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The makeshift shrine stood quiet in the downpour, rain slicking its surface and soaking the earth around it.
A miner’s hat, dented and bruised by time and countless days of backbreaking work, sat as the meager shrine’s lone centerpiece. Its once-blank surface shone with streaks of bright colors, doodles painted by a child’s careful hands in the quiet hours of the evening while her mother brushed her hair and sung her sweet lullabies. Little monkeys, stick figures, and tiny hearts were all sprawled haphazardly across the metal surface, their edges blurred by the relentless rain. The colors smeared and bled together, dripping like tears down the metal’s face, the evidence of a family's love being washed away with every passing moment.
In time, all that would remain would be a nondescript miners hat, dented and well-worn, indiscernible from the thousands just like it that were scatted across the Undercity.
To many, it would be just a helmet.
But for Silco and Vander, it would always be her helmet. It would always be the last memory of the friend they had failed, a symbol of the woman who they couldn't even grace with neither a grave nor funeral - and a reminder of the promises that lingered even as her ashes were swept away upon the wind.
Vander stood before her helmet, unmoving, the rain pouring over his broad frame, plastering his shirt to his skin. His fists were clenched at his sides, the knuckles white beneath the force of his grip. Silco lingered behind him, his gaze flicking between Vander’s back and the shrine. The rain hit the brim of Silco’s coat, slicked his hair against his forehead, cold and relentless. The sound drowned out everything but the rush of the river in the distance.
It drowned out the silence between them, because there was nothing else to drown out. It had been there for weeks now, a yawning chasm where once they had stood side by side. Grief, Silco told himself. Nothing more. But still, Vander's quiet distance gnawed at him, twisting something unnameable in his chest. And he didn't know how to fix it.
"She... she would be happy, Vander." Silco muttered, breaking the silence. His voice was soft, unsure, as if afraid to disturb the weight of the moment. "To know you've taken the girls in. All she ever wanted was for them to have someone, you know that."
It was a weak attempt to comfort him, but Silco couldn't find the right words for what he wanted to say. What he needed to say.
Vander said nothing. His head dipped slightly, water pooling at his feet, mixing with the color running off of her helmet. Silco stepped closer, his boots squelching in the wet earth. The shrine they had made for her felt suffocating, the storm overhead amplifying the oppressive weight of everything they had lost that night.
He reached out, brushing a hand against Vander’s shoulder. "Say something, Vander. You’ve been... distant. Strange. If you don’t talk to me, I can’t help. Please. We’re supposed to stand together, not-" He gestured vaguely at the silence between them, a gulf that had grown too wide. "Not this."
"I can’t," Vander said quietly, his voice swallowed by the rain. His voice was smaller than Silco had ever heard it, it was weak and broken and everything that Vander shouldn't be. He was falling apart, and Silco didn't know how to stop it.
Silco frowned, tightening his grip on Vander’s arm. "You can’t what? You can’t tell me what’s going on with you? You can’t tell me why you’ve been acting like a ghost? I know you’re grieving, but so am I. She was our friend - our family. She wasn't just yours." Silco couldn't help it as his voice rose, sparked with the frustration that had been festering as Vander had drawn further and fruther away in the past few weeks. He sighed, his shoulders dropped, and let his hand flal to his side. "We're... we're all grieving. You're not alone in this. I'm here. For you. Just talk to me!"
Vander finally turned his head, his eyes glistening with something unreadable in the dim light as he looked at some point over Silco's shoulder. "Come with me." His voice was hoarse, raw, and Silco hated it, hated the reminder that the infallible Vander who had always reassured him that things would work out was gone.
"What?" Silco blinked, thrown off by the sudden shift. "Where?"
"To the river," Vander said, his voice lower, almost too soft to hear. The rain and the wind made it hard to tell if the words trembled as they left his lips. Vander looked to the Pilt, and his eyes seemed strangley dull as they were lit up by a distant flash of lightning.
Silco’s unease sharpened.
"The river? What for?" Silco looked the other way, towards The Last Drop, and took a step back. "Vander, we should... we should go back to bar. Home. Powder and Violet will be wondering where we are..."
"No... no, I need to show you something." Vander’s face was unreadable as he cut Silco off, the rain streaking down his skin like tears.
The way Vander said it made Silco pause. There was something there - something dark, final, as if Vander was making a decision that Silco wasn't privy to, his voice tainted with something that felt dangerous - but he shoved the thought away. This was Vander. His brother. His anchor. The one who he would stand beside throughout it all. Whatever this was, it was grief, guilt, sorrow - it was anything but malice. It couldn't be.
"Silco..." Vander's voice was wrong in a way Silco couldn't name, heavy in a way he had never heard it before.
Silco stared at him, his confusion deepening. "I just don't... the river? Why now, in the middle of a storm? What’s there to see? Why?"
Vander’s throat worked as he swallowed. He turned slightly, his eyes meeting Silco’s for the first time. There was something there, something hollow and distant, and it sent an uncharacteristic chill through Silco’s chest.
"Please, Silco." Vander said. "Just come. Just... just trust me."
Silco swallowed the unease, the unease that threatened to claw its way up his throat, and forced a breath out through his nose. His lips parted, but no words came.
He didn't want to go to the river - he wanted to go home.
But there was no place in his heart for doubt when it came to Vander, was there? Silco let the tension drain from his shoulders in a heavy sigh, the sound muffled by the endless cascade of rain. "Fine," he said, his voice softer than he intended. He nodded once, the motion slow, deliberate, as if forcing himself to believe that everything was fine. "Lead on, brother."
Vander hesitated, his eyes trained on Felicia's helmet for a few moments longer, before he tore his eyes away and strode towards the river like a man walking towards the gallows.
Silco followed, uneasy, his skin rippling with goosebumps that weren't from the rain.
The Pilt was a roaring beast that night, its waters swollen and violent with the storm. The sound of the rushing current thundered in Silco’s ears as they reached the riverbank. Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the gray, churning water, and the shadows of the city loomed above, faintly visible against the dark sky.
Vander stepped into the river first, his boots sinking into the slick, muddy banks. Silco hesitated, watching the way the water swirled hungrily around Vander’s legs.
Vander motioned to him when he didn't step into the waters, and Silco followed. He always did.
The current tugged at his boots, the cold biting through leather and cloth alike, numbing his skin. Silco had to dig his boots into the riverbed as he took step after step after Vander, leaning against tthe current as it threatened to knock him off-balance. They waded in silence until they were knee-deep in the filth. The smell of rot and oil clung to the air, sharp and metallic, and the water tasted bitter where it splashed against Silco’s lips - a reminder of the poisonious toll Piltover had on their undercity.
The river roared, surging around them, its voice louder than either man dared to speak.
They stood there for what felt like an eternity, the water swirling around their legs. Silco shivered, the rain soaking through his coat, the cold sinking deep into his bones. Vander stood just ahead of him, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the horizon. The flash of lightning illuminated his face briefly, casting deep shadows in the hollows of his cheeks, and Silco felt the unease twist tighter in his gut.
"This is neither the time nor the place for mourning," Silco said, raising his voice to call out above the storm. He motioned around them, to the filthy water and the suffocating darkness. His hands were trembling from the cold as he tucked them back against his chest. "Why are we here, Vander? There’s... there's nothing here. What did you want to show me?"
Vander didn’t respond. His shoulders were rigid, his head bowed, his breath heavy and visible in the cold air.
Silco took a step closer, the current pushing harder against him. "What’s wrong with you, Vander? You’ve been like this ever since... you've been distant, distracted. If you’re going to drag me out into this river, at the very least tell me why. You know that I'll follow you anywhere. but-"
Vander turned to him slowly, his eyes shadowed, his expression grim with something that looked like regret. His voice barely made it to Silco's ears as he spoke, "I’m sorry."
Silco froze. The apology didn’t make sense. It hung in the air between them, hollow and wrong. He frowned, a faint laugh escaping his lips, though it carried no humor. "Sorry? For... dragging me into this filth in the middle of the night? I'm afraid you’ll have to be more specific, brother."
The unease in Silco's chest was hardening into something sharper, something close to fear.
He took a step back, towards the shore.
"I’m so sorry, Silco," Vander repeated, his voice rough. He looked away again, his jaw tightening. "This is... for the best. For our people - for her daughters."
Vander reached out a hand towards him, but Silco instinctively took another step back.
This wasn't right.
"Brother, what are you-" Silco’s question broke off as Vander’s face twisted with something unreadable, and then he moved.
The lunge was sudden, violent, a blur of motion in the rain like a beast from a nightmare. Silco stumbled back, slipping in the mud, barely dodging Vander’s outstretched hand as the man dove towards him. The river surged around them, its roar swallowing Silco's shout of confusion as he stumbled away from his dearest friend. As Vander reached for him, Silco ducking backwards in turn, his fingers scraped across Silco’s cheek, and a sharp sting tore across his left eye, the scratch deep and raw as Vander's fingernails tore through Silco's skin.
Silco cried out in pain, his vision blurring as his own blood mixed with the river’s filth. He staggered back, one hand instinctively clutching at his face. A quick swipe of his palm came away red, his left eye burning with searing pain.
"Vander!" Silco screamed, his voice rising in panic, but it was swallowed by the river’s endless roar. His breath came in ragged gasps, his mind reeling. “What- what is this? What the hell are you doing?”
Vander didn’t answer. His face was a mask of sorrow and something else - something cold, distant, resigned. He came at Silco again, arm outstretched, and this time, Silco couldn’t escape. The current tugged at him, pulling him back toward the water’s grasp as his feet slipped on the slick earth. His chest tightened in a panic, the world narrowing around him as Vander’s arms closed in.
Silco’s breath caught as Vander’s hand found his throat, squeezing with brutal force. The world seemed to crack open around him, his vision blurring as the fingers tightened like an iron vice, cutting off the air that he desperately needed. A desperate scream, a plea for mercy, tore at his throat, but no sound escaped. The pressure built, suffocating him in a grip so solid that he thought his bones would break before he ever had a chance to drown.
Why? The thought screamed in his head, louder than the roar of the river that Silco now feared he would be lost in. The cold swallowed Silco whole, shocking and suffocating as Vander forced him beneath the surface. He thrashed, his arms clawing at Vander’s arm, but the larger man held firm, unyielding. The river surged over his head, and Silco’s vision blurred as he choked on the filth, the taste of oil and mud and toxicity filling his mouth.
His arms flailed wildly, trying to push Vander off, to find purchase, to breathe. The current roared in his ears, mingling with the pounding of his heart and the screaming of his lungs, but all he could focus on was the searing pain in his eye - the scratch, now blooming into something worse. It was like molten fire coursing through his face, every pulse of pain making it harder to focus, harder to think.
His tongue got caught between his teeth in his struggle, and the sharp metallic tang of blood joined the river’s bitterness, hot against the cold. His body twisted, his legs kicking, his hands clawing desperately at Vander’s arms, his coat, searching for anything to break free. But there was nothing, nothing could break the grip that Vander had on him, the deathly hold of the river, the blackness that closed in around him. His chest ached, his lungs burned, demanding oxygen, but there was no air - only the thick, choking water that surged into his mouth and down his throat, filling him until it was all he could taste, all he could feel, consuming him, killing him.
Through the water, Silco looked up. Vander’s face loomed above, blurred by the river’s currents. But it wasn’t Vander standing over him. It wasn't the man he knew, the brother he trusted. This was someone else - someone cold, unrecognizable.
Silco’s chest burned, the need for air consuming him. His vision began to narrow, the edges darkening, the rushing current fading to a dull roar. His body grew weaker, his movements slower, as his lungs begged for release.
The last thing Silco saw before the darkness swallowed him was Vander’s face - haunted, resolute, and utterly unfamiliar to the man he'd loved.