I hope to eventually do a chapter for each of the ancestors, probably not in any particular order... this is Tennessee's, and I do have a concrete idea for Rioichi, just have to get it all written out.
Please no spoilers for anything beyond Tennessee's chapter/episode, I haven't gotten much farther than that!

Do note, I tend to write the Sly universe as less... cartoony than it's shown in the games lol. So y'know, language, bloodier sorts of violence, that kind of thing.

Concrit is very much appreciated!

As a sidenote, Justin Cross' "Drink the Water" and Radical Face's "The Mute" are my personal themesongs for Tennessee, go look them up :D

On that note, if anyone has themesongs for any of the ancestors please do share...?

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Bentley pulls Sly aside between missions, before he's even properly entered the safehouse. From across the room he can see Murray and Tennessee talking - something about the van and nitro and TNT and Sly imagines that is either going to end beautifully or catastrophically.

"Sly," Bentley says, voice pitched low, and Sly looks down at him. Bentley is usually serious, if he's not being sarcastic or panicky anyways, but this is... a little bit more serious. This is the we are so fucked kind of serious, and Bentley has Sly's instant and full attention.

Bentley jerks his head and Sly goes back down the stairs - Murray and Tennessee haven't even noticed he's back yet - and Bentley hovers down after him. There's enough room at the bottom of the stairwell for Bentley's wheelchair, and Sly sits down on one dusty step, bouncing his leg. For the sake of his own nerves he really hopes this isn't one of Bentley's overreactions; he's gotten much better about that, but...

"How closely have you looked at Tennessee?" Bentley murmurs.

Sly blinks, doesn't know how to answer that. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he's been shot." Sly looks back up the stairs; Tennessee's voice carries down to them. He's giving Murray a run for his money where loudness is concerned. "And cut, and hit, and who knows what else. Multiple times. I haven't been able to examine him thoroughly, but he has scars all over him. Have you noticed that he favors his left arm? And he limps sometimes, too. You can hear it, because of his spurs."

"Well, it is the Wild West, isn't it? Plenty of shootouts around here." Even if Tennessee was kind of supposed to be a thief and therefore avoiding said shootouts.

"Frankly, Sly, he should be dead. When he was changing, I saw..." Bentley pauses, shakes his head, and Sly almost doesn't want him to continue. "He's been shot in the chest before - based on the positioning of the wound, I would guess that the bullet punctured his lung. With the primitive medicine they have available here, I don't know how he survived that. And have you heard him coughing? He's a smoker, I'm sure of it, and I'll bet my shell he's a drinker, too. The point is, he's too careless. He's going to get himself killed, and then all of history's gonna unravel."

"Because of us being here?" Sly finds that hard to believe, because he'd have already been careless, if he's got scars, but then again. Time travel, paradoxes, the whole nine yards.

"Maybe. He isn't stupid; he knows you're from the future, and I think he believes that he can do whatever he wants because you're proof that he isn't going to die. His behavior is only going to get worse."

Sly sighs. Always had to be complications, didn't there? "So I have to talk him out of that."

"Please do. We already know history is changeable - the disappearing pages are proof of that. If he keeps going the way he is, we're gonna have way more problems than that." Bentley smiles, and leans forward to punch Sly's arm. "Don't want to lose my brother to something as stupid as alcohol poisoning."

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An opportunity presents itself, after Tennessee's gotten his gun back. Or his cane. Sly's not exactly sure what to call it. Tennessee is very, very pleased about it, however. Loudly so. It's somewhere between amusing and endearing.

(And it is very strange to think that this master thief and master marksman is only seventeen years old. Sly wonders if this is how Bentley used to feel all the time, back when they were kids - like an exasperated older brother.)

There's only canned food in the van, and most of it is pretty tasteless. Sly doesn't mind it, but Tennessee apparently does, and he's taken it upon himself to go hunting. Currently he's perched atop the clocktower, humming to himself. Weird how he could be so patient right now but so reckless the rest of the time.

"Howdy, partner," Tennessee says as Sly climbs up beside him. "Lookin' to learn from the master?" He doesn't take his eyes off of the plains and plateaus beyond, waiting for... something. Something to shoot.

"No thanks, I think I'll leave the guns to you."

Tennessee makes a hmm-ing sound, and doesn't seem inclined to comment further. Sly is suddenly struck by how hard he is to read, how little he knows about this - this kid. The Theivius Raccoonus only tells so much.

"So where'd you learn to shoot?"

"Taught myself, mostly. It ain't hard. Bullets go in the boomstick, point the business end at whoever's done wrong, bullets come back out the boomstick. Simple stuff. Distance shootin', now, that's harder. Y'know that one Cooper fella who figured out how t'think quicker so everythin' moves slower? That meditatin' thing? Helps a lot."

Sly supposes that would make sense. He can't imagine using it like Tennessee does, but then he supposes shooting back in slow motion isn't much more difficult than just dodging the bullets. "Listen, Tennessee... I sorta need to talk to you about that. The Coopers, I mean."

"Yeah?"

"It's not like I'm... I don't know, your father or anything," and Tennessee snorts, and Sly wonders what their relationship had been like. "But seriously, you need to be more careful."

"Yeah?"

Monosyllabic, repeated replies: never a good sign. Sly tries to remember how Bentley dealt with him as a teenager. Tennessee can't be too much worse, right? "Just because I'm here doesn't mean anything. The future can still change. That's why we came back - your pages of the Thievius Raccoonus are blank. All I can assume is that that means you're going to be stuck in jail, or dead."

"Prob'ly the second one," Tennessee replies absently, chewing on his toothpick a little. "The posters say 'Dead Or Alive', but it's always to the rope or firin' squad, every time."

This could be going a lot better. Then again, it could be going a lot worse, too. "And that can't happen, Tennessee. Just because I'm here doesn't mean things can't go wrong. If the pages can be erased, I can too. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

Tennessee shrugs a bit. He doesn't seem angry, but... "So, partner. You're tellin' me... I ought to stop doin' anything at all, is that it? Hell, if I'm followin' your instructions, I prob'ly shouldn't even be pullin' off heists anymore. That's mostly where all the shootin' happens, it's not like I get in showdowns for the fun of it. You want me to become a hermit, is that it?"

Okay, this is definitely going badly. "No, I... listen, Tennessee, I can't really tell you how to live your life. It's not like I can make you do anything. I'm just asking you to think before you run in guns blazing. For your sake, too - I don't want you to get hurt. But it's not just your life, or even just my life. There's... things I've done that have saved a lot of people. They're counting on you, too." Sly sighs. "Sorry, shouldn't have said that. I guess that wouldn't matter much to you, huh? That's more than a hundred years from now."

Tennessee looks over at Sly and for a moment the eyes in that face are decades older than they should be.

"Tell you a secret, partner," and he looks away, drawing his gun up against his shoulder. Preparing to shoot - what, Sly doesn't know. He can't see anything out there. "I ain't ever made a difference to anyone in my life. Sure, I follow the Cooper Code. No reason not to. It don't mean that everybody's all buddy-buddy with me. I've got bruised an' beat more'n I can remember. Nearly got hung when I was ten, and that was just the first time. Nobody gives a rat's behind about ol' Tennessee Kid Cooper. Never once in my life."

There is a crack, and a faraway thud, and Tennessee grins. He looks young again - completely at odds with the words coming out of his mouth. He stands up, offers his hand, and Sly lets himself be pulled to his feet. "So if it's only my great-grandkid an' his group o' plum loco buddies that care 'bout me, I reckon I better return the favor."

For a moment Sly wants to really play the part of big brother, wants to make sure things will be alright from now on, wants to beat the hell out of anyone who dares hurt him. For a crazy instant he wants to bring Tennessee with them when they go - wants to give him the medical help he needs, and the family he deserves. The family he should have had.

He can't actually do any of that, of course. He'll be here for maybe three or four days, and then Tennessee is alone again. Life is just... not fair. At all.

So he smiles and says, "Thanks," and tries to put as much of it into his voice as possible. "Really. Thank you."

Tennessee grins and whaps him on the shoulder. "Anytime, partner. We Coopers gotta stick together, huh? Come on, let's go bag ourselves a rabbit. Stew's better'n that stuff you call 'food'. More like prison food, if you ask me."

"Rabbit stew, huh? Sounds good to me."