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“Clear!”
Vander and Benzo brought cloths up over their faces, turning their backs on the fissure they were standing in front of. A deafening blast echoed through the tunnel. It was quickly followed by a cloud of choking grit and dust. Vander could taste it even through his makeshift mask.
Once the stinging cloud faded, he leaned against the stone wall, fishing a battered pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. An orange glow lit his face from below, and then a thin trickle of smoke drifted up from the tip. Without looking he offered the pack to Benzo. The large man accepted with a grin, settling himself on an enormous stone as he took a deep drag. An older man with a large clipboard walked over from the group of explosivios and checked his list.
“Silco!” he yelled out. “Get over here.”
As the slim man walked forward through the black, heads swiveled to watch him, the lamps attached to every miner’s helmet lighting each step. He pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and began to wriggle his way into the fissure.
“Why do you think they keep him around, then?” Benzo asked after Silco disappeared from view.
“Silco?” Vander glanced up. “Who else is gonna fit through there? You?” He chuckled good naturedly. “Or me? Someone’s gotta check out the new caverns, make sure the air is good.”
“So he’s nothing more than a canary, then?”
“He’s a lot more than that.”
“You’re not still ‘keeping company’ with him, are you?”
“What? Why d’you care?”
Benzo didn’t answer right away. He took another long drag as he shrugged. Behind Vander another miner walked up, glaring daggers at the fissure Silco had disappeared into.
“He’s had one too many lungfuls of bad air if you ask me. He’s trouble. Dangerous.” Connol shook his head as he took the cigarette from Benzo’s lips and stole a drag. “Dirty little thing.”
“Nah.” Vander brushed away Connol’s concerns. “Silco’s great. You just have to get to know him.”
***
When the whistle blew, Vander made his way to the rickety elevator heading back to the Lanes. As the lift rose into the dark shaft, Silco scurried on, leaping onto the crowded platform. He ignored Vander, turning his back and putting one hand on his waist, jutting out a hip, a practiced move that Vander knew was just for him. Color flushed into Vander’s cheeks as he tried to force his eyes anywhere else, even as he knew they would always be drawn back exactly where Silco wanted them.
Connol hadn’t been wrong… not really. There was something feral about Silco. Something dangerous. Vander had seen him backed into the corner by three of the miners that had taken offense when Silco had taken one of their bunks at the flop house. They were all twice his size, but in the end Silco had been the one to walk away with nothing but a cracked tooth and black eyes. Two of those miners would never walk again.
Dangerous… Janna how that turned him on.
Tumbling through the door of Vander’s room, they hardly managed to make it to the bed, stumbling through the small room in a tangle of lips and limbs and clothes.
***
Much later, tired and sated, Vander held Silco as he felt his lover’s body beginning to relax into sleep.
“One day, we’ll get out of the mines,” Vander said quietly. He was only half musing… and half promising Silco the future that he wanted to give him. “One day, I’ll own a bar, and everyone will go there. We’ll get rich, and never have to go back down into the Fissures again.”
Sleepily Silco snuggled back against him. “If wishes were fishes, we’d live in the sea,” he murmured. Vander smiled. Silco always said that. Vander had no idea where it came from… part of Silco’s life that he never wanted to talk about, from before he entrenched himself in Vander’s bed. And his heart.