Dirt

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

Locke snorted then.

"You got a city-planet that doesn't smell like roaches and regrets? Sign me up."

He was less relaxed than he looked. At some point in a career like the one he was in, you learned how to be cautious and paranoid without actually giving that off. Well, either you managed it or you got killed in action. And clearly Elliot was still very much alive in action, so he knew his stuff.

"Through here."

He rounded another corner and walked straight on through for a couple of more streets.

The neon light would tip them off they were going the right way.

"Just as I remember it." Very gaudy and non-trendy, but that was the entire draw of it. A place where people could just wind down without having to worry about being cool or whatever the kids these days called it.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Roaches and regrets? What a flowery description. It was probably beyond evident, but Sam Rodarch wasn't a woman who lived for the poetic. Do cockroaches even smell? Had anybody ever picked up a cockroach and took a deep inhale? Probably not. So how did anybody know what roaches and regrets even smelled like?

“More like shyt.”

Paranoid unease remained. Both fists were clenched now. Every passing face was a possible assailant, every body that passed just that inch too close to her a pickpocket. Adrenaline still crept at the back of her head, teeth grit. Everything was taut, tense. She wanted the trouble. She wanted the reaction.

An after-effect of the cheap battle stims, one of a few.

One neon sign was like every other to the shockboxer, so until they actively stopped in front of the establishment she was still completely lost.

“I can't believe I'm doing this...”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

The Curlin' Cat.

Why was it called the curling cat? Who the hell knew. But the neon sign had a little orange cat curled around the two C's, stretching itself out in a lazy stance. Locke probably would have picked a different name, but it wasn't his establishment. Probably would have picked a different color of neon lighting while he was at it.

Not his problem, though.

"There we are." Elly said with a wide grin, gesturing towards the karaoke bar with his hand while looking at her. Up and down. "You getting cold feet yet?"

Not as in literal cold feet, but the kind where people decided against a course of action.

He wouldn't be surprised if she did. Would be a shame and Locke didn't know why that was. It wasn't like he knew the girl at all, not like he shared anything with her besides her fist pressing tightly against his face.

Something about the depressing tightness of her entire personality made him want to put a smile on her lips.

Even if it was just a small one.

 

[Irid]

WELP.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

“Yes,” she admitted gruffly.

It all seemed so ridiculous. A karaoke bar, I mean, really? Sam Rodarch was so wound up that she probably left diamonds in the toilet bowl in the morning. Group fun was a myth. Enjoyment came in quiet solitary with a deck of cards in a game of solitaire or with a nice jigsaw of a nebula alone in the early hours of the morning.

“I'm still not singing,” Rodarch said, as if the walk through the duracrete wilderness might have changed her mind in any way, shape or form, “and I won't drink.”

She sounded more and more fun with each word she spoke.

It wasn't as if she was afraid of a karaoke bar. More apprehensive of the scenario as a whole. Wasn't it crazy? Wasn't it so spontaneous in a way that didn't involve violence? Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Sam took a breath and practically stormed into the place, dim lighting, a smoke machine, the warbling of a man that may well have been dying were it not for the sticky microphone clutched in his hands. This was it. This was Chaos.

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

"You do you, girl ." Locke responded smoothly, while they walked in. "I am gonna do me, tho."

The joke was in there somewhere, she just had to prod at it for a moment. Here was the thing though, the moment Elly walked into that building, the moment the music hit just right and the smoke hung low enough with the soft blare of human embarrassment in the mix? There was this swagger that came into his strut, a natural confidence.

He was someone else now. Not a man who got his teeth punched out by a girl every taungday night, but the man who owned the bar just by sheer virtue of claiming his stake the first.

It was difficult to hit him on his own joke, because he was completely comfortable and had nothing to prove.

"Come on, you can watch me drink one, before I rock your world with my voice." He didn't strictly need the drink to sing, but greasing his voice beforehand would make it easier. It was strange though, as they walked to the bar, he noticed there were way more enforcers here than usually.

What were Elroy's men doing here now?

 

[Sam Rodarch]

A hard scowl was shot in the man's direction as the words girl escaped his lips. It could have been worse. Cutie. Sweetheart. Darling. Honey. Hun. Those were words of death, only spoken by the very brave or the very foolish. At the very least Rodarch couldn't deny that she was a girl, so that one had to slide. Nevertheless, she preferred Knuckles as a moniker.

Wait.

Rock her world with his voice?

Was he already drunk?

“Hopefully your voice is more effective than your fists,” she replied, leaning onto the bar before immediately regretting her decision, her arms meeting a nice sticky coating of spilled drinks from earlier in the day. As she retracted her limbs from the syrupy surface she felt a touch bad for her comment. Talking to others wasn't exactly her forte.

Was it too rude? Too mean? Should she have said sorry?

Sam frowned while caught in the midst of her small social dilemma, casually giving fellow patrons her judgmental and suspicious side-eye. At this point it was the Mandalorian's natural form upon this world.

In the end she decided not to apologise, but instead posting a question.

“So why do you drink?”

A loaded question.

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

Locke snorted and walked up to the bar, wisely avoiding the similar sticky fate Rodarch got herself into.

"You gonna eat those words, Knuckles, you will see."

He gestured towards the barkeep, raising two fingers and then waited for the shots to arrive. Both for him - of course, he didn't forget that Sam was a non-drinker, that word alone was enough to almost send his hair up. But then she asked him that question and it made Elly wonder for a moment.

Then the shots arrived and he downed one. The buzz filled him, before he followed up with the second one. The buzz radiated through him.

Hit hard like the back-end of a bantha in a summer eve.

"Why I drink?" He could drink a dang Zeltron under the table, almost did that with [member="Joza Perl"]. His lips weren't even slurring yet. "That is a good question."

He turned around, to check out the dance scene and the karaoke stage behind it. Leaned against the railing with his back, just well enough so it wouldn't stick to him.

"Because I like the buzz, honestly. As long as I keep it in check and control myself, I can have a good night, maybe a headache in the morning, but I won't be completely karked, ya know."

Stims for example. That crap could kark you all manners of up if you didn't watch yourself.

"Why don't you drink then?"

 

[Sam Rodarch]

He really did waste no time in throwing them back. One shot after another. Naturally she grimaced in her observation of his addictions. Couldn't help it. Disgust was a natural reaction for the woman in this realm. Shouldn't have judged him for it, but did. Rodarch was hardly perfect.

The woman didn't even order a water in suspicion of her surroundings. Would probably give her the runs.

That familiar ache started to dawn once more. It ebbed and pulsed throughout muscles that craved nothing but rest but were only ever granted a chemical reprieve. At a certain point it felt as if she stopped now then she would just seize up forever. It was the price one had to pay to be able to fight day-in and day-out in spite of the human body's limitations. Side effects by damned.

...and there she was criticising drinking.

He posed his question. Dangerous. Her eyes narrowed, glaring as she tended to do but in light of him trying to offer her some company (and at the very least some laughs, likely at his own expense) she would divulge.

Only a little.

“I've seen it destroy good men,” Sam replied quietly, quickly averting her gaze away from the man and onto the drunken revelers, “makes them weak and yellow.” A gritting of the teeth. Pain? Disgust? “Really good men, you know?”

Of course it all hit too close to home. Her father, or what was left of him anyway after the bottle was done with him.

“I don't want go that way.”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

Locke shrugged at that.

"Fair enough."

If there was one thing the SIS agent was good at, it was seeing the little details, the signs. The tension at the shoulder and the tugging of the corner of a mouth downwards, brows furrowed as memories took over and just that little twitch at the side of an ear... when you wanted to forget. By the looks of it, it hadn't been just a few good men, as much as one good man.

Who could it be?

A lover? A father? A brother or a friend? Did it matter?

Apparently not for Rodarch and Elliot declined to make a joke, probably would have earned himself a mouth full of fist, if he had.

"Been always Bruises, not much to be weaker about." Something glittered at the end of his eye though, something of iron and steel, just a little hint of a suggestion that disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. Might have been the shimmering of the light-show, if Sam hadn't been paying that good attention in the first place. But it was the hint that there were more than bruises to the man.

"Do you dance, Knuckles?"

 

[Sam Rodarch]

According to the cliches, this kind of conversation was purely reserved for approximately eight drinks and two shots in. Real talk. When you go one too many deep and start spilling secrets onto the small puddles of liquor already left upon the bar.

Although given Sam's abstinence in the realms of alcohol the gruff young woman could be forgiven for breaking such unwritten tropes.

“Bottom's deeper than you think,” the shockboxer mumbled, still staring at the group of partygoers, the sentence practically inaudible to anybody bar herself. Less of a reply to him, and more just a general statement slipped out in the moment.

She had kidded herself on. Thinking that this was as low as her father would fall, that it didn't get worse than this, he wouldn't...couldn't get weaker than this but it did, and it didn't stop. Watching on helplessly as a proud and strong man grew soft and weak. A growing gut, distended and ever bulging out of clothes he didn't bother to wash. Eyes with no fire, listless as their whites grew yellow. An armchair that soon became a bed, then a toilet.

A tomb.

Before she could even consider if her father was clinically dead, the man posed a question. His words took a second to actually penetrate her consciousness, but when it did Rodarch's head snapped to face him, expression fully equipped to say REALLY?

“What do you think?”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

There was a silence between them, but it wasn't the comfortable kind.

Part of his job had always been gauging people's personalities and behaviors, part of his job was meeting a lot of people and many of them... he could have simply relaxed against the bar and let the silence do the talking, so to speak. But with this one... there was an unspoken tension. Like she was thinking very loud thoughts and struggling with their message, at every moment of the day even.

But he liked her.

Which was probably strange, considering there wasn't anything that bind them together except her knuckle against his head, but that was besides the question. There was something about her that kept him engaged.

Maybe it was just his natural instinct to mess with people. This one was definitely mess-able on a lot of areas.

"I think... yes, why don't you stop worrying so much and do one dance with me. Then I...." dramatic silence as he straightened himself out at full height, which was probably the first time that Sam would notice that Locke was far taller than he usually let on. "...will sing for you."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Worrying so much?

In that moment she tried to wipe any traces of her grim thoughts from her face, but only ended up looking surprised as he noted just how exactly she was feeling. No great surprise, Sam was hardly a girl well-versed in the realms of conversations. Most people back home shunned her. Her only friend was a now-dead blacksmith and even then discussion between them had been light.

This wasn't her style, she was uncomfortable and he was aware.

“I don't know how to dance,” she replied quietly, jaw set in pure rigidity as she spoke. Usually her reply at this point would have been steeped in violence, but at that moment she was largely unsure. Maybe it was the way the man said it. It didn't reek of cheeky chappy, like he had been for the duration of their short time spent together.

Maybe it was her situation? Maybe thoughts of her old man just quenched that usual ire for the galaxy?

Strange place. Strange people. Strange life.

“I'll look stupid.”

Those words were half spat as if what the patrons of the bar thought of her mattered. So what? They'd talk some shet? Make fun of her? Then she'd start a fight? Hell, she was expecting that to happen already. But dance? It was so ridiculous.

“They'll laugh at me.”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

His hand curled around hers.

Steady grip - nothing like the performance done during their fight nor the unsteady nature of his slur right after the few shots. His eyes were firm, not in the physical sense, but in the gaze that left them. Locke didn't seem all that drunk in that moment. He seemed serious now, more serious than ever.

"You start worrying 'bout what these jokers think." One round trip around the room showed various states of inebriation and drugs abuse to the middle.

Nothing that indicated anyone needed to worry about what these people thought.

"You won't ever stop."

Locke squeezed, dropped off and stood steady after pushing himself off the seat. For a moment the man simply took the dance floor in, like a challenge, like another battlefield to conquer, that edge in his eye shifted into something more comfortable now. Then, the agent looked back with a smile.

A grin, but an easy one worn.

"I will show you some moves, come on."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Now he was holding her hand.

This was so far out of her comfort zone that there were still thoughts of punching him in the face and running as far as the night would take her. Sometimes in the ring you were met with scrutiny and mocking laughter, especially as a woman. That never bothered her as much, she could use it, feed off of it and turn it into rage.

Prove them all wrong.

This was different. At least she knew how to fight, and Sam couldn't imagine in what way that her ire could be released in the form of dancing. There was letting loose in the squared circle and then just letting it all loose. Two different things, only one of which the young woman seemed to be capable of.

Shown around the bar like a child on their first day of school the man gave her a guided tour of losers and wasters. He had a point, really. Why should she care what they thought? Who were they? Nobodies. Not entirely dissimilar from Rodarch herself, really. Kindred spirits of nothingness. Were they not supposed to be here for fun? To relax? Feth, she was so bad at this.

She was the living embodiment of hesitance as he took to the dance floor. Her face a mask of self-consciousness, vulnerability that the Mandalorian was not accustomed to nor entirely comfortable with. Nonetheless, Sam also took to the floor, fists balled as if she were in the ring, posture so stiff that she could have been made out of durasteel.

“Show me.”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

He did.

The music flowed and as he took another careful step onto the dance floor so did Locke.

It began slow, so slow almost as if his body was drifting on the air. Eyes closed as he let the music do the work for him, while his foot beat on the rhythm, body moving to the tune of the room. It felt good. It felt right and for just a brief moment Elly forgot all about his assignment or that there were other people in the room. Just him, just him and the music and his body and the currents. The movements raised itself in speed as he got into it.

Eyes opened and Locke winked at Sam, stretching his hand out in an invitation.

No matter how fun it was to dance alone... it was infinitely more fun to dance together. To start at a reasonable distance off each other, to size each other up, to feel the beat of your heart drumming against your ears.

Then to slowly approach, to get closer as the comfort settled itself in their bodies and to just dance the night away.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

She just stood there, staring at him as he began to dance.

Eyes shut with seemingly not a solitary care in the entire galaxy. Some people might have considered it brave to step in the ring every night and fight for your living. Sam, on the other hand considered it brave to step onto the dance floor and just let loose.

He had rhythm, the woman could at least tell that much, but in terms of dancing she had little insight. What do you even do? Just move your body? Are there certain moves? Techniques? Styles? Was it all like a pointless variant of fighting that shed no blood and made all participants look ridiculous? The inspiration didn't come to her.

Then he looked to her, inviting her to join him in this ridiculous moment.

There was an awkward few steps taken forward. Rodarch didn't know what to do with her arms, so only her feet made any attempt at rhythmic movement. Although, in all actuality it was more just like side-stepping with the beat. What were the arms supposed to do? No, no, no. Punching is so much easier than this.

Her face went scarlet, the feeling of a thousands eyes upon her back intensifying. Feth, what would her dad say?

“I can't do this!” Sam shouted over the music, turning furiously upon her heel to make her way back to the bar, “I feel like a right deckhead!”

---

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Sam Rodarch"]

A hand, rough and strong and coarse curled around hers just as she was about to strut away.

It pulled her into the dance once again. Locke was aware that he was taking a risk here - might be, she would try to punch him out once or twice for this, but at the end of the day this one deserved a little bit of fun. If that meant risking getting his teeth punched out, because he was trying to get her to dance... well, that was a risk worth taking as far as Elly was concerned.

What happened next was up to Sam, of course.

If she didn't try to have him eat her fist, she would be pulled in closer to him - proximity where in reality your moves didn't so much matter as much as rhythm did. Where all they had to do was step to the beat, while stepping closer to each other.

"I got you." His voice would carry softly in between breaks. "Just move."

His hands were respectful though. No squeezing, no rubbing where they shouldn't - just comfortably snug holding her as far as she allowed him to, maybe a bit closer if she was enjoying it - a bit farther if she didn't. At the end of the day this was as much a give and take as anything else when two sentients were involved. But Locke was enjoying his time... unless she punched him in the face and he was now currently laying on the ground.

Who knew with Schrödinger's post?