circle7 | a wager or two

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a wager or two

The crowd reeled back as one of the men in the ring was thrown back, stumbling over his feet but not enough to take him out of bounds. Vico could barely see the fight as it was going on, lingering near the stairs leading to the barracks basement. The mercenaries were crowding around the ring as if there were a courtesan strip show going on in the center, and no doubt, to some of them, the prospect of a hot-blooded fight probably offered the same level of intrigue. He could barely see past the line of their shoulders - unlike the Assassins, these were all broad-framed, large, stocky men, wearing heavy armor and heavier weapons at their waists, waving thick arms in the air as they cheered on the combatants.

No doubt, Adamo was the underdog here if it was such a mercenary he was fighting against. Although Adamo was taller than Vico (which really wasn't as much of a feat as one would have thought), he was still much smaller than even el Maestro himself, let alone such weathered, burly soldiers. By necessity, an assassin's build was naturally more lithe and quick-footed, after all.

A chorus of "Oooohs," swept through the crowd. Perhaps a particularly showy blow had knocked a contestant off his feet? Perhaps it had been an underhanded move? (Though these men were honorable, they were still not above using such tactics.) Perhaps it had been a jaw-dropping, acrobatic, complicated maneuver with insurmountable grace that had elicited their awe, but ha, thought Vico, rolling his eyes, as if Adamo would be capable of it, as much as he would have liked to be. He huffed in amusement to himself, shifting his weight from one foot to another, simply waiting for the spectacle to end so that he could collect his bet money and be done with it.

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It was taking longer than usual.

Without a good enough vantage point to see the fight, however, Vico could only wait impatiently at the foot of the stairs and wonder if Adamo was playing with his opponent, or something - making a show of the whole ordeal as he did with everything else in his life. His friend was entirely not above behaving in such a manner; it was as if he were born a natural peacock, showing off its feathers at every turn, audience susceptible to his displays or not.

Sitting down on the lowest step, Vico could only guage the progress of the fight by the reactions of the spectators, and given that the mercenaries were not exactly men of eloquence, he did not suspect anything was wrong until one of them turned to his friend, cupping a hand over his mouth so he could be heard above the roaring of the crowd. It was probably meant to be the equivalent of a whisper, but Vico, assassin's ears trained to pick up such tidbits of information, heard it just the same.

"I heard he specifically jumped the line to fight this match. That shrimpy bastardo is the one he caught sleeping with his wife." The two mercenaries laughed at their own private joke, turning forward, before a weight, small but substantial, fast enough that they barely noticed it, let alone had time to grab it, barreled between them, shoving them roughly aside with barely a 'Mi scusa,' lost in the din of the fistfight uproar, as it pushed through to the edge of the ring.

That idiota.

The assassin, currently on the very edge of beginning to lose this fight, was beginning to have trouble dodging the blows. It was starting to become irritating to Adamo that he was losing, his swift strikes becoming like springs, winding back and hitting enough force to make the mercenary stumble. Whereas the bout was mostly silent, Adamo could now hear the man cursing under his breath - personal curses, directed at the assassin himself.

Then, his opponent charged. This was Adamo's chance, he knew, to finally end this ridiculously long fight. (The spectators didn't seem bored at all by the show, surprisingly.) His timing had to be perfect - and it was. He ducked just as the man would've butted right into him, and this time he did flourish his skill with all intent to show off, sweeping a smooth kick at the mercenary's feet, knocking him forward. Unable to stop his momentum, Adamo used it to thrust his fist up into his chest, knocking the wind from his opponent, who gasped. To finish it all off, he pushed him back, letting him fall.

Adamo won. The mercenary fell to the ground, clutching his stomach with a hairy arm as he regained his breath.

"Finally," Adamo muttered, winded himself. The crowd was shocked by who the victor ended up being, glancing at each other and pointing at Adamo. Vico better have bet on me winning, he thought. Just as he was about to limp back to his friend (the mercenary landed a good kick to his leg), there was a gasp from the crowd. The mercenary had gotten back to his feet.

"You figlio di puttana," he said, voice strained. "It's not over yet. I know you slept with her!"

"What are you talking about?" Adamo asked, brow tight as he turned.

There was no answer - the mercenary only lunged forward with a dagger.

The mercenaries were close allies of the assassins, part of the closely-knit triumvirate that provided the Assassin Order with their information and resources. In a world as treacherous as theirs, the soldiers, the thieves, and the courtesans were about as close to allies as one could get, all things (like heavy bags of gold) considered. If a dispute like this got out of hand, no doubt Maestro Ezio would be breathing down their necks about all the trouble they caused.

It was against the rules of the game to jump into the ring without prior permission, not that pulling out a lethal weapon in a supposedly unarmed fight was all that respectable either. To the mercenaries credit, a few men frowned and shook their head in disapproval at the behavior of Adamo's opponent, and though they, too, did not step forward to interfere, they shouted discouragements into the fighting area, urging the man to 'put that thing down and fight like a real man.'

Vico had always known that Adamo's flamboyance and fickleness would get him in trouble one day, and he cursed the fact that Adamo never listened even as he slipped a throwing knife from his belt. Fueled by rage and vengeance, the mercenary was too fast for both assassins - he charged forward with all the single-minded anger of a provoked bull, slashing every which way at Adamo, who had neither armor nor blade to block or deflect it. The mercenary was quickly making a mess of him, but even so, Vico had to wait until an opening came for him to throw the knife.

It hit the mercenary in the forearm, above the wrist and safe from severing any vital veins, but it was enough to make him drop his dagger. Like a dam breaking, the other spectators surged forward and dragged him back, keeping him from causing more harm, and a few helped Adamo up, pulling him roughly to his feet by his elbows.

Adamo managed to stand on his own, if only for a moment. He borrowed his partner's shoulder to lean on without asking, the color of his blood lost in the dark assassin colors. Cuts adorned his arms, but those were hardly the ones that needed tending. A deeper gash ran down the left side of his chest down to his waist, exposing layers underneath the skin.

"Thanks," he mumbled to Vico, but he was glaring at the man who was dragged away, still thrashing to get free. Adamo almost had as much fire in his eyes as him. One of the soldiers who helped him told another that Adamo deserved it if he was sleeping with wed women. Adamo whirled on the man, clutching him by the collar. "I would never do that! He has the wrong man! Pezzo di..." The assassin's grip loosened, and he stumbled back. "Merda..."

Adamo collapsed right into Vico.

Staggering under his weight, Vico nonetheless found enough vigor in him to both keep a hold of Adamo's weight and throw up a rather rude one-armed gesture at the thrashing mercenary. "If you really want to go at it, you dirty mutt of a donkey-pig crossbreeding abomination, I will take you, and since we are not above being armed, then I assure you I will surely win if you come after us," he added, flexing his hand and pointing his hidden blade at the mercenary, who did not quite still, but did calm down a little at the realization that they were dealing with assassins, "Because I know I am better endowed than you, you cowardly excuse of a shit-eating, bald-headed rat-sucker, in all respects!"

He lowered his blade and pointed it directly between the man's legs.

Adamo tightened a hand around Vico's wrist with a laugh. "Where do you come up with these things?"

He turned his head to cough, shifting his weight with a groan to balance on Vico's shoulder. It wasnt working, but he tried.

"Even if I did sleep with wives, I sure as hell would've been the one she went back to." Despite not having the strength to, he did anyway - landed a kick right between the bastard's legs. He immediately folded in on himself, and Adamo looked to Vico.

"I think I need a doctor."

Rolling his eyes at Adamo's need to add insult to injury (as opposed to injury to insult, which was usually how Vico operated), he gathered Adamo up, both to better support his weight and to ensure that Adamo wouldn't rile up the mercenaries' tempers even more. At the very least, none of the men followed them as Vico climbed his way up the stairs and out the barracks. If Bartolomeo or Maestro Ezio were here, he was sure none of this would have gotten as out-of-hand as it did, but then again, they were fully capable of taking care of themselves.

Vico glanced down at Adamo.

Well. Mostly.

"You are a fine mess, amico," he commented.

Adamo chuckled, a hand over his chest, trying to hold his wound close. It left a crimson handprint.

"As long as I'm not dying, then that is fine," he answered. "Am I?"

"No," he said immediately, by reflex, before Vico forced himself to look down. He hadn't been exaggerating - Adamo was a terrible mess, and there was barely an inch on his arms that wasn't covered in red, the wet stain spreading down his chest where the dagger had managed to knick. Moving him only seemed to make it worse, and even Vico's sleeves and the front of his tunic was turning damp with blood. "You..." he said, haltingly. "Are you?!"

Glancing around quickly, Vico laid Adamo gently down against the ramparts of Bartolomeo's compound, untangling their arms. "W-wait here! I'm going to get el doctore! Don't you dare pass out before that, or I'll skin you alive and feed you to those mercenaries!"

Despite his condition, Adamo managed to add, "Make sure you pair me with a good wine, then."

At the very least, his blood was beginning to clot, and the stains on his arms and torso were drying. He could last long enough for Vico to find a doctor - but he wasn't so sure about the passing out. The cold stone against his back was oddly comfortable. Before Vico could dash away, Adamo grabbed his wrist again.

"Thank you, brother. For watching my back." He didn't have to ask Vico if he believed whether or not he did what he was accused of. (Might be an abundance of faith, or simply lack of time.)

Vico rolled his eyes and jerked his wrist out of Adamo's grasp. As far as he was concerned, gratitude for things that should only be expected could wait until after Adamo was no longer spilling his innards onto the Roman dirt. "You're wasting time," he hissed, before he darted over the very wall Adamo was leaning against, up and out of sight. His light footsteps were light and quick, and he soon reached a distance where the sound of his boots hitting dirt could no longer carry back far enough to be heard.

The assassin took longer to return than to go - he had luggage on the trip back, dragging a doctor so roughly by the sleeve that the man had to raise a hand to his hat and mask to keep it from slipping off his face. "Please, signore, not so fast, I will break my wares this way! I am sure your friend can-" Then, they appeared at the barracks gate. Adamo was not hard to pick out - he was the only man in sight, being that the others were still gathered around the ring, and even if he weren't, he was probably the only one that looked like death was perching right at his door.

"Fix him!" Vico ordered, impatiently.

The doctor immediately grew serious upon seeing his new patient, hurrying to Adamo's side. "Yes, messer."

"Your impersonation of a snail was pretty impressive, Vico," Adamo laughed quietly as his partner returned, his space crowded by the doctor beginning to work. He immediately pried apart his bag, beginning to cleanse the worst of the wounds. As it stained the doctor's rags, the skin stayed clean in its wake, the bleeding having stopped in the shallower edges of the cut.

Injured or not, that did not spare Adamo a light kick at his knee for the jab at his speed. The sight of his skin clearing allowed Vico a breath of relief, and he eased as his partner finally emerged under all that blood. Soon, only the criss-cross pattern of the actual cuts the mercenary had left behind were visible, red but not messy, and already closing up as the body did its own work to mend itself. "It is not as bad as it seems," the doctor murmured, working slowly and gently.

Even if Adamo had not been watching the doctor tend to him, however, the sudden twisting of Vico's face was enough indication to tell him what was next, however. The young man stepped back, wrinkling his nose, just as the doctor raised a small jar to eye-level from his bag. "Ah, my leeches."

That caught Adamo's attention, looking awfully alert for all his sluggishness from blood loss. "I thought those were for poison," he mumbled, cringing at the wriggling black blobs in the jar. "I need stitches, messere."

"The cuts may infect," the doctor replied, sounding downright gleeful.

Vico was staring down at Adamo with a mix of horror and pity.

"I should've passed out," Adamo sighed, and he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. At the very least, he wasn't going to watch.

The doctor opened the jar, pulling a slithering black tube out with a gloved hand and stuck it close to the biggest wound on Adamo's chest. It latched on after a moment, and the doctor applied a couple more. The assassin only noticed a slimy feeling before nothing, and he opened his eyes, confused, certain it would hurt. But no - there the leeches were, sucking away, and Adamo couldn't feel it.

"Oh," he said.

And then he passed out.

Vico jumped. "W-what are you doing to him?!" he said in alarm, but at the same time he just...trusted the doctor enough not to dart forward and try to remove those slimy black things. Yes, that's right. It was just trust. "He fainted!" the younger assassin exclaimed, pointing an accusing hand at Adamo and his lack of alertness (not that he needed to, considering the man was laying right there for all eyes to see - half naked, in fact, since they hadn't had the foresight to retrieve the older man's clothes during their indignant escape).

The doctor waved a hand, and though Vico couldn't see it, he was sure the man was smiling under that curved beak of his. "Do not worry, little sir-"

"Little-"

"Some people who are weak of heart simply cannot take the sight of nature doing its finest work and healing the body! Let him rest - he needs it anyway!" the doctor responded, and when he finally seemed satisfied with how plump and lethargic they had gotten, filled with enough blood that they hardly made the effort to squirm anymore, he retrieved a bottle from his pocket and sprinkled them with a fine, white powder. Vico could only watch in horror as they dropped off one by one, the doctor catching them in his jar of murky water.

Immediately, now that he was leech-free, Vico knelt by Adamo's side and, as any god friend would do, shoved hard at his shoulder. "Adamo!"

Adamo only shook limply, but his brow wrinkled when his head thudded against the rock wall behind him. The doctor hardly seemed concerned, laying Adamo flat on his back and then reaching in his bag to get a needle and thread.

"It might be better that he's unconscious while I do this, anyway," the doctor said as he slid the thread through the needle with the speed of a professional, knotting the string at one end. "It tends to pinch."

He lowered the needle, his free hand pinching together the wound, edges pressing together. With no hesitation, the needle pushed through the skin, making its way out to the other end. Adamo opened his eyes. He was quiet for a long moment.

"This hurts," he stated, flat and quiet, staring up at Vico.

Vico's brow shot up under his bangs. "Oh, it is better than the leeches, my friend, trust me," he said, patting Adamo on the cheek.

Though he had had his doubts about the doctor's integrity when he had been feeding his leeches on his friend's blood, the man did make quick and efficient work of closing up Adamo's wounds, and without gaping gashes littering his arms and shoulders, his friend was looking much better already. The good work was not without its price, either - almost as soon as he had cleaned and packed away all his supplies, the man was holding out a gloved hand, expecting it to be filled and weighed down. Vico frowned, glaring at him for a second for the tenacity, but holding a staring contest with a mask was really a very poor decision, and ultimately, he reluctantly pulled the necessary coin out of his pocket and deposited it in the doctor's palm.

"Ahhh, grazie mille!" the doctor exclaimed, standing to make his exit.

With a low groan, Adamo pushed himself up. He looked down at the doctor's work, black thread knotted down his chest. It stung, but Vico was probably right - better than leeches, and much better than nothing at all. He ran a finger over them, feeling the small but certainly present ridges of string. With the way he stared, you'd think it was the first time he ever had stitches. Other scars on his body suggested otherwise.

"I'll make it up to you," Adamo said once the doctor had left, voice coarse, frowning down at his stained trousers. "Was that your bet money?"

Seating himself on the floor, Vico smiled wryly at the picture they made - el maestro surely would not have approved. "The bet money I put on me having to haul your sorry ass out of there, perhaps. Can you stand?"

"No," he answered quickly. "Carry me?"

Adamo grinned at him.

Now, that was a suspicious answer indeed. Vico narrowed one eye down at Adamo, taking off the topmost layer of his commoner clothes and depositing it on the other man's head. "Maybe if you were prettier. Now put that on, before you catch a cold and die of that."

Adamo made a muffled sound under the tunic, shifting it until it was upright and pulling it over his head. He furrowed his brow as he tried to push him up, but he only managed to get to a kneeling position. His leg was still hurting from the fight as well, and it stung in protest when he tried to push up.

"Actually, looks like I meant it," he said with a pout. "I must look so pathetic." Adamo still laughed.

He had been hoping for the best, but the worst didn't come as a surprise either. Vico was already at Adamo's side, hooking his arms under Adamo's shoulders to catch the man before he all but toppled over, aggravating the wounds the doctor had just spent the last half an hour closing. "Easy," he muttered, allowing, if not encouraging, Adamo to use him for support. The older man still sagged - it couldn't be helped, considering Vico was a considerable bit shorter in comparison, but at least it took off a large portion of the strain on the man's own legs, which would make transferring the burden of his weight onto Vico's back that much easier.

"Figlio di puttana," he muttered, but it was relatively calm, considering Vico's worked-up insults took on much...more creative forms. Nevertheless, he bumped his head against the side of Adamo's - his friend deserved that one, for causing so much trouble in the first place. "No more fights, Adamo."

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