Euhooligans

Participants:

nick_icon.gif seamus_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Euhooligans
Synopsis An Irishman, a Sicilian, and a Brit pretending to be an American walk into a bar. Havoc ensues.
Date October 19, 2010

Shooters Bar and Bistro


Happy hour is happy-never, at Shooter's Bar and Bistro. Oh sure, the cafe-cum-pub is a nice respite from the chill of the autumn wind blowing through the streets just outside, and the drinks are coming fast and furious, but the clientele aren't there to make each others' lives easier. BAC levels are rising steadily, shortening tempers like a depth-stick in a tank that's slowly being sucked dry. There's a football match on the TV (proper football, none of that handegg crap), and the majority of the patrons are yelling angrily at the screen. Seems like the favored team ain't doing too good. Oh c'mon, ref! How the fuck was that a foul??

Seamus is right among the yelling crowd, his thick brows pulled together and his half-full mug of beer raised high as he gestures angrily at the screen. "Run run run, you sheep fucker!" he cries, almost drowned out by the bellowing around him, "No no no no no, shoot it! Shoot it! Shoot—FUCKIN' A!" A fist slams down on the counter among groans and exclamations of frustration as the Other Guys manage to snag the ball, running it back downfield. "Dammit! Yeah, one more brew here, Barkeep. Make it some Vitamin G, yeah?"

As usual, Nick is taking a twenty off one of his fellow pool players before heading toward the bar. He glances up at the screen, feigning nonchalant curiosity, though really, he comes to Shooters for the British-esque atmosphere, including the football games. His lips curve into a slight smirk at the 'tender's save, before his blue eyes move to the other 'tender, the one of the bar variety.

"Bass, thanks," he says in a generic American accent that tells no tales of origin, not so much as a region. About as bland as your typical newscaster on the nightly news. He settles onto a barstool to Seamus' left, pulling out a pack of Capstans and a zippo lighter. He's got a couple of beers in him already, his work at both jobs done for the day, but he has no desire to go home — if you can call his empty apartment a home. "Nice save," he says, perhaps simply to rile Seamus a bit.

"Nice save? You're sayin' bloody 'nice save'??" Seamus spits back automatically, letting his temper run his tongue, while his brain is busy swimming in the several glass of Guinness he's downed. The Irish brawler slams a finger down on the bar in front of Nick, scowling, "It's fuckin' cheap football, is what that is. Th' whole feckin' team should be carded!" Those brown eyes blink and focus more steadily on Nick for a moment. "Hold on, mate…tell me you're not here in this pub and not rooting for Ireland, are ya?" A few of the other patrons around them listen up at that question, and they turn dangerous gazes to Nick. Tread carefully, Yank.

Pick a persona and stick to it. Nick York, despite the British sounding name, or maybe because of it, doesn't give a shit about Ireland and certainly doesn't care about soccer, even if is the only game Nick Ruskin cares about. Once upon a time, he even idolized a certain local golden boy back home in London.

Black brows knit and forehead wrinkles, making Nick look older than his scant 23 years as he glances from screen to belligerent mick. "Yeah, whatever, the other team's better. Top shelf, that goal woulda been in otherwise if the goalie wasn't good, right?" he says, then shrugs, taking a gulp of his British beer, hand covering his British-brand cigarettes. "Besides, it's a pansy sport."

It's been awhile since Teodoro absconded with a cane out of a window here, so his arrival isn't marked with much fuss or fanfare. He's already a couple shades drunk, almost the stuporous kind, and he kind of sloughs onto the bar like a dropped object. Elbows folded, something lazy in the pallid shade of his eyes hitching up pass the bartender's face when he requests another pint, and then his attention is jigsawing restless circuits through the room. Marking Nick's irritable face first, Seamus' reciprocal scowl. Then hhhhup.

Hey, television. "Any idea how Sicily's doing?" he asks, setting his stubbly jaw to fist.

Oh snap! Belligerent mick?? No you didn't!

And then as Nick just goes on, the men standing around him just stare at him in disbelief, wondering if he has a death wish. Ohhh, then he's using the "P" word, and one of the heavyset patrons nearby grabs him by the lapels, hauling on the lean man and dragging him out of his barseat. "What's that shite you're spoutin', you twat-faced cumpuppet?" The whiskey fumes blow hotly and thickly from behind the man's heavy beard, his dark eyes glassy. The crowd around them has stilled a little, turning away from the game to look over shoulders and trying to get a glimpse of who's about to get their face pounded in by Big Bert.

Seamus included. His attention is all on the mouthy brit beside him, so when Toe comes up, he gets a dismissive wave. "Fuck Sicily…"

Lapels grabbed leaves Nick's arms free, and he comes up swinging as he's dragged out of his seat, that still-healing fist on his right hand coming up in an uppercut against the bigger man's jaw, splitting the scab yet again. When the man jerks back with the punch, Nick follows with a left to the man's beer gut. He may be three beers in, but he's young and he's fit, despite smoking half a pack a day.

His Capstans go flying, the Zippo after, the latter landing with a clatter at Teo's feet. Nick glances back — at least he agrees with Seamus here. "They even know how to play there? Fuckin' spics."

He really is trying to live up to the thug image.

Something! Fell near Teodoro's feet. He cranes his head to follow the shiny, then stoops to get it into his hand with a clawing of blunt fingers. By the time he's upright again, there's a cup of deliciously dark beer for him to receive and insults flying his way. Inaccurate ones. Said inaccuracy dual-purposes— grates a nerve, while at the same time failing to reach the one it was intended for.

It's a flat-note, a jangling on the corner of his mood, draws his brooding stare sidelong, brow flattening with the severity of a disciplining ruler-slap. He does not!! like that tone of voice, but getting up seems like a tremendous amount of work. Besides, he just made off with Nick's lighter. That's nearly as prestigious as a wolf's-headed sword-cane. Isn't it? He has some obscure jealousy and neuroticism to brood over, anyway.

"Tell him he's fat," he suggests to Nick, clearly, unwrinkling a forefinger in Seamus' direction. "And his peepee's poking around in his pant leg like a fire hydrant. His accent is stupid." A beat. Sniffing. "And so's yours, fuckhead."

As Nick's fist hits fluffy, filthy beard, Bert's head goes back with a grunt of pain and his hands loosen on the smaller man's shirt. He certainly wasn't expecting this scrappy newcomer to throw the first punch. The shot to his gut has him stumbling back, away from Nick and into the crowded mass behind him, who yell and cry out, trying to keep his huge weight up.

When that first punch is thrown, Seamus' face lights up like a Christmas tree. Soaked in kerosene. Fuck yeah! This is a good way to get his mind off the game! Downing his beer in one drink, he slams the glass down on the table. Glancing back at Teo's suggestions, he scowls and throws an elbow in the general direction of Teo's face. "Shut your pie-hole, cunt-rag," he says, getting into the spirit of the night, before launching forward and slamming up against Nick's back, slipping his arms around the smaller man, and trying to get him into a chokehold. "Y're gonna get your ass torn off and fed to y', you little shit," he growls happily.

"What the fuck, I ain't lookin' at his … did you seriously say pee-pee?" Nick says, blue eyes flashing at Teo — though not as joyous as Seamus, Nick certainly has lost a bit of the apathy he came in with. This at least feels alive. "And gimme back my fuckin' lighter!" he demands, throwing an elbow at Seamus' head to try to extricate himself from the Irishman's grasp. Maybe he can beat the shit out of Seamus and pretend it's Walsh.

"Atta boy, Yorkie!" call a few of the men from the pool table, tapping their pool sticks as if they were hockey sticks and this were a fight at the Rangers game.

There's a desultory grunt of objection, which Teo probably shouldn't have wasted his breath on. "What the fuck is wrong with," is as far as he gets through his next sentence, then, before an Irishman decides to rest his elbow on his face. It comes through with a great deal more force than that in actuality, of course, it's just that everything in Teo-cam is a bit foggy, weird, and selective in its interpretation.

Pain, though, yes. Just— belated.

"Fucking tit," comes through in a damp consonant mess, blood in his teeth, spit going sideways. He slides off his stool and onto his foot, a hand on his cheek, glaring, automatically running his tongue over to check what Asshole #1 made him bite through. Just the lining at the side of his mouth, he discovers, raggedly pulpy-wet and slick with mucous glands. Irate but nonetheless surreptitious, he fishes his foot out to kick stool into the other two men, its flat seat and wooden legs jarring out to snag under an unsuspecting knee, catch on somebody's center of balance, or just push them off long enough at least for him to recover his fucking beer.

The elbow to the face gives Seamus a taste of poetic justice, right before that barstool stutters its way across the floor, sending Seamus and Nick's legs out from under them.

Seamus hits the floor with a pained "oof!", while Nick is caught mid fall. Yay!

By an angry Big Bert, who pulls his face up towards his beefy, oncoming fist. Uh oh!

At this point, all hell breaks loose, as the patrons all around them swarm in like waves against a rockface, shouting as they throw themselves into the brawl.

From his spot on the floor, Seamus gives a toothy grin up to Teo before reaching out and grabbing his ankle, yanking it out from under him. "You fight /dirty/, you greasey, shit-stain! C'mere and fight in the dirt, where you belong!"

Something in Nick's knee cracks the wrong way. His hands thrust out to try to break that fall that doesn't come. Before the undercover smuggler can give any attention to the searing white-hot pain, his head is being snapped to the side by a fist against his cheek, splitting the skin against the bone.

He crashes against the bar before he yanks the man by the collar, bringing the man's head down on the counter then throwing him away to fall like a rag doll.

Looks like the scrappy youngster has some moves, after all.

He manages to stay standing — the adrenaline is keeping him on that injured knee for the time being, but later once the swelling sets in, he may not be so lucky. His bright eyes sparkle as another thug comes at him, trading blows eagerly enough. The bartender looks amused, though he has the shotgun out — just in case.

Teo's beer spills onto the cuff of his sleeve, and then the rest of him nearly spills onto the floor, when some asshole lunges past him at the two (other) scrapping Europeans. His fingers tighten, amange to save most of his drink last-minute. "Ha," he says, proudly, the split-second before somebody's tentacle closes around his ankle and therrre he goes, hand popping up in one absurd instant's presence of mind, releasing his beer, while the rest of him snaps out like a whip.

He lands heavily. It is not a good fall; his analogues would be terribly embarrassed of him, naturally. "Son of mutant whore," he says, which was rather politically incorrect of him on a number of fronts. "Couldn't you fucking?" It would have been unsavory, whatever Teodoro was going to recommend, but instead his boots wind up in a pinwheeling flail, attempting to clear off anybody who may or may not be trying to kick him or merely, ignobly, accidentally stepping on him with the tough rubber soles of his boots.

Bert bumps his forehead against the bar, recoiling away with a fresh grab on Nick's shirt. Poor kid, he just doesn't have the heft to him that Bert does. Unless he starts thinking fast…

Or maybe he doesn't have to, as a swung chair goes wild, and slams into the gigantic biker from behind. This sends him stumbling away, tugging Nick with him as he knocks over a pile of fists and feet, all of them going to the floor with Nick on top.

Teo's flailing feet make Seamus yelp, and he puts up an arm to protect his face as he rears up. "Watch where you're swingin' those things, y' idjit!" he warns moments before dropping his significant mass on the fallen man in a hefty body slam. Hey, at least he won't be stepped on, this way.

Nick may be going down, but he's going to throw some punches on the way down, one at Teo and another at Seamus, blaming them for this brawl, even as he sprawls backward to land on top of Bert.

In the dog pile, Nick starts scrambling away, his booted feet not too careful where they step or push as he tries to get away from grabbing hands and flailing feet and fists, to try and find a square foot of bare floor that he can stand on.

"Get back on the boat, the both of you," he growls, taking a secret glee in bashing his fellow immigrants, his fellow Euro trash.

Speaking of Eurotrash — his hands find a slightly dented box of cigarettes, his beloved Capstans, and he curls his fingers around them, shoving them into his pocket as he finally manages to rise.

Flipped like a turtle, Teodoro doesn't stop kicking just because— oh, all right. He stops kicking when somebody abruptly lands on him like an enormous sack of shit.

"Fucking potato-eater," the Sicilian snarls, twisting like a cat underneath Seamus' burly frame. An elbow hooks out, point tracing a vicious arc to slam irritably at the side of Seamus' neck, or his nose, something, anything soft and sensitive enough to motivate the Irishman to get off him. There are a fair many things history has to volunteer about Teodoro Laudani finding temporary location underneath an older man, but.

No! Not relevant. His knee scrapes up second, trying to find purchase either on the underside of Seamus' ribcage or the edge of the mar, a mad rough-rope abrasion, scrabbling. He needs to get up. And out: he remembers what that shotgun sounds like.

"Pansy-ass eyetie," Seamus growls right back, with a flash of teeth that's half-sinister, half-elated. The elbow lands squarely and painfully against Seamus' cheek, enough to swell up into something impressive in the near future. And yet, it only seems to encourage Seamus. Violence to this Irishman is like sunlight to a flower. It just gets his ribosomes pumping. Taking advantage of his extra space, Seamus slams a straight jab at Teo's face before pushing away from him, helped by the knee to his ribs, and he staggers upright.

Right into Nick as he comes upright. Glancing over his shoulder, grinning past his swelling cheek and split lip, Seamus spits a bit of blood at Nick's feet. "Just look what y' fuckin' started, y' daft moron." Praise or scolding? Either way, Seamus is caught off-guard as a fist aimed for Nick's face slams into Seamus' collarbone. "Gah! Hey!" And then he's off, fist swinging back at his drunken adversary, lunging away from the other two Europeans.

Someone shoves Nick and it's into Teo as the other man scrabbling for a handhold finds his anchor suddenly whirling away with another dance partner. "Where's my fuckin' lighter?" Nick growls, and there might be the slightest tinge of an East-ender accent, thanks to the pain of that cut on his cheek and that twinge in his knee along with the alcohol coursing faster through his blood thanks to the exertion of the fight.

The lighter is forgotten a second later, however, when suddenly the bartender has decided that he's had enough. Brawls are entertaining, but if men are fighting, they're not buying, and he has a business to run, after all. The shotgun is lifted and aimed at the corner of the ceiling where there's already a few holes from just this sort of activity, the percussive blast from the weapon a proverbial wet blanket over the fiery tempers of those fighting.

Nick flinches — he's a newcomer to Staten, compared to most here, and he grabs Teo by the elbow and jerks him up to his feet — he may fight mean, but he isn't without some honor when there are bullets flying.

His hand, already bleeding from the split knuckle, wipes across his cut cheek to no avail except to smear blood upon blood. "Fuck," Nick says tersely, and heads toward the door.

Horizontal for a few seconds, slightly dazed and tasting more blood still, and then— suddenly Teodoro is vertical, again. And there's a shotgun waving. He doesn't need to be told twice. Instinct has his lean frame clamping downward, out of the ready aim of — ideally, even a shotgun's spreading pellets. He lurches forward, an arm over his head, fingers wrangled tight around a lighter that he doesn't actually remember absconding with to any particular importance. He can barely feel his face, but what of it he does feel is somewhat the wrong shape, too-warm, damp.

"The States weren't even playing," he spits at Nick's back, even as he goes barrelling out after the disguised Englishman. His shoulder bangs into the back of the other man, between scapulas, and he gives Nick a coarse sideways shove trying to find enough rebound to slide out of the door in the opposite direction when the shotgun gives a ratcheting click behind them. More voices; ohhh ho, someone hollering warning, a drunken laugh lighting the air and guttering out like a dud firework.

The shove makes Nick crash into the doorframe with just enough force that it aggravates that right shoulder of his, the bones and muscle so recently knit back together that any sudden jolt will hurt for probably months to come — the man sucks in a gasp of breath as he teeters out into the cooler autumn night, realizing that his knee isn't quite up to a fast getaway.

"Of course they weren't playing. They fucking suck," Nick agrees — the 'Yankee' apparently not so patriotic that he's blind to the shortcomings of his supposed countrymen. He pulls out his wallet as he makes off in the opposite direction as the Sicilian, looking for a card with a certain doctor's number


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License