The Bottom of the Beer Bottle

[Lion]

Oh-ho-ho, looks like there was a rattlesnake in the cup cake after all!  Quinlan croaked beneath the pressure of the chair leg now being used as a club in an attempt to choke him out.  Did Wakiza NOT realize how counter productive it would be to start interrogation just when he put his intended target in a position that made it impossible for him to answer!?

"AS. IF!" Quinlan coughed and held the stick back with one hand and wedged out the small blade on his left wrist with the other, the tip sprung out just enough to cut into his palm and it stuck it into his hand, drawing a few droplets of blood.  He snatched his wrist and turned the blood that spread there ice cold, an ache that spread like oil on fire.

And the ice would continue to spread across his flesh.  "I ain't telling you shit!" he growled.  He wasn't in much of a position to resist.  But when another bottle came smashing across the back of Wakiza's head, this time by one of the men that had managed to stay out of the fight so far.  And Quinlan felt a wave of relief over him, even as another man dragged him up by his collar.

"Oh, good.  Thanks guys.  I was afraid this'd have to get messy," Quinlan said, fixing his clothes, only to have another bottle smashed across his own head and everything suddenly went black.

[Rhindeer]

When Wakiza woke, his head a throbbing mess of pain that sent lights dancing in his vision, he was...

Not in the tavern anymore.

It took a few moments for him to register that. The room he was in was dimly lit, and it wasn't a room at all, on closer look. He was inside a tent, stretched out onto his side with his arms bound behind his back and his legs bound at the ankles. A little wriggling confirmed he wasn't bound with rope, but with iron shackles. Smart. Whoever had done it knew thieves were a squirrely bunch. A little more wriggling revealed what he'd already assumed--he'd been thoroughly disarmed, his bracers gone from his wrists and his hunting knife gone from his belt.

He took all this in rather calmly for someone who was realizing they'd been knocked out and captured, because this wasn't the first time he'd been captured. Calmly save for a flicker of outrage when he realized, shiiit. That one auburn-haired dick had been trying to clobber him. Not even outrage at the other guy, but outrage at himself for getting beaten by the dick! But then, as his eyes adjusted and focused more, he saw that he wasn't alone.

Because said auburn-haired dick was laying across from him, likewise trussed up.

Well. That changed matters significantly.

Glancing around to be sure they were alone, he started to wriggle his way toward him, gritting his teeth against the aches in his body. "Hey. Hey. You awake?"

[Lion]

Quinlan had had headaches before.  They might have even been called divine.  It tended to happen when you had drunken tussles with people you had no intention of ever seeing again for the rest of your natural born life.  He just about thought he'd had one when he recalled a stinging pain from the back of his head.  No, that couldn't have been from a headboard.

He opened his eyes and saw the other bound man wriggling toward him.  "What the fuck!?" he hissed and tried to get up and run away only to wiggle little better than Wakiza.  "What!  What did you do!?" he growled. 

He turned to man and kicked him hard in the legs with both feeth and rolled away on his hands.  "The fuck did you do to me, man?!  It ain't supposed to've happened like this!"

[Rhindeer]

"Ow, you fucker!" Wakiza snarled, and tried to aim a kick back at the bastard, missing by a foot. "What the hell are you talking about? What did I do? What do you mean what did I--"

And then he barked a laugh at the implications and gave a rather dramatic (if fish-like) flop at that to demonstrate that he, too, was bound tight. "Oh, right! What did I do? Obviously I tied myself up and locked us both away! Also, I hit myself over the fucking head, too. For fun. And to fuck with you. It's all an elaborate ruse, you see."

[Lion]

Despite their situation and clear cause for over dramatics, Quinlan glared at Wakiza's clear mocking of him.  The bastard.  This was all his fault anyway.  Perhaps not by a direct cause, but it was all the same to him!  Instead of just getting knocked out like he was supposed to, he had to go and mess this whole job up!  What a fucking selfish asshole!

Quinlan sat up and spat in his direction, but not at him.  "Fine, fuckface, I get it. Cut the shit," he said with a roll of his eyes.  He looked up an around at their surroundings.  Fuck his head felt like it'd been split open, and he might've thought just as much if he felt blood on his hair.  If it was, it was already dried.

"Fuck," he hissed.  "Look, man, if you think I have any idea where we are, you've got it wrong.  I'm as clueless as you are."

[Rhindeer]

Wakiza glared death at the man, ready to lay into him some more because he was pissed. He came out to have a good time (and smother his face in some tits) and he was honestly feeling so attacked right now.

Just. One night of fun. That's it. He wasn't even working! Not even trying to con anyone! (Except, well, to con his way under their skirts.) Of course it's the one time he's not doing anything ridiculously illegal or dangerous that he gets thrown into bloody limbo!

But just as he opened his mouth to snap something back at him, what poured from his mouth weren't expletives--it was laughter. Quite abruptly, he burst into laughter, rich, cackling laughter that made his head pound all the more, but once he started, it was difficult to stop, and the fact that he was hurting himself laughing over a stupid thing only made it funnier to him in his half-delirious state.

"Pffffffhahaha! HAH! Eheh. Hehhh. Excuse me! I'm just reveling in the irony right now," he managed to wheeze. "You tried to fuck me over, man! Now you're fuuuucked!"

[Lion]

"Correction, Cleaton," Quinlan replied with a dull, half-bored glare.  "You're still fucked.  But apparently both of us have pissed off the same person.  And you're still worth a shiny brand spankin' coin.  Maybe I won't collect, but somebody will have your head.  But, hell, get your laughs out while you can.  It's really all you can do right now."

[Rhindeer]

"Someone will have my head? Tch, I think not. I plan on blowing this joint."

Wakiza started to work at his wrists, testing the manacles, and then he grit his teeth as he pressed hard on his thumb--and dislocated it with a pop and a grimace. He'd done it before, so it popped out easily, but it was never pleasant. "And I say 'I' and didn't include a 'we' for a reason," he growled.

[Lion]

"Oh, no you don't!"  And Quinlan mustered the energy to roll up onto his knees and throw his whole body over Wakiza to hold him down.  But even if the blood mage could keep him down for long, it seemed he didn't have to.  Two men came into the tent with two leashes each.

"Look at 'em, like dumb drunk worms, thinking they can try to escape.  C'mon Weasels.  Boss won't wait for long."  And with a quick kick, Quinlan was shoved aside and leashed.  And the other man did the same to Wakiza, but when he observed his hands, he clicked his tongue.  "Trying to do the ol' thumb popping trick eh?  Well, we'll need them elbow clamps for you!"

[Rhindeer]

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Wakiza hissed, thrashing against the man, but before he could ask him if he'd lost his mind or elbow him in the nose--

Well, that was when their "hosts" showed up, and the asshole ruined everything! If he hadn't jumped him, he could have been free and...and...well, he could have been free! He hadn't really thought much farther ahead than that, like whether or not their little room was locked and how he'd be getting out of here.

He squirmed uselessly in his captor's grip, and spat at his feet when he suggested the elbow clamps.

Goddammit.

"Thumb popping trick? The fuck? No, my thumb was fine until asshole over there started trying to kill me! C'mon, this is hardly necessary! Unless you're into some weird shit. Are you into weird shit? These leashes are pretty weird. Please don't tell me we're sex slaves. I know I'm pretty, but c'mon."

[Lion]

Quinlan spit at Wakiza.  And the leash around his neck was tightened.  The man that held him reached down and slashed the bindings at his feet.  "Because we need you to walk," he griped.  The leash was wrapped around a long stick, to keep the captive under control but at a distance from the controller.

The other thug popped Wakiza's thumb back into place and took the extra rope that had been discarded from Quinlan's feet and bound them around Wakiza's elbows.  "Pfft, sex slaves.  Please," the other guard rolled his eyes.  "You talk too much, anyone ever tell ya that?  Oh I'm sure they have, never you mind.  Probably why you pissed off some pretty nasty people.  Now get out here."

And he took that leash and knotted it tightly around the bandit's neck and ushered him outside as well.

[Rhindeer]

"Son of a bitch!" Wakiza snarled through his teeth when one of the bastards went and fixed his thumb for him, which seemed to hurt more since he didn't expect it. And then he was leashed and hauled to his feet, and his elbows were bound together with rope. Those would be significantly more difficult to slip.

Tugged along by the leash, he shot Quinlan a withering glare. It was his fault he was in this situation. If it weren't for him, he'd be rolling around in the sheets with what's-her-tits right now, but no! Some people just hated nice things.

"I don't know who I could have pissed off," he said, deciding that if they thought he talked a lot, why stop? "I don't even know who you bastards are. Do I look like someone notorious or something? Who do you think I am? Oh damn, your boss is gonna be pretty pissed when he finds out he's captured a pig farmer! I'm kind of secondhand embarrassed here. Apologies in advance. That guy over there, though--"

Wakiza jerked his chin in Quinlan's direction. "Knew he was no good from the start. It's the eyes. I mean look at them! Those are the eyes of a criminal. I can just tell he's seen things."

[Lion]

"Yeah, I had a look at your mother's backside pretty good the night before.  Damn what a good fuck," Quinlan quipped back and spat at Wakiza's direction.  "That one's for free."

It seemed the men handling them were both pretty irritated at the fact that these two just wouldn't shut the hell up.  So fists boxed both of their ears and stuck rags into their mouths to quiet these two idiots.  Once they were dragged free of the tent they were held in and presented before a buxom beast of a woman.

She could have easily mistaken her for a man were it not for the flowing golden locks and heavy breasts.  She was well-muscled, and had arms that could choke a bear.  And it was clear from the scars running across her face that she'd seen her fair share of battle and contests of will. 

"Taka," one of the grunts said, shoving Quinlan forward onto his belly.  "These the blokes you're looking for."

She raised a brow.  "Those are the ones."