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Vander knocks once more, listening intently, but the only sound to come from the other side of the door is the faint echo of his knuckles against the wood. His other hand tightens around the sharp edges of the key in his pocket. He has never used it without Silco directly telling him to before, but…
A door creaks open, but it’s not the right one. Vander turns around to find the neighbor, poking her head into the landing, owlish eyes blinking in nervous curiosity. Her features relax as soon as she recognizes him. (And of course, she does; whatever her work is, she’s able to do it from inside her room, so she spends a good chunk of her free time being the self-assigned gossiper in the building.)
“Oh, it’s only you.”
“What do y- who else could it be?” he asks.
The woman glances down the stairs, then opens her door wider. Still safely standing inside her apartment even though, the threshold a line she does not dare to cross.
“I heard two people bringing your friend there two days ago,” she says, “then nothing. He’s still in there though, or someone is, at least, because I heard some noise earlier this morning. I knocked, but no one answered.” She shrugs. “Apart from that, I don’t know shit, but you’re never too careful, you know?”
Vander furrows his brow, thinking over her words.
“Two people… do you know who?”
“Nah. Sounded like a man and a woman, but I didn’t come out to check.”
“Okay, I- Thanks, I guess. I have a key, I’m… I’m going to see what’s up. Have a good night, ma’am.”
She nods, maybe a bit too quickly, and retreats into the safety of her own home, leaving Vander alone again with the closed door taunting him and newfound worry clawing at his insides. It’s the middle of the week – certainly not Silco’s day off, not today, and not yesterday either. So why…?
Maybe he’s sick, whispers a voice inside his head, reasonable and soothing.
Maybe it’s something worse, adds another, more pessimistic – realistic? – and Vander shakes his head to clear it, takes a sharp intake of breath, and twists the key into the lock.
“Hey, it’s me,” he calls as he closes the door behind him. “It’s Vander.”
It’s dark inside, with only the street lights filtering in to map out the outlines of the spare furniture in ghostly green tones. Nothing’s terribly out of the ordinary in the room – two empty bottles forgotten on the wobbly table, and some dishes still in the sink, waiting to be washed. No one is there, either. Vander takes a step forward, wary of the silence.
“Silco?”
The covers are bunched up on the mattress on the floor, the pile of books that acts as a nightstand knocked down – but Vander’s attention is immediately drawn to the ray of light coming from the slightly ajar bathroom door. Next is an achingly familiar voice, maybe a bit too quiet–
“I’m here, Vander.”
–and it’s almost enough to cover the sounds of broken glass screeching underneath his shoes. Vander looks down to find what looks like the remains of a glass, and a bit of blood smeared onto the floorboards. He swallows past the lump in his throat and lightly pushes the door open.
Silco’s on the floor, one arm flung over the closed toilet lid and his head resting on it, dark circles stark against his sallow skin. The unwashed makeup doesn’t help. For a split second, Vander thinks he was right, that his partner has indeed caught some sort of illness, then his gaze lands on the bruises on the side of Silco’s face, almost black around his cheekbone, and his heart clenches.
“Fuck, is… are you okay?”
Silco smiles – it couldn’t be further away from joy, and it reopens the cut over his bottom lip. His tongue slips out to lick at the droplet of blood.
“Did you get into a fight?” Vander asks next, before the silence becomes unbearable.
“No.”
“Then…” He stops as his gaze lands on more bruising, around his wrists, rope burns stark over his skin. A chilling thought crosses his mind. “Did… did a client do this?”
He remembers Silco briefly talking about one he doesn’t like, the last time they saw each other – about an unusual deal, too, one that the Madam agreed to without his explicit consent. Would that be…?
It is – though Silco only nods this time, the message is clear in the way the lines around his mouth harden, something dark flickering in his eyes. Vander stares at him for a few more seconds, unsure of what he should do, before kneeling on the cracked tiles and reaching for his face. Silco shies away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Vander’s arm falls back to his sides. He searches his partner’s face for an answer, any kind, then he looks down at the rest of his body. He is only now noticing that Silco is wearing one of his shirts, and nothing else, the fabric hanging loosely around his slender frame, reaching past mid-thighs. The oversized collar exposes more greenish-blue marks, though less pronounced than on his face, and hickeys trailing along his collarbones. The sight makes Vander feel sick.
He can only watch as Silco wordlessly lifts the hem of the shirt, wincing when he has to adjust his position, and Vander feels something cold drop into his stomach at the sight of his hip. The entire area is swollen and bruised, dark purple next to angry red and sickish yellow. It screams of pain blooming underneath, of something far worse than a slap or a too-rough grip, worse than something a client getting carried away in the throes of passion could easily leave behind. No, these injuries could not be accidental. The bastard wanted it to hurt.
“I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with it,” Silco adds, his fingers ghosting over the injury. “But I can’t walk, can’t even move it, it just… it hurts so bad…”
“It looks like it has been dislocated, Sil.”
“Oh, definitely. Lise helped me pop it back into place. She brought me home, too, with another new hire. I meant… I’m not sure exactly how much damage it did. Can only hope it’s nothing that won’t heal given a little rest, you know?”
Vander has nothing to answer to that. Because yeah, if he doesn’t heal right… If Silco’s left with a slight limp, he will probably earn less at work – clients don’t much like disabled workers, claiming they can find a crippled whore elsewhere for cheaper –, and he will have to give up on their nocturnal endeavors on the other side of the bridge, but he will live. If he can’t walk anymore, on the other hand…
He continues staring at his messed-up hip, not daring to meet Silco’s eyes now, afraid of what he might find there. He can only muster a vague, second-hand picture of that pain, bruises from a very different kind of fight, powerlessness and touches that burn – a picture gathered from hearing Silco spit out half-choked words in between pants and sobs, in the darkness of the night, still shaking from a nightmare.
“Can I…” He swallows past the lump in his throat, forcing himself to continue: “Can I help you back to bed?”
Silco exhales slowly, and he can see the tension slipping out, replaced by bone-heavy tiredness.
“Yeah. Bed sounds good.”
Vander places an arm behind his back, hand over the side of his ribcage – Silco adjusting to fit in his hold like it’s the most natural thing in the world – and the other slipped under his knees. He’s very careful, trying to shift his partner’s weight so it rests mostly on his uninjured side, but he still cringes at the pained wince from Silco.
“Sorry”, he can’t help but whisper, getting back a hum for sole response.
It’s when he has cautiously put him down onto the mattress that an interrogation hits him, tightening the cold grasp around his insides all over again.
“Hey, Sil… if you can’t quite stand… tell me, have you eaten? Since Lise helped you back home?”
The silence he receives is all the answer he needs.
“I… The neighbor, she…” He trips over his words, tries to clear his head. “She told me it’s been two days? Fuck, I… I’m gonna see if there is something left in the pantry, okay?”
Silco only nods, still staring at the stained covers like it’s the first time he has ever seen them. Vander has an inkling he would stare likewise at anything, as long as it means he didn’t have to face him.
He turns around to rummage through the mostly-empty pantry – Silco never keeps it stocked, even when he’s doing well – and comes back to his partner with bread that’s not too stale and a new glass of water, brushing aside with his foot the broken remains of the previous one. For a few seconds, he stays just there, unsure of what to do now, towering over the bed and with Silco pointedly avoiding his gaze, both hands clasped around the glass with the bread laying on his lap. Eventually, Vander sits down next to him, directly on the floor.
“I can go if you want.”
He doesn’t get a reply, so it must mean he can stay. Silco’s still in the very position he laid him down in, half-sitting up with his back propped by the sole pillow in the room, one leg slightly bent so his weight rests more on his uninjured side. His bruised profile is to Vander, and it makes his heart clench to look at those familiar features marred with purples and blues, turning a sickly yellow at the edges of the welts.
“Eat, Sil”, he insists. “Even if you feel nauseous. You need food.”
“I’m fine.”
Vander can’t help but scoff at that.
“Sorry to break it to you, but you’re currently everything but fine. Come on. Eat that piece of bread, and then I swear I’ll leave you be.”
He often has to pressure Silco into eating because the man would do anything before remembering that he has an actual body to think of. He invokes reasons such as being busy, or wanting to save money sometimes, and Vander has to forcefully sit him down at his wobbly table that’s one day going to fall completely apart, put a plate in front of him and, like he would do to a fucking child, stay there until it’s empty. Sometimes Silco seems to discover he’s hungry and that’s over fast, other times he gets distracted halfway through, or more often than not he decides to be difficult and argue for as long as it would have taken to clear the plate. So now, it feels almost reassuring, to have that familiar battle again. Like things aren't so bad.
It’s… easier to focus on what rationally should be done than on what would best help Silco currently. Vander hasn’t got the faintest clue on what to do to comfort him, but he does know he needs food, and water, and rest. The body is relatively easy to care for. The mind… He’s probably not the best person for the task at hand, but he’s the one that’s here, so that will have to do.
“There. Are you happy?”
He’s happy indeed to hear that bite in Silco’s voice, more so to find he has actually finished the bread and water. If he manages to get annoyed, then he isn’t doing that bad. It’s when he isn’t responding at all that things are seriously wrong – Vander had to learn that the hard way.
“Good. I’m just… going to take that away.”
He takes the glass of water back, just to make sure it doesn’t get broken like the other one – doing his best to ignore the way Silco flinches when he reaches over. He puts it down in the sink, considering for one second to do the dishes before deciding against it.
He sits back down and slumps slightly, his back to the wall, mattress on his left, gaze trailing up to the ceiling. The paint job is sloppy there, uneven layers on top of each other, off-white mixing with greyish blue and something that must have been a warm color, but it all looks vaguely muddy now. Poor drainage has left behind damp stains, teardrops that made the coating swell and blister. As a kid, he recalls trying to make stories out of the similar blown-out streaks in his father’s home, figures and landscapes and other lives. Now, it only reminds him of bruises. Buildings and bodies molded alike by their mess of a city, by poverty and toxins and hopelessness, crumbling under their own weight and the looming pressure from Topside.
He looks back at Silco.
“Should I… should I look at your injuries?”
“It’s fine.” A small pause, then under the weight of Vander’s gaze – wondering why “fine” is the first word that Silco utters, regardless of the truth – he reluctantly elaborates: “I cleaned the cuts already. The rest is just bruises. And my hip… But you can’t do anything about that. There is nothing to do about that at all.”
There could be, Vander thinks bitterly, if they had access to real doctors. He’s sure they have something to help after a dislocation, Topside, and some sort of ointment for the bruises too. Or, at the very least, they have painkillers. A way to make recovery more bearable. They don’t directly help, of course, and they are expensive, like all drugs are, so no one in the Undercity bothers with them. They grit their teeth and take it. Those who can’t, well. They won’t have to anymore.
Vander’s fingers itch to touch, reach over to Silco, and brush his greasy raven locks back, but he fights back the urge, grasping firmly his hand with the other. The quiet rebuttal still rings in his ears; “don’t touch me”. He understands why, really, he does, but it doesn’t sit quite right in his chest nonetheless – however, it isn’t about him, tonight. So, he will keep his hands to himself.
He has no words either – it’s Silco’s domain, that, him that usually fills the silence, and now that he doesn’t, Vander has no fucking clue what to say. Oh, sure, it’s not exactly silent – from outside from the constant mutters and sighs and whines, huffs and puffs of steam and pipes, footsteps mixing with mechanical whirring; Zaun never sleeps, but Silco’s room makes its own small bubble of nothing so loud it hurts.
Vander starts to hum instead, under his breath, a small melody he remembers from his childhood. He hears Silco shift on the bed, and when he turns his head, he finds sea-green eyes looking back at him.
“It’s a lullaby my father used to sing,” he offers simply.
“Hmm-mh. I heard it from him once or twice too.”
“Right…”
He whistles two notes again, hesitantly, and Silco smiles a tiny bit, so he continues. His gaze is back to the ajar bathroom door, the glass shards he would have to clean up later, and he nearly misses long thin fingers reaching for his shoulder, stopping just shy of touching. Slowly, he raises his arm, takes Silco’s hand, and, when the other doesn’t pull away, squeezes it slightly.
I’m here. Voiceless, but more honest than he ever trusts his words to be. His thumb starts to rub circles into the back of Silco’s hand. I’m here, always. Whatever you need. He will stay like this, next to that crappy mattress, as long as it takes, not caring that the floor is hard and uncomfortable, that the room is cold at night, or how heavy the silence is, because he can feel a pulse underneath his fingertips and, for tonight, it will have to be good enough.
“Don’t go,” Silco whispers.
“I won’t. I promise.”
*
The sizzling from the frying pan almost masks the sounds of the crutch against the tiled floor. Almost. Vander doesn’t say anything, though, doesn’t turn around, keeping his eyes on his cooking even if he doesn’t have to. He kind of forgets to breathe, too. A thin hand carefully lays the crutch against the counter right next to him, then two arms sneak under his and cross over his midsection. They are back to chest and Vander’s heart is beating so hard that Silco has to feel it.
“It smells good, whatever you’re cooking,” he mumbles into his shirt, and Vander can feel the vibrations from his voice into his own chest.
It’s his first words unprompted since that evening, three days ago – the first time he comes seeking physical contact too. Vander can only hope that it means he’s getting better. This is not the first time he sees Silco injured and bruised, tired past words, and not the first time he sees him break down either, but it rarely lasts for several days like no… Anyway, it’s not one of these things that ever get easier.
He got to take a look at Silco’s injuries the morning after he found him sitting on his bathroom floor, unable to get up. There were more bruises than he was prepared for, having only seen the ones on his face and upper chest before, but his back is quite littered with them too. For a brief second, he tries to picture the scene, the client – the damn aggressor, more so – hitting Silco, again and again, because those bruises are not that bad but they are scattered everywhere across his torso. And for his injured hip – he can only guess rope was involved, given the marks left behind on Silco’s limbs, but… Vander forcefully pushes the thoughts away. Nothing good will come out of that. He’s used to violence, obviously, but not that kind, and he’s starting to feel nauseous. He won’t help Silco like this. He just needs to go through the motions, care for his partner after he’s done with his work day – bring food, make sure he’s eating, and help him wash up, too. Look at how he’s healing, even though he knows there is nothing he can realistically do to help. And, at night, hold Silco when he allows him to do so, and try to comfort him, to find the right words…
He never knows what to say.
“It’s okay”? It’s not. It’s fucking not, and nothing he could say or do will change that. “I understand”? He’s not sure he does. He has seen his fair share of blood, shed enough tears on his own – everyone has, down there, scars carved deep into their bodies and minds – but it was different, and he does not want to compare their pains. “This will get better”? Ha. He wishes.
“I’m here”? You don’t need words for that.
He gently loosens Silco’s embrace, just so he can turn around and take him into his arms instead. It’s familiar, one hand feeling the outline of his spine and the other over one shoulder blade; familiar, too, the way Silco rests his head just above his heart, grasping at the fabric of his shirt over his shoulders.
Vander holds him as he cries, sobs rattling his thin frame, tears staining his shirt as he buries his face into it, turning the light gray dark. Somehow, that’s familiar too. Vander wishes it wasn’t the case, but they have had more than their share of those tearful, desperate hugs, when life gets a bit too hard to bear for the young men they still are. They are still in their early twenties, but their skins bear the memories of all they have survived already, scars crossing over tan and olive skin alike, some faded into silver lines, some still raised and angry. The scars mean they made it out. The nightmares too.
He rubs Silco’s back until he calms down, feeling the outlines of his vertebrae through the fabric of his clothes. When his sobs have morphed into hiccups, and the hiccups into slightly shaky breaths, Vander pulls away, gently guiding Silco’s chin up until their gazes meet. The sea-green of Silco’s eyes pops even more with the blood-shot sclerae, dark circles underneath a bit less pronounced than three days ago.
Of course, it’s not been long enough for his injuries to start to heal in a visible manner, but the pain hasn’t been getting worse, Silco said, and that’s as good as they could hope for so soon after. With the crutches Vander has borrowed from one of his coworkers, on the docks, he’s able to get around a bit, enough at least to go fetch his weekly salary at the brothel the day before. The cogs are still near the sink, there to remind Vander to take one next time he goes to fetch food outside.
He presses a kiss to Silco’s temple before he has to turn away and check that his cooking hasn’t burned.
“Sorry I have–”
“I know.”
Silco leans against him slightly, supporting himself with one hand on the counter, resting the side of his head against his partner’s arm. Vander tries to move it as little as possible as he stirs the food inside the pan, odorant smoke rising to fill the small room.
“Sil?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you describe to me the guy that hurt you?”
He feels more than he hears the breathy chuckle Silco lets out then.
“Um, and why would I do that?”
His tone is light, playful. When Vander glances at him, though, he can see that his eyes aren’t, teal darkened until it’s reminiscent of the waves under a stormy sky. Their gazes meet briefly, and Silco’s lips stretch into something that’s not quite a smile, baring his chipped front teeth.
“You see, Sil, I’m curious to see if I can break someone’s hip bare-handed.”
Silco hums again, appreciative now.
“I can’t wait to find out.”