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The van’s parked on the manhole cover. Again. And, icing on the cake, the walkie-talkies batteries are dead.
If any outsiders were to observe the inside of the Midnight Crew’s quarters, they would find Slick and Droog demonstrating their differing ways of dealing with anger. While Slick attempts to break the manhole cover with one of Boxcar’s forgotten blunt instruments, Droog stands below, just watching and appearing to calmly smoke a cigarette. Of course, the cold hard look in Droog’s eyes says that he is anything but calm. He’s angry, maybe angrier than Slick, but he’s going to sit on it until he can do something with it. And then, someone’s getting garrotted with Droog’s tie.
“STUPID! FUCKING! HENCHMEN!” Slick yells, punctuating each word with a smash from the hammer. The point isn’t actually to escape, since all breaking through the manhole cover would do is make the van’s front (or back, they’re not sure which it is) wheel fall into the hole. But at least then Slick would have something to stab.
Slick’s final swing ends when the hammer slips out of his hand. Droog narrow dodges it, and rewards Slick’s carelessness with a carefully placed punch to the back of the knee. Slick’s leg promptly folds like a cheap deck chair, and with his grip compromised, Slick simply falls off the ladder and onto the floor. Droog stubs his cigarette out on the wall, “Watch it.”
The leader of the Midnight Crew is on his legs in half a second, drawing his switchblade. Droog’s pool cue isn’t too far away, the ace carefully held between his fingers.
Normally by now, Deuce would be recklessly pushing himself between them and doing his best to make everyone to relax. But Deuce isn’t here, because Deuce is the one who probably encouraged Boxcars to park right on top of the hideout while the nitwits went off to do nobody-knows-what. So instead, Slick gets right up in Droog’s face, sneering at him, “You got something you want to say?”
“No. There’s nothing worth saying to you. It won’t sink in through your thick skull,” Droog refuses to move, sacrificing personal space in order to stand his ground.
“Try me! You’re going to be fucking shocked what my thick skull can understand!”
“Stop wasting your breath yelling Slick,” Normally Deuce would be yelling over them, but he’s not here, so Droog’s words are crystal clear, “They aren’t listening, and you aren’t going to do anything but give us both a headache.”
“At last I’m doing something! If it were up to you, you’d just sit here and wait for them to come back when they feel like it, like a bitch!” Slick jabs Droog in the chest with his free hand, and Droog smack Slick’s hand, and whatever little distance between then all but disappears as Slick pushes and Droog refuses to budge. “It’s just like on Derse! I do all the fucking hard work while you just lie there and take it!”
At this point, Deuce would have defused the fight, even if he only did it by getting Slick and Droog to focus their hate at him instead. So, instead of letting a mutual annoyance defuse the situation, Droog opens his mouth and drops the bomb, “As I remember it, you were the Queen’s bitch-“
Slick shoves Droog, who promptly shoves back, and then they’re a tangle of limbs, knocking each other’s weapons to the ground, and pinballing back into the wall. They fight without reason or coordination, just a bunch of too-close punches and smacks that do nothing but make each other angrier. They’re both just overflowing with hate, Slick’s running hot, Droog’s running cold, and neither of them really notice when it crosses the line between fighting and something else.
Droog shoves a let between Slick’s legs, pinning him to the wall. Slick grabs onto Droog’s tie and yanks him down, hard, and shoves his mouth against Droog’s. It isn’t kissing so much as it is fighting with lips and teeth. They push and shove and bite and kiss one another, both grabbing onto clothing and trying to get the upper-hand.
The wall isn't the greatest place to do this, but neither of them wants to budge, except to try shove the other against it. Slick nearly strangles Droog as he yanks the tie tighter and tighter, and Droog just bites at Slick's mouth, drawing blood. They both grind their hips against each others thighs, too concerned with winning to really notice what they're doing.
Slick has Droog's tie tightly wrapped around his fist, and when Droog tries to lift his head, Slick yanks it back down into another bitter kiss. Droog has enough of it and wraps a hand around Slick's throat, squeezing until he finally lets go of Droog's tie, hips jerking mindlessly against Droog's thigh. Droog lets go of Slick's throat and looses his tie enough to breathe, and Slick stuffs his hands under Droog's jacket, digging into Droog's sides with his fingers until Droog makes a choking sound.
The sound of the van rumbling to life above their heads is what finally breaks them out of their rage-fuelled lust.
Droog stumbles back and Slick clings to the wall, like it’s the only thing that makes sense. They stare at one another with a mounting horror as what they did sinks in. Slick speaks first, still trying to put the pieces together, “What-“
“No,” Droog says, shaking his head. “Never happened.”
“Never happened.” Slick agrees easily, almost sounding relieved, except for the part where his voice is still too full of horror to do that. “And never again.”
Droog nods. If it never happened, it then it won’t happen again. And Droog will make sure of that, even if he has to handcuff Deuce to his side to keep from being caught alone with an angry Slick ever again.
He ignores the way his pants are too tight and straightens himself up, making sure to fix his tie. When that’s done, he climbs the ladder and steals a page from Slick’s book, pounding on the cover and yelling out, “Deuce! Move the fucking van!”