Work Text:
Someone tries to juke Droog out of his usual cigs for a bit of cash on the side. This is Bad, Actually. Everyone is upset about this but Droog, who's just happy to be here. He gets to just hang out, not pay attention, and reap benefits from someone else’s shitty decision.
For as lawless as Midnight City may appear, it is not without its morals. Mostly.
The people who forget those usually don't live to tell the tale, or they're left permanently reminded of it. Boxcars has morals, sue him. He doesn’t like senseless murder all the time. Permanent disfiguration, sure, but all the blood and viscera is such a pain to get out of his carapace.
Slick would love to do that right now, Droog thinks. He has been getting progressively angrier, yelling and screaming and being absolutely pissed about how he wants to tear someone limb from limb and chop them into itty bitty pieces and then tear those pieces limb from limb. Droog wants to calm him down, he really does, but then he's gently threatened at knifepoint to sit the fuck back down, shut the fuck up, and stop fucking getting up, and he really doesn't trust the room spinning and his heavy limbs to cooperate.
The couch is his home, and Droog wonders idly if they've gotten a new one. Slick asks why the fuck he'd think that, to which Droog replies by saying that the couch feels so goddamn much. This, of course, makes little sense to his boss, but the old couch never was this much couch, so clearly it's new. Or, enhanced. Couch squared. Couch 2. Couch flavored couches. Inspired by couches, for couches.
Slick mumbles a complaint about "enhanced bullshit." Droog asks about if they actually do that for couches, and Slick says he wasn’t fucking talking about the couches, didn’t he say to shut the fuck up?
He did, Droog muses, but that was hours ago, and it shouldn’t apply now. Deuce says that it’s been maybe a minute. Probably less! This doesn’t sound accurate, but Deuce can’t lie to save his ass, unlike certain other people.
Like the guy he got his cigarettes from.
Droog is reminded why he's here, suddenly. Up until 30 seconds ago? Life's greatest mystery. He had no fucking clue why he was here. Stars? Some megapowered player following a scheme? A weird heist Slick came up with while drunk off his ass?
The last one is dumb. Why would he even heist his own base? Stupid.
Wait. Couch heist. Now that could be fun. Heist for the couchiest couch.
Slick yells at him to shut up about the fucking couch. Droog tells him he isn’t talking about a fucking couch. Just a regular couch. Besides, if you’re going to fuck someone, couches really aren’t the best place for it. There is better furniture.
Boxcars asks him to refrain from thinking too hard about the damn couch. Droog tells him that, again, it’s a regular couch, not a damn couch, and he hears Slick mumble under his breath about giving him a few extra holes. Boxcars redirects him to his previous train of thought: why is Droog here?
Another moment of existential consideration happens. Droog is here because his regular cigarette dealer wss unavailable.
Midnight City doesn't have rules against smoking, so technically Droog doesn’t need a dealer per se, but also the manufactured bullshit they put into the ones at the corner store? Well. He'd rather pay money for better quality cigs that don't taste like cheap filters and add-ins when he’s using them for a night in. Droog’s a man of connections, and Midnight City is a place where people occasionally like to indulge in the finer things in life.
So, he has a dealer. Someone who cultivates his own tobacco plants, treats them real nice. Uses a good rolling paper. The whole nine yards. His product is quality, and Droog likes quality, so he has a guy for his cigarettes, and it means he gets good cigs. Also means that he gets his orders custom-made, since he pays well and has a history with the guy.
Regular dealer? Unavailable. Some man Droog only knows through other people? Definitely available. Said his dealer asked him to pass it along. Droog is suspicious, but it's bagged up the same way that his man bags it up, and the guy doesn't seem like the type to risk his life.
Except, well…
Droog is particular. He smokes tobacco because it slows him down. Slick is too impatient, he drinks until his brain shuts off. He only gets good quality cigarettes because he likes not having to go through multiple packs so quickly (although he buys the cheap kind anyways, a specific brand, because they're strong in smell and nicotine, and sometimes you just need something cheap), and he goes to the same people for them because building rapport means you can have your thumb on pulse points of the underground while ensuring quality.
Nicotine makes him calm. He likes good nicotine. Corner stores suck. He knows a guy. Right. Makes sense.
Now Boxcars is telling him to shut up. Deuce says he wants to hear the story, Droog can tell it to him if he wants! Boxcars tells Deuce to shut up too, but nicer. Droog tries to get up again. Slick throws a knife at him, and it moves in slow motion. Droog watches it soar past his head, watches the trail it leaves behind it. Asks how Slick did that. Slick just throws another knife. Droog decides to stay sitting.
Anyways. Droog's dealer is, incidentally, not only in the business for cigarettes. As Droog is currently aware of.
"You're a fucking mess," Slick hisses, throwing a pillow this time at Droog. Droog rolls his eyes as it misses. He doesn't argue, although he does wonder if Slick's using his magic to keep him confined to the couch now. Is that why the pillow didn’t have a trail?
Slick is not. Droog complains that he feels heavy. Slick tells him he's fine. Droog wants to argue, but instead chuckles to himself because "Geez, boss, you're really gonna flirt with a man while he's under the influence? Kinda skeevy. Least buy me dinner first."
A second pillow is lobbed and makes contact. It hits him with enough force that he falls backwards, and as he adjusts to his new life as a horizontal man, Droog feels content, and a bit goofy.
He isn't sure how long it is that the pillow is on his face, but when it's removed, Boxcars is staring down at him, framed by a shitty flickering light behind his head that makes him look ethereal.
"You having fun?"
Droog shrugs. ‘Bout as much fun as someone can have with a pillow on his face. It was funny at first, but it got old in the year since it happened. Has Boxcars thought about getting backlighting? It looks really cool.
Slick says something about him having not reacted for ten minutes. Droog thinks he's wrong, because really, he's fine, and also it’s been maybe thirty seconds, but then Boxcars rights him up and Droog is convinced that the spatial part of his brain has been glued to the couch, somehow escaping his body. Time slows down again. Maybe this is the ten minutes Droog missed supposedly- ten minutes of being shoved upwards and rubberbanding back and forth until he’s solid again.
While he tries to orient himself, Boxcars turns towards their shared boss.
"Thought it'd be funny to swap everything in the bag," Boxcars explains, "and try to get good deals for it."
"How the fuck did Droog not pick up on that?" Slick demands.
Droog tries to tell him that his dealer friend said he wanted him to try a new combination he was working on- variety is the spice of life, tobacco is the spice of cigarettes, and sometimes Droog likes to indulge. He’s got special cigarettes for heists, for banquets that go well, for cooking a damn good dinner.
Dinner.
Wasn’t Slick gonna take him to dinner?
Slick says no. Droog thinks he’s probably right, tries to figure out where he was going with this train of thought. He trips over his words, and his brain slowly sucks back into his skull as he tries to correct himself. Is he drunk? He feels drunk.
He laughs. Imagine getting drunk off a cigarette. Fuck, Slick’d be smoking right along with him. Smoking buddies.
"So, basically Droog got himself stoned?"
Boxcars holds up a near-identical bag to the one Droog picked up only hours before. The only difference is the large splattering of blood and what looks to be chipped chitin. Droog thinks that maybe this makes it no longer near-identical. Deuce tells him they are Very Clearly Different Bags.
"Bright side, we have the actual shit now. Downside…" Boxcars gestures to Droog.
The collective decision is that a shower would be smart, and then sleeping it off. Droog doesn’t mind this decision, and then he is very on board with the decision, because it grants him the opportunity to not pay a goddamn cent of attention for a good solid while.
This is, by far. The best fucking shower he has ever had.
The water is hot, borderline scalding, and he relishes in how it beats against his carapace. He’s warm, he feels clean, and he is in bliss. Boxcars helps him out after what he deems “long enough” to be. Droog isn't sure if it's been longer or shorter than an hour, but it's not enough time. Time enough for Boxcars, though.
Droog complains about this. Loudly. Boxcars refuses to let him back in the shower. This seems like a crime, and then he's being gently set in Boxcars's bed, and he can't find himself angry anymore.
Slick is still on babysitting duty, Boxcars tells him. Droog doesn’t care. Boxcars tells him that he'll make dinner, and "we can figure out where to go from here later."
Droog asks him if his dealer knows what happened. Boxcars tells him that his dealer is the only reason Boxcars found the guy. Slick tells Boxcars to get the fuck out already so Droog can sleep this off faster, and Droog’s eyes slide over to the man in the doorway. Boxcars tells him to stop his bitching, and makes a face that Droog laughs at. Slick is not a fan of the face. Boxcars is a fan of the reaction. He makes a few more faces. Droog giggles at them, and then giggles that he’s giggling because he’s Diamonds fucking Droog, that’s not what he does.
Slick kicks Boxcars out of his own room and sits himself angrily on the bed. Droog tries to make jokes, but Slick is angry about something, and no amount of grabby hands will soothe him.
Droog gets quickly bored of laying in bed and being ignored. Slick gets bored of making threats that don't have an effect. Hard to be intimidated by a man who's shorter than you when he fucks up his words abd sats he’ll knife you with the sharpest stab he has.
Slick goes for the next best thing. Droog is covered with blankets, and Slick rests his body weight against him. It's similar to if Droog were a living backrest- technically, he supposes he is.
The pressure is good, though. Droog purrs without intending to. For a brief moment, he can feel his boss stiffen above him, like he wasn't expecting Droog to react.
The moment is tense, probably, and then the tension is gone as Slick relaxes, stretching over Droog.
Droog asks him if he knows that the contact is good. Slick tells him he needs to shut up and go to sleep. Droog manages to free a hand, somehow gets it to pull his boss down.
Slick adamantly denies this is happening. Droog tells him to shut up, buries his head until he's surrounded by a mix of pillow, blanket, and Slick's shoulder. There are further complaints about this, but his boss purrs too much for it to be genuine.
It's all a front, after all. Slick begrudgingly accepts the cuddles within a minute or so. Droog is happy he does, because his brain is as pleasantly fuzzy as it gets when he's drunk and smoking, yet he's much more acutely aware of everything. Like if he were spying.
Cross faded hyperawareness. CFHA. Kiff-hah. Looks like if someone was gonna fuck up coffee.
Droog tries to say the acronym a few times, wonders if he can make other words with it and tries. Slick tells him to shut the fuck up. There is an arm slung around his shoulder as a bribe, which Droog accepts willingly.
"On the bright side," Droog hums as his brain floats off again, "I'm tired. Got me right in the ballpark. Ball. Park. Do people take balls to parks? Why do they need exercise? Sports?"
"Don't like that you got drugged to get there, but congrats."
Does Slick know that Droog smokes so much in the evenings so he can sleep? Have they talked about it before?
"Yes, now stop thinking."
Right, they have to have. Slick plays piano when he can't sleep. Steals the last half of a cigarette when he's decided Droog's had enough. Droog's probably told him this.
"I have eyes. It's obvious. Go to sleep."
Droog complains about the interruption. The half-hug tightens, and the complaint is dropped.
"There are easier ways to get contact than getting high, Droog," Slick scolds. "You don't have to be a dumbass, could just ask."
Droog tells him that there are easier ways to cuddle people than pretending to be upset that Boxcars has you on watch. He doesn't have to make a whole scene of getting closer when Droog annoys him, could just ask.
Slick flips him off. Droog snickers as he does so. Tried to snark at him and loses his higher thinking halfway through as Slick tip-taps his fingers over a break in his faceplates. It's rhythmic without purposeful intent to be a melody, but for Droog? Blissful lullaby. It reverberates throughout the rest of his face, a dull thrumming, and it makes him shiver.
"If you try to fight sleeping, I will kill you and then haunt your ass," Slick grumbles. There's no bite in it- Droog thinks he's falling asleep too. Not as quickly as Droog is, between the bed and the boss and the sheer everything.
"Can't haunt a ghost. ‘Specially when you’re not the dead one."
"Fucking watch me, asshole. I'll do it."
“You can haunt me later, Boss.”