Waking up with his hands restrained was starting to become a habit that Grif really didn't want to acquire. As he shifted around, looking around a barren and gray room, he wondered if he has actually even a person. If he honestly did have a purpose in this world other than being a cosmic chewtoy. He shifted again, and heard the chains that were tethering his wrists and barely giving his arms any room to move. He pulled on them, frustrated, and looker closer around the room. It didn't really have the dungeon feel, it had much better lighting and even a few metal chairs laid about. The unkempt basement he was in did have two heavy doors on either side of Grif. He worried that he wasn't the first person in here. He then worried more because while no one was in the room with him, that meant that neither was Tucker.

He shouldn't have done this. It had to be said. At the very least, he should have done something different. All he wanted to do was save his friend, to do something for once instead of letting Donut deal with his own problems. Not to mention, Grif lamented, that ignoring those problems was what got both of them where they were in the first place. Grif rolled his tongue around his parched mouth and cursed himself. His arms ached from the position they were in, and Grif didn't know why he even bothered sometimes. Maybe that was the problem, it just wasn't worth the effort he had been giving it. "Look what happens when you start to give a shit." he said out loud. Anger and bitterness shot through Grif, and he pulled hard against the chains behind him. Nothing happened, and he grit his teeth before pulling again. There was a sound, like metal grinding on brick, that made Grif go still. Behind him, he wiggled the chains and heard it again, heard it moving.

As he geared up to try and pull the chain farther out of the wall, a door on the right of Grif opened. Tucker was pushed through, mussed up and grinning. "Hey, you're awake!" Someone behind him shoved one of his shoulders. "Oh, keep your shirt on, Schwarzenegger, I'm moving." He said to the giant of a man leading Tucker inside.

"Tucker?" What the hell is going on?" As Tucker was moved to another set of chains, he felt his own being fiddled with. They unlocked behind his head, and the same brute grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pushed him towards the door. Tucker tried to shout something at Grif, but the door sealed the sound off as it closed behind him.

He was lead down a hallway suspended over a warehouse floor. Grif tried to look around without moving his head, and saw crates being moved by dozens of people. Grif went rigid when he noticed not just wooden crates, but metal cages as well. Large wilds animals inside of them, snarling and hissing and a great distance away from home. More alarmingly, there were even more men lining the exits and entrances, all of them armed. They stopped outside of another heavy door, which opened into a much cleaner room.

Grif wasn't sure what he was supposed to expect, a Bond villain or a mob boss leering at him from behind a desk. He knew he didn't expect the tiger, collard and sitting in its own chair. Something told me he should have been more frightened, but he just couldn't find the energy to care enough to be scared. Instead, he turned to the guy sitting in front of him and raised his eyebrows. "Really, dude?"

The man's face was expressionless, save for a tired, irritated aura he carried with him. "He belonged to a companion."

"Your companion had shit taste." The behemoth that shot him death glares (Grif decided that Schwarzenegger wasn't a bad name for him) shot him death glares as he guarded the only other door out of the room. "So why am I here? Did you get tired of Tucker?"

"Your friend was... uncooperative." His voice has about as much emotion as his face, and it was unsettling to think what kind of things someone would have to see to stay that calm while at the same time feeding a tiger.

"I guess the flirting didn't help." Grif tried not to laugh. He was almost entirely sure that Tucker would have done something like that. He would have been disappointed in him if he didn't at least wink at him for the hell of it.

"We're getting off the subject." He walked over to Grif, and stood about a foot away from him. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the project."

Grif gave him a strange look. "What 'project'?" He asked.

"You know Franklin Donut very well. You live with him, correct?"

"Well, when you say it like that it sounds weird." Grif snarked. The man in front of him motioned to Schwarzenegger, who in turn grabbed Grif by the shoulders.

He let out a long sigh through his nose, before glaring at Grif. "I'm really beginning to think that your friend is an idiot, and I was stupid for thinking he was actually hiding something. But I know you're not an idiot. What's your name?" Grif didn't respond. "Look, do you honestly think you know anything about the person you've been living with? Are you even aware of half of who he really is?"

"I don't pretend to know what he does in his spare time, and I don't care about his secrets." Grif glared back, despite the tightening grip on his shoulders. "But I know he's not a bad person."

"No?" The other man paused. "No, I supposed not." The tiger got off of it chair, and circled the room, bored. The person that was interrogating him walked away to fish out some meat that he had been hiding. He placed it down for the tiger, and leaned on the desk. "Back when Franklin was taken I had asked another associate to search where he lived for information. the team that they sent out wasn't supposed to take him. They were there for any and all traces of a project that you claim to know nothing about." He stared at the tiger as he explained this. "Do you remember the apartment looked like?"

"It was ransacked, Things were broken, tossed around. Thanks for that, by the way."

"When they got there, all of his electronics were destroyed. We could salvage a few files, but the rest of it was already broken apart with vital pieces completely missing. Grif." He paused again. "I was short with your friend, but it seems like hitting you won't get either of us anywhere."

"Glad to hear it. Why are you telling me this?"

"Diplomacy. Also, if this works out and I get what I need," he nodded to the door. "I'll let him and you go."

"Is that true?" Grif asked cynically.

"It can be. Now, listen to me carefully. What happened when you woke up after the break-in?"

"Yeah, sure. But can we get Goliath off of me for five minutes?" The hold on Grif was released, and Grif could practically hear his own bones creak as they righted themselves. "Like I said, everything was destroyed. I was cuffed behind my back, my friends were gone, and I ended up having to cut myself out with a pair of bolt cutters." He didn't dare mention Lopez, just in case Sarge was really trying to find any of them. The last thing anyone needed as a hostage was an angry southern pirate who liked to practice catching bullets between his teeth.

"Impressive." He didn't sound very impressed. "Did you say 'your friends' were gone?"

"Yes, and you took them, and I've been looking for them ever since." Grif also didn't mention that he didn't go to the police, partially because that might get him killed and mostly because he didn't want to seem like an idiot.

"Interesting." He snapped his fingers, and Grif found himself pulled back by the collar. "Take him back. I have research to do."

So there went the possibility of being let go. Though maybe it was for the better that he was locked up, and not set free whilst being hunted down by a tiger. He was pushed back the way he came, and looked more frantically for any details that spelled out escape. The doors on the right were more heavily guarded, but the windows that laid out on the side showed it just opened to more warehouse. Underneath him, he heard a few loud barks and stiffened up. The might not be guard dogs, but they sounded agitated enough to be dangerous. He tried not to imagine what would happen if he got loose. He imagined it anyways.

Grif got shoved back into the same room, watching even closer when a smaller guard started to unlock the same set of handcuffs he had on before. The door slammed, and Grif took the chance to look Tucker over. He wasn't that much more messed up then when they had gotten taken, save for a few new bruises. They both waited until the only other guard decided that they weren't threats, and left, locking the door behind him.

Grif was the first one to speak up. "You just had to flirt with him."

"I have no idea where you got that from. Besides," Tucker grinned. "I don't kiss and tell."

Grif snorted, and then remembered where he was. This was the same set of cuffs which meant that he plan was still a go. He braced his feet, and pulled slowly. As the grinding got louder, Grif's arms started to give, and he stopped himself. He turned to Tucker. "Does it looked like the chain is coming out of the wall?"

"Not really."

Grif grit his teeth. The chains rattled lightly as he leaned back against the wall. His mind still reeled over the conversation. As he tried to understand what little he paid attention to when he wasn't staring down a tiger, something specific caught in his brain. "Hey, Tucker."

"Yeah, man?" Tucker replied quickly, concentrating hard on something. He was scanning the room, staring at the chains and chairs, before glancing back at the ground.

"When did Simmons come back to see you and Carolina? The place where you guys first saw me."

Tucker paused, and seemed confused. "About three hours after we met you. Why?"

"No reason. Did he say anything about what happened? I know I wasn't... very nice at the time that he was explaining things."

Tucker shrugged as best he could with his arms tied up. "There wasn't much to explain, actually. He told us that he had been stuck in the bathroom, locked from the outside. There was a lot of crashing, muffled voices that he couldn't make out." Tucker stopped analyzing the doors, and looked up at Grif with accusing eyes. "You're not letting that guy mess with your head, are you?"

"I'm not! Just," Grif's voice dropped to a murmur. "figuring some things out." He planted his feet hard against the ground, and steadied himself to try and pull the chain out one more time.

Tucker tried to say something while Grif yanked at the chains. "Hey, Grif..."

"Not now, I almost have it." And then again. It had to be working, Grif could hear it.

Grif!" Tucker got louder, and there was a sound of someone walking towards one of the doors.

"Almost!" Grif needed it to work.

"Grif!" The door didn't move, but someone on the other side was trying to unlock it.

"What?!" Grif shot back. The door finally unlocked.

In the seconds before it started to open, Tucker whispered quickly. "There is a keyhole on the back of the cuffs." The door opened, and the smaller guard from before walked into the room. He eyed both of them, and huffed dismissively as he paced the room.

Both of them stood stock still, until Grif heard a different kind of grinding noise. He looked over, only to see Tucker inch on the chairs over to him with his foot, trying not to alert the bored watchman. Grif carefully watched him as he turned around to face both of them, and slowly Grif put one of his own feet on the wall behind him. He braced himself, and nodded at Tucker.

"Hey, Mr. Henchman." Grif heckled. "You guys forgot to take the knife out of my back pocket."

The guard looked less than amused. "Nice try bluffing."

"I'm serious. It's right there, and even if I can't use it it's gonna suck when I get out."

"But you're not going to." He smirked. Tucker now had the chair directly in front of his leg, and nodded back to Grif.

"Do you really want to risk that?" Grif replied, which gave the guard pause. He shook his head, and walked over to Grif. As he reached behind Grif to calm his paranoia, the foot that Grif had braced against the wall pressed hard. Grif launched himself forward, enough for his skull to make a solid impact with the guard's head.

He stumbled backwards, hand over his forehead. Tucker then kicked the chair behind the guard, who tripped over it. He felt backwards, his head hitting the concrete first. He laid knocked out on the ground, and Grif beamed at Tucker. "Oh my god. That worked!"

Tucker pointed with his foot at the guard's body. "In the front right pocket is the key. Pull him over and take it out."

It took a tense minute of searching, but Grif found the key and kicked it over to Tucker, before looking worried. "Um, Tucker... How are you supposed to get the cuffs open?"

Tucker was sly in his answer. "Well Grif, I am pretty flexible."

"Stop that." Grif replied, but smiled anyways.

As it turns out, Tucker wasn't exaggerating, and after another minute they were both out of their cuffs and standing outside the door. "Hey, about the Simmons thing earlier..."

"What about it?"

"Is everything with you two alright? I know you didn't get off on the best terms."

Grif was taken aback. "No, no. We're good." Grif rubbed the back of his neck. "He's not a bad guy, but," his expression dropped, thinking about what his captor had said before. "it seems like I hardly know anything about him, and Donut knew him so well."

"Hey, I tell you what." Tucker patted Grif on the shoulder, but pulled back when Grif winced. "If both of you make it out alive, you can get to know each other better all you want."

Grif choked. "What does that mean?"

Tucker held up his hands, with that same sly smile. "Nothing. But, I should tell you that the club I work at has half-off drinks for couples."

Grif glared at him, and then rolled his eyes. "Let's just go so I can get eaten by a tiger already."