Chapter Text
There had been no trial, at least that Vander had seen, no sentencing either. He’d only realized a verdict had been delivered at all when the Stillwater guards came to escort him from the holding lockup, leading him to an elevator that took them deep below ground and through a maze of corridors to his permanent home: a tiny dark cell.
He was never told his charges or the length of his sentence. His only clue was the cruel parting words from the Warden promising him he’d never see the light of day again.
But even without a release date to dream of, Vander counted the days.
Every day followed a set schedule, rigid and unyielding.
Wakeup. Make the bed. Brush teeth. Comb hair. Morning roll call. Breakfast. Exercise. Lunch. Yard. Gym. Shower. Supper. Evening roll call. Brush teeth. Mark the day. Lights out. Sleep. Dream.
Wakeup.
Every day blended into the next, even as every second not knowing how his kids were doing was agony. He etched another mark into the wall and combed his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. He’d just have to trust Benzo. His old friend had taken decent care of Ekko these last couple years and while he didn’t have Vander’s knack for dealing with mangey grifters and troublemakers, he could still hold his own.
‘Benzo will handle things, ’ Vander past assurances echoed in his mind, louder now in the silence of his tomb, ‘ he may not have my devilish charm, but he runs a tight ship.’
And, well, if he can’t keep the Lanes running as smoothly as Vander would have liked, at least he could depend on him to keep his family safe. Mylo, Clagger, Powder, Vi. Vander repeats their names often, like a mantra reminding himself why this was the right thing to do, worth it. He turned on his tiny cot and pulled the threadbare sheets tighter to stave off the inescapable cold and damp, praying they were safe and warm, together. Prayed they’d learned from their mistakes and his sacrifice.
Take care of each other for me, please.
Wakeup. Make the bed. Brush teeth. Comb hair. Morning roll call. Breakfast. Exercise. Lunch. Yard. Gym. Shower. Supper. Evening roll call. Brush teeth. Mark the day. Lights out. Lie awake. Sleep. Dream.
Wakeup.
Vander missed his pipe. His body craved tobacco. One of those needs, he could do something about. He’d interacted with some of the prisoners he’d recognized; more than a handful had been thrown out of the Last Drop over the years and were happy to trade a pack of cigarettes to the old Hound in exchange for vague assurances to revoke their lifetime bans. Their nervous amenability was encouraged more by Vander’s physicality than his charm. He didn’t smile much these days.
The fragile partnerships built on intimidation would have to do. He used to have real people on the inside, back when the Lanes were built, but Vander had neglected those once he’d started working with the enforcers, letting the friendships wither away and die like the sad herbs Claggor had tried to grow on the roof once.
While he didn’t have friends close at least he had enemies closer, to keep him entertained. Some of the most violent prisoners here were those turned in by Vander himself, a necessary sacrifice he’d made to earn Grayson’s trust with the added bonus of keeping the worst riffraff out of his territory. They hadn’t forgotten the Hound. A few fools had even tried to corner him in the mess hall, eager to fulfill a long overdue vendetta, full to the brim not with righteous fury at being held accountable for their many crimes; they had no illusions about what they did or how they did it. No, they came to him boiling with indignation at how Vander had upset the natural order of the Undercity by choosing Piltover’s laws over his own people, rapists and murderers that they were.
He had batted them away like flies, sending bodies and teeth skittering to the floor, before grabbing the ringleader by the skull in one massive hand and slamming his head into the table, holding him there so Vander could sit back down and finish his grub, in peace, blood slowly pooling beneath the moaning man’s broken nose. He’d only struggled once, throwing an elbow back and knocking over Vander’s drink. Vander frowned, put down his spoon and seized the man's forearm, bending it backwards until the offending elbow gave with a sickening crunch, and that had been that.
No more lunchtime tussles.
Those brief moments of violence were the highlight of Vander’s stay and he bitterly regretted not going easier on them so others would make the same mistake. Now no one dared bother him, speak to him even, lunchtime or otherwise.
Ah well, he was no stranger to unintended consequences.
Collateral damage.
Mistakes.
So many mistakes.
Wakeup. Make the bed. Brush teeth. Morning roll call. Breakfast. Exercise. Lunch. Yard. Gym. Cold shower. Cold supper. Evening roll call. Brush teeth. Mark the day. Lights out. Lie awake. Sleep.
Nightmares.
The Last Drop burning, his kids trapped inside.
“Mylo, Clagger!” He races into the building, crying out for them, but his legs are weighted and slow, like he’s swimming fully clothed- fighting a strong current that drags at his every movement. Still he fights. The fire can’t stop him, it only distracts him as he tumbles through a maze of stairways and corridors and it seems like an eternity before he finds the entrance to the basement. “Vi, Powder!” he screams, lungs burning, into the void past the door frame. The living quarters are filled with thick smoke and he stumbles through it blind, hands groping in the dark when he sees a flash of pink hair, vibrant in a scene of black and gray and brown.
Vi.
She’s hunched over a pile of smoldering debris, digging with blood-and-soot stained hands through the rubble. Her sobs of anguish don’t come from her shaking form, instead echoing from every direction.
He notices the tiny pale hand poking out from rubble of the collapsed roof. He was too late. Too slow. Too weak. Too –
Wakeup.
------------
Hashmarks line the walls of his cell. 190 of them. 27 weeks of not enough food, not enough sleep. More than half a year without seeing Vi, Power, Claggor, or Mylo.
The only thing he had now was time. He finishes another set of one arm pushups and whips his shirt off. He’s not sweating yet, it hardly counts as a workout to heft his weight alone but it keeps his blood pumping, keeps him feeling at least physically alive. He rolls up the tunic and tucks it under his wide back to cushion his tailbone before starting a set of sit ups. With little else to do but train, his body is slowly bouncing back from years of spending more time bartending instead of brawling. The bland menu and complete lack of alcohol has already shrunk his gut, fat leaning out to reveal the solid core of muscle he’d never lost. He’d never be that tight waisted young revolutionary again but his age gave him a meanness, a lean vascularity, that he’d never had before and as much as he missed the relatively peaceful life that had let him grow complacent, seeing himself change gave him a small sense of control that he clung to.
Vander pauses, resting his brawny forearms on his knees, when he hears footsteps approaching from down the hall. Not the heavy steps of a patrolling guard; these strides are shorter, lighter. If his cell wasn’t tucked into a far corner of the lowest level of the prison he never would have heard it over the ruckus. The gait is different too, languid, like the stranger’s enjoying an idle stroll along the river, instead of prowling the halls of the jail under the baleful gaze of hungry prisoners.
A ball of dread tightens in Vander’s stomach and he pushes off the ground to face the cell bars, staying back to let the darkness of the cell shroud an emotion he couldn’t force down. No topsider would feel so confident here and only one Undercity denizen would dare saunter into this hell hole.
A slender figure slows to a halt in front of his door, barely illuminated by the anemic sconce on the wall.
Silco.
For a moment, he’s silent, his old enemy's ruined eye glowing like a hot coal in the dark hallway. His face is in shadow and for a moment Vander glimpses a memory from a lifetime ago; of ice-chip eyes and a hooked nose, of hollow cheeks and lips pressed thin in the ghost of a sardonic smile.
He’s not smiling now, only tilting his head to the side, carefully considering the giant man through the holes in the bars. Finally, he speaks.
“You played lapdog and look where it’s gotten you?” Silco taps at an iron bar with his nail. “Caged like an animal. You’re lucky they didn’t put you down, Vander .”
“They were coming for the kids.” Vander stands tall. He might be caged but he wouldn’t be cowed. “I had no choice.”
“Hmm, perhaps. But still…it pains me to see you so quick to give up on freedom.”
“Pained, eh?” Vander crosses his arms over his chest. “Damn, and here I thought you’d be overjoyed.”
Silco shakes his head and crosses his arms, mirroring Vander. “I considered saving you, you know. Dashing in at the knick of time to deal with the enforcers... finally talk some sense into you,” he says, almost wistfully before his tone shifts to bitterness. “But no, you’d have resented me. You’d rather rot here than fight. You’ve always been so stubborn.” He spits the last word out and runs his fingers through his perfectly styled hair, mussing it.
What? Why? Vander’s eyebrows pinched together. Why would Silco want to save him after everything? Silco hated him and Vander couldn’t blame him. He hated himself too; for the mistakes he’d made, that day at the bridge, that night in the river….
He gave his head a shake. Silco must be lying; fucking with him.
“That was your plan? Murder enforcers, bring the heat and get more people killed? You’re damn right I’d rather rot.”
“Even now? After six months of,” Silco gestures at their dank surroundings, “Piltover’s finest hospitality?”
“Yes. You’d have only started a war you can’t win.”
“I don’t have to win. I just need to scare them away. Your lack of vision and that pathetically defeatist attitude”–Silco scoffs in disgust– “is precisely why I decided to let the trash take itself out, for once.”
“And yet here you are, digging through the garbage heap. Miss me already?”
“ Hah , no,” he deadpans. “Believe it or not, old friend, I came here to thank you.”
It’s Vander turn to laugh, hollow and sharp. It echoes down the narrow hallway.
Silco lets it fade to nothing before continuing. “Your heroic sacrifice didn’t just spare your ward, Vander, it will save the Undercity too.” Silco retrieves a lighter and a pipe from his pocket, “Without you standing in the way, we can finally move forward towards what’s rightfully ours: The Nation of Zaun .”
Vander’s eyes widen at the implication of that familiar pipe and Silco smirks, flicking on the lighter and setting the tobacco to burn. The flame illuminates the man’s lean face, revealing the horrific scars Vander had gifted him as well as the dark circles and fine lines that had grown in the years since they’d last squared off.
“Oh? You didn’t hear the rumor?” Silco pauses to puff at the pipe. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it seems the Lanes didn’t take well to Benzo’s leadership style.” He leans back against the far wall, crossing his ankles. “It was barely a week before your loyal crew came crawling back to me.”
An achingly familiar aroma of spice and cloves fills the air as Vander curses himself. He should have known Silco would be there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for his chance to strike and reclaim his old territory. He didn’t believe the transition was half as peaceful as the man implied.
“Is he dead?”
“No, actually. After his pathetic attempt to take back the Last Drop, I decided to steal a page from your book and banish him to the Alcoves. With two broken legs,” – Silco's voice lilts up with mirth– “...he never did know when to walk away.”
Vander swallows thickly, an ache in the back of his throat. While Vander was languishing here, Silco had seized the Lanes, his base, his home. But what of his children? Powder was too young but Mylo, Clagger, Vi…he prayed they’d run but knew in his gut that they’d fight. Follow in his footsteps and use the only tool they had to defend their home; violence. His mind was reeling, spiraling to worst case scenarios. If they met Silco’s forces head on, he feared the man before him would have had no qualms crushing them. But would he kill them? Vander clenched his fists, nail digging into the skin of his palms. He didn’t know. He didn’t know Silco at all anymore.
Vander steps out of the shadows and grips the bars; the muscles in his forearms tense and bulging with the force of his hold as his cage becomes his anchor.
“And the kids?”
Silco blinks, his mismatched eyes darting over Vander’s revealed form, lingering a moment on the tendons of his strained arms and his wide bare chest, before snapping back to his face. The smaller man fidgets briefly with the stolen pipe before taking the stem between his chapped lips, pulling deep and slow. The ember flares up with the puff of air, smoldering like the burned building from Vander’s nightmares, a perfect twin to the ruined eye staring back at him, and Vander’s heart stutters in fear.
“Silco,” Vander growls, voice quaking with repressed emotion, “They’re just children, if they–”
“Teenagers, actually,” Silco quips, finding his voice again, “except for the little gadgeteer.”
“ Kids ,dammit. And I swear, if you hurt a hair on their heads I’ll–”
“What will you do, Vander? Rattle the bars of your cell?” Silco sighs, disgusted with the man all over again. “Or curse fate for trapping you here, in a prison of your own design? I am quaking in my boots. ”
“SILCO!” Vander roars, his teeth bared, the bars groaning under his stranglehold. “Tell me, tell me what happened to them or, so help me, I will rip you apart .” He wrenches the cell door with a loud bang, hinges creaking under an inhuman strength fueled by rage and fear.
Silco doesn’t flinch.
“I came here, Vander, to tell you that the Lanes are in good hands. That your found family, “ Silco gestures airily at the term, “is secure as well. Rehomed somewhere less…underfoot. Though those two girls can’t seem to stay away,” Silco remarks, sounding almost…proud for some reason. “So eager to join the uprising against the topsiders that stole their beloved father –”
“They’re working for you ?” Vander snaps, tight jaw slackening in disbelief even as his heart lurches in relief that they’re alive at all.
“Oh yes, didn’t I mention that?”
Vander growls again at Silco’s conversational tone, a vein twitching in his neck.
“The older one clearly takes after you,” Silco continues, casually drawing near. “A strong arm but a complete headache, does not take direction. And the little inventor, Powder, was a delightful surprise–”
“She’s a child. Leave her out of this you-”
“Were you aware she’s been building bombs ?” Silco continues, not waiting for him to answer before tsking at Vander’s negligence. “Safety oversights aside, you raised your children well enough that they’re more than willing to do what you wouldn't.” Silco takes another step closer, tilting his head up to maintain their eye contact, daring Vander to try and grab him through the too narrow bars. “ Fight back .”
Vander flinches, arms falling to his sides. They’re toe to toe now, separated only by the cold wrought iron door.
“And isn’t that what every proud parent wants?” Silco purrs, so close Vander can feel the puff of warm air on his chest. “For their children to succeed where they failed ?”
Vander’s face is numb. He doesn’t even think to lunge at Silco, to try and hook him with a finger and drag him close enough to bite. He had failed. He left his kids, alone practically, in a dangerous world. And in their quest to avenge him , the man who sacrificed everything to keep them safe, they had turned to his most dangerous enemy for guidance. In one act of self sacrifice on a stormy night, he had sent them careening down a path he knew could only end in pain and death.
“So, thank you. For giving me them, for giving me everything .”
Silco takes another pull from the old pipe and leans in, letting the smoke pour from his lips and waft up over Vander’s blank face along with his parting words.
“Goodbye, Vander.”
Frozen by doubt and guilt, he can only watch as Silco turns and leaves.
As the receding footsteps grow faint, Vander closes his eyes and breaths in the fading remnants of smoke.
It smelled like…home.
–