Archive of Our Own ^beta

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You've never fought back-to-back with Problem Sleuth before. You've fought face-to-face enough times (and been on the losing side of that as often as not), but you've never gotten into a fray so bad you've had to put backs together just to guard them.

That's what you get for bringing the fight to the Felt; they bring it right back, and there's never a guarantee they'll strike after you did. It seems like this assault just came out of nowhere, but it's probably actually the repercussions for a raid you were just beginning to plan. Apparently it'll go well- well enough that the Felt will try to kill you in your sleep for whatever you did there.

They could have easily anticipated who'd be there if they had any of their recon guys, but it looks like you'll be able to take them out as planned next week, because they don't have any with them now. So they all just crashed in there in the middle of the night expecting to find you with a few cards under the pillow, but asleep all the same. Instead Sleuth is the one passed out, flat on his face and snoring, and you're just lighting up a smoke on the balcony in your house coat (black silk, black embroidery, real classy) when they all bust in.

You made a dive for the war chest and came up with a handful of sharp things, and Sleuth (giving credit where it's due) grabbed his hat, rolled off the edge of the bed, and was firing even before you were. But that was almost a minute ago, you're running worryingly short on sharp things, and you're not sure how many shots Sleuth's got left in his single weapon.

You can hear him take a deep breath and yell "Sepulchrit-" which you cut off with a swift jab (just your elbow, not your knife, of course) to the ribs. It turns into a breathless "augh-" and a flail, and you turn to whip an exacto knife into the eye of the green fucker trying to take advantage of his moment of weakness.

You're not going to let him do this. He told you about it forever ago, and you didn't really believe him at the time, this amazing attack he could destroy the world with, but that would destroy him, too.

"What did you call it?" you had asked him.

"Sepulchritude," he said.

"That's a stupid name," you told him, and that was pretty much the end of it.

"We can't hold 'em off forever, Slick," he says now. "Lemme get it off. I'm on borrowed time anyway with this thing." He slips another six bullets into his revolver, then puts his back to yours again. Someone big comes at you with a fist the size of a footstool, and you pull Sleuth down with you, cutting off another "Sepul-" as you go.

"Goddammit, man, try to kill them, not yourself," you growl. "Nothing we can't do with sharp things alone."

Sleuth looks grim, though, clamping his lips together and looking worried. He's decorated with a handful of shallow scrapes and slices and not a few bruises. They layer on over the usual lattice of claw marks and card wounds, mostly yours. You don't like it. You bend over to rip the nine of spades out of Doze's shoulder. He doesn't seem to notice the serrated blade coming out, but then he's not doing much to begin with. You toss a glance over your shoulder, over Sleuth's shoulder, old scars white in cross-chromatic moonlight. The balcony seems miles away.

Another "Sep-" and you push him sharply away from Sawbuck's incoming fist, bigger than your head. He chokes on it and stumbles out of the way, and through some mystery of serpentine bones you manage to avoid it too- barely.

But you can't avoid the next one, Quarters from across the room with his minigun. Nobody does. It cuts across your room and begins to pull it apart. The walls buckle. Bullets hit and impact and eat up Doze (who goes down), Cans (who doesn't quite), and Die before they hit you, and you have a split second of surprise before an insane number of bullets replace your chest with ruined gaping holes. You take advantage of that second to wonder what you were going to do to the Felt to make them cut down their own teammates to get you. Then you wish, briefly, that you'd gotten the chance.

Then you realize you shouldn't be able to think by now. You tune back into the world, and over the deafening whirr of Quarters' weapon, you catch the end of it.

"-CHRITUDE!"

Oh no.

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He's standing in front of you, and he's glowing green like... well, the Felt are the greenest things you know, but he's not that horrible sick colour like them. If you tilt an emerald towards the light, there's a flash of colour that's not entirely white and not entirely green and sort of takes a bunch of other colours with it. You know, having robbed your share of emeralds. It's sort of like that.

He has a sword in one hand, pointed at the room, and a breastplate, now covered in a number of dents. Bullets litter in a half-circle around his feet. Wings- huge, beautiful wings take up your bedroom and curve in graceful arcs. He's wearing his hat, and it's crowned in laurels.

No, no, no. You reach for him, but it's already too late.

"By the power invested in me," he begins, but the momentary pause he bought through his transformation is broken by his words, and the Felt leap on him. As if on cue, several dozen copies of Eggs and Biscuits appear out of nowhere.

You pull out your horse hitcher, but in the moment it takes you to do, he's already in the fray. You watch. You marvel.

He is astonishing. You've never seen a more graceful tool of carnage. His sword flicks, dragging ink lines through Quarters and crossing him out like he might a simple misspelling. You've always thrown your entire body against these idiots but it was just a slow death for all of you. But Problem Sleuth is something else entirely now, screaming words in- is that Latin?- and swooping in from the side to parry blows meant for you. He catches all of them. There could be one Felt gangster or there could be a hundred; there's no apparent scaling of difficulty for him.

"-to be free from persecution, to claim right of self-defence-" he chants, a discourse in the madness of battle.

Does it go on forever or is it over immediately? You're really not sure. It feels like an age at the time. But you make a habit of keeping no clock, so you can't actually tell when the last of the Felt falls and the glorious guardian that is Problem Sleuth now stands still and catches his breath, his back to you.

"Holy shit," you say breathlessly. He's okay, he's okay.

"And we the above so pledge," he says, and his voice sounds weird.

Then you see why.

He turns, places the tip of his sword on the ground, and green puddles leak from it across the floor. He keeps on hand on the hilt as, heavily, one of his knees touches the ground. His breastplate is open, holes ripped into it in enormous and hideous punctures. Rather than blood, iridescent ink pools out of him and soaks the short Roman skirt he wears, drips down his legs. His wings are ripped through.

He bows his head, in the center of carnage. Beyond the two of you is a mess of green and red, but you've really got no eyes for it.

The sword crumples into nothing, and then nothing holds his weight, and he topples forward. His wings fall down, laying along his legs and far past, until they too are pulled into him like paper crushed into a ball. Blood soaks through his hat where laurels sat a moment before. Then suddenly he doesn't glint like an emerald and he's just himself, and oddly sort of small now, lying on his face in a pool of his own blood.

You don't know how you get to his side but you do. You flip him over and he doesn't even complain about it. "No, fuck you, get back here," you say, but he doesn't seem to be listening. He just cracks you a vague smile, blinks a few times, and... that's it.

You can hear somebody yelling "No no no no no-", and it's a moment before you realize it's you. You don't see any reason to stop, until a white flash flickers your entire room at once. You look up.

Doc Scratch, immaculate in white, steps into your room. He doesn't have the decency to use the door like a regular person. He just appears in the middle of it. "Dear me," he says calmly.

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He glances around the room, and by the time his gaze comes to fall on you, you are growling possessively over Sleuth's body. "What do you want," you demand. Goddammit, voice, you think, as it wavers. Pull it together. "Come to gloat? Go right ahead. I'll fucking rip your tongue out."

He looks taken aback. "Not at all. I'd planned on coming by for more than one reason tonight, anyhow. First, of course, I have some negotiations with you I need to get underway. And second, my employer's little crew here do have a habit of making a mess wherever they step. I thought I might well clean it up while I was here, as a token of... perhaps 'good will' is too strong. As proof of mutual interest, perhaps."

"Well, you're here now," you say. You don't bother to move your arms, which are still around Sleuth. Your housecoat is soaked with blood, almost all of it his. "Get it over with."

"Very well, and very generous of you, Slick," he says. "First, let me lead the rabble out." He doesn't seem to move again, but the pieces of Felt littering the area vanish; cleanly, instantly. He turns, only a second gone, back to you. "They will be fine, of course, when I am done here, though a lesson or two in asking permission before going out on wild and foolish assassination attempts might be time well spent."

You tune out, and look down at Sleuth. His face is grey; the parts of it that aren't splashed red, anyhow. You really don't like his eyes still staring at your chest but you can't close them yourself. They're green. That was always sort of surprising.

You get the feeling Scratch is waiting for you. You look up at him impatiently.

Very belatedly, you realize that though you haven't been crying, because you don't cry, there are still two trails leading down from your eyes. You don't care. Scratch is going to have to deal with it.

"Slick. The raid you're planning," he says, probably repeating himself. "I would take it as a very great personal favour if you would not go through with it."

"Fuck that," you say, and your voice is falling apart the longer you have to talk. "You all deserve it."

"I'm sure it seems that way now," Scratch says. "But is it worth this?"

"I already paid," you say.

"Reacharound revenge will not satisfy you, Slick," he says, as if he knows that. "I am not suggesting you not take it. I am merely suggesting that you not lead my employer's goons to seek it for themselves."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you ask. You feel, for the first time, like you could talk to Doc Scratch all night. It's not like you've got something better to do.

"Merely this," he replies. "The raid you planned is almost preternaturally effective. Plan a second one, and execute that, and not the first. It will be less effective, by which I mean, you will destroy much of little consequence and feel much better about it, and the loss of property but not permanent lives will not drive the Felt back in time to ensure you don't have the chance to perform it."

"But it didn't work," you say. "I'm still here. And if I wanted to kill 'em before..."

"I know it," he says. "But I will ask you to trust me, and I will give you a simple reason. This was not how it was supposed to go. And I will help you to put it back."

You look down at Sleuth, staring blankly forever with green eyes into your chest.

"You can't," you say. "It's already wrecked up."

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Around you, there is another white flash, so rapid you almost don't believe it happened. Your room is repaired. Plaster doesn't bleed out the walls, bullets don't litter the floor. There are no bloodstains, and the bed is up, sheets tossed like you just climbed out of it to take your smoke at the window. Except Sleuth isn't in it. He's dead.

Doc Scratch looks down at you, and for a moment, he looks older than usual. Old, and very tired.

"You can't fix this part," you say. "So no deal."

"It does not need fixing," he says. "It's all a matter of perception."

You consider slugging him, but right now, it just feels like too much work.

"I perceived that my employer's hired help would make a fatal error in judgement that would cost us... if not 'good men', then at least, ones we still require. I perceived that courting you on the matter would be more effective than any other strategy. And I perceived that suggesting this specifically after these events, more specifically after the death of Problem Sleuth, would lead to the greatest chance of my arguments being heard."

You close your eyes.

You feel his hand on your shoulder, and you don't even break his wrist. "I suggest you merely take another look," he says. "I trust I'll have your agreement." Then there's a white flash that's just as clear behind your eyes, and when you open them, he's gone.

Your room is exactly the same as it was, maybe twenty minutes ago, or maybe an hour, or maybe five. You're not really wounded. You're barely injured. But Sleuth is dead. He's dead.

You look down at him. He doesn't really look dead. You could almost swear he was just asleep. Awkwardly, feeling hopeful and hating yourself for it, you put a hand behind his head, into his blood-matted hair, and kiss him.

When he suddenly breathes, you think maybe you can delay the raid another week. Maybe. When he starts kissing back, you figure you'll reschedule. No use being predictable.

"I told you not to do that," you tell him when you finally pull apart.

"If it's any consolation," he says, fixing green eyes on you wryly, "I don't think I'll do it a second time."

"What did you call it, again?" you ask, as you pick him off the floor and drag him to the bath.

"Sepulchritude," he says. He's got this look on his face, under the scrapes and slices, this look of pride and happiness. It is contagious, and you feel your heart sort of swell. He was amazing, and he did it for you, and you'll never see anything that stunning and... great, again. It was brilliant.

"That's a stupid name," you say, but you don't really mean it.