justin. (salzig) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2015-11-01 11:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | !backlog, justin salt, sahra bhatt |
WHO: Sahra and Justin.
WHEN: Last year—not long after Justin joins the crew.
WHERE: Callisto.
WHAT: Their first job together.
WARNINGS: Violence, language, and also it's almost 11k words SO IF YOU READ THE ENTIRE THING YOU ARE A CHAMPION??? IM SORRY WE'RE ACTUAL GARBAGE
It wasn’t Justin’s first bounty ever. That honor had gone to a relatively low-threat warrant halfway out of Io who surprised and disarmed him, then almost boarded the Tequila Sunrise. Not the best first impression he could have made. But it was his first with Sahra, who was gorgeous, confident, and miles more experienced than he was. So, yeah, he was nervous. Not about the bounty itself, but about ingratiating himself with this crew that would be his home for the foreseeable future. It would help if the pilots liked him. With the ship docked on Callisto, Sahra and Justin’s job was to head out and meet with their contact, an informant who had details to share about (from what they could gather from the dead-drop message) a meeting between their target and someone supposedly bigger on the food chain. Bundled up in fur-lined parka, boots, mittens, and hat against the moon’s perpetual light snowfall, Justin wanders at the edge of the space terminal. Just outside the rattling, rusted door, he lights a cigarette and leans on the wall, looking over a sheet of scribbled notes on their cover story, and waits for Sahra. "Those things'll kill you," she says, coming up behind him. She, too, had bundled up against the Callistan cold, looking perhaps a tad more glamorous than Justin with a face full of make-up, expensive(-looking) earrings, and rabbit-fur gloves. But that was the whole idea, wasn't it? On Callisto, what few women there were were either hard-edged workers whose teeth could cut diamonds—or beautiful young women with powerful men under their thumb. No one would believe Sahra, with her pretty face, for the former; but the latter? That, they could handle. And besides, if their intel was worth anything, the mark preferred dealing with beautiful women than tough ones. Or anyway, he liked patronizing them, and Sahra could bat her eyes with the best. She comes up beside him and hooks her arm under his. In the meeting, he was to be her partner and muscle; but here on the street, they would attract less suspicion if she were just the candy on his arm. "Sorry I'm late," she says. "The dock workers were making a fuss over our landing papers. But it's been sorted," she adds quickly—no need to panic the new crew over bureaucratic snafus. He looks her over, and, after a moment, straightens out of his slouch. “Happen often?” he asks, carefully stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette, then returning it to his pocket. It might be disgusting, but it’s just habit; three years on Pluto made you savor whatever you had, and even two years of training, luscious and free, later, he hasn’t shaken the attitude. She shakes her head, leading him back towards the main road on the other side of the terminal. "Not often," she says. "But Callisto is, well—a colony of paranoids. You know." Well, maybe he didn't. They walk around the back of the terminal toward a small, dead-grass path toward the main street. They were meeting their mark in a dingy bar whose address had been scribbled on the notes Justin was holding. Sahra had mostly memorized it, but she was glad her partner had the paper. After a little walking arm-in-arm, she clears her throat and adds, "You can smoke if you want. I don't actually care. Just giving you shit." Despite the notes and address, he has never been to Callisto, and has no idea where they’re going. He’d never even been off Venus (aside from going to prison) before attending training on Ganymede. He trusts Sahra to lead them in the right direction, holding loosely to her arm. He glances at her sidelong. “Kinda soon to be givin’ me shit already, don’tcha think?” Sahra smiles, pulling the thick collar of her coat closer around her neck. "Do you think so?" she says—which means no. But a soft no, a no with nebulous, shifting edges, a no that might change into something not unlike itself, if you turned your head fast enough. In a word, she was still teasing. A rough-looking dock laborer moves aggressively towards them, and Sahra presses instinctively closer to Justin—men were less apt to attack at random if there was another man there (assholes). But the laborer just seems to move aggressively as a way of life; he grunts past them towards the door they had just vacated without a word. "Right," she says, once the way is clear again, and pauses, holding him back on the sidewalk. "Let me get my bearings." He glances at her face, and then nods, folding his notes over in his gloved hands and pressing them into his pocket. “Yeah, s’pose we oughta talk shop, anyhow. How we gonna play this? You want me to keep quiet ‘n let you do all the talking, step in if needed, or…” He clears his throat uncomfortably. She waits a moment when he trails off, then prompts: "What were you thinking?" Justin shrugs. “Dunno. It’s your show, darlin’.” She smiles again and pats his arm. "Listen, any idea might work. Mine are usually pretty stupid—you can ask my sister. I was thinking I'd lead, unless he starts directing his questions to you. Some guys around here don't care to work with girls. Then we'll have to switch it up." “Sounds good t’me,” he says, and shoves his nose back under his scarf. Truthfully, he was more comfortable as a lookout or punching-things-expert than a talker. But he wasn’t going to contradict her—or put the assignment in jeopardy—just because of his shy tongue. She nods. "Let me see that paper again?" He digs it back out and puts it in her hand. “Lost?” "No," she says at once, and clears her throat. "It's just—been a while since I've been on Callisto." “At least you been here,” he says, punctuating his words with a suspicious glance around the street. “Can’t say I like bein’ in unfamiliar territory.” Sahra laughs quietly, double checking the information again. She reaches over and tucks it back into his pocket. "Relax," she says. "This is an easy one. In and out, twenty minutes. We'll be back on the ship in no time." “Let’s get to it, then,” he says, nodding ahead of them. “You know where you’re goin’ now?” "Yes." She nods off to their left down the street. It's early evening; on one of the bigger colonies, the streets would have been bustling and teeming with people hurrying about their lives, racing to get home, or to their night jobs, or evening classes, or dinner dates. But Callisto is not one of those colonies. The street is dim and largely devoid of people, the few who are out rushing quickly from point A to point B to get out of the cold. A light snow starts to fall, the second time that day. Sahra tugs her hat down over her ears and lets Justin's arm drop to adjust her coat. They should be safe until they arrived at the bar. The dingy sign appears up ahead, perhaps ten minutes' further slow walk (she was in heeled boots, in accordance with her cover, and breaking an ankle by slipping on the ice seemed a poor way to start the job). "Nervous?" she says, rubbing her hands together in her gloves. “Just cold,” he says, which is true. “C’mon.” He slows a step behind her, keeping his hand on her elbow to steady her on the ice, and checks the street corners ahead before nudging her forward. “Don’t fall, Sonya.” He can’t help but smile slightly at the (to his ears, silly) alias. She laughs and hooks her arm around his again. Perhaps because they were in sight of the bar; perhaps not. "Thank you, Yulian." A wind starts at the other end of the street, swirling snow into their faces. He grips a little tighter to her arm, but shakes his head. “Just watch your step.” "I've been in more precarious situations than this," she says, lifting one of her heels behind her as they walk. “Tell me one.” She smirks, pursing her lips, tilting her head as she weighs her options. "Once, on Io, I had to extend this fan dance by a good ten minutes—" “Fans. Dangerous.” His expression doesn’t change. "Fan dance," she corrects, raising a finger. "Very different. You've never seen one?" “Nah.” She looks at him from the corner of her eyes, thoughtful. "You're not very talkative, are you?" He turns his head to look at her. “Not really.” After a few moments of silence he looks back away. “Sorry.” She waves this off like brushing away a bit of stray lint. "Don't worry about it. As long as I'm not boring you." “That ain’t it, don’t worry. Watch out,” he says, halting her before a wide swath of snow and ice on the path. “Lemme help you over.” She falters, less at the ground than at his offer, and is too surprised to do anything but extend her hands. It wasn't that she hadn't had men play that coat-dropping gentleman's role before, or even that she thought she couldn't get over the ice on her own; it was simply that she didn't expect that sort of thing from Justin. But he hadn't been on the ship long. Maybe there was a lot about him she couldn't expect. "Oh—okay—" With her agreement, he nods, and wraps his arms securely around her waist, and lifts her up—Sahra lets out a small, startled, "Oh!"—carrying her the few paces over the ice. He hadn’t even considered not offering. It was instinct, duty, drilled into him by his mother, to the point where he didn’t think about it. He sets her down on the other side of the ice, holds her for a moment to make certain she’s steady, and then retracts his arms as if it’s nothing. Sahra shakes her head quickly, like shaking off a fly, her hands still on his arms where they had come to rest for balance. For a moment she doesn't say anything; she is still too surprised. Then she looks up at Justin and lets out a little, trilling laugh. "Wow!" she says, reaching up to straighten her hat. "Aren't you dashing!" He looks at her, brows furrowed, lips quirked up on one side, and scratches the back of his head. “Dunno what you’re talkin’ about.” "Well, it's not every day a girl gets carried over the ice," she says with a grin, pulling his coat lapels up and back into place against his scarf. “It ain’t a big deal,” he says, blushing slightly, and glances down at his feet. Sahra chuckles again and, after a breath, lowers her arms, goes back to their former positions, elbows linked loosely. "Come on," she says. "Don't want to be late." By the time they reach the bar, the snow has thickened and the wind picked up, and Justin is grateful for the immediate rush of heat as they walk in the door. He looks over the place quickly as he stomps snow from his boots, noting the patrons, their positions, who looked like they might be carrying. And, of course, the exits—the front door, what was probably a bathroom, an open doorway into a back hall which probably led to an office and a back exit. Otherwise, it’s just what he expected. Dingy, with a handful of booths on either wall, the bar at the back of the room, and a scattering of tall tables in the middle. A jukebox sits in the front, though nothing was playing at the moment, and there are squat, lumpy, unlit candles in little glass jars on all the tables. It might be run-down, but at least it’s relatively clean—floors swept, a rag passed over the tabletops—and at least the heat is blaring. Their contact, or at least the man Justin thinks might be him, sits with his back to them in one of the booths, drinking a glass of vodka. Justin glances at him, then at Sahra, raising his eyebrows. She surveys the room, too—though perhaps with less skill. Just a quick perusal of their surroundings, where the exits were, that no one was threatening to burst out on them with a knife and stab her to death. The usual. She nods toward the jukebox. "You mind putting something on for a few minutes?" she says, leaning against his side, like they were any other couple coming in from the cold. The contact might know better, but no reason to look like bounty hunters to everyone else in this bar. Not yet, anyway. "I'll feel him out, make sure he isn't going to panic when he sees the great bulk of you coming over." She winks with the eye farthest from the target. Justin shakes his head at her, but goes to the jukebox as asked. As he suspected, the selection’s not great, definitely not vast, and he has to flip through the different song lists four times to stall long enough before pressing a coin into the receptacle, pushing the code for his selection into the button pad, and turning around to see if Sahra is ready for him. In the meantime, she has done exactly as said: felt out the situation. After all but sashaying over the table, letting her thick coat loosen over her shoulders and chest—there was a red dress beneath, just peeking out through her collar; the intel said their contact liked 'em just a little bit saucy—she had made simple small talk. Are you so-and-so, hope you haven't been waiting long, that's my partner over there. He came right out and asked for the woolongs he was promised to give his information; but he also laughed when she asked why he hadn't yet bought her a drink, so she figured he wasn't going to flip out and murder them right there in the bar. She nods for Justin to come over, scooting over on the seat, closer to the mark, making room. "My partner," she says, as he comes over, and lays a hand on the contact's arm. "Don't be intimidated," she says, in a voice that is not quite her own, syrupy and warm and coy, "he's really a teddy bear." The contact laughs, showing too many crooked teeth. "Pretty girl like you needs some muscle," he says, with a conspiratorial wink. Sahra's laugh is only a little strained. Justin leans back in the seat, smiling in a way he knows—hopes—is reassuring of Sahra’s implied pleasantness. “I’ve had worse jobs, that’s for sure.” She smiles over her shoulder at him—genuinely—before turning back to the contact. He gestures vaguely at the bar, and a few moments later, the surly bearded barkeep comes over with three short glasses of clear, pungent liquid. "So," Sahra says, glancing at it as the contact slides her glass over. "As charming as you are, honey, are we going to stay here all night, or do you have what we came for?" "I do like a woman who's direct," he says, chuckling, and reaches into his pocket for a small manila envelope. But when Sahra gestures for it, he pulls it back. "Ah, ah," he says—and his demeanor changes, the obsequiousness sliding off him like a sheet. He turns to Justin with a thin smile. "Do you have what I came for?" Justin is silent as he reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and, after a quick glance around the room, pulls out a moderately thick envelope of woolongs. He slides the packet across the table to their contact and nods—but when the man reaches for the money, keeps his hand cupped over top. “You know the agreement. Half now, half at a dead drop if everything checks out.” "Of course," the man says, holding his thick palm open on the table between them. "And of course, you both understand, with the trouble I went through to get this, my price has just gone up." Sahra nearly leaps out of her seat. "What?!" Justin withdraws the woolongs to his side of the table, his other hand steady on Sahra’s shoulder, as if to say calm down. He looks at their contact blankly. “That ain’t gonna be possible, friend.” "I'm afraid it must," the man says, with a sad look. Sahra bites the inside of her lip to keep from fuming, and under the table, reaches over and clamps Justin's knee, just for something to keep her steady. She was not the type to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, but she also knew she wasn't patient enough to smile her way through a target trying to fuck them over right out of the gate. Then the front door opens. They all look over in unison to see two burly men coming through, making eye contact directly with their contact. Sahra turns; another man comes from the back, emerging into the seating area and rubbing warmth into his hands, as if they had merely caught him on his cigarette break. Maybe they had. Behind him, as the door to the alley behind the bar swung shut, she could just catch sight of a similarly bulky man. Her grip on Justin's leg tightens for a brief second. "No one wants to make a fuss," the contact says, spreading his hands. "We'll take your woolongs now—all of them—and when you've got your man, we'll take the rest." “Okay, okay—” Justin raises both hands, his eyes darting between both sets of men. “No need to get threatenin’.” He nods to the woolongs on the table, urging the contact to take them. Leaning forward to push the money back across the table, he takes the chance to put his mouth close to Sahra’s ear and whispers, as low as he possibly can without alerting anyone, “On my signal, grab the intel and run for the front.” There is no room or time to verify or protest, though plenty bubble up in Sahra anyway—what are you thinking? What about you? I'm not running out of here and losing a brand new crew member to overzealous Callistan thugs. She glances back to the contact. He's holding the intel envelope out of reach, towards the nearest thug, who's looming at the other end of the booth by the contact's shoulder. Justin is on her other side; she was pinned into the booth—what could his signal be?—unless she clambered over the table itself. Which she could do. She wasn't really dressed for it, but she'd made riskier escapes in considerably more difficult outfits (she thinks, again, of that night with the fan dance). But despite all this, she makes her voice light, leaning her elbows forward on the table, as easy and flirtatious as she was a few minutes before. "There," she says, smiling at the contact. "Easy, right? No need for anyone to make a fuss. You're just lucky I like you, sweetheart." The contact laughs and, putting one hand on the envelope of woolongs, his eyes still on Sahra—the muscles' eyes on Justin—gives her a teasing look that makes her want to knee him right in the balls. But with his other hand he finally offers over the manila envelope, into her waiting hand. "Maybe next time we'll meet under more favorable circumstances, Miss Sonya." Sahra's hand closes around the envelope. The contact doesn't let go. "Now—" Justin ignores their exchange and eases up and out of the booth—the thugs start slightly, but he holds his hands up at them, waving them off. He’d been them, once. They wouldn’t attack unless (until) it was clear they needed to. “Let’s drink,” he says, reaching out for one of the glasses the contact had had brought over before. “To our continued partnership and respect for one another.” It all sounds kind of stupid and fancy in his accent, a low street drawl, but he manages it somehow, and it’s enough of a distraction that the envelopes all get placed back on the table in favor of the alcohol. At least Callistans lived up to their stereotypes, he thinks, as they all down their shots. “One more.” "—let's discuss future payments," the contact continues to Sahra. He glances over as his men line up at the bar with Justin, their eyes drifting at regular intervals back to the table; but what could a pretty girl with no noticeable weapons do on her own? "I think my organization and yours can come to a...very fruitful arrangement," he says. His eyes, of course, drift down to her chest. It's a struggle not to roll her eyes. Was this the moron's first intel drop? He was playing way too many cards on the table for a quick cash grab. "Next time we have business on Callisto," Sahra says, still gripping the envelope, "we'll be sure to drop in. Maybe even if we don't have business," she adds, and the contact chuckles appreciably. But more importantly, with the woolongs secured and the situation apparently all wrapped up in his favor, he finally lets go of the envelope. Justin doesn’t miss the beat. As soon as the envelope is in her hand, he smiles at the contact’s muscle, lifts two of the shots as if to hand them over, and at the last second, flings the vodka into two of the men’s eyes. The dingy little bar springs into life. They both scream in pain, rubbing at their eyelids with their meaty hands; the other two, of course, go for him. One barrels straight into him as his fist connects with the other guy’s jaw—shoved against the bar back, bottles smash this way and that under the bulk of Justin’s torso— Both Sahra and the contact look up at the same moment, shocked and horrified—but was he really expecting them to just pay him as much as he liked and slink off without protest? Please. She needed to get out of this booth. She might not have been the whirlwind force Justin was, but—in the contact's shock, she picks up her shot glass and copies Justin, hurling the last of the clear, spicy liquid into his eyes. He shrieks and claws at his face, reaches for her—she is already barreling over the table, shoving the envelope of information down her shirt, clambering over the wood top and kicking the remains of shot glasses and food trays and cigarette butts out of her way— The contact latches onto her leg with a howl of pain. "You bitch! Get back here—Ivan!" One of the thugs, lifting himself from where Justin had hurled him into the bar, looks up, nose bloodied. One girl versus one muscled, fist-throwing thug? No contest. He beelines for her, seeming to grow larger as he makes his way to the table—and in that moment, Sahra stumbles off the edge, onto the floor, surprising him so much she has the moment she needs to headbutt him directly in the crotch and scramble past. Justin smashes a huge bottle of liquor over the head of one of the men and gets a view of Sahra’s move as the thug slumps to the ground. That left two standing, plus the contact—Justin can’t take them all at once, he knows, however strong he is—so he does the other thing—and runs, toppling tables and barstools behind him to block the thugs’ path while he makes a dash for Sahra. As soon as it’s in reach, he grabs her hand in his and yanks her towards the door. “Come on! Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Sahra stumbles up from the floor—she hears her dress rip horribly under her coat—the contact is shouting and the men are falling over themselves trying to climb over their fallen comrades and grab Sahra and Justin before they hit the street. But the door is closer, and the bounty hunters have a head start. She catches sight of the barman, finally recovered now that the fight isn't literally six inches from him on his bar, fumbling with his rifle. It was hard to say who he would aim for. She doesn't want to find out. "Get them! Get the fuck back here! Get back—" the contact shrieks, his voice rising to a deeply unflattering wail—and then Sahra and Justin are busting out of the front doors, onto the street, startling a businessman who nearly falls into the road at the sight of two disheveled, one bloodied, formerly stylish travelers exploding onto the sidewalk. Sahra looks quickly side to side, then tugs Justin to the left. "This way! They'll head straight for the docks, we can't go back yet!" “Shit—” Justin runs with her, cursing steadily under his breath. He can already feel a lump rising somewhere on his head from a good smack one of the thugs gave him, and his ribs feel bruised, and his knuckles are almost certainly bleeding, his gloves ripped straight open from his punches. They turn down another street, and then another, and another, leading away from the port, and Justin slows his pace in order to check behind them. Each one is as depressing and cold as the last, and it doesn’t take long before Justin is shivering quietly next to Sahra. But he’s sure one of the thugs is still following them, albeit far behind. Something had to be done about him before they could even think about heading back. “Here,” he says, steering her by the elbow toward a restaurant on the next block up that, judging by the view through the front window, was fairly packed with patrons. On the one hand, if the thug followed them inside it would be a mess of a fight with all those people. On the other, they might be able to lose him in a crowd. Justin whispers to Sahra, “We gotta disappear. Change our clothes. Something. Let’s go in.” Sahra struggles to catch her breath for a moment. Her ankle aches—it had turned painfully around one of those corners, and now that the immediate adrenaline was fading, the ache was starting to set in. She ignores it; she has to. She can't hear the thug laboring along behind them—he was still undoubtedly on their trail, but they had a minute to collect themselves before he reared back into sight. "Okay," she says, shakily, holding onto him for balance. "Okay. We look like shit. Let me—" She reaches for him to clean him up as best she can under the circumstances. Tugs off his ripped gloves and shoves them in his pocket, biting her lip at the blood—"Keep those out of sight if you can—" pulls his hat off and smooths his hair back, licks her thumb and scrubs at a speck of blood in his stubble, straightens his coat and scarf. In a moment he looks presentable; or anyway, more presentable than he did on leaving the bar. She digs in her little purse, tucked into her coat, for a compact, and quickly reassembles herself next: wipes sweat from her brow, clears a bit of mascara from under her eyes, wipes her lipstick off where it smeared. Her hair she simply lets down; there was no recovering that coif. "Okay," she says again, checking her coat. There was a spill on the front. There was nothing for that. She hooks her arm beneath his and plasters on a smile, already moving quickly for the restaurant doors. "Pretend to be head over heels for me. We're on a date." “You really gotta stop flirtin’ with me, darlin,” he says, smiling grimly, and pushes through the doors, holding them open for her with his shoulder, the chime of a little bell signaling their entrance. Inside is warm, if only for the crowd making up that night’s dinner rush. It’s not fancy enough to have a real hostess, so when a waitress bustles past them with a “pick a table—if you can find one,” Justin leads Sahra through the place to a spot at the counter, just about the only empty adjacent seats in the house. On the other side is the kitchen, or part of it, prep counter and flattop grill, the latter of which boasts an array of sizzling meats and onions. The rest of the kitchen is on the other side of a wall, and can be seen through a small window. Justin sets himself on one of the swiveling counter chairs, his hand on the small of Sahra’s back as she takes her own seat. The waitress pops up behind them a moment later with a basket of bread and two menus. “What you want to drink?” she asks them, tapping her order pad with her pen. Justin looks at Sahra over the top of his menu. “Dunno. What d’you want,” he asks her, “sweetiepie?” Sahra has to fold her lips tightly together and study her menu just to keep from laughing. Not that there was much to study. Mostly meat dishes, a picture of something that looked like a pasta casserole, maybe. "Oh, whatever you want, dumpling," she says to Justin, smiling sweetly. "Maybe a beer?" The waitress, obviously with less patience for this performance than either of the bounty hunters, merely scribbles something on her pad. "Okay," she says, and disappears a moment later to tend to a considerably less flirtatious table. Sahra lets out a long breath, dropping her head and holding onto Justin's arm. "God! Sweetiepie?" “What? You said act like a couple,” he says, closing his menu and resting his hand on her wrist. The waitress brings Sahra’s beer; Justin orders an appetizer and then sends her away, looking over his shoulder at the door. “Think he’ll check in here? Maybe we lost him,” he mutters. Sahra glances quickly back. No one was at the front windows yet, but there was such a crush of people in the restaurant, her view was obscured every other minute. "Let's take our coats off. They didn't see our clothes; it'll help us blend." She takes off her hat and lays it in a furry lump on the bar, then reaches over for his, running her hand back through his hair so it didn't stick up with static and sweat. She does it briskly and efficiently; despite all her teasing, their first duty was, after all, to get out of there alive, and keeping a low profile was the best way out. After that she tugs off her own coat. Her dress is, admittedly, notably brighter than most of the drab greys and blacks in the restaurant, but the place was warmly lit enough, and garishly decorated enough, that she doesn't stand out too much. The rip she heard earlier is worse than she thought: a long tear splits a seam at her thigh, nearly down to her knee. She groans. "God—I loved this dress." Justin tugs his own coat off and lays it across his lap. “Let me fix yours,” he says, indicating for her hair, and takes it into his hands, swiftly braiding it into one long plait to the side of her face. His hands are quick, but careful, and he doesn’t pull too hard on stray hairs. “It’s a nice dress.” She colors slightly at his hands, and the compliment—lord knew he didn't give them freely. But fortunately the lights of the place, and her own dark skin, make it all but impossible to tell. "Isn't it, though?" she says instead. "And it was such a steal… I wonder if I can just stitch it back up and no one will notice. Oh, well." She sighs and lays her own coat over her legs, hiding the tear. The barman appears, a wiry man with an absurd mustache, and, after quickly verifying they had ordered the small plate of greasy hors d'oeuvres in his hand, sets it down in front of them before returning to his duties. Sahra picks one up and inspects it—fried cheese of some kind; she was sold—before taking a bite and glancing over her shoulder. And there, peering in the window, is the bodyguard she hoped they had left behind. Plus the one she had headbutted in the balls. They did not look any less livid for having run around in the cold for ten minutes. "Shit," she says, turning quickly away. "Shit, shit, they're here—" “Calm down,” he says, turning further away from the windows. “If you freak they’ll notice. They ain’t gonna find us. Keep your face turned.” He chances a glance back; one of the thugs was making for the door, but still, neither seemed to have recognized them. Justin puts his hand on Sahra’s shoulder, squeezing her firmly. “He’s coming in.” Sahra glances sidelong over her shoulder again, barely turning her face. The thug is surveying the patrons, ignoring the waitress who is trying to get him to sit down or leave. His gaze moves over them—pauses—slowly comes back. She whips back around. "Kiss me," she hisses. "Quick! Kissing makes people uncomfortable!" There’s no time to second-guess her; Justin wasn’t the type to overthink, anyways. He grabs her face in both of his hands and pulls it towards his, pressing their lips together, nose mashing absurdly into her cheek. He kisses her for several long moments, slightly longer than he has to, probably, firm and deliberate. Then he pulls away, his hands falling from her cheeks, and takes a drink from Sahra’s beer. The bodyguard is nowhere in sight. Sahra allows herself only a moment of surprise. She hadn't quite been expecting that. Or, if she was being perfectly honest, for Justin to be a very good kisser. If nothing else, the beard looked awfully scratchy. But she clears her throat and looks over her shoulder—sure enough, the men have gone. She sighs and sags in relief. "Wow!" she says, looking up at him, her hand on her forehead. "You know, I figured you'd just do some closed-mouth movie kiss. If I knew you were going for the real deal, I wouldn't have eaten that fried cheese thing." He shrugs, silently picking at one of the cheese blobs, pulling it apart so the filling stretches in strings between the two halves. “Didn’t think about it either way.” He pops one half into his mouth. "Oh, you don't normally check your breath before kissing someone as a distraction?" she says lightly, picking up another cheese ball. "I'll keep that in mind for next time." She is, of course, teasing again. If they played their cards right, there was unlikely to be a next time. Probably. Justin doesn’t react except for to raise his eyebrows slightly. He eats the other half of his fried cheese and then wipes his hands on a paper napkin. “How long you think we need to camp out here?” She glances down at her watch, thankfully unharmed in the fight and mad dash through the streets. "Maybe ten, fifteen more minutes? They should start canvassing somewhere else by that point. What do you think?" “Agreed,” he says, relaxing his posture and leaning forward on his elbows now that the imminent danger has passed. The position smarts a little, but he’s had much worse, and ignores the pain in his ribs. “At least we got the intel.” "Oh!" With very little concern for him or anyone watching, she sticks her hand down the front of her dress and, after a bit of fussing, pulls out the small manila envelope the contact had given her. She is careful to keep it out of sight, still; no point in being incautious. "Think we should check it?" she says. "Or wait until we hand it over the the captain?" “Check it,” Justin says, unfazed by her retrieval, looking intently at the envelope. “Make sure the asshole didn’t totally rip us off.” "My thoughts exactly." She peels open the seal on the envelope and pulls out the paper. She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until she lets it out again, on seeing the carefully typed notes on the page. It's a dossier, travel details, and bank transfer information for their bounty—with this, they'd be able to stop him before he made it to his next off-world job and hide-out, and slipped right through their grasp. It was more expensive intel than they had bargained for, but she figured Reggie would rather have it than not. He wouldn't be happy with the way the meet had turned out, sure, but she'd let him handle that, if he still wanted to work with this particular weasel of an informant. She slides the paper back in and slips it back down the front of her dress, slim enough that it barely leaves an impression. "All there," she says. "I swear, if he'd fucked us over on top of trying to gouge us—" “What would you do?” Justin watches her carefully, running his thumb over the ridge of his bottom lip. “If the intel wasn’t there?” Sahra regards him for a moment, his thumb, his gaze. "Strongly consider aiming the Tequila's guns directly at that bar," she says, and glances away. "I doubt there'd be much I could do against half a dozen armored thugs and a pissed off rat like that on my own." Justin laughs. “Dunno. You headbutted that guy in the dick.” Sahra blushes and scratches at the base of her braid. "Feel free to tell everyone how much of a badass I am, then," she says, grinning. "A real—god, I'm sorry for this—ball-buster." He snorts, shaking his head at her, but he can’t help but smile. “Now I see why you’re on the crew and not slingin’ jokes for a living. That was fuckin’ awful.” "Okay, okay! No more bad puns," she says, waving him off. She might have thought it was at least a little funny, but she sure as hell wasn't going to say now. She takes another sip of beer and glances around again to check that the thugs hadn't come back around—they hadn't. Hopefully the contact would just give it up soon. "How's your head?" she adds. "I saw you take some pretty serious knocks." “Had worse,” he says, taking another drink from her glass. “I’ll be fine. Just need sleep and a painkiller or two, don’t worry.” "Still," she says, lifting her hand from the bartop. "Let me take a look. Your hands, too." She gestures to the barman for a glass of water and pulls some napkins from the little dispenser to her right. His first instinct is to protest, but he doesn’t—he extends his hands to her and sits patiently as she takes them. “You ain’t what I expected at all, y’know.” She smiles, raising her eyebrows down at his hands as she moistens a napkin. The damage isn't horrible, but his knuckles are certainly bleeding and mangled; it's a wonder, she thinks, he's barely given any sign of pain at all. "What were you expecting?" she says, pressing the napkin to the back of his hand. He holds back a wince as the paper presses into his split skin. “Someone less, uh, caring.” "Really?" She looks up in genuine surprise. "Do I come off that way?" He smiles—however thinly—at her reaction. “Caring or not caring?” "Not caring," she says, with a sly look up at him before she returns her attention to his hands. “You come off fine,” he says, turning his head to watch the front of the restaurant, his eyes skimming between the window and the door, just in case someone came back to look for them. “Just my own biases, I guess. Beautiful girl, pilot, comfortable liar—just come to expect a certain way of bein’ treated. I’m sure you and your crew got plenty of ideas about me, too.” He looks down at his hands—his tattooed fingers—and shrugs. She smiles at the compliments, all three of them. "Maybe," she concedes with a small lift of her shoulder. For her crewmates, she couldn't begin to fathom their opinions. Not because she didn't know them or couldn't guess—but they were such a motley crew, such a mishmash of lifestyles and perspectives, she had come to realize any presumptions she might make on their thoughts would almost always be wrong. She came at things from a different angle. She wasn't quite like them. "As for me," she says, turning his palm over to wipe between his fingers, "I've seen worse than some tattoos and a mean left hook." “Fair enough,” he says, turning his attention back to her face. He had said he’d been surprised by her, but he still didn’t know what to make of her at all; there seemed to be a lot more to figure out. Sahra makes a little noise, like a sigh, perhaps; her eyebrows high on her forehead, her mouth in something like a smile. It's an expression that might mean that's all you have to say?, or it might mean nothing at all. Like so much else about her, there was room for interpretation. "Are you worried what the rest of the crew will think of you?" she asks, still focused on his hand. “‘Course I am.” "Try not to," she says, and pulls the napkin back, checking for any other trickles of blood. "We've all got—you know." She makes air quotes with one hand. "Pasts. Or whatever you want to call it. Unless you turn out to be some, oh, I don't know, a cannibal or something—you're not, are you?" This startles a laugh out of him. “Last I checked, no,” he says, withdrawing his hand from her to pass his fingers over his hair. “Havin’ a past is different from bein’ a prisoner, darlin’. I’m assumin’ most of you can get up and leave anytime you get tired of it. I don’t got that option. And ‘sides, people look at you different. Ain’t complaining, it’s just the truth.” Sahra rests her elbow on the bartop and her cheek on her fist. "Does it bother you?" she asks after a moment, her voice carefully measured. "The looking. The—being stuck." He shrugs and taps his fingers on the counter. “Not worth cryin’ over it. It is what it is. I deserve it.” Sahra almost laughs, her brow tightening into a thin line of disbelief. "What a thing to say." “Alright, maybe it bothers me a little bit,” he admits, his bottom lip wrinkling as he thinks. “But it ain’t the end of the world, and I ain’t gonna go out of my way to fix it. Just be myself and hope for the best.” She purses her lips for a moment, and then shrugs. "Well, for what it's worth, I think you'll be a great addition to the crew, if tonight's any indication. And I hope you stay a while." She smiles and pats his wrist. "Sentence or not." Justin looks at her for a few moments, then jerks his head towards the door. “Come on. It’s been long enough. Let’s get outta here.” Sahra rolls her eyes and rises. Just like a man to deflect something genuine. Oh, well. Gathering up her coat and hat, she starts pushing through the crush of people—grown no thinner for their time at the bar—reaching vaguely behind her for him to follow. He pulls a few bills from his pocket and leaves them on the counter for the waitress—not without a wistful look—and, taking up his own coverings, follows after Sahra through the gap she’s carving amongst the restaurant patrons. A few minutes later they are on the sidewalk, and the afternoon, already turning quickly to night, has grown frigid. Snow is blowing about in, had they still been inside, wrapped up cozily with mugs of warm eggnog and a roaring fire, would have been quite lovely. As it is, it's just cold. Sahra hugs herself quickly as a breeze bites her ears around her cap. "Jesus Christ—" “Here.” At once, Justin takes his scarf off and wraps it around Sahra’s neck, folding it around her cheeks and tucking it into the collar of her coat. Without his scarf, and with his gloves ruined from the fight, he is much, much colder than before—but he just pulls his lapels up and buries his nose in his coat, tugs his hat over his ears, and shoves his hands in his pockets. Her hands come up to the scarf at once, and she looks up at him, perplexed. "You don't have to," she says, teeth chattering despite her best efforts. She hooks her fingers in the front, ready to tug it loose. "You'll catch your death in this weather." “I’m fine,” he mumbles beneath the collar of his coat. “You need it more’n me. Just get us—” home? “—to the ship.” "I'm not so delicate," she says dryly, and without giving him much room to argue, hooks her arm again through his, pressing close to his side, bunched up into her own shoulders like a pillbug. Warmth radiates out from them both; it is, in its own way, a profoundly insignificant gesture. Just two cold people, trying to get warm. She isn't sure if it will mean anything else to him; she can't help it if it does. "This way," she says, after checking the street signs and running them against her crude mental map. For all his talk, he really is freezing, and Sahra tucked close against his side is a welcome source of heat. After a few minutes of walking, their heads bowed against the elements, he realizes he wasn’t even been checking their surroundings—he’d been too distracted. If anyone was tailing them now, he didn’t know. “Sahra.” She barely looks up from the warmth of his arm. "Hm?" “Is someone following us? I didn’t check,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.” The truth is she hadn't been looking either. Despite how little time had passed since the bar fight, things felt remarkably safe. They had lost that tail, they had the intel, they were together and basically unharmed. Sahra was a bounty hunter, a pilot, a former street urchin—but she was not a criminal. She hadn't even thought to check until he mentioned it, and now she is almost embarrassed that she didn't. "What—" she sputters, voice low, "no, you didn't—hang on—" She lets out an airy, musical life, wholly fabricated, the kind of laugh a pretty girl walking with her boyfriend make give when he made a mostly funny joke. Unwinding from his arm for a moment, she twirls in place, walks in front of him for a few steps in the cold, her hand on his chest—they are the picture perfect couple, she flirtatious and coy, he along for the ride. More importantly, it lets her look around, her eyes glancing over corners, alleys, doorways, shop windows, as she moves away from him, then back, her movements silly and erratic, frivolous, easily disregarded by any potential tails as those of an air-headed girl. The only other people braving the snow are an old woman struggling into a shop down the block, and a businessman frantically holding his hat on and coat closed as he stamped down the street and past them, oblivious to anything but his own freezing skin. If he was their tail, he was either very bad at it, or very, very good. Considering their contact, she doubted the latter. "I think we're okay," she says, coming back to his side. "Don't worry about it. I didn't check either." Relief wells up inside him. It was stupid of him to get distracted like that—to forget why they were there and what they had come for. Still, he nods, and huddles against her, although much more alert than before. “Easy to forget I’m on the job,” he says over the crunch of their shoes in the snow. "Should I take that as a compliment?" she says, nudging his arm gently. His lips twitch—almost a smile, but not quite. “If you want to.” "Naturally," she says, "that's why I sug—" In the snow, she doesn't see the small patch of ice on the sidewalk. Her ankle turns, aggravating its earlier twist, and Sahra stumbles against him with a cry, grasping frantically at his sleeve as her whole body seems to collapse on one side, almost comical, the slip taking her so much by surprise she has no chance to even try for grace. "Ah, fuck—!" “Sahra—” Justin cries in surprise, and he reacts without thinking, his hands at her biceps, pulling her up and over, away from the ice, steadying her as quickly as he can. “Are you hurt?” She hisses and groans, testing the weight on her foot with a grimace. "My ankle," she says, looking down at it, holding onto his arms for balance. "I think I must have twisted it a little bit when we were running…" She lets out a rueful little laugh. "Fortunately it's so fucking cold I can barely even feel my feet, so." He squats in front of her, taking her ankle in his hand, turning it gently, pressing his fingers into the muscles. “It’s swollen,” he says, squinting up at her through the snowfall. “I should carry you the rest of the way.” "You—what?" She sputters down at him, barely able to speak for her chattering teeth and the shock of the near fall. "Are you crazy? You took a beating—you could slip and fall and take us both down—that's—" He pushes to his feet, holding her at the elbows to make sure she can keep balance. “You probably weigh, what, a hundred ten? I can carry you. You shouldn’t be puttin’ weight on that ankle ‘til the doc can take a look at it.” "It's at least 20 minutes back to the airship dock," she says, biting her lip. "And if one of those thugs comes back…" “You think it’s gonna go any faster with you hobblin’ along?” he asks, pointing down at her foot. She hesitates. Saying I don't want to be a literal burden felt just too on the nose. It isn't that she's averse to accepting help; but he has already beaten two dudes senseless for her that night, gone along with her romantic distractions, even given her his scarf. It just seems like too much to ask him to ferry her to the ship, too. But—her ankle really did hurt. And twenty minutes of bitching would probably do very little to endear her to him. "Well," she finally says, pulling his scarf closer around her chin. "All right." “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he says, and then bends, hooking one arm around her back and the other under her knees, and then scoops her up. Carrying a whole person was never going to be easy—but she is small enough that the strain isn’t too unpleasant. Sahra takes a moment to gain her bearings, suddenly so high up. Her arms wrap at once around his neck, and as her coat is no longer held shut against her legs, a bitter wind keeps whipping the ends open over her legs, sending frigid gusts of air up past her knees. She clamps one hand over the fur, gossamer red fabric peeking out past the buttons. "Are you sure about this?" she says as he starts to walk. Another gust of wind; she curves closer to him, her braid falling over his shoulder. "If you need to put me down…" He shakes his head, gripping her a little tighter. “Just don’t let go,” he says. But he does need to set her down—about ten minutes of walking later, after turning a few times at Sahra’s instruction, and once to get away from a hulking figure he thought might have been one of their contact’s bodyguards but wasn’t. His ribs start to ache; he thinks it must be the cold. He hoists her up a little in his arms to make sure he doesn’t drop her. “I gotta put you down for a minute.” "Thank god!" she says, laughing in relief. "You're really working hard, but I didn't want to say—" She repositions herself to clamber down, nodding towards a narrow alley between a dingy apartment building and an even dingier electronics shop, closed for the night. The alley is just wide enough for two men to walk closely abreast, concrete walls on either side. "Over here." Justin lets her down in the alley as gently as he can. As soon as she’s on her own feet he starts to stretch, arms, shoulders and neck tensing and untensing, and presses a hand to his side. It’s probably broken, he realizes. "Okay, no more carrying," Sahra says, worry creeping into her voice like thick, gray vines. She holds her ankle up and leans against the wall for balance, gesturing for him to come closer. "How's that feel? You took a nasty hit." One hand wraps around his neck, gloved fingers pressing against cold and work-tight muscles, the other moving gently over his ribs through his coat. It's far too cold to get a proper look, not until they got back to the ship, anyway. “It’s—” He grimaces, hissing in pain as she pushes on his ribs. He places his hand over hers. “Please don’t do that.” She freezes, eyes wide. "You're really hurt," she says—obviously, of course, but it was all she could think to say. They were both banged up, and now that the immediate danger was gone, all their aches and pains were coming to the fore. Hobbling back to the ship in this condition, with the snowfall speeding up, was—inadvisable. "Okay, fuck this," she snaps, tugging her purse out from beneath her coat. "You're not going any further in that state." “Sahra, I’m fine,” he says, watching her movements with a kind of admiring bewilderment. “What are you doin’?” "You're obviously not fine," she says, rummaging in her bag. She grumbles in irritation and then tugs her glove off with her teeth—sucks in air sharply as the wind bites her warm fingers—and plunges her bare hand into the purse. A moment later, out pops her RAC handheld. "I'm messaging the ship. Well—someone on the ship," she says, fingers clicking away at the touch screen. "They're always checking the network on down time. I'll ask them to send the little speeder out for us. At this point, it's an acceptable risk." Justin sighs and rubs at his forehead. “I get the feeling you’re not gonna let me get outta this one.” She looks up, pausing in her message. "Are you saying you want to hobble back in the freezing snow with a limping girl?" “Don’t wanna put anyone out on my behalf.” "How funny," she says, pursing her lips. "I thought the same thing when someone offered to carry me half a mile with fucked up ribs." “We’re almost there,” he says, pointing back out at the street. "So it won't take the speeder long to reach us." He stares at her for a second, mulling it over in his head. There was no shame in getting help from the crew, right? And they were both injured. It made sense. “Yeah. Alright. Let ‘em know.” She smiles, satisfied, and finishes the message, sliding her fingers back into the glove and then holding the phone to her chest, so she could feel it vibrate a reply. "Come here," she says after a moment, nodding towards the wall. "It's freezing. There's snow in your beard." Justin follows her instruction—he figures it’s pointless to argue with her. “What are you gonna do, light a fire?” "No," she says, and hops closer to him along the wall. She slides one arm beneath his, around his waist, careful to avoid his ribs, then presses close to his side, the phone clutched between them. "This doesn't hurt, right?" “Pain don’t really bother me,” he says, and winces. “Doesn’t. Tryin’ to be better with grammar and shit.” She chuckles against his shoulder, glancing down at his side. "Don't force it. There's nothing wrong with how you talk. Are you sure this isn't—?" “Stop askin’ me,” he says, laughing. “You’re worse than my mom.” She scoffs, all mock affront, pulling a few inches away. "Rude! And here I am just trying to be a caring crew member!" “That was a compliment,” he says, stopping and leaning back against the wall. He remembers his half-smoked cigarette and pulls it out of his pocket—smashed slightly from the fistfight earlier, but still usable, as long as he could keep it dry. “My mother was a damn saint. You should be flattered.” "Well, in that case." She pulls her arms back, then reaches up to cup her hands around the cigarette. "You can keep going." The end of the cigarette flares in the shelter of her palms, and he holds the warm lighter in his own, puffing smoke slightly. The ember casts her face in a soft glow. “You’re not real humble, are you?” She smiles slightly and pulls her hands back to her chest, leaning against the wall, her head tilted to the concrete. "Only when it's true." He exhales, tilting his face to the side to let the smoke drift away from her. He keeps his eyes trained on her. “Alright.” Sahra watches him for a moment. "You're pretty hard to get a read on," she says, and then glances down to the cigarette, holding her hand up, fingers pinched together. "You mind if I...?" “Oh. Sure.” He holds it out for her, hand cupped over top, butt-first. “Thought these things killed you?” "Lots of things'll kill you," she says, one hand on his wrist, taking the rumpled cigarette in her fingers. It's been a while since she had a smoke, but she puffs expertly; despite her joke, she was evidently no stranger to it. "Thanks." “No problem,” he says, watching her smoke, and takes the cigarette back when she offers it, flicking ash into the snow at their feet, ignoring the imprint of her lipstick on the filter when he presses it back into his own mouth. “I don’t mean to be so, uh, thick.” It’s a bad choice of words, but he doesn’t feel like elaborating. She shrugs, still watching him, her gaze careful and measured. "I don't mind much," she says. "Leaves room to guess. What are you thinking now? Or—should I guess?" He tilts his head back on his neck, stretching the sore tendons. “Sure. Guess.” She considers for a few moments. "You're thinking...it's fucking cold and you're freezing your balls off. And you're actually in quite a lot of pain, but you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of me. Because you're also thinking how cool and interesting and mysterious I am. Maybe you're thinking about kissing me. I wouldn't blame you. You're not the first. Me being so glamorous, and all. And... you're thinking this is your last cigarette." She grins and taps a finger against her cheek. "So? All right?" Justin watches her for a silent minute, dragging on his cigarette. Then he hands it back to her and exhales, smiling around the long stream of smoke. “Spot on.” She grins and takes the cigarette from him in two fingers, turns her head to exhale smoke, like she was breathing fire in the cold Callistan air, her eyes never moving from him the whole time. "I'm practically psychic," she says, tapping ash into the snow, and hands it back. He takes one last drag and stubs the filter out on the wall, letting it drop onto the pavement. “I think I hear our ride coming,” he says, jerking his head towards the alley entrance, eyes still on her. “It’s too bad.” "Really?" Sahra says, eyes widening. She doesn't even bother to glance towards the alley mouth; her own is too busy trying to remain still. "I don't hear a thing." “Why?” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “You distracted by something?” "Not a thing," she says, leaning back against the wall, her head tilted, a flash of her neck peeking out from around his scarf. "Maybe your hearing's going." Justin shrugs, and looks over his shoulder, out onto the slightly less dark main road. “Possible.” There's a buzz against her chest. She glances down at the handheld—there's a message from Reggie. Ten minutes away or less, mija. There's whiskey waiting for you! She folds it back into her coat and looks back to Justin. "Care to guess what I'm thinking?" “Well, I’m not psychic like you,” he says. She grins. "That's why it's a guess." He laughs. “Okay, Sahra. You’re thinkin’... you’re freezin’ your ass off. And your ankle hurts, but you don’t wanna complain about it ‘cause you don’t want me to think you’re annoying. And you’re thinkin’ about getting back to the ship in one piece, and hopin’ Reggie ain’t too mad about the way we handled things back there.” He leans on his shoulder against the wall, next to her. “And you also want me to kiss you, because I’m mysterious and you liked when I did it before and you wouldn’t’a mentioned it yourself if you weren’t already thinkin’ about it.” Sahra smiles, long and slow, with all of her teeth, and makes a small buzzer sound—bzzz. "All wrong." Justin shrugs, expressionless. “Told you. I ain’t psychic.” "All I was thinking," she says, shifting with some effort along the wall, until she is right beside him, until, their bodies turned at this angle, she is all but pressed to his chest, her hand on his coat, careful not to hit his broken rib. She lifts her face up to him. Snowflakes from his beard shake out onto her cheek. "...is that I hope my breath doesn't still smell like bar snacks." And with that, she doesn't give him room to do anything else but acquiesce: she kisses him, pulling his face down by a hand on the back of his neck, pushing her lips into his, his beard scratching her cheeks, her mouth parting his. The handheld buzzes against her chest again. She ignores it. Justin doesn’t even feel it, even pressed against each other as they are; his hands are at her neck, slid under his scarf, warming his cold fingers against her skin, and he loses track of time with his mouth on hers, squashed into this cold alley with snow floating around them. Naturally, it has to end at some point, but Justin lingers, pressing a small kiss onto her lower lip, his eyes fluttering open. He laughs, face still pushed close to hers. “Jesus.” Sahra doesn't even realize she's shivering until she tries to pull her hands from him, from the front of his coat, the back of his neck, and they tremble so badly at being separated, she can't help but oblige them. She doesn't feel cold. This is something else entirely. It takes her a few moments to catch her breath, and she laughs along with him, faint and airy, her forehead on his cheek. "Wow," she says, and laughs again, pulls her face back just enough to look at him. "You have snow on your eyelashes." Justin ducks his head, pulling his hand from her neck to swipe at his eyes. His fingers come away wet. “I guess I do.” "Ah—put your hand back, it's freezing!" she says quickly, pressing even closer to him, her shivering now actually do as much to the cold as her trembling skin. He does as ordered, resting his thumb in the hollow of her clavicle, and shakes his head. “Y’know, we’d be there by now if we just walked.” Sahra reaches up in the scant space between them and gently, gently, wipes thick white flakes of snow from this bushy eyebrows, his curly beard. "The speeder'll be here soon," she says. “Good,” he says, his voice low and gravely, as if speaking too loudly would disturb the moment, the perfect descent of the flakes around them. “Thanks, darlin’.” She smiles against his cheek, presses a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Any time." |