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You don't know for sure how it started.
You worked under Silco and Vander throughout the creation of the Lanes, and back then you were known for your skill with blades. The lethal kind. People gave you and your daggers and throwing knives a wide berth.
Yet somewhere along the way, you also became known for your skill with scissors and clippers. You suspect Dustin in the architect behind this reputation. You did his hair and Ran's for a while, and suddenly it was a whole thing.
You were put off originally, but nowadays you don't mind. The Lanes are established, and your daggers rarely needed. You might as well make some money out of this craft people seem to respect. There's something enjoyable to it too, much like stabbing idiots in the ass. The way people beam when you're done with them, and the sensation of teasing out a shape with the snip of your scissors, like a sculptor freeing a statue from a block of stone... It gives you a kick.
You're a little confused then, when Mek, of all people, squeezes his hulking frame through the small door of the hole-in-the-wall you've turned into a shop of sorts. You haven't seen him in a while, you're not exactly friends, and the man is the smoothest creature you've ever beheld. He doesn't even have eyebrows for you to trim.
'Do you have an appointment?' you ask with a laugh.
Mek huffs and shakes his bald head. 'You busy?' he asks.
You open your arms to encompass the tiny, empty room around you. 'Not right now.'
Mek nods, satisfied. 'Got a job for you,' he says. 'Not here though.'
'I don't do house calls,' you tell him, suddenly concerned. 'If Vander wants a haircut, he can come in person.'
You hope he won't. Things are troubling, recently. Silco disappeared without a trace, and Vander has been incredibly cagey about it. Just last month you were nursing a tepid beer at the Last Drop, chewing on the inside of your cheeks and wondering if you should say something, when someone beat you to it.
He wanted to know the truth. Where Silco was, why was Vander acting like he didn't even recognise the name. Whatever the fuck was going on.
You watched, dread pooling in your guts like hot cement, as the Hound's meaty fist shot out and clamped around the man's throat. He dragged him bodily to the door, spitting and kicking the whole way. You still remember how everyone craned, incapable of looking away, and how Vander's shirt shifted over the bulging, rolling muscles of his enormous back as he threw the man who dared question him like... like a sack of bones. Like trash. A dead weight crash-landing into the windshield of a parked motor carriage with a wet gasp.
You don't hang out at the Drop anymore. You've done your share for the Lanes, and you're not keen to become the Hound's anything, not even his barber.
It's a relief when Mek shakes his head again. 'I don't work for Vander,' he says, sounding a little offended. 'Never did.'
That makes you perk up. 'Silco? He's alive?'
Mek nods, and it's all it takes for you to gather you things and follow him out the door.
Down you go, leaving the Entresol and heading North, towards the Deep Docks and the old harbour. For a moment you think Mek is fucking with you, especially when he opens the rusty doors of an old, abandoned cannery. The giant crab sign looming over you looks like it might collapse at any time.
'Come on,' Mek says, waving you in.
You grab the hilt of your dagger for reassurance, the one sheathed to a harness over your shoulder, whenever you go out. Mek rolls his eyes like you're being dramatic.
'This is the sort of place you bring someone when you want to kill them and hide their body in tins of crab meat,' you say defensively.
'Precisely,' Mek retorts before disappearing inside.
You sway on your feet, hesitating. It's a good point. No one sane would come looking for Silco in such a building. You swear under your breath and slide through the doorway, wary.
The inside is surprisingly roomy, capped by a mostly-intact skylight that lets natural light in. Not a shade you're well used to, and the place feels washed out grey. More importantly, it looks as you expected it to: rotting crates and long discarded nets. No sign of habitation.
'Over here,' Mek calls.
You follow him into a side room and down a flight of stairs. You don't hesitate any more. If it's a trap, you're fucked. May as well go along with it. You're a little shocked that it isn't, that the stairs lead to a corridor with a watertight door, and behind it a secret room.
'Wow...'
You gape at the cast-iron window and the view of the harbour behind it, flush with schools of fish and the outline of monstrous tentacles, sounding the depth.
'I know, right?' Mek says in agreement.
The rest of the place is less impressive than the window and the view beyond. A lab of some sort. Tables are filled with chemtech equipments and specimens of all types in jars.
'What is this place?' you ask, confused. You never pegged Silco as a science type.
'Singed's lab,' Mek says. 'He's out right now. Silco's over here. Boss?'
A dark curtain in the corner of the lab is pulled aside, and there Silco is. Or rather, there stands a shade that looks a lot like the Silco you knew.
The most obvious is the eye. It looks like oil spilled in milk, swirling darkly around a corrupted iris. The left side of his face is red and raw, swollen welts like someone gouged him.
A chill courses down your spine. Maybe someone has.
'What...' The question dies on your lips.
'I'm glad you came,' Silco says.
His voice is low and raspy. That's when you notice the bandages around his throat. Just what happened to him?
Mek slaps your shoulder, jerking you out of your haze, and leaves the two of you alone.
'Ah— I'm...' You grasp for words, and they escape like smoke between your fingers.
'I get it,' Silco says with the tiniest of smiles.
'I never knew. I would have looked for you. I'm sorry. Just... What happened? Did Vander—' Silco's flinch is all you need for an answer.
You sigh and brush a shaky hand through your hair. You've seen what the Hound can do first-hand. You had his back in enough fights over the years. It's thanks to him that you know what a skull sounds like when it cracks and caves in, the squelching of brains and guts spilling out.
'I take it you're... recovering here?' you ask, waving a hand to encompass the lab.
Silco nods, and you notice how only one of his eyes closes with the motion. The eyelids of the corrupted one are gone. You swallow against your repulsion, your anger.
This is a man you believed in. You followed his leadership because he had a dream worth fighting for. You drank with him, laughed with him. You had his back too, in so many fights. You know he didn't deserve this, whatever "this" was.
Your fear of Vander congeals into something dark and tangible. All the ease you once felt knowing you were on his side suddenly evaporating. If he can do this to Silco, sides are meaningless.
'I sent for you,' Silco says, voice scraping and catching, 'hoping you could help with...' He glides a hand through his hair.
It's longer than you recall, lank and lifeless. You walk up to him slowly, as if he might spook. He doesn't move away from your touch when you reach out to roll a lock between your fingers, but his mismatched eyes follow your every move.
'Chemical burn,' you mumble.
Suddenly the rawness of his wounds makes a lot more sense. Like he was dunked in a vat of chemspills.
'He tried to drown me in the Pilt,' Silco says flatly, as if reading your mind.
You sigh. 'Right. Well...' You shrug off your bag and give it a pat. 'I have everything I need. Let's fix this.'
He gives you another tiny smile. It pulls on the fresh scars, and you wonder if it hurts. Just some months ago you would have grabbed him, rubbed your hand mindlessly across his back, squeezed his shoulder. Now Silco feels like a vitrithin cup from Ionia. Too fragile to be handled.
He brings a small mirror from of his quarters while you lay out your tools in thoughtful silence.
'What style do you want?' you ask.
Silco shrugs. He pulls a tool from under the workbench and sits down. 'I'm not picky,' he says. 'I just want it all... Gone. I don't want... Just make it so it can't be grabbed.'
Fuck. That's just horrible. You're happy to oblige.
'Let's go short short, then,' you say with forced cheer. 'In the style of those Demacian pirates. That way you'll have healthy ends, and you can shape it as it regrows.'
'I trust you,' Silco says.
The words pierce your heart. He trusts you and you weren't there for him, when all this went down. You didn't know. For months you didn't even try to find out. Afraid maybe, incurious certainly. Content with your little hole-in-the-wall, reaping the benefits of your past of violence.
You set to work eagerly. There isn't a lot left to work with once you've snipped all the dead length of burnt hair.
Silco sighs and slumps forward with each new lock falling to the ground, till you have to gently push him back up. He leans against your clippers as you trim the back of his head, the sides. You pretend you don't see the tears running down his cheeks. You just focus on your work, on this new man you're freeing out of the old.
A fresh start, as much as possible. It's not like he can change his skin, or his eye, but this... this much you can do for him.
'Tadah!' you say with flourish, brushing the fallen hair from his neck, inviting him to look in the mirror.
Silco runs his fingers over the back of his head, and the smile returns, a little wider, a little more painful. It's far from the grins he used to be so free with—flashing crooked teeth, lines the laughter crinkling at the corner of his eyes—but you'll take it.
You smile back, satisfied. 'You're very handsome,' you say.
'And you're a known flatterer,' Silco replies tartly. But his smile lingers, and he seems... relieved. He looks away from the mirror and up at you, trapping you in the intensity of his mismatched gaze. 'Can I ask for your help again, in the future?'
'Don't be shy. I can help with more than trimming your bangs,' you tell him, grabbing the hilt of your dagger for emphasis.
'Are you sure?'
You run a finger along his scarred cheek. He doesn't shirk away from your touch. The skin is flushed, still healing. The sight of it maddens you.
'Oh, I'm certain,' you say. 'I believed in your plans, you know. I didn't join just to kill or carve out a territory. But I got comfortable. Many of us did, and most of us are scared shitless of Vander. But I know where my loyalties lay. I'll trim some jugulars if you need me to. Just let me stay.'
Silco leans into your palm, muffles a thank you, breath hot over your skin. Just like that, you've reclaimed your old self, the one who used to cut tendons more often than hair, and it feels right.