Chapter Text
If Silco was honest with himself, he’d admit he never truly recovered from being shoved into the river.
Not with the sensation of the cold water plunging into the hot open wound, a gaping chasm left behind by another's anger.
Not with the bestial claws which held him under, griping him as if he were prey.
Not with the way he saw Vander’s face, teeth barred and eyes ablaze, the only respite being that the water warped his anger into something less recognisable.
After a while being held under the surface, the warmth seeps in. A faux reaction of your body giving up, inviting your mind to follow suit. Silco imagined it would’ve been nice, to follow that call, to be beckoned into a watery burial. He just never knew when to give up. The feeling of that knifes hilt in his palm felt euphoric, as did the pain it caused. Though Silco wished he had done more, perhaps taken an eye as well, tit for tat.
Though the embrace of the river had sapped his strength, so he ran, stumbling and pushing through the water.
But even then, Vander chased after him, like a dog to a bone.
Silco kept that knife after the event, held it in his own scabbard. A sort of consolation prize.
Though, he supposes, the real prize was his eye. An unwanted gift but a gift no less.
The following weeks after Vander’s betrayal left him flayed. The agony of the toxins flowing through his eye from the polluted water made recovery tormenting.
His undamaged eye produced tears at the pain, ones he’d flinch at, expecting the next sensation to be the all consuming water.
Even once his eye had supposedly healed, leaving behind a sick rendition of the fires that burned that night on the bridge in his eye, he couldn’t even bathe himself. Tipping his head back to the water felt like he was giving himself up, more so the exposure of his blackened neck felt worse.
Over time, the bruises faded as did Silcos general feelings towards his new appearance did. He even started to surrounded himself with water, through labs held beneath the surface to regularly visiting the river, perhaps he near thanked the experience entirely. He wasn’t this weak vessel anymore, having been baptised by the pollution, cleansed of his past.
He almost thanked Vander in a way, almost.
Yet sensations as trivial as rain no longer agreed with him as it used to.
As days where he and Vander would get out the mines to only be greeted by rain, used to be one of his best memories. Where they’d either smile and let the rain rinse of the soot, or they'd listen to the sound of it pattering on the metal sheets of roof's as they walked in silence back to their home. Furthermore, rain used to be beautiful, Vander had even said as much when he said Silco's eyes reminded him of it. Resulting in a swift punch to the arm by Silco, teasing him that rain was transparent and had no colour. Vander had only laughed, unfazed by the hit and continued to argue despite being in the wrong.
The memories were marred now, the day Vander held him under had rained, a prelude to the next event, wetting his unconscious pallet before getting a fuller taste.
The nightmares also came, though they were more physical, as the water became secondary to the physical pain, of the knife in his eye and to the hands around his throat. Through the digging of finger tips into his jugular and the cut of nails piercing his skin, Silco couldn't wear proper neck ties anymore, deviating to clip ons, as the dreams haunted him in his waking hours as did the sensations.
Though dreams weren’t always under water, sometimes it would occur in memories, warping them to fit the narrative. Sometimes in the mines, where the soot of the coal would suffocate, or sometimes in the bar where the florescent lights would burn his eyes, as his neck was pushed into the counter.
Even then, the worst was probably the memory of them getting ready for bed, where Silco would think the dream was reality by the domesticity of it all. Where Vander wouldn’t immediately be angry, where friendly barbs would be traded as they got ready, their beds only feet apart in the dimly lit room.
Where, they would settle for sleep, still talking of their dreams for freedom.
Where as Silco would close his eyes he’d feel Vander’s presence looming over him, hearing the shift of the covers on top as the man would trap him beneath with his body.
Yet even before the main event, there was always the unsetteling feeling of the soft caress of the man’s hand on his neck, like he would when they greeted after a shift, only to tighten.
That very scenario plagued him, as Silco would awaken from that dream to only think he was still there, that the dream held an instance of reality. As the feeling of the covers of his own bed felt like Vander was above him, trapping him.
That crude interlacement of memories made him avoid sleeping altogether, another thing taken away from him by Vander.
So no, he didn’t recover.
But he didn’t need to.
His unwanted fears made his hate stronger, it moulded him to become better.
So, he pushed harder in his efforts to free Zaun, to carry on the mission. To seek out every means for a better life for the people, even if that meant distributing Shimmer, he needed income to afford the cities goals for a better future.
Yet even then, his mind wandered, never truly free with the knowledge of the man that had made him walk this path alone walked free without pain.
Thus, he also wondered if Vander could also be submerged, to feel fear of losing breath and succumbing.
Not by water, no, he didn’t deserve that physical caress.
But rather by pressure, by the newfound responsibility Vander had taken on after that day, what would happen if Vander’s oxygen, his family, went out, would he drown too?
Or would he too become anew?
Silco knew that he needed to flood Vander out, out of the pitiful life he had come to lead, throwing away all they had worked for to become another complacent body of Zaun.
Years later, when that day came, where Silco gave Vander’s knife back through sheathing it bodily in the man’s abdomen, he watched tears build in the man’s eyes. He wondered if his matched, the all common feeling of Vander’s hands around his neck becoming reality. Where they brothers again through this shared pain? Even if momentarily.
He only ever intended for it to be momentarily, Vander had done him a kindness by drowning him after all. So Silco returned the favour by putting down the Hound of Zaun. After all dogs only live a few years before they become purposeless.
Despite the unexpected turn of events following, with Silco's factory getting set on fire and Vander’s dying body landing on a batch of Shimmer, reviving him, if only momentarily,
Silco had come to find himself happy in the aftermath.
After all, it had rained.