Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Silence fell in waves around Vander through the entrance to the canteen and up the higher levels of the open-air prison. With the hoards of jeering bastards giving him a widening berth, the air felt cooler, cleaner, even as the stench of extracted minerals and despair could never leave this gutted place. The hell of Runeterra. 

At his feet, one battered man tried to reach for a helping hand from one of the onlookers. None came forward. The other, on his back staring up at Vander through the slits of his swelling eyes, tried to hurl another curse but only choked on more blood. There were seven in total. This time. Seven goons in the prison’s white and black stripes who, like many before them, had looked at Vander as if he and they weren’t the same stuck creatures in this pit. Not fighting for food or water. No, food was there if you worked for it and water trickled down the mouth of the pit continually. This display of violence was strictly for power and pride. Power in a place where they had none and pride that Vander had long since stopped caring about. 

And now seven men were brutalized, lying in the soot and dirt of this prison with no hope at all of getting up to work in the mines come morning, let alone crawl back to their cells tonight. 

Vander shook his sweat-soaked hair from his eyes, his own striped shirt tied around his waist, his t-shirt spotted with blood that would stain. He looked up at the crowds before asking his current challengers, “Are you lot done yet?” His hands were painted with their blood, numb from pounding their faces and cracking up their ribs. 

No response. “Anyone else want to compare dick sizes,” his voice boomed, rising up the mouth of the pit, “or have I made my point, gentlemen?” 

Again, no response. Vander stepped over the man, helping himself to the food haul that had dropped off the metal pan the man had used to hit Vander with when this whole thing started. Bread, some jerky, and a pack of cigarettes he pocketed. No one said a word. He picked up his own ration before making his way back to his cell. 

But it wasn’t over. Maybe for the night, maybe even this week, but there was always a brand new day. 

He’d only been stuck in this pit for two months now. Vander might still fall for the occasional surprise, but in these two months, he’s shed the last layers of things like naivety and trust that he’d brought with him from the outside, just like he’d shed the last possible remnants of his boyhood. He’s not the biggest man here, but certainly well within the top five. Early on, he’d assumed that would count for something. It didn’t. They still challenged him. 

Now, why were all these men here? These killers, vicious criminals, monsters? To dig aimlessly underground in pursuit of Piltover’s fortunes, or to fight for their entertainment on the lowest level, in their ‘arena.’ Nothing more or they’ll put you down. Nothing less or the prison itself will eat you up and spit you out. 

Vander’s seen men crushed by cave-ins, suffocating, or their bodies shattered by explosions. And he’s seen those cage fights. Leaning against the fences, looking down on two desperate men tear each other apart as Pilties bid and jeer over them. Some survive. Most die. And others would rather throw themselves off the top decks of the prison to their deaths than face that arena.

Why, then, these men wanted to waste what little pockets of peace and freedom they had to themselves to squabble and posture, Vander couldn’t say. Most of the men who’ve challenged him haven’t been young men, but Vander will be damned before he spends the next ten, twenty, thirty years of his life joining them in these pointless hunting pursuits. Eventually there would be more newbies for them to sniff around. Old grudges to settle, gangs to build and destroy. Eventually, he knew they would grow tired of getting their asses beat by some newbie nobody like him and leave Vander alone.

Until then, he’d enjoy his smokes, get a good night’s sleep in before the work bell sounded in the morning, and steal a bath if the rain picked up any. He hung his pail up on the rope lining the edge of the walkway overhead alongside his cell neighbors’. 

Some had their mining jackets and prison uniforms strung up as well, hoping for the rain coming in from the open mouth of the pit to wash away some of their labor and stains. 

When the rain did pick up, it followed Vander into his dreams, mixing with his memories like mud. It was bittersweet, how such a natural thing like rain could both wash away so much of the dirt and grime of the pit and yet drown Vander in his misery all the same, every time. 

He was soaking wet under the downpour and the dim glow of lights outside of the Last Drop. It had already been a grueling day on the docks and the night wasn’t looking much better. It was foolish, he knew, getting plastered drunk at one bar just to stumble home to work at his family’s bar, but his folks would never let him drink this much of their own booze on the clock. 

If only he’d just gone straight home to them. Instead he found himself deep in yet another drunken brawl with some rowdy patrons he’d had to toss out, catching the eyes of the enforcers on patrol. Perhaps he had actually hit one of them. Perhaps they’d seen some threat Vander hadn’t and had drawn their guns for that reason, but he’d never know now. All he knew was that his sister would have never come bursting through the doors… in her pretty gold and green dress and matching necklace with her violet hair braided with ribbons… and into that mess had he been where he was supposed to be, not out being a drunken menace clashing with trigger-happy enforcers who’d startled at the sound of her…

He was still drifting in and out of a light sleep when he first sensed that he was no longer alone in his cell. This cell whose pair of keys he’d fought hard for and guarded with his life for this very reason, so why—how—was someone else here? 

It was dark when he cracked his eye open a sliver, his brow furrowing when he saw no one standing at the cell door but it was still slightly ajar.

Until the mattress by his feet dipped. He swung his leg, bringing his attacker down by surprise only to be as equally surprised when the person continued to roll themself right out of his grasp and onto the floor. 

In the darkness with only the lamps from the outside corridor and the moon to lighten the shadows, Vander wasn’t sure who or what he was seeing. He’d felt a thin body in tight clothes for a split second and had nearly caught a fistful of too long hair before it had slipped through his fingers… Were there women in this prison somewhere? What possible reason could one be trying to kill him now?

He had no time for questions. His attacker was nearly to the door, a blade glinting in their hand. This was also new. So far no one had been bold enough to try to outright murder him. So close to the cell door, he could make out a face and form. A slim, sinewy body, petite, and a pretty face. Definitely pretty. Slipped loose from its knot, their hair was mused by the scuffle, but the voice was far too low for any woman. 

“Easy, big boy,” that voice purred, with a deep richness and roughness that reminded him of a swig of whiskey after a long shift back home, but a little pitched with fear, still holding the blade out to stop Vander from charging. That voice sounded a little too rich, too expensive, to belong to anybody from the undercity but only undercity criminals were brought here. “I swear they never told me you would be this big or this fast. Otherwise, I would not be here.”

Vander echoed his panting, but wasn’t the slightest bit amused by any of this. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh, no need for alarm,” the man assured, putting the knife away in his boot. He waved his hand. “I don’t think they intended for you to be hurt at all, but rather anticipated that you would snap my neck and they would be done with me. Apologies. I will just see myself out.”

Vander launched forward, reaching over the frozen man’s head to catch the door before he could slip through. This close, he towered over him. This had to be a dream. He was obscured by the shadows, and by his dark hair covering some of his face, but those cheekbones, that high-arched and sharp nose, and those pouting lips, better suited for a brothel, not a prison… they were cut, healing from a couple mean hits that were too old to be Vander’s. He looked up at Vander with round puppy dog eyes that also had fading bruises from nasty hits, but underneath, Vander could see what he looked like when his face wasn’t a punching bag. In what world would a banged up twink be sent to come kill him and how the hell did he get down here at all? 

In the low light, Vander could barely see the faded stripes under the patches on the trousers clinging to his slender legs. His t-shirt also looked to be a size too small, but the unbuttoned striped shirt over it was so oversized, the sleeves had to be rolled up. None of this made sense. None of this could be real. 

The man took a breath and rolled his eyes, his voice softening in a way Vander didn’t like as he leaned his lithe, little weight against Vander’s side. “Tell me what I can do. Unlike being a hired killer, I am quite talented at making things like this up to men like you.”

Vander snorted, feeling his face flush. Definitely this was some kind of dream. Possibly from bad cigarettes. He stepped back to let the man pass. “You can get the hell out and make sure to tell whoever sent you to come in person next time.”

“Perfect.” He smiled with a wink, slipping through the gap. “Enjoy your evening.”

Vander meant to glare back at him, but the man was gone. “This fucking place.” 

He searched for his smokes. 

And searched more. 

Emptied his pockets and shook out his pillow, even his boots before realizing, “That thieving little bitch.”

Silco only made it as far as he needed to be out of the lamplight before he collapsed as quietly as he could against the wall next to the cell. He held his breath, ready to run the second the man realized that his door was still unlocked, but as the minutes ticked by, no lumbering giant came barreling after him. He brushed his hair back, relieved.

For once.

He eased up the wall, a smoke from his newly acquired pack tucked between his lips ready for his lighter.

He made his trek deeper into the prison, sporting a new limp. That man had nearly cracked his ankle when he had tripped him down. But he was astounded that he had made it out in one piece with all four—well… three—limbs still intact. His left shoulder and the residual limb of his lost arm were screaming at him in pain under his torn sleeve for being smashed into a wall, but for once having a stump had saved his ass. That man had been expecting to grab him on that bed when they had rolled but with one arm already free and no other elbow to catch, Silco had slipped right out of his grasp… Just like the reward for this favor had slipped right out of Silco’s grasp the moment his survival instinct had kicked in and he bailed.

He wasn’t a killer. But he had not been much of a miner either prior to getting his arm ripped off and yet he had managed, so… how hard could it be? Well, when your target is three, maybe four times your size and has hands big enough to crush you accidentally? When you stand eye level to their armpit? When that giant is a lighter sleeper than even Silco himself was? Impossible. 

Too bad for Silco that he had been the last person in the plan to learn these critical, life altering points. 

There had to be a better way. He did have to laugh at himself. In the five years he’d been here, this was the… second dumbest thing he’d gotten himself caught in, which was saying a lot, considering how often Silco found himself caught in such predicaments. 

He stubbed out the last of his cigarette under his boot and waited until the final stragglers and enforcers deserted the canteen. There were growing little outbreaks of clashes recently. The enforcers were trying to maintain an order and control they had never had. This prison ran on the threat of starvation and damn good exterior locks meaning that the only way out for prisoners was up. That was all. There were no curfews, no legitimate searches, not even control over the cell keys. It was every man for himself down here with a bunch of enforcers peacocking about whenever things got too rowdy for their liking, when most men here would never put up a fuss if they were just given their ration slip at the end of each work shift and left alone.

Silco leaned against the wall, watching the raindrops cling to the fencing, and waited a little longer until the cold got the best of him. He nodded his goodnights to the drunken men who had chosen to sleep outside the canteen rather than brave the way back to their cells before sneaking through the double doors to the old, rundown kitchen. He tiptoed through the storage room in the dark, using his lighter to maneuver past the boxes and cans scattering the floor. 

And then he was home. He tripped his meticulously placed locks and restrung his traps behind him, tangling one with his right hand and pulling the other tighter with his teeth until he could close the door to the closet behind him and light the lantern he kept hidden inside. It had been several days since Silco had been here, unable to afford the luxury of such a space when he had favors to repay. Favors that hadn’t panned out for him in so long he’d been desperate for this one to work. 

He shouldered into his mining coat to fight the chill. As much as he hated everything to do with those mines, his mouth always rebelled into something of a smile, putting it back on. He would always be warm on his right side and cold from the inescapable draft on his left, but he still gingerly eased his stump into what remained of the sleeve, just like his shirt. Oh, if only he had thought to take them off before… 

There had been stability in those caves. Terror and a constant risk of death, but this whole prison carried terror and a constant risk of death. At least having honest work down there meant having a steadier stream of rations, even if they were small. No need for so many favors then.

He pulled out his little bedroll and plopped down to massage and inspect his ankle. Nothing else he could do about it. It might slow him down for a few days, but lucky for him he was low on rations and would need to go back out tomorrow morning to find some so resting was out of the question.

From under the shelving, he retrieved the tin box hiding his journal and the tools and the prosthetic he was trying to build along with the parts he had collected over the years. Some things were more just odd trinkets than potential components, but none of it mattered without the pieces necessary to connect what would become his elbow, wrist, and knuckles. He had searched, he had stolen, he had traded, and then some, but nothing had turned up until this morning. 

Silco had been washing away another night’s bad ending when he’d spotted him: One of his old, unfortunate acquaintances wearing a necklace of cogs and those missing potentials under his bushy beard and Silco knew he needed them. 

And he had had them… until he got caught stealing them. And who steals from a gang when he’d already escaped being caught stealing from them before? 

Only someone foolish and desperate and Silco loathed to claim either one of those descriptors, but alas. Here he was, agreeing to kill a man he did not know for a group of men he hated to give him bolts and gears he could not get on his own with his access to the mines permanently blocked. 

He couldn’t recall what he had stolen from them the first time around, but imagined it had to be something valuable enough that they would set him up to get killed tonight. Or they were just fucking with him and knew he would come crawling back to them tomorrow empty handed. Desperate. 

He eyed the tin. Unless he planned to trade something in this box and risk it being something he had already taken from them, he had nothing to trade. And with his last favors not panning out, he was too banged up to offer anything else. Not that they wouldn’t take it, he just could not bring himself back to that so soon. For food, maybe, but for metal parts… He just needed patience…

And good timing.

He pulled the bracelet out of his trouser pocket. It looked so much bigger in his hand than it had on that man’s thick wrist. It was made with two cords of leather with a round, golden pendant and green stone in its center. How that man had not been robbed of it before tonight, Silco had only one idea. He had escaped tonight with a bruised ankle, but tomorrow… Tomorrow that man would know for sure it was missing and have a good idea who took it and would be looking for Silco. 

He sat back against the metal shelving, studying his stump. Was it worth it? Adding one more angry man to a list that stretched from one side of the pit to the other? 

If he timed it right it could be. He would have to be scarce or hiding behind the gang he sold it to whenever that man wasn’t on shift. It was doable. Most of the men here were forced to labor in the mines on shifts well over twelve hours each, everyday. That would give him plenty of time to rest and relax between hiding, and then after the bracelet was out of his hands and the trade completed, so long as he wasn’t killed for it, he would move forward as he always did. Onto the next phase. 

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Vander’s collar was blinking an angry red at him for missing the last two shifts, but he didn’t care. 

He wasn’t going. What were they going to do to him for not showing up? Lock him up? Take his rations? Beat him? To hell with the mines and enforcers. He was going to find that thieving little bastard however many days it took and break his neck, and after, they could make Vander work however long they wanted—he was going to get his sister’s necklace back. 

It was a risk wearing it, he knew, but it was all he had of her. Bags and boxes were raided and taken everyday. Enforcers could show up at any minute to tear a cell to pieces just for the hell of it in this unregulated zoo and confiscate whatever they wished while you were stuck in a mine, so what safer place was there than on his own person? 

In two months, he’d had no trouble holding onto it. Then two nights ago, he gets a visitor in his cell and it's missing. He should have been able to figure it out faster. Had he even been there to hurt Vander at all or was stealing the whole point? 

Didn’t matter. Vander found him on his third go around. 

He’d barged into the canteen and shouldered through the clusters of men gambling, eating, and doing other activities Vander would have been surprised to see happening in front of enforcers when he’d first gotten here, but it was normal now. He’d found the punk squished between two fools he’d already fought weeks ago. His hair was pulled back again, a miner’s jacket far too big to be his own draped over his narrow shoulders. And one of Vander’s fucking cigarettes in his fucking hand!

The second their eyes met, the absolute horror on that twink’s face said enough to Vander: He was dead and he knew it. 

And now the thief was running. 

Silco had fucked up. This was the dumbest thing he had ever gotten himself caught in. Worse than trying to kill this man two nights ago, worse even than getting his arm ripped off.

The deal had fallen through. The gangster was not interested in trading jewelry with Silco. Not when Silco had a perfectly fine pair of legs the man wanted to get between instead. It was a sign Silco wished he had not ignored. So he’d tried peddling the bracelet elsewhere in the hopes he could trade it for something that the gang would actually want that did not involve Silco needing a bath after. 

A jar of shine could be hard to come by and he had found one, fresh from the source, and the man with cogs and screws loved shine. Maybe he was close to sealing the deal this time. The brewer had him draped in his mining coat with a heavy hand squeezing his thigh under the table sliding ever closer to his lap so it was obvious he was still expected to sleep with someone tonight, but unlike the prior proposition, there was a second jar of shine on the table for this sleepover…

Now? He would never know. 

“Somebody must’ve kicked that Vander kid’s hornet’s nest to shit. He looks ready to kill somebody.”

“Hm?” Silco tilted his head, looking in the same direction. “Who’s Vander?” he asked, intrigued by the force of nature that walked into the canteen. Young, like him—finally—with jaw length chestnut brown hair, the broadest shoulders he had ever seen, the biggest hands he had ever seen, the thickest everything, a body built from the rock around them, and taller than every man here. Silco tried to feel a little pity for the man being forced into a uniform that was only just grazing the line of being comfortably big enough, but… Every stitch clung to every bit of bulk he had. And worse: He was handsome. All prominent, strong features and day’s old stubble… 

And then it hit him like a ton of bricks that he had seen this man before. 

No longer shrouded in the shadows of a dark cell, but this well-lit canteen, Silco recognized the man by his anger alone as it was pointed like a gun right at him. 

He’d nearly swallowed his cigarette when the man charged forward, his intentions clear. 

He elbowed the brewer off, sending him crashing into one of his goons who knocked one of the shine jars to the floor, shattering it.

“Damn it, Silco!”

And now Silco was running. 

It only enraged Vander further. Like a snake through tall grass or a mouse through a crack in the baseboard, that little shit could slip through clusters of men and tables with ease. The only way Vander could keep up was from the angry protests that echoed after the man as he slipped through them, stepping over their dice games, knocking their food out of their hands, or blocking their hidden bribes. They were only made all the more upset by Vander barreling through them like a runaway carriage through an antiques shop, hot on the thief’s heels. 

But several others were also chasing him. “Silco, you’re gonna pay for that fucking shine!”

Near the kitchen, they got to him first. As Vander cleared the distance, he saw the fastest man catch this Silco by a fistful of his tied up hair only to scream and recoil with a bloody hand. Silco was blocked by the next man, ducked under his arm, and was caught by another. 

His neck was held so tight by the thug, he was barely on his tiptoes, flashing angry, narrowed eyes down to the ugly face leering up at him. 

“Do you have any idea how long it’s gonna take you to work off what you just cost me,” the man asked him, his breath a thing of torture if Silco’s grimace was any tell.

“An accident, I assure you,” he answered, his eyes catching on Vander’s and quickly looking right past him. 

“I hear you have a lot of those.” He took his jacket back, yanking it off Silco’s shoulders. 

Vander slowed, shocked to see that the kid only had one arm. His left was a heavily bandaged stump peeking from a torn shirt sleeve with stripes and loose threads stained a faint rusty brown. The whole left side of his clothes, in fact, was stained in what had to be years’ old attempts to wash out that blood. No one seemed the least bit phased by this. Least of all, Silco.

Silco shrugged his other shoulder. “I didn’t smash the jar.”

The brewer sized him up. “Then who’s paying for it?”

The kid nodded in Vander’s direction with a simple, “Him,” before slipping out of the man’s grasp the second the thugs looked Vander’s way. That little weaselly piece of shit. 

Silco’s heart was going to beat itself to pieces by the time he finally got some distance between himself, the brewers, and Vander, finally losing them. 

He ducked low, sticking close to the wall, hellbent on getting out of the canteen. 

There was only one sensible thing to do at this point. Drop the bracelet back in Vander’s cell, hide from him forever, and sweeten himself up for the brewer for however long it would take to pay off the shine and just… cut his losses. Be patient. He could and would figure something else out in time. He would just continue to collect other things and lay low. Live. Simple… Not complicated.

He skidded to a halt at the sight of enforcers and hooked a left down the opposite corridor, relieved to find it more deserted. Only to hit yet another brick wall when he turned a second corner. He sighed, “Honestly.” 

The three gangsters smiled, blocking his path. The middle man, Rico, giggled, stroking his beard as three others joined them. They leaned against the walls and fencing. “You know Sil, I think I’ve changed my mind. I think I will take that necklace off your hands. It seems to be more valuable than I’d first thought.”

“Oh?” Fuck. “Is that so?” 

“If Vander’s willing to lose his shit over it? It absolutely is. I hear he’s been sniffing down your trail like a hound after a bleeding rabbit—Oh no, no, no,” he teased, seeing Silco’s eyes fall to the necklace of cogs and screws. He tucked it away under his buttoned-up stripes. “This isn’t a trade. I just think it’ll be funny to see him flatten you then go looking through your pockets only to find nothing there.” 

“Ah. I see.” Silco frowned, forcing his jaw to unclench.

Rico was shorter but used his bulk to press Silco against the wall, his brow arching. He extended his clawed hand. “Give it to me.”

Silco rolled his eyes, brushing his hair back, checking that the little razor sharp piece of flint was still hidden in his knot. “Well, gentlemen, your timing is off, I’m afraid. I don’t have it. Sorry for that.”

The gangster caught his jaw, trapping him. “How about we check for ourselves?” 

Silco sneered and kicked, struggling with them as they pinned his arm to search his pockets.

He had his knee in someone’s groin and his teeth in someone’s hand when he heard the first thud against the stone as a new shadow rose up to cover them all. 

Vander rounded the corner swinging. 

If not for the fencing lining the railings that circled the pit, several of the men would have been tossed over the side to their deaths to the empty arena below. They crashed against the fence and metal bars, one rising to jump on Vander’s back, the other scrambling to run the hell away for once. 

He didn’t know any of these men or why they, like so many, were after Silco. All he knew was that they were in his way and refused to leave without a fight. 

After having made quick work of the brewers, he was ready for it. Didn’t even bother to block a single blow thrown his way. He grabbed their fists and twisted, snapping wrists, he kicked the next one square in the gut, stomping him when he brandished a chain. 

The ringleader also fled. Smart man. 

When Vander spun around, Silco was backed into the corner with the last of the gang facing Vander and blocking his path of escape.

Vander made quick work of the goon, then grabbed Silco’s shirt with bloodied hands, hiking him up against the wall. His eyes glanced over a crude, little tattoo of the word ‘slut’ in thick, black ink under Silco’s stomach, but he ignored it. 

Silco held up the necklace to him, his eyes wide, hand trembling. No fight in him. Just a set of sea green eyes staring up at him through a lock of wavy, black hair, silent.

Vander growled, snatching it from him. A thousand different emotions suddenly erupted out of him. He punched the wall beside Silco’s head. He felt Silco flinch and grab the hand still gripping his shirt, but not to free himself. He held on to it as if it wasn’t attached to the same man fighting every urge within not to pummel him out of his misery. 

Vander let him go, turning to leave. He was certain that enforcers had to be on their way for all the commotion, but he was stunned by the man’s reaction.

“Wh-what?”

Vander stopped. He spun on him again, charging back. “Is that not enough? You want more?!”

Silco was staring from him to the men on the ground, his lips parted, stunned. Slowly he shook his head before seeming to come back to himself. He shook his head quickly. “No,” he answered, his voice quiet. He tucked his hair behind his ear. “I… I just appreciate…” His gaze lowered to Vander’s collar, his brow furrowing. He touched his own before pointing, his expression falling blank. “You are… You’re blinking.”

It was Vander’s turn to roll his eyes. He snorted. “Just count your lucky stars and don’t ever come near—”

“How long has that been blinking?”

“What?”

“Your collar. It’s blinking.”

Vander huffed, stepping closer. He knew he should walk away. He knew Silco wouldn’t stand a chance if he lost it on him and gave him what he really deserved rather than hitting the wall, but he was slipping. This kid simply did not know when to stop talking. “Yeah. It is blinking. It’s been blinking like that for hours now. Pretty sure it’s for the work I’ve been missing looking for you all this time. So, thanks for that.”

Silco’s eyes widened. He stepped closer, brazenly reaching to touch Vander’s collar. “Oh no… oh no… oh no… This has been blinking for… that long? And you haven’t…? Vander, is it?” he asked, his fingers in his hair again. He grimaced. “I am truly sorry.”

Vander narrowed his eyes. He clenched his fists, leaning one against the bricks near Silco’s head. He braced himself. “And why would you be sorry now?”

“Because… Janna, this has gotten so out of hand,” the man muttered to himself, gripping his hair. “That is a summons—”

“For?”

“For the,” he paused as they both stepped back out onto the spiraling platform and looked to the sound of the enforcers stomping towards them. He sighed, beginning to rifle through his clothes for something. “Whenever we mess up, like if we hit an enforcer or refuse to work, they put your collar number into the raffle for the arena to fight. You are supposed to only have twelve hours to report to the enforcers before they come looking for you, but I assume, since you have not exactly been stationary since your deadline lapsed, this is… not good.”

“You think?” He regretted punching the wall. He’d heard of the arena, heard of the fights, but had never bothered to watch the matches but in passing through the crowds. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought this man was pretty. No, Silco had the most punchable face Vander had ever seen, particularly that nose of his. He understood now why the man’s face had been bruised. Others knew what Vander seemed to be learning the hard way. 

“The matches are every ten days, always at midnight and that is… very close, I’m assuming.” Silco peered behind Vander at the approaching enforcers. “You don’t have to kill your opponent, but understand, if they are trying to kill you, it certainly will not count against you if you have to. Winning means more than just getting to live, but it also means your chances of being called again for the next fight are practically guaranteed. The point is to put on a show for the Pilties that own this place, to entertain them, by pitting two men against each other like dogs and there are not very many rules beyond that. Most tend to sneak in weapons, so be on the lookout for that as well.”

“Why are you telling me this? What the hell does it matter now? You’ve already screwed me!”

“This is a prison, sweetheart. I scratch your back, because you refrained from breaking mine. Here.” He produced a makeshift knife from his boot and hid it inside Vander’s waistband out of view of the enforcers only to make a show of pulling the tie from his hair to put the little rock he’d been hiding there into Vander’s boot. He was pushed back by the first enforcer to reach them. 

“Really, Silco?” The redhead glared from Silco to Vander and shook his head, digging in Vander’s boot to toss the rock out. “You know you go in the hole for aiding and abetting a runner.”

Vander bristled, crowding the guard. “A runner?”

Silco minutely shook his head at Vander, glancing at the knife that was still hidden. “Getting a collar page isn’t ever fun to deal with alone, Allestor. I was only trying to help him cope.”

“What the fuck would you know about the cage fights?”

“More than you, I would imagine.” 

Vander was meant to be roughed up. He could tell by the grunt the enforcer made trying to get Vander’s hands behind his back to cuff him and the shove that was meant to put him against the wall. For the redhead’s sake Vander walked himself over to it, glaring at Silco over his shoulder as the enforcer struggled to confiscate the necklace that he still had clutched in his fist. “No scratching your back, Silco. Believe me, when I catch you again…”

“Whoa, big guy,” another enforcer teased, “that sounds like a threat. Save it for the fight tonight.” His brow rose in mock surprise. He was smug, eyeing the scene. “Silco, Silco, Silco,” he griped, circling them both, “why is it that every time we find men beating each other half to death, you’re somehow always in the middle of it?”

“Oh come now, Marcus,” Silco teased, with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes as he still looked at Vander, his brow furrowed. “You of all people know the answer to that.”

The enforcer Marcus gave Silco a murderous glare, but his ears were curiously pink. He glanced at the other guard. “Toss him in the hole and babysit him until the fight’s over so he doesn’t go ‘missing’ again.” He frowned, watching Vander glare daggers at Silco too. His brow arched. 

“Interesting.” He sized up Vander, having to look up to meet his eyes. He didn’t seem to like that, but he kept his anger pinned on Silco, recovering his smugness. “Don’t worry, Sil, you’ll see your boyfriend soon enough… If he lives, we’ll make sure you two get to celebrate together. How’s that sound, Vander?” But his smile dropped with a rather strained throat-clearing the moment Vander turned that glare on him. 

Vander was near panting now, his fists ready to break through the cuffs and throttle them all. He stepped to Marcus, looming over the man. “Just get on with it.”

+

Vander had never been to this level of the pit. The whole prison had been dug out of the rock of emptied mines, branching through tunnels in all directions, save for one. And in the pit’s center, with rain and runoff a constant flow under the grated floor, the massive stage rose, caged in on all sides and overhead with wide bars. Great for locking the fighters in and for keeping the view unobscured from any direction. 

Even above from the spiral of platforms and fenced in corridors, the prisoners peered down as far as the fences allowed, giddy for the show. 

What shocked Vander the most was the arena itself. What he’d assumed would be rows and rows of bleachers or benches, only a cluster of a few dozen chairs were scattered on each side of the cage. It was a relatively small, private space. The ceiling was low, the area too dark for Vander to see more than the hem of gowns or their heavily polished shoes from the limited reach of the stage’s lights. 

He didn’t recognize his opponent, but he’d heard enough about him working in the mines. He wielded gauntlets like Vander in the caves. The sizable Vastaya stood nearly a head taller covered in purple scales with jaws like a shark’s. 

The announcer was already rambling to the Pilties, walking along outside the cage, comfortably far from reach of both men as he insulted them for laughs but still garnered applause for the fan favorite and boos for Vander, the ‘fresh meat.’

Vander’s hands were freed. They were both quickly bandaged by a little blonde about as skinny as Silco but shorter and much older in age. If Silco had had some cuts and bruises on him, this man was a walking zombie for how beat to hell he was, swimming in his stripes and rolled up sleeves. He glared as his hands shook, wrapping the bandages. 

It made him wonder if men like this ended up in this cage too against a beast like the one salivating across from him. Most likely not. His hands were too soft, even for the mines. Had to work in the kitchens or something. He felt sorry for this man nonetheless, nodding his thanks to his hunched back as he scurried off, locking the cage door behind him. 

The first bell rang, bringing Vander out of his wandering thoughts.

When the beast charged with a roar and swung at him, he almost didn’t have the will to avoid it. 

Almost. Was his sister’s necklace gone after everything he’d done to get it back these past two days? Sadly, yes. What else was worth it? He was here in this pit for life. She was dead and he would never see her again. What was the point?

He ducked and hit the Vastaya in his back, sending him forward as the crowd above rattled the fences, misting them with the droplets of rain that had been clinging to the wiring. 

The point was that the person responsible for everything that had happened to Vander in the last two days, the reason why he was here and his one single family heirloom was gone, was still breathing. 

Vander wondered for a moment as the beast got its bearings what the ‘hole’ was and if Silco could see him from there. 

The Vastaya charged faster this time, knocking Vander back against the cage, his fists sending blow after blow into Vander’s stomach. He had to sink lower to get his arms wrapped around the beast’s waist to lift and tackle him. He rolled, trying to put space between them to catch a breath. Only, his opponent was charging for him again.

He was sent crashing into the cage a second time with the wind knocked out of him. He sank to the floor as the Vastaya boasted around the cage, soaking in the applause. It lit a fire of rage under Vander’s ass that had him rising, panting for breath, back to his feet.

Silco could not believe his luck. He had been dragged to the hole, a broom closet of a cell on the enforcers’ upper level with a metal bench spanning the wall across from the cell door, and that was it. No cuff to keep him on the bench and no gag in his mouth to stop him from tormenting the guard the second the other enforcers left to watch the match. 

He sat, observing the man sitting on the other side of the door yawning, bored out of his mind, the poor thing. Perfect. 

Silco stretched like a cat and moaned, long and full of implication. He played with his hair as the guard glanced over. “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Say another word and you get the gag.”

“Ugh.” Silco pouted. “That gag always makes my cunt so fucking wet. It’s annoying, I hate it.”

“What?” 

Too easy.

“Hm? Oh, Marcus didn’t tell you? It’s not exactly a punishment to rough me up and bind me to this chair. I just…” 

“No, not that, what did you say about—”

Silco sighed, sinking lower, his legs spreading. His eyes innocently drifted to the ceiling, giving the guard ample opportunity to stare. “Oh, it’s happening already. I’m getting wet and I just washed these shorts,” he complained, pouting. “You bruised my wrist… It hurt.”

“It’s… it’s supposed to,” said in a voice so graveled for one trying his best to stay so put together. The guard crossed his arms, glaring, but his interest was piqued. One foot already stuck in Silco’s quicksand. 

“I liked it.” After a pause, Silco squirmed on the bench and those eyes were right back on him. He bit his lip, tilting his head. His wild hair did the rest. “Want to see it?”

The guard swallowed. “See what?—No. Stop talking.”

Silco laughed, low and gentle, careful of any fragile egos in the room with them. “Will I get in more trouble if I don’t listen to you? You’ve already put me in timeout.” He ran his hand up the worn stripes and frayed patches along his thigh. “Who do I see about getting new clothes? I’ve had these trousers for so long, just look at how tight they are.” He played with the top button, waiting. “I’ve had to reattach these buttons so many times, I can’t even remember…” Waiting. “Too tight… I need to breathe.” 

Waiting…

For that swallow and glance down from Silco’s face to his lap. He popped the button open, moving down to the next and those eyes followed. 

Vander spit more blood, certain he’d lost a tooth at some point, but this was nowhere near finished. 

There were no distracted thoughts pulling away his focus now. When the bell rang, he had to grab the stool he’d just been sitting on to block the chain the Vastaya was swinging at him. Silco had been truthful about one thing. There were no clear rules about weapons. When the beast had pulled that chain from around his neck and started using it like a whip, none of the enforcers batted an eye. 

Instead, the shadowed audience was buzzing with excitement with Vander’s and the beast’s blood splattering near their expensive shoes. Their cigar smoke clouded the air like fog, adding to the bitter taste of copper in Vander’s mouth. He wasn’t sure if it was raining overhead or if he was soaking with sweat. 

The chain caught on the stool, ripping it from Vander’s hands. Fine. He braced himself, lifting his arm for the chain to wrap around his wrist for him to catch it. He pulled the beast off balance and careening towards Vander’s boot. 

The ground shook when the Vastaya collapsed. 

The applause surprised Vander. Mostly because he was swaying on his feet, exhausted. He took a moment to look up at the crowds and down at the exuberant shadows seated around the stage. The beast growled behind him, also looking around them. He clawed his way to his feet, roaring in a rage to see the crowd turn on him. 

Those eyes zeroed in on Vander with a new drive. This wasn’t a game for the Vastaya any longer. He wasn’t playing with a toy, he had been truly challenged and his winning streak was in jeopardy. 

Vander’s heart sank, his energy zapped. They weren’t going to call an end to this until one or both of them were getting dragged offstage in a bodybag. 

By the time Silco had his trousers loose around his thighs, the guard was standing against the cell door, gripping the bars and his baton. 

Silco was idly petting his little hooded cock, watching the rope of slick stick for his finger over and over, playing with it. “You don’t have to be shy…?”

“Steven.”

“Steven,” Silco purred, dipping his hand lower for more slick to play with. “I know working here, it’s not everyday you get to see one of these… and with the work loads Marcus gives you all, when do you ever have time to play even when you’re off?” He nodded with him, oh so full of sympathy for the poor, poor man.

But he received no answer. That wouldn’t do. 

Silco licked his fingers and stood, pulling up his pants enough to walk to the cell door, leaving nothing but the bars between them. His hair fell forward like closing curtains as he looked down, watching his hand trace the bulge in the guard’s pants, holding back a laugh of triumph when the guard reached through the bars to tuck his hair behind his ears to see his face like a true romantic. 

“That’s one hell of a tattoo.”

Silco’s eyes narrowed, his jaw tight, but he forced as sweet of a smile as he could. “Think so?”

Steven nodded, brushing his knuckles over thar awful, little four-letter word. “It suits you. You’re so slutty—”

“Steven.”

“Hm?”

“We can play whatever you want,” Silco whispered, smiling like a siren as he guided the guard’s hand lower. “Go on.” His eyes fluttered closed with the most put on sigh he could muster, ignoring the nagging repulsion of unwashed Piltie hands anywhere near his sex, but he had a mission.

And it had absolutely nothing at all to do with grey eyes or chestnut brown hair curling in sweat, or how flushed Vander’s face was in the throes of rage, or the shape of his lips even when snarling down at him, or the rough baritone of his voice… 

No. Strictly… self-preservation. Vander was going to win, after all. Men like that simply were not built to lose. “I just need one small, insignificant, little favor from you, Steven.”

“I-I can’t let you out.”

“Oh, of course not. I don’t want you getting into trouble over me.”

“What is it then?” The guard looked ready to give Silco the world. 

Silco hummed, giving him a genuine smile.

Vander was losing. He struggled as best as he could but couldn’t find the right purchase to wrestle his way out from under the Vastaya’s headlock. 

He could feel himself slipping, his vision fading in and out as he fought for air. With the beast’s weight on his back, there was nowhere for him to go but sideways, his hip lighting up in pain as he rolled onto something hard.

Silco. He growled with the effort to roll any further, just to give himself enough room to reach into his waistband for the knife Silco had hidden there. 

It was… an odd contraption. The Vastaya tried to grab for it as Vander held it at arm’s length, trying to figure out the spring mechanism. The beast choked harder, hellbent on just snapping Vander’s neck if he couldn’t reach the knife when its blade of a sharpened kitchen knife sprang up from the handle. 

Vander stabbed blindly, hearing the Vastaya screech in pain before he was freed enough to catch the Vastaya’s arm and pin him. He couldn’t take any chances. He couldn’t risk another round.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he pushed the blade into the beast’s neck, slicing it open. 

He pushed him away, crawling on his back to get air and to get away from the dying man. Vander almost couldn’t believe that he was alive. He stared down at the bloody knife in his palm before the uproar around him registered. 

Some were celebrating, others were fighting, flipping over their betting tables and cigars, shouting about rigged games and rematches.

Shouting specifically at the lead enforcer, Marcus. The man was staring at Vander from the edge of the lit space, surrounded by pompous elites waving money around. His expression was impossible to read. Vander didn’t know the man from a hole in the wall. Maybe he’d met him when he’d first gotten here, he couldn’t remember. Certainly nothing that would elicit what Vander could only interpret as suspicion and anger towards him. He didn’t look like a man who’d just lost any sum of money, but perhaps one who simply had fully expected Vander to lose. 

When he left the arguing guests to enter the cage, Marcus only spared a glance of inconvenience at the dead Vastaya before signaling to his guards to retrieve the body.

He knelt down in front of Vander, snatching the knife from his limp hand with a handkerchief, examining it. “Where did you get this?” 

Vander had to spit more blood on the floor to speak. “Don’t know. Maybe I made it myself.”

Marcus sighed like a bull. “Never mind. I look forward to seeing you die in the next match.”

“Now why would I go and do a silly thing like that?”

Marcus dangled the knife in front of him again, his brow arched. “You think I don’t know who’s capable of making something like this? If you keep putting your eggs into this one’s basket, you’ll come to see all of them crushed before you know it.”

“I just got my head knocked around for who knows how long, so you’ll have to run that by me again. Explain it to me like I’m a toddler.”

“Funny, but you’ll see. Your bitch Silco has more problems than a cat has lives, and those problems will become your problems—if they haven’t already.”

+

Vander hissed, groaning as the cold water hit his back. He stood in the middle of his cell, using his undershirt as a rag to wash away his and the beast’s blood. It ran down his legs in rivets and into the grated drain in the floor when he dumped the rest of the bucket over his head. It wasn’t enough. He knew he still needed a good scrub, but it was all the water he had for now. 

As he squeezed the last drops of water out of his shirt to towel his hair, there was a small commotion out on the walkway that he chose to ignore until it presented itself right at his cell door. 

He was honestly surprised to find that there were in fact perks to winning his match. 

“Compliments of your new ‘patrons,’” Marcus explained, dumping a crate of blankets, foods, and medical supplies near his cot when he and several enforcers barged in. Two of his guards hauled in a fresh pail of water. “And no, you aren’t obligated to share any of this with your cellmate.”

Vander had to limp himself to his cot, not bothering to cover his nakedness as his hurts finally began to catch up with him. “I don’t have one.”

Marcus whistled like he was summoning a dog. Silco was led around the corner, gagged and handcuffed to a guard. Of course. His hair was still down and his clothes looked a little less put together. 

Vander shook his head. “And who is he supposed to be the compliments of?”

“Me,” Marcus proclaimed, smirking at Silco. “Since you two got along so well earlier, and from what I’ve heard from quite a few of the prisoners, you’ve been dying to get to know him better for some time. My treat. You’re welcome.”

Silco glared a hole into the side of Marcus’s head, his fist balled in his cuff. He took one look in Vander’s direction, saw him naked, and whatever color he had to his pale skin vanished entirely. He anchored his stare at the ground. 

Vander sighed. “And what, pray tell, am I supposed to do with him?” 

“Whatever the hell you want. Hell, have him clean your toilet, he’s yours—on the condition that you just keep yourself out of trouble beyond this cell and that you’re ready to fight once your next match comes around. You’ve got some important people curious to see if you’re a one note or if you’ve got more good fights in you. You get a few days off from the mines after every match to recover, but only just that,” he teased, “so… don’t overexert yourself breaking in this dirty, little thing. Take your time. I insist.”

The guards laughed together, some ribbing each other like teen virgins hearing their most sexless friend make a raunchy joke for the first time. 

Vander smiled with them, nodding. “What if I’d rather bend one of you blokes over instead, hm? The blueberry to your left’s got an awful lot more meat on him. He’d satisfy me just fine. Blondie behind him with the beard looks like a screamer. I liked that too.”

The guards fell silent, but Silco was quietly laughing behind his gag, his right shoulder shaking, pleasantly entertained. 

“Looks like you’ve got a mouth on you,” Marcus said, flatly. “Something in common with your new friend.”

Once the gag was unbuckled and the cuff removed, Silco narrowed his eyes on Marcus with a devious glint and head tilt as he wiped his chin. He asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “Could you tell us specifically what you know about my mouth, officer?”

Marcus snapped, raising his fist, but he stopped himself from punching Silco. Only to have to stop himself from backhanding Silco a moment later when the fool smiled in the face of the enforcer’s already paper thin restraint. The enforcer turned back to Vander, attempting to mask the calming breaths he took as he approached him. “You’re here for murder, correct?”

“I am.”

“Good.” He crossed the short space to the accompanying cot. He hand cranked the pulley for the cot’s chains, rolling the bed up until it was flush with the wall. He locked it closed. “We’ll send someone to clean up for you in the morning if you need it.”

“That’s… considerate.”

Silco snorted, unable to look more bored by Marcus’s spectacle. “It’s harassment. All of this is.”

Marcus ignored him, smiling at Vander as if they didn’t also hate each other as he and the enforcers left, locking the cell behind them. 

Vander had to laugh to himself, completely unable to grasp why or how his night had taken this turn. 

And Silco had the fucking nerve to light one of the cigarettes Vander was sure he’d stolen from him. 

He got to his feet, groaning as his muscles protested. 

From his spot leaning against the furthest corner, sea green eyes flicked up from the floor, watching Vander come closer. Silco released the breath of smoke in a sigh. “I have something for you.” He tucked the cigarette between his lips to free his hand. He pulled Vander’s necklace out of his boot. 

That stopped Vander in his tracks. “How the hell did you…?”

Silco only shrugged his right shoulder again, his eyes pointedly looking anywhere other than at Vander. “There is no greater joy in my life currently than upsetting that man. I asked his guard for a favor. He will not be too pleased with his guard or me, but… I will handle that.”

“Sounds like you two have a history.”

He pouted as he exhaled a cloud of smoke through his nose, making that prominent feature stand out all the more on his upturned face. His brow furrowed. “Something like that,” he muttered, relaxing a little.

“Hm.” Vander nodded with him, securing the necklace around his wrist again, finally feeling like the world wasn’t spinning quite as out of control anymore. But he still needed one more thing to make everything even itself out. 

His hands were throbbing like they hadn’t in a long time, but after everything he’d had to fight for in the last twenty-four hours, wrapping his fist around Silco’s throat was a comfort. He pressed Silco’s back to the wall, curious to see how the snake would try to wiggle his way out this time. 

Only this time, when Silco reached for Vander’s wrist, his rather sharp nails dug into Vander’s skin. His eyes narrowed, teeth bared like a cute, little shark’s when Vander took his cigarette back before Silco had a chance to jab it into Vander’s skin. “I take it that you’re still upset.”

Vander took a long puff, savoring the smoke before he crushed it out on the wall beside the man’s head. “A little.” He pressed his fist lightly to Silco’s stomach, knowing it was mean but he felt mean. He wanted to gauge what a hook might do to the man and winced at their size difference. His fist covered more than enough to make one hit very bad news and they both knew it. He felt Silco start to panic in little puffs of quickening breath on Vander’s hand and how his stomach quivered just the slightest bit, trying to escape the press of that other hand. 

Silco's expression softened. He sighed as he looked Vander over, swallowing. “Fine.” His fingers caressed over the angry red divots his nails had left. “Allow me to make it up to you so that we might start fresh.” 

“You think you’re gonna bat your lashes at me and I’m gonna just… let everything slide?”

“I think,” Silco shrugged as best he could under Vander’s hands, “it’s worked well enough so far, wouldn’t you say?” His hair slid through his fingers as he teased, his smile… private and wicked, and imperfect with chipped front teeth that were oddly endearing. Disarming. 

Vander gritted his teeth, squeezing Silco’s neck harder in answer.

It took everything in Silco to swallow past the tightness in his throat and the painful press of his metal collar against his clavicle, but he eased his hand over Vander’s. He nearly lost his nerve over how small his own hand felt as it covered little more than Vander’s knuckles. 

Not like a child’s small, but like he was another creature entirely set apart from the titan Vander was. Like a nymph. Hell, even a bird, with bones just as hollow and weightless… brittle in this man’s grasp. 

Silco pushed on, nonetheless. “I don’t mind, you know.” 

He dropped his eyes, making his intention known even as he internally panicked for a moment at the size of Vander’s cock. “There is a reason I was brought to you, but why does it have to be for more violence when you have already exhausted yourself?” He petted the fist still pressed against his abdomen. “You have proven that you are worth taking care of. Let me take care of you… Clear your head a bit and then we can talk this out,” he soothed. 

He didn’t even have to pretend this time. Bruised and battered as it was, Vander’s rugged, muscular body and handsome face were still making his sex impossibly wet. He wanted him in his mouth. When he flicked his gaze back up, that sneer had relaxed, but that brow was still furrowed, that hand still squeezing. 

“I don’t mind,” he said softer, carefully caressing the back of Vander’s hand, feeling the blood scabbed on his knuckles. He wet his lips. That softened the brow. 

Taking a step forward loosened those hands just enough for Silco to slowly slip free, and for a moment, those calloused fingertips had caught on his jaw and his ears. His hair had slipped through Vander’s fingers, sending a tingle down his spine. 

He sank to his knees, only letting his gaze drift from Vander’s uneasy eyes to the man’s hands, ready to bolt the instant either one of them shifted. He kissed a line from Vander’s navel down into the forest of unruly washed curls, hesitating when those hands balled into fists, but they never moved. 

He panted out a little silent laugh. Spaying a wild bear had to be easier than this, surely. He had been told that this man had just ripped another man, even bigger than Vander himself, to shreds and here Silco was, with a stone wall at his back, no exit, guiding Vander’s heavy, stiffening cock to touch his lips, his eyes still stuck on those bloody hands. He kissed his crown, sparing a glance at a length he could almost wrap his hand around, but Vander moved suddenly. 

He flinched as Vander braced his elbow against the wall overhead, his head in his hand. He had his other hand cupping Silco’s jaw, but not at all threatening. He could see Vander’s face, but could not read his expression with his bulk blocking most of the light. His chest was rising and falling rapidly.

Silco could feel the tremble in his hand. Emboldened, he reached for Vander’s cock again, ready to work, only that hand would not let him move and Vander would not take a step forward to close the gap, his eyes still closed. 

“Vander,” Silco called up to him gently, waiting for his eyes to open again. “I don’t mind. In fact… I might want to.” He arched his brow as Vander’s own at last released their furrow in favor of something more… uncertain, but not uninterested. Once again, Vander’s hold relaxed enough for Silco to move. He lifted Vander’s cock, kissing a line up the underside to the sound of Vander’s stuttering breaths. “Would you still deny me this if I asked for it?” 

The thumb grazing his lips was an interesting response, but one Silco knew well. He released a heavy breath, wondering for a moment where and when he had been holding it in, but thought little of it. He let his mind wander instead as Vander’s cock filled his mouth. 

His eyes watered almost instantly. The weight on his tongue and the press at the back of his throat was overwhelming, but Vander’s taste was not unpleasant at all. He moaned, pleased when it made Vander’s breath catch. He could feel the man’s cock twitch and jerk as he pulled back to lap at his slit and the precome beading there. 

Vander’s hands tickled as they threaded through his hair, startling him enough to spare him a glance. The man still had his head pressed to the stone, but his brow was furrowed again, his lip caught between his teeth, finally letting himself enjoy it. 

Silco could only close his eyes and brace himself for the inevitable shift. All the anger Vander had been carrying would transfer to those hands caught in his hair and Silco would be trapped, forced to take as much as hard as Vander felt he deserved. It would spiral from there, surely, into more bruises and torn clothes in need of patching up in the morning… but it was either that or a beating he knew he could not handle.

Except, when Vander’s hands caught his hair, it was to pull Silco back, like a leash stopping him from taking more down his throat. When he gagged, Vander pulled him off a little further. Confused, Silco tried to meet his eyes but they were squeezed shut. Was the man close to coming already?

Silco reached for his balls, but that only elicited a moan, loosening Vander’s grip. His hips moved in the smallest, shallowest thrusts, not running away from release at all. Silco gradually sucked harder, bobbing his head faster. Again, Vander welcomed it, but when Silco gagged, those hands eased him back, his thumbs caressing Silco’s jaw.

He pushed those hands away, freeing his mouth, his cheeks flushed red. He had to blink to force his expression to look normal when Vander cracked his eyes open at him in question. 

In the lowest rumble, the man asked, “Am I too rough on you?”

Silco fought back a glare, forcing a smile, as he had to remind himself that the heavy slick he felt sliding past his folds into his underwear was a normal reaction and a good one, strategically. “Of course not—No, no,” he teased, placing Vander’s hand on his throat and the other on the back of his head for emphasis when the man tried to pet him again. “Stop holding back. I won’t break.”

He had to pull Vander forward by his leg and press his own hand over Vander’s to get the man moving when he swallowed him down, unable to fathom why he was goading the man again. It was obvious he would break. If Vander listened to him, that hand at the back of Silco’s head would suffocate him, and yet when he gagged, Vander just eased him back again. 

When he looked up, Vander’s face was turned skyward, his mouth open in bliss. His hold shifted back to petting Silco’s jaw and cheeks with his thumbs, but his fingers laced behind Silco’s head. 

Completely in control. All the power in those hands was still right there, still capable of turning this any way Vander wanted… and yet what he wanted clearly was to be careful with him.

Silco moaned in frustration at how good it felt, squirming and uncomfortable in his soaked underwear until his orgasm caught him by surprise. He realized he had his hand twisted in the bottom of his shirt. It was the only thing that had stopped him from reaching into his pants. 

He could admit it, this was hot. Vander was… a very attractive, powerful man. 

He could work with that.

This was a mistake. Vander knew. Silco had won. The moment he’d let him talk, it had been downhill from there. And that cocky little shit knew he was good, knew Vander would fold. He wasn’t just pretty, he was sexy, his eyes, his pout, the annoying way he played with his hair—the very fact that his hair was so long and curled the way it did—and the way he was sprawled on his knees, moaning and bobbing on Vander’s cock, gripping his t-shirt, his nipples hard under the worn fabric.

And his voice when he’d told Vander, “I won’t break.”

It was so tempting to simply lose control and let his lust take over. Vander couldn’t even recall how long it had been since he’d done anything other than fight with another man. He was starving for this. And he was pretty sure he and Silco were around the same age, but Silco wasn’t heavier than a sneeze and was about as wide as Vander’s thigh. Still, he was sure Silco knew his own limits and was trying to push past them. If Vander did get rough, was Silco telling him that he could take it? Maybe… Hell, he’d probably tattooed ‘slut’ on himself. 

Vander was exhausted, he was hurting, he was starving having missed nearly every meal these last two days. He hated fighting. It was what got him locked up here in the first place and now he was expected to fight again, all thanks to Silco. All he should do was drag this curse of a man over to his cot and pound him through it, into the floor. Wear him down and teach him not to stir so many pots and cause so much trouble. 

But he was exhausted and he was hurting and every minute of every day was filled to the brim with roughness and aggression and trouble. If this was for Vander and what he wanted? What he wanted was a moment to drift away into something soft and gentle that didn’t remind him of this hell of a place or of the senseless violence that had brought him here. 

And the heavy-lidded eyes that gazed up at him from under wet lashes, waves of black, and the soft moans caught between the stretch of even softer pink lips and Vander’s spit-soaked cock? It was all a vision and pleasure that gave him just what he needed to release his knots of tension and enough of his stress down Silco’s throat as he came, slow and easy. 

His cock slipped free, its tether of spit cut short as Silco wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It took Vander a moment to catch his breath, his stare caught in Silco’s gaze. His pupils were blown, his chin wet, and his cheeks flushed. Lips a little puffed. But there was caution in Silco’s hard brow and stiffening shoulders. He was hunching ever so slightly as if he expected Vander to still pummel him right where he knelt on the ground. 

Vander rummaged through the crate for the medical supplies, tossing one of the rolls of gauze at Silco to catch before he brought the rest to his cot. He pointed his chin at the space beside him, calling Silco over. “Talk.”

Silco arched his brow, slow to rise and come forward. “Have I convinced you that we got off on the wrong foot?” 

Vander winced as he began to rub salve into his bruises. “Hell no. You stole from me. You set me up.”

Silco tilted his head. “Unintentionally.”

Vander watched him tuck one end of the gauze between his thigh and calf so he could unroll it with his hand over the areas Vander covered with bandages. “Unintentionally stole?”

“No.” Silco expertly cut the gauze with his teeth and tied it off, moving on the next. “I had no idea you would be dumb enough to risk your life for a piece of jewelry, but then again, I ended up doing the same, so… Is it your wife’s? Would she really be that upset if you lost it? It’s not like she would know.”

Vander glared, his jaw tight. “My sister’s.”

Silco grimaced. “She would have been better off keeping it with her than letting it go to a place like this—”

“She’s dead. She was murdered.”

Silco let his shock and regret show for only a blip of a second before tucking it back in. “Oh. I see. Well, my apologies for your loss. If I had known it was that important to you, then—”

“Then what? You wouldn’t have robbed me—a total stranger whom you’d just failed to kill—had you known that I wanted to keep my possessions?” Vander had to look at him sideways, wondering just how deranged this man was. 

Silco huffed with impatience. “Very well.” He shook his hair back from his shoulders, his chin upturned to bare his neck. “Choke me again. Strangle me to death. It’s awfully intimate, but do what you must.” 

“Now, hang on—”

“No? Water under the bridge, then,” Silco declared, leaning down to cut the gauze on Vander’s thigh with his teeth and tie it before the man could speak, though his gaze was momentarily distracted, lost in Vander’s naked lap. “It’s even big when it’s soft,” he murmured. “Ridiculous.”

His aches wouldn’t let Vander move very fast to get up and grimace his way into his nightshirt, but covering up seemed to help Silco refocus. 

Silco lounged on Vander’s bed with a steadying breath, making himself comfortable. “Seeing as how we are roommates, I would be willing to strike up a simple give and take with you in exchange for your… ‘influence,’ let’s call it.”

“Influence?” Try as he might, Vander couldn’t stop his mind from racing back to their sex, realizing that they had in fact just had sex and if he wanted to, it could happen again. Worse perhaps, he wanted it to happen again. Right now. Silco was already on his bed, offering it. If his mouth had been heaven, he could only imagine what else… He shook his head, his turn to lose focus. “I… I don’t have any influence.”

“Sweetheart, Dregor, that Vastaya you fought? He was undefeated seven times. You showed up and defeated him. Permanently. After already fighting two gangs and wrangling me in after two days? When Marcus had been looking for me for months in his own prison? You will have influence, and it will inspire less fists near my face. That is all I need—Well…” he grimaced, “also, if you could break that lock and lower the cot back down for me? I could pick it myself, but they confiscated my pins. Help me and you can have… honestly for the trouble I’ve caused you?” He frowned at the floor. “Whatever you want. I don’t mind.” 

“I understand.” Vander nodded, making up his mind. He made quick work of the lock, straining even more muscles, but he’d deal with that. He tossed one of the blankets and pillows onto the cot and pointed his chin at it. “Over here.”

Silco, again, was slow to rise and walk over, his mask of confidence cracking momentarily, but he sat on his new cot without a word. He started to unlace his boots, but paused when Vander walked away. Vander wasn’t too surprised by Silco’s confusion, but Vander had made his intention clear. He had his wants, but he needed nothing but peace from this man as he eased back onto his own cot with a sigh.

He glanced over. “If I wake up and you’re standing on my bed like last time, I’m breaking your legs.”

Silco blinked.

He sat up. “Listen, kid—”

Silco recoiled. “Kid? I am quite sure I am older than you.”

“Whatever the case,” he stressed, “it’s obvious you’ve got… ‘issues’ that I can only assume drive most, if not all, of the bad decisions you make. You’re in trouble, yeah?”

Silco looked ready to argue, but he stopped himself, eyeing the door. He waved his hand flippantly. “Here and there.”

Vander figured that was as good of an answer as he’d get. He sighed in frustration, though not at Silco. He just wished his skin didn’t blush so easily thinking about that damned mouth of his. “What you—we… It was good—It…” He tried again. “If you need someone looking out for you, you don’t have to do that with me. I’m not demanding it, is what I’m getting at.”

Silco eyed him with suspicion. “I told you, I don’t mind.”

“I do. I mind.”

Silco narrowed his eyes, but he was otherwise guarded, unreadable. “That’s awfully sweet of you. But, you have what I… might need, and I have what you want. It’s a trade. That’s all.”

“Silco, I’m not going to force you.”

“Consider it a thank you, then.”

“Fine. It’s a deal, but I have rules. Do not go around starting fights just because you think I’ll fight them for you. I won’t. Any fires you start from here on out are your problem.”

“Promise.”

Vander lied back down. “And if I catch you trying to steal my smokes, or anything for that matter, whatever the hell this is between us, is done. Understand?”

“Loud and clear… Goodnight.”

Vander closed his eyes, not the least bit surprised when he heard Silco move. 

He cracked his eyes open. “Leaving already?”

Silco was standing at the door. He wrapped his arm around his chest, sighing in frustration. “They padlocked us in? What if the pit floods?”

“Then I guess we drown—Don’t look at me. They did that for you to stay put, is my only guess. Care to explain why the head of the enforcers has your name at the top of his shit list?”

No response.

“Where you tryna run off to this late, anyways?”

Silco bristled, saying nothing. He wrapped himself up in the blanket and curled up on his cot with his boots still on, eyeing the cell door as if he could force it open with his mind.

Vander drifted, watching him and wondering all the more. What was Silco hiding and why the hell was he getting involved?

+

Chapter Text

+

Marcus always enjoyed his walkthroughs at dawn. Watching the sun rise and illuminate the sky in the distance to then bathe the upper floors of the western side of the pit in golden light, it made this feel like a completely different place. 

At least, that was before prisoners decided to just sleep in the open-air corridors, passed out like bums on the streets of the undercity. It was bad enough that he had to duck past some of their hanging clothes to get through the walkways, but having to step over grown men in clusters was over the line. 

He banged his baton against the fence, pleased to see them startle awake, angry but alert enough in their drunkenness that working wouldn’t be a problem. “When’s the last time any of you washed? You reek.” 

“Oh, fuck off, Captain Piglet.”

Marcus turned to the other three enforcers following him, feeling rage coil up his spine. “Make a note to shake up the brewers this afternoon.” He bent down to see the prisoner’s collar, smirking as the man’s whole demeanor shifted the moment Marcus read off his collar number. “62-987. Add him for the raffle. Anyone else want a laugh, your collar can be put in, too.”

He didn’t bother sticking around for the excuses and begging and apologies. These men were getting too comfortable, sloppy. Production was adequate, but it was obvious they had far too much leisure time on their hands. They were spoiled. Dumping their shine would help remedy that.

His banging had woken up more of the men further down who were in their cells. One spit at his feet through the bars. “We’ll put both of their numbers in the raffle. Make it a little interesting.” 

Nothing was going to ruin his spirits, not yet at least. He still had a walkthrough to complete and the day had hardly began. Anything could happen, but there was one thing he was looking forward to this morning, optimistic over what he would find, even if rationally, it was completely irrational. 

But he hasn’t seen very many whores come through this prison like Silco, arrogant and utterly clueless about the hierarchies of men, but they all learned eventually. Some more brutally than others, some he’d actually felt sorry for. Their compatriots had even mourned them. He knew the brutality Vander was capable of. Marcus was confident that no one was going to mourn Silco. 

Granted, this prison would be in a bit of an uproar by the evening, given that there were in fact not many whores like Silco in this prison, young and as desirable as he was defiant. ‘Different’ in a way that had once had this prison in an uproar, to say the very least. His death would certainly hurt the morale of the miners and make work for the other whores more taxing… “On second thought, let’s hold off on the shine crackdown for a few days. We need to gather more information first, in case they’re hiding it somewhere we don’t know about.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Marcus imagined as he walked what he would find. He was a little hopeful that Silco wouldn’t be dead. He didn’t particularly enjoy seeing someone like him brutalized, but a part of him also knew it to be for the best, for all of them.  

He had to stand in front of Vander’s cell for what felt like far too many minutes to be normal, but he was struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. 

On the right, Vander was snoring, open-mouthed like the lumbering idiot he was, in his cot, his feet damn near hanging off the end of the bedroll.

But on the left, Silco was also sleeping, on a pillow that wasn’t his, wrapped up under a blanket that wasn’t his, on the cot that should have been inaccessible. He was fully clothed, with only one boot somewhat unlaced, but both were still on his feet. Not worse for wear in the least. He was sleeping… peacefully. Utterly relaxed. Not a care in the world. 

Had Marcus been played? Vander couldn’t be smart enough to pull something off like that, but Silco… 

Marcus turned heel, taking a step away.

“Sir, the cell’s still padlocked.”

He stopped, glaring at a crack in the wall. “You’re right. Where’s my head gone?” 

The loud rattle of the chain pulling free woke Silco with a start. He looked around as if he didn’t even remember being brought here, until his eyes met Marcus’s. 

But there was no smirk. No comment. Not even the ease that he’d slept with. His eyes weren’t clouded with deep sleep. He was sharp as always, but… cautious. Wary, as if he was waiting for Marcus and the guards to drag him out by his hair and toss him into the cell of a brute who wouldn’t hesitate to do what this giant fool didn’t seem capable of committing to.

Good. Silco was learning. And this arrangement was still new. Maybe Vander hadn’t bitten last night because he was injured, but soon. 

Marcus smiled, giving Silco a wink, satisfied when Silco only frowned in return. 

+

A man had died in the mines. Vander had only been able to drag the workman's arm out before the heavy beams and roof overhead came down. He could still feel the man’s grip in his hand as if he was still holding on to it. 

The mine hadn’t even shut down for the night to check for more weak spots. They were simply ordered to clear out the debris, toss out whatever of him they found, and resecure the tunnel. Just like that.

Needless to say, Vander was not in the mood for anyone’s bullshit tonight. 

Naturally, Silco would be in the thick of it.

“I don’t think you understand,” he heard Silco's voice drift from the left as he made his way through the crowded canteen, “I don’t have to do anything you ‘tell’ me to do, Lamar, least of all for such a meager offering.”

Vander paused, glaring over. Out of the handful of men seated and standing around the table he only recognized the battered blonde from the match. He was jittery, watching Silco from his chair with a bitter expression, but he wasn’t the one arguing with him. 

The heavily pierced, round man spit tobacco sludge in a cup where he stood just a hair taller than Silco but of course was twice his size. “Since when did you get so cocky about pay?”

“Have you not heard? I am under new management now. And given that I was correct about the rock becoming unstable, you must understand that my terms have changed.”

The man pointed his chin at the banged up blonde. “Deckard’s willing to do it for free.”

Silco rolling his eyes made the blonde’s face light up beet red, positively seething. “Yes, of course Deckard’s willing to do anything to keep your hot temper cooled. Too bad you broke his leg so he can’t go anywhere at the moment now, can he?”

Lamar growled and Vander knew, once again, that Silco was stomping on thin ice and he’d have to jump in the freezing cold water to pull him out. 

Silco, of course, was unphased by Lamar’s warning, even as the blonde shrank just hearing the sound. Silco blinked, his chin upturned like a brat with his head tilted in that condescending way that more often than not seemed to invite one’s hands to wrap around that exposed throat and throttle him. He played with his cigarette, his arm bent over his middle as if he were a man used to crossing his arms if he still had both of them. “Fine. Send someone else—find someone else, who can fit, and then convince them that your little ‘route’ is not collapsing as we speak. Fix it, then we’ll talk. Otherwise…” He shrugged his good shoulder.

It was Lamar’s last straw. 

But before Lamar’s man could do more than come at Silco with his hand raised, Vander yanked Silco back by his shirt and backhanded the goon into the table. Lamar and the others took a sensible step back. 

Silco quirked his lips in a sweet little grin at Vander, still twirling his cigarette. He shrugged at Lamar again. “Fix it.”

Lamar spit his tobacco at Vander’s feet, glaring at Silco. “I don’t have to do shit. Keep being Vander’s bitch since that’s all you’re good at. Fucking coward. Too scared to do an honest man’s work, you’d rip your arm off and slink around like a snake behind bigger men, sniffing for scraps. Psycho.” He was covered in Vander’s shadow.

“Beat it,” was all Vander could manage through his gritted teeth. 

Silco hummed, amused as the man and his crew stormed off with poor Deckard limping behind them on old rusty crutches and a gauze-wrapped splint. “They never seem to understand. I didn’t do it for the mines. My job was easy. I miss it… come to think of it.”

Vander stepped back. “You did that… to yourself?”

Silco shrugged again, toying with the bandages covering his arm’s stump as he walked. “Not my finest moment, I will admit, but when your collar is the one they are paging for the arena, faking a cold will not get you out of it… The mines were the furthest thing from why… And silly me for hoping that maiming myself might have taken some attention off of me, but no. For that, perhaps, I should have aimed for my face. Do you think I would get more pity than catcalls if I gouge an eye out or slash my cheek open? Are people aroused by that sort of thing?”

“Why would your collar get paged? Aren’t you under the legal weight limit or something?”

Silco huffed. “No weight limit, but I was under the legal age. A ‘clerical error,’ they said, but one that cannot ever happen again, at least. It is unmistakably illegal to put a disabled man in… just like it’s illegal for the guards to fuck us, or for us to bribe them. But those damned clerical errors, I suppose. Men like you must truly piss them off… You actually enjoy beating men to a pulp… No ‘clerical errors’ for you to worry about.”

“This fucking place…” Vander shook his head, taking his helmet off. “But, how the hell do you do something like this to yourself?”

“As opposed to doing nothing and someone else ripping my head off?”

Vander was a little speechless. “Silco, that’s… That’s mental, honestly.”

Silco spun on him. “I’m sorry, are you here for murdering one person or was it several? Is your cock not continually in my mouth because you killed a man in a cage? But you  are disappointed in me for not wanting to die? Don’t you dare look at me like that.” 

“Whoa!” Vander quickly waved his hand. “Of course not! I didn’t mean it like—”

“Why would I tolerate your judgement when I have gotten more than my fill from everyone else for years?”

“Years? Why do you still keep it bandaged?”

Silco stared at him as if he’d just launched a tirade of slurs at him. “Do not wait for me tonight,” he clipped, “I am not coming… which, I suppose, means neither will you.” 

“I’m just trying to understand! What the hell…?” Mystified, Vander watched him storm off. 

And just like that, Silco was gone. 

In the handful of days that they’d shared the cell, Vander found it quite commonplace for Silco to disappear for several hours or for Vander to wake up and see his cot empty. 

Except, nearly a week had now passed and Vander hadn’t seen him at all. 

Not once had he given so much as a hint to where he went or what he was doing when they weren’t… ‘together.’ This was especially true when Vander would ask him simple questions just to pass the time. ‘How was your day?’ ‘What did you do this morning?’ Nothing but vague answers or no answer at all, just some smart ass remark that threw Vander off every time. 

It had only taken Silco a day or two to realize—even before Vander himself did—that taking down his hair and wearing it loose made Vander so hard he couldn’t think straight. It would end any and all hope of questioning. He would just muse his hair and suck Vander off to put him to sleep. Vander was trained like a dog at this point.

But he was wide awake now with no distractions and as much as he couldn’t quite fathom why, he was bothered by that troublemaker’s absence. 

Shouldn’t they be keeping up appearances if nothing else? 

Things had been tense in the pit since the enforcers started going after the brewers. It had only intensified since the collapse in the mines, but what specifically was happening now, Vander had no clue. Cells weren’t being raided anymore, but enforcers were continuously funneling in and out of the raw underbelly of the pit beyond the arena and runoff streams where natural caves and the unknown took over. Maybe they were investigating some escape attempt or smuggling. No clue if Silco was involved. Vander just knew that whenever he didn’t have both eyes on that kid, that busybody was somewhere getting his sticky fingers caught where they ought not to be. 

Unless Silco had found someone else’s ‘influence’ more to his liking. 

It was a nagging little thought in the back of his mind. He should be relieved if that were the case. Losing Silco only meant losing whatever headaches he’d had in store for Vander and the unwanted attention aimed his way whenever Silco was next to him. 

Which was why when Vander’s shift ended, he was far more invested in the talk around him than in any further thoughts about Silco as they cleared out. He lifted his helmet to wipe away his sweat with a rag, letting two men shoulder past him. 

“What’s he offering in terms of pay? I’m not trying to get my number tossed into that raffle for doing his dirty work in the middle of a crackdown if it’s not worth it.”

“He’s saying a free jar of shine whenever you want.” 

“Sounds desperate.”

“‘Cause he is. You hear about that twink that got crushed?”

“In the mine? When?”

“No, moving product for him. I heard he had him slinking through a hole in the wall when the whole tunnel flattened him.”

“Oh shit… Did he lose the shine too?”

“Yup. Buried with him in the wall somewhere. Lamar’s freaking out ‘cause that was the only way in or out for his whole supply. He needs it back open and he’s willing to do anything to make that happen.”

Lamar. Vander knew that name. 

‘Find someone else who can fit and then convince them that your little ‘route’ is not collapsing as we speak.’  

Vander felt his stomach drop. 

All this time he’d assumed that Silco was missing because he didn’t want Vander to find him, but what if he hadn’t been given a choice? 

He followed the two miners, gathering as much as he could. Somewhere near the bottom of the pit, away from all the runoff and pools of rainwater, the brewers would indeed smuggle their shine into the cracks of what could only be loosely called a wall. It was a massive rock face the size of several buildings with gaps here and there underneath that led to small tunnels and caves beyond. The smaller the better to keep both enforcers and would-be thieves out of their stock. 

He would have never known what to look for if not for the quiet echo of voices and the soft glow of torches coming out from one gap between the boulders. 

He grabbed Lamar as soon as the man climbed out. 

His goons were smart enough not to follow him where he was tossed off the rock into one of the streams. 

“What the fuck?!” He scrambled to his feet. “What did I do?”

“Where’s Silco?”

“How the hell should I know? What’d you do to run him off so quick, huh?” He smirked even as he stood there soaking. “He should be up in the service rooms on all fours getting walked like a dog—Well, threes, since his arm’s gone—”

Vander’s punch sent him flying back into the water. He turned, storming towards the others. He yanked the shortest up by his jacket. “Where is Silco?”

“We don’t know, man! We haven’t seen him since like, day before yesterday, right guys?”

“But you have seen him?”

“Yeah! Lamar brought him down here…”

Vander’s blood went ice cold with fear. He shook the man. “What happened?”

“He was supposed to be small enough to get Deckard out, but…” He shook his head, his eyes wide and his stare faraway. “Nothing’s getting Deckard out… Then enforcers showed up trying to bust us but all the shine’s still under there with Deckard so they had nothing to catch us holding… We haven’t seen Silco since, man.” 

He startled when a hand gently clapped his shoulder. One of the miners that had filed out of the hole covered in mud pointed his chin towards the higher rock. Vander dropped the man he was holding, following the other a short distance off. 

The man glanced over Vander’s shoulder as Lamar stumbled his way back to his men. “Don’t need them knowing where he goes when he’s trying to get away from them lot,” he explained, his eyes heavy-lidded.  He pulled a flask out of his jacket, drinking the shine down like water. “Couple of us stay late in the canteen and end up sleeping there most nights. Seen him disappear behind the kitchen after nightfall from time to time once those rowdy hooligans and enforcers all clear out.” 

Vander eyed him with suspicion. 

The man took another drink, shrugging. “He’s a decent enough kid. He don’t bother us and we don’t bother him. He don’t need to be down here in any of this mess, that’s for sure. So when you find him, make sure he doesn’t wander back down here. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass that Deckard’s dead, they’ll care just as much if Silco follows him. They just want their booze.” 

+

The pit was a different place after dark. Where men had roughhoused and conversed or traded food and trinkets on the platforms in the daylight, only those looking for sex and something harder than shine lurked. 

Vander found himself posted in a deserted corner nearest to the kitchen, smoking his third cigarette, playing with the necklace clasp on his wrist. He watched a whole group of enforcers sit conversing with each other at two tables near the front as if they weren’t responsible for a single soul here. 

He watched other prisoners sneak shine out of their jackets and get so drunk they passed out right where they’d collapsed from their own tables and benches, including the man who’d guided him here.

Still no Silco. 

Once the enforcers cleared out and the kitchen shut down for cleaning, he gave up on waiting. He’d smoked half the pack of cigarettes just sitting here, wondering why the hell he cared so much. 

He had a life sentence to do because he deserved it. He wasn’t here to worry and stress over a man with no survival skills, no matter how good his mouth was. He wasn’t supposed to be enjoying himself or anyone else’s company, and it surprised him to realize that he did in fact enjoy Silco’s company, but what warmblooded man with eyes wouldn’t?

Only, when he saw him emerge at last from the storage room’s double doors, all thoughts of saying good riddance flew out the window. 

Had Vander looked this bad stumbling out of the Last Drop completely wasted the way Silco was sliding down the door to get through it? He was like a newborn deer, trying to get his legs and feet to cooperate, but all the while, he never spilled a drop of the nearly empty jar of shine he was holding. 

His poor balance wanted to send him backwards, but he let himself stumble sideways against the doorframe without a bit of worry for where he might tumble next. As if he’d done the same dance countless times before.

It seemed, however, that he was used to this part of the canteen being vacant this time of night. He took one careful step but caught Vander out of the corner of his eyes.

He stilled, his shoulders visibly sinking as he exhaled. He turned with the face of a man resigned to a grim fate until he recognized Vander. His relief was evident before his mask of indifference could hide it. “Oh… It’s you,” he slurred, his eyes closing, obviously more ‘shiny’—high—than drunk, given the color inside his jar. 

Black like tar, it was the hardest, strongest of the three brews, Vander had learned, and the most dangerous. It stunned Vander to see someone Silco’s size still breathing, let alone carrying on a conversation and standing, all at the same time, with the jar near empty.

“You were expecting someone else.” That much was clear. 

Silco stood up straighter, blinking slowly. “What are you doing here? Thought your bedtime was 8 ‘o clock.”

“Funny. I was looking for you.” He knocked on his helmet for emphasis. “All evening, actually.”

“Mm,” Silco hummed, looking Vander up and down as he regained his balance. He shook his hair out of his face, stumbling back a half step in the process. “Come to kill me again, have you?”

“Water under the bridge,” Vander replied, surprised by the softness of his tone, “remember?” 

The flash of Silco’s poorly hidden grin said everything. 

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed, Sil.”

“You wait to bed me when I'm inebriated? I am disappointed, Vander.”

Vander blushed furiously. “You know that’s not what I mean. I think you need to sleep this off and forget ever smuggling for Lamar again. It’s not worth it. You know that.”

“I won’t be smuggling this time,” he argued, squeezing his eyes shut to get the words out. “I would be crawling in to place explosives… That pay is worth it.”

“The pay is just more shine.”

“Mm.” Silco roused himself with effort, his brow furrowed. “And shine sells.”

“Shine that Lamar may not even have anymore. You can’t be considering this, Sil. It’d be suicide.”

“Well,” he drawled, “I think that you don’t actually own me, and that what I do is not any of your business.”

“Of course I don’t, but look at you. You’re a mess. Where have you even been sleeping?”

Silco hummed again. “None of your business. And perhaps I haven’t decided if I’m going to take the job yet.”

“Sil, come on. Look, you can have—”

“My goodness, Vander,” Silco teased, exasperated, “you have not seen, let alone touched, my front hole or the back one and already you miss me this much?” His playful coo came out more like a keening moan.

A moan that almost went straight to Vander’s cock. “Your what…? Hold on. Are you—” He looked Silco over. “Oh! Holy shit—Wait no!” He practically had to slap himself to focus, refusing to think of holes of any kind. “Actually, that has nothing to do with anything!”

“Admit it,” Silco purred, as another lock of his hair slipped out of the messy knot, obscuring his face, “you want it.”

Vander blushed harder. “I want you to not end up like that Deckard bloke, that’s all.” 

That seemed to dampen Silco’s high more than a little. He toed at an old cigarette butt with his boot, sniffing as he watched it roll away. “Deckard didn’t know a damn thing about tunnels and caves, but I do. That paranoid, jealous fool thought I was going to replace him as Lamar’s lapdog so he goes and does this to impress him—with a broken leg! A leg that Lamar broke himself! Idiot… They never want to listen to me, and then this happens, and now they are all hounding me. They won’t leave me alone because I am the only one small enough to fit through those tunnels… Deckard probably got stuck well before the thing collapsed. And now anyone else who might fit is too scared to attempt it, even if we make the tunnel wider this time… So what choice do I have?”

“You should follow their lead and not get involved. The risk is too high and you know that, Sil.”

“In the end, we all take risks down here,” he slurred, blinking slower and slower. He took another drink, visibly deteriorating the moment he swallowed it. “Difference is some of us don’t have… many other options. Ever consider that, smart man?”

“Whatever you need, I can help you get. Chances are, I’ve already got it. You wanted my protection, right? Safest place is in my cell. You need food? I’ll get it. Just gotta ask. I’m not a mindreader.”

“And I am not pathetic like Deckard and the rest of those… limp-wristed fairies who just bend over in the service rooms all day and hope someone will feed them. I do not need anyone to take care of me, Vander. I do just fine getting what I need on my own.”

“But what if you didn’t have to?” Vander paused, not entirely sure himself what he was proposing or why. 

“Well,” Silco drank the last of the shine down, eyeing the layer of black slug left in the bottom of the jar. He swayed on his feet as he lifted his chin defiantly even as he had to force himself to take each breath, wheezing with the effort, “you should have thought about that before you made fun of me.”

“When did I—” Vander balked, but stopped himself. They were getting nowhere with Silco plastered and regardless of whatever was misfiring in Vander’s own head, the original point still remained: making sure Silco didn’t end up as worm food in one of those collapsing shine caves. 

Vander came closer, making Silco stumble back against the doorframe. “Something I said hurt your feelings, dove?” He asked gently, his voice low and gravelled, “Is that what this is all about?” He leaned his arm against the wall, his hand over his heart. “I’m sorry, Sil.”

Silco’s eyes widened, darting all over Vander and his close proximity, his blush covering every bit of skin Vander could see. He swallowed, licking his lips. “G-good, Vander.” His voice was so deep and husky, he had to clear his throat. “You should be… very sorry.”

“I am.”

“Are you? You’re not even trying to make it up to me.”

“What can I do, Sil?”

His shrug threw him off balance. He let the jar shatter between their feet when he dropped it, reaching out to hold Vander’s arm to steady himself. He didn’t seem to notice the noise or mess around their boots, his eyes glossing over now. “You should suck my cock some time,” he challenged, laughing to himself.

That brought Vander’s blush back tenfold. He cleared his throat. “So you do have a cock? Because earlier, you said…” He asked, earnestly, “How do you have both?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Vander sighed, massaging his nose bridge. “Are we going, then?”

Silco had trouble keeping eye contact. His gaze slipped down to Vander’s mouth under his heavy lids, unable to climb back up after a few attempts. His blush only deepened when he realized Vander was aware of this. He shook his head, making himself dizzy. “No. ‘m not going.”

“Alright.” Vander grabbed him, tossing him over his shoulder. “Off we go, then.” 

Silco went stiff, speechless as he was carried. 

Vander half expected him to be unconscious for how still he was until Silco’s hand snaked back to dig those cat’s claws into Vander’s throat. 

“Vander, I will stab you if you do not put me down immediately,” he panted, gasping. “I do not like this.”

Vander pried his fingers off, wincing. “I guess you’ll have to just stab me then. Not gonna let you drink yourself stupid and die in a hole, Sil.” He was confident that Silco couldn’t reach his boots if he had another spring-loaded knife hidden in them.

But then he remembered that damn hair tie and the flint rock.

Silco moved like a drugged cat, trying to wiggle free, but Vander caught his wrist before he could reach for his hair, pulling him across his shoulders like a towel, his other hand still clutching an angry, bucking leg. 

“You alright up there, Sil?” Silco’s rage-fueled growl wiped the smile off his face. Vander walked a little faster.

“No, I’m not alright! You’re going to make me vomit all over you, you dumb dog! Put me down! You cannot treat me like this! It isn’t fucking fair, you son of a bitch!”

Vander was grimacing through Silco’s teeth in his shoulder when an older man missing an eye stopped as Vander passed by him. The man kicked Vander in the shin, nearly sending him crashing down with Silco head first. 

Vander grunted, stumbling as he turned in question. The man was shaking his head at him, his expression full of accusations as he said, “You all treat him so poorly… Giant mongrel.” 

Before Vander could respond, they heard Silco’s quiet sobs turn to snickering and then into a full belly laugh. The older man looked confused, watching Silco’s whole body shake in amusement, not distress. Nervously, he glanced back at Vander and quickly hurried away. 

Vander scowled, glaring after him, realizing how this all looked, as Silco continued to shake on his shoulders. 

“A giant mongrel,” Silco wheezed. “Oh! I almost peed myself.” 

“Well, praise Janna for your strong bladder. Now who’s gonna apologize to me for my hurt feelings?” 

“Giant mongrel,” Silco teased in a breathy voice, wiggling, “unhand me, filthy beast, you shan’t steal me away!”

“Funny.” Vander lowered him down, having to hold him by the back of the neck and his waist when he instantly buckled. “Alright, Sil. Hang on.” The drunken man never stopped giggling, even as Vander had to pick him back up, carrying him in his arms. 

Silco was asleep by the time they reached the cell. He’d snuggled into Vander’s warmth, his hand tucked into Vander’s shirt, a little smile still on his lips.

Vander didn’t want to put him down, knowing Silco would curl up into a cold little ball the second his body heat was gone, but also… That much shine in his system honestly scared Vander. The last thing he wanted was to lay him down wrong and have the man stop breathing or drown himself in vomit in the middle of the night.

So he sat on the cot with him, tossing a blanket over them both. He set down his helmet, lamenting all the dust and dirt on his clothes. He glanced from the unlocked cell door down to the sleeping man and sighed. “Don’t run off on me, Sil.” 

He closed his eyes, the sound of Silco’s sweet laughter still lingering like an echo in his ears. 

+

Silco slipped through the cell door in the late afternoon, cigarette in hand. His mind was in a thick fog that honestly had little to do with shine.

He had woken up in Vander’s bed, after a blackout, from several days of heavy drinking. 

Years ago, this would have crushed him. Waking up in another man’s bed with no memory of what had happened, particularly if it had been with a man like Vander. 

Except, Silco had woken up alone, fully clothed. Even with his boots still on. An empty bucket had been placed on the floor next to the cot and a little bag of food sat on the pillow next to his head. 

Odd. Extremely odd.

They were not friends, they were barely cellmates. He knew nothing concrete about Vander, other than he scared men, himself included. Vander had a way of making all men feel small, but didn’t quite seem to be fully aware of his power. Not yet, but once he did, he would be truly dangerous. 

In spite of this, a very small part of Silco had hoped that Vander might be different. Just in the touch of naivety that peppered Vander’s reasoning and questions alone, namely his concern over Silco’s arm. All the usual scumminess Silco had to deal with, Vander simply did not seem to have any of it in him. 

Not yet, at least.

But if last night was any proof, he was different. 

So… Now what? 

Vander’s next fight was coming up. The whole prison was buzzing. That was a good thing. It meant easier access in and out of their cells with them so distracted in the canteen or working. 

His new opponent had tried to go to the enforcer’s floor the moment his collar started blinking, Silco had been told. He didn’t personally know him but he had seen him fight. This man had the majority of the prison excited to see him go up against Vander. That was a bad thing. 

Silco breathed a quick little sigh of relief after getting the lock picked before the voices he heard turned the corner. He slipped into the room, making his way to the shiny thing that had caught his eye in the patch of sunlight. He grabbed what turned out to be a poorly hidden straight razor, pocketing it. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him when he left, onto the next find.

Naive… Vander very much was. Silco knew he had put a target on the man’s back the moment they’d sat together in the canteen. That day after Vander’s first fight, the poor man was stiff and sore and in need of an extra hand to get around… and it told the others who Silco had hitched his wagon to and that Silco was off limits again. 

It was how he had been able to simply reach out his hand and have Rico put the cogs and screws right in his palm without bartering, without a fight, without a single word apart from Silco’s very polite ‘thank you.’ It was how Silco was able to walk right past Lamar and the brewers and not be hounded about going into their tunnel deathtraps.

It was freeing. It was also, most likely, temporary. 

He sat glaring at the jar of honey-colored shine he had spotted but could not reach. These men were clever. They had it tucked under junk that would require two hands to remove it. Annoyed, he left with everything else he had stolen from the cell.

Silco knew the odds were slim that a man like Vander would lose but any odds was one too many to get comfortable. Vander was not some mythical nightmare come to kill Silco now, no he was just a man. A man who did not take the best care of himself when he was busy hunting Silco down, he had learned. This time truly had not been Silco’s fault, but the point remained that Vander had gone straight from the mines, skipped his dinner and stayed up half the night looking for Silco, forgetting that he had other priorities tonight, one in particular that could be life threatening. 

Did Vander miss his mouth that much? Silco knew he was gifted. He had driven men a little crazy before and had a few who were still quite upset over his career change, but he had no clue what to make of Vander… or of his own senseless, involuntary eagerness to please that man.

It was, after all, why he had spiraled in the first place. Failing to save Deckard was one thing, but he had already wasted most of his supply drinking away his hurt feelings before Deckard had gotten himself flattened. It was natural, he supposed, that he would care what Vander thought of him over anyone else. They were close enough in age and he was attracted to him. He wasn’t immune to making poor decisions in this circumstance, however wasting two jars of shine on an attractive man was something Silco vowed to never repeat under any circumstance. He had been with men who had thought less of him than the dirt between their toes and so long as they had provided Silco with what he needed, he didn’t give a shit. So why did he care what Vander thought? Was he not also supposed to be a means to an end?

Too many things to consider and not enough cigarettes to smoke him through them all. As he made his way to the commissary with his little loot, he supposed that everything depended on what happened in that cage tonight. So long as Vander won, Silco was good. If he lost, well… 

The commissary booth was crowded when Silco arrived. He had to hang back and wait for several familiar faces to scatter before he made his move. First step was a kiss on the cheek for Benzo’s men standing guard and then his most charming smile for the man himself as he was led behind the door. The metal rolling shutter was slammed shut over the counter’s window and locked as the crowd nearly rioted at the sight of the closed shop. 

Silco took a moment to admire what he could see of the stockpiles, knowing that what graced these shelves in this front room wasn’t the half of it. “Since when did this place get candy?”

Benzo shot him a put upon glare over his glasses before he tossed Silco a little yellow-wrapped sweet from a painted tin. “Your first and your last.”

He tucked it away for later, joining the hefty man and a stocky guard on the old worn couch. He shouldered out of his striped shirt to get to the bag hidden underneath. It made a clunk when it hit the table, piquing Benzo’s interest. 

The man laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the blokes bought this shit this morning, and you nicked it all.”

It was Silco’s turn to give him a look. “I only hit the cells you listed.”

“Mm.” He eyed the items critically, rubbing his wolfy sideburns. “Pretty slim pickings.”

“Have you got anything for me or not?”

“I gave you candy! What else?” he teased. He snapped his fingers at the guard to move out of his way as he walked the length of the shelves and pulled down a little box of cedar wood soap and rummaged in a trunk. “You gonna cut the sleeve off of this or have your new daddy tie it into a bow for you every morning?”

He sighed in relief, catching the soap and dark orange sweater Benzo found. It was a big, lumpy thing and came from only the gods knew where, but the knitting was thick and warm. “Any chance to keep frightening the general public, absolutely I will be cutting it off, just… later. Vander’s cell is freezing at night.”

“Speaking of that kid, you know with the fight coming, that bastard Marcus’s got his guards sniffing around for you.”

Silco stared at the floor for a moment, biting back the urge to stomp his foot and yell over the fact that Benzo most likely knew—as he did all things—this critical information long before sending Silco out. “He’s still playing the game, then.” 

Benzo grimaced, shrugging. “Until you get back on your knees and cough up his tip. Reckon his wife is still wondering how it disappeared.” 

Silco huffed. “For the last time, that is not what happened.”

Benzo blinked, grinning. “He stuck his dick in your mouth and you, in your infinite wisdom, damn near bit the fucking head off.”

“Yes, but I didn’t eat it,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, ready to give stealing that jar of shine another go so he could drown himself with it. 

“Yeah,” Benzo teased, smiling, “I know. Just always makes for a better story. All the blokes with more than two brain cells to rub together are scared of the ‘shark.’ Not sticking anything they’ll miss near your choppers. Not after that.”

“Ah, I had been wondering why some of your confidants were calling me that. It’s all you, telling stories.” 

Benzo waved him off. “They’re not dumb enough to tease Marcus to his face. Wouldn’t set you up for that kind of trouble, not with enforcer scum like him. Believe me, they love you for what you done to that piece of shit.”

“Good to know.” He stood. “Well, I suppose I will have to cut this visit short, then.” 

“You’re always welcome to hide out here.”

He rolled his eyes, amused by his sweater sleeve getting tangled in his striped shirt when he put it back on. “The first and last time I hid in here, you gave me these nice, chipped front teeth because I ate the duck shipment you were conveniently hiding from the kitchen.”

“It was dark and I couldn't see who you were! For which I have apologized fervently multiple times, especially now that I know you weren’t some junkie thief. Well, not the junkie bit. Anymore. I’m very proud of you, Sil,” he grumbled, frowning down at him, “for your… sobriety and such. It’s admirable, lad.”

“Right. Could I also have—” He caught the pack of cigarettes with a smile. “Always a pleasure doing business.”

“Ed just came by for a pack and I told him I was out, ‘cause he’s an asshole. Hide those before you go out there.” He pointed his finger, his attempt to appear stern and fatherly over his glasses in his own striped uniform made all the more comical by his endless gang tattoos. “And stay out of trouble.”

+

Silco would not stay in the canteen or hide out in Vander’s cell knowing that enforcers could already be waiting for him there. 

When he found the little passageway he needed, it was blocked by two enforcers leaning with their backs turned against the wall. He rummaged in his bag for a cog and offered it to a passing man for a favor. 

The man hobbled over to the enforcers. “Oi, you two looking for Silco? He’s right over there,” he said, rushing back to the mouth of the passage to point in the opposite direction of where Silco waited. “There! He just went left down that way. What, I don’t get a reward or nothing? Not even thanks?” 

The guards shoved past him. The man and Silco both watched them hurriedly walk off before Silco gave him a wink and continued on down the cleared path. He got to the boarded up door at the end and had to pick the lock before kicking it in to get through it without overly disturbing the prison’s sorry attempt to keep anyone out.

It was dark and cold down the deserted path as it quickly turned from finished stone to dirt, its walls narrowing into nothing for anyone who didn’t know what to feel for in the pitch black darkness. 

He had to squeeze through the crack feet first and twist himself through. The rocks were like ice under his hands and bare stomach whenever his t-shirt caught on a rough patch. When the path opened up wide enough to move around, he used his lighter to see the rest of the way until the warm glow of lamplights reached out to greet him through the cracks and slivers of more failed escape attempts from prisoners long past. He stepped over rags and bones as he shivered, pocketing his lighter again to ease his way through yet another tunnel.

He was sweating by the time he made it down to the bottom level of the arena, the temperature drastically changed the closer these hidden tunnels reached to the hot springs further on and away from the opened mouth of the pit and the wider tunnels closer to the upper floors. 

The water was so warm in the streams and pools that caught the runoff from above. He had to shake the water out of his boots when he followed the deeper stream to get to the other side of the final tunnel. 

It was like entering another world, coming back. He had often thought of simply living down here, surrounded by natural rock and warm water, somewhere far from the noise and stress, farther even from the brewers and their smuggling. Getting closer, he could hear the voices of the Piltover crowd as he took the more familiar paths of the brewers around the large, free standing boulders, still carrying his boots, to reach the level above. 

Men were already gathering around the fences, making their bets. He stepped politely past their clusters as some were roasting meats over makeshift fire pits and drinking together until he found a quieter spot to tie his boots and sit for the fight. 

In the cage below, Vander was… There was no other word for it. He was hot. He had gone straight from the mines to the enforcers’ floor where apparently they had had him properly washed and possibly fed. He sat on his stool in his undershirt and uniform pants, his boots tightly laced. His hair was still wet and curling as it dried, his face freshly shaved. 

And on his hands… some twink Silco had never seen before was wrapping them for him. 

Someone new. Auburn hair in a ponytail, thin lips, a strong jaw, and a cute round nose, nothing at all like Silco’s. He was a skinny little thing, too, not a slip of muscle on him. There was no hope for his little stature, but he would have probably bulked up nicely in the mines if he hadn’t wimped out immediately and rushed onto his back like all the other ‘soft ones’ did, or they would have had him babysit a rock crusher like they had done with Silco. 

Funny that Marcus would still have service room boys pampering the fighters here and yet, he was still the only man forced to be physically locked in a cell with any of them. And all these boys had to do was run water, pat their sweat, and bandage their hands. 

It was not a matter of competition for him, but it was always a relief any time the newbies were older. No one younger than he had been should ever be brought to a place like this, but this man was awfully close. And while it was clear he had be crying not too long ago, he was smiling up at Vander, listening to the man speak softly to him under his breath.

Interesting. A potential serial murderer giving another… unlikely but still possible murderer some advice and encouragement, perhaps? How sweet. 

Silco leaned against the fence, looking down at Vander’s opponent. Also freshly washed but not shaved. He and Vander were similar in size, though he was older, possibly more experienced, possibly more of a threat, but that had been the case the last time and Vander had done well enough. He felt a little sad thinking of the injuries Vander had only just healed from and now the process would repeat itself. How many times could a body even as big as his handle such extreme abuse before breaking permanently? Neither he nor Vander could afford to find out.

He almost could bring himself to not watch when the bell rang. In his mind, he could already see Vander get hit, but when the men stormed towards each other, it was over in two blows. 

The whole prison went silent for a beat before chaos erupted. Vander stood over the unconscious man, not even out of breath, not a drop of sweat had fallen. 

“Oh. Fuck. Me.” Silco tried to clench his sex to stop the gush of slick from coming down but it was hopeless. “Holy… shit… oh.” 

So this was Vander’s output when rested and well-fed, then. 

Silco cleared his throat, remembering to untie his boots but for a moment not remembering how to untie them. He took a breath, brushing his hair back and fiddling with his hair tie. 

When he glanced back down, Vander was glaring at Marcus who was staring back at him in open horror, but between them, the redhead was unwrapping Vander’s hands, talking rapidly, happily oblivious to the war silently raging just over his head. But still present, nonetheless. 

That was enough to get Silco’s head screwed back on straight. He untied his hair and tucked the piece of flint into his stump’s bandaging before he picked up his boots. He slung them over his shoulder as he made his way back to the cell.

+

The man didn’t stand a chance coming back to the cell unscathed. Silco had stripped down to his sweater, socks, and underwear and pounced the moment Vander got the cell door locked. 

Vander’s back hit the bars when he was shoved. His open shock was a testament to his youth, unable to hide anything from Silco as he let his big body be pinned. “Is this a sign that you’re happy to see me or am I in trouble?”

“Are both possible?” Silco smirked up at him. “Vander, what was that fight?”

“You saw the match?” At Silco’s nod, Vander’s whole demeanor shifted. Any insecurity or alarm he may have felt was gone as he beamed, relaxing against the bars. “I can’t even explain it, Sil. He’d been talking so much shit the whole way there, bragging about how I was a punk and he was gonna beat my ass—even threatening you— and then we get there and I take him out before the bell’s done ringing! I still feel so…” he squeezed his fists, “energized.”

“Let me help you burn some of that off,” he purred, knowing he had already won Vander’s full attention back and he hadn’t even reached the buttons of his trousers yet. He would brave the cold stones on his knees every night if it meant Vander never paying that disgusting service room a visit.

He had the final button undone when Vander carded his fingers through his hair, sending the usual happy tingles up his spine, but then, “Wait, Sil. I wanna try something.”

“Oh?” Silco let himself be pulled back up to his feet by Vander’s overly eager hands and guided backwards to the man’s cot, his smirk slipping as realization hit. “You are awfully bold tonight.”

“I’ve wanted you like this for days to be honest. Lie on your belly for me?”

Silco felt an all too familiar spike of panic in the back of his mind, more real than it had ever been with this man. 

This was it. Vander was going to fuck him. 

He could see it play out in his mind, could already imagine what it would feel like to have Vander’s massive weight on him and a cock his size stuffed inside him. 

It was not as if he had never considered this as a possibility. His pants were off and he certainly was not ill-prepared for it when it came to Vander. He could not possibly get any wetter, particularly after that match. Hell, if Vander were to lift his sweater and spread his legs right now, he would see right through the seat of his soaked white boxer briefs and he was about to. 

How would he react? Would it surprise Vander? Would it turn him off? For the life of Silco he could not remember if he had ever even told Vander or not that he was different, but the words stuck in his throat now as Vander kicked off his boots and pants, getting naked. 

Silco stretched out on his stomach, his head pillowed on his folded arm, waiting, forcing his breath to slow down. 

Only for Vander to sit in front of him with his massive legs spread, one bent and resting against the wall, the other hanging off the other edge. He carefully hooked his hands under Silco’s armpits to pull him closer.

Vander blushed. “Don’t look at me like I’m some killjoy, alright? But I just don’t want you hurting your knees on that hard floor if you don’t have to. See?” He stroked his cock against Silco’s lips. “Now we’re both comfortable, you know?” 

Silco stared up at him, trying to be normal about this unexpected turn. “This is… harder on my shoulder. I… I can’t really use my left for much, but…” Again, he could do little more than stare when Vander folded up his pillow and tucked it under Silco’s chest to support him. 

“Better?”

He nodded, unable to say more. He adjusted the pillow a little so he could prop himself up on his elbow as well. Comfortable. Considered. Taken care of. And nestled between Vander’s warm, hairy thighs. The view was overwhelming from the bed up Vander’s expanse of muscles and wild patches of curls, up to his parted lips and hungry eyes. That sweet smile… 

Silco was… lost now. Totally out of control and once again surprised by this man who was combing his fingers through Silco’s hair and stroking his jaw in anticipation, full of tenderness even as his lust quietly burned. 

There was still ample opportunity to take back the reins. Before Vander could catch a hold of his head, Silco was grasping his cock and swallowing him down his throat to the base, sending the man’s hands gripping his hair and losing his battle not to buck into his hot mouth. 

“Fuck! Sil, wait. Hold on!”

Silco was brutal and unrelenting, his eyes watering, as Vander moaned helplessly above him. He knew the moment he let up his pace and depth, Vander would take over, and Silco refused to lose himself this time to Vander’s soft petting and gentleness. He wouldn’t even allow his mind the chance to think back to minutes before when his panic had given way to something he did not want to name at the thought of Vander fucking him. Something that was far from negative. Something too close to desire, distracting.

Distracting, like the way Silco’s deepthroating had distracted him from Vander’s wandering hands. They were not in his hair or on his ears anymore. He could feel the weight of one pulling his sweater up his lower back, but the other…

Silco moaned, bucking back against the hand palming his ass over his boxer briefs. 

Vander took the sound as affirmation, dipping his hand under the thin fabric. Too close. He touched his asshole. Far too close. Silco was still bucking, his legs involuntarily spreading as he tried to make up his mind if he should stop Vander or not, but it was already too late.

Vander was coming hard down Silco’s throat the second his hand touched his soaked folds. “Oh gods, Sil. Fuck!” 

Silco pulled off his cock, gasping, his lips and cheek and Vander’s belly all spotted with the man’s thick release as Silco’s nails sank into Vander’s thigh. He was trapped now when Vander’s hand moved from his back to grab a fistful of his hair. 

He could only moan into the crook of Vander’s thigh as he came the moment Vander’s thick middle finger pushed as deep as it could into his starving sex and pumped one, two, three times.

+

Chapter Text

+

When the first bell sounded the next morning, Vander wasn’t surprised to wake up alone. For once, he was relieved to. 

He rolled over onto his back and greeted his erection with a loving squeeze in a spit-slicked palm. If he had woken up with Silco sleeping across the room, he’d be certain that last night was a dream, but oh no. It was real, winning that match without so much as a scuff on his boots was real. Having a peaceful night, having fun even, with Silco, was real.

And Silco being as wet as a flooded riverbed for Vander was very, very real. 

He could still feel how tight and slick his pussy had been, tucked in a soaked bush so unimaginably soft, how his inner folds had curled around his finger. The firmness of his cute, little ass under his palm. Silco had been right, Vander hadn’t seen either hole yet but he’d touched them—he’d been inside one—and he was obsessed now. He wanted to touch them again, to fuck them, kiss them, to kiss Silco… everywhere. That thought had him coming onto his stomach in quick, little ropes as he hurried to finish before the second bell could ring. 

That hideous orange sweater Silco had found had been left on his bed. 

He’d never seen Silco so underdressed as he had been last night. All this time, he’d assumed he was just a scrawny little thing under his clothes, but no. He could believe he’d worked in the mines at some point and was a scrappy little shit when he needed to be. Silco was all lean, tight little muscles under soft, pale skin. 

The thought crossed his mind to get rid of that sweater, if it meant having an unobstructed view of Silco’s slim body, but that was irrational and definitely obsessive and he’d been raised better than that.

Instead, he got up to fold it for him, but found a miner’s jacket underneath it. It didn’t have to be small to tell that it belonged to Silco with its missing arm and staining, but where had it come from? 

He stepped closer, stubbing his toe on something hard under Silco’s cot. 

There was a sizable metal box placed in front of a small bag. Nosy, he reached for it, but stopped the second he noticed the series of strings and knots and unidentifiable pieces of sharp metal scraps attached from the box to the cot’s four chain bolts in an elaborate trap. 

He was impressed. He knew better than to test a man like Silco. He had a world of desires for the man but no desire whatsoever to learn how any of these traps worked. If Silco wanted privacy in his new space, Vander would happily give it. 

Silco had chosen to stay. That was more than enough for Vander.

+

Vander’s head was still in the clouds in spite of Marcus trying to ruin his week. 

“Recover from what?” The bastard had argued, right after informing Vander the day after the match that he had to report to the mines since he wasn’t injured. So much for winner perks. 

It had all been bullshit, he’d learned. The trunk full of goods had been downsized to a rucksack he’d had to personally go up to the commissary to retrieve after his shift and a few days’ extra rations, which honestly didn’t bother Vander much at all. 

Tonight, he was eager for a wash and a smoke. And if he was lucky, more of Silco’s attention.

He hadn’t seen the man much the day after the match. He’d have to remind himself to be normal when he saw him. That night had ended with a very, very red, very flustered-into-silence Silco being very unknowingly cute and very standoffish about leaving the tiniest of wet spots on Vander’s bedding as if it hadn’t made Vander instantly hard again to see it. Vander’s suggestion that they simply put a towel down ‘next time’ hadn’t helped either.

Vander wondered if they could play tonight. His exploration of Silco’s body had ended the second he’d let go of Silco’s hair and the man started freaking out about wet spots and changing Vander’s bedding and being appalled that Vander didn’t care about his little palm-sized spot. 

If he asked specifically to touch Silco… Had he asked that night? He had gone off-script, he realized. Maybe it wasn’t about the bedding and Vander was a bastard dog who’d gone too far? 

He would apologize, he decided. And then decided against it, already knowing Silco well enough that bringing it up again, and making Silco talk about it or have to listen to Vander talk about it, would be worse than simply letting it go. He would have to instead make sure that he did not lose his head again and instead let Silco lead or he would end up with more than a blushing cellmate stressed over blankets.

Vander sighed as his path was blocked. “Is this how older men flirt nowadays or can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” the arrogant man answered, sauntering over like Vander owed him money. “When are you gonna open your bitch back up for business? Some of us have been waiting an awful long time.”

“Pardon?”

“Your boy Silco? He’s been slacking. Me personally, he traded a suck for a jar of shine a few months back, only he got his shine, but I never got what he owes me.”

Vander tilted his head, chuckling. “You’re asking me to knock your head off in the most roundabout way possible.”

He took a step back. “Whatever… I’ll just get it when you lose.”

“Lose what?” But the man was already walking off. 

He didn’t even bother asking Silco about it, forgetting all else when he saw Silco on his cot, lounging in that god awful sweater and those heavenly boxer briefs again. He was scribbling in a journal he quickly closed as if he wasn’t supposed to have it the moment he heard Vander come in. “No after work trip to the canteen?”

“We got rations here,” he waved flippantly, not nearly as hungry for food.

“You don’t want to save them in case you need them later? They are rations. They are not plentiful. You should go get more.”

Vander shrugged, pausing. “Were you expecting company or something?” He looked around the room as if expecting someone to be hiding under one of their cots. “Am I interrupting?”

“No!” His eyes were wide, chin tucked as he shook his head, surely lying. He was up to something. “It’s just… out of your routine.” His cheeks pinkened. “That’s all.”

They reddened further when Vander grabbed the rain bucked and stripped down. Vander knew Silco was watching him wash, but he reminded himself that he was going to act normal and let the man approach him if he wanted anything. 

Silco had drawn his legs up, hiding behind his knees, his journal open again as he wrote. He was completely cocooned in that awful sweater with his legs even under it. All Vander could see were his socks. 

Vander turned his back, scrubbing his stomach. “What are you working on, by the way?”

“You don’t have hobbies?” Silco teased, dodging the question.

He snorted. “I’ve got one in particular that comes to mind, but you’re a little preoccupied for that right now,” he teased back, pleased by the little laugh he was given.

By the time he was toweling off and slipping into his nightshirt, they’d fallen quiet with one another. But with the constant splash and drip of the water into the bucket and then down the center drain, peppered with the scratches from Silco’s pen, it was comfortable. 

Vander glanced over to offer him a smoke and wished he hadn’t. 

Silco was so caught up in his journaling, he’d repositioned, lying on his side more with his pillow for support. His legs, no longer covered by his sweater, were still bent but spread wide and relaxed. 

The seat of his underwear was wet. Silco had gotten wet watching Vander wash. But now… 

Vander had to hurry under his blankets, rolling onto his stomach if he wanted any attempt to hide his erection before it could show itself. 

His commotion and rustling brought sea-green eyes over. “You’re not going to eat anything?”

Vander shook his head at the floor, wanting very much to eat, but not food. “Oh. No… not yet.”

Silco smiled, shaking his hair back, his head tilted, exposing his neck and collarbones. A vision straight out of Vander’s raunchiest dream. If only his lips would move to form a request for Vander to come over and eat that wet pussy through his underwear, or to slide those briefs down and fuck him on his tongue. He wondered if Silco’s cock could be sucked… Hell, Vander would die happy even if Silco just asked him to stay across the room and watch him play with himself…

“Vander… Vander?”

“Hm?”

“You don’t look very tired… Are you?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh.” A pout. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah…” 

“Well…” He sat up, binding his journal and tossing it on the bed. “I… I won’t bother you then.”

“Alright, sweetheart.” He blushed, trying to claw his mind away from thoughts of seeing the soft folds he had felt and wondering what shade of pink they might be, or if he tasted as heady as his scent was. He cleared his throat, embarrassed that he had no clue at all what they’d been talking about. 

Silco sighed and got on his knees on the floor, leaning all his weight on his bad shoulder as he reached under the cot to start untangling the traps, not flinching once when some released their tension dangerously close to his face. 

But all the while his ass and that damned spot was in the air, taunting Vander, begging him to grab him by his hips and do all the things Silco never asked him to do, all the things Vander would not do because he was going to turn his head towards the wall and be respectful. Silco couldn’t help how his body reacted and couldn’t help how he looked any more than Vander could control how he looked naked and dripping in soapy water. They’d both struggled tonight with things outside of their control, but they had survived. And they would continue to, until Silco was ready. However long it—

Silco's loud, frustrated sigh caught Vander off guard, but his glare more so. “Vander, are you ill?”

“Huh? No!” He rose up on his elbows. “Why? What did I do?” 

Silco blinked. “Nothing, Vander. You have done absolutely nothing at all tonight.” 

+

The next night went about as successfully as the last.

Vander was already in the cell when Silco slipped in right after him. Vander grabbed both heavy buckets for them, panicking that they would be naked at the same time. 

But Silco’s hair was already wet and drying and the soap was soft when he handed it to Vander from his bag that was also wet. He’d already bathed somewhere else. That was good. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Silco drop his underwear and t-shirt from the bag onto the little clothesline he’d fashioned for them in the corner and hung up his bag to dry. He came out of his striped shirt with his back turned and slipped that big, ugly sweater on before reaching under it to undo his pants. 

That damn sweater. 

“Where did you find that thing?” He had to ask, soaping up.

Silco glanced over his shoulder, his ears pink when he tucked his hair behind them. His sweater rose up his bare hip just the littlest bit when he shrugged. “That bad, is it?”

“It’s huge! It’d be big on me.”

Silco shook as he laughed under his breath, putting his clothes in the bucket to soak. “You like everything tight.”

“Hm,” he growled, husky. “You bet I do.” His gaze flicked down to Silco’s ass playfully, but just in time to see Silco’s thigh muscles twitch as he squeezed… something under that sweater before the man hurried onto his cot and pulled his blankets up tight around his waist.

Too far, perhaps? 

He finished up, dumped their water for them and hung Silco’s clothes, charmed by how tiny they were next his on the reinforced line Silco had made just for him.

But Vander was restless after he ate and Silco had his nose in his journal again. 

So he exercised on the floor in his nightshirt, needing to focus his mind on something, but still distracted, feeling Silco watch him. 

He grunted, pausing his push-ups. “You know, you’re welcome to get down here and join me.”

“I have nothing on under this blanket,” Silco stated.

Was that an invitation? Quickly Vander got to his knees, a vision already flashing in his mind of pulling those blankets back and seeing… But when he looked at Silco, his hair was tied up and usually, if he wanted something, he’d keep it down… but it had been down the night before… But it was up tonight, and Silco was giving him an odd expression that didn’t exactly look like he wanted Vander to pounce on him. If anything he looked a little apprehensive.

“Oh,” was all Vander could come up with. “Next time, then?”

Silco narrowed his eyes at him, sighing. “Right. ‘Next time,’” he said, as if there was never going to be a next time and Vander stayed up half the night turning his brain over and upside down trying to figure out where, how, and even what he’d screwed up with his mouth this time. 

He’d barely said two words to the man! 

But as the next few days passed, Vander found he had other issues pressing on his mind, still revolving around Silco, but none of them good. 

That man who’d stopped him on his way from the mines wasn’t a one-off. 

The number of dirty looks and glares Vander received was enough of a red flag to have his guard up higher than ever. When they began to accost him in pairs and packs again, he felt as if he were caught up in the same fights he’d had to deal with long before he’d ever met the man. Only these men were smart enough to talk and not swing.

“You can’t just take a piece like that off the market and hide him forever.”

He hadn’t been aware that Silco was hiding, but his nights always being spent in the cell and not off in some unknown place he never told Vander about were becoming more of the norm for him.

“Just talk to him, Vander, for the rest of us. Make him see reason.”

“And why would I ever do that?”

“‘Cause fair is fair, and you both know it.”

“Sorry, pal. Whatever he might have wrangled you into before me, has got nothing to do with me now.”

“You keep hiding him and it will.”

Not a day went by that Vander wasn’t hearing another grievance about Silco, all revolving around one specific topic. He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

It was raining heavily again by the time Vander got back from his shift and the canteen. 

Sure enough, Silco was there. He had his journal open beside him as he worked on what looked to be a new spring loaded knife if the drawings on the page were any tell.

Vander placed one of the ration bags beside the journal, intrigued by the detail of the blueprints and Silco’s neat script. “Did you go out today?”

Silco shrugged, keeping the pieces of a straight razor steady between his knees as he maneuvered a little hex between them, taking them apart. “A little while. Why?” He put on an overly sultry tone, mocking, “Were you thinking about me?” 

“Yeah, all the time.” That hadn’t been what either one of them had expected Vander to say, least of all Silco. Any other time, catching him off guard and rendering him speechless would have been comical to see him scrambling for something to say, but Vander continued, “I’m not the only one, apparently. It’s a lot of blokes here thinking about you quite often.”

Silco’s disgust was clear on his face. He rolled his eyes, pausing to jot down a note and add to his sketching. “Let me guess: the boys in the mines are still reminiscing about that time that it was so hot down there that I took off my jacket and they all got to see both of my naked forearms when I rolled up my sleeves?”

“They keep saying that you owe them sexual favors for… all manner of things.”

Silco blinked, suddenly looking very tired. He sighed, quiet for a long while, his face downturned to his journal, before he snorted. “I swear at some point I’m supposed to be flattered by their obsession and fantasies? They have three entire rooms dedicated to men who are specifically there to do what these men want and yet they would rather waste their time wishing and believing in something that will never happen… Why are they asking you though? Are you meant to be my pimp now?”

“Beats me, but it sounds like that’s what they’re thinking. Why would they think that? You’re not in the service rooms, you’re… what do you do, most days?”

“Nothing you would agree with, I am quite certain.” Silco’s grin was devious as he stood, though this time, he wasn’t running away. He simply leaned against the cell bars to look out at the pit illuminated in its rows of lamps in the rain. 

“Well, if I had to guess at least one of your jobs, judging by all these sorry blokes, you’re one hell of a scammer.”

Silco outright cackled behind his hand. “Now, I feel bad.”

“No the hell you don’t.” Vander shook his head, chuckling, but his thoughts still hadn’t been settled. “So you did promise them things, then?”

“Maybe two or three people, here and there… years ago. Nothing like what you’re implying.”

It was Vander’s turn to fall quiet as he sat on the edge of his cot, picking at his food. “Sil? I’m fine keeping you safe, I want to, but I just gotta know what I’m up against. You’re being honest with me, right?”

Silco sighed, his head tilted as he turned to look at him. “As honest as I could ever be, Vander. I will admit that with you, and that pathetic enforcer who had your necklace, I did offer, but that was only because you were actively trying to kill me and, well… I wanted you exactly the way that I said I did. But these others are false.”

“Why are they saying all this, then?”

Silco leaned against the bars, looking out. He shrugged. “Honestly? They are upset that I an in here, and that no one is on top of me, least of all you. You are ‘wasting’ me, how dare you? You are a man.” He rolled his eyes. “My inability to grow a beard makes me only capable of one thing to them and when I am not doing that thing, their world is turned upside down, the delicate balance of nature is forever torn, it’s bad enough I had my tits cut off at fifteen, blah, blah, blah… It’s not everyone here, but they are not a minority either.” He glanced over his shoulder at Vander again. “They are jealous of you, sweetheart. They will say anything.” 

Vander mulled it over, unable to wrap his head around it. He touched his sister’s necklace and sighed. “How do you put up with it all?”

Silco shrugged again, his expression aloof like a prince looking out over his subjects and inherited lands as they were sacked and burned. There were a million things going on in that head and one hell of a weight on his shoulders, and yet, everything about his poise and posture was as defiant as always, draped in pride and bravery. “It’s not just me.” 

He walked over on light feet, reaching past Vander for the man’s cigarettes, lighting one for himself before returning to the bars. “You could be someone’s father, but down here so long as you look a certain way, they will assume you’ll spread whatever hole you have for all the lads in line… Deckard had a wife on the outside, I think.” He snorted. “That bitch hated me. Most of the ‘service boys’ do. I get the brunt of the talk because, well… I don’t have to shave a beard or tuck anything out of the way for attention, so while you have those calling me a whore and slut on one end because I won’t willingly fuck them, on the other end, I have these hags who are twice my age convinced that I am stealing all their business away. I simply love it here.”

+

Silco suppressed his irritated sigh as Vander lumbered and hummed through his early morning routine.

How the man thought anyone could sleep through his clattering and dropping things, Silco could only guess the man was not used to having to share his space with anyone else. Odd for an undercity kid. 

He kept his eyes closed, nonetheless, breaths even, bundled up under his blankets, waiting for the man to leave for his shift. But he couldn’t help but lift his head and glare at the man when he closed the cell door as loud as ever. Vander gave Silco a wince and apology that thawed Silco’s ice… a little. 

For several minutes he considered simply staying in bed. The lamps outside had already turned off for daybreak, but this side of the pit did not get any decent natural light this early this time of year. He could only just see enough to move around, but not to build or see his journal with. 

He was not in the mood for much even if it were brighter. He got up, shuffled to the toilet, puked up what little he had stomached from the night before and shuffled back to bed. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but what about his life was going the way it should? Even these ‘phantom cycles’ could not be planned. He could be fine for weeks, months even, and then wake up feeling like his insides were ripping apart for days on end. Last year, he had had such debilitating cramps only three times. This year? All he could do was live with it and not panic and have faith in his doctor that his treatment was not reversible even if incomplete and that all this would ever be were cramps and nothing more. They were supposed to be normal for this stage, but this stage was meant to only last for a year or two and be gone with the remainder of Dr. Reveck’s five-capsule system.

He had had two capsules left, that was all, and he would have been done with this. With capsule four, his body would have fully accepted the hormone replacement and rejected his womb, and after a year, with the final capsule, came the removal. The last operation he needed before reassignment. Done. No more cramps, no more hot flashes, no more fevers and sickness as his body battled itself…

But that was five years ago.

Those capsules were either burned away in some other man’s system or collecting dust on one of Reveck’s cluttered shelves waiting for him, all while Silco was stuck here, never to return. 

A decade’s long transition, stunted. Forever incomplete.

It was not that he hated his body as it was. The hormone replacement and top surgery had done their jobs. He liked how it looked, he had made peace with what could not be changed. So long as these cramps never turned into any actual bleeding, he could manage this too. If anything, having an advantage over the competition here by having a ‘self-lubricating’ hole had helped him just as much if not more than it had hurt him when it mattered most, years ago, and on occasion still when he was desperate. He did not care much otherwise. 

Except when it came to that clumsy, lumbering fool who did not know how not to slam doors at the crack of dawn and who had not touched him at all since That Night. 

All he could think about was Vander inside him and how thick his finger had been and how much he actually wanted… more. He wanted Vander to touch him more, worse, he wanted Vander to make him let him touch him more, like he had done that night. There had been no chance for Silco to overthink or bail out. No option but to be trapped in his grip, to be the main focus, to feel, and it felt good. 

And Vander’s reaction had been so sudden and feral and hot and made having a damn cunt feel worth it—not for anyone else’s benefit this time, but for Silco himself.

So why had it not happened since then? 

Had the man liked it in the moment but then… changed his mind after? On days like these, his body simply frustrated him. The service boys all envied his ‘lubricating hole,’ but he was sure none of them were losing sleep at night in silent crisis over the very real possibility that the one man he was attracted to no longer was attracted to him because of his body. 

As he had said: a distraction. All of this was. Silco kicked off his blankets, reminding himself as more light filtered in through the bars that there were other, more important things he needed to focus on. He simply had no time to let some big, dumb man make him feel dysphoric and insecure, particularly not when he had the whole room to himself to work without any of Vander’s questions. 

But he was still sad and sick. Irritated and offended that he felt anything at all about the situation, but he would be sad and irritated and disappointed in himself while he kept himself busy. He had redesigned the prosthetic at least a dozen times now, and had other small projects he’d also redesigned, but he was more than fine with putting pieces together and taking them apart again and again if it meant them becoming more efficient every time. 

And as for Vander? Well, if Silco did manage to get up and get out and if he’d happened to obtain honey-colored shine that he had been microdosing himself through the last few mornings, it was not for that man at all. He was already feeling pain ripple up his spine and twist his stomach about again. He needed something to get through this.

After a nap. He pulled his blankets up and over him, curling around his pillow again with a groan as angry tears clung to his eyes but he refused to let them fall. 

Silco startled awake. Vander could only return in the evening as loud as he’d left in the morning. 

Evening. 

He groaned, remembering. He had gotten up, he had gone out, he had gotten just a little drunk, had another hot flash and took his pants off, worked a little and apparently had nodded off at some point. 

With his journal and tin box both open on the bed beside him, parts and pieces right where he had left them. Wonderful. At least he had had the sense to put the shine back under the bed. He uncurled from his ball, glaring at the gear-sized bruise on his thigh when he lifted his bare leg, before he had to shoot that glare at Vander. 

The man was hovering, touching things. “Sil, you made all of this?”

“How else would I have it?” 

Vander paused to grin at Silco’s grumpy yawn. “It’s just… What is this?”

Silco rolled his eyes, taking it out of Vander’s giant hands. He belted the leather strap around his thigh and hooked the attachment for his screwdriver into the buckle. “I can attach other things, but it’s essentially for everything I can’t hold in my mouth when I need a second hand.” He gently put it back on the bed.

“And this?” Vander pointed, refraining from touching this time.

Silco eyed him for a moment, deliberating. He pulled over the journal and flipped to the correct pages, showing him the finalized concept. “My actual extra hand. Or rather, what I have managed to build so far. This is what it should look like once it’s finished.”

Vander sat down beside him, carefully tracing his hand along the side of the box rim. “Did you work on things like this on the outside?” 

Silco smiled despite his mood. “No.” He gestured towards his chest, explaining, “My doctor let me dismantle a few of his machines when I would visit, but… mostly I just read books.” Why was he telling him this?

“My sister would have loved you,” Vander mused. “Felicia could figure out how to fix damn near anything… usually by breaking something else for the parts. Drove our folks nuts.” He chuckled. “Like when they woke up to find the kitchen flooded somehow because she’d destroyed the back of the refrigerator to fix the jukebox out in the bar. Absolute nutcase.” 

“Sounds like you were happy… before.” He nodded with Vander. He knew plenty enough about having deceased family but nothing about happy ones. He expected Vander to say more, feeling as though the man would like that, sharing things.

Instead, Vander glanced at Silco’s mining jacket hanging on the cot chain and down at the prosthetic pieces. “Do you ever regret it?”

“Are you asking if I would have rather died than become disabled?”

Vander glared. “How do you do that? Twist the simplest things and make them sound so terrible? No. I’m asking if there was any other way to get out of the cage, in hindsight, would you have gone one of those other routes? Obviously if none existed, then the answer would be no, because you had no other choice. But if you did have choices, what would you have done?”

He snorted, shaking his head. “I suppose I could have just sucked Marcus’s cock and kept my arm.” He massaged his forehead, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “If only I did not hate Piltover with every fiber of my being so much that I would never be content until every enforcer dropped dead. I don’t even care what other prisoners do to me, but them?” He shook his head, laughing again. “I would rather not.”

Vander grimaced. “What about that guard you’d made a deal with?”

Silco looked surprised that Vander remembered that. He shrugged at Vander’s bracelet, tired and envious of Vander’s limitless innocence. “I didn’t do that for me.”

Vander did not seem to know what to say to that. He leaned forward and touched his forehead to Silco’s, utterly confusing Silco as he cupped his cheek for a moment. He kissed Silco’s hairline. “I never said thank you and I should have. I would have lost my mind if you hadn’t gotten it back.” 

Silco was a little wide eyed, his skin tingling, but he recovered quickly. “Don’t worry,” he quietly teased, “you don’t have to make it up to me.” 

He was surprised how hurt he felt saying those words aloud, but more so by the hurt mirrored in Vander’s open expression. 

+

Despite his last fight going so well, Vander couldn’t help but be concerned about the one looming. 

The scare of a gas leak on the lowest level had forced the entire corridor to clear out while it was investigated. That was hours of work they were now expected to make up for if the men wanted to meet their quotas before nightfall. He could only hope his collar wouldn’t get paged tomorrow, but with a two-punch knockout under his belt, the Piltover elite would be salivating to see what else he had up his sleeve. 

He was sore, he was exhausted, and worst of all, he was distracted.

It wasn’t that Silco was lying, just hiding again. It was arrogant and silly to think the man getting blackout drunk and Vander having to carry him back to the cell that one time would be enough to convince the man to stop drinking. Vander wasn’t going to say anything to him about it. He was an adult, and didn’t seem to be out of control with it, but where was he getting the shine from?

With both the crackdown and the cave-in, shine was even harder to come by. Even the usual drunks were coming to their shifts sober and leaving sick and craving, ranting about extortionate demands to obtain it. What was Silco doing? When was Silco doing whatever it was? As far as Vander knew, he barely ever left the cell these days. 

There was one way he could be getting it… If it were Vander in Silco’s body, he knew what he would do to get it. But Silco had already told him that wasn’t the case. He didn’t want to entertain such thoughts. He knew Silco’s experience in the world was vastly different from his own and would always be. He couldn’t begin to wrap his head around how Silco got through his daily life. 

He knew how Silco’s behavior looked from the outside, but he wasn’t going to make assumptions, despite what he was hearing. 

He was doing as Silco had encouraged. He was ignoring it.

He was ignoring it everyday. 

He couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

Vander dropped his pick axe to take a swig of his water, glancing a little ways down the line as a cluster of men ribbed each other.

“You’re looking parched.”

“I am!” a man around Vander’s age exclaimed, announcing, “I need pussy.”

“Hey, Zed, come do him a quick favor.”

“Fuck you.” The man paused to wipe sweat from his brow, shrugging. “There’s a new ass up in the second service room… It’s not too bad, actually. He just moans an awful lot.”

“Eh… I know. I just miss the real thing, you know.”

“Yeah, you won’t find that up there.”

“Why do you think Silco’s so popular?” One said, lowering his voice. “Look at that thing. There’s no dick in those pants, just a nice, pink, juicy pussy.”

They all groaned. “You’re fucking bullshitting. He’s pretty, but he’s like six feet tall. His voice is deeper than yours! No way… You’ve seen it?”

“I’ve had it.” The man whistled. 

Vander couldn’t hear over the sudden loud drilling, but the conversation had shifted once the drilling stopped, the tone no longer light.

“I hear you, but listen to us, man. We’re telling you, that’s not the way.”

“Why not? What’s he gonna do if a couple of us just grab him? Easy.”

“He’s gonna cut all your balls off,” an older man down the line answered, “or at least bite off something else you’ll miss, that’s what. That boy’s not a killer, but he’s gotten more than a few men hurting something terrible for trying what you’re thinking, son. You’d have had better luck with that back before he sobered up, but that was a couple years ago. He’s not the same kid anymore.” He snickered. “The both of us used to get it nearly every day back then… Damn, I miss it. But he’s called a shark for a reason. He smells blood in the water. You gotta be a real menace for him to let you just walk up take it and, no offense kid, but you don’t have it in you. He’ll sense that a mile away and have you up in the infirmary wishing you’d listened us. Too risky.”

“Listen to the old man. Just barter with him. Trust me, you offer him something he wants and he’ll spread it for you. Much better than trying to fight that psycho for a piece.”

The men around all jumped when they noticed Vander coming at them. They scrambled like rats, but he caught hold of the one he wanted. 

“Hey, listen, brother,” the younger man pleaded, “I was just talking. It’s just talk, that’s all. I swear. I-I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore! I would never—I swear, man. I swear! He’s all yours.”

At the sound of the enforcer’s whistle, Vander had to let him go. He was seething, barely able to see straight let alone focus. 

The rest of the shift was a blur.

Silco startled at the noise, shoving his journal under his pillow and kicking his tool box under his cot before he realized who was there. “Oh… You are home early. Dinner isn’t ready yet, the children haven’t finished their schoolwork, and the house is still a mess… What’s wrong?”

“Tell me the truth once and for all, Silco. Are you a whore?”

Silco blinked up at him. “No, I am actually a Pisces. Easy to confuse, I understand.”

“I’m serious! Are you telling me the reason you’re in so much shit all the time isn’t because of what you haven’t done, but because you can’t keep your legs closed? It’s bloody dangerous as-is down here! Why the fuck would you put a bigger target on your back knowing if they turn on you, neither one of us can fight them all, and worse, why the hell would you not tell me? I asked you!”

He had to take a breath, registering too late how his words had come spilling out of his mouth all wrong by the scathing look Silco leveled at him. 

Silco could set off every explosive in the mines with that glare. “Do you honestly think I would have to smuggle or steal if all I had to do was just ‘keep my legs open,’ Vander? Me?”

“So they’re lying, then? Once again, everyone else is lying except you, right?”

Silco lifted his chin, lips thin, his voice getting softer and softer the angrier he got. “What do you think?”

“I think these men sounded like they knew you.”

“Then why bother asking me? You have the answer you want.”

“Because I want to hear it from you.”

“So you want me to lie?”

“I want you to tell me the bloody truth and not leave me in the dark for once!” Vander felt like he’d exploded, shouting as he towered over him, scorching them both for how loud he was and how quiet and still Silco remained. He unclenched his fists.

Silco opened his eyes, releasing his breath and his grip on the bedding. “For the last time, no.”

Vander sank onto his cot, exasperated, his head in his hands. “Then why… Why am I struggling to believe you, Sil? What am I missing? What are you not telling me?”

“You’re right,” Silco muttered. “Why would you believe me? I should not expect you to know me better than some nameless thugs you could not point out in a line up after I have told you to ignore them. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with this harassment for years now. I am, after all, only just your whore.”

“Oh, bullshit. You know from the beginning I told you that wasn’t why I agreed to help you. I’m just trying to be your friend, Sil, but I know nothing about you because you tell me nothing when I ask!”

“Is that what you are doing? Is this what being a friend of Vander's looks like. You yelling in my face?” He got up with his journal, carrying his boots by their laces, heading for the door.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you, I just want you to talk to me so I know what’s going on. You see how it looks, right?” Vander wanted to smack himself. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t your friends in the mines know everything about me? Have them tell you,” Silco muttered over his shoulder, leaving. 

+

A nightmare startled Vander awake the next morning, leaving him a little shaken as he always was when his sister haunted his sleep. He was surprised he’d slept at all that night and wished he hadn’t. Being awake, leaning on memories, he had control. He could run with her, listen to her sing, race her up and down the stairs, but dreams were total chaos. No control, insistent on only replaying the one moment over and over that Vander never wanted to see. 

But when he opened his eyes, he found relief in the sight of Silco sleeping there. He’d come back, though it was clear that disappearing had been on the man’s mind. There was a burned out tunnel lamp beside his cot. He’d slept in his clothes and boots like he had that very first night, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. 

He was curled in an unhappy ball around his journal again, his bed and blankets still tucked under him as if sleep had caught him by surprise, but he was here, nonetheless, and Vander didn’t have to leave wondering where his own foolishness had run the man off to this time. 

Only, as he got dressed, he knew there was still the very real possibility that he’d come back tonight and Silco wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t know until noon if he was going back to the cage, but if he was, there was no telling where Silco might run off to. 

Determined not to wake him with his clumsiness, he carefully slipped the journal from under Silco’s hand. Quickly, he flipped to the back, looking for a blank page that wouldn’t interrupt any of Silco’s projects. 

He paused, seeing a page of sketches of… himself. He had a good guess of when Silco had drawn them too: that night, in that sweater and those boxer briefs, watching Vander bathe. 

His blush swallowed him from head to toe, his heart racing, stunned by Silco’s vision of him, the places he’d sketched with intimate detail, like the muscles of his back, or the hair covering his chest and lower belly… He had to force himself not to dwell and to go to the blank pages, taking his time and reciting what he needed to say in his head a thousand times, hoping he didn’t screw this up again.

‘Sil. I’m an idiot, but we both know that. I overstepped. You don’t have to talk to me about anything that you don’t want to. It wasn’t my place to even ask. I’m sorry. I don’t want to run your life or run you away. Hope to see you tonight. –V’

He sighed, frowning from his words down to the sleeping man. In the end, he placed the bookmark and set it back down where Silco had it.  

He grabbed his own blankets and tossed them over him, his boot hitting what had to be a shine jar under the cot from the loud clatter of glass, but he ignored it. He stepped back, sighing, before heading off for the mine. 

+

Vander couldn’t remember much.

He knew he’d woken up this morning with his head in a dark space, but seeing Silco sleeping across the room had soothed him a little. He remembered the sketches, he remembered the thrill he’d felt going down into the depths of the caves knowing for a fact now that Silco really liked the look of him… That maybe things didn’t have to be awkward between them if he could just buck up the courage to tell Silco how he wanted him just as much if not more… Most definitely more. Obsessively so. 

And that was all. 

Everything else had been beaten out of him.

There were patches of bright lights and shouting, throwing punches, blocking, getting hit, getting hit again, harder… but his head might as well have been made of concrete or hot air. 

When he came around the first time, he was being carried by several men on a stretcher to his cell… and then he was staring up at a familiar, dim ceiling before realizing he was on his cot.

Bit by agonizing bit, things slowly began to make sense. 

He’d lost the match. 

+

Chapter Text

+

Vander groaned, gingerly poking at the swelling already spreading along the side of his face. His eye was damn near shut completely. His ribs were angry, but those shots to the head were surely what had done him in. 

Well, at least now, he might not have to worry about fighting again. Let some other bloke take over and get themself pummeled like he was. “Fuck me…”

“Vander…?”

He wondered if he’d still get a few days off even if he lost, considering…

“Vander!”

“What,” he groaned, rolling over and wincing even from the low lamplights. “Fuck… ow.”

It took a moment for the two Silco’s to blend into the one. When they did, it was enough to have Vander fighting past his headache and hurts to sit up. He’d never seen the man so openly spooked in his life.

“Don’t worry, Sil. ‘m not dead yet.”

Silco’s hand hovered and dropped several times before he paced. It made Vander groan, trying to watch him. He buried his head in his hands as Silco rubbed his forehead and fiddled with his hair tie.

Every so often, he would look through the bars then come back to stand in front of Vander. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine. I swear.”

“Good, because…” Silco cursed under his breath and finally came to kneel in front of him. Gently he dabbed a damp cloth to Vander’s forehead, but his hand was shaking. He muttered under his breath, “How do I even ask you to do this?” All of him was shaking. 

“Ask me what?” Vander caught his hand, sobering up a bit as Silco glanced at the bars again. “What’s wrong?”

Silco snapped, “What the hell happened out there? How do you go from beating a man with two punches to this, Vander?”

He bristled. “The hell should I know. What difference does it make now? I’m free, right? They’re not gonna make me fight again after that.”

“They have to,” Silco whispered, standing up to pace again. “Maybe they will write this off as a fluke, as surely it was. You have been overworked, maybe you haven’t slept as much or eaten as much as you should have, but next time, you will be back on top. If they just give you another shot at it—”

“Whoa, who says there’s going to be a next time? Sil, I feel like shit. I don’t want any more of this.”

“Vander—”

“Suppose I die next time.” He had to squint to see Silco, unable to read his face. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course not! Are you insane?”

“No, but my brain is kinda upside down right now, so you yelling at me like this isn’t helping.”

Silco stood in front of him again, his expression still unreadable. “You… you really do not want to fight anymore? At all?”

“Oh for god’s sake, Sil. Fuck, if they make me fight again, what choice do I have? If they make me do it, I’ll do it. But I can’t change what happened tonight, alright? I’ll just win the next one, I reckon…”

Silco nodded, still fretting. “I hope so. I really hope so.”

“Did you bet on my winning or something? Is that it? How much did you lose tonight?”

Silco laughed, but it was void of humor as he covered his eyes. “Yes, actually, I did. I ‘bet’ my entire life on you, Vander, and you lost, and now…” He took a deep breath, eyeing the bars again.

Before he glared at Vander like he was a bug under his food. He scoffed. “Now, I see how truly dumb that was. To think I could have counted on you to do one single thing right. One simple thing. What could I have expected? Look at you. You are… pathetic and weak and useless… just like I am sure you were to your sister. I bet she depended on you and look where that got her.”

Silence fell with only Silco’s shaky breaths peppering the air between them. 

And then, like a trigger pulled, releasing an unstoppable bullet, Vander shot at Silco, punching him in the face. 

Silco missed the third hit only because the first two had dropped him, but he ducked the fourth, letting it crack against the floor as he tried to escape. Vander caught him by his hair, not at all feeling the sharp rock stab through his palm as he pulled him back. 

They crashed onto the cot, his hand around Silco’s neck, choking him down. Silco tried to pry his hand away and push him off. Vander let his neck go, unable to process anything beyond the need to catch his wrist and twist his arm over his head to stop Silco from blocking him.

Vander’s fist was raised again before he heard a voice whistle to his left.

“Holy shit,” Marcus swore, watching intensely, his men wide-eyed behind him. He was gripping the bars, damn near salivating. “Oh, don’t stop on my account. This is much better than what I had in mind for him tonight. He can, however, still be removed if you want him out?” He dangled the handcuffs and gag he’d first brought Silco to the cell in. 

Vander gritted his teeth, barely able to speak. “I want you to get the fuck away from my cell. Now. Or you’re all next.”

Marcus sighed, smiling, his hands raised in surrender as he backed away. “Very well. Good luck, Silco. If he doesn’t kill you, just make sure he doesn’t permanently damage anything you’ll need when you’re moved.”

Vander heaved, watching them clear out as reality slowly crept back into the corners of his mind until suddenly, it all came crashing back. 

He looked from his raised fist—his bloodied, raised fist—down to where he had Silco pinned. 

Silco was watching the enforcers retreat, his breath labored. His face was splattered with blood from his mouth and streamed from his nose, his cheekbones, and brows. It was on the bedding. He blinked away tears from red eyes, ready to resume his fight to get Vander off of him but when he looked up, relief washed over him as he was let go. “Vander? It-It’s alright.”

Vander stared at his hands in disbelief and disgust until his vision blurred with tears. He sobbed, stumbling backwards until he was stopped by the wall on the opposite side of the room, horrified. “Oh, gods, no. Oh, gods! Sil—”

“No, no, no,” Silco said, sitting up, his voice unsteady but so eerily calm… controlled as he spit out blood. “It’s alright, Vander. Listen, breathe. You did what I needed you to do for me to stay.” He held up his hand, either in the hopes of stopping Vander from attacking again or in some misguided attempt to soothe Vander as he spiralled, Vander wasn’t sure.

Vander covered his face, crying harder. “What the fuck do you mean?” He gripped his hair, choking. “I could have killed you. Oh gods, I’m so sorry! Oh my god! What have I done? I almost killed you!”

“And you did not. You stopped.”

But he hadn’t. He wasn’t going to, not on his own. If Marcus hadn’t shown up… Vander rushed for the toilet, his stomach turning violently.

“Now they are gone,” Silco was saying with the same calm. “I needed them gone. This was… this was the only way. I swear. Vander, I’m alright. I swear. And… I am so sorry for what I said. Please, please know I did not mean any of it. I swear.”

Vander sat on the floor, unable to process anything Silco was saying. Every time he looked at him and what he’d done, he wanted to die. “No, Sil, this isn’t your fault! I bloody lost it on you. I hurt you!”

“You… you had to.”

“Are you insane? No, Sil—”

“I know you don’t understand…” Silco’s smile was a pained grimace, his teeth red, as he nodded solemnly. “You asked a long time ago if Marcus and I had history? Oh, yes. We have one hell of a history.”

+ +

Silco had twelve hours. 

He had spent five of those hours just pacing in the little crack in the wall he had carved out for himself. 

Pacing… and hiding in the shadows of his little crevice of a cave whenever he heard too many footsteps approaching this end of the corridor… and ignoring the little red blinking light on his collar. 

He could run. He could run to the highest floor he could reach and then climb over the fence and jump. In the year-and-a-half he had been here, he had seen plenty of men do it. All the same fate. None of them had been as slight as Silco was, but they already fought each other every day in the canteen, and once the red light would start blinking on their collars, they would either go to the guards to get ready for the fight or they would go to the top and jump. 

The fights had no rules. You could be placed with someone your size and wrestle until one of you tapped out, or the enforcers could throw a single baton in to make it interesting. Or you could be placed with some maniac twice your size who wanted to slit your throat or bend you over and use that knife for something else long before they ever considered killing you with it. 

There was no getting out unscathed. He could not do it.

Standing at the top, on the brightest, most open floor of the prison, Silco knew at once, however, that he had forgotten to bring his nerve with him. He could not do this either. 

The more he stood there crying, the more he knew he could not and would not do it. If he were to give up now, he could have done so long before he had had to fight so many times so many other battles on these floors and in these cells. 

He could have avoided this whole mess. He knew why his collar was blinking and it was not because of some horny, dump truck-sized buffoon who did not like hearing him say no like it usually was, or Silco forgetting himself and running his mouth off to any average guard. No one else had the power to put his life in that cage. No, this was all Marcus.

He startled at the second bell for the mining gates’ night shift changes, his last warning to report. 

Leaving the fence to get his helmet and coat, he could still taste Marcus’s blood in his mouth, having eaten nothing in the days since it had happened. 

That Piltie bastard was probably still in the medical ward now, desperately trying to have his foreskin reattached. It made Silco smile on an otherwise stressful hike down to the mines. His lip was still busted from Marcus’s punch, but Silco had won this round. If he were to end it all now, would it have ever been worth it to resist?

He let himself get swept up momentarily in the waves and whirlpools of men switching shifts, still so unused to the smell of so many heavy metals even after months of work down here. They shouldered past him, some plucking his blinking collar to taunt him while the oldest of men patted him on the shoulder, giving their condolences, and kept moving. 

“You know kid, the longer you let that thing blink, there’s a matching one up in their control room and it’s been blinking as long as yours has, most likely. You keep them waiting and it’ll only annoy the shit out of them. Who knows. Maybe the other guy is a skinny lad like you. You’ve got a chance, boy. Chin up and give us your best tonight.”

Impossible. Silco was no fighter. Not now and certainly not before being dumped here. He could dodge a knife or a rock, escape a hand-to-hand attack, but even those had proven to be harder skills to acquire than most. Running and slipping through tight spaces was not an option in a locked cage fight.

He was still going through the motions, watching the conveyor belt send him more boulders, his head empty but to the endless deafening sounds of the machine engines humming along throughout the tunnels as he sent cart after cart of crushed rocks down the tracks for sifting. Twice tonight, he had to squeeze his skinny body into the bottom of the machine with it still running to manually clear out debris before it could build up into a problem. 

He knew after weeks of working a rock crusher when to expect a jam, but he still startled when a boulder lost its struggle and shattered, sending tiny chunks flying about as it was broken down by the large teeth and gears. One shard cracked his goggles’ lens over his left eye. 

That was close… Not that it would matter much longer anyways, so he took off his helmet and tossed the broken goggles on the ground.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing? Keep your shit on, dumbass!”

“I keep telling these folks this pretty little bitch doesn’t belong down here,” some fool drunk on shine slurred, coming closer. “You should be ankles up in the ‘service room,’ waiting for my shift to end.”

“Forget him. You’re talking to a ghost. Look at his collar. He’s a dead man walking.”

Silco was shouldered against the machine’s wall, cringing at the hot breath on his face. 

“Suck my cock before you’re officially dearly departed, then.”

They all jumped at the sound of an enforcer’s whistle from down the path as the guard charged towards them. “Get back to work. All of you!”

Silco had to turn around to see who ‘all of you’ was and instantly regretted it. He meant to send the filled cart down the track as a dozen men all got back to digging but he could not move, still feeling their eyes on him. The weight of the bar was like an anvil in his hands.

Two hours left to report before enforcers would drag him out to fight some unknown man as big as any of these were. 

Damn it if Marcus was going to win watching Silco get ripped to shreds in that filthy arena. Death was not a failure, it was a strategy, one of very few dwindling options he had left if he wanted just a whisper of control over how his life would end. 

But the opportunity to jump was long gone. If he ran now, he would never get that far without being spotted by an enforcer and his collar getting zapped. He was stuck in this mine until the match. 

Unless…

Unless…  

He hated being desperate. He hated being trapped in an inescapable corner. 

He swallowed, watching the machine begin to eat another boulder and spit out smaller stones on the other side. He touched it, feeling it vibrate and shift violently, caught in the machine’s clutches. 

His hand was trembling, easing off the crumbling boulder towards the metal teeth as they bit down and then—

It was over. 

It was over in an explosion of pain through his shoulder as he fought momentarily to stop himself from being pulled entirely into the machine. It was over in a spray of red that painted the rock pile, the tracks, and spilled out of parts of the machine Silco couldn’t comprehend clearly. The buttons of his shredded coat and shirt sleeve ricocheted like bullets inside its belly, rattling to the bottom. A chorus of shouting and shock from men who had cornered him moments before only to shrink away from him now.  

He sank against the machine, needing to stay on his feet, needing to breathe. He blinked hard to clear his vision. Already he could feel the left side of his clothes growing warm and wet with blood as someone rushed over to tie something tightly around his heavily bleeding stump, but he would not dare to look at himself, knowing it was worse than anything his mind could conjure up. 

He had meant to keep his elbow, funny enough, maybe only just part ways with his hand. Only, this machine that crushed boulders every hour of everyday had pulled him in almost to his shoulder. Now three quarters of his arm were gone forever. But it was over. 

He was pushed, encouraged to hurry. He was walked past the stunned enforcers and miners, clinging to the wall when the world started to feel just a little too much like standing in a boat on the rapids, though he had never been on a boat before, so he could not be certain… 

Leaving the mine was peaceful and quiet, as if Silco were having a nice walk somewhere. Even as men moved about their lives up and down the fenced corridors and cells, yelling, laughing, oblivious to his red trails and tracks in the dirt, he could not hear them. Even the glow from the lamps looked… cozy, warm. But it was cold outside the mine, was it not? No. He did not recall it being this cold when he had left for work hours before, but he was freezing, his teeth chattering. He could not see his breath in the air, oddly enough, and when he touched his forehead, he was drenched in sweat, his hair sticking to his neck. 

Slumped against the wall of the elevator cage, he watched his blood pitter-patter like rain onto the grated floor and to the ground below. It was everywhere. Down his boot, on the path, up the corridors, and into the brightly lit halls of the enforcers. 

He had never noticed that the floors here were tiled, and the walls were bland but painted white… uninspiring… void of the soot and carvings covering every other place… 

“Hey!” The guard guiding him by his coat collar shouted to another. 

Silco slid a little down the clean wall, trying to raise his head to the voices and the sound of footsteps running forward. 

“What are you doing up… What the hell?” 

He grimaced at the loud bark of the alarm, his knees buckling as more enforcers were called. 

And Marcus.

Oh, Marcus. The look on Marcus’s face. The smug grin turned to confusion, then horror, then realization, and at last rage as all the man could do was reset Silco’s collar before yelling for him to be taken to the medical wing, a place Marcus was surely quite familiar with. He was limping. It was hilarious. 

And Marcus would continue to be quite familiar with this medical wing if he ever tried to touch Silco again. 

He was barely conscious, being dragged on the floor by his wrist down the hall, but he was smiling. Maybe he would bleed out before they reached the doctor, but as long as Marcus could see him smiling up at him, it would be worth it. 

“Marcus...?”

“What?”

“If you still want your dick sucked,” he offered, earning alarmed looks from several guards, “you can always go fuck yourself… Much easier… You know?”

+ +

Silco took a deep breath. He got to his feet and staggered. Carefully, he walked to Vander. He sat on the floor across from him, taking one of his trembling hands to hold in his lap. 

“I did this because…” He took another, deeper breath. “Because Marcus is a psychopath who figured out how to hurt me. Truly hurt me. You asked if I was a whore? No, I am not, but I… was.” He held his stump before rubbing his shoulder under his shirt. “Before I was any good at anything else, I did what I had to do. Sometimes, no matter what I do, things just do not work out any differently and I… still have to do what I have to do, Vander. Marcus despises me because, more than simply denying him—this oh, so special man of prestige and Piltover power, who promised to ‘spoil’ me—I humiliated him. He watched me accept whatever treatment I got from the other prisoners, the other ‘worthless scum’ like me, but when he thought it would be easy for him?” He shook his head. “I bit him. I disfigured him, in fact. And because I humiliated him, for years he has sought to torment and humiliate me in any way that he can,” he explained, his voice so matter-of-fact, empty. 

“When putting my collar number into the raffle for the cage did nit work, because I shoved my arm through a rock crusher? He started ‘gifting’ me to the cage fighters as soon as I had recovered. Whichever man won, I was brought to them, which was just wonderful for my already stellar reputation… until Dregor. Remember him? He won his first fight two, three months ago, and I ‘disappeared’ and no enforcer could track me down to bring me to him. I am assuming that is why Marcus padlocked me in with you. He was devastated when you did nothing to me, but you had won fair and square and Marcus wants to make sure he is always seen as fair and not insane, so I had to stay. And then you won again. And then tonight happened. And because you lost, he was going to come here and take me to the man who did not lose.”

Silco swallowed with difficulty, the blood dripping off his chin and down his throat shining in the lamplight as he put on his usual brave, defiant face. “Which means that… if having you hit me makes Marcus believe that I am suffering with you because he is obsessed with my suffering, then I am going to do what I have to do to stay here, with you. I… do not want to go to whoever did this to you,” he quietly demanded, touching Vander’s swollen eye. “He would… not be kind to me, let’s just say.” He glared at the ceiling, his eyes glassy. “But of course, in the pursuit of trying to save myself, I have utterly traumatized you, when you were already having a spectacularly awful night. Again, I apologize.” 

Vander let his words sink in, feeling even worse now staring at his hand in Silco’s lap. Blood was still dripping from Silco’s face onto it, but the man didn’t seem to be aware. His stare was far off, his pupils blown. And Vander had caused that. Nothing Silco could say could change that. He’d been through hell, for years it sounded like, and Vander had only made it worse for him. 

“Vander?” Silco touched his chest. “I trust you.”

Vander shook his head. “I should terrify you.”

Silco’s air of calm finally crumbled. “You do, alright? I am!” He closed his eyes, trying to force slower, controlled breaths, but he couldn’t manage it anymore. He panted through his bloody teeth, his pain radiating off of him. “You… have always had the ability to hurt me very easily and there is very little I can do to stop you and that is terrifying. And now you have undeniable proof that if you were to… I cannot even fight back. Not even a little. I feel…” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. He took as deep of a breath as he could before he forced it back out, seemingly calming himself down, though poorly. “My desire to be here, however, currently outweighs how I feel,” he stressed, his voice hushed rather than the yelling he clearly wanted to do. “There are far worse things that I can spell out for you if you still do not understand.” 

He pulled up his sweater and t-shirt, pointing at his tattoo. “This? I don’t even know who put this shit on me or when. Shine was how I ‘whored myself’ in the good old glory days they keep telling you about, and you have seen me with black shine. I am barely conscious if at all, but that is how I had to live, Vander. I was blackout drunk and had no control. Of course, they loved me then! When I got sober and started defending myself? That is what got me into so much trouble. Not keeping my legs open, closing them. They will do whatever they can think of to get me backed into a corner with no other way out and when they fail, they are furious. So there you have it.” He jabbed his finger at the tattoo again for emphasis. “Worse things. My face will heal, I cannot get rid of this tattoo. So, even if we have to do this again… remember that I want to be here. Please tell me you understand now. You are not the monster you think you are. You are kind and decent—You actually feel bad!” He pointed at the bars. “They do not! Understand?” 

“I… yeah.” Vander swallowed. “O-okay.”

“Good. Now,” Silco paused, frowning down at the blood dripping on Vander’s hand. He quickly used his sleeve to wipe it away. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

“Sil?” Vander swallowed the lump in his throat, accepting Silco’s reaction to cower from him when he reached for him. 

He held Silco’s face, pressing their blood-spotted foreheads together as he promised, “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry. And I’m never losing another fight again.”

Silco scoffed, trying to pull away. “That is impossible, Vander.”

“For you, Sil? Whatever it takes to keep you safe. Alright? Look at me. Please? You’re not going anywhere. Whatever it takes, I won’t lose.”

+

Silco glanced over from his cot, making out Vander’s sleeping form in the morning light. 

He rolled onto his back and squinted up at the ceiling. He was still struggling to see out of his left eye, but a blur was better than the black spots he had gone to sleep with, so he would not complain. There was much to complain about… but that was never going to get him very far. He was in a bed he chose, under his blankets that had been given to him at no cost to his person, and he had been able to sleep last night in peace. 

So he did as he always did the morning after a particularly bad night: he reminded himself that it could be worse, that he had lived through worse. He swallowed his vanity, reminded himself that all wounds healed eventually, and avoided looking at Vander’s little mirror over his broken sink while brushing his teeth as gently as he could to wash the taste of blood out of his mouth. 

He had no kisses for anyone’s cheek today. Benzo’s guards took one look at his face and neck and Benzo closed the commissary down at once as none of the men hovering in line made a fuss either, equally stunned. 

Benzo hefted his large belly through the cramped space, smacking his guard’s thigh to get the man to move, but Silco did not bother to join them on the couch this time. 

Benzo grimaced. “Son, I know the boys and I hold our own weight around this place and we’ve got our muscle, but… if you’re asking us to avenge you for your fellow, ah…” He rubbed his sideburns, shaking his head with a wince. “We don’t want no trouble from that kid—but we still support you, of course.”

It hurt to smile and he knew doing so was going to make his mouth bleed again, but his shoulder still shook as he laughed. He shook his head. “We’re fine. Already worked it out.”

Benzo only grimaced more, rubbing the back of his tattooed neck. “Oh, have you? You like him, don’t you?” He nodded. “I know life is rough for you, both in here and out there—”

“Ben—”

“But abuse is never something to take lightly, Sil, no matter how much you might like him. Even in a place like this, especially given your size. I know you might feel like accepting it is the only option, but—”

“I made him do it. He does not like it, but we have an understanding now.”

Benzo’s brows shot up. “Oh… Oh, are you that sort?” Teetering between concerned and intrigued as he eyed Silco. “Surely there are more… playful, positive ‘activities’ the two of you could experiment with instead of this type of…” He paused, really looking at Silco now. “This is about him losing that fight, isn’t it? Oh,” Silco could almost physically see the man’s soul crumble before him. “Oh, Sil. We really have to do better. As a people,” he said, full of conviction, “we have to break the cycles of…” He stopped himself. “Sorry.”

“Have you been reading those Piltover ‘self-help’ books that you found in the bottom of one of the shipments again? I am quite certain they expect us to use those in place of kindling for fires.”

Benzo held up his hands. “Alls I’m saying is, it doesn’t have to be like this and if you need a place to hide out, you know I’m here.”

“And you know that I dislike when you talk like this. I am perfectly fine. I can—I am—handling myself.”

Benzo held his hands up even higher in surrender.

“Now that we are up to speed, I have a proposition for you.”

The older man deflated. “My boy, I can have Marcus killed even less than I can have Vander taken out. That would be bloody impossible.”

Silco rolled his eyes, giving himself a headache in the process. He dumped his bag on the table, spreading out the pile of weapons he had once made with no thought to them but for his own protection as Benzo and the guard stared in surprise. “I only want to know what you can do with these.”

Benzo shoved the guard, making him leave. He waited until the man closed the door. “Where did you get these?”

“I built them. I can build more, I just need to know if it’s worth it.”

“Oh, it’s worth it.” He held up a makeshift copy of the bolas the guards used, but there was no blue and gold to be found, just cords and serrated aluminum from the kitchen. “Can any of these work?”

“Some of the basic ones. I would need time and better resources for the others to be functional.”

Benzo eyed two versions of pocket knives and what could be a grenade with access to the mines’ powder. “Where have you been hiding all of this?”

Silco shrugged. “Around.”

Benzo huffed, looking a little concerned. “Sil, Sil, Sil. Resources, you said?”

“I would still be more than happy to continue our usual business, but—”

“No, no, no,” Benzo waved his hand. “Forget that. If I can supply you with materials, you can make more of these? Better ones, even?”

Silco pulled out his journal to show him the concepts but paused, seeing a note written in an unfamiliar script signed with a ‘V’ on the last page that he quickly folded over, before turning to the right pages. He showed Benzo the function of each, watching his eyes light up even more until they reached his prosthetic.

“I showed it to Vander. He doesn’t see what it is, so it is inconspicuous enough to get by the enforcers.” 

“It’s an arm but with some extra bits, innit?” His eyes nearly fell out of his head when Silco turned the journal upside down, seeing the two evenly spaced prongs and the spring between them. “Silco…” He shook his head. “Listen to me very carefully. Do not show this one to anyone else—this part specifically. Don’t ask anyone else to help you on this, I’d advise you to not even work on this anywhere where someone will see it. These others, we can all get away with, but this? This right here is suicide.”

Silco shrugged. “If they see me doing more than just simple prosthetic things with it, sure.” He turned the journal right side up again. 

Benzo blew the air out of his lungs dramatically. He rubbed his receding hairline under his hat. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d think you ripped your arm off on purpose just for this, but no… You, Sil, just happen to have an unnatural talent for making poisoned lemonade out of rotten lemons. I’d need about three or four weeks to see what I can do about materials—not for this one. But tell me your prices for these you’ve got here and we’ll stick to that for now…” He eyed Silco sideways. “You bloody, little maniac.”

When he returned to the cell with a lighter load in his bag, Vander was gone. 

Silco went back to the folded page, holding the book up far and then close to try to focus his vision better. He could only guess Vander had written it yesterday morning or the night before at some point when Silco had still been passed out. 

His head hurt, he had read it over so many times, before tossing in onto the bed, laughing at himself. Vander had asked questions and Silco had run away every time and now Vander knew enough to know practically everything.

It was an unpleasant feeling. It was bad enough that Benzo knew, as he somehow knew everything about everyone, running the commissary, and could barely hold back his unsolicited pity and opinions. Now Vander was going to look at him through the same eyes. Silco was not some weak, pitiful thing, he was simply a man outmatched here, and that was all. Maybe he had weathered a little more than most, but all they had to do was see him standing on his own two feet to know that he was fine… that he would be fine.

Particularly now.

He sat with the prosthetic in his lap, waiting for the corridor to clear out. When the noise quieted outside, he lifted it, but not to test it on his stump. He placed it over his shoulder, feeling out the grooves on the back of his collar until he felt them catch on the wrist and mid forearm. It took entirely too much effort to twist the wrist to turn the cogs, but he heard it: A soft click and the internal scrapping of hard coils before his collar loosened, the green light blinking rapidly then it went black before the collar snapped back into the locked position. The light pulsed red when the collar rebooted, but quickly returned to solid green again.

“Hm.” He observed the prosthetic, his heart beating rapidly. It was not in the best condition, with noticeable grooves in the lock picks now, but with stronger materials? This ‘prosthetic’ could be more than just a one-time use lock pick. It could truly make a difference. 

He thought of Vander. The man had moped and cried and spent the night apologizing, but what if neither of them had to be trapped by these collars? Vander would not have to fight anymore and whatever he did beyond that was not Silco’s business. 

And Silco? He would no longer be stuck. Marcus would never find him.  

He would not need any man’s protection… or their harm to keep him safe.

But he was getting ahead of himself. Benzo needed a month. Silco could give him that. He just hoped by then…

He had to laugh at himself. As many times as he had already run off on Vander, having Vander run off from him now, he begrudgingly accepted that it was not such a nice feeling. 

+

Returning to work after just one week of recovery was both a blessing and a curse. The loud drilling and scaffolding had Vander’s head pounding and his muscles all sore. 

But at least he had an excuse now to be away from the cell, to give Silco time alone without the man being forced to ask for it. Silco was a good bullshitter, but not a great one. He was quiet, painfully skittish, and struggling more than he would ever willingly admit. 

Vander stubbed his cigarette before he headed for the mine shaft. He let a man coming off his own shift bum a smoke off of him, declining whatever repayment or trade he was offering. Over his shoulder, a familiar face whistled at him. 

He walked by him. 

The man whistled again. Vander stopped. “Finn.”

“Don’t walk away from me,” the man ordered, his metal jaw and skull implants on his tattooed head were dingy from the mine dust. “It’s been a week and I still haven’t seen my new bitch. I’ve been told all about how this deal works. When we win, what we get. And rumor has it, this prize is particularly… ‘special.’” He held out his hands. “Where’s my pussy at, huh?”

Vander leaned against the wall, looking around them for enforcers. He grinned, apologetic, though inside it took everything in him not to snap Finn’s neck on the spot. “You’ll have to excuse me for that piss-poor performance I gave you the other night. You see, my head just wasn’t in, because, well… I can get a little mental when it comes to that boy and he was really doing my head in, but I promise you: I already know the fights are rigged and they plan to put me back in with you. Something about the ladies liking our pretty faces together up on that stage. So when the next match comes, you will get me at my absolute worst,” he rumbled, rising to his full height, smiling down at him. “So just be patient. You can try to win him fair and square then.”

“That’s funny.” Finn belly laughed, a little scary with his metal jaw as he patted Vander’s shoulder. He wagged his finger. “You’re a funny guy, Vander. Let me be more plain: Have him come to me or I will collect him myself. Might bring a couple of my mates with me, you know. So we can celebrate the way I hear Silco used to get down.”

“Whoa.” Vander chuckled, taking a breath to cool down. “No need for threats, Finn. I can be hospitable. Tell you what: When we get off, if you come to the cell, I’ll lock you in with him. Have you two met before?” At Finn’s frown, Vander laughed. “You think you’re something else because you got lucky in that cage? Oh sweetheart, he’s gonna pull your entrails out through your asshole and feed them to the rats…” He eyed him up and down. “But he’s gonna love unscrewing that jaw off your mug for his collection. Pity it goes so nice with your pretty eyes… Hell, I might lock you and me in that cell and lock him out for a bit so he doesn’t ruin you first. And I’d tell your ‘mates’ to stay off him if they know what’s good for them. He bites the dicks off enforcers. Imagine what he’d do to a bunch of nobodies like you.”

It seemed Vander didn’t need to rush to warn Silco about the man after his shift. From the scene outside the canteen, Finn had gotten to Silco first. 

Finn glared daggers up at Vander from where he sat on the ground, surrounded by others as he and another man held a shirt over the gashes bleeding heavily from his palm up to his elbow. His tattoo was destroyed by the deep wounds. 

Vander would have missed the little hair tie on the ground if it weren’t red. He bent down to grab it from under someone’s boot, dusting it off.

Inside the canteen, Silco was as calm as a slab of stone, standing at the kitchen window with his bag, waiting for supplies. 

His hair was down and his striped shirt was bundled up in his arm like a baby, giving Vander a good guess at what had happened. That fool must have grabbed Silco outside and gotten every bit of that flint rock that Silco kept hidden in his hair sliced up Finn’s arm. Up close, Vander could see the beginnings of finger-sized bruises darkening just under Silco’s t-shirt sleeve along his upper arm. But his hand was bloody and, Vander could see now, wrapped up in his striped shirt like a makeshift bandage. 

He had what Vander could only describe as a ‘touch me and I’ll kill you’ expression on his face until he noticed Vander. 

The arch of his beautiful nose, the curves of his lips and sharp cheekbones, his eyebrows, were still healing their angry cuts from Vander’s own hands, his skin still dark under his eyes. 

Vander had listened to Silco’s reasoning a thousand times now, but still couldn’t convince himself to fully let it go. “You okay?” he asked, looking at the floor.

Silco rolled his eyes, struggling to put the little rations of food into his bag with his injured hand. He glared at Vander, bristling. “Should I go back out there and ask him for a fucking hand instead?” 

Vander took his temper in stride, taking the bag from him. He could only wince when Silco made sure to kick Finn’s boot out of his way as they left, firing his glare at Finn without a word as the man had to be held back by the others. Silco continued on his way without a single glance back. 

“Hang on.” Vander quickly got the medical supplies ready when they reached the cell. 

“It’s fine.”

“Let’s have a look at it first, just to be sure. You do kinda need this one.”

“As if I needed reminding of that,” Silco murmured, giving Vander his hand.

They pulled the shirt back. His hand was sliced the whole length of his palm. Not too deep, more of a nasty scrape, but Silco wasn’t at all relieved by that. He sat in silence, his hand vibrating with pain, his jaw clenched and eyes wet. His glare drilled a hole through the floor as Vander cleaned and bandaged him with care. 

He tied the gauze off a little ways up his forearm, his fingers tracing along his thin, corded bracelets mixed in with a couple spare hair ties. “I like these.”

Silco snatched his wrist out of Vander’s light grasp, standing. “I had more,” he answered after a moment in an odd, quiet voice. He pulled one tie off his wrist with his teeth to put up his hair with far less flare than usual, given his injured hand. He reached into his boot for another piece of flint to tuck in his knot. “Before I stuck my fucking arm in that machine.”

Vander glanced at his stump, realizing that Finn must have pulled the gauze off when he’d grabbed him. His skin was covered in thick, chaotic scars from just under his shoulder down to a metal cap that looked as if his surgeon had wielded it on. “Oh…” It was a grizzly affair. He could understand why the man chose to keep it covered. He picked up the gauze roll.

He reached for Silco, hoping to soothe him. The hand on his shoulder didn’t seem to bother Silco, but when his stump was swallowed up by Vander’s big hand, Silco snapped. 

“Do not fucking touch me!” He spun on Vander, his eyes wide as he attacked, pulling the flint through his hair in one fluid motion. The rock was jammed under Vander’s jaw, his hand trembling as he heaved. 

And then, just as suddenly, “Sorry.” Silco blushed, tucking the rock in his pocket, giving up on tying back his hair again. “Sorry.”

Vander quickly shook his head, stepping back. “I understand, I shouldn’t have… Especially after you’ve had to deal with that asshole… and me.”

Silco rubbed his forehead. “It’s not that. I don’t—”

Vander held up his hands to be as non-threatening as possible, but raising his hands only made Silco flinch and step back, out of his reach. “You don’t like your arm being touched. Of course. Got it.”

“It’s just—”

He lowered his hands, his voice softened. “You don’t have to explain.”

Silco took a breath. “It hurts… which… is not the right word for it, but saying ‘it tickles’ sounds a little deranged, and not at all as unpleasant as it actually feels, so…”

“You don’t have to explain,” Vander repeated, cautiously stepping forward, wondering where else Silco had rocks hidden. 

“You’re bleeding.”

Vander felt at his neck and chuckled. “It's hardly a scratch. You’re lightning quick with that thing.”

“Have to be,” Silco muttered, turning to keep his stump out of view. He huffed. “Consider us even now.”

“Sil—”

“Vander, I appreciate your desire to help, but I need to do it myself.” 

“But your hand…” 

Silco was already slipping his arm out of his t-shirt, determined. Only, for as much skill as he had quickly wrapping himself, focusing on his arm seemed to make his mood worse, particularly when he had to physically guide his stump back through his sleeve with his hand when it wouldn’t cooperate. He tossed the gauze on the bed when he finished and sat to yank off his boots, glaring at the floor again. 

Vander sat across from him. Leaning over to catch his attention. “Hey. You alright?”

“Never better.” 

Vander nodded, shrugging. “You’re an awfully prickly cat,” he teased. “I only tapped you on the shoulder and now you’re spiraling, plotting my murder.”

Silco paused his angry unbuckling, his lips tugging his pout into a little smile. He eyed Vander through his hair for a long moment. “You are not that special,” he teased back. He slumped suddenly, his eyes imploring Vander. He hugged his shoulder, his own hand avoiding touching his stump any lower than he had to. “Out of everything, why does this still bother me like nothing else in this pit can?”

“Give it time.”

“I have had time.” 

“Maybe… maybe in a few more years you’ll be able to grow it back. Never know what kind of ‘progress’ they’re cooking up on the outside,” he tossed over to him gently, hoping for another smile, but it wasn’t received well at all. He frowned with Silco. Awkwardly, he moved to sit beside the man to try again.

“Do not sit on my pillow.”

“Then scoot down.” Satisfied, Vander placed a careful hand on Silco’s back, rubbing it in circles. “Is this okay?”

“Why stop when you have already started?”

Vander grunted in frustration, letting his hand fall to the bed. He sat back, watching Silco’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh of perhaps his own frustration. 

Silco finished unlatching his boots and without another word sat closer to Vander, his back turned.

After a moment, he lifted Vander’s arm to curl under it, still turned away, his head pillowed on his shoulder. 

Like a cat nestled between Vander’s hard body and the crook of his arm. Holding onto him. Saying nothing. Vander was stunned.

After a while, Vander leaned over him, brushing his hair aside to see if he was sleeping but the man’s seagreen eyes were open, just staring at some point on the other end of the bed. 

Vander sat back, thinking. The hand of his captured arm he let rest on Silco’s thigh. He moved it up to his hip. No response. It moved to his waist, to slip under his shirt and rub his back. Silco’s hand moved to catch his wrist but just as suddenly pushed him on, encouraging, but Vander changed course. He brought his other hand over to lock his fingers together… in absolutely not a hug of any sort.

“What was it like?” he asked after a while, his voice quiet.

“What?”

“Your arm. What did it feel like?”

A pause. Silco snorted. “It felt like my arm got ripped off. What else would you expect?”

“Well, I mean, you know… I’m just trying to picture what I would have done in your shoes, is all.”

“Let me guess: you would have just punched your collar off and knocked out every enforcer. After beating the piss out of Marcus?”

“I can’t even do half that stuff as me, bozo. But even in my own shoes, those rock crushers scare the living daylights out of me. I can’t see myself having enough courage to go through with it. Sure, being hit hurts, but this level of hurt, Sil?”

“Yes, it was pretty foolish.”

“Actually, it was pretty badass, if you ask me.”

“Well… you are not known for having many stellar opinions, are you, Vander? But…” He held Vander’s arm just a little tighter. “Interesting that you think bravery was what compelled me.” 

Vander shrugged. “Fear is what freezes you up. You were between a rock and a hard place and rather than just stay there and let this place destroy you, you bloody punched the rock to escape, and you survived. That was the point, right?”

Silco shrugged against his arm. 

“It wasn’t foolish at all what you did. Those fights… Piltover has the audacity to call us barbaric. Wonder what they’d say if they knew what their movers and shakers were doing down here. And their police. Bastards like Marcus can only feel some kind of power over us because of these bloody collars. See how far he’d get without them. Even the oldest bastard here would kick his ass. But he ought to know by now he’s never gonna get what he wants out of you. I think… more than what you said, he’s not just embarrassed his ego was damaged, but he’s desperate to regain control, no matter how low he’s gotta sink to get it. That will always make him the weakest, most foolish man in the room.”

Silco twisted a little more towards him, his head on Vander’s chest now, his brow furrowed. He looked to be on the verge of saying something but stopped himself, his hand idly petting up Vander’s bicep. 

Vander was almost too scared to breathe, wanting nothing to spook Silco away. There wasn’t anything sexual at all in this, and his arm was going to fall asleep draped over Silco’s chest, but Vander would have given anything to sit like this together all night. 

“You had asked me before if I had regrets,” Silco murmured after a while, gazing up at the ceiling. “Sometimes, I do wish that I could go back and… My life would be astronomically easier had I just… did what he wanted and gotten on with my life. Those damn service boys do it with a smile everyday for worse men. At least the enforcers wash.”

“But then what? Sil, it might have started simple, but there’s no telling how he would have escalated it after. Hell, you’d probably still be on his shit list now even if you’d been sweet to him. Who knows. Men like that need constant power trips. It’s why they become enforcers. You can’t keep up with that. But regret’s a lot like fear. If you stay behind it, you’ll never get far. At least that’s what I try to remind myself of everyday. I can’t change what got me here as much as I want to. It was my fault it happened even if it wasn’t my gun that kill her. Enforcers would have never been there had I just did what I was supposed to do.”

“They killed your sister?”

Vander nodded. “All because me and some drunken idiots were tussling around. A lot like Marcus, I imagine. Too scared to actually do anything to us, but they had no problem targeting Felicia because she was only one, harmless person to them, not a mob of belligerent men.”

Silco sat up and turned to fully face him. “That is not why you are here, is it?” 

Vander shrugged, not liking the sudden attention, but not sure either what had made him say anything about his sister aloud. He swallowed, his fingers tracing the little leather straps of her necklace. “All’s I can do now is not make the same mistake, and yet…” He huffed. “I had promised myself that I’d never cause another innocent person to get hurt, and yet…” He touched Silco’s face. “You'd barely said a word and I completely lost it, like some—” 

“Stop.” Silco swatted him away gently. He took a deep breath, his eyes searching. “Dregor was your first actual kill, and yet you have been put away for murder, here of all places?” He sighed up to the ceiling. “Vander, I will never not be sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he smiled softly, thinking Silco was offering condolences. 

But that seemed to be the furthest thing from the man’s spiraling mind. “No, it is really not alright, at all.”

“Why do you say that?”

Silco looked at him as if it should be obvious. “I have caused nothing but problems for you, Vander.” 

It took him a moment to piece together what Silco meant. Quickly, Vander shook his head. “Sil, none of that matters. I still set all of this into motion. I wouldn’t have ever come here otherwise. That’s what I gotta live with.” And it was hard, learning that he wasn’t as decent of a man as he used to think himself to be, growing up. It was a reality he’d been coming to grips with long before Silco fell into his lap and robbed him. 

“Hey.” Vander brushed Silco’s hair back, lifting his face. He had to fight the urge to caress his sharp cheeks as he lightly held his jaw. “You might eventually cause me to lose a couple teeth, and trust me, I will complain about it, but I don’t regret you.” 

Silco blushed, pushing Vander’s hand away, fighting back his smile. “If I were smart, I would have you put that in writing.”

Vander laughed, feeling more relaxed than he’d had in weeks. “Yeah, but we both know I’m the brains of this whole operation.”

“Oh, Janna,” Silco sighed, full of drama, “we are so fucked.”

Vander plucked his ear, making Silco giggle. “Feel any better?”

Silco thought for a moment. “No.” He held his stump. “But it is as you said. In time, I will get there.” 

Vander mirrored Silco’s little smile.

He was lost in those eyes, his hand idly petting Silco’s lower back as he whispered up to him, “That’s the spirit.”

+

Chapter Text

+

Marcus walked briskly down the two rows of his enforcers as they lined the brightly lit hallway. He inspected each uniform and level of boot shine. He was relieved that they were all neat and in order, ready for the warden’s visit. 

He’d be lying if he said these visits ever went smoothly. He could admit it was more than difficult, if not outright impossible, to keep up with Piltover’s ever changing laws while running a productive mine and making sure this place didn’t turn into a lifelong vacation retreat for these criminals. After all, the point of this pit was to be worse than Stillwater, not compete with it, but if his career depended on each inmate receiving a larger ration of food and a blanket, then so be it. 

That didn’t concern him nearly as much as the prisoners themselves did. They were too unpredictable and his guards were… always learning new, more efficient ways of doing their jobs with more trial and error than Marcus would like. Someone was bound to disappoint him today.

But if nothing else, he could demonstrate that he had tightened his control over his guards. He’d gotten better over the years at weeding out the enforcers who struggled with being team players, whether that included the overly righteous who questioned too many of the policies or those arrogant pricks who couldn’t seem to remember just who was in charge here and why. If they could maintain that cohesion today, things might just go swimmingly.

Marcus greeted her with a smile that was reciprocated. Off to a good start. “Warden Grayson,” he nodded.

“Captain Marcus, always a joy. But let’s not spend too much time on pleasantries," she said, her voice as graveled and smokey as ever. "We have quite a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time.”

“Of course…” He paused, seeing a familiar face behind her. “Right. Right this way.”

It was naive, he could admit, to hope and pray that his request to have Rictus assigned as far away from this prison as possible meant that he would never have to see the man again. He was a monster, pure and simple. Only someone like Grayson could keep him on a leash and Marcus was more than relieved that this reunion would be brief. He reminded himself of that as he smiled as professionally as he could: Once this was done, the man would be gone. Best to get on with it then.

With Rictus on her heel, Grayson walked ahead of Marcus and his guards. Like an icebreaker ship, she commanded the prisoners to clear a path for her without her having to say a word. Surely due to the tower of a Noxian looming like a nightmare, impossibly tall and impossibly imposing, behind her. 

Marcus wanted to laugh every time Grayson returned a nod in greeting with the men. He knew these men. They respected no one, nor did they deserve respect from a woman as decorated as Grayson was.

But the walkthrough was overall uneventful. It shocked Marcus to the core.

Until they reached the canteen.

“Explain what’s going on here,” Grayson asked, pointing her chin at a cluster of men piled on top of one of the damned whores behind one of the tables near the wall. 

One of the enforcers was quick to blow his whistle and shout to disperse them, but they ignored him, requiring even more enforcers to step in and make them move out.

Grayson scanned the crowded room before she turned to Marcus. “Tell me you didn’t pull all of your guards from their posts to greet me upstairs.”

Fuck. “Of course not, ma’am. I’m sure they’re just doing their rounds or on rotation at the moment. These guards with us are only a hand selected number of our overall team.”

“But you don’t know where they are, specifically?”

As if on queue, a fight broke out near the kitchen.

Rictus whistled with his fingers like a massive siren, startling half the prisoners and guards alike. “Clear out,” he boomed. Anyone looking to argue had only to see how massive Rictus was and decide they wanted no trouble from the man. 

Marcus returned Rictus’s wink with as convincing of a smile as he could muster, wanting to squeeze something to death with his bare hands.

Grayson sighed, eyeing the rest of the guards. “You can all report back to your assignments. We will manage the rest of the tour just fine on our own.”

Marcus balked. “Madam, your safety—”

“Is in Lieutenant Rictus’s hands. Shall we take a look at the cells, Marcus?” 

“Of course.”

She ushered him with her hand. “After you.”

Marcus hesitated, but nodded, certain that if they walked briskly enough, they could avoid further incidents, but he could feel the difference between the prisoners’ reception of the Warden versus his own just as easily as he could see it. No doubt Grayson saw and felt it too. Most cleared the path without a fuss, but others had to be ordered and jostled as if it wouldn’t end with their collar numbers in the raffle. 

But the cells were… surprisingly not the worst thing the Warden could see. Oh no, that came after the tour. It didn’t matter that output from the mines was at an all-time high, not when the Warden’s auditors had books to rifle through.

Grayson sat at his desk, looking over the documents they handed her. “These numbers are… troubling.”

Marcus swallowed, clearing his throat, ignoring Rictus’s unwelcomed presence in this space, his space. “Ma’am?”

“Six of your inmates are unaccounted for. They’re registered with collar numbers that do not match any of the cell numbers, or the death certificates from the cage matches, or the mine deaths. Is this a clerical error?”

He looked at their pictures, ignoring Silco’s. He picked up Deckard’s. “This one here should have been issued a death certificate. He was killed… in one of the smaller mine cave-ins. That’ll be corrected as soon as possible. The others… This one as well, we couldn’t retrieve the body.” 

He could feel his brow sweating when she lingered over the one photo that shouldn’t have ever been filed as that picture was his entire file. “This one looks far too young to be here.”

Rictus of course stepped beside Marcus. “That was a clerical error we took care of several years ago, ma’am. He was meant to go to Stillwater, so we had transport take him there immediately.”

“Very good.” Away went his photo in the bin under the desk. 

It honestly floored Marcus and left him a little frightened that Grayson could trust the Noxian’s word so easily. Perhaps the man had been reined in after he’d left. 

She studied the photos again. “Do we know if all of them are dead or could it be a housing issue?”

“Yes! This one,” Marcus pointed, “we are in the process of moving to a different cell. That’s most likely the case with the others, but not to worry. We’ll have it sorted.”

Grayson sighed, standing to put on her cloak. “Marcus, as I have always said, you have the potential to run a tight ship, but too many things are still out of your control. The housing lacks organization so you struggle to keep track of your numbers, and while the mines have increased their production, there is a noticeable uptick in deaths unrelated to the cage or mines. Moreover the prisoners clearly do not respect you and your guards—who were noticeably absent from their posts which led to several incidents. This has to change." She stood beside Rictus with her hand on his shoulder. "Rictus, I am reinstating you here as Marcus’s second in command. He will help you keep these men in line, Marcus. You will need to assign at least a small team of guards to double-check these head counts and track down your missing charges.”

Rictus. “Ma’am…” What could Marcus say about it? She was the Warden. The decision was hers alone. “Thank you. I will not disappoint.” 

“I’m counting on you. Both of you, now.”

Rictus waited until Grayson and her assistants were leaving before he smiled, leaning down close enough for his beard to tickle Marcus’s face, his hand engulfing Marcus's shoulder, its weight like a boulder. He arched his thick, pierced brow. “Tell me, is that feisty, little rat still giving you trouble?” He chuckled at Marcus’s non-answer. “Oh, I can’t wait to get him in your office again.”

How could Marcus tell this man that that was out of the question? It was exactly why he loathed having this man here. Marcus had a hundred and one reasons to hate Silco and want him punished, but Rictus had only ever taken it too far.

Rictus patted him on the back before he squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t worry, old friend. I won’t break any bones this time. Besides, I expect that he’s been more… ‘agreeable’ with you since then?” He took Marcus’s sigh as an answer. “No? Perhaps he is in need of more discipline, then. It’s a good thing that I’m back. You’ll see.”

+

Silco knew he was off his game when he had failed to realize he was being followed by enforcers at the worst time imaginable. 

“Don't grab his hair, it'll cut your hand,” he heard someone say so low he had almost missed it, but it was too late. 

A hand caught the back of his neck and another pulling him by his shirt backwards. Seeing that they were enforcers, he knew there was no talking his way out of this. They were here for Marcus. 

He stomped the guard’s knee, bending it. His only way out was to run. He could have kicked himself, he had been so stupid. Of course Marcus would be after him. He had hidden before, and he had had every intention of hiding tonight but he had been too distracted by his meeting with Benzo. He could only be grateful he had nit brought his bag with him on this visit.

Silco raced down the corridor, hearing the enforcers bark at any prisoners in their way, but he could not outrun the bolas thrown at his legs to tangle him down. 

He refused to panic. After all, he was most likely headed back to the hole to sit and stew in boredom or torment some weak-willed guard to pass the time, but that was not the issue. There was the after he still had to consider. A padlock on Vander’s cell door had worked out for him, but if Vander lost again tonight… Silco was not going to panic, not even when they pulled his hair loose and he heard the flint clatter to the floor, lost. He still had one more tucked in his stump bandages. He would be fine.

Only they passed the hall to the hole and took him down an all too familiar row of doors on a brightly lit hall with blandly painted walls and tiled floors. 

He sighed as the guards knocked on the last door, but when it was not Marcus that opened it, Silco had to be dragged and pushed into the room, his body frozen, legs completely forgetting how to function.

Silco could tell himself not to panic. He could tell himself a lot of things, but being locked in Marcus’s office, without Marcus, with this particular guard, this sick, sadistic monster, who Silco had not seen in years, foolishly thinking that nightmare of a chapter was over. 

Rictus, who stood taller and broader even than Vander, eyed him like the piece of meat he was to this man. 

The guard sat on the edge of Marcus’s desk, watching Silco walk himself backwards to the farthest corner of the room. He pressed his back against the wall, forcing himself to breathe. 

“That is a different attitude from the last time Marcus had me babysit you. I still have the scar of your teeth in my hand. See?” He held up his hand to show him the scarred arch in his purlicue, smiling. “I’ve wondered for a long time if you still have mine.”

Even hearing his voice made Silco’s eyes prickle and his stomach uneasy, hating how weak he felt. He said nothing, eyeing the man’s boots. Slowly, he got his lungs to work, lifting his chin, but quickly tucked it when the guard glared. 

Rictus stood in warning. “Show me. Now.”

Silco’s hand trembled as he turned his back just enough and pushed his hair aside, showing the man the large oval scar of his teeth at the back of his neck, just behind his ear.

“Beautiful," Rictus quietly praised. "Sad that Marcus had the carpet removed. When I bit you, I remember your blood made such an interesting pattern, right where I’m standing, in fact." He rapped his knuckles softly on the wood behind him. "But I see he kept our desk—”

“Just… get on with whatever you plan to do to me, Rictus,” he whispered, shrugging. “I am not fighting you. I refuse to. It… it is what it is.”

The guard’s face fell. He sighed like a bull through his nose. “Definitely different. Where is your defiance, little bird? You once didn’t hesitate to peck at my eyes before I snapped the one wing you have left. Surely you won’t roll over that easily. I will offer you the same proposition from before, to make it fun: if you can beat me, I will release you, in spite of whatever reason Marcus wanted you here.”

“Rictus, please,” Silco scoffed, in as bored of a voice as he could muster, staring at the ceiling. “Clearly, Marcus wants you to brutalize me again, but I am not fighting you… Do as you like.”

He braced himself, but the longer Rictus stood, unable to compute what to do now that his prey had volunteered to kill itself, the more he felt his fear of this man be consumed by his rage for Marcus. Marcus was a pathetic coward but more than that, something far worse if he needed Rictus to bully Silco for him, again, knowing what this man was capable of, how out of control of him even Marcus was when Rictus had his mind set. 

But when that rage burned away, all that was left was amusement. He wanted to laugh in Marcus’s face. He had the insane thought briefly of pouncing on Rictus just so Marcus could walk in and see Silco giving himself to yet another man that was not him. Vander was right, nothing Marcus could do to him would give him what he wanted. 

For a moment, Rictus could only stand there glaring at him, intimidating as always, yes, but faced with Silco’s put on apathy, his fire had somewhat dimmed. It did not stop Silco’s heart from skipping a beat when the man approached, the thud of his boots chipping away at the dam Silco had built to block out every memory of those darkest days. 

Silco stood eye-level to his chest, silent.

Rictus grabbed his hand, examining the bandage. He playfully smacked Silco’s cheek, his palm covering half of Silco’s face. “I see why you have no fight. Someone else already beat it out of you. Was it Marcus?”

“Of course not.” He flinched at the man’s barking laugh.

“I could sense it in him when we spoke of you. He still wants to eat you, but I fear your teeth are still sharper than his… This weak little thing cowering in a corner is not you at all.” He gripped a fistful of Silco’s hair. “No rock in your hair?” He tsked, massaging Silco’s neck, so capable of snapping it. “I’m disappointed.”

Silco blinked back. “Why are you stalling? Do you need me to beg or cry for you to get hard?” He hated the sound of that man’s laughter, but it was a tell. He was trying to goad Silco into doing something rash to get away, any excuse to retaliate as if Rictus needed justification for his depravity, even in an empty room. Silco shut his mouth, refusing to take the man’s bait and provoke him any further. 

He almost could not believe what he saw when the door opened, his heart in his throat.

Marcus was livid. Silco released the breath he was holding as Rictus walked over to him. There was only one reason why Marcus would come back from the match so unhappy.

He glared at Silco, holding open the door. “Out.”

Silco glared back, letting his disgust show and hoped Marcus could see everything he could not say on his face. He walked as steady as he could for the door, but Rictus placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. 

Marcus leaned close, smiling through his struggle to stay calm. “I could have taken my time coming back.”

Silco huffed. “Am I supposed to be grateful?”

“You should be.” Rictus crossed his arms, his eyes never leaving Silco. “You are letting him leave so soon, Marcus?” 

“What does it look like I’m doing? The cage whore has work to do.” Marcus continued to hold the door, glaring up at the Noxian. 

Silco slipped past him and backed slowly out of the room, praying Marcus had grown enough of a backbone not to cave to the man and come after him. He could see the events of the last time playing on a reel in his mind: stumbling from this room, escaping only for Rictus to shove Marcus to the ground and drag Silco back in, but this time the door slammed, shutting both enforcers in the office.

He turned the corner and walked past clusters of enforcers, not stopping, but not running. Nothing to draw suspicion, nothing to bring him back to that office.

His legs only gave out on him once he was off the enforcers’ floor, but he pulled himself up and kept moving, kept forcing air in and pushing it out. He counted his steps when his vision threatened to blur.

But he reminded himself that what had happened did not matter, that nothing had happened. Nothing at all like it could have. He was fine. It was behind him and Vander had won. He had kept his promise and Silco did not have to go anywhere or to anyone else. He was fine.

“Ta-da!” Vander proclaimed, standing in the middle of the floor already naked with his bucket ready. “Look who walked himself here on his own two feet, fully conscious—Ow,” he grimaced when wiggling his eyebrows only made the gash over his right eye bleed more. He winced, “I won.”

“I heard.” Silco hovered near the door, gripping one of the bars, but Vander’s excitement was simply too contagious to keep feeling like he did. 

“Can you believe one of the topsiders actually sent me a box of cupcakes—Don’t touch them yet. Not hogging them or nothing, just I’ve left one outside the cell to see if a rat’ll eat it in case it’s poisoned.” Vander turned his back, squeezing out his undershirt over the bucket to gently dab the blood off his face and neck. “Where were you? They had to swap Finn out for some other bloke after the nasty work you did to that bastard's arm,” he snickered. “The fight was bloody close, but—” He froze as Silco wrapped his arm around him.

Silco pressed his cheek between Vander’s shoulder blades, hugging him tightly. 

Vander lifted his hand to kiss his palm before holding it on his chest. “I know my rooster's out and all, but can I turn around and give you a proper hug?”

Silco laughed, shaking his head. “No. Not yet.” He cleared his throat. “You are… wet and bleeding.” He stepped back, combing his fingers through his hair. He rubbed his face. “Finish up and I’ll stitch you.” 

Vander’s whine made him smile despite himself. “Oh, come on, Sil. Can’t we just slap a big, ol’ bandage on it?” He pouted. “I bloody hate stitches.”

The man was not lying. He wiggled and whined through every poke, holding Silco’s waist for moral support as Silco straddled his leg, fighting Vander to hold still.

Silco had rushed through his own bath, unable to wait to do it in private. He was quick to dump his uniform in the water to wash away whatever he could of Marcus’s office. 

He was grateful for his sweater, even the empty sleeve he had yet to cut off. It swallowed him. Even in his t-shirt and underwear he would still feel totally naked to every man who walked past their cell bars tonight without that sweater to cover him. 

It smelled like Vander, or rather the soap they used for everything, and that was close enough to…

He frowned, focusing back on the stitches. “Vander you are utterly hopeless. We could have been done by now if I did not have to chase your forehead around with this needle.”

“How many bloody stitches do I need?!”

“You have a massive head. Stop moving.” 

“Piss off, shark nose, it’s not that big,” Vander grumbled, fighting through the string, his hands trying their best not to use Silco’s waist and hips like a stress ball. 

That in truth, also did not help this go faster. Silco had complained and Vander had moved his hands to the cot… and then those hands ended up on Silco’s thighs. Vander had even tried putting them behind his own back or pillowing his head with them, but here they were, in the most distracting place. The sole fact that Vander hands nearly touched when they squeezed his waist made Silco think of the one thing he should not think about when not wearing pants. Worse, Vander’s hands were heavy. That weight on his hips did nothing to help Silco keep his ass and other bits off of Vander’s massive thigh. 

He breathed a sigh of relief, carefully dabbing away the blood Vander had missed in his hairline. “Done.”

“Oh, thank god.” Vander hugged Silco as if he had performed a life saving surgery on him. “I was gonna start writing out my will if that went on much longer.”

Silco froze, his whole body flushed, realizing now that Vander had not been the only one wiggling around. He had chased the man all the way up his thigh and was sitting as flush to him as possible with his leg folded over Vander’s cock. 

“Oh!” Vander sat back a little, catching up to their current predicament. Neither of their sexes had slept through the stitching battle. For the hard rod under Silco’s ankle, he knew Vander would feel Silco’s own arousal on his thigh soon if he did not move soon. “Sorry! Uh…”

But neither of them moved. Vander’s hands returned to Silco’s waist, perhaps to help steady him in case Silco did move to get up, but all it did was make the urge to grind against his thigh that much harder to fight.

Silco panted, swallowing. He huffed, forcing himself not to stare at Vander's lips. He shook his hair out of his face, his head tilted. “Vander, we cannot keep ending up like this.”

Vander was quiet for a moment, before he met Silco’s eyes, his voice contemplative, dark and husky. “Why not?”

They eyed each other, so close, Silco could feel Vander’s breath against his lips. 

But then the man leaned forward, wanting… Silco ducked his face into Vander’s neck. He could feel the man nudge at his cheek with his lips, his want clear, but that… was not something Silco could give him. Maybe on some other night when he was not still frantically sealing the cracks in his mental dam, but tonight, simply put, he just wanted to be used and be consumed by something good and distracting and not complicated. He was not looking for sweetness, could not handle Vander’s softness and care right now. 

He grinded his sex on Vander’s thigh, hoping to redirect the man, but Vander still had his hand at the back of Silco’s neck, massaging it, trying to coax him out of hiding.

Determined, Silco reached under Vander’s nightshirt for his heavy length, stroking it as he rubbed harder against his leg, pulling a moan out of the man. 

Silco paused only to shove his hand down his own underwear to wet his palm so he could stroke Vander with a slick touch, drawing an even deeper, feral sound from Vander’s slack mouth. 

As Vander moved Silco’s hips back and forth, helping him grind, the thought crossed Silco’s mind suddenly of just shifting his own hips over, pulling his underwear aside, and just taking that big cock inside him. He was blocked by his own fear, knowing it would hurt. He growled with frustration, a whine slipping from his lips to Vander's throat. 

He stroked Vander harder, knowing the man could feel his slick on his thigh by now. He was so close to simply begging Vander to fuck him, but Vander’s hands were already grabbing for the band of his underwear. His thumbs slid down, feeling the little length of Silco’s cock already hard beneath the fabric. Vander teased it, drawing a gasp from Silco as he bucked against his thigh, encouraging Vander’s control as best he could without panicking over that very same loss of control. 

Vander nudged at his cheek again, kissing a line up his neck, but after a moment more of searching, he pulled away. “Sorry. My head is… Hurts more than I thought. We should… we should stop, maybe.” 

Silco went rigid against him, a million thoughts swirling in his head as he sat back, glaring at Vander. “Why are you stopping?” 

Vander did look pained, but that had never stopped him from taking Silco’s mouth on his cock, although the man had stopped. Everything had stopped entirely after that night when they had come together on Vander’s bed.

“No, no, it’s not you, Sil. Trust me… You are… you’re perfect…”

“But… ?” 

It would be funny in any other circumstance that a man as small as Silco could make a man as big as Vander feel like an ant under a boot, but as Silco looked up at him waiting for his answer, Vander did not appear to know what to say. Did the man still feel guilty about hitting him? Was it knowing what Silco had told him about his past? Was it too much for him? Was it pity?

Maybe the man had gotten past whatever hesitation he had over Silco’s equipment, but it was clear now that there was still something wrong with Silco that Vander could not get past and was too much of a coward to say it outright. 

He wanted to punch the guilt right off Vander’s stupid face and then suffocate him to death under his pillow. 

Silco’s angry blush made him even angrier. He rolled his eyes. “Alright.” He pricked Vander’s hand with his nails to get him to release his grip on his waist and stormed across the room with one more glare at him.

It made no sense and Silco had no time or patience for things that made no sense. After all the mental turmoil Silco had put himself through just to be okay with the prospect of this man fucking him, he deserved to know why Vander now refused to fuck him.  

“Sil—”

Silco turned back with a smile as sweet as poison, his eyes narrowed. “Night, Vander.” 

+

In the days that followed, Silco did not see Rictus on any of his brief outings. He kept his eyes up and ears listening with every step, refusing to let another enforcer out of his sight if he could help it. 

He supposed he might be safe from Marcus until the next match, but Rictus did not give a shit about matches or who won what and why that should affect him. And if he was back in the prison full-time, Marcus would not be able to keep that man leashed for long. He would snap, just as he had snapped before and there would not be a damned thing Silco or Marco could do to stop him.

But Silco still had a life to live. He certainly had no plan to put a target on his back, but he refused to hide all the same. 

He sat in the canteen, casually sipping bland tea out of a pouch, enjoying a smoke, just people-watching, taking mental notes of a few interesting things here and there.

Things like, when the enforcers changed their shifts, when they took breaks, where they took breaks, how often they did a sweep of the canteen and the commissary line outside. He noted which of his dearest friends and favorite associates lurked around the platforms and commissary at certain times of the day and when the line was at its thinnest. 

He sighed, tapping his lighter on the table. Given his observations, he could not transport Benzo’s materials at all during the shift changes when the halls were at their highest traffic. Too many risks of running into the wrong people then. He had anticipated this, but if he opted for the shifts themselves, when the halls cleared out, he would be a sitting duck to enforcers if he was walking these halls alone with armfuls of metal and wires, which meant he woulc have to see Benzo either before the crack of dawn or well after midnight.

It was manageable. Those had been his normal operating hours before moving in with Vander, but moving in with Vander meant questions and having to sneak around on him, which… given their current state of affairs, disappearing on the man would make sense.

They were not on speaking terms, or rather Vander was nervously tiptoeing around Silco and Silco was fighting the urge to yell and hurt his feelings whenever they were in the cell together. 

Twice now, Silco had woken himself up in the middle of the night soaking wet from an erotic dream that would not materialize in his waking hours and he still did not know why. 

Bickering caught his attention on the far left. He rolled his eyes. The service boys were all clustered like hens around some new man, most likely recruiting a new bodyguard for the service rooms. Another oversized, bald Neanderthal covered in tattoos. 

All except for Vander’s little ‘friend.’ The redhead was barely keeping up with whatever the others were fussing about, too busy trying to fire off weak glares in Silco’s direction. 

Huck. Vander even knew the man by man, knew that assisting Vander for the matches was the highlight of Huck’s life, knew his whole sob story of being wrongfully accused and struggling with his addiction and coping with the demands of the service room. Compared to Silco’s own withdrawals when he had first gotten here, the man looked awfully stable, fiddling with glasses he could not decide if he wanted to keep on his face or not.

It was a hopeless effort, in Silco’s opinion. Huck was the youngest of the coop by far, but he was not the prettiest with or without glasses—or the most charismatic judging by the lack of even feigned interest in the giant fool the others fawned over as the man told them some fanciful tale. 

The man caught Huck staring. He nudged the frail redhead and pointed his chin at Silco. “Who’s that? Another friend of yours?” 

That was Silco’s cue to leave. The man whistled, the others glared. Silco ignored them all.

He knew it was not the tattooed man who tapped his shoulder with how light of a touch it was, so he was not surprised to turn and find Huck standing there with his hands on his hips. 

Up close, Silco could see that Huck had what looked like burn scars around his right eye that dotted his forehead and left cheek, and a few blonde strands in his hair. He had another, larger scar down his right forearm. His left was heavily bandaged all the way up and under his t-shirt sleeve.

All of his constant tears and fragileness Huck had put away somewhere as he narrowed his eyes, his lips thin. “I know we’ve never met, but I know who you are.”

Silco tilted his head. “Alright?”

“And I know who you bunk with.” Huck shook his head. “You don’t deserve him.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I’ve heard all about you, Silco,” he said, as if Silco’s name was a slur. “You’ve already fucked every man in this prison—”

“Oh, have I?” He glanced behind Huck at his smirking colleagues.

“—but you just couldn’t keep your hands off the only good man here.” 

Silco pouted, genuinely confused. “Is that supposed to be a problem for me or for you?” He shrugged. “Pick a man faster next time, perhaps?” He was not nearly so amused when Huck stepped into his personal space, trying to size him up as if they were not practically the same size. 

“I think you ought to go crawl back into whatever cave you crawled out of… or else you and I? We’re gonna have… problems.”

“Oh, no.” Silco brow rose, impressed. “What sort of problems?”

Huck smirked, tucking his loose hair behind his pierced ears. “There’s a reason I’m here, you know.”

“Sweetness, you told Vander you were wrongfully accused. He was very upset by that. Did you lie to him? If you did, that would make me very upset.”

Huck glanced around them, blushing when he noticed they had an audience. He crossed his arms. “I’ve poisoned a lot of people. Trust me, you don’t want to be next.”

Silco blinked, fighting back his smile with a grimace. “Don’t do that. If you go around screaming that you willfully and maliciously poison people, no man here is going to trust you not to poison them and then they won’t fuck you. If they cannot fuck you, they will not feed you. Shut up and let your hair down if you want Vander’s attention so badly.” He paused, realizing how similar their hair was, but his hair was flat and lifeless. Granted, with two hands, Huck’s little ponytail was noticeably neater than Silco’s knot.

Silco turned heel to storm off, glad that Vander’s shift was nearly over so he could give Vander something to be upset about, damn it all—

Until Huck grabbed Silco’s hair, yelping as he clutched his bleeding hand in surprise at the sharp rock.

It was enough to stop Silco in his tracks. He turned. “I beg your pardon?”

Huck slapped him in the face with the force of a man who may have actually truthfully been wrongfully accused and did not belong here. But he was angry and bold and had the rest of the ‘boys’ hurrying over to stand behind him.

The whole canteen seemed to stop, eager to see what Silco would do.

Silco picked the flint out of his hair like a knife, smirking as Huck nearly pissed himself. But Silco tossed it over his shoulder, out of the way. He backhanded Huck to the floor as the canteen lost its collective mind to see them fight. 

Huck needed his friends to help him up, but he lunged, sending Silco down. But Huck had no steam and no aim, cursing when one punch missed and hit the floor as Silco blocked him. Huck tried to scratch and pull hair when his hitting failed, but only got slapped as hard as he had tried to slap Silco that first time. It lit up Huck’s cheek with an angry handprint, making him shout.

Silco only had to wrap his legs around him and catch Huck’s ponytail before he rolled them over to get the upper hand. The others slowly backed away as every one of Silco’s hits landed as Huck still held onto Silco’s hair, blocking nothing!

“Hey!” Silco heard Vander shout behind him as the man raced to lift him up off Huck, failing to stop Silco’s boot from kicking Huck’s broken glasses off his face as the man cried and swung his arms in the air with his eyes still squeezed shut. 

Silco let himself be carried like an angry cat all the way down to their level before Vander let him go. He held Silco’s arm and waist as if afraid he would race back up the platform to finish Huck off. “What the fuck was that?”

Silco tossed his disheveled hair out of his face, indignant. “He attacked me.”

“He’s half your size, Sil!”

“And looks twice my age! Perhaps he should have considered that before attacking me—for you, in fact.”

Vander grunted. “For me?”

“Yes! He wanted to fight me for you!”

If his adrenaline were not still sky high he would have laughed at Vander’s expression. The man grimaced, combing his hair back. “Ah hell. You bloody bulldozed him, Sil. He’s gotta work with that face.”

Silco’s brow shot to the ceiling. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I should go apologize to your boyfriend for giving him what he asked for and then, I should go find a boyfriend of my own! One who would appreciate that I am willing to beat the piss out of anyone with the audacity to challenge me for him…” He flushed, losing steam as Vander’s brow slowly rose higher and higher.

“Are you calling me your boyfriend when you wouldn’t even kiss me the other night?”

“Why do I have to kiss anybody just to get their hand on my cock, Vander? Why the bloody hell is that important?”

“Because it’s normal for me to want to kiss you while my hand’s on your cock, that’s why! You’re the one who’s been acting weird! You went from jumping on me one day to saying absolutely nothing the next! How am I supposed to know what you want, Sil?”

“That…” Was a good point. He blushed, his eyes wide.

Vander held his shoulders, stepping closer, his brow lowering as his shock faded into something else more serious. “Sil, I’ve been holding on by a thread for weeks now. It has taken everything in me to keep my hands off you.” He pressed Silco against the fence. “Tell me what you want from me and I will give it to you.”

Silco had to take a deep breath to control his panting, his jaw tight as he met Vander’s hungry gaze with his own. He swallowed. “I want… your hands… on me.”

His world spun suddenly as Vander tossed him over his shoulder, walking them back to his cell. For a moment, Silco’s mind went blank and he froze as he always did. There was never a decent outcome when manhandled like this. But he said nothing, gripping Vander’s jacket because it was Vander’s, not anyone else’s. 

He was finally able to breathe once he was back on his feet in front of their cell door.

Vander dragged him in and got the door locked. He pushed Silco against the bars, caging him in, his thigh sliding between Silco’s legs. He sent the first button on Silco’s pants clattering to the floor but was careful with the rest. His forehead still pressed to Silco’s, he tossed his helmet and pushed Silco’s pants and underwear down his thighs, his breath heaving with his desire.

It was truly breathtaking how huge of a man Vander was. Silco was so lightheaded he had to grip the bar behind him when Vander’s hand covered his sex, massaging it hungrily and spreading his slick as he sought out his inner folds. 

Vander swallowed, moaning when he saw the slick covering his palm. He closed his eyes, his lips pressing to Silco’s hair. “Tell me this is okay. Tell me… tell me what I can do to you. Please, Sil.”

His breath stuttered when Vander’s finger plunged into his tight heat, nearly as thick as a cock itself. His heavy thumb covered Silco’s little length, teasing it to full hardness. He bit his lip to stop himself from begging. “What… ever… you want.”

Two fingers stretched his sex. His knees went weak for a moment but Vander held him up by his jaw, his lips sucking bruises up and down the column of his neck. His thumb swept over Silco’s cock just as he nipped his ear, his fingers hooked deep inside him. It drove Silco insane.

“You’re absolutely soaked, love,” Vander whispered. “Is that normal? Could you come for me like this?”

His body tensed in answer, his sex gripping him in waves as he came hard, trembling, but silent.

“Oh… That’s it, Sil. That's what I want.” He greedily sucked the come off his hand before slipping his fingers back inside. “Can I have one more?”

Silco was a wreck, his voice cracked. “Vander, I want… more…” 

What was he asking? He knew what he was asking. Looking up at Vander and seeing the final thread snap in that man’s mind, Vander knew what he was asking too. 

It was in the air now, finally, and Silco refused to take it back.

Vander’s lips attacked his neck as he withdrew his fingers, pulling a button off his own pants in his haste and not caring. With a groan, his cock slid between Silco’s folds as his fingers returned to draw out more slick to coat his length as he rocked his hips back and forth. 

Vander’s tip slid inside with effort. “Breathe, Sil,” he heard Vander whisper. “Breathe with me. Let me give you more.” 

For several breaths, Silco feared he could not fit the man. Until Vander pushed his hips forward, pressing their bodies flush together. The ache overpowered all else as he felt his sex resist before surrendering, letting Vander slide in further, resting surely somewhere deep under his belly.

He was speechless, coming in a sudden torrent that soaked down to his boots and puddled on the floor.

Even having to stand on his tiptoes, Silco hated how much he loved having Vander so deep inside him. Vander’s cock was stretching him so perfectly, reaching deeper than he could wrap his mind around. And he had not even moved yet. He was not even all the way in yet.

This was a mistake. He could already picture himself losing his mind over this man, wasting every waking minute pining for more of his attention. For more of this attention.

Their eyes met, mirroring the other’s shock, panting together. Vander’s hands eased Silco’s hips back until his cock nearly slipped out before pulling his hips towards him in a much harder snap, fully encasing himself.

They both cursed, watching Vander guide him back and forth, first hard and then softer, slower, savoring the drag of Silco’s messy folds around him and the slick that coated his shaft before picking up the pace again. 

“Oh my god.” Silco was in shambles. He tried to cover his mouth to stop the string of moans rumbling in his throat, only to forget the moment Vander crushed his spot, his own rigid, little cock beaten with each press of their bodies together. He was sweating under Vander’s heat alone, his clothes and hair sticking to his fevered skin. He gripped Vander’s shirt, his head falling back against the bars, his voice cracking again in desperation. 

Far away, he could hear men hovering outside the cell, realizing that he was too loud. He flushed, even hotter, suddenly terrified to have anyone see him getting fucked like this, let alone for him to be within arm’s reach of anyone else. But Vander slammed his fist against the bars like a hammer. The sound thundered as the bars shook, making the men scatter. 

Grunting softly, his arm wrapped around Silco’s waist, Vander held the bar in case he needed to scare anyone else off, but his eyes never once drifted from their intense study of Silco’s sex. His deadly focused hunger had Silco clenching on his cock, but it was the feeling of undeniable protection that had Silco coming a third time. 

But it was far from over. The way his tattoo bulged was so obscene, Silco tried to cover it, but pressing his hand over it only made him feel it more. Vander had his forehead pressed to his, his big hands holding Silco’s narrow hips and his ass, moving him in such a rhythm with every thrust… Vander’s eyes fluttered closed, lips whispering out nonsense that had Silco spiraling further.

“Sil, you never told me… why did you never tell me you’d feel like this? I swear I’m gonna die inside you. It’s driving me fucking mad. You’re so… so perfect. God, how is this real?”

Silco had to cover his mouth to stop himself from moaning in a pitch he had not heard in his voice rise to in years, but it was still slipping through his fingers, clinging to Vander’s ears like some spell Silco did not know how to stop casting, higher and higher. 

Until Vander pulled away. 

Silco could have screamed at the emptiness he felt, stumbling back against the bars, but Vander was going nowhere but down. He dropped to his knees, his thumbs gently spreading apart Silco’s folds for his tongue to dart out and catch the heavy slick waiting for him.

Silco felt tears clinging to his eyes as he grasped Vander’s hair, trying to pull him off his sex but Vander was lost, moaning into hungry, open-mouthed kisses, his stubby beard tickling up his thighs. His hands left more little bruises as he held Silco still. His tongue swirled his cock before the thick nub disappeared between his lips. 

“Vander, stop!”

He released him with a pop, his deep voice rumbling as he buried two thick fingers deep in his hole. “Does this feel good?”

Silco flushed even harder, his voice utterly wrecked. “What the bloody fuck do you think?”

Vander grazed his hood with his teeth as his fingers moved, his eyes locked on Silco for his reaction. It drove Silco wild, so Vander did it again, adding more pressure.

“No! T-too much!”

Vander moaned in understanding, sucking his cock with little soothing kisses in between, his eyes closed again in bliss. “You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined getting on my knees for you.” Utterly content to have Silco damn near riding his face when he got one boot off and Silco’s leg free to reach his arms under him to put him on his shoulders. 

“No… no, Vander, please!” He didn’t know what he was asking anymore. He wanted it to stop, he wanted more, he wanted to grab Vander by the ear and suffocate him between his thighs.

He did not recognize himself or his body, at least not like this. Not as a tool for earning things, but as something meant solely for a pleasure that was entirely his own, to take… and to fully enjoy this part of his body he had only ever tolerated. It was like he was someone else completely. Now, he understood why this was a mistake, why he should have never goaded Vander—but how was he supposed to know that Vander would be like this? He had had a warning, a taste of it before, but never this far. He knew Vander would not be mean or callous. He had expected him to hump him and come and be wrapped around Silco’s finger, but this? 

Silco gripped his hair, blissed out without a plan for the first time in years, so thoroughly out of control with no hope of regaining it—and no desire to. He let it go, releasing it all to Vander, to Vander’s soft, open gaze staring down at him when he let go of Silco’s legs and rose up to his full height to kiss him. 

Silco could only cling to his neck and let himself be wrapped around his waist, taking his cock again as he tasted himself in every tangle of their tongues together. 

He gasped into Vander’s mouth, realizing then that they had never actually kissed before, and why would they? But for this to be the first… Before Silco could even think, he was coming in yet another unbelievable orgasm.

“That’s it, Sil, keep coming on my cock.”

He clamped his hand over Vander’s mouth, trying to shut him up as his body did exactly what Vander told it to. 

The lips and teeth on his neck were too much, being wrapped in Vander’s arms was too much. Even feeling the press of the bars against his back, it had his orgasm echoing through him in random spasms long after, his brain shorting out. He needed a break, he needed…

To not have Vander’s fat fingers anywhere near his overstimulated cock. He yelped, trying to formulate words as he failed to pry Vander’s hand away. He pulled at his wrist, but Vander felt none of his feeble struggle, only the way his body squeezed tighter around his cock, wetter than ever. His thumb stroked over his hood, heavy handed, pulling it back to reveal more of his little head. It was an excruciating battle between pain and pleasure that had him seeing spots, barely able to function until he mustered up the coordination to finally reach his hand down and cover himself. 

He had a moment of reprieve with Vander’s hand gone, but he tried and failed miserably to glare at the man as he was pressed against the bars and rutted. 

With his hand so close to their sex, Silco could reach down and touch Vander’s cock taking him, feeling just how big he was and how slippery he had them both.

That little brush of his fingers added a desperate edge to Vander’s grunting. He moved so suddenly, handling Silco with ease as he dropped him onto his cot and climbed over him.

The worn mattress under his back, his legs folded and spread obscenely wide, and a big, sweaty body pressing him down, pushing into him…

He hated it—had hated it, but this… He could be honest with himself, he truly did not mind. Hell, he loved it. This was not anyone else but Vander, his friend. His overly massive, hot tempered, pathetically soft, painfully handsome friend who was losing himself so completely, so deeply inside him. 

He bit his lip, his eyes sweeping down Vander’s body to his wandering hands. He didn’t even mind when Vander pushed up his t-shirt, his hand covering his chest and the faded scars under his skinny pecs, to graze over his hard nipples with an expression full of innocent wonder.

“Oh, Sil… You’re… so fucking gorgeous. Gods, I’m close. Can I touch you?”

“Sweetheart,” Silco panted out a laugh, confused, “I think you’re already fucking me?”

Vander shook his head, slowing down. He hiked Silco’s leg over his shoulder.  “Here,” he whispered, his hand sliding down the length of Silco’s thigh, close to his cock.

Silco could formulate no answer with words. When Vander opened his eyes, he simply nodded his consent, stunned. 

All the more stunned when Vander’s touch was careful, his thumb rubbing his cock in firm but slow circles as he paced his thrust in time. 

Vander groaned, his stare briefly rising from their sex to Silco’s eyes. “Like this? Am I doing it right?”

Again Silco could not answer. He reached down to hold Vander’s thumb and guide it in faster rotations, sobbing as Vander picked up the pace to keep up. He closed his eyes, letting himself moan and feel and take until his body pulled taught, on the edge.

It was reckless, he knew, and he would feel like a fool later for it but he grabbed Vander’s neck and pulled the man down to kiss as his orgasm charged through him. 

Vander grunted against his lips. His hips stuttered as he came, buried to the hilt before he seemed to remember himself and pulled out, finishing on Silco’s stomach, covering his tattoo. He panted into Silco’s neck, his arms shaking to keep his weight in check. 

Silco was still trying to catch his breath when he shoved and elbowed Vander off of him to sit up. He was a mess, to say the least. Everything from the waist down was soaked. 

“Here.” Vander grabbed his nightshirt, offering it to him. He groaned and shifted, righting his underwear. He lit two cigarettes, watching Silco rise on unsteady legs and undress. “You alright?”

Silco pulled his hair tie loose and shook it out. He glanced back, catching Vander’s eyes lingering on his legs. He blushed, having to use his t-shirt to dry off. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well,” Vander shrugged, scratching his head. “I wasn’t exactly on my best behavior.”

“Ah.” Silco had to laugh. “The dreaded post-coital clarity strikes. Do not be silly, I have been humped by far worse,” he teased, but instantly regretted it.

Vander’s face fell. “I was a bastard, then. Sil, I’m sorry.”

Shit. Vander was no bastard, everyone else was. But how could he explain that without climbing on top of him and begging him to do it again three more times? 

Silco rolled his eyes, his blush creeping further to the surface as he tossed his boots and clothes over to his cot. He took the offered cigarette, looking down at himself. Even with it buttoned, the nightshirt still hung from his shoulders and covered his knees. “I feel so pretty in this billowing gown. I just need a belt… and something to do with this empty sleeve. I could tie a knot in the cuff and hide a rifle in it. Or a gatling gun. How do they even have fabrics left after clothing all of you giant goons?” He smiled, relieved to see Vander grin in spite of his self-condemnation as the man quietly rolled up the sleeves for him. 

He sighed to himself, irritated with his own disloyal flesh as his blush only intensified. He sat beside Vander undeterred by it, helping the man out of his pants. Vander had been nice to him. He could be… a little more forthcoming about some things with the man without actually having to say too much. “I am annoyed with you,” he teased.

Vander’s pout was precious. “Sil—”

“Of course, you couldn’t just be the first man to make me come that last time we played, no it had to be followed tonight by,” he paused to count, “I honestly cannot even remember how many times you made me come just now. Too many? I have certainly never…” he motioned to the puddle in front of the bars, “whatever that was—”

“That was sexy.”

“—Look at my clothes. And now you have ruined me for anyone else and set the bar so bloody high I have no idea how you are going to top this. You can only blame yourself for overdoing it, Vander.”

Vander sat up, having to think, his heavy brow furrowed as he smoked. “Bullshit.”

Silco gave him a long look, staring in disbelief. Granted, this man did get hit in the head quite often. 

He would have to spell it out, then. “Most boys my age were just as inexperienced as I was, and then here, most men are ogres who just see a hole and plow through it, and I am transitioned. Those odds have not exactly inspired earth shattering sex. I don’t… I do not even acknowledge anything down there unless I absolutely have to, Vander. But… It was good. You were… decent, I will say.”

Vander’s brow at last untangled itself. He sat back against the wall, his smoke momentarily forgotten. He shook his head slowly, his innocent disbelief rearing its head once more. “But… you’re gorgeous, Sil. How—”

“Oh, for god’s sake—”

“No, no.” Vander reached for his arm. “For once, let me finish.” He seemed to consider his words carefully, speaking slowly, still formulating his thoughts. “What I mean is, you are an extremely attractive man, Sil, and it just… blows my mind that I, of all people, could do what other, surely more attractive men, couldn’t? Or wouldn’t, I suppose, is more likely. It’s mental. If you were mine, I’d be…” He blushed, grinning wide. “You were kidding earlier. I wasn’t a bastard at all, was I?”

“At long last, he finds his way out of the woods.” 

“Oh piss off, I was over here having a bloody crisis.” He plucked Silco’s ear, shaking his head. “I know this place is shit and it’s overflowing with assholes, but… if I can be the opposite of that for you, then…”

Silco narrowed his eyes, looking at him sideways. “Then?”

Vander shrugged flippantly, his grin a little deranged in his eagerness. “I just want to make you come as often as you’ll let me—if you still want to, of course.”

He shook as he laughed under his breath. “Maybe. Sure.”

“Great. But, just so we’re clear in the future, so I don’t fuck this up—”

“Hypothetically.”

“Right,” Vander nodded, his brow furrowed as he repeated the word as if he had never heard it before. “Hypothetically…?”

“If…?”

“If we were to,” he locked his fingers together, “am I allowed to… Can I kiss your pussy again?”

Silco clenched his sex. “If you must.”

“Well, can I play with your cock, then?”

Silco shrugged, shaking with more laughter. 

“Do you want me to… fuck you like we just did, in your… or—Wait, did you want to fuck me?” He sat up a little more, his eyes wide. “I mean, I’ve never done it that way before, but… How…?” 

Silco’s heart hurt. “Whatever you like, Vander.”

Vander hung his head with an exasperated sigh. “You’re killing me, Sil.”

“Let me level with you, then. I trust you. You took the lead and it was… more than decent. I would not mind… more of that.” 

Vander grinned. “More of…?”

Silco made an undignified noise into his hand, certain he had to be as red as his hair tie by now and getting hot again. He brushed his hair back. “More of you… kissing my ‘pussy,’ playing with my cock, and fucking me like you just did, although… I would not mind you in my other hole, albeit it is not as convenient for your size.”

“Okay,” Vander nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. To be honest, you being a brat is what started this, and it’s always been you starting things between us. I like that… I think I need that, actually.”

Silco’s brow arched. “You want me to initiate? To tell you when to pounce?”

“Please? Or just pounce on me, and I’ll… you know. Once I know the door’s open, I can go as crazy as you want me to.”

It was an otherworldly prospect to say the least. One Silco would not believe coming from anyone else’s mouth. “Alright. I can manage that.”

Vander’s smile was so goofy and hopeless. “Do you want to lie down together for a while, and share my bed—or yours, if you want.”

“I want you to wash my clothes,” he said gently, unable to say anything else at the moment.  

“Oh! Right.” Vander leapt up, carefully moving Silco out of the way so he could get off the bed, hurrying for the rain bucket. “I’m on it.”

Silco lay back against the pillow, meeting Vander’s smile whenever the man tossed one over at him. He watched Vander whistle happily and work. 

All while Silco’s heart was even more of a mess than his clothes.

+

Chapter Text

+

Silco sat in the canteen, admiring his pouch of lukewarm tea, imagining it was chamomile and that he was drinking it anywhere else than in a prison mine with a security collar around his throat. He hummed… ignoring the glares he was getting from across the room. Again.

It was petty, he knew, and he was freezing in his t-shirt without his layers, but having Huck and the boys see the litany of bites and bruises up his neck was worth it. He could not rub the blissed out expression from his face if he tried. 

In truth, it was not Silco’s fault, at least not getting his cock sucked for nearly half an hour this morning before Vander went to work. That was entirely Vander. 

He had woken up cozy and pleasantly sore in his cot, languid as he watched Vander dress and was caught staring at him. 

Vander sat on his cot and immediately leaned over for kisses. It made Silco smile for how unexpected it was. Far too sweet for a place like this. Even the dopey, happy look on Vander’s face was so out of place but it made Silco’s heart feel like a mess again. 

Was it pity for the man that he felt? That he could be so sweet and be stuck here? Giving all his sweetness to Silco and not to someone else? He found it hard to describe, but he was content with not knowing what to name that feeling.

Vander kissed him again, wrapping his arm around him. “Sorry,” he ducked his head, blushing as if he had read Silco’s mind. But he got distracted, circling his nose around the little peak of Silco’s nipple through the nightshirt, making it hard. “I know I’m being a lot, I just… I still can’t believe that we… that my cock was inside you.”

Silco wanted to glare and shove him off, feeling how wet those words made him. He wanted to be annoyed over how easily his body reacted to this man and his fumbling vulgarity, but…

“You want your cock inside me again?” Was all he could come up with. 

Vander nodded, his eyes lighting up when Silco pushed his blankets down with his feet and pulled up the nightshirt to bare himself. He spread his legs. It was honestly like how most of Silco's dreams about Vander had played out, only something about having Vander climb over him, fully clothed, with more kisses and teasing fingers, it felt… odd… happening on his own bed and not Vander’s. 

There was something surprisingly thrilling about having his legs tossed over Vander’s shoulders with Vander sucking his cock in his own territory. The massive man barely fit on the bed. His back was hunched and head bowed, his booted foot propped on the floor as he knelt on the mattress. He got those big hands under Silco’s ass to lift his sex to his hungry mouth and at once, lost himself in it.

“Vander,” Silco moaned, carding his fingers through the man’s hair, “you don’t have to do this part every time.”

Vander barely lifted his lips from Silco’s folds, his nose still wrestling with his cock when he flicked his eyes up at him, his silver gaze surprisingly serious. “I love this part.”

Oh…

He was a plate of melted butter out in the sun by the time Vander’s cock slid into him.

And now, Silco was buzzing and thrumming and content to enjoy his morning with his head completely empty. 

He stretched, yawning as he rose from the table. 

Huck averted his puffy eyes, but the others kept trying to be tough. Unsurprisingly, no one did a damned thing when Silco sat on the table beside Huck’s uneaten breakfast, much like they had not intervened at all on Huck’s behalf the day before. 

Smart boys—men. Smart men.

He tsked at the bruise on Huck’s cheekbone and eye. “I really did a number on you… but worry not. I have been instructed to be nice, so I will try my best.” 

Silco leaned in closer to his ear, making Huck flinch. “I have a friend about Vander’s size. Older, but he loves redheads. He runs the commissary. Lots of steady perks,” he shrugged. “When you’re all healed up, you should go visit. If his bodyguards ask, tell them I sent you and they will know to point you in his direction.” He eyed the other redhead at the table before leaning in closer to Huck. “And one more thing: I recommend you not tell the others. They are not your friends any more than they are mine, and they will not hesitate to take from you the way you tried to take from me.” He smiled, proud of himself. “You’re welcome.” 

+

Vander stormed into the cell, fuming. He threw his helmet on his cot, not even noticing Silco was there at first.

Silco was on his bed, wearing something like odd goggles from the mines but with some sort of magnification lense attached over the left eye. He pulled them off and set down the prosthetic he’d been working on. “What happened?”

Vander paced. “Some sorry fuck stole food off another man’s tray and that new guard, the big one? He bloody beat the shit out of him and broke his arm! And none of those coward, pieces of shit guards did a damned thing to stop him. This is the second time this week he’s gone nuts for something tiny! Where the hell did they find this psycho?”

“Rictus,” Silco answered flatly. “He is a Noxian.”

“Oh, hell. Is Marcus really that scared of us that he had to bring someone like him here?” 

“He’s not new, though he has been gone for a few years. Marcus is certainly up to something if he was willing to bring him back.”

Vander looked over at him. “You’ve had run-ins with him before?”

Silco felt something like tar stick in his throat, like the first time he had accidentally drank the sludge at the bottom of a black shine jar. He swallowed back his sick, thinking of his own broken arm, trying to fight and escape that man. He suddenly pictured Vander rushing out of this cell to go beat Rictus to death with his bare hands. He shook his head, ignoring the sudden urge to rub at the scar on the back of his neck. “No, just heard a few stories here and there.”

Vander snorted. “I know you don’t like me telling you what to do, so can I at least strongly encourage you not to steal with that man wrecking havoc like he is? I don’t want him anywhere near you. I know you take care of yourself, but Sil…”

“I won’t argue with you on this, specifically,” he conceded. “He is…” He met Vander’s gaze as the man listened, waiting for him to finish his thought. He had to fight the sudden urge to climb into Vander’s lap for a hug like a child and reminded himself again that neither of them could afford Vander losing his shit and killing that man no matter how much Rictus deserved it. “I won’t test my luck.”

“Good.”

“At any rate, I have already moved on to a new venture. I… am a craftsman now, or something.” He shrugged, waving at his scattered tools. He thought of Benzo’s warning, irritated that for once he wanted to talk to Vander but could barely say anything about anything currently happening in his life! “I have… just been making little tools for the commissary. Can openers and that sort of thing.”

Vander stared at him deadpan, seeing right through him. “Weapons, then.” 

Silco tilted his head, his eyes wide and perfectly innocent. “Little ones.” 

“That still stab people.”

“Not all of us are built with natural weapons attached to our wrists. Some of us need a little help leveling the playing field.” Silco could sense what Vander was thinking, knew that frown had a question attached to it about Vander being that help for him, but… “I cannot always expect you to be standing directly behind me.”

“Fair.” Vander held up his hands, shrugging back. “Listen, it is definitely better than you getting caught where you’re not supposed to be, but if one of your little switchblades ends up in my ribs during the next match, I’m coming after you and wringing your neck.”

+

Vander had to be shoved to snap out of his musing and move along the commissary line. He was so lost in thought, but for once they were happy ones. 

Even as the lamps had to be turned on early this evening thanks to the heavy storm clouds waiting to drop, he was smiling to himself, counting down the minutes.

He’d left for the mines this morning with the savory taste of Silco fresh on his tongue, but it had faded hours ago. He was going to remedy that. He didn’t quite understand why Silco was weird about Vander having his mouth on him for so long, especially when Silco was so eager to return the favor and have Vander’s cock down his throat, choking himself half to death. But he was funny about any sort of kisses, no matter where Vander gave them to him.

But Silco let him indulge, let Vander make his case, and bit by bit Silco was starting to come around. He was even asking for things, things that had they simply talked to each other about weeks prior would have already been happening, but they were talking now. 

Last night he’d come home so exhausted from his shift, he couldn’t do much but sit at Silco’s bedside and kiss and finger him through several orgasms until Silco couldn’t ask for anymore and fell asleep. 

Yes, he had been angry with Vander this morning for letting him sleep in a wet spot after making him gush all over Vander’s hand, but they’d arrived at a compromise. There would be towels involved next time, on Silco’s bed at least.

“The usual, son?” 

He nodded, surprised, when Benzo moved out of the way to the shelves, to see a familiar face sitting in the corner reading a book with his own little smile on his face, his auburn hair down about his shoulders. Huck glanced up, giving Vander a quick wave.

Interesting. Vander watched Benzo grab a little bag and, as he’d done the last time, dropped two packs of cigarettes in instead of just the one Vander had paid for.

Only this time, he also dropped a box of the soap Silco liked, three pieces of candy, the smallest jar of clear shine Vander had ever seen from some hidden place under a drawer, and threw a pack of jerky in as well.

“For your fellow. Tell him I said thanks,” Benzo smiled, nodding back at Huck. He turned back to Vander with a stern face, pointing his finger. “Put that away. The rest of these blokes don’t need to see what you got. That’s a good lad. Now get a move on, you’re holding up my line.”

Confused, Vander didn’t ask questions, just took off his helmet and hid the bag behind it, tucking it to his chest.

He avoided eye contact with the new guard whose heavy stare followed him like a shadow down the whole way across the corridor. The Noxian was still staring when Vander glanced back. Odd. 

The bottom of the clouds fell out by the time he reached their cell, glancing at their neighbor on the way there. He tapped on the bars, startling the man as he paced in a circle, chewing on his hand. “Easy there, James, it’s just a bit of rain.”

“He is going to scream his head off all night again, isn’t he?” Silco asked.

In his underwear and sweater again. Playing with the empty sleeve. His hair was free and drying. 

Silco smirked at him, knowing how he looked, the bastard. “Cat got your tongue? You did promise to make up for how last night ended, remember? You promised to spoil me.”

“Apparently I wasn't the only one. This is for you. Said to tell you thanks.”

Silco tilted his head, frowning before his eyes shot wide. “No! He actually did it.” He tore open the bag with his teeth, more and more tickled the more items he pulled out. He was practically beaming, holding the shine like a trophy. “All of this was for that tired twink? It is a damn good thing I beat Huck’s ass if Benzo is this happy with him. I might not have ever gotten you back.”

“Sil.”

He shrugged innocently. “I simply did what you asked. I was nice.” 

“Is this Benzo also ‘nice?’”

“He’s fair. Huck is in good hands… so long as Benzo never hears my side of how your friend first called me a whore as if he isn’t, then threatened to poison me, and then viciously attacked me when my back was turned.”

Vander cleared his throat to hide his laugh, sitting on his cot to take off his boots. “Is Benzo the one you’re making ‘can openers’ for?”

Silco narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps… why?”

Vander shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. “How long have you known him?”

“No need to worry, sweetheart. Benzo is far too busy playing at being a father figure to all us wayward, young hooligans to ever consider being that sort of a ‘daddy’ to me. No competition there, although you two are competing for the world’s squarest heads.”

“Oh, piss off.” Vander chucked his pillow at Silco, hitting him square in the face.

And there was that laugh he hadn’t heard since Silco’s blackout, free and mischievous and so full of the life Silco kept bottled up inside him. Silco lay where he’d fallen back on his rumpled blankets, still holding the pillow as he smiled, his chipped teeth on full display. 

Vander couldn’t help it, he took off his coat and bridged the space and covered him, encouraged when Silco parted his legs for him to slot between as Vander kissed first his nose, then the lids of those sea green eyes. He kissed his cheeks, making him giggle, before dipping again to kiss his nose, earning himself a playful slap before he claimed his lips. 

“Your head is just massive,” Silco whispered, tentatively tracing Vander’s jaw and cheek. 

“So is that bird beak in the middle of your face.” Vander kissed his nose again, catching Silco’s frown. He eyed him sideways, cupping Silco’s palm to his stubbled cheek, forcing him to pet through his hair and hold his neck. “Is this what you’re getting at?” That sweet blush darkening on Silco’s skin was his answer as his eyes followed everywhere his and Vander’s hand moved along Vander’s skin. “You don’t need excuses to touch me, Sil.” 

“It’s so… intimate, this part.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He kissed Silco’s frown as it returned, his heart breaking a little. “Why is it bad?”

Silco shook his head, something of a desperate look in his eyes. “It’s just different.”

New. Not transactional. Not part of an empty trade between two strangers. “Do you like it?”

Silco was hesitant to answer at first, thinking it over, before he nodded. 

Vander released the breath he’d been holding, letting his weight lie a little more on top of him as he made sure to kiss him as sweetly and as thoroughly as he could manage, slipping his arms under his shoulders to cradle his head. He smiled against Silco’s lips, charmed as always by Silco’s determination to overcome his inexperience. Bit by bit, Silco’s hand crept around Vander’s neck, his arm coming to rest draped over his shoulders.

After a while, Silco groaned against his lips, unhappy and squirming. It made Vander chuckle and kiss him deeper, turning that groan into a whine. 

“Sil, it’s alright if this is making you wet,” he whispered, nipping at his jaw and throat. “We can always wash your poor skivvies later.”

“My clothes are going to disintegrate because of you and that insatiable tongue of yours.”

“You can always take them off, to keep them safe, before—”

Thunder rumbled low from the mouth of the pit. They both froze, but when the lightning flashed and nothing else but the rain followed, they relaxed. 

“Then get off me so I can save them,” Silco teased, shoving him in the chest. 

Vander hummed, not moving. “Only on the condition that you let me take my time with you. I am demanding to spoil you tonight.”

Silco bit his lip, his cheeks already turning a darker shade of pink as he tried to get up from under the immovable man. His breathy voice betrayed his want for it as he asked, “Are you about to go down on me from now until the sun comes up? You will put me to sleep again.”

“We can’t have that. But yes, I do intend to ‘go down’ on you, but only until you’re begging me to stop.”

Silco rolled his eyes, fighting back his grin. “I suppose I have no choice. Fine. Spoil me.”

“You keep up that act and I’m going to sleep.” He startled at the feel of Silco’s claws in his jaw and his threatening glare. “You little brat.”

The thunder was a distant noise as they fumbled together, first undressing Silco, but they both nearly jumped out their skin when the man next door lost it at the next loud boom.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Silco groaned, tossing his arm over his face. 

“It’s alright, James,” Vander yelled, but it was doubtful the man could hear him over the man’s own shouting about acid rain or the pit flooding and the men in the neighboring cells yelling for him to calm down.

Silco pulled his pillow over his head. 

“Maybe if we move to my bed, it won’t be so loud.” 

Silco already knew to wrap his arm and legs around Vander before the man lifted him to carry him over to his cot. 

“There we go.” Vander sat back, putting on a show of sitting back and stripping out of his shirt, feeling Silco’s hand come up to trace the wide expanse of muscles up his belly and chest, his grin wicked.

And then James screamed again. Silco sobbed. “Vander, if you just—”

“No.”

“Just a little knock on the head to help him sleep. It would be the compassionate thing to do.”

“I’m not knocking a man out for our nut. Besides, the storm ought to be over soon enough.”

It wasn’t. 

With each clap of thunder, the man screamed louder.

Silco sighed up the ceiling, his lips thin as he fought to suppress his irritation. “He just let me suck your cock in total silence, but now he starts up again when it’s my turn?”

“Darling,” Vander chided, “you know he’s off his rocker. He can’t help it.” 

They listened to him ramble and wail again as others shouted at the man to be quiet under the steady shower of rain and flashes of lightning. 

Vander tickled his tongue up Silco’s cock hood. “Just focus on me.”

Silco’s brow arched as he eased back down, his legs spread. “You have my undivided attention.”

Vander slid his fingers in, sucking on his cock as Silco’s eyes fluttered closed, his sigh content. He gave Vander the most loving smile as he combed his fingers through Vander’s hair, biting his lip when Vander sucked harder and released him with a pop. 

Thunder rumbled again like a long purr, far off, followed by several glittering flashes of lightning. The screaming started again. It was the last straw.

“Sweetheart,” Silco patted Vander’s cheeks, easing him off, “just give me one second.” 

He grabbed the bucket from the floor and chucked it at the cell door, stomping after it to shout through the bars closest to the wall. “James! Shut the fuck up! If I have to hear you scream one more time tonight, every crumb of food you ever put to your lips will be filled with crushed glass from tomorrow morning until the day it kills you,” he yelled, stomping his foot, his fist clenched. “I will work as long as I have to to cut a hole in that fence directly across from your cell so I can push you through it to your death—and if it is not high enough to kill you, rest assured that I will have Vander carry your broken body all the way up to the top floor and throw you off to make sure you never recover! I will break into your cell tonight and suffocate you with whatever I get my hands on if I hear one more sound out of your mouth! Your silence is the only proof I need of your comprehension.” 

In the stretch of silence that followed, they heard only one other voice from down the opposite way yell out, “Thanks, Sil!”

He turned back to Vander, shaking his hair from his shoulders as he smiled, leaning against the bars. “Now, where were we?”

Vander had to wipe tears from his eyes, trying to breathe. He covered his mouth, his shoulders shaking. “That was…”

“Necessary?”

“Blood villainous,” he teased quietly, keeping his laughter down for James’ sake. “And why put my name in it? He’s gonna be terrified of me now!”

“Good. He will know to keep his mouth shut when you are busy using yours.”

When the lightning flashed, it illuminated Silco’s bare, slender form and all the places the low light of the lamps had cast in shadows. Like an incubus coming to seduce Vander, Silco returned on light feet, his shoulders swaying as he walked. 

All traces of humor vanished as Silco stood before him like a dream. Vander grabbed him, pulling him into his lap. He continued backwards, lying down, keeping Silco flush to his chest with an arm wrapped around his waist and his other hand gripping his hair. He devoured his lips, moaning when Silco’s tongue ventured into his for a taste, but was quick to retreat when Vander sucked on it.

He didn’t know what came over him in that moment. In hindsight, he would condemn himself most thoroughly having never, ever imagined spanking someone, but his hand came down on Silco’s ass hard. It pulled a gasp from him that parted his lips enough for Vander to chase his tongue with his own. He half expected Silco to bite him, not melt further into him, bucking his ass back against that hand. 

Emboldened, Vander moved under him, pushing Silco up his body towards his pillow as he wiggled down until he could hold Silco’s thighs to either side of his head and suck.

Silco let out a string of curses, trying to reach for the cot’s chain to pull himself to safety but he was trapped, firmly planted. He tried to rise up on his arm, but it was shaking. 

Vander moaned, feeling him struggle. “Come on, Sil, put that pretty cock in my mouth.”

Something flashed in Silco’s face, something nervous and excited and uncertain, like Vander was asking him to pull the trigger on a loaded gun for the first time. He could feel Silco’s hips relax a little more as he angled for Vander’s parted lips and pushed in, his thick, swollen nub like a roll of hard candy for how sweet it was on Vander’s tongue. 

Above Vander, Silco whimpered quietly pushing his waves of black hair out of his face as he stared, entranced and enraptured by Vander’s sucking. Vander greedily moved his hips for him with his big hands, moaning when Silco understood he was meant to fuck his mouth. 

“Oh! God, Vander, this is,” Silco gasped for air like he was drowning, his fingers gripping Vander’s hair at the root. He hissed, his beautiful eyes rolling as his cock began to spasm and pulse, caught in the tortuous roll of Vander’s tongue. 

The moment Vander felt slick on his chin sliding down past his jaw and neck, he was moaning and coming freely on his stomach, spurting all over the place. 

He was still smiling as Silco tried to escape again on that poor shaky arm. 

“Vander, wait. I can’t…”

Just as Vander had hoped, Silco made the fatal mistake of sitting back, propping his hand on Vander’s stomach. It changed the angle. Vander smiled wider, skipping and cartwheeling himself into heaven as he moved Silco’s hips back and forth over his mouth, moaning under him as his tongue now played with Silco’s folds, slipping past his hole before hurrying back for it, thrusting up as deep as he could, listening to Silco unravel above him. 

Vander cooed against his thigh. “Did you know one of your little petals is longer than the other one?”

Silco went rigid, panting and surely blushing down to his toes now. “I am a single breath away from standing up and stomping you to death. I just haven’t decided whether I should aim for your face or your balls.”

“It’s cute, is all… It’s sexy.” He licked between them for emphasis. “I particularly like this one,” he teased, catching it with his tongue as Silco squirmed, “in case you’re wondering why I linger on it.” He nipped it, smirking as Silco yelped and squeezed his head between his thighs. 

“V-Vander! Fuck! This is too much!” 

Vander patted his thigh and reached for his asshole to tease with his finger tip in answer. 

“Vander,” he heard Silco whisper up to the ceiling, his voice breathy as if he’d finally snapped, his brain now a mess of feeling and nothing else. He mindlessly rocked his hips, his eyes closed to the ceiling and his pretty brow furrowed. “Please… please. Please.”

Vander rubbed his nose on Silco’s cock in answer, moaning with contentment. 

Silco sobbed as he came, his nails caught dangerously close to Vander’s navel. “Vander, you rotten, son of a… a… Fuck, I am dying and it’s your fucking fault, you bastard.” 

Vander sent Silco collapsing face first into the pillow when he slipped from underneath him. He rose up behind him, spanking Silco’s ass again before he slipped two fingers in his sex. He took a moment to admire the view. He grinned at the handprints on his cheeks. “Is swearing at me your way of telling me you love all this or something?” Silco went rigid again, squeezing his fingers in a deathgrip suddenly. 

He leaned over to kiss Silco between his hunched shoulder blades. “I love it too, sweetheart.” 

Silco looked back, wide eyed and red as a beet. “What?”

Vander lifted Silco’s hips, getting him on his knees—and shamefully, on his bad shoulder—his ass up and begging for a few more kisses. Later. He needed Silco a little more boneless first.

He stroked himself to full hardness and exhaled, his head falling back as he lined up his pulsing cock and pushed in.

He could remember years ago being younger and dumber and having the brilliant idea to break into a house in Piltover with his cousins. They’d chickened out at the gate but he’d gone on, finding a pool in the house’s back garden. He knew enough to fight the urge to cannonball in and risk alerting any neighbors. Sinking carefully, leisurely into that warm, clear water, letting it envelop him as he sank up to his chin, this was what it felt like sliding into Silco. His cockhead kissed Silco’s sex and pushed, already met with such heavenly tightness, but the endless slick drove him wild. He wanted to take his time swimming, let each backstroke ripple the water just enough to crash little waves over the pretty tiles and onto the soft grass…

But Silco would have no such thing, not for long at least. He moaned, keening into the pillow and rocked on Vander’s slow thrusts, rolling his hips, impatient as always with his body’s need to adjust to Vander’s size, but he was soon reaching back for him, pushing back harder and faster, egging Vander on. 

Vander had to hold him by the hips to keep him from being knocked too far forward when he took the bait. The air was peppered with their labored breaths and skin smacking, unmistakable to anyone within earshot.

Not thinking, he grabbed Silco’s arm and pinned it behind his back, but released it the moment Silco pulled it away to clutch the pillow underneath him, effectively hiding it from Vander’s grasp. 

Vander rubbed his back, slowing his pace. He leaned over him, nipping his ear as he asked, “You alright?” 

Silco’s little laugh eased his worry. “Is… is my service top having performance anxiety already? I’m fine. Go faster.”

Vander huffed, “Whatever you say, pillow princess.” He pushed Silco’s head back down as he picked up the pace. He held him by his nape, groaning at the sight, until his thumb stumbled over a raised line of scarring that was oval-shaped when he brushed Silco’s hair aside. 

It stretched from his hairline behind his ear down the column of his neck. Like a bite mark but far too vicious and old to be that. Some scars were little raised spots along the outside arch, like punctures, but others parts of the scar were jagged, torn.

Before he could fully decipher what he was looking at, Silco twisted to look back at him, his pupils blown and lips parted. Utterly blissed out. 

Vander couldn’t think of anything else but how beautiful and sensual he was. He leaned over him to kiss, wrapping his arm around his neck to hold him, his other dipping down the shallow valley of his chest and further, skipping over the raised lines of that awful tattoo, and down into his soft hair. He teased his cock, revelling in the moans Silco unleashed against his lips. Louder and louder, rising above the constant slap of their bodies rutting together.

“You realize what you’ve done shutting James up?” Vander rolled Silco’s cock between his fingers, listening to his voice pick up even higher. “Now instead of the floor hearing him scream all night, they get to hear you sing for me.”

Silco’s blush spread up the back of his neck and ears as he moaned, the pillow wet under his parted lips. “Shut up, Vander!”

Vander slid his other hand up Silco’s ass, petting over his asshole again. At once, he felt Silco’s pussy squeeze him tighter, knowing what Vander was up to even before Vander spit on his hole. “Me? I’m not the loud one, love.” He pushed his thumb in the base, feeling Silco’s orgasm and his own cock still thrusting. “That’s all you.”

Silco moaned with abandon into the pillow, his hand still holding Vander’s over his cock, but he could do nothing but push back against that thumb and take his pounding. Not a thought in that pretty head, just all feeling. It made Vander’s chest swell with pride. 

“You sound so beautiful, Sil,” without a hint of teasing in Vander’s voice. “I love it when you let me see you like this.” 

“Sil,” Vander said as they listened to the storm in silence, washing up, “come sleep with me tonight.”

Silco snorted, moving about his own cot in his sweater again, letting out a long puff of cigarette smoke. “Do I look like I want to be crushed to death in my sleep, Vander?”

“We can both fit.” He pouted. “Just lie on top of me.” He drained his bucket and toweled off, blushing as he fought the urge to just pick him up and bring him over. “Please?” 

After a while, Silco glanced over his shoulder, sighing. “If I start sweating because you are a furnace, I am leaving.”

“I’ll be a block of ice, then.” He rubbed at his smile, feeling silly for begging but he always felt this way, after, and Silco was always so distant, like something was wrong. Silco would give himself totally over to Vander, would open himself up so fully, only to shut completely down again. It ate at him. 

But tonight, Silco studied him and finished his cigarette, tossing it down the drain before he left his cot and sweater behind, joining Vander. “So what now?”

“We cuddle.” Vander grinned from ear to ear, pulling him over for more kisses. “Pretty, little thing—”

“I am not a thing. And I am not ‘little’ either. You are just… ridiculously oversized.”

Vander sat back. “And… not pretty?”

Silco narrowed his eyes. “Now, when did I contest that?” 

“Fair… pretty boy.” He couldn’t help but smile at the blush that grew from Silco’s cheeks to his ears and down his neck, even as sea green eyes glared back at him. “Are you my pretty boy? Ah, there it is.” That smile, private and perfect. “Beautiful.”

“Alright, that’s enough from you.” Silco pushed Vander onto his back and got them under the blankets. He straddled Vander’s waist, lying over him with Vander’s furry chest and belly tickling his own bare skin, still trying to fight back his smile. 

“I’m only telling the truth,” Vander murmured when Silco tucked his head under his chin. He ran his fingers through those soft, black waves. “You’re beautiful…” His free hand traced up the length of Silco’s spine and over his shoulder, needing all of Silco’s softness and sharp bone, even his scars. 

Vander held his breath, letting only his fingertips whisper down the length of scars covering Silco’s residual arm, his brow rising higher the longer Silco allowed this touch. It wasn’t until his thumb brushed the metal cap on the stump that he had to gently hold Silco to stop him from moving away. “Sorry. Sorry, love,” he whispered, releasing his breath as the rigid body draped over him began to relax again, bit by bit. 

He sighed, content to finally get his long awaited cuddle. “Sorry, by the way, about earlier. I just got so caught up, that… and the way you had your legs wrapped around me, I wasn’t able to pull out fast enough. But, next time—”

Silco snorted, laughing into his chest. “Vander, do you honestly think you are the first man not to pull out? If there was a risk, trust me, I would have had, at minimum, half a dozen children by now. It’s fine.”

Vander huffed, trying to laugh with him. “Right…” One man, let alone a ‘minimum half-dozen’ others was the last thing he ever wanted to acknowledge the existence of. He hugged Silco, frowning when the man wiggled to loosen his hold.

“Besides,” Silco teased after a while with a smirk, “I leglocked you for a reason. It’s about time you let us ride that wave together all the way through instead of jumping ship.”

Ah. “Says the man who hates a mess.”

Silco tilted his head, pausing. “Other messes.”

Vander hummed, laughing. “Well, then. It’s settled. From now on, you get my load as deep in your cunt as I can manage.” He could already feel himself getting hard again at the thought.

Another pause and smirk, Silco face pressed to Vander’s chest as if this man could ever truly be shy. “Alright.”

Vander had to take several deep breaths, fighting a war not to roll them over and pump a few loads in him right now. Coming inside him had been so… He lit a smoke, suddenly a little quietly awestruck as it hit him who he was with and what they were doing, together. What Silco wanted them to do together. 

He exhaled, watching the smoke rise and coil up to the ceiling. “How the hell does a man like you end up in a place like this?”

Silco bit his lip to hide his pout, his brow furrowed for a moment as he studied his hand on Vander’s shoulder, letting the man stroke his nape through his hair. “I suppose it is the same story for all of us. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstances.” 

“Not the same. I deserve to be here.”

Silco shrugged, trying to ease away again, but Vander simply squeezed his nape in a gentle hold, keeping him from running away. He tried to glare under that massaging hand. “If that is true, then perhaps, so do I.”

“Tell me?” 

He sighed, relenting when Vander offered him another smoke. “I was a junkie that stole a book from a library in Piltover about unionizing and social reform,” he said against Vander’s chest, exhaling the smoke. “Not sure why I grabbed it, honestly. The cover wasn’t even pretty, just bold black lettering over a block of red, but I was high… That, I got away with. My real sin was that I read it and it inspired me. I would go around and preach to the other junkies and hustlers about why it was unfair for… for us to have to give cuts of our earnings to some nameless, faceless Piltie pimp who never even stepped foot in the Lanes to collect it, that it should be ours. I even convinced their money runners on our side to stop giving them our money, so naturally they came looking for me.”

Vander suddenly thought of Silco’s faded uniform. “How long ago was this?”

“A little over five years, maybe? I was a minor and they could not exactly arrest me for not paying illegal taxes from an illegal trade to an illegal pimp, so I suppose they had enforcers tailing me, looking for me to slip up. Naturally, I did. I took another book—but it was meant to be an honest trade, this time. In daylight, even. I suppose the librarian was so stunned that I could read, she just gave it to me. But I was arrested anyway. A ‘mistake,’ they said. And then again when I came back for another book, handed to me by the same librarian. Caught a charge once for loitering because I was reading on the Piltover side of the bridge, then again when I read on the undercity side of the bridge. I suppose the enforcers were sick of having to ‘mistakenly’ pick me up and drop me off and then pick me up again, so… after a while, instead of booking me in Stillwater, they dumped me here.” 

The steady rise and fall of Vander’s chest stuttered, uneven, like an engine, sputtering and running out of fuel. Out of all the things Silco could have said, this was so far from anything he could have imagined, his brain couldn’t process it. His heavy sigh ruffled Silco’s hair. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“No.”

“Then tell me you’re lying.”

“I am not.” He took another inhale, savoring the smoke. “I did lie when I first got here. I would say I took an airship full of Piltover school children hostage and crashed it, killing them all, or set something important on fire with important people inside the building, let the prison run wild with their own rumors… Anything other than, ‘I was a silly child who talked too much,’ or that, ‘I held a book in my hand on the bridge for too long,’ otherwise I would not have survived long enough to tell you any of this.” 

“But…” He huffed. “But Sil, that’s… This place is… You-you don’t just—”

“Vander, sweetheart.” He patted his chest, his voice soft. “I am well aware of that. Please do not ruin this moment. We have never tried this before. It’s nice. I want it to be nice.” He closed his eyes, nuzzling Vander’s chest before he kissed it, the tip of his nose bending as he pressed another kiss over his heart.

Only, a thousand protests and complaints and questions all brewed in the rapid, scattered breaths heaving in that chest. Vander’s mind was at war with his body, batting for a return to the peace Silco had asked him for. 

So much made sense now, but Vander couldn’t wrap his head around it all tonight. Not without totally and irreparably losing his mind and tearing this whole prison down.

“It could have been worse,” he heard Silco mutter after a while. “Always remember that it could have been worse for people like me. It could always be a whole lot worse than this.” 

“I just… Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, this is nice.” He knew Silco was funny about hugs but he couldn’t help it. He wrapped his arms around his back and his waist, swallowing him up in as much comfort as he wouldn’t risk trying to convey with more words. Vander cupped his head, littering his hair with kisses. “We should do this more often.” He let his head thump back against the pillow, tears welling in his eyes. 

He had to force himself to think of anything else or nothing at all, but it was impossible. Everything Silco had endured here, everything he had to subject himself to and sacrifice, it was all for nothing. An innocent man—a boy—had been forced to do the unthinkable just to survive here. And he was still so young and so stubborn that he would either die young in some horrific way, or continue to survive for years, decades surely, doing whatever he had to do to live out his sentence… suffering. Had he even been sentenced? Who even knew Silco was here? For all Piltover had to say, the poor boy died in Stillwater years ago.

Vander hugged him tighter, rubbing his back. He let his tears fall unabated as he listened to Silco slowly drift to sleep. He slipped the cigarette from his limp fingers, tapping the ash over the side before finishing it, his mind racing for what felt like hours.

He couldn’t stay here. Silco simply could not stay here. 

Whatever it took, Vander had to get him out. 

Silco startled awake at the return of the storm, its thunder and rain more intense than before.

He pulled the covers tighter and wiggled carefully until he was nestled more on Vander’s side and closer to the wall, knowing the man would have to get up for work in a few hours. 

With his head pillowed on the man’s chest, he tried to get back to sleep. He was wondering if it was possible to gather enough blankets to pin in front of the bars for a curtain at some point when he saw him.

He sat up, his blood ice cold. 

“Just checking on your neighbor,” Rictus said quietly, slowly prowling back and forth between theirs and James’ cells before he walked off casually with a smile and wink, twirling his baton like a toy. 

Vander stirred, his arms circling him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Even as his heart pounded nearly out of his chest. He laid back down, pulling the covers up tightly around them both, wide awake now. “Just the thunder. Go back to sleep.”

Vander yawned like a big bear, already nodding off again. “You first.”

Silco felt none of Vander’s petting his hair or his hug, his eyes glued to the bars, expecting to see Rictus walk back at any minute. How long had he…? James had stopped screaming hours ago. Had he been out there the entire time they were…? 

“Sil?”

“Right behind you.” He kissed Vander’s chest, forcing himself to breathe under the weight of Vander’s arm across his back, never taking his eyes away from those bars. 

+

Chapter Text

+

Silco woke up alone the following morning, exhausted.

And hoping against all hope that last night had simply ended with him drifting to sleep an hour ago into a nightmare that wasn’t real. It was possible for guards to be called when a nutcase like James would scream their head off, yes, but… surely not Rictus. This pit was too vast, too filled with too many problems and too many screaming nutcases all the time for this one to have led that man directly to Silco, to his safe place. His only safe place. 

But if it had been a dream, why then when Silco opened his eyes and turned was that very man once again standing just outside of his cell. 

Silco tripped over his own breath, lying there, stuck. But the cell was locked, he reminded himself. Vander always locked the cell when he left. The second key, Silco’s key, was still hanging on its wire near his cot. 

Rictus leaned against the bars. “Come here.”

Silco sat up with the blankets wrapped as tightly around his chest as he could, keeping his eyes on the man as he moved slowly, picking up Vander’s nightshirt off the floor with his toes. He slipped into it before leaving the cot and stood just out of arm’s reach, holding the empty sleeve. 

“Is this your cell or are you visiting?”

There was no point lying. “Mine,” he murmured, swallowing as Rictus nodded.

Rictus tapped on the metal, admiring the old designs crisscrossing in arches across the top half of the bars like vines. If he reached for it, he could probably touch the ceiling with ease. “It is odd to see you in a proper cell bonding with a man like him. Do you remember when—”

“Of course I do.”

“—I had to rescue you from one of your previous cellmates. What was his name? I forgot.”

“That’s a shame. So have I.”

Rictus glared. “Tell me.” When Silco continued to hold his tongue, Rictus held up Marcus’s set of master keys for each level, eyeing the lock as he walked over to it.

Silco’s breath stuttered. “Remi.”

“Yes, that’s it,” he rumbled, nearly purring as he put the keys back on his belt, but still rested his hand on the lock, stroking it. “Remi. He had you stripped and strung up to the bars for anyone to use. Why was that?”

Silco ignored the flush of shame spreading across his skin now, his eyes burning. “I bit him,” he said, as void of emotion as he could, trying not to remember.

Rictus laughed. “Of course you did. How long had he kept you there before my guards and I had to beat back the crowd and cut you down from those bars?”

“You mean ‘cut me down’ after you fucked me in front of those guards?”

Rictus shrugged, tilting his head. “You were so angry back then.”

“Yes, it is odd. I cannot possibly imagine why I would be angry about any of that.”

“Men like him—men like us—used to only rile you up more when we pushed you around and played with you. But I see now that softness and cuddles are what tempers you?” He smiled. “Interesting. Should Marcus be thanking your buck, or should he be envious of him? I certainly am. You never got that wet for anyone else, least of all me when I put you on your belly like he did.” He watched Silco take a small step back. “I wonder where Remi is now. I should check on him and see if he misses you.” 

Silco huffed, running his shaky hand through his hair, knowing his flint would not be there. “You should. You would have to go quite far underground to reach him. He’s dead.” He smirked, forever comforted by that fact. “His entire crew is dead.”

Rictus gripped the bars as if Silco was telling him the most exciting news. “You killed them? The shark does more than bite now?”

“No. The mines and shine took care of them.”

“Pity. You and Marcus are far too frightened to do what is necessary to avenge one’s honor, even if that means causing a little death in the process.”

“Lucky for both of us then.”

“But which of you will crack first, I wonder.” Rictus stepped back, stroking his beard. 

Silco watched him leave, rooted to the spot until his stomach heaved. 

+

It took hearing the sound of paper being ripped and seeing it fly in a ball across the room to the toilet bowl for Vander to know that Silco was in the cell. 

He couldn’t see him at all from the outside and had thought to circle back to the canteen, thinking he was there, after his shift. And then a socked foot appeared.

Silco was sitting on the floor, hidden by his mining coat and a blanket hanging on the cot chain and the cot itself that blocked him from view. 

This was the third time this week. “Why are you down there again?” 

Silco shrugged, ripping out another page and balling it up to toss it. “Is it not allowed?”

“It’s odd, love. Is your cot too comfortable?” No answer. Vander sighed, picking up one of the crumpled papers. “Why are you getting rid of these?”

“I have made enough knives to know what I’m doing. No point in holding onto evidence if the room gets raided. Don’t need them looking in and seeing what is in that tool box either.”  

Vander frowned, knowing that had never been an issue before for Silco. But the man was already prickly enough, Vander wasn’t going to push the matter. He was exhausted enough as is and wasn’t looking for a fight. “We bunking together tonight?”

Silco’s expression flashed with fear for a moment before he glanced at the bars. He shook his head, glaring at his journal, his lips thin. “No, not tonight.”

“Or any night,” Vander retorted, annoyed. He was admittedly rough tossing down his helmet on his cot and kicking off his boots, but it had been like this between them for days. He couldn’t take it anymore.

He circled back, squatting in front of him, making him flinch. “Sil, we’ve been through this already. You can talk to me. Alright? Whatever’s happened… whatever I did to screw up this time, just say it. Otherwise, I can’t fix it.”

“It’s nothing,” Silco answered, his tone deflated. “You have done nothing, Vander. It’s just…” He hugged his folded legs closer to his chest. “I’m not in the mood for sex right now.” 

“Who said anything about that,” Vander asked gently, relieved to be getting somewhere. “I just want to lie down with you.”

Silco frowned, finally looking at him. “But… Vander, why would we do that if we are not fucking? That makes no sense. What is the point?”

Vander’s heart broke, fully. Silco was so openly confused by the prospect, it broke Vander. He sat on the floor, a little lost for words for a moment. “I have no clue how you sit on this hard floor all day without your ass going numb. I…” He pushed through his blush. “I just want to sleep holding you, okay? That’s normal. It’s not weird to… want to just be together without it having to be anything else. Is that why you’ve been so… this for three days? Because you don’t want sex. Sil, one kiss from you and that’s made my night. Touching you? I’m over the moon. Anything beyond that is incredible and not at all necessary for us to… you know.” He shrugged. “So… no pressure. And if you want to be alone, that’s also fine.” It wasn’t. It wasn’t fine. It hurt, but Vander was going to be a big boy about it. 

He got on his knees and kissed Silco’s hairline and patted his shoulder before standing up, feeling the man’s eyes on him as he got ready for bed. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

By the time he got under his blankets, Silco was standing beside the cot, having moved on feather light feet when Vander’s back had been turned. Vander sat up, surprised. Silco had quickly stripped down to his underclothes, the hem of his t-shirt twisted in his fingers, nervous, his eyes on the bars again. 

“You… you coming in?” 

“No sex?”

“The wheel’s in your hand and the peddle’s under your foot. Always will be.” His brow shot up when Silco nodded. He held up the blankets to let him in, saying nothing else, his heart beating all over the place as Silco climbed over him and squeezed himself into the little space between Vander and the wall. He found himself lying nearly on top of the smaller man with Silco pressed snuggly to his back by the time they both got comfortable. 

Anyone looking in the cell wouldn’t even know Silco was behind him. Vander glanced at the bars, expecting to see whatever ghost or phantom Silco was hiding from.

He twisted back to kiss Silco’s forehead, surprised again when Silco pressed several little kisses into his shoulder. He wrapped them in the blankets. 

Tomorrow, he would press and get to the bottom of what was going on. He’d only ever truly seen Silco scared a handful of times, all for very immediate, tangible dangers—himself included, Vander was ashamed to say. But those were all things they’d been able to see together and work through. This? Whatever was out there, Vander wasn’t about to let it slide or ignore it the way he was certain Silco wanted him to. 

They were in this together, and he would prove that. Somehow.

+

Weeks ago, had Vander returned to an empty cell, it would have been normal. 

Silco had his own life and moved at odd hours doing things he had always been vague about. He and Silco had been dancing around the edges of each other back then. Silco had a past to protect, close to his chest. He didn’t know Vander at all, back then. 

But that was weeks ago. Silco still kept most things close to his chest, but he’d begun to include Vander in those things on occasion. He was opening up, sticking around. Something had happened to regress that recently, but last night, they’d gone to bed together. Silco had sought him out for that contact. 

There had been something desperate in his eyes. Fear, but not a fear of Vander. Something outside. Silco was a man of avoidance. Out of this cell would be the very last place Silco would go in this circumstance, and yet he was gone.

Without his boots. And as Vander sat down and kicked his own boots off, he saw that under Silco’s sweater in the corner, his pants were still where he’d undressed last night.

Vander stood, his heart pounding. He hurried out into the corridor but it was too crowded. Everyone done with the morning shift was up and about. No sign of Silco. 

Only that guard. Towering and thirsty as always for a fight, he was stalking with his whistle and baton out, breaking up a cluster of men sharing smokes down the opposite platform and shouting at anyone who loitered too long outside their cells in spite of no curfew existing.  

Catching his gaze sent a chill up Vander’s spine that had him returning to his cell, pacing. He had to go back out, hell, he’d even miss tomorrow’s shift if he had to. He knew what would happen, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else until he could say for sure that Silco was safe. 

Vander hurried back into his boots, grabbing Silco’s to take with him but startled when he turned to the guard standing in his opened door. 

Rictus’s eyes swept over him from head to toe, sizing him up. “Vander, is it?” 

He bristled. “What?”

“You’re due on the enforcers’ floor to get prepped for your match.”

Vander stepped back. “A match?” Not only was his collar light still green, a match wasn’t scheduled for another few days. 

“A special one. Apparently it’s one of the shareholder’s birthdays and they want to see some excitement tonight.” He pointed his chin at Silco’s boots and clothes in Vander’s hand. “You can leave those.” 

He shook his head, holding them even tighter, his fists clenching. “Sorry, but they’ll have to find someone else to do it.”

The guard’s pierced brow rose as he tapped the bar with his baton, smirking. “Do you think that’s smart, son? Imagine your performance if I have to drag you to the cage already bloodied. That wouldn’t be a fair fight, now would it? Imagine what would happen if that caused you to lose.” 

Vander swallowed his growl, his jaw clenching as he dropped Silco’s things. He glared, having to take a breath to make sure his impulses were in check. As much as he couldn’t envision anything beyond pummeling this smug piece of shit into the ground, he couldn’t attack this man. 

He took careful steps towards him, seeing Rictus stiffen in his broad shoulders, anticipating Vander losing his shit, but he stood before him a breath apart, for once having to look up at someone taller to meet his gaze, his hands at his sides. “Well? You gonna lead the way or what?”

Vander wasn’t sure what response he expected, but it certainly wasn’t Rictus slamming his baton into his gut unprovoked, doubling him over. He had to grip the nearest bar, but the guard caught him by the back of the neck, standing him up. He groaned, staggering as he was led forward.

Rictus still had him by the neck when they reached the holding room.

He was forced into his usual chair at the simple table and the little meal they always had prepared for the fighters, but no fighter sat across from him. Instead, Marcus was there, the table empty on his side save for a matching cup of tea. 

Vander resigned himself to go through the motions, eating quickly. “Am I fighting you tonight?”

Marcus smiled. “Wouldn’t that be something?” He sipped his tea, watching Vander guzzle his own. “Rictus tells me that you and Silco have been… joined at the hip, perfectly peachy, as of late. He thinks you’re sweet on him, that you’re soft, but he wasn’t here when you bashed that slut’s face in, so—”

It was instinctual, flipping the table over and launching for Marcus’s throat.

Except, Vander only made it far as sending the table sideways before he felt it, the fuzziness at the corners of his mind, the looseness in his limbs.

He felt confused, suddenly, and would have crashed to the floor if not for Rictus keeping him stable on his feet.

His head swam when Rictus nudged him back down in the chair. “What… what the fuck did you do to me?”

Marcus still sat frozen in place. He glanced up at Rictus, like a terrified child forced to pet a snarling dog, before he smiled again at Vander, more confident now that he wasn’t about to be flattened. He huffed. “Did I strike a nerve? You don’t like me calling that whore a slut, do you, since that would imply that he enjoys having men other than you on top of him?”

Again, Vander tried to lunge for him but couldn’t get his limbs to cooperate. “You pathetic, little weasel. Is this all you got?”

Marcus stood, adjusting his uniform jacket and cuff links. “No, actually. We’ve hardly begun.”

He couldn’t block Marcus’s punches. He grimaced, struggling to keep his amusement at bay in spite of the drug. “Alright, alright, hang on. Can I just say two things first, then? Number one: Why the fuck would you drug a man you're trying to hurt, Marcus? I feel fucking fantastic on this shit. Second: I’m sorry, mate. Okay? I completely understand why you’d hate a man like me. But you’re a Piltie cop. He’s never gonna want you to fuck him and you bloody hate me because, quite frankly, I don’t have that problem. It’s sad, give it up. You've got a wife and a whole world out there you could be annoying the living shit out of, instead of bullying one trapped man. And third thing: I’m gonna really enjoy getting you back for those cheap bitch shots you just took, if nothing else.”

“I shall wait with baited breath for that moment to arrive. Until then, you’ve got a match to lose. Get up.”

Vander couldn’t clearly make out many faces as they passed so many on their way down to the cage. 

Marcus’s grip on his arm bruised him, trying to keep him upright with Rictus on his other arm. “Move,” Marcus shouted, quick with his whistle when they reached a bottleneck in the corridor. 

The crowd of prisoners listened and obeyed, save for one, whose voice Vander could barely make out over the buzzing in his own head.

“Careful with our hound, Marcus. You rough him up and his little shark’s gonna come swimming after you and bite off whatever’s left of your poor prick.”

Judging by Marcus’s reaction, he’d heard him loud and clear, as did every man around them that cackled and whistled.

Rictus barked at them, “Disperse, now!”

But even less men listened this time. “Hey, don’t let that old Sump bum talk to you like that, Marcus,” another man shouted, further off. “We’re sure your wife’s still more than happy after that… unfortunate incident, isn’t she?”

"Oi, Marcus, does your wife by chance look like Silco?" The men went wild.

Marcus’s rage was palpable, vibrating in a frequency Vander could feel even in his altered state. As the other guards moved to clear the men out, Marcus reached for Rictus with the face of a man ready to kill. “Take him. I’m not waiting any longer.”

“Yes, sir. Now that’s a lad,” Rictus nodded, watching Marcus storm off. He lifted Vander up, having no issues handling his weight on his own. In fact they were walking faster now. “I think he’s finally cracked… and here I was, rooting for the shark,” the guard said to himself before catching hold of Vander’s jaw. “Shame. Things are going to get interesting in this place. Make sure not to die so you don’t miss it, alright?”

The sound of the crowds shouting and shaking the fences in excitement did Vander’s head in as word spread of the impromptu fight. He had to steady himself against the cage door before stumbling in, the floor swaying beneath him. 

Everything beyond his arm’s reach was a blur, even the sounds dulled as the drug consumed more of his senses. 

Vander staggered, squinting at his haggard opponent. He thought he was having double vision until two different sets of hands came at him from opposite sides. 

They had him fighting two men at once, when he was already struggling to stand, his limbs too loose, his skin numbing. He took both hits to his ribs and reached for them, too sluggish already as panic began to truly sink in. 

Silco was missing, Rictus had been lurking on their floor waiting for Vander, and now he was drugged and facing two men who were as quick as they were sober and alert. And armed.

Meant to lose. Meant to lose this match and Silco. 

He roared, pushing himself off the cage.

+

Silco paced in the hole, shivering as he wrapped his striped shirt tighter around him, ignoring the heavy dirt blackening the bottom of his socks and the other prisoner who had been tossed in a few hours ago. 

The man leaned against the wall, watching Silco pace, saying nothing.

Silco turned to the guard for what felt like the hundredth time after being here all day, surely. “Is he not even going to make up an excuse for why I was brought here? In my fucking underwear?”

No response. 

He had half a mind to pee in front of the cell door just to get a reaction out of the guard when the outside door swung open so hard, the seated enforcer jumped up with his baton raised, thinking he was under attack. 

“Oh! Sir!” He scrambled back to let Marcus snatch the keys from him to unlock the door. 

Something in his fumbling and tight jaw raised every alarm bell for Silco. He swallowed his comment down, backing up.

Marcus paused, finally looking at Silco, his eyes lingering on his bare legs. His chest heaved, but there was more than lust behind his trembling hands and the careful way he closed the distance between them. “Do you know why men here keep threatening that I’ll ‘get bitten by the shark again’ in reference to you and what you did to me?”

Silco fought the urge to break eye contact or swallow. He lifted his chin, frowning as he shook his head. “No?”

Marcus slapped him to the ground, seething. He yanked Silco by his hair to his knees. “Do you have any idea how close I am to simply just… snapping your fucking neck?!”

The other guard stood stunned. “S-Sir?”

“Get out!” The veins in his neck pulsed as Marcus shouted, his face red. He froze, seemingly noticing the other prisoner for the first time as the man quietly laughed at him. 

Marcus turned to him, his forced little laugh and smile effectively shutting the man up, but Marcus had already snapped.

Silco remained where he sat, rooted to the spot watching as Marcus beat the man with his baton and did not stop. Unable to fully process what he was witnessing. It could not be simply comments fueling this. Embarrassment had never sent Marcus into a murderous rage before, ever. It could not be… It had to be… Rictus. 

Marcus had exhausted himself, spraying the man’s blood all over the cell and himself as he had beaten him beyond death. He tossed down his bloodied baton, his trembling worse when he turned back to Silco. He ripped off his soaked gloves and uniform coat, using its lining to wipe his face, and grabbed Silco’s jaw, forcing him to look up at him. “Have you learned nothing from trying to humiliate me the last time? Was losing your arm not enough for you?! Do you think I'm meant to tolerate your disrespect whilst you parade around with some giant idiot, thinking you're going to get the last laugh?”

Silco kept his mouth shut, cursing Benzo for his inability to keep his own closed with those stupid shark comments, but he wasn’t about to bring anyone else into this. He let himself be pulled to his feet and his wrist cuffed to Marcus’s. 

“Pity Vander’s been caught in the crossfire, but when he dies tonight, I want you to remember how funny your little jokes are.”

Silco’s heart dropped. “What have you done, Marcus?”

He huffed, pulling Silco behind him, out through the enforcers’ floor to the platform outside. 

On the levels below, the whole prison was buzzing, crowding the fences. 

Marcus shoved him, twisting his arm behind him as his weight pressed Silco to the grates, his other hand fisted in Silco’s hair.

Silco stood in shock, trying to process what he was seeing. A fight had been called days before it was scheduled and there, stumbling about was Vander, with barely a bruise on him but already he was struggling just to stay upright. He was being circled by two men ready to attack.

He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to watch Vander take those hits without the speed or coordination needed to block just one man, let alone them both. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

“Open your eyes.” Marcus squeezed his hair tighter. “You don’t get to hide from this. Watch all of your brilliant scheming pay off.”

His mouth filled with the taste of something like vomit, bitter and nasty, and full of rage. 

At once, a humorless laugh burst out of him in waves. “I am so sorry, Marcus. At this point, I have to wonder,” his breath caught when Vander fell, getting piled on in a flurry of kicks from both men, but he got back to his feet. “I have to wonder if sucking your cock would put you out of your misery. I never thought you’d stoop this low that I would be forced to pity you, but I do.” 

Marcus froze behind him for a moment before he whispered against Silco’s ear. “Do you think he’d fare any better if he could see us up here?” He bit the shell.

Silco forced himself to breathe through the stinging pain, feeling Marcus start to harden behind him. He was caught between wanting to scream to Vander for help and wanting to rush down there to get Vander out to his own safety even if it meant clawing their eyes out with his bare hand. “Why, Marcus? W-what would he see that would not send him flying into a blind rage and climb up these fences to come and kill you?”

“He couldn’t do a damned thing and we both know it. I could strip you down right here… Perhaps I will. Then all anyone would have to do is look up to see you on display being put in your place. How many of them know what you really are, I wonder. How would they react? Most of these filthy dogs haven’t seen a cunt in years and here you are, right under their noses.” He pressed harder against him, pushing aside his hair to lick over Rictus’s scar. “It would be so easy to ruin you, ‘Shark.’ But they’re all distracted at the moment… especially Vander. I could bend you over right now and he wouldn’t even notice. You know what the real funny thing is? I could just wave my hand and have Rictus reach in his pocket for the remote that we already have dialed in to Vander's collar and just shock him, make sure he loses.”

Or it could kill Vander. Silco felt Marcus's chin on his shoulder as he watched the match and knew he had to act fast. Being scared was not going to save Vander, but distracting Marcus could give him a chance.

Silco hummed, knowing what he had to do, his heart breaking as Vander failed to block another series of blows. “You have been threatening to fuck me for years, Marcus. And yet, even when you last had the opportunity, you could not go through with it, could you? When you had Rictus bend me over your desk and rail me half to death, all you could do was beat off in your chair, alone and afraid of the both of us.”

“You forget that I’m the one that got you out, you ungrateful, selfish, little…” He sneered in to his neck. “He could have killed you, he was going to kill you and no one would have batted an eye, but I did!”

Silco twisted as much as he could to look at him in utter disbelief. “You honestly want me to thank you for that?” He gritted his teeth, so angry it took everything in him not to lose his mind and bite the man’s throat out. “This has always been your prison, not his! You brought me to your office, you let him torture me for you, and then when things got out of your control and you stopped enjoying the show he put on for you, your ‘rescue attempt’ fucking failed! You weak, pathetic puddle of piss! He made you sit in a corner like the bitch you are! I got myself out when he was finished with me! You just sat there looking as helpless as you always are and always will be!” 

He looked back down at the fight, his heart shredding to bits. He could weep for Vander, but he would die before giving Marcus the satisfaction of watching him crumble. “Face it, Marcus. You don’t have the stomach for it, at least not after what I did to you. You cannot bear to see me upset and distressed and have it be your fault. It’s too dangerous for you. You need me to say yes to you, you need me to beg for it for you to feel safe with me, don’t you? You know I would never be foolish enough to fight him again, but you? Are you willing to gamble away the rest of your cock tonight, right here, for your prisoners to watch you bleed out?” 

He could feel Marcus's breath stutter behind him. He felt the cuff release from his wrist only for Marcus to wrap both hands around his neck, choking him. 

“You know Silco, I don’t actually like watching you suffer. I never have. Only you insist on it being this way, always.”

Down below, the noises from the hoards of prisoners drew Silco’s attention away, but he could not look down with Marcus’s hands on him. It did not stop his heart from soaring, nonetheless, knowing in his soul that in spite of all that was happening, Vander would survive. He had to. “I am not scared of you, and he is going to win no matter what you do to him. It is pointless to go after him when I am the one you hate and want. And I am right here.”

He pushed his hips back, taunting the man to squeeze him even harder. “Grow… your tip back… and do something… with it… you fucking coward.” He stumbled against the fence, gasping for breath when his throat was let go. 

He looked down with tears in his eyes, smiling as Vander already had one man out cold on the cage floor. He was sluggish, on one knee, leaning against the cage clutching his side, but the second man could not get near him even with his knife without risking getting caught in Vander’s reach, alone. 

Behind him, Marcus was fumbling with his belt, so full of rage he was heaving every breath like a man possessed. “Tell me, ‘Shark,’” Marcus gritted out against his ear, “are you going to share this funny story with the boys too? Are you laughing now?” 

Silco refused to cringe away when he felt his cock slide between his thighs as the back of his shirt was lifted up. Even when Marcus kicked his legs apart, his hands pulling at his underwear, Silco kept his eyes on Vander. His heart stopped when the man climbed to his feet and lunged.

Marcus paused, his cock in hand, pressed against Silco’s skin. “Wait. No…” He quickly stuffed himself back in his pants, shoving Silco aside to stare down at the match in horror. “What… the fuck? How?!”

Vander’s blood was all over the cage floor, but he had won. He collapsed back down to his knee next to the man he had had to strangle to death. He swayed but never fell until the match was officially called, going limp and nearly crushing Huck as several guards entered the cage to get him up.

And in the cage door, there was Rictus, looking up at Silco as if he had been watching him and Marcus the whole time, waiting for a signal that had never come, and more.

Silco pulled up his underwear and took off running. He couldn’t tell if Marcus had bothered to chase him or not, he did not care. He did not slow down, having to worm his way out of the hungry arms of enough men to have him exhausted by the time he reached their cell, shoving past every man in his way.

“Vander!”

The guards had left the man collapsed in the doorway to their cell, lying out in the corridor. 

Vander was barely conscious, his breaths labored, his words slurred. “There you are… Did you see me out there?”

He touched any part of the man he could reach, shaking. “O-of course, I did. Y-you were… You were great.” 

“Told you I’d keep my promise,” he muttered, closing his eyes as he smiled. “They’ll have to drag me outta there in a bodybag before I ever let any man get his hands on you again, Sil.”

Silco froze, feeling sick. It hit him like a tunnel collapse. Because they would, he realized. Maybe not tonight, but it was only a matter of time now, they would. Marcus most certainly would. He would hurt Vander worse now, especially if he knew that Silco cared for him. They were running on borrowed time together in this prison and it was painfully apparent now. “Don’t… don’t be silly, Vander.”

“‘m not. I’ll pop Marcus’s little head right off his neck for you.”

“And you would be shot on the spot,” he snapped, “and then where would we be? Hm? Do not ever talk like that!”

Vander tried to open his bruising eyes, wincing through his hurts. “You sound scared, baby. What’s wrong…? Baby, talk to me?”

He blushed, his ears tingling even as his panic was close to reaching the brim. “I am not scared of anything, I am annoyed because your giant body is blocking the door and I have no clue how I am going to drag you in with one arm, but even if I could get past you, you still weigh a thousand bricks. We are not sleeping outside tonight. And… and don’t call me that. I am not…” He sighed, flustered.

Vander’s laugh made the man choke and cough, groaning. Silco wanted to rip his own hair out and scream at the sound. 

They were like sitting ducks out here. Any minute now, Marcus, Rictus, anyone could be coming for either one of them. Anything could happen. “Stay put. Benzo is close to your size. He could help us get you to bed. I’m fine owing him a favor.”

But Vander’s hand shot out like lightning, grabbing his leg the moment Silco stood up, pulling him back down hard on his knees, his strength completely unchecked. “No. No more favors, Sil. Please.”

Silco winced, trying to pry Vander’s hand off his ankle before it could bruise. “Vander, stop. He’s harmless.”

“No. You’re not doing that anymore.”

“I have already told you it’s not like that with him, at all. Trust me.”

“No.” He shook his head, rocking his whole body as he tried to get the momentum going to drag himself through the drugs weighing him down. He was in so much pain and bleeding from so many cuts that needed cleaning and bandages as soon as possible, but none of it could be reached. “It’s not an option, I said.”

Silco bristled at his tone. “So what, I’m not ‘allowed’ to do anything for myself anymore? For us? Vander, I do not give a shit if you’re jealous, you are going to fall and hit your head the second you are on your feet and then where will we be but worse off? You are not thinking straight! Vander!”

“No!” He grabbed Silco’s t-shirt, popping several stitches on the collar as he yanked him closer, his hand trembling. “Please, Sil, come on,” he pleaded, exhausted with tears starting to fall down his cheeks. “You’re scaring the shit out of me. I can barely see straight. You’re… you’re half naked. I can’t look after you if you go anywhere right now. I can’t protect you like this.” 

“Then… then that makes two of us,” Silco said under his breath, rubbing Vander’s back to calm the man down. “And I’m not naked.” Though he very much felt that way now with Marcus’s vile threats sinking their claws in. He quickly pulled his underwear back up where his hip was still exposed. “So we are stuck here. Fantastic.”

“Nope. Just gimme a minute.” 

“You stubborn dog.” He could not help but huff and shake his head when Vander succumbed to a fit of giggles and barked at him. 

Silco stood at the door watching Vander drag himself into the room in minuscule, painful increments, moaning and grunting, fighting through the drug’s pull. He reached for him as soon as he could get through, helping wherever he could to pull him. 

By the time Vander could prop himself up against the cot, he had left a trail of blood to the door. He groaned anywhere Silco touched the wet rag to, but bit by bit, Silco got him cleaned up, stitched, and bandaged. 

He was covered in sweat and blood, pulling the pillow and blankets from his cot in an attempt to make a comfortable spot on the floor for Vander to sleep on when Vander stirred behind him, hefting himself up and onto his cot, jostling most of his bandages and bleeding onto his bedding. Silco could only force the unconscious man to roll onto his back and no further. It would have to do. 

Whatever water was left in the bucket he rinsed his hand and face and tipped it over with his foot, letting it wash some of the worst of the blood away down the center grate as he sat on the cot’s edge, carefully resting his head on Vander’s chest. 

His heart nearly stopped when a group of men walked by the opened cell door. One slowed down and looked at him, eyeing the cell and Vander, but the rest paid him no mind. He eyed Silco again.

The only thing that stopped the man’s quiet steps once he entered the cell was Silco standing to put more space between them as he reached for his flint in his stump bandage. He clutched it in his trembling hand, watching the man laugh under his breath as if they were playing a game as he walked backwards out of the cell, uncaring. He gave Silco one last look over before he turned to rejoin the others.

Silco waited until they were a distance away before he desperately rummaged for the key to lock him and Vander in before the man could circle back around. He leaned against the bars, at last able to gulp down great lungfuls of air. He turned, looking at Vander’s battered body. 

His sobs sparked like a lit fuse racing towards dynamite. He was unable to stop it or contain it. He had forgotten to tell himself that he was fine and that nothing had happened and now he was not fine at all. 

Enough had happened tonight. Too much. 

He sank to the floor, curling up to cry out what felt like years of holding it all in as quietly as he could. He breathed so fast and hard he nearly swooned, needing to brace his hand on the floor. Swallowing back sick, he rubbed his shirt sleeve on his ear and his thighs, trying to get any trace of Marcus off of him, but it felt hopeless, like he would never feel anything else on his skin but that man.

He was so stupid, so naive. He was never going to get away from Marcus or Rictus or any of the troubles chasing him. He had never been meant to outrun them, and thinking he could hitch a ride on Vander’s back even for a short break had just exhausted them both and made everything worse.

Vander had nothing to do with any of this and yet he was going to die and it would be entirely Silco’s fault and he could not breathe thinking about it. He could not let that happen. Vander deserved to live and have peace, even here in hell, and that was impossible now. 

He did not know what to do. 

He knew what he could do. He could leave Vander, give up on his sobriety for good, go back upstairs, reset the delicate balance of order, and give in, lie down… go back to Marcus’s office and beg for it. Only that would not just kill his own spirit, it would kill Vander’s, whose only source of happiness in the whole world apart from that damned necklace was Silco himself. 

Unless…

A plan began to form, one he did not like, one that guaranteed his own demise again, but one that had crossed his mind more than once over the years. It was necessary if Vander was going to be able to move on. And then Silco could fix this. 

No matter what happened to him, Vander would survive. He had to.

+

Chapter Text

+

Silco was gone. 

Not missing. Most of the time, Vander knew exactly where he was.

He could see him. Hell, he was sitting on his cot right now with his journal forgotten in his lap, his stare far off.

He could feel him. That lone hand had carefully tended to every hurt Vander had spent the past two weeks healing from. Tonight, Silco had crossed the gap between cots to check his bandages and clean any Vander couldn’t reach. 

He could hear him. Maybe he might ask Vander how he was feeling and if he’d eaten enough for the day, or maybe he would say nothing at all.

And then he would retreat. Back to his cot. Back to the silence. Back to sleeping in his clothes, fully laced and buttoned up. Even his hair never came down. It held that flint in his knot at all times, as if he were clutching it in his fist, ready. 

Silco wasn’t missing. He was right there, but the man who had followed him under these same blankets to sleep together, opened up to him, who was even a little sweet to him? The one who’d tolerated long kisses and all of Vander’s questions about his drawings—that same Silco that had drawn him naked—who rolled his eyes at Vander’s attempts to be romantic yet had wanted Vander so intimately to come inside him? That Silco was gone.

Marcus had taken him. Silco would neither confirm nor deny, but even drugged to high hell, Vander still remembered the important bits of what had happened that night, why he’d been drugged and why Silco had disappeared without half of his clothes and come back with his ear bleeding and his throat bruised up—

“Vander?”

“Hm?” He followed Silco’s quick glance to the poor cigarette he’d crushed in his fist. It was unsalvageable. He sighed. “Benzo gives us double packs and here I am, bloody wasting them.”

No response, no acknowledgement at all. Just that same look of distraction and defeat at the floor before Silco returned to the page. The look of a man who needed Vander to get off this cot, march up to the enforcers’ floor, and bash Marcus’s head in. 

Hell, Rictus’s too. He might not have ever personally given Silco trouble, but he was too damn comfortable with Marcus and his games.

All this time, he’d been foolishly and arrogantly thinking his fight was against other prisoners, other prisoners he stood a chance at beating, but no. No, Silco’s biggest threat was the one, single man in this whole entire prison Vander couldn’t put his hands on. 

It drove him absolutely insane.

Any other man—any other prisoner—Silco would have happily pointed him out to Vander and Vander would have handled it. He felt stupid for not seeing it sooner. Silco’s hiding, his shutting down. It was Marcus. It had always been Marcus and there wasn’t a damn thing Vander could do about it, but keep winning these damn fights. Vander had nightmares now about Marcus sinking a knife in his gut right before sending him to the cage, or activating his collar and killing him outright, right here where he slept.

“Sil?” Sea-green eyes lifted to Vander’s chest. “Could you do me a quick favor?” 

They lifted to meet Vander’s stare for a brief moment. “Hm?”

Vander sat up, wincing. That gave him a more steady, attentive gaze. “Could you check my back again. I think I might have pulled something.”

It was a sorry excuse, he knew, but it was one they seemed to both need on nights like this. Just a reason to be near each other, to catch that glimpse of Silco’s eagerness in his rush to cast aside his journal and bridge the gap, feeling Silco’s hand linger and sweep up and down his skin, his breath just ever faintly tickling Vander’s neck. 

“How’s it look,” he would ask.

“Really good,” Silco would whisper, before correcting himself. “Fine. It looks fine. It’s… everything is healing well.” With one more touch down the length of Vander’s arm to his wrist, touching his sister's necklace.

But Vander was always left feeling worse after. Feeling that hand leave and the dip in the bed rise as Silco took his little weight away with him, it crushed Vander. 

Some nights he just wanted to grab him and shake him and hold him. But even holding him, the old Silco would have tolerated like an annoyed cat if he didn’t want to be touched before pinching Vander’s thigh to let him go. But this Silco didn’t look to have even that little bit of spark in him. He imagined him just freezing up and waiting for it to be over and it sickened Vander.

It was a good thing Marcus’s presence had been scarce around the prison since that fight. Vander knew that he was supposed to not kill the man. It would only make things worse for them, worse for Silco specifically, but he also knew his hair trigger temper didn’t give too much of a shit about reasons when he had a target in his crosshairs. 

Marcus laying low was the best thing for them all. 

Particularly Marcus.

+

The doctor examined the knife wounds on Vander’s chest and abdomen. His expression grew more and more wary the more his eyes swept across his skin. He stepped back, exasperated.

Vander’s leg was bouncing on the stool with impatience. He held his wrist, toying the pendant as he tried to cling to some shred of calm. He glared. “Am you gonna clear me or am I gonna have to 'convince' you?”

Was the expanse of bruises that had covered Vander’s skin from head to foot healed yet? No. Were his knife wounds? Also, no.

Had Silco been taken again? Yes. 

And if Vander got close enough to Marcus tonight, the man was absolutely going to pay for it with his life. 

At least this time, Vander could only assume Silco had all of his clothes with him wherever he was being held. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. If a single hair was out of place on Silco’s head, Marcus was going to die and any enforcer dumb enough to try and stop him was going to have to drag Vander to the hole with his boot stuck up their ass. 

He paced in the waiting room, too enraged to sit down in this room with food and tea set out on the table as if he hadn’t been drugged here not two weeks prior. 

His poor opponents could feel his rage choking the room. Not a word was passed between any of them. They were on edge, too amped up to touch the table no matter how hungry they might have been. 

One smoked. The other leaned against the wall drinking from a flask with a grim expression aimed at the floor.

In hindsight, it would have been obvious that that man in particular didn’t want to fight. With his head clear and temper not controlling the ship, Vander could have talked to him, gone easy on him. A single tap to knock him out so he could get through it and move on with his life, alive. 

Instead, Vander was escorted down with them to the cage, his only moment of clarity being that it wasn’t Huck bandaging his hands tonight, but one of Huck's mates whose attempts to flirt with soft, lingering touches and a smooth, accented voice were just fog and noise with Marcus standing just beyond the cage. 

“Jaanu, your hands are shaking,” the man said to him sweetly, but Vander heard none of it. 

Marcus stood with Rictus unable to look Vander in the eye as he asked him what Vander was doing here still injured. Not the least bit concerned for Vander’s wellbeing, but clearly his own, particularly when his question was met with a bored shrug and a look from a man who had lost his patience with Marcus some time ago. Quite the interesting development.

It was clear that he would receive no help from Rictus tonight. If Vander was a hound, Marcus was a hare stranded in the middle of a plowed field with nothing and no one to hide behind.

His only option was to flee. 

Rictus disagreed. The moment Marcus held Vander’s stare for too long and moved to leave, Rictus grabbed him by the arm, yanking him back in place. He leaned over him, quietly berating him as if he were the man’s father. In front of everyone. The prisoners, the other guards, and their Piltover guests. 

But Rictus could only glare, his jaw tight and nose flared when Marcus left in spite of whatever was said.

His absence did little to clear away the red from Vander’s vision. Now he and Rictus locked eyes. Two bulls on opposite sides of a fence, ready for the challenge. 

When the bell rung, Vander grabbed the first man, feeling none of his hitting and kicking. When he broke loose and circled back, Vander caught him again and crushed his neck.

The second, the guards had to come in the cage to push him at Vander. He caught him too, held onto him, letting the man beat and claw at him desperately trying to escape Vander’s hold as the prison chanted on his death and all the while, Vander’s gaze never wavered from Rictus and Rictus's never wavered from his.

The Noxian was smirking now and stepping closer to the cage, feeding off of Vander’s violence. 

Feeling the dead weight on his hand drew his attention away. He lowered the body, taking one deep breath after another, the shock creeping from his boots up his legs to his stomach, but he breathed, trying to maintain control. 

He had killed two men, the wrong men.

Couldn’t even remember their faces behind his closed eyes. All Vander had seen was Marcus and then Rictus and now he only wanted, needed, to see Silco’s face. He needed him to do what none of the people surrounding him were doing. He didn’t need cheers and applause, he needed condemnation. 

"Now that," Rictus was shouting over the cheers to the other guards, "is the savagery we want to see!"

Vander left as soon as he was dismissed, unable to stomach any more praise or ceremony.

Panic didn’t truly start to set in until he reached the cell to find it still empty.

What if Marcus had left the match to harm Silco? What if he was harming him now? 

He hurried out into the corridor, shaking off the back pats and congratulations, asking anyone he could stop if they knew where the hole was and punching out the first man who took it as a joke. He couldn’t get the image of those bruises around Silco’s neck out of his head. So much worse could happen, hell for all Silco hadn’t told him, it could have already happened the last time. 

"No, no, no, no." He had to find him.

He had to breathe first. Somewhere Silco was in this prison and needed him. He had to keep it together if for no other reason than that. He set his sights upward. He was ready to tear the enforcers’ floor apart and bring the walls down.

Only, as he passed the canteen and neared the commissary, he was stopped by one of Benzo’s guards.

+

Silco stretched out on his back, covering the trunk that housed all of his nearly finished weapons and scrap materials. He let his head hang off the edge, trying to make his smoke puff out in rings like he had seen Benzo do a million times. 

He giggled, but soon frowned, trying and failing to come up with a way to drink more and not drown in the process. 

When he sat up, his head swam a little, but it still felt like a buzz, not a full blown mistake. Not yet. 

The door slamming open still made him jump even though he could see and hear Benzo coming through the thin walls and little gaps in the shelves separating the main storage room from the one he was in. 

Benzo leaned in the doorframe, crossing his arms. “Sil.”

“Ben.”

“What the bloody fuck are you doing?”

“What ‘the bloody fuck’ does it look like I’m doing? I am sad and I am drinking.”

Benzo massaged his temples. “But your sobriety, love.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I fell off that wagon a while ago, but I am fine. I will be fine…” He bristled at Benzo’s heartbroken expression. “Can I not just have this one, tiny bottle to make myself feel even a little bit better?”

“One bottle? You had four!”

He snorted. “What?”

“Huck told me.”

“That damn snitch.”

“You watch your mouth.”

“Sorry.”

“Is this all you’ve done since you got here?”

“No! I worked all day yesterday and all this morning. The three… The four bottles… happened recently.” He rubbed his face, appreciating how cool the bottle felt against his cheek. “It’s midnight, isn’t it?”

“We’re not far off… Sil, look at me.”

“No, Ben, please not this again,” Silco groaned when Benzo came to stand in front of him, his hand out expectantly. He handed over the bottle, his eyes burning before the man could even speak. He knew what was coming. 

Benzo tapped his chin, lifting his downturned face. “Remember Sil, this was your decision.”

“It is not my decision!” Silco snatched the bottle back, taking as big of a drink as he could manage before handing it back. There was no use covering his face. He cried, like he had done, it felt every hour, since he had left Vander’s cell the morning before. “I chose Vander! Marcus has chosen to go off the deep end, and—” He hugged himself, hating that he could not seem to control his emotions anymore since his breakdown. He could not say two words to anyone about what had happened, least of all Vander, without feeling like the entirety of the last five years had all happened in the last five days. 

“I know, my angel, I know.” Benzo knelt to hug him, awkwardly patting his back. “I only meant that this was decided as the best course of action to keep you both safe. The less time you’re seen together—the less time you are seen at all—the less of a chance either Rictus or Marcus can get their hands on you again. ‘Least ‘til Rictus loses interest. Marcus is only ramping up his harassment because he’s got that bastard over his shoulder, that’s all. You’re doing good keeping your head down.”

“I don’t understand, why did he have to bring him back? What did I do?”

“I don’t know why he would. But he’s here and it’s bad news for all of us. Look son, I know you want to keep your boy safe, but… you don’t have to go through this alone. You can change your mind at any time. You bloody need him.”

He sobbed. “Not like this.”

Benzo held him by the shoulders to look him in the eyes, his smile gentle. “Especially like this. Otherwise, what good is he? Hm? A couple orgasms? You can give yourself those. You need help here,” he said, tapping Silco’s head. “And if he thinks less of you or isn’t willing to help then you’ll know he’s not worth it.”

“He would still be worth it, to me,” Silco muttered to the floor, his ears reddening as Benzo sighed.

“I swear, the day you realize that you have a single solitary shred of value, Sil, you'll be bloody dangerous. But, if you say so. Personally, I don’t care for him.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I know I’ve seen the goggles you wear when you’re working, Sil. You still can’t see worth a shit out of that left eye where he socked you good, can you?”

He glared, bristling as he reached for the bottle again, but Benzo held it out of reach. “It’s getting better.”

“Sure, just like my hair is growing back on the top of my head. Give it some thought. After the match, we’ll talk again. Alright?” 

Silco almost could not let him go, gripping his open shirt. “What if Marcus has already done something to him? Something worse. You didn’t see him, Benzo, he was…  Marcus has snapped. He could snap again just for the fact that he cannot find me.”

“Give your boy more credit. You’ve survived Marcus all these years. Vander can handle himself. Quit your panicking. It’s not helping.”

He nodded as Benzo grunted to his feet. 

“Now, if I come back and that whole shine crate is empty? So help me, god. Focus on the work you’re doing. There are plenty of men in this prison who don’t have brawn or a crew to stand behind, or a hideout, when these lowlife scumbags come around harassing them, but you’re giving them a fighting chance.”

“They’re using them against enforcers?”

“Hell no.”

“Why not?”

Benzo took a stunned step back, eyeing the bottle with suspicion. “Sil, we have been through this a thousand times. Your psycho scheme for an uprising is never gonna end with us winning.”

“Then what is the point?”

“The point is these men get to have some semblance of a life here that’s livable. They aren’t gangsters, hell most of them are in here just like you. The prison is enough trouble without poking at enforcers. Understand?”

Silco pouted and stared from the bottle to the floor for a moment, lost in the memory of Marcus crowding him and all the nightmares his mind had conjured up over the days that had followed of what would have happened if Vander had lost, or if he had still won, but just a minute or two later than he had. “What if… what if we do not have a choice any more? Benzo, Rictus is back. I am target number one. Marcus was this close to… And every day, they keep inching closer and closer, not just to me, but all of us. What if something like this is the only way to make it stop? What if we cannot afford to just… wait and hope they get bored or retire? They are not leaving unless we make them.”

Benzo waved his hands. “No more of that. And no more drinking… Get that look off your face and for god’s sake, just stay here. Out of trouble. Please. I cannot protect you if you go beyond that. Now work. Or sleep, something Huck tells me you haven’t done since you got here.”

"Huck sure loves being a telltale, doesn't he? Fine, fine, I'll sleep."

He tried. Silco lay on a bedroll in the dark room with the lamps off, trying to close his eyes and see nothing. It was impossible. He could see Marcus, he could feel him, he could hear him.

He could actually hear him.

Silco sat up as quietly as he could in the dark room, listening. His blood ran cold.

Through the gaps on the shelves, he could hear shouting through the opened door of the adjacent room that shared a wall with where Benzo saw his customers. Both doors had been left open but the rooms were dark.

Benzo was laughing. “So you two knuckleheads are telling me that this little cadet here confiscated this knife off a man who never said this came from the commissary, and yet here you are, with your minions in tow, to annoy the shit out of me and all the men who are missing the fight because you’re holding up the line. Piss off, Marcus. Tell your newbies not to come sniffing around my goods again.”

“Do I honestly look like I’m in the mood to take direction from a cockroach like you? Stand aside. We’re inspecting your store rooms.”

Silco sat frozen to the spot.

“Listen, Mark-O, if you step one foot past me, I’m calling the Warden and you’re losing your job tonight. Is that what you want? You think I don’t know what you can and can’t do without her written permission? That’s how your guards were caught stealing from me to begin with and why she personally put that rule in place. Now you can leave and come back with her signed warrant, or you can piss her off in the middle of the night and end your career. Which will it be?”

Silence. 

Silco eased to his feet and crept closer to the door, praying it would not creak as he slowly moved it to hide behind. He had a knife in hand, ready for anything.

“You must think I'm a fool. It would take hours for her office to send a warrant and by then you could have easily tossed all your contraband. If you have nothing to hide back there, you wouldn’t give a shit what we do.”

“I know exactly who you are and I know that there are rules and protocols for a reason. I didn’t give a shit and lost product that took ages to ship here because of your men. You don’t like it, take it up with them. Grayson worked hard to foster some sliver of trust between us and you all, and you keep trying to ruin it, that’s what I know.”

Another tense silence. “Fine. I’ll be back with your warrant. Enjoy your last night running this commissary. You’re done.”

“Ah. So retaliation on top of harassment? You sound like a proper gangster now. I’m impressed.”

There was a pause and a small commotion, then a new voice muffled by the cheering outside. 

“What the hell are you doing here,” Marcus asked. “You were expected at the cage to prepare the fighters twenty minutes ago.”

Silco could hear Huck answer simply, “No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“After what I saw happened to Vander the last time, I… I don’t want to be a part of it. It was cruel.”

Silence fell again as the uproar outside grew. 

There was a crash and shouting from Benzo. “Don’t you bloody touch him!”

“You don’t tell me what to do and you don’t get to decide not to do your job! What the hell is wrong with all of you? What do I have to do to get it through your heads that I am the one in control here?”

Huck was struggling. “I don’t care!”

Silence again.

Silco was on the verge of just running out, itching to berate the man even if it meant giving himself up. Huck and Benzo getting involved was the last thing any of them needed.

“Marcus,” Benzo was trying to reason with him, out of breath as if he had been hit, “let’s not… let things get out of hand. We can talk, like civilized men! Just let him go. He didn’t know any better. Tell him, Huck.”

Huck said nothing. 

“We’re done here.”

Silco heard Marcus’s answer and did not understand why Benzo would be pleading with the man to stay until it dawned on him. He raced down the hall. Marcus and the other enforcer were leaving, parting ways, and still clutched in Marcus’s fist, Huck was being led by his hair away. 

Not towards the match. “What’s happening?”

Benzo was the verge of tears, shaking his head. “Sil, go back. It’s not safe. Huck, he… He’ll be fine. Just go back.”

Silco let Benzo lead him backwards by his shoulders, let him take the knife from his hand, confused. “What? Is he really taking him to the hole for that?”

“No, but… Let’s not talk about it.”

Silco stopped, shoving him off, his eyes wide. “Ben…?”

“Sil, we have to pick our battles.” Benzo wiped his face, his frustration and defeat saying it all. “He’ll be okay.”

Silco felt like he had been slapped, suddenly. Like he had been more drunk than he had realized, but had been jolted right out of it, back to reality. “Ben, how long has he been using—”

“It’s not just Huck, it’s all of them.”

“You are letting him use your lover because he is too chickenshit to take his anger out on anyone bigger than him? On me?” He could barely get the words out in his disbelief, his voice flat. “You fucking coward piece of shit.” 

“Sil!” Benzo grabbed him when he tried to get past him again, earning himself a solid knee in his balls that sent him to the floor. He grabbed Silco’s hand, still pleading with him. “Sil, if you turn up, we don’t know what he’ll do to you! They don’t fight him, he calms down. You showing up would be a disaster!”

But Silco did not care. He raced past the bodyguards and men standing in line outside, his heart in pieces, up the levels running, praying that he was spiraling and overreacting. Maybe Marcus had dropped Huck back off in the service rooms with one of his condescending tantrums or was going to rant about authority to him in the hole and leave him there for a while, untouched.

Maybe Marcus would not behave like the man who had stood before Silco in the hole days before and beaten a prisoner to death for laughing at him.

Maybe Marcus had always been far worse than he had thought.

When he reached the service rooms, he could already tell in his gut that Huck was not there. Their pretty, decorated bunk beds allowed for four to a single cell. There were three cells in row, with a line of men outside even at this hour. Every bed was busy, except for Huck's empty one.

He backtracked, slowing down as his fear caught up to him. 

Marcus had only ever had two forms: being terrified of real power and being terrifying to those without any. When Marcus had dragged Silco into his office Marcus had been terrifying, but only because Marcus had been enraged by the terror he had felt when some giant fool spat in his face. He had not lost it on the beast, just like he had not lost it on Benzo’s threats to call his boss. No, he had let Silco say one word to him he didn’t like—‘no’—and that was enough for Marcus to snap. 

Only, picking Silco was a mistake that Marcus had paid for. All this time of lying low, of hiding and doing any and everything to stay out of the man’s reach, Marcus had simply reached for others. Others who would not talk back, or bite. Others like the service boys who were more than used to pretending to be anything any man could ever want, even a man like Marcus. Soft spoken, agreeable. Eager, even.

Except Huck.

This was all too familiar.

He stopped in front of the closed office door, trembling like a leaf, his hand hovering for a moment as Marcus shouted behind the door. He pulled out his flint and turned the knob.

He had to give Huck credit. He had tried to fight Marcus, judging by the angry, bleeding line of scratches across the side of Marcus’s face and chest.

Everything else was a blur.

+

With his enforcer at his back, Benzo at his front, and the whore at his side, Marcus stood amongst them all in the cramped, cluttered space in quiet, simmering disbelief. 

After Vander’s threats, after Rictus’s shocking disrespect and not understanding—not helping—and after standing here arguing with a washed up criminal, this plain, simple whore had the nerve now to also defy him? Did he truly think Benzo had the nerve, the power, to step up and do something when Marcus slapped Huck across the face?

But power and strength were funny things to Marcus. There were men born to be huge and take up every space like Rictus, Vander, and Benzo. They were tough, they could even be intimidating, but not a single one of them had real power.

Not like Marcus. All three of them had weaknesses that would keep their necks under Marcus’s boot whether they could admit it or not. For Rictus, it was having to stand in second place behind Marcus himself, for Vander it was hitching himself to a slut like Silco, and for Benzo, pathetically, it was apparently this whore. 

All three had tried him tonight and all three would fail. The second he got his hands on Silco, that man was never coming out of the hole and Vander would have to crawl to Marcus on his knees, a tamed dog if he wanted him back. He had only happened upon the commissary by pure chance and a quick search around the back rooms for any sign of those little trinkets his guard had found would have sufficed, but no. He wasn’t dumb. He’d had men searching for Silco all day. This was the only place they hadn’t gone. He was here and this fool and his whore wanted to stand in Marcus’s way? 

Fine. “We’re done here.” He could almost be disappointed by Benzo inaction if not for the look of terror on that big blockhead’s face. “Anything else to say?” 

The whore was too much like Silco for his own good. Stubborn and proud, but he lacked Silco’s recklessness. Like a deer caught in a trap, his fight was only fueled by fear and fear was easy to control.

Rictus didn’t get it. That man understood nothing but being a Neanderthal. He mistook Marcus’s self-preservation for fear. He wasn’t afraid of Vander at all. Why should he be? What he was was smart and observant. Of course Silco would run crying to Vander and tattle about their time alone together after that last match. Good. He wasn’t scared, but he also wasn’t about to foolishly risk letting that man escape containment in the cage and come after him either, not without Silco’s collar in hand to keep him in line. 

Rictus also thought he was soft in everything, particularly in how he handled these personal matters. Again, a brute like him couldn’t comprehend strategy and biding time and getting into Silco’s head, or this one’s.

Never matter. Marcus would show him he was still in control and he would do it in a way Rictus would understand. Just like he would show these others. By the time he was through, they would all know just how savage he could be.

He glared down at Huck, gripping his hair harder, smirking at his grimace as they made their way up to the enforcers’ floor. 

“Clear the hall,” he ordered, proud to see his guards listen and move at once. “Do you see how these men of class and intellect recognize authority when it stands in front of them?”

Huck was trembling, glaring at the floor, on the verge of tears but still holding his mouth in that thin, angry line, refusing to answer.

Marcus yanked him along, sighing. “I’m going to knock your head loose, and then you won’t be able to shut up.” 

The idiot was hyperventilating when the door shut behind them. Beautiful, honestly. Arousing, even. 

He wasn’t worth his bed, his desk, or his chair. Marcus threw him to the floor, watching him panic as he took his time unbuttoning his uniform coat and shirt. And just as Marcus expected, the fool didn’t even try to run from where he’d been dropped, frozen to the spot by fear. 

Even when Marcus huffed, snide and bullying, and grabbed his ankles to flip him on his stomach, he didn’t move. Marcus climbed over his back, laughing. “This might actually get boring for me.”

It wasn’t the elbow to his chest that truly surprised Marcus, but the blood that quickly welted up from the scratches that whore put on his face and bare chest.

“Oh,” he gasped, given pause by the burning ache as they started to bleed. “I take that back. You actually want to die tonight.”

Now the fight was on. Poorly. Pathetically. He needed to only guard himself from those damned claws but there was no force behind Huck's kicks or slaps, just useless struggle until Marcus grew tired of playing.

“You think you’re like him, don’t you?” He got Huck back on his stomach, his arm wrapped around his neck. “‘The Shark.’ Scowling and pouting with a chip on your shoulder, ignoring your work orders and ignoring me when I’m speaking to you? Fighting me? Look where it’s gotten you! Where is he now, I wonder? Probably spreading his legs for your Benzo, so thankful for hiding him while you’re here, about to regret it all.”

“Actually, no,” a shaky but familiar voice answered. “I am standing behind you, wondering how long you have been having this affair behind my back.” 

Marcus froze. He pushed Huck down and turned, instantly catching a knee to his face that sent him and Silco both down when he grabbed his legs. He heard the sound of a rock clatter and skid across the floor when Silco landed under him. The piece of flint sat just under his desk now, just out of reach, but it had been in Silco’s hand. 

Just the thought alone that Silco had intended to use it on him boiled Marcus’s blood.

Silco’s eyes were wide, actually, truly, afraid like Marcus had never seen before. “Huck, get out of here!” Silco shouted. “Go!” He tried to kick Marcus off and crawl on his back away, but Marcus simply dragged him back under him, catching his wrist before he could strike.

Marcus couldn’t care less what that other whore did. He laughed. “Just be a dear and shut the door on your way out.” He made easy work of pinning down Silco’s arm. “I have to know why you came here.”

“I was jealous, naturally,” Silco panted, still looking scared out of his mind. 

It was incredible. All his smugness and apathy were gone and in their place, the real Silco. 

The Silco that had bit him.

The Silco that spat in his face and head-butted him now.

With a bloodied nose, Marcus dragged Silco to his feet and over the side of the desk, knocking over picture frames and a vase. “This ought to suit you better.” Pinning him on his stomach, his hands bruising his upper arm and that unsightly stump. He kicked Silco’s legs apart. Sure enough, he could feel Silco breaking down like a delicate, fragile thing, knowing he was trapped. 

Now he finally understood Rictus, how he must have felt having Silco reduced to the same shattering defeat that Silco was reliving now.

Why all these years had he tried to be careful and patient with this man, playing his game of push and pull and all the while Silco had continued to humiliate him when Marcus could have, should have, listened to Rictus?

He pushed Silco’s hair off his neck and bit over Rictus’s scar as hard as he could for payback. Again, it was like nothing he had ever felt and he had yet to even get their pants off as Silco screamed and bucked and kicked before going limp. Finally submitting. Had it truly always been this easy? “I see now why you like using your teeth so much. Makes you feel like an animal, doesn’t it?”

He was so giddy when he stood up he had to take a breath just to steady himself. He turned Silco on his back, knowing exactly what he wanted. He needed to see his face and have those tears seared into his memory.

Silco’s heavy-lidded eyes went wide as he flinched, covering his face with his arm, making Marcus laugh.

Until Huck screamed behind him, bashing him in the head with the heaviest thing he could find. 

Silco had avoided the bust of Grayson when it slipped out of Huck’s weak hands and onto the desk, having seen the man sneaking up behind them. 

Through thick black spots, Marcus watched Silco grab the heavy statue with his one hand, growling through his gritted teeth. He swung the bust with everything he had.

+

Vander couldn’t say that he was asked to follow Benzo’s guard. More that he was grabbed by his wrist and neck and nearly dragged into the commissary. 

“Sorry, mate,” the man said, letting Vander go before Vander could push him off. “We ain't sure if Marcus still has his enforcers watching the place.”

“Just tell me what I’m doing here.”

“You’re looking for Silco,” Benzo asked, his voice grim and his face tired. His arm was wrapped around Huck as tight as a belt, carrying him on his hip through the cramped space. Neither one of them looked happy. “I need to have a quick word with you first.” 

Huck squirmed and reluctantly Benzo let him go as they led Vander to the back storage room.

No Silco. It was clear that the man had been there at some point. All of his little tools were there pushed under the furthest shelf beside a large trunk. 

Benzo pulled off his hat to rub at his receding hair. “Listen, lad, it’s not my place to go into details. That’s on them, but I will say… that if you do care for him as much as he thinks you do, just give him some grace, alright? He’s had a rough night.” He eyed Huck. “You both have.”

“Benzo,” Vander cut in, “where the hell is he?”

He watched Benzo pick up the large trunk and set it on the floor in front of him. He couldn’t believe his eyes when it was opened. 

Silco was curled up inside, pale and unconscious.

“What the hell?”

“We figured the enforcers would be doubling down their search for him, so we hid him. He’s… Look, kid, I know what he’s like, alright? I had to compromise,” Benzo explained. “He wanted black shine and I refused, so… brown it was.”

“How much?”

Benzo pointed his chin at the bottle perched on the lowest shelf next to a folded up bedroll. It was the size of Benzo’s head. It was empty.

Vander snapped, grabbing Benzo by the shirt and slammed the larger man against the shelves, nearly toppling it over them. “You son of a bitch!” 

“Wait!” Huck tried to pull him off. “It was my idea!”

Vander let him go, staring between them as Benzo waved his guard back. 

“Huck,” Benzo warned gently, but Huck shook his head, determined to stand between them.

“Silco helped me, but we… got into trouble.” Huck glanced at Benzo, his eyes wide. “We were hiding him when Marcus came here trying to search the place, but we wouldn’t let him through. He got mad at me—but I wasn’t scared. It didn’t matter what he did to me. I heard from the others that his dick looks funny anyways, so what was he gonna do, you know? But then Silco showed up and they started fighting, or… Really, Marcus attacked him and Silco… he froze,” he recounted, getting more and more upset. “He told me to leave, but I wasn’t going to abandon him, but I didn’t know what to do. I just thought that if I could sneak up behind Marcus with something and hit him it might knock him out so that he wouldn’t know it was me that did it. Something to make him think he… passed out? I don’t know! But I couldn’t find anything and when I did find something heavy, it was too heavy, and he was… He was being awful, Vander. He just made me so mad, I…” He balled his fists, his brow furrowed as he frowned. “But I was stupid and dropped it. Silco had to hit him again, so I know he knows that we did it. We knocked him out and I got Silco back here… but… he was…” Huck shrugged, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Benzo soothed, rubbing his back. “Marcus should have never come here. And it should have been me that went after you, not him.” 

Benzo let the trunk close gently. He sat on the lid, waving away Vander’s offended expression. “I don’t need him hearing this next bit if he starts waking up again. Or you, love,” he said to Huck over his glasses. “Vander and I need to have a talk.” 

He waited until Huck reluctantly left the room and closed the door behind him, no doubt standing just on the other side with his ear pressed to it.

Benzo shook his head, looking more than done for the night. “Vander, your boy… is a selfless little shit who is all too often willing to throw himself in front of a firing squad even if he cares just the slightest bit. If it means sparing someone else? But it’s always at the expense of himself. I’ve point-blank asked him why. Why does he feel like he has to be the one on the chopping block, and honestly… I think he firmly believes he deserves it.” He shrugged. “Everyone else has potential and promise, everyone else just might be innocent and in need of a second chance, but him?” Benzo shook his head, his eyes downcast. “I… I won’t get into why he thinks he deserves nothing. That’s not my place. But what I will say is that it’s taken its toll on him, Vander. That doesn’t make me very happy. Quite frankly, I’m fucking livid. Tonight was one thing. That was my mistake. But ever since he’s gotten it into his head that he has to save you, he’s gotten even more reckless. He is brilliant, and resourceful, and reliable, and you just punch things, including him. What else is there, Vander?” He sat forward. “What are you willing to let him do to himself for your sake? Hm?”

“Nothing,” Vander said at once, his face hot with shame. “Not a goddamned thing! I promised him that I would keep him safe, not the other way around.”

“Then you need to tell him to stop. Before this,” he said, patting the trunk, “becomes the new normal. He’s always had one method of coping with trauma here and he has had an awful lot of it—”

“Yeah,” Vander huffed, “and some friend you’ve been throughout it all, I’m sure,” he countered. “I know you were here long before he was dropped in this pit. Where were you when he was going through the thick of that trauma?”

“You arrogant son of a…” Benzo stood, looking ready to fight. “You have no bloody idea,” he scoffed, struggling to keep his voice down. “Who do you think got him out? When I found Silco, that boy was a ghost who just hadn’t figured out how to leave his body yet with so many bastards piled on top of it! I had to fight them off and started a bloody riot upstairs just to get him out and then I had to figure out on my own how to pump out a bloody year’s worth of black tar shine out of him so he could have a coherent thought in his head and string a sentence together! He was so sick and hurt, he doesn’t even remember any of it!—And you will not say a single fucking word to him about this, or you and I are going to have more than problems,” he threatened, jabbing his finger at Vander’s chest, “do you understand me?”

Vander was stunned. “Why not let him know? He was stealing from me when I met him. I could have killed him, Benzo! Do you know how many men are still hounding him for shit? All that time, you could have been helping him get what he needed without him risking his life for it—”

“Because he’s allowed to have his pride, damn it! And his dignity. He wasn't targeted just because he’s a transitioning man, no. Those… old, dried up bitches in the service rooms back when he first got here spread around that he was just some rat from the Sumps and it spiraled from there. You have no idea how hard he’s had to work to come back from what this prison reduced him to. Why the fuck would he want to be constantly reminded of all that every single time he looks at me? It’s bad enough he's got that disgusting tattoo they put on him. That’s enough of a reminder of what he’s been through. He thinks we met when I caught him stealing from this storage room and that is fine by me. He is owed that, Vander. Do not take that from him.”

They glared at each other in a standoff. Vander didn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand it. He took a step back, running his fingers through his hair. He nodded. “Got it.”

“Good.” Benzo scowled, turning to the door to let a rather guilty, eavesdropping Huck back in. “Now don’t tell me Silco’s never run off from you when you start meddling too much. You asked me where I’ve been? I’d been keeping my distance because he wants me to, otherwise I would have lost him a long bloody time ago. He does jobs for me, that’s about as far as he lets me in. He was bloody desperate when he showed up here, and already he was talking like a man with nothing left to lose except for you. You have to put some sense back into him, Vander. That’s the very least you can do… I just pray it’s not too late. Marcus will not be happy when he wakes up…” 

The ceiling was swirling above Marcus when his vision slowly returned, blurry and upside down. He was on the floor with his head cradled in someone’s massive hand. 

“Steady there, friend,” he heard Rictus whisper as relief washed over him. 

“No, no, don’t try to speak,” he heard his voice say as if from a distance as he still fought to regain consciousness and explain what had happened, embarrassed over what this must all look like. 

But livid and ready to see Silco and Huck pay.

Rictus placed a finger over his lips, shushing him. “I don’t need you to tell me who did this.”

That confused him. Did Rictus already know? Good. He tried to coordinate his limbs to move so he could get off the damned floor at least and into a chair, but his whole body felt like it was weighed down with a great pressure on his chest. 

“Honestly,” Rictus was saying above him, “I don’t really care. Whoever it was did us all a colossal favor.”

The shift was subtle. The weight moved from his chest to his neck.

Rictus let his knee rest on Marcus’s throat, gently applying more and more weight. 

It took Marcus too long to grasp what was happening, but when he did, Rictus had his hands caught the moment they reached for his leg. He tried to shout but nothing could get in or out of his windpipe past the calf slowly crushing his throat. 

“After the stunt you pulled tonight—No, no. Actually,” Rictus said, holding up his free hand as if they were arguing, “it happened long before tonight. You, Marcus, are simply not cut out for this. You never were. When Grayson gave you this command, you were terrified, you hesitated to give orders when needed, you were soft on the prisoners. Then when you finally got some bass in your voice, things were… sufficient. They were manageable. You were learning. That was good. You were starting to crack the whip. That was better… But then you let some little rat whore humiliate you. He didn’t even aim for your sack and yet you still didn’t have the balls to punish him for it, even when I was here, holding him down for you.”

Marcus could feel tears sliding down into his hair as he choked and tried with everything he had left to free his hands from Rictus’s light hold. He kicked, he twisted, but the knee on his neck had him trapped as Rictus let more of his weight down on him. 

“You said you wanted to be feared, Marcus. You wanted to be feared by that little rat specifically. You were finally ready that night! And you choked! Again! Now you have the fucking audacity to stand beside me, scared, like the last cow in a slaughterhouse and wanted me to, what? You wanted me to kill Vander for you? Right there on the stage? How many opportunities did you have to do it yourself, but no. You are weak, friend. You have always been weak… and this prison has suffered because of it, but don’t worry,” he whispered, or perhaps his voice just sounded that much more far away now. “I will spare you the added shame of having to go out there and explain how you got scratched to hell and ended up unconscious on your own fucking floor by two little toothpicks.”

Marcus got his hands free as Rictus watched him struggle for several more breaths. He reached out, hitting the desk’s leg as his hand swept under it, searching for anything—

His finger nudged the piece of flint just out of reach. Desperately he tried to stretch just that little bit to grab it, anything for one more chance, because the only thing more terrifying than dying was having this man take over this prison and the souls that inhabited it.

But it was too late. 

Rictus closed Marcus’s eyes and patted his head. He stood, dusting off his knees. “Fitting that you would die on your back and not on your feet. May you find better luck in the next life. As for me, I must dial the Warden at once.”

+

Huck was about to speak, but they all turned to the sound of an alarm muffled by the closed doors. Huck fidgeted on his feet, starting to panic. “Ben…?”

Benzo kissed his forehead, rubbing his shoulders. “It’s alright. Stay put.” He pointed his chin at the door, looking for Vander to follow.

Outside, there were more enforcers than Vander had ever seen, all blowing whistles and rallying the prisoners to clear the floor as the alarms blared, deafening around them. 

Even the miners on the night shirt were being ordered back to their cells.

Now it was Vander’s turn to panic. 

“Son! What’s all this about,” Benzo asked the nearest enforcer, as shocked as Vander to see apprehension on the man’s face.

“Lockdown. Captain Marcus was found dead in his office. You need to shut down the commissary and lock up.”

Vander and Benzo eyed each other, saying nothing until they had the commissary door closed behind them. 

Huck was waiting for them in the cramped hallway, having not listened to Benzo. 

Benzo pulled off his hat, stunned. “Huck… when you say you two hit Marcus… how hard was it?”

Huck quickly tilted his head to think. “Not hard! I mostly grazed his ear before I dropped the bust and then Silco just hit him one time. He was still moving when I got Silco out.”

“Are you sure? One-hundred percent, Huck. Are you certain?”

“Yes! I would swear on it if I still believed in the Mach… I mean…” He shrugged, frowning. “Sure, Silco hits hard,” he muttered, rubbing his cheek, “but he’s only got one arm—and I’m quite certain you punch much harder, Vander, so he's not that strong… Why?”

Something wasn’t right. 

“Did anyone see you go in or leave that office,” Vander asked, relieved when Huck shook his head.

“Marcus had all the enforcers clear the floor. Nobody saw us.”

Benzo and Vander both breathed easier. Benzo nodded. “Well, shit… Maybe this is a good thing, then.”

“What?”

“Marcus is dead,” Vander answered, latching the trunk. 

“What?!”

Benzo huffed in disbelief. “That son of a bitch finally ate it—Not that it was either of you, love. Surely something else must’ve… Maybe a heart attack? Oi, where are you going?”

Vander had lifted the trunk like he was simply carrying out supplies. “We gotta get back to the cell before they come looking for us. Huck needs to go back as well. Everybody needs to play it as cool as possible. Huck, you were here the whole time. Ben can corroborate that, so don’t worry. I’ll take care of Sil.”

The prison was honestly terrifying under a lockdown. Vander was used to seeing the men spread out, gone down below, or settled into the canteen, but with the cells stuffed, some with three and four men piled in cots, bunks, and added bedrolls, it honestly sent a chill down Vander’s spine to see just how many souls were stuck here.

Vander eased Silco into his arms, not sure what to do now that they too were stuck in their cell.  

He got Silco’s boots off and took his hair down but left everything else alone. Curiously he inspected the sticky blood drying on the back of Silco’s neck.

And stared at the bite mark once it was cleaned for what felt like hours. 

Marcus had bitten him. On his neck. Like a wild animal. 

Vander stood there having to remind himself that Marcus was dead, needed to remember that Silco would need him here when he woke up, not locked up in the hole for attacking a man’s corpse. So he quietly bandaged it, ignoring for now the fact that Marcus’s bite was smaller than the older scar, but looked too similar for the first to still be a mystery as to what it was. Another, bigger, older bite. Not Marcus's, but then whose? Marcus’s wasn’t as severe as that old one either. If he looked after this one, surely it would go away once healed, but that older, menacing scar…

There was nothing else he could do. He wrapped Silco up… on Vander’s cot, already knowing Silco wouldn’t like it, but with his back turned to the cell bars, he could lie down with him and look after him, hold him close without anybody seeing him who didn’t need to. 

He gently peppered his sleeping face with kisses, but then quickly got up, rearranging them, his mind all over the place.

If he lay Silco on the outside of the cot, the man could get up and leave if he wanted to for his own cot. No big body and wall to trap him. He sighed, feeling a little better. He wrapped him in his arms again, and waited.

Sure enough, about half an hour later, Rictus and a dozen guards did their walkthrough, counting heads. He held Silco tighter, afraid for a moment as Rictus slowed to a stop in front of their cell. 

What was Vander willing to do if they came in to take Silco away?

Luckily he didn’t have to answer that just yet. Rictus looked them over, his eyes lingering on Silco. He nodded and walked on.

+

Chapter Text

+

Vander was surprised to find that he’d slept well past daybreak. It was bright enough with natural light that he could fully see the room. It had to be closer to noon, then. 

When he looked at the bars, the corridors were still empty. Two sets of rations and two pouches of tea had been tossed in, left on the floor near Silco’s cot.

His lips were tickled by loose hair, his chin still gently pressed to Silco’s forehead. He kissed it, hugging him tightly for a long moment until he felt how rigid the body was against him. 

When he pulled back, he startled, seeing Silco stare at him, sleepy-eyed and unblinking, pale, as if he was dead.

But when Vander rushed to cup his cheek, Silco flinched into the pillow. Sea-green eyes opened slowly again, pupils blown to hell, as he glanced at Vander, confused and panting great lungfuls of air like he couldn’t breathe.

“Sil?” Vander brushed Silco’s hair back, hearing those breaths stutter. “Hey? It’s me, you know: big square head?” No smile. “It’s alright, you’re alright. Do you know where you are?” A nod. That was good. He could see a little bit of spark in Silco’s eyes as he got his bearings and pulled his eyes away to look around them. “Is this okay?”

“Turn around,” Silco whispered, releasing his hold on Vander’s shirt. 

It didn’t make sense. “Are you still drunk? Do you…” But the spark was fading. Silco wasn’t going to ask him again, he was just going to accept Vander’s refusal, give up. “Alright, alright. Just… if I knock you off the cot by mistake, just remember you were the one who said we both wouldn’t fit, so technically it’ll be your fault even though it would prove you right and me wrong.”

The last thing he saw as he carefully slipped free and turned was the tiniest quirk of Silco’s lips into a smile. He would stand on his head if Silco told him to now, if it could make Silco happy. 

He felt silly staring at the wall, until Silco wrapped his arm around Vander’s waist. The smaller man held him tight, his body pressed as close behind him as he could, his face buried between the bedding and Vander’s back. 

“Is this better?”

“Mhm.” Silco nodded. “Sorry, I’m just… I’m… still drunk, and…” He was shaking, but Vander just kept his own breathing even, hoping his calm would transfer. 

Only, quieting himself just made it harder for Silco to hide from him. His stuttered breaths, his body shakes and little hiccups. 

It took everything in Vander not to turn back and hold him, rock him, kiss away his tears, but those were all things that he would want and not what Silco had asked him for. 

Vander could almost physically feel Silco stubbornly wrangle in his own emotion, stomping it down, fighting himself with every muffled moan and the grip Silco had on Vander’s shirt again. It wasn’t right. Silco needed… 

But he remembered Benzo’s words. This wasn’t Silco’s way, and if he turned around now and tried to convince the man that it was okay to fall apart with Vander staring at him, that could only go one of two ways and that was a gamble he couldn’t afford after Silco had already drank himself upside down to get away from it all. 

All because of the same man—the same dead man. 

As much as it hurt him to do nothing, there was still comfort in knowing it was temporary. Silco had no idea yet that it was over, that he was free. Free to go back to working on his projects on his cot and not hiding, free to venture out once the lockdown would end, free to share… a space with Vander… But he was still drunk and still unable to piece together yet what had happened, why it was daylight and why Vander wasn’t in the mines, why the prison was so… off. Any of it. 

Vander took another deep breath, smiling, his eyes closed. He would get his Silco back. 

He tried to lift his hand to kiss his palm, but Silco pulled it away only to place his own hand over Vander’s, locking their fingers, keeping Vander from moving again. 

“Did you have to fight last night?”

Vander opened his eyes, nodding. “I did.”

“Did you win?”

“Yeah.” As Silco held his hand, the fight replayed in Vander’s mind. More gruesome and terrifying in hindsight and the very last thing Silco needed to hear about right now. 

“Tell me how it went?”

Or more truthfully, the last thing Vander needed him to hear about. Ever. Last night he’d let his rage take over him in ways even he had never witnessed before, never knew possible. Not self-defense, not fear, just senseless, unfeeling murderous violence. How could he expect, or even hope, for Silco to trust him to be safe knowing he was capable of such savagery? “Well… I think I may have scared their doctor into an early retirement last night?”

“Oh?”

“Oh yeah,” he huffed. “That old fart wasn’t gonna let me back in the cage since I’m still pretty banged up from last time,” he explained gently, his voice a quiet, steady rumble. “You should’ve seen his face. Couldn’t tell where one bruise started and another ended. He nearly blew a gasket seeing your stitching work.” 

He tried to smile, feeling his own eyes prickle. Last night had truly been awful. He’d let himself lose control, so scared out of his mind, not knowing where Silco was or what was happening to him, and all while he’d been stuck in that cage, trying to keep one promise, he’d failed at another. 

Running Marcus off had been both the best and worst thing he could have done. The man was dead, but the cost had clearly been devastating for Silco. “So… I had to ‘convince’ him, but… I reckon I might have overdone it.”

If not for Silco’s idly petting his hand and wrist in his soft, soothing touches, Vander would have assumed he’d fallen asleep again but after a long silence he heard a little huff behind him.

“That makes two of us.”

+

Grayson stood talking to another pair of enforcers, needlessly interviewing them for the investigation. 

Rictus sat on the corner sofa, his legs crossed, hands clasped in his lap, watching the sheet-covered gurney be lifted and carried off.

She sent the enforcers back to their posts, resuming a slow walk around the room, shaking her head. “What a mess.”

He stood with her. “I could not agree more. Ordering all of your guards cleared off the floor of a prison like this? What was he thinking? It only surprises me that someone was willing to risk taking the chance.”

“More than that, the last any guard saw Marcus he was dragging off some prisoner but no one knows where they went or what he even looked like. No one bothered to assist or follow him, knowing that this was irregular behavior. Ridiculous! Marcus never mentioned having any outstanding trouble with any prisoners in particular. The gangs have always been a concern, but this?”

“We will get to the bottom of it and ensure it never happens again.” Rictus circled back to stand in front of the desk, his fingers pausing their sweep along its ornate ledge—and the fond memory of the chipped teeth grooves that had been here in the center of the desk’s edge before Marcus had hurried to have them sanded away and covered up with a new coat of mahogany stain. 

He stepped to his right to give the Warden room to look over its scattered contents, stepping on something hard. Like a rock. 

Rictus slid it from under the desk with his boot, recognizing it immediately. 

He slid it back under without saying a word, keeping it hidden under his foot as he listened to Grayson go on and on about maintaining prisoners’ rights even in the face of all this chaos, his mood lifting.

“I’m authorizing cell searchers only for the cell blocks of suspects. And give incentives for informants, though don’t expect many men to come forward, even if they know something concrete.” She shook her head, eyeing him. “I still can’t believe something like this could happen.”

Rictus placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “In truth, I should have been more vocal with my concerns, on many lapses of judgement, but we will find the culprits and make sure the Captain is given justice.” 

He could barely keep the smile off his face as she left. He picked up the flint and circled the desk to put it in the drawer. His drawer. In his new office. He leaned against the desk, smiling down at the floor where Marcus had fought for his last breath. “Justice.” 

He sat down in the chair with a content sigh, impressed with its quality and comfort. “Let’s work on getting you justice, Marcus.” He could hardly wait to begin.

+

Silco almost didn’t want the lockdown to end, knowing what it would mean now. 

He still could not fully grasp that Marcus was dead, let alone that it was his own hand that had set it into motion. 

He should be happy. As happy as Vander was, hell most of the men buzzing around them seemed to think it was hilarious that Marcus had been killed. More than anyone, Silco should be overjoyed that Marcus was gone after the years the man had had spent harassing him. 

Only, he knew better. 

This was a nightmare, and Silco would give anything to bring Marcus back. Anything other than what was now taking his place. 

Silco stood in the shelter of Vander’s arms as he and every capable man all stood outside their cells along the fences, looking down at the enforcers standing around the arena cage below. 

Rictus climbed on the cage’s grated roof, ready for the megaphone that was handed to him. 

“Inmates of the Blackwater Mines,” Rictus began, pacing in a slow circle, “I stand before you as your new lead guard. Captain Marcus, as you understand, has been murdered,” he said over the cheers and taunts from the men above, “and his death is currently being investigated. We all grieve his loss and assure you that the responsible parties will be found and swiftly dealt with. In the meantime, I come with much needed changes that will benefit you all.”

“Here we go,” Vander muttered, as apprehensive as they all were.

“Rest assured that the mines will be fully operational starting tomorrow morning as we implement these changes. The first change will be that, starting tonight, there will be no more sleeping in the canteen, or the corridors, or on the bridge. Second, you will all be given new collar numbers with your cell block and floor level added to eradicate confusion. Any man not working the night shift has until midnight to return to his cell, or he will spend two days—unfed with no work credits—in the hole.” 

Around Silco the men began to murmur, but there were enforcers walking the levels to inspire silence from those who protested. 

“For the night shift workers, you will have until noon to be in your cells. Next, for those of you not working in the mines, you will have to be registered with your new cell level enforcers. Your curfew will also be midnight.” He held up his hand, not bothered in the least by the protest, smirking. “This is especially for your… ‘service rooms.’ That cell block will lockdown every night at midnight. The commissary will shut down at midnight, as will the canteen. However,” he cut in across the shouting and those now banging on the fences, “the kitchens will remain open… for the miners only, so that staff may clean and cook your food in a timely manner.

“We recognize that you are all men whose circumstances and choices brought you here. Most would not sympathize with you. Most would say that men like you should not have commissaries or ‘service rooms’ or even half of what you get for your rations… I am one of those who believes this.” He smiled as he was heckled, laughing down at his enforcers, purely entertained by all of this. 

“Particularly now that someone amongst you has killed Captain Marcus. But I also believe that you are men willing to work for those things, that you are capable of convincing me that you have earned those things. Productivity in the mines will no longer be tracked individually, but as a whole. When you, as a whole, fall behind in the quota, then you all collectively lose your service rooms, your commissary, and whatever else may be distracting you from maintaining a sufficient output. Of course, if you exceed your quota, then…” 

He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I lift the service room curfew, add another service room, or double your rations. I might even consider letting you keep your shine brewers. We will have to see what you are worth.”

All around Silco, there were murmurings of discontent and suspicion. 

“So what,” one man asked his cell mate as Rictus continued below, “he’s gonna work us half to death and if we can’t work hard enough he’s gonna starve us so we work even less?” He laughed with a few others. “This fool’s itching for a prison-wide strike.”

“Not if he’s threatening to shut down the service rooms. Most of us don’t drink! That’s the only thing we got to look forward to down here. Even a curfew’s gonna cut off a lot of us from getting there in time!”

“We’re not breaking our backs for your nut. I suggest you start looking for ass a lot closer to home.”

Silco felt the hair on the back of his neck stand. When he glanced over they were eyeing him. He took his flint out of his stump bandage and ducked under Vander’s arm, but Vander caught him before he could get to them. 

“Two enforcers on our left. It’s not worth it.”

“That makes it even worse.” The presence of more guards had already become suffocating with them standing nearly everywhere he turned his head. 

But his point to their neighbors had been made. He glared at them, they looked from Vander to the rock still clutched in his hand and looked away. 

Suddenly the pit erupted in louder protest again. The arena matches were being cut to once a month.

He did not want to listen to any more, nor did he want to see Rictus’s face or anyone’s for that matter. He tucked the flint back in his bandage, turning around and laid his head against Vander’s chest. His head tucked under Vander’s chin, he let the man circle his arms around him. He closed his eyes, breathing deep. 

He started to drift right there at the fence from Vander’s soft petting up his back when Vander’s hand grazed the bandage on the back of his neck.

Silco stood up straight, looking up at Vander as if at any moment the man would ask him what had happened to him, but unless Huck or Benzo had bandaged him, Vander already knew. 

But Vander did not ask. In fact he had not asked about anything. The whole day had been spent with Vander carefully and quietly being near but giving him space all the same. 

Comfortable. Considered. Vander kept rubbing his back and shoulders and kissed Silco’s forehead. 

He would have never known just how skittish and… in need of gentler handling he had become if not for Vander’s ever soft voice and careful movements as of late. He hated… didn’t hate it, he only hated his desperate need of it. 

He certainly had not needed it before, and there were far worse things lurking in the depths of his memory than anything Marcus had done. He had simply… survived it, accepted it, and kept moving. Running. Told himself that he was fine and he had been fine. 

Benzo would say that it was wrong to keep running, but Silco needed to be fine again. He had allowed Vander’s hovering, his care and quiet consideration, all day, but he could not linger here even if he wanted to.

Marcus was gone. Not his abuser Marcus, but the buffer Marcus that had, if nothing else, slowed Rictus down. Now nothing stood in that man’s way. Marcus had been unpredictable and driven by fear and ego, but Rictus feared nothing and was extremely predictable. 

Silco closed his eyes, letting Vander hug him tighter. In the morning, everything was going to change. It was inevitable. Rictus would have him moved to another cell just for the hell of it and do whatever else that man saw fit. He had his hands full with taking over the prison for now, but after? With no distractions? It could only go downhill from there.

Tonight was the only thing Silco could count on, his one chance to feel normal and fine again before everything could go to hell tomorrow. 

When they were all ordered back to their cells, Vander didn’t hesitate picking Silco up and Silco let him carry him quickly through the growing angry mob shouting and arguing with the enforcers on the floor. 

He sat on Vander’s cot, silently stripping down to his t-shirt and underwear as he watched Vander stand at the bars, taking in the chaos outside. 

“They’re putting out fires on every floor, seems like. They are certainly pissed about those curfews,” Vander commented, his hands on his hips as he shook his head. “Wonder what Huck and Benzo think of all of this.” He turned, pausing when he saw Silco lift his blankets to climb under them. 

Silco sat against the wall, once again relieved that Vander did not ask him any questions. Vander just slowly bent down to pick up Silco’s clothes and tossed them on his cot before he stripped down and joined him. 

He let Vander pull the tie from his hair and shook it out for his greedy hands.

“Where’s your flint? Didn’t you have two?”

Silco shrugged, his own greedy hand racing up Vander’s arm to his shoulder and the expanse of skin exposed by the wide neck of his undershirt. “I lost it somewhere.” He tilted his head when Vander dropped his hands. He grabbed one and brought it to his waist under his t-shirt, making his intentions clear. 

Vander’s gaze lingered on his hand, his thumb rubbing little circles along Silco’s skin. “I bloody missed you, Sil.”

Silco pounced, straddling Vander’s lap to kiss and silence wherever Vander was going with that softly whispered statement. Now was not the time. There might not ever be time for such sentiment again and he did not want his mind to go there.

He grinded on Vander’s thigh, impatient.

And soon frustrated when he could not feel himself getting turned on like he usually could. Even as he opened his mouth for Vander to kiss him deeper, he felt nothing as he tried to ignore the chaos still going on outside.

They both startled when the alarms went off to call on more enforcers to lock the prison down.

Vander grabbed him by the waist and moved them under the blankets, pulling them up over their heads to block it all out. 

It wasn’t much quieter but it was better even though he could no longer see Vander. Silco tried to pull the man on top of him but Vander kept them on their sides, lying down against each other as he resumed their kisses. 

And bucked. His thick, hard length still trapped in his briefs dragged against Silco’s soft cock, unable to feel it, so Vander bucked again.

Silco moaned against his lips as Vander’s arm snaked under his waist to pull their hips tighter together, pulling a more desperate sound from them both as his bulge continued to rub against him through their underwear. He was getting hot under the blankets, his cock now trying its hardest to battle Vander’s and rub him back but it was losing, pressed down and pushed around by Vander’s steady rocking. 

He laughed suddenly into Vander’s mouth as his body responded. He snickered when Vander grabbed a handful of his ass. He panted, feeling his sex starting to slick itself. 

“You think this is what those prissy Piltie boys do in those big boarding schools and summer camps,” Vander teased, making Silco laugh again. “No clue how to do anything else but rub their dicks together.”

Silco bit his lip as his tip got caught in a particularly hard rub. “Is that all we know how to do?”

“Depends,” Vander rumbled, bucking in a quicker pace as the noise died down outside. “Do you want more?”

He needed more, he refused to say. He nodded, closing his eyes as Vander lost their underwear down around their feet. He gasped at just how slick he’d become as Vander slid his cock through the space between his thighs. 

Vander had to chase his lips as his fingers began to work him open.

But Silco was getting dizzy, suddenly too hot under the blankets and unable to breathe, unable to see Vander.

He pulled the blanket down, seeing the corridor emptying outside. 

Vander’s face was flushed, his lips a little red and his eyes dark. “You alright?”

“Of course,” Silco panted quickly. “You are just a furnace under there.” He idly touched Vander’s grinning cheek, his distinct, heavy brow, taking in his deep set silver eyes and his beardless face. He did not look anything like anyone else. “Vander…”

“Hm?”

Silco stopped. He untangled his arm from under Vander’s neck and covered Vander’s hand, pressing until those fingers were back inside him. He welcomed Vander’s lips on his again, determined and feeling drunk as the sick, heavy feeling in his stomach slowly began to subside, just not fast enough. “I’m fine,” he told himself. 

“Good,” Vander sighed, kissing up the bridge of his nose. “You had me really worried these last few—”

“Shut up,” he panted against Vander’s lips.

“Wait. Sil—”

Silco got Vander flat on his back and straddled his lap. He shook his hair back even as the shorter, more uncooperative waves fell back in his face as he rubbed his slick up and down Vander’s length, getting it wet. More desperate than determined now. He wanted Vander inside him… needed to forget everything else that had happened to this body and regain control of it, but as much as he fought, he was struggling.

It didn’t make sense. Vander had never made Silco feel cheap or dirty when fucking him and yet those words filled his head with every touch to his sex. He hovered, his hand sliding Vander’s cock between his folds, but he needed something else, something different. Nervous, but he was finally able to breathe and relax when he slid that cock back further to his ass, taking back control.

Even as his brow furrowed in question, Vander obediently held his hips, keeping his balance for him as he sank down.

Until he understood. “Sil… wait.”

It was reckless, he knew, but he refused to lose his nerve and this was his choice, no one else’s. He needed that more than anything, he realized, even as unprepared as he was. 

He whimpered at the sting and hissed, his fist balled on Vander’s chest not to scratch him. Vander’s groaning that sounded too much like someone else only made him tighten more but seeing Vander and his furrowed brow and parted lips and no one else's got Silco to breathe and sink bit by bit until he was seated, trembling and gritting his teeth on the verge of tears. 

“Vander,” he panted, “your cock is… too goddamn big.”

Vander frowned, his eyes sharp as he himself fought to keep his breath steady. “Silco… Baby,” he said softly, his voice rough, “I am not rushing this.” He lifted Silco slowly, but rather than bring him back down on his cock he lifted him completely off as if he weighed nothing. He sat up, laying Silco on his back between his spread legs. 

Before Silco could protest he was upside down. Vander’s iron bar of an arm wrapped around his waist, his fist gripping Silco’s thigh to hold him up and open. Silco stared in disbelief as the man parted his folds with his free hand and darted out his tongue to lap at the slick before he felt Vander’s lips move back. 

He grabbed Vander’s thigh either to get away or hold on as he moaned in frustration, feeling Vander’s tongue in his ass. “Vander! I don’t… ‘m fine… I swear.” 

But Vander's lips circled his cock and sucked, his two fingers dipping into his slick to sink first one then both into his tight asshole. Carefully he worked another in, slowly, his eyes cracking open to glance down at Silco in bliss before closing again. 

Silco wanted to kick him in the face, he wanted to cry, he wanted to come and he was coming around those three, thick fingers. His moans spilled out like sobs, answered by Vander’s own impassioned sounds as he lapped up his slick and brought more to his hole to wet it. Silco flexed his hand and let his nails dig into his palm, anything to keep his nails from sinking into Vander’s thigh as the aching pain he had pushed on himself melted away. 

He had missed Vander so fucking much he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to scream it. He bit his lip, refusing to let his voice utter so many things he knew Vander would never let him live down. 

On his back again, Vander covered him, kissing up and down his belly before he folded him in half, legs spread as he placed his hand under Silco's ass to lift for a better angle. He drove his cock through Silco’s folds to slick himself one more time and with one more glance up to Silco’s eyes he aimed and pushed.

Speechless, Silco let his legs fall over the man’s arms and let his asshole be filled slowly, carefully this time, blushing down to his chest as Vander sat back and hooked his other hand under his knee to spread him wider. 

He had Silco trembling and gasping, his body adjusting as the shallow glide in and out got deeper and deeper, the pace quickening. Without a word, Vander parted his folds and stroked his fingers between them, spreading slick along his valley and over his cock. 

“You’re awfully quiet now,” Vander teased, picking up the pace. “How’s that?” He grunted, so caught up in the moment, he closed his eyes and shook his head, rambling before Silco could answer him. “Fuck, I love you, Sil.”

Silco couldn’t breathe. It would not be the first time a man had told him they loved his body in the midst of using it. He knew what Vander meant. Vander loved this specifically, how Silco’s body made Vander feel good. He had heard it before, and yet… 

Why did hearing it from Vander make him come so hard? Toes curling, lashes fluttering closed as he moaned, keening behind his hand. Why did it make him come splashing them both? For a blip of a second, he panicked at the mess he was making, but it was quickly swept over by the bliss of coming on Vander’s cock, held in his hands, with his voice filling his ears, those words bouncing around in his head, not cheap or dirty at all.

There was no feeling of sickness in his stomach now, only pride that after everything his body had been through, after losing everything good inside of him, the one thing he had left was the one thing Vander wanted from him.

When he opened his eyes, he was upright, his arm around Vander’s neck as he sat in his lap. Still soaked and dripping. His blush had to cover his whole body now. “Sorry,” he panted against Vander’s shoulder, “I… I have no idea why that keeps happening.”

Vander gave him a look that was a mix of disbelief and the indescribable as he grinned, softly pressing his forehead to Silco’s. “Do not ever apologize for coming like that, sweetheart. I especially love that too.” 

Silco could only glare at the feral man as he caught his breath, still riding out the aftershocks of his orgasm as Vander pulsed inside him. “You… pervert bastard.” He huffed, oddly wanting to be kissed. “Your bed is ruined.”

“You make my bed perfect,” Vander beamed, thrusting up slowly but hard enough to pull a gasp from Silco. “Think you can do it again? For me?”

“And soak your bed to the floor,” he panted. “I certainly hope not.” He shook his head, feeling like he loved… this too when Vander kissed him before the man lied down and smiled up at Silco.

Giving him back the reins. Without a fight of any kind. Even happy to do it. Silco followed him down to steal another kiss, at once really loving this, loving how Vander idly stroked his hips and up his waist with rough, calloused hands that lingered on his touch-starved nipples, the graveled sounds of pleasure rumbling in Vander’s chest, loving how Vander’s big, ridiculous cock still hit all the same mind numbing spots as it did when deep in his sex, loving…

Vander. Just Vander. Just all of him.

It was stupid and it was sad and it would inevitably end with Silco emptying more black bottles and jars down his throat, but for the night, he did not care. He could let himself feel this right now. It swelled in his chest and filled his belly like not even the strongest shine could, this feeling. 

He propped his hand on Vander’s thigh and rode him hard. He watched the man come undone under him, savoring every minute of it, his eyes open, his voice quieted, remembering every detail. 

+

It was as immediate as Silco had expected. 

As the prison mines reopened and the new rules took effect, he’d been left alone for only a few hours. 

Vander’s collar had been renumbered that morning when he had returned to the mines. Silco had remained in the cell and had not registered a damn thing with the new cell block enforcers, knowing they would come for him regardless when they wanted to. 

What he had not expected was being handcuffed to a guard when they showed up at the cell. He also had not expected to remain cuffed after his collar was renumbered and the log searched for his records.

There was nothing there.

Just as he had always feared. They had made an ‘error’ renumbering his collar before moving him or checking his file. Naturally they would have to remove it for the freshly stamped plate to be replaced and only one person had the power to do that. 

His heart was in a destructive tangle with his stomach as he was led to the new lead enforcer’s office.

Up on the enforcers’ floor, much like the rest of the prison, the hall was overflowing with guards. Like swarms of hornets invading a beehive, it was clear which enforcers had been Marcus’s and which had been brought here on Rictus’s request. Not as massive as Noxians but they were certainly big with not a fresh face among them.

He tried to remind himself of Vander’s words, that this was not his fault, but that did little to make him feel any better. The fact of the matter was that this prison had changed for the worse and it had not happened at random but regret was useless. There was no going back.

Rictus had never looked so menacing as he did now, standing with a pleasant smile and laughing in quiet conversation with the enforcers he was hosting in the office. 

It was a little jarring to see a red Noxian sash draped over Rictus’s Piltovan blue uniform. In fact, all the Piltover blues in the office had been replaced by Noxian red. 

“Ah, ahead of schedule,” Rictus boasted as he ushered the guards out and closed the door behind them. He locked it. “Your color is looking better since I last had eyes on you. Grieving suits us.”

“From the look of things, I would say that I am the only person in this room lamenting Marcus’s death.”

“That surprises me.” Rictus turned, not bothering to object as he headed behind the desk, idly, mockingly, trailing its wood grain with his hand. “I would assume that you would be overjoyed to be rid of him and his… obsession?”

Silco forced his feet forward when he was summoned to the very last place he wanted to be. Simply looking at the desk had him desperately swallowing down sick and sweating. He took a breath just out of Rictus’s reach. “Say what you will about the late captain, but he had more pros than cons when it came to… whatever this is.” 

He glanced to the desk and the bust of Grayson now propped on a short display column in the corner. It was chipped. “What… Why have I been brought here?”

“We have to discuss your missing paperwork. And your room assignment.” 

“Very well.”

Rictus smiled down at him. “Simply put,” he explained, his voice dropping to a tone that instantly sent a chill up Silco’s spine, “you have no records.” He propped his fists on the desk, leaning forward, his gaze deadly serious. “If something were to happen to you, no one would know that you were here, let alone that you are missing.” He stood up, his smile returned. “That is all I have to say on that matter.”

Silco tried to mask his shock as well as he could, but he could not look away, caught in that man’s stare. He huffed. “I won’t insult my own intelligence by asking you if that is a threat. I understand you clearly.”

“Good.” He opened the lowest drawer on the desk to retrieve his collar key. 

“Marcus never did understand that you can be perfectly agreeable with the right amount of pressure,” Silco heard him say, but his attention was firmly rooted in studying the key’s composition and center coil as quickly and quietly as he could. 

He mentally recorded it all, realizing that his own replica had the same grooves on its prongs as this key did, proving that it would hold if he reinforced the coil instead. His hand itched to get to his journal.

Until Rictus’s hands near his throat brought his wandering thoughts screeching to a halt. He froze, unable to breathe as the man attached the key and released his collar. 

Watching Rictus discard the metal label for its replacement, he could not help but touch his bare neck, realizing that it had not been free in years. The absence of its weight shocked him. 

But not as much as the shock Silco felt when Rictus put his collar back on him with no number at all, leaving the new plate blank. Not thinking, he took a half step back as dread began to set in.

Rictus caught his wrist before he could move away, pulling Silco close. His fist was like an iron manacle as he leaned against the desk, looking down at him. 

“Marcus was far too much of an overthinker. He let you get in his head. Why? That police academy left him soft, but being a warrior hardened me, opened my eyes to simple truths. You see a captive you want, you take them, and you fuck them. Easy. If they were to, say… bite you, then you beat them and make sure never to get close to their teeth again—Or, as I’ve seen with some armies, you simply beat them and pull those pesky teeth out. You see? Easy solutions that require no thinking at all.” 

Silco held his gaze as best as he could, unable to slow his breathing but determined not to panic. He swallowed. “I need my teeth.”

“For?”

“Eating.”

Rictus shrugged. “There’s a soft food alternative for inmates like the elderly men here, but… I’ll accept that. Do you need them for anything else?”

Silco shook his head, which seemed to be both the right and wrong answer as he was rewarded with a small, golden key in his palm and a hand down the front of his pants. 

“You see that room there,” Rictus asked, his chin propped on Silco’s head as Silco tried to yank his wrist out of Rictus’s grip and get away from his searching hand as it made its way past his underwear. Rictus looked towards the set of double doors on his right, listening to Silco’s struggle. “That belonged to Marcus. The key in your hand is for the door out in the hall that leads to it—the spare key,” he explained. “When I send for you, you will go to that room, and you will ‘work’ for me.” 

The Noxian sighed like a bull when Silco dropped the key and elbowed Rictus hard in the gut, nearly getting away. Threatening with his full strength, Rictus violently yanked Silco back by his elbow to where he had had him caught, ignoring his protests. “Now wait, I know what you’re thinking,” he mockingly soothed, resuming his hand's assault with more targeted force. “You would be for my enjoyment, not the prisoners, or my guards. Just me.”

“The hell I will!” Silco's arm was screaming in pain as he tried to tear away from Rictus again, but he was trapped by the desk and Rictus’s bulk. He had to fight the bile rising in his throat as his body began to respond against his will, his teeth clenched against the frustrated moans he could not keep quiet. All he could see was the expanse of the desk and his worst nightmare materializing before his eyes. “Why the fuck would I ever agree to that, you fucking pig?! I want you dead more than Marcus! I always have! I hate you!”

“Because,” Rictus said against his ear, annoyed as if it was obvious, completely unbothered by Silco's fighting, “at the end of your ‘visits,’ you get to go back to your cozy cell with Vander and not… somewhere else.”

His shoulders sank as he stared over his shoulder at Rictus’s lustfilled gaze. “What if…” He shook his head, swallowing another wave of sickness. “What if I want to go somewhere else?”

Rictus’s hand stopped. “Oh? Am I hearing that right?” At last, he let Silco go and sat in the chair, making a show of sucking his fingers clean as Silco hurried out of his reach. “You would rather have no say in where I put you, even if that means I place you with some brute bastard on the opposite end of the pit?”

He would rather vomit all over this man and have Rictus beat him to death on the spot than give him a single chance to use Vander for anything. He reminded himself of that. 

The important thing was that Vander got away from all of this, not deeper involved, no matter what it meant for Silco himself. “I don’t… I don’t want to be with him anymore. He no longer serves a purpose for me. I do not need him.” He shook his hair back from his face, his chin high, his soul dying.

Rictus gave him a knowing look, smiling as he picked up the key. He studied it. “If you insist. Perhaps it’s for the best. After all, he is going to be executed for Marcus’s murder. What good would he be to you then?”

“What?” Silco laughed, still trying to get his voice under control and his stomach to settle. “Honestly, Rictus, we both know…” He watched Rictus place the flint from his drawer down beside the key on his desk. 

“We do.” He sat back, stroking his beard. He steepled his hands.  “We both know it was you—at least the part that got Marcus onto the floor before… over events transpired.”

Silco quickly shook his head. “I am not the only person carrying rocks on me. This is a mining pit.”

“Ah, but you do carry these on you all the time and he was so angry with Marcus for trying to fuck you during that last match that he marched right up here after the fight and what did Vander find? Marcus doing the unspeakable to you. Vander flew into a rage. Everyone knows what he is capable of. After all, the entire prison had just witnessed him ruthlessly murder two men in the cage. Is that how the report should go?”

“You would condemn a man you know isn’t guilty, for what? For me? Rictus, I am nothing! Why are you doing this?!” 

Rictus shrugged, playing with the rock. “Everyone’s compliance serves a purpose in this prison. You will share a cell with Vander and he will live, because you will take this key and be in that room when I call on you. It’s a full suite with a shower. Very nice. Take the key or condemn that man you no longer have a use for to die.”

Silco sneered, snatching the key from his hand, pocketing it.

“You see? Easy solutions. Although, this time? If you bite me, I won’t just bite you back, Silco. I will break your teeth. If you scratch me, I will break your fingers. If you kick me, I will break your foot. No, I will not insult your intelligence, I know you understand.”

He stood, looking Silco over. “I think I got you warmed up enough,” he teased, and to Silco’s horror he extended his hand towards the adjoining room, as smug as ever. “Go on. After you.”

+

Vander stood in the cell door for a moment, holding his helmet. “Sil?”

Even though the sun was still setting, Silco was already curled up on his cot in his sweater and blankets, his back turned, lying with his hair still drying on his pillow. His clothes were in a pile in the corner.

Vander took a breath and made his way over. 

Marcus was gone. The threat to Silco was gone. They had had a normal night together, a great night even, but it was only the start. Silco had gone through a lot. Silco just needed help getting back on his feet now, surely. 

He sat on Silco’s cot to kiss his temple.

“Don’t do that,” Silco's quiet voice cracked, hoarse.

Undeterred, Vander scooted down some, giving him space. “You alright? You sound like you’ve come down with something. I, uh… I brought you dinner? You still hungover?”

“No, but now that you mention it,” he said to the wall, eerily flat, “getting drunk isn’t a bad idea.”

It was as if last night had never happened. Vander buried his head in his hands, groaning out his frustration. The sound made Silco shrink even more. “Baby, what’s going on? Are you sick? Is it the shine? You’ve been off for… Well, not just right now, but even before the lockdown, for weeks, you’ve been off. On a rollercoaster, you know? All over the place. Look, I know we never talked about anything really since I was drugged—”

“And we aren’t going to now. I’m tired, Vander. Goodnight.”

“Marcus hurt you. That much is clear. If I could have killed him with my own hands, believe me, I got to a place the other night during the match where killing him was all I could bloody think of. You being missing scared the absolute shit out of me, but he’s gone. And you don’t have to be scared anymore.”

“Alright.”

“And,” Vander breathed, praying he was getting through, “neither one of us has to worry about any more fights or anyone forcing you to leave if I lose. Rictus is mental, but he’s trying to end the fights for good. Says it’ll be a battle with the owners, but he’s agreed to reshuffle the pot, so to speak. He's gonna take my name out of the raffle in exchange for a pretty decent deal.”

At that, Silco turned to him. His face was so blank, his eyes so dull, it gave Vander chills up his spine as he asked, “Which was?”

“You and I get to stay together, no more harassment, in exchange for me and Benzo helping him take down the gangs. He’s holding off on the brewers, but the punks who just go around causing havoc, we would help handle them. Says it’s better if it’s men like us. Since the men the gangs routinely bully trust us, they’d be more willing to come forward than they would if a bunch of enforcers were trying to step in after all the bribes they took from these gangs for who knows how long.”

“Benzo is helping him?”

“Yeah. He met with us this morning, stopped me on my way to my shift.”

Silco turned back to the wall. He closed his eyes. 

Vander frowned. Carefully, he reached over, keeping his hand light on Silco’s hip. “Listen, you know me. I will never trust an enforcer as far as I can throw one and we see how big that bastard is, but… it was either I keep fighting and risk losing you, or this. Anything that’s going to keep you safe, I’m gonna do it.” He paused, waiting for Silco to say anything. “What do you think?”

“Vander?”

“Yeah?” He sat closer, ready to run through hot coals for this man. He leaned closer still to hear his quiet voice.

“Get the fuck away from me and do not ever touch me again,” Silco said through his teeth, barely above a whisper. 

Vander’s body moved away at once as his breath caught, but his brain struggled to make sense of what Silco had said. 

He got up, taking his helmet. “Alright… S-sure.” 

Silco heard Vander standing there, seemingly lost for what to do, before the man set down his helmet on his cot and left the cell. 

The sound that came out of Silco was like nothing he had ever heard before. He felt like what he imagined an exploding boiler must feel right as the steam found the tiniest crack in the cylinder and ripped it open. He pulled the blanket over his head, wanting to pull his hair out. 

Was it sadness? Anger? Betrayal? All of them? 

But not a single one of those feelings for Vander. No, he wanted to weep for Vander and his stupid, dumb, idiot loyalty and sweetness and naive optimism and his insistence on trying so hard for Silco, always. 

He got dressed, not caring at all how his clothes felt on his body or how his body felt at all beneath his skin. He could take a thousand baths, he could drown himself in the cave springs, he would still feel just as disgusting in death. Every move he made sent shocks of pain racing up his spine. There was no way he would get through this sober, but he would have to once Rictus inevitably got rid of the brewers, and it only made him hate Benzo more.

The second Benzo saw him, he cursed and hurried to the furthest storage room, away from Huck and the bodyguards. “Sil, listen—”

He screamed, throwing whatever he could get his hand on. He sent jars of shine smashing against the shelves and razors flying before Benzo grabbed a hold of him, pulling him back out into the empty hall, away from more projectiles. 

Silco kicked and shoved him off, his knee just missing his groin. He surprised himself when he slapped the man, knowing that for as long as they’d known each other, this was a line he had never crossed. He did not care. He did it again. And again. He could not stop. “You bastard! Why?!”

Benzo grabbed his wrist and chest, slamming him to the wall, nearly knocking the wind out of him. “Sil, look at me and tell me I had a choice!”

Silco sob, sneering. “He promised you this place, didn’t he? You get to keep the commissary.”

“I do,” he said to his boots, letting him go. “But we also have a real chance to make things better here.” He held out his hands when Silco came at him again. “He’s giving Huck and the boys more protection and giving us more power to take these bloody gangs down.”

Silco stared. He blinked. He laughed so hard he collapsed against the wall. Like a spinning coin he laughed and cried and laughed again. “You fucking fool. He’s getting people like you and Vander to do his dirty work. He is taking out his threats! And when all of those men who might give him trouble are gone, who will be next, Ben? Do I even have to ask? They drugged Vander and put him in fucking a cage with two armed men and he lived! Why do you think they even bothered? What would motivate Marcus to set Vander up the moment Rictus comes back? Do you think having a man like Vander attached to me makes Rictus happy when he is fucking me now?!” He could barely look at Benzo without feeling overwhelmed with hatred.

He wanted to hit Benzo again when the man had the nerve to look at him with shock and pity. “What? You honestly thought that sick demon was going to leave me alone? Fuck you! Vander has no idea what that man has done to me, but you do! You know everything. You know everything!”

Benzo blocked his path. “Sil, what was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to say no! You were supposed to fight for me if you think I’m worth so much! Apparently I am worth nothing to you!”

“No, no, no, oh gods, no, Sil, you are! Look at me, you are worth so much more than any of this. I have and always will believe that and I see…” He grabbed Silco’s shoulders. “I see a bright future for you that we just don’t have access to yet. Not down here. Look, we… we just don’t have much choices right now but we just have to keep searching for opportunities where we can find them. Things just aren’t working out on our side yet but they will. We just have to be patient, my son. You have to be patient. Vander and I have a plan. Do you hear me? We have a plan.” 

Silco shook his head, laughing again. “Fuck you. He dangled my life in front of Vander and Vander’s in front of me, but you? A fucking commissary? He had nothing on you and you folded! Did he even know about Huck or did you bring him up, thinking you were negotiating with this monster?”

“I…” Benzo sighed, his eyes closed, his shoulders sinking as he quietly muttered, “I honestly wasn’t thinking about any of that.”

“Of course you weren’t. Now you both are just as stuck as we are.” 

Silco shoved past him, seeing Huck and the guard hovering. If he could burn this whole place down… 

Benzo watched him collect his tools and tin box, his voice anxious as he let Silco pass him again. “What are you going to do, Sil?”

“Not a goddamned thing that requires your help,” he hissed. “And I do not need you getting in my way—or your fake concern. Ever again.” 

“Sil, stop! I know it doesn’t make sense yet, but it will! I’m only asking you to trust me.”

Silco paused, smiling, as that was the only thing left that he could do without exploding. “You expect me to trust you now? While you and your bitch are safe and comfortable, while I am the one upstairs with him? You’re right. I have all the time in the world to wait on you to decide when you have had enough. Fuck you. I hope it’s worth it, for you, Ben. I hope in the end, all of this works out for you.” He shouldered past Huck, never looking back.

+

Silco was sitting up on his cot when Vander returned. No face in his journal now, just hugging it to his chest, his face a war of contemplation.

His clothes were still piled on the floor, just in a different spot, more scattered in the corner.

Vander didn’t know what to expect. He hovered in the cell door, prepared to be told to leave again, but when Silco glanced over from picking a hole in his empty sweater sleeve, his tired face softened a little.

“Hey,” he said to Vander’s boots, sounding even worse than he had before. 

“Hey.” Vander stepped in, making a line straight for his own cot, trying to keep it together as he hurriedly undressed and slipped into his nightshirt and got into bed. 

He faced the wall, feeling Silco’s gaze on him but he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force sleep and a quick escape.

Until the bed dipped just slightly and a feather light touch hovered over his arm before Silco let his hand rest there. He suddenly gripped the sleeve, holding it tight as if he now braced for Vander to send him off with the same scathing words he’d given Vander.

“I am… It’s good, Vander,” Silco muttered, his hoarse voice all but air now, “that you won’t have to fight in the cage anymore. It is really good. You deserve… to be safe. I am happy for you.”

Vander waited for Silco to say, ‘And I’m happy we get to stay together,’ but it didn’t come. He wasn’t sure how to respond. He was relieved that Silco’s anger was gone but nothing felt like it was supposed to. “Sil, what the fuck has happened to you? I don’t know what to expect from one minute to the next. Do you honestly still want… this? For us to be together?”

“Mhm.” A vague nothing-answer as Silco still gripped Vander’s sleeve in his fist.

Vander chanced it, reaching up for Silco’s hand. He felt the man stiffen but wouldn’t let him pull away this time as he brought Silco’s hand down to hug his waist. He tucked Silco’s arm under his own. It gave Silco no choice but to lean against his back and rest his chin on Vander’s shoulder. It was wet. Vander could feel it soak through the thin fabric of his nightshirt. “Sil?”

Silco was stuck. Or trapped, rather, unable to hide his tears with Vander holding his hand hostage. 

“I’m fine, it’s… shine,” he murmured into Vander’s shoulder, even as nothing about the man said he was drunk. He couldn’t be. He’d been a brat when Vander had seen him actually drunk, not weeping uncontrollably. But once again, it was over before it really began. He took a deep breath and swallowed his emotions with scary ease. “Vander? Could I… stay here tonight?”

Vander rolled on his back a little confused. He let Silco’s hand go, watching him quickly wipe his face dry on his sweater. “Of course, this is your room, love.”

“I meant… there.” He eyed the space between Vander and the wall. 

“Of course,” he stressed again, though a part of him wanted to refuse. He wanted to demand that Silco talk to him, honestly, about what had him so upside down so that he could make sense of it. 

With a frustrated sigh, he lifted the blankets for Silco to join him.

The sound made Silco hesitate.

“Come on,” Vander encouraged. “Do you want me to turn over, or…?” He paused, struck by the sudden pain that flashed across Silco’s face as Silco straddled him. 

Silco shook his head, his brow furrowed before he collapsed on top of him, his face buried in Vander’s neck as he panted.

Vander tried to settle him, his hands diving under his sweater to rub his back, but that only made the man less relaxed. Not to mention, there was an involuntary response happening under Vander’s nightshirt and boxer briefs and he prayed that it was enough fabric to mask it. Just their bare legs touching each other had his head in a spin.

He wrapped both arms around him, kissing his hair, intending for it to be simple affection. A grunt was surprised out of him when he felt Silco’s own harness rub against his. 

Or perhaps his mind had played a trick on him, because Silco was just as quickly rolling off of him to face the wall, curling around himself. 

Vander frowned. “Goodnight?”

After a few shaky breaths, Silco reached back to find Vander’s hand and pulled. Vander let Silco guide his arm around his waist. He quickly slipped his other under Silco’s neck, laying flush to his back now, erection be damned.

He held his breath, ready to back off if it was too much, but once again, the intense emotion that burst out of Silco was caught and pushed back down. Within minutes, he began to drift to sleep, as if he’d been propelling himself forward with momentum alone long after his steam had run dry and now there was truly nothing left to keep him going. 

“Thank you,” Vander heard him whisper.

He grinned against Silco’s hair, not knowing what to say. “So… this is what being the big spoon feels like, hm?” He smiled wider, feeling Silco shake in silent laughter. “I like it.”

Silco nodded, pulling Vander’s arm tighter around him. “So do I.”

+

Chapter Text

+

Rictus had not always been the sort of man to desire being in charge. He had been a loyal soldier and had enjoyed following the lead of strong, intelligent, calculated figures that stood behind their decisions and kept those under them in line. 

That being said, having to step in and fill that roll had been surprisingly easy. Grayson had not been immediately convinced, but her hovering was not unwelcome. He respected it, understanding that she simply wanted no further scandal to befall this place and Rictus was nothing if not a man capable of proving himself worthy of that challenge. 

She and her staff stood up top on the enforcers’ floor, watching him and his guards take to the cage for his routine address to the prisoners while the rest of the guards wrangled the men to the fences. 

He climbed up, the burned security collar handed to him still smoking and crackling as he held it up for the men to see. “Afternoon, gentlemen. I had hoped that you all would be enjoying this one day off a week to relax and recover from the hard work you’ve been powering through, but for some of you, it seems, we need to have a talk. You all know what this is. You all know why you wear them.” He showed them a little remote that many were all too familiar with. “As all of you know, this little contraption delivers a shock to your collar that can be debilitating, but what many of you seem to not be aware of is that this pit is surrounded by a barrier designed to deliver a shock to your collar when you cross it. And yes, that shock is lethal. Every time. This sorry fool discovered this when attempting to cross that barrier this very morning. Do not be like this man. You are all monsters who committed heinous crimes that put you here for life. You must live with that. There is no escape, only the opportunity to repay the communities you’ve harmed with your service here in these mines.”

“That was quite an interesting speech,” Grayson commented, following him as they made their tour of the prison. “It concerns me that you had to make such a speech at all.”

“The men are still adjusting, madam. Growing pains.”

They observed the auditors marking their lists and checking off names, matching the books to the cell numbers and collars. Even the canteen and commissary had been closed, locked down to ensure that all men could be accounted for.

Save for one.

“They are still not used to having to live by rules and responsibility, madam. Most of the men have adapted, but some would rather attempt escape than have an early bedtime, it seems.” 

That made their small party laugh. He smiled. “We have had rebellions, plenty, but they have all been snuffed out with ease. We even have support from some of the prisoners themselves who want to see more order and less chaos, more… safety for themselves and less of us having to breathe down their necks.”

“That’s good. Cooperation is something I certainly never thought possible here, Rictus.” She nodded, though her brow was still furrowed as they neared the next level. “I take it that one of these rebellions is responsible for that on your face?”

Rictus schooled his expression, chuckling as he touched the two deep scratches running the span of his cheek. “Oh no. An animal did this while I was hunting. I never let any of the prisoners get this close to me.”

“Good,” she finally returned his smile, satisfied. She patted him on the shoulder. “Smart. I like what I’m seeing here. Keep up the good work, Rictus.”

He made a point to celebrate the good report with his guards, keeping the prisoners on lockdown for an hour more whilst he and his enforcers took over the canteen. He gave a much more rousing and encouraging speech to them, though what he said didn’t matter. 

They were a lot like his prisoners, he’d learned. Treats could keep even the most hotheaded thug disciplined. Marcus had not allowed them any treats, even as he himself had leeched off the service rooms perhaps more than even the miners did, but no matter. That was remedied now, and the guards were happy. Better, they were loyal and indeed very disciplined.

Returning to his office, he made his way to the adjoining room, displeased by the creak in the hinges when he closed it behind him. 

He turned on the lamps, brightening the room with warm light as he hummed, coming to stand on the far side of the neatly made bed. “My apologies for keeping you waiting.”

Silco was on the floor, staring up at him with eyes like two poisoned darts ready to be fired, but he was just as he had been left. Naked, gagged, and cuffed to the bedside drawers. 

His hair tumbled about his chest now that Rictus no longer permitted him to cut it. A pleasing sight. Unfortunately, his hand was heavily bandaged, holding in place the metal splint that kept his broken middle and pointer fingers wrapped together and immobilized for several days now.

“The Warden’s visit went well,” Rictus informed him. 

Silco’s working shoulder hunched more the closer Rictus’s boots stepped, those sinewy pale legs retreating from him. 

“Every facet of this prison is operating as it should. Everything is in order,” Rictus mused, as those eyes watched him pull off his gloves. “We received the first positive review from the Warden in years, in fact. Every man is doing his part… except you.”

Silco glared in answer. It amused Rictus, that anger. Or was it fear? As he sat on the bed and removed his red sash and blue coat, he realized that it had become nearly impossible to tell the difference these days. “You had a slip of bad behavior. I didn’t appreciate having to lie to the Warden about why my face looks like this. But I will admit that upon reflection, it was my fault. I thought you could handle more than you can, but… we are still learning each other, yes? The doctor says you will have to be careful for quite some time if you want to heal those bones properly. Does your hand still hurt very much?”

At last those eyes softened, though just a sliver, his cheeks a little rosy under the straps of the gag as Silco nodded. He muttered something completely unintelligible with his mouth full.

It charmed Rictus enough to unclip and release the gag, at once hungered by the sight of its thick cork covered in drool. He smiled, wiping the spit from Silco’s chin and lower lip with his thumb. “What was that?”

Silco shook his hair out of his face. “I said,” his voice soft, calm, “it was worth it.”

Rictus sat back, closing his eyes, needing to search deep within to find his peace and control. “Pity that your brain is smaller than that… testosterone-fueled nub between your legs. Otherwise, you would understand that self-preservation is meant to outweigh this childish need to be a brat, particularly in circumstances like these, Silco.” 

Carefully, he reached for Silco’s wrist to uncuff him, admiring the minute tremble in that slender hand. Silco’s eyes were wide, his lips thin. Terrified.

“What lie did you tell Vander when I broke these? I imagine he was curious to learn how you received this level of care as well.”

“I… I told him the truth,” he muttered, his eyes locked on his thumb held captive in Rictus’s fist, watching it slowly bend backwards. “An enforcer broke them and took me to the infirmary.”

“You told him why?”

A pause. “No.”

“Why not? Did you lie and tell him it was an accident? If I send you back with your thumb in a splint, will we learn how much bigger his brain is than yours? Hm? You still would say it was worth it to scratch me?”

“You’ve done worse before. If you do, I will manage.”

Rictus let it go, shaking his head, chuckling before his hand shot out to grab Silco by the back of his hair. He leaned closer, admiring the pale column of Silco’s neck. “Or what if I become careless instead?” Again, the tiniest of tells spoke volumes when it came to Silco. Rictus grinned at Silco’s pout, ignoring his useless glare as his throat bobbed when he swallowed. “Ah. That makes you nervous? If I ‘forget’ to pull out and send you back to him dripping my seed for him to question you, would you still say it was worth it?”

Silco sighed in defeat. Lovely. It was a shame he was so lowborn. The haughty face of an aristocrat or a wealthy merchant’s son on a peasant whore’s body, spawned from the depths of the undercity. It was a waste. In another life, he could have at least made a suitable concubine for a powerful man’s harem had he been born… anywhere else. Rictus had imagined it often enough. That version of Silco, his family’s wealth sacked, his father’s head on a spike, and he and however many siblings, slight and pretty like him, sold off by those who had taken the household. He would have been raised and trained to be obedient without the need for such extreme punishments for bad behavior, because the insolent brat within him would have been exhausted out of him by skilled trainers long before now. 

Alas, this was not another life. He was here and he was not trained. That brat within had been allowed to fester, even in the total absence of wealth or entitlement, into this, and every attempt thus far to break him was providing Rictus with inconsistent results that he had little patience for, so these little defeated sighs were nice. His own little treat for his continued efforts. 

Silco glanced away. “Do what you must. It makes no difference.”

Rictus released him, feeling excitement creep up his spine. “Are you granting me permission?”

Silco huffed, like a little demon with his head tilted and his expression reeking of condescension. “You are a monster masquerading as a man. We both know ‘permission’ is not a concept you believe in, particularly when it comes to what you have done to me in this room, but if you are… so compelled to convince yourself otherwise, take my words however you like.”

Rictus pulled him up by his neck before he could think, but just as he moved, he heard an odd noise outside.

It was faint, but unmistakable.

The boom wasn’t a one-off. Several more low, distinct sounds of small explosions echoed faintly through the wall. 

Rictus was forced to let him go again and stood with a growl, storming out. 

In the corridor, a dozen enforcers were already rushing to the commotion as he followed them.

Silco sat on the floor where he had been dropped, waiting all of ten seconds before he got up, not even sparing a moment to indulge in the hot water shower. Carefully but quickly he redressed with his aching hand. 

A little smirk on his lips.

They had not gotten very far today. The Warden’s visit hadn’t been unexpected but her timing was. 

And now this. What a shame.

He rifled through Rictus’s forgotten coat for his keys, his hand screaming in protest as he hurried to the office desk and cursed under his breath to find his flint missing, both of them. He tossed the keys back without a second glance, not testing his luck any further. 

Out on the lower floors, the ground shook with the faintest tremble one more time as clouds of sparkling yellow and swirling green smoke burst out seemingly at random from some point the enforcers could never quite pin down until they were right up on it before it traveled up the mouth of the open pit.

All around him, men cheered as others hurried to do all manner of illegal activities. They ran here and there or slipped through areas that had been blocked off, but with so many enforcers once again rushing towards the ‘attacks’ those left behind to stand guard simply couldn’t handle the chaos that followed these ‘displays of terror.’

The enforcers had no inkling of when to expect the next one nor where and lockdowns had proven to be useless in figuring out who they were coming from. Silco wondered if Rictus had mentioned this to the Warden. This was, after all, the third time this month that gangs had smuggled explosives out of the mines and it certainly would not be the last. 

Not if Silco could help it.

Not that Silco was involved of course, not weak, little, sad Silco, who Rictus had completely at his mercy. No, Silco would not dare go behind anyone’s back to be involved in something so dangerous. He would never dream of building something so small and so hard to see for the poor enforcers caught in the tripwires and traps he had not made.

This one looked to have been particularly nasty. The enforcers led their two colleagues quickly up to the infirmary, covered in yellow powder but underneath, was the faint sound of skin sizzling up their legs and hands and the sickly sweet smell of the shine that had surely spread like oil, burning them.

If Silco had to guess, he would say that these two, two of Rictus’s men who regularly ‘patrolled’ the service room block and always accidentally hurt the boys, must have kicked over a sizable rock on the path that had, perhaps, some sort of fuse strapped to it like a land mine that exploded the little bottle of flammable shine that must have also been coincidentally quite close to it. 

Where the yellow and red powder came from, Silco could only assume at this point that the gangs wanted credit for their participation and he was not about to refuse them that. If anything, whatever this powder, beautifully rich in pigment… which could be nice to paint with, was as flammable as the shine was. 

But that was Silco’s guess. After all, he had been cuffed on the floor, helpless, all morning.

Helpless.

The thing about having lived with his one arm fully snapped in half and healing in splints for months all those years ago was that any threat of broken fingers could not scare him now. He had long since learned to adapt with far less. And he was not alone now.

He slipped into the canteen and headed for Finn’s usual spot nearest to the brewers his crew did runs for. 

Months ago, he would not have been caught dead with any of these creatures. Now he compartmentalized his contempt for them all as matters to be addressed on the backburner, much as they were begrudgingly doing the same for him. If Grayson packed up Rictus and his leeches tomorrow, they would all be back at each other’s throats and Silco would be nowhere near them at all for any reason, but until then they all had the same colossal fish to fry. 

He slid in beside him close, carefully retrieving the folded paper from the spine of his boot with his now bruised thumb and ring finger. 

Finn winced at his splint. “This better not look like chicken scratch. You know my mates have a hard enough time reading as is.”

Silco chuckled, watching Finn study the list under the table of needed materials for a nonlethal pipebomb and the instructions for its setup. “Think you can manage?”

“Damn, this looks easier to get than the last two. I’m impressed. You got anything ready now?”

“Just one, then I will need to make more. Have your runner pick it up at the usual spot. You can add whatever flare you like or pass it along if you want, just make sure whoever gets it knows the rules.”

“Of course,” Finn purred, his snake eyes sweeping Silco up and down as he helped Silco into a sling with a jar of black shine hidden inside. “As promised.”

“If this is toxic, your next bomb will go off in your face. Understand?”

Finn held up his hands, grinning. “Wouldn’t dream of it. After all, I’m still plotting to ‘shoot my shot’ again with you, eventually. You hurt my ego more than my arm, but it taught me that you’re the kind of challenge I like. Whatever the case, you have my respect. All of ours.”

“Good.” It did not feel good shaking his hand and not because his hand was violently throbbing. He still remembered ‘meeting’ Finn, and what Finn and his goons had intended for him just outside of this canteen, months back, had he not had his flint… Flint which he did not currently have now that Rictus had taken his last. He did not particularly enjoy being so obviously without it, having his hair loose, ‘pretty,’ but with his hand damaged, he could not even tie his hair up in pretense that his flint could still be tucked in his knot. He was exposed and they could all see that. 

But he simply had to do what he had to do. “A pleasure, as always.” He nodded at the others, unable to return their smiles. “Gentlemen.”

In the cell, he sat in his hidden corner, pulling out his tin box and goggles from under his cot. From behind his mining coat hanging on the clothesline, his hand carefully pulled back the wall stone hiding the hole that he had found and since significantly widened. He retrieved the bomb components he needed to quickly wire together.

Every so often, he glanced around the cot to make sure the sun had not set too low. 

Yes, he could trust the gangs with his grocery lists. No, he would rather blow himself up than ever trust them to build one themselves or show them how to. None of them had come to this hellish alliance willingly, Silco included. They had the muscle and numbers and the access to the materials while Silco simply had the time and the experience repurposing those materials into lethal things. Adding explosives honestly had not been that tricky—for him. It had already been comical enough once they had learned the little knives they kept dodging—and eventually taking to the ribs—from Benzo’s patrons were all made by Silco’s hand. They had tried to circumvent their need of him a few times. They had even tried recruiting the men who handled the explosives in the mines, before remembering that the objective was not to bring the whole pit down on top of them. 

So Silco tucked his little device up in his arm’s sling with the help of a few toes and walked it to their usual spot. 

The guards did not even stop him most days, and when they did, seeing his numberless collar was enough for them to leave him be. 

It was a privilege he took no pleasure in having. As if he had been branded without a blemish the way he felt every time he left that office. 

He was back in the cell before Vander arrived, though that did not surprise him.

He had little worry for a broken hand save for the constant pain but honestly had even less worry of Rictus’s other threat. He and Vander… Just having Rictus breathing on him had already ruined whatever possibility Silco had of wanting anything from anyone and Vander in his infinite charity was simply okay with not ever touching him, not even sharing a bed anymore. 

A part of Silco… desired, even goaded Vander, wishing most nights that Vander would just… get angry, not care, and just grab him and use that unmatchable strength and mass to just make Silco sleep with him or kiss him or anything, force Silco’s brain to focus on him, for his eyes to see him, for his body to feel nothing else but him and remember… 

But Vander was not the sort, so that wasn’t going to happen. 

More tragic than that however, Vander, simply put, could not be trusted anymore. Like Benzo, Vander was following his orders like a good boy and his orders put him firmly at odds with any path that gave the prisoners a leg to stand on, let alone Silco. 

By now, Silco had decided that it did not matter how Rictus returned him so long as Silco was returned here, even to an empty cell for Silco to glare at Vander’s empty cot until he would drift into a fitful, restless sleep.

Just to do it all over again the following day.

+

Vander barged out of Rictus’s office ready to break whatever he could get his hands on.

“Well,” Benzo spoke up, a little winded trying to keep pace, “that’s certainly not gonna get us anywhere. What did you expect?”

“It’s bullshit, Ben! A fucking enforcer stomped Silco’s hand and they couldn’t give a bloody fuck, but now they’re looking at us like we don’t give a shit when we’ve been busting our asses trying to stop those idiots from blowing themselves up. You saw his face when I asked him, he knows who hurt Sil and won't say a damned thing.”

“Listen, brother, we knew they weren't gonna care on that front, but they absolutely do when it’s their asses on the line. I say we just stick to the plan and give them no reason to suspect that we aren't holding up our end… and if Silco is keeping his mouth shut about it, then I’m afraid that’s as far as you’re gonna get with it.”

Vander slowed. He snorted, just wanting to punch something even more. “Yeah, no kidding.” 

Benzo caught his shoulder, quick to let him go when he jerked out of his grasp. “You’re holding on by a thread, kid. We’ve been over this. You start letting yourself teeter closer and closer to that edge and you don’t want that, right? We don’t want that. Talk to me.”

Vander paced, fuming and counting but he still tried to think of the source of his feelings and arrange what he felt into words, just as Ben had taught him, not senseless reactions. He took a breath. “I don’t get it, Ben. Some nights… some nights I just want to shake him,” Vander muttered, shaking his fists close to his chin as if he already had Silco by the collar. 

It was a damning admission, one that brought a dark enough expression to Benzo’s face to slow Vander down, even if only a little. “It’s not just this, it’s everything! I know he hates what we’re doing, but fuck me, Ben, we’re all he’s got! And he’s shut us out! He’s shut me out, after everything! I don’t understand any of it! Marcus has been dead for a fucking month and it’s as if…  it’s almost as if Silco hates me for it. What the fuck did I do? I didn’t kill him!”

Benzo nodded, frowning. “And what did I tell you to do? I said to give him grace.”

“I don’t bloody know what that looks like!”

But before more could be said, they heard the unmistakable whistle of Finn’s gang runners echo out from a corridor to their left that was supposed to be closed off. Vander and Benzo eyed each other. The curfew was in effect, meaning whoever it was wasn’t where they were supposed to be at this hour. 

“Who’s got them running shine now?”

Vander snorted. “No idea. If they don’t start trouble, let’s just send them back. I’ve got no plans for much else tonight.” Namely dealing with enforcers again. “Go on ahead, I’ll handle them.”

“Deal, but we finish this talk after.”

Vander followed the whistling, getting further from Benzo but he couldn’t call him back now that he heard more of a commotion once he rounded the corner.

An enforcer was caught between three men, one keeping his hands behind his back, another trapping him in a head lock while the third kneed him in the ribs over and over. He was alone, oddly enough, but Vander knew he wouldn’t be for long. There were never enforcers on their own at night even with curfews. They were bound to run up on this attack and the whole prison would be thrown into yet another lockdown.

Only no one else showed up and to Vander’s horror, they didn’t plan to stop at beating the man. The second he saw the glint of metal in the prisoner’s fist he ran for them. The other two took off running with something in a bundled up cloth the second they heard someone coming, but the third kept the guard caught with his arm tight around his throat, hurling punch after punch with that blade in hand. 

Vander could hear the sick sound of stabbing and see blood starting to drip on the ground as the guard tried to scream and struggle free.

He didn’t exactly know what to do. He grabbed the man with the shank and threw him. He shoved the guard to get him running, watching him stumble against the wall as he hurried for his dropped whistle.

The hair on the back of Vander's neck stood as his only warning before he dodged, seeing the shadow behind him as the man with the shank lunged at him. He was drunk out of his mind with shine and rage to the point that he didn’t seem to recognize that Vander was a different person.

“Hey!” He tried to reason with him, grabbing and twisting his wrist. “He’s gone and so are your mates, now fuck off before they come back with more guards to kill you, you idiot!” 

But the second he let the man go, he had to stumble back to avoid getting sliced through his middle.

Not far back enough as the papercut feel of that nicking had Vander seeing red just as dark as this man did. He grabbed him and slammed him into the wall, hearing things crack and seeing blood bubble up from somewhere as the man moaned in delirium on the ground, clutching his face.

Vander snatched the shank off the ground and froze.

It wasn’t some hastily put together razor and toothbrush handle. This proper switchblade made with springs and a straight razor with some other attachment was one of Silco’s.

His hand shook as he stared at it, his stomach still bleeding from its thin cut. 

He was furious.

Silco startled awake first to the sound of Vander clumsily fumbling with the cell door’s lock. He sighed and pulled his pillow over his head, trying to force himself back to sleep past the throbbing in his hand.

The second time was having his blankets pulled off and his pillow taken before he was being dragged off the cot to the floor. 

Landing hard on his left knee and scraping it had whatever grogginess gone and replaced by utter terror. 

His hand screamed in pain as he was angrily pulled to his feet by his wrist. He could not swing with his arm caught and kicking only got him shaken harder.

But it was no enforcer come to take him. “Vander?!”

“What the fuck is this, Sil?”

He flinched at the switchblade waved in his face, confused. “You know exactly what that is, Vander, what the hell is going on?!” 

“Gangs are using these to attack guards now! Are you happy?”

“What else should I be?” Silco huffed, shaking his hair out of his face, still trying to get his brain to work properly. He could not understand why Vander was not letting go of his arm until that little remark and laugh snapped something in Vander that had him grabbing for Silco’s jaw instead. Silco stood still, seeing clearly now how Vander’s chest heaved and his teeth clenched, his glare pointed at Silco and Silco alone, deadly serious.

He looked at the blade again before noticing the blood on Vander’s torn shirt, but his guilt and concern were fleeting. “Are you an enforcer now, then?” Vander’s hand moved, now gripping the back of his neck too hard as he forced him back to the edge of the cot. 

“You think this is funny?! I could be bleeding out dying right now because of you! I told you this would happen, but you didn’t fucking listen!"

He hid behind his hand as Vander yelled mere inches away from his face until Vander knocked his hand away. The sob that slipped out was as humiliating as it was infuriating, but Silco was simply confused and angry now for the pain racing up his knee and arm and now his neck. He wasn’t scared. He refused to be scared of this man. But Vander was holding him too tight and did not seem aware of it at all. Nor did he seem to notice that he still had a knife in the fist he was holding the front of Silco's shirt with. 

Looking in his eyes, Silco could not lie and say that he did not recognize this man, because he knew exactly who this was. This was not what Silco wanted. He would never goad Vander into this unless his life depended on it. He was being mocked by his silly desire for Vander to overpower him. Not like this. Not like this at all.

But that pathetic, little terrified sound softened Vander’s glare and his hold, though he still shook Silco by his nape with every word he stressed, his other hand waving too close with that knife as he explained, “Sil, a guard just got stabbed with this and this is what I got for trying to stop them from killing him. Do you not understand what would happen to all of us if he had been killed? You think things would get easier for us then? Stop making these before you get me and Benzo killed next, alright?”

Silco swallowed to settle the tremor in his voice. “Alright.”

“This is not helping!”

“I understand.”

“Does anyone other than Benzo know you’re responsible for these?” 

All Silco could do was shake his head, not wanting to see what response he would receive if he told him otherwise.

“Good. No more. If I see you with these, I swear on my life, Sil…"

Silco blinked up at him, bristling at that tone. It set him off. “You will do what, Vander? Hand me over to the enforcers? Beat me?”

Vander let him go, letting Silco fall back onto the cot. He took a step back. “I was going to say ‘we’d be done, over,’ but I reckon you were already done with me a long time ago.”

Silence hung in the air between them as Vander glared and Silco… had no idea what his face looked like. He could neither think nor feel. He just sat silent in shock as he tried to comprehend what was happening.

“Yeah, figured as much.” Vander nodded, fighting back even more anger. He held up the knife again, not seeming to care that he was making Silco flinch. “Like I said, you are not making more of these. Do you understand me?”

"I said yes!” Silco snapped, wanting to scream for Vander to go away and for him to come back, for everything to come back to the way it was before it all went wrong. 

Vander’s quiet gaze hurt more than anything else, mainly as it was not followed by any apology, just a quick glance down at his knee before he stormed back out.

Silco sat on his cot, in shock, staring at his knee bleed in a trickle down to his foot. 

So Vander had in fact not been okay at all these last few weeks. Not patient, or respectful, or waiting for Silco to buck up some courage to climb back into his bed. He had been angry. Angry at Silco.

Good. That made living arrangements awkward, but otherwise… it was… good, then. For the best. He had wanted Vander to move on, right? It was the safest thing. For Vander at least. But did not being together mean he would treat Silco differently?

Judging by his bleeding knee and bruising, that answer was clear. One more obstacle. Vander was now one more terrifying, enormous obstacle in his way now. 

A part of him didn’t believe it. Could not. He could make sense of Benzo ditching him for the commissary. It had been his own fault for being foolish and not understanding that if the time ever came, he could never compete with that. Benzo had had a use for Silco and then he no longer did and Silco had thrown that tantrum from some bizarre sense of entitlement that even he did not know where it came from… Benzo himself. Always preaching about loyalty and ‘found families’ and thin air that did not actually mean anything in reality.

But Vander? He could drag Silco by the neck and crack his knee open but he could not drag him to bed? This had to have been a mistake. It was the only thing that made sense. Vander was… tired and overworked and injured. He was angry at the situation, not Silco, not… 

Silco rubbed his eyes, trying to unsee the darkness that had consumed those beautiful grey eyes. They had been pointed at him, as if Vander hated Silco and he knew that could not be true. It was too unbelievable. 

Except, he could believe it. The more he thought about it the worse he felt. They were not together anymore. Vander had told him from the very beginning he would never take from Silco, and Silco had stopped giving. Everything. 

Before, Silco would have reasoned that Vander had every right to be livid and that this was Silco’s fault and Benzo would have said ‘no, that that wasn’t right.’ But Benzo was full of shit and a liar.

He no sense of how long he had sat there, but by the time he moved, he could barely bend his knee. He winced, pouring shine over the wound to clean it, patting away the dried blood on his leg with his blanket, stubbornly blinking tears of pain from his eyes. 

He took one swig, then another, but paused, staring at the jar as a thought occurred.

Normally with shine this strong he would not shake it, just let it settle and separate for a less lethal high. He could keep adding water to it that way, stretch it out, just let it mix a little, until the sludge of whatever made up its inky contents was gone, but… tonight he swirled it a few times, watching the pitch black bottom spin and climb, muddying the water to the top. 

He shook it. He took one gulp, gagged, and put it away.

Sure enough he woke up the next morning still completely plastered. And numb. In many ways. Good.

He groaned at the banging at the door. Two enforcers. It was noon. Not good.

He growled and moaned unhappy the whole way up to Rictus’s office, having to be dragged and carried by both guards when he failed to get his knee to work properly, his head too heavy to hold up.

Rictus looked up from his desk, his smile dropping just as hard as Silco when he hit the floor. “What the hell is this?”

The guards shrugged. “We found him like this, sir.” 

“Where?”

“In his cell. We had to dress him, he was still in bed.”

Rictus held up his hand before the guards could leave. He stood up and walked around the desk, standing over Silco. “Get up and walk to the room.”

Dragging himself on his forearm was as good as he was going to get. Silco rolled on his belly, sliding and pulling up on his elbow a handful of paces and collapsed again, his vision spotty and his lungs tight. 

“Get him up.”

His head swam as he blinked and found himself upright again with Rictus’s face too close to his. The man grabbed his jaw, seething.

“Do not ever come to me like this ever again.” He paused, tilting Silco’s face to better see the bruises on his neck. He glared. “Take him back.”

Silco had the frame of mind not to say a word as he was dragged back out and to his room. The closer he got to it, however, the more he laughed. He was in disbelief when he crashed back onto his own bed, only just saving himself from landing on his hand. 

He stared up at the ceiling, beaming. 

And then a plan formed. 

Rictus was a meticulous man who needed order and ceremony and control, but he could not control this. He also enjoyed the struggle too much to waste his precious time if Silco was going to be no hassle for him. 

Silco laughed himself silly.

As the day passed, he remained where they had put him, making sure to be as unconscious as he could be every few hours the two guards passed by his cell to check on his progress in sobering up. Until, close to dusk, they stopped coming. 

Silco sat up, grabbing his journal. He mapped out what he knew of Rictus’s schedule.

Rictus did not call on him every day, but when he did, some days he might keep him for under an hour, but for some others only an hour or two. And then there were those days where he was stuck with the man the entire afternoon until dusk, surely on his least busiest days of the week… and there were only two of them. Always the exact same days out of the week, down to the minutes.

He hated it, but he could handle the shortest days. That left him with four days he needed to plan for and the free day that conveniently coincided with Vander’s own day off.

What would he do with himself on that day? He eyed the blank pages on his journal, plotting. 

But he paused, feeling a little tinge of fear in the pit of his stomach. What if… Vander had already been upset by the knives. Upset enough to drag Silco around like a ragdoll. 

If he found out about the bombs? 

He picked up his pen with a noticeable tremor in his hand but he knew he had to keep going. Rictus had to fall no matter what and Silco was going to see that happen.

Then, Vander and Benzo both would understand. Then, surely, he could get his Vander back. 

+

It only took that half hour sober with Rictus the following day for Silco to decide that he could not in fact do any of it sober if he was going to show up drunk the day before. 

Rictus glared at him as he watched Silco carefully redress, saying nothing, simmering. What could be said? He had already been angry for missing the day before thanks to Grayson’s visit and then the bombings. He was livid he had missed yesterday on top of that, and he had more than made up for it today. 

It had been an admittedly harrowing morning. Silco had woken up to the man standing in front of him, inside his cell with two enforcers, ready to raid it for his shine. 

Anything could have happened. He was grateful, thankful that they had no interest in looking too closely at anything else, but watching Rictus stand in the middle of his cell, pouring the jar out into the floor’s grate, it had been enough to scare Silco into compliance.

And that was before he had had to be carried by Rictus to his office when his slow, careful steps had been assumed to be stalling and not from injury.

Silco hissed loudly when he pulled his pants over his hip, not sure which particular hurt or where had triggered the sound. He paused, braced for the Noxian to snap. Again.

The man rose to his feet and stalked over like a scavenger looking to finish off some other beast's prey. An apt comparison. His knee had worn him down long before he had gotten here and now he was utterly wrung dry. No returned glare or pretense of apathy needed. He simply stared at the floor and waited, but Rictus reached for his empty belt loops and angrily pulled his pants up over the stinging handprints covering his ass and buttoned them. He righted Silco’s clothes with his stare drilling into the crown of his head until he dropped to one knee to tie his boots for him, still glaring up at him in silence.

Silco had to take a moment to simply stand and lean against the wall once he had cleared the enforcers’ floor. 

Certain he was simply in shock, his eyes wide with no internal reassurance that it was over and he was fine. He was not. Far from it. He was a big boy. No use in pretending otherwise, least of all now as he patted himself down for a smoke and came up empty.

That snapped him back. Having a need of things, tangible things he could easily acquire. Not some convoluted grand scheme he had to work towards, but something he could accomplish now. 

It got him moving towards his second least favorite place. He managed to soften his limp as he neared the commissary, ignoring his leg’s very loud protest. 

He also ignored the guard’s whistling and the men in line ahead who moved to clear a path for him. He would wait just like everyone else. “You are wasting your time,” he yelled to Benzo, rolling his eyes when his bodyguard simply took him by the elbow and brought him forward.

Benzo tsked, sucking his tongue, at Silco’s limp. His knuckles on his punching hand were bandaged. A rare sight for such a useless pacifist, but Silco had to quickly remind himself that he did not care so he refused to ask him about it. 

The man eyed him over his glasses. “How bad is that knee, son?”

Silco glared, his ears hot under his hair. “I am here for my usual haul.” 

Benzo sighed, but did not argue. He also did not hesitate to double up everything the way he had always done. “Here.”

There was also a small jar of salve and a piece of yellow candy. Silco could feel his chest tighten with something he did not like as he bit back the urge to say thank you. “I want a jar of black as well.”

Benzo scoffed, shaking his head. “No way in hell.”

“You have stock that you refuse to sell me?”

“I have black shine that I refuse to give to you. You know I will give you anything else.”

“I don’t want you to ‘give’ me anything.”

“Then it’s full price… All of it.”

“Ah, yes of course, here come the conditions.” Silco defiantly pulled out not one but four work tickets. He shook his hair back, his chin high. “This should cover what I asked for and whatever the gentleman behind me is buying.”

Benzo struggled to form words, leaning forward in total shock. “Where the hell did you get all of this?”

Silco shrugged, glaring, feeling just as much of a whore as Rictus had intended. “I have more.”

“Silco, what the bloody fuck are you—”

“What's wrong? These are all just ‘gifts’ from upstairs for my good behavior. Don’t you think it’s sweet? I suppose I had him all wrong,” he said whimsically, waving his battered hand around for emphasis as he smiled. “Except for when he did this, but don’t worry, Ben, he apologized. He can be so very thoughtful.”

“Oh, Sil—” 

“Now put the fucking jar of black shine—not brown, black—in the fucking bag or I will pull out four more tickets, and four more after that, and show you just how good I have been, ‘waiting’ like you told me to.”

Benzo had nothing for him this time. No excuses, no promises, he simply stood there devastated and dumbfounded until Huck patted his arm. He moved aside for Huck to finish for him before he managed to clear his throat and yell after Silco’s retreating back, “Elevate that knee. It-It will help with the swelling.”

Silco paused, wanting nothing more than to turn around and stomp back to him and remind him that he did not get to tell him what to do anymore. 

He startled a little when a hand gently touched his back.

Huck’s smile was polite, though a part of Silco expected Huck to start swinging on him and would that not be one hell of a fight this time? Instead Huck eased the heavy bag from Silco’s shoulder and offered his arm. “A cane’s not gonna do you much good with your hand, but I can keep my eye out for a crutch?” When Silco begrudgingly took his arm but gave no answer, Huck held his tongue, walking slowly in step with him.

He hummed, pointedly looking around as if he would combust if not given the chance to speak again before he glanced over and caught Silco eyeing him. “Did Vander ever tell you he and I were from the same neighborhood?” He nodded eagerly, excited to have Silco’s attention, positive or not. “He was a little kid when I was a teenager so we didn’t really know each other, you know? But I did kinda know his dad. His dad’s…” He made a face as if he had just witnessed someone stomp on a rat. “Has he ever mentioned him before?”

“No,” Silco answered flatly. “When he talks about his family, he always leaves out… whatever you’re implying.”

Huck wrinkled his nose, at once knowing he had yet again told what he was not supposed to. “But Vander’s not like his dad,” he quickly added. “His dad… Well, I guess like most guys like him, they just get angry and break stuff, a lot, but don’t ever fix things? Vander wants to fix things—Heck, he’s been working with Benzo a lot on trying to… not…” 

Silco blinked, snorting. “In a place like this? He wants to not break things?” 

Huck grimaced. “Gotta make the most out of what we got… right? Just… don’t give up on him, you know?”

“I had not planned on it.”

Huck gave a full body sigh of relief, smiling. “Good. That’s good.”

Silco continued to eye him. “Did Benzo tell you to say that?”

“Oh, gods no,” he exclaimed, his eyes wide. “Him and Vander—” He shook his head. “Just… Just me.”

“Thank you for helping to get me home, Huck.”

“Sure! I miss… I don’t ever see you anymore,” Huck muttered, unlocking the cell door for him. 

He knew what Huck wanted. Hell, sometimes like right this second he wanted the same: Someone to sit with who was not so completely different from him, who honestly wanted nothing from him, and who better than Huck to…

He thought of the cracked bust of Grayson in Rictus’s office. 

Who better than Huck to not get involved. 

Huck backed away, giving up. “Well… See you around—And don’t forget to elevate your knee like Ben said.”

“See you.” Silco watched him scurry off as Huck slipped through the little clusters of men, slapping a few wandering hands. 

He turned back to his cell and slowly set about tidying up after the morning’s raid.

+

Vander took a deep breath. Then another. 

He knew he had to look odd, leaning on the wall, hiding and lurking around his own cell, not going in. He held his helmet on his hip and smoked another cigarette before deciding he’d stalled entirely too long. 

When he stepped to the door, Silco was there, lying across his cot on his back with his leg propped up the wall, his journal flat on his chest as he stared up at the ceiling with his wet hair tumbling off the cot’s edge. 

Vander wanted to rub his face in that ugly sweater, but that burnt orange color was nowhere near as harsh as Silco’s pale, naked leg contrasted with the god awful bashing his knee had clearly taken. 

Silco startled at the sound of the key in the lock. He said nothing, watching Vander shut and lock the door behind him before he looked away.

The mattress dipped as Vander sat down, reaching out carefully for Silco’s knee. 

“Don’t,” he heard Silco mutter through a tight jaw, glaring at Vander’s hand hovering close to the nasty abrasion and the dark bruising underneath.

It spread the whole span of his knee in deep reds and purple and at its center, was an angry, violent wound that no one could properly tend to with three fingers and a splint that damn near immobilized his whole hand. It was hot to the touch and swollen. Not a good sign.

Thinking quickly, Vander got up, hearing a pained gasp sound from Silco’s throat as the bed moved, followed by a heavy, irritated sigh. 

He returned with washed hands and supplies, sitting carefully, watching as Silco sighed again, his lips thin and brow hard as he gave Vander a sideways stare. “Vander, it’s fine,” but he didn’t say anything further when Vander began to clean his wound. 

As Silco glared at the wall, Vander’s thumb stumbled over several little bits of debris like dirt and pebbles he had to remove, as carefully as possible but most of what had scabbed over had to come off.

And it was his fault. All of it.

Every so often, pinkened water would run down Silco’s thigh towards his underwear and every time he would block Vander from chasing after it with his towel. He was jumpy, his hand in his lap, grimacing at the pain, but silent.

After a while, Vander caught Silco frowning at the bruise on his cheek. He offered him a soft smile, blushing even as embarrassing as it was to admit, “Benzo’s been trying to help me with my temper.”

“I saw that his hand was bandaged. He punched you in the face?”

He’d done more than that. A lot more. Vander was used to getting hit, even yelled at, but what Benzo had said had been a thousand times worse than anything else. He shrugged. “It’s nothing I didn’t deserve.” 

“He hit you because…?”

“He hit me because I… I hurt you.”

Silco’s hum was cut off by a hiss as the pain began to wear him down. “He will punch you for knocking me over but an enforcer stomps my hand and he kisses theirs? Fascinating.”

It was Vander’s turn to sigh. “You know he cares about you. A lot. More than he cares for anyone else here.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” He held his breath until he couldn’t contain his groan any longer as Vander pressed the rinsed cloth over his knee, soaking up more blood. He squirmed. “Stop. It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

Again, Silco didn’t argue. He gasped but said nothing as Vander moved him by his hips away from the wall and propped his leg on his chest before he began to warm the salve in his hands.

All the while, Silco’s eyes followed every movement of those hands until they started to rub the salve in deep over the bruising. 

“Vander,” he warned softly, trying to pull his leg away. “For Janna’s sake—”

“I know, sweetheart,” Vander tried to soothe, kissing his calf, "I know it hurts, I’ll try to be quick with it."

Silco tried to pull away once more, but when Vander held his leg, he settled, or at least, settled as much as one could, moaning and writhing in pain under his arm, his lips in a thin, angry line. Vander could admit, Silco could handle a whole hell of a lot… far more even than he knew he himself could, but that left him with no feeling of pride. Only more guilt and regret and shame. 

It was one thing to fail Benzo twice within the span of half an hour when they’d worked on this temper management thing for a month and another thing entirely to sit here on Silco’s bed, making him cry in pain because he’d failed so spectacularly to remember anything Benzo had taught him when it had actually mattered the most. 

He tried to plant more soothing kissing up and down Silco’s leg massaging his thigh, but it did nothing. “I’m so sorry.”

Watery sea-green eyes blinked up at him, earnestly. “So am I.” Silco nodded for emphasis only to flinch when Vander moved to brush his hair from his face.

Terrified. Silco was terrified. He’d been terrified this whole time, ever since Vander walked in and sat on this bed. And why wouldn’t he be? This was everything about Vander he had told him he’d feared, that this would happen, and he’d been right.

He knew he should move, give him space to breathe but a part of Vander wanted, needed to convince Silco that he didn’t have to be scared, to convince Benzo that he could still be trusted with Silco, but how the hell could he do that? 

In silence, he bandaged and wrapped his knee. He cleaned up, easing his leg down before he gathered up his blankets and pillow and folded them all to stack under Silco’s leg. 

“It’s not necessary.”

“It is. You can’t sleep with your leg up the wall. I’ll manage.”

He tucked him in, keeping his leg out of the potential tangle of blankets. 

Silco watched him all the while, his brow arched until he snorted and shook his head when Vander put his sock on his foot in an attempt to keep it warm.

His thigh and calf were soft and skinny under Vander’s big hands. “Could we talk?—Could I talk to you,” Vander corrected, seeing the apprehension in Silco’s face recede a little. “Could I try to explain what was going on in my head?” 

At Silco’s noncommittal shrug, Vander began to speak but was cut off.

“You were right,” Silco answered, stating this to the wall. “You said my knives would hurt you and they did. I fucked up. You had every right to beat the shit out of me for it. Thank you for not doing that, but nonetheless… if you had, I wouldn’t…” He shook his head, shrugging again.

Oh. This was what Benzo had meant. Vander hung his head, wanting to weep for this man. “No, Silco, that is absolutely false. I didn’t have to put my hands on you to tell you I was angry. That’s the point—that’s one of the points. Look, the other is that,” he searched for the words, even feeling hopeless as Silco stared at him not believing a word he said, just like Benzo had told him he would. He rubbed his face. “Baby, I honestly don’t give a shit about getting hurt, what sets me off is the thought of you getting involved in any of this. I don’t want your name ever coming out of Rictus’s mouth and believe me when I tell you the amount of trouble you would be in, no one could help you. You know that. You’re smarter than that, Sil.”

Silco stared at him as if he was a total stranger until at last he asked, “Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing! You’re supposed to be focused on…”

“On you?”

“On getting back on your feet,” he said gently. “On living a life that doesn’t involve you having to look over your shoulder for Marcus every day, not putting yourself in enforcer crosshairs.”

After a pause, Silco simply answered, “Alright.”

Vander sighed. “And… yes, I will admit, it does… hurt to be shut out. Again. Can we just… plainly state what we’re doing, Sil? Is it… it is really a dealbreaker for you what I’m doing with Benzo?”

He waited for Silco to respond, seeing that his gaze was set on Vander’s hands. He gently rubbed his leg, trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. “It’s no pressure if it is, Sil. I just gotta know.”

Sea-green eyes at last meet his greys. “You don’t have a choice,” he finally said. He shook his head against the pillow. “Neither do I.”

Vander nodded slowly, taking the blow in stride. “Alright. Fine.” 

It was for the best, really. Over and over, he tried to remind himself. If his and Benzo’s plan was going to work, and it had to, this was only inevitable, letting him go. “Alright, Sil. I understand.”

Silco nodded back, looking more than a little apprehensive. 

Vander swallowed down his feelings and offered him the most disarming smile he could muster. “Hey? It doesn’t change anything. I’m never gonna stop trying my hardest to do right by you, alright?”

“I know,” Silco said quietly. “I’m counting on it.”

+

Chapter Text

+

Rictus paced in Silco’s cell, barely able to contain his rage as his enforcers searched the room. Again.

One held up his empty hands as he got back to his feet. “Nothing, sir.”

Silco hiccuped, blushing. “‘m sorry,” he slurred, blinking slowly from his perch on his disheveled cot. "I told you boys there’s no more left.”

Rictus took a deep breath and excused his guards before he took careful steps over to sit beside him, taking up too much space with his impossible size. His hand swallowed Silco’s thigh, squeezing it in warning. “Where are you hiding it?”

Silco shook his head, instantly regretting it. He was supposed to be drunk and drunk people did not shake their heads. He tried to hold his head and groan, but Rictus swatted his hand away. It took everything in him not to react to the pain, but he pouted through his hair at the Noxian, shrugging. “It wasn’t mine to begin with. I just asked an elder gentlemen if I could have some and he gave it to me. It was nice. This,” he said, waving at the mess they had made of the cell, “this is not nice, Rictus. This is a disaster.”

“This is the fourth time this week. Did I not tell you before to stop?”

“Well then, tell my knee to stop hurting. And my hand. That is what it’s for,” Silco whined as pitifully and irritating as possible to the Noxian. “The color was clear. It’s fine… It’s medicine, really.”

Rictus got up in a huff, growling. “Tomorrow.” He grabbed Silco’s chin. “And if you come stumbling into my office drunk or if my men have to bring me to you again like this, I will beat you to within an inch of your life.”

Silco blinked slowly, struggling to keep his eyes open as he pouted. “Should I apologize?”

“You are sorry?”

“Mhm.”

“We will see.” 

Silco hiccuped, leaning against the wall as Rictus locked the door behind him and left. He closed his eyes, waiting.

And waited a little more. He peeked when the corridor quieted and hopped up, though careful of his sore knee as he hurried to the bars to unlock the door and peer out. 

Seeing no enforcers he snickered, squatting down at the neighboring cell to twist his arm through the bars and retrieve his two jars of shine, one by one. He kissed their lids before tucking them back behind the wall stone, knowing he would need them for real tomorrow. Not to get blackout drunk, but just enough to weather through Rictus’s impending punishment. 

They were at war, he and the Noxian, and the Noxian was… not losing. If anything, all Silco’s drinking did was postpone his own ruin and give Rictus time to stew and conjure up the unimaginable and simply wait until Silco was sober enough to feel it. Now he had had four whole days to plan. Tomorrow would not be kind to Silco.

If tonight’s plan failed.

He could intercept physical hurts with sleep and shine every day, but the psychological hits stuck to him like tar, followed him into his dreams like a trickling contamination, just as Rictus intended them to, and that was Rictus’s focus. Silco still left that room every time with little more than a rope burn or a fading handprint. Everything else was underneath, in the mind. Every game he lost, every awful word whispered in his ear, unreachable for shine unless he drowned himself with it, and he did not have nearly enough jars to do that.

He dressed quickly, refusing to think about the plan and refusing to acknowledge the nagging, growing dread in the pit of his stomach. Too much hinged on tonight. Not just for him. 

There had been too many close calls with Vander and Benzo sticking their noses where they did not belong and now too many of the brewers and gangs were refusing to get involved and no one gang was dumb enough to go against Rictus, Vander, Benzo, and the enforcers on their own. 

So when the curfews were increased and the service rooms were shut down all together—to everyone except the enforcers themselves, of course—not a soul came forward to challenge it.

What was worse, the Vastaya, both the new enforcers brought in and prisoners offered good enough incentives such as their own time in the service rooms, were being trained to sniff out the explosives being smuggled out of the mines. Anyone caught sneaking out powder of any kind would be killed on the spot. 

Rictus was winning. On every front. 

“Word on the street is,” Finn said, watching one of his men crush and mix their multi-colored pigments, “they’re gonna start sniffing out rooms next. Whatever we had, we couldn’t hold anymore. Too risky.”

Silco watched the pigments start to form; one the gang’s customary yellow and the other, their only remaining ally’s bright glowing green, so much like their collar light. “I understand. Whether we are successful tonight or not, it is clear that we are due for a course correction. We need to get the others back on our side. They can’t possibly be foolish enough to believe that they won’t be next on Rictus’s chopping block, not when he has already seized the barrels of shine Lamar could salvage.” 

“You know,” Finn said after a while, turning to Silco as he blew his cigarette smoke away from his face, “I had to talk a couple of my mates out of running what powder they had left to your room—not to set you up,” he quickly assured Silco, “but your boy Vander.”

Silco sighed, rolling his eyes, yet again faced with this headache. “Again, I understand. I… My rules still stand.”

Finn shrugged, clearly in agreement with his men. “It just seems a little unfair. How come we don’t get rules of our own? Your hound gets to beat on us, but in order for us to work with you, we can’t beat him back? Come on, shark. Where is our ‘leveled playing field?’”

“You honestly think they want to stop at beating you? Sweetheart, it is a wonder why or how any of your ‘mates’ come back. How many real fights have they actually had with either one of them, or is it mostly them having their weapons confiscated and being carried off by the collar back to their cells when they get caught again because they cannot be bothered to be inconspicuous when skipping curfew? Why do they have to whistle so damned much, Finn? They sound like birds, an unnatural species for a mine pit. They might as well just shout at each other with words as it is obvious to anyone that that whistling is coming from them.” 

He huffed when Finn did not comment and pointed his chin at a cluster of men hovering near the fence, supposedly on the lookout. “Is that why they are staring at me? Are they so upset that Vander took their toys and put them to bed? Well, that’s a shame. Looks like I’m going to have to amend my tea party invitations if we are not all the very best of friends anymore.”

Finn simply shook his head noticeably void of his usual amusement. “You know the service rooms have been shut down for a week now.” He pulled the yellow and black bandana from his belt loop and tied it around Silco’s own.

And did not need to say more. The men that had been staring glanced down at the bandana then away, some even turning their backs, as if Silco had disappeared.

“Ah. So they all want to fuck me. Wonderful. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Vander and Benzo for any shit that my colors can’t ward off. I’m honestly surprised and disappointed that Vander’s not keeping a closer eye on you. Ben’s got his bitch locked up in the commissary, meanwhile… Every man sees Vander slipping, when you and I both know that, out of all of you ‘soft ones,’ you in particular are a sitting duck and it’s got nothing to do with your hand or that limp.” He slid his snake eyes southward, emphasizing his point as he stared at the small gap between Silco’s legs. 

Silco glared. “Oh yes, I had forgotten. Thank you for reminding me.” 

Finn brought his eyes back up. “Like I said, my colors should help you out, but… I could always give you more than that. And you would never find me working with the fucking cops.”

“I am flattered as always, but we have been over this a thousand times, Finn.”

“Just reminding you that my offer still stands, but it won’t be on the table forever. Eventually, I’ll be led to believe what the others are saying, that you’re not really in this with us, but perhaps helping Vander instead.”

“And by extension, helping Rictus, then? After everything I have done? Finn, have you lost your mind?”

“Perhaps I’m just struggling to see how you benefit from straddling the fence. Men already know where Vander’s loyalty lies and it can't be with you, otherwise he would be here. And before all of this, they were convinced—we were convinced—that your loyalty was to no one. Not even to Vander.”

“Whether or not I am loyal to him or simply stuck living with him, it should be no one’s concern. I am here.”

“If all you’re doing is living with him and want out, I can make that happen for you. Getting rid of Vander would make a whole lot of us much more happy. Maybe even you. Just ask me.”

“Very well. Finn?”

Finn smiled the most charming smile he could manage with a metal jaw, which Silco could admit was still damn impressive for the pretty man. As he leaned against the wall, he arched his brow. “Silco?”

Silco stepped closer, eyeing him through his lashes as he tilted his head and sweetly answered, "Interfere with Vander in any way and you and I will become highly unbeneficial, do you understand?”

Finn huffed, scowling. “I understand that you need me more than I need you, so I wonder if you’re even in a position to decide what happens to either one of you.”

Silco smiled, chuckling as he shook back his hair. He wrinkled his nose like Huck would, “Too bad you have already ditched the explosives you had left.” He glared. “I still have all of mine, with plenty enough powder to make more. Interfere with Vander,” he said again, “in any way and you and I will become highly unbeneficial, Finn. Did you understand our ‘positions’ better now?”

Finn shifted on his feet, putting out his cigarette butt under his boot as he sighed, glancing away. “Will Vander and Benzo be a problem for my men tonight?”

Silco refrained from patting the man on the head and praising him for being a good boy. “If your men stick to the plan—and don’t draw attention to themselves, then no, they should not be.”

“Then here’s to us all being free of Rictus, once and for all.”

Silco sat on his cot, staring at his hand.

He wanted to peel off the bandages and splint to see if any progress at all was being made. 

He was frustrated, bending his knee back and forth slowly, feeling out the sore spots. Getting rid of the budding infection and keeping it elevated had taken with it a good chunk of his pain but his damned hand seemed to be going nowhere. His fingers hurt as much today as they had the day they were broken whenever he pushed it too far. 

He simply could not afford to wait much longer. Whether the service rooms reopened after tonight or not, he needed his full strength back. 

Like it or not, Finn had been right. Silco was a sitting duck, but it had as much to do with his sex as it did being slowed down and hindered as he was. 

That whole encounter rubbed Silco the wrong way. They had had their disagreements and squabbles before, but something about Finn felt too off for Silco to simply go to bed and hope for the best tonight. Too much was at stake and he had only survived this long by listening to his gut when it told him to get up and go. 

And it was right. Well before Silco made it under the last platform, he knew everything was going wrong.

There was shouting and tussling when there should have been silence, a few men at most to plant the bomb, not a small mob, but the closer Silco got, he saw only a trap of an altogether different kind. 

As if this was not their one, single chance for victory, Finn’s men had seen Vander and Benzo and forgotten everything else.

+

“You alright there, old man?” Sore himself, Vander reached down to help Benzo back onto the walkpath as the stream roared nearby, fed by the recent heavy rains. 

“This certainly isn’t carrying a few small crates up and down a hallway. Bloody hell.” Benzo poured his whole canteen of water over his head, chuckling as he hurried after Vander, winded. “But all this exercise has got me looking better than ever, so… can’t complain.”

Benzo’s bodyguard from the commissary gave one last lookout from a higher rock before heading over. “What’d you find this time?” 

Benzo shook his head. “Another breaker assembly for the lights and such, so it looks like we were right to go up instead of down here. Run along and cross it off. Vander and I still have our patrols to get through, damn it all.”

“You think Rictus will suspect anything if we’re late,” Vander asked. “Again?”

“Of course! And we’ll tell him we ate something rotten and it held us up. He’s not gonna want to hear details.”

Vander shook his head, laughing as they neared the stacked pile of confiscated shine barrels, paying it no mind apart from the relief it gave him knowing they were being destroyed tonight. 

Was it all the shine in the pit? No, and he didn’t even know what color it was in those barrels, but… not that it was supposed to be his concern what Silco did to himself, but finding the man in their cell drunk and unconscious more often than not was wearing on Vander. It would be good to see the barrels emptied.

They hadn’t spoken or seen each other awake in a week. Every time Vander was there, Silco was drunk and asleep, always in his sweater, always forgetting to tend to his knee, which meant Vander sitting on Silco’s cot changing the bandage and keeping it clean and propped up for him, so close, but farther away than they’d ever been from each other. 

For days Vander had wracked his mind trying to understand what Silco had meant, that he was counting on him not to give up on them and yet, Silco clearly had? Hadn’t he?

He hadn’t talked to Benzo about it, but his need to was cut short by whistling behind them.

It was the only warning before Vander was punched the second they both turned to the sound. 

“Lookie what we got here,” he heard one man say. “Fuck the rule, slit this snitch and get Benzo’s tongue.”

On the ground with his vision spotty and a boot in his ribs, Vander saw another of Finn’s men trying to gut Benzo while a third stayed back, squatting by the barrels and holding something wrapped up in a cloth as he waited for them to finish Benzo and Vander off. 

It resulted in the man having to backtrack at first and then slide the bundle between two barrels to bring out his own knife in an attempt to turn the tide back in their favor. That earned him Benzo’s fist around his throat and a series of blows so heavy and precise, unending, that it reminded them all, even Vander, why that retired gangster tried for diplomacy over violence whenever he could. It wasn’t that Benzo couldn’t fight, but that he was a man who really, really ought not to. Nothing about the man’s beating was uncontrolled. He made sure that man had teeth enough to eat with but the rest had been swallowed by the time Benzo dropped him.

With all three men moaning on the ground, Benzo glared as he limped over to what was most likely more contraband. “I think I broke my bloody toe cracking that one’s ribs. You stupid bastards don’t know when to quit, do you? If you would’ve just kept your mouths shut, we’d have never even known you were behind us, you… idiots…” Benzo stared at the unwrapped thing in his hand. “Holy shit, Vander.”

Two things occurred to Vander at once when he walked over: colored fabrics like this one wrapped around the bundle in Benzo’s arm were rare, namely one with Piltover blue on one side and grey on the other. It was fine quality, at that. Stitched neatly by a machine with a stamp from the enforcer’s medical ward on one corner. It was even still tied in a knot to secure it around someone’s neck for an injured arm, or shoulder.

Or an injured hand, say, with broken fingers. 

And inside this sling was an elaborate device of strings and metals and tripwires waiting to be pulled taut and attached to the fuse that was wrapped around it.

Was it possible that Finn’s gang could have stolen the sling from Silco? Sure. Would Silco have told Vander immediately so he could get it back? Absolutely. 

Was Silco, who was more than capable of making tripwires and traps and all sorts of contraptions also capable of making… a fucking bomb? 

He and Benzo eyed one another, their minds most certainly racing with the same thoughts. 

Benzo shook his head, his eyes glassy. “No. This is… Vander, it can’t be…”

Vander rounded on one of Finn's men, grabbing him by the collar. The man wasted no time whistling as loud as he could, followed by another still on the ground. 

They were surrounded. Six more men emerged from the closest set of stairs, some tripping over themselves to get through the clusters of loose rocks to get to them.

Vander held Benzo back, needing him not to lose track of that bomb as he took care of their new friends. 

Only by now they were outnumbered with bad odds as someone whistled for more men to come down, all armed, not the usual handful of shine runners. 

Vander and Benzo both sighed and stood back to back. They were bracing themselves for one hell of a fight when a new voice whistled from the bridge, stopping Finn’s men in their tracks.

Silco’s expression was as unreadable as his reason for being down here was unknown. This late, he was risking days spent in the hole for breaking curfew. Why, and how, on earth had he known Vander and Benzo would be here?

“This is… not what Finn agreed to,” Silco said, approaching them, his words for the gang even as he kept his eyes on Vander. “Why are you all here?”

A thousand and one questions swirled in Vander’s head at this, but he couldn’t quite get his brain to process what he was seeing and hearing as real.

“Because we’re sick of doing all your dirty work and getting nothing for it but more shit from these snitches,” one spat. “We didn’t sign up for this shit.”

Silco sighed, watching the plan all fall apart before his eyes. “Go, then. Leave.” 

“Nah. Why should we listen to…” 

Silco held the little grenade with the pin caught between his teeth, ready to pull it if the men refused to move. He stepped aside to let them pass, trying and failing to think of something to get that bomb out of Benzo’s hands. “Give it to me.”

“This is… you?” Benzo looked at Vander and down at the bomb. “All this time, these have been your work?—A-Are you still—”

“No,” Silco quickly explained, pulling the pin on the grenade and tossed it into the stream. “See? It’s useless, but that, I need that, Ben. Please,” he quietly begged, still eyeing Vander, watching him as if he were a pot heating on a stove, hotter and hotter, its water steaming. “Give it here. Look, we do not have time for this right now! You can be disappointed later, but he will be here soon and I need to get that set up in the barrels now. I may not get this chance again.”

Vander frowned deeper, panting. “He who?”

But Benzo was already ahead of him, the moment he and Silco locked eyes, he knew. “You’re…” He glanced at the barrels. “This is for Rictus? You were going to blow him to high hell?” 

Vander and Benzo looked at each other in shock. Just over the roar of the stream, they could hear faintly what sounded like voices. They grabbed Silco before he could say more, rushing him and the bomb both off deeper into the cave. 

“No!” Silco fought, kicking. He bit Vander’s finger and at once felt his life flash before his eyes as Vander covered half of his face with his hand, cutting off his air as they moved to the further curve where any approaching guards would not see them. 

Silco’s back hit the wall as Vander snatched the bomb from Benzo and pushed it at his chest. “Disarm this shit right this instant, Silco, do you hear me?”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I will not! Why are you two protecting him? Unhand me!"

“Like hell, I will, Silco!” Vander shouted, his hand covering Silco’s chest as he shook trying to keep his voice down. “Disarm this thing and I will pretend that you had nothing to do with those others—”

“I had everything to do with those others, alright? I have to do something while you two lick his fucking boots!” He growled, livid when Vander covered his mouth and nose again. Kicking did nothing to get the man off of him and trying to push at him shot a pain through his hand that nearly stole Silco’s vision. 

He couldn’t believe this. The plan had been foolproof, if only he could have done it all by himself. 

And now he was staring up at grey eyes that looked back at him as if trying to leaf through his mind to find some reason or instruction as to why Silco had betrayed him, like some defective machine.

He growled in frustration but gave up his struggle. The plan was gone, slipping through his broken fingers. In truth, he knew the moment his feet had touched the bridge that he was out of time. The bomb should have been in place, should have at the least needed only its fuse strings unraveled, but no. Here it was, and there Rictus was now, far off with his men.

“Silco,” Vander hissed, shaking him, “disarm this now!”

Silco shook his head, watching Rictus and his band of guards through the gap between Benzo and Vander’s shoulders, too far away. “No.”

Vander held him by the nape, pressing their foreheads together, his teeth clenched. “Silco, I swear…” It was taking everything in him not to snap, they both could feel it.

Silco closed his eyes, ready for it, wanting him to. 

Benzo quickly shouldered Vander off, sticking out his arm.

“Vander, go count,” he warned, nudging Vander back.

“Ben, I’m not…” Vander glanced at Silco, his cheeks red and eyes wide, “I wasn’t—I’m alright.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Now go move around,” Benzo ordered with a tremor in his voice, glaring until Vander walked away to pace. Turning to Silco, rage from Benzo would have been something Silco could handle, not the sympathy painting his face now. “Are you alright, Sil?” He nodded with him, softly patting his cheek. “Good. Sil, this is… This is bloody barbaric. This is not you!”

“Me? Does this look like any of us? Rictus is forcing blood on all three of our hands, Ben! It’s not just me who changed. Look at Vander!”

Vander returned, his hands shaking. “Is this thing live right now?”

Silco could only shake his head and watch Vander break the casing apart and empty its contents, destroying it himself as Benzo blocked Silco from stopping him. His eyes burned, watching Vander sneak from their hiding spot to the stream to dump the powder. 

He watched Rictus and the guards take shovels and axes to the barrel corks, letting them bleed their liquid gold into the stream as well. He sobbed, angry to see that water so polluted by them all. “I hate you both so fucking much.”

Vander’s face twisted as if Silco had struck him. “No, you don’t get to say that right now, not after all of this. Do you have any idea how many people you could have killed all this time? Hell, you’ve sent over a dozen enforcers to the infirmary, Silco! Some have lost limbs or been blinded. That could have been any of us.”

“Bullshit! You know it wasn’t. It never has been. That was the whole fucking point! Not our people hurt, his! Not this useless exercise you two are doing thinking you are helping any of us when you've only helped him make it worse! I hate you! I fucking hate you!”

Benzo wiped his eyes as he patted Vander’s back, still trying to calm him down. “What if we’d been here with Rictus when he broke open those barrels and that bomb went off, Sil? Hm?”

“No! You weren’t even supposed to be down here!”

“And yet here we are,” Vander countered. 

“Silco, this wasn’t ever going to go how you wanted it to, son.”

He watched Rictus leave, at last looking up at Vander, feeling his anger radiating off of him. For once, it did not matter, not nearly as much as knowing he had failed to free them both—to free them all—but Vander would never know. 

He looked up at Ben, hating how easy it was for that man to wring so much emotion from him, even now. “I just needed him to die, Ben,” he whispered, choking on the words. 

“I know you do, my boy, but not like this.” 

Silco fought off his hug and shoved past them both, ready to rip his own hair out or scream up the mouth of the pit. 

Vander caught his arm. “Where do you think you're going?” 

He turned to answer Vander but his eyes stayed on Benzo. “I have to get ready for work… again.”

Vander opened his mouth to speak, but Benzo eased his hand off of Silco, letting him go. He intended to follow after him, not at all done with any of this, but Benzo stopped him. 

“It’s alright, Vander.”

“What? Ben, what the hell is he talking about?”

“He just means he’s going to drink, that’s all—Let’s just… give him some space. This is… a lot. Vander, this is a lot, for all of us.”

That was an understatement. Silco was a bomb maker—the bomb maker that had been terrorizing the prison this whole time. He was a terrorist now, working with Finn of all people. “Ben…”

“I know… I am past the point of worry and concern. This place has turned that boy into… someone I barely recognize.”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do about it? Just let him go? What the hell is he going to do next?”

“That, my friend, is something I don’t have an answer for. We keep working,” Benzo shrugged, looking as helpless as Vander felt. “That’s all we really can do right now. The sooner we get him out, the better. For all of us, perhaps.”

Vander tried to agree with that.

Only the closer they seemed to be getting to a solution that might make this impossible task possible, the more Vander felt himself on edge, unstable. He knew as well as Benzo did that Silco didn’t belong here.

But Silco not being here, but somewhere  else free and far from this place, far from Vander, it… wasn’t something Vander dared to let his mind think too much on. 

“I’m counting on it.” Some part of Silco somewhere still wanted Vander. But then why was Silco trying so damned hard to get himself killed?

How could he get through to him?  

+

“Marcus told me some time ago that you too like to build things. So,” Rictus asked, washing his hands in the basin, “what did you think of my little machine? Did you like it? How did it make you feel?"

Silco could not imagine how he would feel if not dulled by shine. He had been edged and forced to come for hours. He had been certain that Rictus would never free him from it, that it would never end. Everything was white noise and getting his stomach to settle now. 

He sat staring at the offending thing where he had kicked it away. He blinked up at Rictus, shivering. “I don't particularly care for it. Mission accomplished, I assume?”

“Oh, quite the contrary. I made it for you to love it. And judging by the state of this bed…”

Silco bit his tongue and dug his nails into his ankle, anything to keep from speaking but he was worn down to the bone. Perhaps he would have been able to simply swallow those words if not for the triumphant little chuckle that accompanied them. He wrapped his arm tightly around his waist, his cheeks and ears burning as he seethed, “Yes, you are so right, I must surely be lying. I have to be a slut in love with you if you needed to build an entire contraption to force me to do what you will never accomplish on your own—” He sighed, deflating.

Rictus smiled. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“I assure you, it is not.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, angry with himself now as he realized that they had yet to run out of time. Far from it.

He was still fuming, with physical hurts now to accompany his usual frayed and scattered thoughts, when he reached the cell. 

His fumbling hand dropped the key on the ground just outside of it. He shook his hair back to glare down at it, unmoving as if he had at long last rusted over right outside of his home and could go no further.

“Sil?”

A hand reached through the bottom of the cell bars for the fallen key, taking it. He panicked. He needed that key. “Stop.”

“Sweetheart?”

He jumped, shaking his hair back again as he stared up at Vander, still trying to put the pieces together.

Vander was home. He had Silco’s key. The door was already opened for him. He huffed. 

Vander sighed, giving Silco the look he always gave him when he thought Silco was drunk, which Silco realized he was, or at least had been at some point. All of his numbing, fuzzy, rounded edges and fueled momentum had run out. It was all brittle and sharp now, feeling too much and too fragile to bear it. 

“Vander?” He tucked his shaking hand behind his back and stared at the man's collar, trying to ask him without asking him if he could just… “Please don't be upset right now, I can’t—” 

“No, I’m not. I… don’t even want to think about any of that right now, just… Come inside?”

He stepped slowly into the cell, his eyes never leaving Vander’s back, but he froze as soon as he reached his cot. “What did you do?”

Vander shrugged as he sat on his own. “Nothing, just cleaned up a bit.”

He had done more than that. He had given Silco the spare sheets so that he could wash and hang up the others and had been scrubbing the floor. He had folded Silco’s sweater and had tea and rations… and candy from the commissary… on Silco’s bed for him. 

“We can check your knee when you're ready.”

This was… too much. This had to be a trap. Vander was supposed to be angry, not… this. Silco turned to him. There was a whole host of things that Vander could do to him and he was prepared for none of it. He panted, absolutely terrified. “Vander, I can explain. Not everything but just that I… needed to do something to—”

“I noticed that you used your own setup for that… thing, so all your tripwires are gone,” Vander said to Silco’s boots. “Figured you’d still like someplace to keep your things secure until you reassemble everything under the cot so your journal’s under your pillow for now and your… your ‘tool’ box is in the trunk. Alright?” 

“But—” He held his breath when Vander stood.

Vander lit cigarettes for them both, handing one over. “Alright?” 

Silco nodded, understanding him loud and clear. “Alright.” He sat down. “Thank you.”

Vander retreated back to his own cot. “You’re welcome, baby.”

Silco did not quite recoil from that last word, but something pulled him tight into himself, drawing up his legs on the bed as his ears burned and his body ached, unable to handle a single drop of blood rushing south and yet… Silco heard that word in that sweet, soothing tone, and… “Could you say that again? I didn’t hear you.”

Vander frowned. “I said, you’re welcome?”

“Was that all of it?”

Vander nodded, as if blushing himself though it was a little hard to be more than hopeful in this low light. “More or less.”

“Oh.” He smoked, eyeing the food as his stomach growled. It had honestly been quite a while since he had last had an appetite for anything other than… his shine.

He got off the bed and hurried to his hidden corner. He moved his mining coat aside. The two jars of black and brown shine were gone. 

He stared at the empty floor. 

“They’re in the trunk too.”

Silco’s cheeks and ears burned. “I see. Thank you.” Though he was still uncertain. That trunk was not on his side of the room, but Vander’s and some nagging little needling thing told him that he still was not allowed to go into Vander’s things. He had taken his tool box and he had taken his shine.

He moved his coat back, surprised by its weight but then saw it was huge and had two arms. 

If his cock were not so bruised right now it would be hard. His heart did pound harder, nonetheless, his sore sex throbbing. He traced the open lapel of Vander’s jacket, down to his own, hidden tucked underneath—or perhaps not hidden, but supporting it. Vander’s swallowed his and was so big and heavy, Vander had to still hang them on both of their makeshift hangers so that his own wouldn’t gave under it.

Why? It was so… intimate. And forgiving and understanding and everything Silco did not deserve right now. He walked away without a word and sat back on his cot, eyeing his food again. He had to balance what was left of his cigarette on his boot to free his hand and tore open the ration with his teeth. 

Vander stared at his own boots, toying his sister’s necklace on his wrist. “I’m not punishing you, if that’s what it looks like. Just don’t want you caught with anything you’re not supposed to have.”

Oh. Oh no. “You will have them now.”

“I can handle getting caught.” You can’t, Vander didn’t say, but Silco felt it. “Finn’s a goddamned snake who can’t ever be trusted, Sil, none of them can.”

He chewed and swallowed. “I have my methods of holding my own with them."

“They’re snitches. Some of them. One of the smaller, weaker gangs who couldn’t keep up already made a deal. Those beast blokes. They turned on Lamar for it. Who’s next? What is next?”

“What is next is me tossing a live grenade at them if they cross me.” Shit.

Vander’s face said it all. “You still have powder left?”

Again, that fear gripped him, stealing away his voice. “I do.”

Vander looked around them. He sat forward. “Where?” 

Silco continued to eat. He tossed the last of the cigarette butt in the grate and frantically brushed the ash off his boot. 

Vander hung his head. He massaged his temples and hairline, musing his curling hair. 

Silco watched him, envious of those hands. He fished under his pillow for his journal.

“I had a nightmare at Ben’s last night, after we parted ways,” Vander finally said. “About you.”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing. You suffered. You were trapped and I couldn’t get to you.” Vander rubbed the back of his neck before worrying the necklace on his wrist again. “Rictus always makes us sit and wait before our briefings so he can talk to his guards about a bunch of nothing, most of the time, just to irk us.”

Silco swallowed, setting his tea down. “Oh,” he tried to say but no sound came out. He cleared his throat.

“But one time while we were waiting, he was telling them war stories, about what he’d… seen others doing, but it was obvious from his tone, he didn’t hate any of it. Do you know what he told them? He said the soldiers would tie up their pretty captives to a rack in the camps for… And for the ones who had caused them the most trouble to get them there, they locked them in pillories. He described all sorts of things they’d put them through in those things. Why would anybody bring up something like that here? Hm? Meanwhile he says he wants men found with powder killed on the spot but that’s exactly what he said they did to rebels they clashed with, Sil. They’d kill them but keep the fuckable ones for the racks and pillories until their bodies would give out. Do you understand what I’m getting at? Look at me,” he urged quietly. “We know what the enforcers are doing unchecked in the service rooms. The boys complain and he just sends them back. Is it the same thing? Gods, no. Not remotely, but it's close enough and those boys don’t make bombs that blind and disfigure enforcers. When I went to sleep last night, I had a nightmare about you. Do you understand? Sil… get rid of the fucking powder before they find it. Please.”

They sat in silence as Vander waited for Silco to say anything. Silco closed his mouth and blinked back tears.

Vander was on his knees in front of him at once. “Baby, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare you.” He rubbed the backs of his calves, trying to soothe them both. “We just have to be so careful. We don’t know what that bastard could do.”

Silco knew. Vander was right, Vander could not be more right. He could remember Rictus leading him from the infirmary with his newly splinted hand to take him on a tour of the enforcers’ floor, even to their dormitories, and the message had been loud and clear to him then. He glared, baring his teeth as he gritted out, “That’s the man you choose to work for,” needing to fire these feelings somewhere else, turn them into something else.

Vander clenched his jaw, burying his face between Silco’s knees before he punched the floor. He looked up through his own tears. “Yeah, you know what? You’re right, that’s him. That’s the man I had to sell my soul for in order for him to leave you alone. That’s the bastard I have to take orders from while he yells at me and Ben and threatens us—threatens you and Huck—because Ben and I have to lie and act dumb like we don’t know where the weapons came from that stabbed his guards and we certainly have no bloody idea who’s blowing them up. You’re right, Sil. That’s the man I have to swallow my tongue for every time I step foot in his office or risk screwing up everything for us. Blame me, hell, hate me for it, just get rid of the fucking powder.”

“I don’t hate you.” 

Vander sat back on his haunches, giving him a confused and tired sigh. “Can I please hold you, then?”

Silco could only force his head to nod once, relieved that when his knee shot up to block Vander, the man pushed it aside to cover him. He buried his face in Vander’s thick neck as Vander moved them to lie down fully. 

Maybe on their sides, maybe if Vander could face the wall, but Silco couldn’t ask, as if Rictus had stuffed a rock down his throat that he could only push and pull air past in panicked, little gasps and nothing more.

Vander propped himself up on his elbows, brushing Silco’s hair back. He kissed his cheek, dismayed. “You’re trembling like a leaf. This scares you now,” he sobbed, sucking his tongue. “I did this to you. I put this fear in you, and I’m so sorry.”

Silco snorted, shaking his head slowly up at the ceiling with something akin to amusement on his face, wanting to scream. This was what he had been dying for and now he could not stomach it. “It wasn’t you.”

“Then who, Sil? Marcus? What’s happened to—”

“On second thought, perhaps so.” Everything about Silco was suddenly so cold, but he couldn’t help it. He was panicking again. “Perhaps it was you who… ruined me. I used to be able to handle anything. I used to live every day prepared for the worst, ready. And then you showed up, with your… protection and carefulness, even happiness,” he whispered up to the ceiling, bitter as if he could condemn the pit itself. “The last thing I ever should have done was allow myself to believe that any of that was real.” Or at least, real for Silco. Maybe real for other people, but not him. He bit his lip, shaking his head again, thinking back on all that Vander had made possible for him and how swiftly this pit had rejoiced in taking it all away. As if Vander had rocked him into his first peaceful sleep only for Marcus and then Rictus to shake him back awake and remind him that he was still here, right where he’d been when he had closed his eyes. “Now… I feel… like I can’t handle anything.”

It hurt to think of, to even remember what it felt like to be held and not hurt, to have a lover like this. Having proof that the disregard and violence that men so readily exercised when using him was a choice, it was almost too much to bear most days. It took everything in him not to shout and scream the way he had done to Rictus today, in fact, that he did not have to be cruel, as if cruelty was not the entire point for men like him… He was better off not knowing that there existed something good and different—more than that, that he of all people could have it. Only to have none of the good and only the worst now.

When he blinked out of his spiraling thoughts, Vander was not holding him anymore. He was standing beside the cot, staring down at Silco with tears wetting his shirt. “Damn, Silco. You… really do have a way with your words.”

Silco sat up, pushing himself back against the wall. He rubbed his face, unsure of which part of his rambling he’d actually said aloud, but it was obviously something that sent Vander out of the cell. “Shit.”

He pushed his palm between his eyes and kicked his journal off the cot.

+

Try as he might, and he wasn’t, but Vander wasn’t listening again. 

He sat slouched beside Benzo in Rictus’s office as Huck and another service room boy hurried around the room with tea for the guards. The Vastaya and enforcers were yet again bickering back and forth with Rictus, dragging on, cutting into Vander’s shift and the commissary hours. Vander rolled his eyes.

“Tell me about this naughty little thing here,” Vander thought of instead, longing for those early days together, back on a rainy evening months before when a trip across the cell to Silco’s cot had turned into an in-depth conversation not about the contents of the man’s journal.

They sat together in their t-shirts and underwear, using the cot like a couch as they were tangled in Silco’s sheets, leafing through his journal—at least, Silco had been leafing through the journal. 

Vander’s hand had wandered and Silco had let it wander and it was leafing through the contents of his boxer briefs. 

Silco bit his lip, glancing at the bars as Vander slowly rolled his hardening cock with his thumb. “My…? What do you want to know about it?”

Vander shrugged, eyeing it. “The little fellow’s shy. He’s playing peekaboo with me under that hood,” he teased. When Silco shook his head, shaking with his silent laugh, Vander asked, “What did you have to do to get it to this size? How did you… change?”

“Hormone capsules from a…” he smirked, “not so reputable doctor, but… it got the job done… part of the job done. I could not finish the treatment—Mm, right there.” He held Vander’s wrist, his breath stuttering.

Vander hummed. “There he is, finally coming out of his house to play with me,” he whispered, making Silco jerk and shiver as Vander spread slick over his sensitive crown. “He’s gonna have to swim though, so he doesn’t drown… You’re so hard, Sil,” he’d murmured up the long column of his neck, feeling that cock twitch under his thumb. “So you’re telling me you could’ve been even bigger than this?”

“Perhaps,” Silco panted to the ceiling. 

Vander hummed again, contemplative as he fingered Silco hard enough for them to hear it over the constant noise outside the cell, knowing how deep of a blush it would bring to Silco’s cheeks and ears. Beautiful. “Big enough to top me, you think?”

Silco huffed, full of affection as he clenched down on Vander’s fingers, “Vander, sweetheart, not even my arm is big enough to top you.”

Vander smiled to himself, staring at the ugly carpet in the office. He sucked in all the room’s air and sighed, earning a warning elbow from Benzo.

Rictus paused his tirade of threats at the sound. “Am I boring you, Vander?”

“Not at all, but I’m missing my shift for this. Couldn’t we reconvene later, when you’re done with them?”

“So I am boring you.”

“Now hold on, nobody said that—” He rolled his eyes as Benzo cleared his throat.

Rictus flashed his usual smile that never reached his eyes. “Not only will there be no reconvening, you’re not going to your shift. You will wait in the hallway like a dog until this meeting is adjourned, since you can’t sit quietly and wait like a man.”

Vander shot to his feet, his fists clenched.

Benzo cleared his throat harder but Vander barely heard it. If not for the lingering thoughts of Silco to remind him that he had something at stake here, he would have turned this whole office upside down.

Instead he counted, pacing in the corridor, counting to one-hundred and still wanted to punch a hole in the wall. 

Two-hundred.

He knew on some level his need to kill this man wasn’t rational, but then again when was Vander’s anger ever truly rational these days? No lowering the conflict volume with a sly, smart ass quip, no getting to the bottom of it with questions and contemplation just straight to fists… as if he’d learned nothing from the fuckups that got him here in the first place. But it had taken more than some off-handed comment to set him off back then. Everything was a trigger now. 

No, not everything when he really thought about it, but everything that came out of Rictus’s mouth specifically was a trigger. Everything he did, everything he touched, even when they weren’t in the same room together, his existence still snuck more timbre into Vander’s fire, keeping it roaring and for the life of him he could not figure out why. A wise man would just keep his head down and stay focused, like Benzo. A wise man would even be intimidated. 

Benzo was certain that it was something deeper. Something about the man that must remind Vander of someone else from his past to make him circle back to old habits, but who? The only other man that even came close to this level of raging asshole was his father, but those two men were nothing alike.

His father had honestly been a lot more like Benzo when he was little—at least up until the day Vander got too heavy for him to lift. Then Vander understood. 

He’d only caught his father raising his hand to his mother one time. He had stepped in, stopping him. And that was it. His father never hit his mother again. Never even got into fights outside of the bar that much either. A changed man his mother had praised. Vander had changed him. 

By the time Felicia had been born, Vander had gotten considerably good at keeping up the act for them and carrying the full brunt of his father’s violence alone, in silence. A secret that even his mother pretended not to be aware of. After all, his father wasn’t that man anymore.

At least Felicia had been able to live her whole life never knowing that her dad was anything other than a good man. But Vander? 

He could think back to his father on any one of his worst days. If his mother fussed that his father was dipping into the bar supply too much or if some drunk fool twice his father’s size pushed him around, everyone would see it all just roll off the man’s back… where Vander would see it roll right into his back pocket. Every little slight held onto until that bar would close and the girls would be in bed and Vander would already be waiting for him in the back alley for a fight he knew he’d lose as he lost all of them for years. 

For all his brute tactics and hair triggers as an enforcer, unless the man was just that good at hiding his own sins, Rictus as the man in charge was the most uptight, put-together person Vander had ever seen. He didn’t drink like Vader’s dad or smoke like him. He’d even fired every enforcer involved with bribes, and only seemed to begrudgingly allow his current men their dabbling with the service room boys but never himself spared a single one of them a passing glance. No rumors of sneaking any of them in and out of his office, nothing. 

But there was something to those eyes when they looked at Vander, something only just hidden beneath the surface. Vander hadn’t forgotten the baton to the stomach from that man or the euphoria on his face as he’d watched Vander lose all control in the cage. He wanted a fight from Vander. That was all too familiar. Was Rictus also simply just collecting a back pocket full of slights and grudges for a time when he could unleash them all on Vander like a personal punching bag?

Benzo called Vander a lunatic, and maybe he was, for being grateful that his old man had toughened him up and taught him how to take a beating, because in the end even that chapter of his father’s character had come to a close the day Vander stood a head taller than him and could finally take him down. 

It truly did eat Vander up to finally be big and strong and skilled enough to fight back and yet still not able to. Maybe that was it all along. It wasn’t simply what Rictus had already done but all that he was capable of doing. Vander was nervous. Hell, he was terrified. 

He counted to one-hundred again and then to one-thousand… before thinking of Silco. That slowed his steps and relaxed his chest. He wasn’t allowing himself to focus on anything other than the hope that he’d finally gotten through to the man. If he could just keep him away from this, whatever Rictus had planned for Vander, he could be ready for it, he could…

“I swear,” Benzo griped, shuffling out of the office with the others, muttering under his breath as he neared Vander, “you put yourself in timeout damn near every bloody meeting. Though I’m sure you were a lot more entertained out here than I was in there. All of that and he said nothing to me. Can you believe it? Oi. Van?” He nudged him.

Vander pulled the little red hair tie forward with his foot before picking it up. “The hell is this doing here?”

“You think it’s Silco’s?”

“I know it is.”

“Come on, lad, let’s get out of here before he calls us back.”

“No, I need to ask him about this.”

Benzo stopped him. “This was Marcus’s office before it was his. It was probably dropped the night that… you know…”

“Maybe…” He looked around them, from the floor to the enforcers milling around. The floor was clean, but it was a busy enough corridor. It could have gotten in a number of ways. Maybe. 

“Come on, Vander. Tell me about what had you grinning like a fool in there.”

Vander huffed, eyeing the opened office door once again before letting Benzo walk him away. “Even if you didn’t treat Silco like one of your long, lost brats, I wouldn’t want to divulge that kind of information, mate.”

Benzo’s offended glare had Vander chuckling under his breath, still toying the hair tie in his fingers. “Well, thank the gods for that.”

+

Chapter Text

+

Vander had only just taken off his boots with Benzo not far behind him when Huck came racing to the back storage rooms.

He was as pale as a ghost, his eyes like saucers.

Both men stood in alarm. 

“What the hell has happened now?” Benzo asked.

Huck couldn’t speak. He looked at Vander and cried, pointing to the sounds outside. 

They knew there was a fight tonight. As promised, Rictus was bringing them back once a month and tonight was the first. 

Only when Vander and Benzo left the commissary, the men crowding the fences weren’t gathered in excitement with cheers, they were booing and shouting like madmen, some even throwing things down through the fences at the enforcers below before they were dragged off.

Vander couldn’t speak. He stood at the fence, but Benzo only needed one look before he tossed up his hands and turned heel, appalled, back to the commissary with Huck.

This wasn’t a fight. It was to be an execution, realistically. One man, big enough to hold his own in an honest brawl against other men, already stood trembling in the yellow puddle growing under his feet was surrounded by five snarling, massive dogs. 

They were barely held back by two enforcers each holding onto leashes, waiting to release them. 

None of Piltover’s finest were present. Only more enforcers surrounded the stage, carrying on conversation and dodging the foam and drool spraying from the dogs’ hungry mouths. No announcer, no service boy to tend to anyone, only Rictus standing on top of the cage as always, taking in the protests and grievances raining down at him as if it fueled him. With a raise of his hand, he gave the signal to start the match.

A prison pit filled with shouting and fists banging on the fences could only just drown out the man’s screams.

Vander closed his eyes and stepped away. 

Only to stop short when his troubled gaze met a sea-green stare a little ways down the corridor near the canteen. 

As beautiful as ever with his hair tumbling around his face and shoulders. Silco took a cautious step forward, but there was a hopeful look in those eyes, inviting, behind the disgust he shared with everyone over the tragic spectacle playing out below them. That hope tickled at Vander’s own hope and want. 

It frightened Vander enough that he got his feet moving again. He closed the door to the commissary and pressed his back against it, shutting out everything on the other side, including that breathtaking—heartbreaking—gaze. 

It took everything in Vander not to reach for a jar of shine himself and drink it down.

+

Of the thirty-five years of his life that he could remember—because Huck was quite certain that no one could remember anything about being a baby—there had been quite a few lows but not many high points.

He had gone from being a nobody barely able to hold onto a decent pair of glasses when he’d worked as a shadow running drinks—quite poorly, but he had tried his best although the trays were just too heavy—for Vander’s folks in the bar… and that had been okay… until he’d started to use what little he’d gotten paid to trade for drugs… Definitely a low. If he was a nobody before then, Huck was definitely a ghost during that dark time when he definitely could not balance a tray then. He’d ended up with no job and a habit to support. That wasn’t okay.

But then something amazing happened, something that most people still didn’t seem to quite believe him when he told them.

He’d been saved. Literally saved. He was getting cornered in an alley behind the antiques shop he couldn’t figure out how to break into when his Savior had rescued him, and He was a savior. The real deal! Healed Huck’s addiction just like that with a beautiful promise of a life he could be living instead and whatever he’d seen in Huck, it was good enough for Him to choose Huck as his personal helper in the commune He was making. He had healed all sorts of people just like Huck but He hadn’t shared with them all of His message and teachings or how to brew the teas that would eventually set their souls free to live those lives of promise… 

Granted, He hadn’t mentioned the part where that life wasn’t on this world, in this body, or that Huck was destined to be left behind… or that not everyone’s tea could be the same strength and that a much bigger person, like someone Vander’s size, needed a much stronger brew. And that not knowing His full message, those much bigger people would misunderstand and panic and would attack Huck or run away, and that Huck would be arrested for the whole mess…

But those were mistakes that Huck couldn’t fix now and although it still made him a little sad to think about—and pretty embarrassed for falling for, well… committing mass murder—his time in the commune had done wonders for his sobriety and he could at least be proud of that. Benzo did say after all that it was important to still find whatever good he could in every situation so that he wouldn’t feel so sad and discouraged from making better choices in the future. 

Only with the commune being gone and Huck being here, it had pushed him back into an awfully low place for a while until he’d run into Vander and then Silco, and Ben.

Now he was at the highest point of his life and it was all Silco’s doing. He had misjudged Silco and been shamefully jealous of him. Silco wasn’t just a whole decade-and-a-half younger than him, he was tough and fearless, and wasn’t plain-looking at all, or heavily scarred, although Benzo said his scars made him unique so Huck didn’t dislike them so much anymore. 

Being younger and prettier and not plain wasn’t an advantage at all in a place like this, Huck had learned. Even being the youngest of the service boys himself, that had only kept his bed busy day and night, which was not very hygienic. But in spite of how Huck had treated him, Silco had seen something in Huck, not any of the others—which Huck could understand as they had been very mean to Silco for years, he’d found out—that was worthy of someone like Benzo. 

Huck would do anything Benzo asked, sure, but he truly would do anything for Silco, even if Silco didn’t know what to ask for yet. Or that Huck could be helpful. 

And Huck really, really, really wanted to help him. All he’d ever wanted to be was helpful, and close to the people he adored, but being helpful and close seemed to always run Huck into the same problem: 

“You, my darling,” Benzo had told him just that evening, giving his bottom a gentle petting so Huck knew he wasn’t in any trouble, “are a goddamn busy-body and you eavesdrop entirely too much for your own good.”

Vander and Benzo were working around the clock to secure Silco’s escape, but Huck? He was being a spy. It was thrilling and it made perfect sense to be! He heard gossip from the boys about the enforcers in and out of the service rooms and he served tea and treats with the boys for most if not all of Rictus’s meetings. Overhearing things was inevitable in his position and he always felt pride and excitement hurrying back to Benzo with news. 

Until the day he’d overheard the wrong thing. 

The meetings had ended for the day and he’d been back in the kitchen to return the trolley of dishes when he’d realized he’d forgotten the pitcher. When he knocked, Rictus hadn’t answered and the door was unlocked, so he went in. Not to snoop at all! 

But what he’d heard through the door that joined the office to the next room…

It had hurt his heart. He had known, from overhearing Silco's fight with Benzo, what Rictus had done to Silco before, but it was worse than he had thought. Every day, it took everything in Huck not to simply run to Silco and hug him and promise him that he would keep his secret. He needed someone to comfort him and confide in who would understand, and Huck knew he could be that person for him. Only, when he had gone to tell Benzo about what he had heard first, Benzo had expressly made Huck promise instead to him not to say another word right there on the spot and to forget that he knew anything! 

But he couldn’t forget. And neither could Benzo, though the older man had gotten pretty good at hiding it from Huck no matter how hard Huck tried to listen through the door when Benzo needed His Time.

These days, more and more often, Huck was finding himself overhearing the wrong things. Vander’s sadness, Benzo’s stress, and how Silco sounded worse every time he came to buy more shine. Huck had hoped that secretly watering down the black a little would help Silco, but it only seemed to be making him drink through the jars faster. And telling Benzo this had gotten Huck into trouble.

He sat in the back storage room, not in the mood for humming any songs as he counted off each item on the inventory checklist, quiet as a mouse when the door opened and quickly shut in the next room. 

Benzo peered through a few shelves, perhaps looking for Huck and not realizing that he was sitting on the floor. “I still can’t believe he told you the truth. Sil never tells anybody anything. This is worse than I’d thought.”

Huck was about to announce his presence like a game of peekaboo and scare them both, but he paused when he heard Ben’s words. He peered through the cluttered shelves, seeing Vander pace back and forth. 

“How did you figure it out, then?”

Benzo huffed, lighting the cigar Huck had swiped from Rictus’s office for him. Huck could only be a little annoyed that Ben hadn’t saved it for their boss and secretary roleplay they had planned for later, because Benzo looked too handsome holding it now. “Once I’d heard all of the stories about his crimes and how none of them were even remotely similar or plausible,” Ben explained, “I put two and two together. I doubt that boy had ever even been in a real fight before he was sent here, let alone anything worse than pickpocketing, and pickpockets do not get sent here.” 

Huck blinked out of his careful study of Benzo’s strong, handsome legs. He frowned. 

Vander shook his head. “No they don’t, which is why he was never meant to be here at all and between me and you, I doubt he’s even got any papers.”

“Of course not, if that’s the case. How could he? Grayson would’ve taken one look at his file and blown her bloody bob off her head. That a kid, no less, like him ever set foot here—even if they lied and said it was an accident—and be left here?”

Vander was silent for a moment before asking quietly, “What if she were to find out? What if you told her?”

Benzo grimaced. “I’d thought about it, once I’d figured it out, only… he’d already been here for quite some time and a lot of unfixable damage had been done that a simple ‘Whoops, sorry kid’ couldn’t fix. She… I used to think I knew this system well enough to say that her wanting to do the right thing no matter what, even if that meant it all falling back on her leadership was enough, but honestly it could go one of two ways, lad: She could see him and take him… and put him in Stillwater where he might actually have a record of some kind for thieving and simply get left there. Which is still better than here but not a life at all… or if she’s still the principled woman that took me down when I was at the height of my interprises, she might just take him to the Council to show them lot that this happened, thinking they’d show him compassion and be just as appalled and want to make things right… Maybe they won’t just kill him on the spot to ‘fix the problem’ instead of whatever system reform she’d hoped for, but let’s not forget that a few of them council members have their hands in the Lanes and in those cage fights that you’re quite familiar with.”

“You’re right. Sil said he talked too much and disrupted some flows of money back in the Lanes and that’s why they started coming after him.”

Benzo nodded. “Sounds like the kind of stupid thing he would do. That bloody brat.”

Vander’s smile was sad. “Least that makes it easier, right? If there’s no record that he’s here.” 

“Easier for him to… go missing?” Benzo rubbed his chin, distracted as he said those words. His expression turned so dark so suddenly, Huck wanted to hurry next door and comfort him, but he wasn’t supposed to be listening or watching them. 

Knowing what Huck knew, it was obvious what Benzo was thinking: Easier for Silco to go missing if Rictus needed to get rid of him. Forget the guards never finding Silco if they got him out, he and Vander would never find him either if Rictus got rid of him first.

“Ben?”

“Hm? Right. Right. Much easier… We have to work faster.”

Vander frowned. “We’re already working as fast as we can with the time we’ve got—”

“I know, I know, I just…” Benzo waved his hands. “Anyways.”

Huck was stunned. He snuck out of the room and down the hall to sit at the counter, needing to focus on something else. 

He ended up working the counter like a puppet on strings. 

Silco was innocent—had been innocent—and he was here. 

This was bad. Worse than bad. The pit was awful. Everyone understood that and no matter what terrible crimes a person did to get here, accidental or on purpose, this was a different world where all the rules were different. Any person here could do you real damage no matter their size or social standing. Even if they weren’t a killer they had still done something terrible and could do it again!

Huck hadn’t understood Silco’s warning back when they were fighting, but Benzo had explained. Huck was dangerous! More dangerous than the most violent men here, like a bomber or mass gunman, but even worse, because what Huck had done, no one had even seen it coming.

But Silco? As far as Huck knew, the man still wasn’t a killer and had barely been a criminal at all by the standards here. He was an innocent. Even the most awful men in this pit would understand that. Maybe most wouldn’t care either way, especially now given how long Silco had been here, but Huck knew in his heart that there were more than enough men who would be appalled for mistreating Silco if they knew he didn’t belong here. They believed in the same code that Benzo did.

“What’s the matter, doll?” One of the men waiting at the counter asked, with a very handsome salt and pepper beard. Huck couldn’t wait for Benzo’s hair to start greying too. “Bennie not being sweet to you anymore?”

Huck wanted to be offended, but then realized he’d been shaking his head and glaring at the pack of cigarettes in his hand the whole time. He wrinkled his nose, blushing as the two men cooed at him. 

He took a breath, pepping himself up. “Actually,” he said slowly, thinking. He quickly glanced over his shoulder. Benzo and Vander were still in the other room. “No, that’s not it at all…”

The men eyed each other and leaned closer. “What’s on your mind?”

+

If Silco was not already on edge, the uptick in attention would have certainly pushed him there. 

It was admittedly jarring after so much time spent first with Vander the cage fighting champion and then working with Finn the gangster, but he had neither of them anymore. It was as if the past several months had truly been a dream and now he was right back where he had started, long before he had ever met Vander. 

Only this time around, the stares and whispers were overwhelming, the way they had been years ago when the service room rumors had started. 

Days off were not supposed to be like this. This was supposed to be his day to relax and recalibrate. Instead, he spent the morning as he did every day looking over his shoulder or foregoing any extra trips out of the cell at all if he could avoid it.

Of course… this particular trip was a necessity. And with that awful metal splint finally gone, his healing fingers were still padded and taped together but he had some range to them now. He could tie up his hair again and once he had found a good enough piece of flint, standing in line at the commissary didn’t feel so much like painting a target on his back.

Benzo eyed him over his glasses as he always did nowadays. “When did you finish that last jar I sold you? This morning?”

“That is an astute assumption.”

“A what?”

Silco sighed. “A good guess.”

“More like an easy tell.” He pointed with his chin, glaring. “You only walk with your hips instead of your shoulders when you’re drunk. You were just here two days ago.”

Silco swallowed, ignoring his angry blush as he stood up straighter. He wrapped his arm around his middle. “And now I’m back.”

“You’ve never gone through a jar that fast, Sil.”

Silco shrugged. “People change all the time, Ben.”

“That awful bastard’s got you drinking everyday now?”

“Benzo, if you have the gall to ask me such a question, then you already know the answer. And since you know the answer, please do not waste my time.”

“You don’t see how this shit is withering you down to nothing, but I do. This is so dangerous. Look, I can stow you away, like we did before for Marcus. I can hide you.”

At first, Silco did not fully hear what he had said. His mind was stuck on a loop of yesterday, sitting on Rictus’s lap at his desk. The man’s letter opener had been under his hand. For how long, neither one of them could say as it had taken them both quite some time to notice it with Silco unable to sit still. 

Silco huffed at Benzo’s earnest expression. “You are already at capacity in those storerooms, so no thank you. It’s fine. I can handle it.”

“Sil, you’re a smart man—”

“And I know what I’m doing.”

Benzo sighed. “Are you and Vander still—”

“Why not ask him yourself? He is staying with you, is he not?”

Why did I ever let you take him from me, Silco almost asked, but he swallowed it, knowing how ridiculous that would sound. Benzo had not taken Vander anywhere, he was a grown man and had left on his own. To think, Silco used to be all Vander had, but now, Vander had Benzo and Huck and whoever else and Silco had no one.

But he could not blame Benzo for that… or even Vander, only himself for running him away. Again.  

“Have you considered that maybe he just doesn’t want to go to that cell and find you cold and stiff with an empty jar next to your dead body?”

Silco thought of how the air in the office had thinned, and yet he had no longer felt cold without his clothes nor the sting of Rictus’s haste in those tense moments, and how Rictus, completely unafraid, had simply stopped moving under him.

“It’s beautiful,” Rictus had commented, tucking Silco’s hair behind his ear, “isn’t it?”

Silco nodded, tracing the intricate carvings on the handle with his thumb as his hand shook with the faintest tremor. He panted, his eyes wet. “It’s pretty.”

Rictus kissed his shoulder. “It’s sharp. Sharp enough to ruin someone’s day if you were to stab them with it.” He had squeezed Silco’s waist as if egging him on to wrap his fist around that little dagger of a tool and attack. “Dangerous.”

Dangerous.

“…very,” Silco quietly agreed. 

And then he had moved his hand away and watched Rictus slide the letter opener out of his reach.

He thought of how doting and gentle and prideful Rictus had been the rest of that evening, as if his dog had at long last learned how to walk at his heel without a leash. Silco thought of how his body, starved of a doting, gentle touch, had turned against his own mind and reacted, much to Rictus’s peaked joy and pride. So elated, he did not even bother to pull out. 

One betrayal stacked on top of another and Silco was carrying the weight of it all with him everywhere he went, replaying it on a loop whenever he stood still long enough.

Silco had spent hours and hours and hours more trying to figure out why he had let that dagger go until he had exhausted himself. He did not want to think about it any longer. He would do anything not to be able to think about any of it. 

He shook back his hair that had slipped from the knot, nervous of the line growing behind him. “Fine.” He took a deep breath, his chin up though his resolve was slipping to the ground. “I will go and trade with whichever of the two brewers left that you’re still getting your supply from instead. Just like old times.”

“God damnit, Silco,” Benzo muttered, startling Silco and quieting several nearby conversations as he slammed his fist on the counter. 

Silco stared at the jar he was handed once the work token was snatched from his hand. He gazed up at Benzo’s fuming anger. “Wipe that silly, forsaken look off your face.”

“No, no. It’s not for me. You haven’t failed me at all, but you have certainly given up on someone who worked very hard to make sure they would never end up in a state like this again.”

Silco could only roll his eyes and storm off, having gotten what he had come for. He let an older man give the jar a good shake and steal a swig in exchange for opening it for him. More stares. More whispers. More reason to be careful and not drink until he was safe back in the cell.

By the time Silco made his way back to his cell, however, he was properly drunk, having to slide down the bars and kneel to set the jar on the ground just to get his key in the lock. 

Whether he closed the door behind him or not, he could not remember and could not stand very well on his feet to turn around and check without falling over. Next time, he would go straight to a brewer and avoid the commissary and Benzo and his unfounded concern. The man did not understand. Yes, this was Silco’s one day off and yes, he still needed this today and no, this was not the problem at all. 

It was also Vander’s one day off and he was not here. He was never here anymore.

Silco brought the half-empty jar back to his lips but had to quickly hold it away when his stomach rebelled over the grate in the floor. 

He held the cool jar to his temple and took a moment to lean over his bed groaning, agreeing with himself that he had overdone it and that there was no point to wobble around like this much longer. He would sleep through his high as he always did. Not much of a point for anything else, particularly now that he had no more canteen appointments to make or motivation to build. 

Working with Finn had run its course and had gotten him nowhere but close to a whole new war he had no interest or powder left to fight.

He managed to successfully free his feet of his boots before he landed on his ass on the floor and simply laid down as the ceiling spun. 

Only now he was cold in his underclothes. He sat on the floor beside his cot, trying to piece together why his sweater was missing.

He glared around the room until his eyes drifted over to Vander’s empty cot, wondering as he always did why Vander’s side always looked so much more cozy and warm and comfortable. Indeed, it had been those things. The nights they had spent together on that little cot, praying that the chains were strong enough to withstand Vander’s weight and… enthusiasm.

Silco smiled at that. He wrapped his arm around his legs, thinking of their more rowdier ‘tussles’ on that poor bedroll, and the mornings he had woken up sore and tangled in Vander’s sheets, and…

Happy.

It had been quite some time since last he had actually been capable of remembering such things—No, it had been quite some time since he had dared to allow such memories to float so close to the surface where they were not safe from Rictus’s relentless mind games. 

He lifted the jar, studying the shine's iridescent sheen when he noticed the tip of an orange sleeve peeking out from under Vander’s sheets. 

Silco was so confused that he had to crawl over to it. His sweater was on Vander’s bed—in Vander’s bed—hidden under his blankets. Why? 

It took Silco entirely too long to get to his feet, having to climb up Vander’s cot, which only further frustrated him, but when he did, he tossed the blankets back to release his sweater and slip it on. 

It… almost smelled like Vander. Something about the fact that it did not smell enough like the man did something to him that he could not quite make sense of.

He cried.

Frustrated, he cried, completely betrayed yet again, this time by his high, surely. Why else would he feel like this when he was otherwise… ‘shiny,’ with half a jar of black in his belly.

Sniffling, he shook his hair back and had to sit on Vander’s cot when that made him dizzy. 

He eyed Vander’s nightshirt before pulling it closer.

For so long, it had been easy to think that he could push the man away, for whatever reasons, and that it was for the best, but now that he had succeeded? Now that Vander’s bed had been cold and undisturbed for weeks—until last night, perhaps—it felt as if all other pains had not been nearly as bad or scary. This was the worst.

Had Vander been here when Silco was sleeping? Had Silco been too drunk to even notice him slip in and leave again? 

He had come back… and Silco had missed it. What had he come back for? Nothing else had been moved. His toothbrush had been taken weeks ago, his soap, his towel, even his trunk. All of Silco’s things that Vander had, had been put back on his side of the cell. Only this nightshirt was here again, tangled under Vander’s sheets in his bed.

With this sweater, that almost smelled like Vander. 

“Why do I even care? It does not matter what that stupid blockhead is doing. I can—I am—just fine.” He toyed the thin nightshirt in his lap with its loose buttons and frayed hem.

He couldn’t handle it. He buried his face in it, losing himself in Vander’s scent. “Gods, I miss you and I hate you for it.”

His want for Vander overwhelmed him, even frightened him. What would he do if the man were standing right in front of him? Something that he no doubt would lose his nerve for and ruin for the both of them. At least, that was what his mind supplied. His body was a different story. Simply lying here, enveloped in Vander’s scent with his flattened bedroll underneath him, he was soaking through his underwear.

Silco glanced at the bars. It was not close to dusk yet… 

He bit his lip and brought the shirt to his face again, moaning at Vander’s scent. He blamed it on being drunk. He blamed everything on being drunk. Losing his nerve with that letter opener under his hand, being so upset at Vander when he should feel nothing, being so tired when it was only a few hours past noon… missing Vander… and being so goddamned hungry for him. Being on this side of the room, having his face shoved into Vander’s shirt, sitting in his unmade bed—that Silco himself had unmade. 

But it was not close to dusk yet and even if it were, Vander was not coming here… No one was. He was alone, locked in his cell where he could… where he did not have to worry or think about anything… 

He breathed in Vander’s scent as he lay down on his side, slipping his hand down into his underwear. He braced himself for that inevitable feeling of overwhelming sickness, knowing damn well this was not something he would do even before Rictus's return and especially not now when Rictus had him despising his body. 

But when no sickness or shame or guilt voiced itself, he dipped further, knowing that if he changed his mind, there was no one here to have to explain it to or reason with. He could just stop. He was in control. He could push the shirt away and leave Vander’s bed whenever he wanted to.

Silco moaned, rolling his cockhead with his thumb, his head swimming as he wiggled over the shirt, getting tangled in it. Vander’s scent was so rich and heady. The man was meticulous with his after work washing but a man of his size would always overheat and sweat easily. So big and hot and hairy and everything that had Silco’s toes curling through a strong orgasm the moment he desperately pulled his bandages off with his teeth and slid three fingers in his sex as deep as he could. 

Somewhere in the bed his underwear had wandered off. He giggled, feeling Vander’s sleeve rub up his cock when he turned on his belly. “Vander…” If only he could just… materialize right here, push apart his legs like he had done that night weeks ago to hold him, but more like this, half naked and panting with kisses and slipping his big fingers past Silco’s cock to sink into his clenching hole. It did not matter which one—or both! All! Silco would give him anything he wanted if he would simply be here…

Vander stood in the cell door, completely confused. It swung open when he tried to put his key in the lock.

“Sil?” No answer. He crept over to his cot—his own cot—and took in the slumbering intruder as he pulled back his blankets and stared. 

Silco was in his t-shirt, completely unconscious with Vander’s nightshirt between his legs. He’d soaked through it. 

Vander cleared his throat, at once regretting it as Silco moaned and rolled towards him. 

He had to blink away the spots in his vision, his blood ran south so fast he nearly fainted. Silco’s little cock was still flushed with arousal in his damp hair. 

Vander didn’t know what to make of this. Snuggling up with Silco’s sweater at night, he had certainly not ever done so with this level of pining in mind… but he also didn’t spend his nights drunk either. 

Remembering to pick his mouth off the floor, Vander closed his eyes and eased the blankets back over him before he carefully tried to lift him to move to his own bed. 

Drunken eyes blinked slowly open at him, his words heavily slurred. “Vander? You came back. Are you sneaking into my bed?” His smile was precious, perfectly content and oblivious to where he was.

Vander sat him back down. “No, no. Just tucking you in. Get your rest.” He slowly walked backwards, nearly to the door when he had to race back before Silco could send himself crashing head first to the floor in an attempt to chase after him. “No, no, you stay here, sweetheart.”

“Stay with me? My bed is cold.”

“I… You know I would, but you are completely plastered right now.”

He shook his head clutching at Vander, dangerously trying to curl his fingers around Vander’s hand. “’m not, ’s fine, I’m… I am ready. I have decided. I cannot have you be away from me anymore. I don’t want that. Big boy,” he teased, smiling with his adorable, chipped teeth. “Come here?”

Vander had to force him down and pin him under the blankets, unable to look at him. Silco tried and failed to free his hand or wiggle out from under the weight of Vander’s arm. 

All the while, Vander could sense something fragile start to crack inside of his own heart. Thinking fast, he brushed Silco’s hair back, his touch light as he combed his fingers through his hair over and over.

Silco’s eyes rolled as he tried to stay awake. “Stop that. Why don’t you want me anymore?”

Vander sobbed, wishing he could run out and smash every shine jar and barrel in this pit. He hated seeing Silco like this, knowing that no part of this man wanted Vander anywhere near him sober. All while he wanted Silco so badly, always. He wept onto his chest. “Silco, I love you.”

“There, you see? We want the same thing. Come under my blankets with me. You can do—” 

“Stop.”

“Vander, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fucking fine!” Angrily he wiped his tears but more fell. “Sweetheart, I can’t.” He sat on the cot’s edge, quick to stop Silco from moving again as he kissed his forehead. “I can’t.”

Silco groaned unhappy as Vander’s weight and petting his hair were making him tired again. He didn’t even seem aware that Vander was upset. “You don’ think ’m pretty anymore?” He closed his eyes, trying to articulate his words. “Because I said something… ugly to you? I assure you, I did not mean it, whatever was said, surely. I can be mean some times, I know, but… Nobody has ever seen me the way that you do, Vander. Do you know how that made me feel when you used to look at me?”

Vander buried his face in Silco’s chest for a moment, still unable to console himself. He smiled. “I think you’re gorgeous. Tomorrow, when we’ve both had some sleep, then we’ll play, alright?”

“I won’t disappoint.” Silco smiled, sleepy. “Lay down with me?” 

Vander sighed, knowing he shouldn’t, but he nodded and stretched out over him, still with his boots on, crying at Silco’s happy, drunken smile as the man under him at last relaxed, satisfied. “Yeah. This is nice, huh?” He nodded with Silco, resigning himself to whatever version of the man he would wake up to tomorrow.

A part of him didn’t want the man to fall asleep. How much shine had it taken for Silco to get like this? How many weeks or even months would it take to see these smiles again without this cursed, drunken cloud covering him?

Too many. 

He eased off of the sleeping man and carefully got him cleaned up and untangled from his shirt before tracking down his underwear. He replaced Silco’s missing bandages before at last he wrapped him back up in the blankets and lay behind him, tucking himself to the wall to give Silco an easy out that hopefully wouldn’t come with more ‘ugly’ words. 

+

Silco blinked, staring at the wall, his face pressed to the pillow. 

Not his pillow. Not his wall.

He groaned, burying his face in Vander’s pillow, praying that for once the rain could come down hard enough to flood the pit and drown him or soften the rock enough to cave it all in and free him from his overwhelming embarrassment, preventing him from ever embarrassing himself this severely ever again.

He had completely lost control last night—No.

Silco sat up, looking at himself in Vander’s bed, remembering how he got here and why and what he had done. 

Last night, he had regained control. He had had the power to choose for himself.

And he wanted to keep it. Hell, at this point, he was willing to die for it. The desire he had felt, and voiced, for Vander, it was what they both wanted. There was nothing to be scared of! 

There was everything to be scared of, but he didn’t want to be. Not anymore. There was a risk, sure. The body he had shared with Vander might be gone and with it, the familiarity of Vander’s touch, and what if Vander could tell the difference? But he had this body now whether he liked it or not and he could make it into something useful for Vander again. 

If Vander needed a nudge, Silco would push and use his body for what he wanted the very second Vander let him. He would prove it to the both of them, but to Vander specifically, that he could do it. 

Silco sat against the wall, holding his stump through his empty sweater sleeve as he eyed the rain outside. He could not be certain of the time but he knew what day it was and knew what he needed to get out of the way first. 

The two enforcers stood over Silco’s cot, glancing at each other.

The first sighed. “Should we draw straws on who’s going to tell the Captain he’s plastered again, or do we both just bite the bullet and tell him together?”

The second guard scoffed, opening Silco’s eyes to see two blown pupils that rolled when Silco moaned in protest. “This is ridiculous…” He cut his eye at the bars before he lifted the blankets, arching his brow as he nudged the first guard. “Hm… We did get down here pretty fast. Think if we tell Rictus we found it with—”

“Stop.” The first guard snatched the blanket from his hand to fix it back. He pushed the second guard out and followed him. “Don’t you get enough leeching off the service rooms?”

“What? It’s out cold.”

“Which makes you even more pathetic.”

“I don’t think you understand—”

“And I don’t need to. He is off-limits.”

“Oh right, I forgot. You prefer to bash open inmate heads with your baton than do anything else fun.”

“Precisely. Now move.”

Silco cracked his eyes open to check if the corridor was cleared once the door was locked. He released the breath he’d been holding, propping himself up on his elbow. 

“For god’s sake, these fucking pigs,” he whispered, appalled as he brushed back his hair and kicked off the blankets. 

He stood, feeling a little buzzed, but could be sober by the evening. Good.

All he needed now was to keep himself busy and out of sight until then.

+

Vander could damn near feel his bones shaking. Every muscle felt as if he’d been stabbed all the way up from his hands to his shoulders and down his back by the time the last whistle for his shift blew. 

As he walked on sore feet to the entrance of the mine, Vander was glad to be rid of the gauntlets… but not too chipper about much else. 

Last night had truly been one of his and Silco’s worst and that was saying a lot as all they ever seemed to have was bad nights. 

But he had listened to Benzo. He’d gone and checked on Silco and he was still both grateful that he’d been there to close and lock the damn cell door Silco had left open and regretted stepping foot in that cell all the same.

Everything he had dreamed of, hoped for, was right there. Silco waiting for him in his bed, wet and wanting him, even begging him for his attention… But this had been a dream twisted into some perverse nightmare where every word and touch was a mockery that left Vander feeling confused and worn down. 

Hell it hurt worse than this sore body did now.

Not that he would let it show on the outside, not with a pair of snake eyes on him and a soft whistling in his ear. 

He was relieved when he stepped off to the side, away from the milling crowds of miners, and turned to find Finn without his gang. 

“Vander,” he greeted, his arms open in welcome—and to show Vander he was carrying more than a few weapons under his coat. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You had me a bit worried, ‘chap.’”

Vander lit a cigarette. “How’s that?”

Finn shrugged, coming closer. “After you and Bennie spoiled the party and took off with Silco, I haven’t seen him since. You put that little feral pussy-cat back in his cage. What a shame.” 

Vander laughed under his breath, shaking his head as he eyed those weapons and idly considered how to get past each one to take the bastard down.

Finn shook the dust off his coat and draped it over his shoulders again. “Tell my business partner I miss him.”

Vander snorted as he narrowed the gap even more. “Sure you do, which is why your men betrayed whatever plan you all had with him.”

Finn smirked, his brow arching. “I think it’s obvious who betrayed who first. See, I gave him a tail. Figured since you were so preoccupied being Rictus’s little errand boy, someone needed to look out for our Silco. You’ll never guess where he saw our boy wandering off to, back and forth, nearly every day, for hours. Guess.” 

“Finn, if I recall, you had your goons try to gut me and Benzo. Have anything to say about that?”

Finn held up his hands in surrender, surprisingly backing down. “Fine. If you insist on keeping those eyes and ears closed, but if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Vander watched him take a few more steps backwards before the man stalked off. 

He hadn’t planned on going back to the cell tonight, knowing nothing but a cold, defensive shoulder or an unconscious man would be waiting for him, but there was no way in hell he could go anywhere else with that snake-eyed fly buzzing around. 

He told himself he was going back tonight just to check on him and make sure that Silco had actually locked the cell door this time. Anything could have happened to the man with his drinking so out of control now, and anything was bound to happen if he continued on, but… Short of taking the man’s key and imprisoning him in his own damn cell—Benzo’s idea—to keep him away from shine, Vander didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t end in disaster. 

As he walked across the bridge and along the corridors, he told himself that he’d be quick. After all, if Silco wasn’t passed out again, he most likely didn’t even remember anything from the night before. Vander wanted… honestly… to hate him for that, how Vander was always left feeling as if he carried the brunt of it all alone. And if Silco carried any of it with him, he showed none of it. Shared none of it. What was the point of being together when they couldn’t even…

Silco wasn’t passed out. He was curiously standing outside the cell, having a cigarette at the fence as he watched the misty rain flutter down the mouth of the pit in droplets so light they were like tiny snowflakes.

Damn. 

With his hair wet from a bath or the rain itself, curling as it did when it was drying, and his boots on but unbuckled… holding his cigarette in that awkward way he’d mastered between his bandaged and ring fingers, he was… 

Vander sighed, waddling over, getting stiffer the colder the air got. “Hey.” He blushed like a fool.

Silco blushed harder. He took in Vander’s tiredness with eyes that were beautifully bright if not a little too wide, the way they got when Silco was embarrassed.

So he remembered, then. And he was sober now. Silco took a drag to avoid speaking, but with an overly cautious touch, he swept his hand up Vander’s belly to his chest along his open coat.

It felt good. Vander eased his hand away and took the cigarette, needing it desperately though he’d only just finished his own. 

Silco didn’t fuss. He watched Vander even as Vander could only look at their boots, but his slender hand was back on Vander’s chest. 

Vander stepped back. He rubbed his eyes. “Finn’s got you in his crosshairs.”

“Fantastic news,” he stated flatly.

“You should go inside.”

More silence. Silco glanced out over the rain again before asking, “Are you coming with me or just sending me off to bed alone?”

Vander eyed the long column of Silco’s neck, his jaw, and his pouting lips. He wanted to say it was his aching muscles that had him dreading the long trek back to the commissary and sleeping on a bedroll on the floor, but just hearing Silco’s voice not slurring his words? “I’m here.”

+

Vander had had every intention of keeping to himself. He stayed on his side of the room, quiet as he moved about, trying not to picture Silco half naked and grinding slick all over the nightshirt Vander now wore. Only every time he approached his bed, it was all he could think of. 

“Do you need the salve?”

“Hm?” He turned, sighing as he forced his eyes to the floor. 

Silco was in his underclothes. Normal for bedtime, yes, but there had been a time when Silco in his underclothes with his hair down was a signal for… more. For Vander. Silco crossed the invisible line splitting the room on light, socked feet. There was a hole in one of them now, Vander noticed. It made him smile in spite of himself as Silco’s big toe played peekaboo with him.

The man handed him the salve and tucked his hair behind his ear. “Do you want help with it?”

Did Vander want Silco on his bed with his hand on him? “Sure…” Fuck. 

Vander sat on the edge of his cot, thinking of every fight he’d ever found himself in. All big beasts and bigger bastards, and yet sitting here with Silco’s little weight dipping the mattress behind him to carefully rub salve over his back and shoulders… in his underclothes, with his hair down… the man had no idea just how badly he was whooping Vander’s ass. “Thanks.” 

Silco used only his palm, mindful to keep his bandaged fingers dry as he sat nestled in close beside him, their bare legs touching as he placed Vander’s hand on his lap to rub the salve up the length of one arm and then moved to rub the other. “This is the least I can do… Thank you for letting me.”

Vander didn’t know what to say to that. Not that he could formulate many words with Silco this close to him. Again, he found himself staring. 

He could admit it, he had run away from this cell, from Silco. Their last attempt at such simple intimacy had ended with Vander having to get released from the hole by Rictus, of all people, when he’d been caught wandering the lower levels aimlessly in tears, heartbroken: He had wanted Silco to talk to him so damn badly and oh boy had he ever talked! Vander had ruined him, he’d said, with a love that Silco believed to be completely fabricated. What the fuck was Vander meant to do with those words but fall apart? 

And yet here Vander was, back again, knowing damn well that another round of hurt was bound to rain on him at any moment and still he sat here, staring like the fool he was. Taking in all of the contours and features he had missed for weeks.

He reached for Silco’s hair, curling a soft lock around his finger.

Vander had wondered on occasion, studying Silco, what he might have looked like before his transition. Was his nose always so sharp and arched in such a way that made him look like the son of an aristocrat? Was his jaw rounder? Had his cheeks been softer? Maybe his voice had always been husky from his smokes but a softer, lighter pitch perhaps? Vander could never picture it. Silco as he was now was the only Silco. There was no before…

Except there was a before. Before here, at least. Silco had had a life that Vander knew nothing of, but saw hints of every day in the way he stood or slouched, but most interesting to Vander had been in how he would shift from the slouch of an undercity kid to such a prim and proper posture. Sitting with his back straight and ankles crossed like a dancer or some youth from a painting on his cot with his pillow folded to support his left side. Where had he learned that? Not in the undercity. And where on earth had he picked up that god-awful, pompous… painfully charming chin tilt that Vander had missed so much? And there was no ebb and flow in that posh accent. That was a constant. 

“Sil, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” he said lightly, though his brow hardened.

“Were you born in the undercity?”

Silco visibly balked, fully expecting something else. He busied himself rubbing salve over a patch he had already covered. “I—Why would you ask such a thing?”

Vander shrugged. “I’ve just never heard you say anything about your folks—”

“I never say anything about most things,” he snapped, before he let his hunched shoulder relax. He softened his voice, calming down. “Why would that pique your interest now, of all times?”

“Were you raised by th—”

“Of course not.”

Vander’s brow rose now. “You say that as if it’s supposed to be the standard thing for the undercity, for kids to not have—”

"I meant for me,” Silco quietly clipped to his thigh. He roused himself up with a deep breath, from bowed and defeated to regal, sitting straight and proud as he shook back his hair and stated just as softly, “There is… no other option when you are… an accident. A dreadful, scandalous accident that could not and should never have been made.” He winked. “Best to get rid of it as soon as possible.”

Vander’s brow rose even higher, though not at all in offense. “So your parents were Pilties—one of them, at least?”

Silco shrugged his shoulder. “That was what I had been told. No way to verify.”

“You didn’t spend any time topside?”

“Oh, heavens no, Vander,” Silco gently teased. 

Silco eyed Vander as playfully as he could manage, but with no intention of saying more on the matter. 

Except, there was a nagging feeling in his chest that always had his heart beating a little faster when he could venture to share with Vander. 

He went back to massaging Vander’s bicep, feeling the man’s eyes on him and the heat it was triggering between his legs. “No, those Piltover homes are for children who have lost their respectable, married parents to very respectable tragedies, like a boating accident or an elegant airship cruise falling from the sky, not… whatever out of wedlock, ‘girl with promise gets seduced by some low class mistake’ that this was. Or perhaps she was just a maid and he was the high-born who couldn’t be tarnished. I suppose it will always be a mystery.”

In truth he had tried to find something. He had spent entirely too much time looking for some record that most likely did not exist. “Either way, no.”

“Somebody had to take you in.”

“Oh sure. Someone might drop a few pennies here and there for a child’s board in a Promenade home for children for a while, but… once they very quickly stop feeling guilty about the prospect of abandoning you and stop paying, then you are off to the textile mill until you outgrow your rations and your bed. You go to the mines for that.”

“Not the canneries?”

Silco chuckled, wanting so much to kiss Vander’s frown away. “Canneries are for well-behaving orphans, and I was not well-behaved… I honestly have no idea how long I would have lasted had I remained where they put me. Running off to the Lanes was both the best and worst decision I ever made for myself, considering.” He paused, thinking back on it, distracted.

Vander’s hand was idly petting Silco’s thigh, just under the cuff of his boxer briefs as he stared, seeming not to notice. His voice was so low and graveled as if they were exchanging secrets, so close. “I can definitely understand you on that. That place is… It can be…”

Silco’s breath caught, realizing suddenly that he was not afraid of this. He felt compelled to shy away from nothing in this moment, but instead to draw closer. 

Until Vander turned his head just enough away. “Sil, whatever happened last night—”

“I’m sorry.” He ignored the surprise on Vander’s face. After all, he too was surprised that he had actually said the words. “I acted… not… entirely outside of myself,” he said calmly, his head held high as he charged forward, gripping Vander’s arm. “I… do want you to…” He swallowed. “I want to sleep with you. And…” He closed his eyes, unable to say the words suddenly. “And ‘play,’ as you said.”

Vander was caught in his gaze with his lips parted. His eyes moved first, drifting off and then down before he sat back, taking his hand away. He sighed and combed his fingers through his hair.

Not the reaction Silco had hoped for. He was properly nervous now.

“Silco, I love you,” Vander said at last, though there was no fondness attached to that statement or lust, only tired eyes and an arched brow, as if Vander was about to tell him the pit was going to come down on their heads in a minute and that there was nothing they could do to stop it. “I am in love with you. You know that, right?”

Silco could feel his face redden and his chest tightening at those words. He ignored the butterflies in his stomach. “Yes, you have said it before,” he shrugged. “It’s very sweet, Vander.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Of course I do.” Silco froze, his eyes flicking back and forth between Vander’s and the wall as it occurred to him that Vander was not saying those words in the midst of a passionate indulgence, or about any specific part of Silco.

Vander was not giving Silco some sweet, empty compliment about presentation or performance, this felt entirely too genuine and entirely different. 

Which would mean that Vander was as in love with Silco as Silco was in love with him? 

It made no sense to him. Silco had admittedly always had feelings for Vander. Even when the man had let him down, he was still Vander. Nevermind how attractive Vander was. Silco loved Vander for his care and patience, and how Silco felt that he never had need to ask for much of anything that Vander had not already considered. The way he took control without ever taking advantage. Even the parts of Vander that scared Silco, he still felt deep down that he could trust this man to keep him safest. 

But what was there for Vander to love about Silco now if not the thing Silco was offering him that Vander was currently refusing?

Vander narrowed his eyes as if he was trying to read Silco thoughts. “So I gather that means you are not in love with me then, are you?”

Silco huffed. “Vander, wh-what does that have to do with whether we sleep together or not?”

“It has everything to do with it, Sil. It has everything to do with whether or not you’ll want to sleep with me tonight and then not speak to me tomorrow.”

“That’s not fair. Just because a person doesn’t always want to be physically with someone doesn’t mean—”

“Them, sure, but that’s not why you do it and we both know that. Other people might want space from time to time, but it’s still obvious that they love each other and are coming back. You on the other hand, it’s all a bloody mystery. Everything changes, like you don’t even know who I am. Given our last 'conversation,' it sounded an awful lot like you regret ever knowing me at all.”

Silco stood up wanting to rip his hair out, but Vander caught his arm, turning him back around. 

“But you got so drunk last night, you couldn’t hold it in anymore, could you?” Vander asked earnestly. “You showed me that you actually want me, so why are you constantly going back and forth between letting yourself have that one second and then the next you are forcing yourself to shut me out again? It’s not just about space with you. What the fuck is going on, Sil?”

“Vander it’s complicated,” Silco said from behind his hand as he covered his face when Vander let him go, exasperated, “but you’re right. I am…” he swallowed, rubbing his eyes, “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you at all.” He bit his lip. “Let me make it up to you?”

Vander sat thinking for a long time before stating softly, “Sil, believe me when I say that, to me? You will always be worth the headaches and the bruises, the effort, and everything else it takes to love you.”

Silco lifted his hand off his face, his eyes wide. “What?”

“But I have to love you from a distance and you have to understand why. This,” Vander said, pointing to the space between them, “fucking bloody hurts. And it only gets easier to manage with time but then you come back, suddenly with no explanation, and then we’re together again, and then we’re not, again with no explanation, and I’m stuck having to learn how to manage that hurt all over again. I’d rather every tooth in my mouth be knocked out than to keep doing that—and before you promise me that it’s not already coming, don’t. Unless you're ready to talk. It's obvious that somewhere, at some point, something changed for you, but you refuse to tell me what it is.”

Silco closed his eyes. He smiled, trying to stop his eyes from burning. “Don’t be silly, Vander. I… just haven’t felt much like myself, yes, but I am fine now. I want you. I… always have.” 

All this time Silco thought he had been protecting what they had had by hiding it away, out of everyone’s reach, even his own, and yet all that had happened was that Rictus had still poured his poison into everything. He had won. Even now a part of Silco panicked with every shred of resolve he had mustered now rapidly fading just at the passing thought that Rictus might find out about him wanting Vander to touch him, let alone that Silco loved him, and that he would punish him for it. It was infuriating. He bit his lip, refusing to beg Vander to understand any of this. 

“Don’t force it, sweetheart. You don’t have to do that—Don’t panic. I’m not… I’ll stay. I’ll come back, we just can’t… What I want, I can’t have. Let me make peace with that and we’ll go from there. Alright?”

“Vander, you are not making any sense. What do you want that I am not offering you right now? You want sex…? Fine,” he sighed at the wall just over Vander’s head. “Have it.”

But Vander only shook his head. “I want your love, Sil.”

“Is… is that not the same?”

“You can get sex without love from anyone.”

Silco huffed. “Not good sex.”

“So this is funny to you?”

“No! Vander, I am giving you my body back—”

"I don't give a fuck about your body, Sil, you are more than that! Don't you understand? There was a time when you began to show me the very best parts of you beyond your very beautiful body. Your ideas and your desires. Your drawings? And then you started ripping the bloody pages out! You began to open up to me and really talk to me… but then you stopped. That’s what I want back. What happened to that, Sil? Where did that go?”

Silco rolled his eyes, wanting to vomit for how awful he felt. He wanted to scream up the mouth of the pit and rage. It wasn’t fair. 

But it was his life. Fair was a figment of his imagination that he was too old for now.

“Vander, I understand why you might feel that way because you know next to nothing useful about me—that is my fault, I am aware—but just… believe me when I tell you that I am already trying to give you the best part of me now," he explained, waving his hand at his lap, "and that is it. You are wasting your time looking for anything else beyond that. There is nothing else. I am… nothing else.” He lifted his chin and shrugged his shoulder, trying to ignore the sound of Rictus's voice echoing in every word. He swallowed. “So stop with this.” 

Vander snorted, pinching his bridge as he shook his head. “So you’re telling me that you got sent here for a bloody book, but somehow, prior to that you did awful, unspeakable things that make you so unlovable? Or are you saying you’re such an awful thing now because you’re here? For a fucking book. Or hell, are you saying that it's not the sorry fucks that failed you when you were a bloody baby that are worthless, but somehow you are worthless for them abandoning you?”

“It doesn’t have to be anything that I’ve done to myself—”

“Which is nothing—”

“—for it to still be true.”

Vander hung his head, sighing. “What the fuck, Sil? Benzo was right.”

“I'm sure he was. Now are we sleeping together or not?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not a chance in hell. I can’t keep doing this with you, Silco. I will lose my fucking mind. You constantly say so much without saying a goddamned thing at all that would help me understand you and then you expect me to just ride along as you pull me towards you one minute and then push me away in the next. I’m not doing that. I am in love with you. All of you, even parts of you that you don’t believe exist anymore, and I know damn well that you love me too. But until you’re ready to admit that, until you actually let me in and let me stay there by not shutting me out every time something is wrong, I can’t keep doing this.”

Silco could only stare at him. He shook his hair from his face and turned. “Fine.” 

“You’re not even going to think about it? Do you honestly feel nothing? Bullshit. Silco, it's okay to let yourself feel what you want to feel. Who does it hurt if you let me love you the way you deserve to be loved?”

Silco gave a frustrated sigh and got off his cot as soon as he’d sat down. He quickly dressed.

Vander jumped up. “Sil, there’s a fucking curfew. They’ll put you in the hole. Just talk to me.”

He pulled the key from its hook on the wall to unlock the door. “So be it,” he muttered without hesitation, without looking back. 

+

Chapter Text

+

Silco sat in the hole with his back turned to the seven others sleeping there on the floor and the man stretched out on the other end of the bench. He pulled his legs tight to his chest, curling himself around his cuffed wrist, pretending he was as alone as he needed to be right now. 

He couldn’t make sense of how everything had gone so wrong so quickly. Were their lives not already complicated enough without needing to now interfere with what could be so simple… and safe? 

It had been simple in the beginning when Silco’s only purpose was to please Vander, and had they not both been happy with that? But then Vander had to push it and want Silco to also be satisfied, and then he wanted to hug and kiss and gift things, and be someone to Silco that Silco had done nothing to deserve. Why would he deserve him now when his life was infinitely worse off?

It was impossible. It had been impossible. Vander had been drugged and nearly killed for making Silco feel these things that they were not allowed to feel for each other, and it could happen again. It would happen again. But how could Silco explain that to Vander?

The sound of the needle picking through the lock of his cuff made a loud click, jamming. Twisting his hand, he had to wiggle the pick free to start over. He wanted to hate Vander for the seemingly worry-free life he had lived. Had losing his sister been the very first and only cruelty dealt to him? The first and only time the world had seen something or someone he cared for, needed, and taken it from him? When the world had taken every possible thing from Silco since birth and had nearly taken Vander too? 

For all of Vander’s complaining that Silco never talked, he had been just as tightlipped about his own history. He hardly volunteered anything and yet he expected Silco to lay himself bare in every way so that Vander could know him? It wasn’t fair.

None of this was. 

Why could Silco not have what seemed to come to Vander easily, naturally? Why was he alone not allowed to have anything? At this point, he could believe the accusations that he was cursed. Hell, maybe both of his parents were highborn and happily married, but it was him specifically that fate would not allow to be happy with them? Seemed plausible enough now. 

What had happened when he had sought out Dr. Reveck to become the person to the world that he had always been to himself? To have a body that not only looked the way he wanted it to but worked the way he wanted? One that would no longer draw unwanted attention or operate against his will? What had happened when he had finally had that control just within his grasp? At the height of his transition, he had been brought here—to this place where he was nothing but the parts of this body and was forced to use it in all ways he had never wanted to. Sure he could lie to himself everyday and pretend that being on his back had been his choice and that he’d liked shine, but that had only made it slightly easier to delude himself. Crafting that illusion of choice had only ever been just that: an illusion. Whatever control he had gained for himself, Rictus and men like him had trampled right over it the moment he ‘chose’ wrong. 

But then came Vander… colossal and victorious and Silco hated nothing that Vander did. Giving Vander control had been like jumping down a pitch-black cave and praying that there was a floor down in that dark for his feet to land on, but it was just as scary if not more to be faced with receiving none of the bad and only so much good, because Silco simply did not get good things. For a while he had forgotten that. For a while he had started to believe that those things could be his to have, and he had even given a valiant attempt to fight for it. That had only brought Vander harm right along with him and damn it, why the fuck could he not have those things when everyone else clearly could? Even Huck!? 

And why then if he couldn’t was he even still bothering to wake up every morning? He was fed up with not knowing. He demanded an answer as his teeth chattered from the cold. He glared through tears as he released the breath he had been holding as the cuff finally loosened several notches.

His hand was nearly free when he paused at the sound of familiar bootfalls outside. Reluctantly, he slipped back into the loose cuff, hiding the pick in his fist as the door opened. There was no point to lift his head from his knees to look, knowing who would have been called for him. 

As big as the man was, Rictus seemed to fill the entire cell door. It was no wonder why even Marcus had been afraid of him.

“This is a surprise,” the man commented softly, mindful of the others sleeping. He traced his fingers up and down the bars. 

It made Silco’s skin crawl. He clenched his jaw shut, glaring at the floor.

“First I find Vander here and now, days later, you, both in tears. What on earth are you doing to each other, Silco?”

“You did this.”

The Noxian’s brow rose. “I see. My apologies for my recent carelessness. He was angry at what he found?”

Silco had to swallow his spit quickly lest he launch it at the man. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

“So he has not touched you. Is that why he’s always raging? Silco, what have I been telling you? It is… disappointing enough that you failed to come to me yet again, but you disappoint Vander as well? Do not withhold your sex from him, it was not made for that. Men were not made to be kept waiting, Vander especially. What we do together is business. What you do for him is your obligation as his—”

“Will you, for once, stop. I am aware of all of this. You have wasted no opportunity to remind me…” Silco lifted his head, staring at the wall. 

“I will repeat myself until you accept it. I need my hound focused and his loyalty to be unwavering—to me. Don’t you want him to stay loyal to you too? You are entirely too stubborn for someone in your position. There is only one reason why he hasn’t already traded you when…”

Silco didn’t hear the rest. “Stubborn?”

“Surely you had heard this said before?”

Silco hummed quietly in understanding, feeling a smile slowly start to pull at his lips as he turned his head away. “You’re right. I am entirely… too stubborn.”

Yes. That was it. And what was more, Silco could be spiteful as all hell. In fact, that stubborn spitefulness had fueled his entire life, come to think of it. 

As a young child, being sickly and nameless, he had been reminded every day that there were people across that river that did not want him to exist. So what had he done? He had existed to spite them, stubbornly refusing to let anyone be relieved of their duty to him no matter how poorly they treated him. Had survived the mines when the caves were peppered with bets over what would kill a scrawny little nothing of a brat like him the fastest: the cough rattling around in his ‘prissy,’ Promenade lungs or getting trapped squeezing through a hole collapsing. Neither. He had lived, somehow. Even kept the name they gave him before ditching the mines out of spite the day he had earned their respect. To hell with them all. To hell with the madams in the Lanes who hated him for refusing their contracts and hated him even more when his voice dropped. 

And what had he been told about being one of Dr.  many ‘lab rats’? That he would be rotting at the bottom of the river by year’s end? Again, he had lived. In fact, he had flourished. 

He shook his head at himself, biting his tongue to stop from snickering.

Why bother risking surgery and treatment? Why bother to live at all if he had truly thought himself to be worthless and undeserving? When had those become his words?

It was here. Somewhere along the way, this prison… and its shine, and its endless string of hateful brutes, had filled his head like a flash flood and swept away his will and his spite and he had lost himself. But never his stubbornness.

It was a realization that had him wishing he would run to Benzo and demand that he tell him what he was supposed to do now with this understanding, but the man had been trying to tell him something similar to this for nearly three years now, had he not? That what had been done to him did not have to define him. It was what he did to rebuild himself over and over that would, and that was the stubbornness and will that had propelled him through his worst and would drive him onward now. 

Did he feel worthless? Yes. Had this pit drained him of everything Vander had wanted from him? Absolutely. There was no denying that, but… Vander was perhaps just as much if not more stubborn than he was. Everything that had happened to Silco had happened before Vander and yet it was, in fact, quite possible that Vander loved him right now. Not what Silco might do for him or a piece of Silco but all of him. It was madness, but it could very well be real. That damning tattoo was right there and it had never stopped him from treating Silco with care and consideration and a near desperate need to ‘spoil’ him always… He had not judged or turned away. If anything he had become even more irritatingly persistent in his pursuit the more he knew about him. 

Vander could not and would not ever know about Rictus. That was a reality that was as unavoidable now as it had been an hour ago. 

So long as this man lived, there was no other option. Not yet.

At last he looked up at Rictus. “I’m sorry. Sir.”

Rictus leaned against the bars, playing with the key. “Are you ready to come out?”

“How will you make me regret it if I say yes?”

Rictus shrugged, shaking his head. “Not at all.”

Silco sighed, in disbelief that he had ever let this man get in his head, but it was damn near impossible not to. Rictus was a level of evil Marcus could not compete with. It would have never been as easy to fight this man. “What are you asking me to do?”

“I wouldn’t be asking you to do anything, but I most certainly would not be sending you back to your cell with Vander tonight. I would never forgive myself if I returned you to him and something happened to you. We both know his temper.”

“Where would I go instead, then? With you? All night? Absolutely not. No thank you.”

“Very well. Rot here. I will see you in two days. Make that three. I expect your disposition will be vastly different given three days in this dim little cage with no food. Only a stubborn fool with a pea-sized brain like yours would starve himself out of spite.”

When Silco fought back his smile but refused to answer, Rictus took the seated guard’s baton. He beat at the bars over and over until every sleeping man had been startled awake. “Silco, you have one hand and it is currently cuffed to that bench. What manner of cellmates do you have this evening, I wonder? You might not know them, but I do. I would not recommend you stay here with them. More than a few of their appetites are vicious. More even than mine.” 

Silco took a breath and swallowed, forcing his heart to beat on as several pairs of eyes turned towards him. “I’ll manage.”

“Who will join you tomorrow? And the day after?”

“Men who are also cuffed, I assume.” Some men in what had to be extremely uncomfortable contortions to still have space to sleep without having to lie on top of each other. 

Rictus sighed like a bull and laughed to himself before he unlocked the door. Both Silco and the enforcer still seated in his patrol chair eyed the towering man as he uncuffed each of the prisoners. 

The young guard swallowed, slowly rising to his feet. “Sir? That isn’t…”

Rictus chuckled at the man’s visible panic. He stood before Silco to cup his chin, smirking until he noticed how loose Silco’s own cuff was. “Clever boy.” 

Silco held his gaze but let the pick go the moment Rictus pried his fist open for it. 

Smug, Rictus kissed his hair and squeezed the cuff as tightly closed as he could, the sound of it rattling through the quiet space like an alarm to the other prisoners. 

Silco glaring after him, watching him pat the guard’s shoulder as he rejoined the speechless man. He could hear Rictus order softly, “Do not intervene unless they intend to kill him, or each other again,” before he locked the cell door. 

“Yes. Yes, sir,” the guard whispered, in shock as he watched Rictus leave before he eyed each of the prisoners. He swallowed before looking at Silco at last, at a loss for what to do. If he entered the cell, for any reason, even to let him out, the men would overpower him and kill him. Slowly, he sat back down.

Silco balled his trembling fist against the bench, feeling the cuff dig into his skin. Still curled in his corner, he refused to look at anyone save for the sweating guard.

Stubborn spite. No matter what happened here now, Silco would still be sending Rictus to bed alone. Small victories… small victories.

The air was tense and silent until someone cleared their throat.

“Thanks, kid,” the man behind him said at last, wincing as he shifted slowly, rolling over on the hard bench. “I can finally sleep on my good side.”

“Same here,” a man on the floor said.

“Me too. I don’t have feet in my face anymore.” They laughed. 

He could only feel two stares tickling at the side of his neck. One of the men on the floor was watching him intensely, massaging his wrists, until the larger man sprawled out across from him kicked his boot for his attention and shook his head at him. 

Silco said nothing. It was only when the man lying on the bench slid further down to tuck his own booted foot between the bench and Silco like a tripwire that would wake him if Silco moved too much—or was moved by someone else—that the second man on the floor at last rolled his eyes. He turned away, muttering angrily to himself about a ‘stupid code’ until he put himself back to sleep, followed soon after by the others. 

The guard sighed, quiet but ragged as if a noose had finally been taken from his neck. He looked to Silco, mouthing something that looked far too much like a useless excuse or even an apology.

Silco tilted his head, whispering, “Is this not what you signed up for? Pathetic, useless, and dumb, you are.”

He turned his head away, resting it on his knees, fighting back nausea as his adrenaline waned. He needed a drink. An entire jar. Shaken—Only, just thinking about it made him feel more ill. 

How he could repair his mind and reconnect with his body whilst Rictus was still actively destroying them both and clearly willing to use whatever sadistic means the Noxian could now to accomplish it? Silco had no answer. But he could no longer allow another day to be spent in a cocoon of shine, wasting away his nights in a drunken fog no matter how much he wanted to hide himself. There was no path forward for him in those jars, least of all not one that would take him back to Vander. 

A familiar wave of panic washed over him. It was like pacing at the top of the fences all over again or standing before that massive boulder-eating machine with a blinking collar. Facing Rictus sober would be more daunting than Marcus could have ever hoped to be.

But it did not matter how scary or larger than life Rictus made himself, that Noxian was no rock crusher, he was just a man. As arrogant, as capable of making errors. He had weak spots that would give, just as any other man’s would.

Silco needed only to find where to poke for them first. 

+

Sitting on the edge of the bed, pointedly staring at a circle in the carpet, Silco deliberately avoided watching the man pace before him.

“You look tired. Did you not enjoy your stay in the hole? Your color is… off.”

Silco had to grip the bedding between his legs lest he simply fall over. He would not dare shake his hair back from his face, let alone open his mouth. “Mm.” 

Rictus did not like that. His slow steps brought him right in front of Silco, stepping on the circle. “So,” he asked, bending over to look at his face as he brushed Silco’s hair back for him. “Tell me. How did you handle—”

Whatever accompanied the black sludge exploding up from Silco’s stomach he did not know, but he seemed to vomit it all over the man. It was on his face, in his mouth, down the front of his clothes, even atop the chandelier overhead somehow and spotting the far wall behind the man. Feeling sick dripping down the back of his neck seemed to get Rictus unfrozen enough to roar in horror as Silco scrambled backwards. 

“Sorry,” Silco muttered to his knees, noticeably feeling a bit better now, though he could feel it coming on again as two enforcers rushed in at the sound of the distressed captain, equally horrified. “I… It has been several days since I stopped heavy drinking. This is… Are you proud of me for stopping, as you… commanded me to?” 

As Rictus was frantically wiped down and undressed, his eyes bulged seeing Silco get sick with more black contents again over the side of the ornate bed with its pretty white duvet not yet stripped back. “Stop! Get out!” He pointed at Silco, shouting at the guards. “Get him out!”

+

A week had passed and Vander had not spoken to Silco. The man’s return from the hole was spent with his head hanging off the side of his cot asleep over a bucket all night, shivering, or curled in a ball stuffing his face full of food all day like the starving man he’d made himself. 

At least that’s what he’d been told. Seeing Silco be as immobile when he left for the mines as he was when Vander returned didn’t inspire much confidence in him at all that the man was still with him most days if not for Huck’s unending reports back to Benzo.

“It’s whatever’s in that black tar,” Benzo had explained, moving through the back storage rooms. He had been chipper enough returning from the passage they’d successfully widened, but any mention of Silco these days had the man’s spirit dragging the ground behind him. “It’s the worst depressant-opioid chemical mix I’ve ever seen. Quite a few blokes come in here, having never drank or done a drug that strong in their lives, start instantly throwing back those jars and die within days when it fills up their belly and they don’t eat or they start drowning in it once it relaxes their bodies too much. Least, that's what it sounds like when their lungs are shutting down. We were lucky. This time. But I find it’s one of them things that are much easier for a person to overcome if they want to, not when they’re being forced to quit. I gather it’s a bitch to the system when it’s no longer swimming through poison and sludge. My method had that boy damn near losing his mind back then… I can assure you Silco isn’t ‘sleeping’ nearly as much as you think he is. If anything he needs more rest…” He stopped in front of the shine jars and bottles, sighing. “Here.”

Vander stared at the little bottle of clear liquid Benzo plucked from the shelf and the stopper top he was handed for it. He smelled it, in disbelief. “Ben, why the hell am I going to give him more of this when—”

Benzo waved his hand. “They’re not the same, lad—Trust me. I have done this before with him—But a bottle of this ought to do the trick. Few drops at a time, no more. Once that’s empty, we’ll know for sure how deep in the black he is. After that, he won’t need to be given any more, unless…”

Vander sighed and pocketed it, eyeing the sullen man. “Ben, why not come and see him?”

Benzo huffed. “You know he doesn’t want me there, especially not when he’s like this.”

“I think he especially needs you when he’s like this.” Vander frowned as the man chuckled sourly at those words. “Come on, Ben. He’s not being very fair, is he? We both—”

“Oh, he is, and it’s fair. I damaged the trust of a man who does not trust easily. It’s…” He forced a smile, waving Vander’s frown away again. “Anyhoo.”

+

Huck stared wide-eyed as if he’d been caught stealing and not sneaking food to their cell. Again. And there was the empty little stopper bottle he quickly hid behind his back.

Standing in the corridor a little ways from the cell, Vander sighed. “Huck. Ben’s already said—”

“I know, I know. It just makes sense to keep bringing food to him rather than risk him coming out too soon and getting… distracted,” he explained, curiously eyeing the enforcers that passed by them on their late evening patrol.

“Ben’s known him longer than both of us. If he thinks Sil needs to get out and stretch his legs, you gotta let him.” 

“Well, yeah, but…” He shrugged, his ears pink. “It’s a long walk. A guy can get into a lot of trouble between here and the canteen… I could… maybe walk with him, but…”

Vander grinned, nudging his arm gently. “Thank you, by the way, for taking care of him. How is he?”

“He’s bouncing back pretty fast, which doesn’t surprise me—I mean, not that I would know. I’ve never had shine. Gosh, that stuff is,” he huffed before gagging dramatically. “Had him chucking up green stuff after the black! Where the heck did that come from, you know? Thought I’d have to stomp my foot to get Ben to stop selling that stuff, but with supplies close to zilch now all over the pit, it didn’t get that far. This place is going to be a mess once all of it really runs out. Sil’s gonna have to make sure he keeps his locked up real ti—Um… Heh.”

Vander’s brow rose at Huck’s stammering. “He still has shine.”

“Well…”

Vander huffed, massaging his jaw. “Then what—”

“Well, sure—but from my understanding he’s always had some, you know, for all sorts of stuff, even back when he was sober. His willpower is a lot stronger than mine. I could never! But apparently it’s great for cleaning, medicine, lighting fuses, Ben ran out of fingers counting it all. Seems like drinking it is the one thing people use it for but the last thing anybody ought to, but if I was in Silco’s shoes, I could totally see how easy it’d be to wanna get drunk and stay drunk. What, with all of…” He swallowed, wide-eyed again as he looked up at Vander. 

Vander frowned. “In his shoes, how? All of what?”

Huck hunched his shoulders, tucking his chin. He played with his shirt buttons. “You know,” he murmured, blowing his stubborn hair out of his face only for it to fall right back, “being really sad and stuff, worried…”

Vander stepped closer. “About?”

“Just… stuff, you know? Service rooms are closed, nobody knows who killed Marcus still… Stuff—The pit could just collapse out of nowhere at any moment! It’s a lot! Even more stressful when you’re really smart like he is… I don’t know!” 

“Huck?”

He frowned at Vander’s boots. “Yeah?”

“What did Silco tell you?”

“Nothing! I wish he would talk to me—”

“What have you heard, then?”

Silence. Damning silence. 

“You’ve talked to Ben about what you’ve heard, I reckon?”

Huck’s eyes went wide. “No! Why would I do that?”

“Because you run and tell him every bloody thing.” So Vander would have to get it from Ben, then. He patted Huck on the cheek. “It’s sweet. It is.”

“Alright, fine,” Huck sighed, deflating, “I’ll stop coming around… I guess.”

Vander smiled. “Eh… Give it another day or two.” He tapped Huck’s downturned chin. “I’m sure Sil likes the company as much as you do.”

Huck wrinkled his nose. “He just rolls his eyes at me. I’m being annoying, aren’t I?”

“No, no, that’s a pretty decent sign that he likes you.”

“He sighs when he does it. And rolls away to look at the wall. If I’m humming something, he puts his pillow over his head. That’s…?”

Vander fought back his chuckle. “His way of saying thank you, promise. He’s a prickly little shit, isn’t he?

“Yeah he is! But look what he’s going through—with… the, um, withdrawals, and stuff.” Huck pressed his fingers over his lips before he smiled. He hopped on his tiptoes to kiss Vander’s cheek before scurrying away, holding his mouth shut.

+

More than a few of the overhead lamps outside the cells had dying bulbs while others had been knocked out from a fight days prior with no foreseeable plan to fix them from upstairs. But with the winter picking up, the cells all cast a warm glow out into the corridor from each of their little makeshift fire pits. 

Even James was braving the risk of fire in his cell—by keeping his cell door wide open and sleeping against the bars, of course—to keep warm and out of the dark.

Vander frowned, sniffing the used candles Benzo had given him. “Is that… pumpkin and… cinnamon? Bloody Pilties.” He laughed quietly, confused and delighted by the scented candles as they began to burn. “Where the hell does Ben find this shit?” 

He placed them mostly in the little alcove in the wall next to Silco’s bed, casting him in even more light.

The sleeping man was on his belly with his arm wrapped around his pillow. So far he’d been able to rest with his head on it and not under it for the past day or so. No more bucket. Progress. 

Silco moaned, rousing himself slowly with a frown as Vander moved about. “Huck, sweetheart, I don’t need anything else.” He stretched, opening his eyes. His brow rose. “Vander.”

That voice was so clear but quiet, shy even, though the spark in his sleepy eyes pulled a smile out of Vander before he could stop it. He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t know what to say to Silco that wouldn’t simply be proof of just how badly he wanted to climb on that cot with him. He was jealous of those blankets and that damned sweater. “How, um…?” 

“‘m alright… Better now. I was beginning to think you had gone back to Benzo’s and that Huck was living here now.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Vander said to his boots, tugging them off. “With the way you’ve been out, I was fairly certain you had a few pillows stuffed under your blankets and had hightailed it out of here two bloody weeks ago.”

Silco’s smile dropped. “Has it really been that long?”

“It has.”

“I haven’t left this cell in two weeks?” He eyed the bars. “Has no one come looking for me?”

A sudden pang of something too close to suspicion, or even jealousy, lit up Vander’s chest as that question was offered to him with a sizable weight attached to it. “Who? You mean Finn? Did you expect him to? Thought we’d agreed that—”

“No.” Slowly Silco shook his head, his brow furrowing. “Vander?”

“Hm?”

“I miss you.”

That Vander had not expected. He felt himself smiling, breathing a little easier as he sat back, letting himself really look at the man. 

Silco was worn down the bone with exhaustion, his voice perhaps forever shot to hell now. There were dark circles under his eyes, but they had been noticeably darker the day before. His sweater was gobbling him up, but not if he kept a good, strong appetite. He’d given himself one hell of a beating these past two weeks, but he had made it through. He was coming back, bit by bit. That little victorious grin against his pillow was well earned. 

“I miss you too, baby,” Vander let himself say to the floor. 

Silco blushed, biting his lip as he kicked down his blankets to his feet. “Lie down on me.”

“On you or with you?”

“On me, with me… in me, it doesn’t matter.” He arched his back, poking out his ass for emphasis. “I miss you, Vander.” 

“Tell me that this wasn’t what all your effort was for, because you think you’ve got to reel me back in. You’ve already got me. I told you that. Is that why you haven’t dumped the jars you’ve still got? If I don’t bite, you just go back to drinking again?”

Silco’s eyes flicked to the bars. 

“Tell me what you’re looking for—out there, and I’ll bite.”

Silco’s lips pressed thin, he fiddled with his sweater sleeve before giving Vander a defeated sigh. He rolled his eyes, sighing. “I’ll throw them out… I am… I am not quite where you want me to be or what you want me to be yet, but I am getting there.”

“Then don’t rush it. I’ll be here when you do.” 

“You don’t trust me.”

Vander knew he had no reason to feel guilty, and yet he still found himself scratching his neck, nervously explaining around a simple yes with his eyes on the floor, desperately trying to dodge but with none of Silco’s skill for it. He sighed, letting his shoulders sink. “I… Perhaps I just don’t think I trust myself right now, if that makes sense,” he answered slowly. “Look, we talked about this, alright? Maybe for other men, sex and silence is fine, but I’m not the man who can give you that.”

“Ah, so I should run back to Finn? Is that what you’re implying?”

Vander rubbed his face and turned to the wall, running his hand over the empty, little space beside him. “Night, Sil.”

“This isn’t over,” he heard Silco quietly rasp. “We are not finished.”

Vander twisted back around, fully prepared to argue, but Silco had also turned to the wall. He was back under his blankets, curled up. 

Plotting something if his ominous vow was any tell. 

It kept Vander up, laying on his back staring from the ceiling to Silco as the room filled with the sweet scents of the candles burning.

+

Silco needed only to step one slightly less-than-confident foot out of his cell to understand why he had been given such a lengthy grace period for his recovery. 

“What in the unholy fuck is all of this?”

There was no unhindered sky out of the pit any longer. The fencing now spanned like grates across the pit’s mouth, first on the top floor and then again several levels down, flanking the bridges. Only the closer Silco stepped to the fence, squinting his eyes, the more apparent it became that it was netting. 

Before he could ask anyone why, his answer came in the form of five men who had somehow cut through the thick fence on their level to jump. 

This would have meant death for them all if not for the netting that caught some of them. As Silco and others gathered, looking on, one man produced a knife and cut through the netting that he’d snagged on his fall. 

“He’s gonna do it,” someone muttered behind Silco.

Sure enough, the net tore and the man crashed down, hitting the corner of the cage before falling off into a heap on the ground. 

“That’s the third one this week that slipped through. The nets were a waste of time.”

“They’ll just add another one closer to the bottom.”

“I don’t get it,” the man to Silco’s right sighed. “We have a whole day off now. We’re working less—”

“It sure as shit don’t feel like it, especially when I’m so wore down I sleep the whole damn day away.”

“Because you are not working less,” Silco stated, his eyes on the lifeless man. “Rictus has the day shift working well past evening now, doesn’t he?”

“Sometimes to midnight, knocking shoulders and elbows with our guys,” the man behind him agreed. “Us on the night shift used to get off at six-in-the-morning, but it’s damn near noon now, so then they are all on top of us. We’re all working on top of each other now when we should be out of there.”

Silco nodded, eyeing the man to his right as he thought of how exhausted Vander was coming back every night. It was getting worse. “You are working more. By the time you reach your day off, you have already made up for those hours and then some in those mines.”

Alarms sounded overhead, making several men wince, as enforcers quickly shouted for them to return to their cells.

Silco stepped to the side, using the meandering crowds to slip further and further from his cell, still watching in fascination as enforcers shot bolas through the cut open fence as the men were still scrambling and rolling towards the opening in the net. Two other men were able to escape, though bound with bolas they had even less control over where they fell. 

He reached the next two levels up in time to see two enforcers make their way on roped harnesses over to the remaining men who were still trying their hardest to get to the hole. Silco had never seen such widespread desperation in all his years here. One or two men jumping to escape a cage match every few months or so was normal, but groups of men, multiple times a week, to the point of needing nets to catch them? 

He startled at the sound of a whistle blowing close by and let himself be grabbed and shoved into the canteen where the prisoners stuck there went on eating, until the enforcers turned to herd in more wandering men close to the platform. He slipped past them and onward. 

Rictus’s doors were closed and with good reason. 

With every bit of ease that he could muster, Silco let his boots click softly as he walked across the suite to the sidedoor, hearing a voice thunder in the office with anger—though it was not Rictus’s.

“Since you have taken over as captain, your guards have ordered sixty-three—no, now sixty-four—lockdowns, eighteen of your guards have been gravely injured by bombings that you have no answers for—”

“Because they are no longer an issue. The crackdown stopped them—”

“While your guards bleed to death from stabbing attacks instead? All because you have decreased rations, increased the labor, and for what? These minimal gains cannot justify any of this. Your escalation is killing both your guards and my charges!”

Silco leaned against the wall, peering out through the small space in the curtain. He did not suppose that there was anyone within a thousand leagues that was as oversized as Rictus and yet still he stood at his desk, ever respectfully, eyes lowered as this woman shouted up at him.

“In all of Marcus’s years as captain here, conditions were never this bad, Rictus! My sources have told me that men are trying to dig their way out of the pit! You have groups of men attempting suicide everyday and collapsing in the mines! Over twenty died of exhaustion in the mines last week alone! What is happening here?”

“Warden. Madam.” Oh Silco had never heard Rictus sound so subdued. He savored every moment of it as the man explained, “These are unfortunate outcomes but not indefinite. We had to tighten the leash as you recall and they killed your captain. In time, we can loosen that leash, but that time—”

“When will that ‘right time’ present itself, Rictus? When only a dozen men are left hanging on by a thread?”

“I will take this into consideration—”

“You will act. Now. You will fix this. No time can be wasted. This is unacceptable.”

Well. Damn. Silco sat on the floor just beside the door, rustling its curtains as he moved, legs long and crossed at the ankles as he waited, though not for long as he heard a softly muttered, “One moment,” from Rictus and the sound of boots fast approaching.

The door beside him opened and quickly shut. Within a breath, he was lifted by his neck and his mouth was covered, both by hands that were frighteningly calm for how truly enraged Rictus was. Silco blinked and found himself pressed against the opposite door leading out to the corridor as he had been carried across the room with ease.

“I have not called for you so why are you here?”

“It’s Soraday,” was Silco’s only answer as Rictus hurried to unlock the door and usher him out. 

The glare he was shot was like nothing he had ever seen. Not just anger that Silco had surprised him but the gods’ honest panic as the man’s overly controlled glance began to shift towards his office before he caught himself. 

Even biting his lip, Silco could not resist asking the man, “Could I meet her?” 

He had expected a reaction. What, specifically, he had had no time to account for. Threats, surely, a slap, perhaps, not to be lifted onto his tiptoes by his neck and strangled. Being killed had not crossed his mind and yet that single hand around his throat could so easily snap it without even intending to. 

But he was dropped onto his ass out in the hallway with the door closing softly in his face before panic could set it. 

“Well, that was dumb.” But productive. He frowned, rising to his feet and righting his clothes. Rictus was in trouble with the Warden—

The very same warden that stormed out into the corridor with her cloak draped over her arm, followed by her entourage, blocking Silco’s path. 

He had to take a step back not to be run over. Wide-eyed, Silco stepped aside, trying to be inconspicuous, but it was useless in his faded striped uniform. 

Grayson stood eye-level with him, studying him with a furrowed brow before she offered a polite smile and her hand to shake?

Behind them all Rictus stood, catching up to them. He stood as still as a statue. “Inmate, clear the hall for the Warden.”

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Grayson asked, studying Silco again when he forgot to shake her hand. She crossed her arms. “You look familiar.” Her eyes lingered on his arm and stained clothes, furrowing her brows deeper. “Did that injury happen before or after Captain Marcus's death?”

“Before,” Silco said, at last finding his voice. He swallowed. 

“In the mines?”

He nodded, though his eyes caught movement as Rictus stepped around her attendants. 

“Don’t be fooled, madam, that did happen in the mines, though not because of any regulation flaw,” Rictus said confidently. “It was self-inflicted by the inmate and the inmate alone.”

“Self-inflicted?” Her expression soured. “I see.”

Silco shook his hair back, shifting on his feet a little as he held his stump. “Yes, madam.” He tilted his head, as innocently as he could. “You see, my collar number—when I had one—”

“Why does he not have a collar number?”

Rictus smiled, flat. “He is getting one, ma’am.”

“Back when I had a number, it was wrongfully pulled for the cage match by… by an enforcer in an attempt to have me killed for disobeying him. I had no choice but to injure myself.”

Again, he had expected a reaction. More lies from the captain, not the muted shock that flashed across his face. Had he not expected Silco to be honest?

“I’m not following,” Grayson said after a pause. “You disobeyed an enforcer—” 

“It was not for a… how shall I say, any ‘legally permitted’ request that any enforcer ought to give to an inmate, if I may put it modestly,” Silco said, feeling Rictus’s stare like a wave of heat from the sun that he knew better than to look at. 

He kept his eyes pointedly locked with hers. An infinitesimal detail in the grand scheme—to anyone else, at least. But it seemed that this Grayson with her hawkeyed gaze missed nothing. It was unnerving. 

“I insist that you speak plainly,” she encouraged, standing a little more in front of Rictus as she smiled. “It is important to hear from my charges and I take it that your circumstance is not as rare as one might hope.”

Silco could still see Rictus standing behind her. He swallowed, but nodded. “Solicitation, madam. He propositioned and I said no.”

“As you should. Do you know where this guard is now?”

“Madam,” Rictus cut in at last, his hand carefully coming to rest on her shoulder as he ushered her attention in his direction, “I insist, your time is better spent elsewhere than interviewing this one. This inmate has a gift for telling stories that, when investigated, tend to reveal themselves to be unfounded. His was a matter resolved years ago.”

“How many years? He does not look old enough to have been here for ‘years,’ Rictus. However, judging by the state of his uniform…”

“Again, self-inflicted. Many of the inmates do not take care of their things as they should.”

“Hm.” She nodded. “I understand.”

It took only a single glance from Rictus for Silco not to simply shout every truth at her about this god forsaken prison. He sighed, closing his mouth and prepared to be dismissed, prepared for Rictus to win again. After all, was it not her prison? Was she not the same warden that put the crown on Rictus's head? 

Grayson patted the Noxian’s hand on her shoulder, smiling. There was a hint of something in her expression that Silco could not quite place until she did not cease her questioning as Rictus had hoped and instead asked, “What is your name, boy?”

Surprised, Silco opened his mouth but nothing came out, stuck as he was pinned by Rictus’s most threatening glare. He loomed over Grayson’s shoulder, his expression dark with the unspoken promise of what this conversation would cost Silco. Speechlessly, Silco asked himself why he had even said a word at all until Grayon stepped closer, purposefully blocking Rictus from Silco’s view as she eased the Noxian back a step. 

“What is your name?”

“Silco,” he answered after a breath in a voice as quiet as hers was. “Like… Silicosis.” 

“Interesting.” Her brow rose as she huffed. “And easy enough to remember in a mine.” She had no smile for Rictus when at last she turned to him. “Do as I have said or my return visit will not bode well for you.”

Rictus nodded politely. “Madam.” He moved to stand beside Silco, clearing the corridor, his hand snaking to Silco’s wrist.

Silco pressed his back to the wall to keep himself upright as they watched Grayson and her staff leave. The words were out of his mouth before he could think them, “I am only here to keep up my end of your deal. Sir.”

Rictus pulled him into his office without a word, saying nothing as they stepped closer and closer to his desk. Even when the panic became too much for Silco to swallow, the man was eerily quiet as he had to drag Silco kicking and struggling the last few steps. 

He lifted Silco to his feet, making him stand there as he walked to the other side and sat down.

Silco’s panting stilled as the man produced the letter opener from a drawer and set it on the desk between them.

He sat back, steepling his hands. “There it is. Your one, real chance to get rid of me.” Rictus waved at the blade. “Go on, pick it up… because unless you are ready to kill me? Nothing you say and nothing she does is going to remove me from this station,” he said, pressing his finger to the desk. “Well? Are you ready, Silco?”

Silco touched his shaky hand to the desk. He let his fingertips trace the ornate handle and the smooth blade, licking his lips. He had been here before though in a more advantageous position than standing with the massive desk to divide them. Even with his hand fully healed now, he knew he would not get far. Rictus also knew this. 

“Point made.” He eyed Rictus through his hair. “You know I do sympathize with you. It is indeed the most annoyingly, frustratingly human thing to feel so embarrassed about fearing someone over you. That feeling must be tenfold for you. New. Uncomfortable, even.”

Rictus laughed, though he clasped his hands together just a little too tightly. He smiled. “Get out.”

“Could I cut my hair with this first or do you have a proper pair of scissors on you?”

The open expression that broke through Rictus’s mask was indescribable. Silco flinched back a step as the man shot to his feet, nearly digging his nails into the wood as he fought to regain control. “You have five seconds to leave my sight before I crush you into nothing but the remains of an 'annoyingly, frustratingly' regrettable mistake.”

He took his word for it. Silco walked as he always did through the enforcers’ level to the floor below before stopping. 

Smoking through one cigarette as he sat on the ground, he lit a second, determined to make the tremor of his hand stop but to no success. 

“You are not drinking, so get over it,” he muttered to himself, watching an enforcer storm and clank, in what appeared to be new armor, down the path towards some old man pissing on the wall.

So enforcers were getting stabbed now and this was the solution. Silco chuckled, for a moment pleasantly distracted. This little, armored tank of a man could certainly be a match for some band of blade-wielding gangsters, but oh no. He instead was shouting at an elderly man with a weak bladder who did not seem to even hear the man yelling at him. 

As other men milled about doing nothing when the guard shoved the man nearly to the ground for walking too slowly, Silco stood. Enough of a distraction from his spiraling thoughts to get his feet moving. 

It was not the drinking itself he was fighting with, but the endless loop of questioning and wondering and the overwhelming urge to run back to Rictus’s office and demand to know why he had neither called him nor kept him in over a week’s time. That had him itching for black shine.

The enforcer was hovering over the old man who was still trying to get his bearings. Silco took the deepest inhale of his cigarette, watching its tip glow red hot before he tucked it into the little gap between the man’s armor and coat collar, lit side up as he walked by. No one stuck around once they saw the little burning tip disappear under the guard’s collar when he stood up straight, except for an older man with eyes shifting back and forth between the enforcer and his open shine jar, seemingly making up his mind as he began to swirl the flammable liquid and waited for the guard to get closer. 

Silco walked on, all the way down to the runoff streams down below, until he came upon two more enforcers fetching a man’s body out of the water still in his mining coat and helmet. 

He quickly locked himself back in his cell, kicking off his boots and curling up on his cot. 

What the hell was Rictus doing? A visit from Grayson had not stopped him before, only delayed him. There had been bombings and still Rictus had not backed off, only postponed. Silco had been drunk, hell he had even gotten sick before—though not to the extent of the whole suite needing to be stripped down and repainted as it had been. Even the chandelier had been replaced—and still only Rictus delayed. He was a Noxian warrior who had stories for days of the most horrific things he had seen bodies do. One little bout of withdrawals would not scare him off.

Surely he didn't think that Silco had stopped showing up intentionally. He had refused before and had simply been dragged or carried there. But he was not running away now. He was sober, he was prepared. 

Was this it, then? Had Rictus simply found some other way to entertain himself? But what of Vander? Silco was doing this for Vander. If he could not do this for Vander, what would Rictus do to the man now? 

That had him up pacing in circles. He had to remind himself that even if Rictus had at long last given up on their ‘arrangement,’ his deal with Vander was still ongoing. Vander could be safe so long as he was useful and behaved. An admittedly daunting task for a man with a fuse as short as Vander’s. But Silco could help him in this. Keep him talked down from that ledge if Rictus tried to…

He stopped, sighing, feeling his stomach ache as if twisting in knots. Would it not be the most awful, soul-crushing thing for Silco to think that he was safe now? To fully return to himself, to lower his guard, only for Rictus to call on him again a week from now? After all, was cruelty not the point for that man? Not real lust or want, just the traps set and games rigged for Silco to fail. 

Even now, he was winning. Silco could not sit still, could not cease or even just slow down his mind’s torrent of what-ifs. What if Rictus was finished with him and did plan to hurt Vander now? What if he put Vander in the cage with dogs next? What if he simply changed his mind in an hour and called for him, still angry? What if it was tomorrow? Next month—next year? All the while Rictus would be biding his time, waiting for Silco to slip up and forget. 

It was already exhausting. His thread was worn and breaking at the seams. He needed something to hold him together, to quiet him until he could come up with a workable plan. More petty distractions just would not suffice and absolutely not shine.

He needed Vander.

+

It was damn near midnight when the whistle finally blew to end his shift. There was blood in the gauntlets when Vander dropped them. 

He could only chuckle to himself as he passed the closed canteen, seeing men arguing with the guards who blocked their way and shouted for them to get back to their cells as they had all missed the 10 ‘o clock curfew start. Even as his stomach growled, there was nothing any of them could do. He had eaten through his saved rations days ago, working like this. Better luck with breakfast.

He had to take a little step back when he looked into the cell and saw the little pile of food and tea waiting for him on his cot.

And across the room, Silco was there, waiting for him.

For a moment it felt as if the last few months hadn’t happened. Silco was awake, he was alert and sober, and sitting on his cot in his t-shirt and underwear. No sweater in sight. Not even socks.

He even sat up a little straighter when he pulled his nose out of his journal and saw Vander standing there. His legs unfolded a little and he shook his hair back.

He was… different, now that Vander was really looking at him. His constant sleeping and drinking and injuries had chipped away at his muscle tone. He was skinnier, paler, yes but as Vander unlocked the door, the sea-green eyes that watched him were filled with the life he had fought hard to bring back to them. He was gaining a little weight back, and the added length of his hair that he combed through his fingers…

Silco bit his lip and frowned, hesitating, until at last that defiant tilt of his chin returned with a little smirk, painting a whole picture of the man Vander had lost, just… cracked and chipped still, somehow, missing something underneath that Vander could always feel but never name. “Are you alright, Vander?”

Not that it mattered, he reminded himself. Silco had told him in so many words, storming out on him, that it—any of this—didn’t matter to him and had since reiterated that he wanted nothing but sex from Vander. Vander lowered his eyes and turned to his own cot, ready to go through the motions of his nighttime routine once he’d emptied the bags into his belly and guzzled down both teas. 

“Are you upset with me?”

“Nope.”

“Vander?”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

Vander huffed, scrubbing down as quickly as he could. “Now why would I do a silly thing like that?”

“Is that so silly?”

Vander found himself chuckling again, finding no real humor in the situation. “You know, Sil, you are one cruel, little bastard.”

Silence. Vander poured the water over his head, sending drops flying everywhere as he shook it out and reached for his towel. 

When he glanced over his shoulder, Silco had long since put his journal away and lay down, on top of his blankets. He was playing with the hem of his shirt, his brow furrowed as he at last answered with quiet hurt, “Alright. May I ask… how?”

Vander laughed quietly again, shaking his head as he got into his nightshirt and into bed. “Put your sweater on or get under your blankets, sweetheart. I know you, you’re freezing.”

“I had plans to stay warm another way tonight.”

Vander’s stomach growled with a whole new hunger. Fucking cruel. “Oh yeah? And did that plan work out for you?”

“It hasn’t quite failed yet. You are not currently pretending to be asleep to avoid me,” he said gently, warming Vander’s cheeks as Silco glanced over, “so there’s still some chance.”

It was Vander’s turn to be silent. He stared up at the ceiling, glaring, too damn tired for this tonight. “I already told you, either we’re together or we’re not. I’m not going back and forth with you anymore. I can’t handle it.”

“Well… what if that isn’t what this is, then?”

“Then what is it, Sil? Other than you knowing damn well how I feel about you and you continuing to ignore that.”

Again, quiet. “I haven’t said that I’m ignoring you.”

“Then what are you saying?” Vander growled in frustration, looking over. “You know Sil, I wish you would just speak in sentences that I didn’t have to decipher for some deeper meaning when you can just spell it out.”

Silco blinked. “Fuck me, Vander. I want you to come to my bed and fuck me.”

“So you want me to fuck you, just not love you when I do it? You want me to treat you like some nobody out there would? Don’t I have to give you something first, then?” At Silco’s confused frown, Vander continued, “A trade? If I’m just some bloke like them and you’re just some whore, why shouldn’t I be paying you?”

Vander didn’t like the hurt that flashed across Silco’s face, he hated it and hated himself for causing it. 

Still, determined, Silco just shrugged and shook his head slowly in answer, looking tired suddenly. “Are you going to fuck me or not?” He asked quietly, even though it was clear that when he’d lit this match, this wasn’t how he’d hoped for it to burn. He’d gone empty in the eyes again, shutting down, detaching. 

It was the last straw.

“Fine. This is what you want, then.” Angrily Vander kicked off his blankets. He stormed over, pulling Silco to the edge of the cot and manhandled him onto his back. He yanked Silco’s underwear off and tossed them over his shoulder before he slapped Silco’s legs apart. 

Silco stared up at him, wide-eyed as if he hadn’t expected Vander to actually bite, or at least not this hard. He gripped the blankets, his heel perching on the cot’s edge as if ready to bolt, but Vander lifted his nightshirt, spit on his tip, and pushed in.

“Oh! Fuck!” Silco’s nails dug into Vander’s stomach as he forced his body to adjust. He whimpered after just a few hard pumps, whining and rigid and biting his lip to keep a scream in. 

Vander fought to catch his breath as if Silco had his hand around his throat. His cock was squeezed so tightly and the friction was so intense that he knew this had to be hurting Silco. Over and over he had to remind himself that this was what Silco wanted. Not care or patience or love or anything other than this. 

Silco’s mouth fell open, but no words could form at all now as he was rocked up the bed. 

Vander panted, his hair falling in his face as he looked at him through tears prickling at his eyes, his thrusts hard and steady, holding none of his strength back. “You wanted it like this?”

“Yes.” Silco gritted out, both nodding and shaking his head, his own eyes glassy, but the glide was gradually becoming slicker with every stroke. “It doesn’t… It doesn’t matter… how. Just you.” Little sounds were coming from his opened mouth as he stared, his eyes never once leaving Vander’s, almost in disbelief that Vander was actually here. “I don’t care, I just…” He shook his head again. 

Vander held his face close when Silco tried to look away, as he asked in earnest, “Why? What do I have to do to convince you that you deserve more than this, Sil?”

As Vander pulled Silco to the edge of the bed again, Silco’s cheeks were turning the shade of pink that Vander loved, his chest rising and falling faster and faster as he reached for Vander’s chest. “Vander… I… I’m… I’m…” He suddenly squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth as he sobbed, “I am… fucking… crumbling, I’m falling apart.”

Vander felt his groin and the front of his thighs start to warm before he looked down to see Silco squirt heavy and free between them as he writhed and arched, coming hard and wild as if he had been battling something within and had won. 

And he was so goddamn beautiful. 

Again and again, he gasped Vander’s name as if seeking him out in the dark after waking from a nightmare. 

Vander’s hand covered Silco’s chest as if he could grab hold of his heart and ride out Silco’s orgasm clinging to it like a lifeline. A slender hand covered his, holding on until Silco began to slip out of his reach again. Vander caught his waist to pull him back flush to his hips, keeping him planted, his thumbs touching over his navel for how small Silco’s waist now was under his hands. Again, Silco’s touch sought him out, holding his wrist and then covering his palm tightly as he moaned and sobbed.

“I’m close,” Vander managed to say, feeling Silco’s legs hook around his back the second he started to pull out.

“Don’t,” Silco breathed, imploring him with his open expression. “I want… I want you… to… Please… please.”

That desperate plea wasn’t at all cold nor void of feeling and it sent him over the edge. 

His free hand cradled Silco’s head and he pushed to the hilt as he released deep inside him, imagining how he was filling him up. 

It left him lightheaded and unable to keep a firm hold on the bitter anger that had spurred him. 

Gazing down at the man still holding his hand, all he could think of was Silco’s heat and want and softness that Vander so desperately longed for, not the barbs and ice he’d been fighting so hard to get away from. 

“I miss you,” Vander heard his own lips say, panicking a little when Silco squeezed his eyes shut and continued to moan in response, saying nothing. He was more deliberate the second time, even if it was hopeless. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if Silco didn’t care. He whispered above him again, “God, I miss you, Sil. I love you so fucking much.” 

Silco turned his head away, his lip caught in his chipped teeth. 

Vander sighed, covering him, peppering his cheek with kisses only to find his nose was wet when he kissed it.

So were his lashes. Tears streamed as his lips trembled.

“Oh, baby.”

Silco tossed his arm over his face. “Shut up and keep fucking me.” He sniffed, his voice a tiny little thing. “And I miss you too… And I love you… too, alright? And I’m sorry for—”

Vander’s heart stopped. He froze. “No, no, no. You don’t have to apologize, darling, that’s… That’s all I’ve ever wanted, was just for you to love me back.” He smiled, feeling his own tears wet his cheeks. “Well, I’m never gonna shut my mouth now.” 

“Then get off of me.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Vander cooed. “Come here.” 

Vander carefully lifted him, climbing up on the bed to properly lie him down, sliding back into him slowly and carefully. He eased past Silco’s frown, kissing his face as he held him. “I missed the hell out of you, boy. But you know it’s not just for this.”

He kissed his neck, letting the man hide as much as he needed to as he felt him continue to cry into his neck when his arm reached to cling to Vander’s back. 

“Did I hurt you?”

He felt Silco shake his head before he leaned back enough to see his face.

“I needed it. Vander—”

“You’re a nutcase, you know that? What you need is care and—”

“Yes,” Silco nodded quickly, desperately. “I need… I want… your care and… your consideration of,” he shrugged, holding his stump. “I just need you.” He implored Vander so earnestly through tears as if something inside him had finally broken. “I really need you. I am not…” He shook his head. “I’m not alright.”

Vander kissed his forehead. “That’s pretty obvious, love. We can stop and we can talk. We need to—”

“No, please, you don’t understand how much I need this. Please keep going. Please,” he whispered, squeezing Vander as he rocked his hips, trying to get Vander to move. “I just want to feel you and no one—nothing—else.” He rubbed his face. “If you stop, I will… throw a tantrum, the likes of which you have not ever witnessed,” he teased weakly, his pretty eyes on Vander’s chest.

Vander brushed back his hair, understanding. “Oh, is that so? I might actually like to see that—some other time,” he quickly added when Silco’s eyes rounded in panic. 

Vander covered him, cradling him in his arms as he kissed him sweetly, deeply, letting a small eternity pass just reacquainting himself with the softness of those lips and the wet heat of his sex as they lay together until they both felt their bodies getting hot again. Vander propped himself up on his elbows just to watch Silco’s eyes roll and his breath flutter out in little whimpering moans with every slow roll of his hips. 

It didn’t matter how much time they’d spent apart. Vander felt like their bodies had built a stockpile of the lust they hadn’t spent and now he was going again, hiking up Silco’s legs and burying himself deep with every hard slap as Silco’s hand covered his poor battered cock and let him ride. 

He grunted, watching his come spread and drip all over Silco’s folds. “I’m making a mess. There’s not gonna be anything left in you when we’re done.”

Silco shook his head and held him tighter. “Just fill me up again,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be empty, not when it’s you inside me.”

As the first hints of daybreak began to creep into the pit, Vander was beyond exhausted but still ravenous. Still starving for this beautiful man as he watched Silco tremble and writhe through a powerful, breathless release, arching his back against Vander's chest as they lay on their side, his hand clawing at Vander’s bicep. 

Silco’s chest rose and fell as he panted hard, covered in a sheen of sweat down the length of his abdomen to his navel and beyond. He pushed his wet hair from his forehead but it still stuck to his nape and shoulders. Vander swept his hand up one smooth thigh to his hipbone and tickled over his stomach, his lips trailing along the column of his neck. 

“I love you,” Vander whispered again, as if he still didn’t know for sure that Silco believed him. 

Silco closed his eyes, but didn’t turn away. He drank in the sound of those words, so Vander said it again as he felt Silco idly petting over his wrist, smoothing out the cords of Felicia’s necklace.

Vander paused, looking down at it under Silco’s hand. 

Refusing to overthink it, he reached down for the clasp, unlatching it. He smiled, having to wrap it twice around Silco’s little wrist so it wouldn’t slide off. “Well, I’ll be damned, Sil, the stone matches your eyes.”

Silco stared down from the necklace up to Vander behind him. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” 

“But why?”

“‘Cause I love you, I said.”

“But, this is…” He shook his head, panicking and breathless. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

“You gave me your heart. That’s all I wanted.”

“Well, you gave me yours. We were even. It’s still not fair.”

Vander rolled his eyes, sighing heavily into Silco’s hair. “Well then, gimme one of yours then.”

They both eyed the little corded bracelets and hair ties on Silco’s wrist. They snorted, laughing. 

Vander shook his head, still chuckling. “You and your wee, little bird arm, and your bird beak of a nose… little birdie Coco,” he teased, making them laugh again.

Suddenly Silco tucked his wrist under his cheek, hugging the necklace to himself as he whispered, “It’s really pretty, Vander. It always has been.”

“Yeah… just like you. It suits,” he sighed, wrapping Silco in his arms with a smile as he closed his eyes. “But now I’m less pretty.”

Feeling Silco’s body shake with quiet laughter was a heaven he hadn’t thought he’d get to feel again as Silco whispered back, “Impossible.”

+