Chapter Text
Spades Slick is… an interesting character.
Perhaps interesting isn’t the right word.
Peculiar, maybe. Fascinating. If one is stupid enough to act out of line, one might even describe Slick as terrifying.
Which, they should.
One doesn’t end up the leader of Midnight City’s most notorious mobster crew if they’re not worth a damn.
That isn’t what makes Slick interesting, though. There’s a thousand things that makes Droog’s boss interesting. The fact that Slick is his boss ain’t one of them.
There was a rumor, a long time ago, about a broad who worked in some bullshit office. Last week, someone claimed it was true, ran around yelling about how this “JN” fellow used to do some real work back in the day, and he knew where she’d disappeared to.
Incidentally, last week, that guy also got into his car after work and it blew up.
JN, whoever that was, doesn’t exist. Slick has made damn sure everyone knows that whoever she was, she’s a legend, some bullshit fuckall story you tell around the watercooler because your idiot brain ain’t got enough ventilation and hasn’t yet gotten a few knifings to the head to adjust to that.
Anyone who knows about JN is either dead, or knows better. Even Deuce, who’s more bomb-savvy than he is people-savvy, knows better. Granted, that’s implying Deuce ain’t smart. Deuce is smart in the kind of way that nobody else could pull off half the shit he pulls off, and nobody has the technical know-how to make the type of explosives he makes. He’s not so well-versed in keeping track of social convention in conversations, brain so focused on formulas and ideas and new explosions to test that things slip right past him, in one ear and out the other.
That’s not the point.
Point is that even Deuce, who verbally steps on people’s toes because he doesn’t realize their toes were there in the first place, doesn’t bring her up.
Slick gets a lot of shit for a lot of reasons. Some of it, Droog thinks, is warranted. Last week, Boxcars crossed his arms in this barely-amused way that he does, and asked if Slick was “done having a bitchfit in front of the bacon. Seriously,” he’d said, “you’re squealing more than the bacon was when I picked the hog up fresh.” Slick responded, as Slick usually does, with expletives and threats of bodily harm. Boxcars got a knife in his forearm. The man shrugged it off, confiscated the knife “until someone learns to quit bitching”, and then practically forced Slick to sit down and eat.
Some people, really fucking stupid people, think they’ve earned the right to mouth off and give Slick shit.
Droog thinks it’s real funny when they do.
Mostly because they think that it’ll help their case.
“Fuck you,” the asshole from the week prior might have spat. “You can’t tell me what the fuck to do.”
“Oh, but I can, and I will,” Slick had hummed, grin sadistic as one clawed finger traced the edge of the blade that, moments prior, had been inside this guy who claimed he knew who JN was.
Oh, right.
Coincidentally, before that earlier guy got in his car and it exploded? Droog, Boxcars, and Slick all paid the bastard a visit.
Not Deuce, though.
Deuce was busy.
Specifically, Deuce was busy finalizing a new bomb he’d been working on perfecting all week, per Slick.
The type of bomb that works real well if, say, you wanted to blow someone’s car up.
Shame he wasn’t there to witness their little “chat”, but everyone knows how finalizing a new project works.
You gotta get it set up and test the damn thing.
Before the guy had mysteriously blown up in his car, though, there was that little chat.
“Now, you’re gonna listen, or I’m gonna hand you over to Boxcars again, and we’ll crack your shell even more and see just how many new holes we can put in you before I run out of room, capiche?”
Droog doesn’t snicker at the fear on the man’s face. He does think about it, though, as he takes a drag on his cigarette. Considers laughing at the way his expression falls to pieces, rough bravado gone.
“Very good,” Slick continues. A thin knife gets twisted through dexterous fingers. Slick is an artist, after all. His boss’s brush of choice is a blade, and this man is on the verge of being Slick’s new masterpiece. “Now, you’re gonna forget all about whoever the fuck JN is.”
“But I know that Ja-” The man’s words are cut off by a strangled garble as Slick wets that brush with a fresh new coat of blood.
“You know dick all.”
“But-”
“Dick. All.” Slick punctuates this by twisting the knife. It makes a squelching noise that might make a man with a weaker stomach lose his lunch. Droog is used to his boss’s pincushions having a lot more blood in the mix. He knows what it sounds like to hear flesh skip across metal as it’s pulled out, has heard much more disturbing noises that have made him care far less. Honestly, Slick’s not really putting his heart into this one.
Slick gets a lot of shit, and one of the most common lines is-
“What the fuck kind of a name is Slick anyways?”
“My name, you fuck.”
“Real feminine name you got going on, Slick ain’t no lady’s name.”
“Ladies don’t go around carving assholes like you like you’re a fucking Christmas ham,” Slick threatens.
“You must be real pent up, then, if you’re this much of a bitch-”
Oh, a shame. Droog has conveniently tripped forward from the other side of the room and thrown a punch into this guy’s jaw. He catches Boxcars looking at him with jealousy. Slick will give him shit for it later.
“Droog, what the fuck?” Or now.
“I tripped.”
“From the other side of the fucking room?”
“Happens.”
He takes another drag from his cigarette, glares at it as it glows against the filter, and puts it out on the convenient ashtray he’s just knocked a new world of pain into. Slick’s expression turns sour. Droog raises an eyebrow- or, well, he’d like to think that symbolically he does. In reality, his expression changes by millimeters, but Slick knows how to read him like a book.
“Get the fuck out of here, go drive your sorry ass to a hospital for fucks sacke,” his boss hisses. “Don’t let me see your ugly mug ever again, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut.”
The man scrambles out of the room almost immediately after that, and after about the five minutes it might have taken him to get down to his car, there’s a very loud explosion, and a very cheery Deuce on the radio saying that his test worked.
Slick doesn’t like being called a woman.
That’s something that is a fact about Spades Slick. Not anything noteworthy, Droog thinks, but it’s a fact nonetheless, and one he’s noticed about his boss. Slick doesn’t like being called a woman. Droog sure doesn’t like being called a woman. Deuce doesn’t like being called a woman, probably. Boxcars, if called a woman, muses that he’d be a real pretty lady, that he’d get a sparkly red dress and go out on the town. He’d intimidate men into buying him drinks, (and this next part is said with a too-wide smile revealing sharp white teeth as he cracks his knuckles) and smash those men’s skulls together like two peanuts if they thought of being untoward to a “little ol’ lady like himself.”
Slick says he’d make a “fucking ugly broad.”
Boxcars says Slick is just jealous because he’d make a prettier lady than Slick does.
Deuce comments that Boxcars isn’t really all that little.
Boxcars nods and says something to the effect of “Yeah, but who wants to go home with a girl with no meat on her bones?”
Deuce is then promptly confused because you’re not supposed to go home with bones, unless they’re the bones inside of you. This effectively kills the conversation, but only because Boxcars is way too enthusiastic about explaining the type of meat-on-bones he’s talking about, and neither Slick nor Droog want to hear his voice dip that low with such a wolfish smirk on his face as he goes into detail.
Nobody calls Slick a lady, because Slick is about as feminine as a rock. A very aggressive rock that’ll stab you if bored. Or not bored.
Slick is about as feminine as a knife. That’s a better analogy.
If you had to describe Slick as a lady, though, there’d be no way to do it justice.
Droog thinks about Slick- all sharp edges and snarling teeth, with a glare that’s turned on the world outside of their hideout- and compares his boss to the only other lady he can really think of.
Droog compares Slick to Snowman.
This is, objectively, a Really Bad Idea.
Slick and Snowman do not get along.
At all.
Droog thinks it’s a bit funny, how their names mesh. Slick and Snowman, like oil and water. Reactive.
Snowman is someone who, if Droog were a different man with different ambitions in life, might be downright attractive. Alas, Droog is Droog, and just doesn’t see it. What he does see, however, is a woman who knows how to dress, and that he can appreciate. She’s feminine in a dangerous kind of way. Sharp edges with a saccharine drawl that is the only warning you get before her temper flashes with an icy bitterness.
In those regards, Droog can look at the woman that is Slick’s mortal-enemy-slash-occasional-hateship and see a damn lady. She is a lady in the way that Slick could be.
Slick is not a lady, though.
As previously stated, Slick is all sharp edges and snarling teeth. A white button up with splotches of red because someone’s blood splattered particularly enthusiastically. A messy black suit jacket that probably came from a clearance rack, dirty and missing part of a sleeve. Outside of work clothes, Slick is oversized clothing that somehow makes Midnight City’s most dangerous mobster even tinier.
When it comes to formalwear, Slick insists that Droog “not even fucking bother”. Slick has people who do clothes, and while Droog might think to be offended, he never is.
No, wait, he definitely is.
The crew does a heist, and they’re waiting for Slick, and everyone looks real fucking good. Droog can’t help the twinge of pride he gets seeing his boys (Boxcars and Deuce can be his boys, just for a bit) all cleaned up like this. Not that Deuce doesn’t look quaint in his usual outfit, of course, or that Boxcars doesn’t make your mouth dry when he’s wearing slacks and a dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but, well. There’s something to be said about both men in such sharp suits, and those things are “wow” because they both clean up real well.
Three fourths of the crew look amazing for this heist, and Slick shows up, as is usual, and for the first time Droog actually considers taking his boss’s title of being feral and bloodthirsty.
There is a way to style a suit.
Many ways.
Droog knows these ways because he likes wearing suits, he knows what does and does not look good, and he enjoys looking his best.
Whatever the fuck Slick is dressed in is not a way to style a suit, and the only thing stopping Droog from ditching this heist right here and now and painting some schmuck’s office red is the heavy hand that gets slapped onto his shoulder by Boxcars himself.
Whoever made this suit for his boss, though, needs to be taught a lesson.
Even Slick looks uncomfortable in the thing. The jacket is too form fitting, the dress shirt pulled in in places that accentuate aspects of Slick that nobody would dare even consider glancing at. For fuck’s sake, someone tried to put his boss in some pantsuit masquerading as formalwear, and it.
Well, it might look good on other people, but on Slick, it’s the worst, and Slick looks uncomfortable. Keeps trying to pull the sorry excuse for a jacket tighter across a chest that’s too on display.
Slick is interesting because Droog knows what makes his boss tick.
The next heist they do that requires them all to be dressed to the nines, Droog makes the executive decision to burst into Slick’s office, slam both hands down on his boss’s desk, and calmly tells the carapacian in front of him that “if you ever think about hiring another person to do your suits again, your office will be covered in your own viscera, and I’ll do the same to whoever made that godawful excuse for a suit last time.”
Slick calls him a fucking weirdo.
Droog reiterates that the crew needs to look good. If you’re gonna have someone on your payroll, Slick, who knows how to dress, then let them fucking dress you.
Go fuck yourself, Slick snarls, and get out of my fucking office.
I’ll make sure your suit is ready before the heist, Droog responds, and then he leaves.
Slick is interesting because Slick looks really fucking good in a suit.
People look good in suits.
Everyone does.
Droog is of the opinion it’s impossible to look bad in a suit if you do it right.
He’s of that opinion because it’s true.
That opinion has a hidden asterisk, though, and that asterisk says not everyone looks fucking stunning in suits, because not everyone takes the time to figure out what works for them beyond buying a suit and wearing it.
Slick, however, looks fucking stunning in suits.
Droog knows that because Slick walks out of the bathroom in the new suit for the first time, comes into the same room with mirrors set up where Droog is waiting, sleeves cuffed 3/4ths of the way down his arms, a measuring tape draped across his neck, and pins held between his lips, and he almost inhales one of the needles as his boss walks in.
Droog knows suits and he knows Slick and he knows how Slick should look in a suit, and this is how Slick should look. Sure, the measurements are a bit off, because Slick wasn’t going to stand and get measured by anyone, least of all his right hand man, so Droog had to eyeball a few measurements, but what’s there is.
Well.
His boss looks really damn good in suits.
“Holy shit.”
Slick seems to think so, too.
Droog moves quickly as he pins things in place to make alterations. Slick’s eyes don’t leave the mirror.
“What the fuck did you do?” Slick asks. There’s no bite to the words. Shock, maybe. A tiny hint of pride that he’ll never admit.
“I put you in a suit,” Droog responds.
“Okay, but this looks good.”
“If you wear a suit right, everyone looks good in a suit.” Droog pauses to look into the mirror. Slick’s eyes meet his in the reflection. “You clean up nice, boss.”
“Yeah, well, of course I fucking do. I’m Spades fucking Slick.”
“That you are.”
He lets Slick eye himself in the mirror for a bit. Writes a few things down in a notepad. Watches.
The problem with people who see Slick is that they don’t see Slick in the first place. Not really.
The suit he has his boss in, this is the type of suit Slick should be in. Should have always been in.
There’s a lot that goes unsaid. Slick is not one for feelings talks, and if he were, Droog would be convinced someone had replaced him.
That being said, Droog is no idiot. He has eyes that can see things and half a brain for putting shit together. Anyone who’s spent long enough around Slick knows exactly how Slick should be Slick, and it’s in a suit that’s purposely cut to smooth down the silhouette it houses into something that any woman who’s got personal stake in how she looks would hate.
Slick isn’t a woman, though, despite what first appearances might make one believe.
Slick, being a woman? Shit, next someone’s gonna be telling Droog that some broad with the initials JN used to be his boss.
That’s bullshit, though, because JN never existed, and if she did she’s dead. Slick’s always been his boss. Does Slick look like a broad? Course not, just look at the guy in this fucking suit.
“Don’t get a big head over this,” Slick warns. Thanks.
“Of course, boss,” Droog replies as he lights a new cigarette and takes a long drag. You’re welcome.