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The first gift Vander finds is on the bar counter when he goes downstairs to get set up for the day. His mind is on a million things at once: cleaning, inventory, maintenance. There’s a worrying leak under the sink that he hasn’t had time to take a good look at, and it needs a repair before it turns into his least favorite kind of issue, the kind he can’t fix on his own. Then there’s the matter of his own upkeep. He usually wakes hungry but prefers to have something light along with a mug of coffee to tide him over for the next hour or so until Powder wakes and stumbles, bleary-eyed, down the staircase. They always have breakfast together, a ritual which takes the better part of an hour with conversation that spans topics from her latest project to her latest nightmare. These are the requirements for Vander to start his day.
Today he takes a short, hot shower, dresses, spends a cursory amount of time grooming his beard and scraping his hair back into a bun. He anticipates a slow day today, which suits him just fine. They’re doing alright where money is concerned, and the days where he had to agonize over decimals are long behind him. Now it only means he has time to think, time to breathe. Time to hum to himself while he puts the coffee on, the scent of a good dark roast slowly permeating the air as he studies the bouquet on the counter.
Even after years of pressure and petitioning and legislature have lightened the air in Zaun, flowers are still rare. Less so now that there have been efforts to rejuvenate the soil, but they’re no less lovely for it. A flower or two is a hard enough commodity to come by. A whole bouquet of them is an order planned in advance, these bright yellow blooms with petals as soft as a dog’s ear. Local, not from across the now-open bridge.
Tucked between the long, smooth stems is a note that reads:
From your secret admirer.
Vander smiles to himself, brushes over the sharp penmanship with his thumb, and goes to pour himself some coffee. He’s just grabbed a mug from the cupboard and set his sights on finding a receptacle for the flowers when he hears the familiar shuffle of footsteps and then Powder appears in the doorway. The way she’s dressed tells Vander she plans to spend most of her day in her hideout working on something, likely with Ekko, but her hair is half-up and her eyes are still puffy from sleep.
“Morning, Powdermonkey,” Vander says with a warm smile over his shoulder at her. The punch pitcher will do just fine, and it’s not like it’s seeing much use right now anyway.
There’s an unintelligible mumble and the screech of a bar stool against the floor. Vander fills the pitcher, first with water and then with the bouquet, and places it on the counter by the sink where he’ll see it as he works. Powder has her head pillowed on her folded arms, but there’s a curious furrow to her brow.
“What are those?” she asks.
“Eggs.” Vander’s just taken the carton out of the fridge. “You’ve had them before.”
He smiles to himself as he hears Powder scoff. “Ha, ha. No, really, why do we have flowers? And what do we need so many of ‘em for, anyway?”
“Does there need to be a reason?” Vander replies as he cracks eggs into a bowl and reaches for a whisk. “They look pretty. Brighten the place up a little.”
“They’re kind of weird.”
“You don’t like them?”
“Hmm.” Powder lifts her head and appears to put some thought into studying them. “It’s different. We never have flowers around here.”
Vander follows her gaze as he pours the eggs into the skillet. She’s right, he reflects. When flowers are called for as decoration or gifts, the usual fashion is to draw them or to make them out of paper. Those are still beautiful, and the variety that can be achieved is limited only by supplies and imagination rather than by the nutrient content of the sparse little patches of soil where an enterprising young blossom may endeavor to grow. At the same time, there’s something to be said for the effort of finding the real deal. The triumph of producing a full bundle of them, and the responsibility included in being presented with them. Along with the gift comes an unspoken message: Don’t fuck this up.
“It’s different,” Vander agrees, pushing the eggs around with a spatula. “But it’s good to have something different every once in a while. Keeps us on our toes.”
Powder seems to consider that. Then she yawns widely and all at once the consideration vanishes.
“It’s flowers, Pops,” she says. “Can I please have some coffee? I promise I won’t fall asleep at the counter.”
In the late afternoon when the shadows have gotten longer and colder but it’s still too early to be called evening yet, Benzo visits. His silhouette appears first in the cold-fogged windows as he ambles down the road, and then he lets himself in with all the assuredness of someone who has every right to ignore the CLOSED sign hanging in the door.
“Present for you,” he says as he approaches the counter, and Vander watches him produce a rectangular box from under his arm and set it on the countertop. “Not from me. Don’t start getting any ideas.”
“Didn’t have any in the first place, so you only have yourself to blame for making it weird.” Vander sets the lemon he’s just washed and dried in the basket by the cutting board, then takes the box in his hands. It’s wrapped in red paper, shiny but not quite glossy, and bears a ribbon of a slightly deeper shade wrapped at an angle and tied with a small, neat bow. No card, no tag, no nothing, but it’s not difficult for Vander to guess.
“You haven’t asked who it’s from,” Benzo prompts him after a long minute of standing there holding the box.
Vander sets it aside. “Don’t have to,” he replies, grabbing another lemon to rinse under the tap. “I have a good idea already.”
“Oh, good, because that answers my next question for me. Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I do.” Benzo, having settled himself at the counter, now puts an arm down and leans on it as if they’re both still struggling out of their twenties and routing out a smuggling run together. “Now, I’m saying this because you’re my best friend and I’m looking out for you, but things have been strange for a long time, and they didn’t start getting strange until you started spending a good amount of time with him.”
Feeling a little wounded, Vander shuts the tap and scrubs the lemon dry with unnecessary vigor. “Things are different, sure. That’s what change is, it’s when things get different.”
Within the past five years it would be easier to list the things that had stayed the same down here. The bar is still standing, a handful of regulars still show up like clockwork, and the others who are still around are still around. Babette is as much a fixture of the community as Vander is. It’s the things that do change that slip by, not because no one notices but because they don’t talk about them. A memorial only lasts as long as it takes for the candles to go out, Vander thinks with a sudden lump in his throat.
Benzo must notice this, because he thankfully keeps his mouth shut until Vander can open his without getting choked up. Not all changes have been so devastating, but the ones that are hit like a fall from a cliff.
“I just want to make sure you’re not making a mistake,” Benzo says finally, taking a gentler tone of voice now. “That’s all. Us two, we look out for everyone. Every once in a while we had to turn around and make sure no one’s sneaking up on us.”
“And if I promised you I’m not making a mistake?”
Benzo makes a noncommittal noise. Vander rolls his eyes and swats him in the arm with his rag; if Benzo was worried, truly worried, he wouldn’t waste time ribbing him. That’s how this brotherhood of theirs has always functioned.
“I’m a big boy, I can make my own decisions,” Vander assures him coolly. “That includes making my own mistakes, when it’s a mistake I’m making. I don’t go in headfirst and solve every problem I kick up with my fists anymore.”
“No, you don’t,” Benzo says in a dry tone, “you just start up a romance with ‘em.”
“If you came here to make jabs at my love life, you could at least make yourself useful. I’ve got some plates that need washing.”
“Just what I need, the both of you giving me chores to do.”
At this point it’s clear that the conversation is well past the point of being serious anymore. Benzo’s worry only extends as far as a light scolding and a reminder that Vander has at least one heavy hitter in his corner, and though at times it can rankle Vander, this isn’t one of those moments.
“Why’d he leave it with you to give to me?” he asks as he finishes up with the citrus, giving his hands a cursory rinse under the faucet. They still smell like rind, but a little less so now than before.
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask him,” Benzo says with a shrug. “He just came in, left this on my counter and told me like the bossy little twerp he is to bring it to you sometime after lunch.”
“Quite a bit after lunch now, don’t you think, Benz.”
“I was busy. And don’t think I’ll ever hurry myself on his account, or else he’ll start thinking he can push me around. Oi, don’t shake it like that, you don’t know what’s in it.”
Vander, who’s returned his attention to the box, pauses with a brow raised.
“Really?” he says. “It’s not a bomb, mate, it’s a present.”
“A present.”
“Yeah. Chocolates or something.”
Benzo pulls a face. “Never should’ve let myself get involved in your…” He lets the rest of the sentence die, shaking his head, already on his way to leaving. “Well. Cheers. If I hear an explosion, I’ll remember to say ‘I told you so’ at your funeral.”
Vander arrives at his favorite part of his nightly routine filled with a quiet, warm contentment. He watches from the bed as Silco emerges from the bathroom, faint licks of steam trailing out with him, his hair damp and mussed from having taken a towel to it. When Silco presses a knee into the mattress and pushes on Vander’s shoulder, he catches that square long-fingered hand to kiss his knuckles before rolling over onto his side, and a second later he feels Silco’s body curl against his back. One arm, flushed pink from the shower, finds its usual place over Vander’s side, fingers playing lazily with the hair on Vander’s belly.
“That tickles,” Vander tells him, placing his own hand over Silco’s wrist not to discourage him but because the urge to touch him however and as much as he can sometimes overwhelms him.
A puff of breath against the back of his shoulder. “He kisses me with those whiskers of his and has the nerve to say this tickles.”
“You know me. Nerve is my middle name.”
“Oh, is it?”
“Yeah.” Vander can’t help it; he pulls the hand up to his mouth and kisses it again, then tucks it against his chest. “Thanks, by the way. Those gifts you left me.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about any gifts.”
“My mistake, then. Must be another secret admirer of mine.”
There’s a quiet snort and the familiar press of Silco’s lips against Vander’s back. “Must be,” he replies. The bed is never so warm as when Silco stays the night, which happens so frequently now that Vander feels his absence keenly on those days when Silco returns to his own apartment. The Drop has always been home as long as Vander’s had it, but it feels that much more like it when Silco’s there, too.
“Move in with me,” Vander says quietly. So quietly that at first he doubts Silco heard him, and he’s tempted to hope he hasn’t, not because he doesn’t want Silco living under the same roof but because asking twice and having him refuse would be a blow more painful and embarrassing than Vander knows how to endure. With Silco spooned up against his back, he can’t see the expression on his face. Is he clutching Silco’s hand too tightly?
“Hmm?” says Silco after a long moment.
“Move in with me.” Too late now to back out of having said it. “Please, Sil. It’s been years.”
“Are you begging?”
“I’m asking. Will you?”
There’s the slow warmth of a sigh against the back of his neck. Vander is tempted to roll over to face Silco, but he knows that this is one of those conversations they can only have without looking one another in the eyes. The moment they do, everything they really want to say will wither in the furnace of their own vulnerability.
“It’s a bit soon, is all,” Silco says at last.
Vander brings up his hand and kisses it contemplatively. “It’s not,” he replies, thinking of all the things of Silco’s that have migrated slowly into his bedroom. The clothes in his closet that aren’t his, the books on his shelves he didn’t purchase, the whole side of his bed where laying down feels like trespassing. “We both know it isn’t.”
Behind him Silco has gone still. Not that he had been doing anything in particular before Vander had decided to open up this line of conversation, but he’s now adopted the sort of waxy quality of someone suddenly too aware of their own body.
“It’s not,” he says, somehow managing to sound like he’s disagreeing with Vander even by repeating his own words.
“Then what’s stopping it from happening?” Vander asks him. “If you don’t want to, Sil, then say that and I’ll back off, I promise. I won’t take it personally or ask again. All I want is for you to be happy.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want to be happy, yourself?”
Vander blinks. Of course he wants himself to be happy, the same way he wants himself to be healthy and able enough to maintain the bar. Happiness is one of those things he strives for without much thought. He has all he could possibly want, and if he gets more than that, then it’s a lucky day.
“I am,” he replies, not untruthfully.
“But you could be happier.”
“Sil-”
“No, no, listen,” Silco interrupts him. “Ever since I barged into your life again you’ve been so damned accommodating. Never a word at first but if you thought the meals left at my door were some kind of mystery to me, you must think I’ve got less sense than a bag of nails.”
Vander remembers those early days well. He’d spent his time caught as if on the middle of a tightrope suspended between the abject relief of having Silco back in his life in any capacity at all and the fear of scaring him off again. He gave him space; how much? was it enough? At some point down the line they fell into a rhythm, a new pace of their lives, and that rhythm slowly grew from habit to routine. Silco visits near-daily, and if he doesn’t it’s usually because Vander is the one visiting him. Vander never spends the night, but that’s only because the bed is too narrow for the both of them to fit together.
“I used to hate it,” Silco goes on, the wry turn at the corner of his lips audible in his voice. “Thought it was some perverse form of self-flagellation. Then I spent more time around here and got to see you with other people– Powder, the boys, customers, even Benzo– and I realized that either you’re trying to apologize to everyone you know for some great ubiquitous crime or you’re just kind. You’re just so dreadfully kind.”
Vander feels Silco’s body deflate in a heavy sigh and suppresses the urge to turn and kiss his face. Instead he rubs Silco’s wrist, the pad of his thumb skimming over the pulse point on every pass.
“I try to be,” he tells him. “The way I figure it, there’s nothing else left for me to be.”
“Hmm. Well, you are.”
“Glad to hear it. Are you gonna tell me how my being kind means I’m not happy enough?”
A sigh comes from Silco. “No, you’ll only argue with me that you’re plenty happy,” he says. “And you’ll believe it.”
“I am,” says Vander.
“You are.”
“You say that like you don’t believe me.”
“And here we are back at the beginning again.”
That gets Vander to laughing, and at that point he can’t help it; he rolls over onto his back, still holding Silco’s hand to his heart, and turns his head to see Silco’s face. Silco wears an expression of indignant bewilderment only Vander can inspire from him, one arm trapped under Vander’s shoulder and his hair mussed and starting to curl.
“You’re laughing at me,” Silco says, cheeks pink. “I’m being vulnerable for once in my life and you’re laughing at me.”
“A little.” With his free hand Vander brushes the back of a finger along Silco’s cheek. “You make me want to kiss you.”
Silco harrumphs. “See if I let you,” he says as he lets Vander lean in and kiss him. For any generation in Zaun besides the emergent newest, it’s impossible to have gotten very far without some thievery here and there; as with any skill, it must be exercised every now and again to prevent atrophy. Vander smiles against the corner of Silco’s lips, pleased with his prize.
“For the record,” he says as he returns to laying on his back and gazing at Silco, “I am happy. Really happy. Not just plenty happy or happy enough. If you asked me I couldn’t tell you how happy I am, and that’s ‘cause if I had to weigh it, it would break the scale.”
Silco scoffs again and turns his head. He has a habit of turning his scarred cheek towards Vander when he’s blushing and wants to hide it. “Don’t get poetic on me now. I’m not asking you to say… whatever perfect thing you think you ought to say.”
“I’m not.”
“You asked me to move in with you.”
“I did.”
“Then you could be happier. Would you be happier if I did?”
“Of course I would. Of course I would, Sil.”
Tonight Vander will fall asleep next to Silco, as he’s done so many other nights before, and in the morning he’ll wake up and lay in bed beside Silco as he waits for him to join him. He’ll offer breakfast, which Silco will decline, citing an early meeting or needing to grab something from his apartment; he’ll offer coffee, then, and Silco will make a production out of having his arm twisted but will ultimately agree. In the end he’ll stay for a second cup and then he’ll be off, and he and Vander will conduct their days separately from one another. Not much would change if Silco called the Drop home, but Vander would feel it.
Still, as much as Silco seems mollified by Vander’s reassurance from the way his body has steadily begun to relax, there’s still a troubled note in his eye. Vander can see it as clearly as a star in the night sky and he wishes that he could blot it away. He tips Silco’s chin with his thumb and forefinger and then lets that hand settle on the bed between them, close enough so that he can stroke Silco’s cheek with a finger. It coaxes an amused little turn onto Silco’s lips, and he touches Vander’s wrist.
“I wonder sometimes if it’s possible to drown in a good thing,” he says eventually, his voice a breath shared between the two of them. His fingers drum delicately over the tendons of Vander’s arm, the tender, hairless part of it where the slightest prick can sting. “If you have so much of it at once that it swallows you, and you let it happen.”
“Do you think you’ll drown?” Vander asks him. “In this?”
“I’m afraid of it for you.”
It’s so rare for Silco to admit fear of any kind that Vander stops short. His finger stutters beside Silco’s chin but he holds his gaze for as long as he can without blinking. He must look like a stunned animal like this, on his back with his eyes wide like he’s been hit over the head.
“Sil,” he says. “That won’t happen,” but Silco’s mind is made up.
“You don’t know that for sure,” Silco argues. “How can you? This is the sort of thing you don’t realize is happening until you’re in too deep to back out of it. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”
“You think it would be dangerous for you to move in with me?”
“Yes!” Silco sighs explosively. “Well, no, but, yes.”
Vander loves this man more than words can express. “That really clears things up for me,” he says with a smile. “You wanna know what I think?”
Silco’s mouth is a narrow, disappointed line. “Only if I won’t regret it.”
“First you tell me you don’t think I’m happy enough, now you tell me you’re afraid I might get too happy and keel over from it or something.” Vander pauses, waits for Silco to deny it; no denial is forthcoming, so he continues: “I think you’re worried you’re not right for me and completely ignoring the fact that we’ve chosen one another. More than once, at this point. If I didn’t want you sitting at my counter in the mornings, I would tell you to fuck off. And I know that if you didn’t want to be sitting there you’d be out the door before I could even put the pot on for coffee.”
He watches as Silco’s eye turns away from him. The sight of him digesting his words, turning them around through the great printing press of his mind, is enough to tell Vander that he’s won this debate, but for comfort’s sake he waits patiently for Silco to come to the same conclusion. When he does, Vander feels it; Silco’s breath eases, his eye stops darting, his fingers stop drumming against the inside of Vander’s arm. The whole of him slows until he meets Vander’s eyes again, not quite smiling, not yet, but not quite frowning, either. He tugs on Vander’s wrist and kisses him solidly, squarely.
“It’s like you haven’t listened to a word I said,” he tells him in a way that Vander knows carries as much love as an I love you.
“‘Course I did. All that stuff about drowning.” Vander grins and chases another kiss. He’s elated. Silco’s here to stay. “I’m a strong swimmer. I’ll find a way to manage.”
The next day isn’t all too different from any other. They have their coffee before Silco leaves for work and Vander settles into the routine of keeping the bar running. The flowers on the counter are just as vibrant as they were the day before, if not more so, and as evening blankets the sky, Silco returns home to Vander’s open arms.