Vander knocks at the office door. A part of him can't help but notice that this doesn't feel as wrong as the first time, somehow. It has been three weeks, and it's already ingrained in his mind that the Last Drop, or at the very least this one room, isn't really his home anymore.
"Come in, Vander," comes the reply from inside the office.
Does Silco recognize the way he knocks, or his footsteps? Or maybe he just isn't expecting anyone else today, save maybe Powder – Jinx? – and the girl barges in unannounced, of course. Vander pushes the door open, stepping in.
"Morning."
He's surprised to find the seat at the desk empty, and Silco sitting on the couch instead, leaning onto one of the armrests with a book in his hand. It doesn't take him long, though, to notice this is not a novel or anything of the sort, no, he can see columns of numbers on the pages instead of words. Of course. It's not even eight in the morning, Silco might have died the night before, and he is already working.
"You busy?" Vander asks when he doesn't even get a glance his way. "Should I come back later?"
Silco just gestures vaguely at the spot on the couch next to him, not looking up from the ledger in his hand. He's twirling a pen between his fingers. Vander hesitates, then walks over to sit down. For once, he thinks he would have preferred to find him at his desk. This feels… too casual, somehow.
He gulps down his saliva. Looking for a way to start this conversation. Looking, too, at Silco's profile, sea-green eye half-obscured by his eyelid as he continues to read – at the split lip, mirroring his scar on the other side, at the bruises blooming over his brow bone and cheek. It doesn't look that bad, to be honest, they have both seen way worse after all, but it still makes his heart clench.
"You okay, Silco?"
"Hum?" Then, with some kind of surprise, teetering on shock: "What?"
"Well, you're… injured."
"Oh. Yes, it's fine. Just bruising. That will heal soon enough."
That elicits memories. Not the good kind, probably – it should not be the good kind, but when adrenaline sings through your heated muscles, pain doesn't matter, and victory tastes great. Whether that was against the enforcers or their fellow Zaunites, it never quite mattered to him at that time, though maybe it did feel even better to kick those arrogant Piltie fuckers' asses.
He wonders briefly if he broke Silco's ribs, that day by the river – it's very likely, he realizes, and he hurriedly pushes the thought away.
His next words, he speaks them before he could chicken out:
"I have… Silco, I've got something to tell you."
He gets barely more than a glance in answer, an inquisitive "hum?" – though he saw in the slight twinge of slender fingers that Silco is listening; he didn't miss the tense edge in his voice.
"Rememb- no, I… Fuck." He takes a breath, trying to think of words. "Okay, let's go. How did you get me freed from Stillwater?"
"From…?" Silco repeats, slightly frowning. He puts down the ledger, fully turning towards Vander. "I got a deal with the Sheriff, made him pull some strings. Why?"
"Well. There's something you need to know about that. Okay, here goes. It turns out that the Sheriff decided to add some clauses of his own to that particular deal. He… he told me that he would throw me, and Vi as well, back in there, if we… if I didn't help him. Option one was to… 'take care of you'. In the, eh, definitive sense. He gave me one month."
He watches as Silco motions to get up – away – then changes his mind, his hand relaxing slightly over the rolled arm of the couch. His eyes stay trained on the floorboards even as Vander tries to meet his gaze.
"Time's almost up."
"I know. Hence why…" Vander encompasses the room and the couch and the very fact they are having this conversation with a hand movement. "Do you think he's a real threat?" he continues. "The Sheriff, I mean"
"What would that…" Silco starts, then trails off.
"What would that change? Is that what you were going to ask?" He pauses, but the answer doesn't come. "Well, for starters, I would like to know whether I have to take a trip of undetermined length out of Zaun. I don't think our girls would like to be separated again without warning either."
"Was option two that bad?" Silco asks, tone almost casual.
"Option- Oh, right. Option two was only if you were, and I'm quoting him, 'arrogant' enough to think I will work for you ever again."
Silco quirks a brow at the qualifier but doesn't say anything.
"Then, I would have to give him intel on what you were doing, things important enough that it could lead to arrests or… eventually, worse."
"So, essentially, 'taking me out', but without getting your hands dirty."
"Yeah. That."
He reaches out to touch Silco's arm, though he backs down immediately when his partner flinches.
"Sorry. But Silco… I won't betray you."
"Not this time?"
Vander grimaces.
"I would understand if you do not believe me. But no. Not this time."
Silco nods thoughtfully. He crosses his legs, reclining until he's leaning against the back of the couch again. Most of the tension seems to have bled out of his wiry frame.
"I knew."
It takes Vander a few seconds to make sense of those words.
"… What?"
"About that deal Markus offered you. I knew."
"I– How? Why didn't you…"
"I was wondering what you would do. As to how... the 'Eye of Zaun' nickname – you must have heard it around – that's not solely because of this," he says with a wry smile, taping lightly underneath his injured eye. "Markus isn't the only Enforcer I have on a leash, though he certainly is the most influential. For some reason. Mostly for… cannery-related reasons, actually. I learned about it a day or so after you were released."
Vander nods because he doesn't know what to say. He's looking at his hands, at the silvery scars all over his knuckles – the saying's wrong, it's not blood you've got all over them. Blood, you can wash away. It's memories that stick to your every step like tar does, stains that only you can see but that you pass down all the same, a darkness that spreads like bruises blooming underneath the skin and only demands more.
"Shit." He exhales slowly, the realization materializing in his mind as he says it out loud: "I must really have scared you, yesterday, then. Since you knew about the deal. Gives me a motive, that."
"I was thinking this wasn't our style," Silco responds – and his tone is smooth as always, completely disregarding the very real fear Vander saw on his face the night before. "What was it you said, when we were walking back? That if you truly wanted to kill me, you wouldn't involve anyone else. Something like that."
As far as Vander can recall, this is a perfect quote of his own words. He didn't know how much weight they had, then, wasn't aware of the full circumstances. Maybe he should have expected it. Even when they were young, with their power still so weak and fleeting, no intel ever slipped past his partner.
"It would have been ruled as gang violence," Silco continues. "Maybe the Sheriff wouldn't even have believed that it was your doing, that it couldn't have happened without you. Can't see this Ryker bastard telling the truth to an enforcer, I have to give him that."
Vander struggles to grapple with that – with the emotions swirling inside, and Silco's calm and rational reasoning butting with them. It seems that of the two of them, only he is worried, even when he would have been the one dealing the blows.
"How is it worth it?" he finally asks.
"Hmm?"
"I truly could have killed you. Yesterday or at any other time. I certainly tried before..."
He pauses briefly, half-hoping for reassurance, a rebuttal, something that he knows won't come. Of course, it won't. The guilt is his own to live with, rightfully so.
"Silco, I'm flattered, but my company can't be worth the risk."
Mismatched eyes flicker down, no longer holding Vander's gaze.
"You see, I wanted to keep an eye on you," Silco says – lies? "You were out anyway, I couldn't backpedal on that, so might as well know where the danger would be coming from. But tell me, why did you decide to tell me now?"
Vander opens his mouth, and closes it, caught off guard by the question.
"I… figured it would be easier to stand against Markus together than on my own. It's… Vi can't go back to jail."
"And you could?"
The tone is light. The question isn't.
"I don't want to," he answers after thinking it over, "obviously, but I can take that risk. As long as you take care of both girls while I'm gone. Protect them."
"I… Hum."
It's not like Silco to be at a loss for words, so Vander doesn't dare to interject, only watching emotions he cannot quite name flash through his partner's face. When Silco glances back at him, it has settled on something he would call… hope?
"Really?"
"Really what, Silco?"
"You would go back to Stillwater before betraying me."
"Well, I'd rather it not come to that. But yes. I would."
Silco gets up suddenly, Vander motioning to stop him but halting before making contact. He wonders for a second if he said something wrong. He… he couldn't exactly blame him for not believing him, though, could he?
"I can take care of Markus," Silco says, snapping him out of his hesitations. "Neither you nor Violet will be going back there."
"Good. That's… good to hear, yeah. Thanks."
"Even if he doesn't want to be reasonable, I can… well, he is a corrupted officer, after all, right since the day of the cannery. I could expose him easily, make him lose all that he had. That would be a serious blow to my affairs, of course, but in a game of bluff I'm fairly sure he would cave in."
And in the same tone Silco wondered about his own resolve to risk going back to Stillwater, Vander very nearly points out that this means risking his plans, his work and dream, to save him and Vi. However, he knows Silco's well aware of it already. He was never one for empty words.
"You see," Silco continues, "Markus isn't one to risk his position, ever since…"
He trails off, turning to his office door. A second later, Vander registers the footsteps echoing in the corridor, light and hurried. Silco takes a step forward just when the door flings open, the rush of air catching Jinx's blue braids and making them snake around her legs. She tilts forward, unbalanced, deciding at the last moment she isn't going to walk further and catching on the doorframe instead. The gun she's carrying with a sling swings forward, nearly tipping her over with its weight.
She's panting as if she has run all the way there.
"I, eh, we might have a bit of an issue."
Her lips twitch into a smile that slips away immediately, her voice rising in pitch until it's grating on the ears. Her sister is coming behind her, nearly bumping into her. She's breathless too, and both their pale skins are marred with soot and dust. Vi's cheek is red, swelling a bit already. Adrenaline lights her eyes up.
"Jinx!"
Sevika's voice comes from the ground floor, quickly followed by the sounds of her climbing the stairs in turn. Vander gets up from the couch, uncertain – trying and failing to catch Silco's gaze, who has eyes only for Jinx.
"What happened? Are you okay?"
She swats his hand away as he motions to reach for her face.
"Am fine, silly. Am good, even! I can defend myself. See!"
She takes hold of his wrist and forcefully puts his palm flat over the side of her machine gun. From Silco's twitch, and the way he took away his hand as soon as she lets him go, Vander thinks the metal must still have been burning hot.
Vi shoulders past her sister then, stepping past her and Silco, until her eyes fall on Vander.
"Someone attacked the place we were hiding in," she tells him, flat and simple.
This gets her the attention of everyone in the room – even Sevika, who just reached the door in turn. Jinx shakes her head, her hair slipping down in the motion, and she blows it away from her face.
"Eh, sis, that's what I was gonna say."
"Do you know who it was?" Silco asks. "Recognize anyone? Did they expect you there, Jinx? Did they say if-"
"Silco."
"What?!"
Sevika rolls her eyes, clasps her human hand onto Silco's narrow shoulder, and nudges him further away from Jinx.
"Let them talk, boss."
Vi's gaze slips from him to Jinx, who pouts before giving her a slight nod. Only then does she speak again:
"Neither of us recognize them, but they knew us. Or, rather, they knew Jinx. One, a woman with a scar all over her face like that-" she mimes a lightning-shaped line running across her features- "and a missing ear, she said she wished they could have… 'got to her', before… I don't know before what, admittedly. I knocked her out just after. What, what's the faces for? You know her?"
Vander gulps down his saliva.
"Yeah. She's part of Ryker's group."
She was there, three days before, when he made a deal with the group. In that dimly-lit bar that reeks of cheap liquor and puke, he told them he will lure Silco out, alone and unharmed, and where to find him. They told him the meeting point, by the Pilt, where it all unfolded the day before. And in exchange, they said they would scrape their initial plot to get back at the Eye of Zaun, which included the decapitated head of his precious blue-haired daughter. Vander feels sick even thinking about it. He grits his teeth.
"How many?"
"Three, I think?"
"Four," Jinx corrects. "I shot down the one with that weird long jacket thing in the alley."
Fuck, he's not getting used to that. The idea that the little girl he knew, timid and weak, that he worried for, because she did not seem build to survive without aid – that this little girl grew and became a skilled fighter. His eyes trail over the gun she's carrying, one of her own design, if he trusts Vi's words.
"Four, and the two from yesterday…" Silco has set to pace around the office, his eyebrows furrowed down, deepening that line between them. "Maybe that it will be enough, added to their leader's death, to get us peace. I have no report of them being a large, dedicated group. Merely pests."
That could have killed you, Vander thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. Silco stops and turns back to him.
"You should stay in the Drop. Vi too, obviously. There is a spare room on the other end of the corridor, there is a sofa there already and-"
"Sleepover!"
Jinx's shriek interrupts him, as she throws her arms around her sister's neck, nearly knocking her off-balance. Vi gives her a wobbly smile and, as Jinx doesn't loosen her embrace, sets to pat her arm awkwardly.
"You can stay in my room," the girl goes on without a care in the world. "I have a twin bed. Say yes!"
"Yes, Ji-ji, of course. Can you let me go now?"
She tightens her grip just a bit before complying, her grin not faltering. Vander watches over the sisters for a few seconds longer, an odd feeling constricting his chest, before his attention shifts back to Silco.
"You know, I can-"
"Stay there. At least until we know they won't try anything else."
"Okay. I- okay. Thanks."
A part of him thinks that it feels weird, to be invited to be a guest in what has been his home for almost two decades. The rest doesn't care. He has been the sole owner of the Last Drop for so long, when it was supposed to be their property, to them both, that it only feels fair.
"I'm going to see Ran," Silco announces. "They are going around Factorywood anyway, so I will tell them to keep an eye out for Ryker's folks. Sevika, when I come back, my office."
She nods in agreement from her spot next to the desk, slightly leaning over it while the conversation unfolds. She's smoking, watching over them, her dark eyes slightly narrowed.
"Jinx, you-"
"I'm going to show her our room!"
"… Okay."
"Yep." Vi laughs softly. "Doesn't look like I've got a choice, but sure, Ji-ji, lead the way."
She lets Jinx drags her out by the hand, her excited babble echoing along the walls of the corridor. It seems like the adrenaline from the fight hasn't left her yet, Vander muses, or maybe that's just how she gets from time to time now. He has never connected a lot with her, a bit to his dismay – he didn't have enough time, and Vi was taking care of her already, and they were just so dissimilar… The years that went by with them away from one another didn't help. Now, she's truly much more of Silco's daughter than she was even his own. He doesn't mind, if that means she can be… not happier, not after the cannery, not after losing part of her family again. But as happy as possible, given her past and the circumstances. That's as good as it can get down there, amidst the Gray and the neon lights of Zaun.
Vander blinks, and finds himself alone in Silco's office – no, he realizes as Sevika clears her throat on his left, he's not alone. He turns to her, meets her closed-off expression. For a few seconds, they just look at each other. He remembers acutely their altercation in the bar downstairs, what feels like an eternity ago. She was the most vocal of the group of protesters. In hindsight, he realizes she was working for Silco already, purposefully weakening Vander's standing so she could give her new boss an opening, in the eventuality he refused to join forces. Which… he did.
He wonders briefly what has changed. Himself, after his stay at Stillwater, or the circumstances only? Is it that he doesn't have much of a choice, if he wants himself and Vi to be free and safe, or is it rather that he has been shown that Silco's methods… work? Zaun's still there, the enforcers haven't marched down on its people, and it's even more flourishing than ever. That was their dream, what they talked about, eyes shining with the sparks of alcohol, cigarettes smoke clouding the air. He remembers Sevika being there too, back then, even if she was still a teen then, not even having hit her growth spurt. He remembers the hopeful light those talks of the nation of Zaun lit up across her drawn features.
Now, for the first time since what was there before, that city older than Piltover and the Undercity alike, since it sunk the canyon, Zaun is standing as one.
"I hope you're ready to fight again," Sevika eventually says, breaking the tense silence. "I want things to change. And I'm not ready to watch another leader I believed in fall prey to his own weaknesses."
She puts out her cigarette in the ashtray, pushes herself off the desk and, readjusting the cape covering her prosthetic arm with one hand, sets to walk out.
"I want us to be free too," Vander says when she's almost at the door.
She pauses, looks at him over her shoulder.
"Just don't betray him this time."