Characters/Pairings: the Bebop Crew, vague mentions of others; some Spike x Faye

Timeline/Spoilers: set throughout series, and pre-/post-series speculations; spoilers for the finale

Summary: You gotta knock a little harder to break down the door. ; sentence fic about your favorite bounty hunters

Notes: So, this is a WIP I found untouched since like 2015 or 2016. I never finished all the prompts, but I just touched up on what I already had done. Maybe one day I'll go back and finish it…

This was written using theme set 'Gamma' from the livejournal community 1sentence. Forgive me for the excessive (and incorrect) use of semicolons and run-on sentences galore.

Title and lyrics from the song of the same title by Sanders Bohlke. There will be some coarse language and adult themes.

There's a cold heart, buried beneath,

and warm blood, running deep

Secrets are mine to keep,

protected by silent sleep

I'm not ready, I'm not ready

for the weight of us, for the weight of us

for the weight of us, for the weight of all of us.

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.

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#01 – Ring

The shrill ring of the telephone jolts him awake and it reads as an unknown number, but Spike's got a feeling; that former cop he met a few months back finally came around, and this is how their story begins.

#02 – Hero

He'd hardly call what they do heroic; hell, it's barely a touch above criminal, but when kids like Roco start to look up to him, Spike gets a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it sure ain't butterflies.

#03 – Memory

He doesn't know if he's in love with her or the memory of her; if he ever loved her or if it was just the thrill and exhilaration of that first shared night (and every night thereafter), but he'd be damned if he admitted it even to himself.

#04 – Box

The crew aboard the Bebop (what's left of them at least) don't consider themselves a sentimental bunch, but the both of them are loathe to throw away his meager belongings, even when it's become clear that he's not coming back; and so the items are pushed to a box in a small corner of the storage compartment.

#05 – Run

From the start, Spike always knew his stay on the Bebop would be temporary; three years down the road, with a kid, a dog, and a woman on board, this hasn't changed, only become a harder pill to swallow.

#06 – Hurricane

Faye is one whirlwind of a woman, and it isn't until he meets her that Spike gets a hint of why storm chasers do what they do.

#07 – Wings

While she's made quite the name for herself in risky gambles and stolen bounties, Faye has to admit there's nothing quite like the thrill of a good, old dogfight in her Red Tail.

#08 – Cold

It's not love, but it's a hell of a lot better than this cold ache she's been feeling inside for years.

#09 – Red

A shock of red blurs past his left side, and the unmistakable pitter patter of puppy paws prowls past his right; there are certain things they've all grown used to aboard this ship.

#10 – Drink

Jet has always maintained that nothing can put a man at ease better than a cold, hard, swig of liquor; (he doesn't waver on this even when there's no one left to share a drink with).

#11 – Midnight

They don't discuss it, but both stay up long into the night to await his return; sleep doesn't come easy after that night.

#12 – Temptation

Yeah, he'd definitely wanted to tap that ass the first time he saw it, but then she had to go and open her big mouth and ruin it for him.

#13 – View

Sometimes she thinks that big puff of obnoxious green hair just ruins the view, and other times all she can picture is running her nimble fingers through those dark fibers.

#14 – Music

When Faye asks the fateful question, "What the hell is a bebop anyway?" it is, surprisingly, Spike who stops Jet from booting her off the ship then and there; she isn't sure whether she should be thanking him, though, when the former cop decides that the appropriate method of forcing her awake is by blaring old jazz records every morning; who knew the old man could be such a music snob?

#15 – Silk

There's a gorgeous, red, silk dress on display in the store window that's leagues out of her price range, but it triggers a memory of a dress like this that her mother used to own; she has to fight to swallow down the bile slinking up her throat.

#16 – Cover

Spike is thankful for all the times Jet has covered his ass under enemy fire when a bounty goes awry; Jet suggests a pair of iron underwear if he plans to keep this habit up; Spike is less than amused.

#17 – Promise

After that incident, Faye vows to never get herself involved with men with stupid names again (Because Whitney Hagas Matsumoto? Come on.), but then an idiot called Spike Spiegel (Like a fucking dog? Really? And what the hell is up with Spiegel?) worms his way into her life, and it's far too late.

#18 – Dream

He's been letting dreams and reality meld into one another ever since that time; he's not sure what good it'll do to make the distinction anymore.

#21 – Silence

Françoise Appledelhi had been a quiet, well-behaved babe; the nuns at the orphanage could hardly complain over her; but Radical Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV, the name she'd (quite literally) made for herself was wild and outspoken and everything Françoise could never be.

#25 – Mask

Part of her wonders if the woman she's become is really her true self (a lifetime's worth of memories and fifty years down the drain can make a person question), if this loud, vulgar, devil-may-care persona is all Faye Valentine really is; part of her never wants to find out.

#28 – Forgotten

She wonders what happened to the unassuming, doe-eyed, little girl in those videos, if maybe she's still packed away somewhere inside this haze of memories, and tries to remember the last time she actually feared the sight of blood on her hands.

#30 – Body

It's just sex; scratch that, it's not even sex; it's scalding glares and ear-piercing squawks and thoughts about sex.

#32 – Farewells

The world feels a little smaller and the ship a little emptier when a girl and her dog decide it's time to move on; (they never even said goodbye.)

#34 – Formal

The Faye from before, her parents had been wealthy – well-off enough to afford passage on a private spacecraft to the Moon; sometimes the Faye she is now has images of extravagant dresses and elaborate receptions flit through her mind that threaten to draw her back into the past and leave her stranded there.

#36 – Laugh

At first, Jet has no idea what to make of the animatronic dog with a stomach to rival his own and the thirteen-year-old gaggle of limbs; slowly but surely, however, they bring laughter back aboard the Bebop.

#37 – Lies

That stupid lunkhead was just a big fucking hypocrite; he told her to forget about her past and then he went and got himself killed over his.

#40 – Whisper

When she says, "I'm sorry," it shocks him to his core (where was the loud-mouthed hellion he'd grown so accustomed to?), so much so that he lets her pass by without another word.

#41 – Wait

She has him at gunpoint, all but begging him to stay, but they both know she has no intention to pull the trigger; on drunken nights alone at the bar, she still wonders how things would have turned out if she had.

#43 – Search

"Nothing's better than belonging," Faye had told her; so why was she running off into the desert, dog in tow, away from the one place that had ever really accepted her?

#48 – Unknown

Ed's always been classified as an enigma – by her crewmates, the other children at the orphanage, even the kindhearted nun; no one seems to understand her quite like Ein does.

#49 – Lock

She thinks sometimes that maybe they should've knocked a little harder, but maybe his door was never meant to open in the first place.

#50 – Breathe

As he drops his hand, fingers in the shape of a gun, and takes his final breaths, his thoughts don't dwell on the motley crew and the life he left behind; images of their aggravated faces don't even flash through his mind as it all goes black; there's no time for such luxuries.

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you're gonna carry that weight.

Notes: Well, there you have it. I had 18 prompts left to go. If you guys like it, I'll try to go back and finish it! But I'll have to go back and watch some episodes for some fresh inspiration haha. And it has been a long, long time since I've written - three years since my last fic! So let me know what you think. :)