"...probably."
Spaz asked me for Team Takeshi crack, but, really, male bonding is so much better. :D
Things, as Tsune saw it, couldn’t possibly ever get worse. Because he was chained and his limbs spreadeagled (his captors wouldn’t give him the chance to even think about making any handseals, and, by proxy, using any jutsu), had been victim of a very thorough questioning session, been ridiculed and spat upon by his captors, his country and Kazekage insulted, and his arm was currently a mess of bleeding pinpricks from attempts to drug him into submission. Currently, he was very bruised, very shirtless as well, and with nothing to do except stare at the ropes trailing out of the tent. Outside, horses snorted and pawed at the ground, ready to shoot off into the blazing desert sun at the slightest kick at the ribs from their riders.
He very well could have dealt with all this rationally, the very definite fact he was bound to be drawn and quartered within the next ten minutes if he was lucky, except that Jun was tied up along with him, and even making conversation.
“Eh, Tsune, lighten up.” It earned a twitch from the more scarred nin, and Tsune felt the slight tugging of ropes as Jun shifted position in the sand. He caught sight of a grin on his teammate’s face, out of the corner of his eye, and grit his teeth in annoyance.
“I mean, come on, it’s not as bad as-“
“Oh, don’t even fucking start with that!”
“Seriously, man.” The tone in Jun’s voice didn’t change, but there was more movement from his end of the ropes. “We’ve been in worse.”
“Tell me that when you’re ripped to pieces. I really want to know how that feels.”
“I figure-“ A pause for a slight grunt, and one of the ropes taughtened ever so slightly before going slack again. “-it’s very excruciating. Probably.”
“…probably.” Tsune couldn’t help but his sarcasm, even as the chains jingled while the nomads made last minute adjustments to make sure the ties didn’t just tear off their horses’s saddles. There was a bit of cursing and laughter before the caravan leader began his tirade over how evil the two young men were for kidnapping his new wife and a number of other young women (which, in its own way, was sort of true. They had been hired by the womens’ families to escort them back home, after they’d been kidnapped by their husbands-to-be in the first place. Tsune didn’t even want to try and understand that screwed-up bit of foreign culture), and all the while death ticked ever closer.
“Probably,” Jun decided, seemingly oblivious to the stillness of the air pre-mortem air. “But we’re not going to find out.”
Tsune didn’t even have time to yell at him to shut up before a dirty calloused hand covered his mouth and a finger rose to his teammate’s lips in a silent taunt to stay quiet. There was a quick blur of hand seals before the katon jutsu lit up the stuffy tent, burning through the rope knots and softening metal chains. Tsune scrabbled out of his restraints immediately, watching with an unreadable expression somewhere close to confusion as Jun’s katon metled the stray ends of chain together into one misshapen knot.
“Huh.” It was all he could manage to say, having just so narrowly escaped his fate of being ripped apart. Jun flopped down in the sand next to him, grinning like the ridiculously proud idiot he was.
“Told ya it could’ve been way worse.”
“...You’d think they’d have found any lockpicks during the strip search.”
A grimace darkened Jun’s face, and Tsune was certain he saw his teammate shudder. “They did.”
“Ah.”
“But!” Jun perked up again, practically hopping as he got to his feet, dusting his off his hands. “What do you need lockpicks for if you can just slip out, eh?” As if to punctuate his point, he up one of his hands and popped his thumb out and back into it’s socket. Tsune, seeing as he didn’t even want to take the chance of hearing just how flexible his teammate might be, picked himself up and took quick scope of the tent.
They could probably just as easily sneak out, Tsune could think of a handful of different nin- and genjutsu that could either create a discreet tunnel out or fool their captors. Except...
Well, that wouldn’t be any fun now, would it?
Jun shot him another grin, as a whip cracked outside and the thundering of hooves shot off in all four directions, the rope feeding out of the tent lightning fast. In no time at all they pulled taut, the melted chains holding them together like bone and ligaments and muscle could not, and the horses keeled over in the distance, hooves flailing in the air.
As the screams and curses grew louder and the first nomad tossed back the fabric opening of the tent, Tsune was already cracking his knuckles with a look very akin to bloodlust upon his face.
“And you said we were screwed,” Jun snickered.