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Despite his career choice, Silco hates meetings. He hates preparing for them, he hates attending them, and more than anything, he hates having to sort his notes and thoughts through afterwards. At this point in his life, it feels like all his work orbits around meetings.
At least the post- and pre- meeting notes can be done here in his favorite spot, at the bar of the Last Drop. It recently underwent a renovation where Vander replaced the bar top. Now, it curves around in a "J" shape, and Silco's spot at the corner of the bar feels better, more secluded and protected. Vander has been slowly working to make the old bar look more like it did historically, more like it would have before the Accords, before Zaun's independence. It's kind of nice to sit here and feel like he's doing the same work of the people who got him a free Zaun. He'd rather suffer through meetings than toil in the mines.
Vander sets a sandwich down in front of him. Silco glances up from his notebook. "I didn't know you had food on the menu now, Van."
"Funny. A littl-er birdie told me that you skipped lunch. And I know you skipped breakfast." Vander taps the bar in an implicit order. Silco rolls his eyes. Vander's always been like this, but it's gotten worse since he took in the boys. Mother hen.
When they were younger and Silco still shared the apartment above the bar with him, Silco was so focused on raising Viktor to have a healthy relationship with food that he wouldn't dare skip a meal. Now that Viktor is up at the Academy, Silco is busier than ever and back to his old ways. It's impressive that he didn't form a habit, after more than sixteen years of forcing himself into eating regularly.
Silco begrudgingly puts his notebook to the side. He's known Vander long enough to know that he'll never get anything done if he tries to fight Vander's quest to feed him. He makes a nasty face at Vander as he picks up the sandwich. Vander laughs and turns back to his patrons.
Whenever he's here, it doesn't take long for Vander to migrate back over to chat with him. He hauls himself up onto a stool on his side of the counter. Silco has a fleeting thought, fanciful, that Vander remodeled the bar just to talk to him more comfortably.
"What kept you so busy this time, birdie?"
Silco sighs. Vander thinks that because he has a cushy evening job, everyone else lives too fast-paced. He keeps telling Silco to calm down and stop taking so much on. It's hypocritical, coming from a man who should hire another few employees instead of trying to do it all himself. "Just wasting time in meetings. Sevika and I met with that campaign manager woman that Mel told her about. Elora."
"Mhm?"
"She said I'll never be governor."
Vander blinks at him, brows kissing. "What? Why? It's you or Sev, and Sevika isn't old enough. Do they think people will just leave the position open?"
Silco shrugs. He'd been uncomfortable the whole meeting anyway. He wants to better things for Zaun, and to do that, he needs more decision making power, but gods above, he's only forty. He's just barely old enough for the position, himself. Sometimes he feels like he'll never be prepared. What if he gets into a higher office and loses his sense of justice? It doesn't matter, anyway. Despite all his work for the community, and all the progress he and his people have made, he's apparently still subject to topsider opinions. "I'm unmarried. The average Piltovian citizen can't trust a man who is so unlovable."
"You can't be serious." Vander scoffs, standing. He starts unpacking the dishwasher. Silco had prodded him for nearly a year to get the appliance, and it's clearly made things go a lot more smoothly, even if Vander won't admit it.
"I'm always serious."
"They're telling you not to run because you're unmarried?"
"They're telling me that I won't win because I'm unmarried." Silco waves a hand, as if to disperse the very thought. "I can understand the idea, but it does seem quite Piltovian to me."
"No kidding." Vander says with an expression not unlike a snarl. Silco smiles into his next bite of sandwich. Maybe he likes it when Vander fights for him—it's been years since the world was rough enough to need it.
Whoever thought that a teenage science fair needed a gala to go with it has more time than sense, Silco thinks as he looks out over Piltover Bay. It pains him to even think, but the Academy has a beautiful campus. Guess it just fits that this, the brainchild of that self-inflated hamster is so lovely. Marble floors, gold curtains. Mined from the undercity, no doubt. He scoffs. Schools are supposed to be rat-infested hovels manned by mean old nuns who snap your fidgeting fingers with a wooden spoon. They're not supposed to be places of light and sharing knowledge. But he supposes if Jinx must be anywhere, he's glad that she's learning from Viktor somewhere clean and safe. Viktor had to get his start in that cold, dank basement with a mad scientist. They're lucky he did. But the new generation is supposed to be cared for and nurtured.
Silco keeps that in mind as he sips his too-weak Piltie cocktail. Whose idea was it to sell alcohol at a children's award ceremony? Alcoholics, all of them. And they have the audacity to call Zaunites degenerates. Never mind that he's also drinking.
"Now, that's not quite the face of a proud parent," a lightly accented voice drawls alongside him. Silco glances sidelong at the smirking face of his nephew. To hear Vander say it, that smirk is genetic.
"Good thing I'm no one's parent," Silco snorts. Viktor rolls his eyes. His mother and father passed many years ago, and Silco had taken him in. They never talk about it, but Viktor is his in all but title. And even if that weren't so, he and Vander have been caring for the girls for Felicia since they were born. In those early days, they truly were sometimes-babysitters, but after Connol passed, and she's gotten sicker, they've been taking on that mantle more and more. Sometimes Jinx slips up and calls him dad. Viktor never has. It makes his chest ache every time he thinks about it.
"I shouldn't tell you, we frown upon parents being too sure of their little darlings' success, but she and Ekko made an excellent project."
"Of course they did." Silco is not made for numbers, or science, but Jinx showed him her calculations, her mock-ups, and they were the same sort of mystifying as Viktor's old machines. Clearly organized diagrams and incomprehensible math. It's the most organized thing about her, actually, and a bit surprising to be honest. Silco's always glad to see when she pulls out the paint markers and starts to graffiti the surface of her inventions. Makes things make a little more sense, even if he has to be careful not to accidentally dip his elbow into paint when he visits her workshop. Or sit in it.
"Thought I'd say." There's a smile ghosting at his lips, but Silco can see the veil of professionalism still clinging to him. It'll come off at the bar tonight, where they'll throw Ekko and Jinx a surprise party in their honor.
"Hmn."
"Where's Vander?"
Silco nods out the window, indicating the other side of the bay, down towards the river. "Regretting his birthright, I'm sure."
"Why didn't he come topside with you this morning?"
"You'll have to ask him. I've never pretended to understand that old dog."
"Ugh. Don't flirt with him to me, he's not even here." Viktor's disgusted face is one Silco has seen for years on end, now, but it still delights him. Except when he's being accused of flirting.
"I do not flirt with him."
"Ah, so it is foreplay."
"Don't you have some sort of administrator to shmooze?"
"You can't possibly think I am the shmoozer."
Silco scoffs. His 'partner' with the smile wider than the Noxian coastline. He's not Piltie born, of course, hailing somewhere over the mountains with his lovely mother, but he's Piltie raised, and it's clearer and clearer each time Silco sees him. And, as Silco's career in politics continues, they see each other more and more.
"I think you're plenty charming, cabbage."
"What's that they say about a mother's love?"
"Unconditional, I think," Silco says, breaching their careful distance to squeeze his cheeks like a particularly affectionate mother might. He's seen Ximena do it to Viktor's little 'partner', in fact, but he's only ever done it as a joke. Viktor pushes his hand away with a frustrated little grunt that Silco can't even claim isn't characteristic of himself.
"I do actually have some people to shake down," Viktor says, rueful. Silco understands the feeling—Viktor and his boy-toy are much like Silco and Vander. Jayce is the carrot, Viktor is the stick. Silco is well-used to stick duty, and he can only hope that Jayce appreciates his hard work. Maybe things will end up better for them than they did for Vander and Silco. As much as he's content with the friendship they have, he knows deep in his heart that they could have been more. He can never say it, of course, but he knows it to be true. Maybe in another life.
"Don't let me keep you from the joyous task of networking," Silco says with a wave of the hand. Viktor rolls his eyes as he makes his way back through the crowd. Silco really should be doing his own networking, but he's had a long, annoyingly stressful week, given what the stressors are.
He means to keep to his little corner, but Vander finds him soon after Viktor abandons him. He squeezes Silco's shoulder, comforting. Silco leans into his side. He never notices just how anxious he is alone in a crowd until Vander is by his side. The change is astounding. It's even worse up here.
"Got the bar all set up," Vander reports, taking a sip of Silco's drink. "I put the 'congratulations' banner up. I think they'll win."
Silco nods, but can't help be unsure. He believes in their kids, but he also knows what a game of politick this place has. If they don't win, it won't be because their project isn't the best.
"Hello!" Ximena Talis hurries up to them, wide smile on her face. If her son's smile is disarming, this is peace-making. Ximena has an air about her, something warm and enticing. She's the kind of person you want to listen to, because you know what she'll say is worthwhile. If Silco were a stupider man, he'd want her to start a career in public policy, too. "Viktor said you two would be conspiring in a corner,"
"Here we are," Vander says jovially, reaching out a hand to shake. Ximena gives him a rueful look, knowing, apparently, that they're not at the hugging point of their relationship. She shakes Silco's hand, too.
"Were you looking for us?"
"Yes, well." She clears her throat. "My Jayce is too afraid to ask, to risk the faux-pas, but it's getting to be a lot of mooning around the city for me."
"Is he okay?" Vander asks.
"Yes, yes. I think he's planning to ask our Viktor a certain question."
Silco's heart drops into his stomach. He makes a noise, but he's not sure what part of his voice box it came from. He wants things to work out between them, but gods above and below, he's not ready for it yet.
"Long time coming," Vander says with a conspiratorial nod. Silco is silent. Ximena smiles like the loving mother Silco has never been.
"Well, I know you may not know much of our customs, but we like to get permission from the parents, before you ask. We think of it like, leaving one family to start another. It's polite to warn of such a big change."
Vander is nodding again. Silco is wondering if Viktor will be sad to think that he and Vander are the closest thing to parents for Jayce to ask.
"And, you know Jayce, he's a little hyperactive, a little anxious. He's afraid to ask about your family composition." She trails off into an implied question. Vander looks at Silco. Silco feels pale, if that's even possible.
"Ah. Yes, well. His birth parents were taken by Grey lung." Silco says, and clears his throat. He shouldn't speak for Vander, but Vander is looking at him, like he knows. "And we took him in, after. He's been with us since then."
"So you're his parents?"
"I suppose so," Silco says, feeling bold to make such a claim. "For as long as he'll keep us."
Ximena laughs like he's made a joke. "I'll keep it in mind. Don't be surprised if your bar gets a visit from a certain scientist."
The party is wild, like all Zaunite parties are. The lights are low, neons shining instead. Gert's band is playing loud, the kids are dancing. Silco feels like he's supposed to be watching over the guests of honor, or navigating around the various upper city interlopers, but he has a habit of getting too drunk at parties at the Drop.
It's not his fault, really— if he wants to hang out up at the bar, he has to be getting a drink. He can't seem too desperate to talk to Vander so that Vander doesn't suspect anything untoward about Silco's half of the friendship. Still, he really wants to talk to Vander, so he makes his way up to the bar often, leaning on his side of it with what he'll deny being a flirty smile. Sometimes Vander will lean in to talk to him, and their faces will be so close, breathing the same air, words mixing together like paint.
He watches Jinx sneaking off with Ekko, surely to do more 'science' together, and Silco's chest aches. He sighs, wistful and wet-eyed. Jinx is the youngest; what's he going to do when the kids are all off living their own lives? If Viktor gets married, he'll never come back to Zaun, and if Jinx moves on to become a world-renowned engineer, she'll be off at conferences and implementing her inventions for years. She'll come visit every so often, but not spend too much time. He'll be all alone again. Vi and the boys aren't big fans of Silco, so this is all he gets. Silco takes a gulp of his drink, eyes downcast.
"Y'okay, Sil?" Vander's at his elbow. When did he get here? "Maybe you should go sleep it off, birdie."
"Hmm?" Silco blinks up at him, swaying. He's always so tall. Unfair, really, how tall he is. It makes Silco look tiny, even though he's 6 foot.
"Go upstairs and take a nap. If you wake up before the party's over, I'll let Mylo cover the bar and walk you home."
Silco nods. He is tired. He's always exhausted by the days he has to go topside. A tired Silco is a maudlin Silco; not suitable for a party. "Fine, fine."
—
Silco wakes up the next morning, crickets chirping out the window. He blinks up at the ceiling, bleary. He's dressed comfortably, and is approaching too warm, as he's being snuggled half to death by his best friend. Vander's never been the snorer in their relationship, but his heavy, even breaths were the soundtrack to most of Silco's life as a young man, and they are difficult to sleep without, even to this day. It's no wonder that he slept so late. The clock on the bedside table announces that it's nearly afternoon.
Jinx bounds up the stairs, calling for Vander. Silco's head pounds in time with her footsteps. Vander, the lump, snuffles into the ticklish place of Silco's neck as he awakens. Jinx knocks enthusiastically and doesn't wait for an answer before bursting in.
"Vander! You'll never guess what they printed in the Piltover Sun!" She plops down on the corner of the bed, waving the paper. "Hi, Silco."
"Mmph, what're you doing, reading that rag?"
"It pays to stay informed. Look at this." She shoves the paper into the general vicinity of their faces, and Silco grunts as he swipes it out of the air. The picture splashed across the page is from last night's gala, and it takes a long, pregnant moment for Silco's sleep-heavy brain to recognize his own face. He sits up, fingers gone cold with anxiety.
"What?" Vander grumbles.
"'Liar? Zaun Representative's Secret Husband!'" Jinx quotes, cheerily. Silco makes a noise like a tea kettle.
"Wow, you're married?" Vander quips sleepily. Silco shakes his head. He's having a fit, not quite able to read any of the words. The picture is artful, for what drivel must surround it. Vander's hand on his back, and Silco leaning into his side, looking up at his face with a coy little smile. They look like lovers.
"To you."
—
Elora is pacing back and forth in Silco's office. He's trying to remain calm, trying to keep Jinx's breathing exercises in mind, but her agitated energy is infectious. He massages his temple. They've spent the last hour going in circles about how this could have happened. How is it his fault that some reporter thought they had a scoop on the meanest of all the Zaunite Representatives?
"Janna's winds, Elora, I thought you wanted me to be married. I thought you Pilties loved marriage."
"You aren't married to him. The Piltovian people either believe that you're married and a liar, or that you're not, and still a liar."
"Splendid. What is it you suggest, then?"
Elora sighs and sits heavily into the chair across from him. "We need to make people think you didn't orchestrate this. We—"
A knock rattles the door in it's frame. There's only one man who knocks with that kind of force, and his shaggy head pops in past the door frame with a sheepish smile. "Oh, sorry, I thought you would have been done already. It's Silco's Jinx-mandated walkies time."
"It's Silco's what?"
"Our daughter—my—our niece, Jinx. She's got it in her head that sitting at a desk all day is unhealthy, so she sends Vander over here to force me to take walks."
"You take afternoon walks together. Where?"
"Just down to the docks. I have a pal at the wharf who we like to chat with. We get lunch with her wife." Vander says, stepping properly into the room.
"You go on a nice walk along the riverside and have lunch with another couple?" Her voice is flat with incredulity.
Silco scoffs, frustrated. Do they not have friendship topside? "Elora, what ever is the matter?"
She puts her head in her hands. "No one will ever believe you're not married."
"We don't even live in the same place," Vander objects. Elora shakes her head.
"I can't right now, Van. We're trying to figure this out."
Vander stands there for a long moment, staring at the scene before him. Silco wonders what's going on in that head of his. Despite what people sometimes think when they see the massive wall of flesh that is Vander, he's very intelligent, he's a creative thinker, and he sometimes outpaces Silco when it comes down to solving problems. "Well, what's wrong with saying we're married?"
"The public will think he's just doing a publicity stunt. The Sun isn't our most esteemed publication, but it's generally true. That is a dangerous combination in politics. It makes it likely that the article was bought."
"But it wasn't. No way that Mr. 'Why should I Tell You' would buy an article to show off his real life husband."
Elora purses her lips, thinking. Eventually, she nods. "Yes, I suppose Silco is famously private… We could work with this."
Days later, Silco is topside again, sitting at one of their stupid gear-shaped tables as he summarizes the details of the new bill they'd written to address the pollution in the Sump. He hates these meetings, too—topsiders call them press conferences, but he feels like a child delivering a book report.
Once the floor opens to questions, Silco is, if not surprised, then at least annoyed that the questions are irrelevant.
"Representative, what do you say to the rumors that you are married to the proprietor of local bar…the Last Drop?" Piltie scum, doesn't know the most popular bar in the city.
Silco smiles thinly. Sevika warned him not to be an asshole about it. Easier said than done.But here's his chance to put things to bed. They can just move on. But, Silco thinks, hesitating for half a moment too long, he does need to be married, according to that damned campaign manager. If he ever wants to be in the right rooms, bend the right ears, he needs to win the next election.
"To be perfectly honest with you, I was surprised to see my private affairs were deemed newsworthy by anyone." Silco flicks his hand. "Vander has been in my life since we were children." They were even young enough to do a childish little handfasting when they were ten. Vander's entry paperwork for the mines listed Silco as his next of kin.
"But are you married?" the reporter insists.
Silco's professional smile feels more like a rictus grin. If he says it, Vander's permanently stuck to him. Even when they have a public divorce over 'the stressfulness of Silco's career,' Vander's saddled with Silco as his husband or ex-husband for the rest of his life.
"I'm not sure of the Piltovian definition, particularly. But I suppose we're something like that." Silco says with a little shrug. "Now, are there any questions about the bill we've just passed?"
On Wednesday nights, the Last Drop is closed. This has been true for the past ten years at least, since Vander and Silco realized that the slog of parenting and work and making ends meet was draining them dry. The kids tease them by calling it 'date night', but Silco just thinks of it as their time. No need for labels.
More often than not, he and Vander end up at the diner the next lane down from the Drop. It's never quite had a name, but that hasn't stopped it from being the best place to patronize after Jericho's.
The owner, Naught, snorts when Silco and Vander walk in, cutting off the young waitress to lead them to their usual table in the corner. "If it isn't the newlyweds!" He guffaws at his own joke. Silco rolls his eyes. Naught is a staple in their life and community, having inherited the restaurant from his uncle much in the same way Vander did the Drop from his previous boss. People die all the time in the undercity, even to this day.
"Yes, yes, it's very funny," Silco says, taking his spot by one of the few windows in the place. Vander always sits on the same side of the booth as Silco, a habit he doesn't break now. Silco notices a few burrs stuck to Vander's sleeve, and huffs, picking them off, lest they brush off on him. Naught claps Vander on the shoulder.
"I never thought you two would stop your pretendin'. Really am proud of you."
Silco pauses, blinking. Surely not—?
"Thanks mate," Vander says with a grin, nudging Silco's side. Silco nods woodenly. Naught lets the waitress—his cousin's kid, Silco thinks— take their orders. They always get the same thing, so it's not long before Silco has a bowl of curried eel and Vander has a fungus steak set in front of them.
Why is everyone going along with this charade? What could possibly possess people to truly believe he and Vander are together? It can't be the touching—Vander is handsy with everyone he loves, always has been. Once he's attached to someone, they get patted and pulled into his side and hugged from behind. It's how he is with the kids, it's how he is with Felicia, of course it's how he acts with Silco. And their shared parenting, well, that's just the way of Zaun. A child in Zaun is either everyone's, or they're no one's. That must be the Piltovian hang up, but Silco can't seem to figure why so many Zaunites, people they grew up with, came of age with, are acting like this is the natural conclusion of them.
Silco sighs, pushing his food around his plate. "I want to apologize for what this all is going to do to your reputation, Van. I know you weren't always the relationship type, but…" He trails off with a vague gesture. Everyone wants Vander. One of these days, Vander's going to want someone back.
Vander shakes his head. He reclines back, throwing his arm across the back of the booth. "It's no big deal." He takes a sip of whiskey, somehow dashing in the casual motion. He's always handsome, of course, and he's been growing moreso with age, but something about when he commands a room, takes up space, that gets Silco's heart beating too fast.
When they were boys, Silco was Vander's mean little shadow. Their mothers had been friends, before Silco's died, but even after Silco became just another undercity orphan, Vander still made sure to tuck Silco under his arm in the schoolyard. When they were young men, people would beg Silco to introduce them to Vander, blushing and fidgeting. Silco's never known—never wanted to know—if anything ever came of those people. He's never been sure if Vander wants men or women, or anything in between. Even all these years along, he's too scared to ask, and it seems that Vander isn't very forthcoming solely about this topic.
"You know, it's funny," Vander says, looking out at the neon lights and busy crowds of a Zaunish evening. "I used to think about marrying you. When we were teens."
"Hmm?" He can't possibly have heard that right.
"When we were in the mines. I'd be chipping rock, and I'd be thinking about the future of Zaun, like all the politicians would say on the radio. Like you'd say. I thought, I'll marry Silco so we can stay together, and we'll have some kids, we'll make a cute little home in a cliff side, so we'd get light in the family room." He laughs, a far-off look in his eyes. Silco's stomach is in his throat. "I figured you'd take a liking to a little alley cat. You and the kids would be feeding it scraps for weeks til I'd find out. Hm." Vander frowns, a small, near-unnoticeable thing. But Silco sees it.
"That sounds nice," Silco says, quiet. Vander looks down at him. The air between them is thick.
"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?"
—
Silco finds himself in Vander's bedroom again. Sometimes he wonders at the fact that he doesn't keep pajamas here, after all these years, but the truth is that his preferred sleepwear is a big shirt and boxers. Most of his pajamas at home are Vander's old shirts, anyway. At least here, they smell like Vander.
Silco is curled in the chair that lays unused in the corner of Vander's bedroom. He usually has clothes draped over it, but Silco routinely sorts through them, hanging and folding the clean laundry. Sometimes Silco thinks that Vander would be happy to wear the same outfit every day of his life. He squeezes into that blue striped thing enough that they're really not far off from that reality.
Vander is in the bathroom, fussing with his beard. Silco thinks he's so handsome like this, in ratty pajama bottoms, tattooed arms and torso on full display, shaving soap smeared on his chest from where he dripped and hastily wiped it away. He could never say so, not for real. If they were pretending to be married, Silco might slide up to him, press his cold fingers into the soft flesh of Vander's belly. But they're alone. No one to pretend for. Silco still wants to do it, though. Just like he wants to snuggle up under Vander's arm. Just like he wishes someone would demand that they prove their love, tell them to kiss, just so Silco could get to experience it, just once.
"Viktor used to ask me why I wouldn't marry you." Silco confesses, voice carrying in the comfortable silence. Vander pauses, meeting his gaze in the mirror.
"What'd you use to say?"
Silco shrugs, looking down at his hands. Before the accident that took his eye, he would paint his nails in pretty colors. His hands aren't all that steady, now. He doesn't bother. "That we're friends. That you don't want me."
"Hmm." Vander goes back to his careful shaping. Silco picks at his cuticle, courage gone. It's not worth making things awkward, Jayce is supposed to propose to Viktor at family dinner tomorrow, and Viktor doesn't need them to be in an argument for it. "We are friends, huh?"
"Mm."
"We do all the things friends do."
"Yes," Silco says with a little laugh. Vander ducks down to rinse his face in the sink. Silco meets his own eye in the warped glass. Vander pats his face with a towel as he turns to approach Silco, looming in that unconscious way he does.
"We hang out, almost every day. Our kids play together. We share meals."
"What are you getting at?"
"We go on dates. Share a bed."
"Vander—"
"Sil, birdie, maybe we are more than that." Vander kneels in front of him, not on one knee, just enough to put them on even levels. Silco stares at him, not daring to hope. "Maybe I'm realizing that I want to be more than that."
"With who?"
"Silco, please." Vander says, shaking his head. He takes Silco's hand. Silco looks down at where their palms are touching. His hand has always seemed to fit just right into Vander's.
"I— suppose I wouldn't be upset. You could do a lot better, though."
"Not likely. I'm gonna be the governor's wife."
Silco snorts, finally looking up into Vander's face. Vander smiles and brushes one of Silco's unruly waves out of his face. He hopes that Jayce's proposal overshadows all this drama, because he'd love to have the attention off of him and Vander for a while. He wants to see what they'll become. Maybe this was inevitable. "I haven't even begun campaigning."
"I'm leaving the 'congratulations' banner out."