InsaneJournal

Characters: Will Herondale & Jem Carstairs
When: Thursday night, 8:55pm (ish) right before the train departs.
Location: Some seedy place in Shanghai.
Warnings/Rating: Meh, no cursing, but Will's bad behavior
Summary: So Will spent a crazy amount of time gambling to earn his keep while in Shanghai. But you know, you're supposed to quit when you're ahead? Yeah, Will doesn't. And Jem has to bail him out. Must be Thursday!
Status: Closed, ongoing.

This wasn’t the first time Will had been caught with his pants down. Luckily, the Chinese men had allowed him to keep his underwear on, mostly because they were confused as to why they looked like another pair of pants. When Will had informed them via show-and-tell and rudimentary charades that he was indeed naked past that last layer, the horrified faces of the men had given him this one courteous gesture by letting him remain relatively clothed. However, they took his suspenders, his shirt, his jacket, his shoes, all of his clothing, the wallet he had stolen with Jem and of course the cards he was using to cheat with since his lucky blonde Ruby had dumped him to get back on the train. Women, good for nothing really, especially for bailing him out. But Will had always resorted to his parabatai in such situations for help. Unfortunately, Will didn’t like to be caught head first in the predicament -- he would have rather regaled Jem on some exquisite tale of how he escaped the Chinese mafia before asking for his assistance to the train. Will didn’t understand a lot of what they were saying when they spoke in hushed fast whispers across the room. Maybe he should have taken the Chinese lesson with Tessa more seriously instead of lying about how to say phrases to get her in trouble. That might have prevented Will from missing the real meaning behind their sarcastic smiles and stoic stares at the poker table when they figured out he had been cheating. Maybe he would have understood that he was in serious trouble. And he might have even been able to duck away from the two guys that stunk up to hold him down while some big lumberjack of a man punched him in the stomach and threw him down on a chair. They had taken his clothes then. But the universal sign for you are vehemently screwed was clear when they scream angrily at him, pointed, and the beefy guys to his peripheral left and right would take turns punching him. Will wouldn’t have been phased by such a shake down, if they didn’t seem so interested in the scars of his runes on his body and the particularly the non-faded one of his parabatai bond. It was obvious that it unnerved will for them to show so much intrigue and when one of them got close to touching it, Will -- normally cool in the face of terrifying danger -- broke one of the guy’s nose. He would have kept going if the deafening clicking noise of a revolver wasn’t suddenly echoing in his ear. Yes, he got the point. Will struggled to remain conscious after they hit him in the face again, tasting the copper of blood in his mouth. Naturally, Will made kissy faces in their direction, trying not to let them see how certain points -- mostly just one -- was completely off limits and drove him to the point of losing control. He could take this for hours, at least he hoped himself he could. Will couldn’t risk them tampering with him, taking their pound of flesh for whatever debt he now had irresponsibly accrued. But a cold chill ran through his spine when he heard a very familiar word in Chinese -- one that Will was only accustomed too because he had heard others use it to describe Jem before. Negatively. Will didn’t trust the blatant look the group of them gave him before they walked away down the hall and through a door. They had been watching him for awhile it seemed, and knew that Jem was his “emergency contact.” Will for the first time, swallowed hard. He didn’t like where the situation was going. This was one of the few things he didn’t want Jem to see -- or to be involved in until Will had some sort of plan of action. Will was without. Slumped against the chair, keeping an unusually calm demeanor despite the fact that there was a gun held toward him, Will’s attention perked when he heard the creak of the door opening again, not a handful of minutes later. The face of his parabatai was a welcome comfort and an overwhelming sense of dread. But Will smiled at him, mischievously, all the same, his teeth stained with blood and his right eye starting to swell shut from the latest round of fists to his face. “Jem, the pleasure of your company is not ill-received,” Will said, spreading his hands open just a bit in a welcoming gesture.. The movement cause the man on his left to step closer, holding the handgun a bit straighter. Will gave him the most depreciative look, before continuing. “As you can see, the language barrier has been quite counterproductive.”