Having grown accustomed to being ogled by the opposite sex, Faye sometimes found their attitude toward her to be quite irritating. At times she found herself experimenting with different manners of body language, just to see if it would bring around any change. If it did, she would hardly have known.

Fortunately, she found ways to torture the boys and keep herself happy as well. Commandeering money, or borrowing, as she liked to call it, helped to keep her in good spirits as she went off to find men that would stare and perspire at the lovely curves of her body. Frustrating men financially, or in any other way she could think of, was just as satisfying as frustrating them sexually. Sadistic, but true.

As much as Faye liked to believe she hated men, there were always two that she couldn't bring herself to loathe. Jet Black was an odd, gruff man. Although there had been numerous threats from him, cruel but harmless, they were never carried out. Faye couldn't help but smile at the thought of how many times Jet had preached that he would kick her off the ship. Apparently, he never meant a word of it. It was almost paternal, in a way. Faye had fun messing with the poor man. She'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy that game of Odds or Evens a while back, for more reasons than one. He did have one hell of a body for someone thirteen years her senior. A small part of her had wondered if Jet knew he was being duped the whole time. She was grateful Spike had kept her cheating habits to himself.

Spike was strange to Faye. Never had she met a man quite as calm and cool and arrogant as Spike Spiegel. Faye thought it funny that any other man that had ever displayed such high levels of arrogance made her want to pry her emerald eyes out with rusty spoons, but arrogance was a color that Spike wore very well. Faye couldn't put a finger on the thing that so strongly counterbalanced his ego. She decided that it must have been something in his eyes that did it. Ever since he had taken a seat at her Black Jack table, that look had been there; one that was so familiar, yet so strange all at once. That playful smirk he wore made her want to roll her eyes from monotony, and yet it made her wonder about him. She wondered if his hair was really softer than it looked. She wondered if she'd see anything peculiar if she stared into his brown eyes long enough. She wondered what his lips would taste like if she kissed them. Faye felt that there wasn't a woman alive who wouldn't wonder about Spike Spiegel.

As fate would have it, Faye ended up stuck with these two lunkheads. There was a lot that she had adapted to living on the Bebop. But there were also some things she thought she'd never get used to. She was absolutely sure that affection was something she'd never see again. That was alright. She didn't really expect much.

Lying in her bed, Faye mentally probed her surroundings. Cozy blankets draped haphazardly over her body, her violet hair spread on her comfy pillow, a warm hand gently resting at the dip of her waist. The latter made her smile. Faye snuggled deeper into the warm embrace that encircled her, almost finding it too good to be true. She hugged the thin, yet strong arms that hugged her, wrapped around her slender frame. Remembering was overrated. There was no other place she'd rather have been.

:3