Work Text:
Setzer believed that as long as he was kind to Lady Luck, she would be fair to him.
That philosophy held up so far in his life. He didn't cheat. He didn't try to count cards. He didn't even load his own roulette wheel on the Blackjack. All he did was relish in the white-knuckled, heart-pounding exhilaration of a teetering dice or a flipping card or a spin of the slots. In turn, Lady Luck was swift in her judgment. Win or lose, she never drew out his suspense longer than what was necessary, and he accepted with his head held high whatever outcome she chose.
He had certainly won some, and he had certainly lost some over the course of his life. Tonight was a strange and unusual mix of the two. Tonight he had won first, and then he had lost.
The rigid back of the wooden chair dug into Setzer's arms where they were wrenched behind it. His shoulder joints were tight and cramped from being pulled too far, and the ropes were just starting to chafe the skin of his wrists raw. It made him jump each time a rough fiber rubbed against a growing sore. His beautiful black coat - the one with the expensive, hand-woven brocade on the front hems and the silk fringes on the bottom hems - was on the floor from when his harassers had ripped it off of his back. Its pockets had been totally emptied of all of their contents, even the secret inner ones. They had pulled the bed sheets and the mattress off the bed and had torn them to shreds as well. His possessions hadn't been treated any better, and his luggage and other Items were strewn carelessly around.
Five menacing-looking goons stood between where he sat and the broken-in door of his room at the inn. They were heavily armed. Setzer spotted at least one short sword attached to the hip of each man, but they also had other smaller weapons that were designed for more intimate settings such as this.
The two people on his left had small dirks and knives in their hands. The scrawnier one of the two of them fidgeted and played with his. He tossed it, flipped it, juggled it in the air in a way that would've impressed him if Setzer could've ignored the fact that the man wanted to use it on him. There was one goon that was much, much bigger than the others who he mentally nicknamed Yeti on account of his white hair and six-plus foot tall posture. Yeti stood in the door frame with his tree-trunk arms crossed. His shoulders filled it completely from left to right. He blocked any possible escape, and he had a giant club resting next to him against the wall that looked large enough to brain someone with a single swing. The last two people on Setzer's right were regular sized people, but one of them had a garrote and the other a hand axe.
Their boss was behind him. He paced slowly in front of the crackling fireplace, and his presence tickled at the back of Setzer's neck. He had to resist the urge to shudder, combating it by tugging at his bonds as much as his pain tolerance would allow.
Yeti had tied them impossibly tight. They didn't budge.
He needed a different plan.
"We could take what he cheated from us out of his airship," said the scrawny thug with the knife, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the aerodrome hangars. His whiny voice grated on Setzer's nerves. "How much was it, boss? Maybe all his windows' worth?"
Setzer knew his poker winnings that night had been in excess of 6,000 Gil. Not that he'd ever let them touch the Blackjack in a million years if he could help it, but smashing the windows wouldn't cover it if they were actually going to entertain that notion.
He'd been shaken down before. It was an unfortunate byproduct of running in circles that dealt with obscene amounts of money. He usually got by if he remembered to be calm and confident, to not let them know he was intimidated. Otherwise, he deemed himself an easy target, opening himself up to more attacks in the future. As long as he kept it cordial, poured on his charm and the charisma that he possessed in heaps, he could talk himself out of any situation. He quickly inserted himself in their conversation to turn their attention away from his beautiful airship.
"Cheat?!" he scoffed, feigning offense. He sighed and shook his head, admonishing them like he wasn't the one that was tied to a chair. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please! You don't actually believe I cheated, do you?"
He kept his voice light and undaunted, shrugging his shoulders awkwardly with his hands tied. It allowed him to subtly pry at his bindings again and shake the loose, hidden stitching on the inside of his shirt sleeve open. A smooth, rectangular piece of heavy paper slid out, catching on the next bunch of fabric near his elbow. The flowing lines and frills of his silky shirt prevented it from being seen.
"Lady Luck smiled upon me with those pocket aces. You can't be mad at me for that."
The boss circled around Setzer and glared down at him. He was a large, unkempt man that wore a torn, stained, used-to-be-white shirt. He had a blue bandanna that had seen better days over his brown hair, and his black pants were tucked into shredded leather boots. With every stomping step, the soles flapped away from the top to expose dirty toes. Setzer's nose wrinkled before he could help it.
The boss leaned over him, bracing his hand right next to his head, and the wood creaked. Setzer couldn't help but lean back as far as he could and turn his face away. The man's hot, rancid breath hissed over cracked, yellow teeth as he spoke.
"See, I would believe you," he said softly, holding up two fingers and shaking them, "'cept for the fact that two aces of spades ended up on the table!" He shouted the last words, then drew his hand back and threw his knuckles into Setzer's face. His nose broke with a nauseating crack, and a swollen, pressurized ache erupted across his cheekbones and his eyes. Setzer's head was snapped backwards and he teared up. Blood immediately poured from his nose, clogging up his breathing.
"Gah!" he sputtered. He tugged against his binding again, this time to instinctively reach for his face, but he couldn't even attempt to alleviate the pain. After he had a second to sit with it, he finally registered that this was the first time he hadn't been able to avoid physical violence. Usually his sharp wit was enough, and plus, he hadn't believed this ragtag group had the stomach to hurt him. They seemed like the kind of people to get by on just intimidating the weak alone, especially with Yeti there looming.
He thought they were posturing. But this group was apparently the hit-first-ask-questions-later-type.
They'd just gone for his face. They'd just gone for his face, the only other source of his pride next to the Blackjack. His good looks were his biggest advantage against weak-kneed dealers and insecure opponents at the poker table, but these people had just given him a wound that would bruise. If they were prepared to do that, they were prepared to do far worse.
He hadn't been outright scared until then. The muscles in his weakened arms and shoulders began to shake, and so did his ankles. Desperate to hide it, he deflected again.
"This- . . . Rrgh!" he groaned, lowering his head to watch the thick streams of blood drip over his lips and down his chin, spattering onto his cravat and his pristine, white ruffled shirt. It immediately soaked into the fabric, marring the black and yellow patterns, and Setzer's heart sank as he realized it would stain. "This is my favorite shirt!" he yelled back, rolling his shoulders. The card in his sleeve dropped into his elbow. He couldn't straighten his arm enough to make it move any further.
"I don't care about your stupid shirt, Gabbiani! You're a liar and a cheat, and you owe me 6,000 Gil!" the boss screamed in his face, the vibrations setting off the pain in his nose.
In truth, he had no idea how the second ace ended up in play. It certainly wasn't him. He'd never treat a card table and Lady Luck with such disrespect as to cheat in an honest game of poker. He believed it to be a plant from this group itself since they looked like they needed an excuse to shake somebody down. The Gil they lost seemed like the difference between a decent set of rooms in an inn and sleeping in the alley for them, but pleading his own case by whining and begging and denying simply looked pathetic. He was much too refined to reduce himself to that.
Maybe he could be persuaded to by Darill, but not by this band of thieves.
"I won that money fair and square!" Setzer insisted. "I'm not a cheat, and even if I was, I wouldn't even need to cheat to beat the likes of you. You're just not as good at poker as you say you are, and there's no shame in admitting it. But I owe you nothing-"
The boss grabbed his bloodied cravat and twisted violently, jerking Setzer forward. His bound hands stayed where they were, and his arms and shoulders screamed in protest. He let out a cry before he could grit his teeth and swallow it down. The boss pointed behind him and snapped his fingers to the scrawny thug. He stepped forward, and then Setzer felt the ice-cold prick of razor-sharp metal jab into the sensitive skin at his throat. Two of the boss's other associates quickly ran behind him. One clamped his meaty hands down on the tops of Setzer's shoulders to hold him down. The other grabbed a fist full of his thick hair and wrenched backwards, exposing more of his throat.
Setzer froze, a chill running down his spine that was colder than the knife. His breathing was admittedly coming a bit harder, but he couldn't breathe through his broken nose so it was obvious as he huffed the air in through his mouth. Blood from his nose gummed and collected in his throat and he swallowed around it, wincing when his adam's apple scraped against the blade. He felt skin bending beneath the sharp point, threatening to break.
The boss smiled a greasy, falsely amiable smile, exposing blackening gums. He softened his voice, contradicting the violence he had just shown. "Just tell us where you stashed our money, and we'll be on our way."
"Don't look scared. Don't look scared. Don't look scared," Setzer repeated to himself. He wouldn't let them see him intimidated. He didn't earn his reputation in most of the casinos and taverns in the entire world by looking easy to cow into submission. Setzer settled his breath and hardened his gaze as much as he could with his features being pulled taut. He stared down his bent nose at the boss, swallowing another glob of blood.
"You gambled and you lost, my friend! That's why it's called gambling! Just stick to roulette next time, where there's no skill involrmph-"
The boss's hand moved to Setzer's chin and squeezed his cheeks until his lips pursed, cutting him off. The dirt and callouses on his skin scraped against Setzer's meticulously cared for complexion. He tried to pull away, turning his head, but the hands in his hair held him still. The knife moved to the side of Setzer's face. The sharp tip touched to his temple, and the rest of it kissed the length of his face, the handle resting below his chin. Setzer couldn't help but stare at it, straining his periphery, eyebrows furrowing.
"We're gonna kill you and turn your room over again anyway, so you better tell us where you stashed our money and save yourself the pain," the boss whispered. He tilted his head, noting Setzer's fixation on the knife. "Or maybe we should just mark up that pretty face of yours and cut you loose. Let you try to charm the ladies when we're done with you."
Hurting his face was out of the question. He was glad his poker face was so well rehearsed, or he was sure he'd have cracked. He glared back instead, tugging with all his strength against the ropes to get his card to move again. He felt it tickle the hair on his forearms, inch by inch. It was apparent that this sleight of hand was about to be the difference for him between minimal pain and the alternative, and it was nearly in position. But he was afraid to tip them off, so after a few seconds he relaxed, pretending to fold back against the chair in defeat.
The card's presence so close emboldened him. The familiar thrill of a life-or-death game of chance pooled in his stomach, making it flutter. His fingers twitched and his muscles coiled in his bindings. "Well go on, then! Make your play! I believe this would make you the big blind since neither your cards nor mine have been dealt yet." He let the corners of his mouth tick upwards in a way that he knew was particularly smug, proud of his reference.
The boss's eye twitched. He turned towards his goon and snatched the knife from him so hard that their skin clapped together. He wrenched the knife away and pressed the knife to the crown of Setzer's hairline. Despite calling the boss's bluff, his smirk instantly vanished.
"Last chance. Tell us where you stashed it, or say goodbye to your pretty face."
Every ounce of the vanity in Setzer's heart was terrified. His heart hammered against his rib cage, unable to control the full-on trembling that now wracked his whole body. It took everything in him to ignore the urge to surrender in the name of protecting his face. Setzer collected a bit of the blood in his mouth and spat it to the side.
The boss moved his arm, and pain sliced down Setzer's forehead, coming to a rest in between his eyebrows. Thin skin split and immediately began to burn. Hot, wet blood welled up and rushed down his face at an alarming rate, putting his nose to shame.
He gasped, wrenching away. The boss and his goons simply held him tighter. His heart dropped into his stomach, and real panic rose up inside of him. They were scarring his face.
He struggled hard against his ropes, and this time it didn't look too far out of place. The card was nearly at his wrist.
"Six thousand Gil. One cut for every thousand," the boss said. He placed the knife on Setzer's cheekbone and drew sideways. He pulled in a sharp breath and bit his lip against the hiss and the carving feeling. The knife moved to Setzer's chin, to the center of his mouth. His performance finally crumbled, and protests began pouring from his mouth before he could care.
"No, no, no, no-! Wait, wait! I didn't cheat! I didn't- Ah!" he cried as the next slice came. It felt deep. It hurt worse than the others, and it ached deeper. The boss had pierced deeper layers of flesh, almost guaranteeing that a mark would be left if it ever healed. Before Setzer could say anything else, the knife cut twice more from the two corners of his mouth down.
There was so much blood that it felt like he was soaked in water. It dripped down his brow bone, blurring his vision and gluing his eyelid down. It was in his eyes, in his nose, in his mouth, and he felt like he was choking on it. He thrashed, the chair skidding on the floor with a series of harsh shrieks.
The knife touched above his left eye and rested, and he knew from the man's grin what he was thinking. He was going to blind him. Setzer pulled again and again against the tough ropes. His card was within his reach. This had to be perfect, or he'd be done for.
"Lady Luck, I hope you're still smiling upon me!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" he bubbled, voice thick with blood. "I, I didn't cheat," Setzer insisted. "I promise you I didn't cheat. I can understand why you would think that, though. When you have as grand and renowned a reputation as me, it's not incorrect to assume that I always have an ace up my sleeve!"
He jerked the card from his sleeve into his outstretched hand and sliced through the bonds with a simple flick. In a flash he was standing, throwing his arm at the boss. The boss recoiled, the knife slicing, and Setzer just managed to turn his face at the last second. His eyebrow was cut. His eyelid split. His hand flew to his face, but he didn't immediately lose his vision.
His card strike split into three, and they soared through the air and dashed across the boss's face and neck. One particularly lucky strike lodged one into the front of his throat. The boss's eyes flew wide and he gurgled, but didn't have the chance to do anything else before they rolled back and he slumped.
Setzer reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his next card, a Joker. He lifted it above his head, not caring what random effect it produced. He just needed something. A bright flash of white light burst throughout the room, and Setzer saw all the goons, even Yeti, covering their eyes and ducking behind cover to get away from the stun attack. He snatched his coat up from the floor and snatched the clock off the fireplace mantle, ripping it open. He tore the bag of his winnings out of its body, tossing the clock over his shoulder. Then he sprinted for the door, diving between Yeti's legs. He hurried down the stairs.
As he ran, he pulled the drawstring and tugged out a handful of coins. He reached the ground floor where the bar and the card tables were in a room to his left, and the exit was to his right. The front desk was directly in front of him, and a startled looking girl clutched her book to her chest. Her eyes widened at the alarming amount of blood that was on his face. Then her gaze flicked down to the blood on his shirt and back up to the cuts on his face that were for certain going to scar.
The thought threatened to bring despaired tears to his eyes, but he couldn't care at that moment. Setzer threw her a gummy wink and flicked one coin to her. She caught it by clapping her hands around it, and he tossed the rest without any care on the counter, where they clattered loudly.
"For your excellent service tonight, my dear, and for cleaning up the room!" he called. He sprinted out of the Inn and into the dark of the night beyond, determined to make it to the Blackjack and take off before they caught up to him.