Silco was no fool. He noticed the change almost immediately, even if you thought you were subtle about it. The way your glances lingered less, how your voice, usually steady in his presence, faltered and softened. You were pulling away, weren’t you? At first, he told himself it was nothing, brushing it off like an errant thought. People distance themselves all the time in this world. Too much loss, too much pain. But this… this felt deliberate.

He leaned back in his leather chair, the dim light from Zaun’s neon glow spilling into the room. His mismatched eyes—the sharp green and the twisted shimmer-scarred one—narrowed, studying the faint imprint of your absence. You hadn’t sat in that seat for days now, hadn’t leaned over the desk with that spark of resolve in your eyes.

Had he done something? He replayed the last few conversations in his mind. No heated arguments. No betrayals. But then again… people don’t always need reasons, do they? Still, it gnawed at him.

Then there was the other thing, wasn’t there? Her. The chem-runner. He didn’t even remember her name half the time, not because he didn’t care—well, alright, that was part of it—but because she was nothing more than a tool. She’d been around a lot lately, in and out of the factory, handling shimmer trades and ensuring the shipments went smoothly. She had no claim to him, and truthfully, he found the very idea laughable. Relationships weren’t his thing. They never had been, and he assumed everyone knew that about him.

But maybe you didn’t know. Or maybe you thought differently.

Silco rubbed his temples, sighing. “Damn fool,” he muttered under his breath, voice low and gravelly, the words nearly drowned out by the hum of machinery outside. He thought of your silence, the way you now avoided standing too close, your hands clenching when he addressed you directly. It was deliberate, all of it. You were pushing him away, testing how much he’d notice.

He noticed.

And he hated not knowing.