Small Talk

Where else would Chromedome be at a bar but at the bar, his legs hooked up under, heels knocked up against the rungs of the stool. They must be sturdytastic stools. He's nursing an oil. It's his second or third, but it's watered-down anyway. A thick finger tracks the menu items distractedly.
It's a good thing that Hot Rod isn't trying to sneak up on Chromedome, because -- wow. Is he ever easy to spot. He enters, pauses in the doorway all square-stanced, square-shouldered, and then makes his way further in with a disappointed twitch of his spoiler in a shrug. He glances at the tables more closely in passing, but doesn't seem to find who he is looking for, so he makes do with Chromedome. He slides in next to him. They have sort-of-not-really met about once, which makes his familiar, "Hey," inappropriate.
Chromedome slides his face toward Hot Rod, his yellow-tinted eyeplate all unreadable default. His finger, still on the menu. "Hello," he greets in turn, with a glance over the bar tables. "Couldn't find someone better to sit with?"
"Seat was open, you looked bored," Hot Rod explains with a smile. "So how's the crime-scening? I don't think I got your name. I know your grumpy blue friend got /mine/."
"Rod, wasn't it?" Chromedome imperfects. His head swings on back. "Chromedome's me," he provides in lieu of crime-scening.
"Hot Rod." The 'hot' is important. Look at the flames on his chest. /Of course it is important/. He looks much too pleased with himself for having a name even half-remembered /considering the context of their introduction/. "So -- everything worked out?"
"Hot Rod," Chromedome repeats tolerantly, although toleration shifts into mild irritation quickly enough. "I don't know why you think I'm at liberty to discuss my investigation with you. Besides, I don't talk about work at bars."
Hot Rod holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "Hey! I'm not asking specifics. I'm just making conversation. You know: how's work, how about that weather, how do you feel about the riots in Kaon."
"What do you do, exactly?" Chromedome gives the lie to that whole talking-about-work thing. He lifts finger from menu, cups hand around his drink.
With a broad shrug, Hot Rod says, "Run things around, mostly." This is different from 'run around things', which would imply racer, despite his paint job. "But -- hey, if you need something done fast, I'm your mech!" Fast vs well; fast vs. thoroughly.
"I'll keep that in mind. You hang around crime scenes as a hobby? Activist hobby," Chromedome tries to pin down all exact-like. "Riots, deaths, the plight of the mech, the plight of the femme."
Revisiting his placating gesture with emphasis, Hot Rod says, "Like I said, I run things around. I was just passing through. Saw the crowd. Have some friends in the area is all. I'm not going to be throwing down any manifestos here, but I don't see a lot to laugh about in the plight of people who live in the Dead End."
Chromedome lifts his hand, slow-dismissive. "Who's laughing? It's a miserable place. No one denies that." If he speaks about it with some distance, well, he's middle-caste, isn't he? "It's okay to admit you want to toss around pamphlets, honestly. Leverage what you want. I'm just forensics. Not going to bring you in."
"Ha." Hot Rod laughs sharp and skeptical. "Nah." He somehow manages to control himself: no pamphlets, no manifestos. "Figured with a name like yours it had to be something smart like that. Probably smart enough to fix the miserable bits, right?"
Chromedome snorts, a deep-muffled sound past his placid non-face. "If you think bringing in a perp or few will fix the miserable bits, sure. I'm just working the streets. Not that different from you."
"Maybe a little different." Hot Rod turns toward the bar to finger his way down the menu to the really cheap stuff. "So ... weather?"
"Beautiful. For my tastes." Chromedome holds up his glass in a toast to nothing but sky. Drains it.
Hot Rod mutters something that sounds like, "Yeah, great weather to be homeless and murdered in the Dead End," which doesn't sound like him avoiding plights AT ALL.
Chromedome lowers his glass. He swivels his head back toward Hot Rod and his mutters. He can't smile, but maybe, deep down, he's trying. Some gentle, quelling smile of perfect sympathetic neutrality. If you can have sympathetic neutrality. "If you're dead, you can't feel the weather. Can make my job hard, though."
Hot Rod can smile. He does so. Taking his cheap, cheap drink when it comes and sliding out of his seat, he says, "Well, enjoy the weather, then." He glances past Chromedome in the direction of a perfectly innocuous recent arrival and then inclines his head in farewell. "Chromedome."
Chromedome inclines his head in echo. "Hot Rod. I'm sure we'll meet again." He turns back to the bar, and the fiddled-upon menu.