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They’ve at least stopped firing, Droog thinks. That’s a relief.
Diamonds Droog takes a moment to breathe in the stillness. One of the Felt is jeering just around the corner. Itchy, likely, judging by the quick talk. He’d already plugged him twice, but Stitch is just too damn good a tailor. Damn him and his incredible stitchwork. There’s no more bullets hitting the little outcrop-wall to feel like faint punches against his back. Just Crowbar twenty feet back, organizing his crew so they don’t accidentally rush in and give Droog just what he needs (an opening).
However, they’ve stopped firing because the damage is already done. Beside him, his boss takes panting, raggedy breaths, a fistful of talons clenched so tight around his sucking gut wound he’s about to crack the tips off.
“Just breathe, Slick,” he says, voice quiet, composed. It hurts to see him like this. Slick’s a good boss, even if he is a ratty shitheaded little midget. There’s a lot about him worth shaking a stick at.
Shame they had to be boom-sticks, he thinks, even as Slick sneers at him with blood on the points of his teeth, like pink snow on white mountains.
What is he thinking, Droog snorts to himself. He’s never even seen a fucking mountain.
“Fuck off,” says Slick, which is a predictable answer.
“I still have one bullet,” Droog says, helpfully, as he checks his magazine. “If you want me to put you out of your misery, say it now.”
Slick glares up at him, and Droog hazards a peek around the corner. No one in direct range except Doze, and shooting Doze does just about as good as shooting a corpse. Waste of a bullet. The very corner of a maroon hat is visible, and Droog doesn’t bother ducking back, just so he can make eye contact with Crowbar as he mirrors Droog’s own idea.
Crowbar was always a little too similar to himself for Droog’s tastes, the sly bastard. The only reason this damn gang is still running. And ruining his Crew, too.
“I don’t,” rasps Slick, a wet sound Droog doesn’t like. He narrows his already quite narrow eyes, which Crowbar seems to take as threat. Don’t worry, Crowbar, not everything is about you. He’s not about to waste his bullet on a man who’ll get back up just fine.
A shot takes his hat off, and he does it anyway, because that was his last fucking hat. It isn’t even a killing blow - Droog’s temper got the best of him.
“Then you’re going to have to watch me get shot by the Felt, I suppose,” Droog notes, “seeing as you’re just going to sit there and bleed like a stuck oinkbeast.”
“I’m your boss, don’t fucking talk to me like that.”
Droog says what they’re both thinking. “You’re my dying boss, and I’m a dead man walking.”
“Shut up. I ain’t dyin’.”
He leans back, away from the corner, as a bullet bites away part of the wall. It’s like invisible angels, hungry for blood, but they’ve already gotten their crackling teeth into Slick.
“You are,” he says, looking back at Slick and shoving the empty magazine back into his pistol with a click. He tucks the pistol back into his deck of hards and draws the ten of diamonds. Wait, that isn’t the ten of diamonds, that’s his Ultraviolence Cuestick, silly. What were you thinking. “And unless a sniper rifle is going to help against some fools roughly twenty feet from us, then in a few minutes, so am I. Hopefully, quicker than you.”
Slick forces himself to hunch forward, away from the wall. Droog takes a moment to take in the splat of blood against the wall. Quarters got in a lucky shot, and Slick’s lucky he still has that whole side of his boy. “I’m not dying on my back,” he snarls, with the same fierce, stupid determination that made Droog fall for him when they were trekking across an empty desert.
Oh, right. That. He should go back to ignoring it.
Droog meets his eyes. Slick doesn’t even have the smarts to be scared - Droog can even recognize they should be scared, because they’re going to die. There is no deus ex machina. There is no way out of this.
“Then die on your feet, it makes no difference.” The Felt are nice enough to give them a nice, long time to argue. Not on purpose. Droog has been fighting this gaggle of barely-coherent softbodies for sweeps now, they’ll be bickering all the same. Nagging each other like old women.
Droog never settled down, he thinks. He knew he never would, but that’s the kind of thing you think about when you’re going to die, your lack of a love life. He’s never followed the thought to its logical conclusion before.
Slick grabs onto his shoulder, rumpling his suit. At least the little shit didn’t get blood on it, but he doesn’t want to die looking like a slob, unlike some carapacians around here. “Hell are you waiting for, Diamonds? We gonna go out there or what?”
Never settled down. Never rocked the boat, never really stepped out of line except when Slick really, really needed to get his ass beat. Kept his own shit to himself, because the consequences would be too heavy.
Droog offers Slick a hand to steady himself on without responding. Slick takes it.
Droog pulls him in and kisses him, with none of his usual composure, claws almost digging into his boss’s wrist. He doesn’t bother taking it slow. What’s the point when they’re about to die?
(It’s everything he selfishly wanted it to be.)
When he pulls away, Slick just stares at him, mouth a little open. Droog doesn’t speak, for a moment - he’ll let Slick process, at the very least, before they charge out, but they’re running low on time. He can hear Crowbar speaking again, so they’ll be settling down, making a plan. Droog doesn’t want to let that happen.
Slick opens his mouth and laughs in his face, a cruel little bark of sound. His lip plating curls in a kind of derisive sneer, not entirely familiar. Droog’s surprised, he’d have thought he’s seen every expression on Slick by now.
“God damn, Diamonds,” Slick snorts, shoving his shoulder and further fucking up his suit, because he’s Slick, of course. “How long were you hiding that one?”
He’s callous, obviously, needling Droog for the obvious reasons. Laughing in his face after a kiss like that is a little far even for Slick. It would break the spirit of a lesser man.
Diamonds Droog is not a lesser man.
“Long time,” he answers, clipped.
“Didn’t figure you for a queer,” Slick huffs, and he curls his talons into Droog’s spoilt shoulder to steady himself as he gets to his feet. “Figured you more for a ladies’ man, myself. I’ve been wrong before.”
Droog barely restrains himself from crushing Slick’s toes under the heel of his shoe. It wouldn’t accomplish anything. It would be very satisfying, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Instead, he raises a claw as he straightens, and he collects one of the beads of Slick’s blood spat accidentally into his face when Slick laughed. He flicks it to the side, in a single, artful motion, with all the grave he’ll lose once he’s riddled with holes and ridiculed by his boss. Oh well. Might as well make use of it now.
“Didn’t have anything to lose giving it a shot,” says Droog, excusing his actions - or explaining them. He isn’t used to not knowing why he’s doing something, and he isn’t all sure he likes it. Hates it, actually, may be a better word, and not even in the spades-way he gets for Slick when he’s being particularly stubborn (and sometimes a little bit Crowbar. He’s got a good pick in hats and some actual competence, and, clearly, Droog doesn’t have the most discerning of tastes.) “Might as well.”
Slick squints up at him, a minute, and spits blood just shy of Droog’s shoe. He is so lucky Droog doesn’t put him out of his bitchy misery at this exact moment.
“Might as well,” Slick parrots, and then, “Y’know, you and she ain’t so different. Same attitude. And you’re both always up my ass.”
Droog looks at where the wall’s been shot away by sustained gunfire, and pretends not to understand entirely what Slick’s trying to say, in his own, very stupid way. He spins his cuestick, and the tip turns fast enough to cut through the air with a sharp noise.
He can taste Slick’s blood on his lips. In a couple minutes, it’s going to be his own instead. Pretty shit trade, if you ask him, but nobody does.
“... Yes,” he says, acknowledging Slick’s meaning and giving him a little ground. “Yeah.” He turns his head to catch his boss’s eye, and he’s as determined as ever, even when he’s been blindsided like that. Droog admires it, even if it is rooted in an inability to understand just how fucked he is. “Ready, boss?”
Slick nods, flicking a few playing cards in between his fingers. The daggers catch the light as Droog turns away. Can’t turn your back on anyone in Midnight City, especially not when they’ve shown you their knives.
But for him, Slick’s got his back, instead of sliding a knife in it. Droog breathes, then uses his cuestick to flick the shot-through hat up, and catches it in two fingers. The hole in it is unfortunate, but better a slightly damaged hat than no hat - at least, with this suit.
Slick steps up beside him, and gives the signal, one hand still over his gut.
As one, they step out from their cover.