Private Heart Heart Head

[Sam Rodarch]

The room stinks to high heaven like stale sweat, blood and pure ethanol.

"...are you drunk already? Dad, it ain't even noo-"

The lights are dim, there's broken glass on the floor.

"Who'ryou? Th'fuggin' police?"

Bleary, bloodshot eyes can't stomach the light. Spent all morning crying.

"Mom's gone."

Gaunt, sagging skin.

"I'know...she..it'llbe'kay...she...shet."

Yellow flesh.

"It's all your fault..."

Yellow man.

"Excuse you, love. That is definitely not my fault."

"...waf?"

Out of sync, two brown eyes slowly eased themselves open, revealing a colour palette of muddied rust and neon glows. A figure sat in blurred glory alongside Sam, who was slowly piecing together that she had earned herself an all-inclusive stay at the arena medical station. Shet. Had she lost? Instinctively, Rodarch groaned and attempted to roll away from her bedside figure but a gentle hand on her arm impeded any progress.

"...fug'off'Sulf," Sam garbled to what she thought was her travelling companion, realising through the taste of copper and a travelling tongue that she had a lot fewer teeth than she had started the day with.

"Still way off base, darling."

It checked out, given that the voice that was intruding upon Sam's monumental climb back into consciousness was that of a woman's and not, in fact, the voice of a drawling self-satisfied soulless psychopath.

"Do you always introduce yourself to new people via unconscious daddy issues?"

A rude woman.

"...f'fug'usay?" Sam garbled in concussed offensive as she attempted to sit up and confront her tormentor only to be halted by a sharp stab of abdominal pain that served to remind the shockboxer that she had just had ten shades of shet battered out of her and that sudden movements were perhaps not the way forward, "GAA-aah!"

That same gentle hand pushed Rodarch's attempted rebellion back down onto the bed, the pads of her fingers firm and assertive but at the same time delicate.

"If you keep carrying on like this then I will sedate you, 'cus you seem a lot more tolerable when you think that I'm your drunk dad."

Rodarch's throat made an offended grunt and her eyes made their best attempt to focus, just so she could stare furiously at the taunting voice, the soft edges of the figure slowly hardening yet still obscured by haze and shadows. There was a smile there, toothy in the flash of white that she could see through the fog of concussion. Before Sam's scrambled brain could put together some kind of furious threat, her tormentor spoke again.

"Thatta girl. Try and focus. Keep looking my way."

As Sam (still furiously and with clenched fists) stared, blurred features began to make more sense. Shapes becoming sharper and yet somehow softer all at once. "That's it." Jawline. Lips. Nose. Smile. Brow. Hair. Eyes. Scars. That's what drew her in first, one thick bugger across the bridge of the woman's nose and another jagged number all the way down the left side of her face, through eyebrow to the jaw.

Fingers interrupted her stare as they wiggled before her, "You know the drill, count 'em."

"...uuagh...'free."

"Well, I'm happy to diagnose that you can count to three," the woman chirped brightly, withdrawing her hand and moving to her open carry case full of medical supplies before she cast a brief glance back at Sam, "what? Not even a groan? That one usually gets most people."

The apparent medic tilted her head and returned attention to her supplies, "Then again, you don't seem the type for D-A-D jokes."

"...waf da fug'ryou falkin 'bouf?"

As the woman prepared bacta spray, she handed over a chill pac to the fighter with an awkward smile, "For your jaw, love," and then she stopped and blinked, "or for your eye," her brow furrowed, "or your li-...look, I only have one, so you just do you, okay?"

Sam took the pac and just placed it over as much of her face as she can, tender beginnings of violent bruising objecting to the weight of the aid.

"I watched your fight," the woman continued as if she was soothed by the sound of her own voice, equipping herself with a medical interface visor as she spoke, "and, I mean, I'm no expert here but..." she paused to mouth the word 'yikes' at the sight of yet more contusions "...have you considered dodging?"

"...haf'uconsida'dshuffindafugup?" Came the blunt and surly response through the muffle of the chill pac.

"You know I have the rest of your teeth, right? If you keep this up you're not going to get them back."

"Fug'off."

There was a swift hiss and prick in Sam's shoulder, eliciting an offended grunt as true to her word, the medic had indeed sedated the rude Mandalorian and as she felt herself drift out of their plane and into the realm of vague consciousness she squeaked in a hazy and vulnerable admission:

"nooo...gib ma teef..."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

There was a soft hum.

It nudged itself softly through the blackness, its presence warming like a blanket fresh out of the drier. The glow trickled like a golden liquid up her spine and collected in the top of her head, tingling with a gentle pitter-patter, like rain inside of her skull.

The soothing sound, ethereal at first grew not louder but more present, more tangible as if becoming real. Shapeless vowels and syllables ever-so-slowly matching and melding to form traces of words and song.

It stopped.

Was she finally dead? Succumbed to the eventual brain damage that would no doubt end her life?

"Welcome back, love."

Why did everything taste like mint?

Rodarch's eyes lazily drifted open awash a sea of numbness only to find that same woman looming over her, smiling like the proverbial bantha that got the hay. Her heavy-lidded stare drifted lazily up to that scar across the woman's nose, drinking in its depth and severity. The medic tilted her head, looking down upon Sam with the curious expectation of a new barrage of verbal abuse.

"Your teeth should be set by now," the woman smiled before wandering away to gather all of her equipment, "just like you had them before...more or less," her voice practically winked, "how'd you like the flavour? It's been a hit with my guys, you know."

"...ugh, ya talk too much," the fighter groaned, running her tongue along the back of her newly reattached teeth to check their stability, oh the wonders of tooth glue, "an' it's'kay."

"It's okay?"

"...yeah?"

The medic looked over her shoulder, her warming smile replaced by an incredulous glance as if she was actually offended. A few awkward seconds lingered before she went back to packing away her supplies.

"You're a real ray of sunshine, you know that, right? I give you the five star, proper VIP treatment, the good stuff and you give me this," the woman finally spoke before doing her best Samantha Rodarch impression, which involved hunching her shoulders and grunting, "Ahm fuggin'fine kark off yeah?"

Sam's swollen face scrunched, as if the fighter had any grounds to be offended in this situation but seeking aggression and matching it was her second favourite hobby, right after exchanging concussions. She sat up, less hampered by former injuries due to the 'good stuff' and sneered into the woman's back.

"Kar-"

"-k off, ugh. Exactly!"

"I don't 'member askin fer yer help, ya fethi-"

"Ya fethin' what?"

Sam suddenly realised that the whole backroom had fallen silent and that the collection of grizzled brawlers that lurked were staring daggers directly at her. Perhaps insulting the good doctor wasn't the healthiest option in the galaxy, although, that should have been obvious from the word go.

"Yeah, I thought as much," she retorted, finally turning around to stare down her terribly combative patient before gesturing to the door, "you're all patched up, you can go now."

"...yea yea, m'gone," Sam grumbled before sliding off of the bed and limping away, her shoulders instinctively started to hunch as she left the room and the woman actively had to fight to keep them down, ensuring that the medic's portrayal of her was no more accurate than it already was. It was a small mercy that she was restrained (still sedated) enough not to start any fights with the rest of the impromptu locker room, especially when a particularly gnarled, grey trandoshan shoulder barged the woman on the way out.

"You better watch your back, schutta."

"Eat shet."

 

[Sam Rodarch]

"Do I even want to know?" Alax Terrik asked, her voice and face in perfect incredulous synergy as she observed the Gamorrean that stood before her, holding his broken off tusk in his great, green mitt.

"I don't, do I?"

It was never a sight that the medic could get used to, seeing a great six-foot-something wall of green muscle and bad smells look bashful but hey, Uktar was always full of surprises. Come to think of it, for a supposedly menacing thug, the porcine bruiser ended up in a lot of terribly embarrassing scrapes.

A smile began at the edge of Alax's lips as she remembered the time that he had tried to crawl through that Sibian hound door on a dare and had gotten stuck. Who could forget the sight of his legs waggling helplessly as the rest of them got consumed by laughter? Eventually, when they couldn't pull him out they were forced to cut him out, leaving a square frame of door wedged around his rotund figure like an ill-fitting belt.

Uktar obviously noticed the mirthfully nostalgic grin and glassy-eyed stare into memories upon her face because he suddenly snorted at the woman in objection.

"YOU SAID NOT BRING UP AGAIN!"

"You're right, Uktar, I'm sorry," Alax conceded and attempted to reign in her urge to descend into a laugh riot and gestured for the Gamorrean to take a seat, "let me just get my glue."

"DA MINTY KIND?"

"You know it, love."

The medic hummed a cheerful tune as she fished out the special mint-flavoured tooth glue and slapped on a pair of gloves (Uktar's dental hygiene was far from ideal). For some, amateur dentistry on a garbage-eating Gamorrean was not an ideal situation, but for Terrik it was just another Centaxday.

"YOUR FRIEND FIGHTED TONIGHT!" he boomed, trying to make conversation as she took his broken tusk from his large ham hand. Alax raised an eyebrow, knowing that this was his best attempt at being coy. Nobody who ever said 'your friend' in that way meant an actual friend.

"Yeah? Which friend was that again?" she asked, trying to narrow down the list of relevant people she didn't like that would be fighting as she applied copious glue to the broken off tusk. Alax already knew who, but she indulged her slower friend nonetheless.

"DA ONE WIF DA TEEF!"

"Ah, who could forget such a font of happiness?" the medic exclaimed before promptly reattaching the large tooth and holding it there, "Now hold still, ya hear?"

They sat for thirty seconds, allowing the glue to work its magic and do a preliminary set and mercifully, Uktar decided to keep schtum and not try and talk while she was pressing the tusk back into place. Although, there was a look in his little piggy eyes that suggested that he had more to say on the matter.

"'Kay, you're all good but don't touch it for a few hours," she chided, narrowing her eyes at his peculiar expression as she peeled off the gloves and tossed them away, "okay, what is it, Uk? You look like the Cathar that got the cream."

"HE SAID NOT TO SAY!"

Oh no.

"Who said?" Alax inquired further, folding her arms across her chest.

"SLYSSK SAID!"

Oh no.

"Uktar," she began, her voice irritated yet firm, like a teacher scolding a small child, "spit it out, or you'll never get the minty stuff ever again."

"HE GONE CHIB DA BITCH FOR YOU! HE SED HE GONNA VENGE YER HONAH!"

"Motherfuc-" Alax began to swear as she made a sudden beeline for her medical bag before interrupting herself with a new statement, "-Uk, I fix people! You can't just go around stabbing them on my behalf!"

"OH."

"I can't believe he's do- Next time, be normal! Buy me some chocolate if you want to cheer me up! Don't just...go around stab- aaaargh!"

And with that she was gone, leaving Uktar to sit there and think about what he had done.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

It was an easier night, one with considerably fewer teeth lost on the grime-infested canvas of Kelada's premier shithole.

The week before had been an anomaly and the usual opposition of barely sentient addicts and vagrants had been replaced by an opponent of actual calibre. Turns out that constantly having a one-punch knock out exhibition is a sure-fire way to lose a step in the squared circle, much to the chagrin of Rodarch's teeth.

Apparently, the circus was in town and one Archibald Sult was already on the case on sussing out who exactly it was that had rolled into the port city (and how they could benefit from it). Stunk like organised crime but that was her companion's bag, not hers.

Nah, she came to avenge her face.

Things started off heated, word of her encounter with the rest of the man's shady little cabal having apparently travelled fast. Fucker even spat at her, which gave their fight a premature beginning. The 'Ferrocrete Fury' that had knocked seven shades of shit out of her last week ended up taking an underhanded metal fist to the kidneys before the bell had even rung.

Still counted as a win.

The rest of the night passed quietly enough with Sam skulking around as far away from the bar as possible just waiting for the booker to begrudgingly payout. It was the usual ritual, with the woman preferring to remain out of the company of drunken braggarts who spewed stale breath and shitty sentiments.

She had Sult for that kind of shit.

What had become routine on a Centaxday night, however, very rapidly devolved into chaos when that threat-spitting trandoshan from the week before blind-sided the woman with his own drive-by blow to her kidneys.

She doubled over before dropping down to her knee, her hand pressing against her side as the sting of the hit reverberated through her.

Then she saw the blood.