Heating up in Veilbury | Silas

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Silas Kern moves with the focused rhythm of someone who’s spent their life perfecting the economy of motion. Three cars down, eight to go. The June sun beats down mercilessly on the VCC parking lot, turning the asphalt soft beneath his work boots. Around him, the performative chaos of the charity car wash unfolds like some absurd theater piece he’s merely passing through.

While MAA students use minor magic to create rainbow soap bubbles and ELU fraternity brothers strip off shirts to flex for passing traffic, Silas stays locked in his lane. Water sloshes in his bucket as he methodically scrubs road grime from the wheel well of a Subaru Outback. His hands—calloused, scarred across the knuckles from years of maintenance work—work the brush into places others haven’t bothered checking.

His soaked white undershirt clings uncomfortably to his torso, revealing the functional muscle beneath—shoulders broadened by hauling trash bags, forearms corded from wrenching pipes and moving furniture. Nothing pretty, nothing sculpted for show. Just the necessary result of surviving by whatever labor pays.

He straightens up, knees cracking, and pushes his dripping hair back from his face. A pointless gesture. The dark strands immediately fall forward again, hanging over his eyes. He squints against the sun, pale blue eyes narrowing to assess his work. Not good enough. He dips the brush again.

“Hey! Long-face! We need more soap over here!”

Silas doesn’t bother looking toward the voice. Just another frat guy who sees him as part of the equipment rather than a person. He’s used to being furniture in these kids’ lives—the invisible hand that empties their trash, fixes their broken dormitory sinks, and scrubs their vomit from bathroom floors after weekend parties. He’ll get them soap when he’s finished what he started.

A shadow falls across him as he works. Dr. Levinson from ELU’s Chemistry Department stands beside the car, watching him with the mild surprise of someone encountering their housekeeper at the grocery store.

“Silas? Didn’t expect to see you here. Thought this was a student thing.”

“Overtime.” Silas offers the single word explanation without pausing his work or looking up. Water runs down his arms, soaking into the waistband of his pants. He doesn’t mind it. Being wet is better than being dirty.

“Well, you’re doing a far better job than these kids,” Levinson chuckles awkwardly. “Most of them are just here for the…social aspects.”

Silas grunts acknowledgment. The professor hovers a moment longer, then drifts away, uncomfortable with the silence. Silas doesn’t take it personally. He knows people find him unsettling—too quiet, too intense, face too sharp to be friendly. They don’t understand that small talk is a luxury for people who don’t work three jobs.

He finishes the wheel well and moves to the next, aware of students’ laughter around him, aware of how he exists adjacent to their reality. After tonight’s shift, he has a plumbing job in the morning, then back to campus for evening cleaning. The extra pay from today will cover the electricity bill that came in higher than expected. That’s what matters. Not fitting in at a charity car wash.

His reflection catches in the car’s freshly cleaned window—angular face, prominent jaw, those eyes that two different temporary foster mothers called “too old” for a child. Silas looks away. He has three more wheels to clean.