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Chapter Text

The apartment complex where Vander apparently lived was a maze. It had taken you twenty minutes of determined wandering to find the right door, and you could only hope that the takeout pizzas you had brought with you as a peace offering was still warm. 

You could have cut the time it took to find his apartment in half with a phone call, but something stopped you from asking for help. It wasn’t Vander himself. No, Vander was kind to a fault, forgiving—the easiest person to ask for assistance.

It was his brother. Or, more accurately, it was the phantom of his brother that his descriptions had conjured in your head. You and Vander had been dating for a little over two months, talking for even longer, and you still hadn’t been over to his apartment, because Silco is very private. Silco is particular about his space. Silco doesn’t just let anyone in. 

Vander assured you that, when he finally introduced you, his brother’s opinion of you wouldn’t change anything about your relationship with him. But you could tell when he was telling half-lies to ease your chronic anxiety by now. 

You paused at the threshold. Under your feet was a worn down mat that said “Welcome,” bookended by small flourishes. It looked out of place outside a bachelor's apartment, and you wondered which of the brothers had selected it for adornment.

There wasn’t a doorbell. You pulled your phone from your pocket to text Vander to let him know you were there, but then paused. Was a text really the best way to announce your arrival? Would a phone call be better? Or should you just knock? 

Vander wouldn’t care. Vander wouldn’t overthink this, wouldn’t analyze your decision to parse apart your fear. But it wasn’t Vander you were worried about. 

Swallowing, you let your knuckles fall firmly against the metal, announcing yourself firmly despite your apprehensions. Vander said you were wanted here, so you were. It was that simple. 

Right?

A moment slid by without any response to your knock, then another. Fuck. Had they heard you? Should you knock again? Who was going to answer the door? Vander, or—?

The door swung open before you could continue to imagine worst case scenarios, and you were greeted with a warm “Hey, right on time.” 

Vander, thank god. Your boyfriend smiled warmly at you, arms outstretched to pull you into a hug. 

For a moment, you wondered if displaying your affection so plainly would be offensive, but you shrugged the dour thought off and curled yourself into his chest as best you could while still holding two large pizzas. Vander was massive, and his hugs always swallowed you. He kissed the top of your head gently, and you clung to him, only breaking the contact when he released you. 

“Come inside,” he said, sounding genuinely thrilled that you had arrived. He was always like that with you—although as you had come to know him, you’d realized that’s because he was like that with everyone. Always happy to see them. Always glad to be there. It dizzied you to think anyone could be that genuinely good natured all the time. He stepped aside and made his way to the kitchen, giving you space to enter as well. “Make yourself at home.” 

You stepped inside, looking around to take in for the first time what the word “home” meant to him. The apartment was small, a two bedroom, with a kitchen right past the entryway and a living room cramped with mismatched furniture. 

Like most apartments in Zaun, it was overdue for a remodel. The cabinets looked to be around forty to fifty years old, with scuffing on the corners from the wear and tear of new residents every one to three years. Towards the back, the wall was brick, a leftover from when the building was industrial instead of residential. You weren’t generous enough to say that the space was tidy or clean, but it wasn’t dirty, either. More lived in than anything, it was clear enough that its occupants put effort into maintaining the space. At least, more effort than your ex and his roommates had. 

You were about to wonder if the apartment was relatively clean because guests were coming over, not because it was usually kept that way, but before you could dwell on this at all, an absolutely massive dog rushed at you, almost knocking you over with its excitement at your arrival. Warwick was a beast, easily 200 pounds of fur and muscle, but like his owner, he had yet to show you that his bite was anything worse than his bark. You held the pizzas over your head and said “Hi Warwick!!” with a genuine enthusiasm as the creature put his paws on you, jumping up to lick your face. 

“Warwick!! No! Off!” Vander commanded, to little effect; when he saw his words were doing nothing, he clambered from the kitchen to physically pull his dog off of you, muttering an apology as he did so. 

“Go place,” he told the dog sternly. Warwick sat, not going to his place, and wagged his tail happily. The muscles around his lips pulled into a smile that almost seemed mischievous.

“Go place,” Vander repeated, “or you’re going in your kennel.”

It seemed Warwick did not want to go into his kennel. He stole a glance back at you (or, more accurately, at the pizzas you were holding) and slunk off to curl up on a large dog bed in the corner of the living room.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Vander said, glancing back at you sheepishly. He loved that dog more than anything, probably, but the side effect of his affection, paired with the fact Vander was too massive to really get pushed around by his own dog, was that anyone else around the animal was met with the behaviors that didn’t bother Vander but were certainly overwhelming to them. It was one thing for Wawick to jump up on Vander—the man was six and a half feet tall. It was another thing entirely for Warwick to jump up on you, when you weighed less than he did. The first time you had met him, the jumping had physically pushed you over.

“It’s okay,” you said, finding that you were more or less being honest. “He’s a good boy.”

“He needs to learn how to mind,” Vander said, more to himself than to you. “If he’s not careful, he’s getting enrolled in obedience classes again.”

He sighed, staring his dog down, before remembering more pressing matters. “Here, let me take those for you.” You handed the two cardboard boxes over to Vander, briefly wondering if two pizzas would be enough for five people. You’d seen Vander eat plenty of times before, and you knew his appetite was pretty much bottomless. Connol also ate a lot, certainly more than you and Felicia did, and if Silco was anything like them, your humble offering of two jumbo pizzas felt underwhelming. 

“Are you sure this is going to be enough food?” you asked, chewing nervously at your lip before you could stop yourself. 

“Oh yeah,” Vander said, putting the pizzas down on the counter with the comfortable effortlessness that could only come from being at home. “Silco doesn’t eat much and Felicia said she’s bringing something too. How much were these?”

“Oh, um. Don’t worry about it,” you said, unable to help yourself from turning red. Since you’d started dating, Vander had been a textbook gentleman, anticipating your needs before you knew them yourself and taking care of things so you didn’t have to. It went without saying that he hadn’t let you pay for anything, either. When you’d told your friends about it, they’d expressed relief at you finally finding a man who knew how to treat a woman right and jealousy at their boyfriends not having the courtesy to replicate Vander’s behavior. 

But there was something about it that made you feel unsteady, something that made it feel disingenuous even though you knew you must be wrong. Something like he wasn’t treating you because he wanted to, but because he felt he was expected to. Or that if he knew you better, if he knew what you were really like, he wouldn’t do it at all. Wouldn’t want you at all. 

Your friends said it was a trauma response and that it would dissipate over time. You hoped they were right. 

Vander caught your eye and gave you a look that you knew was meant to be comforting, not patronizing. “I insist.”

You relented, knowing he’d just slip cash in your wallet when you weren’t looking. He handed you a few neatly folded bills, and you pocketed them, saying nothing about how he had rounded up far too generously when paying you back.

With that out of the way, you took a closer look at the decorations in his apartment. It was eclectic but cozy. Posters advertising garage bands from Zaun’s underground punk scene hung behind the TV, and a fleece blanket with three wolves howling was draped across the back of the couch, proudly on display. You opened your mouth, almost letting a teasing remark slip through your lip, before you realized that the blanket might not be his, but Silco’s.

Instead, your eyes caught on three acoustic guitars hanging on the wall, all different makes. There was an electronic keyboard, too, tucked away in one of the corners behind Warwick’s bed. “I didn’t know you played,” you said, nodding towards the instruments. 

“He doesn’t,” a low voice murmured behind you, and your stomach dropped to the floor. “At least, not well.”

You turned around to put a face to the speaker, and immediately wished you hadn’t. Staring back at you was the human embodiment of a bad idea, thin lips curling up into the smallest hint of amusement as you tried to make sense of what you were seeing. 

Where Vander was all muscles and bulk and vitality, this man was sharp lines and angles, with an air of something vaguely unhealthy. But the vague sense of sickness that clung to him did nothing to make him any less breathtaking. His face was slender, almost androgynous, and might have looked angelic with any other expression other than a knowing smirk plastered across it. His eyes were pale: a baby blue that punched you right in the gut with how undeniably gorgeous they were, even as they raked themselves up and down your body, sizing you up.  

He was, without a doubt, the most attractive person you had ever seen in your life. 

Fuck, you thought, feeling helpless in the riptide of those blue eyes. Panic seized you as you realized you’d been pushed into water far too deep to swim in and were already drowning.

This was Vander’s brother.

Chapter Text

The gorgeous man in Vander’s apartment stretched languidly, like a cat. The general effect was that of someone who had just rolled effortlessly and perfectly out of bed, and, considering that he apparently lived here, he very well may have. You caught the briefest glimpse of a trail of dark hair on his stomach as his shirt lifted to accommodate his movement. You could feel your face turning red despite yourself, watching him run a slender, almost delicate hand through a messy shag of black hair. 

The moment of you turning to look at this blue-eyed problem couldn’t have lasted long, but it felt like it did, and you were beyond grateful when Vander laughed easily and confessed, “It’s true. I can barely get through the chords for Wonderwall, but it’s been enough to impress girls at parties before.” Then, blissfully oblivious to the tension in the room, Vander stepped towards the other man and put a thick hand on his shoulder, pulling him into a side hug as he proudly announced, “This is Silco, my little brother.”

You opened your mouth to say something. Nothing came out. 

Watching you struggle, Silco’s mouth deepened its smirk. “You’re staring,” he crooned. 

Shit. “Sorry. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard, um. A lot about you.”

Your internal monologue went into overdrive flinging insults at you. You might as well give up now, break up with Vander, and leave this cursed apartment, never to return. It would be far kinder to your poor ego. 

But as you flagellated yourself mentally, Silco’s terrible, beautiful eyes finally left you to instead fix Vander with the same sardonic look. “Only nice things, I hope.”

Vander let out a chuckle and gave Silco this full body nudge you’d seen him also give Benzo and Felicia, a playful gesture that was part of his good-natured teasing you’d yet to earn yourself. “I was completely honest with her.”

“Ah. Then my reputation is already ruined beyond repair,” Silco drawled. Then, as though he remembered something Vander had told him earlier, he turned back to you with a small nod you almost missed and said, “It’s nice to meet you, too. Please, make yourself at home.”

Satisfied that the two of you were getting along well enough to not need additional supervision, Vander extricated himself from the entryway and busied himself finding some kind of stimulus that would keep Warwick from suspiciously eyeing the counter where the pizzas sat. But Silco’s change in demeanor, from teasing to courteous, gave you a bit of whiplash. You coughed out a thanks, unable to make yourself look anything resembling comfortable. 

Perhaps sensing your struggle, Silco slid past you into the kitchen, looking over his shoulder as he said, “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea, maybe something stronger?” You caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as he passed, undercut by something sweet. Vanilla or molasses, maybe.

“Um, sure,” you said, then, realizing you hadn’t actually answered the question of what your preference was, echoed, “Something stronger?” You desperately hoped that a touch of alcohol in your system would help you act more like an actual human and less like an awkward, anxious wreck.

He nodded. “Let’s see…we have plenty of beer, some rosé from when Felicia was over last, and most liquors. And I should be able to do most basic cocktails. Pick your poison.”

You paused. When you didn’t answer immediately, Vander, pausing between making Warwick lie down for a giant braid of pig intestine that was probably longer than your forearm, called out, “He makes a mean White Russian.”

“It’s true.” Silco kept his voice smooth and matter of fact, but his face softened at his brother’s genuine praise. “My mules aren’t bad, either.”

“Either’s fine.” You paused again, panicking at your inability to make a decision, and quickly tacked on, “Maybe a mule. If that’s okay.”

“Make one for everyone, Sil. Felicia likes those, too,” Vander said, walking back towards the kitchen now that he had satisfied himself with getting Warwick properly settled in with something to occupy himself. He stopped next to you, standing close, and slid a hand behind you, letting it settle on the small of your back. You leaned into his touch, grateful for something grounding.

Before you could get too comfortable, Warwick bolted up and sprinted towards the door, starting to whimper incessantly. “Licia’s here,” Silco murmured, casting a glance at Vander before continuing to slice a lime into wedges.

“What gave you that impression?” Vander asked, voice playful. He gave you a light peck on the forehead and made his way to the door, grabbing at Warwick’s collar to try to keep the beast at bay. Warwick let out a huge whine and then yawned, canines longer than your thumb on full display.

Vander opened the door, and Felicia waltzed in breezily, moving with an effortlessness you only wished you could replicate. “Hello, handsome,” she crooned at Warwick, who was whining without her attention. Then she flashed a smile at Vander, her expression just as warm and pleasant as his always was.

“It’s been too long,” Vander said, pulling her into an awkward hug while he tried to keep his dog from jumping.

She giggled. “It’s been two days.”

“Like I said, it’s been too long.”

She slid past Vander and made her way into the kitchen, setting the food she’d brought with her down on what counter space Silco wasn’t using before turning to you and brightening even more. “Hello, cutie!” she said, gleaming, and pulled you into a hug that was just as warm and familiar as the one she had given Vander. You hugged her back, genuinely happy she was here.

“Is Silco being mean to you?” she asked, her voice a theatrical whisper. You shook your head no, and she nodded back, satisfied. “Good.” Then, to your surprise, she turned and hugged Silco from behind, telling him, “You’d better be nice to this one, I like her. I want her to stick around.”

“I am ,” Silco groaned, although his annoyance sounded mostly for show. He shot you a look that was almost friendly and said, begging, “Please tell her I am.”

“He is,” you assured her. She pouted at you.

“It doesn’t count if it’s coerced.”

Vander rounded the corner, having just settled Warwick back into his bed. “He is,” he said, seconding you.

“I have been on my very best behavior,” Silco said innocently, passing Felicia a finished cocktail. You noticed, with mild surprise, that there were only three drinks remaining on the counter where there should have been four. There was an absence, and no one had said anything.

“Where’s Connol?” you asked.

There was a brief pause. Something passed over Felicia’s face as she turned to look at you, something like apology, or maybe guilt. Silco raised an eyebrow, waiting for her response.

“He couldn’t make it. Picked up a double again.”

“Oh,” you said weakly. You looked at Vander, then Silco, quickly studying them for any hint of surprise, but found none. Had Felicia already told them Connol wasn’t coming, and Vander had just forgotten to mention it to you? Or was this the first they had heard of it, but it was so normal for Connol to cancel that they found themselves unable to summon any real reaction?

“The man works too much,” Vander said finally, breaking the tension. 

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Silco murmured, passing you your mule. Your fingers brushed against his accidentally as you accepted the drink with a quiet thanks.

“Van’s not even half as bad,” Felicia said, shaking her head and taking a sip of her drink.  “Mmm. Silco, this is amazing.”

You take a sip of yours, and she’s right. It’s dangerous: you can barely taste the vodka. Just smooth ginger ale with lime, shaken with ice to make it deliciously cold.

“I learn from the best,” Silco said, casting a look at Vander, who grinned at what you assume is rare praise, and then everything was normal again, the strangeness at Felicia’s admission that Connol wasn’t coming long forgotten. 

—

If you were being honest with yourself, you’d been terrified that the evening would be a disaster. You got along well with Felicia and Vander, who, admittedly, both got along well with just about anyone, but you hadn’t known what additions Silco would bring to the dynamic, and you had worried that with him there, things would fall apart. When Vander had finally invited you over to meet his brother and spend time with him and his closest friends, it had felt like the evening was some sort of audition. If you wanted to keep playing the part of his girlfriend, you had to pass.

But a half hour later and a drink and a half in, you could see that your worries didn’t match up with reality. If you had been alone with him, Silco might have been a nightmare for your anxieties to navigate socially, but buoyed by his two best friends, he was fine. You could almost pretend that, instead of begrudgingly accepting your presence in his home, he was actually pleased you were there.

The first substantial thing you learned about Silco was that he was very into politics. This wasn’t uncommon among Zaunites your age, but he spoke about the freedom that Zaun deserved with a particular heat in his voice that told you that this wasn’t just a theoretical matter to him, but something deeply personal. The subject had come up while the four of you had been playing Never Have I Ever, when, wracking your brain for something to say on your turn, you had managed, “Never have I ever been arrested.”

You hadn’t actually expected anyone to drink. If anything, you were trying to move the game along to Felicia’s turn, since the little knowledge you had of your company put you at a serious disadvantage for coming up with any real, pointed, statements to make someone drink to. But after you spoke, Vander and Felicia traded a look that made you think you had said something wrong.

You opened your mouth, about to apologize if you had overstepped, when Silco locked eyes with you and, looking incredibly smug, took a long, deep drink from his mule. He almost looked proud.

“Oh,” you said quietly.

“Oh,” he repeated, his lips twitching up into what you were beginning to recognize as his version of a smile.  His eyes dared you to ask the question that was practically falling off your lips. 

“What…happened?”

He shrugged nonchalantly, easing himself back into his chair and taking another sip of his drink. “I was at a protest across the river. Things devolved into a riot. Maybe I threw a brick, maybe I didn’t. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold me for more than twelve hours, so they let me go.”

You blinked, taking in the implications of what he was saying. “So you’re a Separationist?”

The answer was so obvious, he didn’t bother confirming it. Instead, he lifted an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side a little. “Aren’t you?”

You paused before answering. Were you? You took another sip of your drink, buying yourself a little time before you committed to a stance in front of the two most important people in your boyfriend’s life. “I think…Zaun should be self-governed, but I’ve never been to a protest or anything,” you admitted.

Silco made a little hum in the back of his throat, one that might have been approval, and said, “You should come to one sometime.” Next to him, Vander nodded.

“Did you know,” Silco continued, the passion in his voice deepening, “that life expectancy of Zaunites is nineteen years shorter than the life expectancy of people born in Piltover?”

“I did not,” you admitted. “That’s disgusting.” 

“It’s worse for men,” he continued. “Men in Piltover live twenty six more years than men in Zaun do, and that’s after you account for mining and other industrial accidents.”

“That’s…horrible.” You find yourself at a loss for words confronted with the reality of these statistics. Growing up in Zaun, you of course had known the differences between Piltover and the Undercity were staggering, but you hadn’t known just how bad it really was. The thought that these numbers applied not just to you, but to people you cared about, made you feel sick.

“Don’t encourage him,” Vander said, amused. 

“Once he gets on this, there’s no stopping him,” Felicia echoed, her voice warm. But Silco pressed on, the fervor seeping into his voice growing with each sentence. 

“It’s not just a discrepancy in income, either,” Silco said, completely ignoring Vander. You shifted in your seat, closer to him, and he mirrored you, leaning in and fixing you with a gaze as intense as his words. “If you compare the life expectancy of low-income earners in Piltover against Zaunites with the same yearly income, Zaunites are still dying sixteen years earlier than our friends across the river. This isn’t surprising, given that just about every quality of life factor is significantly worse here. We’re…what was it, ten times more likely to develop a substance abuse disorder, fifteen times as likely to commit suicide, five times as likely to get divorced? Our public health resources are completely swamped with so many crises, and they don’t have the funding to deal with any of it, because all the money is going topside.”

You pause, trying to make sense of what he’s telling you. “Does the government…know this? The council…knows?”

“Of course they do,” Silco scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Who do you think has the resources to compile these kinds of statistics?” He let out a long sigh, resigning himself to something. “So I threw a brick through a Piltie window. Sue me.”

Felicia and Vander laughed warmly. Maybe it was that he was an integral part of a friend group you desperately wanted the approval of; maybe it was the way those blue eyes make your gut twist with something you didn’t want to overanalyze. Either way, in this moment, you had actually gotten Silco to open up to you, and you didn’t want it to end. 

You narrowed your eyes a fraction of an inch before speaking, your voice trying to strike a balance between a blossoming tenderness and a joking camaraderie that would be appropriate for the situation. “Let me guess. You’re a political science major. If you’re not, you should be.”

The statement was meant to, in some small way, show him that even if you didn’t know him well yet, you still understood him. But something about it didn’t quite land. His face twisted as he pulled away, and Vander and Felicia exchanged glances again. 

“I was a political science major,” he said softly.

Before you could ask what happened, or before you could say anything to try to soften the awkwardness of the situation you’d created, he continued, probably in an attempt to give you the information needed to stop treading on sore territory. “I dropped out of school last year.”

“College isn’t for everyone,” Vander said easily, smoothing things over with his natural charisma and giving you an opportunity to patch up what, even if Silco likely wouldn’t admit to it, was probably a great deal of hurt. 

“I don’t even know if it’s for me anymore,” you admitted. “Working and going to school is…hard.”

“What’s your major?” Silco asked lightly, feigning a polite half-interest. You blushed. 

“I’m…undeclared,” you admitted. “I want to study marine biology, but the field is oversaturated.” 

“Oh?” Silco quirked an eyebrow, the fake interest replaced by something else.

“You have to be very specific about what it is you want to study,” you said, elaborating. “A general interest in the field doesn’t get you far. I want to study the effect of pollution on microorganisms in the Pilt’s estuary, but…well, funding is hard to come by for that line of questioning.”

“Because the people with the money don’t want those questions getting answers.” 

“Exactly.”

For a moment, it was just the two of you, his eyes locked on you with an intensity you didn’t understand. And then it was over, as he turned those same too-blue eyes towards Vander and asked, seemingly non-sequitur, “Where did you say you found her again?”

“Tinder,” the two of you admitted, speaking simultaneously. 

Then there was laughter. Lighthearted jokes. And any awkwardness, any bruised feelings melted away into the ease and the simplicity of being drunk in a room with a few hand selected people who actually, genuinely seemed to like each other. You brought your mug to your lips again and sipped, nursing the warm feeling in your chest. One you hadn’t felt quite like this in a long time, one you didn’t want to let go of any time soon. 

You were welcome. You belonged.

Chapter Text

Evening passed into night with the quiet ease where the flow of time seemed to be forgotten. There had been a round of overly competitive board games, one where every time Silco managed to bump another player back to their starting place in Parcheesi, he would theatrically kick their piece to the side while locking eyes with them and letting out a particularly fake sounding, “so sorry.” Now, you were watching old YouTube comedy skits on the TV, nursing your drinks and snacking on junk food, conversation and laughter peppering the living room all the while. 

Felicia had brought pigs in a blanket that, using some kitchen wizardry that eluded you, she had somehow managed to put actual eyes and ears and snouts on. They seemed too cute to eat to you, but Vander seemed to feel differently: he was popping one in his mouth at a consistent rate of one every two minutes until the tupperware they were housed in had grown empty. Silco picked at a bag of salt and vinegar chips, engrossed in a video of two engineers who had apparently built and programmed an attachment to teach a robotic dog to piss beer into Solo cups. 

“Vander,” he said, with a misty quality to his voice that suggested he was thinking more than speaking. “When you open your bar. You need one of those.”

“Excellent idea,” Vander slurred. “We’ll call it Warwick 2.0.”

Vander’s capacity for drinking had always impressed you, but tonight, he had been something else. A beast with a bottomless stomach, he had amassed a collection of empty beer cans before him like war trophies. The number surely would have been enough to have anyone else bent over a toilet bowl, but he seemed perfectly fine.

At least, you had thought he seemed perfectly fine. While the rest of you were gigging, watching the pissbot try and fail to aim beer correctly into red cup after red cup, Vander stood up, attempting to exit the room. He made it about six feet before he stumbled, catching himself against the wall, and began to retch. 

You stared, frozen. Between your own haze of overconsumption, combined with the absurdity of the situation before you, that Vander had somehow managed to drink too much, you felt like some ancient computer struggling to boot up. This couldn’t be happening. 

But it was. And it was happening to your boyfriend, and you were sitting there, doing nothing, showing just how useless of a partner you were to his two closest friends. His knees buckled, and he found himself on all fours as the second wave hit him, a stream of liquid and half-digested food pouring mercilessly from his mouth. 

Before you could pull yourself together, Felicia was there, kneeling by his side, while Silco struggled to restrain Warwick, who, given the opportunity, would surely attempt to eat the vomit off the floor. You stood, trembling, uncertain, feeling entirely useless. 

“Again?” Felicia said softly, her voice directed at Vander. Then she turned to you and Silco, face apologetic, like this was somehow her fault, or Vander was somehow her responsibility. 

“I’ll take care of him,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. Next to her, Vander was frozen, still on all fours. Something about his daze made you wonder if he would even remember this the next morning. 

“I can help,” you offered quickly. But she shook her head and gave you a look that was almost…sad. 

“It’s okay. I’ve done it before.” 

And with that, she started helping Vander stand, peeling him off the floor and propping him up as she gently guided him towards what you assumed must be his bedroom. The rejection stung more than you wanted to admit. 

Silco, for his part, had managed to loop a leash around one of the legs of the couch and clip it to Warwick’s collar, so that the mess of the living room could at least be cleaned without worrying too much about any giant dogs getting into anything. Now he was in the kitchen, rifling around in a drawer, clearly looking for something. You started scooping Vander’s empty beer cans into your arms, determined to do something to help before Silco could just dismiss you, too. 

You paused on the threshold where carpet gave way to old laminate, watching him scour a cabinet beneath the sink and curse when he couldn’t find what he was looking for. 

“Um. Where’s the recycling?” you asked timidly.

He turned to look at you, then sighed. “It’s here,” he said, stepping aside and letting you get into one of the cabinets he had been looking through. The recycling was apparently a cardboard delivery box that had been repurposed, and it was clear it had seen its share of use. Next to it was a half-full trash can with an index card taped to the front that had the word “PILTOVER” written on it in black marker.

You emptied your arms into the box, then looked back at him. “What else can I help with?”

He shrugged. “You can just go.” The words came out nonchalantly, not dismissively, but they hurt anyway. When he saw the look on your face, he clarified, “This…happens sometimes. We should have kept a better eye on him.”

“I still want to help.”

Silco’s eyes narrowed as he thought, trying to piece something together. “Well. You could box any leftovers,” he said finally. “I’m not letting you clean my brother’s vomit.”

It was probably a gesture of politeness, but it still made you feel helpless. “I can.”

“No,” he insisted. Just as obstinate as his brother. 

There wasn’t much food left; just two slices of pizza and the bottom crumbs from Silco’s chips. The chips were thrown away and the pizza was put into a plastic bag in less than a minute, and you figured it would also be helpful if you washed and dried out the tupperware Felicia had used to bring food, so you did. When you finished, you found Silco in the living room, attempting to mop up the vomit with what looked like a bluish bath towel. 

He looked up at you. “We’re out of paper towels.”

You got down on your knees next to him and did your best to press your weight into the towel to increase absorption. “I said you don’t need to do this,” he muttered next to you.

“And I said I wanted to help.”

When the mess was mostly blotted up, Silco pulled out some enzyme cleaner for pet messes and handed it to you to spray on what had soaked into the carpet while he tried to scrape any food bits off the towel before throwing it in the washing machine. The two of you worked mostly in silence. For your part, it wasn’t just that the situation was terribly awkward; you were trying to listen in to Vander’s room, to see if you could make out any noises that might suggest if he was doing better or worse. But you heard nothing. 

You thought about going in to check in on him, but something about the way Felicia had turned down your offer to help made you stop. Instead, you stood awkwardly in the living room, feeling a deep pit of dread in your stomach. Somehow, you knew you had failed. 

Silco came into the living room, looking you over once again. “You can sleep on the couch, if you want.”

“It’s okay. I’d rather just…go home, I think.” 

His lips parted and then closed, as though he was going to say something but then changed his mind. Finally, he spoke. “Did you drive?”

“No.” You couldn’t afford your own car. “I took the trollies.”

“Under different circumstances, I’d offer you a ride.” He pulled out his phone. “Which line did you take here?”

“The 220.” 

“East or West?”

“West.”

He typed something on the screen, then nodded. “There’s one coming in twenty minutes. You’ll make it if we leave now.”

You nodded, heading towards the entryway to fumble through the motions of putting your shoes on. Then something clicked: he hasn’t said ‘you’ll make it if you leave now.’ He had said we . 

“You don’t have to—”

“Walk you?” He was already fishing a coat off one of the hooks on the walls. It was dark leather, and when he shrugged it on, you saw that it fit the contours of his lean frame perfectly. “It’s too late for you to go alone. Besides, Warwick needs to go out.”

You paused. Growing up in Zaun left you at a strange impasse: you and people close to you had brushed up against the violence that made its home in your city more than once, making you just as aware as Silco that the Undercity was dangerous at the best of times, and worse after dark. 

But that also meant that you had a sense of knowing how to handle yourself. You couldn’t make it through life here always expecting someone to be able to buddy up with you when you needed to walk home late, after all. You’d taken multiple self defense classes, starting when you were only twelve, and you always kept mace in your purse. You didn’t need someone to tell you to keep your head on a swivel, or to just hand over your valuables in the event of a mugging, because nothing in your purse was actually worth risking your life over, and you certainly didn’t need someone to tell you that if you couldn’t keep your distance in a conflict, to go for the eyes and the throat like you were trying to kill.

You weren’t incompetent . You could keep yourself safe; you’d managed to stay alive this long, which was better than some could say. And the thought of Silco—of anyone —thinking anything less of you honestly made you a little nauseous. But the thing about safety was that it was more commonly found in numbers, and whatever reservations you had about accepting this offer of an escort were rooted more in your pride as a product of the Undercity than it was in actually prioritizing your well-being. 

After asking you to wait a moment and slipping into his own room to grab something, Silco returned from the living room with Warwick, who was practically trembling from hearing the word walk . You swallowed, preparing to give him one last out.

“You really don’t have to.” 

“I’m aware,” he said, opening the front door with a fluid, graceful motion. The way he said it almost sounded haughty, and any small gratitude you felt at the gesture of him escorting you was replaced with annoyance. 

You opened your mouth, but before you could, he held the door open for you with a boot, a hand stretched towards the outside theatrically as if to say, please, ladies first in the most irritating way possible. 

“Well?” He smirked. “Are you coming?”

—

Walking next to Silco was less awkward than it should have been. You chalked that up mostly to Warwick’s presence: it was difficult to feel intimidated by someone who was mostly failing to restrain a 200 pound animal from lunging at squirrels or birds every few feet. 

When Vander walked Warwick, he had an easy enough time taking the leash close to the collar and redirecting the huge dog by walking away from whatever was distracting him. But Warwick was stronger than any other dog you’d met, and pulling him away from something he wanted to sniff or chase or put in his mouth took Silco’s whole weight. Even then, Silco had to strain, his knuckles turning white and his body leaning in the opposite direction to counterbalance Warwick’s tugs. Whenever Warwick would finally give up and move forward, it always caught Silco off guard, and he would stagger, recentering himself. It was almost comical, watching the two struggle against each other, and you had to actively suppress laughter at watching this beast of a dog erode Silco’s facade of control.

The alcohol still in your system left you feeling brave, and you felt a smirk twitch at the corner of your lips as you realized this was the perfect opportunity to test Silco’s multidexterity. He was already struggling to control his brother’s dog; how would he do with managing Warwick’s behavior while trying to maintain a conversation at the same time?

“How old is he?” 

You already knew the answer; Warwick was one of the first things you’d asked Vander about when you’d matched, since a dog was a safe topic of conversation, and one both of you had a genuine interest in. But the question seemed innocent enough, and it caught Silco off guard. “Three years? He’s a rescue, so we’re not exactly sure.” 

“Oh.” You were surprised to realize that, despite everything Vander had told you about his dog, he hadn’t mentioned that. 

Among many problems created by the socioeconomic situation in Zaun was what you had heard referred to as an animal crisis: too many unhoused pets were on the streets, and shelters were overstuffed, with adoption rates slowing every year. It hardly shocked you that Vander would intervene in what small way he could rather than purchasing an animal from a breeder, even if he was able to afford the purchase, which, frankly, he probably couldn’t. 

“You could say Vander has…a habit of adopting strays.”

There was something surprisingly vulnerable at the statement, something in his tone you couldn’t read. You got the sense he wasn’t just talking about Warwick.

Before you could think of some way to ask Silco about it gently, without rubbing up against a sensitive subject like earlier, he continued, almost like he realized he had let his guard down and needed to perform damage control before things got out of hand. “Apparently he was at some sort of lab or animal testing facility before he was brought to the shelter. Vander got him when he was about a year old. The staff at the shelter told him he was done growing, but…he wasn’t.”

He let out a laugh, the first you’d heard from him. The sound made you feel warm, and you were grateful that the patchy streetlights concealed the smile you couldn’t suppress. 

“How big was he then?”

“Maybe sixty pounds. A decent size, but he just…kept eating.” He shook his head at the memory, then, in his distraction, almost had his arm ripped off as Warwick bolted for a crow eating discarded food in the street.

“Warwick! Leave it. ”

Almost instinctively, you stepped forward and grabbed at the base of the lead, using what little weight you had to pull the dog back from its target. Silco reacted too, his hands flying to the same place you had grabbed, and there was a moment of awkward readjusting where he reoriented himself to hold the leash right underneath where you had it tight. Straining together, you managed to pull Warwick into submission. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, once you had successfully dragged Warwick away from not only the crow but also away from what was, apparently, a half-eaten hamburger. The combined effort had put you much too close to Silco, and as you reestablished your previous distance, you noticed a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“He acts like you two don’t feed him,” you joked.

Silco let out a small hiss of air in place of laughter. “Did Vander tell you that when he brought him home, it was a surprise? Apparently he went to the shelter on a whim. Wasn’t intending to get a dog, didn’t give me any heads up.”

“Really?” You can’t help but laugh, mentally juxtaposing the images of Silco is particular about his space against Vander bringing home a dog without any warning.

“Really.”

Ahead, your stop finally came into view. It was late enough that no one else was there waiting, and you wondered whether or not Silco would stay until the trolley arrived. He’d already done enough by escorting you, but…you found that you didn’t want him to leave quite yet, even if you’d be fine by yourself.

“I guess this is the part where you tell me that if I break your brother’s heart, you’ll make me regret it,” you mused, feeling bold and ridiculous at the same time. It wasn’t that you doubted that Silco might be overprotective of Vander; it was the notion that you, you specifically, could cause real harm to someone who was so good natured, so strong, with such a supportive circle, that made the sentiment feel silly. 

When Silco didn’t laugh or, even worse, say anything, you flicked an eye back towards him, studying his response. A flush rose to your cheeks at the thought of your joke not landing. 

In the light of the bus shelter, you watched as his eyes narrowed, settling on something indeterminate in the distance. Then, he sat on the bench, weary from managing an animal that weighed more than him for a twenty minute walk that was only halfway done, and looked back at you. 

“No,” he said finally, his voice soft. “If anything, this is the part where I tell you the opposite.”

You let your exhaustion from the tensions of the night take over and drop your body on the bench next to him, looking at him with an expression that did little to mask your confusion. Seeing it, he continued, his words coming at a pace that suggested a deliberate selection. 

“Has Vander mentioned anything about his past relationships to you?”

“No,” you admitted. You hadn’t asked, hadn’t really thought much of it. Your last relationship had ended badly enough that you weren’t keen on discussing it with others at this point, and you figured maybe he was the same. “Did…something happen?”

It felt a little wrong to ask Silco rather than talk to Vander about it directly. But you were still drunk, and curious, and the strangeness of Silco bringing it up had sunk a hook deep into that part of you that was convinced that something had to be wrong with this perfect relationship of yours, so the question fell from your mouth unchecked. 

Silco paused again, not looking at you. Maybe he was picking his words carefully, maybe he was struggling with the ethics of telling you something that Vander should have been the one to share. You couldn’t tell.

Regardless, after a few seconds, he spoke again. “No. It’s that Vander has never dated anyone for more than about four months.”

You paused, trying to decide whether or not this piece of information alarmed you. On one hand, Vander was in his early twenties, busy between working and trying to earn the business degree that would help him get a loan to open his own bar. Was it really that strange that his relationships had struggled to survive that context?

But then, how many relationships had there been, and who was the one ending them? Had multiple women in your shoes learned something about Vander in less than four months that had them walking away, despite presumably receiving nothing but ideal treatment from him like you had? Or had he cut things short repeatedly, and, if so, why? 

And, more importantly, was the same thing going to happen to you over the next two months? Sure, you could be the exception to this apparent rule and have a relationship that lasted years, maybe even a lifetime. But were things going well enough to assume that would be the case? If he broke up with you in two months, would it hurt? 

And, furthermore—

“Why are you telling me this?” you demanded, turning your body to stare Silco down. Your voice came out more accusatory than you intended, but at the moment, you really didn’t care.

Okay, maybe you cared a little , because at the harshness of your question, Silco seemed to wilt. It was almost imperceptible, but you could see it in the way his shoulders slumped towards his core, in the way he broke your gaze and met Warwick’s instead, petting the dog behind the ears as if to calm not just the animal, but himself. The silence stretched on for too many seconds, and for a moment, you wondered if he would leave your question hanging between the two of you until the trolley came, or worse, if he would get up and start walking Warwick back to his apartment without even acknowledging you. 

“Does it matter?” he said finally. 

You blinked. This headstrong, obtuse boy . “Yes, it matters.”

“Does it, though?” He sighed, turning those terribly blue eyes towards you again before deciding that he couldn’t take the way your brows were furrowed in displeasure and looked away. “You don’t know me. Better yet, your opinion of me doesn’t seem to be very high. You probably think I’m trying to create friction so you’ll leave him, and it doesn’t matter what I say if you’ve already made up your mind.”

Something about his words, about the matter-of-fact manner in which he presented them, stung. You found yourself struggling to compose your thoughts. 

“I didn’t…say that,” you said finally. This conversation would be a lot easier to navigate if you hadn’t drank so much earlier, you thought. Your head was heavy and your thoughts were sluggish. Processing his words was getting harder by the minute. 

“You can think something without saying it,” he murmured, more to himself than to you. Warwick let out a whine and stood up from his obedient sit, and Silco mirrored him, standing as well. 

Your hand patted the bench before you could stop it, wordlessly asking him not to go quite yet. “Let’s assume you’ve decided I’m a charity case, and you’re acting in my best interest. Why did you tell me?”

He let out another not-quite-a-laugh and closed his eyes, not sitting, but not leaving, either. “You’re not a charity case.”

When you said nothing, he continued, still curating his words. “It’s just a pattern I’ve noticed. Some girls he’s dated haven’t seen it coming, and they were very hurt. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

You pause again, trying to make sense of what he’s telling you. So Vander was the one ending the relationships prematurely? And Silco, who had only just met you today, was concerned about your well-being…? 

Why?

None of it seemed to line up. Normally, you’d probably press him for more information. But you weren’t sober, and, most likely, neither was he, and you just wanted to sleep. 

“Thanks,” you managed, after far too long of a silence. But he shrugged, dismissing your gratitude—real or not, you still couldn’t quite decide—before it had a chance to permeate his exterior. 

Half a mile away, headlights came into your vision. The trolley would be here in minutes, if not seconds: whatever strange, illusory moment you had here with this boy you didn’t understand was coming to an end. 

He noticed too, his head turning toward the light creeping towards you before speaking. “Can I give you my number?”

You blinked, confused. “What?” 

Those blue eyes rolled back in their sockets, like you were the most stupid girl who had ever drawn breath. He let out a sigh, suggesting that explaining himself to someone like you was pedantic. “So you can text me when you’re home. I know you’ll text Vander, but. He’s probably not well enough to do anything right now if you run into trouble.”

At this, your face turned a deep scarlet. It was so stupid to think he might have meant something else when he so clearly knew you were dating his brother. “Yeah, that’s fine,” you managed lamely. 

He held out one hand, waiting for you to pass him your phone. You did, unlocking the screen with your face before handing it over. The trolley was closing in on you, here any moment. You knew it wouldn’t wait. 

He wasted no time adding himself to your contacts—at least, you assumed he didn’t. From your angle, you weren’t quite sure what he was doing with your phone. His fingers flicked across the screen briefly, and then he was passing the device back to you, not quite making eye contact as he held it out. 

You took your phone back from his outstretched hand, your fingers making contact that had electricity sparking in your gut as you took it from him, and surveyed his handiwork. He’d added himself as a contact: his name, with no effort added to capitalizing it. Next to it was an emoji of a shark. 

“Thanks,” you stuttered, unsure what you were even thanking him for. 

“I assume you can get home fine from here.” If it was a question, he made no indication from it from his tone. 

“Yeah.”

Then he was gone, Warwick following after him with one simple command, and the trolley was pulling up in the same moment. It happened too quickly for your floating mind to make sense of it: you should have been thanking him for walking you here, you thought hazily, but your feet were already buoying you towards empty seats, and you were far too glad to follow. 

—

By the time you’d reached your apartment, the alcohol had fully caught up with you. Every step was a struggle to fight against gravity, and your whole body was heavy, like the earth was threatening to suck you into it. It was such a relief to sink into the comfort of your bed—your bed, not the unknown of Vander’s, not the couch in his living room. A familiar space that was a sanctuary only to you. 

There would be hell to pay tomorrow for your transgressions. You’d been hungover before, and you knew you were probably due for another one. But it had been worth it, hadn’t it?

Maybe. Your thoughts swirled, remembering the evening, trying to piece it together in a way that made any sort of sense. Vander’s warmth next to you as you sat next to him on the couch, making you feel welcome. Felicia telling Silco she liked you, her voice sounding honest rather than performative. Silco walking you to your bus stop, teetering on the edge of revealing too much of himself to you. 

A warm glow spread from your chest, threatening to fill every corner of your body. You had friends. 

You smiled, pulling out your phone. Your body struggled to hold it up, so you rolled to the side, pressing it against your bed as you went to text them. 

First, Vander. You clicked on the contact listed as Boyfriend ?? , the most recent in your history, and typed a quick message. 

Made it home safe. Hope you’re okay. Call me when you get this?

Send. 

Then Felicia. Thanks for taking care of Vander. Is he doing any better?

And then…

Silco. 

Obviously you hadn’t texted him before. So you opened your contacts and fished for him, lazily wondering why he had included a shark emoji next to his name. 

Seconds later, you were typing your first message to him, trying not to overthink it. Home. Thanks for walking me. 

With your debt repaid to him by way of a text, you let your phone drop from your hand and let your thoughts swim again, trying not to replay every time his hand had accidentally brushed yours that night. You let out a deep sigh, chastising yourself. He probably wasn’t even single, anyway. 

But then, if Vander had his girlfriend there that night, wouldn’t he also have had his there?

You paused, thinking. Felicia hadn’t managed to bring Connol.

You were too drunk to parse this apart. Not that it needed parsing; you were dating Vander; and that was that. You were about to roll over and try to fall asleep, but before you could, you noticed something on the screen of your phone. 

Your message history with Silco was still open on your phone, the lone text you had sent suspended on a screen of white. But under that, above where the messages were composed, was the telltale bubble of someone typing, undulating in thought. 

You watched it, mesmerized, as it popped up, blinking for a few seconds, and then disappeared, over and over. Thinking, then rethinking. 

Then, a text on your screen. From him. 

Glad you’re safe. Sleep well. 

Chapter Text

“You know,” Vander said, his voice almost conspiratorial, “you’re probably the first person I’ve dated that Silco doesn’t just tolerate, but actually likes.”

The two of you were on a hiking trail on the outskirts of the Undercity. It had been over an hour drive to get here. The terrain was steep enough that you were both sweating, and you were regretting not investing in a proper pair of hiking boots before now, because the worn-out soles of your tennis shoes were hardly enough to keep you upright whenever the slick mud on the path gave way to jagged cuts of dark rock. The air smelled fresh from the rain that had fallen this morning, which had done little to deter Vander from the hike, and even though the exertion was wearing on you and you knew you’d be sore tomorrow, you felt more than content to just be here with him. 

Your dates with Vander were often like this, where it wasn’t only about spending time with you, but also completing another task: in this case, taking Warwick on a walk long enough to truly tire him out. It made sense, given how busy he was, that he needed to be efficient with his free time, and you didn’t really mind. 

For just a moment, you wondered what kind of dates Silco planned for girls he liked. But before you spent long dwelling on it, something about the intrusive thought made your insides feel sticky with an emotion you couldn’t quite place, and you pushed it all down before it had a chance to ferment. 

It has been about a week since the get-together at Vander’s apartment. That night, he had called you at almost four in the morning, when he finally read your text, and apologized profusely for what had happened. You had noticed the way he talked around the subject rather than naming it, clearly embarrassed, and you had done your best to reassure him that it was no big deal. These things happened, you promised him, and you had a much better time than you had expected, given your anxieties about meeting Silco, and needing to go home early didn’t change that.

The next morning, he had made plans to stop by your work, but had to cancel later. You had only been a little disappointed: you already knew how much he was struggling between school and work and social obligations and, most importantly, caring for an animal that demanded almost the same amount of resources and attention as a human toddler. So, really, it had been fine that it took almost a week before you had been able to meet back up.

You paused before responding to his wholly unexpected statement, trying to decide how to answer without being too vulnerable, but also wanting to keep yourself from being too snarky. Between ragged, overworked breaths, you managed to say, “Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s just tolerating me.” 

Vander let out a short laugh that betrayed just how exhausted the hike was making him, too. ”It’s the truth,” he insisted. “I’ve never seen him take to someone this quickly since Felicia.“

“If this is him…liking someone,” you said dryly, ”I’d hate to see the opposite.”

”It’s not great,” Vander admitted, stopping and gulping greedily at his water bottle before he continued. You mirrored him, relieved to see that he was just as human as you, a mere mortal who desperately needed a break from the unrelenting ups and downs of the last of Zaun’s forested slopes.

“Right after we got our first apartment together, I introduced him to this girl I had been seeing. He didn’t speak to her, he just stared at her for maybe five seconds and then left the apartment.”

You snort. “No he did not.”

Vander raised an eyebrow at you, daring you to contradict him again. “Needless to say, she stopped wanting to see me after that.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Really? I was hoping your feminine intuition would be able to provide some insight,” he said, the sarcasm perfectly balanced with that good naturedness that told you that even if he wanted to, he could never hurt a fly. And then you were laughing together, and every reservation you had about this relationship felt very far away, the way it always did when something made him laugh. That sound alone was the best part of him, you thought. It felt like coming home. 

You continued down the trail. Warwick led the way, but today his usual aggressive tugging was curtailed by a new harness Vander had purchased this week. This one wrapped around his nose, so if he pulled too hard, his head was pulled one way or another, forcing him to slow down. 

As the two of you kept walking, your thoughts stuck to this story of Silco scaring off a girl Vander liked. You pictured Silco’s awkward, drunken admission: Vander has never dated anyone for more than about four months. All week, you’d been thinking about it, trying to decide how concerned you should be. 

Eventually, you had asked your roommate about it, knowing you could always trust her to give you a no-bullshit answer. Together, you’d decided that more context was needed before you could determine how alarming the information was (if it was even true: Silco could be lying, she had pointed out, even if that would have been very stupid of him, since verifying his statement was all too easy). 

In the grand scheme of things, even with Zaun’s shorter life expectancy, Vander was still very young. Some people his age had never even been in a relationship, your roommate had pointed out, so if Vander had had a few girlfriends that hadn’t lasted for a long time, it wasn’t that strange. It also wasn’t that strange when you considered the context of modern dating, she had said. Just because he had been official with these girls for less than four months didn’t mean he hadn’t been talking to them or going on dates with them for longer, potentially making the lifespan of these relationships longer than Silco was perceiving. 

On the other hand, she said, if he’d had many short-lived relationships, it might be a red flag, one that could signal commitment issues or something worse. But regardless of the situation, Vander’s past didn’t predetermine his future, and your relationship with him shouldn’t be discounted just because things hadn’t worked out with past girlfriends. Things hadn’t worked out with your ex, after all, but hopefully that didn’t make you a lost cause. Extending the same courtesy to your boyfriend only made sense. 

Now, with the context of Vander’s story about Silco’s terrible reaction to one of his exes, you couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible that Silco had just scared all of his other partners away. If that was the case, you couldn’t blame the other women for leaving, especially if Silco’s behavior towards you was much friendlier than he had been towards them. But then…if Silco was pushing Vander’s girlfriends away, why would he warn you about Vander’s relationships ending so quickly? Was this how it started: first he eroded your trust in Vander, then applied pressure on the both of you until things snapped?

You bit your lip, not wanting to believe that Silco was anything like your ex. This situation would be a lot easier to parse apart if you just talked to Vander about it, you knew, but how could you do it without admitting that you and Silco had talked about him behind his back? Assuming Silco wasn’t manipulating you and actually liked you even half as much as Vander had said, you didn’t want to immediately betray his trust, especially if he was trying to look out for you in some strange, maybe misguided way. 

Ahead of you, Vander stepped off the trail, taking a moment to rest in a clearing full of a groundcover dotted with small, white flowers. Cradling the clearing were thick knots of trees, their bark coated in green moss and ferns. It was almost impossible to believe that, despite the heavy pollution in Zaun, some place that looked like this was only an hour away. Bitterly, you recalled from grade school lessons that once, many of Zaun’s crags and canyons had been forested, and if it wasn’t for Piltover’s increasing demand for industrialization, maybe they still would be. 

“Look at that,” Vander said, sounding almost wistful. You wondered if his thoughts had wandered to the same melancholy territory as yours. 

“It’s beautiful.”

“Just like you,” he murmured, turning to look at you instead. There was an easy half smile on his lips.

You let out a chuckle. “That’s…incredibly cheesy.”

“Cheddar? Or Swiss?” You laugh again despite yourself, and he continues. “I thought you liked cheesy.”

“Sometimes,” you admit. “When it’s you.”

One of the downsides of Warwick almost always accompanying Vander on dates like a second shadow was that it was hard for Vander to navigate kissing while also handling his leash. But hard didn’t mean impossible. Vander stepped forward and cupped your face with his free hand as he leaned down, and you stood at the very tips of your toes to try to bridge the gap in distance. You were so much shorter than him, and the size difference created a few logistical challenges during certain intimate moments, including him almost always having to stoop a bit to kiss you if he was standing. 

He pressed his lips to yours gently, in a way that was almost chaste. As always, he was very warm, and you could feel him grinning against you. When he pulled away, he pressed another kiss to your forehead, looking at you tenderly. 

When you’d started dating, you’d had no choice but to confess that your last relationship had ended very badly, and you needed to take things slow. He had been more than understanding about it; at the time, you thought he was only agreeing to it in the moment, and would inevitably apply pressure to get you to sleep with him before you were ready. Now, you knew better: he, also, seemed content to take things slow, to allow your relationship to breathe and to grow into whatever shape it took authentically rather than try to rush through milestones. 

At least, that’s what you hoped it was. There were times where you wondered if you were mistaking a lack of passion for a gentle contentedness, not just in him, but in yourself. 

But then. If you didn’t really want this with him, then…why did you know with such certainty that you didn’t want it to end?

As he pulled away, you found yourself grasping at the hem of his shirt. “Can I ask you something?”

He tilted his head a little and smiled at you. Easily. Gently. “Anything.”

The quiet affection in his tone gave you the confidence you needed to commit fully to yourself. “Vander…how many girls have you, um. Dated?”

At least, you thought you’d been confident enough to ask. With the words hanging between you, you felt yourself shrinking. Suddenly, your face was hot, and you couldn’t keep his gaze. It turned out even your insecurities had insecurities. 

“Oh.” He sounded a little surprised. It’s not that weird of a question, you thought indignantly. “Well, I guess that’d depend on what you think counts as dating,” he said, after a bit too long of a silence. 

At first, the desire for clarification surprised you. When you transitioned from texting regularly and meeting for lunch or coffee to actually dating, Vander had been very explicit in asking you to be his girlfriend, so the thought of him thinking of “dating” in nebulous terms didn’t quite make sense. Surely it was a matter of counting the number of people he’d formally asked out before you. But then, modern dating culture could be very sticky, with people acting like couples but avoiding labels. Maybe he’d been so clear when asking you out because of previous bad experiences where an obvious demarcation had not been made. 

“Yeah, I guess,” you said meekly, face still red. 

“And do high school sweethearts count?”

“I don’t…know?” Did they? Gosh, it really had been a ridiculous question.

But why was it so hard for him to answer?

“Is nine a bad answer?” he said finally, sounding almost sheepish. 

“Not if it’s honest.” You meant for the words to sound reassuring, but they probably didn’t. “I was just wondering.” 

And, then, quietly, your words almost a mumble: “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he said easily, his usual easygoing confidence returning. “It’s a pretty normal thing to want to know.” 

You could feel your face flushing again at the ease at which he absolved your transgression. With a particularly vulnerable tenderness, you placed your hand over his, guiding it from your shoulder to rest above your heart. 

“I just. I don’t want to be another number,” you muttered, still not able to look at him. 

“You’re not.” He smoothed his hand from above your heart and brought it to your chin, tilting it up until you were looking at him. His eyes held no hint of insincerity.

“I like us,” he said. 

You blushed again, this time from the softness of his confession instead of the embarrassment of your emotional frailty. “I like us too.”

“And Warwick likes you.”

You giggled. 

“And so does everyone else. I…can’t tell you how important it is, to be with someone who gets along with the people I love.” 

You pause. “Silco?”

“Well, yes. But Felicia too. There’s been…” 

He trailed off, looking away from you for a moment before continuing. “Misunderstandings. In the past.”

“Oh.” It’s difficult for you to imagine someone not getting along with her.

He shrugged. “I want to see where this goes. With you. With me, with all of us.” 

You struggled to suppress your smile. “Me too.”

—

Vertigo was a dive bar not far from where the Undercity’s biggest vertical trolley system stopped at one of the upper levels of Sump, where Felicia and Connol lived. Felicia loved dive bars. And karaoke. And happy hours where drinks were half off right before karaoke started, bringing in a healthy crowd of folks looking to unwind and getting them thoroughly sloshed before the off-tune singing began. 

You took another healthy swig of your beer, the amber liquid fizzing slightly in your mouth before going down. Beer, like karaoke, was one of the things you hadn’t really known much about before dating Vander. But since he wanted to open his own bar one day, maybe even a brewery, he had been more than happy to educate you. 

As it turned out, there was a lot a person could know about beer. It came in various shades, from pale yellow to dark brown, and all varieties ranged quite a bit in how they tasted. Lagers and ales were brewed differently, with ales requiring hot water and lagers using water that was more at room temperature. IPAs tasted like that because of the extra hops added, which had the historical context that sailors used to add extra hops to preserve the beer on particularly long voyages overseas, and the additional hops also increased the alcohol content. It took beer months to ferment before it could be served. 

What you had absorbed about beer was that it was a great way to have a drink in your hand at all times while at a bar with Vander and his friends without going through that drink too quickly. It seemed everyone Vander spent any amount of time with drank a lot , and trying to keep up with them (you were a little desperate for Felicia in particular to think you were, in some nebulous sense of the word, cool ) had led to you bending over a toilet from too many cocktails more than once. But a sixteen ounce pour of beer or, occasionally, cider, if it was on draft, could keep you occupied for quite a while if you sipped at it gently, and you could pace yourself while still nursing the slight buzz you needed to feel calm and happy in such a noisy, overstimulating environment for hours on end. It didn’t hurt that beer usually cost less than mixed drinks, either. 

“The prettiest girls in the bar are up next. You ready?” Felicia said, returning from the bathroom and sliding back onto her stool at the table your group had picked out. Each word was bubbling with excitement. Her hair was pulled back into twintails instead of her usual braid, and she was wearing a flannel she had probably borrowed from Connol, the extra fabric tied around her waist. She also had on a circle skirt that hit her at about her calves, and it arced beautifully whenever she twirled, which, when she was a little tipsy, she did often. The beautiful thing about getting on a stage to sing next to Felicia, you thought, was that you knew that no one would actually be looking at you. 

Except for Vander, probably. Although, as your eyes flicked over to the pool table he had snagged first thing after walking in, where he was now engrossed in a game with Connol and Benzo….maybe not. 

Even before dating Vander, you had known you needed to get out more, and reading bodice rippers while nursing a coffee at a local cafe didn’t really count. But after things had fallen apart with your ex, you didn’t feel like you really had anyone to go with, and the thought of going to a bar by yourself made you feel a bit nauseous. Your roommate had offered to take you out multiple times, but her preferred scene was a little too hard for your tastes, and you had felt helpless and gawky even with her there. So it wasn’t exactly a surprise that, before meeting Felicia, you hadn’t ever done karaoke. 

The first time she had asked you, you had really, really wanted to say no. But more than that, you had wanted her to like you. So you’d agreed. 

And, to your shock and awe, you had actually enjoyed yourself. Now, it was part of your routine with her when she and Connell met you and Vander at a bar. Last time you had met for karaoke, you had even sung a song by yourself. There was nothing like getting on stage in front of a bunch of drunk people and pretending that it was free exposure therapy for your chronic anxiety. Besides, you actually liked to sing, even if you didn’t have the confidence to say you were anything better than okay. 

Not that it made the experience less nerve-racking to have done it a handful of times. “I will be,” you said, raising your glass to your lips once more and starting to chug. When your glass was empty, you got up and followed her as she sauntered towards the stage.

She glowed as she took one of the microphones from the DJ, flashing you her loveliest of smiles. The two of you had performed this song together before, although you had never bothered to rehearse it. At this point, you had done this with her enough times to have a sense of when she would pass the lyrics to you and you would take over, and which parts the two of you would sing together. 

Stepping onto the bar’s half stage, you tried to allow your song’s opening notes to fill you with a sense of ease as you swayed along. Across the room, Vander had realized that the two of you were up, and he was looking towards the stage, smiling warmly at you.

At her? No. At both of you.

Felicia stepped forward, waiting for the little blue line on the screen to tell her that it was time to sing. She usually took the first few lines of a song for you, since it helped break the ice of the performance a bit. She moved to the beat like being on stage was the most natural thing in the world to her.

“We were both young when I first saw you.” She entered perfectly on time, her voice smooth and flawless. Nostalgia flooded you, the way it always did when you heard this song. Suddenly, you were twelve, hearing it for the first time and thinking it was the most romantic thing in the world.

The way Felicia sang it, it probably was. She cupped her hand to her face and then placed it on her chest as her voice painted the beginning of the timeless albeit very cheesy narrative. She sounded hopelessly in love with the song. Maybe even a little with you: you were witnessing her, so she loved you. Surely everyone in the room was picturing themselves seeing her for the first time, summer air kissing her bare skin as she leaned over a marble balcony. 

She took a few steps backwards and extended an arm towards you, your cue to take over. Your voice crashed against the lyrics that you were responsible for with a force that always surprised you. This abstract concept of a perfect man named Romeo, and your father, who was absent in reality, warning him to stay away from you, stirred something in your heart that you had yet to experience the like of in real life. A desperation rose in your voice as you begged this hypothetical man to please not go.

Felicia joined you at the chorus. The two of you knew its words like a heartbeat, and as she sang next to you, she took your hand and guided you through a little twirl. Her pension for drama while performing was truly unmatched.

Infected by her enthusiasm, the two of you plunged into the next verse. At “I got tired of waiting,” Felicia actually dropped to her knees, a choreographed move that would leave bruises on her legs and had genuinely shocked you the first time she did it. You extended a hand gently, the way you thought the man in the song might, to help guide her back up. 

And as the song rose towards its final climax, she kept holding your hand, guiding you both into a swirl of hair and fabric, a binary orbit of two stars counterbalancing each other as you circled each other on the stage. By the time you managed to get out “baby, just say yes,” you were doing everything you could not to show that your breath had been stolen and you were hardly able to continue. 

Karaoke was always like this with her: three minutes of unadulterated adrenaline, your heart shattering your ribcage by the time it was over. The two of you exited the stage, still holding hands, grinning ear to ear at each other. 

“Did you have fun?” she asked, absolutely sparkling. You nodded, smiling. 

“Good.”

“I’m going to get another beer,” you said, your voice shaking just a little as you regained your breath. “Do you want anything?”

She shook her head no. “I’m up again in a few songs. Going to go check in on the boys now.”

The counter at the bar was crammed, and it took a minute to place your order. Vander had told you to put your drinks on his tab, but as usual, you were only able to accept the offer for your first drink. His generosity was too much, you thought to yourself, so you handed your own card over to the bartender to start your own tab. 

As your gaze landed on the table your group had claimed for the night, your circulatory system, already thoroughly abused from singing in front of a crowd, nearly shut down. Felicia was there, but she wasn’t alone. 

No one had told you Silco was coming.