CW for canon-typical violence / injuries

It's easy to choke when you're panicking.

It's just a nightmare. Just a fucking stupid nightmare. It's been so many years, but the pressure around his throat, his heart hammering against his ribcage, the fear and pain and anger that stabbed through him, the burn of water entering his lungs- it all feels as real as that first time. Day after day, night after night. He doesn't always dream of water and blood. Sometimes it's the aftermath, the dark cave with nauseating flashes of purple, restraints digging into his skin, the cold steel of the examination table, the doctor's cold but caring hands; sometimes it's something else entirely. There is no shortage of bad memories to pick from. Sometimes even the good ones resurface against his closed eyelid.

In many ways, the good ones are the worst.

He's just starting to catch his breath, one hand clasped over his bad eye so the hallucinations don't look too real, when a cry pierces through the ringing in his ears. It's barely a sound even, not something he should reasonably be paying attention to, what with the constant whir and hum of Zaun just outside the window, but it's Jinx's voice, and his feet meet the cold floorboards before the realization has even fully made its way through his mind.

Their rooms are close to one another, and he could find his way to hers with his eyes closed – which is good since the left one is currently useless, it would be better if it could close actually, the outlines of the furniture bleeding into the aggressive blur of the chemlight, close to triggering a migraine.

Jinx is tightly wound into a bony ball of limbs at the foot of her bed. She's calm, at least as calm as he could hope to find her after a nightmare, rocking back and forth, and she has a slightly fixed look in her eyes, but she is neither crying nor hyperventilating so Silco counts this as a good night. She looks up at the sound of his footsteps and meekly smiles.

"Sorry for waking you up…"

He sits down next to her.

"I wasn't sleeping."

"Still…"

He doesn't say anything because she has already heard him dozens of times repeating that it's not a bother. Not when it's her. She just doesn't believe him, and he can't force her to. The only thing he can do is hug her in return when her arms snake around his chest. He hopes that can be enough, this small comfort, in a world that's so hell-bent on breaking people like them. Zaunites.

A small voice jolts him out of his thoughts.

"Are you– are you mad?"

He looks down at her, catching sight of one wide blue eye before Jinx hides her face against his chest again. He exhales slowly, forcing the anger back down, and pats her head with the hand that isn't already rubbing circles on her back.

"I'm not, little bird. Or, I'm not. Angry. At you."

Jinx quietly hums.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He heard her talking, as he was walking to her room, clearly responding to something – someone. Some days, she wants to talk about those things only she can see. Some days, conversely, it would make them too real, too tangible, and it's better to let them remain hazy ghosts.

"Hey Ji-ji, are y–" The footsteps stop as abruptly as her sentence. Then, a bit colder: "Oh."

Jinx has frozen at the sound of her voice, her grip a little tighter still around Silco's chest, tight enough to hurt, in fact. He takes the time to kiss the crown of her head before turning to Vi. It's her alright, silhouetted by the corridor light bulb, one hand clasped over the door handle and her knuckles turning white.

"She will be alright," he tells her, ignoring how weird it feels to be talking about his girl like that, to– someone else– someone else who cares. "She had a nightmare."

"Oh," Vi says again, and this time she takes a few steps into the room, stopping midway between the door and the bed where they are. "I–um. That's… Okay."

Jinx shifts, peeking out to look at her sister – but at the same time, she's curling up a bit more on herself, closer to Silco – closer to him, and away from Vi. The older girl seems to notice it, with the way her eyes shine in the low light and her eyebrows tilt upward. But she bites her lip, and doesn't move, doesn't say anything. Again, her gaze meets Silco's, before he looks down at his daughter.

"Hey… Jinx, hey…"

She makes a small noise butafter one or two more seconds, she relents and pulls back slightly, enough to look at her sister head-on.

"Did you have a nightmare?" Vi asks, and Silco never heard her voice so soft before.

He hesitates then, looking down at Jinx for confirmation, and she nods slightly. He gets up, tacitly giving Vi his place right next to his girl. She doesn't hesitate to take it, only pausing slightly when she walks past him and their gazes meet. Silco walks to the door and lingers there, unwilling to leave Jinx alone with her sister even though. Even if she seems mostly okay, he knows first-hand how vulnerable nightmares can leave you. He's tired, exhausted even, and still vaguely nauseous. There are shadows in the doorframe at the edge of his vision, on the left side, more solid than they should be, and he rubs at his temple as if that could help with the phantom signals his damaged nerves are sending to his brain.

"Is it a common occurrence?" Vander says – and Silco startles badly, turning his head so quickly his neck cracks. And, sure, the man standing in the doorway is more than a shadowy figure, now that he's not looking at him only out of his injured eye. Vander has taken a step back on instinct, surprised by his reaction.

"Didn't mean to scare you! Sorry, I… I thought you had noticed me already."

"Um, yes, I–never mind. I'm… not quite awake yet. That's all." He shakes his head, trying to collect his thoughts. "What did–what were you saying?"

"I asked if, uh… if nightmares were a common occurrence. For Powd- sorry, Jinx. For Jinx, I mean"

Silco doesn't comment on the clarification. Tries to not think about it at all.

"Yes," he answers instead, willing his voice to stay steady. "It was worse the first months. Years even. These days, it just comes back in cycles. It's hard to have you two back– Vi, and you. For her, I mean."

He realizes a little bit too late he almost just parroted Vander's words, and that he still really doesn't want to dwell on that. His eyes dart to the side, avoiding Vander's, then glance at the door and the way the other man is partially blocking it. He looks back at Jinx, now silently sobbing in her sister's embrace, her face completely hidden in her nightshirt. Vi's humming some sort of lullaby, quiet and slightly off-key, and– Silco recognizes it. Remembers the small hours of the night when there were no more words to be said, and that Vander used to hum the very same melody as he held onto– no. Nothing good lies that way. And it's easier to just lock the memories away.

"Well," he hears himself say, his voice sounding distant to his own ears, "now that Vi's here, I'm– going back to my room. Good night."

He has to brush past Vander to go through the door, and a large hand grabs his arm. It's not even tight, he could break free easily, if he tried. It's harmless but there were once bruises there, in the shape of those very same fingers, and the sudden lump in his throat is the only thing that keeps him from gasping out loud.

"You okay?"

No. Whose- whose fucking fault is that? It's not only Vander's, of course – Silco's from the very depths of Zaun, and their city is neither gentle nor merciful – but it's mainly his doing. Or maybe it's his own. For allowing someone such a place in his life, in his heart, that it left a gaping hole when that someone turned his back on him.

Let me go. He forces his muscles to relax under Vander's hold. Forces himself to look him in the eyes.

Why do you care? Would you, perhaps– would you like it if I say I'm not? Say I'm not okay, that I'm scared, scared of you.

He is. Sometimes. More than he would like to admit.

Would it make you feel good – powerful – that you still… that you still have this effect on me, even after all these years?

The words collide with one another in his mind, he has opened his mouth but no sound comes out. It feels hard to breathe too. Nevertheless, he catches something flickering over Vander's expression, too quickly for him to guess what it was – or maybe he doesn't want to –, before the hand isn't on his arm anymore. Silco smooths over his shirt sleeve, as if that could erase the ghost of the other's touch. He turns away, and glances back even though, despite himself.

"See… see you in the morning, Vander."

The sisters' voices echo outside, in the corridor, Jinx's raising into a high-pitched laugh, Vi's deeper one as a counterpoint. Footsteps grow closer then further away, towards the room they currently share in the Last Drop, until arrangements are made to give Vi her own, or maybe until never. Jinx is babbling about going for dinner at Jericho's. They seem to be getting along fine, Silco muses as he takes another drag out of his cigar, listening to their fading voices – better than he expected, even. He's glad. Jinx deserves it. It doesn't mean that it's not… It feels odd, at times, to not have his daughter around, always, even when he would have preferred a bit of peace. He had grown used to it. That's all.

He only hopes Vi won't push her away again. If it happens, though, he would still be there.

She still comes to hang out in the rafters above his head, his girl – storming in, usually, and climbing up without much of a word of explanation to lay onto one of the wooden beams. Once, Vi came to ask about her whereabouts, and Jinx didn't peep in, uncharacteristically silent, so Silco lied. He avoids Vander too, sometimes. Stopping on top of the stairs when the other man's voice reaches his ears, remembering only then that he told him to go back behind the bar, turning heel and locking himself in his office to dive into his work. Therefore, he can only understand when Jinx comes there to do the same.

She's quiet, most of the time – or as quiet as Jinx can be, whistling some tune under her breath, muttering to herself, tinkering with something, tools clanking together, pencil scratching against blueprint paper. Rarely, she talks to him, but when she does, she often comes down to curl up on his desk, legs outstretched till she touches him, the side of her foot against his inner thigh. Just enough to feel the closeness – she knows Silco doesn't much like the intrusion of his physical space, even if she gleefully disregards it when she feels like it, more often than not.

She isn't there this evening, thanks the Kindreds. No one is, the Last Drop closed for one day a week, and the whole building basks in the peaceful, lonely quiet.

She isn't there when there is a distant click coming from the package Ran brought a bit earlier. It barely breaches Silco's focus but he does raise his head nonetheless because he has had to deal with Jinx's toys enough to learn not to disregard odd mechanical noises.

It's none of her paint or smoke bombs, however, the ones she likes to "forget" around the Last Drop, in her own words, no matter how many times he has tried to tell her off. At least it wasn't nails anymore, not like that one time. The thin scar to remember is still visible on his upper arm, not that anyone but him could see it those days.

No, this click, it's from a bomb alright. Just not one of Jinx's.

Silco comes back to the pain, buzzing through his entire body – piercing through his right shoulder when he stirs. He can't move much. What… His ears ring, his vision is blurry no matter how many times he blinks, his head is spinning. He's plunged into semi-darkness, only a slight greenish light allows him to make out the outlines of the rubble all around. A chemlight? His mind throws him back to years, decades, ago, to a cave-in in the mines. His heart starts racing in his chest, hammering hard against his ribs. The–

The metallic framework of the window is cold against the side of his head, green-tinted glass splattered with red.

His memories start to piece themselves back together slowly. He's in his office. There was a parcel bomb, someone… someone tried to kill him. Or they just wanted to give him a warning? It wasn't that strong of an explosion. The ceiling still holds partially, the rosace window didn't break; it only threw his desk and chair against it. Both shielded him from the worst of the blast, but now they trap him, the heavy desk over his lower half, his arm stuck under the armrest of the broken chair. Silco tries to pull it free and it's all he can do not to scream. His shoulder has been dislocated, maybe even fractured, the dip visible even through the fabric of his shirt. It's stained with blood. His temple is bleeding; he can feel the stickiness all the way to the side of his neck.

Fuck. What now?

He realizes with a jolt that the slight glow from the other side of the room is rising in intensity, and it's not only a trick of his mind that the light seems to be flickering. Fire. The table and the couch where the parcel bomb laid caught fire. It's only now starting to ignite; he must not have been unconscious for long. But the floorboards are made of wood, the walls too, and most of the furniture. Which means…

The desk barely budges when he weakly tries to push it away with his valid arm, skidding only an inch at most over the floor, the edge of one of the drawers digging deeper into his bony thigh. He can't pull his legs out either, his attempts only serving to make the soon-to-be bruises painfully known. His breath is starting to come short, panic rising in his throat, the smell of smoke and burning wood quickly filling the air. This can't be how it ends, right? This won't be how it ends.

One of the metal parts of his chair doesn't offer much resistance when Silco pulls it out from the splintered wood. He wedges it under the edge of the desk, propped on a piece of rubble, trying to use it as a lever. A trick a miner showed him years ago, when he was still a kid that just started as a canary – the workers that crawled into the smallest crevices, and had to learn how to get out even if they made a rock slip out of place when maneuvering around, unless they wanted to be left buried in the cold dead earth.

He hasn't been very strong, not ever, but the years spent sitting behind a desk instead of fighting tooth and nail for a piece of bread, as in his youth, have sapped what strength he could have built back then. And he has only one of his arms to use, trembling under the effort, the ridges in the metal rod imprinting deep into the skin of his palm. The desk slides a few inches back, but he doesn't have enough space to move around; he can't back away to free his legs with the window framework already digging into his back. One of his ankles is trapped at an odd angle, and the more his nervous system wakes up after his brief moment of unconsciousness, the more it hurts. Silco grits his teeth when he has to let go of his makeshift lever and it comes to bear the full weight of the desk again. He wipes his hand on his trousers and tries again.

In the room, the temperature is slowly rising.

Wood scratching against wood. He can now disengage his foot from the drawer handle that was digging into the side of his boot. Maybe just a little more, if– His grip on the rod falters, palm sliding across its length, a rough edge drawing blood. He swears in between his teeth. Tries again, ignoring the pain. Something cracks in his ankle when he finally manages to pull his leg a bit closer.

Even low on the ground as he is, the air is hot to breathe, heavy, the taste of ashes clinging to the roof of his mouth. Silco's panting open-mouthed by now, trying not to cough. He knows he won't be able to catch his breath again if he does. He thinks about trying to break a part of the window, bringing some fresh air in, but that would only stoke the flames. From the initial crackling, the fire is now roaring, red and orange dancing over all the wood it has yet to feed on.

His left leg gets free at the moment his hand slips on the lever again. He kicks at the desk in frustration, the impact reverberating up his shin, but it doesn't budge. If only it– what? He's starting to feel nauseous, the pain mixing with the likely concussion and the lack of oxygen. Fear has dug its icy claws deep into his insides and it won't let go. He knows he will get free if he has just a bit more time, he's sure of it, there is only one of his legs left, then his arm– but that's just where the problem lies, isn't it? Time is running out.

He thinks he's hallucinating when he first hears the voices.

He recognizes Jinx's first, hysterical. Vi is shouting over her – that the floor is close to collapsing, the structure whining and creaking, that opening a door to a burning room will result in a blast strong enough to kill someone, and please be careful. Careful? Jinx never is. It's a different kind of fear that threatens to close off his throat then, because Jinx can't get hurt, it's fine, he will–

White-hot pain stabs through his shoulder when he tries to free his arm, drowning his vision in black stars. His strangled cry turns into a coughing fit. And the stars aren't going away. He can barely see anymore, the fire lost to the rushing of his own blood to his ears. His head hurts, and–

He barely feels it when the desk is lifted away, large hands coming for his injured arm next, carefully trying to pry it out from the broken remains of the chair. It's freed in a creak of wood, the snapped halves of the armrest falling to the ground. It's the sparks of pain from having his shoulder moved that bring Silco back enough to realize someone's talking to him.

"Vander…?"

Talking triggers another coughing fit, scraping up his sore throat. He can barely make out the man's silhouette through the thick smoke, ash-grey and scorching hot, making his eyes water.

"It's okay. It's okay, I got you."

He tries to pull himself up, to his feet, but his movements are uncoordinated, the dizziness threatening to make him fall back down. He doesn't resist much when he feels himself being lifted into Vander's arms. His head comes to rest against the crook of his shoulder and Silco finally lets himself slip back under.