#this is probably the only vanco i'll write

[chickenparm]

if you've read this fic at all, then you know it's strictly silco/reader.

originally, it was written with vanco having been a thing in the past, and i removed that before posting, but every time I read it over after the fact it feels strange and unfinished.

so anyway, here's the original beginning that maybe explains why silco is characterized in the way that he is. it's largely the same so it's not the end of the world if you don't read this.

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As a child growing up in less than ideal circumstances into a young man in downright abhorrent circumstances, Silco had accrued a fair amount of subtle-but-useful skills that served to keep him alive thus far. The things Silco had seen and done in his lifetime were numerous, stacking on top of one another to create the man that stood in the center of his bar and stared at the floor in a way that no one else seemed to understand - or even notice, if he were being honest.

It doesn’t catch his attention at first, if only because others just like it were ingrained into the very foundation of the building in ways that could never be removed. It’s not until the neon lights above catch it just right that it becomes clear the little droplets of blood trailing through the bar are fresh enough to still be tacky when the patrons walk over them.

Blood on the floor of The Last Drop, even fresh blood, is still not enough to catch his attention so thoroughly. It’s the way it meanders in a wobbling line from the front door to the bar, pausing long enough to leave more than a few in the same locale. They linger before beginning their trek once more to the side door that leads to the back rooms reserved for his trusted employees - not even those who worked in the bar frequented those rooms.

But Silco remembers them vividly, maybe too vividly. In another life, he’d walked this same trail before - sometimes alone, sometimes with another. A different man leaned on the bar to catch his breath and regain his balance, left a bloody fingerprint just on the edge of the bar in almost the exact same place. Stumbled on wobbling knees along the wall until he got to the doors that would take him to the very rear of the bar that held a secluded bathroom where he could manage his wounds in peace. Where no one would hear the sounds ripping through clenched teeth.

Colored curious, Silco follows that trail, uncaring of the stickiness that traps in the soles of his boots as he follows their footsteps to the letter. As his hand curls on the bar, thumb hovering over where the lost lamb’s mark lay, he can see flashes of a hand in the past, covered in fewer scars than it is now, its nails dirtier and its tendons stretching taut against skin that’s too thin to have eaten more than a single meal in days.

It’s a poor memory, one he no longer wishes to entertain, and his hand slides along the bar with more meat on his bones and a bit more backbone than he’d once had. More pride. That man is dead and gone, and in his place is one that clawed from the earth that had been thrown over his body to bury him. The grave wasn’t quite six feet, and the job had been done poorly.

There’s another thumb print on the handle of the door, smudged by Silco’s palm as he passes through the doorway and locks it firmly behind himself. No one would bother to cross this point, but there’s an old, ingrained habit inside of him that even after its owner is dead he cannot shake it.

In the distance, there’s the sound of running water rumbling through pipes that shouldn’t still work after so long. Silco no longer follows the trail when his legs know the exact number of footsteps it takes to get to the end of the narrow hallway - twenty-three - and how many doors to the left there are before reaching the bathroom he remembered so fondly - two. With his hand on the wall just out of sight from the occupant, Silco counts the seconds with his heartbeat.

Four seconds, and the light flickers. Twenty-five more seconds, and it flickers again. The same as his eyes remember, and he subconsciously times the blinking of his one good eye with the familiar beat of the lightbulb’s failing lifespan. It’s a wonder it still works, after all these years.

The sound of a grunt, and then a hiss as the sound of metal hits the floor. There’s a liminal feeling in the air, almost as if he’s dreaming - every sound is so familiar, every flicker of the bulb, every thud of the ancient pipes spitting water out. In the past, large hands would have braced on the tile with a laugh rather than a wince, as smaller, thinner ones picked and pulled and stitched and smoothed along tensed muscles. Lips would follow in their wake.

Silco often dreamed of the man that came before him, when he was young and a fool and something like love had been worn like a second skin, but never to this intensity.

Never this palpable.

A curse now, ground out between teeth before the sound of flesh hitting tile. Silco knows who this is, who is licking their wounds in the darkest corner of his bar, and the liminal feeling dissipates like he’s climbed from the river once more - less frantic, less violent. The ache in his chest is there, but its sharp edges have been ground down by the passing of time - but even a dull knife hurts when used with enough force, and tonight aims to kill.

Rounding the corner, Silco holds onto the doorway and watches as you stand beneath the running water and struggle with little grunts to reach over your shoulder at the gunshot wound that continues to weep in red rivulets even now. Again, you drop the knife in your hand and it rings sharp against the tile almost in time with your forehead thudding against the wall.

The form is smaller than who had used this room before - decades, maybe? Another detail lost to time that should be important but had been deemed unworthy. Like a phantom, rising from the grout, Silco sees broad shoulders overtop your smaller ones. Do you understand the weight you’re carrying at this moment, how heavy that ghost truly is?

Silco knows intimately - painfully - and doesn’t want you to shoulder it. Even he, the man who has seen it in the corner of his eyes and felt it in the moments where he’s blissfully alone, still isn’t used to how harsh it presses into his bones. Silco can hear it - the moment that thought passes through his head he hears the laughter and jeers of his counterpart on how harsh the lines of his body are.

Followed by the sensation of featherlight touches on the very parts of him that had been in suspect. Soothing subdermal wounds that had been caused by words, breaking him down and building him back up again in a vicious cycle that ended in the worst way of all. The thought of the circle beginning again makes his blood run cold, even in the humid air of the shower room.

You’re breathing heavily - great, heaving things that do nothing to help the stretch and relax of your injured shoulder. It’s a simple enough fix, if one has a second pair of hands. If not, the best way to remove it on your own is you brace your opposite elbow against the wall and lean against-

The thought is pushed away as soon as it comes. There’s no space for it here, not when Silco is watching the trail of crimson flowing along the line of your spine, the curves of your backside, down your legs to the drain and swirling amongst the rest. It’s beautiful in its own way, and Silco marks it as a boon to have been able to see it at least once, despite the connotations of it all.

Once upon a time, his fingers would have itched just as much to follow that path on muscles more defined, a body as familiar as his own. You're softer, smaller, more forgiving than the other. Silco finds that he prefers it far more.