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It was surprisingly peaceful. Dying, that was.
Once he stopped struggling, even the pain was subdued. It was silent, too, the world muffled and all of Zaun’s living, screaming streets so far away. Though that last bit might be the water’s fault, pressing its giant hands over Silco’s ears. Another pair of hands was wrapped around his throat, and it shared the water’s fault in keeping their air from his lungs. But at least those hands were warm. Familiar calluses catching against his skin, fingers that knew all too well how to dig into his flesh. Silco covered them with his own. Not to resist; he’d given that one up already – minutes ago when he stopped struggling against Vander’s strength, days ago when he stopped trying to convince him of his vision. Instead, he tried to speak with his hands since it was unlikely that his voice would get another chance. It’s okay, he tried to say. Knowing Vander, once he’d killed Silco in this bout of untameable rage, he would regret it. Probably beat himself up over it. Or drown his pain in alcohol like he drowned Silco in the river. It was not a bad thought, Silco had to admit, to have Vander lose control of his life over Silco’s death. A part of him, the part that revelled in vindictive pride, thought: Deserved. If Vander killed him, the least he could do was suffer for it.
These were the final thoughts of a dying man, Silco realised, for the world grew ever darker, and at the edges of his vision he glimpsed something he couldn’t describe, but assumed to be death’s cloak settling over him. His fingers slipped, dragging down Vander’s hands.
It’s okay, he tried to say, you’ll manage without me.
-
It was expected agony. Awakening, that was.
Loud, too. Silco regained consciousness to screams that were not his own, even though he had been the one to die.
“Shh,” said another voice, “You don’t want uncle Silco to hear you yelling first thing after waking up, do you now, Vi?”
Too late, uncle Silco thought, then wondered when he had become an uncle. Faintly, he realised that the voice seemed familiar, a memory from the life he thought had left him behind. He was just about to remember, when another voice hit his ears and stopped all processes in his mind.
“He’d be happy about that. Looked forward to it even more than I did, though he would never admit it.” The voice was gruff in the most pleasant way, as if its owner used it too much to bellow around and was still practicing softness.
Vander, Silco opened his mouth to say, then realised there was no air in his lungs to fill the word with, and only managed a cough. Immediately he felt a hand on him. He recognised it, of course he did. It wasn’t around his throat this time but on his shoulder, then his cheek, trying for gentleness.
“Silco?”
Another hand on his other cheek, warm breath on his face. He inhaled deeply, once, twice, taking that breath as his own.
“Van…der.”
He was outside, apparently. Raindrops fell on his nose, his cheeks, his lips, warm and salty.
-
It was a familiar bother. Existing, that was.
It took him awhile to get back on his feet, and even longer for it to stop hurting. Something he let Vander know at every reasonable and unreasonable opportunity. He didn’t get the vindication of seeing Vander suffer for killing him, but at least he had the vindication of seeing him cringe whenever Silco reminded him of the attempt.
Reasonable opportunities included:
“Oh, fuck!” Silco cursed when he bumped against the doorframe. Losing an eye had messed up his depth perception, and he had long since stopped counting the bruises.
“Sorry,” Vander muttered, as if had personally hit Silco in the face with the doorframe.
Silco glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said, as if to confirm that very sentiment.
Vander cringed. Silco got some vindication.
Unreasonable opportunities included:
“Do you want to hold her?” Felicia smiled when she caught Silco’s gaze. Vi was asleep in her arms, snoring gently as she drooled on her mother’s shoulder.
“I would have loved to,” Silco said and glanced at Vander. “Before. But she’s still afraid of my face. Maybe give her to Vander instead, she likes him.”
Felicia sighed and threw him an exasperated look, but Silco didn’t catch it. He was too busy revelling in the expression of pure, unadulterated guilt on Vander’s face.
But of course all fun things must come to an end, and Silco’s amusement over Vander’s guilt came to a halt during a downpour.
He was sitting on his bed, staring out of the window. Water ran down the glass, distorting the world beyond. Water closed over his head, muffling the world beyond. Water burned in his eyes, water flooded his mouth, water, water, water, wa-
“Silco!”
He flinched badly. There was a loud slap. The world came back into focus. Warm light in his room, dry air, a tingle in his hand. He blinked. He was standing, arm outstretched, palm slowly reddening. Vander had a matching red on his cheek, and combined it with a look of utter horror. Silco raised a brow.
“Vander. What are you doing here?” he asked and very deliberately ignored the sense of discomfort sneaking up on him.
“I just- wanted to tell you that Felicia invited us over for dinner.” Vander replied tonelessly.
Silco cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind him. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”
Vander stared at him. Silco dug his nails into the palm of his hand as discomfort snuck closer. “Anything else?”
Vander seemed to war with himself, an intense battle Silco observed in his eyes. He knew the banners the two sides sported: Go and Ignore versus Stay and Question. He knew the wrong side won when Vander took a step towards him.
“What just happened?”
Silco scoffed. “I was in thought and you startled me.”
“It didn’t look like you were in thought.”
“Just because the concept of thinking is entirely foreign to you-“
“It looked like you were having a nightmare with your eyes open.”
Silco’s treacherous eyes flickered over to the window, to the steady flow of water, and he breathed in deep and tried to find an anchor to not let the waves carry him away.
Hands on his shoulders, heavy and warm, reminding him that he was here, in this room, in his body. But it was the voice that returned him fully to himself. “I’m sorry. Silco.” That voice, the very one Silco knew to be sure and steadfast, to never falter or even waver, cracked against his name. “I’m so sorry.” Vander’s head hung low. Like this, he was almost smaller than Silco. “I never meant to- I don’t know how it happened. The entire day, it’s all-”
“Are you looking for words on my floor?”
Vander stilled. Slowly, he raised his head. Silco would very much look dignified right now, self-assured and in control, but he knew the desperation Vander all but oozed affected him as well.
“It’s all water under the bridge,” he said, trying for dry sarcasm, and it was actually pathetic how forced it came out. In truth – the truth he was so good at ignoring, the one he had shut away in a compartment of his brain only water had the key to – in truth, he knew that almost dying had fucked him up. He could go and convince himself all day that a little panic before bed was normal, or that it was perfectly fine that the mere thought of taking a bath filled him with dead. It didn’t change the face that almost dying had fucked him up. And the worst thing was that, for all his taunting, deep inside he knew he couldn’t even blame Vander for it. Not truly. Not when for the past years, they had always been Vander-and-Silco, two parts of the same knife. Vander might have been the blade to cut his throat, but Silco had wielded the handle himself.
“It’s not.” Vander looked at him as his hands tightened on Silco’s shoulders. “It’s not water under the bridge, I don’t know how you can still stand to be around me when I almost killed you.”
And Silco realised with the force of a fist to his stomach that Vander was right. Where water dragged him back to that day, to pain and fear and death, Vander’s hands kept him in the right here, right now. The hands that had closed around his throat now closed around his panic and stopped it from growing.
“What do you want me to do?” His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “Go on a journey of revenge, maybe plunge the entire city into chaos just because our argument turned a little more physical than usual?” He patted Vander’s cheek and meant for it to be patronising, and it was entirely too soft. “We’re both a part of it. As we always are. Vander-and-Silco.”
Vander slowly dropped to his knees. His hands slipped from Silco’s shoulders, down his ribcage behind which his lungs drew in air, to his waist, and then fell down to his sides. He shook his head. “You should be scared of me.”
Silco clicked his tongue. “Don’t think so highly of yourself.” He slid his fingers into Vander’s hair and pulled him in, allowing him to rest his head against Silco’s stomach. Or maybe he allowed himself to hold Vander.
In any case.
All fun things must come to an end. Silco’s amusement over Vander’s guilt came to a halt on a rainy day, where the sound of water was drowned out by the gentle hum of a future they allowed themselves to have.
-
It was, as it turned out, a joy. Living, that was.
There was a simplicity to it, if you allowed it to be. Turning into the warmth instead of away from it when he went to sleep. Waking up with a heavy weight on his chest that made it hard to breathe, only that it wasn’t the panic but Vander’s damned arm threatening to crush him. Spending a morning so slow it dragged over into noon, until a knock at their door reminded them there was a business to operate. Opening the door to get hit with a hundred pounds of overly-enthusiastic 11-year-old girl.
Silco huffed, but before he could reprimand her, Powder had already skipped on to give Vander the same treatment, only that Vander was about twice as broad as Silco and way steadier.
Vi was right behind her, but luckily she limited her greeting to a wave. Silco wasn’t sure he would have handled being tackled by an aspiring boxing champion. She gave Vander a fist-bump, then spied Sevika hurling crates into the kitchen and joined her. Whatever calm the morning had offered was entirely obliterated with the sisters’ arrival.
Silco felt arms around his middle, a chin resting on his shoulder, and warm breath against the side of his neck. “This is. Nice. Just. All of it. Real nice.”
Powder giggled when Sevika lifted the crates she was sitting on and held out her hand to make Vi join her.
Silco hummed. “It is. Also somewhat unbelievable.” Sometimes he still thought that he had died that day, and this was some sort of strange, distorted realm between life and death. He didn’t tell Vander about it, of course.
Sevika grunted when Vi pulled herself up on the crates as well, but miraculously didn’t falter.
“I’m glad you didn’t go on a journey of revenge and plunge the city into chaos, and chose forgiveness instead.”
“Don’t say it like that, it makes me sound weak,” Silco said with mock disgust. Still he turned his head to give Vander a brief kiss, now that Sevika was distracted and couldn’t complain about workplace-indecency.
“We deserve a little weakness, don’t you agree?”
Silco agreed. He very much agreed. And maybe it was okay to admit that. Just as he opened his mouth, there came a loud crash from the kitchen, and Sevika let out a string of curses definitely not meant for the ears of children. Vander and Silco exchanged a glance, sighed, and went to check what mess their family had made.