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There are still bruises around Silco's neck when he slinks home to the Last Drop. His clothes are still wet, sticking damply to his skin, reminding him of his baptism under those toxic waters. He still coughs up water and blood when he breathes too deeply of that toxic air.
Vander is gone, he knows Vander is gone, he watched him throw the door open and leave - in search of him, probably - but he just needs his things. He just wants his coat - he got used to the relative warmth of the bar to scare the chill from his bones and now he is painfully reminded of his childhood.
He can't remember being dry until recent years.
Silco slides in through the door, wordlessly sneaking up the stairs to their room. He chokes on the memory of all the mornings he has woken up there since he was too old to be sharing a bed but too cold not to. He wonders if Vander panics when he can't find him in the morning.
He hopes he does.
The door opens with a creak and he flits in, going to grab his heavy miner's jacket when he stops in his tracks. A note sits on the old desk they salvaged from three separate pieces of furniture. He sees his name at the top.
He grabs his coat.
Don't look back.
He was baptized anew, he is a new thing, a new creation - that boy that fell in love with a betrayer worse than Judas is gon- and yet. And yet he cannot stop himself from refusing to move. He cannot stop staring at his name in Vander's poor writing - the nuns could only teach so much and Vander was always more interested in fighting than school anyway.
He takes the letter off the desk.
This changes everything.
---
Silco is waiting at the bar when Vander comes back, bloody and bruised and reeking of shame and cheap moonshine. He's poured himself a drink to have something to do with his hands. The flickering bar light highlights the shades of blue and purple that turn gray at the edges against his never-seen-the-sun pale skin.
Vander almost falls over when he sees him standing there, a choked sob scratching at his throat, demanding to be let out. His voice breaks on Silco's name, and when he turns to look at him, all Vander can focus on is his ruined eye.
"I'm so sorry-" He starts to say, tears brimming in his eyes.
"I know." Silco's voice is hard, cold. "I am willing to try to move past this but we will never... fucking never be like we were." His own tongue tastes like blood - how can he trust Vander with his back ever again?
Vander nods, because what else can he do but nod? He tries to reach to touch Silco and he flinches away from his hand as he gets up from the barstool and climbs the stairs. His drink remains untouched, as if anything Vander might have touched could turn against him.
Vander tries not to wince like Silco has swung at him when he hears the sound of him moving his things into the tiny office.
Silco tells him later, standing in a doorframe, his arms crossed and his gaze firm. "We are doing this together for the better of Zaun." His eyes still shine like puddles on the docks glinting with lamplight when he talks about Zaun, the rebellion, the way his voice comes to life is something Vander hates a little.
Silco used to sound like that about him. And now... now, Vander is lucky if Silco smiles in his vicinity.
They fall into an uneasy rhythm. Vander mans the bar, Silco heads the meetings. He is a harsher man now, he does not smile when he dreams out loud. His grin turns vicious, his eyes go almost red. Vander never asks where he goes when he leaves. It reminds him of worse days, of hungry days, of days where Silco would leave and come back with coins in his pocket and bruises on his wrists, a haunted look in his eye.
The bread those coins bought always tasted like ash in Vander's mouth.
They are orbiting moons, circling a thing larger and more powerful than themselves but never touching, never colliding.
Vander still sleeps on his side of the bed, as if Silco will hear him cry out in a nightmare and come to lay beside him again, a promise that they are both alive. Vander does not lock his room. Silco never darkens his doorframe.
It seems like it will go on forever.
---
Silco wakes up swinging when a hand shakes his shoulder, his eyes widening when a swatch of blue hair ducks out of the way of his fist. "Child, what are you doing-" His voice is harsh, gravelly with the morning.
Her blue eyes well up with tears and despite his arms being closed to her, she runs into them anyway, babbling about how one of Vander's other adopted children - one of the boys, he believes - are being 'awful and nasty' to her. He holds her despite himself, despite having told Vander he wanted nothing to do with his children.
She just looks so much like her mom.
He cannot help but hold her, eyes bleary with sleep and hers full of tears.
"Mylo is an idiot." He finds himself saying, trying to reach for some word to comfort the shaking child in his arms. He has watched their interactions despite himself and he knows that he cannot stand aside forever.
It just hurts to look at them and see his friends - all dead now. All but Vander.
Vander, who he wants to hate but cannot help but love still. Vander who he wishes he could trust again but knows he can never let himse-
Vander, who is currently standing in his doorway looking like he is about to be stabbed in the gut. This just makes Silco hold her tighter. She is just as much his goddaughter.
"It's going to be okay, Powder. I've got you." He whispers into her hair, the blue of it streaking across his pale cheeks. "We'll show him, hm? We'll show them all."
She smiles into his embrace, his cold bony arms, his fingers that have broken necks and fired countless weapons rest on her and she smiles.
And for the first time in months, he smiles back.