Work Text:
There’s still much to do around the bar. At this point the place is mostly put together but not yet presentable– the furniture is there, as are the glasses, the smattering of mismatched cutlery mostly scavenged from what Vander’s vast collection of brothers and cousins could spare, the monstrosity of a jukebox that none of them can quite figure out how to get working but sometimes starts up of its own accord seemingly at random. None of it is in a configuration anyone can agree on. Vander, frustratingly, keeps changing the layout, Silco is happy to give his own unsolicited opinions in the guise of advice, and Felicia just wants to get the damn place finished so that it can open and start making money. Have the patrons sit on the floor if they damn well please! So long as there’s a drink in their hand and the jangle of cash on the counter she could give less of a shit if they enjoy the scenery while they’re getting piss drunk.
Suffice it to say that her suggestions concerning the floorplan are about as helpful as Silco’s.
But unfortunately, Felicia finds herself continuously making the mistake of caring for the two assholes she calls her friends. Today she’s graciously sacrificed a couple of hours of her free time, time she could otherwise spend seeing what Sevika’s doing this afternoon, to help Vander put up the sign. The point of hanging a sign when the bar doesn’t even have a name yet is beyond her. Maybe it’s more of an object permanence thing, like it won’t really seem real to Vander until he sees the enormous slab of wood in front of him, or maybe he’s just trying to get everything else done and save naming the damn place for last. Whatever. It doesn’t concern her. She’s happy for him, happy for all three of them.
She would be even happier for them if Vander would just show up like he was supposed to. Felicia can’t haul the sign by herself, it’s just too heavy for one non-Vander person and even then it’s too bulky to grip unless two people carry it between them like a stretcher. They had planned to pick it up from a shopkeeper who had told them that if they could carry it out, it was theirs. Well, now here Felicia is with the sign and no way to carry it out, and if she has to wait much longer for it it’ll no longer be “theirs”.
“He’s probably just a little late,” she assures the shopkeeper with her wryest, most charming smile. “Working on other things. You know how it gets.”
“Hmm,” the shopkeeper grunts. He doesn’t seem charmed. “So long as that thing is off my doorstep by nightfall. Oh, I know I’m going to trip over it…”
“It will be, it will be.” Felicia goes to pat the man’s arm and then thinks better of it. He’s a less friendly sort than she’d wagered when Vander told her about the deal he’d struck.
“That man of yours,” says the shopkeeper. “He doesn’t make a habit of things like this, does he?”
Felicia wonders whether replying that Vander is in no way, shape, or form her man, nor will she ever want him to be, would harm or benefit this interaction. “My cousin,” she settles on saying, which isn’t so far from the truth as to be an outright lie, “can get wrapped up in things when it comes to helping other people.”
The shopkeeper only grumbles something under his breath again about how Vander’s supposed helpfulness apparently doesn’t extend to his own cousin, which Felicia allows. She was miffed a few minutes ago and now wedged firmly between frustration and worry, which only frustrates her more. Vander is usually much more reliable than this; in fact he was known back in the mines for his legendary reliability, among other things. If something went wrong, you could expect Vander to arrive in the nick of time, pickaxe in one hand and lantern in the other, a breathless grin on his face like some kind of dirt-crusted swashbuckler. Flaking on her without warning is so unlike him that she has to wonder if he’s alright.
With a quick but profuse apology to the shopkeeper she promises to be back before it gets dark, either with Vander or with Benzo if she can’t find him, and leaves to go searching. If Vander had only shown up, they could be done by now and Felicia could be at Sevika’s place.
The obvious first place to try is the bar, but the exchange is along the way and if Benzo’s not there, then she’ll know to really worry. On the other hand, if he’s there and doesn’t know why Vander’s disappeared, then something terrible might have happened to him. Felicia pushes back the thought of Vander floating face-down in the Pilt and tries to occupy her mind instead with the idea of fooling around with Sevika.
The exchange, a cramped but bustling open-air market of sorts, is no less busy now than it is any other day of the week. There are always overpriced goods legitimately traded from Topside, smugglers looking to turn a profit, bootleggers and artisans and all manner of merchant come to sell and trade. Benzo, who has maintained a wide network since their days in the mines, can usually be found around here, conducting whatever business he has on that particular day. He still takes jobs across the river, but more and more prefers to stick to this side nowadays and so it’s not uncommon to see him roaming the aisles, notebook in hand, chatting at one stall or another. There seems to be no one he doesn’t know.
He’s accepting a handkerchief-tied bundle from a sailor when Felicia finally finds him, and half of the worry on her shoulders evaporates in a flash.
“Benzo!” she calls out, waving her hand urgently to get his attention, and Benzo’s head whips towards her.
“Oh, it’s you,” he says in mock irritation with a roll of his eyes, but with his free arm he clasps her around the shoulders in a brotherly gesture. “What is it this time?”
“Accepting applicants for the role of Bozo #2,” Felicia explains. “It’s Vander. He didn’t show up and I thought you might know where to find him.”
“You check the bar?”
“Not yet, but I’m on my way. I was coming from Jirrod’s, you know, the woodworker.”
Benzo gives her a look and a shrug. “Last I knew he was at the bar,” he tells her. “Haven’t seen him around, and he knows where to find me if he needs anything.”
“Right.” As little of a lead as it is, it reassures Felicia that she’s free to stop worrying. “See you around, Benz.”
Benzo grunts in response– what is it with men and grunting at her?-- and then Felicia is on her way to the bar. At this point the sun is low enough that the streets are dark, completely encased in the shadows cast by the buildings, with snatches of pinkish sky peering down between the roofs. Time is ticking, and if Vander still wants that sign, he’ll have to hurry. Felicia can’t believe she’s given up this much of her day just for waiting around when she could be at Sevika’s apartment.
When she reaches the bar Felicia notices nothing out of the ordinary. The windows are a little chipped in places, but they’ve been that way since Vander acquired the building. The door is shut and the sign hanging there reads CLOSED, but that’s mostly so that no one sees lights and shadows from inside and thinks the place is open already. The only thing out of the ordinary is the fact that Felicia can hear music coming from that haunted jukebox, which someone usually tries to shut off as soon as it starts blaring.
Brow furrowed, Felicia steps up to the front and slowly leans in to place her ear where door meets frame. Two voices, one she can distinctly recognize as Vander’s and the other as Silco’s, deep in some conversation she can’t quite make out. As usual, Silco is going a mile a minute, and Vander is interjecting here and there. At points they speak over one another, which is how they seem to prefer it. They always overlap. There’s an odd drawling quality to Silco’s voice outside of the usual way he talks, but if he and Vander have dipped into the booze, that could account for it. It could also account for Vander’s lateness, Felicia thinks with an acute stab of frustration as she shoves the door open.
“You’ve got ten minutes before you can kiss that sign goodbye,” she announces to the room at large as she lets herself in, the door swinging on its hinges before falling shut behind her with a dull thud. “I’ve been waiting around long enough and I’ve got plenty of other stuff to do today.”
Vander and Silco have gone quiet at the counter, Silco sitting and Vander stood on the opposite side. They’re curled towards each other in a strange way, Felicia notices, and for a moment the thought occurs to her that maybe something really has happened and she’s just barged in on one of them comforting the other. Well, if that’s the case, then she wants to know what’s happened and how to help, as well as to comfort whoever it’s happened to.
“Guys?” she tries in a gentler voice, approaching the two of them. Neither one moves, except that Vander turns his head to offer her a wounded look. His face is pink, almost feverishly so.
“Uh,” he says. “Hey, Fel.”
It’s then that Felicia realizes that Vander’s shirt is rucked up to his chest. Over it, actually, higher on one side than the other, as if he’d pulled it up just above one nipple. It’s a bizarre enough sight here in the middle of the bar that it stops Felicia momentarily in her tracks, not sure if concern is an appropriate response or if she can go back to being pissed off at him.
“E’ning, F’licia,” says Silco.
“Ouch,” Vander says a moment later.
Thoroughly bewildered and sign all but forgotten at this point, Felicia pulls up a stool next to Silco. She can barely see his eye in profile as he watches her out of his periphery, and as the stool scrapes along the floor, he turns away from her as if to hide his face. When he turns, Vander does a strange frantic shuffle to the side as well, wincing as he throws up a hand to his chest on the same side over which his shirt is pulled up.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” he’s saying as he goes, and ends up leaning over the counter, braced on his elbow, face still flushed. “Sil, you gotta give me a warning or something before you-”
“A warning?” Silco snaps, still with that strange quality to his voice. “A warning!? I wouldn’ have to g’ you a warning i’ you-”
“Ouch, ouch-!”
“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on,” Felicia cuts in.
“Nothing,” says Vander.
“No’ing,” says Silco, somehow managing to sound like he’s disagreeing.
Felicia snorts. “Yeah, that’s really convincing. I’ve just spent the better part of an hour waiting around for you, Vander, and the better part of another hour worried you’d… I don’t know, evaporated or something, so I’d really appreciate it if one of you started talking.”
“Gla’ly,” Silco begins without turning around, but before he can get another word out Vander winces again and says, “Ouch, Sil, Sil,” which at least stops Silco from speaking over him, even if Felicia is still confused as all hell.
“We were, uh,” says Vander. His hand is still cupped on or near his chest, obscured by the back of Silco’s head. Vander’s got large hands and a better rack than anyone else Felicia’s met, which is saying something, so it doesn’t hide the whole thing by a long shot, but it does make her wonder why Silco’s sitting like that in the first place without moving.
As if reading Felicia’s mind, Vander’s eyes dart down to Silco’s head as well.
“We got stuck,” he finishes lamely.
Felicia blinks. “Stuck.”
“Yeah.”
“An’ whose idea ‘as it-”
“Ouch, shit, ouch-!”
Felicia puts her head in her hands, massaging her temples. “For the love of… look, both of you shut up and stop moving for five seconds.”
Mercifully both men do as she says, going quiet on command and staying still as Felicia hops up from her stool and rounds the counter. For a moment Silco makes a flighty move but Vander’s hand comes down gently on his shoulder and he stops moving. It would be cute if those two weren’t so frustrating to deal with sometimes.
Here’s the thing: a number of weeks ago Silco got the bright idea to drive a needle through his bottom lip. At the time he’d been a bit stab-happy and any kind of piercing had seemed like not only an excellent idea but also a fun experience to him, and he’d shot a lot of suggestive glances at Vander which had tipped Felicia off to the idea of it being some kind of weird sex thing in which she didn’t want to accidentally involve herself, and so she’d made some excuse and gone to see what Sevika was up to. The next day Silco showed up with a ring in his lip and Vander with no discernible changes but wincing any time something brushed against his chest, which told Felicia enough.
Now Felicia can see that her assumption had been correct. Vander’s nipples are pierced, or at least the one that she can see exposed by his shirt. Silco’s pierced lip had never been a mystery, but she can see that perfectly well, too. How he’s been talking at all is half a miracle with how his lip juts out, pulled in exactly the way Vander’s nipple is pulled. Between Silco’s head and Vander’s chest there’s a glint of metal where their two piercings are caught like links in a chain, one ring through the other. How they managed to get themselves into this situation is painfully apparent.
Felicia nods silently, then retreats to her abandoned stool. She sits and slowly lowers her head to lay it against the counter.
“You two are so fucking stupid,” she whispers, half awestruck, half appalled.
“I know,” says Vander at the same time as Silco says “He is,” which makes Vander go through the whole production of clutching himself and wincing again. Once he’s done he looks over in Felicia’s direction again with a very pink, very apologetic look on his face.
“Oh, did you think I was going to volunteer to help you two idiots?” says Felicia, lifting her head up.
“Please?” Vander implores her. “It’s hard to see.”
“That’s your own fault. Nope, no way.” She’s already on her way towards the door again, even as Vander’s expression grows more desperate. Even Silco has joined in now, and Vander’s pleading is interspersed with sounds of pain, but Felicia remains unmoved. She’s got better things to do.
She wonders what Sevika’s up to right now.