A/N: I actually wasn't planning on posting this because of the lack of character labels for anyone in the Intermission (unless there's a seperate section?), but what the hell. Anyway, yes, this will eventually be a SlickxDroog fic. Hints of it in this one if you squint. I messed around with some things due to the weird time shenanigans after the Intermission, so I apologize if any of it sounds off. It took me a while to decide how to start this fic in a way that might work. Enjoy!

Droog stumbles around the store in a daze, eyes flitting about the selections without any clue as to what he's supposed to be buying. What the hell do they usually buy? Fuck if he knows at this point. His mind is still reeling from that punch from Cans. Now what's going on?

Did everyone survive?

He stops for a moment, taking in a breath and rubbing his temples. Maybe if he waits he'll begin to remember what happened during this week.

Sure enough, memories of things he doesn't remember doing flood his mind. He's here for grocery shopping, but also for… some sort of medicine? Surely not for Slick's eye. Stitch fixed that up for Slick before he killed him. So why would he—

His arm.

Only bits and pieces are returning to him, but that fact is clear. Sn0wman took out Slick's arm.

Before he has time to recover from his momentary panic about the issue, the world around him distorts. He feels like he's spinning, spiraling into the end of the universe, eyes unseeing, ears filled with the sounds of oblivion, skin prickling as though thunder is running through his veins, insects crawling along his arms.

Tick. Tock.

And just like that he's back in the vault room. He almost vomits from the vertigo.

Droog takes in his surroundings. Boxcars is right next to him, on the ground, babbling something about horses. Deuce… is holding a crowbar around Clover's throat, a very dead Cans just behind him, who has a very crowbar-shaped wound in his cranium along with the gorey body parts that seem to have come from multiple explosions. So maybe Deuce's head isn't full of empty.

Slick isn't there.

"Hey! You guys!" the smallest crew member exclaims, waving at them as though they haven't seen him yet. "I beat 'im, see? I beat 'im!"

Droog's still glancing about the room looking for Slick while he replies, "and how did you go about doing that, exactly?"

"Simple! I am the demolitions expert."

Boxcars finally picks himself up off the floor. "And the boss let you use the crowbar?"

Deuce shakes his head, yanking on the crowbar as Clover tries to slip out of it. The Felt lets out a choked yelp. "Nah, this one's from our timeline."

Droog deadpans.

"So you've had it this entire time and you didn't tell anyone?"

Deuce shrinks. "I thought I lost it. Sorry, Droog."

He sighs. No point in arguing. He put it to good use at least—smashing Cans with the thing and managing to bring Boxcars and Droog back to the present. They have a bigger issue now. Slick is missing.

"So I'm assuming the boss still has the other crowbar."

Deuce's eyebrows knit with worry. "Yeah, but I don't know what happened to him."

"… What do you mean?"

"He disappeared."

"… What?"

"When I got back here after putting Biscuits away, he was gone!"

"Shit."

Clover starts to chuckle, bringing everyone's attention to him. Droog narrows his eyes into slits. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! He did it to himelf." His insane little laugh echoes about the room, muffling the distant eerie ticking of the mansion's thousand clocks. "To himself! What a fool, what an ignorant selfish fool— agh!"

Droog had yanked the crowbar from Deuce's hands before Clover could finish. "Don't lie to me. Slick wouldn't do that." Rage tinges his voice despite himself. Slick wouldn't dare do such a thing. Not the Slick he knew. Not him. Right…?

He laughs harder. "You naive little bitch, so loyal to your boss, so trusting. Yet you know shit-all about his intentions. He pried the safe open with that crowbar. One thousand years of bad luck is nothing to him. All he cares about is getting in that safe. Maybe he didn't here, but he sure did in another timeline. That's all that matters, right? Because in the end he's going to destroy the fucking universe anyway!"

Clover's cackling is cut short by a hand around his throat. Droog lifts him off the ground, making sure to keep the crowbar in place as he does.

"Fine. I'll believe you." Droog hisses reluctantly as he waltzes over to the vault, Deuce and Boxcars yelling, realizing what he's about to do. "I don't like it, but I'll believe you. And if you're wrong, well…"

The crowbar moves so swiftly that Clover doesn't even notice it leave his neck. Droog places the tip of the tool beneath the vault's door.

"You're going down with me."

He pulls at the safe with all his might. Clover screams in protest as cracks of green lightning and time resonate around them. It's too late. Oblivion swallows the both of them whole.

Tick. Tock.

"You idiot! You fucking piece of shit! Do you know what you fucking did! Fuck you, fuck you and your crew of douchebags. I hate you!"

Droog hardly listens to Clover's profanities as he observes his surroundings. The Felt mansion is in shambles. Smoke and dust rise from the fallen structure. Fire still burns in the distance of this broken world.

The vault door is open.

He drags Clover inside with him, the crowbar once again around the flustered Felt's neck. Within its walls lies another entrance, in the floor down a ladder. The hatch is open. Droog peers down the hole and listens. Silence, save for the whirring of some sort of computer.

"Sir?" he calls out.

… Nothing.

Clover's chuckling grates on Droog's ears. "He's dead. I bet he's dead!"

The taller yanks on the crowbar. "Shut up, weasel."

"Oh, weasel? That's a new one, stick."

Droog sighs and lifts Clover off the floor with the crowbar alone, suspending his small form over the hole in the ground. "I'm pretty sure those thousand years of bad luck have… handicapped your little advantage. So I'd suggest you stop being a smartass before I drop you, in turn breaking your puny green legs. Understood?"

Clover says nothing. Good enough for him.

Droog descends down the ladder, the Felt still in tow, who's somewhat choking as he attempts to keep up. "Slick?" he calls again, but still there is no answer.

It's only when he touches ground that he finds out why.

A few feet away, slumped over at some sort of monitoring system, is Spades Slick. His head lies on the keyboard, an infinite line of "sssssss" running across the small screen that displays what the user has typed. His left hand rests on the desk. His right…

His right isn't there.

There's enough blood to indicate that he's been here for a few hours. Maybe even a few days. It seeps into the keyboard, onto the desk, dripping off its surface steadily into a sizable puddle on the floor.

Drip. Drop.

"Fuck!" Droog dashes the few steps over to his boss, hardly aware of how hard he's yanking Clover. He places a hand on his shoulder, lifting him steadily off of the computer's controls. Slick's head lolles back with the momentum of the movement. No response. "Spades, come on," Droog urges, shaking him, even slapping him a couple times. "Wake up. Wake up! You can't do this to the crew. Not to us.

"Not to me."

Slick sputters as he wakes, a drop of blood escaping from his mouth. His eyes open into slits, and for a moment he looks at Droog like he has fifteen heads.

"Your suit is a fucking mess. Casual Friday, fancypants?"

Droog would smile if not for the fact that Slick's, well, bleeding to death. He shakes his head and reaches into his deck of cards. He'd let go of the crowbar without knowing, but rather than running off, Clover sat in a corner of the room. He doesn't have anywhere to go, anyway.

"How did you get here?"

"Long story," Droog says simply as he pulls out one of his tailored suits. He looks at it almost apologetically for a moment before biting into the sleeve at the shoulder and ripping it off with his teeth. "Doesn't matter."

Slick tries to make another smart remark about Droog's suits, but all that comes out is a wheeze. He doesn't have a lot of energy, and he's probably dizzy as all hell from the lack of blood. Droog hastily ties the suit's sleeve around the stump that was once Slick's arm. Hopefully that will stop the flow, at least a little. Blood covers the entire underside of his shoes, but he doesn't give a shit. Not now.

"Get up, Spades," Droog says, but there's no answer. Slick's head is lolling forward. "Hey. Hey! Stay awake. Come on." He slaps him gently a couple times, which is enough to get Slick's eyes open, at least. Still, it's painful seeing the crew's leader this way—weak, broken.

Droog lifts the shorter crew member from the seat, slinging his arm—his only arm—across his shoulders. He turns to Clover.

"Send us back."

Clover flits his gaze to them, glaring as he holds the crowbar in his hands. "Help you? After what you did to me and the rest of the Felt? No!"

"You little fucking prick." Slick manages to slur out. Droog bumps him slightly, eliciting a strangled groan.

"Then, do you plan on just staying here? With us?"

"Of course not. I'll just send myself back and leave you to sulk over your precious leader's body as he slowly rots away."

"Boxcars and Deuce are waiting for you," Droog points out. "You send yourself back, without us, they'll slaughter you. The only way you're getting out of this is if we go with you."

Clover's eyes dart between Droog and the crowbar, squirming with hesitance. Slick keeps falling limp in Droog's grasp, so the taller crouches down, allowing his boss to sit and use Droog's arm as back support.

"Fine!" the Felt huffs reluctantly, standing up, "but the next time we meet, don't expect me to be so helpful."

He exits the vault, supposedly to recite and complete the riddle in order to return to the present. Droog returns his attention to Slick, who's clearly struggling to stay awake. He's wheezing, one eye slightly more open than the other, beads of sweat evident on his forehead.

"You better not be mad later… about the blood on your suit," he breathes.

Droog scoffs in the most joking manner he can manage at the moment. "You know I will be."

"Fine. I'll just have to show you… show you my stabs then."

"Okay."

"That'll be… more blood on your suit. Haha."

"Yes."

"Sucks for you, Droogy." He attempts some sort of playful grin, but it comes off as a grimace. He coughs and sputters out more blood. "Fuck, this hurts."

Droog, almost unconsciously, wipes the blood away with his thumb. "You'll be fine soon, sir. You'll be fine.

"You'll be fine…"

Tick. Tock.

A/N: Thank you for reading~ To be honest I'm not entirely happy with how I wrote this out (I rushed it a little), so ConCrit would be absolutely wonderful!