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Silco cares not for children. They only had any use to him as youths on the cusp of adulthood, uneducated, desperate, and easy to manipulate for his purposes.
He didn’t consider them in his plans, had no parental instincts. Years of suffering and struggle has distanced him from his own childhood, from the helplessness and innocence he had once known. The trauma from those years had melded with what came after, an amalgam of unpleasantness that seemed to dull with passing time.
Rather than the pain and misfortune that accompanied growing up in the fissures, it was envy that had driven him. It was envy that functioned as the accelerant that finally forged him into the man he became. Envy, burning like a hot coal in his chest.
He couldn’t remember his exact age, but he remembered the way that adults had seemed to tower above him–and how topside reached even higher, those distant, dizzying towers barely visible through the gaseous haze of the Undercity. He had known the mines by then, and understood who it was that benefited from the tons of ore and stone that had passed through his small, raw, aching hands every day.
He could feel it like flames rippling in his chest as he stared up, catching only glimpses of the grandeur of their wealth as the sunlight reflected off of glass and bronze. He had imagined climbing across rooftops and balconies like the older children could, past the noxious barrier that divided the city between upper and lower. The light would become blinding as he went further and further, the buildings pristine and untarnished with anyone’s runoff. How easily he could kick in the flimsy locks on windows in the upper floors of their penthouses, how easily he could slip inside. The topsiders, so secure in the comfort of their wealth, wouldn’t know what was coming to them until the knife was already plunged deep into their chests.
And after they had bled out and gasped their last breaths, what would remain would be an empty seat, now his by right of violence. After all, hadn’t they earned their places at the top through the same violence? Slow and torturous, hemorrhaging through generations with sickness, poverty, injury and death?
It was necessary to his goals. He had no sympathy for those that happened to fall underfoot in his climb, children included.
And yet, Silco finds himself standing before a child. Her small form is curled in the dirt, body wracked with sobs from some unique agony. He recognizes her as one of Vander’s rats, the youngest one.
She isn’t old enough to be useful to him, not like his underlings that hover around him as he stares down curiously at her. His interest is actually in her sister, who disappeared from the scene of the explosion. Despite how much trouble she caused, he could recognize the potential as he watched her pummel his men one by one. At the very least, it would be best to get her under control as soon as possible, circumventing the damage she could be capable of a few years down the road.
Silco’s body feels heavy as he drops to one knee to ask the girl a question. He isn’t as bad off as the rest of his men, but he is still battered and bruised from the explosion. He still has a responsibility to finish things, to tie off as many loose ends as he can in this night that seems to extend on endlessly.
“Hello little girl,” he says., “Where’s your sister?”
He doesn’t expect her to lunge forward, her tiny body propelled with enough force to tackle him to the ground. There’s a brief moment of surprise, and a sharp pain in his tail bone. His men don’t react, lacking the energy or presence of mind to address a possible threat.
But there is no threat. It’s immediately clear that all she wants to do is wrap her arms around his neck like a vice, and sob. And then her words, forced out between spasms of gasping breaths and wails, they trigger something in him that he doesn’t expect.
It feels like his heart stops, the furious grief in her cries piercing straight through his chest. The resentment and betrayal, bigger than can be contained in her small frame, spilling out with her screams.
He realizes that her pain was his pain. And so, oblivious to the eyes on him, his men waiting for his reaction, he cups a hand around her head to comfort her. She will be useful yet.
—
The explosion seemed to wake half of the undercity. People began to gather at the scene, either to offer assistance or to gawk at the destruction.
The blast surely must have been heard and felt in Piltover, but no emergency response descended from above. All the better for Silco, who didn’t need enforcers meddling in what was left of his former base of operations. Instead, civilians formed a makeshift fire brigade while a doctor was fetched for the injured.
Most of the survivors came away from the incident fairly unharmed, easily patched cuts and scrapes, a few broken bones that needed to be set. The gravest injuries belonged to Sevika, who was taken to a nearby clinic to be treated. Silco sent one of his men to follow after, to keep an eye on her and to be there when she would eventually wake.
Silco didn't want to be examined, aware that he was comparatively lucky, but the doctor cornered him and convinced him at length, explaining that the adrenaline may be keeping him from feeling much pain. He conceded, at the very least so he could return to overseeing the aftermath.
A makeshift examination area was set up near the scene of the accident, tucked away in an alley with a handful of gas lamps and wooden shipping crates arranged for both seating and surfaces for equipment. The doctor was an elderly man, clearly too old to still be working, let alone at this hour, his clammy hands shaking fiercely with his age.
Before he begins, the doctor remarks curiously about the little girl. She sits behind Silco, meekly using his torso as a shield. He hadn’t the time or the presence of mind to ask her name, or any other questions. Things progressed quickly after their meeting. Still, she hasn't departed from his side yet, following him around like his shadow, silent but for the occasional sniffle or gasp as the tears took hold of her once again. She clings to Silco, clutching his hand or a fistful of his shirt, as if she would be in danger of floating away if he didn’t keep her grounded. Now her grip was on his elbow, as she looked on warily at the doctor.
“Her family was inside the building,” Silco explains. At this the girl whimpers, a choked sound as her fingers curl tighter around his arm.
Silco waits while the doctor supplies a useless platitude about how enduring fissure folk are. The longer you live in the Undercity, the more disconnected you become with the reality of suffering. The child isn’t comforted, and the doctor continues with the matter at hand.
Silco consents to being poked and prodded, hissing at the indelicate touches. As the doctor leans in to listen to his heart, Silco catches the sight of a cigarette tin in the pocket of his coat. The doctor leans back with an approving hum and Silco asks for a smoke.
With a chuckle, the doctor obliges, even supplying a matchbook for a light. Silco tries to take a deep drag, but his chest seizes with a sudden shock of pain and embarrassingly he lapses into a coughing fit. Steadying himself, he tries again, and winces, both from the tender ache in his ribs and the cheap taste. The smoke filling his lungs offers little relief, it takes all his effort to keep the ripples of pain from amplifying as his body protests.
The doctor pays no mind to his struggle with a simple cigarette, probably far too used to the sight. He assures Silco the worst of it is bruising, and that all he needs is rest and time to heal. Rummaging through his bag, the doctor eyes the child briefly before furtively allowing Silco a glimpse of what he holds in his cupped palm. It’s a small packet of chems.
“For the pain,” the doctor explains. “And to help you sleep.”
Silco waves him off, taking another terrible drag that makes his body shudder and prickle with pain all over. “I’ve been through worse.”
“Suit yourself,” the doctor says, placing the packet back in his bag. “How about the girl? Any pain?”
Silco pauses, on the cusp of losing his patience before he realizes that the doctor isn’t offering drugs to a child.
“She wasn’t in the building.”
The doctor nods with understanding. Silco moves to stand, assuming he is finished with his haphazard exam, but the doctor’s gaze lingers on him with a look he can’t place.
“I saw what happened to Vander,” the doctor says solemnly. The girl, still taking shelter behind him, fumbles to grasp at his hand. Her fingers squeeze with a strength he wouldn't have thought possible, her jagged little fingernails digging into his palm like thorns.
Silco wasn’t interested in confronting any more ghosts from his past tonight. “A shame,” he says flatly, stubbing out the cigarette and turning to leave.
To his frustration, the doctor takes a step forward, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I remember you two, back in the day,” the doctor continues. At this, Silco inhales sharply. “I know that you didn’t get on with each other recently, but I imagine it still must be difficult. I’m so sorry.” The doctor pats his shoulder gingerly, oblivious to the discomfort radiating from Silco.
Silco makes his exit briskly, eager to get away from the old fool, the girl running to keep up with his long strides.
As soon as he reaches the scene, someone rushes forward with news of a survivor, news to set him back on track.
Not only is Singed alive, he is up and about. His face was haphazardly bandaged, already soaked through with darkening blood. The girl whines in distress at the sight of him, pressing her face into Silco’s back and breathing hard. She whispers apologies to nobody, chanting them like a mantra.
Singed refuses the attention of the doctor, instead pulling Silco aside to exchange a few words, garbled and wheezing. He makes a request, eyes shifting, and Silco follows his line of sight until it falls on the warped, cold form of Vander’s body, partially concealed by a tarp that was pulled from the nearby docks. Silco pauses, a cold feeling rolling along his spine at the sight of the graying skin poking out from the edge of the makeshift covering. He makes up his mind quickly, advising Singed that his request shouldn’t be a problem.
–
When the scene of the accident is finally cleared and the bodies are all taken away, he and his remaining men retreat to the safe house. It’s the early hours of the morning, not quite dawn when they arrive. The building is abandoned and in poor shape, with large swaths of wall missing from the back side. When he originally claimed the place for his own, he furnished it and installed doors and locks where they were needed in the salvageable rooms.
His underlings take up the makeshift common area to pass out where they can. Silco takes the single bedroom, and the girl stays with him.
His body feels heavy, like his bones are leadened and they knock up again muscle and tissue and send throbbing pain branching through his nerves. His adrenaline still runs high, rolling through him in nauseating waves . When he finally sits down, he realizes that his hands have been trembling.
The girl is also shivering, probably as much due to the pervasive cold as the adrenaline. She stares at nothing, her gaze somewhere very far away.
Silco never envisioned the safehouse would be used by anyone besides his underlings, so the furnishings are sparse and cheap. The only comfort the bedroom has to offer is a dingy mattress–there aren’t even any coverings. He sits on the edge of the mattress and tries to encourage the child to sleep, while she curls up against him for warmth. Silco doesn’t even have his coat to cover her, lost in the fire like everything else.
He grasps her small, cold hands in his own until faint daylight seeps in and she finally loses her stubborn battle against sleep. Silco is left alone with his thoughts.
He thinks about everything, about what lies ahead, about how clear the path is now. Despite how catastrophic it was, it was a hard-earned win. And yet there is a hollowness inside of him. He could attribute it to his exhaustion, his overtaxed mind, but he knows it’s more than that.
He thinks about the way the knife felt as it sunk into Vander’s flesh again, and again. When the blade sinks in, there is a resistance, a forceful pushback that only the one wielding the dagger can feel. No matter how sharp, it’s like the flesh is fighting back, independent of any conscious struggles of the victim. The noise is as clear as a bell in his mind, the ring of the metal resonating against the torn muscle and fat, and the sickening wet sound. For each stab, his body produces a mirror pain, sharp in his chest. Silco is comfortable with the idea of violence at his age, but somehow there’s a part of him buried deep that recoils every time he uses the dagger.
The anger he feels is a palpable thing, settling in a red haze over his vision. His jaw clenches so hard it feels like his teeth are going to crack. Vander’s labored breaths fan across his face, twisted with matching fury, bloodlust that he had once admired with naïve wonder.
Something hot bubbles up in his chest now, something that aches in a different way than his stiff limbs. He tries to close his eyes, but when he does he just sees the echoes of the flames burned into his vision, soft and flickering.
Silco eyes the child’s sleeping form, still trembling in her uneasy slumber. He wonders why he did what he did, why he decided to take in a child against all reason. A child would only be a hindrance to his plans, especially a child that will be haunted for the rest of her days by the horrors of the Undercity.
She latched onto him unthinkingly with an urgency that belied any sense of self preservation that she should have had. Her screaming sobs pierced him to the core, targeting a vulnerability that he thought he had discarded years before. He could acutely feel the betrayal, the utter pain in her young voice, a kind of pain that sunk into him as easily as a sharp knife.
He thinks then of Vander’s prone body, deformed and unrecognizable, surrounded by a rain of shattered glass that glittered in the light of blaze. It almost gave the appearance of movement, of twitches of muscle or shallow breaths. Silco felt a pang of mindless fear at the first sight, as if the crushing power in his hands would still be lingering under the surface and any moment he would spring to life, if only to hold him under the water again.
But Vander is dead. Well and truly. Singed has requested his body without elaborating his intentions, and Silco had no reason to protest.
Silco can’t suppress the gasp that presses against his teeth. There’s an emptiness in his chest and a hot pressure that gathers uncomfortably in his brow, his cheeks, his nose, his one good eye. He blinks and moisture spills out. In the silence of the safe house, he cries, his body forcing out grief that he didn’t think he was still capable of.
He thinks that he must look pathetic, a sniveling fool grieving a man who doesn’t deserve to be grieved.
At the very least, there are no witnesses to his moment of weakness. He assumes the child is still asleep, until he glances down and finds her staring at him with her big wet eyes. He curses.
She sniffles, and he hates that he mirrors the action automatically. He clumsily wipes at his face with his sleeve, watching the girl with nervous anticipation. Shakily, she lifts herself to a kneel, and suddenly reaches for him with her arms stretching outwards. He recoils out of her reach. The last thing he wants is pity. Immediately he realizes this may have been a mistake, as the girl’s face falls, her breaths growing faster as she begins to hyperventilate.
But then something changes, and she bites her lip and launches forward anyways, her arms cradling his head awkwardly until he allows the tension to fall away, allowing him to relax into the embrace. Her hands are ice cold, but there’s still a warmth that pushes back against the heaviness of his grief. He squeezes his good eye shut and knows that they really do share a connection, that she understands how he feels.
When she pulls back, her lip is wobbling, trying to hold back her own tears. She clumsily wipes away the last of the lingering droplets that have yet to roll down his cheek.
Clearing his throat, Silco regains his composure.With the clarity that washes over him, he realizes that he has to trust that the girl won’t tell anyone about this slip. He is about to enter a vital time of transition, and he can’t allow his men or anyone who may try to rise against him think that he is capable of this kind of fragility.
“Listen,” he whispers. “Nobody can know about this.” He grips her shoulders, watching her fathomless blue eyes for signs of comprehension.
Her face twists with confusion. “That you cried?”
“It never happened. Do you understand, child?” She stares and nods slowly. Silco isn’t convinced.
He takes a breath, his mind working sluggishly after long hours without rest. He considers that he may need to make it appeal to her in a way that’s familiar to her, searching his memories for a recollection of the ways that children communicate the things that are important to them. “It will be our secret.”
Her eyes widen, her face a mask of wordless fear. Somehow, that wasn’t the right choice.
His grip tightens on her shoulders. “I…need to know that I can trust in you, child.”
She swallows heavily, tears gathering in her eyes again, but she nods firmly this time. “I won’t tell anyone.” He is confused for a moment as she lifts her hand into view, pinky extended. He frowns.
“There’s no need for that. You gave me your word. That’s enough.” A sigh of relief, and then another hug, this one catching him off guard just like the others.