Gotta Get Away

[Codename: Abaddon]

"Reggie?"

The question was directed at Beck rather than the man. As in, who is Reggie, and why are you on first name terms with this walking talking cuckold. Is this the kind of big and ugly man you find on a big and ugly space station? Is this the kind of dick she finds herself with on the reg? How dare she have this nice meal under false pretenses and have her cuck show up like this, and with his kinky bondage gear too. Hey wait, those aren't BDSM regulation binders. Those look... official. The fuck is all this?

Grabbing the air vents on the front of his helmet, he pulled it back down into place. Even without a blaster he had plenty of other methods of inflicting damage, the kind that shouldn't have made it through spaceport security but those brain dead Interplanetary Security Administration dweebs weren't exactly that great at their jobs. Alliance security is a joke. Standing up, Abaddon was about to give the guy six inches of new throat before he remembered where he was, and that thing Fook had said. Couldn't remember the exact words, but something about making less of a mess, or collateral damage, or was it wearing a condom? The point was something about safety.

"You might want to rethink that, Robbie."

[Reginald Buckley III]

In exactly the sort of way that all law enforcement officers acted, Buckley lifted a hand to give a splayed palm a whisper of a distance from the Mask's chest.

"Calm down, sir. Ms. Beck and I have some business that needs to be concluded... "

His eyes never left hers, the frown he wore slowly shifting into a thin-lipped straight line.

"... on Nar Shadaa."

Ah, there was that spark of anger beginning from behind those glasses she wore. Cuffed together, he grasped her hand with his in an effort to begin pulling her to her feet.

"Leaving the Vertical City doesn't mean you're exempt from the consequences of being in the Turbolaser Run."

She was on her feet now, but he maintained his iron grip while casting another look to the Mask.

"You change up your driver? Last one didn't seem so hell-bent on keeping his face hidden."

[Tamera Beck]

Dragged up to her feet, Tamera gave a pout as she tried to pry his grip off of her hand.

"Hey now, the Run was seven months ago... "

It was no use; he wasn't about to relent to her digging fingernails.

"Besides, you're out of your jurisdiction, you know?"

Exasperated, she could tell Abby was a little tense - ok a lot tense - and she pulled her free hand away to reach out, matching Reg's outstretched hand to Abby's chest with her own.

"It's ok, Abby. Just a little... misunderstanding."

[Codename: Abaddon]

One hand in my face, shame on you. Two hands in my face, shits about to explode. Ain't nobody in the 'verse got the right to put hands on Abaddon. Abaddon does not enjoy being touched. It either leaves scratches or grease marks on the armor. That Abaddon just polished before getting on that goddamn transport and flying his heavily armored, weapon concealing, blazing headache, bad ass all the way to this back ass planet on which he was now in a Rodian Standoff with a Coochy Mama with all that and some Puul Zborp food court cop. Both of them had their hands up, both of them were telling Abaddon to stand down. Abaddon did not want to stand down. Abaddon wanted a bucket of Vosh, the Coochy Mama on a platter, and new carpet for the Nemesis.

Standing down was none of those things. Abaddon wanted to smash. One way or another.

"You. Better. Start. Explaining. Den." Each word was forced through clenched teeth and punctuated by the sound of the soft and hard materials of his gauntlets scrunching together into tight fists.

[Tamera Beck]

'Den'?

Wait, what?

His accent had been bare at best before, but now it was unmistakable. And... well... it was a little... ok well it was attractive. And that was saying something considering she'd not even seen his face!

"It's ok, I promise," she tried to further smooth over those rough tones of his. Those rough, angry, and undeniably... hot tones. She bit her lip, sent a quick look to Reg, then back to Abby.

A 'henh', a weak smile (just like her weak knees right now), and a last look back to Reg.

"... Well?!"

She gave her cuffed wrist a shake for good measure.

[Reginald Buckley III]

The Mask was upset. Understandable. But Beck wasn't helping anything by being, well, herself.

Her prompt only made him let out an impatient sight.

"It's all procedural, Sir. Nothing to be concerned over. Ms. Beck here simply participated in a dangerous, unsanctioned race back on Nar Shadaa that she needs to make reparations for."

It was all cut and dry to him. Finally, he looked to the Mask. The creaking of the other man's wrist-wear as his arms tensed and hands balled itno fists was not lost on him, and his outstretched hand retracted a fraction of an inch before going back out to give a reassuring pat to Mask's shoulder.

"I'm sure that as an upstanding citizen you can understand the need for law and order in these sorts of situations."

[Codename: Abaddon]

Abaddon looked at the hand on his shoulder, and then back at the owner of said hand.

"First rule of working with Abaddon is; nobody touches the Abaddon."

The Abaddon. Just Abaddon. No The. Abaddon had enough. The first rule was broken. Abaddon only allowed beautiful dames to touch the armor. A seven at least. Porkins here was not a lady, nor a seven. Fingers had been broken and faces smashed for a whole lot less than the condescending shoulder tap that Abaddon had just received. It was go time. Blade stabbin', tooth crackin', ball tappin', fistpocalyse.

"You obviously do not know who I am; Abaddon. Bounty Hunterr. Merrcenary. I have so many confirmed kills I stopped keeping count. I have a reputation for extreme violence and messy success. This armor is a FutureTech limited release worth hundreds of thousands of credits. See the sealed holes, the carbon scoring? I've been shot so many times I look like Nubian cheese under here, and I'm still going. I'm a big ass, hard ass, bad ass. And the only reason I haven't fist fucked you into cuck soup is because the beautiful lady keeps saying it's okay. And if you think I'm afraid of doing it in front of all these people behind us, than you don't know jack shit about me. So tell me Bobby, is everything okay or am I going to have to remove those binders one broken finger at a time?"

Each word came out perfectly measured, like a prepared speech practiced in front of a mirror a thousand times. His voice never rose above conversation level, but that didn't stop him from stressing the appropriate words. Abaddon was unhappy. Abaddon was letting officer Bobert know it. No badge, no uniform. Out of jurisdiction whatever the fuck he actually. Oh, yes. Rob was about to get creamed.

[Tamera Beck]

'Beautiful lady'.

Beautiful lady.

Out of that entire word salad, only two struck home, and Tamera blinked in surprise as she felt her mouth fall open.

Still cuffed to Reg, she felt her knees finally give way and once more she plopped down into her seat, roughly pulling the Nar Shadaan away from Abby with a jerk.

[Reginald Buckley III]

The sudden shift of body weight was enough to pull him off-balance, and Buckley steadied himself once more, letting out a cough while pulling back his hand to swipe it down the front of his button-up shirt.

"Well, ehm... Abaddon."

Deciding it might be better to remove the link between himself and Beck, Reg unclasped the half that locked him to her, and instead snapped it over her free wrist. Now fully handled, she wouldn't be too terribly rowdy. She had that hidden side to her, after all. He'd seen it once before, and wasn't going to take any chances.

The Mask however, was another story.

"Seems we've gotten off to a rough start. But as a bounty hunter, I have to say, this is the sort of thing you should be taking my side on."

[Codename: Abaddon]

"Hold up, did you just suggest that the unlawful extradition of a person is the same as collecting a bounty? If the Guild found out that you're kidnapping ladies and calling it bounty hunting they would make things very messy for you, Billy."

Bring fists down on table. Knuckles first. Apply weight. Lean forward. Classic. Intimidation 101.

"Here's how this is going to play out Robert. If this is a bounty then I'm stealing it from you. If this is a kidnapping then I'm Ms. Beck's bodyguard and I will stop you. I may not be in the Guild but I am on good terms with House Benelex. They really like it when I drop those fat stacks on them. They specialize in kidnapping retrieval, not that you would know, and they would have a keen interest in all of this. You dig? You should scram before you get hurt, little Brrickhousse Bobby. You are way out of your league."

[Tamera Beck]

Still in a slight daze from Abby's words, she simply stared up into the air. Hands still cuffed together, Tamera sat like a statue.

She didn't even register Reg anymore; he was a background footnote at this point.

"I'm a 'beautiful lady'," she sighed out, stars in her bespectacled eyes.

[Reginald Buckley III]

The blustering did little to dissuade him, and Buckley stood his ground.

"Now look here," his voice grew hard.

"I don't care if you're the heir of some Hutt fortune, Ms. Beck is coming back to Nar Shadaa with me."

A finger extended, then jabbed into the Mask's chest.

"You can take it up with the Planetary Constabulary if you want, but throwing out names won't do you any good."

[Codename: Abaddon]

The finger had barely touched a repaired armor plate before Abaddon grabbed his wrist with one hand and twisted, and with the other grabbed his elbow and twisted more, forcing Officer Porkins to turn his body along with it or risk what certainly felt like several broken bones from his fingertips all the way to his shoulder. The moment he was turned Abaddon brought up a foot and kicked him square in the butt and released his arm, letting him stumble away...

...right into the server that was bringing a tray of food to their table. Both went down with a splash of second degree hot and spicy.

There was a still and unmoving moment as the entire restaurant watched the pair on the floor, and listening to a metal bowl spin to a slow stop. Then the room erupted into motion as serving staff rushed out to see what happened and the customer base either turned away and ignored it, or began chattering noisily between themselves about it. A few fixed rude stares at the black armored bounty hunter, and at least one lady with a very sharp haircut and sunglasses began whispering frantically into her comm unit while clutching the string of pearls wrapped around her neck.

"Time to go."

Grabbing Beck's hand he tugged her from her seat and around the table while also reaching for, and repeatedly failing, to grab the handle of his wheeled luggage tote until he finally found purchase and pulled the two together; which resulted on most of the chairs being knocked over all the way to the door. The door dinged again as he ran back inside to grab Beck's suitcase, and kick Porkins in the ribs while he was trying to get up. Once out on the street he looked frantically up and down the street while the HUD inside his helmet powered back up from sleep mode. A loading icon in the bottom left corner spun annoyingly until it finally reconnected to the local holonet and at his command brought up a map of the area; with a big red pin stuck into the seedy hotel he booked as his lodging.

Also several highly recommended Shi'taki places.

Adjusting his grip on her hand resulted in the alarming sound of metal chain rattling against itself. Oh right. The cuffs. That was a problem. He could probably smash them with the hard edges of his gloves; but that would probably break her hands too. Fuck. He needed a blaster. Badly. Dammit. Why was this the trip where he couldn't afford the weapon permits to bring his Hadron Destroyer along. That thing would have made short work of these cuffs, and Officer Porkins, and the wall behind them, and the building across the street. It was fucking sweet.

"Gotta get you out of these before Ricky gets up. Come on, let's get out of sight. Please tell me you have some sweet tools in that bag of yours that'll cut those off."

Ignoring traffic, he dragged her across the street, both of their suitcases bouncing off the duracrete, as speeders stopped to let them cross in a storm of cussing and threats.

[Tamera Beck]

Cuffs always made things more difficult, and being pulled along by Abby while trying to keep a hold of her My Little Dewback hardcase, Tamera at least didn't feel too awkward. It wasn't the worst thing to happen to her. No, that had been when her grandmother had randomly sent her a frilly lingerie set, and her old workmates back at the shop had opened it up thinking it was cookies. Because of course grandmothers sent cookies to their grandchildren! It was like some written rule! She'd told them to go ahead and tear it up to get at the sweet delicious treats held inside, and they'd come back up with a lacy black number and a handwritten letter that said she needed to find a man, and Grammy Beck was going to help her.

That was infinitely more weird and awkward than this right now - being dragged along a busy thoroughfare by a guy that refused to take off his mask, handcuffed, and doing her best to tote about a child's suitcase.

"Please tell me you have some sweet tools in that bag of yours that'll cut those off."

"Um, well," she was breathless, managing to stay on her feet.

In her suitcase were certainly no tools. Just clothes, her toiletries, a book of crosswords to pass the time, a pair of ratty house shoes, and...

... and...

Dodging a swoop, Tamera bit her lip as she hopped up onto the pedwalk on the other side of the street.

... and that very same lacy black number that Grammy Beck had sent her. She shifted her hands, trying to reposition her wrists just a bit.

"No tools, sorry."

[Codename: Abaddon]

Think, Abaddon, think! Keep your cool, you don't want her to think your as big a loser as your being right now. There's bound to be a locksmith around here. A shitty city like this probably has one next to every liquor store, and liquors stores have to be everywhere. But you don't have enough credits for that. Dammit. Okay, what do you have in your own bag? An armor bolter, collapsible armor stand, armor polish, Bigweld armor repair kit, change of clothes... yeah. That was about it. This was supposed to be a big wam, bam and done kind of trip. Not whatever this was turning into; some kind of spiraling out of control trainwreck.

Oh god. Beck probably already thinks I'm totally lame. A real dude would have figured this out already. Fook was right. I am a loser.

If only he had something hard. Really hard. And unattached to his body. Looking around there was no convenient poles, heavy trash, or duracrete chunk. Dragging her down the street as he searched but only causing more of a scene, and they were technically still in full view of the restaurant. A thin alley between two buildings opened up beside them, and Abaddon quickly pulled his hot date into it and out of sight. There was nothing here, just a dead end hallway with dumpsters and locked doors lining it. Fuck. Speaking of duracrete, there was a halfwall of the stuff alongside one doorway, but that was hardly helpful. He couldn't lift that. It'd make a good surface for breaking the chain of the cuffs over, if he had something to hit it with.

Then it dawned on him. A solution. An impossible one. No. Nope. Not going to do it. I'm not going to take my helmet off and use it as a hammer. I don't want Beck to see me. Not like this, or ever. God dammit. There has to be another. Sheeeeeeeeet.

"Uhh, come on over here. Put the chain over the top of this block. Yeah. Like that. Sweet. I'm going to smash it with my helmet. Close your eyes and, uh, look away. Got me? I don't want to getting hit in the eye with my flying bits. Hold tight."

One moment he was curling down, bringing his head down as hard as he could into the chain and hoping to god he didn't miss and hit one of her hands, and the next moment he was vaguely aware he was on the ground. Everything hurt, a klaxon and HUD warning was informing him on a dangerous impact. The edges of his vision were dark and blurry, and he wasn't quite sure where he was. There was a vague awareness that a woman was standing over him. Beck. He was having a hard time making out what she was saying. She had a pair of broken handcuffs around her wrists, and something inside told him that was a good thing. Oh damn, his visor had a crack in it. Fuuuuuuck!

[Tamera Beck]

"Are you brain-damaged?"

She kept coaxing him back to a state of... something, hoping that he wasn't too impaired from his show of muscle-headed - literally - force. And if he wasn't touched in the head before, he had to be now.

Her suitcase was all but forgotten as she bent over him, concern in her eyes as she hissed out her annoyance. Annoyance that he would be so stupid.

"Come on you meathead," she ground out, trying to pull him up, "... we gotta get away."

Gotta get away.

Ha.

She'd hoped that this little forced vacation to visit family would be a way to get away from the daily grind. Now, it had turned into something that was much the same, except so very different.

She didn't even register the wild eyes that were now exposed from behind the cracked and shattered helmet He was a blur in her frenzied state, and she tugged all the harder, trying to ooze him up to his feet.

"Come on!"

[Codename: Abaddon]

"I'm fine. I mean, it's no big deal. This armor is tough."

Andnowitsbrokenomgwhatthefuck!

Running a finger along the hairline crack he gave it a thorough poking to assess the level of damage. The HUD wasn't working properly and air was clearly getting through so it wasn't airtight anymore, but it was hardly the worst damage he'd sustained to a helmet. Heh. That time on Ord Mantell had been a really close call, hadn't it? Whatever happened to that shattered helmet? Who knows. He lived and the other guy went back to jail. That's what's important and not how many bacta tanks it took to stabilize your injuries.

"I'll seal up the crack when I get to my hotel and run a diagnostic. Usually fixes it up. No big deal. I got a lot of armor. A whole room. It's pretty cool. Speaking of hotel, you should probably lay low until Officer asshole loses your trail. If you don't have anywhere else to go, you could stay with me. You know, for a few hours or whatever. Until it's safe. No big deal or anything."

[Tamera Beck]

The offer was sweet. It really was.

She brushed him off though, as she pulled him out onto the main walkway, and got him actually moving. The more she thought about it though, the more it made sense, and Tamera gave a quick look over her shoulder.

Reg wasn't there yet, so they were good on that front.

"Your place?"

Another look. They were still good.

Didn't mean they would be in the near future.

"Ok yeah, that sounds good."

With one hand still holding on to the pull-handle of her luggage and the other grasping his arm, she led them further along.

"Where did you reserve a room?"

[Codename: Abaddon]

"Uh... the Sunset Lodge. It's around here somewhere. If I can just get my HUD to work...oww." he paused to smack himself in the side of the head, which made everything hurt more and caused his HUD to blink out entirely. Shit. Oh. I know.

Turning around and unzipping a front pocket on his luggage he pulled out a datapad. It was clearly the newest SheeTech model, but was already quite dirty around the edges and the screen had an ugly scrape in it's surface. It snapped to life and he scrolled through a few screens, with great difficultly as the tip of his glove was not registering very well, and eventually found his reservation, and a street address.

"14404 Bullivar Street. Okay... We're on Gallus, and if this city is like other's it's probably built on a numerical and alphabetical grid system. Just gotta follow it from G to B. Easy. Oh wait, I probably have a map on here... Oh. I was completely wrong. It's just a few blocks over. Let's go."

There wasn't much to say, so he let the clickety clack of wheels bouncing off cracks in the duracrete sidewalks fill the air while his head spun on a swivel keeping an eye out for Porkins. Other than a few long waits to cross at several intersections, it didn't take them all that long to make it the distance to the Sunset Lodge. From the moment he saw the half-illuminated sign with a missing G he knew this was not going to be a nice place. He had booked it based on price, which was cheap, because that's all he could afford these days. This was not the kind of cool dude place he wanted to take a lady back to. Damn. There was no way he was going to get a slice of that booty after this. Oh well, at least he could help her out. That was worth a warm fuzzy or something.

Check in was a breeze. The guy at the counter looked like a puddle of slime that had gotten up and taken the form of a man, and he looked so done with life that he barely even acknowledged them or said anything more than a grunt. Taking the keycard to the room of the matching number didn't get them anywhere, as the door wouldn't open. A few more tries with the card proved the same, and they were forced to go back to the office, get the card reissued, and this time it worked. Fuck! Could this get any more uncool?

"Make yourself at home. I'll be just a minute."

[Tamera Beck]

The room was like any other cheap motel room. Yellowing wallpaper that had probably started life as a delightful and chic patterned print, but was no nothing more than a visual tragedy of geometric shapes. The carpet was... well, it wasn't really carpet anymore, was it? It was just hard-packed and heavily compressed fabric fulff. The flimsy furniture of a half-desk, a chair that looked more rickety than Palpatine's cane, a dresser that probably still had a pair of old underoos shoved in the back of the top drawer, a nightstand with a lamp that had been bolted to it, and...

... and a single queen-sized bed.

Well, she wasn't staying the night here anyways, so the immediate worry of 'oh dammit where am I sleeping' was shunted off with a silly afterthought.

Of course she wasn't staying here the night! She had her own hotel room, with her own bed. She just needed to stay low and out of sight since apparently Reg was on the prowl.

That jerk.

"So!"

She grabbed the remote for the holo, and sitting heavily on the bed (oh gods, it didn't have bed bugs, did it?!), immediately jumped up once more. Tamera flicked the holo on in an effort to suppress that lovely thought. She cycled through a litany of channels, not finding anything worth while.

"You make a habit out of bashing your face on things?"