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Two years.
It's been two years, nearly to the exact day, since Vander made the biggest mistake in his life. Two years since the bridge between Zaun and Piltover grew slippery with the blood of friends and foes alike. Two years since he let the lifeless body of his sister sink into the Pilt.
Two years since he dragged the love of his life, screaming and kicking and pleading, to meet the same fate.
Vander’s life, as it is right now, feels undeservedly peaceful. Yes, the Sheriff is pushing him harder and harder to agree to her deal (and gods, every time he speaks to her, the tiny voice that sounds just like Silco sneers in the back of his head. At least Vander thinks that's what Silco sounded like. He's starting to forget the exact tone of his voice.) Yes, there's unease in the Lanes. Yes, the quality of life worsened after the protest-turned-riot thanks to the restrictions Piltover placed on them like they're hoping to starve the want for freedom out of Zaun. All of that hits Vander, as the de facto leader of the Undercity, quite hard; still, it feels like a fraction of the punishment he should be facing for what he did to Silco.
The Lanes seem to have forgotten Silco. Realistically, it makes sense – he was never as involved with the community as Vander was. He did the dirty work behind the scenes, planned and negotiated and blackmailed their home into existence, but Vander was always the face of the revolution. The Hound, with his bloody gauntlets and his broad shoulders seemingly crafted specifically to support Zaun’s dream of freedom without breaking.
Oh, if only they knew how broken he truly is.
After Silco disappeared following the massacre on the bridge, some people asked Vander about him. Vander, the coward, only replied that he had not found Silco's body. Though it was not a lie – Janna knows how many times he walked along the Pilt, calling out his lover's name until he went hoarse – it was nowhere near the full truth, either. The sympathy made him sick to his stomach. I killed him, he wanted to scream. I'm a monster, you should hate me, not pity me.
But he's a father now. A leader. So, Vander takes the sympathy and punishes himself in solitude.
—
Becoming a father teaches a man many things. Responsibility. Selflessness. How to talk to your traumatised daughter's imaginary friend. One lesson that never ceases to surprise Vander, though, is that children can be cruel in the most unintentional ways.
“Vander!” Little Powder greets him one morning, holding a piece of paper that looks suspiciously familiar. Vander takes a moment to remember just where he'd seen this before, and when he figures it out, he's hit with a wave of emotion only comparable to a solid punch to the solar plexus.
It's a page from Silco's journaI. It's covered in his handwriting, carefully cut out with what seems like a hand too steady to have been Powder’s.
“Where did you get this?” Vander asks, too sharp, feeling like he's facing a ghost. He's tucked all of Silco's things away where he can't see them, unable to get rid of them or to stand looking at the traces of him. It's hard enough not to throw punches when a patron sits on the barstool that used to be his.
Powder seems stunned, eyes wide, tears starting to form. She's always been sensitive, more than Vander knew how to deal with. Her sister, Vi, is just like him; Powder… She was always Silco's favourite. Vander doesn't want to think he has favourites, no good father would, but the grief and the guilt aren't something he can hide. Powder’s perceptive. She can feel it.
How many times has he wished Silco would help him when Powder had her episodes…
“Uncle Sil–”
Vander doesn't let her finish, “you can't go through his things, Powder. Give me this.”
He grabs the piece of paper from her small hands, folds it up without looking at her drawing and tucks it in his pocket. Powder’s lip trembles, and before Vander has the chance to collect himself and soothe her, she's running down the stairs to the kids’ bedroom.
He'll never change, will he?
It's a few more minutes of him standing there, at a loss of what to do (Silco would know, he always knew what to do) before Vander decides to go check on Silco's things, stashed in an unused closet in the back room. If the kids got to it, if they used his journal for drawing paper or his clothes to mend their own…
Heart in his throat, Vander makes his way to the back room. He ignores a nagging feeling of something being off, making the hair on the back of his neck stand like a nervous dog's (and isn't that all he is, these days?). No one has the keys to the Drop, no one but him and Benzo, the only spare probably rusting away wherever Silco's body ended up.
The door shuts behind him.
Steel whispers against steel. A cold, sharp point presses to the base of his spine.
Silco's spare key, red ribbon tied around the head, is sticking out of the keyhole.
“I've looked everywhere,” a familiar voice whispers in Vander's ear. He doesn't dare turn around. He'd be surprised that Silco snuck up on him, but the man could be quiet as a mouse when he wanted to.
“But it's clear you don't want to be found. God, I'm shit at this.” Silco continues quoting Vander's letter back at him. His voice is controlled, cold, but not angry. The knife held to Vander's skin doesn't press further.
“I'm sorry,” Vander whispers, interrupting the monologue. Having his words echoed at him like this… How stupid was he, thinking this'll convince Silco to come back? That it'll be enough to make up for what he did?
Silco is silent behind him. He's waiting for something, that much Vander knows, and in all his years of being by Silco's side he learned one thing – Silco does not forgive. He never forgave his parents for leaving him to a life on the streets. Never forgave a single person that wronged him, be it cutting him off in line just because he was smaller or trying to cheat him on a deal. Silco does not forgive.
A heavy resignation spreads through Vander's entire body. This is it, then.
He forces his hands to steady, and slowly, he reaches to his belt to grab his pipe. Silco inhales through clenched teeth behind him. Vander calmly packs the tobacco with his thumb. Silco nudges the knife forward, just enough for Vander to feel a sharp pinch of pain.
“What are you doing?” Silco hisses. He sounds angry, but if Vander isn't mistaken, there's surprise hiding beneath the rage.
“You'll oblige a doomed man one last smoke,” Vander puts all his strength into keeping his voice steady. He flicks a match with his nail to light it and holds the flame to the basket of his pipe. “Won't you?”
The pressure on Vander's back disappears. Quiet as an owl's wingbeat, Silco steps around him. Vander would rather he hadn't. He'd rather die with a knife in his back than face what he’s done.
The light in the back room is dim, especially with the door closed. A small mercy. Vander can make out the shape of the man he thought he'd murdered, his now short hair and the suit he's donning – since when does Silco wear suits, he wonders, then realises he has no right to question anything about Silco, anymore. The man he'd once thought he would be with until Janna calls one or both of them back into her loving arms, now as far removed from Vander as he can be.
It feels like losing a limb.
The shadowy outline of Silco moves, quick as a viper; Vander expects him to strike. Accepts it. He hangs his head down in shame, resigned to his punishment; there is only one thing left for him to do.
“... Don't let my kids die, Silco. This is between you and me, don't drag them into it.”
The air around them goes still. Vander, for some reason still alive, realises that this was not the right thing to say.
And then he looks up.
Vander's pipe is still between his teeth, emitting a faint glow. Silco has stepped closer, close enough for the light to finally illuminate his face, and Vander thinks that is more cruel than killing him would have been.
The entirety of the left side of Silco's face is one giant, angry ruin. His eye, that pretty, seaglass green eye, is now milky white, unseeing, wide open – Oh gods, Vander tore his eyelid off – amidst a giant scab that stretches from Silco's temple to the corner of his lips. It should be healed by now. Instead, it looks a week old at best, raw tissue glistening nauseatingly from several cracks in the scab.
“Is that all you have to say?” Silco sneers, his upper lip pulled back in a snarl. Vander is familiar with Silco's look of hatred. He never thought he'd have it directed at him some day. “Pathetic. You've grown soft.”
The thing about Vander's anger, as he has come to understand, is that it never truly leaves him. He can ignore it, put it aside for the greater good of his community and children, but it is always lurking just beneath the surface, always just within reach. And, well, Silco has always been an expert at feeding it.
“Because I'm trying to protect my children?” he asks, his voice dipping low, a warning like the rumble of thunder before lightning strikes. Silco smiles, wicked and self-satisfied, as Vander leans down to meet his one good eye from barely a pipe's length away. Instead of pulling back like Vander expects him to, the smaller man leans forward, close enough that Vander can smell the cologne he'd used, underlined with rot.
“There he is,” Silco praises, condescending and self-assured in a way that tells Vander he's posturing. Vander lets him. He doesn't know where they stand, but it's certainly not the moment to call out the other's bluff. “There's the Hound I know, remembering he has teeth.”
Vander's blood goes cold. The last Silco saw him he was the furthest thing from having forgotten his teeth. No. He'd forgotten how to keep them from maiming the one person he had left… But, if their last meeting isn't what Silco is referring to, then he's been watching him.
“Sil–”
“Ah-ah,” Silco chides, all too casual, and reaches down to the pocket of his coat.
Vander snarls, despite himself. His instincts bristle, expecting Silco to pull out a knife. He doesn't. Instead, what he takes out is a cigar, which he unceremoniously shoves into the basket of Vander's pipe to light it.
Silco takes his time. He puffs on the cigar until the room goes hazy with it, calmly staring Vander down with his one good eye; only after the sight of the ruin he'd left of his ex lover's face makes Vander pull back does Silco turn around to leave the store room and enter the main area of the bar. Vander, of course, follows.
“Sit,” the smaller man orders, gesturing towards a chair with his cigar. He himself leans against the bar, so casual it hurts, and tilts his head at the other man expectantly.
Vander sits.
Silco hums, pleased, and begins his speech.
“I'm sure you realise I'm not here because of your pitiful excuse of an apology.”
Vander opens his lips, ready to start begging for forgiveness again, anything to make the tone of Silco's voice lose that biting, cold edge. Anything for him to look at Vander with something else than barely concealed hatred and disgust. Silco lifts a hand.
“Quiet. You will speak once I allow it. Now, as I was saying, I am not here to grant you forgiveness. I am here because you seemingly cannot be left to your own devices for too long before you begin sabotaging either yourself or the cause.”
Vander doesn't recognise the man standing in front of him. He has his Silco's face, albeit marred, his voice and mannerisms, but… Gods, he's never heard Silco sound like this. Angry, yes, but it was always laced with hope. Silco’s anger used to be the kind that lit a fire in Vander, spurred him forward, fed his own until he saw red. Now, it's the kind of anger that makes him freeze. It's honed into a sharp point, held by a hand that knows precisely where to strike.
“Oh, yes. I know what you've been up to, old friend. A golden bird sang to me about all of it.”
Silco reaches into his pocket, his eye never leaving Vander, and takes out a small bundle of blue material. If Vander's blood had run cold before, it's now turned to ice, because he recognises the color even before Silco tosses the bundle to him; once he does and Vander gets a closer look at it, he realises that he had severely underestimated the lengths Silco will go to.
It's a patch cut out of an enforcer's uniform, stained with blood. The Sheriff's badge is still attached.
“You recognise it, I hope?” Silco mocks, seemingly taking great pleasure in seeing the haunted look on Vander's face. “Yes, she was quite the fighter. To a certain point, of course…”
“You're… You're a monster,” Vander whispers, thumb rubbing over the bloodied badge. All amusement drains from Silco's expression in a heartbeat.
“You've made me a monster,” the smaller man sneers. “You did this to me, Vander. Look at me!”
Vander doesn't. He can't make himself look up, he can’t, he–
Silco storms up to where Vander is sat. His hand grips the older's hair tight enough to sting and he pulls, forces Vander's head up, leaves him no choice but to stare at what he'd done in all its horrifying glory. He wants to throw up. Silco waits for a reaction, but Vander doesn't give him anything except for a single tear that makes its way down his face. He's sure he looks like a broken man – he is a broken man – and he can only keep this up for so long until he can't handle it any longer.
Silco won't accept apologies, he won't forgive, but he came here for a reason. Vander thought, at first, that it was revenge, but Silco could have killed him five times over in the time he's spent talking to him, so it can't be that. Realisation dawns slowly, and once it sets in, Vander's desperation has him speaking before he can think.
“What do you need me to do?”
Slowly, Silco’s angry sneer melts into a smile. It's an ugly, ugly thing.
“So you do think sometimes. Good. Put your gauntlets on, hound, there's a thorn in my side I need removed.”