Author's Note that's almost as big as the actual chapter:

Hello. I'm pretty certain there's good fics out there that cover Vander and Silco's relationship before things went south between them but here I am throwing my own take on it. I tried to make small drabblish chapters, with changing perspectives between both. I felt this would be the best method for me so I could try to write a "realistic" sense of growth from their brothers-in-arms days to the eventual betrayal, but without doing the 3000-word-chapters that would better suit this very growth. Aka, I tried to self-hack myself in hopes to still manage to create a nice and good dynamic exploration. The actual success rate of this hack... failed spectacularly.

Also I know next to nothing on the bigger lore and geography of Zaun and I will therefore try to keep myself mostly to Vander and Silco interactions but I'm sure I will inevitably mention stuff and it'll probably be wrong. Some minor OCs will be around to populate the fic.

They are very different people in their youth compared to what we know in canon, so here's also my disclaimer of the definitely OOC behaviour I will write, especially for Vander. I was initially thinking they would have met in their 20's, but that seems to be when Silco drowns (he says he was around Deckard's age when he learned the whole thing about power, but Silco gives rough age estimates and I'm assuming it was the case there too), and he would have needed to know Vander for a while before that. So I'm writing them meeting up in early years, Silco around 12 and Vander around 16, putting their breakup at roughly 20/24 and the canon events starting with the kids stealing from Jayce happening around 18 years later. I don't think their fight happened because of the bridge incident but way before.

Basically, I just want to write this despite the flaws I know it'll have. Real life is so fucked up it just makes me want to try to at least finish my Arcane ideas while I still can, because fuck the light at the end of the tunnel is a train.

Warning: this fic will contain violence, death, all manners of underage stuff from drinking to smoking to sex, themes of social oppression/injustice, abuse of authority, police brutality and resistence in ways that will most certainly leave a lot to be desired in quality but enough in quantity to trigger discomfort.

Disclaimer: Don't own Arcane, wish I owned a bit of the writing quality though.

Enough intro.

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They had always been aware of each other in the way people in small places are.

Walking across the street to different destinations, going to work at the mines, one or two mutual acquaintances. The type of people from the Undercity who, even if didn't know each other, had the understanding they belonged to the same place. The sort of thing that might even grant a casual nod of acknowledgment.

At least Silco hoped so. He wasn't sure how much Vander registered his skinny face amongst the other shapeless blobs of people he knew (which he seemed to know plenty, actually). Plus Vander had a type of physique that was easy to tell apart, even through the fog of polluted air that clinged to everything. Silco's short and flimsy shape could easily be mistaken for a random protusion on the walls of the mines you could bump into with no harm; what's a twig of a person going to do, tickle you with a tap in the belly? He had no hard feelings for the people who tripped daily on him either at work or walking aimlessly in the Undercity. And for the ones he did have hard feelings for, well, there was little difference. Again, it's not like he could physically do much to change the fact he wasn't intimidating in the slightest.

There was no way not to see Vander. You might mistook him for a boulder, but you still saw him clearly, and if you bumped into him you could be sure the boulder would bump back with a closed fist. Maybe he wouldn't, but at least there was the possibility, you see, the threat. Appearing to be threatening could get you a long way out of trouble before it even started.

Silco wished he could be a bit more like that, so people like Vander always stood out for him.

They were kids working hours upon hours in the mines when they weren't trying to snatch the leftovers of someone who happened to have a bit more than they did, or gathering the courage born out of necessity to look for wealthier targets beyond their fog-infected world. It's not like they had the luxury to play or go to school like some people their age did in the very same city they lived in, miles above; though honestly, it couldn't really be considered the same city. It seemed like a different place entirely, two separate worlds that had no real reason to be considered one and the same.

Silco hated the mines. His stomach growled with hunger he never managed to quiet down before a shift, his head was always heavy with a dull constant ache from all the effort to breathe. Everything hurt. But mostly, he hated the fact that no matter how much he worked, he still didn't have enough to survive.

It was on one such day where he was particularly starving, almost swearing he could hear the growling of his stomach over the roar of the machines, that he skipped his post and tried to go around to find something, anything, to grab a bite out of, some leftover someone might've forgotten unsupervised or even a scrap on the floor they might've been tossed away. Which was stupid in and on itself, the odds were as low as they could get; everyone there worked in the same conditions and with the same lack of income. If he did find something, he'd be effectively stealing from someone who'd be as hungry as he was. But his pouding headache was getting stronger than his strength to pick up a tool to work.

Silco tried to appear as inconspicuous as possible as he averted both workers and the heavy machinery, which, again, wasn't the hardest task for someone like him. He found some bags he knew belonged to some of the workers and taking a quick glance around to confirm everyone was busy, he dived over one of them and started to pat for food. Tiny pieces of dust and rocks scrambled down from a higher platform and fell over his head, but Silco barely brushed them aside as he looked around once more to make sure it was still safe. When the debris kept showering, he looked up, barely making out the rear of one of the machinery rolling slowly back, nearing dangerously close to the ledge.

"Shit!" Silco snapped up, letting go of the bag and hurrying out of the way. Almost immediately as he turned around, he bumped into a woman behind him.

"What're you doing here? You're not on break!" she said, eyeing him suspiciously and the bags.

"Look, the machine is almost falling!" he pointed instead.

"Shi- Vander!" the woman yelled, to no use really, it was too loud and too messy all around. Silco slithered around the workers and hurried up, climbing part of the way to shortcut the ledge above. The lack of strength from before seemed gone as his arms pushed his body up, but he felt breathless and dizzy as he rolled on the ground of the platform and tried to stand up. The workers on the upper level paid him little mind, even as he yelled at them. He ran into the machine and hopped over the door opposite of the conductor's side, right in eyesight of the driver, Vander.

"Hey!" he yelled, banging his fist on the door. Vander looked at him in confusion and irritation. "Hey! Stop moving!"

"The fuck you want?" he shoved his head out on his side and yelled at him.

"You're on a ledge!" Silco yelled back. "You're almost falling down and crushing us all under there!"

"Shit!" Vander cussed, stopping the machine immediately and looking behind himself. As Silco could confirm, it was hard to see anything from up here, including the damn ledge. "Why'd no one say anything?"

"Too noisy, you couldn't hear," Silco answered, pointing to his ear to help pass the message, though it was slightly better with one less thing running. Vander got out of the seat and banged the door shut, making the whole thing rattle and Silco wiggle and drop off of it with a thud. He hurried to circle around the machine to Vander's side.

"Hey, Vander! We got work to do here!" one of the workers complained.

"Shut up, give me a second." Vander seemed to be looking down, and Silco managed to make out the: "Shit. That's quite the drop."

"Come on, Vander!"

"For fuck's-" he snarled as he got back into the conductor's seat.

"Hey!" Silco called as the door snapped back shut and the sudden window of opportunity that presented itself was closing. "You got anything to eat?"

Vander looked at him. Either he was stunned from the near-death fall or he thought Silco was stupid.

"Do I owe you somethin'?"

"I'm just hungry," Silco explained, suddenly feeling embarrassed but not wanting to show weakness. He tended to mask his fear as courage and he didn't want to prove it was any other way, especially in front of someone as strong as Vander who could use it against him.

"Does it look like I keep snacks in my damn pockets?"

"You must have food stored somewhere, to look like a damn boulder," he said without thinking. He was hungry, ok? He had already done a lot of quick thinking and climbing for someone who was starving! Brain's gotta shut down at some point.

Vander didn't miss a beat. "It's called puberty, you should try it sometime, you damn runt!" And he kicked the machine back on.

Silco opened his mouth but was yelled at again for being in the way before he could figure out what he was supposed to say to that.

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Silco felt miserable as the shift finally ended. He had his day's wage secured tightly in his pocket, trying not to think too much on the fact he could barely buy anything with it. He really just wanted to rest a bit now if he could, because tomorrow the cycle would begin all over again. People kept bumping against him as they left and he basically decided to just let himself be carried off as much as possible by them. Even that little relief was short-lived.

"Hey, kid!"

Silco had every reason to continue walking, but the gruffiness of the voice, closer to an adult's rough matured voice than a kid's, made him stop and look back. And then up.

"Hey," Vander greeted, blowing off a coat of dust from his nose with his hand, patting off on the side of his clothes. He really looked like a grown-up; even had a bit of moustache and beard sprinkled on his face. "Thanks for before. Appreciate it, kid."

"Don't call me kid," it was his first reply; great way to start a conversation, huh. Well done, Silco, he sighed internally. "I have a name."

"Silco, right?" Vander asked, catching him off guard. The taller boy returned Silco's nod with one of his own. "Be careful out here. It's hard to see with this shit stuck to your eyes."

As if Silco hadn't been the one to help him out earlier.

"...sure."

"And, here."

Silco looked down at a piece of bread Vander was holding. He barely had time to control the snap of his hand, looking back at Vander once more.

"You don't owe me anything," he said.

"Now I don't," Vander replied, pushing the bread into his hand so Silco couldn't refuse it (why would he). And then he just kept moving without saying anything else, quickly caught up by some pals almost all as big as him who sent some eyes over Silco in turns.

Silco had the reflex to look around himself before quickly shoving the bread into his mouth, chewing it down with a bit of difficulty. Seemed like the first thing he had to buy now was something to drink instead of food. And it seemed like he came out from his first actual interaction with Vander on even ground, despite how intimidating the other boy was. Sure, they hadn't got into a fight or anything and he certainly had no intention to, but Silco counted all things positive as a win.

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