Work Text:
“Why is it always me bailing you out?” Vander asks, handing Silco his own jacket. The one he’d been wearing, which the enforcers had so generously returned along with about half of the other things he’d had on him when he’d been arrested, was still covered in blood. And worse.
Most of it, at least, wasn’t Silco’s blood. There’s split in his lip and another in his brow, the eye under it swollen not quite shut but close enough. He’s walking with a limp, and Vander doesn’t like the way he’s holding his left shoulder, either.
“Because no one else wants me out of jail enough to bother,” Silco says, shrugging the jacket on.
“That’s not what I mean,” Vander says. “Why is it always me bailing you out when we both ought to have been arrested?”
Silco gives him a look that says I’m not dignifying your question with a response, and walks out into the rain.
Vander jogs a step to follow him, which is ridiculous, given that he’s both got longer legs and isn’t currently limping.
“Because if it was just a run of bad luck or something, fine, but the thing is, Sil,” he says, stepping in front of him once he’s caught up. Silco stops just short of running straight into him.
“The thing is,” Vander continues, voice only a little uncertain in the face of a glare that would have sent just about anyone else running. People know better than to try Silco. Vander currently has the slight advantage of knowing he’s unarmed just now, although that only makes so much difference. He’s got very sharp teeth, a right hook to envy, and absolutely no compunction about kneeing someone in the balls as an expedient.
Vander is reasonably confident that he won’t do any of those things, though.
“The thing is,” he repeats. “That should have been me. Only, you intentionally drew attention to yourself so I could get away. And it’s not the first time.”
Silco looks up at him, chin held high. And?
“We’re meant to be in this together,” Vander says, because that is the and. They’re best friends. They’ve got a shared dream. It’s on both of them to make it happen. “We’re meant to be in this together and it’s always you taking the kicking.”
“And you want a turn at the end of an enforcer’s boot?” Silco asks.
“Yeah, actually,” Vander says. “Not because I particularly enjoy having the shit kicked out of me, but to split the load. The whole point of working together is that we can’t do this alone. I don’t understand why it’s always you spending a night in a cold cell and me getting away.”
“Don’t you?” Silco asks. It’s not rhetorical, judging by the way his brows draw together. He thinks Vander does know something, understands something here.
Unfortunately, Vander does not.
“No!” Vander says. “No, I don’t. You know I can take it just the same as you. Why not save your own skin every now and again?”
Silco’s eyes glitter as he looks Vander over, licking the split in his lip.
Then he surges forward, and for a heartbeat Vander thinks maybe he is going to hit him, after all.
Except that’s not at all what happens.
What happens is that Silco kisses him. It’s even, for all the initial force, quite gentle, one hand on Vander’s cheek, the near-chaste press of lips, the brush of their noses against each other.
“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” Silco says, brushing past him without another moment’s pause. “I’m sure you’ll come to some sort of conclusion eventually.”