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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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."

"Ow," Adamo said instantly, frowning. "Don't you think I have enough injuries? And fighting is the furthest thing from my mind, amico."

Now that he was up, standing seemed much easier - but it always did when you knew someone would be there to help you. Rather than letting Vico switch him to his back, he put a hand over the arm around his shoulders, patting him to let him know this, too, was fine. His head butted back against Vico's, but not nearly as hard. He paused there for a moment, thinking about how it was odd to be the one looked after.

"But va bene."

"Ever, I meant," Vico said with a sigh, ignoring Adamo's pat and pulling the man's arms around his shoulders. Despite being younger and more prone to fits of flying off the handle, there was no evidence to say that Vico was incapable of taking care of his older comrades - he just didn't show this particular facet of his personality that often, that was all, either out of lack of necessity or lack of desire to. "Now get on."

It took a bit of struggling, but struggling took a bit of effort - too much for Adamo in this state, and he gave in, sighing on Vico's shoulder as he settled on his back. His arms hung over his shoulders, covered in bandages from the doctor.

"But I am an assassino. I must fight," he protested - but then he grinned, and in sure Adamo fashion, teasingly whispered by Vico's ear. "Unless you want to fight them for me, il mio principe."

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