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aprops of the ongoing discussion about why it's important to be able to write fic about dark subjects. we've always needed that.

Rhianna Pratchett seeks out shape-shifting selkies in her quest to meet mythical creatures

#rhianna pratchett #mythical creatures #selkies #dark stories #no hero #no happy ending #no easy choices #deep loneliness #displacement #love #it's complicated

Beboptober Day 2: No Hero

Thanks to @thestarlightsymphony for the prompt list!

Spike’s bounty-hunting job entailed a lot of things, but performing wasn’t one of them. He’d bag a criminal somewhere public if that’s where they were, if it was absolutely necessary, but not solely so everyone could see—it wasn’t like he did his job out of vanity, or a desire for flashy spectacle. He didn’t have some weird need to show everyone in the Solar System how cool and upstanding he was. He was here to do his job, collect his reward, and go.

That was true today, too. Under cover of darkness, in a Mars alleyway, he’d just caught a spree killer without too much trouble. The guy had three confirmed kills. The kid backed up against the alleyway’s wall, watching Spike with wide eyes—Spike couldn’t help but think of her as a kid; she was shivering, quivering, with a backpack over her shoulders and hair dyed electric blue, barely looked old enough to drink—would have been his fourth.

“You…” she said through a shuddering breath. “You’re a cowboy?”

“Yep.”

Her eyes were wide, shining. “You saved my life.”

“Mm-hmm,” Spike said distractedly. He was focusing on tying this guy up, not making eye contact with the kid.

“You’re a hero.”

Maybe another day he would have replied more appreciatively, with a cool, nonchalant smile and some effortlessly cool one-liner. Not today. Today had been a long and crappy day, and he was tired as all hell, absolutely not in the mood for chitchat. He wanted nothing more than to just cash in the reward for his latest (and only) catch of the day, then celebrate it with a hot meal that wasn’t instant noodles before crashing on the Bebop’s couch.

“I mean it.” She practically collapsed to her knees at Spike’s feet. Her already-tremulous voice rose in pitch and intensity with every word. “I would have been dead right now if it weren’t for you. You saved me. What can I ever do to repay you?”

Spike began to get uncomfortable under the kid’s effusive praise. “This is all business. I’m not here for repayment,” he said, glancing away from her. Just plain old payment.

“But I have to do something,” she said, achingly earnest. “You’re a hero. You’re my hero.”

And since when did he deserve that?

He’d love to take the praise. But she was only saying these things, he knew, because she didn’t know him. She hadn’t seen him in the days when the only pleasure he got was from violence. When his arch-enemy was his closest comrade, when they’d work together, brothers in bloodshed. Before he knew what it was like to love and be loved; long before he knew what it was like to lose that, to lose everything. Before he knew what it was like to die.

He shook off the memories almost as quickly as they’d slammed back into him.

“Trust me, kid,” he said, closing his eyes and holstering his gun. “I’m no hero.”

#cowboy bebop #beboptober #beboptober 2022 #spike spiegel #no hero #bounty hunter #bounty hunting #textpost #fic #my fic #ficlet #drabble #maya’s musings #maya’s masterpieces #this probably sucks but it’s 1 AM and i’ve had this idea for a little bit and i had to post *something*#ed’s voice comes more easily to me than spike’s and i’m not sure what that says about me