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Silco bends at the waist and leans down to meet your gaze as you sit perched on the edge of the couch cushion. He runs his fingertip along your orbital bone and down to trace the contours of your jawline, places a dry palm on the side of your face and strokes your cheek with his thumb. His eyes narrow as he examines every inch of you, as if he’s confirming again and again that it’s really, truly you.
“My word,” he says after a moment, a hint of something close to reverence in his voice, “you look nearly unchanged.”
Of course, it isn’t true. There are lines around your mouth whenever you smile, deep-set creases in your forehead where there was once smooth skin. Your bones creak, your joints ache, your muscles scream at you when you sleep the wrong way on the floor of your tiny, barren home. Your body isn’t as flexible as it once was, nor as reactive—it’s how you were caught in the first place, how you ended up in the hands of Silco’s men, dropped unceremoniously onto this sofa with no warning that it would be Silco you would be faced with.
“Thanks,” you mutter, trying to focus your gaze on his good eye. “You certainly know how to flatter.”
You want to tell him he is just as unchanged, but the uncertainty of his reaction turns your stomach; he looks at you just as he once did, with the same softness hidden in his features, but with a veneer of harshness over it. Despite this, he is, in ways, the same man you knew: the same striking aquiline nose and sharp jawline, the same blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smirk, the same glint in his eye when he was trying (often unsuccessfully, but still amusingly) to flirt.
“How did you ever find me?” you finally ask, placing your hand on his as he cradles your face. His skin is cool to the touch, and you can feel him react, just slightly, at the warmth of your palm.
Silco pauses for a moment. “Sheer luck, I suppose—one often finds lost objects when they’re looking for them the least.”
A grin creeps up the corners of your mouth. He’s still just as charming as he was then, when he wants to be. Of course he would deny ever searching for you, probably still would under duress if you still had it in you to threaten those in power, but such pursuits didn’t come as easy as the once did.
“You kept yourself well-hidden.” He says it almost chidingly—you’d made it difficult on him.
“I had to, you know that.”
Silco kneels before you, places his other hand on your face and holds your head still, forcing you to meet his burning gaze. “I could have protected you.”
“Not then, you couldn’t have.” Certainly not like he could now, as the Eye of Zaun. No, you couldn’t expect to rely on others then, not him, not Vander, not anyone else, only yourself. And if that meant living a life of solitude barely worth living, then so be it—at least you were alive.
“Of course I could have—I would have.” The accusation seems to rattle him, and his grip on your face becomes more vice-like, his hands beginning to shake. “I would have done whatever it took. I would hope you would have known me well enough to know that, hm?”
“Silco, you’re hurting me,” you finally eke out, a rasped whisper, and he immediately releases his hold on you.
Silco sits back on his heels as you rub your aching jaw, his mouth opening and closing as words seemed to catch in his throat. “Tell me—why did you really stay away?”
All the reasons begin to flood you, burning in your blood, all the things you’d turned over in your mind year after year. Because I was afraid. I was afraid of losing you. I was afraid of you losing me. I had to leave before you abandoned me, before the world abandoned us both. But all that you manage is a soft, defeated, “I don’t know.”
You slide down to the floor with him, press your forehead to his. The room melts around you, the architecture and the furniture disintegrating until all that remains is you and Silco, and the remains of what was and the scaffolds of what could be.
A low creak brings the room back together again, shocks you back into consciousness. Sevika stands in the doorway, arms crossed over her broad chest, her gaze fixed on some point just above and beyond the two of you; she clears her throat and gestures towards the door.
“I-I’m afraid I have business to attend to.” Silco stands, straightens himself as he nods and waves a hand to dismiss Sevika, leaving the two of your alone again, for now. “Unavoidable, I suppose.”
“Of course.” You clear your throat and scramble back to the couch, sitting up ramrod straight, feeling suddenly and overwhelmingly raw. “It was lovely catching up, Silco. But I...I suppose I should be going as well.”
He cocks his head, glaring at you almost incredulously as he smooths his vest. “Go where?”
“Home, I suppose,” you shrug. Anywhere but here. Anywhere you won’t be captivated by memories, lured by the life you’d built in your head, pulled into the unknown by years of want finally able to be realized.
He inhales deeply and sits beside you on the sofa, his lean hip digging into yours, hand settling on your thigh. “What could possibly be there for you now that you need to leave so abruptly?”
Nothing. There is nothing for you there. Everything you wanted is here, right here, because he forced your hand and dragged you back in time with him against your will. You run your fingers over his forearm, dancing in the fabric peaks and valleys of his shirtsleeve and your heart pounds and your brain buzzes and everything in you aches for him.
“You act like time stood still when we last saw each other. Like we can just pick right back up where we left off.” Hot tears form at the corners of your lash line, and you do nothing to stop them from tumbling down your cheeks. “But time never stopped, I never stopped. I kept running. I had to.”
Silco grips your chin between his thumb and forefinger and turns your head towards him. There’s the softness you missed, the same concerned expression and furrowed brow he’d wear whenever he’d catch you in a rare moment of melancholy. “What if you don’t have to run anymore?”
“Silco, time just keeps moving, even if I don’t want it to.” A sob hitches in your throat and comes out a deep and mournful wail, years of want and need, of anguish and grief, all escaping you at once.
He slides a hand to the back of your neck, squeezing it gently, and waits, waits for your cries to become hiccups to become soft sniffles. He leans in close, so close his breath warms your skin and his lips ghost yours and you want him to kiss you so badly, more than you ever have and ever will. “Then let it halt for a moment with me...won’t you?”