*Rufus and Francis have been captured or something. This is early on in their working relationship and friendship. They're whispering to each other while being escorted to holding cells. *

R: Give them the derringer in your pocket, too.

F: What? Absolutely not.

R: If they find it on you at this point they’ll throw us off a cliff.

F: I have an idea.

R: What the hell good do you imagine a single shot-

F: Two shot.

R: Two shot derringer is going to do you when we’d be simply outnumbered? If I’ve learned anything since I started in this business it’s that the amount of bullets you fire has a certain, ah, noticeable effect on the outcome of an armed conflict.

F: And being able to fire two bullets instead of none will, therefore, drastically increase our odds of survival should it come down to that!

R: I can’t believe they select people like you to serve as diplomats when you’re done dusting foreigners.

F: And I can’t believe that someone who thinks himself to be just oh so creative when it comes to getting him and his allies out of jams would consider that an easily concealed handheld device capable of propelling a small lead pellet through damn near anything barring solid stone and metal, would think only to use it to kill someone.

R: What, you think it’ll come in handy, breaking some manacles and blowing a lock out the door?

F: Something like that.

R: It’s chambered for thirty-two millimeters.

F: I said *something* like that.

*Francis trips himself, Rufus stares bug-eyed. The guard escorting them tries to pull him up. Francis twists the handcuffs under his legs and trips the guard. He jumps up, fumbles the gun out of his pocket, and points it at the guard*

R: Suicidal. I’m working with a suicidal madman.

F: Shut the hell up or I won’t give you the keys.

*Francis tosses Rufus the keys, and he undoes his cuffs.*

R: You’re not gonna take off your cuffs?

F: Fashion’s functional.

*They cuff the guard, and Francis puts his cuffs around the guard’s neck, gun to his temple*

R: At the least your propensity towards violence is netting us some gain, I guess.

F: This is coming from a man who lives his life as a mercenary, who is regarded as one of the best shots in the eastern territories, and who I met while hiring him to set fire to a grainery so that the Admiralty Board would have plausible deniability?

R: *These* guys are mercenaries, too. We're the businessman's degenerate cousin, and, as it would happen, you still have a trust fund, last I checked. I still think that we could have, probably should have, tried to negotiate something.

F: This is an extension of diplomacy. Now find us a way out.