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Silco stumbled over the curb and collapsed into Felicia’s arms. She felt him go limp like a dead fish. A few greasy strands of his hair fell over his bruised face, and she could feel that his skin was clammy, filthy in a way that couldn’t just be attributed to sweat.
“You heartless bastards!” She shouted after the Enforcers slowly being hidden by the sliding gate Silco had emerged from.
“Shut up, bitch, or you’ll get the same!” Came a voice from behind the gate that made her flinch, followed by a chorus of laughter that made her blood run cold.
“You’re a mess.” She said, looking back down at Silco, her expression contorting in worry. “If I knew I was going to have to carry you, I would have brought Vander-“
“No.” Silco croaked, shaking his head, not meeting her eyes. “Don’t want- he can’t see.” He said, then he let his forehead thump against her shoulder.
“He knows you were in there. Everyone knows.” It wasn’t safe here, with so many Enforcers nearby. Felicia moved him out of the road to hide them beneath the shadows of the buildings crammed together on the opposite side. Seeing him like this was unnerving to say the least, it wasn’t the first time any of them had run afoul of the blue uniformed Piltie cunts, but she had never seen Silco take a beating this bad.
It was slow going, but eventually she was able to get one of his arms around her shoulders to support him as he stumbled alongside her, and that made it a little easier. Still, he wasn’t well.
“Wait- wait-“ Silco shuddered and turned, put out his forearm to brace himself against the coal streaked brick wall beside him, and vomited onto the street. He let out a nasty string of coughs, sounding like a man about to die, choked to death by trench-lung. He heaved in another breath and finally stopped, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Felicia watched it come away splattered with blood.
“Silco- what happened?” Felicia curled her hand into the back of his shirt, fighting to help keep him upright. When Silco spoke again, his voice was hoarse, like he had been screaming for days,
“They knew my name.” He said.
Artwork by Ichabod
Silco traced a fingertip over Vander’s palm. They laid in the bed they shared, a too-thin, lumpy thing, but it was theirs. One of Vander’s arms was around his shoulders, holding him firmly to his chest. He was too hot and they were sticking together from their sweat and spit and everything else, but Silco didn’t pull away like he had at the beginning anymore.
It was disgusting to admit, but he cared about Vander enough to indulge him.
“What do you think is the worst way to die?” He asked, because his thoughts were getting too syrupy sweet.
“What?” Vander sputtered. “What kind of question is that?”
“I think burning alive.” Silco said, tracing Vander’s heart line to the base of his index finger. “You suffocate and you’re being burned all over- although I’ve heard at a certain point your nerves are so melted you don’t feel anything anymore.” He tipped his chin up to look at Vander, who was looking down at him with his brow furrowed- the same look he got when Silco put out an explosive charge with his fingertips or mentioned how young he’d been the first time he was propositioned by one of his mother’s Topside Johns.
“Drowning.” He said finally.
“Why?” Silco asked when he didn’t continue. “Elaborate.”
“It hurts.” Vander said, “I almost drowned in the Pilt when I was a kid.”
“You’re still a kid.” Silco said, playful.
“Shut up. I remember it- it was bad. My chest was burning and my vision got filled with these- black spots. I knew I was dying until my brother pulled me out. And then I coughed up filthy river water while he thumped me on the back.” He paused, and Silco could see his mind working. “So that’s the worst.”
“Hm.” Silco said, “Neither of us said a cave-in.”
“I’ve been hearing about cave-ins since I was skinnier than you- ow!” Vander winced as Silco pinched his nipple.
“I’m being serious.”
“You’re always serious.” Vander scoffed. “-anyway, if a cave-in gets me I know exactly what happens. We wait a couple days for the company to try and get us out, and then I end it with a pickaxe if they don’t.”
“What if you don’t have one?” Silco challenged him.
“It’s a mine, why wouldn’t I?”
“Maybe it broke.”
“I’d still have the pointy bit.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re terrible at pillow talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Silco said, “A house on the promenade and babies?”
“Would that be so bad?” Vander asked, his face flushing.
“Yes.” Silco admonished him. “Go find a wife if you want that so badly.” He sat up and rummaged in his discarded jacket, pulling out a half-smoked joint and a lighter. Vander’s hand found the small of his back as he lit up, took a long drag, and then exhaled, releasing a stream of sticky sweet smoke. He lay back down against Vander and offered him the joint, which he took. They passed it back and forth in companionable silence. Silco waited until his chest felt warm and floaty to speak again,
“There are pleasant ways to die, you know.”
“Are we still talking about this?” Vander asked, blinking through the haze in his head.
“Carbon monoxide poisoning.” Silco said, “My aunt died from it. You just fall asleep. That’s how I’d want to go.”
“Sounds pleasant.” Vander said, but he clearly didn’t agree.
“What’s wrong?” Silco asked.
“You’re the strangest person I know.” Vander raised his hand to stroke it through Silco’s hair, something he only allowed under this particular set of circumstances. “You drive me crazy.”
“In a good way, I hope.” Silco said, watching Vander take a sip on the joint.
“Yeah.” He said, releasing another cloud of smoke, “Yeah, of course.”
Artwork by Ichabod
In Vander’s father’s day, an honest man could work an honest day’s work and take home honest pay. It was enough for his mother to stay at home and raise him and his siblings, enough to feed them and a little extra for friends from families who weren’t as good at feeding them like Felicia or scrawny orphans like Silco.
The work wasn’t kind work, it hurt his father’s back, his legs, his hands, his head, and in the end, his lungs. But it was good work, the kind that made his body strong before it broke, strong enough to build and then protect. Strong enough that by the time his foundations crumbled, he could afford the roof over the bed that he and his wife passed away in.
Vander lived with his sister and her husband for a while in his teenage years. He was brutish and sullen, but steady. It became apparent very quickly that there wasn’t going to be any option for him beside the mines, and he took to that work gladly.
There was some satisfaction in taking a pickaxe to the same stone as his father. Vander could have been content if he had still made that same honest wage. But that wasn’t the case.
The work was more brutal, the shifts were longer, the bosses came up with every excuse not to pay out quota bonuses. It used to be a man who had worked the mines for three years could take a few days at half-pay to visit his family or see to his wife or child, but not anymore. The mines clawed the time from him like charred meat off of bone, cut with a gold plated Topside steak knife.
Stress became strain became anger, it roiled in him and it made his sister’s husband show him the door. His only other option was a company flophouse where he never had the same bunk, but at least he had a place to lock up the few tools he’d managed to pick up.
He first encountered Silco with half his face covered in blood. The skinny man’s nose was bleeding heavily down his face and onto his shirt.
“Get out of my way-“ He snarled, pushing past Vander and squeezing into their shared room in the floohouse- six bunks stacked two and two and two on top of each other. Silco crouched down and pulled something from under one of the bunks then stood and plastered his back to the wall. Two men slept like the dead in the room, one was shaving. Vander seemed to be the only one to find Silco’s appearance even slightly alarming.
A burly man came barging into the room, colliding with Vander and nearly knocking him over in his haste to get at Silco. The scrawny man held the knife out in front of him with both hands.
“You going to stick me with that pocket knife, you piece of trencher trash?” The larger man sneered. His voice was stuffy, like he’d been elbowed in the face.
“Come and find out.” He wasn’t holding a knife, it was shorter and meaner than that, a shiv carved from a broken pickaxe, maybe. It had a jagged edge that matched Silco’s jagged teeth that clacked together in a snarl.
He told Vander the truth later, when they had fallen in with one another.
“He wasn’t lying.” He said, then took a casual drag on his cigarette, looking up a the starless sky from the roof of fhe flophouse. “I did steal from him.”
Vander stared at him,
“What’s wrong with you?” He asked, and Silco shrugged.
“I was hungry.”
He fought like a hungry man. Vander watched as Silco stuck his assailant what must have been over a dozen time. When the man finally crumpled to the floor, bleeding and whining for his mother, Silco stepped over him like he was garbage and wiped his hands off on the trembling man’s shirt, then rummaged through his clothes to take what little money he had on him.
“You want some, too?” When he looked up at Vander, he bared his bloody teeth. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing, just-“ Vander held both hands up, facing out. “-you fight like a demon, is all.”
“Stay away from me.” Silco spat blood and a piece of his tooth on the ground. He narrowed his eyes at Vander, then stalked towards him, only diverting at the last second to stomp out of the room.
“Crazy little bitch.” Remarked one of the men from his cot. “Mark my words, not going to last.”
But Silco did last. He mined with the same demonic ferocity that he fought. He could mine the same amount as a man twice his size and he was smart enough to work out the best way to clear new tunnels with the least amount of explosive charges. The bad attitude remained, but no one could deny he belonged down here, doing the work.
Vander didn’t really get to know him until Felicia started having him tag along to the pub with her after their late shifts. To Vander’s surprise, Silco cleaned up well. And he knew how to rile up a man the same way he could wire together his explosives. When he finally decided Vander was worthy of his time, it was like feeling sunshine on his face, something he had only experienced twice in his entire life.
That sunshine quickly turned to fire because Silco fucked like he fought, too. He was all nails and teeth, cursing Vander out from underneath him or on top of him or to his side or once, hanging off the side of the cot on his back, letting Vander fuck his throat.
The first time he’d let Vander be with him properly- that is, making love instead of trying to kill him -was the night Vander told him he had finally cobbled together enough money to rent the room above The Last Drop, and he wanted Silco to come with him.
“You expect me to want to come and live with you in some cramped little shoebox flat above a bar stinking like rotten ale?” Silco had asked, sitting astride Vander’s lap.
“Yes?” Vander asked, feeling small under the other man’s gaze. “Is that a no?”
“Of course not, you idiot.” Silco said, and kissed him. It was warm and tender and unlike anything Vander had experienced before with him, but he still wasn’t certain. He put his palm on Silco’s chest and gently pressed him back, getting a bite on his lower lip for his trouble.
“Is that a yes?” He asked. Silco rolled his eyes and put his hands on either side of his head.
“Yes.” He said, exasperated, “Kiss me again.”
The problem with Silco was that no matter how much happiness you poured into him, there was always an endless font of bitterness and resentment lurking within.
He hated Topside, he hated shopkeepers who destroyed things before throwing them away rather than let them be picked out and used, he hated anyone who went Topside to bow and scrape for the Pilties, he hated the men who worked as overseers in the mines, and he hated anyone who kicked stray dogs or ran off stray cats.
But most of all, he hated the Enforcers.
Most people in the Undercity did. But it was a quiet hate, a simmering resentment and inherent distrust and disbelief that any good could ever come of them. Silco, on the other hand, hated every single one of them individually, as if they had all personally slighted him.
His hate was loud and sharp as broken glass. Vander watched him stalk out over and over again, going to rallies at the college of Techmaturgy with the top half of his face painted black and a green band on his upper arm, to stand in line with students, screaming at a line of faceless Enforcers bellowing at them to disperse. More often than not he came back with his eyebrow split or his arm in a sling, and sometimes he wouldn’t come back at all until the next day, smelling like the antiseptic wash they hosed him down with in his holding cell.
More than once, Vander asked him why, why did Silco do it if all it brought him was more pain and frustration?
“Because we have to show them.” Silco hissed, his breath whistling over another broken tooth, “Show them they won’t keep their boot on our throat forever.”
But it wasn’t just the rallies that put Silco in the enforcer’s crosshairs. He was a mean and hungry thing, and even in times when Vander was sure he should have known he was safe and loved, he couldn’t help but act out.
Vander could have understood if it was towards the topsiders, but Silco resented the people of the Undercity, too. He was angry at them for their passivity, for letting his father die, for neglecting his mother when she was at her most desperate, for not helping when his baby sister got sick.
It wasn’t that the Enforcers cared about the people he stole from or picked fights with, but they cared about a young Undercity man making a nuisance of himself, and Silco was worse than that.
Vander fought with him about it, tried to tell him he was bringing unnecessary pain to himself, that he was safe with him, didn’t Vander make sure they had a room? Didn’t their combined income from the mines mean they always had food to eat? Wouldn’t friends like Felicia, Connel, or Benzo help as much as they could if they couldn’t make ends meet?
It didn’t matter. The only thing that ever got through to Silco was when his job in the mines was threatened. When that happened, he would go stonily silent and return to work, and it would keep him quiet for a little while, but then some frenzy would ignite in his chest again and he would be back to it.
“I mean it, Sil, if this happens again, I’m done.” Vander shouted at him one night when he returned home with one cheek looking like ground hamburger and a pocketful of gold cogs.
Silco snarled that he would be sleeping on the couch, but in the dead of night he crept into their bed, and Vander woke up to hot tears on his shoulder.
“I don’t know why it’s like this, why I’m like this.” Silco admitted in the dark, his voice small and wretched. “Please don’t leave.”
“I won’t, love.” Vander said, turning over so he could wrap his arms around Silco’s shaking form. “Never.”
So the cycle continued, and in time Silco had run afoul of every Enforcer assigned to their part of the Lanes, and more besides.
If Vander had come to the rallies with him, he might have noticed one in particular, Captain Easton.
Easton had already been bumped down from Topside for roughing up the wrong fortunate son. But why waste a good brute? He could still be useful. Send him to the Undercity to keep them in line.
He was handsome, for a bastard. Strong jaw and well-muscled. Blond with ocean blue eyes. Lips in the shape of a perfect Cupid’s bow.
If Vander had been in lockup with Silco, he could have seen the way Easton’s eyes tracked him, the way he would linger when Silco was being strip-searched or beaten. But Vander wasn’t there, and so he didn’t.
Artwork by Ichabod
Being an overseer in the mines brought certain bonuses. For one thing, every so often an Enforcer captain might stop by, bring you an expensive Topside cigar, and stop for a chat.
Tonight’s guest was Easton.
“The rat-faced one with the long hair.”
Easton leaned over the desk in the management office for Shaft D. “What’s his name?”
“Who?” One of the overseers asked blearily.
“He means Silco-“ his compatriot reminded him, “The dirty little canary.”
“Dirty?” Easton echoed.
“Well, they’re all dirty.” He said around his cigar. “Not civilized, like.”
“But he’s the filthiest of them all.” His companion leaned in, a mean grin on his face. “Ungrateful little whore, looks like he would be working for cogs on his back but never misses quota- probably because he’s sucking cock for it.” Both men cackled and Easton raised an eyebrow.
“He’s fucking one of you so he doesn’t need to meet quota?”
Both men went beet red in the face and rushed to explain,
“No no! I just mean-“
“It’s something he would do-“
“Shut up.” Easton brought his thumb and forefinger to his temples, squeezing hard. “Tell me everything you know about his shifts, then get out.”
The next day, Vander and Benzo found green slips with their punch cards.
“They’re sending us down Shaft A for the day.” Vander said, scratching the stubble under his chin.
“Probably just need some men who actually know what they’re doing, for once.” Benzo shrugged, hauling his gear over his shoulder.
“You didn’t get one, Sil?” Vander asked. He found Silco strangely silent, staring at his own punch card with a pinched expression. “What isn’t?”
“It’s nothing.” Silco said, shaking his head. He punched his card and pulled on his helmet. “Stop gawking, Vander, you’ll catch flies.”
Vander and Benzo headed out, and for most of the day things were normal. They met the men in Shaft A, and to Vander’s eyes they didn’t seem to need the extra help, but maybe an overseer had just gotten a bug up his ass about the quota.
In the afternoon, Connel came sprinting down the corridor.
“What is it?” Benzo asked when he arrived, his face flushed red and out of breath.
“There’s Enforcers in Shaft D.” Connel said, wide-eyed. “They took Silco.”
Vander made it out of the mines just in time to watch an Enforcer throw a bag over Silco’s head and shove him roughly into the back of a carriage.
“Hey!” Vander bellowed, trying to follow, “What the hell is going on? Where are they taking him?” He felt a sharp crack against his temple and crumpled to the ground.
“None of your concern, sumpscum.” An Enforcer hissed. “Get back to work.”
Silco, who had been arrested more times than he could count, knew something was wrong. For one thing, the Enforcers didn’t do any of the usual intake for when he was going to spend the night in a holding cell. No records taken, no note about the new tattoo on his shoulder, no fingerprints.
They threw Silco into a room with a single rickety chair. His hands were bound behind his back and his ankles tied to the front legs. It was dark in the room, and then there was a loud thunk and a bare bulb cast harsh yellow light overhead. Silco winced at the sudden brightness, squeezing his eyes shut until he heard the door squeal open.
He looked, and there was Easton, dressed in his full captain’s uniform, every brass button shining.
Easton unbuckled his belt and Silco looked up at him with his eyes wide, teeth bared.
“I’ll bite it off.” He growled. “I swear I will.”
“I don’t think so.” Easton pulled his belt from its loops and set it on the table. A silent threat, followed by a very loud one, “I know you, little canary. I know your friends, I know what little trencher trash family you have left.” His face contorted into an ugly smirk. “How well do you think your mother would do in your position? Not half as well as you, but if you do something stupid and make me kill you, I might have to find out.”
Silco felt an ice cold chill run down his spine. Easton pulled his cock out and pumped it twice.
“Fuck, I’ve wanted this for so long.” The captain took three long strides and buried his hand in Silco’s hair, grabbing tightly and jerking his head forward. “Since that first night I saw you, I knew you’d be perfect for this.”
Silco rolled his eyes upward, determined to say nothing. Easton moved his grip to his ponytail and jammed a thumb against his jaw, forcing it to open. He shoved his cock unceremoniously into Silco’s mouth. He let out a hiss and gripped Silco’s jaw, holding him in place as he fucked into him.
“I want you to know-“ He said as he rocked forward, filling Silco’s senses with the acrid smell and bitter taste of him, “-this only ends when you beg, gorgeous.”
Silco gagged against his skin, but that only spurred him on. He fucked his face until he was fully hard against the back of his throat.
He drew back, leaving Silco’s mouth a bruised mess of spit and precome, then reeled back to kick the chair Silco was in over. He would have been sent sprawling except that he was still bound to it. With no way to brace himself, his right temple cracked painfully against the ground.
Easton followed him down. He untied Silco’s ankles, and for a split second he tried to flail and kick the other man away, but he just grabbed Silco by the scruff of the neck and shoved him onto the ground on his belly.
It wasn’t the first time he had been assaulted, but it was the most brutal. Not just because Easton seemed just as determined to beat him as to fuck him, but because instead of hurling insults at him, once the captain was fully inside him- rough and with no preparation beyond his own spit -he began to coo in Silco’s ear.
“Isn’t that better?” His breath was hot against Silco’s skin, “That’s my good boy, my beautiful canary. You were made for this, you know? For me.”
Silco wanted his rage, his hate, but the bastard wouldn’t give it to him. Even when he wrapped his hand around his throat hard enough to bruise,
“That’s it, gorgeous, you’re taking me so well, so fucking tight-“ He twisted his free hand around Silco’s bare hip, nails digging into his skin, “-just give me a little time, darling, I’ll figure up a way to bring you Topside, make a civilized whore out of you- ngh-“
Silco never begged. Even when he thought Easton might snap his neck, even when the pain inside his body became unbearable, even when the captain left him on the floor to open the door for three more enforcers to enter the room.
“I’ll leave you to it, sweetheart.” Easton said, buckling his belt as the three new men unbuckled theirs. “Be gentle with him.” He said, almost wistful but with the same mocking sneer on his face. He was replied to with a chorus of ugly laughter.
It was morning when they hosed him down with antiseptic that stung on every inch of his body, forced him back into his ruined clothes, and shoved him out the gate.
Felicia managed to get him back to The Last Drop, where Vander, Connel, and Benzo were waiting. The bar hadn’t opened yet for the day, and the owner often let them use the empty pub for a respite.
“Silco-“ Vander rushed to the door when he saw the state his partner was in. “Fuck, what did they-?” He reached out to try and cradle his jaw in his palm, but Silco flinched away with a heartbreaking wounded noise.
“He needs to lay down, and he needs a doctor.” Felicia said, her voice grave.
“I’ll get someone,” Connel said, standing to hurry to her side. He pressed a quick kiss to Felicia’s cheek, gave Silco a pitying look, then sprinted out the door.
“I’ll get the bed made up.” Benzo said, and headed to the stairs.
“Felicia-“ Vander said, following her to the stairs as she half-carried Silco towards the stairs. “What-“
“Not now, Vander.” She snapped at him, “I’ll come back down when he’s settled.” She pushed past him, leaving him behind with a bewildered and wounded expression on his face.
“There’s nothing to be done? What’s wrong with you?” Vander raged, slamming his fists down on the table hard enough to make it rattle.
“Vander...” Felicia pressed her palms to her cheeks.
“Don’t ’Vander’ me when you’re telling me to- what? -do nothing?” He pushed himself to his feet, stomping across the room and pressing his forehead to the wall.
“I’m telling you, what you’re doing now doesn’t help.” She said.
“We’ll tell me what I can do!” Vander whirled towards her, his eyes wet with unshed tears, hands clenched into fists. “What they did-“
“Do you think this has never happened before?” She asked, and he stared back at her. “Don’t you know?”
“Of course I know.” Vander said, feeling his stomach sink. “But Silco-“
“Did you think it never happened to your friends? To me?” She said, her expression softening. “Or is it just that you thought it never happened to a man?”
Vander went quiet. Of course he knew a man could be assaulted, but that knowledge was firmly wedged behind years of social conditioning. Men got beatings, women were raped. It was just- how things were.
“Vander-“ Felicia curled her hand into a light fist, pressing it to her temple. “-it happened to Connel.”
“Connel?” Vander gaped at her. He was going to be sick, he was sick, he was going to vomit.
“I’m only telling you so you can understand.” Felicia said, wounded and sad. “It can happen to anyone, and it can happen to the people you love. No matter how strong you are. And Silco-“ It was too much, tears began to fall down her cheeks, and Vander felt them welling and falling from his own eyes. He surged forward, wrapping her in the tight embrace he wished he could have held Silco in.
They were like that for a while, letting out the occasional broken sob, leaning on each-other, holding one another because the world was dark and cruel, because they were frightened.
“Tell me what I can do, Felicia.” Vander said, putting both hands on her shoulders and pulling back. She looked so small. Some of his tears had been for her, some for himself. “Please.”
“He needs time.” Felicia said. “Time to heal, first. And then time to- process.”
Connel returned with the doctor, who hurried up the stairs and left him behind. When he saw the state of Felicia and Vander, he sighed and cross the room to them, putting a hand on her shoulder that she covered with her own.
“You told him.” He said, and she nodded.
“Connel, I am so sorry-“ Vander began, but the other man put a hand up.
“I’m alright, Vander, it was a long time ago.” He looked at Felicia and pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. “I have to be.”
The four of them split Silco’s shifts in the mines so that he wouldn’t lose his job while he recovered. For a while, Vander wondered if he would recover.
But one morning, he came to check on Silco and bring him breakfast, and he found him standing by the bed, pulling on his shirt. He flinched when he heard the door open, then glanced over his shoulder at Vander, giving him a hollow smile.
“I’m going out.” He said. Vander stared at him.
“Out where?” He asked.
“I need to walk, or I’ll lose my mind.” Silco stepped up to Vander and picked the sandwich he made for him and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back.” He promised. And then he slipped away.
Another week later and they settled back into something like normalcy. Silco was still more quiet than usual and Vander slept on the couch, but they took their meals together, worked their shifts together, and all the while Vander tried to make sure Silco’s back was turned when he cast him a worried look, to avoid his ire.
Things came to a head one evening when Silco came to Vander as he was getting ready to spend another night on the couch.
“Come to bed.” He said, his eyes gleaming in the low light.
“Are you sure?” Vander asked.
“Don’t be stupid.”
Vander took his pillow back with him to their shared bedroom, he deposited it on the mattress and then, with some hesitation, crawled into bed. Silco shut off the light and climbed in afterwards.
Vander lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, unable to close his eyes. He felt Silco’s narrow hand press against his chest, and he automatically put his hand over it.
“Vander.” Silco’s voice was soft in his ear, but urgent. “I need you.”
Vander shifted to his side to face him, and Silco caught his lips in a searing kiss. It had been nearly two months, and heat curled in Vander’s stomach. He wanted him, he wanted this.
“Are you sure?” He said.
“Yes.” Silco insisted.
Everything was alright until Vander moved to pull up Silco’s shirt, then he felt a sudden pain explode in his jaw that sent him reeling. He scrambled off the bed to turn on the light, then looked back to find Silco staring at him with the wild eyes of a terrified animal, one fist clenched.
“Sil-“ Vander said, and Silco winced.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’ll kill him.” Vander said, “I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.”
“No, you won’t.” Silco hissed. “Think for once in your life.”
“I don’t care what happens! He can’t get away with it.”
“He already has.” Silco looked down at his lap. “I can’t risk you, Vander. Just- hold me, please.” He shut his eyes and swallowed. “And- leave the light on.”
Vander nodded and slowly climbed back into bed. He offered his open arm to Silco, who burrowed in against his chest. Vander lay on his back, holding the other man to him, stroking his back.
Artwork by Ichabod
The rage didn’t settle. But it did grow cold, calculated. Vander clocked in for his shift, but slipped out of the mines midway in the day, through a passage the overseers didn’t know about.
He had two solid gauntlets in a sack across his back. The kind they used to break up coal that was too large to send up for processing, the kind he was determined to beat Easton to a pulp with.
As he approached the Enforcer headquarters, he noticed that one patrolling officer was wearing a black armband. Then another. And another. By the time he reached the gates, he could see that there were black shrouds over the windows.
“You heard about it?” Vander heard a voice say. He pressed his back to the brick wall around the station, listening.
“Yeah.”
“But did you hear why?”
“Why he hanged himself?”
“Yeah.”
“His wife died or something.”
“Not just the wife. There was a gas leak in his house topside, killed the whole family. The wife and his kids.”
“Fuck.”
“He wasn’t home because he was down here. Got back up and they said he hanged himself before an hour had passed after he found out.”
“Poor bastard. And those kids.”
Vander felt all the blood rush out of his face and coil in his stomach. He stumbled away from the station as quickly as he could, and vomited in an alley.
He returned to the mines and put the gauntlet back in their place. When he passed Silco working, he couldn’t look at him.
That night, Silco did let him take his shirt off, and the rest besides. When they’d finished, he retrieved another joint, but Vander waved him off. Silco smoked for a while and then curled up against him, sleeping peacefully with his cheek tucked against his bare chest, just over his heart.
And Vander, who had always known Silco was vicious in his fury, realized he was even more dangerous when he was quiet.
Artwork by Ichabod