Welcome aboard! This is a story I've originally published on AO3 (under the same username), but with a little editing done for the occasion ^^
General warning for canon-typical violence, mentions of alcohol and drug usage, mental health issues (PTSD mostly), hints of past violent relationship dynamics, and eventual sex scenes (chapters 13 and 16)
Days and nights and days again. It all bleeds together into weeks, months, years, caged by the austere walls of Stillwater Hold. The future, there, it's your next meal. The past a discarded dream. The present stretches on, endless. Gray.
Vander almost likes it, when the guards lead them outside, sometimes to charge or discharge docked ships, sometimes to tend to the walls themselves, the very walls that keep them in. It means salt and water eating away at their blistered palms, but it also means seeing the sun for a few hours. It's ironic, alright, that he thinks he might have seen it more since his arrival here, on this rocky island battered by the winds, than during all his years of living.
Ironic, too, that life in Stillwater doesn't feel that different from his youth.
Not quite enough food and an uncomfortable bed in a too-small room – or, back then, was it a cell already? –, forced labor that leaves his palms bleeding and his muscles aching, and no way out. The same anger as before. At everyone and everything, the other inmates and the guards, the bars of his cell, at his circumstances and that fucking system that allows for throwing Zaunites in jail without a trial. Maybe it's only a bit more hopeless, now. Maybe he just isn't young anymore.
It smells differently, too, of salt and kelp and mold, the air is thick and sticky but at least it's not toxic. Nevertheless, he kind of misses the Gray. He was used to it, and despite its cruelty, Zaun is his home. There, he dug a comfortable place for himself and his kids.
Until the past came back and set his life ablaze.
It ended with the cold end of an enforcer gun pressed against his back, the blazing heat from the fire, smoke filling the air until his eyes teared up and each inhale made him cough. He watched, powerless, Vi struggling against an enforcer's hold, screaming and crying, her voice raw already, calling for her sister as the blood of her brothers hadn't yet dried on her skin. He could still hear her cries, echoing in his ears, as the heavy doors of Stillwater closed behind them.
Today, the sun plays hide and seek amongst the clouds, elongates and distorts his and the other inmates' shadows, and sure, it never shines bright enough to warm the stone, but it glistens over the bay, catching the waves and the seafoam lining them. It's mesmerizing. He has always liked the sea, even if that sight too is not an easy given for Zaunites. Perhaps that very fact is what made it all the more enticing.
(It has held a special part in his heart for a whole different reason, too. As time passed, he found himself looking at the waves and smiling because it reminded him of someone's eyes. Nowadays Vander doesn't allow himself to think about him though. And now, there is also only one eye left anyway.)
This whole mess, it started with enforcers at his feet, dead, and it wasn't his doing at all, and two figures hidden amongst the Gray. One enormous, bulky and animalistic, and one slender and familiar, that somehow scared him more. He wonders if Benzo survived that encounter. Silco stopped his beast before it – him? – could give the fatal blow, but Vander's friend still laid on the pavement, still as a corpse, as himself was dragged away.
Maybe it started earlier. With an explosion Topside, or with two sisters crying on a blood-soaked bridge, or earlier still, with two lovers and the Pilt turning red around them.
He can almost still see it when he closes his eyes, at night, on the uncomfortable cot that has now been the witness of many sleepless nights. The events replay on the screen of his closed lids as if they were some haunting sort of remanent images. It might as well have been, though, with how bright that Arcane explosion was. Bright blue that burnt cold as ice, then the smoke and the rumbles and the corpses of two of his kids. Powder's doing, even if against her will.
The next minutes are a blur, an echo of the past made tangible by the warmth of skin beneath his palm, the jerky feel of Silco's trachea as he choked, then the stabbing pain in his gut that made Vander release him. He pressed his hand to the wound, warm blood seeping through his shirt, as Silco backed away, his own fingers around his throat, coughing.
They both noticed Powder at the same time.
The girl was running, one arm held over her face, maybe to try and breathe through the smoke, maybe to hide her blue eyes dissolving away in tears. Somewhere amongst the chaos, Vi's screams echoed.
Vander took one step forward, the sound echoing through the burning air, and then- a loud crack above their heads made them all look up. A cleft was running through the ceiling, quick as lightning, and Vander realized with a jolt of horror that the whole building was gonna come crashing down. He retreated, looking for an escape, a way t-
He didn't have time to think. Didn't have time to do anything, in fact, as the first large piece of acrylic glass broke off. The smoke swirled furiously around the path of its fall, and the whole metal structure shivered under his feet, creaking and whining, almost loud enough to top the roar of the parts already collapsing. Through the panic, before the kicked-up dust drowned out everything, he last saw Silco grabbing Powder, yanking her close, one arm above her head, just as the ceiling collapsed.
After that, there were the enforcers, coming out of thin air like cockroaches out of an abandoned pantry, they were shouts and cries and gunfire. The cold metal of handcuffs biting at the skin around his wrists, then a hit to the back of his head. Just before he passed out, Vander saw them dragging Vi in. Of Powder, he never heard again since that day.
"What?"
It's been… He doesn't know how long it has been, not really – no one bothers to keep inmates informed of what's going on outside, not even what day it is. Inside, it doesn't matter anyway. Every day is the same.
A few years, probably.
He got a life sentence. It doesn't feel like a lifetime has passed yet.
(Oh, it happens that inmates are released early. Quite often, in fact, and usually when they stop being useful enough to justify the cost of feeding them. However, his strength hadn't failed him yet.)
"I was expecting a bit more enthusiasm," the Sheriff sneers – and Vander misses Grayson.
"Where is the catch?"
"Nothing that should be too hard. You see, there is someone that wants you-" Markus stops here, lips pursing into a tense line that could almost be called a pout. "Anyway. The girl was easy enough to get a warrant for, but you, I had to add a little something to make the scale tips in your favor."
"Spit it out," he growls, losing patience. He feels out of the loop, his fate at the mercy of this little arrogant Piltie, and he doesn't like that one bit. It feels good to see the Sheriff back down on instinct as he leans forward, the chains binding his wrists rattling.
"As I said," Markus continues, trying his damn hardest to keep his composure. "It should be easy. Nothing you've never done before. You even have two ways to go about it, and-"
He trails off, eyes glued to the metal ring Vander's handcuffs pass through and the way the table wood is starting to splinter around it from the strain. Vander watches with satisfaction his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows, before inhaling sharply – suddenly remembering he was talking. Making demands. Trying to, at least.
"I want Silco. Either you kill him yourself, or you get me enough intel to help bring him down. You have one month before I think over whether or not someone like you should really be out of Stillwater."
He barely heard the threat. The name circles inside his skull like a swarm of wasps.
"What… what makes you think I could get close enough to Silco for any of that?"
"Obviously he- er, I mean, he would react to you getting out, doesn't he?"
Vander leans back in his chair, trying to digest the information. Isn't it great, that the only mention of that name is enough to destabilize him now… There are too many memories, too many feelings, attached to it – for better and, above all, for worse.
"I will see what I can do," he finally says.
Markus gets up, looking way too smug for the actual success of that deal – as if Vander was in any position to voice his refusal, as if agreeing meant he will actually go through with his end of it. The damn enforcers can try catching him again when he's not concussed and bleeding out this time.
"I should add that failure to comply would fall on your girl too."
Your-
He almost asks about it before realization dawns on him. Vi. They are freeing her too. Janna be thanked, she would not have to spend all of her youth in prison, and-
Is he ready to risk her newfound freedom, then?
It's the question that's swirling in his head as he's led outside by a guard, to the dock where he would wait for the ship to arrive, to bring Vi and him back to Zaun.
When she spots him, she takes one step in his direction, and he's half-expecting to find himself with an armful of the pink-haired girl in the next two or three seconds. However, she doesn't jump to embrace him, her motion aborted before it truly began, no, she just stands there awkwardly, a little closer now, her arms hanging limply by her sides. Her face appears neutral, carefully kept that way, though he can't ignore the light swimming in her eyes as he stops next to her.
Two other people are being brought back to Zaun with them, but neither of them initiates contact and so Vander doesn't either. When the boat finally docks, they both show the guards a slip of paper before climbing aboard. Vander glances at Vi, noticing she doesn't seem to have any document on her either, but a woman in an Enforcer uniform, one he never saw before, steps forward before he could have pondered on it any longer. She talks to the guards and they let them pass.
They take off in silence, save for the sound of the waves lapping at the side of their ship and the rumbling of the motor. The stench of burned oil almost overpowers the salty smell that saturates the air around Stillwater Hold. It's only because of the silence that Vander's attention is caught by a whispered conversation, somewhere from the stern of the boat. He turns his head, careful to not be too obvious, and sure, it's the two guards talking, glancing now and then at him and Vi. The older one bends to talk into the youngest's ear.
"Better not to ask too many questions, kids. You see, when it's an Enforcer that gives us the green light, it means that the decision to free an inmate didn't go through the usual procedures. And when the said inmate is from the Fissures… It's just rumored, okay, don't go around claiming that too loudly, but it almost always means the Industrialist bailed them out."
"Someone from the Undercity?" The young girl frowns, looking skeptical. "How would that be-"
The older guard tuts disapprovingly.
"What did I just say about being too curious, kid? You don't want to know more, trust me. A whole can of worms, that…"
That's when Vander stops listening. The Industrialist. He mulls the nickname over in his head, committing it to memory. A Zaunite powerful enough to get enforcers to act on their will… It sounds like there is a new player in town, alright.
As soon as they set foot on the docks, Vi showed the paper one of the enforcers had slipped into her hand as they uncuffed her. There is no signature, the handwriting screams Piltovan in all of its thin and thick strokes, but it's clear it hasn't been written by the actual author of the message. Probably, the enforcer thought it was safer – for their freshly-released prisoners, or their own reputation? – to not tell her where there could be eavesdroppers.
"If you're willing to see your sister, and apologize for leaving her, come one week from now, at eight, at the crossroad over Factorywood, next to the cultivair. Alone."
No further explanation, no names, no fucking clues to try and begin to piece out what happened outside of the prison walls during these four long years. Vi is almost fully an adult now, with very little life experience except for a whole section of it which Vander would have wished she never had to face. Powder would be well into her teens by now – if she's even alive.
The last time he saw her, she was dangerously close to Silco, and the damn building was collapsing on them all. Not good odds for surviving, that.
The last time Vi saw her, she screamed at her. Slapped her.
If you're willing to apologize.
"Are you?" Vander asked, looking up from the paper. She nodded, and from the way her chin trembled, he supposed it was only because she didn't trust her voice not to break.
He wonders who the fuck could that be from. Powder herself? But how would she have managed to get an enforcer to pass her message along? Or it could be – it most probably is, in fact – the person that got them both freed. Why are they helping them? Or, rather, what do they want from them?
He wonders, too, if she isn't just a lure.
He has a fuck ton of questions, not a single answer, and to top it all an antsy Vi that is both worried about her sister, elated at the idea to see her again, and worried also about how Powder will react.
"Isn't that going to just crumble on top of us?"
Vi is frowning at the door in front of them, looking like it's about to fall off its hinges with even the faintest breeze – though there probably isn't any, this deep into Zaun – and leading into a building just as decrepit. They are below the Lanes, in the most densely populated areas of the Sump Levels – not quite close enough to the Sump itself to be rendered uninhabitable, but the air quality down there is… something, alright.
"People wouldn't go there otherwise."
Vi snorts, but still, she follows him into that hole-in-the-wall that calls itself a bar.
It's Vi that spotted the woman from the roof, familiar vines tattoos curling around muscular arms, and saw her enter there. She was a regular from the Last Drop, so for her to be down there now, it could mean she doesn't agree with whoever's in charge of the Lanes now. Which, in turn, could mean she'd be an ally. It's a lot of speculation, alright, but this is the best they have for now. Vander hadn't let Vi get even close to the Last Drop yet, opting to keep low as long as they could.
The woman sits alone at the bar, nursing a pint of what should be beer but could as well be motor oil given the bizarre shine on its surface. When Vander takes the stool next to her, she raises her head, looking ready to snap and tell him to go bother someone else, before her eyes widen in recognition. She quickly glances at the rest of the bar, surprise quickly knotting into worry.
"I don't want trouble."
"I'm not planning to be any, Ada."
"Why you there? Rumor was, you left the city with your kids." She spots Vi then, a few steps away, her hood drawn over her pink hair. "Seems like I was wrong to think it meant you were dead."
"We were in Stillwater, the both of us. Got freed because someone bribed the enforcers, by the looks of it. We are trying to find my other girl, you remember her? Blue-haired, a teen by now?"
"Sorry, I got no idea where she could have gone to. Or whether she is gone or not, for that matter."
"Don't fucking say that."
Vi spat the words out, more than she spoke them, before Vander shushed her.
"But you said someone freed you?" Ada takes a gulp of her drink, grimacing at the taste. "Bleh, this sucks. I miss your bar, you know. Anyway, you could try finding that person first, maybe they know about your kid."
"Yeah, you see, I would like to, but the only thing I know about them is a… nickname, title? Industrialist."
Ada's face loses its colors.
"Do you know them?" Vander presses on. "Are they a Piltie? Do-"
"Shh! Don't talk this loud."
"… What?"
"It's said he has eyes and ears everywhere. He's… from down here, too. He took back over the Last Drop after you… disappeared." Her voice drops even lower, barely a whisper, and Vi has to lean over to hear. "Some call him the Eye of Zaun, maybe you heard that instead."
Vander shakes his head and Ada grimaces. She downs what's left of her beer, wiping her mouth with one hand as she puts a cog on the counter with the other.
"Well, I… don't know much more. Don't wanna know more, in fact. I heard the nickname comes from an eye he has, something freaky, glowing red… That might be just folk tales, but eh, maybe that can help you. Sorry, Vander, I've got to go. Good luck finding your kid."
He barely heard her last words, his mind having screeched to a halt at the image of a familiar face with an eye turned orange and black, nestled amidst heavy scarring.
"Hey, Vander," Vi pipes in, "what she described-"
"I know."
Vander pushes his stool back, grabs her by the arm and drags her outside the bar despite her surprised noise of protest. What the fuck would Silco, the man he betrayed and very nearly killed, of all people, would help him now? How was he even able to? And-
It answers some questions. It opens so much more.
"And Powder…?" Vi asks after he finally releases her arm, rubbing at the sore spot. "Do you think he has her?"
"I've got no idea. I… Last time I saw her, it was just before the building collapsed, and Silco, he… I think he tried to protect her. If he survived, she probably did too."
Vander wonders if there now will be more resentment muddying the waters between him and Silco. Another reason to hate him, now that the others have passed as time did. Another reason to draw blood, to feel that frantic pulse underneath his palm again as Silco gasped for air. Third time's the charm, isn't that how it goes? He hopes the saying lies, but if his girl turns out to be hurt… he would be ready to make it come true all the same.
"I'm going to the meeting point," Vi says.
It's not a question, not really, but she's looking at him expectantly all the same. He doesn't know what to tell her.
"Vi-"
"I want to see Powder," she cuts him off, her brow furrowing in that dead-set look Vander has come to dread. There is no reasoning with her when she gets like this. "I need to know what he did to her."
And there isn't anything to object to that.
"I'm coming with you," Vander settles on
"It said to come alone…"
"I will stay back. But I can't let you go all on your own."
Vi nods. She looks almost relieved.