Harm's Way (Joy)

[Cadmon Geller]

He let out a chuckle at her remark, it was entirely accurate for all intents and purposes that he would find an equally dingy holdout within a week. Prying open a busted cabinet, he pulled a half empty bottle of whiskey and quickly unsealed it, taking a swig. The liquid burned on its way down, but he didn't care, it numbed some of the throbbing in his skull and that was about all he could ask for at the time.

"I believe it, they don't leave much in the way of evidence." Cadmon replied, leaning against the wall and sliding all the way down to the floor, resting his throbbing head against the drywall. To hear that the investigation wasn't turning up much wasn't much of a shocker, whoever was behind it was damn good, their work was both professional and incredibly non-conventional, frankly he didn't have a clue what to make of it. "They do make it clear it was their work though, little calling cards left around, usually from a sabaac deck."It was a small thing he'd noticed at a couple of the scenes, at the bombing they'd both bore witness to a card had been left at the main door. Maybe he was making too much of it, but he'd seen it enough times to suspect it wasn't sheer coincidence.

He paused, taking a drink before offering up the bottle to the detective, silently contemplating if trusting the woman meant to hunt him down with information of any kind was going to be a good idea. It probably wasn't, but the throbbing headache, alcohol, and odd sense of camaraderie made it easier to convince himself otherwise. "Gangs down here just got an influx of Imperial weapons, don't know who the supplier is, but they gotta be making a killing right now." Geller mused, in the distance an explosion echoing from a level down, gun and blaster fire following shortly thereafter before fading away. Bastard had struck again just as they'd left, or it was just the usual gang warfare.

"Too bad for these thugs though, all the arms in the world don't seem to be stopping this guy." And like that, he'd laid his cards on the table, given [member="Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento"] what he knew, and likely enough to get started on tracking down the mystery vigilante. He desperately hoped she didn't just take him in now, that would've put a real damper on his mood, more so than usual.

 

[Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento]

Coruscant, Lower Levels, Undetermined Time | Heaven On Hold

---

She took the bottle and listened patiently. Geller had perspective, something she needed and valued. Gripping the drink by the neck she took a rather long drink before offering it back with a cringed expression and a wince, "Feth. That doesn't sound good. I work homicide, only get called in after someone's been bodied. Gangs aren't my beat, and I don't wanna step on toes, but..." Briefly biting the inside of her cheek, Joy recalled that night, with the explosions and Cadmon pulling her down and all that screaming and death. It hadn't been pleasant, but it wasn't the only thing keeping her up at night. Whoever was capable of that deserved to be brought in.

More than him.

No, that wasn't a good way of thinking. After this, when they were done just surviving by the skin of their teeth, things would go back to normal.

Wouldn't they?

"But this nerf herder needs to be taken down." Joy finished, adjusting herself against the wall. The bacta was working, enough that even that little motion didn't make her feel as much pain as she would have felt only 10 minutes ago. Admittedly, the alcohol helped too, though perhaps in ways it shouldn't have. The Nyraanian never could hold her liquor very well, and if he offered the bottle to her again she would just raise a hand and wave it off. Any more and she'd never shut up.

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Spoiler: Interacting With

[member="Cadmon Geller"]

 

[Cadmon Geller]

Cadmon took back the bottle, taking another swig to sate one of his more prominent vices if nothing else. He nodded in understanding as for a moment he suspected she'd simply wave off the vigilante as someone else's problem, above her pay grade. He wouldn't have blamed her, rumor had it overstepping your bounds was a good way to end up in a ditch somewhere, but to his surprise she seemed to share his sentiment.

The repeat attacker wasn't some crusading hero trying to destroy crime, he had an agenda, and he needed to be taken down before he implicated a man he saw as a brother. Geller had to question if that was his sole motivation anymore, or if perhaps it ran deeper than that, into more sentimental territory. A twist of fate if there ever was one. Taking another swig his eyes cast downward for a moment as silence hung in the air.

"Then we take him down." Cadmon stated firmly, as if to cement their alliance, his eyes drifting back up to the officer, a hint of respect hiding behind them. He knew whatever he was getting into, it wouldn't last, they'd bag or arrest this guy and that would be it, right back to where they'd been before. At least that was what his cynical nature told him, he wouldn't ever be able to trust anyone but his brothers and sisters long dead, spare one. Right?

[member="Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento"]

 

[Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento]

Coruscant, Lower Levels, Undetermined Time | Heaven On Hold

---

"We?"

What an intangible word. Their worlds weren't meant to collide. She stayed in her line and he in his. Scratching an itch on her forehead with her thumb, Joy let out a tired exhale as she considered it all. This was above her pay grade, above her skill level, pretty much above her everything. A little more certainly, she spoke up once more, "We, then. We do it together."

It felt very forboding to speak those words, and a quiet shiver ran across her shoulders. Standing up wasn't an insurmountable task now that the first aid had begun to work, and her world no longer spun when she got fully vertical, looking down to the drinking vigilante. A silent question hung across her face as she watched expectantly, and it was blatantly obvious as to what it was, too. Could this ever absolve your sins? The softened edge to her eyes indicated that maybe, just maybe, Joy thought it would. Or that it might.

Whether he did was a different story.

"Ready to go?"

---

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Spoiler: Interacting With

[member="Cadmon Geller"]

 

[Cadmon Geller]

He had let that word slip hadn't he? 'We', it was always odd how sometimes the smallest words had the biggest meanings. Before he let himself go down that rabbit hole of thought, Cadmon put down the whiskey, some of the pain from his head having eased away. When [member="Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento"] rose to her feet, Geller's eyes followed her up, the question hidden in her gaze being one he'd already answered.

No.

The good did not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good. Someone had said that once, he didn't care who, but the point was true nonetheless in his mind. This was something he refused to accept he was doing for anything other than personal reasons, even though that was blatantly untrue. Cadmon had done horrible things for horrible people, and for the longest time he'd felt nothing, yet as time went on and he found himself further distanced from the Sith, he began to finally develop his own morality.

It was the worst thing to ever happen to him, because with the shocking discovery that at his core Cadmon knew right from wrong, came the tidal wave of guilt for all the wrong he'd done. It was obvious from the look in his eyes that the weight of his guilt threatened to break him with every passing day, to crush him beneath it. Perhaps by doing this he'd not only protect his brother, but he'd at least take away some of the weight by finally adding in some good to balance it. That was all he could ever hope for wasn't it? Balance.

Screwing back on the top of the bottle and simply setting it down on the floor, Geller rose up once again, fiddling with his helmet until it came back online and clipped it to his belt again. No one had seen it and lived to tell the tale, but he felt the compulsion to not have Joy associated with it in fear of what happened once someone did. "Ready."

 

[Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento]

Coruscant, Lower Levels, Undetermined Time | Heaven On Hold

---

The smile on her face was hollow, but present nonetheless, clearly with the pain gone it was easier to express some emotion, "Only two more levels to go, right?" Joy let some optimism slide into her voice. It was slightly a ploy, though not a bad one -- Like she could sense the internal shift within him and was reacting to try and distract from or to alleviate the burden. Impossible odds, but if an attempt wasn't made, then it would just fester into regret. And if Joy was anything, it was someone who didn't like regrets.

"I'll follow your lead. You know the area better."

Sometimes taking a breather was just enough. Exhaling heavily, Joy set a hand on her sidearm as she waited for Geller to lead her out of the block, past all those who had been staring before and back into the Coruscant night, back into hostile territory. This is going to be a very long night. Mickey will not be pleased. Her GenPals 'Vornskrill' was terribly young still and would go ballistic whenever she returned home after a day out, and she could only guess at the reaction she'd receive after tonight.

Yes. Going home to her six-legged-dog after a very long day of getting shot down in a car, rescued by a somewhat dashing criminal, and making a deal with the devil, would be the epitome of normality.

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Spoiler: Interacting With

[member="Cadmon Geller"]

 

[Cadmon Geller]

Cadmon nodded, two more levels and they'd be clear. Perhaps they'd end up going their separate ways, not follow through on their agreement to work against a common enemy, just forget it ever happened, but he doubted it. Cadmon knew he'd keep his end, and some little voice in his mind urged him to trust [member="Joy Erantes-do-Nascimento"] to do the same. Something about this seemed different, like it wasn't just another set up where in the end things will be exactly as he feared they would, something was just right about this time.

It was strange.

The walk was quiet, the two couldn't say much that wouldn't give the wandering masses of the criminal element a reason to either kill or capture them, and as a whole was uneventful. Before parting ways he would pass of small communicator to the detective, so that they would be able to communicate, and that was that. She would return to her apartment, him to the primary chithole he'd been staying in, her to her pet and him to booze and nightmares. It almost felt normal, working with a cop to take down a vigilante with goals likely deeper and more sinister than waging a personal war on crime, in the heart of a state he'd hated since it came into existence with the goal of protecting a missing friend and the denizens of the planet.

All that was almost normal, he told himself, surely he'd been through stranger before out in the galaxy.

He hadn't.

(END)