Work Text:
The Last Drop is empty at noon during the midweek, save for what Silco calls the skeleton crew; just himself, Violet, and Vander, the latter cleaning up the last vestiges of the night before.
It’s early enough for Silco’s first drink. He swirls the neat scotch in his glass, metal rim glistening in the yellow-green light of the bar. The Undercity only knows artificial light and one day, Silco hopes, the little girl with the shock of red-pink hair will know more than that, a free Zaunite with the same voice and rights of the people of Piltover.
He scrawls her name in his notebook, an exclamation point at the end, a stark sign of all they fight for: a brighter future, if not for their generation than the one that will flourish while his bones brittle down to dust.
A squeal from her tiny lips draws his attention back to Vi. His gaze catches her running from over to Vander behind the bar, tugging on the washcloth tucked into his waistband until it falls and smacks her in the face. She blinks, confused, and then cackles as he lifts her into his arms. Vander makes it look effortless the way he oscillates from miner to revolutionary to barkeep to childminder, the way he tousles her hair and kisses her on the forehead. Silco had never managed to make his interactions with children look even remotely close to natural - they are such breakable things, untouched by the Grey or soot from the mines. At least at that age; in Zaun they start young. He puts his pen to paper and begins a line sketch of the pair they make, the Hound of Zaun and this little pup.
It doesn’t take a genius to piece two and two together; it just takes someone who pays attention.
Silco knows Vander is Vi’s father.
Some days, Silco wonders if Vander knows it, too. There’s no way he could mistake it - not when they share the same forehead and set of their eyes. Different colours, sure, but the resemblance is there, shrouded quaintly amid Felicia’s features.
The woman appears at the thought of her name, throwing the door open and waltzing through.
“Mama’s home!” she calls out to her daughter. Silco looks up from his notebook and meets her eyes. She winks and heads straight to the jukebox, music filling the space like it always does when Felicia is in the room.
“Not working the mines today, boys?”
“Busy, obviously,” Silco drawls as Vander chuckles.
Felicia shimmies her way to Vander as Silco looks on, hips moving as she dances around Vander without touching him. Her daughter gleefully cheers and calls out to her mom, as Vander… well, it’s impossible to miss the way Vander watches Felicia. Affection muddled with appetite, a palpable desire to reach out and put a large palm on her arm, something that he acts on, stopping her where she twirls.
It’s the kind of look that has Silco looking twice.
She wasn’t necessarily beautiful, but she was brilliant. Vivacious, a rebel, like a lantern in a coal mine, the kind of presence that would draw even the hardest man toward her. He guesses that’s how he ended up here, and why Vander always seemed under Felicia’s spell - watching her child, using his gauntlets on the toughest stone when her pickaxe faltered, mixing her drinks when she walks through the door.
Vander goes soft when he looks at her. Silco downs the last drop of amber liquid in his glass.
Silco always thought attachment like that made a person weak; it was one thing to take a lover, and another thing to be in love. A spouse or a child merely a hindrance to real power, a vulnerability that would have even the strongest man compromise their morals or vision. Piltover recognizes the sacrifice a parent would make for their child, and so the circle of life becomes yet another venue to keep the underclass subjugated amid a vicious cycle of fear of loss.
“Need a refill?” a cocky voice asks. It’s not Vander’s.
He must have stopped paying attention at some point, because Felicia is right in front of him, brandishing the half-empty bottle carelessly between her thumb and forefinger.
“Please,” he says, as he sets the glass down on the countertop.
“Why are you always brooding at the bar?” She frowns, corners of her mouth creased in an exaggerated downturn. “Don’t want to dance with Vander and Vi?”
Silco shakes his head.
“You know I don’t have enough drinks in me for that.”
Felicia chuckles, and puts her hand out to squeeze his cheek. One of the few people, save for maybe her toddler daughter, that he might let get away with a stunt like that. With her other hand, she tilts the whiskey bottle into his glass until it’s past its halfway point.
“Don’t let Vander see you being so generous with his booze.”
She nods in Vander’s direction, voice warm and lilting. “Well, that’s why we keep him busy, right?”
She tilts her head and gives Silco a searching look. He feels hot under the collar with it, like he’s being appraised.
“Say, what are you doing tonight?”
“You’re looking at it.” He looks into her eyes. “Do you have anything planned?”
“I’m going to take Vi home for a bit. Why don’t we meet here later?” She smiles, and it’s different from the ones she’s worn in the last six years of their friendship, almost flirty like she’s talking to Connol, or to Vander. “Connol is working nights, and Vi is sleeping over with the neighbourhood kids at Benzo’s.”
Silco gives her a perplexed look. “Vander will be working.”
Felicia shrugs. “I was thinking we can spend time together, just us two.”
Silco doesn’t know that they’ve ever done that. He tries his best not to gage if there’s some sort of ulterior motive or insinuation he’s not picking up on. He adores Felicia, but he can’t picture a scenario in which they have anything to discuss that doesn't also require the big man at the bar. He has the ideas, but he knows it’s Vander the people follow. He doesn’t suspect her invitation has anything to do with the Zaunite movement.
“What does that mean?” he squints at her.
“I don’t know, Sil. Meet up, have a couple of drinks.” She trails her finger along the black fabric of his fingerless glove, until they reach his own. “See where things go,” she shrugs.
Her voice is nonchalant, but her eyes are lewd, and understanding settles in Silco’s bones. It’s a venue he’s long since been left out of - he hadn’t exactly known when Felicia and Vander had started sleeping together, but it had been a tangible thing, the tension rippling between them. He gives her an appraising look now. She’s attractive, sure, but he’s not sure he’s ever felt anything akin to desire for Felicia. His eyes can’t help but dart to Vander. She could have Vander with a snap of her fingers, or her husband at home. That she would want him, a skinnier, scrawnier thing, has an element of excitement to it, an opportunity to which he isn’t quite ready to shut the door on.
“I’ll see you later, then,” he nods.
—
“This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,” Silco breathes.
He trips as they take the narrow steps two at a time. He’s a little too drunk to know exactly what they’re doing, but he knows it’s a bad idea. Whatever Fel wants to do or has to say can probably wait until Vander’s done at the bar, but his mind is hazy and his tongue is loose with too much drink as Felicia leads him by the hand up to Vander’s apartment.
“Oh, I’m full of them,” Felicia just giggles. “He’s busy for the next couple hours. Plus, you have three roomates and we can’t exactly go home to Vi and… Vander won’t mind, I’m welcome to his space whenever I want, I can't imagine you're not, being as close as you are.”
She pushes the door to Vander’s living quarters open, walking right in like it’s her own home. Silco presses his back to the door until it clicks shut, and leans his head back momentarily trying to get his bearings. He knows the office adjacent to Vander’s room is empty, and below them the Last Drop is teeming with patrons and smugglers.
A regular Wednesday night.
Silco’s no stranger to Vander’s apartment, he’s been countless times, playing cards, rolling darts on the shabby desk Vander has across from his bed, spouting ideas and plans as he idly watches Vander tidy the place up. The commonality was that he’d never been there without Vander.
Just as soon as the door shuts, Felicia is removing her shirt, arms crossing over each other to lift the tank top over her head. Silco is shocked by the sight of her back and when she turns to him, her braid flounces over her shoulder, bare breasts immediately drawing his attention. She’d done it so readily he can’t help but wonder how often she’s had occasion to strip in this same room, comfortable enough that she hadn’t had to think twice. How many nights after Silco had gone home, had she come up here with Vander? The thought of it makes his blood thrum, to consider what it would be like for a woman like Felicia to be kissed by a beast of a man like Vander. Would he be slow and gentle, cognizant of her frailer body beneath him? Is that what she expected of Silco, or something headier and rushed, his slender, calloused hands closing around her hips as he pulls her to him.
“Are you going to stand there all night, Sil?” She smirks and beckons him forward.
He moves a few steps almost unthinkingly, until he’s close enough for her to take his hand in her smaller one again. She pulls him into her and he must be around Vander too often to remember he’s quite a tall man, her head resting upon her chest as she places kisses on his clavicle. The worn cloth of his shirt separates her lips from his chest as she looks up at him, grinning.
Vander would know what to do, Silco curses himself. He’d hoist her up in his big arms, until her legs wrapped as far as they could around his torso. He’d bring her mouth down to his, as he held her, lips parting hers.
Silco does none of that. He hasn’t kissed a woman in years, and it’d been just as long since he felt any urge to. He’d had more on his mind - Zaun’s liberation, and before that could be achieved, labouring in the mines and building up the Lanes to what it is today. He’d always seen sex as something perfunctory - to relieve some tension, or curry some social favour. Whatever fighting couldn’t solve, fucking might - but his past trysts were few and far between - self-imposed rules that precluded any sort of attachment.
Felicia’s an anomaly to that rule, and perhaps a good fuck is what he needs anyway to get out of the rut of stagnation that’s encompassed everything before the point his skin touches hers. She giggles as she clumsily undoes the buttons at the collar of his shirt. It’s the consequence of drinking too much on the house, and Silco’s feeling its effects too, too slow to do anything until her hand accidentally hits the underside of his chin. It snaps Silco out of his own thoughts and he leans down to kiss her, slow at first. She responds in kind, mouth meeting his in an unhurried dance. He spares a second to wonder if she kisses Vander with more fervour, if he has her gasping into every kiss while he backs them toward his bed. But then she gives a soft moan in the back of her throat, and her fingers toy with the hem of his shirt, untucking it from his waistband.
He helps her shrug the shirt off his shoulders, mouths barely separating to remove the offending fabric until it lays like a pool of red on the hardwood floor. She smiles and dives right back in, and Silco can see why Vander must like her so much, especially like this. She’s eager and enthusiastic, treating Silco as if he’s a thing to be desired, not discarded. Skin meets skin, and then Felicia’s hands come back to his waistband in an attempt to remove his pants. Silco steps back.
“Yours coming off, too?”
Felicia laughs. “Faster than yours.”
They make quick work of their own trousers and underclothes, meeting in the middle to kiss again. Felicia pulls him onto the bed and he lays her down, her braided hair unkempt and messy, mussed from the sheets and his fingers. He kisses her neck, shoulder. All around him, he smells Vander. This must be where Vander’s had her. Countless times no doubt, he can’t imagine Felicia would settle for once. Was Vander in his position, too. Did Vander spread her legs, and make sure she was ready to take his cock? Silco groans and feels himself grow from half-hard to harder.
“Oh, that’s it,” Felicia breathes. “Looking good, Sil.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
“I’m not much for lines, anyway.” She takes his cock into her hand and strokes. It feels good. Her hand is small and not as calloused as he expected it to be. He sort of wishes it were a bit rougher, a bit bigger, something he can really lean into, but her stroking does the trick, and she guides his cock to where she wants it.
Where they both want it.
Vander must have fucked her in this bed, must have taken her thighs - like Silco is doing now - over his elbows, and pushed inside her. Maybe he called it her cunt, maybe he spoke to her like that as he sunk himself slowly in. He must be bigger than Silco is, but Felicia moans anyway when Silco pushes in, scrambling with her foot against his lower back until he’s fully sheathed. It feels good - she’s wet and hot inside, and Silco can’t remember the last time he’s been with a woman like this, always so careful not to spill anywhere it might result in consequences. He dimly realizes they didn’t take any precautions, but then she tries to move herself on his cock and his attention diverts back to her.
“It feels good,” he says clumsily.
“So move, then,” she cackles.
He nips at her neck and she giggles into his ear. Then he gives an experimental thrust and her body arches, breasts heaving as his body rocks hers. Felicia is responsive, moaning in time with his thrusts as he braces himself over her. He loses himself in setting a rhythm, in and out, tight heat of her clenching around his cock. A strand of his hair falls out of its tie and brushes against her open mouth.
The door opens hard on its hinges.
“Sil, are you—what the fuck?” Vander’s voice is unmistakable, cutting through one of Felicia’s moans.
“What the fuck?” he repeats, but he’s not angry like Silco would have expected. He sounds confused, and Silco wonders how late it really is, wonders if this ends in screaming and Silco getting thrown on his ass down the stairs. A shiver of fear runs through him. The terror isn’t rooted in the violence he knows Vander is capable of. No, he’d known this was a bad idea, and the potential fallout of a brief tryst is the dissolution of the strongest friendship he’s ever known and the breakdown of the dream of Zaun. He can’t lead a revolution without Vander, just like Vander can’t steady the fucking books without him, and for what? Fifteen minutes of proving he’d been worthy of desire to his next closest friend? It feels like cold water’d doused any flames of desire under his skin and he’d all but stopped with the sudden intrusion into the room. Conversely, he can feel Felicia try to move her hips - and just as he’s about to whip his gaze to hers in scandalized admonishment, he sees the way the motion attracts Vander’s eyes, too, focusing then on where Silco’s body meets Felicia’s. The heat of the gaze draws a moan from Silco and he feels himself stiffen further inside her, reality and danger of getting caught sinking into his bones.
“Fel?” Vander asks, puzzled.
She just turns her head to look at him. “Hey.”
“Are you -” Vander stops. “You guys are in my bed.”
“Wanna join?” Her grin is filthy.
“Felicia!” Silco exclaims. He doesn’t need a fucking audience. He shouldn’t have agreed to this in the first place, and the stupidity of it fully sinks in then. The last thing he needs is Vander critiquing a show he wasn’t directing. He moves to pull out, but she grips an arm from where it’s braced by her head.
“This bed is plenty big enough for all three of us.”
“Because it’s my bed,” Vander sounds stressed. “And you guys are fucking in it!”
“Like I said, there’s room for all three of us.” She smirks lasciviously.
Silco feels a chill run up his spine. It’s not an idea he’s comfortable with, either being with a man, or sharing a woman between them. He knows some people to do it - not Vander, but he’s heard the whispers of others in the mines - but he hasn’t, and it’s not something he’s particularly interested in. He may be a tactile man when it comes to his friends, but he has no desire to see Vander nude, nor touch him in any way beyond a hand on his shoulder, in the ring, or at the bar. The thought of Vander leaning above him, bringing their faces closer has him seize up inside Felicia.
“I think i’ve had quite enough-” Silco starts, but Felicia’s foot against his lower back keeps him inside her. He’s on his knees now, erection not wilted at all, but he can see both his best friends trade some kind of look he doesn’t recognize. His blood burns with that, the existence of a language they speak but he doesn’t.
“Don’t be like that,” Felicia says, directed at which one of them he’s not sure. “Vander, I can see you’re hard from here. Take off your shirt, and come closer.”
Silco’s more surprised that he complies so readily - Vander removes his shirt and for a reason Silco doesn’t understand the action sucks the air straight from his lungs. Silco’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to him. Vander’s always been the largest man in just about any circle, the toughest guy in the room - metal gauntlets just barely smaller than his own hands, and Silco sees the power in his every muscle now with none of the cloth in the way - broad shoulders that give way to a wide, barrel chest, hair and thick waist - all solid, dense muscle that Silco knows would be hard to the touch.
What he means to do is to say no, to extricate himself from Felicia and gather his clothes and leave the room entirely, but he feels his body stiffen and he’s almost paralyzed with every step Vander takes closer and closer to them.
“I don’t have sex with men.” Silco stammers, and wants to berate himself for it. He doesn’t need any other reminders about how little he compares to Vander.
“Come on, Sil - you can share me,” she goads. “Keep fucking me, and I’ll suck him.”
“It’s not a big deal, Sil,” Vander says then, giving a nod to him and Felicia. “Or, if it’s a sticking point, I can leave.”
Felicia takes that opportunity to run a soft hand up his thigh, and looks at him with big, bright eyes. The flush on her cheeks conveys how much she’s enjoying it and Silco thinks fuck it, one time doesn’t mean anything and if Vander’s willing to share the woman he’s in love with, like this, with Silco of all people. One time and they’ll never mention it again.
He nods. Felicia doesn’t bask in her victory long.
“Trousers, Vander,” she orders.
Vander gulps, and it’s interesting, Silco thinks, to see a man that large take orders from a woman half his size. He brings his thumb to the button of his trousers, the zipper, and then they hit the wooden floor.
Ah.
So Vander is big everywhere.
Silco can’t take his eyes off it while Vander crosses the distance to the bed, and then, climbing atop it to Felicia’s left, the side closest to the wall. His cock is flushed dark and curved toward his belly, and bigger than any Silco’s ever seen.
The temperature goes up ten degrees. Silco’s mouth and throat are parched. Vander’s sitting on the bed with one massive thigh behind Felicia’s head. She stuffs another pillow behind her, elevating her head slightly higher. Jealousy rears its ugly head at the practiced comfort of it all, and then curiosity twice as strong as to whether she can take all of him.
It’s even bigger up close, thick thatch of curls at the base, and long and thick like the rest of him, veins along the underside that snake upward toward its fat head. Beads of precome on the slit. Silco gulps, and Vander must catch him staring because he grins at Silco, wolf-like, as Felicia wraps her lips around the tip.
“I thought you were fucking her.”
It’s like cold water doused all over him. He gives a careful thrust forward and is rewarded by her muffled moan. It must feel good for Vander, because he hums, too, and then Silco’s body moves on autopilot, canting his hips forward into her pussy, drawing out would-be gasps if her mouth wasn’t so occupied.
And it is occupied. She doesn’t even take Vander’s length halfway, just swirls her tongue around the tip and takes the head of it into her mouth. She must feel like she’s choking, the girth of him leaving no room for any oxygen. Vander gives a gentle thrust forward into her mouth.
He wonders if he could take more.
The thought makes his rhythm falter, and he has to work twice as hard to keep up the pace. He grabs her thighs and fucks into her, rewarded with the way her pussy clenches around him. It was a slip of the mind that’s all; he hasn’t had sex in too long. But fuck, if the sight of Vander fucking Felicia’s mouth isn’t doing something to him.
“That’s it,” Vander’s warm voice rumbles, and Silco feels an answering warmth in his chest as if the words are directed at him. He meets Vander’s eyes and keeps fucking her, as Vander keeps a steady, slow pace.
“Good girl, Fel,” Vander says, and that snaps Silco back to focus. Of course, he’s talking to her, and Felicia looks like never been better, stuffed full of Vander’s cock with Silco thrusting into her as well. He looks in the vague direction of her mouth and throat as he continues his thrusts, he needs something more, something…
Silco feels thick fingers tug at the roots at the back of his head. It’s a second before he registers that it’s Vander’s fingers forcing Silco’s gaze on his.
“Vander-?” he chokes out and Felicia tightens around him, Vander’s gaze hot as he pulls on the dark strands of hair and then there’s a sudden coiling in his gut that snaps . Before he fully registers what’s happening, he spills into Felicia and sags forward. Vander loosens his grip on Silco’s hair and comes on a loud grunt, speech indecipherable, pulling out of Felicia’s mouth. Come paints her lower lip and chin.
She coughs, and her breath comes out in short bursts.
“I have all the best ideas,” she grins as Vander laughs. Silco doesn’t though, and he can’t help but notice the quirk of her eyebrow at him when he finally meets her eyes.
—
Sweat drips from his brow.
His triceps strain with another swing of his pickaxe. Felicia leans against the cool rock of the mine.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she sing-songs.
Silco removes his hard hat, brushing the back of his wrist against his forehead. He’s likely doing little more than smearing dirt and sweat across his face. Felicia watches him silently.
Too many seconds pass before Silco responds.
“I am not avoiding you.” Succinct. Perhaps Felicia can accept it, move on, and they can go back to their respective tasks.
“I haven’t seen you in days,” she points out.
“Because we’ve both been busy.”
“You haven’t come to see Vi, either.”
Silco gestures around them, Zaunites working in the background.
“Busy,” he intones. “And she’s four, she won’t remember this week from the next.”
“So are we just never going to acknowledge the fact that you were inside me, and moaning his name?”
“Felicia,” he hisses.
He can feel his neck heat and suddenly it’s too stifling for his jacket. He doesn’t remove it, just wills the red to cool from his face and looks around surreptitiously. He doesn’t think anyone heard. If they did hear, it’s not like they’d know what Felicia is referring to.
Right.
It takes a moment for him to regain his composure, then he’s quick to shrug it off.
“It doesn’t mean anything. Heat of the moment.”
Felicia levels him with a look.
“Really?”
“Do we have to have this conversation here?” he asks, tiredly.
“Look, all I’m saying is you seemed a little more interested in V-”
His dirty hands move to cover her mouth, but she’s too quick.
“Ok, Ok. Janna. You’re filthy.”
“I am not… I don’t sleep-” with men? With anyone? Both of those statements would be true. His eyes dart along the pit of the mine, but anyone who would be listening is too far away.
“Sil,” she says quietly, like it’s their little secret. “You don’t sleep with anyone.”
“I literally fucked you a few nights ago,” he bites back.
“And before that?” she questions.
Silco won’t dignify that with an answer, and not just because he can’t actually remember. It doesn’t mean much. There are more important things on his mind, and he has his own rules not to leave any traces that could result in responsibility beyond a night. He broke his own rule with Felicia, but he doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t want to look too closely as to why.
His eyes are drawn to Vander’s large frame, several feet away with a group of other miners, gauntlets hanging by his side. Rough-hewn trousers cling to his thighs, grey shirt smeared in rock sediment and dirt. His jacket’s been discarded several feet away and Silco can see the sweat sheen on his brow, hair tucked underneath the grey-shell hardhat, just like his, just like Felicia's. He walks to where his jacket’s been discarded several feet away to grab the canteen of water and Silco’s eyes can’t help but stray after him.
He doesn’t realize Felicia had said something until she snaps her fingers in front of his face, brain startling to attention.
“Were you listening to anything I said?”
“No.”
“Of course you weren’t…” her eyes trail after his. “I’m honest enough to admit I liked having both my boys with me. So, what do you say? Would you do it again?”
“Get to work, Felicia.”
——
The days turn to months and eventually Silco realizes he’s actually impressed with the amount of time that can pass where he and Vander just don’t talk about it.
They’ve talked about everything else — they’ve canvassed ideas for Zaun’s liberation at length over libations and catalogued Vi’s most recent milestones - specifically Silco’s endeavour to teach her to read, of which she’s only mastered the recognition of a handful of words. Regarded as the de facto leader of the Undercity, Vander’s devised schematics to combat the increased presence of enforcers all the while the Lanes are flourishing with the black market they’ve created from the bounty of successful heists - a business thriving off the trade and demand of the Undercity. Between their legitimate business and their black market enterprises, they’re living better than Silco’s ever experienced, and there’s been no need for Vander to step back into the cage to earn extra money. Prizefighter turned protector of the nation of Zaun.
They do all of that together, but they don’t talk.
Just because he has the good presence of mind not to bring it up around Vander, doesn’t mean it doesn’t cross his thoughts. Perhaps once or twice is selling it short; a more accurate reflection being once or twice a day.
How could it not, when Silco operates solely in Vander’s orbit? And when his physical presence isn’t drawing Silco to him like a moth to light, his thoughts revolve around their joint ventures - in the mines, in the bar, and, just the once, in the bedroom.
The memory of Felicia’s lips stretching around Vander’s girth is the spectre that haunts the halls of his mind. He spends more time than he’d like to admit imagining the weight of it, the feel. Vander’s hips canting, feeding more of him down her throat. Exactly how much she can take into her mouth.
If he can take just as much, or if Vander’s thick cock would weigh down his tongue enough that he couldn’t moan.
Vander’s hand on his shoulder is a visceral reminder of the man’s omnipresence.
“What’s got your head swimming?”
He wonders if that’s why Vander loves her, but Silco can’t imagine it’s that hard to find a mouth willing to suck Vander’s cock.
“Nothing,” Silco lies. It’s becoming easier each day.
He looks up from his glass and notices Felicia winking at him from across the bar.
“I thought Felicia and Connol were serious,” he muses.
Vander shrugs. “Aren’t they? They have a kid together.”
Silco raises an eyebrow somewhat incredulously. Vander’s answering chuckle rumbles through his chest.
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Vander winks.
Except Silco’s not so sure it’s the heart doing the talking.
—
Three is a crowd, he knows, and he should just leave Felicia and Vander to their fun. But Felicia had sounded too convincing when she leaned over the bar earlier that night and joked that she’d only be satisfied with both her boys.
It would have been an opportune time to bring up Connol, who had left the Last Drop some time in the early evening. Instead he turned to Vander and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask you’re okay with this? Again?
Vander had been nonchalant, pouring a patron another shot of Noxian whiskey.
“We do everything else together, don’t we?” he chuckled and turned away to serve the man with the mohawk.
It was all too easy to end up here, hours later and after the bar closed, with Vander stripping off his sweaty shirt, and plastering himself to Felicia’s bare back as she kisses Silco softly. Silco feels his cock stir as Vander’s lips press to her shoulder and Silco’s eyes stay fixed on them, pulse betraying the thrill he feels in their bodies separated by another.
That’s why he’s doing it, he reminds himself. He knows that he pales in comparison to Vander in every way except his brain, and it’s intoxicating to be the object of desire to the person Vander wants. That Vander’s joined them, well it makes logical sense in some way, and the thought of Vander’s eyes on him as he fucks Felicia is a heady thing in itself.
Felicia’s naked and it doesn’t take long for her to rid Silco of his pants as well. She pushes him down on the bed and climbs onto his lap where he’s seated. Within seconds, she’s impaling herself on his cock. Silco’s hands immediately go to her hips - she must have been eating better these days, middle softer than he remembers it, and hips slightly wider. She’s wet, too, wetter than he remembers, but it had been months since they’d done this, on Vander’s bed just like the first time.
“That’s good,” she sighs. Silco focuses hard on her neck, and in the periphery of his gaze he can see Vander, stroking himself over his pants. Silco works on meeting Felicia thrust for thrust, muscles tinging with disuse.
“Bed is big enough for three,” she calls out to Vander, voice strained with the effort of bouncing on Silco’s cock.
Vander chuckles and his hands trail to the button of his trousers, thumbing the metal through its hole, and pulling them down with his briefs. Silco’s eyes fly to Vander’s cock, held loosely in one big hand. Vander climbs on the bed, kneeling behind Silco, a safe distance between them that Silco can feel his presence acutely but not so close that they’re touching. His thrusts slow and Felicia’s movements are slower now, too.
A part of Silco knows he should put in more work, bounce her on his cock at a pace that hits the right spots, the right tempo, and have her moaning his name again for Vander to hear it. But she’s taking her time, enjoying herself. She twines her arms around Silco’s shoulders and demures at Vander, “why don’t you get a bit closer and kiss me, hm?”
Silco doesn’t see it, but he can feel the sheets muss as Vander must move on his knees toward Felicia, toward Silco, and then his looming presence is inescapable. He leans forward until Silco feels his big body against his upper back, the tip of his cock trailing beads of pre-cum on Silco’s skin, and heat in its wake. He takes a shuddering breath. Felicia leans up to kiss Vander over his shoulder, and Silco forgets he’s supposed to be fucking her, too overwhelmed by the cloying sweat from Vander’s body.
In a sudden movement, she lifts herself off Silco and moves around him - it leaves him feeling almost bereft, turning his body to hers unsure of what step he takes next in a dance that now feels too elaborate. He moves on time to see her seat herself on Vander’s cock, her back to his chest, hissing as she fucks herself down. Silco watches her as she takes Vander inch by glorious inch, and his eyes are fixed on where Vander’s cock disappears, the thought of how it must feel to take something so big inside your body. Silco moves closer as if he can’t help it, and when he’s within arms length Felicia trails a hand down his midsection to his dick, her hand smaller and gentler than he wishes it was.
Felicia moans. Vander must be hitting something inside her that she just can’t help it, or maybe it’s the stretch of him, bigger than any other lover she’s had. Bigger than Silco. He doesn’t realize he’s watching Vander’s face until Felicia’s words break their gaze.
“Kiss him.”
“What?” Silco reels back, jostling her hand in the process.
“C’mon, Silco,” Vander rumbles, and Silco reels his gaze to Vander’s face. His expression is open and genuine, and tinged with desire and Silco feels a mess of emotions he can’t quite discern. “C’mere.”
Silco doesn’t mean to follow as easy as he does, but he does, until his hard cock is up against Felicia’s belly, he leans his face up to Vander’s until Silco’s thin lips are against Vander’s, five o’clock shadow tickling his cupid’s bow.
It’s like fire spreads where they touch, and Silco is burning up. He presses closer to Felicia to chase Vander’s mouth, and Vander kisses him with the same fervour he applies to the fighting, to labour, brute strength that sends Silco’s mind spinning.
Felicia’s shaky laugh forces space between them.
“Oh, I really do have the best ideas.”
“Sil,” Vander’s voice is a gentle simmer, and Silco feels dizzy with it. His palm comes up to cradle Silco’s face drawing him closer still.
His body moves on autopilot, their lips meet again and it’s slower this time, Silco kissing between ragged breaths as the haze overtakes his mind. He’s on his knees kissing Vander over Felicia’s shoulder and the position is uncomfortable. It shouldn’t be this good. Kissing Felicia wasn’t like this, and it’s startling to realize how different the effect is. A wave of something like shame crashes over him, warring with the desire he can’t help but feel. The dull heat of arousal snakes its way through his core, roaring to a flame under Vander’s touch. He’s no stranger to it in another context; he can think of a thousand different times where Vander’s touched him - swapping tools between them in the mines, accepting three fingers of whiskey, Vander’s grasp around his bicep at a rally, or escaping enforcers. It’s always steady. Strong. Gentle. Yet now his hand wraps hard around Silco’s hip - not to pull him closer, but to keep him rooted there, to take what he’s given. Like he knows that Silco’s one step too far away from fleeing, and maybe that’s the last thing Vander wants.
“Vander,” Silco warns. Vander’s other hand is against his throat, running over his adam’s apple to feel his weak protest. Felicia shifts then, and he almost forgot she was there, but then she’s pushing him back, his ass hitting the bed and hard cock bobbing up against his stomach. It takes a second for him to reorient himself, and then Felicia lifts herself off Vander’s cock.
Hard. Huge. Glistening from where it was sheathed inside her seconds ago.
“I’m feeling oversensitive,” Felicia says as she gets off the bed entirely. Movement calls Silco’s attention to her, and she sits then, on the shabby armchair Vander has in the corner of his bedroom. She hooks a leg over one arm, no shame in her nudity. She teases a finger around her clit.
“Fuck him instead.” She nods at Vander.
“Fel…” Vander’s voice warns. “You’re meddling.”
“It’s a little trite to pretend you both don’t want it,” She smirks. Felicia leans over the chair to rifle through the old desk’s drawers, and, triumphant, she holds up a glass vial that she tosses toward the bed.
Silco catches it on instinct.
Oil.
“I’ve never…” Silco trails off. “I don’t…”
Want this? To say that is a lie, and Silco’s not so sure he can weather how blatant the fib would be. There’s no deception when his cock is this hard and his entire body flushed. If anyone were any closer they’d hear the pounding of his heart, beating furiously at his ribcage with the thought of Vander’s cock dragging up the planes of his body.
“I don’t,” Vander starts again, and then pauses. Silco’s almost afraid of what he’ll say next - that he doesn’t fuck men? That he never signed up for more than sharing Felicia? The possibilities ricochet in his brain and war with his own reservations, until Vander silences him again. “We can’t push him.”
Had they talked about this before, another conversation Silco was left out of?
Settled back in the armchair, Felicia dips a finger into her opening, and rolls her eyes. Silco envies her confidence and nonchalance. It’s probably born from the fact that every word from her mouth isn’t remaking her worldview and shaping anew desires he’d never considered.
“I’m not pushing him, Vander. And you can’t say you don’t want it, either. I know you both better than that.”
And it’s true that Vander’s erection hasn’t flagged at all, hungry expression as his gaze devours Silco. It hits Silco with a force that threatens to knock him on his back, that Vander actually wants this too - whatever this is. That kissing Silco was more than just Felicia’s idea that Vander obediently followed through. What had he missed, during the years in the mines and by Vander’s side fighting for independence in the Lanes? Or was this desire a recent thing, trickled into Vander’s brain like poison, the way it had with Silco’s.
“C’mon Sil,” she whispers, as if coaxing a scared animal. “He’ll make it good for you. Turn around, face me, and bend over.”
“I’m not worried about him making it good ,” Silco snaps.
Vander laughs, a low hoarse sound. “He’s already heard you take me, Fel. He knows.”
Silco wants to slap Vander, the brag in his voice infuriating, sending heat through him that’s anger, he’s sure. He tampers it down and recognizes for what it likely is, Vander avoiding the detonation of the unexploded grenade Felicia’s thrown at their feet.
“That’s not–” Silco clenches his jaw, keeping the flush that threatens his cheeks and chest at bay. “You’re asking me to… bend over for a man.”
“Oh? So it’s fine for me to do it, but not you?” Felicia tilts her head against the chair, fingers still idly playing at her pussy. “I certainly don’t complain, do I, Vander?”
“That’s not-” Silco wills his voice from getting shrill. “Maybe Vander should be the one–”
He feels Vander’s palm at his hip and immediately clamps his mouth shut. Vander’s voice in his ear, soft, like he hasn’t quite heard it before. His breath is hot on Silco’s neck, and Silco wonders if he’ll feel his hand there as well, at the nape, around his throat—
Just as soon, Vander’s pulling away, the ghost of his touch still on Silco’s skin as he moves toward the back of the bed.
“Kneel for me, Sil. Face Felicia.”
Silco complies, face burning.
“Knees a little further apart,” Vander murmurs. “Good boy.”
Vander skims his fingertips along Silco’s ribs, leaving gooseflesh in his wake and a shuddering Silco against his broad chest.
He can feel everything, the hair that runs along Vander’s chest and torso tickle his back, and Vander’s lips, soft where they press a light kiss to Silco’s sharp shoulder. Vander is probably locking eyes with Felicia from the giggle she gives, but Silco can’t look at her, can only stare skyward at the ceiling, the flush running hot along his skinny chest, knowing he’s on display, knowing he’s harder than he’s ever been and that he’ll be haunted by this for the rest of his life, however long that lasts.
He registers Felicia’s touching herself only when he manages to look at her, and her face is raw with desire. She’s the director of the performance, after all, and Silco’s already forgotten she was ever its protagonist. His attention on her is short lived when Vander’s hand grabs him by the neck and tilts it roughly to the side - Silco goes blind with desire at the feel of his hand around his throat, light pressure moving him where Vander wants him, to press a kiss to the column of pale skin as Vander finally for the first time, touches his cock.
Has he touched a man like this before? Or is he doing this for Felicia’s benefit? Wrapped around her finger like her hair twines into its signature braid, willing to touch Silco - like this - for her entertainment. Silco finds he doesn’t care much about the motive when Vander’s thumbs the slit on his cockhead. Then Vander’s hand wraps around the underside of his dick, nearly engulfing it whole and Silco knows he doesn’t care why Vander’s doing what he’s doing as long as he doesn’t stop.
Vander pumps his cock as he kisses his neck and Silco feels soft moans drop from his lips, eyes screwed up in pleasure.
“Bend him over,” Felicia moans, Silco’s eyes widening at her words even though it’s not the first time she’s said it.
“Patience,” Vander growls, and Silco is not sure who exactly he’s talking to - the violet-haired woman in his chair, or Silco himself who has started thrusting into Vander’s grip, lost in the sight of his cock disappearing in his fist. Vander’s grip loosens while his other hand trails up his chest and throat, toward his mouth. Silco’s mouth falls open, unbidden, and one of Vander’s thick fingers finds its way inside before it’s joined by a second, and it’s all Silco can do to not moan when they push down on his tongue. The action produces saliva and Silco licks around them, moaning at the thought of another appendage forcing its way into his mouth, making him ga—
Just as soon as he can focus, the fingers are gone, moving behind him to ghost over his buttocks. It shouldn’t be a surprise when they find their way to his hole.
Involuntary, Silco keens and bends at the waist, bracing himself on his forearms. He feels the rush of desire, knowing he’s on display like this for Vander, hole twitching with the light touch of his large finger.
“I want it,” he gasps.
Just then, Vander’s finger breaches him, distantly he registers the hand that was on his cock is no longer there, mind and body too focused on the foreign intrusion to realize he’s thrusting into nothing. The finger itself is thick, big, warm and wet with his own saliva, stretching him with purpose to take something even bigger. Silco shudders and his gasps turn to a drawn out moan when a second finger joins it, slicked with more than just spit - Vander must have helped himself to the vial of oil. Silco pants into the space between his forearms, head hanging toward the bed.
“Oh,” he gasps, as the fingers scissor inside him.
“You’ll have to get used to this if you think you can take my cock, Sil.”
It doesn’t come off as cocky at all, but Silco can’t help the glare as he rears his head to lock eyes with Vander, barely exerting himself as he fucks his fingers in slow and steady.
“If I’m not moaning like she did, you’re not doing a good enough job,” he retorts.
“Oh,” Vander smirks. “I’m going to make you scream.”
He smacks Silco’s ass and before Silco can bite back, Vander positions himself at Silco’s rim. Felicia gasps at the same time Silco does, and then Vander is pushing in and Silco sees nothing but white noise behind his eyelids, world narrowed to Vander’s massive cock and the stretch as his body slowly takes him in. Silco’s head falls back between his shoulders, mouth open in a ragged moan.
There is no way Vander’s cock isn’t splitting him open, mind-numbing feeling of fullness that makes him forget about anything or anyone else in the room, and all of Zaun outside of it.
“I—” Silco breathes.
“More?” Vander grunts.
“Yes,” Silco gasps.
And then Vander is moving within him, slowly first, punching gasps out of Silco’s throat. The drag of his cock is a revelation, enough to ruin him. He has no frame of reference for it, no point of comparison, the feeling like nothing he’s even thought about but doesn’t think he’ll ever manage to forget.
Felicia’s moan breaks him from his reverie - touching herself on the chair, her fingers speeding up with the pace of Vander’s thrusts.
He wonders if Vander is watching her, wishing he was pushing back into her warm, wet heat. He feels Vander’s grip tighten on his hip as he’s fucking him.
“You’re so tight, Sil.”
“You can give me more,” Silco says, voice more broken than he’d care to admit.
“It’s your first time,” Vander says, slowly, keeping an even pace to his thrusts.
“I thought you were going to make me scream.”
Vander fucks him harder then, bed frame shaking with the force of his trusts, likely scratching the already peeling paint on the walls. His balls slap against Silco’s ass and the skin on skin makes an obscene noise that’s almost embarrassing if Silco could think about anything other than the violence of Vander’s thrusts, and the feeling of him everywhere. The knowledge that his weighty hands are going to leave bruises on Silco’s narrow hips that will still be there in the morning. Silco wants them harder, wants to wear them for weeks.
“Yes,” Felicia gasps. And Silco’s no better - oh, oh, oh falling from his lips in a constant refrain until Vander shifts his angle slightly and then he hits something inside Silco that spreads liquid heat from the base of his spine throughout his body, noise spilling from his mouth as he comes, fingers twisted in the sheets and body shaking. Vander ruts behind him once, twice, three more times and follows, a loud groan and then Silco feels him empty inside of him. Vander rests his head on Silco’s shoulder blade, careful not to put any weight on him.
Slowly, silently, he pulls out, drawing another broken moan from Silco who collapses onto his own wet spot. Vander stretches out beside him.
“Guess I had you screaming after all.”
Had he? Silco didn’t notice, too busy having his insides rearranged to monitor his own reactions.
Felicia wolf whistles. “That was quite the show.”
“For your pleasure,” Silco can hear the smirk in Vander’s voice, and it figures that even then Felicia is still on his mind, a performance fit for a queen. When Silco peers over though, Vander’s not looking at anything, mountain of a man still on his back, hazy eyes watching the beams in the ceiling. He preens with the knowledge that he’s responsible. Vander won’t wear his bruises like Silco would prefer, but if nothing else, he’s a good fuck and Vander will have that to remember him by.
“I’m glad we could provide some measure of entertainment,” Silco says, voice with a tone of finality.
Felicia cackles. “Maybe consider selling tickets. We can bring in some extra cash, it’d certainly bring a crowd to the Last Drop.”
He colours at the thought of being bent over the bar while Vander pistons into him. He turns to face her and instantly winces, he’s more aware of his hole than he’s ever been, no doubt puffy and used, and certainly oversensitive.
“Not exactly the image of myself I’m looking to broadcast. In any case, it was a one time thing,” he remarks flippantly.
Vander raises an eyebrow, though Silco doesn’t know why. Did he think the three of them would make this a regular occurrence? Every couple months when Connol takes Vi to visit his parents, or whenever Vander felt in the mood for some extra excitement?
“Well,” Vander says, tone a mix of warm and smug. “I’m honoured to have been the star of the show.”
“I don’t know,” Felicia banters, coming to sit along the end of the bed, still nude and leaning back against Vander’s stomach - he can’t imagine it’s a particularly clean or comfortable spot, hard muscle, dusted in hair that’s undoubtedly sweaty from fucking Silco into the mattress. He almost wants to touch it and find out for himself. “All those pretty moans -” she continues, “I’m rather sure the jewel of the mines was our main attraction.”
“Don’t call me that,” he snaps. But her peel of laughter doesn’t stop until he takes the pathetic excuse for a pillow out from behind his head and throws it at her.
—
Silco feels the phantom sensation of Vander inside him for days afterward. He hadn’t known his body could stretch like that, that there was a certain bundle of nerves or something deep enough inside of him to make all synapses fire at once, skin alight and tingling. It’s not quite the feelings he’s associated with sex in the past - a perfunctory release of tension, sure, but this was something different. He can’t deny how intoxicating it was, stronger than the old fashioneds Vander mixed for him in the bar and at least twice as addictive.
The adrenaline that accompanied the thought wasn’t dissimilar from the rush he got escaping enforcers, completing a heist, or squaring off against a threat and stabbing them irreparably in the gut. The same kind of bloodlust that came from watching Vander, unleashed, in the cage or on the street. Silco’s eyes were always drawn to a display of raw power. This was raw power, of a different kind.
The craving to monopolize Vander’s attention is worse now that he knows what it’s like to fuck him. At times, he wonders if Vander experiences the same magnetic pull, and when his eyes rest on Silco, he feels it like a tangible thing as they complete tasks around the Last Drop - while he’s drying glasses, lifting Vi into his lap, sweeping crumbs and dust off the floor at closing time. Silco doesn’t remember ever being so aware of the other man’s gaze despite all the time they spent together in the mines, in the bar, out on the Lanes.
But there’s an anxiety to it, as well. Like Silco’s shown a version of himself to Vander - and a lesser extent, to Felicia - that he himself didn’t realize was there. A mask lifted, and a new face revealed. Is that what Vander saw now? A gasping, writhing man, begging to be fucked and clawing at completion amid the sweaty sheets of a big-enough bed? If Vander thought about it half as much as Silco did, then it’s an inevitability. There’s added apprehension in the realization that Silco doesn’t know how Vander treats his lovers, aside from the woman he’s in love with. He doesn’t know who he takes as a lover, or how he regards them afterward, and for all his study of Vander, as a friend, a brother, a business partner, fellow miner, and revolutionary, he finds his notations to be… lacking.
But then there are moments like this, green light filtering through Vander’s upstairs office at the Last Drop, Silco sat in the chair, hunched over a sketch of the Piltover counsellor’s office they intend to raid in a matter of days. Benzo is on the other side of the desk with Connol - and Silco spares a second to wonder if Connol knows that just weeks before, Felicia, Vander, and Silco made different use of the room next door - they listen eagerly as Silco explains the tip he received from a cleaner at the manor. Vander stands behind his shoulder, watching the pages enraptured.
Good to know being balls deep inside him doesn’t make Vander respect him any less.
—
Felicia puts a hand on his arm as he exits the mine for the evening. Vander stands tall beside him, and perhaps that’s half the reason she chooses now to stop them - at least Silco assumes so from the grave look on her face.
She drags him away from a crowd of miners to where they are obscured by a wall of stone. Vander follows them, calling out hey, hey , an echo as she puts distance between everyone else. It doesn’t take Vander more than seconds to catch up.
Felicia presses her index finger into the centre of Silco’s chest, stabbing at his sternum several times to get some kind of point across.
“This is a stupid fucking idea, and you know it,” she spits out.
Silco lets himself be backed up until his body meets a wooden beam.
“Your partner’s choices aren’t ones I’m responsible for,” Silco points out. “And it’s rather well-thought out, actually. Councillor Madrigal will be at the Industry of Progress Banquet, as will the rest of the councillors. If Zaun is going to stand any measure of a chance, they need to see us as a threat, not just as their monkeys that operate the mines and machines. It shouldn’t be much more than getting in, and out.”
Felicia sags against his chest and leans her forehead on his shoulder.
“Bring him back safe tomorrow, Sil,” Felicia says. “Please.”
Vander puts an arm on her back, drawing them both in. “We’ll do what we can, Felicia. You know that. There’s no guarantees.”
Felicia looks up at them both.
“I can’t do this alone,” Felicia sighs. “I’m pregnant. Again.”
There’s no deja vu to the first time Felicia said those words. Her face is smeared with dirt, hair falling around it in two messy braid instead of her customary one, hard hat still fixed to her head. When she steps back, Silco’s eyes dart to her stomach and he sees it there, the weight around her middle that he had mistaken for a few extra pounds rather than the beginnings of a new life.
“Wow,” Vander exhales. “Look at you go.”
Her expression is still somber and Silco can’t blame her, the added stress of a new child in a Zaun that’s still affixed under Piltover’s gilded thumb, the pressure stifling the city the harder topside presses down.
“I won’t come back to the mines,” she starts. “Not for the next several months, at least.”
“Not a problem,” Vander interrupts. “You can man the Last Drop. Sevika’s young, but she’s tough. She’ll keep an eye out for you. Zaun looks out for their own.”
Felicia gives a small smile at that. “Well, she’ll certainly know that,” she says as she pats her belly.
“How do you know that?” Silco cuts in. “Another girl?”
“Mother’s intuition,” she says confidently. “I know a lot of things, Sil.”
“And,” she pauses, looking between both of their faces. “No more of this ,” she gestures between the three of them “either. I’ve not really been in the mood, and,” she sighs and scratches her head behind her left braid, “everything’s hard enough.”
“Okay,” Silco says. It’s no big loss to him. He sneaks a glance sidelong at Vander. He doesn’t look as devastated as Silco expected him to be.
“Hey,” Vander’s voice is a comfort along with his hand on her shoulder. “You’re our friend first, above everything else. And you don’t have to worry about tomorrow. Connol will be fine.”
—
It’s famous last words, really.
Of course a promise would come back to haunt him as gunfire rains down around him. The reality is he has no fucking idea if Connol is fine, and hardly no time to even spare that thought as he runs through the narrow cobblestone street, topside.
It’s Connol that fucking shattered the glass in the Counsellor Madrigal’s office, a rookie gaffe so insanely comical that Silco wonders now if maybe there had been a reason they hadn’t taken Connol on any heists in the past. It hadn’t occurred to him in Vander’s office - the war room, as it had then felt like - taking Connol’s reliability in the mine and relationship to Felicia as credential precedent.
Silco’s right arm is wrenched violently to the side and he lashes out with the knife in his left, swiping blindly at the person who’d grabbed him. Just as quickly, that wrist is smothered as well, and Silco’s back aches as he’s pressed into cold stone. A fissure of fear runs through him, heart racing until his eyes land on Vander’s face and recognizes it as Vander’s hands pinning him in place. Then his heart races a little faster.
“Don’t stab me with my own knife,” Vander huffs, breath coming out in an almost-laugh.
Silco sags. “You absolute ass.”
“There was no other way I could capture your attention without getting everyone else’s, too.”
“Unhand me, brute,” Silco says, sparing a second to finally breathe now that he’d been forcibly stopped from running. Silco is by no means a short man, and now was not the time to think of how easily Vander was able to immobilize him, defenceless and pinned where Vander holds him.
Vander loosens his grip and Silco’s feet drop to the cobblestone.
“Connol really fucked that one up, eh?” Vander says. “You guys weren’t in there for more than six minutes, by my count.”
Silco wipes his sweaty palms on his pant leg, hands skimming the diamonds in his pocket. “I had no way of knowing it’d be a mistake to take him. I needed another man of decent build, not like you and Ben-”
“Stop!” A foreign voice cuts through Silco’s own as the bright blue of an enforcer uniform enters down the other side of the alley. He’s not flanked by any others, and Silco wonders if he too just got lost, or if there are more following behind him. The enforcer in the alleyway looks no more than twenty, probably fresh from training the way his baby face and bright eyes look almost afraid at encountering the two of them in close quarters. Silco doesn’t blame him. Between the two of them, Silco likes their chances of facing off against one, but it’s a narrow pathway past the enforcer and an empty street on the other side.
Then the enforcer’s gun comes into view as he pulls the lever of the rifle down, finger on the trigger.
Silco can see from the minute way his hand shakes that his aim won’t be true, but just then the enforcer fires and Vander is pushing him out of the way with an arm, bulk of him sheltering Silco needlessly. Silco hears a hiss, and realizes then that a part of the bullet must have hit Vander, and looking at his right arm Silco can see that’s the case - Vander’s grey shirt scuffed at the bicep, the bullet having skimmed it, leaving blood to bloom in its wake.
The enforcer scrambles to stoke the rifle, aiming to reload but he’s not only a bad shot, Silco categorizes, but a novice with a firearm in general - quick to notice that he’s jammed the lever, unpracticed fingers attempting to fix it.
It’ll be too late for the Piltie scum, Silco muses. He’s not sure his life is worth it for potential retrieval of a few diamonds that won’t be missed by their owner’s hands.
“You’ll regret that,” Vander says lowly, and Silco watches him advance on the new recruit like some kind of apex predator. Silco’s own blood rushes through his veins, knowing exactly how this ends, pulse racing and eyes greedy for the show. In the seconds it takes Vander to reach the enforcer, the rage roils off him and before the kid can even think to use the firearm as a blunt weapon, Vander lifts him by the throat and slams him against the opposite stone wall.
“You should have taken the better shot while you had it,” Vander growls. The enforcer struggles against Vander’s tight grip, hands clawing uselessly at Vander’s paw crushing his throat. Silco feels himself grow hot around the collar, the display of unadulterated violence sending shivers up his spine. He has no desire to reign Vander in, it'll do neither of them any good to leave a witness, and even without the obvious detriment, he can't help but crave Vander in this element. Vander delivers, too, and in a second he's lifting the enforcer's back off the wall only to slam his head against it, so hard Silco hears the skull crack as the Piltie crumples and drops to the cobblestone. A pool of blood forms around the back of the enforcer's head and stains the grey around him.
“Are you okay?” Vander asks as he turns to Silco, and Silco can choke on the irony of the question, with a dead kid on the floor and Vander himself being the one who got shot, putting his own body between Silco’s and the gun.
Silco is not okay, but the enforcer is not the reason.
“Leave no witnesses,” Silco nods.
“There are none,” Vander affirms. “I took care of the one who had seen you outside the manor, and it doesn’t look like there were any following this enforcer. We should bounce, I don’t know how many we can fight off just us two.”
Silco takes stock of their past experiences, his own knife, of Vander’s hands, bathed in blood that’s spattered across his shirt; he reckons at least 5-6 enforcers, but doesn’t voice it.
“Wouldn’t be the first time, but we don’t need any more trouble now,” Silco says instead. “Especially when Benzo has the pistol. Two roads south, there’s a market. Much easier to get lost in a crowd than on the sparse streets behind us.”
“Yeah,” Vander agrees. He swings the small satchel bag off his shoulders and pulls out two shirts - Silco’s thrifted from Piltover stock, and Vander’s, nondescript and black. If no one looks close enough at Vander’s they won’t notice the patch of blood that seeps through the fabric as soon as he puts it on.
—
Vander blows smoke into the space above him. They’re flat on their backs in Vander’s bed, where Vander lies shirtless and Silco lays in all his clothes; dark striped trousers and Piltover blouse that he hadn’t taken off from hours before. He feels a little like he should have gone home to change first, the adrenaline long worn off and leaving cooled sweat and stress in its wake, but the smoke is starting to settle in his chest and calm him down enough.
Uncharacteristically, Vander had closed the Last Drop early - Silco wonders if he’d felt he had no other choice after the scene Silco had caused.
As if he’d read his mind, Vander turns his head to look at Silco.
“Didn’t think I’d have to literally tear you away from Connol’s throat.”
“I should have just settled for telling him I fucked his wife,” Silco snarks.
Vander snorts. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
“What, you don’t think they’re into that?” Silco muses, it wasn’t the first time he wondered if Connol knew about their little arrangement, because certainly no one else ever seemed bothered by it.
“Who knows?” Vander huffs. “No need to bring trouble to Fel’s door when she’s not involved.”
“I know,” Silco resiles. “We really were not half as successful as we should have been, Vander. And if this is seen as a failed attempt, there’s the potential of bringing further heat down on Zaun.”
“Always a possibility,” Vander says.
“What do you mean by that?” Silco asks, voice shrewd.
“Just that it’s going to happen regardless.”
“You’re right about that,” Silco deflates. The dream of Zaun not just that, but a real possibility if Felicia’s daughters are going to succeed in it, and they deserve that chance, not hardened by the mines and the grey and the fight like Silco and Vander are, like their mother pretends not to be.
“I thought we’d find something more, too… The tip I had got, there were supposed to be plans for the mines and the fissures, and an ore…something that could have really helped us, in the right hands.”
“Silco,” Vander sighs. “You can’t be keeping half the objective from the rest of us.”
His eye twitches just then, and Silco catches the wince before Vander can mask it.
“Let me see your arm.”
“Hm,” Vander intones as he passes Silco the cigarette. “It’s fine, I wrapped it.”
Silco hums and props himself up on an elbow to glance over at Vander, other hand preoccupied with the lit cigarette as he takes another drag.
“You didn’t do a very good job of it,” he exhales in the opposite direction of Vander’s face. The bandage is not as tight as it should be, and blood is seeping through the white wrap.
“Sit up,” he orders, getting up from the bed to gather alcohol from Vander’s side table and fresh bandages. He places the cigarette back between his lips and lets it dangle there as his hands work to sanitize the wound. Vander hisses as the alcohol stings at his flesh.
“You’re a fool to jump in front of a bullet,” Silco chastises, careful enough that the smoke doesn’t drop from between his lips.
“Couldn’t have it hitting you.”
“It wouldn’t have hit me.”
“I couldn’t rely on that,” Vander reasons as Silco wraps the bandage around a large bicep.
“I could,” Silco smirks. “He was a piss poor shot.” He ties off the bandage and brings his fingers up to the cigarette, inhaling again.
“You’re hogging it all,” Vander points out.
With his opposite hand, Silco taps his fingers against Vander’s lips and they open obligingly. He bends his head slightly, mouth perched centimetres from Vander’s, and exhales. Vander breathes in.
“I always did like this blend,” Vander says. A smirk plays on the corner of his lips and Silco finds his own face mirroring it.
“Hence why we both keep it stocked,” Silco agrees. After a second, he continues: “I’m sorry.”
“About the bullet?” Vander laughs. “Like I said, not a big deal. I’ve had women who’ve left worse.”
There’s an ah-ha moment; Silco knew he wasn’t wrong about that at least. If Vander had taken past lovers, and Silco was sure he had several, they'd have been women ready and willing to take a ride on the Hound. He was not the kind of man to seek the company of other men, outside of the mines and the bars, and the fight, of course.
“Not that,” Silco rolls his eyes. “Felicia, I mean. I know you’re in love with her.”
There’s a long pause before Vander answers.
“I don’t know about that,” Vander says slowly.
Silco looks down at him.
“Really?” He can’t help the disbelief from finding its way into his tone. He raises an eyebrow at Vander.
“I love her. But in love… I’m not so sure.” Vander looks almost contemplative at that. Maybe there’s more depth to Vander than he thought, beyond the brawn and the camaraderie and the willingness to put other people before himself.
“Not sure we’re capable of it?” Silco asks.
“Not that. Just not sure about a lot of things.” Vander shakes his head.
“Well, you must be disappointed regardless.”
Vander shrugs, a look of indifference on his features that seems so genuine Silco can’t help but wonder if it’s practiced. Then his expression turns inquiring, and Silco likes that less.
“It’s not that hard to find sex, Silco,” Vander says.
“Isn’t it?” Silco aims for nonchalant, and he’s sure he misses the mark.
“Are you insane? What is it Felicia calls you? The jewel of the mines? I’m sure you could have your pick.”
Silco’s eyes wander to Vander’s cloth-covered crotch.
“My prick’s not as big as your monster cock.”
Vander shoots him a disbelieving look, still sitting at the corner of his bed. “That has nothing to do with it. Like I said, your pick. Of the women, or the men.”
“I don’t want men,” Silco says, too quick and snappish to sound anything less than defensive.
“Look, it’s not a big deal,” Vander begins.
Silco sighs. “It’s not about that.” He pauses. Then, at the risk of being too vulnerable, he says “It’s just not for me. Not if it’s not with someone I can’t trust.”
He feels himself unwittingly flush, before he continues. “If we’re on the topic of honesty, maybe I was too hasty before - I don’t look like you, Vander. Being with a man makes me look weak. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think sleeping with women doesn’t do much for me.”
“Not even Felicia?”
Silco looks skyward, carefully avoiding Vander’s eyes fixed straight on him.
“Felicia is one of my closest friends but it’s clear we were after different things; Fel wanted a bit of fun, and I was looking to prove something.” Silco shrugs. “Fucking her was fine.”
“But?” Vander asks, slow and gently like he’s coaxing the words out of him. Silco curses himself - it’s working.
“Getting fucked by you was something else.”
Vander growls.
“Say you want it again.”
Silco looks at him, and he can only imagine what’s written on his face - irises blown black with thin rings of blue, mouth open. He puts the cigarette to his lips, just to have something to do as he leans across Vander’s desk and blows smoke rings - one, two - in Vander’s direction.
Finally, he speaks.
“That, and more.”
“Silco…what are you saying?”
Silco walks over to him, more confidence in his swagger than he feels. He sits astride Vander’s lap, one arm on Vander’s shoulders to steady himself, other arm bent at the elbow and raised, cradling the still-burning cigarette in his hand while his body hovers above Vander’s.
“Well,” Silco says, taking another drag of the cigarette, ash burning dull red on the end. He blows smoke into Vander’s awaiting mouth. “I’m here.”
Vander curses as he twines one hand through Silco’s hair and pulls down so that Silco’s lips crash unto his, and when they do it’s a fight for dominance, Silco licking the leftover smoke from the inside of Vander’s mouth, and Vander, drinking Silco down like he can’t get enough.
Vander pants into his mouth. “How much more do you want?”
Silco grabs his chin with one hand, fingers brushing up against the day’s stubble. Vander, he thinks, would look quite nice with a beard. Silco wouldn’t mind feeling the scruff of it against his inner thigh, or his own jaw as they kiss. There’s nothing soft about the kiss. Silco brings his lips down on Vander’s again, pushes on his shoulders and forcing Vander to open to him. Vander yields easy this time, and Silco takes control, grinding slightly on Vander’s lap where he can feel an answering hardness. This, this is what he wants. And more. He bites on Vander’s bottom lip as he lets his hands explore the bare skin of Vander’s back, new territory, hard muscle built from long days in the mines. He brings his right hand back toward Vander’s chest and cards his hands through the hair on his chest all the while he conquers his mouth.
Vander wrenches his lips away, hands still on Silco’s narrow hips.
“We can’t escape this conversation forever, Silco.”
With one hand, Silco stubs the cigarette in the ashtray, and with the other he trails a long finger through the hair on Vander’s pectoral until he reaches his nipple. His eyes rake lasciviously along that same path.
“Can we not just see where this goes?”
“Yes,” Vander says. “But I need to know how far it goes tonight, before we start.” He skims a hand lower, and toward Silco’s ass. “How much you’re willing to give me.”
Silco thumbs the nipple then and Vander makes an approving noise. “So that’s what it’s about, then? And if all I’d give you is my cock, what then? Would you still want it? Would you take me in your mouth like Felicia did for you?”
“Yes,” Vander says, and he sounds serious about it, too.
“That doesn’t turn you off? Sucking cock?”
“I haven’t done it, but I would. If you wanted that.”
“And what is it you want me to give you, hm?” Silco taunts.
Vander thrusts up, almost imperceptible movement of his hips except that it’s impossible not to feel his cock, big as it is when it’s brushing the crease of his ass. “You know what I want.”
“To fuck me like you would a woman,” his voice turns cruel, and he pulls Vander by the hair at the base of his neck, longer there than it is around his face. “I thought you said sex wasn’t hard to find.”
“I don’t need to pretend you’re a woman,” Vander says through gritted teeth. “And I don’t think it makes you any less of a man, either.”
Silco grinds down then, fist still wrenched in Vander’s hair as he pulls slightly on the roots.
“Well, I might think less of you if you don’t stop treating me like prey to be spooked.”
Vander’s hands are all over him, ripping the topside blouse from his body and leaving him naked from the waist up. Silco launches himself at Vander, chests pressed tightly against each other as their lips clash again, clumsier than the last time and twice as violent. Vander’s mouth isn’t soft, but it is hot, searing against the seam of Silco’s lips until he succeeds in deepening the kiss, and then Silco gives as good as he gets, mouths slick-sliding against each other as Silco’s hands fly to the button of his trousers and Vander’s meatier fingers join it, making the job twice as long. Silco bites down hard on Vander’s bottom lip, releasing it only to put his lips right back where they were, tasting the iron of his blood. Eventually Silco scrambles off Vander, pulls his trousers and underwear down until he can step out of them, and in the same breath Vander’s pulling off his own on the bed, where he’s half sat, cock slapping up against his belly and Silco lets himself stare for a second then, mouth watering. Vander curls his own fist along his cock and slides it up as he watches Silco.
He gets his own fill too. Silco can see his eyes running down Silco’s lips to jaw, and further along his chest and his own cock. Vander looks hungry, too.
“Do you want me to suck you? What do you need?” Vander asks, voice like gravel.
“Only assurance that you won’t see me as anything less when I ask you to fuck me again.”
“Yes,” Vander says, and with one arm reaches out to grab Silco’s hand with his own and pull him back on the bed. Silco has the good sense to take the oil from the bedside, right where they had left it the last time. He presses it into Vander’s chest as he kneels above him, Vander rambling on: “Whatever you need. You’re in control.”
“Not Felicia, not like last time.” He waits for Vander’s nod. Then, he orders: “Get me ready.”
“Yes,” Vander hisses again, his clumsy fingers uncork the vial and liquid spills over his hand. Silco watches it until that hand disappears from his view, and he feels it then, spreading his cheeks and rubbing against his hole. He pants wetly into Vander’s mouth as one finger circles his rim.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. And Vander takes that as allowance to push the finger in. It’s tight, how could it not be? Silco’s done this once and Vander’s fingers are no small thing, even to take one of them, like this. He moans into Vander’s mouth as Vander thrusts his finger into Silco’s body. It’s minutes before he feels a second at his rim, and when the second finger slides in with some difficulty, he lets out a broken moan.
“Bigger than I remembered it,” Silco pants out against Vander’s bare shoulder. He feels the rumble in Vander’s chest - a laugh or a moan, he’s not quite sure.
“You think you’re ready?” Vander asks, the picture of consideration, brow furrowed in an effort to hold himself back, Silco suspects, if Vander’s insistent erection against the curve of his ass is any indication.
Silco meets his eyes. “Sick of waiting?”
Vander scissors his fingers inside him, hitting a bundle of nerves that nearly makes Silco’s eyes roll back. “I’m content where I am, unless you’d like to sit down on something else.”
Silco slaps him hard against the cheek. It’s harder than intended, Vander’s head recoiling to the side. Silco’s pulse races at the red that blooms where he’s hit. Vander can take it - they both know he’s had worse, fists against flesh in the cage as Silco jeered from the corner. Bruised and bloodied, he’d earned his moniker for a reason, and the funds for the Last Drop, too.
“Patience,” Silco tsks.
He doesn’t make Vander wait long though, the delay deprives himself, too. Silco lifts up slightly, noise falling from his lips as Vander’s fingers slip out of him, and sits on Vander’s tree-trunk thighs as his own fist curls around Vander’s cock.
Janna, the size of this man.
He can’t help but get distracted, it’s even bigger in his hand than he imagined when it was in Felicia’s mouth, or against his thigh. Silco almost can’t believe it ever fit inside him, while desperate all the same to get it back there. He brings his thumb to its head where precum gathers at the tip. Vander’s cock is wet, wetter than Silco’s own, and he spreads the beads of it from tip to base, jerking Vander off slowly, just on the side of too hard. His eyes flicks up to take Vander in, heaving stomach, open mouth, wet at the corners from his own spit, or Silco’s.
“That’s it,” Vander murmurs.
Silco’s eyes look at Vander’s, sharp, and then he positions himself over Vander’s cock, still holding the base, and begins his slow descent.
And slow it is. His body feels like its remaking itself around every inch of Vander breaching him. The dull pain accompanied by pleasure the deeper Vander sinks. Vander’s remarkably patient, moreso than Silco who takes too much too fast, too rough, making him cry out.
Vander skims a hand up his side, thumb reaching Silco’s nipple. He strokes the hard bud and whispers.
“You’re doing so good.”
“Shut up,” Silco hisses. His fingers will leave bruises the way they’re clutching onto Vander’s shoulders in some desperate attempt to ground himself, and it’s several sharp inhales before finally, he’s fully seated on Vander’s cock, still for a moment.
“Sil,” Vander whispers, hand trailing up to his neck to bring his chin down, gentler than Silco had done to him. And with that they’re kissing again, trading breath for breath as Silco finally, finally begins to move himself up and down Vander’s cock.
The size of it means he has no choice but to take it slow, the thick drag of Vander’s cock sparking sensation with every rise and drop of Silco’s hips. Their kisses turn to little more than mouths panting against each other. Vander’s hands bruise at his own hips and he can feel Vander’s gaze on his face searing. He drops his head to Vander’s shoulder, half to avoid his eyes, and partially because it feels too good, Silco unable to muster any control over what his own expression does.
“Let me touch you,” Vander says, voice hoarse like it’s expending all of his energy not to take control. “You’re close, aren’t you?”
“My cock,” Silco gasps, and Vander’s big hand curls around it, stroking Silco in time with his own movements. Silco picks up the speed of his hips, arching his back as he grinds against Vander’s cock. It’s good. It’s so good. It might even be enough another night, but with the adrenaline rush of the day —
Silco gets no warning when his back hits the mattress, just cries out as Vander’s cock slips from his hole. There’s no pause then, and no words exchanged before Vander thrusts back inside him, snapping his hips forward hard into Silco’s body. The bed frame hits the wall repeatedly with the force of his movements, and it’s the only noise in the room aside from the slap of skin against skin, and the broken noises that spill from their lips.
Silco looks up at him, jaw gone slack before he manages to compose himself, as much as he can, at least, with the way Vander’s cock is hitting exactly where he wants it to be.
“What happened to being under my control?” Silco gasps, he aims for steady but his voice sounds breathless and needy even to his own ears.
“They say revolution begins in the bedroom,” Vander grunts.
Silco breaks then, a keening whine coming from the back of his throat. There’s a violence to Vander’s thrusts, hard, but coordinated, and all Silco can do is wrap his legs around Vander’s waist and take it. His nails rake hard down Vander’s back, indents he hopes leave scars that erase any of the scratches someone else might have left in the past.
“Let me see you come,” Vander breathes. He’s so deep within him, Silco feels it in his throat, and at this rate, Silco’s not going to have a choice but to let go, cock leaking over Vander’s stomach and his own where it’s trapped between them.
“I’m almost there, I’m-”
“Let me see you,” Vander grunts, and just as quick, Silco feels Vander’s thumb and forefinger close around his throat, squeezing gently with enough pressure to direct Silco’s gaze straight into Vander’s green-blue eyes. Enough pressure to make Silco’s breath catch entirely and his orgasm catches him just as quick, a revelation that has him gasping and shaking, a panting mess impaled on Vander’s cock. He feels himself clench hard.
The sound Vander makes is almost as if he’s been punched. His hand drops from Silco’s neck then, keeping himself propped up as he empties into him just like the first time.
It’s a moment before Vander pulls out, and then flops onto the bed himself. Their arms side by side and touching, both sweaty and covered in fluids that Silco couldn’t care less about right now. He lifts a knee and plants one foot on the bed, and winces more still as he feels Vander’s come dribble out of him.
He’s not sure he’ll ever be used to it, but he wouldn’t mind the opportunity to test it out a few more times.
There’s no Felicia to break the awkward silence, and they lay there for too long, sweat cooling on their bodies, until their harsh breaths even out.
“I meant what I said before,” Vander starts. “I’m not in love with Felicia.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Silco drawls. Bizarre thing to discuss now, while he’s still full of Vander’s come. “Interesting notion of post-coital conversation, brother.”
Vander groans, frustrated. “You brought it up earlier. What I’m trying to say is I want to keep doing this.”
“I don’t share,” Silco says, sharply, body turning to face Vander. “Even a casual thing.”
Vander looks back at him.
“I’m not asking you to.”
Silco runs his hand through the coarse hair on Vander’s chest, damp now with exertion of fucking into Silco.
“Haven’t had enough of me? Colleagues in the mines, brothers in the revolution, partners at the Last Drop, now this?”
“Now this,” Vander repeats, and surges forward, lips against Silco’s, and this time, Silco yields easy for his tongue.
For now, it’s enough.