He wishes he could forget.
It still won't be enough. Even without any recollection of that day, even without the nightmares and the panic rearing its ugly head whenever his own damn fingers brush against his throat… the scars remain. His eye that never blinks, never closes, half of his vision drowning in a bloody haze. The near constant pain. The way people look at him, fear and repulsion; the way he looks at himself, in the mirror, make-up over the ashy skin, it barely hides anything but he tries anyway. It took months to not be taken aback by his own reflection. Monster within tore out and now plastered on the outside, skin flayed and turned to expose the darkness inside, fire and blood in striking splashes of crimson. It feels fitting. It feels bad. He can't face the mirror for too long.
But if he forgets that day, he also forgets whose hands it was, around his neck, whose figure loomed over him as the water turned red and his vision black. Whose blood it was that splattered over his skin when he escaped, victory felt as defeat and desperate breaths that burnt through his throat.
He should wish it never happened.
But that made him strong.
Broke him.
To be rebuilt, without fear and ill-fitting morals, colder and stronger. And if pieces were left behind in the river, buried deep into the mud and the waste, who would care? Who needs a heart, anyway? Love makes you weak. Stabs you in the back. Steals your breath away. Bruises were left around his neck for weeks afterward, to the point it hurt to swallow, let alone speak. He didn't want to, anyway. The bitter taste of anger stayed, before being washed away, too. He wishes the memories would, too. Fade away. Disappear.
Fuck.
It's what he swore he would never do again. Making himself smaller, tamer, for someone else. Keeping his hatred and ambitions and dreams on a leash. Stopping. Lying. And yet here he is, wishing he could get rid of his memories, of a part of himself, just so he could stand in the same room as Vander again without being so damn on edge. See those hands and remember when they used to hold him, see this face and not recall when the snarl was directed at him, those gray irises without the reflection of his own face, bloodied and scarred, eyes blown wide in terror.
When he thinks back to what they were, before, bodies curled into one another for warmth and fingers intertwined, he wonders how that could all end like that. With water and blood.
With both of them turning into monsters.
His make-up contact closes with a snap just as the door handle begins to turn. Silco glances at the clock on his right, silently pleased by Vander's punctuality. As of now, it seems that the message about who's in charge there has been passed well.
"Hi, Silco."
He doesn't answer, making a point to barely look up in fact. His eyes glaze over the words on the page in front of him, pulsating in rhythm with his heartbeat, but Vander doesn't have to know that, does he?
This is their first real meeting since the man seemingly agreed to work with him. Silco had told him the day before to come when he caught him dropping Vi by the Last Drop – that was the excuse, at least, but he probably just wanted to keep an eye on the place. At some point, it had been their safe space to them both. Now, years after the cannery, Silco still has to shake away the feeling that Vander is going to claim it again, and he will have to go back to the sidelines, lurking just short of the light like a fucking rat drawn in by the warmth of a barrel fire.
This is not a meeting he can afford to mess up.
"I assume you still know a thing or two about putting people back in line?"
"Do you… You want me to beat someone up?"
Silco takes the time to retrieve a cigar from the box before answering.
"Yes. Isn't that what you're good for?"
There is no seat on the other side of his desk. He likes it that way. Sevika and not even a handful of the others elect to sit on the couch, a few feet away, while himself usually paces around, and Jinx gleefully disregards chairs entirely. The rest, well, they can stand. He likes watching them squirm.
He doesn't like that it only makes Vander tower him. The man is big enough as it is, and Silco itches to get up, try to minimize the gap, except he fears that would only highlight that next to Vander, himself feels small. He puts his hand over his knee to keep his leg still.
"And… may I know, perhaps, who are the targets?"
Silco takes a single sheet of paper and hands it to him obligingly.
"There."
Vander doesn't take it. It's not hard to see, even at first glance, that the document only sports an address and some pictures. Not even names. Who needs names to bash someone's head in?
"You're not even going to give me an explanation."
"Is that a question?"
"Nah."
Vander keeps looking at him for what feels like a very long time. Silco hopes his hand still holding the paper isn't trembling. He doesn't glance down to check, but he puts the document back down still. Just in case.
"You know," Vander says, "That's what I used to think it was like."
"What?"
"People are either under you or against you. That's how you see it. Am I right?"
Close. Either they are scared or I should be. He feels his teeth grinding together before he forces his features to ease back into neutrality. Something flashes across Vander's face, something a bit like anger. Silco ignores the twist deep in his gut.
"Well, after all…" he starts, then trails off, remembering the cigar in his hand and taking the time to cut off the end of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vander slightly tensing up at the metallic snap. "And I have to give you that you're the one who showed me what power, real power, looked like."
"Sil..."
"Don't."
"Silco," he corrects diligently. "There are other ways. You can-"
"End up like you? Thank you, but I think I will pass on that one."
He holds up Vander's gaze then, staring straight at the embers threatening to catch fire amongst the familiar gray. He finds his lighter without looking, opens it with his thumbnail.
"That's how you end up under someone's heel," he adds. "Topside's, first. And…"
He doesn't actually dare say it out loud, but the slight motion of his fingers, encompassing the room, is eloquent enough.
He sees the exact moment where embers burst into flames.
Vander's hands slam onto the desk just as himself pulls back hastily. His lighter clinks as it falls to the ground.
"Why are you such a fucking jerk?!"
His heart feels like it's knocking directly against his ribs. Hard. He keeps quiet, telling himself it's only because he won't dignify that of an answer when really, he just doesn't trust his voice right now.
Vander's shoulders sag, and he straightens back up with a long, shaky sigh.
"Sorry. I… I shouldn't have yelled."
Silco exhales slowly. Only then does he realize just how hard he was digging the nails of his right hand into his palm. It left marks, for sure. He can feel the little crescents indentations under his fingertips.
"Sorry for what?" he asks. "Do you think you scared me?"
"No, I just meant that… With the kids, I had to learn how t- wait, Silco. Did I? Scare you."
He scoffs.
"Of course not."
There is the desk between them, after all. Nevertheless, his fingers had inched towards the hilt of his knife – Vander's knife – almost of their own volition. Instinct. Caution never hurts. And never again would he be caught unarmed by that man.
He grabs the nearest thing on his desk – a registry – and pretends to be interested in it. Like nothing happened. Like he knows Vander is going to let it slide.
"Maybe I can't fully blame you for what you did," Silco continues. "How you bent the knee. It is in dogs' nature to just comply, after all."
"You're really… Okay. And what if I don't?"
"You know, those guys I want dealt with, they operate around the east side of Factorywood. Isn't that where you live as of now? Then you'll have only yourself to blame if it becomes a little more dangerous still." He catches that familiar muscle moving around Vander's jaw, and smirks. "Yeah, I see you reached the same conclusion. It would be a shame if anything happened to your girl, isn't it?"
"You… Even you wouldn't do that."
Silco closes the registry he was idly thumbing through, more curtly than he was intending to.
"Are you willing to bet on it?"
"I'm- Silco, fuck. I do not agree on… everything you seem to be doing, these days, or more exactly I- No, I'm not debating politics with you again today." Silco raises an eyebrow at that, though he doesn't comment. "But. If there is one thing we still have in common, it's that the Lanes- that Zaun should thrive. Right? So why won't you trust me?"
"Vander. Look me in the eyes and say that again."
This shuts him up for a blissful moment.
"I said I would work with you," Vander eventually says. "I'm not intending to go back on my word."
"Yeah. Sure. People never lie, how silly of me to think that."
He goes to place the registry back into one of the desk drawers as Vander opens his mouth, doesn't immediately find his words, just gesturing as if that would manage to convey what he got on his mind. It's mildly entertaining to watch.
"What, you don't believe in loyalty anymore?" he finally settles on, with the look of someone who thinks he got a point. "The folks from your little gang, the Shimmer chemist, Sevika… money and fear, is that all y-"
"Oh no," Silco cuts him off, "I still do. I just don't believe in you."
He picks up the targets' description again, presenting it to Vander.
"Now go and, please, do the damn job. I'd prefer not to have to lie to Jinx, in the case something does happen to her dear sister."
Vander holds his gaze for a few more seconds, clearly not happy, before giving in with an exasperated sigh and grabbing the document with one big hand. Silco barely manages not to flinch at the sudden movement. Instead, he just makes his chair spin, looking off through his window office – listening to the heavy footsteps retreating towards the door – tensing slightly when they stop. He keeps his eyes trained on the outside even though.
"If you even graze Vi… You better hold your end of this deal, Silco."
"When I have not?"
The door slamming is all the answer he gets. Silco exhales slowly, letting his posture relax. He looks up out of habit, at the rafters, adorned here and here with Jinx's graffiti. He doesn't see the girl herself, though.
Nor the braid slipping and coming to dangle just behind the back of his chair.
That fucking sheet of paper has long been reduced to a crumpled ball, shoved into his pocket. He looked at the pictures, memorized the address, and he's now walking there, fuming all the while. He even has the time to discover two thoughts lurking beneath the surface – two thoughts that almost make him stop dead in his tracks.
One: he seriously wondered if his mission, those two specific guys, it could be intel of any use to the Sheriff, and consequently help keep both himself and Vi out of Stillwater. He was disgusted by the idea, sure. It was one thing to make a deal with Grayson back then, buy relative peace for the Lanes, for all the people that had to die already, but it's another thing entirely to sell out a Zaunite because Topside is worried they are going to lost their grip on the Undercity because of him. This, there is no way to frame it as right thing, the thing to be done. This, decidedly, would make him a traitor. And he already betrayed Silco once.
Two: at some point during their argument, Vander distinctly thought "this is why I wanted to kill you".
So, okay. Beating those guys up. He can do that. That's not a prospect that he particularly enjoys, not without any clue on the reasons why, but it would be a lie to say it truly bothered him. Moreover, Silco must have his reasons. He decided to trust him, doesn't he? For better or worse.
Once Vander got to the given address, which turned out to be a bar, he didn't have to wait long at the bar, nursing a tepid beer under the wary gaze of the barmaid, before the two guys he was looking for showed up. He thought he would wait to see if they will come out soon, and he could approach them then, and if he got bored, he could always walk to them directly and maybe stage it as a bar fight. He's imagining breaking a chair over the taller one's back, not without some kind of anticipation, when a name dropped makes his blood run cold.
"Jinx."
New name or not, she's his girl too.
"I know you're here, Jinx. You can come down."
Silco pushes the ashtray to the side, then gets his hands out of the way just before Jinx drops from the rafters, landing loudly on the wooden desk. Her boots leave distinct footprints over the paper he was reading.
"Why did you lie to him? About hurting Vi." And before Silco has the time to even begin to answer, she lunges forward, one of her bony knees digging into his thigh. "Or did you lie to me?"
"Jinx."
He puts both his hands on her shoulders, but doesn't attempt to push her away.
"Have I ever lied to you?"
She cocks her head, considering it. Suddenly her gaze darts to the side, her lips twitch, and Silco tightens his grip on her before he even consciously thought about it.
"Jinx. It's just you and me. Okay?"
"Hmm…"
"Repeat it."
Jinx shakes herself, rolls her eyes. Back to the here and now. She barks a laugh, and if it shakes a little around the edges, neither of them points it out.
"You and me, yeah, yeah… Happy?"
He looks at her for a few more seconds before letting go of her shoulders, leaning back into his chair like having Jinx still looming over him is a perfectly normal set-up for a conversation.
"Sure. Now, answer me. Have I ever lied to you?"
"You said Vi was dead."
"I thought she was."
"But you didn't tell me when you learnt about it. I had to come here and ask you myself."
Silco absentmindedly rubs at the cheek she stabbed when she oh-so-calmly came to "ask" about her maybe-not-quite-dead sister that day.
"I wanted to ensure that it was true before telling you," he simply offers. "I told you that already."
She looks at him for a few more seconds with narrowed eyes, before she shrugs and jumps back onto the desk, leaving only her feet in his personal space, big leather boots just next to his hands on the armrests. She picks up the dagger next to her, bringing it up in front of her face, watching the greenish light from outside play on the ragged blade.
"So, what were you lying to my former dad for?"
"I only wanted t- Give me that." Jinx eyes his outstretched hand, twirling the dagger in her hand one more time before placing it down into his palm with an exaggerated sigh. "Thanks. I want to see what he will do if he thinks he's forced to work for me. These guys… they don't matter. Nothing on that mission I gave him could lead to valuable intel about my activities, but I will know if anything leaks out."
"Why not see what he does if he's willingly working with you?"
"That's too risky."
"How?" She throws her hands into the air, shaking her head – her braids snake across the desk, pushing some papers to the floor. "If you're threatening his precious daughter – not me, the other, pink-hair, you know? – wouldn't he want to betray you more then?"
"You can't break someone's trust if they never lent it to you in the first place. I want to see if he tries to play me."
Jinx frowns.
"That makes no fucking sense."
She pushes his chair backward with both her legs, the back of it colliding with the wrought iron pieces on the window, and gets up in the same movement, pushing her hair out of her face with one slim hand.
"Well, I'm leaving you two to your mess. Have fun."
"Where are you going? You're sup- Hey! Jinx!" Silco sighs as she disappears into the corridor without even making it look like she was listening. "By the Kindreds, at least close the damn door..."