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Chapter Text

The smog of the Undercity is exceptionally thick today. You wonder if the ventilation system sinewing through Zaun is damaged. It's like an artery was blown out, its pollutants left to settle like sediment down to the deepest trenches. You wonder, even, if it’s punishment from Topside for all the chaos that’s unfurled lately. It’s been over a year of warring between factions following Vander’s death. The uptick in violence has resulted in Topside pressing their boots down harder onto your necks. Economically. Culturally. Physically. Judicially. And of course, environmentally. You silently say thanks for your mask, and for the purification pumps contained in your mech suit.

There are many things about the suit to be thankful for. Its armor. Its protection. Its ability to hide your gender. The voice modulator was expensive, but it was worth every coin. The whole of the Undercity believes you to be a male. You wonder sometimes if you would get half as much work if people knew you were a woman. You wouldn’t be taken seriously by most, you don’t think.

Perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference to the Eye of Zaun, given that his right-hand man is a woman.

And that bitch is running late.

Unusual for her. Sure, Sevika has a nonchalant attitude, but underneath that seeming indifference is grim gravitas. You start to get the feeling that more than just the air quality is off today.

You look around, leaning against weathered brick in the alleyway. The normal rendezvous point. Trenchers pass you by, carting water, textiles, tools. Some cough, noting the worsening smog. Rags bundle up around noses and mouths, meager attempts to combat the toxicity. The more disheveled amongst them poorly conceal the violet glow of Shimmer in their pockets, furtively looking around for a safe place to get their fill. Everyone is buzzing with the same paranoia, on alert for bigger fish looking to pilfer from them.

“Engineer.”

You spin around as smoothly as the suit will allow, the metal components clinking against each other.

Sevika stands before you, and she’s not alone this time. Two of Silco’s larger goons accompany her. “You’re coming with us. It’s a different kind of job this time,” she says smoothly.

A beat of silence goes by. You scan her face, trying to read it. Trying to understand what’s spawned this switch up. But Sevika is infuriatingly unreadable.

You nod, walking with them a block over to where a car is waiting. They parked it a distance away intentionally, you realize. They snuck up on you. This is very, very off.

You get in, sandwiched between the two goons as Sevika takes the front. The hair on the back of your neck is prickling. This doesn’t feel like work. This feels like suspicion.

A million thoughts race through your mind. The last few jobs contracted out to you went smoothly. You delivered the desired results, took your payment, and left. Not an iota more of complexity or difficulty. You’ve done nothing wrong. And yet, you’re clearly in trouble. Silco must suspect some sort of disloyalty. Will he interrogate you or go straight to having you cut up into pieces? Does that even make any sense? You’re just a mercenary, not a bonafide member of his crew. You suppose technicalities like that aren’t much of a concern to Silco.

You spend the entire ride to The Last Drop collecting your nerves. You’ll see what the fuck this is about. And then you’ll leave or die trying. You’d like to see what they think they can do to this suit.

You try to level your breathing, worrying that the increasing pace of the oxygen pumps on the suit will give you away. The adrenaline makes it hard to slow them down. At least the fear that must be written on your face is shielded from their prying eyes. You won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you terrified.

They lead you inside the bar upon arrival. As you trudge up the stairs, the fear starts to expire and is replaced by an odd, placid calm. I always knew this kind of work could end up like this. I always knew this could happen. No surprises.

A slow acceptance of your fate. You’re about to go missing. Never to be seen again. And bitterly, no family or friends exist to even notice you’re gone. A blip. An error. A soul that left no imprints and simply glitched out of the realm. It’s been a short, miserable existence.

Consumed by your thoughts, one of the goons nudges you ahead. And at last, at the end of the hall, that must be his office. Even the mahogany door is imposing.

Sevika and the two malefactors lead you inside, direct you to sit in a laughably small wooden chair (obviously intended to ramp up the humiliation factor), and then promptly leave you. Alone.

With Silco.

His back is turned to you. A ring of smoke snakes its way up towards the ceiling. He stands in front of a neon Eye of Zaun sign, eclipsing it. The room is bathed in a loud lime-colored glow. He’s shrouded by a sickly, flickering green aura. If you weren’t so scared, you would laugh at how much effort he puts into playing a villain. The cigar, his facing away from you, his letting you sit in uncomfortable, drawn-out silence. Silco is definitely a patron of the arts – deeply into theatrics.

Somehow, you muse, his slender figure is more intimidating than those of the gargantuan henchmen he employs. He’s spider-like. Venomous, and at the same time poised and graceful. Horrifying in a meticulous, stoic, almost beautiful manner. He reminds you of ivy, snaking its way up to the light with arduous determination. An unwelcome weed with inhuman persistence. He spreads his tendrils out and he claims.

He finally turns around, eyeing you. You feel naked, like he can look straight through all the gear and mechanics of the suit, past your mask, right into your consciousness. The Eye of Zaun. There’s nowhere to hide, not even in your mind. He sees it all.

Another puff of the cigar. “I understand up to this point you’ve been on the transportation side of things,” he says. “You help with my deliveries.”

Such a euphemistic way of putting things. You help him cripple an entire population with drugs – smuggling it into places and killing anyone that gets in the way. You help him beat the Undercity into purple submission. You’re a hired gun. The violence that steps in where words fail.

“Sevika says you’re good at it,” he continues.

You nod. You are good at killing.

He steps forward. “I’ve got something new for you. A baroness that’s attempting to hijack my business with her own iteration of Shimmer.” The tone of his voice tilts downward mockingly, like he finds this transgression amusing. “I’ve heard it’s quite good; enough to draw away customers. I want her brought here. I’m eager for her to share her recipe.”

The knot that had been tying itself in your stomach subsides for just a moment, realizing you will get to leave this office in one piece.

“Sevika will be heading this covert operation. For an assistant, she suggested you.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. They remain as menacing as ever. “The Engineer.”

You maintain your silence, sitting as motionless as humanly possible. You overcome your residual fear and begin to dissociate into the familiar robotic professional you know yourself to be. You don’t think about your own mortality. You think about getting jobs done. There’s no room in this line of work for fear. You’ll chastise yourself for getting so yellow later. These gangsters, him most of all, can smell fear. Surely, he sensed it from you. There’s laughter in his eyes.

“Funny no one knows anything about you,” he tilts his head. “Not even your name. You appear out of nowhere. You don’t discriminate, filling orders for anyone that pays.”

He pauses. “But there’s a saying,” Silco takes yet another step closer, beginning to tower over you in your seat. “A friend to everyone is really a friend to no one.”

He bends down, face inches from yours. You stare back at him from the safety of your mask.

“A piece of advice, Engineer.” His voice is unfathomably icy and even, “It’s safest out there if you’re loyal to only one party. Mine.”

The message is clear. If you become an asset to anyone else, you’re dead.

Rather than feeling threatened, your ego is stroked. He considers you important enough to snag. You’ve built up quite the reputation. And to think you once considered the whore houses for work, to scrape by and eat.

“So be it,” you respond, the voice modulator vocalizing a robotic lower register. Your reply sounds as monotonous and breezy as you had hoped.

Silco steps back, turning around again to face the neon sign. It’s like the stage has been reset for another performance, one you almost wish you could stick around for. But the tension radiating from him melts into something almost resembling boredom.

“Leave, then,” Silco sighs. “Sevika will brief you.”

Chapter Text

Contrary to what Silco said would happen, Sevika doesn’t say a word as you descend the stairs of The Last Drop behind her. You’ve no choice but to follow her through the claustrophobic veins of the Undercity, noticing her rush to escape the choke of the smog.

“Why me?” You finally ask, breaking the silence. The voice modulator renders it flat, almost uncaring. But the question carries a certain weight.

Sevika glances sideways, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Some are expendable. Others are efficient. You’re expendable and efficient.”

A compliment buried in a threat. Sevika glares at you a moment longer before turning back just in time to dodge a merchant nudging his way through the crowded street-side marketplace.

The route she takes you on leads you toward one of Zaun’s older train lines—long since decommissioned, now a subterranean artery for Zaunite trafficking and black market commerce. You pass a few pairs of peering eyes—urchins, fences, smugglers—who shrink into the shadows when Sevika steps into view. Her reputation precedes her. You follow a ways behind, scanning for any signs of trouble.

The train car is already waiting when you arrive—graffiti-smeared and crusted with grime, yet functional. Sevika steps in first, and you follow.

“We’re heading to the Sluglands,” she says once you’re seated. “Trota, the baroness, has been moving product through there from her refinery. The thing about this is speed. It’s just me and you. We’ve gotta be fucking quick or we’ll get overwhelmed.”

You pause. The Sluglands are deep in territory considered gray zone—technically Silco’s, but loosely controlled and hardly enforced. Silco’s been fighting too many wars on too many fronts to muster the manpower to fully occupy it. Still, for someone to set up their rival Shimmer factory there, it’s audacious to say the least. What manpower does Trota have that Silco doesn’t?

“Any intel on her muscle?” You ask.

Sevika nods. “She’ll have a personal guard. Some foot soldiers on the perimeter, on the grounds overseeing transport, most will be at the lower level making sure everyone is working and not getting high. Nothing we can’t handle. If we’re fast enough.”

“We get her out of there clean?” You tilt your head.

“We only need Trota intact. The others don’t matter.”

“And then?”

“She wakes up in The Last Drop.” Sevika leans forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her thighs. What happens next – how many fingers she gets to keep – is entirely up to her.”
The train lurches, and the world goes dark as it dips down even deeper into the earth. When you were little, this place – the Sluglands – went by a different name. Your mother called it Dark Mantle. That’s more fitting, you think.

For the rest of the ride, Sevika doesn’t speak. And neither do you. No need to until it’s time to get to work.

*********************************************

The refinery gleams below you, churning fumes into the eternal dusk. It’s built into a cliffside like a parasite feeding on its host. Lights are blinking in lazy rotations, and you swear the air itself has a violet tinge to it. The atmosphere is purple, surging, and electric.

You and Sevika are above it all, crouched down on a walkway overlooking the roof.

Sevika points. “There’s a ladder down here on the west end. We climb down,” her index finger drifts, “and we enter through that hatch there. If our informant was worth anything, that should drop us down into the side hall leading up to Trota’s office. Should be the second door on the right, at the very end of the hall. There’ll be a guard outside, maybe two, who will spot us the moment we drop down. Ranged kill. But quiet. Use your arrows.”

You nod, both of you glancing down at the augmentation you added just for this job. A bow-launcher added to your arm plate.

“As soon as they’re down,” Sevika continues, “I go in. You keep watch beyond the door, make sure no one’s noticed. I knock her out. Hooded, tied, gagged, she exits with us like the way we came. Her office should have a window leading out onto the cliffside. It slopes back up towards the roof. Getting back up the ladder to the walkway will be a bitch, but after that we’re free. Follow it to that outcropping back up onto the road. One of the big boys will be waiting with a car.”

“Why did we take the train if you’re just going to have a lackey pull up with a car?” You ask, indignant. Not very professional of you, but neither is Sevika being nonsensical. The voice modulator fails to mask your annoyance.

“The train is discrete. They don’t see us coming. They only see us going. And by the time they notice the car, we’ll already have her. We just have to be quick. Time is of the essence. That’s why you’re here and not any other regular dolt.”

You don’t want to waste any more time, then. “Let’s do it.” You say, beginning a somewhat awkward duckwalk towards the ladder.

Sevika follows, the two of you doing your best to stay low as various lights strobe and blink across the compound. Several hundred feet below on the ground, nearly a hundred workers are milling about. The purple gleams impressively still from such a distance.

You descend the ladder and slither across the roof to the hatch. You hesitate before opening it, knowing you’ll have to get two practically perfect kills the moment you drop. Sevika looks up at you and wordlessly presses a single finger to her lips.

You take a deep breath and yank the hatch door open.

Floor. Walls. Hallway. Two. Arm. Aim. Fire. Two Down. Clean.

When they’ve fallen to the floor and Trota’s door is left naked, you look up at Sevika and nod. She drops down with a thud and jogs towards the door. The two of you exchange a look before she kicks the door open.

“Oh!” You hear a shrill female voice exclaim inside.

You quickly dart inside, to find Sevika’s already rendered Trota into a crumpled ball behind her desk. A past, softer you might have felt bad about beating and kidnapping an elderly woman. Her hair is so white it’s almost blue in hue. Her skin wrinkled across every surface like dunes cresting in a sprawling desert. But she dared to cross Silco.

What’s happening to her now should be no surprise.

“Let’s go, chef.” Sevika grunts, tightening the rope knotting Trota’s hands together.

You cross the room to open the window, a smile on your face.

Chapter Text

Trota sits slumped in the same laughably small chair you once occupied, now tied to it by coarse rope sprawling across her boxy chest. Blood mats one side of her head where Sevika’s fists made their introduction. Wisps of blue-white hair paste themselves to her temples, dampened by sweat. She’s conscious, somewhat. Her breathing is slow, shallow. Her eyes are half-lidded. Surely, she’s concussed.

                  You stand a few feet in front of her, waiting for Silco. You haven’t moved since Sevika delivered Trota here a mere fifteen minutes ago. She left, as if what came next bored her. How many times have Sevika and Silco done this? How much blood has been spilled on this floor?

                  You hear boots, dull thuds coming down the hall at a lulled tourist’s pace. Silco rounds the doorway, sauntering in. His movements are somehow smooth and cat-like while at the same time militant, a sentry of sorts. The single light bulb hanging above the two of you makes the gel in is hair reflective, gleaming. Not a single strand is out of place.  He takes up position next to you, leaning slightly left and right to tauntingly observe his subject. You can’t help but take in his scent – ash, woodiness, tobacco. He smells as if grit and highly refined tastes were combined and boiled down to an essence. Slowly, he straightens, seemingly satisfied.

                  “Easy enough?” He asks you, almost purring.  

                  “No trouble, sir.” You respond matter-of-factly. You swallow. You’re not sure why there’s an airiness swirling around in your chest.

                  He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he does so. As though the heavy Undercity air is nothing but orgasmic. His relaxedness, his bliss, somehow contains within it extraordinary power. Trota looks up weakly, not lifting her head up fully but peering at him from the tops of her eyes. The beadiness of her eyes spell out pure hatred.

                  Silco holds her gaze for a moment. The corner of his lip twitches up for a mere moment. Anger…amusement…perhaps amusement at how angry he found himself. There seemed to always be a storm brewing beneath the surface.

                  “You’ve been busy,” He says at last, voice pouring over Trota like honey. So languid. Like he was saving his energy.

                  Trota’s eyes narrow into slits. You hear a low grumble come from her, like animalistic rage is all that’s left of her mind. The lights have gone out in her – there’s nothing but primal instinct.

                  “I admire ambition,” Silco continues. “But yours, Baroness, was misdirected. You don’t corner a stall in the market before you’ve proven you can survive it.”

                  Silco steps forward until he’s as close as he possibly can be without touching her, his hips practically level to her head. He then slinks down, crouching in front of her. “And you can’t survive it.” He looks down at the floorboards, concentrated. When he slowly lifts his head back up to stare up at Trota, he simultaneously slides a knife from its sheath on his side. Casually tracing lines with it on her bare knee, pressing ever so gently, not yet breaking the skin, he breathes shakily.

                  “I hear you’ve come up with quite the concoction.” Here, his voice goes shockingly dark. A cold, deep pit, where screeches of fury fall down and find no bottom. The black in his heart is boundless.

                  Now, he presses the blade into her chin, piercing her, forcing her to look down at him. He leans in hungrily, as if he were yearning to collect the bead of blood weeping its way down her neck. “Now, tell me,” Silco says sardonically, “What was mommy cooking up in the kitchen?”

                  Trota suddenly enlivens with a look of wild determination. A huffing, a harsh shutting of her eyes. A willing.

                  There’s a sickening crunch. An initial buckle, and then a caving in and grinding of some kind of hard substance. The source of it, you have no idea. Silco cocks his head in similar confusion. You swore you saw his mouth part ever so slightly in surprise.

                  And as Trota dons a devilish smile, it becomes readily apparent what must have happened. Purple oozes through her capillaries like Shimmer have married into one fervent matrix. She begins to buldge, the ropes straining against her burgeoning frame.

                  She had a Shimmer capsule in her mouth.

                  Silco sharply and silently rises to his feet, then backs up slowly. Before you can blink, Trota rips from her bondages and the chair is launched backwards into the wall, promptly falling apart, leaving a dent in its wake.

                  You freeze. You’ve never seen something so horrifying. Shimmer can do this?

                  Before you can blink, Trota surges forward and seizes Silco by the throat. His blade falls to the floor with a resounding clunk. You, a statue behind him, watch him twitch and jerk, attempting to free himself from her grasp. His throat being crushed, he lets out desperate gargling sounds.

                  You need to fucking do something. Shocked out of your stupor, you realize there’s a remaining arrow left in the augment. You aim, fire, and there’s an eerie, horrific moment where it’s pierced straight through her eye, into her brain, and yet her grip on Silco is as tight and merciless as ever.

                  Then, it falters. She sways, first to one side, then another, before finally tumbling forwards. Silco narrowly, in a strained manner, darts to one side to avoid being trapped under the tanking monstrosity. Purple and crimson, a violent magenta, begin to pool on the floor. He shifts yet another step away to keep the enigmatic fluids from touching his boots.

                  He gasps, pawing at his throat as though her hands remain there. He spits saliva pooled in his mouth out desperately. Each breath absorbed he exhales with enough force to nearly fold him halfway over.

                  You cross the room over to him, hoping to help him somehow. Hoping to make amends for what a coward you were. Hoping to put aside, for a moment, the realization that something is wrong with you – that freeze, that complete shut-down, has never happened before.

                  Silco, now rubbing at his neck tenderly, looks up at you. Strands of jet black hair sway forwards, shaking in tandem with each battered wheeze. He struggles to regain his breath, his calm, his composure. His dignity. Where only moments ago you saw so much strength and power, you saw now a certain brokenness. And, as though, he realizes this at the same time as you, this exchange with your faceless profile he suddenly uses as kindling. His face flushes with rage.

                  “Get out,” he rasps, “Get. Out.”

                  You don’t know what to do. “Sir,” is all you offer.

                  “Get out!” He yells, and his raw voice grates in a way that makes you wince. Gods, if he had seen that wince. That pity. He would have ripped you apart limb by limb right then and there. That brief vignette of a frightened man was long gone and replaced with what you could only compare to a demon.

                  Underneath the Eye of Zaun there is a man. But that man is buried deep, deep down. And it seems only the greatest scares allow him to get any oxygen. See any light.

                  You whip around, trudging down the stairs of The Last Drop and barreling outside of its doors.

                  Sevika catches sight of you from an adjacent alleyway, throwing her cigarette down and stamping it down before charging up to you. Reading your body language she asks you, “What? What is it?”

                  “Trota had a Shimmer capsule in her mouth. Had Silco a foot off the ground with one hand.”

                  Sevika scoffs, shaking her head. “Shit.” She makes her way into The Last Drop, leaving you to walk silently back home.

                  Once there, free from the suit, you plant yourself in front of your mirror. The image is foggy, the glass oxidized, and you stare at your own zombified countenance for hours.

Chapter Text

You’ve been suffering from extraordinary paranoia.

                  You’ve done the worst thing imaginable, you realize. Worse than disloyalty, worse than setting up a rival faction of Shimmer-makers, worse than freezing in the face of an adversary.

                  You saw Silco, of all people, in a moment of weakness.  

                  And it had made an imprint on you. It was something you would know and feel and remember for the rest of your life. And he knew it, too.

                  The twitch at the corner of his mouth, his ragged breath, the raw edge in his voice, the way his eyes – usually cold and calculating – had somehow looked beyond the mask to  search yours for something neither of you would name. You weren’t supposed to see that. No one was. And now it gnawed at you like acid gurgling behind your ribs.

                  And this is more dangerous than anything else you’ve ever encountered before. All the times you had been shot at, chased down, narrowly avoiding Enforcers – that all paled in comparison to this.

                  He was going to have you killed. A man that rules with an iron fist like he does, to see weakness in him…it’s not just punishable, it’s heretical.

                  You’re going to die, because now when you envision Silco in your mind, it’s not the austere coat, the sharp gaze, the air of authority that you see. It’s the hair strands collapsing over his brow, his shock, the way he desperately fought whatever demons arose and went for his jugular. Oh, how desperately he strained for his throat, long after Trota’s collapse.

                  You can only imagine his rage. It suddenly dawns on you that Silco also believes you to be man – that’s a further wound to his ego. Would he realize you were a woman before he slit your throat? Not that it would make a difference in the end, anyways.

                  What can you possibly do? You thought about other crime bosses you’ve filled contracts for before, ones that have viewed you favorably enough. Could you seek them out? Get their protection? Should you go to Smeech? Renni? Margot?

                  Silco’s words begin to ring in your mind, the truth in them infuriating and dreadful in an all too excruciating manner. A friend to everyone is really a friend to no one. Not a single one of them would take you. Why should they? Sure, you’re good at what you do. But all that effort you put into neutrality, impartiality, a professional profile with no concern for personal prejudices or preferments – you’ve effectively signed your own death warrant. Your alliance to Silco – you never should have let him woo you into thinking it was any kind of compliment. That it would have any kind of longevity. Sevika told you plainly, yes you were efficient. And expendable. Now burned by Silco, who is actively warring with the others, it’s over. It’s truly over. No one even has a face to remember you by. You were a black, metallic mass that rained death and mayhem on others. No one knows your name, the tone of your voice. No one knows your favorite color, what you dreamt of before picking up this work, what you were like as a friend.

                  It’s all so glaringly obvious now, that you were never meant for any of this.

                  Crouched in your home, fists clenched, you shut your eyes so tightly it squeezes hot tears out of the corners of your eyes. How stupid you’ve been. You never meant for any of this to happen. This wasn’t Plan A. You were orphaned, alone, hungry. And you were good at science, constructing things, understanding all kinds of complex mechanics. It seemed better than selling your body. Smuggling shimmer, carrying out hits. It put food on the table, and as you leaned over your porridge you did your best to forget about what got it there.

                  You went to bed drunk, sedated, pushed it down. It was work.

                  It had been nearly a day since Silco had banished you from his office. It was only a matter of time before someone was sent to kill you, but when? Would he send Sevika, or another hardened, callous simpleton who was simply filling a contract as you would have?

                  You almost hoped it would be Sevika coming to end you. She would be quick and thorough. She would be impersonal and clinical about it. Maybe as she dulled her emotional senses, you could dull yours, too, and die without much flourish of fear or despair.

                  You nod, trying to reassure yourself. All life ever was, it was just a massive inconvenience. Your father died in a mining accident when you were an infant. Your mother died a few years later, ill. And all it’s been that is inconvenience after inconvenience. The inconvenience of hunger, the inconvenience of thirst, of sleep. You never lived, you merely just got by.

                  That was how you justified your work, in the beginning, When you still bothered to try and assign some kind of morality to it. Silco, Trota, Renni, they all claim to advocate for the Undercity as an entity. They say they want better for the Trenchers. In reality, all they want is better for themselves. They consume each other, cannibalize, sabotage, maim. Silco has probably had more Zaunites killed than those haughty Piltover elites ever have.

                  You chuckle bitterly to yourself. That’s all you can do now, is laugh. What a bitter waste, all of it.

                  An idea starts to dawn on you. You’ve never had any control over anything your entire life. And even now, you sit in a corner pathetically, waiting for whatever paid killer is surely approaching. Why don’t you take control of something for once? You make your final stand? What if you end it yourself?

                  No, you can’t. It’s cowardice. You always told yourself that if you were going to die, you wanted to go out kicking and screaming, fighting every inch and mile.

                  But if you know, if you know that’s ending, well isn’t that different? Die at someone else’s hand, afraid, or die at your own? You can grab a drink, a cigarette, put on your favorite vinyl. You can try to conjure up some sort of peace.

                  You can –

                  Banging, on your front door. What kind of assassin announces their arrival? You don’t move.

                  Banging, even more furiously than before.

                  You start to lean forward, reaching past your knees towards your gun lying on the tiled floor of your kitchen. As the door starts to behave as though it might break off its hinges, you summon the courage to stand up and start to creep towards it. Let’s be brave, in the end. Finally, let’s be brave. Just confront it.

                  You take a deep, shaky breath before swinging the door open, pointing your gun directly at –

                  Sevika.

                  Her eyes land on yours first, then quickly flick down to your gun pointed at her chest. She roughly pushes the barrel down. “What the fuck,” she grunts.

                  She’s breathing heavily, like she ran to get here. Her brows furrow in confusion. “Where’s the Engineer?”

                  You blink. You shouldn’t be surprised that she wouldn’t recognize you now, a younger woman in a t-shirt and sweatpants. Now’s your chance to lie and say you don’t know. She can keep looking for “him”. And you can live the rest of your life never to put that fucking suit on ever again.

                  Frustrated, Sevika reaches and grabs you by the fabric of your shirt. “Where is he? It’s important, a girl’s been kidnapped.”

                  What?

                  Is this some kind of trick? To get you to reveal yourself, or more likely reveal your boyfriend/dad/brother/uncle, the Engineer?

                  Silco does have a daughter, you’ve heard of her. This realization alone, that perhaps there really is a child out there in danger, makes you say the dumbest thing possible. “It’s me. I’m the Engineer.”

                  Sevika squints, cocking her head at you. “That’s you, you’re the guy – you’re the chick in the suit?” Her disbelief borders on being insulted, that you would be audacious enough to joke with her in her distress. Her gaze scans you from head to toe, frantically gauging what to make of you.

                  She huffs, “Come on, then. It’s Jinx. We need you.”

*************************

                  And now you’ve resumed the life you would’ve sworn moments ago was a burning dumpster fire, as though nothing ever happened. As though you hadn’t believed yourself to be sought out by Silco assassins, as though you hadn’t been contemplating suicide.

                  It’s Trota, of course. Trota’s son, more specifically. He’s interim mob boss in the wake of her death. He wanted revenge, to hurt Silco. The most natural, and really only way to do so, was to grab Jinx. Your stomach drops. She’s just a young girl of what, ten years of age? Eleven? As morally bankrupt as the mobsters of Zaun are, you thought there was an unspoken rule that you don’t go for children. Kids should be kept out of it.

                  At the same time your stomach twists with dread at the thought of what they’re doing to her, your chest begins to swell with a rage completely foreign to you. You don’t think you’ve ever been quite this angry in your life. It’s this fluttering, billowing smokestack of adrenaline that makes you completely indifferent to anything but what’s at hand. You don’t care where you stand with Silco, before, during, or after this. You just want to get that little girl back safe.

                  If they hurt her, Trota’s son, Pimor, will have succeeded. Yes, Silco will hurt. But first, oh my gods, he’s going to get angry. You all might drown in the blood that will be shed in these streets.

                  You and Sevika are right back where you started. Overlooking the factory on a skeletal walkway. The same ladder, the same hatch. Hoping your hunch is right, that Jinx is here. That you haven’t drawn yourself and Sevika to the wrong place when a young girl desperately needs you both.

                  Now, the place is less populated than you expected. The amount of personnel, it’s light. You squint. They’d be stupid not to expect Silco to come and raise hell. You realize what this likely means – that you were wrong. Trota’s men must be concentrated elsewhere, where they actually have Jinx. You pray it’s where Silco and his men ended up in their search.

                  The dark pigmentation of your suit helps you to blend in. You’re a piece of the night. While Sevika moves like a soldier, you move like a ghost. One stalks, the other fades.

                  Sevika, overlooking the factory and the great chasm it spans, sighs heavily. “This place is huge; we’ve got to know she’s here or we don’t stand a chance.”

                  You nod. The two of you carry binoculars, looking around for any possible signs of Jinx. It’s hard to see. Just a barrage of black shapes, sifting like sand.

                  Suddenly, you remember you affixed night vision to your suit. You put your binoculars down for a moment to flick the trigger on the side of your helmet. It won’t budge. You turn away for a moment, struggling, until it finally whirs to life. And you almost gasp when you see it.

                  Bright blue, a trail of it, right out in front of you. “Sevika,” You breathe, “They brought her in through here.”

                  A factory light strobes over the walkway, highlighting it for her. It’s jagged, thick and opaque blocks at some parts and hardly more than dabbled drops at others.

                  “They dragged her,” Sevika notes. “And she fought. Hard.”

                  “You think they have her in the office?” You ask.

                  “We don’t have much else to go on.” She responds grimly.

                  You nod. Beyond the confirmation she’s somewhere within the refinery itself, you have not the faintest idea where they’ve stored her. What room, what kind of security is posted. If she’s even still alive. You can’t afford to wait, either. The two of you are Silco’s only hope on this end of the search. Silco is across town, with his men, at the compound where Trota and her minions were known to hang out. Their clubhouse. Sevika had relayed back to you that he wasn’t receptive to your hunch. You feel a pang in your heart for him, surprising yourself. He's desperate to save his daughter, and he went to the wrong place.

                  But you can sense him. Whether he’s five feet away or five hundred thousand, you can sense his anger. He’s primed to explode.

                  You start to crawl forwards along the walkway.

                  “What’re you doing?” Sevika asks.

                  “Let’s go fucking get her,” You say, “let’s do it now.”

                  You sense Sevika’s uneasiness, and deep down you feel the same, but knowing a girl is in danger bolsters a kind of bravery in you that you didn’t even know you had.

                  Down the ladder. Now, the hatch. “Same as before. I drop down and I take out as many as I can. You follow. We keep looking, we keep moving. As quiet as we can. We don’t let them know we’re here unless we have to.”

                  Sevika nods. Slowly, you raise the hatch door. You close your eyes for just a moment, meditating. The same way you would for jobs in the past. So that eerie cold storm can come over you, and you can be completely, perfectly, almost psychotically primed to kill. No one was going to stop you.

                  You drop down. Again, there are two guards in front of the office door. You kill them, swiftly, before barging in.

                  There’s no one inside. No Jinx, no Pimor. Sevika’s at your heel. You turn around, and she reads your dismayed expression. The two of you keep it moving.

                  You have a sneaking suspicion that Jinx is in the basement level. Mostly storage for the Shimmer alternative, you had learned from Sevika from last time. It would be the hardest for an enemy to get to. You come in through the front, you’ve got an open coverless plane of barren rock and crust to somehow survive passage of before you even reach the refinery. The sides are mountainous. You come in from the top, like you have, and there’s still three more floors to get through before reaching the bottommost level.

                  You pad silently down the hall, doing your best to make rapid movements whilst still being quiet. Two thugs approach from a stairwell doorway. You kill the one on the left, Sevika the one on the right.

                  There’s still an entire floor left to search, you’ve only confirmed that Jinx is not in this one hallway. Do you waste time clearing the floor, undoubtedly running into more foot soldiers, only to not find her there? Do you rush to the basement, only to realize she’s not there, either, and have to claw your way back up from the bottom to find her on an upper floor?

                  Sevika seems to read your mind. Under her breath, barely audible, “I think we should go down.” You agree.

                  You enter the stairwell and are relieved that it seems to be a direct way down. The two of you stealthily round each flight, floor 3, floor 2, floor 1…

                  The stairs end. This is the bottom. There’s a metal door, red, with signage warning of toxic chemicals. You exchange a look with Sevika. You press in.

                  This is the absolute worst place to have a gunfight. Trapped, down in a basement, surrounded by tight shelving. Barrels of Shimmer. You start to creep further inside. You hold your hand up to Sevika behind you, telling her to pause. Hold her place at the door. You’re starting to be overcome by the worst feeling, and it’s prickling the hairs at the back of your neck.

                  It’s nearly pitch black. If it weren’t for your night vision, you’d be going in blind. You can tell, maybe a few rows of shelves over, there’s a lamp or something akin to it illuminating an opening in this maze of thick metallic containers, cases, trunks. There are just a few tendrils of pale yellow light, floating in like a haze right above the floor and right below the ceiling. The only wedges of space unobstructed by storage.

                  You keep going, trying to work your way towards it, gun drawn. You’re ready to confront and shoot at a moment’s notice. You’re going to get her out if here if it kills you.

                  You start to hear sniffling. Meek, muffled cries. The closer you get, the clearer the sound is. It’s her, it’s got to be her. The light is expanding, brightening, encroaching on you. You’re nearly there.

                  And you reach the opening.

                  Tied up to a support pole, a white cloth tied around her mouth. A little girl, with long blue hair and startling blue eyes. She shrinks under your gaze, terrified.

                  You heart breaks for Jinx, shaking like a leaf. You realize how daunting you must look, come in all your menacing, warmongering state to save her. You lower your gun for a moment, so that one hand can reach up and decompress your helmet. You take it off so that she can see you.

                  Now that two girls have locked eyes with each other, you speak. “Jinx,” You say, “I’m going to get you out of here.”

                  She squeezes her eyes shut and releases a few panicked, hiccupped sobs. You rush forwards, shifting the fabric covering her mouth down to her neck. You start to go behind her do undo her bondage when you see a box. Wires extending from it. Trailing to other parts of the room that you can’t see.

                  “Wait!” She cries.

                  You swallow hard. The box is ticking. You look up at her, and she falls apart, hysterical. “Please help me!” She shrieks, hardly able to breathe.

                  There’s a timer attached to the bomb. Just over three minutes left. And the wires…gods forbid there are others. More bombs.

                  The enormity of Pimor’s plan dawns on you. He wanted this to be easy. He wanted to lure you, Silco, whoever, here. Drained the place of most of its workers. Spelled it out for you. This play ends with you, Jinx, explosives, and a motherlode of a highly flammable, caustic agent. He wanted to take Jinx, Silco, his men, all in one go.

                  A rush of nausea whips you. But you realize you must stay collected, for her. You push it all down. Somehow, you will get her out of this.

                  Your suit is equipped with a laser. It makes fast work of the rope. Her hands, free, her ankles free, you yank her up forcefully out of desperation.

                  “Run!” You screech at her, and she darts away behind the shelving. You pray she makes it to Sevika. You hope they find each other and get the hell out of here.

                  But in a flash, you realize they don’t have enough time. This bomb, the others its wires extend to, the blast will blow the roof off this place. They won’t make it far enough. The three of you are all as good as dead.

                  You’re frantic now, and with just over a minute left, decide there’s nothing better to do but yank wires. You yank them from the bomb in front of you. You follow them, then, through the maze of shelving to another corner of the room. You find another bomb box. You yank them from it, too.

                  You are zeroed in, focused so intensely you almost don’t feel human. The adrenaline fuels you to keep finding your way around, following the breadcrumbs of wires, desperately yanking and pulling and cutting. You do this five more times.

                  Seven bombs diffused.

                  There’s one trail of wires left. Where’s the last bomb? Your breathing hitches. Where the fuck is it?

                  You know, by now there’s not much time left. You close your eyes, and you say a silent prayer that Sevika and Jinx have managed to get far enough away.

                  A blistering screech of metal and flame.

                  And then black.

Chapter Text

You enter a kind of half-consciousness, suddenly remembering you’re alive and not much beyond that. You sigh contentedly. You feel so heavy and sluggish, in a way that should probably concern you. You almost feel drugged or like you’re coming down with a major illness. But, with all the stress of the past few days, you could do with some rest, you think. You’ll stay home today and recuperate.

                  You go to scratch your forehead but realize you’re restricted by something. You get caught by some kind of tether. Your eyes fly open.

                  You’re not at your home.

                  There are cords coming out of your arms, monitors attached to you. You’re on some kind of hard prison slab that was fashioned into a bed. The cold metal still bites at you from beneath the thin sheet someone laid down. A worn, beat-up pillow half-heartedly cradles your head. And you hardly feel like you have any bare skin exposed. Were you reconstructed and made entirely out of bandages? What the hell happened?

                  Some kind of panicked and garbled noise escapes from you. You try to sit up, and suddenly the sluggishness you felt before transforms into some of the most debilitating soreness you’ve ever experienced. Your body practically screams at you to lie back down and never dare move again.

                  “It’s alright.” A voice so serpentine your skin crawls. Your eyes dart up to realize the tall, slender silhouette across the room. Their back is to you, tinkering at some kind of work bench. Silco? The room is dark and it wreaks of odorous chemicals. It reminds you of your own workshop, in a way, but so much more grim and depraved. Your vision starts to blur at the edges with panic. Your chest heaves and every one of your ribs protests furiously.

                  “I’ll go tell him you’re awake.” And the figure slithers off to the other end of the room. It’s not Silco. This person isn’t so pronounced, there’s no thickening of the air. He floats like an apparition. The change in lighting beyond this place is so extreme that you’re blinded when he opens the door, almost giving you hope, before he shuts it with a firm thud and leaving you alone, swallowed in this abysmal setting.

                  You don’t know when these people will be back, but you assume it won’t be long. You look down at yourself, at the state you’re in. You don’t even want to think about what’s entering your veins. You don’t want to know what wounds lie beneath the bandges. It’s clear you’re not able to escape. Not now.

                  Your best course of action is to collect yourself mentally as much as you possibly can. Fucking think, you scold yourself.

                  You close your eyes and take a deep breath, as much as it feels like doing so will shatter what’s left of you. Let it float up. What happened will come to the surface, if you can get yourself out of fight-or-flight mode. Calm. Know no fear…

                  The girl.

                  The girl.

                  An entirely new breed of panic floods your nervous system. One of the monitors you’re connected to raises the alarm, a machine nearby screaming that you’ve been thrown entirely off balance.

                  You can hardly think. The girl. That poor, small, girl. And Sevika. Did they make it? Surely if you, fuck, if you made it, they must have, right? Did they escape? Are they back with Silco? Or…who were you collected by? Surely this can’t be all Pimor. He’d let you die, not peel you out of your suit and – oh gods, who took you out of your suit? Where’s your suit? Your life’s work got blown up?

                  The machine is still firing off a flurry of beeps and screeches.

                  Can someone please tell you where you are, what happened, if that girl is okay? Jinx, you finally have the mind to recall. She was so terrified. She had to make it out, she had to. She’s got to be okay. You begin to spiral for a moment, tears prick the backs of your eyes. You let just one escape, softly carving a line down your cheek before you find it in yourself to push it down. You need to collect yourself. You’re no good like this. You sniffle.

                  Breathe.

                  Two pairs of footsteps, quickening as they get closer.

                  The room is a shocking white again as light floods in, casting itself in shocks across the floor, the walls, you. Two figures in the doorway, and one rushes towards you, the other a casual pace.

                  “She’s fine,” The voice from before sighs, “Just fearful.”

                  The other figure, the one that rushed, pauses about a foot in front of where you lay.

                  You blink frantically, trying to get your eyes to adjust to the light. You peer at the figure closest to you, and as your vision clarifies, you start to add up features like puzzle pieces.

                  The waistcoat. The tie. The thin, guileful lips. The scarring.

                  “Silco,” You breathe, voice barely audible.

                  The other person, a man, adjusts the machines adjacent to you, finally silencing the cacophony of monitors. A bony, awkward man. Bald and wearing some sort of odd cowl. You’re scared to wonder how similar to him you might actually look post-explosion. He leaves without another word.

                  Silco. You.

                  He towers over you with a face of stone. You know what you need to ask, even if you’re afraid of the answer.

                  “Is she okay?” Your mouth is so dry, your throat so gnarled and raspy. You sound like if sandpaper were a songbird.

                  He tilts his gaze down to you. Even-toned, assured, “Yes.”

                  You loosen body parts you hadn’t even realized you’d tensed up. Your chest feels lighter. You close your eyes. It’s like this relief gave you permission to relinquish that miniscule fraction of energy you had left. Unconsciously, you had saved it up, prepared to scream and cry, to feel every wrenching stab of guilt at not being able to help her.

                  A beat of silence. You keep your eyes closed. You’re tired. You’re so tired. You don’t even have it in you to be even the slightest bit apprehensive that the Eye of Zaun is right in front of you. That the last time you saw him, you thought he’d have you killed by the end of the week. Surely, he can let that go. You already have.

                  It occurs to you it’s not just Jinx that you’re worried about. Deep down, you feel a simulacrum of empathy for that brooding woman, too. “And Sevika?” You choke out.

                  “She’s okay, too.”

                  You feel as though you might drift off. You wonder if the other man had altered the dosages of whatever was being pumped into you. The pain is beginning to gnaw at you less, a warm tender feeling yawning pridefully instead. For what feels like a long time, no sound can be heard besides your somewhat labored breathing. In between wheezes, in your addled state, you wonder if Silco is still there. Did he walk out, and you’re so sedated you hadn’t realized?

                  You fall in and out of sleep. You’re hardly able to register what’s going on. You’re not sure what you’re dreaming and what is taking place in the world around you. The man, you hear him referred to as Singed at one point, you think. Every little bit of dialogue you encounter, you lap it up like a dog dying of thirst. You’re desperate to get as much information as you can. What will become of you after this? You savor the voices, what little understanding you can get.

                  It’s all so fuzzy. At times, you think you’ll wake up and open your eyes. Then, you’re plunged into that basement. Teeth gritted, claustrophobic, searching for Jinx. Creeping forwards. Before a blast that launched you with all the brightness and fury of a thousand suns.

                  You can’t make out whether thirty minutes or thirty days have gone by. Your stillness, when you’ve been moving at a break-neck pace your whole life, tells you how close you really must have come to death. Being so placid is new to you, and you’re not sure how to cope with it.

                  An unknown amount of time stretches on before your consciousness bubbles up lazily. You start to become aware of a dull pain radiating from your abdomen, your back, your legs. The pain medication, the sedatives, whatever – it’s wearing off.

                  You inhale sharply, wincing. It builds mercilessly. Your heart thrumming in your ears speeds up. In moments it manages to border on a searing, unbearable assault by thousands of needles.

                  “Give some back, doctor.” Silco instructs.

                  “This is delicate,” Singed combats, “You can’t have her awake and not in pain.”

                  “Mm.” Silco’s dissatisfaction is hardly audible, but the low buzz of his voice sends an odd tingle down your spine. “Give some anyhow.”

                  You realize your discomfort is by design. You grunt, struggling to adjust yourself. You feel a glint of anger upon imagining how pathetic you must look, squirming on their bed - a glorified specimen table - like a worm. You fight to maintain your composure amid this pain, but a small grunt escapes your lips. You sigh heavily, emotionally disturbed by how vulnerable you suddenly are. Or rather, have been, and are only just now not drugged-up enough to see it.

                  Your exhales are shaky and sweat beads on your brow. You squeeze your eyes shut. Your fists are clenched. You point your curled like only the most exquisite Piltover ballerina might normally manage. If you would have known inhabiting a body could be this miserable, you would have only stopped six of the bombs rather than seven and prayed the two left would be enough to finally kill you.

                  A cloth is padded against your forehead, as gentle as a lover’s kiss. You’re outside of yourself, viewing your helpless body from an aerial view. And Silco is leaned over you. Silent, but diligently easing your hurt.

                  It’s all too much. And yet you hear his voice.

                  “I know.” He says with what you believe to somehow be genuine sympathy. A cold-blooded killer, a mobster, a drug kingpin, and yet his words are like milk. They’re nurturing you, sustaining you.

                  You groan miserably, but you fight to stay conscious. A frustration grows within you, that you’ve laid placated and sedated on this metal hunk for gods know how long.

                  And slowly, just an inkling of relief. Singed’s interference makes but a whisper of impact that somehow tips the scale of your suffering towards manageable. Your breathing slows, transitioning from stifled skips to languid hops, bounding over your chest and through your slightly parted lips.

                  The pains still poke at you, but now it feels like your brain might be able to focus on something else – matters beyond your body and its nerve-endings.

                  “Better?” Silco asks you, withdrawing the cloth from your cheek.

                  “Better.” You affirm.

                  Silco turns to nod at Singe, who subsequently exits.

                  “We’re setting a room up. We’ll get you somewhere better than here. Your condition was so bad it seemed too perilous to move you.” Silco takes a step back, seemingly assessing you. You can’t help but feel naked the way his blue eye takes in each bit of you, from head to toe, with a fervent scrupulousness. It seems to you that in every matter he’s always this intense and detail-oriented.

                  What little common sense you had has long left you now. You decide to address him, those moments after Trota was slain. “A proper room. And to think I was expecting you to have me killed,” you smile halfways, idiotically.

                  Silco’s face darkens. “I was.” He shifts his gaze downward, unable to stay locked on your eyes. Again, so soon, you witness The Eye of Zaun in a state where he’s frazzled, uncomfortable. Human.

                  “And it would have been a mistake.” He admits.

                  Silence. You know better than to expect a ‘thank you’ from a man like him. An admittance of that short-sightedness, that he would have been wrong to have your head chopped off, is the closest you’ll get to an expression of gratitude. You’ll take it. You did it for an innocent girl anyway, not him.

                  Silco finally returns his eyes to yours. “You’re a woman,” he comments.

                  Well. You’re dumbfounded. Is it really such a shock that a female mind was behind The Engineer? You tilt your head downwards, a single lame nod.

                  Silco squints at you, his hands clasped behind his back. “I have an offer to make you.” The glimpse of Silco as a man you just briefly enjoyed vanishes, quickly replaced by The Eye of Zaun. He’s here to talk business, not coddle you or make awkward acknowledgements. “Full-time guard, protecting my daughter. It’s become quite apparent I’ve an urgent need to bolster my security. You live here, and you’ll be paid handsomely.”

                  He stiffens, mistaking your reluctance for confusion. “When you’re well, of course.”

                  You swore to yourself you wanted to get out of this life, that you weren’t meant for it. At least, back when you thought a Silco-proxy was soon to murder you. But maybe this is different. Maybe this the best hope you’ll ever have at avoiding killer-for-hire or the brothel. All you must do is take care of a little girl. You’d never let any harm befall her; you’ve proven that. And what other choice do you have? Your suit’s gone, and it’ll take ages to conjure up another. And how do you know what wounds will heal fully and which will linger in your gait or your throw for the rest of your life?

                  You feel the lines in your face soften. “I accept your offer.”

Chapter Text

Your condition finally improves enough for you to be relocated. Your new room, your new life…it’s nice. For the current moment at least. You realize, humbly, that maybe it wouldn’t be considered nice to others. Certainly, someone from Topside would be utterly disgusted. But your old place was decrepit even by your own subterranean standards. There was faded, peeling paint, and the tile floors were stained an uneasy green. Mold, and a chronic cough to accompany it. This room, while relatively barren now, could eventually become something cozy. Do you dare allow yourself to dream of a home? Housed by Silco, of all people. You look around in a manner most closely resembling shock.

                  A simple bed, only big enough for one. A wooden dresser for your belongings. An ashtray atop it, even though you don’t smoke, crafted by Jinx herself. A tall mirror.

                  You do your best to avoid catching a glimpse of yourself in it. The right side of your body bore the brunt of the explosion. Your body basically had to rebuild itself from within. Your ribs are taking a frustratingly long time to heal. Every breath feels like punishment. And a lot of your skin is pink and raw, like you’ve been reborn. You feel a bit of shame for being so concerned about your appearance; how you’ll heal. Self-consciousness is almost a luxury, and it’s one most Trenchers can’t afford. Piltovians can occupy themselves with creams and serums, draping themselves in the finest fabrics. The Undercity is focused on survival instead.

                  That’s a playing field Silco claims he wants to level. Why, instead, he’s so focused on Shimmer, you’d love to know. But you know better. You know not to get comfortable. You know not to question him. You saved his daughter, and so he spared your life. He considers the two of you to be even now. Despite everything, he wouldn’t hesitate to have you killed in the future.

                  You sigh just as there’s a timid knock at your door. You open it, at first thinking no one is there. Then you see just a peek of that cyan blue in your peripheral vision, and you look down. Jinx.

                  “You’re doing better,” She smiles sheepishly.

                  You smile back warmly. “I am.”

                   It feels odd to smile at someone. Even more odd for that smile to be genuine. You got used to your face always being flat and expressionless. There was no need for that kind of communication when you lived inside the suit. You lost a piece of your humanity, practically. You adopted that robotic unfeeling persona to the fullest, letting it bleed into every aspect of your life. It was your life. There’s an uneasy feeling in your gut. You’ve no idea how to have any kind of relationship with anyone, much less a girl in desperate need of someone patient and nurturing and emotionally available. The learning curve you experience in this new line of work is somehow steeper, far more intimidating, than the one you encountered when you started murdering professionally. Then, you’re just supposed to protect her, not mother her. You’re just security detail. Overstepping would be an easy way to get yourself killed.

                  Jinx wrings her hands, clearly bothered. “Silco says you’re going to watch me all the time.”

                  “No one will ever get to you ever again.” You assure her.

                  You watch her frown. That was the wrong thing to say, apparently. “I don’t need to be watched; I can do things myself. I’m not a baby.” She shakes her head, frustrated. Her short blue bangs sway across her face.

                  You try hard to remember what the world seemed like to you at her age. Your childhood was far from ideal, and you’ve done your best to block it out. How did you want to be spoken to when you were a child? Like an equal, you reckon. You won’t talk down to her.

                  “No, you’re not a baby. I’m not here to take your independence away from you, I’m only here to provide you with safety.”

                  She looks up at you, her doe-like eyes pleading. “Will you stay here?”

                  The sudden switch in her mood is disorienting, but you’re somewhat relieved by it. You motion behind you at your quarters, flinging your arm around at an attempt to be playful. “Yes, I’m staying here.”

                  “No,” She frowns, “Will you stay here?”

                  You’re not sure how to answer. You can’t tell a ten-year-old that if she hadn’t been kidnapped, you’d almost certainly be dead thanks to her dad. You imagine if you ever leave, it’ll be in tiny chopped-up pieces carved out by Sevika at Silco’s orders. You’ll be here as long as you’re alive. And that’s up to Silco, not you.

                  You decide to deflect; answer a question with a question. “Do you want me to stay?”

                  She nods firmly, surprising you. “Yeah. And Silco does, too.”

                  Your eyes widen, but you quickly try to return to whatever airheaded character you’ve started performing for this child. You’re not socially equipped for this.  “Oh yeah?” Your voice is too bright, “What did he say?”

                  “He said you would take care of me.” She leans in smiling, suddenly mischievous. You lean down so that you might hear her, a small voice barely above a whisper. “And that you’re pretty.”

                  “Oh.” You blurt out before a laugh awkwardly bubbles out of you. You don’t laugh too hard, though, or the bile in your throat would rise and make for an escape.

                  Jinx smiles wider, her eyes becoming crescents. She noticed and thoroughly enjoyed your discomfort, much to your chagrin. You highly doubt that what she said is even true, just a child’s idea of a joke. You’re so marred by the bomb – you look like a parrot plucked of its feathers. You’ve never thought yourself to be particularly attractive even before such an event. Gods, why are you even giving it any thought?

                  You shake your head as if that physical action will shake the thoughts out, too. Jinx starts skipping down the hallway, humming to herself, and you reckon you ought to follow her. You’re on the clock now. Where she goes, you’ll be there, too. You struggle to match her pace but manage to not lose her in the labyrinth Silco has turned this place into.

                  Prior to this day, you knew absolutely nothing about Jinx besides her existence. Every Trencher knew Silco had a daughter but none of them an inkling of what she was like.

                  She’s got a workshop of sorts, and you quickly discover the girl’s a genius. She’s wild, incredibly unstable, but undeniably and absolutely a genius.

                  Jinx takes you on a tour around this giant, convoluted structure she claims to have at least partially built herself. She’s even got her own insignia. Bright monkey’s heads, purple, pink and blue, decorating every visible plane and orifice. She’s simultaneously a creative and a scientist.

                  She shows you her contraptions. She tells you she spends most of her time here, designing and tinkering. Her projects range from mechanical backscratchers to live bombs, funnily enough. Small hand grenades. “All I have to do is pull this pin!” She squeals excitedly, laughing when the blood drains from your face. She’s an engineer in her own right, and you smirk at the thought. Maybe one day you could share with her things you learned over the years tweaking your own projects.

                  You also discover that like all other geniuses, there’s a lot going on in that brain of hers. You watch her mood dip, no freefall, when she thought you were indifferent to a slingshot she’d recently constructed.

                  “What? You don’t like it? Do you hate it?” And in a flash, her eyes are flooded with tears. She’s a swirling storm complete with thunder and lightning. You weather it, consoling and reassuring her, until it seemingly settles. You mistake it for the end, when it was really just the eye of the hurricane. She falls apart again, completely, and her body is wracked with sobs. Each desperate cry is a wave that you attempt to guide her over in what feels like a toy sailboat amidst the most chaotic, treacherous part of the ocean.

                  Your heart hurts for her. And, given the nature of it, you suspect she was like this even before she was stolen out from under Silco. The trauma of the kidnapping is sure to have only exacerbated it, though.

                  You’re not sure what to do. Will everyday be like this? Will being her guard mean protecting her from herself sometimes, too?

                  That night, the weight of it presses down on your chest. Alone, in that quaint room, you try to relax only to end up tossing and turning hopelessly. A child is a challenge on their own. But Jinx is clearly incredibly complex, both cognitively and emotionally. You want nothing more than to do right by the poor girl, but you don’t even know how to. You can only hope that you say the right things to mitigate the pain she experiences. You can only hope to distract her from that combative alternate tormenting her within the confines of her own mind.

                  You groan, flipping yourself flat onto your back. You won’t sleep a wink tonight.

                  You stare up at the ceiling waiting impatiently for the night to pass you by, until it’s time for you to be on Jinx’s detail again. You wonder who else is assigned to Jinx - you only know that there’s someone there for the time you have to sleep. You laugh bitterly to yourself imagining the ridiculous image of a hulking man standing in a corner watching her snore. It hurts the sides of your chest so badly to laugh. This spawns another chuckle. You laugh at what a joke this all is. You used to be an independent killing machine laying waste to people. Faces paled when they saw you in that suit. You were an embodiment of death. Now, you’re a glorified babysitter, most would say. Employed by a man who recently was bent on killing you.

                  Against your will, you replay those events. Trota’s transformation. How an elderly woman’s body devolved into a tremoring bulging leviathan. You mull over what you would have done differently. If you had had the wicked gift of foresight, you would’ve removed that Shimmer capsule from her mouth before she could make use of it. What you wish most of all though, brutally, is that you had never frozen like a coward.

                  It was an easy, thoughtless process when it came to risking your life for Jinx. But in that moment your body couldn’t be willed to do anything for Silco, suspended in the air and kicking.

                  What if he changes his mind? What if lays awake as you are now, ruminating? And he decides that regardless of what’s happened since, he can’t let you get away with allowing that situation to unfold? Allowing yourself to bear witness to the man underneath the Eye of Zaun?

                  You reprimand yourself yet again for considering at all any kind of future. Your life is still in danger. In such close proximity to the one person he holds dear, you’ll have to tread more carefully than ever.

                  You shudder. Your life can never be simple, never be easy, can it? It’s a constant struggle from dawn to dusk, cradle to casket. Yeah. You’re a Trencher. That’s all you’re meant to do. Struggle.

                  Every person living in the Undercity goes to bed conscious of the gang wars, of Silco’s encroaching power. Topsiders sleep peacefully not even knowing he exists. You wonder what the propaganda is like up there. They probably claim that you’re all treated well, with clean water and clean air. Or they say that you’re such irredeemable deviants to the point of not being deserving of either.

                  Your anxiety, as it so often does, becomes shrouded in anger. You find yourself kicking off your covers, swinging your feet off the side of the bed. You exit your room, going out into the hallway and feeling your way around in the dark. You’re not sure what you’re looking for. Maybe you just want to prove that you’re not a prisoner by freely walking about.

                  You travel for some time, tiptoeing like a child, before you find a tall arched doorway opening into a gently lit, cavernous room. You inch forwards, afraid to encounter someone, reluctantly peeking inside before relinquishing the darkness that camouflages you. You fully step inside, and it almost takes your breath away.

                  It’s a library. Bookshelves line each wall from the floor to the ceiling. In the center, a few ornate desks and armchairs, one L-shaped couch, a leather ottoman. A few candles are lit, flickering softly, their rays dancing across the spines of voluminous leatherback books. This place feels like a warm hug, a distant land far away from the reality of Silco’s haunted grounds.

                  You feel your shoulders loosen. This is an ideal way to pass the time, immersing yourself in books. You’re not sure you can remember the last time you read a book. It’s certainly been a few years. Like most people of the Undercity, you were completely and utterly deprived of a proper education. Your mother did what she could, before she passed, teaching you the alphabet. You remember reading scraps of newspaper to practice, and then teaching yourself to read from there.

                  Oh, where to start? You stroll over to the bookcase closest to you, gingerly floating the pads of your fingers over titles and authors and publishers. Overwhelmed by the choices, you decide to pick one at random. You close your eyes, and your hand flutters over each ridge and bump until you decide to stop at one. A thick red book. An Analysis of Contemporary Art by an L. Rasmus. You shrug. You’ve never known much about art, never even really considered it. You believed it to be another luxury far beyond your reach. You smile. Jinx is a little artist. Perhaps you’ll familiarize yourself for her.

                  You carry the book over to the couch and wiggle yourself as snugly into the corner of it as you can. You open it and blissfully begin to read, a wave of excitement rushing through you at just the first few words. It feels powerful to even have this in your hands.

                  You’ve read a mere three pages when you start to pick up on a smell. Thick, smoky, musky.  Tobacco.

                  Your blood runs cold as you quickly infer what such a smell would be coming from. Who would be holding it. Your whip your head over your shoulder, and Silco stands in the grand arch of the entrance, leaning casually against its chiseled wooden frame. When the two of you make eye contact, he lazily removes the cigar from his lips, blowing out an ominous plume of rich smoke.

                  You’re not sure what to say. What could you say to spare yourself when you’ve made yourself at home in his library?

                  “I couldn’t sleep.” The words spill out of you.

                  “Nor I,” he stops leaning on the doorframe to stand up straight. “I often find myself drawn to this place.”

                  Now, instead of literature, you try to read him. You try to measure the expression on his face, see how it stacks up against that incident with Trota. But he looks calm, and not even in the way that a detached psychopath like himself would. He looks truly relaxed.

                  “It’s beautiful,” you say, and you say it earnestly. You’ve no desire to suck up to him, even at the risk of death.

                  He nods silently, a brief closing of his eyes as an affirmation. He strides over to you, sitting across from you in an armchair. He adopts such a confident, bordering on arrogant posture in the chair. He sits obtusely, elbow propped up and jutting out from his side, slowly replacing the cigar in his mouth.

                  The two of you have what might have looked like a staring contest, had yet another soul dared to enter and see this encounter. You’re afraid to say more, afraid that will only make things worse. Afraid it will make him see you as an impudent girl and not a grown, capable woman. You remind yourself that you ought to show no fear. You know as well as anyone that if Silco hates anything, it’s cowardice. Somehow you reason that a measured level of confidence, defiance, even, might do well to help you survive this. You won’t be a dog to him.

                  You find yourself exhaling a breath you’d been unconsciously holding when he removes the cigar from his mouth yet again. He sets it down on an ashtray on the coffee table between you, this one also lovingly touched by Jinx.

                  “What are you reading?” He asks. His voice is so low you can feel the vibrations of it penetrate your core. Will you ever not get this feeling in your stomach when he speaks? It’s the kind of queasiness you would usually associate with fear, and yet it’s so much lighter and warmer somehow. It’s like a drunken buzz that you get only in response to his unique cadence.

                  “An Analysis of Contemporary Art,” You answer.

                  This earns an eyebrow raise. “Not many people in Zaun can read.” Silco says matter-of-factly. If that weren’t blatantly true you’d almost fancy being insulted by his assumption that you were illiterate.

                  Silence. You realize his statement is more of question. Of course the Eye of Zaun isn’t engaging in innocent conversation. He’s trying to figure you out.

                  “My mother taught me some in the time I had with her. How she managed to learn I have no idea.” You offer.

                  “Hm. Maybe you can help Jinx progress. She’s been rather resistant to my tutelage.”

                  You’re not sure what this dialogue is meant to test. Are you to reject the idea? Is he seeking that you know your place? Or does he really desire that you become some kind of mentor to her rather than just a guard? Your mind starts to spin. It’s late. The fatigue that evaded you before drowns you now. Your defenses are down.

                  You elect to respond like you would normally, like you’re not sitting across from one of the most dangerous men you know.

                  The corner of your mouth twitches up into a half smile. “She’s headstrong, sure.”

                  You sense that he’s registered your admiration of her. He seems satisfied, and you’ve side-stepped another landmine. He lets out a long, heavy sigh. Somehow the image of an impenetrable villain fades and is replaced by an exhausted man. It would seem he has many sleepless nights like this. You find your eyes drawn to his scar, and in this quiet you begin to trace the lines that strike like lightning bolts down his face. And that eye. The darkness of it, and the orange that practically glows from its center.

                  He’s regarding you intensely, too. You remember, in short staticky glimpses, when he held a cloth to your forehead. When you were in the throes of the most intense pain imaginable. How wretched you must have looked then. How wretched you must look now. Transformed by the potence of the blast, a hunk of flesh that was cobbled back together by Singed. The raw pink skin you’ve sported since your healing from the burns begins to tingle. You can feel him picking apart every little thing about you. Your cheeks flush when you hear Jinx’s voice in your head. He said you would take care of me. And that you’re pretty. It’s so laughable to you now. You’re an insect under his scrutiny.

                  “And what’s the name your mother gave you?”

                  One last thing you’ll have to surrender – your anonymity. And with the suit gone you’re no Engineer, anyway. You’ll miss the mask. Existing not as a person but as an enigma. A rumor that people whispered on the streets.

                  You tell him, his gaze piercing you as you do it.

                  He doesn’t respond, at least not verbally, He shifts in his armchair, crossing his legs. Another puff of the cigar.

                  Your mind again presses on Jinx. You wonder what all has transpired while you were drifting in and out of consciousness. “What’s become of Pimor?” You ask, with some trepidation you put considerable effort into smothering.

                  If you had blinked, you would have missed it. For a fraction of a second, Silco’s face twists into disgust, incensed by the mere mention of his name. And then he returns to his stoic form. “He won’t cause problems again.”

                  Without even thinking about it you nod repeatedly with some kind of muted enthusiasm. It feels good to know the bastard is dead, and even better to know how probable it is that his death was a torturous one. Silco sees this, and then nods too as though he mirrors your sentiments. It’s not the first time you felt like he could see inside your mind.

                  Abruptly, he stands up, tugging down at his waistcoat in two sharp juts to flatten it out. At this, you look up at him, waiting for him to say something. Is he…hesitating?

                  “You can come here at your leisure,” he finally says. “I find few others who appreciate the value of this room.”

                  And then he leaves, his footsteps fading down the hallway.

Chapter Text

The silence left in Silco’s wake presses in around you like fog.  

                  He parted from you with an invitation, not an order or a threat. This strikes a feeling in you that you can’t quite name.

                  You’re suddenly flooded with dread. You feel overheated; your cheeks are flushed. The quiet starts to feel threatening. The cozy library that you initially embraced is now brooding and oppressive to you.

                  Maybe it’s a natural stress that comes with a new home, a new job. Maybe it’s the ache still clinging to your ribs. Maybe it’s the unwelcome realization that you’re beginning to feel something. Something beyond the transactional nature of this arrangement.

                  You dwell on it, as you so often do. And you can place what you’re feeling now. You’re sensing danger.

                  You’re terrified by your own feelings. You’ve spent most of your life alone, and now you’re practically a live-in nanny. You live, now, with a little girl and her father. You cohabitate with Silco.

                  As late in the night as it is, you decide to drown yourself in your book. You’ll read this one. Maybe another. You’ll scan the pages and overanalyze each detail, doing your best to commit it all to memory. Anything to get your mind off the world around you.

                  To finally get to learn, to empower yourself with something other than a weapon, it soothes you. You feel like you’re building up an identity. You desperately desire a version of yourself that exists outside of your past and your sins. Maybe you can become someone that has the capacity to be kind and have some kind of general humanness about you.

                  You remember times where you went days, sometimes weeks, without speaking to another soul. And back then, that was a source of pride. You were completely self-subsistent. You didn’t need anyone. No family, no friends? No problem. The criminals and sycophants you took contracts from described it best with their phraseology – that people were problems. This guy, he’s a problem for me. Take him out. These hits used to be friends, lovers, business partners, brothers. And somehow, someway, it always went wrong, and you would be called upon to put their fires out. You concluded that relationships were inconvenient. Messy like blood spatter.

                  Silco would agree, you’re sure. You need only look at his scar to know it.

                  Quite some time passes before you’re courageous enough to try to sleep again. You take the book with you and cradle it when you acquiesce into bed.

                  Then, the daytime comes, and you find yourself with Jinx in her workshop again. You suspect that this could become a comfortable routine. That’s something else that’s foreign to you – routine.

                   You love watching her combine her passions for art and science. She works diligently on a butterfly, crafted mostly from driftwood she’s amassed a collection of. She’s trying to perfect the wiring on it, she tells you. You’re supposed to be able to press a button on its thorax, and it should make the wings flutter.

                  She’s in a better mood today. The two of you have managed this long without any outbursts or episodes. You try to cultivate a special kind of warmth and strength in your countenance. You can tell that she feeds off of it – so unbelievably sensitive to the feelings of others.

                  She hums to herself while she works, tongue poking out slightly between her lips in concentration. She’s both reckless and fastidious with her craft at the same time. Watching her is like flipping a coin. You watch her small fingers twist the copper into place, brows knitted tight in focus. You look at how large your hands are in comparison, how your bulky, thickly calloused fingers would’ve relied on pliers to twist the delicate wiring. Even your appearance screams that you’ve never known as softness.

                  Jinx is complete absorbed, serene and almost angelic looking to you. You feel a genuine affection for her – she reminds you of yourself when you were younger. You wonder how often she gets to feel like this, where she’s safe and uninterrupted. How often does she get to be a child? You remember being her age and how hard it was.

                  “I think it’s done, she says suddenly, sitting up and holding the butterfly in her palms like it’s alive. Sacred. She brings it over to you with careful, reverent steps. “Wanna try it?”

                  You hesitate a moment, knowing that if you break it by mistake that she’ll certainly come crashing down. But you resolve to gently press the small button at its center. With a soft whirr and a click, the wings begin to move – slowly, then faster, fluttering in place. I’ts clumsy, imperfect, and beautiful.

                  Jinx beams.

                  “It works,” you say. “It’s perfect.”

                  She laughs mischievously. “I’m gonna make a whole bunch of them. A butterfly army.” She leans forward onto the balls of her feet, giddy.

                  Your brow quirks. “I don’t think butterflies are for war,” you murmur.

                  “But they’re my butterflies,” she replies. “Maybe they’ll explode or shoot lasers or something.”

                  Of course they would. “That’s a great point. You can make them do anything.”

                  She seems content with your answer, already turning back toward her workbench, eager to make the next one deadlier than the last. You feel your shoulders drop, warmed by contentedness.

                  Suddenly Jinx whips back around, and she points at you with her index finger. You can’t tell if it’s playful or accusatory, and tension returns to you.

                  “You should help me paint them, when I make a bunch.” She says.

                  And you can breathe again. “I’d love to.”

                  She smiles. But then she pauses, halfway through reaching for another piece of driftwood. Her smile drops.

                  “Hey…” Her voice is quieter now.

                  You peer at her, trying to assess her. “Yeah?”

                  “Do you think I’m weird?”

                  You blink. The question sinks like a stone. She doesn’t turn around. Just keeps staring at her scattered materials.

                  “People say it sometimes,” she laments. “That I’m crazy. That I should be better by now. But sometimes I still get…you know. The loud stuff, in my head. And it gets hard to…be normal.”

                  Her words come out strained, as if she’s trying to keep them casual, like she won’t fall apart if you say the wrong thing.

                  You step towards her. "I don’t think you’re weird,” you say truthfully. “I think you’re brilliant and brave, and I think you’re the most creative person I’ve ever met.”

                  She’s still for a second before nodding quickly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. You don’t push the moment further and hope that it’s best to give her space. She needs time more than she needs fixing.

                  Jinx is still on your mind when Sevika finds you later in the day.

                  She’s at the bar downstairs, leaning over the countertop before it’s opened up. She’s helped herself to some spirits, but she doesn’t come across as drunk at all. Her tolerance is high, you imagine. Her arms are crossed, and that characteristic glower is aimed your way.

                  “You getting soft?” She asks, her voice low and dry.

                  You sit down at a barstool beside her. “No,” you answer plainly. “I’m just doing my job.”

                  She scoffs. “Funny. Didn’t know nannies counted as security personnel.”

                  You rotate in your seat, turning to face her fully. “Is there a problem?”

                  She sucks her teeth, twisting her lips around, mulling her words over. Her words then come out sharp and cold. “Only if you forget where you are. Who you work for.”

                  You wish you could show her what your mind has been like the last few days, how much you’ve agonized over being employed, owned practically, by Silco. “I haven’t. I won’t.”

                  “Good. Because you’re not here to play house.”

                  If you knew she wouldn’t kill you for it, you’d laugh in her face, incredulous. Her quickness to assume you’ve forgotten what led up to this, how when she came pounding on your front door, you thought she was there to end you. She takes a long sip from her glass. You continue to sit there besides her, engaging in some pettiness or your part. You want to stand your ground. Or sit your ground, you suppose.

                  The two of you remain adjacent to each other, stalemated. Locked in a tense, angry silence. As the time passes, you ponder how this must be why Sevika has enjoyed the longevity under Silco that she has. She’s suspicious of everyone and trusting of no one.

                  When her glass is empty, Sevika finally walks away.

Chapter Text

A few nights go by where you’re actually able to sleep, despite the palpable tension that practically lives and breathes as another occupant in this place. You find that you’re a host to all sorts of mental parasites but that reading before bed is what allows you to finally drift off. It decompresses you. It feels like a long exhale after busy, storied day.

                  But there’s a dilemma. You’ve just finished the book you picked out, An Analysis of Contemporary Art. You loved it, even when you struggled sometimes to grasp the meaning of some passages. Even when you were annoyed by the Topsider author, Rasmus, with his pretentious, round-about way of phrasing things. Even when you were incensed by the chapter on protest art, and his elitist and demeaning view of it. You knew that you were no art expert, sure, but you didn’t need to be to recognize the disrespect done to the Undercity’s cause.

                  But that book was just one man’s perspective. There are hundreds, thousands probably, in that library. It’s daunting to realize how much you don’t know, and it’s exhilarating to imagine how much you could know.

                  You know you’re not stupid, or else you wouldn’t have been able to build your suit with the complexity and integrity that you did. But you’re humble enough to know that you’re grossly undereducated. Your knowledge is limited to working with your hands, constructing and repairing. And killing. You wonder what it’s like in Piltover where people can earn their livings with their minds. It’s a land of people that have the privilege of devoting their time to innovation and creativity. While Trenchers are selling scrap metal trying to afford their next meal, an L. Rasmus gets to sit at a nice desk and write about contemporary art. And shit on the art born of the frustrations of an oppressed people. Your mouth twists, thoroughly disgusted.

                  You stare up at the ceiling, lying still in the dark. And then you huff. You’ll go back to the library and read the work of someone more deserving.

                  The floor is cold as you gently pad down the hallway, taking slow and measured steps, feeling your way around. And when you finally reach the gentle glow of the library, you feel your heart illuminate in the same way.

                  The scent of old pages, ink, and dust still clings to the air, though now there’s something comforting and familiar about it. The rows of shelves rise like towers in the dim light, each spine a doorway to something new.

                  You’re not sure what you’re looking for, only knowing that it needs to feel honest. Less filtered through privilege and opulence, more rooted in something real. Soil instead of marble. Trench instead of Top. You pause here and there, tilting your head to read crooked labels. You trace your fingers reverently across bindings, saying thanks to both those that are cracked and faded and the others that are smooth and embossed in gold.

                  Your eyes finally fall onto one title – Echoes in Iron: Art of the Oppressed. The cover is worn, the edges curled like it’s been held tightly too many times. The spine is cracked, white breaking through the lettering like spiderwebs. You smile, pleased by the evidence of a book being well-loved. The author’s name, Noma Burr, rings a vague bell. Maybe she was mentioned in Rasmus’s book – dismissively, no doubt.

                  You promptly carry the book over to the couch and sink into its plush cushions, excited. Your eyes hungrily scan the first few pages.

                  The writing is different – straightforward, clear. Not stripped of complexity, but devoid of condescension. Burr describes sculpture made from broken weapon components and murals painted in soot and oil on tunnel walls. And she doesn’t just describe the art; she tells the stories of the people behind it.

                  You find it to be incredibly touching. It’s not just history, it’s your story, too. Not as an artist, obviously, but someone who weathered the same fires that forged this kind of expression. You read a line that makes your throat tighten. What they called wreckage, we called raw material. From the ruins, we produced works that spoke evermore louder in our desperate struggle to be heard. You can’t remember the last time this part of your heart saw the light of day. You’ve kept it submerged for so long. You suppose you believed it all to be pointless in the past.

                  You think of the first few iterations of your suit, the discarded junk you made it out of. You think of Jinx, and her butterfly made of driftwood. It feels silly to take pride in the Undercity. The poverty, the violence, the grime and pollution. But people like you, people like Jinx, you are all so resourceful and determined and strong.

                  It’s when you start to meditate on all the issues affecting the people of the Undercity that one of its architects enters, slinking his way towards you.

                  “You’re back.” Silco says.

                  You look up at him as he sits down across from you in the armchair, just like before.

                  “Had to come and find my next read,” you say as casually as you’re able to muster.

                  “Mm.” He looks bored, disinterested. You imagine he was hoping to find this room empty, but if that were the case he shouldn’t have welcomed you to it. You hear his voice in your head…at your leisure…

                  Silco doesn’t speak for a while after that. He just sits there, legs crossed. The low light flickers in his eye, catching the orange embers nestled in the black. You can feel his gaze on you, but it’s neither searching nor warm. You’re used to him dissecting you layer by layer like a surgeon. You’re used to him making you feel exposed, making you feel like prey in an open field. But the air about him tonight is more reserved. It’s patient. It’s like he’s waiting for something. Like he knows you’ll give it to him eventually.

                  You try to focus on the page, at one point tracing the lines frustratedly with your finger, but it’s no use. The words bleed together, and you find yourself going over the same lines repeatedly. You clear you throat and try to sound unfazed by his presence.

                  “You ever read this one?” you ask, not daring to look up from the book.

                  You watch him from the tops of your eyes, your face still angled down. You feel like a child, trying to hide from him. Silco’s gaze flicks down to your lap. You tilt the cover of the book upwards so that he can see it. He keeps his expression flat, but you don’t miss the way his eyes light up.

                  “Burr?” Silco says, after a pause. “Of course. Required reading for any aspiring revolutionary.” He leans back slightly, appraising you now with a sliver of interest. You start to wonder if it was him who had read this book hundreds of times, curling the pages and cracking the spine. He seems to read it on your face. “She’s a bit romantic.”

                  Despite not even having read a full chapter yet, you feel compelled to defend the author. You glance up, your tone laced with indignation. “She’s honest.”

                  “Honest writers are the worst kind,” Silco replies breezily.

                  You close the book around your finger to save your place. “And why is that?” You narrow your eyes.

                  “They never get anywhere with their work. It dies. The truth is never popular,” he answers, his voice low and even. A pause. “If you want progress, you have to get your hands dirty.” He says it so assertively, and yet you hear fatigue in his voice.

                  You shift uncomfortably in your seat on the couch. “What else was she to do? You think her mistaken for trying to do some good?”

                  There’s a silence between you. It’s not tense, and yet it’s heavy. You sense that you’re beginning to tread into unsafe waters, questioning him like that.

                  “I was good with my hands before anything else,” you say suddenly, unsure as to why you’re even speaking. “Before I knew how to fight. Fixing things felt like the only way I could help. Sometimes it still does.”

                  “You mistake creation for virtue,” he says dully. “But the world we live in – Zaun – was made through destruction. And it can only be rebuilt through the same.”

                  Is that really his logic for all of this? The piles of bodies he’s left in his wake, the Shimmer he’s infected the Undercity with?

                  “You really believe that?” You ask, incredulous.

                  “I have to.”

                  When he says it, it doesn’t come out as defensive or stubborn. He says it almost meekly, like a confession. He murmured it - a solemn prayer.

                  Something shifts in you. You think of all the people you killed. All the violence you bestowed upon others. All the modifications you made to your suit, its equipment, to be more lethal when in use. And how you justified it as meeting your needs. Every drop of blood spilled had a purpose.

                  How, in such a short amount of time, do you go from centering your life around hurting people to being bewildered by it? And this change happens here, within the home of the deadliest man in the entire Undercity?

                  You set the book down on the coffee table in front of you, suddenly nauseous. You don’t recognize yourself. You yearn for the days when the only emotion you felt was anger, and maybe a blip of fear, usually bolstered by even more anger. You realize the problem with your new life – it gives you time to think. Time to reflect on yourself. It’s painful.

                  “Do you miss your old job, Engineer?” You swear he can read your mind. He sneers at you, and yet somehow, you’re able to recognize the vulnerability of the question. Silco leans back, and for the first time since he entered the room, he truly looks at you. No mask. No performance.

                  Do you miss your life before I came into it?

                  You return his gaze with equal intensity. “No,” you breathe. And it’s not a lie, even though your mind would try to argue that it was. Even though the circumstances would scream that it was an obvious lie. There was no thought or logic preceding your response. You can’t imagine why, but all your interactions with Silco are guided by instinct. There’s a wire, pulled taut, between your head and his. It’s not a barrier, but a connection. Something electric and dangerous. You’re so troubled by him, and at the same time magnetized. He haunts you.

                  Sometimes, you’re on the verge of confronting it – how you feel. But you know how stupid and dangerous it would be to do so. It’s so contrary to everything you believe yourself to be. You resent him and yet…You know you have it stamp it out eventually, these kinds of feelings can’t continue to fester underneath unchecked.

                  “What was your life? Before…” You gesture at him, clothed in tailored pants, a crimson shirt, the emblazoned waistcoat. An irritatingly fashionable crime boss.

                  He looks away from you, into the distance, as though he was physically transported into the setting of his past. “I was in the mines,” he says somewhat bitterly. “Deep in the earth.” There’s a beat before wistfulness darkens his voice. “In those early days.”

                  His eyebrows furrow, seemingly disturbed by having humanized himself the slightest bit. Acknowledging a version of himself that existed before the Eye of Zaun. He readjusts himself in his chair, and slowly you reach towards the coffee table to resume your book. You assume he’ll leave. Maybe he’ll come back later and slit your throat.

                  But the time stretches by, and you both remain in place. You flip page after page. You get uncomfortable, sitting in one position for so long. You practically forget he’s there, and you pull your knees into your chest to hold the book directly in front of your face.

                  Another chapter is completed before he breaks the silence. “In a week, I’m taking you off of Jinx’s security detail for a night.”

                  You promptly lower the book from your face, not bothering to mask your dismay.

                  “I’m holding a gathering for the chem-barons. A party, at The Last Drop. They’ve all been far more cooperative since Trota and her offspring met such an unfortunate ending.” Silco’s voice drips with disdain. “I need you to ensure that they remain cooperative.”

                  Unease tickles the back of your throat. “But my suit is gone,” you protest lamely. You’ve no longer got your metal beast to supplant your courage.

                  “And that’s the idea. They’ll have no idea who you are until it’s too late.” He eyes you. “Your usefulness in that realm hasn’t expired, you know.”

                  You swallow, feeling the words crawl down your throat like a viscous oil.  

                  Silco’s stare lingers. It’s unreadable, but not empty. There’s something behind it. Calculation, maybe. Or concern masquerading as coldness. You can’t tell, and you’re not sure if it even matters.

                  Each day, you realize, your life becomes more confusing. More laughable.

                  “I thought you took me off of…” You try hard to search for words, but it’s no use. You shake your head before starting over. “I thought you took me off of assignments, made me Jinx’s caretaker, because you were trying to…I don’t know. Rebuild me.” You laugh, short and mirthless. “Make me in your image.”

                  Silco narrows his eyes slightly, something flickering in his expression. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

                  You stare at him. Anger bubbes inside of you, and you answer bluntly. “I think I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know why I’m here, with you. With her. I think that scares me more than anything else.” Your frustration threatens to boil over.

                  He leans forward, elbows on his knees. He steeples his hands beneath his chin. It’s nonsensical, but you’re more afraid of him when his posture is relaxed like this. When he abandons the smooth, suave movements.

                  Suddenly, he stands up so quickly it scares you, making you flinch. His heavy, hurried steps are symptomatic of his rage as he heads towards the doorway of the library. He pauses just before stepping over the threshold, his hands balled up into fists. He practically spits at you over his shoulder, “I didn’t know that I would see you. What that would mean.”

Chapter Text

You spent the next week trying not to unravel.

                  You’ve always been good at compartmentalizing – sorting the unmanageable pieces of yourself into tidy boxes, locking them up, and hiding them away. But lately, the boxes won’t stay closed. It seems Silco is cracking each one of them open with a kind of precision and efficiency not even he probably realizes.

                  You haven’t the faintest idea what he could have meant by those last few words he spoke to you. You’re afraid. Initially, you were afraid of what you felt for him. Now, you realize you should be more afraid of what he feels for you.

                  You’ve been going through the motions. You kept your head down. You would watch Jinx, walk the perimeter, eat when you remember to. You slept when exhaustion finally overwhelmed your thoughts.

                  But beneath it all, a current runs. A restless heat, a yearning friction rubbing against your ribs.

                  The night of the party arrives without ceremony.

                  You’re in a back alleyway behind The Last Drop smoking a cigarette like it’s the only thing sustaining you. You have the worst headache, enough to put you to bed if that were an option. Instead, you have to watch the last glimpses of sunlight sink down as you breathe out smoke, and with the light fading so too does any hope you have of tonight going well. Your gut never lies.

                  Sevika appears from the back of The Last Drop, the heavy metal door slamming shut behind her.

                  “Thought you’d run off,” she says before shoving a large box into your arms. “Outfit, for tonight.”

                  You frown. “I thought I was supposed to blend in?”

                  She scoffs. “You are. And you won’t looking like that.”

                  You glare at Sevika, but she’s already lighting her own cigarette, clearly done with the conversation. You look down at the box in your hands, reluctant. It’s heavier than you expect – there’s more than fabric inside.

                  “Go inside. Silco wants to see you in his office.”

                  You’re not sure what face it was that you made, but Sevika resolves to only roll her eyes in response. Are you really that easy to read?

                  Your knees start to feel weak as you make your way up the stairs. You pause for a moment at the banister, watching tables get moved and employees rushing to stock the bar. You suck in a deep breath before completing your ascent and floating down the hallway.

                  You knock.

                  “Come in.” You hear his voice respond from inside.

                  You push the door open gently, the old hinges sighing in protest. The office is lit the same as always – dimly, faint green shadows pooling across the sagging wooden floor. A lamp glows on the desk, casting half of Silco’s face in light, the other, scarred half in smoke.

                  He doesn’t look up at first. He’s writing something, his pen scratching quietly against paper. You stand there awkwardly in the center of the room, cradling the box in your arms and trying to tune out the thrumming drumbeat of your heart in your ears. He’s resumed his position as strictly your employer, and not someone you spoke with late into the night. You try not to let memories of Trota that still linger here invade the fragile temple of your mind.

                  He finally looks up, and the gaze doesn’t linger on your face. It falls to the box.

                  “You’ll wear it tonight,” he says simply. He looks down and returns to his writing, ink leaking out in slow, deliberate strokes. It infuriates you how calm he is whilst you have goosebumps pricking up on your skin.

                  “I gathered,” you reply dryly, gathering your frazzled emotions. “Is this outfit tactical or just humiliating?”

                  Silco’s lips curve slightly. His hand stills. “Both.” And then he continues writing.

                  You’re not amused. You glare at him, hoping that the rage you emit from your eyes will bore a hole through him. Silco’s smile vanishes. His voice turns thoughtful.

                  “You have a role tonight, and it’s not the one you’re used to. You’re not the muscle anymore. You’re going to need your people skills.” Underneath the practical tone of his voice, you can hear him mocking you.

                  You want to laugh bitterly in his face. You’ve spent most of your life in isolation, and he wants you to use your people skills. Because you have so much expertise in that area.

                  “Be on the lookout for stragglers,” he continues. “Do it subtle. I want to know who remains uninspired and might seek to conjure up strife.”

                  You nod. So many depraved people in one building sends your mind elsewhere. “Where’s Jinx? Who’s going to be with her?”

                  At this, he finally looks up at you. He rests his pen on the desk. “Away from here. She’s safe.” His voice softens like he recognizes you have no design of insulting him, you just care deeply about her.

                  He picks the pen up again, but then he doesn’t move. His shoulders are tense. He shifts it around in his hand before putting it back down. His gaze is slow to return to you. “And are you healed enough, if things get ugly?”

                  There he goes, leveling with you as though he has concern for you. When you know that Silco views you as a project. A work in progress. Your presence here, your life, is conditional.

                  “There’s a gun in that box.” He says, explaining the suspicious weight.

                  “I’m fine.” And you feel your ribs press in on your lungs as you say it, a physical reaction to your lie. You would be fine, if you still had your suit. Without it, you’re still weak. Your bones soft, your skin thin.

                  He studies you, and you can feel him attempting to probe your mind. But you flatten your face, turning from flesh to stone before him. You’re indifferent to that blue eye that pleads with you to say more.

                  You can feel anger building within you every second you spend near him, and for a moment it looks like he physically recoils from it, sitting back in his chair. You spin around and leave, holding the box delicately despite how badly you want to throw it out of the nearest window.

                  You get the slightest bit of satisfaction imagining his face when you turned your back to him, and it lifts your mood enough that some excitement to clean yourself up creeps in. Living your life in the confines of metallic doom personified, always assumed male by others, didn’t do wonders for your femininity. When was the last time you felt like a woman? You aren’t even sure. This will be the one positive thing you can glean from tonight’s pending disaster.

                  You stop by your bedroom to collect some of the meager cosmetics you have before making your way to a bathroom. It’s mostly just black powder available in your arsenal, but you know that smoking out your eyes is all the flare you need anyway. It’s a staple look amongst Trenchers.

                  But first, the box.

                  You open it, and sure enough, a small handgun lays flat atop a mass of black fabric. You set the weapon to the side. You start to unfurl what you discover to be a dress. A dress. A giggle bubbles out of you before you completely break into gregarious laughter. At first it was joy, and then it degraded into finding the whole situation completely ridiculous. And hilarious.

                  It’s been a little over two months since the night that Trota unleashed herself and you rushed out of this building fearing the worst. Not much time, in the grand scheme of things. And yet it feels like decades have passed you by. Now you stand here, and Silco’s bought you a dress.

                  Silco has taste.

                  It shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to you. That man…he’s meticulous. It’s form-fitting, accentuating, especially in the bust, but in a manner that’s flattering and elegant rather than overly indulgent. The fabric feels thick and expensive, flush down to your ankles. It had to have come from a Topside boutique. You laugh again, and you feel your face flood with heat. You find yourself giddy with confidence. This is the first time you’ve felt like you looked good since the explosion. It’s the first time you can stand in front of a mirror and not feel like a sickly duckling missing half its feathers. You hardly notice where the skin by your right ear tugs awkwardly towards your neck, creating some unnatural folds around your ear lobe. The tightness that pulls at the corner of your eye. The discolored scarring peppering your collarbone, your shoulder, forming ridges and valleys where the blast eroded the flesh that now shimmers on your arm. The small patch by your right temple where your hair won’t grow back. You’re indifferent to all of it.

                  You see your body, flowing like water in harmony with the dress. Your dark locks that delicately skate right along the tops of your shoulders. You always kept it short for practical reasons, and now you think you might grow it out. You see the smile spread across your face. If you could finally feel safe as a woman, gods, you would love to just be that the rest of your life – wave the masculine ambiguity goodbye. How beautiful it is to be a woman when it’s not a bad thing, an inconvenience, a setback.

                  You stare at yourself, taking it all in. A wave of acceptance.

                  You work diligently to finish your look knowing there probably isn’t much time left before things kick off. The makeup, the heels. The gun disguised under the dress, holstered on your thigh. A slit in the dress bursts up to your knee for easy access. He truly thought of everything.

                   You pause for a moment, wondering if this really is a change. You’ve primed yourself to kill, again, only now your primary defense is seductive, not tempered.

                  A mischievous, maybe even devilish thought enters your mind. You exit the bathroom and start your way up the stairs before the intelligent part of you can surface and change your mind. You reach the top of the stairs and then love every thump your heels announce as you traverse the second floor.

                  You decide to barge in, knowing he’ll consider it an impertinence. You don’t care.

                  Silco’s head snaps up, visibly displeased – until he sees you.

                  And then, silence. Not a twitch of muscle. Not a breath. Just his eye widening ever so slightly, the pen slipping from his fingers and rolling off the desk in a slow, silent arc before hitting the floor with a muted tap.

                  You walk in like the room belongs to you now. You let your hips sway just a little extra, let the slit in the dress whisper a subdued promise with every step. He watches. You’re sure of it. That calculating gaze of his, usually dissecting people like puzzles, is stuck trying to read something in you now that he has no blueprint for. You’ve turned the tables.

                  “Just wanted to make sure I blend in,” you say, deadpan, though there’s an unmistakable, cruel playfulness to your voice.

                  His eyes drag over you – not like a man eyeing a prize, but like he’s cataloging something dangerous and rare.

                  A muscle twitches in his jaw. He stands from his chair slowly, almost mechanically, as if trying not to draw attention to the tension now cementing itself in his spine.

                  “You need to be careful tonight,” he begins, his voice chillingly low.

                  “You don’t think I can handle myself?” You retort.

                  His eyes flicker to yours – sharp, cut from steel. “I know how men in that room will look at you.”

                  It hits you like a crack across the face. The part of you that blossomed when you were first putting on the dress falters. You feel dumb and naïve because of his words. But the way he said them. Possessive. Protective. Resentful.

                  You shouldn’t like it. But you do.

                  “I’ve survived worse men. Let them look. Let them underestimate me.” You want to be an advantage, not a weakness.

                  He walks around the desk now, and for a second, you think he might touch you. You brace for it, sucking in your breath. But he doesn’t. He stops just short, the heat of him reaching out to you like a fever.

                  “I didn’t forget,” he murmurs. “But you’ve changed. You’re no longer fighting just to survive.”

                  The corners of your mouth tilt downwards into a small frown. You’re not sure where he’s going.

                  “You’re fighting to be seen now,” he finishes. And the way he says it – it’s not cruel or pitying. It’s reverent. Like he knows that hunger. Like he’s felt it.

                  The two of you stand there, frozen in place only centimeters apart. There’s an intense look in his eyes. Reluctant. Pleading.

                  He turns away from you, suddenly entranced by the floor beneath his feet. “Head down,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll follow you soon. It’s time.”

Chapter Text

The descent from Silco’s office feels strangely like stepping into battle.

                  Music has begun to blare, and you can feel the bass vibrating the floor beneath your feet. The music is loud, fast, and upbeat. You can tell this is the kind of party meant to lower people’s inhibitions. Silco didn’t organize this with the intent of intense politicking, he did it as a means of observation. And, of course, a show of power.

                  Silco’s people are thoroughly present, and they’re littered all throughout the building. You pass two at the bottom of the staircase. Two at the entrance. Three lingering near the bar. Several others are spaced out, pretending to enjoy themselves. One posted at the door that leads to the back of house.

                  You picture Jinx for a moment. You apologize to her in your head for not being with her, and you worry that she feels abandoned even though this was out of your control. You’ll make an extra effort to express your appreciation of her the next time you see her.

                  The air is thick with smoke and body heat. And greed.

                  You recognize a lot of faces, people you worked for in the past. Some major players are here – Margot, Renni, Chross, Finn, Smeech – each one slimier than the last. There are some other small-time criminals, too.

                  Then there are those from Topside, and they stick out like sore thumbs. Which, you muse, is actually kind of difficult in the Undercity. All kinds of alternative fashions are popular here. Piercings, tattoos, dyed hair, fishnets and fuck-yous. The Pilties, on the other hand, even the morally gray ones present here tonight, are exceptionally prim and proper and pretentious. They look like peacocks in a room full of rats and cockroaches. They have no shame. They demand attention, they need it like air.

                  You catch eyes with Sevika across the floor. Her eyes betray nothing, but you catch the twitch of her lip. Surprise. Maybe even approval.

                  You keep moving, scanning. You make ripples and waves as you walk by, headed to the bar.

                  The party simmers.

                  The hum of conversation – clinking glasses, hollow laughter, the oily sheen of manipulation disguised as politeness – it begins to degrade into something more raucous and devious. This is when your ears perk up, knowing that lips are going to get loose.

                  You realize you look too stiff, and you remember that part of blending in involves more than just appearances. No suit to hide the disgust on your face anymore. You can feel the eyes on you, salacious and greedy. You nod solemnly at the bartender.

                  “Whiskey.”

                  He wordlessly prepares it, sliding the glass across the bar to you.

                  It burns when it goes down, but on an empty stomach only minutes go by before you can feel it ooze into your fingertips. You order one more to seal the deal. The lightness, dizziness, and sluggishness mingle playfully with each other. It had been a while since you had a drink, and you had missed it.

                  Now, you bumble around like any other buzzed partygoer would. You sway your hips and wave your arms above your head carelessly. You stick to the periphery of the crowd, lingering at booths and tables where the big fish of the pond sit and converse.

                  There are some among the crowd that are disgruntled. Smeech mutters disdainfully about having no intention of kowtowing to a glorified street rat. Silco must have lost half his mind along with the half of his face. Margot and some others in the group you don’t recognize nod, agreeing, but their eyes dart around furtively checking for listeners. The loyalty may not be there, but the fear certainly is.

                  You lean in slightly, not enough to be obvious, but just enough to catch more.

                  “…too erratic,” Smeech is saying. “All that drama with Trota. The late Trota. Heard he cut up her son. Now he’s playing diplomat? With Pilties?” He laughs bitterly and drains what’s left in his glass. “He’s forgetting who really runs things around here.”

                  Margot sits beside him, clad in black leather, studded and starred with gold accents. Bored, her gaze shifts off to the side. “He’s not forgetting,” she sighs ruefully. “He’s evolving.”

                  Smeech rolls his eyes. “People like him don’t evolve. They swell up and then they pop. Boom.” He gestures with his hands outwards, mimicking an explosion.

                  Margot doesn’t flinch, but you catch the way her jaw tightens. She may not be Silco’s biggest fan, but she’s smart enough to see the writing on the wall. She knows not to dig her heels in too deep.

                  You fade away from them, weaving nonchalantly to listen in somewhere new. Your movements are slow and deliberate. The bass thrums through your chest like a second heartbeat. The whiskey warms you, and your eyes feel half-lidded. And yet, the adrenaline keeps you sharp. Loose smile, but the path you tread is very intentional. You blend. You watch.

                  At a corner booth wrapped in velvet shadows, you catch sight of Finn. You don’t realize it’s him at first. Only a large, boxy silhouette reclining with two women curled under each arm like accessories. Then a strobe light catches on him, and he’s all teeth and jewelry. He’s laughing too loud, his golden jaw flapping like it might unhinge itself. His eyes shift upwards to register you, calculate you. You give him a lazy nod and keep walking. He doesn’t call you over, though it seemed like he would for a moment. You’re relieved.

                  More fragments of conversation reach you. Whispers about a shipment of Shimmer gone missing. A debtor, owing thousands to Chross, that’ll turn up dead soon. Lamentations at the increased presence of Enforcers. Taxes on imports from Topside. Guesses at what Silco will do next. You wonder if Silco even knows what’s to transpire now.

                  There’s a current of uncertainty running underneath the music and the liquor. Everyone can feel the foundation shifting beneath their houses.

                  It’s the hard times, like these, that make you wonder if Silco can really pull it off. Maybe that’s what the Shimmer is for. Breaking the people of Zaun so that he can glue you all back together. Meld you all together into some kind of Trencher alloy to fight off the Pilties with.

                  And he has the audacity to enter your world and cement you in his mind as some kind of extension of himself.

                  You need another drink. So early into the night, and yet it’s already gotten so old. You’re tired.

                  Having retrieved yet another round, you make your way toward the back. The lights are dimmer, and the music is slightly muffled by thick, industrial walls. You plop down into a chair behind a table, alone for now, nursing the remnants of your drink. You don’t have to wait long.

                  “Your face is a new one.”

                  You glance up. Finn.

                  The relief you briefly enjoyed gets swallowed up by a flaming mixture of dread and annoyance. It takes more effort than you thought it would to suppress your scoff – you’ve pulled several jobs for him and Renni before, he just doesn’t realize it.

                  Finn slides in across from you, somehow elegant and hurried at the same time, like an ice cube sliding down an uneven surface. He’s drunk. You smell it on him. Your mind rushes to decide what character you’re going to become. What role is best to get information from him? You think back to the two women he was with, now vanished, and you quickly decide you’ll have to match.

                  Hilarious, isn’t it, that all that blood you spilled was to avoid the brothels. And now, here you are…

                  “Hope it’s a pleasant one, too.” You cock your head to the side flirtatiously, smile slanted deep into your cheek.

                  He leans forward, planting his elbows on the table. He threw them down recklessly with some weight. His head bobs, the black slate of hair folding towards his brow like paper.

                  “It is.” His voice is flat. There’s no flattery in it, there’s an ending he’s trying to skip to.

                  You let the silence hang, drawing it out just enough to make him feel like he needs to fill it. But you let your smile grow wider, and the look in your eyes sloppier.

                  Finn licks his teeth, then gestures loosely at your drink. “You like whiskey.” The way he pronounces it is odd. Wess-key.

                  You glance down, swirl the drink around in its glass. “It’s wet.”

                  He huffs a laugh. “Good answer.” A beat. “I like people who drink whiskey. Makes them easier to read.”

                  You squint at him playfully. “Is that what you’re doing now?” You twirl the glass between your fingers. “Reading me?”

                  Finn nods once, ducking his head a little too low and then jerking it back up haphazardly. “Trying to,” he says. “Don’t take it personal. I do that with everyone.”

                  You flash a tight smile. “I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

                  He stares at you for a moment longer. Then something in him shifts, loosens. The grin returns, but it’s thinner now, less charming, more dangerous.

                  “People are easier to read when they don’t have their clothes on. Call it naked truths.” He flicks his hair out of his face, glances away from you like he’s suddenly disinterested. Like you’re not worth the air you breathe.

                  You forcefully exhale some air out of your nose. You take another sip and focus on the way it burns on the way down. “I like to think my heart is on my sleeve.”

                  “Working girl like you? No.” He laughs, shakes his head. “You keep secrets.”

                  “You’re right,” you recover. “They’re underneath this dress.”

                  After a moment, what he says next almost cracks you. “I like to fuck a girl with scars. Maybe it’s damaged goods to some, but I like when the body tells a story.”

                  You know it’s bait. You get the sneaking suspicion that he knows. Oblivious as he may be to you being The Engineer, he seems to recognize that you fall under Silco’s territory.

                  You smile as seductively as you possibly can, even pushing your chest out to draw his eyes to your breasts. “I like to think mine tells a pretty good story.” You bat your lashes.  

                  He doesn’t answer right away. Just reaches into his coat and pulls out a small black velvet pouch. He sets it on the table between you, then taps it once. You hear the coins rattle inside. Whatever test all that was, you must have passed it.

                  “Payment,” he says.

                  “For what?”

                  “You seem like the kind of person who likes to be useful.” He says before pausing.

                  The two of you exchange looks.

                  “Information. About someone close to Silco. Maybe too close. Or…” He leans in. “Maybe you can be too close to him yourself. I’ll pay you double.”

                  You lean in too, as if you were going in to kiss him. “Let’s say I was useful,” you say lightly. “What exactly would I be offering?” You pick up the pouch, feeling its weight, examining it.

                  The golden mandible waxes and wanes as he talks. “A name. A route. A conversation. A mistake.”

                  You shake your head slowly, still smiling. You let the pouch fall back to the table with a soft thud.

                  “Silco runs a tight ship. They’re Silco’s down to the bone. You find someone near him who’s slipping, you’re not catching a traitor. You’re catching bait.”

                  Finn’s grin fades slightly. Not all the way, but enough to show he’s really listening to you now. No longer arrogant and aloof.

                  You darken your expression. “You’ll kill us both.”

                  Finn leans back slowly, that grin completely gone now. He stares at you coldly for a moment before silently grabbing the pouch and tucking it back into his coat.

                  You get up abruptly, pounding your heels down as you traverse the floor in a horse-like strut. Like you’re angry. You are angry. Angry at how much danger you’re in, or angry at how much Silco’s in, you’re not sure.

*********************

                  The party ends the way all Undercity parties end: with broken glass, smoke curling in the rafters, and the lingering smell of sweat and spite. People leave slowly at first, and then all at once. You stand amidst it all as it thins out.

                  Brighter lights get switched on overhead. Chairs are getting stacked on tables. The bar is getting wiped down. Sevika is sitting on a barstool dressing some bruises and cuts on her fist. You don’t know who she beat up or when, but you fantasize some brief glimpses of Smeech getting his teeth knocked out in your mind. If only.

                  When you look up, Silco’s making a rare appearance. He stands at the top of the stairs, watching order be restored to The Last Drop.  You only saw him once during the party, and when you looked for him again moments later, he was gone.

                  He catches your gaze. He motions his head sideways, towards the hallway leading to his office. Come.

                  You trudge up the stairs with all the grace of a newborn foal. Your feet are killing you. The moment this is over, you’re taking these sadistic shoes off. You feel the weight of the night clinging to you as you ascend – the noise, the stink, the stares, the alcohol.

                  The door to Silco’s office is cracked open, and you enter before gently shutting it behind you. Silco sits on the edge of his desk with a glass in his hand. He offers it to you as you approach, reading the fatigue on your face. You take it, if only to do something with your hands other than clench them. You look down at the amber you hold before taking it in one swig. Silco blinks.

                  “So?” He prompts, his voice gritty and winded.

                  You sigh. “Smeech, Margot, none of them are happy, of course. But it doesn’t seem like they’ve finalized any plans to do something about it. Finn, though, propositioned me. Recognized me as one of yours and wanted me to become a spy of sorts.”

                  He frowns, irritated. “One of my what? You’re not Sevika, I don’t send you out.”

                  “Whores.” You say bluntly. “One of your whores.”

                  He shakes his head. “I didn’t hire any. Not for this event.”

                  If you weren’t so exhausted, you would laugh in his face. But it concerns you still how distracted he is. His mind gone so far away that he didn’t register how ridiculous he sounded.

                  Some time passes, both of you too tired to converse for a moment. Silco stares at the wall, fixated on blank nothingness.

                  “It’s no surprise that he would be problematic. Renni, though, is the one to watch. She bankrolls all his pursuits.” He practically spits the last word out before roughly tugging at his neck. Your jaw drops for a moment upon realizing that his tie was a clip-on. You wonder why such a well-dressed man would make such a cheap substitution, especially on a night like this. He angrily sheds his vest and undoes the top two buttons on his dress shirt with a harshness that makes him look like he wishes he could rip his own skin off.

                  “People like Finn – they’re not threats.” He continues, the cadence of his voice wavering as he yanks his shirt sleeves up, rolling them towards his elbows. “They’re thermometers. You watch how high they rise, how fast they boil, and you know exactly how close you are to fire.”

                  You can’t tell if he’s attempting to have this be a teachable moment or if he’s just talking aloud trying to reassure himself. He looks withered. Haggard.

                  You watch Silco for a long moment before your head starts to throb. The ache presses in on your temples so severely that you suddenly retreat to the couch to lie down.

                  He doesn’t quite rise from his seat, but his back straightens when he asks you, “What is it?”

                  His concern was like a catalyst for a special type of anger that starts to churn within you. You don’t want to entertain him or his care for you when he just made you spend a whole night in heels mingling with scum. And for what? Of course he’s not popular. Making a grab for power the way he is – that’s never popular.

                  What bubbles up from you instead though is, “Why’d you wear a clip-on tie?” You slap a hand over your eyes to shut out as much light as you can. The pain pulses through your forehead down to your sinuses.

                  “Mm.”

                  With your sight gone, you can’t tell if you made him laugh or made him furious. The room is silent save for the muffled noises of objects scuffling downstairs, glass clinking.

                  “I don’t like having things around my neck.”

                  You sense that you stepped on a sore subject. Now you have to combat thoughts of Trota again. Is this your fault?

                  The emotions swirl violently, much like the contents of your stomach, before they start to burn and fizzle. All the melodrama. It’s futile.

                  “You ever think about just burning it all down?”

                  Silco lets out a breath – not quite a laugh, but not a sigh either. “Every day.”

                  You open your eyes, even though the dim glow of his desk lamp seems so aggressive to you now. You prop yourself up on your elbows to sit up halfway, to look at him. Really look at him. “Then why don’t you?” You hurl it at him like you’re trying to goad him into displaying his telltale violence.

                  All your men. All your Shimmer. All your wars. All your espionage. Why don’t you?

                  Silco clocks your irritation. You sense the same feeling building in him so he can return it – retaliate against you in his self-aggrandizing, spectacular fashion. “That’s what they all expect,” he says, swinging his arm out to motion towards an imaginary sea of people. “Blow up the board when I start losing pieces. But I cannot stop now. Not before Zaun is legitimized, realizes its power.”

                  You lean back into the couch, the weight of the night pressing harder against your spine. Your eyes feel like they could pop out of your head. You’re not sure if you should pity him while he’s in such a state or hate him for pulling you into this war. Probably both.

                  “You were wrong, by the way.” You start. You watch his brows furrow, his face twist. “I’m not fighting to be seen. I’m fighting for the sake of your little girl.”

                  And then he closes his eyes tightly, ashamed.

                  “Silco,” you say weakly, but your voice trails off. There’s too much happening, too much feeling going on. It collects and clogs and clumps, forming a lump in your throat.

                  “I know.” He replies.

Chapter Text

Two weeks pass.  They go by unusually quiet. Less skirmishes, and trade slows down a little bit. You get the feeling that Silco, Finn, Smeech – all of them – are conserving their resources for something big.

                  You’ve gone to the library practically every night, primarily to read, but also hoping to see Silco. He did show up one night, looking stressed beyond belief, a strand of hair fallen out of place obscuring his eye.

                  He promptly left once he realized the room was occupied. He looked as though he was disgusted by you. You hadn’t been able to make sense of it – warm (as he could be) one day and ice cold the next.

                  Jinx breaks off half of her biscuit and hands a piece to you before shoving her chunk into her face.

                  “You’re telling me you’ve never had these before?” She manages to muffle through her mouthful.

                  “I haven’t,” you reply, chewing. “Aren’t these hard to come by?” You turn the red and gold packaging over in your hands. These are made Topside. Before you lived here, you subsisted off watery porridge and questionable meat. Forget fancy biscuits.

                  Her eyes roam upward, like she’s searching for her thoughts underneath her eyelids. A few more chews and she finally swallows it. “Mm, yeah.” She shrugs. “I guess the first time I had these was with Silco. He can get anything.” Her voice echoes, bouncing off the metallic walls of her workshop.

                  “Mm.” Is all you reply.

                  Jinx flops back on the torn-up sofa, legs hanging over the armrest, biscuit crumbs scattered across her shirt. “When’s he gonna get me my paint? For my butterflies?” She groans.

                  You look across the haphazard cavern that is Jinx’s playground at her bench. She’s made twenty butterflies now. But they’re all naked and missing her signature blitz of pink and blue pizazz.

                  It’s getting late. You yawn. “I don’t know.”

                  She furrows her brows, dissatisfied with that answer. “He’s not around much anymore.”

                  You don’t miss the way she shook her head abruptly – like someone else was talking to her, and she was trying to ward them off.

                  You nod slowly, trying to read between the lines of her words. Not quite anger. Not quite sadness. It’s a sort of bored and resentful numbness, but you can sense the instability factor working its way up the hill. One of her bad episodes is coming the day – or hour – she reaches the top of it. You wish you knew how soon, so you could better prepare to help her.

                  You sigh.

                  The mental exhaustion that has been clawing at you since the night of the party, or really since you practically surrendered your life to Silco, means that a low murmur of agreement is all that you can offer to console her. And then you realize she needs far more than that, before her fears of abandonment get into the driver’s seat.

                  “But you’re on his mind all the time.” You turn to look at her earnestly.

                  She rolls her eyes. Your delivery was way too cheesy. You’re not good at this.

                  You laugh. “Sorry.”

                  She slides off the couch like melted goo, the backs of her shoulders thudding onto the floor like a hunk of dough. Her feet stick straight into the air like toothpicks, and a long huff of frustration leaks out of her lips.

                  You start to reach into your back pocket for a cigarette before deciding that you shouldn’t smoke around a child. Your hand falls awkwardly back to your side. The two of you remain lame and languid for an unknown amount of time. The seconds tick by like molasses.

                  Finally, Jinx sighs. “I guess it’s time to go give him his shot.”

                  You raise your brow quizzically. “His shot?”

                  “Yeah. Every day I gotta go stick him in his eye. The messed up one.” She grunts, righting herself before standing up and brushing some crumbs off of her.

                  Stick him in his eye?

                  No way.

                  She starts to leave, and you trail curiously behind her.

                  When the two of you make it to his office, Jinx doesn’t knock and instead waltzes right in. You crack a smile for just a second thinking about how safe and comfortable she feels with him before remembering how safe and comfortable you don’t feel. You pause, and then you reluctantly follow her inside.

                  Silco is sat behind his desk reading a slip of paper, some kind of memorandum, with an intense expression on his face. It softens a fraction when he greets his daughter. “I was wondering when you would come,” he says with feigned annoyance, but you can tell he’s glad to see her.

                  “Wasn’t sure you’d even be here,” Jinx retorts right as Silco realizes you’re here, too.

                  You refrain from grimacing and just nod.

                  “Have you had time yet to get paint?” she questions with hope bouncing off each syllable, completely oblivious to the awkwardness ballooning to monumental size.

                  Silco is still looking at you when he answers. “Not yet. Soon.”

                  Jinx finally catches on, and her head whips backwards to look at you, frowning. Likely wondering why the two of you behave in such an odd manner around each other. Two magnets, sometimes of opposite poles, drawn to each other by some kind of force of nature or fate. Other times, the same poles, and yet you are thus repulsed. The conditions are never met for you two to align. To meet. To touch.

                  How does he keep doing this? Does he even know that he’s doing this to you? Wavering between treating you like a human being and surveying you like some kind of enigmatic weapon? His eyes pry and try to dissect you. There’s no gentle unfurling like that of natural, mutual friendship.

                  No, you’re not friends. But this has degraded into something far beyond a professional relationship. It’s some other third thing that is as weird as it is unnerving.

                   It’s predatory and severe, the way he holds all the cards. He takes you out of your element – makes you feel like a puppet.

                  And yet he has a hunger to him. Not one borne of love, not even lust. He seems frustrated by you. Like he finds you to be so confusing. When he’s the one that’s been so vague and opaque. When he’s the one that plucked you from your past life and planted you here, squarely in the center of his chaotic drug lord orchestra.

                  You do your best to ignore the way his gaze bores a whole through you, the way he feels inescapable. You do him the favor of ignoring the blurriness slurred between you, meddling with your minds. But he can’t seem to get himself to do the same, extend you the same basic courtesy. No, the impenetrable Eye of Zaun has been carefully logging each of the walls you’ve put up and launching himself over them with ease. He’s tenacious…

                  …He’s manipulative.

                  He’s always pulling strings.

                  I hate him, you think to yourself. But your heart twists in protest. It knows that’s not true. Somehow, you find parts of him endearing. When he actually allows himself to be seen and drops his elusive, power-hungry mode of being.

                  You’ve absolutely lost your mind.

                  You snap out of your spiraling torrent of irritation and hypocrisy to find Jinx rummaging through a drawer in Silco’s desk. She withdraws from it some kind of golden apparatus. An odd syringe.

                  And Silco retrieves a vial, within it a liquid gleaming that unmistakable purple. Your mouth opens in surprise, but no sound comes out. He hands it to Jinx, and she pops it into place. The clicking sound it makes sends a shiver down your spine.

                  Is this…pain management? You didn’t consider that he could have been hurting and in genuine physical discomfort all this time.

                  Maybe this is why he’s such an asshole.

                  You expect Silco to roll up his sleeve so that she might place the injection in his arm. You’re gawking at him by the time he leans forward, and Jinx bends over slightly, steadying his face by grabbing the side of it. She hovers the needle over his eye, readying herself. She was serious earlier.

                  And then a quick puncture. In and out in a millisecond.

                  His face distorts in agony, his whole body tensing as though overcome by a seizure. The veins in his forehead bulge, the muscles in his neck tensing and straining.

                  And he overcomes it without hardly ever making a sound.

                  A thin rivulet of purple streaks downward from the deep black socket, trailing like a tear, and Jinx quickly wipes it away with a cloth.

                  “There,” she says proudly, straightening herself and stuffing the syringe back into the drawer with a clatter. “Gross eye thing complete.” She grins, as if she’s just bandaged a scraped knee instead of driving a needle into a sensory organ. You make note of it – how she loves to feel needed. Independent, precocious, and mischievous as she may be, you sense that she yearns to be helpful to others.

                  Silco exhales through his nose, then reaches for a glass of water on his desk. He doesn’t thank her, and she doesn’t expect him to. You can feel it – that strange, silent rhythm between them. As natural as breathing.

                  Silco catches you staring and leans back in his chair. “Do you think it’s grotesque?”

                  There’s something deliberate in the way he asks it. An edge to it.

                  Truthfully, it made you queasy as hell. But you find yourself shaking your head and saying, “No, it’s…trust.”

                  You brace for one of his typical pointed remarks, some cold retort or philosophical musing on pain or betrayal. But instead, he says nothing. Just gives you a long look that makes Jinx uncomfortably become absorbed in the intricacies of the floor and her shoes.

                  If you had blinked, you would have missed the expression of shock that flashed across his face. You bring up a word as soft and pillowy as trust, and he looks as though he’s been slapped. You don’t know how or why, but you feel like you just won an argument. Like there was a point he was trying to make, and you just made a better one.

                  Jinx sighs. “I’m hungry again. We got any more biscuits?”

                  You’re grateful for the shift in energy. You pivot to face her and only her, casting Silco away from the forefront of your mind. “You ate all of them, Jinx.”

                  “I shared,” she protests, her arms flying up, dismayed that you would say such a thing. “I’m going downstairs, and I’m eating your jerky.”

                  You smile. “I suppose that’s fair.”

                  She rushes out, a flash of blue hair darting down the hall when the door shuts behind her with a thud. You throw a parting glance Silco’s way before starting to head after her, before she depletes your entire stash.

                  And then he says your name in a tone of voice you’ve not heard since the encounter that one night in the library. When your anger started to lap at him like waves eroding a shore, citing the same frustrations that still torture you now. When he returned that rage, but it was misery that pooled around his feet rather than hot vapors of aggression. When he could hardly grit out, I didn’t know that I would see you. What that would mean.

                  How hard you’ve tried to forget these things is proportional to how hard it all comes flooding back.

                  “Stay.”

                  You turn around. You stare at him, prompting him to continue, and yet no words pour forth.

                  There’s weight to this. Now he wants to talk.

                  He shifts in his seat, glancing down and picking off imaginary dust and debris from his pantleg.

                  You cross the room to sit down on the couch. The scarred skin that pulls at your ear, wraps around your bicep – it starts to feel impossibly tight.

                  “A storm is brewing,” he starts.

                  You know. The whole of the Undercity knows. You get the impression that everyone is waiting with baited breath, to see if anything of Silco’s fabled Zaun will be left by the time he’s gotten a proper hold of it.

                  You say nothing. All that greets your ears for an excruciating period of time is the faint whir of machinery outside. But you don’t move an inch, sensing that his feelings have swelled up behind a dam that will soon burst. You study his hands as he wrings them, steeples them, flattens them over and over again. You wonder if to him you are still even in the room, he’s so deep in thought.

                  He still won’t look at you when he eventually speaks again. “Trust is a luxury,” he begins. “It’s not given freely here, among our people.”

                  You knew that to be true. You could only rely on yourself, as is the case with every other Trencher.

                  And then his head lifts, and he looks indecisive. He’s always so sure of himself, and now he looks like he’s carefully weighing the consequences of every single word in his mind. You hardly recognize him without his arrogance.

                  That alone unsettles you more than if he’d just screamed at you.

                  You lean back slowly, trying to stretch the tension out of your limbs without drawing attention to how tightly coiled you feel.

                  “I look like this because I trusted the wrong man, and he betrayed me.” He says gravely, his voice falling heavily like an anchor. “And I forged a stronger man within myself from it. I clawed my way up. I was ravenous, when I took over The Lanes.”

                  He exhales. The sound is like a long-forgotten memory being forced out of a locked chest.

                  “But I have a daughter now. Two years of having a little girl running around. It motivated me, for new reasons, to make progress for Zaun.”

                  He pauses, swallowing hard. He lifts his glass as though he was going to take a sip from it, but changes his mind and simply cups it in his hands.

                  “And I feel farther away from progress than ever, catapulted backwards into the dark ages.” Each word bathed in bitterness.

                  His hands tremble – barely, but enough. He sets the glass down slowly, deliberate, as if giving himself time to decide what to say next.

                  “Every deal I strike feels like a step further from the future I promised her.”

                  You know he means Jinx. But it feels like he’s talking about something bigger – like he’s dragging the weight of the entire Undercity behind his words.

                  He looks at you again, and this time, there’s no calculation in his gaze. Just a man, exhausted and brutalized by his own stark ambition.

                  “It was Vander, wasn’t it? Who betrayed you?” You ask softly.

                  “My brother.” He answers despondently. “He tried to drown me, in toxic waters south of here. He held me down while the chemicals seeped into me.”

                  The words slice into the air like a jagged broken bottle. You feel it in the shift of the room. In Silco’s clenched jaw. In the way the lights overhead hum with a kind of cold indifference.

                  You start to finally connect some dots.

                  You don’t approve of the way he is, what he’s done to people. But now, it’s all beginning to make some sense. You’re washed with pain and relief at the same time.

                  How affected he was by your mention of trust, his subsequent rambling.

                  How cold and shut-off and ruthless he is. His sensitivity with his neck. The fake tie tainting an otherwise regal aura.

                  His rage.

                  And he tells you this now, you realize, because it’s his idea of an olive branch. Stripping a hardened, venomous layer from himself as a peace offering.

                  “Thank you,” you mutter under your breath. A hardly audible acknowledgement of this rare glimpse of humanity from him.

                  You hadn’t meant for him to hear it – gods you’ve spent your whole life alone, and you’re still not used to company. He looks up at you sharply.

                  “What?” He snaps. You realize he misread you, mistook it for some kind of sarcasm.

                  “Thank you,” you repeat, louder and with a level of passion you hadn’t intended to color your voice with. “For telling me.”

                  You shut your eyes, trying to find your bearings in this conversation toppling over into unexplored territory. “I can…be a better friend to you if you help me to understand you.”

                  Silco narrows his eyes, rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “Is that what we are? Friends?”

                  It feels like you’ve cracked open a door that’s been rusted shut for years. A chance to address each other honestly, but neither of you are skilled at navigating the oceans that spill from each of you.

                  It’s like he considered it an impertinence – that you called the two of you friends. Maybe you’re supposed to humble yourself as a mere servant, employee, nanny…fucking whatever of his. But that would be inaccurate, untrue. Disloyal.

                  “Friends.” You nod, cementing your transgression into place.

                  And just when he seems to settle on loathing you again, a faint, low chuckle escapes him.

                  “Dear friends.” He murmurs.

Chapter Text

The sun is scorching. Your arms feel like they’re going to snap off. Two paint cans, one in each hand. Pink and blue. You tried to get purple, too, but the seller said they didn’t have any in stock. It didn’t make any sense to you, given that he gave you blue and you saw a nice red listed as available in the catalogue. Something about a key pigment being hard to get nowadays, with the trade routes to Topside all messed up. Another symptom of the beleaguered political situation in Zaun, with the various kingpins having engaged in some kind of delicate economic war before it inevitably explodes into a full-fledged one.

                  The shopkeeper tried to chat you up while his assistant mixed the paint. He asked you increasingly personal questions disguised as polite conversation. You lied to him through your teeth, thinking it best not to mention you were there on account of a certain mob boss’s adopted daughter.

                  You had leaned against the counter, awkwardly drumming the pads of your fingers against the wooden planks. And the whole time you did so, a small box you had tucked into your back pocket was burning a hole through your ass.

                  You realize as you’re lugging these paint cans back to The Last Drop that you must’ve lost more muscle mass than you thought. You’re out of shape. All that time in recovery, and all that time afterwards eating biscuits and jerky with Jinx in her workshop.

                  You’re not the omnipotent, monstrous killing machine you once were.

                  You thought admitting it in your head would trigger an onslaught of fear and dread, but it actually feels alright. You’re different now. That’s okay.

                  When you first accepted Silco’s offer, it felt like you were betraying yourself. You only took it because you felt your prospects were ruined – suit gone, too injured to work and feed yourself. A lot of your resentment towards Silco was built on that, not feeling like you had an option. Maybe it still bothers you deep down, but the two of you are friends now. Dear friends.

                  And friends gift each other things, right?

                  The box.

                  You’re not really sure why you did it. There’s still time to go back, return it, and yet your feet continue planting themselves one after the other towards The Last Drop. Towards Silco, to deliver it to him.

                  You really don’t know what possessed you when you walked by that shop. The sign said it was a haberdashery, and you had no idea what that even meant. But you saw an entire selection of them on display…

                  You don’t know what made you go inside and make that purchase. Especially when the item was ridiculously overpriced. But what you did know was the message you were trying to convey with it. I don’t think you’re weak.

                  You duck into an alleyway to avoid clogging up the foot traffic, setting the paint cans down to take a break. Beads of sweat swell on your forehead and tremble before cascading down the sides of your face.

                  Maybe you’ve over-exerted yourself in this heat. You hadn’t seen a day this blistering hot since you were a kid. You take some deep breaths and wait for your heart rate to slow down.

                  Only for it to speed back up again every time your mind lands on that stupid box.

                  You shake your head. You don’t recognize yourself, the way your gut is all twisted into knots over a gift. You used to kill people for a living, for gods’ sake. You romped around in a giant metal suit fighting and shooting, and now a box containing a completely benevolent item has you feeling like you’re going to spew chunks all over the plaster of this wall.

                  What if he thinks you’re crossing a line? And you end up right back at square one, bickering with that infuriatingly moody curmudgeon? Or worse, he sends to Sevika to kill you, and no take-backsies this time.

                  Fuck, I’m really gonna throw up. You grip the wall, bending over. You swallow the saliva pooling in your mouth. No, no I’m not. You shut your eyes so tightly you see stars.

                  You resolve to pick the paint buckets back up again. You decide to focus on how heavy they are, how much your shoulders are screaming at you, how miserable you are – anything but that box.

***

                  You make it back and find Sevika lounging at the bar. Surprisingly, it’s water she’s chugging, not beer. The heat got to her too, you suppose.

                  You waddle inside and set the cans down with a thunk by the doorway leading to back-of-house. “Is Silco in?” You ask her breathlessly.

                  She turns to you, eyebrow raised. “He’s not.”

                  “Oh, okay,” you say, ignoring the look on her face. You’ll go see Jinx first – probably a better idea, considering the encounter with Silco might not go well.

                  Sevika doesn’t say anything else as you begrudgingly pick the paint cans back up. She just watches you with that sideways look she always gives you when she thinks you’re being weird, which is often. You can feel her eyes following the sweat-slick path of your spine well after you turn away.

                  You head to Jinx’s workshop like everything is normal. Like you aren’t currently contemplating if you should throw the stupid box into the river and pretend you hallucinated the whole thing.

                  When you finally make it there, your arms give, and you drop the cans with a resounding thud. You wince. Not because they’re heavy – though they are – but because you know Jinx hates that sound. Loud bangs like that, even small ones, sometimes set her off.

                  You watch her shoulders jump up to her ears, but she takes it in stride and manages to soothe herself. She pivots on her stool to face you, and her face immediately lights up.

                  “Paints!” She exclaims. “You got them.”

                  “Pink and blue,” you smile. “No purple though. Sorry girl.”

                  She wrinkles her nose in confusion. “They can’t just mix the two?”

                  You shrug. “That’s what I said. The guy rambled on about some kind of special pigment he needed.”

                  Jinx takes a screwdriver and pops the lid off one of the cans. “Whatever.”

                  She seems pleased, and then she struggles to haul the paint over to her workbench. She uses both hands to grip the handle and hoists it upwards, her arms perpendicular to her torso, her elbows flying out. Her tongue is stuck out the slightest bit, her mouth pressed into a firm line from the effort.

                  It’s adorable. Not that you can ever tell her that.

                  Once she’s settled, you sit on the edge of an overturned crate. Your elbow is on your knee, chin in hand, and you watch her. Jinx is in her element. She hums some tune she probably made up on the spot, head bobbing as she works, and you start to think about how grateful you are to have met her. You would get blown up for her a million times.

                  You zone out, somehow relaxed despite that box in your pocket and all the racket she’s making a few feet away from you. Metallic whirring, the low cracker of soldering, the splattering of paint.

                  The way she paints is so emotive. Brash and loud brushstrokes, but her designs somehow come out so cohesive and emblematic. Her method is chaotic, but the end product is so meticulously and intricately her.

                  This is what makes your heart ache a little bit. You don’t miss your old job, but you do miss tinkering with your suit. The late nights where you smoked cigarettes and tweaked and modified until the sun came up. It was the closest thing you had to a hobby. It took you away from your shithole dwelling and the harsh, lonely realities of your life. And it made what you did feel dignified.

                  The truth is that killing has no dignity.

                  You shake your head, realizing you’re dwelling. Brooding. You’ve finally had enough time away from that way of life to build a new identity that exists outside of it. You’re ready to leave it all behind for good. Doing this – hanging out with Jinx, buying gifts…that’s plenty for you.

                  Jinx invites you to paint a butterfly, and you’re a little too enthusiastic rising from your seat.

                  She laughs at you mischievously. “It’s not going anywhere.”

                  You rub your palms – drenched with sweat, you realize – onto your pants and take the paintbrush she offers you. It’s stubby and frayed at the ends, probably chewed on at some point. You dip it into the pink paint and swish the brush back and forth, trying to even out the coat.

                  You’re happy with the final product when you finish it – you were thorough. Several coats of paint, clean lines. You went for a color block design, with opposing rectangles and squares fighting over territory on your butterfly. It was comically different from Jinx’s, which could only be described as riotous.  

                  But you smile when you tell her that you much prefer her butterfly over yours.

                  “You’re a creative, I’m not.” You say frankly.

                  “I thought the suit was creative,” she shrugs. “That thing was ridiculous.”

                  “That thing was cool.”

                  Jinx grins at your mock offense and nods sarcastically. “Uh-huh.”

                  And then her smile becomes extra cheeky, and she flicks her paintbrush at you. Flecks of blue spray all over your shirt.

                  “Oh, that’s how you wanna be, huh?” You ask, and her giggles only increase in volume as you reach for your brush. You gently flick yours back at her, bits of pink dotting her cheek.

                  “Ah!” She yelps.

                  She wipes her cheek with the back of her wrist and stares at the pink streak it leaves behind, mock horror on her face. She gasps dramatically, “How dare you mess with the greatest artist in all of Zaun?”

                  “It’s only fair,” you laugh, raising your hands in surrender.

                  “I’m telling Silco.” She feigns being a snob, haughtily sticking her nose in the air.

                  “Yeah,” you snort. “Go tell him I attacked you with pink.”

                  The two of you descend into easy laughter, and for a while, the heat outside, the sweat, the box – all of it slips away. This little workshop, cluttered and chaotic and half-exploded in places, has become a haven. You never expected to feel safe here. You never expected someone so close to Silco, of all people, to be part of your healing.

                  Eventually, she turns back to her bench and picks up another one of her butterflies to begin adding color and fun to. Her tongue sticks out again as she paints a flame motif onto its wings.

                  You reach into your pocket and feel the corner of the box press against your palm. It’s still there. Still weighty, still unnerving.

***

                  When the time comes, it feels like a million of Jinx’s butterflies are battering against the walls of your insides.

                  The hallway to Silco’s office is cooler than the street outside, but it still feels like your body is dragging a fever behind it. You move slowly, deliberately, like each footstep is a question you haven’t answered yet.

                  When you reach the door, you pray to any gods that might be listening that he still hasn’t returned yet. You could just leave it. Set it on his desk and go.

                  You pull the box out and stare at it. The packaging is understated – just plain black with a small white ribbon. You hadn’t asked for the ribbon. The shopkeeper added it himself and winked at you like he knew something you didn’t.

                  Maybe he did.

                  You knock.

                  “I’m busy, Sevika.” He warns from inside.

                  “It’s me.”

                  A long, drawn-out pause.

                  “Fine, enter.”

                  Fuck. Fuck-ity fucking fuck.

                  You swallow and push open the door.

                  Silco’s behind his desk, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, collar undone. His vest is crumpled on the floor as though he had rushed to get it off. His hair is a little damp from the heat, sticking to his forehead.

                  Somehow, he looks graceful and poised even though he was clearly suffocated by the heat, too.

                  He looks up at you as he lowers himself into his chair. “What is it?”

                  You silently place the box on the desk in front of him, pushing it closer to him with two fingers.

                  His eyes hardly register the box, flicking back up to you immediately. A sliver of surprise, quietly masked.

                  “What is it?”

                  “Open it,” you say quietly.

                  He looks down at it like it might explode. Carefully, he lifts it, weighing it in his hand. His face is unreadable.

                  “I got paint for Jinx, and I saw it along the way,” you say stiffly.

                  He opens it without a word.

                  You watch his expression as he sees what’s inside: a finely made, cream-colored silk tie. The kind of thing that would look elegant tucked into the collar of his waistcoat – a stark, standout piece that commands attention.

                  He doesn’t say anything for a long while, and when he finally does, he’s marred by confusion.

                  “You know I don’t like things around my neck. I told you that,” he says, cocking his head.

                  “Right now, maybe you can’t wear it. But I think someday you can wear it. When you gain control of Zaun, when you get justice for it – you’ll be wearing a real tie.” You do your best to explain the inexplicably stupid gift.

                  He shuts his eyes for a moment, and then scoffs when he opens them. “When.”

                  Not if.

                  He sets the box down slowly, fingers lingering on the edge before sliding it aside, almost like he doesn’t want to look at it anymore—but also doesn’t want to stop touching it.

                  "You’re impossible," he says, voice quieter than before. Not angry. Not amused. Just... tired.

                  You try to read his face, but it’s like trying to read smoke. Every emotion that flickers across it burns out before you can name it.

                  “I know,” you say. “I just figured…” You trail off. You figured a lot of things. That maybe he’d understand what you were trying to say without you having to explain it. That maybe this whole ridiculous gesture wouldn’t be seen as soft or naive or foolish. But now you’re standing here, feeling like someone who just confessed something they shouldn’t have.

                  You glance at the tie again. “It’s not really about the tie.”

                  Silco hums, low in his throat. “I assumed as much.”

                  A pause, thick and waiting. He leans back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, eyes back on you now—those sharp, oil-slick eyes that always made you feel like he was dissecting you from the inside out.

                  "You think I’m weak, do you?" he asks.

                  The question lands with a thud, like a knife stuck in the center of the desk.

                  “No,” you say, fast. Too fast.

                  He smiles, but it’s lopsided. Crooked. You fear your dear friend is missing. This is the Silco you first met all those months ago.

                  “No,” he repeats, as if turning over the word like a coin in his palm. “But you did once.”

                  You swallow. No. No. No. Why is it unfolding like this? You can’t get yourself to speak. No, I didn’t! You practically scream in your head.

                  He exhales, long and slow. Then gestures to the tie. “And this is... a statement of retraction?”

                  You get angry at the way he’s twisting this, how small and stupid you feel. “It’s a vote of confidence,” you raise your voice, almost shouting frustratedly. “In you!”

                  He blinks. And he stares at you, eyes glinting like a scalpel catching the light. His anger and suspicion evaporate, and it’s replaced with what looks like an earnest resolve.

                  And then, wordlessly, he stands up. He removes the tie from the box. He adjusts the collar of his shirt, slings the tie behind it, tucks it underneath, and throws one end of it across the other as his nimble fingers begin to fasten it around his neck.

                  You watch, dumbfounded. His movements are precise, methodical, every pull and fold as practiced as a man cleaning a gun. There’s a kind of reverence to it, like he’s not just tying a tie, but wrapping a ritual around his throat.

                  His hands drop and fall to his sides. He’s tied it, but it’s loose, not snug against the jewel of the collar.

                  He walks up to you, and you catch the look in his eyes. The darkness swirling in them tells you that what he’s doing right now carries a lot of importance to him. He doesn’t stop his approach until he’s practically only an inch or two in front of you. And then his hands return to the tie, and he pushes it up, tightening it.

                  You stare up at him blankly, not able to handle him being so close. Why he is so close?

                  “It suits you,” you murmur.

                  But you bear witness to the way his breath quickens. His chest starts to heave, rolling up and down like waves.

                  He is violently uncomfortable.

                  He’s excising every fiber of his being to maintain an appearance of being flat, level, and calm.

                  This is where you find his shared thread with Jinx. He knows what it’s like to have triggers, infuriating ones that are seemingly innocuous to other people. People like you that are ignorant to the hell this puts them through.

                  You nod at him, as if to tell him that it’s okay. “Someday,” you say quietly. An invitation to take it off.

                  And he does, hastily. He practically rips it off, tugging with urgency at the silk.

                  And you did what you did next without second thought – you didn’t think it through. You just wanted to help, you wanted to help make him feel that his throat was free and uninhibited.

                  You leaned forward just the slightest bit to bring your lips together and blow cool air towards his neck, hoping to purchase him some relief.

                  It only took milliseconds to realize what you were doing, and you pulled away sharply like a rubber band.

                  You step back, eyes wide, heart hammering.

                  Silco freezes. His gaze is a fantastical whirlwind of disgust and yearning, tenderness and hate.

                  His mouth widens as though he’ll say something, break the silence. But it stretches on between you like a bridge made of glass. Your head floats down to realize how hard he’s gripping the tie, his knuckles white and bulging.

                  A tsunami of panic hijacks every decision-making particle of your brain.

                  You rush out of the office as fast as your legs will take you.

Chapter Text

                  Unsurprisingly, you find yourself not able to sleep. When you can, it’s nightmares rather than dreams that greet you.

                   Your stress manifests itself in such odd ways. You expected your unconscious mind to conjure up images of Silco, shrouded in a menacing purple aura, his scar yawning across his face.

                  But your brain takes you back to finding Jinx – and Pimor’s bombs. The explosion. What it felt like to get ripped to shreds by heat and light.

                  So much of your memories of that time have been lost to the physicality of it. Your brain focused all its efforts on survival. Every nutrient and bare particle of oxygen went towards hastily cobbling your bone, muscle, and skin back together. The scars are angry and marbled as though a drunken welder took to you with his torch.

                  You remember what it felt like to be thrown backwards by the blast and the way the back of your skull dribbled against the ground. You remember short, brief windows of waking up in Singed’s lab.

                  You swear you remember Silco being there, too, at times. How much he was there, you’re not sure. But there was a time that he gently pressed a cloth against your forehead, and he tried to help you. Soothe you.

                  You wonder more often than you should if that was a false memory you created. In the swirl of trauma, in your battered state, what if you just made it up?

                  It took you so long to heal, so much time crawled by, and yet all you can recall from that span is a few seconds out of thousands.

                  Your very self is still so fragmented, your soul split. You now see your life in two chapters – before Silco and after.

                  You give up on getting any kind of restful sleep. You consider for a moment heading to the library and finding a novel to drown yourself in – you finished Echoes in Iron long ago and have been thirsty ever since for more. If only you weren’t so busy, you would likely end up in that library for days at a time.

                  But you’re afraid to find Silco there. Who are you kidding, he’s probably avoiding you, too.

                  It’s just that…that room, as beautiful as it is, disturbs you. Another feature that makes Silco disgustingly human. How he must have painstakingly retrieved each iteration and volume, carefully selecting and curating. Those books are his respite as much as they are yours, you imagine.

                  You feel sick.

                  You try as hard as you can to push thoughts of him out of your mind, but it insists on dragging you back to that moment. The tie clenched in his fist, his breath hot and ragged, your own heart threatening to split your ribs in two. The way you’d leaned forward like a fool. The way he froze. And it was…the way his face read addled with trepidation. With fear. And it was hauntingly familiar.

                  Your body nearly heaves itself off your bed and onto the floor when you find that face overlapping with the same one he made that night. When Trota had him suspended in air. That sharp, seething and vengeful man so atrophied by fear.

                  Worst of all was the look in his eyes. The paradox of it.

                  Like there was a part of him in there that was just as foolish as you.

                  You roll over and press your face into the pillow. You can still feel the heat of him. Smell the faint scent of gunpowder and smoke and sweat on his shirt. Like he’d been branded onto your memory.

                  You can’t escape him even in the confines of your own mind.

                  You should never have gotten involved. You should have never waltzed into that library. This room should have been your prison, no different than how the suit was. And you should’ve not only kept but worked to maintain, cultivate that detachedness in you. That coldness.

                  You had already saved Jinx’s life – that could have been penance for how frigid you would have been later.

                  But you were stupid and naïve enough to shed those layers you so carefully constructed atop this insipid, weak core. Tears sting the backs of your eyes knowing that you can never return to that silent, unfazed killer again. It felt so good to not feel. It felt safe.

                  But you let yourself thaw, just a little, just enough to send it all cascading down. Years of grit and metal and blood reduced to trembling and yearning.

                  You turn over once more, hating the creak of the bedframe, the hush of fabric moving against fabric. Every sound feels like judgment, as if even the silence is disappointed in you.

                  The air is still too stifled and oppressive. Each second fills like honey that oozes the weight of a million iron ingots. The heat from outside still simmers in the night and threatens to permeate the chaste brick walls. You kick the covers off, then pull them back on seconds later, trying to find the version of yourself that can tolerate this body, this place, this moment, this heart.

                  You are not her anymore. The version of you before Silco – before Jinx, before the blast, before the weight of all this self-engendered grief sat neatly inside your bones like marrow – that person is a ghost now. If she were to step into this room now in all her alloyed glory, she wouldn’t recognize you. Nor you her.

                  You’re a woman…

                  Your brain cruelly implants his voice in your brain. When you were half out of your mind, recovering, laid bare by the destruction and the pain. When he stood a few feet away and yet felt a continent apart, his voice roaming over the top of distant and clouded mountains. Under his collected stoicism rested his surprise, with his quiet realization that you weren’t who he thought you were.

                  And the same is probably true again, now.

                  Oh gods, how things were just beginning to seem easy. Light-hearted and fun, even. In the company of dearest friends.

                  He drew a line for you in the sand, and your waves rushed in and eroded it. He trickles something pure or polluted, it doesn’t matter, into you. And you muddy the waters again and again and again. You dilute it with your wishful thinking and your insistence on making him human. It all makes you so sick now. Desperate beyond belief for something. At times not even conscious of it, but then your rogue body pleads and begs for it.

                  What…is wrong with me?! You practically want to scream.

                  Before, you had no issues with years of solitude, and now, a series of bloated cautions thrown to the wind has your throat swelling up.

                  You wish you could be angry with him, with all of it, despite only having yourself to blame for your feverish feelings. You’d been able to do it many times before, but that rage has subsided. You fear it’s gone for good – watered down by too many nights like this, by the quiet ache in the chest that just wants.

                  You sit up, finally, legs folding beneath as you stare at the fuzzy edge of the dark room. A streak of pale light carves shivering, fractured lines along the dresser.

                  You feel like an animal in an enclosure. You used to love the night. Now, it just feels like being watched by something you can’t name.

                  There’s a moment – brief and dissociative – where you try to reach a past version of yourself, beyond even your golden days as The Engineer. You try to remember what it felt like to be a kid. You pretend to be her. Just a girl sitting in her room, and Mom is somewhere nearby. You’re safe, and you’re someone whose nightmares don’t come with the tang of blood or the flicker of neon fire.

                  You press your palm to your chest like it might hold you together, and you can just scoop all the pieces of yourself back into something whole if you just hold tightly enough.

                  It doesn’t work again.

                  You think of Jinx. The way her eyes darted wildly, glittering like a struck match. How scared she was.

                  Your breathing starts to get rapid and heavy. It kicks and flutters and you’re bitterly reminded yet again of your butterflies.

                  You feel so disdainful and frustrated and…panicked.

                  You try to inhale deep breaths, but you can’t consume more than half a breath.

                  And as if everything wasn’t so hazy and blurred and opaque and utterly terrifying, all the mumblings of worry and fear and doubt transform themselves into outright wails and bellows. The fear rolls forwards relentlessly in raucous, stormed waves, crashing into you like rocks on a shore, salt and anguish biting at your nose, your fingertips. Your heart goes into overtime, and you can feel your pulse even in the most distant and dense parts of your body.

                  You see yourself in a pool, your feet not able to touch the bottom, and you’re drowning.

                  Am I dying?

                  You keep fighting it, but something in your mind has caused your body to seize upon itself. You just can’t get a breath in. You can’t.

                  Your vision tunnels, black creeping in at the edges like spilled ink on old parchment. You brace yourself for unconsciousness, or worse, but it doesn’t come. It never comes. You remain painfully awake, suspended in that sickly limbo where nothing is real and yet everything is fatal.

                  You dig your fingers into the fabric of the bedding until they ache. You grit your teeth, and squeezing your eyes shut causes tears to fall, ones you hadn’t even known you’d been collecting.

                  You need something. Someone.

                  Your body buckles in on itself as you cry. They’re not the wild, cinematic sobs you might expect of a person this fractured – just tears that fall without permission, each one hot, each one sharp.

                  Minutes pass. Maybe longer. Time is elusive now, stretching and snapping without any kind of predictable rhythm. The time is a panicked animal on its own, weeping in slurred conjunction with you. Eventually, the adrenaline ebbs, leaving you raw and hollow.

                  You reach for your blanket and press it to your face, not to dry it, but to hide. To cover what’s left of you from the world.

                  You sit there, wrapped in a silence you still don’t understand.

                  Then, a knock. Soft. Too gentle to be a coincidence.

                  Your spine stiffens.

                  Another knock. A pause.

                  “…It’s me.”

                  You freeze. His low voice is so controlled and deliberate, like a hand smoothing over a fraying edge.

                  You glance down at yourself frantically – your bare legs, your soaked shirt, the bruised swell of panic still squirming in your throat- and wonder if this is some kind of final cosmic punishment.  You hesitate, unsure whether to respond, or just stay here, hidden. Let him think you’re asleep. Or gone.

                  You can’t bear him and yet find yourself praying you find the strength to bid him entrance.

                  When you get up, each step feels like a white flag. You’ve reached the nadir, the apex, of this. Opening the door feels like surrender.

                  Silco is leaning slightly against the frame, like he’s trying not to look too intent. The hallway light behind him casts shadows that ripple across his face. He looks…tired. Worn thin in the same places you are.

                  His gaze finds yours, and his brows knit – not in judgement, but concern.

                  You say nothing, a defeated, sardonic shrug is all you’re able to articulate yourself with. You watch him realize that your face is tear-streaked, your eyes are swollen.

                  Your expression hardens, instinctively trying to brace yourself for something – judgment, concern, or worse, a disturbed kind of pity.

                  Still, he doesn’t speak.

                  And then – so quietly you barely register it – he asks, “What is it?”

                  It shouldn’t break you, but it does. A bitter laugh bubbles out of you before a sob immediately follows. You press your hand to your mouth, trying to keep it all from escaping you, and you fail.

                  Silco leans in to peer at you, and his face asks a new question. Will you let me help you?

                  You nod, barely – just enough for him to know you mean yes. That you want him to come in. That you want something – anything – to keep you from dissolving into thin air.

                  He steps inside like the hallway behind him has vanished, and this room is the only place left to go.

                  You stand there, trembling, until he closes the door behind him and gently – gently – reaches for your wrist. His thumb brushes the inside where your pulse is still frantic.

                  “Sit,” he says, barely more than a whisper.

                  You obey before you can even form a thought about why he’s here or why he’s helping you. You sink onto the bed like it’s water and he follows, settling beside you – close but careful.

                  The quiet is immense. But somehow, with him here, it’s lost its suffocating quality.

                  He reaches into his coat, draws something out – a handkerchief, crisp and folded. He unfolds it and hands it to you without all the gratuitous fanfare you were fearful of.

                  You fingers brush when you take it from him.

                  You hate how much you lean into that touch.

                  For a while, you just sit together. But you don’t sense any impatience creeping upwards from him, even as you refuse to offer any explanation or mollification.

                  All you sense is understanding.

                  He just breathes, slow and steady, and lets you borrow the rhythm of it until yours finally matches his.

                  You hold the handkerchief tighter than necessary, your knuckles paling, like it’s the only thing anchoring you to the moment. And the feeling of the world becoming bearable.

                  “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” you whisper eventually, the words brittle, barely intact. But you feel a certain comfort in letting it seep out of you, the two of you protected by the dark. “I was fine. I was fine.” You choke on it – the lie. “I used to be…”

                  But the rest won’t come out. The version of you that once stalked through flames, who sowed fatality into machines and broke bones without flinching, feels like a myth.

                  Silco is quiet for a beat. Then he shifts slightly beside you, and you hear his coat rustling softly. You can just barely make out his silhouette. You can’t tell, in the dark, just how close his face is to yours. But you feel the weight of him sinking down into the mattress, like he’s a sun with immense gravity and your pulled in to orbit him. He’s so close.

                  His voice, when it comes, is deliberate. Low. “You think this is weakness.” His tone is hard to decipher in the dark, you’re unsure for a moment if he’s relating or accusing. And then, “But it’s not. It’s the part no one wants to admit exists. The part we drown in vials or bury under cause.”

                  You almost laugh. “You sound like you’ve given this speech before.”

                  A pause. “Maybe I needed to hear it once. Maybe I never did.”

                  You meditate for a moment on his conflict with Vander, and the trauma that must have been bred from it. And then you take his words to heart, recognizing the truth of them.

                  You let it all settle over your skin like a balm, and it’s a kind of placid calm you haven’t known since before everything. Before your career. Before Jinx. Before Silco made you look at yourself in ways you didn’t want to.

                  Sensing your relief, he starts to get up. “I’ll let you get some rest.” He says.

                  A pang in your heart. A pull at the air in your lungs. Knowing why he originally showed up at your door. But you need to hear him say it.

                  “Why did you come here?” You ask, your heart in your voice.

                  “To thank you properly,” he says cooly. “For the tie.”

                  And you allow this lie to pass as he leaves, fully knowing that against both of your wishes, there’s a magnet within each of you. And they cause the two of you pain of the acutest kind.

Chapter Text

It’s two weeks later when a bomb goes off suspiciously close to The Last Drop.

                  You had been out, lugging yet another pair of paint cans – the pigment for Pretentious Purple finally came in. But you arrived to dust and aftermath and quickly caught up on bits and pieces of information. People were thrown flat onto their backs, and debris flew up several stories into the air. It was powerful and well-constructed. And bombs like that aren’t made by your average village idiot, they take time and money.

                  They hadn’t meant to level the building, obviously, or else they would’ve placed it far closer. Instead, they choose a building just a block away. Someone intended to send a message. Make Silco feel uneasy and claustrophobic.

                  If only they knew that a bomb was overkill, all they needed was a tie.

                  There’s a number of possible candidates, with Finn being pegged as your personal favorite for the attack. But, it wouldn’t be outlandish to consider Renni, Smeech, Chross, all the others. Maybe even someone unknown that’s been silently lurking and watching from the shadows.

                  Silco’s had everyone’s attention as of late.

                  You get the sense that it’s beginning to dawn on the Eye of Zaun that he needs to start making friends. Ones beyond his walls, or else he’ll never get anywhere with his pursuits.

                  He’s arranged for a meeting with the major chem-barons, with the goal of forging an alliance. A drug-fueled, venomous, but more importantly united front against classical Piltovian oppression.

                  You pray for it to work, for momentum. For clean air and safe drinking water, schools and industry. The opportunities you have all deserved from the beginning and been perpetually robbed of.

                  If that slick and devilish revolutionary can pull it off, you’ll buy him a million ties – so many he’ll never wear the same one twice.

                  “I don’t get why he won’t just let me bomb them back,” Jinx muses. She’s gotten bored with her legion of butterflies. They’ve been arranged in neat rows on the floor in the corner of the workshop, where they await their orders from their blue-haired general. She’s moved on to rigging a doll with a pack of explosives, the voice-activating string intended to work like the pin of a grenade.

                  “The cycle will never stop if he does,” you answer. The two years of chaos spawned from the vacuum Vander left behind proved that beyond a doubt. Blood practically gargled up from the street drains.  

                  “I don’t trust any of ‘em as far as I can throw them.”

                  You look at over at her, such a small and nimble girl with the most narrow and delicate fingertips. “You couldn’t throw them,” you tease.

                  “Exactly.” She retorts.

                  “It’s going to be okay,” you assure her.

                  She pauses, her arm awkwardly cocked as she was in the middle of unscrewing the back panel of the doll. She squints at you. “I know. Silco’s got it. Do you know it’s going to be okay?”

                  You freeze for a moment, caught off guard by the sudden shift in your dynamic. “Yeah,” you say, forcing a small smile. “Of course I do.”

                  Her confidence in him is unwavering. Her loyalty to him is the most consistent part of her, the part that is still able to relate to reality even when she’s deep in the trenches of an episode.

                  You won’t bring up the irony you find in how he’s such a stabilizing force for her now, when he was the catalyst for her whole life getting tossed upside down in the first place.

                  You learned recently that Jinx was Vander’s. Well, after she was her biological father’s. That was a bombshell that nearly made you collapse off the barstool when Sevika told you. Your beer went down the wrong pipe and you sputtered and coughed violently. Funny that Silco left that part out.

                  But Jinx doesn’t seem to mind how convoluted and batshit her life story is, so you decide not to mind too much, either. You just want to be there for her when she blames herself for the things that were completely out of her control.

                  You also learned why she’s called Jinx.

                  It feels cruel to refer to her by that name now, when you’ve learned the backstory behind it. Is it not just rubbing every one of her misfortunes right back into her sweet cherub face?

                  But Sevika warned you that Powder was off limits.

                  “Do not call her that,” she had implored you. “It won’t end well.”

                  So fine. Jinx she is. And precious to you she remains.

                  You’ve just settled into a fragile sort of calm when the knock comes on the workshop door – two sharp raps, spaced evenly. It’s the kind of knock that says this isn’t a social call. Jinx looks up instinctively, her hands pausing over her doll like she’s about to stash it behind her back. You shake your head subtly, and she relaxes again, watching you with narrowed eyes as you approach the door.

                  It’s Sevika.

                  “Come on. Engineer. We’ve gotta go.” Her voice is as gruff as ever, but her expression is just a shade too serious. Her usage of your old title tells you this will entail going back to your old ways. Something has to have gone horribly wrong.

                  She opens her mouth again as though she’s going to elaborate, but her eyes flicker towards Jinx and she stops herself. Then they flick back to you, and she offers in a hushed, grave tone: “We’ve got a problem.”

                  Your stomach does a slow, sinking flip.

                  You rise from your seat to leave, giving Jinx a parting apologetic glance before exiting the workshop.

                  You walk quickly, with Sevika setting a punishing pace. “What? What is it?” You ask, failing to not come off as frantic.

                  “Silco’s been poisoned,” she says over her shoulder.

                  You stop in your tracks. “What?”

                  And then jogging to catch up to her, you release a breathless, “How?” You rush to reach her, get a glimpse of her face. “Who?”

                  “We don’t know,” she says.

                  “Did you ask him? Is- is he awake to say?”

                  Sevika doesn’t slow. “He’s still breathing. But barely.”

                  The two of you burst outside and the world encases you in a blinding light. The street blurs around you as your pace quickens even more, adrenaline rushing through your veins, your feet pounding against fractured, weathered stone. Every step feels too slow. Your head fills with static, a ringing behind your eyes as though you’ve been struck.

                  Poisoned. Poisoned.

                  You know Sevika is stringing you along for this for good reason – she trusts you, and she knows you can get things done. You can fix this. You will. But every fiber of your being wants to twist around, lurching away from her to run back towards Silco.

                  “We don’t know what it was?” You press her breathlessly as she charges northward, towards Piltover’s skyline. Panic swarms you as the branches of your mind start to lash out at dots and forge inkling, embryonic connections. “What about Jinx?” Will they get her too? Who’s to say she hasn’t already ingested whatever it was? Gods, why did we leave her?

                  Sevika glances at you sideways. “No, we don’t know.” She’s just as frustrated as you are. “Could’ve been in his drink, something he touched, fucking anything.” And then, to herself, “Fuck!”

                  You’re already imagining it – Silco collapsing, eyes wide and confused, maybe pawing at his throat. And before it all, his telltale freeze as he realizes something isn’t right. You feel like a sword has been run between your ribs.

                  But how? Silco is so proud and smart and calculating…and paranoid. How could this happen?

                  The fact that someone managed to get close enough to dose him, get past so many lines of defense…it makes your blood run cold.

                  You turn a corner and nearly slip on a broken stair, catching yourself with a muttered curse. “And what – he’s…is he with Singed?” You ask.

                  Sevika gives a curt nod as she barrels ahead. “Already moved him there. Wasn’t about to trust any of the clinics or back-alley quacks with something like this.”

                  That, at least, is a relief. Singed might by unorthodox- and terrifying in his own right- but he’s no fool. If anyone has a shot at counteracting an unknown poison in time, it’s him. But your thoughts continue to spiral.

                  “How long’s it been?” you manage, throwing yourself over a mangled fence.

                  “Thirty minutes. Maybe less,” Sevika grunts. “I came in to tell him someone bombed one of his fucking distilleries. Found him on the floor.”

                  “We should go back for Jinx before we – where the hell are we even going?”

                  “Piltover,” she growls, disgusted by the mere mention of it. “Singed says the medicine we could need is there. That we wouldn’t find it in the Lanes. We’ve got to stick up the place, there’s going to be heat.”

                  “What? Silco’s got money,” you protest.

                  “If I knew where it was, it would be in my fucking hands right now.” She snaps.

                  “Sevika,” you say, slowing your pace. “Sevika.”

                  And then a halt, with a yell as harsh and as violent as lightning. “Sevika!”

                  She flies around on her heel. “What? There’s no time!”

                  “We’ve left Jinx! Bombs and poison and fuck else and we’ve left the girl!” Spit flies off your bottom lip as you fling your arm back, waving it wildly in the direction the two of you have been running away from. Where Silco’s daughter is alone.

                  Sevika rolls her eyes at you. “She’ll be fine, she’s in there surrounded by plenty of bombs of her own.” She points at her prosthetic arm angrily, “She’ll evaporate anyone that comes close.”

                  “Sevika, she’s just a kid!”

                  “We are wasting time! If Silco dies, Zaun has nothing! Everything he’s built goes to shit!”

                  The two of you stand there, locked in a stalemate, chests heaving with panic and exhaustion.

                  “Are you coming?” She grits out breathless, impatient.

                  “You think he’d thank us for leaving his daughter vulnerable? Again? Have we forgotten the last time someone took their eyes off of her?” You pant, pleading with her. You raise your arms and drop them, desperate. “If something were to happen to Jinx…” You can’t even finish the sentence.

                  Sevika doesn’t answer you right away. Her jaw broils in pale fury, clenched tight as she glares down the alley like she could intimidate time into stopping. You see the flicker, and then short hesitation. Not fear, never that. But doubt. It cracks through the brittle armor of purpose she’s been wearing since the moment she knocked on the door.

                  “We split,” you say. “You get the medicine –“

                  “I won’t make it back alone, with twenty enforcers on my ass!”

                  “You have to.” You demand.

                  You turn around and start towards The Last Drop. “You get the meds, I’ll get the girl!” You call back at her over your shoulder.

                  You hear a string of curses and the clunking of her boots behind you as she continues sprinting away, towards the connecting bridges to Topside. She’ll hate you for this. You don’t care.

                  The way back feels longer. Every brick, every pipe you leap over or wall you clumsily shove yourself off of slows you down with guilt, with fear. You picture Jinx curled up against the wall, hands over her ears trying to quell voices that don’t exist beyond her head. Or worse – not curled up. Sprawled and still, her blue braids unmoving like wilting banners.

                  You burst into the workshop with a gasp lodged in your throat.

                  She’s there.

                  Sitting on the floor again, the doll with its wiring forgotten in her lap. Humming to herself, tinkering. She looks up at you, and her brows twist upwards in confusion.

                  “You look like you saw a ghost,” she says, blinking up at you.

                  “Come on, hon.” You say to her. “We’ve gotta go.”

                  Your stomach twists, knowing you’ll have to tell her at some point.  But gods, you don’t want to.

                  Jinx scrunches her nose, reaching for the doll and tightening her grip on it. “Where?”

                  “Singed’s lab.”

                  She shakes her head, “Nuh-uh, he stinks.”

                  “We’ve got to,” you plead, extending your hand out to her.

                  She realizes the burden in your face, an invisible weight pressing down on your shoulders. “Why? Is it Silco?”

                  You hesitate. She sees it. She reads you like a page torn straight out of a book she’s memorized.

                  Her pale face flushes with pink. “What’s happened?” she asks, her voice low and uncertain.

                  You swallow. In a split-second, you make up her mind to tell her honestly – you won’t sugar coat it. It’ll only make things worse, make her panic, when she senses she’s being lied to.

                  “He’s been poisoned. Sevika found him, and she took him to Singed for help. We’re trying to get him what he needs. Sevika went Topside for supplies.”

                  You expect her to scream, to panic, to bunch up her fists and release an excruciating wail. You’ve seen it before, and you cringe as though you’re bracing for it. But her reaction is much colder than you anticipate. Her eyes flick to the wall, unfocused. “They’re trying to take him away from me.”

                  “We’re going to stop them, whoever they are.” You say firmly.

                  She blinks rapidly, as if forcing tears back into hiding. “Okay,” she breathes, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, self-soothing. “Okay. Let’s go.”

                  She takes your hand, and you lead her out.

                  It’s later in the day, and the city is louder now. A rush to get as much done before nightfall, when it’s too dangerous to be out and about. It feels like the noise is rising to match the chaos inside your chest. But you appreciate what it means – that people will be distracted. Hopefully, you and Jinx can slip through it all unnoticed.

                  Distant shouts echo from the upper levels. Smoke trails in the sky like a warning. You and Jinx cut through alleys and dingy tunnels, unkept pot-hole infested paths and forgotten service corridors. You move as fast as you can.

                  It’s a disquieting return to the decrepit building that houses Singed’s scientific follies and horrors. By the time the two of you reach it, your breath is ragged and your arms are shaking – not from exertion, but sheer nerves. The situation still doesn’t feel real, you haven’t had time to process it. From the moment Sevika knocked on the door, it’s all just been a bad dream.

                  You enter first to scope out the scene, praying nothing is too graphic for Jinx to witness. Your boots echo against rusted metal, and you’re only a handful of steps inside before the smell hits you: scorched chemicals, iron, rot. Your stomach flips again.

                  The lab has the same sickly green from before, the disconcerting hue being one of the few things that remained etched in you from your stay there. Chains and hooks hang from the ceiling, glass containers with specimens, a metal tank full of some kind of gelatinous and luminescent goo.

                  You see Silco’s boots first. He’s been laid on a table, strapped down at his ankles and chest. Singed hovers over him and injects him with something.

                  Before you can stop her, Jinx sprints past you towards him. “Silco!” She cries. She reaches his side and takes his hand, limp, and cradles it against her face. Her soft and cries and sniffles echo throughout the lab.

                  Your feet finally free themselves from the shock that cemented them there, and you approach him, too.

                  He’s unconscious. His skin is sallow and glistening with sweat, his hair matted to his forehead, and his breathing is slow, like he’s entered a deep sleep. You drift closer, horrified. His eye is closed, his mouth slack and parted. He looks soft. Peaceful.

                  “How bad is it?” You whisper to Singed without peeling your eyes off of Silco.

                  “It’s a neurotoxin,” he says without preamble, as if you were already in the middle of a conversation. “Custom. Someone tailored it.”

                  “Tailored how?”

                  Singed’s voice is cold and clinical with the barest thread of fascination woven through it. “It’s not designed to kill him. It doesn’t go for the body. It’s a paralytic, sure, but its goals are cognitive. It goes for the brain. I think he’s suffering a delirium of sorts. The composition is consistent with known hallucinogens.”

                  Jinx looks up, wiping a tear from her eye only for it to immediately be replaced by another. “He’s…hearing things right now?”

                  “He’s been sent on a trip probably none of us can imagine. Toxins of this grade are powerful – they wanted him to suffer.”

                  Jinx’s face scrunches up, and she twists her head away to hide the next sob that escapes.

                  Your gut twists violently, but you try to remain calm for Jinx’s sake. “But you can counter it? Sevika is getting some kind of antidote or something to make him wake up?”

                  He doesn’t answer right away. His gloved hands are already preparing another syringe – a swift motion yanking murky fluid up into its vessel. “In theory, yes. I’ve seen similar compounds. Never anything like this, but it is something I may start from. The question is whether we have time.”

                  Sevika’s voice rings in your head. We are wasting time!

                  You dread to even ask. But you do. “You mean like he might not wake up.”

                  “If it remains in his body for too long without being counteracted, it will start doing damage to his tissues. Neural tissues, mostly. His brain would go dormant, a coma of sorts.”

                  You close your eyes, steadying yourself against the table. The room spins enough that Singed does three separate rotations around you while you fight the bile rising in your throat. You grip even harder onto the table, trying to focus on how cold the metal feels. It feels like it’s vibrating up your sleeves. Maybe that’s just your pulse.

                  “Is there anything I can do while Sevika is gone?” You ask hoarsely.

                  “I am expecting that the serum Sevika is retrieving will help a tremendous amount. I can slow the progression for now. Otherwise, we wait.”

                  You drop your head low to your shoulders and shake it, the grim reality overcoming you. “How long does she have?”

                  “If she’s not here within the hour…my ability to stabilize him wanes significantly.” He replies, the implication hanging heavy in the air like toxic gas.

                  You shut your eyes tightly, squeezing them so hard that your ocular muscles start to twitch.  Then, you open them to glance at Jinx, who’s gone quiet. Her eyes are huge and shining, but unreadable. Your gaze shifts downwards to realize she’s holding a knife, her knuckles bright starbursts of white wrapped around it. You have no idea where she got it from, or when. You sense the anger quickly replacing all her other feelings.

                  “Jinx,” you say gently, stepping toward her. “I know this is scary.”

                  She sniffs, then wipes her nose with the back of her wrist, angling the knife away from her face. “I’m not scared,” she mutters blankly.

                  You crouch beside her. “Okay. So, we’ll be strong for him.”

                  She doesn’t look at you, but she does a singular faint nod in affirmation.

                  You both train your focus on Silco. The breath he draws next is labored, rattling faintly in his chest.

                  “He’s going to hate this,” Jinx murmurs. “Being laid out like this. Weak.”

                  “He’s alive. That’s all that matters for now.” You say it with a firmness that surprises yourself. You feel like you’re borrowing from the courage of a past personality.

                  Singed parts the two of you, standing in between to flick the vial before injecting the fluid into Silco. You flinch as Silco’s fingers twitch. Jinx lets out a tiny gasp, and her head darts up like a startled animal’s. She searches his face for more signs of movement.

                  You can’t bear it. You stand up from your crouching position and begin to pace. Part of you is racked with guilt that you’re here, inactive. Waiting, a daft duck in this decaying pond. Maybe you should have gone with Sevika.

                  The lab’s sickly light keeps flickering, and the scent of decay thickens as something mechanical behind you churns and grinds.

                  Every minute that passes feels like an hour.

                  Jinx remains perched besides Silco, whispering things you can’t hear. Sometimes she giggles, short and sharp. Other times she snaps at someone to shut up when no one present was speaking. Then, she’s quiet for long stretches, her mouth moving but producing no sound. You keep glancing at the door, half-expecting Sevika to crash in trailing smoke and blood, arms full of vials.

                  But she doesn’t.

                  Not yet.

                  You lose yourself in your mind, battered by your own thoughts. Constantly replaying every conversation the two of you have ever had, how that man beneath the cold exterior might be lost forever.          

                  You can’t bear it. Realizations that are too painful to acknowledge start to paw at the back of your skull, but you don’t allow them any acknowledgment. It would break you at this moment.

                  Jinx is hunched over, and her hand reaches up to touch his cheek, trembling. “You better come back,” she whispers to him, voice raw. She still clutches the knife in her other hand, as though she’s threatening him. Like maybe he’ll live if commanded to.

                  Just then, there’s a commotion outside. Footsteps. A yell. Move!

                  Your heart stutters.

                  Sevika stumbles in – the cape dangling from her shoulders torn and thread-bare. Her mechanical arm is smoking, and she’s bruised, with blood running from a gash at her temple. She’s carrying a padded case that she lugs in and places on a table in front of Singed.

                  “You got it?” you demand, flying across the room over to her. Sirens blare outside. Surely, they’re looking for her.

                  She pants, clutching her ribs, but smirks through her split lip. “I always get it.”

                  Singed immediately snaps the case open with greedy hands. And inside are gleaming vials, still cool with condensation beading along its sides. He inspects the label on one and grunts his approval.

                  He sets to work, and you and Sevika exchange an uneasy, prayerful glance. This needs to work.

                  Quietly, you reach for Jinx’s knife, and she’s clement enough to surrender it to you. You tuck it away on your person and gently place your hands on her shoulders, guiding her a few feet backwards from Silco, giving Singed the room he needs. You wrap your arms around her and place your chin at the top of her head, enveloping her. She shakes like a leaf within your embrace. You’re shaking, too.

                  And across the room, Sevika leans against the wall, breathing hard, blood still dripping down her face – but her eyes are fixed on Silco, like she’s daring him to give up. No one speaks. Not now.

                  All that matters is the clinking of equipment and Singed’s hurried movements over the body laid in front of him, the fight to bring Silco back.

                  Singed’s fingers are deft and methodical, tilting Silco’s chin to improve his airway once completing administration of the serum. He grabs yet another vial of some mysterious liquid afterwards and injects that, too. There are so many drugs in that man’s system now, you grow fearful that they’ll kill him before the poison does.

                  You hold your breath and feel the edges of your vision grow blurry. You all wait for a sign – any sign – that some kind of change, a positive one, is occurring.

                  “I’ve added a stimulant,” Singed mutters to no one in particular, voice rasping. “To keep his neural pathways active while the antidote begins circulating.”

                  You can’t make out Jinx’s expression, but you feel her muscles grow increasingly taut and fervid with tension. Sevika roughly and anxiously tries to wipe the blood from her face, but it leaves angry streaks down her face.

                  “What now?” she growls from her place against the wall, wincing as she shifts her weight. “He better start twitching or I’m breaking that little chemistry set of yours.”

                  Singed doesn’t rise to the bait. He doesn’t even look at her.

                  Instead, he pulls a thin instrument from his belt – a rusted apparatus with spidery appendages like a crab’s leg – and begins attaching it to Silco’s temple. Electrodes hum to life, pulsing faintly. Jinx winces, drawing herself deeper into your embrace.

                  Time slows. Your own pulse hammers so loudly in your ears it feels like it’s replacing the sound of everything else.

                  Then Silco jerks.

                  Just a small twitch – his fingers spasming in the air like they’re afflicted and confused. Jinx gasps, ripping herself from your arms to lean over him. You and Sevika begin to approach, too, warily.

                  “Silco?” she breathes, voice pitched high and threadbare. “C’mon. Wake, up, wake up.”

                  His lips move. Just barely. A breath. A groan.

                  “He’s stabilizing,” Singed says, squinting slightly. “Neural activity is responding. He’s – yes. He’s fighting.”

                  You press your hand to your mouth, unsteady, as Silco twitches again – his jaw clenching, eye fluttering open just enough to reveal a sliver of dull, watery blue.

                  He doesn’t see you. Not yet.

                  “Silco!” Jinx cries, shaking him gently. “Please!”

                  He makes a sound – something caught between a breath and a word. His eye rolls slightly, tracking motion in a slow, fogged arc. He’s coming back, piece by piece, through sludge and agony.

                  And then – he whispers something. You lean closer to catch it.

                  “…Jinx.”

                  Her whole body is riddled with tremors that destabilize her entire frame. “I’m here,” she whispers. “I’m right here, see?”

                  His eye closes again, but not like before – this isn’t the waxy stillness of poison. This is something more natural, more human. Exhaustion. Pain. Survival.

                  “He needs rest now,” Singed says. “The antidote seems to be working. It’s too soon to say that he is in the clear, but I believe we may be past the danger.”

                  You finally collapse onto a nearby stool, legs folding beneath you like feeble blades of grass. You feel the burn of tears clawing at your throat and the base of your eyes, but you won’t let them fall.

                  Jinx plants a soft kiss onto the top of Silco’s hand. Her face is wet, but she doesn’t sob now. She just breathes, shallow and quick, and whispers to him like he’s listening – maybe he is.

                  Sevika exhales like she’s been holding her breath for hours. She returns to the wall she had been leaning against and slides her back against it into a sitting position. Blood crusts at her collar.

                  You don’t know how long the silence lasts. You stay there, beside Silco, and time warps around you. It stretches and contorts and becomes unreal. You can’t stop looking over at him and dwelling on his complexion. His skin is too pale, almost gray. It relays how close to death he truly came. Your throat closes around a knot of emotion.

                  Eventually, long past nightfall and amidst a chorus of whirring crickets outside, Sevika volunteers to take Jinx back home.

                  “No!” She refuses, shrieking. “I want to stay here with him!”

                  But Sevika won’t be swayed. The two of you know that she’s safer away from here, where she can have a hundred people protecting her and not just the three of you. And like her father, she also needs to rest. Her eyes are swollen, a soft purple crescendoing from the inner corners of her eyes.

                  Sevika has to pry her from Silco’s bedside, and it pains you to watch. “He’s going to be okay, I promise,” is all the consolation you can muster.

                  You nod at Sevika as she departs, wrestling Jinx towards the exit. A solemn, wordless message.

                  I’ll stay here tonight.

                  Ok. I’ll stay with the girl.

                  Jinx’s protests echo down the hall and reverberate in your heart, shattering it.

                  Singed eventually departs, too. He shuffles off to a different room when he’s satisfied with how Silco’s condition has begun to plateau at a level that just might be consistent with life. He tells you to run and alert him should anything happen.

                  The silence after they leave is a different kind of heavy from the elephant that occupied the room before. It’s almost sacred. A cocoon that cradles you and absorbs the radiative shock. You’re not sure if it’s your own body coming off the adrenaline, or if it’s a vague residual energy of what’s just unfolded.

                  You pick up the stool from beneath you and migrate closer to Silco.

                  He lies motionless, save for the rise and fall of his chest, each breath shaky and uneven. Your heart leaps into your throat each time his breathing pauses for slightly too long between ragged inhales.

                  Your hand hovers over him for a moment before you dare to brush the sweat-dampened strands of hair from his forehead. He’s burning hot, and the warmth both concerns and reassures you. Corpses are cold. He’s not. He’s here. He’s still here.

                  You sit back in the stool, every joint in your body aching from tension. For a long while, there’s only the sound of your own breath and faint mechanical churning. The soft melodical creaking of the old lab.

                  You don’t even entertain the prospect of sleep. You know it’s impossible, despite the flood of exhaustion gnawing at your bones.

                  You nearly lost him. His body nearly lifeless on a slab, his mind dragged into some kind of chemically-induced purgatory by a sadist who wanted to carve open his psyche and let it rot.

                  You blink hard and look away, forcing yourself to breathe deeply and rhythmically. You need to stay level for his sake. For Jinx’s. For everyone’s, including your own.

                  You just stay there, rigid and worn like a rusted sentinel. An unwilling nurse and a terrified accomplice to the mess his life has become. Paranoia creeps in, and you wonder for some time if Sevika and Jinx made it back okay. You pray Jinx managed to surrender to a soft and potent sleep.

                  Year-like minutes slothfully stacked on top of each other pass like syrup.

                  Silco groans.

                  It’s quiet and barely perceptible. You wonder if you imagined it, but you sit up so quickly that the stool complains beneath you.

                  “Silco?” you whisper, leaning over him. “Can you hear me?”

                  His head doesn’t move, but his fingers twitch again, much like before. His eye – bruised and shadowed and bloodshot – cracks open. His gaze stutters before landing on you.

                  And it lingers.

                  It’s bleary and unfocused, but his recognition of you is firmly seated within it. He tries to speak, his throat bobbing over streams of unfocused air. He blinks slowly and painfully, but you realize it’s all a concerted effort, deliberate on his part.

                  You reach for his hand and gently brush your thumb across the back of it. “Don’t speak. Just stay.”

                  A flicker of something resembling defiance or frustration travels through him like fish fighting to travel upstream. It’s a ghost of something resembling his usual spirit.

                  “…Jinx…” He just barely manages.

                  You nod vigorously at him. “She’s okay,” you say, tears stinging the backs of your eyes. “She’s okay.”

                  His breathing evens out again, all his muscles sagging from the effort it took him to utter one word. His eye closes.

                  You fall asleep folded over him, his hand clutched to your chest to keep his life tethered to you, earthbound.

Chapter Text

                  You wake up with a stiff neck and a sharp cramp in your lower back, the cold edge of the metal table biting into your side where you’d slumped over Silco. Your ribs feel like paper folded in on itself like an accordion. How you ever managed to fall asleep in a position so uncomfortable is beyond you. You’re not sure how long you’ve slept – only that your muscles ache from it, and the air is cooler now. Goosebumps line your skin, as stiff as the heart within your chest that you’re not even sure is still beating. You feel like you’ve aged ten years in the last ten hours.

                  Silco still lays motionless in front of you.

                  You blink, finding that your hand is still wrapped around his. You look up to check on him with trepidation.

                  He’s already looking at you. A tepid eye glinting beneath a heavy, slothful hood.            

                  Your lips part in surprise. “Hey,” you say lightly, as though one word from you could knock him out again. You sit up properly and squeeze his hand, partially to reassure him, and the other half of you meant to reassure yourself that he was real. You had to refrain from squeezing harder – too hard – just so you could try and feel a pulse beating inside his hand. You wanted to make him yelp from the pain, make him angry at you. If he could just get angry, properly angry, then maybe everything would be okay.

                  You never expected to ever see Silco so still. He’s always busy, always blowing full steam. You and Jinx used to wonder aloud if the man ever slept, his seemingly boundless energy adding to the mystique of the Eye of Zaun.

                  You wanted to see him up and moving. This version of him – a mannequin with two boxed lungs fumbling air weakly within it – you loathed it entirely.

                  “Hey!” You say again, louder now, trying to stir him. You’d do anything for a response greater than the quiet pleading written across his face.

                  “Hello,” he answers weakly.

                  His eye is locked onto you with an intensity reminiscent of when you first met. He’s returned. He’s dulled and cracked around the edges, but his characteristic sharpness and cunning attitude extends from within him.

                  You swallow hard, heart thudding in your ears. It’s such a massive relief just to discover that he’s conscious. How deeply you had feared waking up to find his hand cold and atrophied beneath yours…you can’t stand to think about it.

                  “How are you feeling?” You ask him, and the question comes out like gravel. You swallow again and wish the tears in your eyes would magically become moisture in your mouth.

                  “Not ideal,” he croaks. He hasn’t lost his sense of humor, at least.

                  “Yeah,” you say. “Yeah.” Your head bobs in short encouraging nods, not knowing what else to do or say. You feel so helpless. Stupid, even.

                  You pause for a moment, debating whether or not now is the time to press him. But with Jinx’s life likely also at stake, you feel like you must.

                  “What happened, Silco? Who did this to you?” You lean forward like decreasing the distance between you will simultaneously get you closer to answers.

                  His head lazily rolls away from you to stare blankly at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he sighs, voice barely above a whisper. A pause. His lips twist in frustration, his scars yawning into dark canyons and crevices. “But it was in the Shimmer, after my injection. I’m certain of that.” There’s a dejectedness to his voice, his countenance laced with shame and embarrassment. He feels foolish having administered himself the very toxin that nearly killed him.

                  “Who gave it to you?” You press on.

                  “The same dolt who’s always delivered it to me. I’m not convinced that he knew,” he says.

                  “You don’t think he’d turned? Like it was tampered with quietly, he wasn’t explicitly told it was poisoned?” You shake your head, unsatisfied. “You don’t think it was Finn that could have paid him off? We both know he came to me and-“

                  “I don’t know.” He says again, and you realize he’s already fatigued by the brief conversation. The little energy he had spent with that last sentence, his face slackens.

                  You lean back in your seat for a moment as if to give him physical space to accompany your silence. He takes a long inhale, brittle and rasping. Then he shifts, barely. His fingers curl slightly into your palm. The small movement exhausts him, and you watch it ripple through the tendons in his neck.

                  “You…said Jinx was safe, right?” He says after a while. “How is she?”

                  You nod. “Sevika is with her at the Drop. She…is unstable, now. I don’t know how much control she can exhibit right now. But she’s safe.”

                  His eye closes briefly at that, his expression pained. “She shouldn’t have had to see me like this.”

                  You chew on the inside of your cheek and search for the right words to say. “She needed to,” you eventually say softly. “You anchor her, bring her some semblance of peace. She needed to see you, and she’d have lost it completely if she hadn’t.”

                  A quiet groan escapes him – maybe it’s frustration, guilt, exhaustion. You don’t know what exactly it’s composed of, but you can feel the same sentiments bleeding out from your own insides, too.

                  “I’ve failed her,” he rasps.

                  You give him a stern look that he likely didn’t even see and place your hand on his forearm. It tenses beneath your touch. “You haven’t. You lived. That’s not nothing, especially when you came so close.” You stop yourself, suddenly overcome by gravity. An avalanche of all the worser scenarios that could have been threatening to capsize you. “I wasn’t sure you would make it.” You hate the way your voice trembles ever so slightly.

                  Silco purses his lips for a moment, grimacing. His eyelashes flutter, and his brows furrow. Waves of pain boil inside him like a cauldron, percolating aggressively. You imagine rocks cascading down around him, constructing a tomb. You wish you could take his pain away and bear it as your own instead.

                  “I was afraid,” he murmurs. The word afraid crosses his lips like a curse, a death in and of itself looming beyond the toxin.

                  Your body responds with a sensation like you’ve been stabbed, but you patch yourself back together before he can realize your grief. “I know,” you say hesitantly, shakily. You know how much it bothers him to admit anything he perceives to be a sign of weakness. “Me too.”

                  Silco remains silent after that. His throat bobs with the effort of swallowing, though there’s clearly nothing left in him to swallow with. He’s desiccated. His breathing shallows again, and for a terrifying second, you wonder if he’s drifting off entirely – not just into sleep, but somewhere deeper, farther. Somewhere unreachable.

                  You don’t want him to go anywhere that you can’t follow him to.

                  You raise your hand from his forearm to rub his chest, digging your knuckles a little into his sternum. “Don’t,” you say, more firmly than you mean to. “Stay awake for just a bit more, please.”

                  His gaze flickers to yours, heavy and unreadable. But he obeys. Whether from his own will or the desperation clinging to your voice, you don’t know.

                  He takes long breaths, trying to inhale deeply but his lungs simply can’t fill. Some breaths are sighs when they’re released, you think. His disappointment in the situation, himself, all of it – it fills the room and weighs it down it like tons of lead.

                  “Where’s Singed?” he asks after a moment, voice coarse like rust scraping off old iron. “Still lurking in a corner like a carrion bird?”

                  You release a huff of air that splits into halves, indecisively both a laugh and a sob. “He’s in the next room, I think. Tending to whatever creature or chemical has his attention now. He said you were stabilizing. It’ll just be a slow road back…” you trail off.

                  “I don’t have time for slow,” he mutters disdainfully, but there’s no fire behind it – just a dull burn. “The nation of Zaun cannot afford slow.” A soft wheeze follows his feeble attempt at an outburst.

                  You exhale through your nose forcefully. There’s no point in arguing with that – not because he’s right, but because he won’t listen if you try to tell him otherwise. You’re not sure you would even listen to yourself, either. You’re not ignorant of the pressure he’s under, and this has only added to it. Now, there are more questions to ask, more enemies to unearth, more loyalties to be found out as counterfeit. A trap was laid, and he walked right into it.

                  You tilt your head hoping that all the negative thoughts will spill right out of your left ear, and then you reach towards a side table where a chipped tin cup of water sits. “Drink,” you tell him gently. You slide your hand under the back of his neck and lift his head slightly, just enough to press the rim to his lips. He takes a handful of small sips, jaw clenched. Some of it spills past his mouth, but you say nothing.

                  Once he’s done, you help him settle back into lying flat against the table. His breath fans against your wrist, warm but unsteady.

                  “I should really see about getting you a pillow or a blanket, something,” you mutter under your breath. This is no way to recover, spine aching against a cold, metal surface.

                  Granted, that’s how you did it, but you won’t bring that up now.

                  “Don’t bother,” Silco grumbles. “I won’t be here long.” His anger seems to fuel him for now. Isn’t it anger that’s always been what pushed him?

                  He stares up at the cracked ceiling above like he’s trying to map his suspicions across the peeling plaster. “I’m going to find who did this to me.” He says with pronounced determination.

                  “You will,” you nod. “Inevitably. But not before you rest proper. I’ll talk to Singed about taking you home. Getting you unhooked from all this shit,” you gesture lamely towards the sensors still attached to his temple, then you rap your fingertips against the metal slab. “Getting you in bed.”

                  Silco squints. “You want to get me in bed, do you?” His delivery is so deadpan that your jaw slackens from shock.

                  You surprise yourself when you let out a faint laugh, wry. “Oh, how I’ve dreamed of it.”

                  The air starts to feel less like an infested blanket and more like free-flowing light. Breathable. Hopeful.

                  The barest ghost of a smirk tugs at the corner of Silco’s mouth, but it fades just as quickly. His eye drifts shut for a moment, not losing consciousness, but simply growing weary. It’s like the very act of existing has worn him thin. There’s a moment where he looks at you, and he blinks slowly and languidly, and you wonder what percentage of him is processing this. Will he remember?

                  Eventually, he falls into a light, fitful sleep. He twitches and jerks as though his body is just as afraid of him succumbing to it all as you are. Afraid any rest he gets will become permanent.

                  You watch his chest rise and fall. Each breath is still far shallower than you’d like.  You continuously remind yourself: he is breathing. He is alive. He’s still here.

                  But the longer he lays still like this – swallowed up by pain, exhaustion, and the amorphous shadow of betrayal - the more a different kind of dread begins to set in. You start to fear less losing him physically and more losing this version of him. The one who just began to allow himself to lean on someone. Who slowly started to try and open himself up to you and let you do the same.

                  You readily admit that it’s odd, but you almost wish that you could bottle up this moment. Not the pain or the remnants of the toxins in his veins, still being pugnaciously combatted at this point. Not that, of course. You just want to crystallize the truth of it. The raw honesty that only seems to slip through his cracks when he’s at his lowest. You want to hold onto it, as proof. That he’s human, and he feels, and he needs. That you matter to him in ways he rarely voices.

                  You look down at him and you analyze how terrible he looks. Still drenched with sweat, strands of hair collapsed and slicked onto his forehead. Haggard. Nearly destroyed. The scars split his face like a tree struck by lightning. And you can’t even begin to fathom how hellish you must look. You can feel your hair buzzing above your head, frizzy from the humidity, a halo of baby hairs. You can feel the bags bulging out from beneath your eyes. And you know you have your own scars that tug selfishly at your flesh. An array of pink and white playing tug-of-war across your face, your arms, your ribs. An amalgamation of proteins and collagens poorly splayed across your skeleton.

                  Two people who have been gnawed at by time and fate.

                  You rest your head beside him again. Not slumped over this time, there’s more intention now. Your temple is gently pressed to the crook of his arm, listening to the thready pulse skittering just beneath his skin. You wrap your hand around his wrist and keep it there, your thumb mindlessly tracing the ridge of bone there.

                  You’re both emotionally frayed. Both circling the edge of some emotional ravine and pretending not to look down.

                  He continues to shift in his sleep – not deeply enough to wake, but enough that a pained noise escapes him at some point. You watch his face twitch. His brows knit together, unknit, knit, unknit. Two tectonic plates causing quake after quake, each one riveting its way down his whole body. He’s dreaming, and not pleasantly. You imagine a man like him has never had a shortage of nightmares. You know what that’s like.

                  You think about what Singed had said, about what kind of “trip” he could have been on. You think about what images, sounds, sequences that cursed combination of chemicals could have shown him.

                  “You’re okay,” you whisper to him. You’re not sure if it matters, if any of it will register. But something in your mind propels you to keep saying it. “You’re okay.”

                  You’re okay…

***

                  Sevika shows up at dawn to trade places with you. She’s cleaned herself up a bit, but the events of before still show in the tautness of her lips, the darkness of her eyes, the grim stone you can tell has taken up residence in her. A pit in her stomach.

                  You rise from the stool and brush your clammy hands off on the front of your pants. You force an awkward smile at her even though a smile doesn’t feel anywhere near appropriate.

                  “I take it he’s still alive, then,” she says.

                  “He’s talking, sometimes.” It’s the most positive news you’re able to give.

                  You step aside and gesture to the seat you’d occupied for hours. She doesn’t take it right away. Instead, she slowly drifts to Silco’s side and stands there gazing down at him. She says nothing for a long while.

                  “I thought you might stay longer,” she finally says, voice low. “Thought maybe you weren’t ready to leave him yet.” She throws you a quick glance as if to gauge your reaction to what she’s implied.

                  You look away from her, exhausted and absent-minded. “I’m not. But I need to check on Jinx.” Your own voice sounds like it’s miles away.

                  Sevika nods solemnly. “She’s been quiet. Real quiet.”

                  That disturbs you more than anything else could have.

                  “I’ll head there now. I’ll try to…” you suddenly run out of breath like thinking even just thirty minutes into the future is too much of an undertaking. “I don’t know.”

                  She nods again. “Yeah.”

                  You start towards the exit but turn around to relay one last thing. “Don’t let him push himself. Keep him still.”

                  Sevika smirks bitterly. “I know how he is. Stubborn.”

                  “Thank you.” You mean it more than you can bother to express.

                  You linger for just a moment longer, unable to stop your eyes from falling on Silco one last time before you leave. You count one breath, two, then three. Each one rises and falls steadily. You wonder if he’ll still be asleep the next time you see him, or if you’ll miss another flicker of lucidity.

                  You head into the corridor and float down it like an apparition in search of Singed. You find him at the end of a long countertop, elbow-deep in some flesh-colored homunculus you don’t want to even allow to register in your already addled brain. He doesn’t glance up as you approach.

                  “He’s stable,” you say plainly.

                  “He’ll remain so, assuming no further complications,” Singed replies, still turned away from you. “The compound he was given – it’s modified Shimmer – is slow in its departure. It will continue to wreak havoc until it is purged fully by the antidote.”

                  “Is there anything about it that’s…traceable? Are there, like, tests you could run?” You venture to ask.

                  “That is not yet clear. I will illuminate as much of this situation as I can.” He answers.

                  You fucking better, you think to yourself.

                  The walk to the Drop feels longer than usual. The Lanes is still half-asleep, the streetlights muted in their efforts. You stumble around, practically blind and too tired to focus on coordinating your feet. You slap yourself in the face a few times trying to wake yourself up. You need to be there for Jinx. What few ounces of yourself that remain, they belong to her now.

                  As you near Jinx’s safehouse, you brace yourself, afraid of whatever storm she might’ve become while briefly left to her own devices.

                  You knock once before letting yourself in.

                  The space looks like a bomb has gone off in it. It’s actually entirely possible that a bomb did go off in it.

                  You scan the room looking for her, but you don’t immediately see her.

                  “Jinx?” You call out warily. “Are you in here, love?”

                  No response. But you can feel it in your bones that she’s in here somewhere. Her presence has an electric quality to it, and you feel the static buzzing all around you. She snaps and crackles in the very air you breathe. She’s got to be around, just too despondent to answer you.

                  “Jinx? He’s okay, and he’s going to get better. Do you want to talk about it?”

                  Your voice echoes. Okay, okay, okay…better, better, better…..talk about it? About it? It? It?........

                  You feel like you’re losing your mind, if it’s not already lost. And it makes you anxious, knowing deep down how ill-equipped you are to handle the version of Jinx you’re about to encounter.

                  A tense silence is all that accompanies you. For a moment, you wonder if you were wrong. Has she run off, and vanished entirely? You imagine glimpses of her floating in the rafters, silently and airily escaping. But then you hear it. A slow, deliberate click, like the tooth of a gear rotating into place. It comes from the far end of the room, behind a toppled workbench covered in burnt circuity and shards of shattered glass. Her mirror that the two of you had signed with paint markers, broken.

                  You step carefully around the debris, doing your best to gauge exactly where that metallic sound had come from. Your eyes finally land on her.

                  Jinx sits with her back against the wall, knees drawn to her chest, the heel of her boot slowly tapping against the concrete floor in a repetitive rhythm. In her lap rests a small device – a grenade shell stripped of its casing and the live, shivering core left exposed. Her fingers roll the ignition wheel forward and backward, forward and backward, but never far enough to ignite it.

                  You halt.

                  Her head jerks upwards, and she looks genuinely surprised to see you. Had she not heard you?

                  “Hi, Jinx.” You say in a tone both calm and tentative.

                  Her finger pauses on the wheel. Then she spins it again.

                  You take a slow step closer. “I know that you’ve had to deal with the unbearable. And yet, you’ve weathered it with so much strength. And I’m proud of you, Jinx.”

                  She doesn’t react, at least not outwardly. But her shoulders tense in that telltale way that betrays how hard she’s trying to hold herself together. A breath hitches. She sniffles. You watch her eyes dart back and forth along the floor, like she’s trying to sort every impossible feeling into neat boxes. But the feelings are too big to fit in any of them.

                  You start to sink down into a crouching position. You whisper to her, “It’s okay, darling. It’s okay.”

                  You slowly reach out and close your fingers around hers – the ones still clutching the grenade. She doesn’t fight you, doesn’t flinch. You ease it out of her grip, trying to level your shaking hand, you tell yourself you’re a machine. The Engineer that extracts bombs from little girls. You set it aside on the scorched table, and you wrap her hand in yours.

                  Some time passes where her ragged breathing slingshots from deep, woeful breaths to anguished, ragged ones. Her hand is limp in yours. She’s just surrendered it to you – it’s like she doesn’t even recognize that it’s attached to her.

                  And then she finally looks at you. The look in her eyes is the kind that you won’t recover from easily. In the immediate moment it somehow registers that it will bother you for years to come. She’s like a dam on the verge of bursting, every hurt she’s ever swallowed is rushing to the surface all at once.

                  You pull her, yank her, into your arms.

                  She crumbles into you like a house of cards collapsing inward, all elbows and shudders and tears and hot, broken heaves. Her sobs come out stuttered, violent, guttural – a sound too big for her tiny frame that threatens to buckle completely. You hold her tighter, rocking slightly, even as she grips at your shirt with desperate fingers. Sometimes her clutches dig into your skin, like she’s praying to make contact with your heart and she’ll go so far as to excavate it like an animal. Her violent need for love. But you don’t mind, and you let her do it.

                  “He can’t leave me,” she gasps, over and over again. “He can’t leave me, he can’t –“

                  “He won’t,” you whisper into her hair. “He wouldn’t leave you for anything.” And for once, your comforts don’t involve lies. You can tell her honestly that he would move earth and heaven to be there for her.

                  Eventually, her breathing slows. The storm fades into a drizzle, then into a fragile silence. You feel her pulse steady against you. The palms of her hands flatten against your back.

                  “I want to see him again,” she says, voice muffled but resolute.

                  “In time,” you promise. “We’ll bring him home.”

                  She nods faintly against your chest.

                  You sit there together for a long while, bound by the same concern for the same damaged man. You think of how the three of you, gods, you all are so weird. Such a random collection of people, and yet you all are tethered together in some strange constellation of hurt and hope.

                  Eventually, you coax her to stand, brush the hair from her eyes, and begin to help her clean the wreckage around her. She lets you.

                  And for the first time since this all unfolded, you’re afforded some clarity. Purpose and motivation that will power all three of you through what’s to come.

                  Jinx pivots to face you holding one of her butterflies. She presses a button and the left wing twitches, jauntily bouncing between modes of flight. And the right one flaps effortlessly, like a real butterfly would. “I can fix this one,” she mutters to herself, rubbing snot away from her nose with the back of her hand. Another forceful sniffle. Her gaze lands on another one of her butterflies a few feet away, upside-down on the ground. “And that one, too.”

                  You watch her kneel down amongst the mess she’s made, inspecting the delicate mechanics of her broken inventions. She’s so…young. You think you forget sometimes, amidst all her spunk and intelligence that’s as young as she is. Only now is it obvious to you, now that you see a child hunched over scattered fragments, determined to rebuild something in a world where nothing stays whole for long.

                  The more time you spend with Jinx, the more you understand the lengths Silco goes to in his efforts to forge a new nation out of impossible, ashen soil. He has to. How could you father a girl like her and not go to war for her?

                  You’ve congratulated yourself for leaving your violent, criminal ways behind, but the prospect of anyone laying even a finger on her floods your senses with screams and blood borne of your own doing. You imagine it vividly. Slitting throats, punching teeth out, breaking legs…

                  Jinx’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “I’m gonna gift him these, when he comes home.” Now, a cluster of semi-functional butterflies have been collected and threaten to spill out over her arms.

                   “Oh – yeah, nice. Very nice,” you say. The thoughts subside.

***

                  It happens two days later. You don’t know how Singed did it – what nature-defying cocktail he concocted – but Silco progresses enough to move some. He can stand, walk a few paces. He can stay awake for more than fifteen minutes without teetering on hell’s doorstep.

                  His skin is still gray around the lips, bruised from the inside out, and there’s a tremor in his left hand that he tries – and fails – to control. His body is too light now, bones not quite fitting inside his skin. And he was already impossibly skinny before his brush with death.

                  But, when you help him into the coat he refused to leave without, he still looks like the man who ruled the Lanes with just a glance.

                  You ride with him in the back of the armored transport that Sevika arranged. He leans heavily into the corner, one hand clenched around the strap bolted to the ceiling, the other falling onto your knee. His head flicks down to your lap, his eyes widened in shock, apparently surprised that he had touched a warm body and not the seat of the car. He sharply jerks his hand away, the quickest movement you’ve seen from him since the incident, and replaces it closer to him. He's clutching the lip of the seat, his knuckles white. You don’t know if his tension is from trying to keep himself upright or the embarrassment of having accidentally touched you like that. You don’t have the energy to ponder that too much, just like you don’t have the energy to ponder how it had made you feel. The way it had made your heart quicken.

                  The vehicle rumbles to life and begins its slow crawl through the Lanes. Even with the blackout windows, you feel the eyes on it – people watching, whispering. Some out of worry, others out of hope, others out of fury, and still others just looking to gossip.

                  You peek over at him. He’s watching the blurred smear of Zaun pass by, expression unreadable.

                  “It feels different,” he murmurs. His voice still crackles like paper that’s been nudged by fire.

                  “What does?”

                  “Everything.”

                  “Well, you were nearly assassinated, Silco. It’s going to feel different.”

                  His lip curls slightly, salted by derision and frustration. He’s annoyed by everything, and that includes you. You reach over and adjust his collar – part of it had folded under awkwardly. He scoffs. You roll your eyes.

                  The drive ends right in front of the Drop. Silco’s largest and burliest goons line the short path to the entrance. This is both to protect him and to shield him from prying eyes. The hope is that no one will be able to see him in his weakened state, not when the view is blocked by the barreled chests of the Lanes’ most vicious reprobates.

                  You help Silco out slowly. His knees nearly buckle. You anchor him against you without a word. You feel a cold pan of air on your collarbone as he exhales raggedly from his nose, strained. You pretend you don’t feel your heart breaking.

                  “Left foot,” you murmur.

                  “Shut up,” he hisses.

                  Together, you shuffle to the door. You let him lean on you, his arm draped over your shoulders, most of his weight brace din your legs and back. He smells like antiseptic and sweat. You hope his old smell returns to him soon – the tobacco and leather that commanded a room just like his presence would.

                  He asks to be taken to the office.

                  You lower him carefully onto the couch. He grunts through clenched teeth as he sinks into the cushions. The moment you let go of him, he slumps to one side.

                  “Whoever he is,” he grits out, “I’ll have his taxidermized head on my wall soon enough.”

                  Will you? You can’t help but think to yourself. When all we can refer to him as right now is ‘he’?

                  You wordlessly pull the blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over him. His body jerks slightly when it touches his legs – nerves still screaming in protest. You kneel and begin carefully peeling off his boots. You can see the displeasure written across his face, but he lets you, too tired to object. You feel his gaze on you even when you don’t meet it.

                  Once the boots are off, you help him lean back fully. The cushions cradle him, too soft for a man so used to blisters and bedrock. His head tilts toward you. You exchange loaded glances, both sodden with frustration.

                  “Welcome back.” You smirk.

Chapter Text

                  Three days pass in a haze of careful routine. You find yourself moving through the Drop like a ghost haunting familiar corridors, checking on Silco every few hours with the dedication of a monk tending to sacred relics. He sleeps fitfully, wakes irritably, and endures your ministrations with the grace of a caged animal – which is to say, none at all.

                  Some parts of him get better, others worse. With every two steps forward, it seems that at least one sooner or later goes back. Every victory is accompanied by a setback. The tremor in his left hand has worsened. You watched him try to light a cigar, and his fingers betrayed him as the flame wavered uselessly in the air. But when the flame finally did catch, he managed to inhale deeply. It was the first full breath he’d taken that didn’t seem to pain him.

                  So, there’s hope for his physical recovery.

                  It’s his attitude that’s become your greatest concern.

                  He’s got tall orders for a man that is still not able to stand unassisted. It’s only been seventy-two hours since you all started to feel comfortable in allowing yourselves to think he wouldn’t die, and he’s wasted no time in reassuming his seething, sinister sense of self.

                  Sevika’s been run ragged. Silco’s been letting off innumerable serious and permanent decisions at a rapid-fire pace with seemingly no qualms about the consequences. Questioning, torturing, killing…a slew of dead bodies, bloated, washing ashore from the same waters he had nearly been drowned in. You’re not sure which of them – if any – have actually had anything to do with Silco’s poisoning.

                  Everyone is suspicious. If you looked at him funny, if you didn’t look at him, if you so much as breathed in his presence…start getting your affairs in order. He’s coming for you.

                  Not even you are entirely safe from his refreshed domineering and distrustful reaches. It reminds you of the old days, those before you knew him. Back when he was just a name you heard, a shadow looming over the Lanes. When you had to imagine what Silco could be like, this version was what haunted you before bed.

                  You realize two steps forward, one step back is too generous of an assessment of Silco, physical or otherwise. Bitterly, you’re starting to come to terms with it being one forward, two back. You were right to mourn him, the softer side, in advance. That fear that you had, that you wouldn’t see him be human ever again was starting to take hold. He’s put his armor back on, and you won’t be getting beneath it anytime soon.

                  Worse, he’s started to spook Jinx, and he doesn’t seem to really mind it. He hasn’t yelled at her or snarled at her yet, like he has everyone else (including you). But he’s cold. He won’t entertain her. He’s too busy plotting.

                  You heart breaks when you get a few spare moments beside Jinx. The two of you cobble things together tirelessly in the workshop as though nothing has changed, but you both know that the whole foundation has shifted. Complete collapse of Silco’s power, the umbrella that affords the two of you the little bit of peace and protection you have, is a threat that looms over you constantly.

                  Jinx is being neglected. You hate to admit it, but it must be acknowledged. She needs more, deserves more from Silco and yourself. She’s been thrown to the wayside in the wake of all of this, and she senses it. She’s no idiot. And you know what triggers her – feelings of abandonment, feeling like she’s unimportant. Feeling like the people closest to her don’t care about her.

                  If this isn’t resolved quickly, there will be bigger problems than figuring out who put shit in Silco’s Shimmer.

                  Jinx has been swallowed up by schemes and projects of her own – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, even if she’s adopted - and you don’t fail to notice how none of them are in pursuit of her own happiness. The brief inspiration she took from her butterflies, and her desire to repair them all are both long gone. They’ve been replaced by urgent, desperate attempts at servitude. They all speak to you as though she’s trying to prove her usefulness, show you all that she needn’t be discarded.

                  Her principal work that harbors most of her mind and her time is a wheelchair for Silco, to offer him some mobility before he’s back on his feet again. He’s been cemented in the chair behind his desk, his functionless legs obscured by the red and gold paneling along the front of it.

                  You wonder if you should gently warn her, or maybe subtly steer her in another direction. You worry he won’t take kindly to the wheelchair, as well-intentioned as it is. He’d be blind to that, you think, and read it as something different even if it’s gifted from the hands of a little girl. Another hit on his agitated and inflamed sense of pride.

                  Gods, it’s all so fucked. You’d thought you’d seen him angry before. How wrong you were.

                  The way he was immediately after his wake feels like a mirage now. Those glimpses of concern for Jinx, the idiotic, singular joke he made towards you. He just seemed grateful to be alive. His relief, underneath the bubble of anger that was already swelling, was as tangible as yours had to have been.

                  Now, it’s revenge in the air. You smell it, you breathe it, you taste it. It’s behind every door, it’s in your food, it’s the feathers in your pillow beneath your head at night. It’s like he’s having an affair, and the mistress is rage.

                  Today, you find Jinx in the corner of the workshop, her knees tucked up to her chest and a wrench dangling despondently from her fingertips. The chair-in-progress stands beside her like a monument, half-finished, its exposed motor gleaming under the overhead light and pattering weakly.

                  What a contrast it is from her butterflies.

                  It’s not a machine born of joy. It’s a plea. A cry she doesn’t know how to speak aloud.

                  You want to tell her it’ll be okay, but you know she’s tired of hearing it already. And you’re tired of feeling that pang of guilt after saying it, because it feels like you’re lying.

                  “How’s it coming?” You ask her in a tone that’s pleasant but frank, slowly approaching her.

                  “It’s nearly done, yeah,” she responds, her eyes lifting and scanning you listlessly. You get the impression that she’s not all there.  

                  You shrug, worried that she felt like you were rushing her. “Take your time.”

                  “Ok.” She chews on the inside of her cheek and drops the wrench with a thud in front of her feet.

                  She’s scaring you more with each encounter you have with her. You crouch down beside her and peer into her face. Her eyes are sunken in, a deep purple bleeding from the inner corners of the bags beneath them. The blue that usually shines so bright from her gaze is dull and forlorn.

                  “Jinx,” you say softly. “You look tired.” You raise a hand to cup her face and tenderly graze your thumb across her cheek. “You should get some rest.”

                  “I need to finish the wheelchair,” she mutters. “Before…they all might like me more if I finish it.”

                  You pause for a moment, wondering who she means by they. But you shake it off, and you look at her with an intensity that parallels how deeply you care for her. “We all don’t just like you, Jinx. We love you. And I really feel like you should lay down, Jinx.”

                  “He needs it,” a small swell of energy entering her voice. “He can’t walk. The poison’s messed up his legs.

                  You frown in confusion. “I know,” You bestow an awkward half-smile, “I know that.”

                  You glance back at the wheelchair as she starts muttering quietly to an invisible audience. She’s been building the entire thing herself – every bolt tightened with the anxious fervor of someone trying to control a world falling apart around her. It’s beautiful, in a melancholic way. Sleek, lightweight, equipped with enhancements he would never ask for (beyond the chair itself) but she thought he might need. A lever that will supply him with a peanut. If he gets hungry, she had said.

                  You turn back to Jinx. “If I keep working on it for you, will you rest?”

                  The look she gives you bores a hole in you as she weighs it. She doesn’t trust you to do it right.

                  You let out a small, light laugh, trying to ease the tension knotting within her. “They did call me the Engineer, you know.”

                  She purses her lips and stares at you for a few seconds more. It feels like hours before she slowly replies, “Yeah,” And then, with more certainty, “Yeah. Okay.”

                  “Okay?” You smile. “Alright, so go lay down, hon. I’ll get right to work.”

                  She obeys, retreating like a zombie towards a pile of blankets and pillows underneath a nest of fairy lights.

                  You do as you promised, picking up the wrench she had set down and, once you’re sure she’s asleep, undoing one of the arms of the chair to put it on correctly.

***

                  She’s still fast asleep when you’ve finished it. You perform a series of tests, making sure it’s even on the floor, making sure the tires roll properly, sitting down in the seat of it and sadly creaking around the workshop in it. It’s fully functional. Jinx will be happy to wake up to it, excited to gift it to Silco. A shudder goes down your spine at the thought. You’ll have to make that go well, somehow.

                  You grunt when you stand up, your knees cracking like shuffling cards. You straighten your spine and your back cracks, too. You look at Jinx warily, fearful that you’d wake her with your percussive joints. But she doesn’t stir, and soft snores continue to escape her.

                  She looks angelic, eyebrows slightly raised, shoulders rising and falling, curled up in a ball on her side. More importantly, she looks peaceful.

                  And with that, you reckon it’s time to check on Silco.

                  You wonder with no small amount of dread and trepidation what state he’s going to be in. There are seemingly only two options nowadays - angry and angrier.

                  You float across the Drop in a stifled rush, not paying much mind to what’s around you. You’re halfway up the stairs before you notice a figure hunched over at the bar.

                  Sevika’s elbows are braced on the surface of the bar and one hand cradles a half-empty glass of something dark and mean. Her mechanical arm twitches slightly as she swirls it around, never taking a sip.

                  You slowly creep back down the stairs like the whole of the Drop is laced with invisible landmines. You reach the bottom and inch your way towards her, not speaking until you’re mere inches from her.

                  Her shoulders tense before she realizes it’s you, and she rolls her eyes consequently. “You think it’s smart to sneak up on me?” She asks with annoyance marking every syllable.

                  “Sorry,” you mutter, before lowering your voice even more. “You learn anything?”

                  “Nothing at all,” she almost exclaims, a faint echo bouncing off the mirrors behind the bar. She catches her reflection there, staring straight ahead, and you follow her gaze to look at her, too. It feels much easier to make eye contact with Sevika in a mirror and not face-to-face.

                  Frustration deepens every line on her scowling face. Her eyelid twitches once. A great machine losing screws and leaking oil.

                  “How?” You yell frustratedly, having given up on being discrete. You think of Jinx and how her psyche can’t afford much more of this. You think of Silco and how his humanity can’t afford much more of this. You think of yourself and how your heart can’t afford much more of this. “It’s not like just anyone could cook up something like that. That takes funding, that takes – that takes, like, an unimaginable amount of time, and money, and research to produce. I’ve never seen –“

                  “Would you shut the fuck up,” Sevika hisses at you, slamming her glass down on the bar. “He’ll hear you. Don’t rile him up.”

                  You close your eyes, sigh, and rub the corners of your eyes as though that will make you see everything clearer when you reopen them. “Sorry,” you mutter again. You never manage to gain any ground with Sevika. It’ll always be a relationship grounded in functionality and force.

                  After a brief pause, you laugh bitterly. “We’ve really gotten nowhere. What if they get away with it?”

                  Sevika squints at you. “’We’ve’? Last time I checked, it was just me upending the entirety of the Lanes.”

                  You sniff and lean one arm onto the bar. “You know I’m just as much a part of this as you are - I’m in it. I’m also invested in this, is what I meant. My future depends on him, too.”

                  You’re satisfied with your retort until Sevika turns away from the mirror to look at you directly, with a look so severe that you know you’ve made a grave mistake before she even opens her mouth.

                  She flares her nose like she’s going to snort or maybe scream, and it seems you’ve neglected the idea that she would be just as on-edge as Silco. She jabs her finger into your chest, knocking you off your balance a bit. You’re gripping the edge of the bar to straighten yourself back up when she says, “Let me tell you something. And I’m doing you a favor. He’s not going to keep you around. He’ll discard you eventually – that’s what men do with their whores.”

                  What?

                  “What?” Your eyes widen, incredulous. You feel your heartbeat start to pick up and thrum aggressively in your ears.

                  “Don’t play dumb, sweetheart. Silco would say it’s unbecoming of you. You know it too, deep down, that you’re nothing more than his concubine.” She laughs cruelly, pleased with herself. Her normal arm floats towards her glass to take a sip as she watches the steam start to puff out of your ears.

                  A foreign, uniquely terrifying rage fills you, and it threatens to overpower hers. You battle the urge to lay into her, swing at her, press your nose into hers and shout into her face. You regain your senses, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of you losing your shit.

                  Flickers of your old self start to linger at the edges of your mind. Your anger used to always cool you down, in a weird way. Sharpened things, primed you for a fight. You coil like a snake, leaning back, and quietly inquiring, “Is that what you think? That we’re sleeping together?”

                  Sevika smirks. “I know that’s what’s happening.”

                  You blink, once, twice. You breathe in deeply, then draw out your exhale, pondering what to say next.

                  “I think you’re just jealous that what you work around the clock for, I get for free.”

                  A sizzling clash of metal lands on the right side of your face.

                  The world tilts sideways – jaw howling, vision splintered – and the floor rushes up to greet you. Pain lights up your skull like a flare, and when you hit the ground, it’s with a wet grunt and a sickening thud. Sevika crashes down right after you, the force of her own punch throwing her forward off the barstool, her metallic shoulder rolling awkwardly as she twists to recover.

                  You hear her growl low in her throat as she pushes herself up, boots scraping against the floor, already coming for you again.

                  You clutch your jaw for a moment, fingers trembling over the sharp pain, wondering if she cracked it clean through. There’s a hot, nauseating pulse running from your ear down your neck like your nerves are on fire. You spit deep red into your palm and drag yourself up with a feral sound.

                  Your teeth feel wrong, the roots of them shuddering like they’re just suggestions, not anchors. Your tongue probes the back of your gums like a blind man searching for a light switch.

                  Yeah, she knocked one loose – a molar. You taste iron and adrenaline and a flicker of shame you crush immediately.

                  Your fists rise up on either side of your face, steady and indignant. Blood drips off your chin.

                  “I was right, wasn’t I?” You spit.

                  Your voice is half-slurred and marbled, distorted by swelling flesh and the blood pooling in your mouth. You don’t even know if you meant it as mockery or something closer to an accusation. It’s half a dare, half a plea. Sevika’s eye twitches. She doesn’t answer – just snarls and lunges.

                  You dodge the first punch, and the second. The third you block with your forearm, but it rattles you down to the bone. The fourth – a brutal uppercut – misses by an inch as you duck, breath hissing through your teeth. You’re so focused on dodging high; you miss her body twisting in tandem with her shoulder for a gut shot.

                  Her fist buries itself in your stomach like a wrecking ball.

                  You fold inward, breath forced out of you, and your legs give. You stagger backward and crash into a table, sending empty glasses scattering. You clutch your abdomen, your lungs not drawing in any air despite your best efforts. None of your organs are where they were before, you’re pretty sure. Your intestines had to have been displaced, nestled between your lungs now.

                  Still, you push yourself up. Slower now, because every moment hurts.

                  Sevika’s already advancing again, flecks of blood spattering her metallic arm.

                  You manage to get the smallest of breaths within in before you shift your weight to your left foot, feigning a retreat – then you spring forward with a left hook packed with all the strength you can muster. You catch her across the jaw. The sound is awful and satisfying.

                  She reels back, more from surprise than pain. Her expression flickers – not impressed, not yet – but it’s the first time she’s looked like you might actually be worth finishing. This is the first time she’s really seen you as the Engineer without the ominous visual aid that was the suit.

                  She rolls her shoulders, loosening up like a prizefighter in the final round. The two of you circle each other in the ruined silence of the Drop. You urge yourself to focus on the fight, but you can’t help but wonder why Silco hasn’t roared his dismay from upstairs. Surely he’s heard the conflict. No one’s intervening. No one ever does.

                  You’re heaving now, vision darkening a bit at the edges. Every single one of your body systems has devoted themselves completely to unleashing your violence.

                  You make the first move now – and fast. Your first sails toward her temple, but she leans back just enough to avoid it. Your other first comes up right behind it, landing near her ribs, but you’ve spent both hands and left yourself vulnerable. She twists again, absorbing the blow, and then flinging her mechanical arm upward like a club.

                  She brings it down hard.

                  In a split second, you manage to raise your arm to block but it doesn’t matter – she’s stronger, heavier, and that metal is as unforgiving as she is. You hit the floor again, this time gasping. The bar feels miles away. You try to sit up, but the room is spinning like a roulette wheel.

                  “You done?” she pants, voice ragged, hovering over you now.

                  “I’m never done,” you spit more blood, angling your neck up off the floor in an attempt to spray it in her direction.

                  She smiles. Just barely. There’s something dangerous behind it.

                  And then she grabs you by the collar, metal claws yanking you halfway off the floor like a ragdoll. Her breath is hot against your face. “You might want to be more careful. Silco’s not sure what to make of anyone these days.”

                  You look up at her and squint. “Who are you to threaten me? Fucking underling,” you say with so much grit in your voice that you could sand down tree bark.

                  The insult doesn’t even seem to register, and she starts to walk towards the front doors of the Drop. So unfazed by your fight that she won’t even stop to tidy herself up – she’ll just head right out into the street. One last bubble of anger rises up into your throat and pops.

                  “You never trusted me,” you call out after her, chest heaving, “this whole time?”

                  “Nope.”

                  And the room fills with the sound of clamoring and bustling as the door opens. You’re shrouded in silence, darkness, and a sense of betrayal when it shuts.

                  You don’t know how long you lay there after the door shuts, but it’s long enough for the copper in your mouth to go stale and your vision to finally settle. The Drop creaks around you – pipes sighing, floorboards complaining beneath no one’s feet. An embarrassment so intense it hums in your ears.

                  You lost the fight. That was humiliating, of course. But what burned worse was that you were still seen as an intruder in the place you had been getting comfortable calling home.

                  Sevika never trusted you. Never. Or so she says, but she’s brought you along for all the most important endeavors. Hilarious. You thought you were held in high regard. No, you weren’t her best friend, but you thought she saw you as someone reliable. You were a former mercenary that could get things done. And you did get them done.

                  There’s no shortage of things you’ve done that should have only cemented that you could be trusted. For fuck’s sake, you got blown up.

                  You use your forearm to wipe some blood off your face, and your sleeve comes down crimson and wet. You let out the world’s longest sigh.

                  This is…the way you see it… this is symptomatic of the toxin. Like Silco was a well that you all drew water from. Sevika’s mind, Jinx’s, yours – you’ve all taken substantial damage. Threads between you ripped apart.

                  But at the same time, that seemed like something Sevika had been wanting to get out for ages.

                  Gods.

                  You force yourself into a sitting position and brush unswept crumbs and shards of glass off your front.

                  Whore. Concubine.

                  This entire time, she thought Silco only kept you around for what was between your legs. You reckon that would have pissed you off, too, if that was what you believed.

                  But it wasn’t true.

                  She wouldn’t believe it passing your lips, but maybe Silco could spell it out for her. You scoff. How insanely stupid that was, when the concern should be finding who tried to kill him. Who could still be lying in wait, trying to kill the rest of you.

                  You feel a fresh wave of shame wash over you.

                  A few more minutes pass before you exert yourself trying to stand. It’s a slow, aching process, like reassembling a building that’s just been leveled by a bomb. You brace yourself against a chair, dizzied, and something rattles loose from your lungs on the subsequent exhale. Not quite a sob, but it’s too raw to be a cough. Your hand goes to your ribs – tender, swollen.

                  Your reflection in the bar mirror is almost unrecognizable: lip split, temple bruised, blood dried in a path from your nose to your chin.

                  You find a rag behind the bar and wet it with something sharp-smelling. It burns, which ought to mean that it’s working. There’s a long silence, interrupted only by your own rough pawing at your face.

                  You leave the bar slowly, dragging your battered body upstairs with stiff, aching limbs.

                  Now that that’s over, it’s time to check on Silco! You think to yourself bitterly, almost drawing an audible laugh from what a joke this all is.

                  Every step is a negotiation. By the time you reach Silco’s door, you feel like a penitent about to enter a confessional, unsure of whether you’ll receive absolution or be excommunicated altogether.

                  You don’t knock or speak, opting to slowly enter and allow the groaning of the door hinge to announce your presence for you.

                  Silco is still behind is desk as though he hasn’t moved an inch from when you last saw him. The pen in his hand trembles violently as he sets it down. It rolls unevenly, clattering once against the wood before coming to a stop. His fingers linger on it, splayed like he has to consciously command himself to pry each one off.

                  The tremors haven’t stopped. If anything, they’ve worsened. But he doesn’t acknowledge them.

                  “Are you two apes done sparring?”

                  You don’t answer. You barely breathe. Something inside you is thrumming – too wild, too unstable to contain, and yet you’re still. Not because you’re calm or in control of yourself. You’re not. You’re simply too sore to move and too infuriated to speak.

                  Silco’s eyes narrow when your silence drags. He spits the next word like it’s a challenge. “What?”

                  You’re breathing really hard. You can feel the cool air of your own breath fanning over your upper lip. And you’re jittery. You’re somehow not exhausted at all; it’s like you’ve got enough pent-up frustrations to fuel you for the next decade. You find yourself shaking a bit, a physical testament to how emotionally unstable you are. This might be when you completely unravel. Your rage tightens your lips into a flat line, and all you can do is twist them together. No words come out.

                  He manages to lean forward, slow and deliberate. He braces himself with his arm against the desk, but his chest hollows from the effort. He’s still weak – and for a second, that fact nearly stills your fury. Nearly.

                  “What.” He repeats. The word scrapes out of him this time.

                  “This entire time,” you start, your voice shaking. “Sevika thought I was your whore.”

                  His expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t flinch a bit. Not yet.

                  “Still thinks so, actually.” You look down, picking at the seam of your pants with restless fingers. You can’t tell if it’s anger or anxiety driving the motion. “Were you aware of that, Silco?”

                  His eyes flicker.

                  Then he exhales slowly, leans back into his chair, and shuts his eyes tight like the weight of it all just caught up to him. Regret pools across his features, unmistakable and stark.

                  Oh, this is so much worse.

                  Your breath catches.

                  “You knew,” you say quietly, incredulously. “You fucking knew.”

                  Your voice lifts, shrill as you fill with disbelief. “What – you couldn’t tell her the truth?”

                  His head tilts, still resting against the back of the of the chair. His eyes yawn open to look at you. Into you. Through you. You hate how tired he looks. How old and familiar.

                  “I told Sevika that lie,” he starts slowly. “To protect you –“

                  “Bullshit.”

                  His eyes are bloodshot. There’s no cruelty in his gaze, but no apology either. “I had to make a decision. She questioned you. She didn’t want you here. If she thought you mattered too much to me, enough for me to sacrifice anything pertaining to Zaun, she’d undermine you – or worse. Keeping you close under the guise of vice was better than not keeping you at all.”

                  You stare at him, waiting for the words to finish settling in your gut like stones, each one heavier than the last. The silence stretches out like the pull of a trigger you’re too afraid to release.

                  “Better than not keeping me at all…” The words roll slowly across your tongue. You raise your arm up and then let it drop sardonically. “Keep me here for what. This?” You feel all the energy that billowed inside of you whoosh out with degrading finality. Your shoulders fall and sag from the weight of the world. You feel empty.

                  He stares at you like he’s trying to solve a problem he already knows has no solution.  Silco’s expression doesn’t change. But something in the air does.

                  You feel like you’re losing your mind. No, you are losing your mind.

                  You don’t know what to do. So, you pace. One slow, limping step after another. His eyes follow your every movement, but he says nothing. And you’re not sure what would hurt you more now – his silence, or his voice.

                  You sniff. Your voice cracks. “How could you do this,” you ask eventually. The words rush out of you like a dam had been broken. Tears sting the backs of your eyes. “You whisk me away from my life and – “You shake your head abruptly, fighting every feeling back down.

                  “I didn’t expect you to care,” he says with something almost like regret, but it’s twisted, too honest in the wrong way. “You were a soldier, once. I assumed you understood appearances mattered more than feelings.”

                  You nod, and a small sob escapes you. “Maybe I did, once. But that was before I had feelings.”

                  You pivot on your heel, deciding to give voice to every thought that enters your head. You point a finger at him and your voice gets thick with unbridled emotion. “I am angry with you,” you warble. “I am furious with you. And I don’t even know if I’m allowed to be, because every time I think I understand you, you twist it. You poison it. Like you’re afraid of being, like, a fucking person.”

                  Silco looks at you now like he’s seeing something behind you. A memory. A decision he regrets but refuses to undo. “I can’t do this with you right now. Not when everything is unraveling. Not when Zaun is at stake.”

                  You try and fail to blow out a steady stream of air. A tear slides down your cheek. “Right.”

                  Silco’s dismissal echoes between your ears like a gavel striking down.

                  “Right,” you repeat, the word nothing more than a shadow of your voice. You don’t look at him now. You can’t. Disgust is the new sentiment you adopt.

                  You turn for the door.

                  “Where are you going?” he asks, his voice rough but no longer cold.

                  You freeze with your hand on the knob, not turning it, just letting your head tilt forward like you’re listening for something far off. And maybe you are. Some echo of yourself before all this started. The version of you who didn’t confuse loyalty with self-destruction.

                  “To bed,” you answer hollowly.

                  A pause. Then, quieter: “Goodnight.”

                  Instead of walking back to your quarters, you head back to Jinx’s workshop. It’s a blur. Every step is a dull throb, every moment a reminder of just how thoroughly Sevika made her point. You want to scream. You want to cry. You want to pull every bolt from the walls and rebuild the Drop with your bare hands until it’s something new. Something honest.

                  You collapse next to Jinx, who’s still snoring softly. She talks to people, even now in the throes of deep sleep. You fall asleep listening to her unintelligible murmurs. The harder you try to make out what she’s saying, the drowsier you get.

Chapter Text

“What the shit,” Jinx breathes.

                  Her meek voice startles you awake, and you jolt when you realize her face is mere inches from yours. A garbled noise lunges from the back of your throat.

                  “What bus backed over you?” She asks, rubbing dried, crusted drool from the corner of her mouth. “Or- no, wait, wait. Meat grinder. You fell into a meat grinder, got your meat all grinded up?”

                  “Um, no,” you start, sitting up with the all the stiff contortedness of a dented tin can. “Sevika beat me up.” You’re not awake enough to think to put any walls up, and the explanation just spits itself out. You say it with nonchalance like it only happened in your dream. You press a hand into your side and feel swollen, hot bruising beneath your shirt.

                  Jinx stares at you for a moment and nods. You guess you’re not the first defeated pulp of a person she’s ever seen.

                  Her gaze at you is warm and bright to the point that you’re a little unnerved. She seems stable…happy, even. Or for these five minutes, anyway. Like seeing you in such a state knocked her back into some semblance of normalcy. You can’t help but feel terrified. She’s not really okay, clearly, it’s hollow. This façade will give. You wonder what prompted this sudden shift in her.

                  She starts to uncoil herself from within her nest of blankets. You wonder if Silco’s never bothered to give her a real bed, or if he offered and she just refused it. Nothing about Jinx’s lifestyle is conventional, anyway – not even by Trencher standards. A stuffed mannequin head of a boy with crocheted brown and spiky hair flops to the floor from her grip, ad a screwdriver falls out from one of her pant legs, thudding on the ground.

                  You squint at her silhouette hovering above you, the world behind her half-lit by fairy lights and neon signage. “You sleep with a screwdriver, what, tucked into your waistband?” You rub at your eyes and your surroundings only get blurrier.

                  “Never know when you’ll need to fix something,” she shrugs.

                  She strides a few feet over to her vanity and starts battling the cowlick at the front of her hairline. Strands of blue are sticking up from her forehead like the framework of a tiara. “Why did Sevika beat you up?” She asks casually, like she’s asking what you had for breakfast.

                  You swallow. Whore doesn’t seem like the right word to use in front of a child. “Um,” you start again, rubbing the back of your neck.

                  “Um. Ummmm-ah,” She teases you before ditching her hairbrush to spit in her hand and style her hair that way instead.

                  “Well, she…doesn’t think I should, like, be here.” That’s nearly all you can utter. You don’t even want to acknowledge what happened, much less explain it in full detail. You huff before grumbling, “Like I don’t belong here.”

                  Jinx pauses mid-spit-styling, her hand frozen halfway above the crown of her head. It’s like a broken salute. In the vanity mirror, her reflection meets your eyes with an indignant expression, and something beneath it that’s sharper and more worrisome.

                  “She thinks you’re temporary,” she says quietly, and it’s more a statement than a question. “Temporary.”

                  The word hits you like another punch from Sevika’s metal fist. Temporary. As if your presence here was always meant to have an expiration date. It reminds you of all those months ago when you and Sevika were meant to retrieve that old hag Trota. Some are expendable. Others are efficient. You’re expendable and efficient.

                  “Something like that,” you manage warily.

                  Jinx turns around fully now, studying your battered face with the same intensity she reserves for her most delicate inventions. “But you’re not, are you? You wouldn’t leave me, right?” Her voice seems to go up an octave with each word, and her mind threatens to fracture yet again.

                  You quickly put a clamp on it. “No. No, Jinx. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t give a damn what she says.”

                  You feel your eye twitch in time with that lie. Your meltdown in front of Silco showed that you very much did give a damn. But it satisfies Jinx, and she turns back around to poke and prod at her face.

                  “My…underneath my eyes, they’re so…purple.” She notes, pulling the skin with two fingers down so far that you can see the bottoms of her eyeballs. “That’s my favorite color, though. Er- uh, second favorite, maybe.”

                   “You’ve still got sleep to catch up on,” you say as you finally summon the courage to attempt to stand. Your body screams at you, and you try to ignore the face Jinx makes when she sees you wince. “Maybe you’d be more rested if you didn’t sleep with half a toolbox on your person.”

                  “But today I don’t feel tired. Like, not at all.” She responds.

                  Jinx paces the room barefoot, arms swinging at her sides like a clock whose hands can’t keep time. Her energy is rushing, waxing. She bounces her way over to the wheelchair that you helped finish and leans back to stand proudly in front of it, hands on her hips. “It looks ready to go,” she smiles.

                  “Yeah, I guess.” You answer quietly, your chest ballooning with dread. You suck in a breath that you’re afraid to let go. All your fears would spill out with the air.

                  “When do you think I should give it to him?” She asks you, eyes glowing.

                  You swallow. “I’m not sure.”

                  “I hate her, you know,” Jinx says frankly, either ignorant or indifferent to your ever-expanding unease. “Sevika. I don’t care what Silco says. She’s mean and boring and she smells like ham.”

                  You say nothing as she makes some final adjustments, tightening screws and adding streaks of paint. You hope that the blatant, overwhelming amount of love she’s put into this project will manage to worm its way past Silco’s ego and salvage the whole thing from his wrath.

                  “Does he know, by the way? Silco?” A laugh bubbles out of her. “He’ll give her a real talking to.”

                  It’s all his fault actually, is the dialogue that initially enters your mind. But, you push it down and try to respond more amicably. “Maybe.” Weak. Defeated.

                  “Maybe he’ll finally get rid of her, fingers crossed.” She continues, plunking herself down into the seat of the wheelchair and giddily rolling herself back and forth.

                  You look up at her from your chewed-up nailbeds that you were scrutinizing. “What makes you say that he’d get rid of her?”

                  Her neck plunges forward like a chicken’s, her eyes widening. “Well, he likes you, duh. She should go if she can’t get on board.” More laughter bursting from her.

                  You start to wonder if you’ve woken up in an alternate universe. Or, if Jinx’s delusions spread far beyond how she alone is perceived by others.

                  You stare at her – at her earnestness, her certainty – and it stings.

                  He likes you, duh.

                  Like it’s so simple.

                  You’re starting to think that’s the worst thing Silco can do. Like someone. At least you could understand his hatred. His cruelty and his anger are open, transparent, even brazen at times. There’s a method to the way he hurts and humiliates and intimidates.

                  But he doesn’t know the first thing about liking someone. How to respect someone, how to treat them as an equal, how to do right by them. How to be liked in return.

                  Maybe you don’t, either.

                  You look away, back down at your hands, at the places where your knuckles had split open from making contact. You purse your lips.

                  “You look like a kicked dog,” Jinx says. “What, is it so shocking?”

                  “Maybe,” you say again, and you feel the heat of annoyance broiling at the back of your throat. You’re frustrated with yourself for finding yourself so hopelessly and pathetically lost. So lost that a relationship dynamic is getting explained to you by an eleven-year-old.

                  Jinx rolls a circle around the room in the wheelchair, spinning herself in quick, tight loops like she wants to flip over in it. Her braids flare behind her like streamers.

                  “Y’know, when I first met you, I thought you were gonna die in like, three days,” she announces, her voice wobbling as she exerts herself maneuvering the chair.

                  You blink. “Thanks.”

                  “No, no, like, not die- die. I told you that he likes you. Just – like, emotionally die. You were all stiff and tight like a spring. Like if someone looked at you wrong, you’d just go boing and shoot off the nearest rooftop.”

                  “Sounds familiar,” you mutter aloud.

                  Jinx halts the wheelchair. “Ha! Exactly. You two are so alike.”

                  You let out a breath through your nose, perturbed. “We’re not alike.”

                  Jinx throws her arms up. “Okay, sure, you’re not both stubborn and emotionally constipated freaks. With weird speech cadences too, you both talk weird.”

                  You frown at her. “You think I talk like him?”

                  She grins. “I think he started talking like you.”

                  You shake your head, jaw tightening. It’s not funny. Or maybe it is, and that’s the worst part. With everything that’s happened, it doesn’t feel like there should be any levity in the air. Silco’s been poisoned, the very fabric of your existence here is threatened. You’ve been belittled and exhausted. And you’re unsettled by how earnestly Jinx says things like this – like she really believes they mean something.

                  She clambers out of the wheelchair and starts spinning, feet twisting and chasing after each other. She spins and spins and spins. Your mind spins with her.

***

                  Night falls, and you already know sleep will not be coming to whisk you away from all this. You trudge towards the library like a moth drawn to light.

                  You had missed the comfort of it. Every novel that your gaze falls upon feels like a warm hug. This room feels like who you would have been if life hadn’t intervened. If you hadn’t lost the lottery and had instead been born across the way in Piltover instead. You would’ve been so studious, calm, and knowledgeable. Not a hired killer. And not a whore, hopelessly manipulated by a crime boss.  

                  You decide you don’t want to pick out anything new – you want something predictable. Even better, a reread. No surprises. You browse the shelves for Echoes in Iron or An Analysis of Contemporary Art – as much as you had loathed the latter – but you’re unable to find either. They’re both missing.

                  There’s only one explanation you can think of as to why they would be gone. Silco took them. He’s the only person who knows you had taken an interest in this room, these texts. He had to have ordered someone to come down here and extract them.

                  You suck your teeth, a renewed anger racing its way up your spine. Originating the rumor that you were his whore was already juvenile, but this trumps that. He’s got to be in his late thirties, and he can’t graduate past acting like a petulant child? This is a whole new level of pettiness.

                  Sulky son of a bitch.

                  Your opinion of Silco is starting to settle like sediment at the bottom of the ocean. You were an idiot to ever think that there was more to him. He’s marred and sick. He’s depraved. Emotionally impotent. And his soul is chained to the pursuit of power.

                  You stand there, and the library suddenly feels empty now that you know those two books you took solace from are missing. This all feels calculated – like he’s methodically stripping away every small comfort you’ve found in this place. Along with the hopes you had for comforts in the future. You half expect to find your mattress missing from your quarters if you decide to head back.

                  A string of unintelligible disgruntled noises pop out of you like fireworks. There are no words capable of holding your anger. Silco makes you feel like such a fool. You never have the upper hand, not even when you tower over him should he eventually acquiesce to sit in his new wheelchair.

                  Gods, the wheelchair. And gods, that girl.

                  What to do with her? How to guide her through all this when you’re adrift yourself?

                  You love her, fiercely, but she’s easily the most challenging child you’ve ever come across. Maybe that’s not saying much considering most of your life was spent in isolation, but no context is needed to realize she’s a special breed of difficult.

                  She’s difficult like a fire is difficult. Hard to contain, and her psyche is unforgiving. No gas is needed to make her unravel, just the slightest wind blowing through. She’s like a pipe bomb wrapped in ribbons with glitter interspersed among the shrapnel.

                  And the whiplash. How did she go from complete and utter devastation yesterday to manic, twirling excitement today? Has she always been like this? Or was Powder different?

                  But you do love her. If it wasn’t for her, you would have packed your things immediately after you blew up in front of Silco. You love her now, and you always will, no matter how arduous and taxing such an act can be. You don’t have a choice but to love her. You’ve long surrendered to it – she captured your heart.

                  She captured Silco’s, too.

                  His love for her is true, at least. That’s how it continues to seem to you even in the wake of all he’s unleashed on you. He would never betray her. You just wish he would collect himself and sit with her. You wish he would hold her and tell her he’s there for her. You’ve tried to tell her that he cares, but she can’t seem to swallow it coming from your mouth.

                  You rub your temples and glance back once more at the walls of shelves surrounding you. Among those shelves, there are two spaces where Echoes in Iron and An Analysis of Contemporary Art should be. And they’re mocking you.

                  The meek and restrained bubble of excitement you had wanting to curl up and read has abandoned you. All your fires are ashes. You resolve to head back to your room and endure a sweating, fitful night. You’ll shut your eyes a million times and not a blink of rest will entertain you.

                  The moment you pivot to head back to your room is when it happens. A thundering crash above you. One big thud and the scattering of smaller pieces like marbles are rolling along the wooden floor upstairs.

                  Your mind races to map out the Drop. What room is above you? In your mind…the stairs, the hallway…further down…it should be-

                  And then it’s unmistakable. A roar. Angry and raw. Venomous.

                  It’s Silco.

                  A string of screamed curses and a guttural snarl follow as you race your way up toward his office.

                  The door is shut, but barely – the wood hanging crooked in the frame like it had been hit. You slow down, hesitating for just a moment, long enough to question what you’re doing rushing to help him.

                  “Gods-forsaken thing – fuck!” Something shatters inside. A lamp? The decanter?

                  You close your eyes as you push the door open, the desire to hide from him and his temper almost reflexive at this point.

                  The room is chaos. Drawers ripped open. Papers strewn like leaves in a storm. One of the bookcases has been knocked over, a waterfall of ledgers and files spilling across the floor. It leans onto the desk like a wounded sentry. And there, just left of the overturned wheelchair, is Silco – half-crumpled, propping himself up from his waist with his arms straightened out.

                  You quickly conclude that you should have just given Jinx the cold, hard truth. Did he at least hide this from her until she left? Or did he unleash it all in front of her, crushing her fragile spirit?

                  You freeze, already overcome with your own anger.

                  His breathing is ragged. Furious. Feral. But he doesn’t even look up at you. His focus is fixed on the wheelchair like he’s willing it to combust with sheer rage alone.

                  “Did you explode on her?” You grit out, already preparing to pivot and go tend to her.

                  “Get. Out,” he snaps. Like he can command you from the floor, groveling and sneering. You’d laugh at him if you weren’t besides yourself with heat, your cheeks flooding with steam and burning.

                  “Silco.”

                  “No,” he growls. “She doesn’t know.” She doesn’t know that I hate it. She doesn’t know that I hate the gift she poured her heart into. His voice is so low it’s pure gravel.

                  “Didn’t know,” you correct. “If I heard it from where I was, she had to have, too. She’s gonna be fucking ruined over this.” You stare at him for a moment and squint like you’re trying to scrutinize whether he’s still a human being or not. He’s silent besides the hurried and sharp breaths that wind him.

                  You stare a hole through him. At the set of his shoulders. At the way he won’t meet your gaze. But he’s not ashamed, he’s indignant. Insufferably self-righteous and proud. He’s hot vapor, and he’s not brave enough to condense into flesh. He won’t be a man, a father – not right now, maybe not ever again. The only human trait that greets you is the tremor in his left hand, exacerbated by his seething frenzy. It’s like a white flag waving and admitting its faction has lost the war.

                  “She just wants her dad,” You finally say.

                  The words crack through the space like a whip. Your hands are shaking, and you don’t even realize it until you curl them into fists.

                  You wanted to wound him, and you did – Silco flinches. You know, as he lay there, that he thinks he successfully hid it from you. But you know him too well now. You saw the faintest grimace before he wiped the slate of his face clean.

                  “She doesn’t think any less of you. She just wants you close. She wants you to tell her that she matters to you. She made that for you not out of pity, she made you that chair because she wanted to show you that she still mattered.”

                  Silco’s jaw is locked, the muscles roiling in his temple. He still hasn’t moved to get up. He probably can’t. He used everything he had, every muscle fiber blown just to bleed his pride all over this room.

                  “She thinks it’s her fault,” you say bitterly. “Because that’s how she’s wired. Because she’s already been left behind once before.”

                  His head drops the slightest bit, and he shuts his eyes for a moment. You finally see that he’s agonized, and you’re pleased by it. But you’re not satisfied – he should suffer so much more than this.

                  You open your mouth to say something else rotten. You’ve said your piece for Jinx, but you feel like you need to spew more. And it needs to be infected and infused with all your anger.

                  And your grief.

                  But before the first syllable can escape you, you calm down just enough that the world becomes clearer – straight, clean lines instead of hazy, garbled ones. It’s like your brain took a picture of the moment. You look at him again and suddenly all you can see is the way his hair falls over his face in an arc, the way his throat bobs, the way his elbows shudder beneath his miniscule weight.

                  And you hate yourself, but it doesn’t stop you.

                  “You’re pathetic,” you sigh as you start to step toward him. You fail to put much venom into the phrase.

                  He doesn’t respond. His posture doesn’t shift. Maybe he thinks you’re bluffing, that you’re just trying to get in one last jab before leaving. Maybe he doesn’t think you’ll actually come closer. But you do – you take another step, then another, until you’re right in front of him, and you crouch down slowly, the pain in your ribs making your breath stutter.

                  “You can’t keep being like this,” you say, quieter now. You’re not sure if you’re chastising him or yourself. “It’s not sustainable.”

                  You glance at the chair. The smeared streaks of color are heartbreakingly bright amidst all this mess.

                  You reach out and nudge it upright.

                  That finally earns you a reaction. He snaps his eyes toward you like he’s just been yanked up by the collar.

                  “Don’t touch it,” he rasps.

                  You exhale slowly, and it sounds like something escaping from a leak. The fatigue is catching up to you – bone-deep, spiritual exhaustion. But as tired as you are, you still cling to and harbor the wildest of hopes. You hope that something in him snaps back into place.

                  You reach towards him, grabbing at the tops of his arms, but Silco wrests himself from your grasp. And then, with a reluctant grunt, he moves – not toward the chair, not toward you, but just to sit upright again. It’s painful and graceless. He plants his back against the desk behind him and shuts his eyes like he’s seasick.

                  His eyes stay closed for a long time, but you don’t turn away from him. Your gaze traces every line in his face. The branches of lightning that entrench themselves in his brow, his eye, his cheek, his lips.

                  And you keep telling yourself that you hate him. And you do. You hate him. You hate the way he acts; you hate how he’s treated you, you hate how he’s been treating Jinx. You hate how he can be so calculated and composed and yet somehow so volatile and unreadable. You hate how paranoid he is. You hate how he can’t let things go – how he stays latched on to something even as he’s being destroyed by it. You hate his restraint, his rigidity, the ache beneath it all. You hate how he deals with his fear. Moreover, you hate how he doesn’t deal with his fear.

                  But beneath all that hate is something even more worrying and disgusting. You feel your stomach lurch at the thought. And you think you might faint, realizing what’s been festering within you all along. You hate that it’s only now, when he’s shown you such cruelty, that you finally come to understand it.

                  The loathing you have for him is subdued by the loathing you have for yourself.

                  You get the urge in your legs to suddenly jump up and take flight – like that time you gifted him the tie, but you fight it back down. And it’s harder this time, because you don’t just want to leave the room. You want to leave the Drop, the Lanes…you want to flee from the Undercity as a whole. You want to run and keep running until you reach the end of the earth. You want to get as far from it all as you possibly can. The only reminders of humanity you encounter from here on out should only be those emanating from your own body. You’ll cross the globe. You want your legs to give and your chest to burn. You want wind-stung eyes and blistered feet.

                  You stand up, and it feels like you’re both protecting yourself and sabotaging yourself at the same time. You’re not sure which way is up at this point. All you know is that you’re not going to crouch here any longer and consider begging him to let you help him up. You’re not going to clean up his mess. It’s not a whore’s responsibility.

                  “Fine, stay there then.” You say. And it’s then when your eyes fall upon them.

                  The books. Stacked neatly on top of each other, resting on his desk. You pick them up and take them with you.

                  You leave him there.

                  You make a detour, returning to Jinx being your first priority. The books feel like they weigh 500 pounds tucked beneath your arm. They tease you when they bump into your bruised ribs, but you pay it no mind.

                  As you near her, you start to hear her voice. She’s having a heated conversation. Her cadence rises and falls like waves crashing against the shore.

                  Panic pricks the back of your neck, and you start to pick up your pace. You fear that whoever poisoned Silco is there to nab her next. But, as you continue to listen, you realize there are no responses to her phrases. The panic doesn’t fade with this revelation.

                  No, that’s not true.

                  He’s just…busy!

                  I can fix it. I can fix her. I can fix all of it.

                  You’re running now.

                  I can fix me.

                  Images of her surrounded by bombs are flooding your mind once you reach the threshold. And what you see is so opposite of what you expected that it takes you a few seconds to fully process it.

                  Jinx sits calmly at a foot table serving tea to a large stuffed rabbit.

                  She sees you and flashes you another eerily bright smile. “It’s tea-time.”

                  “What are they telling you?” You ask, skipping right past asking her how she’s doing, what she saw or heard from Silco, how she feels. This manner of questioning feels like it would get you better answers.

                  She laughs. “Oh, ya know. They keep saying Silco doesn’t love me anymore. And that I’ve gotta find somewhere else to go.”

                  “Why would they say something like that?” You press. How much damage did he do?

                  “Well, Vi says she saw him break my chair and that he didn’t like it. But she just doesn’t like the stuff I make, she never does. It makes her get all angry.” Jinx points to her temple and rotates her hand, doing the “cuckoo” gesture. Her eyes roll dramatically for added effect.

                  You don’t know how to walk her mind out of this. The one thing she needs is what you can’t give her – she needs Silco.

                  “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” you say with conviction. “He loves you, Jinx. He loves you.” Your reassurances are so gnarled and desperate in tone that they could be mistaken for pleading. You’re begging her to hold herself together for just a little while longer. You want to believe you got through to Silco.

                  Jinx tilts her head at you like you’ve just become another one of the voices floating bodiless around her. “Yeah,” she says slowly, stretching the word until it loses its shape. “Sure. He loves me. Like…totally.”

                  You shift the books in your grasp, intentionally shoving the books into your side. Just a brief lapse in judgement where you needed to cause yourself physical pain to numb the terror encroaching upon you.

                  Her eyes dart back to the stuffed rabbit. It wears goggles – round, thick ones, maybe like a metalworker would don. It’s not…supposed to be you, is it?

                  She tips the teapot, pours more invisible tea into its cup, and hums to herself. The smile she’s wearing is too sharp, like glass glinting in the light.

                  “Jinx.” You try to make your voice gentle and steady. And confident. Her fear feeds on yours. “He’s angry about a lot of things right now. But not you, darling, never you.”

                  She doesn’t answer, just swirls the tea in the cup, watching the empty porcelain as if something will materialize long enough. She keeps altering the way she’s grasping it – like one moment it really is weighted by liquid, held delicately, and the next flung about like there’s nothing but air stored within it.

                  “You believe me, right?”

                  Her head jerks up. There’s a flicker – something brittle in her expression – but then she grins again, wide and wrong.

                  “Of course I believe you. You never lie to me.”

                  You almost collapse with relief until she adds, “But what if you think you’re telling the truth, but it’s not the truth? Tricky, tricky. What if you’re wrong and I’m-“ She cuts herself off with a giggle so sudden it makes you flinch. Then, to the rabbit – “I would beat you anytime, Claggor.”

                  So it’s not me, you realize. You start to consider pleading with Silco and Sevika for more details from her past. If…a relationship with Jinx means relationships with Jinx’s ghosts, too.

                  She gets to her feet and begins pacing with the same restless and kinetic energy as before. But it’s thicker now, like woolen static. “I’ll make him something he’ll have to like. Something big. Something he can’t push aside.” She makes a vague, erratic gesture, as if love is something that could just be conjured up from smoke and gears.

                  Your stomach twists. “Jinx, you don’t need to make anything for him to-“

                  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she interrupts, waving you off. “I’m busy, now…leave. And you, too. And you. Especially you, Vi.”

                  You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. She’s already moved on, digging through a heap of parts in the corner, her humming just a little too loud and a little too quick.

                  You’re scared to death of setting her off. You sense it in your bones that if you stay for a moment longer, the bubble will pop.

                  You make a slow retreat. “I’ll come back to check on you later, Jinx.” A forced smile.

                  And then you remember what’s most important for her to hear. You call out to her from the doorway, “I love you!”

***

                  You’re baffled by how complicated everything in this fucking place is – what started out as wanting to curl up with a book turned into this. But, you’ve finally gotten to the point where you can do what you set out to do.

                  You nestle yourself deeply into the corner of one of the couches in the library. You wipe your eyes so hard that your vision is blurry when you open them. And then, in a way that almost feels climactic, you reach for Echoes in Iron and crack open the spine. You just want the words to pour over you. The comfort of familiarity will wash you clean of the day’s muddy anxieties.

                  But the first thing that you notice about the first page is that it’s extremely busy. Practically no white spaces. Blotted and bleeding, hasty ink has been scrabbled into every nook and cranny between printed text. You’re greeted with marbled black, only a few faint pale glimpses peek shyly at you from the paper. They’re so stark that they shine.

                  You swallow hard. You don’t know why, but you feel like you could burst into tears.

                  A sentenced underlined.

                  Reference this to her?

                  A word circled, a question mark adjacent to it.

                  Look up what this means.

                  A bracket surrounding a paragraph.

                  Ask her thoughts on this.

                  Your eyes dart frantically across the page. You flip to the next page. More. You flip pages rapidly like shuffling cards. One of the last chapters. The writing continues. It’s everywhere. The entire thing is notated. Delved into, hollowed out, filled up. Occupied. Devoured. Cradled. Split. Enveloped. Digested.

                  You throw the book down and away from you like it’s radioactive. Your frantic hands practically lunge for the other one. An Analysis of Contemporary Art…Rasmus.

                  You almost wheeze opening it like an addict getting a hold of their next fix of Shimmer.

                  Exclamation marks at the end of a line.

                  She would hate this.

                  A blurb written in the blank space above the heading of the fourth chapter.

                  Which is her favorite? Why? Which of these would she have pondered most?

                  You shut the book harshly. You stare out at empty space in front of you, hyperventilating. Nauseated.

                  You press the heels of your palms into your eyes until colors start to bloom in the dark. Your throat tightens. You don’t know if you want to scream or laugh or set the pages alight.

                  Or, pore through them and ready every single word. And painstakingly trace your fingers reverently over the ink and memorize every drop of his mind that he let leak over the pages.

                  Your eyes dry out and burn. You curl yourself tighter into the couch, knees pulled in, the leather creaking underneath you as you do. A significant amount of time passes in catatonia.

                  And then, like a robot, you hover over the nearest shelf. You pluck the first novel from it. You don’t even read the title. Then, you read the first page a hundred and twenty-two times until you feel like enough time has passed to check on Jinx again. The whole way back to her, you try to recall the passage, searching every corner of your mind for the last thirty or so minutes of your life.

                  You can’t recall a single word of it. All that your mind offers you is the elegant loops he wrote by hand.

Chapter Text

 It feels like the night is repeating itself when you return to check on Jinx. The constant waxing and waning of your experiences here can start to make you feel like you’re trapped in a loop. But time must have passed – it’s so late that it’s early, and the sun is beginning to crest over the Drop. Subdued slats of green light start to suggest themselves in patterns across the walls.

                  Again, you hear her voice as you approach. But it’s softer now, having lost a lot of its shrillness. She sounds like herself again when you reach the door. It’s cracked open a few inches, and the friendly multicolor of her fairy lights seeps out.

                  You peek inside and your breath hitches. The wheelchair is there, an elephant occupying the center of the room. Jinx is sat at her workbench facing away from you. And right next to her, the back of the dark, slim silhouette crowned by the flared collar of his coat. Silco is sitting next to her on a stool.

                  They’re both bent over their respective areas of the benchtop, quietly tinkering away. You watch Jinx swiftly and confidently reach for things and make deft adjustments while Silco is slower and more unsure of himself. He slowly turns over one of her mechanical butterflies in his hands. He brings it closer to his face, examining it. The way he peers into its gears makes you wonder if he’s near-sighted.

                  The two of them are conversing in low, calm voices. You can’t make much of it out standing in the entryway, but you can tell that this is a tender moment. You stand there and watch them, and you feel almost enraptured by it. A weight is gently easing its way off of your shoulders.

                  Jinx turns halfway on her stool and holds her hand out, beckoning the butterfly from him. He passes it to her and watches her as she winds up the wings.

                  Watch, you think she says.

                   Ok. You hear him hum in response.

                  She depresses the trigger and the wings start to flap. And then, to your amazement, their beating kicks into overdrive. You gasp softly as the butterfly starts to rise into the air, hovering a small distance above the table before sputtering out. Jinx catches it midair before it can fall and thunk against the hard surface.

                  Yet again I’m impressed by your gadgetry, Jinx. He praises her.

                  You watch her posture straighten as she beams in response to this. You suddenly become aware of your cheeks hurting. You’ve unknowingly been smiling this entire time.

                  Silco’s hand reaches up to stroke the back of her head – it’s his left hand, the one that tremors – but if she notices the unsteadiness she doesn’t seem to mind. Surely, she just appreciates the long-awaited ease of his affection. Your smile softens into something more sentimental.  This version of him is your favorite, you think.

                  “Move.”

                  A gruff voice behind you.

                   You whip around, and Sevika is already pushing her way past you before you can ask what she’s doing. Her boots clomp across the floor, a discordant rhythm that makes the delicate quiet between Jinx and Silco flinch apart.

                  Both heads turn toward her – Jinx’s first, her eyes narrowing, mouth twisting in a way that suggests she might stick her tongue out at her. Silco’s gaze follows before it discovers you in the background, lingering in the doorway. He gives you a look you can’t read – he looks somewhat surprised to find you there. He’s cataloguing the fact that you had been standing at the entrance watching them. Watching him.

                  Sevika doesn’t notice this. Or doesn’t care. She steps close to him, leaning down slightly, her voice dropping into a low register meant for his ears only. You can’t make out the words, but you hear the grit in them, the way she’s spitting out details like she’s reporting casualties from a battle.

                  Silco listens without interrupting, his profile angled toward her, shadows cutting the lines of his face sharper. You see the twitch at the corner of his jaw, the familiar “Hm” rumbling low in his throat – measured, but steeped in irritation. Then, he raises an eyebrow.

                  It’s not often you see him surprised. Or, as surprised as such a stone-faced man would allow himself to appear. It was such a small reaction, but any reaction at all succeeding in breaking across his face means something big must have happened.

                  Jinx swivels back toward her workbench with exaggerated force, the stool squealing in protest against the floorboards. She starts fidgeting with her hands and muttering something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like stinky old ham.

                  The warmth that had been blooming in the room a minute ago is cooling fast. You feel it in the way her shoulders stiffen and the rapid, clipped movements of her hands.

                  Sevika’s exchange winds down, and she steps back to await Silco’s response. Only he doesn’t respond – not right away. His gaze drifts to the butterfly resting on the benchtop, and then, briefly, to Jinx’s downturned head.

                  When he finally speaks, it’s not to Sevika. “I’ll return later, child,” he says to Jinx, his voice softer than before.

                  It stops her for just a heartbeat. “You better,” she responds quietly.

                  He presses a hand firmly against the table as he tries to stand. He manages it well – you’re not sure you would have noticed the slight buckling of his knee if you hadn’t known to look for. It. His strength is improving every day, but it’s still unclear if it will ever return to what it was. His coat settles around him like armor.

                  You catch the faintest flicker in his expression – a tiny loosening, like he’s reluctant to let the moment vanish entirely. But it’s gone almost as soon as you witness it.

                  And then, as he exits with some intervention and assistance from Sevika, his attention flicks past you again. His eyes catch yours for just the briefest moment. It’s not an apology, not even really an acknowledgment, but there’s something in it that is far less hostile than before.

                  When they’re gone, Jinx exhales hard, like she’s been punched in the stomach. You get closer to her and begin to pick up on her mutterings illuminating how much she hates Sevika.

                  You smile softly and sadly. “I know.”

                  You stare at her for a beat before asking, “But was that good, at least? Did you enjoy that time with him?”

                  She raises her head but not enough to look at you directly. “Yeah,” she sighs. “He was cool, for once. Not so lame.”

                  A muted laugh huffs from your nose. You tuck a strand of loose blue hair behind her ear. “Hey, that’s something.”

                  She points across the room. “And he said he would use it – the chair. I think he just didn’t want to in front of the girl-ogre.”

                  You nod. Both of you look at the wheelchair and then back at each other before a small laugh escapes you. “He’d do well to use it,” you say with no small amount of sass. Jinx smiles sheepishly before a laugh escapes from her, too. It’s fun to make fun of Silco.

                  “Did you manage to catch what she said, by the way? Why’d he make that face?” You ask Jinx.

                  She rubs at her nose. “Apparently there’s been others. Like, two more people got poisoned or something. A Finn and a…er, a Smidge?”

                  “Smeech?” You question.

                  “Yeah, that guy.” She snaps her fingers and points at you as though to emphasize how correct your guess was. “They both got all, like, froze-up is what Sevika said. Like Silco.”

                  You imagine your eyes have been blown out to the size of saucers now. “Woah,” you say as you place your hands up your hips. “That’s kind of huge. I thought Finn had done it to Silco.”

                  “Is Finn the guy with the jaw-thing?”

                  “Yeah, that weird golden shit? Yep,” you respond. “He…gods, I really thought he did it. Silco too, probably.”

                  “Why? What made him suspicious?” Jinx readjusts herself on her seat and peers into you like she’s properly intrigued. She’s been kept in the dark this entire time, you realize.

                  “Well for one he tried to proposition me - he wanted me to become a mole. He’s slimy,” You make a weird face to accentuate how slimy you think Finn is.

                  Jinx frowns, not really weighted by this. In hindsight, graduating from attempting to hire a spy to commandeering the usage of a potent neurotoxin is quite the jump. “They’re all slimy,” She eventually notes.

                  “I know,” you shrug. “There’s no shortage of people that wanted to. But who could have? I just feel like it can’t be easy to get ahold of something that could do, you know, what it did.”

                  You find yourself wanting to ramble more and exchange theories with Jinx like you’re detectives on a case, but you stop yourself. Jinx’s intelligence and frankness coupled with the trauma that aged her make it easy to forget what she is – a child. A child should be shielded from these things as much as possible.

                   She remains deep in thought, though, spinning one of the loose gears on the bench with her fingertip. It starts to wobble as it loses speed and then falls over. “I get the feeling it’s someone we’re not thinking of.” She ponders aloud.

                  You blink. “What do you mean?”

                  “I…don’t quite know.” Her brows furrow and her eyes dart from left to right as she tries to add things up in her head. “It’s just my gut telling me.” She shakes her head like she feels foolish having said that.

                  “No, no.” You affirm her, “Your gut could very well be right.” You find yourself pivoting, your eyes drawn to the window as though you need to train your gaze beyond it and glower at all of Zaun. Silco’s enormous idealist undertaking becomes more and more symptomatic of being impossible every day, it feels like. This isn’t the first time you’ve wondered if he bit off more than he could chew. How he overtook the Lanes with a laundry list of enemies and only a handful of friends is beyond you.

                  “You know that’s another way that you’re similar,” Jinx’s lips are curling into a smirk. “The theatrics. Looking out the window like you’re acting in a play.”

                  You whirl back around to face her. “I am not theatrical. I am methodical, and I was thinking.”

***

                  Six nights pass, with five of them having been largely spent in the library. This seventh night is no different, and the room is splendidly quiet save for the soft hiss of gas lamps and the faint hum of the Drop bleeding through the walls. You pray that the external quiet will manage to seep through the portals of your mind and quiet it.

                  You’ve tucked yourself into a far corner, a fresh book open across your lap. Lately, you’ve managed to scrape together a meager interest in fiction. You’re quite happy with your current choice, The Pauper’s Will. It’s as grim and unflinching as the world around you, and though part of you thinks you ought to crave something lighter, you can’t tear yourself away. The story winds itself up in such a manner that it commands your full attention.

                  And you need your attention drawn away - from your surroundings, your thoughts, your qualms and all else desperately. Because the last few nights were spent reading something else, reading what you knew you shouldn’t have been. Devoutly ingraining within your mind those words. His words.

                  The books with his writings in them sit on the side table adjacent to you. They beckon you from their station. But you fight the urge to open them again, knowing that reading them just feels like a punch in the gut. A blow that overwhelms and terrifies you. More worrying still is the undercurrent of thoughts that are yearning for more snippets of his mind.

                   You continue to progress through The Pauper’s Will until your eyelids start to feel heavy. It surprises you how much you have to fight to keep them open. Sleep has evaded you for weeks now, and though the fatigue is evidenced by the circles beneath your eyes, the next nights were always still guaranteed to consist of tossing, turning, and the sound of your own heart pounding in your ears. Worries and anxieties threatening to jump up your throat. The sore and tired jaw that clenches and threatens to grind your teeth to dust.         

                  But you find yourself drifting off, your head drooping, your chin meeting the roof of your chest. You sigh to yourself almost contentedly. Could this be the night that you rest well?

                  You think back to the time you were recovering from the blast all those months ago, and your consciousness embodied a boat that rocked with each mild wave. In and out, up and down, graceful in the way it never showed any preference for one or the other. You wish that kind of sleep would take hold of you again.

                  You set the novel down, deciding that you are willing to give it a try. Proper sleep. You pad silently through the halls of The Drop and return to the room that still feels foreign to you after all this time. Your heart aches for your old apartment. It was your own, and it contained a myriad of tools and trinkets that could remind you of who you were if you forgot. This place…the modest bed, the old wooden dresser…they offer no answers.

                  And as you start to fade into rest, you can’t help but think of Silco. You’re too tired now to fight off the course your mind insists is natural to take. You can see yourself stooping down in front of him, the wreckage of the office a torrent spiral around the wheelchair. And you see him in front of you, bracing himself against the side of his desk. You can see the room so vividly in your mind, and the gaze of your memory lands on one of the ashtrays Jinx had crafted for him. You pop an eye open, remembering that she had made a similar one for you – a kind of welcoming gift after you were relocated here from Singed’s lab. You spot it atop the dresser where you had left it, and catching a glimpse of her streaks and markings is comforting. The final thought you have that lulls you to sleep is wondering if you could enlist her to produce more décor for this space…what wonders she could do in here with her paints…to brighten it all up a bit…

***

                  You wake up after some time with all the somatic evidences of having had a nightmare – the sweat that drenches you, the heart that hounds you, the tremors that destabilize you. You sit up and try for a moment to recall what you had dreamt about. Flashes of Silco respond, along with a shadowy figure that lingers behind him, but the remainder of the sequence eludes you.  

                  But even after you reconcile reality with having had a bad dream, there’s a harrowing feeling that doesn’t abandon you. And at first, you attribute the panic to merely being a remnant of what you endured in your subconscious.

                  Until it hits you. You left the books behind. His books.

                  Your stomach drops.

                  The library feels a both a hallway and a lifetime away at once. You swallow and try to reassure yourself that it would be fine to go and silently retrieve them. The longer you sit in bed, clammy and trembling, the worse the certainty grows that someone will find them before you. Someone coming on his behalf to collect them just like before, or worse, Silco himself, returning to survey his territory. The thought of his mismatched eyes raking over those pages and knowing you had been rifling through them makes you want to crawl out of your skin.

                  Although, he’s had to have realized it by now. It’s nearly been a week since you pilfered them from his desk. He spent no small amount of time reading and analyzing not just the books themselves, but you. It’s not something he would miss.

                   You never should have taken them, never should have had the epiphany about him that you did, but it’s too late for that now. There’s no time to psychoanalyze yourself and agonize over why you even put yourself in this position.

                  You throw the sheets aside and launch yourself from the bed.

                  The walk back feels like sneaking through a haunted house. Like someone is looming in the dark and waiting to catch you in the act. When you finally ease the library door open, easing your way inside, the lamps still burn low, their hiss filling the silence. Relief flickers through you and warms your lungs at the sight of the books. They’ve remained neatly stacked on the side table where you left them, waiting for you like guilty conspirators.

                  You stride toward them, already forgetting the rehearsed explanations you had started to brainstorm now knowing you won’t have to recite them.

                  But a voice cuts across the quiet.

                  “Come back for them, did you?”

                  You jolt. Silco is there – you hadn’t seen him at first, seated in one of the tall-backed chairs at the far end of the room, half-consumed by shadow. A glass of amber liquor and its accompanying bottle sit  at his side, and his gaze is fixed unblinkingly on you.

                  Your pulse scrambles into your throat as you try to decide on a course of action, of attitude. You don’t know what to think. Had he come in here to decompress and happened upon them, come to his own conclusions, or had he stalked in here hunting for them, knowing they were missing since the moment they were taken?

                  His form shifts mere inches forwards - creeping from the shadows, fully revealing himself now, and you realize it’s no armchair he’s sat in, but Jinx’s that she crafted for him. You suck a breath in, and the panic subsides for the smallest of time increments realizing that he made good on his promise to her. But the panic quickly returns now that you can also better make out the severe expression on his face.

                  This panic is exacerbated as you become acutely aware that in your haste, you left your room in your sleep attire - barefoot and pantsless, donning only your nightshirt. Goosebumps spur across your skin. You’d do anything to not be in this situation. A time machine would be nice.

                  And it seems you both were slow to process the other, so charged at first by the energies of confrontation. He takes you in. Realizes your appearance and seemingly matches your level of chagrin. His blackened eye seems to glow and then fade ashamedly in the dimness, and he bristles, the wheelchair creaking softly as he awkwardly shifts his weight. And it could be the warm glow of the lamplight, but you would swear that a blush has bloomed across his cheeks. It’s like you took the wind out of his sails, and a fresh embarrassment unique from you having read his private thoughts begins to burn hot.

                  You’d never imagined you’d be able to make him look so shy and…almost stricken.

                  He blinks, seeming to snap out of it. He turns and appraises the glass beside him as though he completely forgot it was there before grabbing it and taking a long, hearty swig from it. His mouth twists just the slightest bit as it burns down his throat.

                  Then he tilts his head as he notices your slow, reluctant approach, but he won’t look at you outright. You feel a rush of adrenaline, a warmth emanating from your core. You’re not sure why, and you wonder if it’s some kind of mild delight from feeling like you have the upper hand in an encounter with him. For once.

                  Not to say that fear doesn’t still linger within you. A palpable amount. You sit down on a couch across from him, much like when you first encountered him in this room. Only before you didn’t have to pay so much mind towards keeping your legs pressed together.

                  He’s silent, still. It’s weird how locations seem to impact people’s behavior – the office, the setting of his work, seems to bring out the worst in him. And here, he seems worlds more human. And it’s no different now, as you watch the apple of his throat bob when he swallows. A tale of two Silcos.

                  Silco sets his glass down with deliberate precision, the soft clink sounding enormous within the quiet room. He reaches for the bottle – scotch – and refills it, but he doesn’t drink again immediately.

                  You wonder if he had spiraled when he realized the books were missing. You imagine his veins popping out from his forehead and his hair escaping its careful styling. His rage. But perhaps it was subdued. Another one of his telltale grunts before quietly but determinedly making his way down here.

                  Afraid to speak, you keep picking apart the scene in front of you as though that will protect you or put him on pause.

                  Is it not odd to drag hard liquor with you to a library? Has he already been drinking, or only just now begun?

                  Then he finally speaks, his gaze still averted. “You read them.”

                  He says it grimly and with finality, bleeding with disappointment. And even though the vulnerability is more his than yours this time around, you still feel exposed. You become hyperaware of the cool air against your exposed legs, of how the thin fabric of your nightshirt seems insufficient armor for this encounter.

                  His gaze finally meets yours properly, though you catch the way it darted away briefly at first. Then his humility fades and he gives you a strong, almost clinical look. “What did you think? When you read them?”

                  You shake your head lightly, unsure of what to say. You won’t share how you’d wanted to scream and cry and vomit all at once. You utter softly, “I didn’t think you paid much attention,” with the quiet implication that you now realize he does.

                  This prompts him to take another swig. “I don’t understand you,” he huffs, “and…perhaps I was trying to.”

                  You don’t miss the gravity of this admission. But still you sit up slightly, feeling a small swell of indignance jolt its way through you. “I don’t understand you, either. As much as I try to piece you together.”

                  He nods, and squints as he appears to enter deep thought, ruminating. It seems he still doesn’t intend to help you understand.

                  Enough time stretches on for you to start to wonder if you ought to leave now, while you have the chance. Since he’s seemingly settled on not being weird about the books. Or…any weirder than this.

                  But your feet stay cemented in place. You almost want to reach out with your pointer finger and touch him, confirm that he’s real. He doesn’t feel so distant now. Your mind latches on the memory of a few days ago, him and Jinx, the two sat side-by-side.

                  You can’t ignore the tender pang in your heart.

                  You find it odd that now is the point that the feeling nagging at you finally breeches the iron defenses you erected in your mind.

                  You care about him. You have love for him. You love him. Against your better judgement, despite everything, you love him. And it runs disgustingly deep within you. Cascading rivers and torrents of it.

                  The air in your chest starts to burn now that you’ve finally admitted it to yourself. You start to fidget, blinking rapidly and bouncing your leg as you try in vain to calm back down. Such a feat is impossible – falling in love with a villain like Silco is sure to instill panic in anyone. Your walls are collapsing if they hadn’t already long ago.

                  Your gaze flicks to the side table. “Mind if I get some of that?” You gesture towards the bottle.

                  He blinks. “I didn’t peg you as a scotch drinker,” he says, but he refills the glass before passing it to you.

                  You’re not a scotch drinker. You much prefer whiskey. But such matters seem highly trivial to you now.

                  “I’m a scotch drinker tonight,” you announce. You drink it halfway empty. The scotch fights back, but you best it in keeping it down.

                  And he laughs the softest of laughs.

                  The alcohol leaves a trail of warmth that spreads through your chest before pooling comfortably in your stomach. It’s harsh, but you find the bite of it grounding somehow. Like it makes this moment feel more modest and manageable.

                  “That’s good stuff,” you mutter and rub anxiously at your lips, twisting them and prodding at them before stopping, realizing you must look stupid right now.

                  He gives you a long look. An awkward pause passes before he lamely offers, “I only buy the best.”

                  He looks almost as uncomfortable as he did when you gifted him that stupid tie. When you got so close to him and…

                  ...these aren’t the kinds of thoughts you should be having right now.

                  You take another long sip but don’t quite manage to polish the glass off. It dawns on you that you should probably pace yourself. You’re not the kind of frequent drinker that could hold their own with a sailor anymore, and you never quite managed to regain all your weight back after the blast. Your troublesomely high tolerance for alcohol has probably abandoned you, having slugged off your shoulders just like the suit and the rest of your dignity did.

                  But the remainder of the scotch looks a little sad slinking around in the glass as you swirl it around, and you grimace after tilting your head back to swallow it.

                  Something almost resembling a smirk disturbs Silco’s lips before he asks, “More?”

                  “No,” you say before slowly puffing air out from your cheeks and rubbing your clammy palms against your knees. “Just give me a moment.” You squeeze your eyes shut briefly as if that will erase the feeling. Mistake. Just like everything else – mistake.

                  His good eye narrows at you but it’s filled with amusement. “You’re not a scotch drinker,” he says plainly.

                  You shake your head with more enthusiasm than you meant to. “No, I’m not.”

                  A small laugh escapes him again. “That’s alright.”

                  He says it so softly and assuredly. That churns your stomach far more violently than the scotch.

                  He holds his hand out expectantly and you acquiesce to passing him the glass back, your fingertips brushing against his just slightly when you do. He restores the glass to fullness but only takes a small sip from it this time. He presses his lips together, sets the glass down and clears his throat.

                  “I’ve spoken with Sevika,” he says evenly, “and I recanted what I previously said about you.” He pulls his leg up and crosses it flat across the other, assuming a more guarded posture.

                  You scoff, “Then we’ll soon be disgustingly close. Almost like sisters, I imagine.”

                  “Hm.” He replies. He didn’t like that response. He’s not used to, in any regard, admitting to any wrongdoings. He’s so infuriatingly stubborn, and you wonder if he expected you to shower him with gratitude for having done the bare minimum. That is, finally telling the truth after inventing a particularly insulting lie.

                  Asshole. But the warmth in your chest and your stomach refuses to subside. Worse, you had known that would be the case.

                  You can feel him scrutinizing you intensely from his station across from you. You settle on avoiding his gaze and picking at the hem of your nightshirt instead. You’re at war with it – trying to pull it down, get it closer the tops of your knees, recover a modicum of modesty. But it defiantly rises again and again up your thighs, bunching up towards your hips. You’ve been pressing your knees so firmly together this entire time that your leg muscles are growing tired. You pray he doesn’t notice how they’ve started to waver. This, the roar of your anxieties, and the chill air of the night have made you start to shake and shiver.

                  You think the alcohol might be starting to make quick work of you. Not enough to make you drunk, but it’s sufficient to blur your senses a bit. The pleasant tingling at the base of your neck might just hijack your brain stem, make you say things you shouldn’t. 

                  Things like what you say after raising your head enough to get the slightest glimpse of his flat and seemingly unfeeling expression. “You know,” you start, “There’s this word. A –“ You break into a snide laugh and fight to gather yourself before continuing. “- A good one. I think it starts with an ‘S’.”

                  He catches on quickly. You watch his face flood with annoyance, his frown lines deepening, cavernous. “Watch yourself.” But the words carry no bite.

                  A smile spreads from ear to ear. “I can’t quite think of it right now. My memory is foggy, I think you say something like ‘sor-‘ something? I’m not sure.”

                  His lips thin into a blade’s edge. For a moment, you think he might lash out – say something cruel, cutting, anything to make you regret this. Instead, he exhales sharply through his nose, like a man conceding ground he swore he’d never give.

                  “I’m sorry.” His hand flexes against the arm of the chair, tendons standing out starkly.

                  You nod, unsure what to do now in the face of an unexpected victory. “Thanks.”

                  He bristles. You try to reign yourself in, focusing on watching the way the lamplight catches the sharp angles of his face and listening to his fingers drumming against the armrest of the wheelchair. He swallows. “You have a talent for making me feel foolish.”

                  His gaze holds yours, steady and unblinking, though you can see a kind of nervous tension in every line of his body. “You make me remember things I thought I’d forgotten. Ways of being that I…” He trails off, shaking his head. He shifts uncomfortably. “…thought would always belong to the past.”

                  You stare back at him, hoping to prompt him to continue. His strong gaze breaks, splitting into muted, pained fragments as he reaches for his glass again, but he doesn’t drink from it. He just holds it, using it as something to focus on other than your face. A wild conflict seems to brew within him, and you wonder with no small amount of dread if it’s the same one that you face.

                  You feel more exposed than ever before. Softer, and so mind-numbingly sensitive in your heart. You hardly recognize yourself. You’re touched by humor at the thought of how disgusted a past version of yourself would be with you now. Somehow, that makes you feel more emboldened. Free. A growing sentiment that there’s nothing left to lose.

                  “You’ve changed me, too.” You admit. “More than I can properly express.” The softness with which you said it doesn’t make it feel any less brazen. Bizarre, even. But through it all, Jinx’s innocent little encouragements fade into your mind, acting like a salve against any embarrassment or common sense that might start to crop up.

                  For a moment, Silco’s face contorts, almost agonized. Then he forces himself to relax the muscles in his face, wipe his expression blank, whilst his body still carries such exacerbated stiffness. Every muscle taut and tense. His left hand violently unstable. The silence grows thick with all the things neither of you know how to say. You try to steady your breathing, focus on the warm prickle of scotch in your chest, the way your hands won’t stop nervously twitching in your lap. You can’t help but notice the rate at which his chest rises and falls – his breath’s constant quickening.

                  Now, frustration begins to bleed into him. At himself, at you, at the world entire. His eyes trace the rim of the glass. You watch the careful calculations happening behind his eyes. But for once, he doesn’t seem to be weighing risks and benefits. He seems to be trying to understand something about himself. You watch his lips part like he might speak, but he opts to drink instead. In a break from his normal polished air, he wipes his mouth unceremoniously with the back of his hand. 

                  Silco’s voice comes out gruff, colored with strain. The pace of his sentiments almost hurried and fraught. “I’ve fought you at every turn, I’ve pushed you away countless times. Admonished myself for wanting to get involved in this. In you. But my mind has seized on you, and I don’t sleep.”

                  Your heart pounds against your rib cage. You can hardly hear anything besides it thrumming in your own ears. All you can do is sit there and feel like a moth drawn to flame.

                  His jaw works, the muscles there twitching as if the honesty physically taxed him. He holds your gaze in a way that makes your stomach twist painfully, and the fear that should have accompanied you before starts to make itself known. His eyes adopt a desperate look.

                  “I want you near to me, always,” he says gravely. Like asking such a thing is tantamount to sacrificing your life for him. Maybe it is. But really, how different would that be from what you’ve already done?

                  You nod slowly, and then duck your head down to nod once more with more finality, solemnity. Your bare feet feel like two blocks of ice against the cool wooden floor. Your fingertips have lost their color. Your throat feels tight, and the distance between you feels both vast and nonexistent.

                  You know that you want to confirm him, reciprocate somehow – more than anything, actually. A hunger that needs to be satiated. But it grows more obvious with each passing second that your lips fail to produce any words that you don’t have the vocabulary to do so. All you know is the vague, double entedre-filled language the two of you invented and devotedly practiced. The small meanings inside bigger ones that you worked so hard to pinpoint and decode.

                  You look up at him. His face is flat, but you recognize the effort it takes him to make it so. Despite everything he’s just said, he’s still working considerably to maintain some semblance of nonchalance, impartiality. Bracing for you to reject him, maybe. But his black eye is decidedly on fire, betraying him.

                  It leaves you wondering what to communicate. What to confess?

                  “I don’t sleep either,” you whisper. It’s leaden and heavy, weighed down by the implications of what prevents you from doing so. But it’s all you can manage to say, in response to him, me too.

                  This registers with him. He sucks in a small breath before promptly releasing it and readily homing a swig of scotch. It’s hard to tell if you provided him relief or the opposite.

                  Maybe you’d laugh at him if you weren’t equally aghast. You’re not any better than him at this, definitely not like you’d fancied yourself to be in the past.  That much was clear now. You’re - in this moment at least - almost more guarded than even he is. You come to the conclusion that Silco realized and came to terms with how he felt far sooner than you did. Which was realistically only moments ago.

                  More silence stretches between you, elastic and charged. It’s almost oppressive, but you enjoy the way it presses in on you.

                  His shoulders hold themselves rigid despite the wheelchair’s support. The scotch seems to have loosened his tongue but tightened everything else about him.

                  “This is not a conversation I anticipated having tonight.” He says eventually, with frankness that refreshes him despite how exhausted he looks. He clears his throat.

                  You let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t think either of us ever anticipated any of this.”

                  His gaze finds yours again, and there’s something almost vulnerable in the way he’s looking at you – like he’s seeing you for the first time, or perhaps allowing himself to see what was always there. The lamplight catches the planes of his face, softening the harsh angles that usually make him look so ominous and untouchable.

                  He’s beautiful. Violently so. Enveloping all the restless energy of a man who has bared too much. It’s a strange, fragile thing.

                  He exhales, long and shaky, and then, slowly, reaches across the small gap between you. His hand hovers, not quite touching, waiting for you. You feel the urge to pull away, to hide, to forget, but you don’t. Instead, you raise your hand toward his, palm up, and his fingers close around yours. Both of your hands are cold and clammy and shaking. The contact zings through you, the physical reaction it elicits too embarrassing to you to dwell on.

                  You squeeze, and he squeezes back.

                  A hundred things crowd your mind – questions, regrets, more confessions you’re not ready to make. But for now, you let yourself have this small moment: the two of you together, the world outside momentarily held at bay.

                  You let out a small laugh, and his eyes jerk up towards yours. You see a lot of things in his eyes – confusion, anger, hurt – as he briefly thinks you’re laughing at him.

                  Quickly, you say, “And if Sevika were to see us now?”

                  He pauses briefly to assess your hands intertwined, your apparent lack of clothing, the lateness of the hour. He laughs. A true laugh. You’d never heard him laugh like that before, but you think you might do just about anything to hear it again.

Chapter Text

                  Jinx’s intelligence has a way of making you feel like there’s nowhere to hide, not even in the deepest recesses of your own mind. Sweet as the girl is, she picks up on everything – adept to the point of almost being intrusive.

                  Maybe you’re underestimating how oafish and obvious you can be. You make an effort to hide yourself away, but it seems your emotions still manage to seep out onto your face, tense up your shoulders, make you pick at the dead skin on your hands. You’ve begrudgingly accepted that your heart is worn on your sleeves more often than not nowadays. Maybe the way she’s looking at you right now is really your fault, not hers.

                  Gods.

                  She seems to read even these thoughts straight through the pores of your forehead. Her cheeky grin grows wider.

                  “Something’s different about you,” the twinkle in her eye shining ever more brightly. “A funky kind of different. You feel…prickly, like usual, mm, but almost…glow-y.”

                  You’d like to think it’s just the lack of sleep you suffered that she’s noticing, despite a term like “glow-y” being used. A night lying awake thinking about Silco wears lines into your face and puffs up your eyebags like nothing else. You play dumb, averting her gaze to investigate some paint splats on her workbench. “Yeah?”

                  She crosses her arms, amping up her moxie. “Yeah.”

                  The silence stretches on for what feels like eons. She seems to think the lack of talking on her part will make you feel inclined to fill the gap.

                  You laugh uncomfortably, unnerved by how attuned she is to you. Because you do feel like you have to talk. You shake your head and start to pick at a dried speck of paint with your fingernails.

                  “I’m tired.” A truth. The paint flecks off. You can still see her staring intensely from the corner of your eye and riposte her prying eyes with a dramatic, performative yawn, arms stretching out like lazy tree branches.

                  She doesn’t buy it, rolling her eyes and jabbing a finger playfully into your midsection, making you double over. You abandon the yawn to yelp, “Ow! Don’t do that.”

                  Now, you yawn again, genuinely this time since she interrupted your last one and it left your lungs unsatisfied. At this, she drops the suspicious expression on her face to laugh raucously at you.

                  She laughs in the way only Jinx can – sharp, unrestrained, a little wild around the edges. Chuckles come out as sheer, almost whistling barks. They echo off the cluttered shelves and half-finished gadgets, reverberating further in your brain. You can’t help but smile. The kid deserves to have a good laugh, even if it’s at your expense. Even if it makes you feel like more of an idiot than usual.

                  She starts to collect herself, and her expression softens, just a fraction. Almost like she pities you in all your hapless, semi-lovestruck buffoonery. Then she cocks her head at you, suddenly tensed up again like she’s moments away grabbing your head and shaking the information she wants out of you. She leans back decisively against the workbench, pointing a wagging finger up at you. “You know what I think?”

                  You give her a long look. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

                  “I think,” she continues, ignoring your attitude, “something happened…with… Silco.” She pushes herself off the workbench from her elbows, poised apprehensively, squinting and scanning you for your reaction to the mere mention of his name.

                  You continue to stare back at her blankly, not wanting to betray the brief flutter in your chest that you felt at the recall of memories she triggered. You really need a friend around here to confide in. One that you can go to about all of this, one who’s not a child and also not his daughter.

                  She taps her chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Yes, yes.” Pretending to twirl an imaginary mustache. Scratching at her temple.

                  This kid.

                  “What was it that happened with him, hm?  Fancy tellin’ me?”

                  You open your mouth, then close it again. You brain almost dumped all of it onto your tongue, like it was as natural as water pooling onto a shoreline. He crowds your mind to the point you almost can’t hold him anymore. Silco’s eyes catching yours with something human in them. The way his hand trembled against yours before stilling. The memory feels both tender and unbearable.

                  You shake your head as if to clear it. “Nothing happened, Jinx. Not everything’s a mystery to solve.” A forced and wary smile.

                  She smirks, unconvinced. “Liar, liar. Paint can supplier. You’re all scrambled. You’re all mush and weird and egg.”

                  “Egg?” You ask quizzically.

                  “Egg. Real egg-y.” She confirms.

                  You sigh, exasperated. “Whatever that means, Jinx.” You put your hands on your hips. “You know, you’re really too smart for your own good.”

                  “Yeah,” she says, winking. “He says that, too.”

                  You swallow hard. Something about that strikes a chord and you don’t even know exactly why.

                  You’re about to say something – something that might be the start of a desperate line of questioning about him, or maybe a confession if you can’t get ahold of yourself – when a sharp knock echoes from the metal door. Jinx jerks upright, instantly alert.

Sevika remains behind the door, faceless, but her voice carries through. “He wants you.”

Jinx starts to slink off of her stool, and you pat her shoulder as she does. “See you later, girl.”

“No.” Sevika’s voice dripping with annoyance. “You. The Engi-Nanny.”

You and Jinx exchange a look. Hers is thrilled. Yours…isn’t.

Then your head springs back up in the direction of the door. You blink once, twice. Unsure of it and him despite recent developments. “Me?”

Sevika’s answer is a long and dramatic sigh, like your mere existence is burdensome.

You can feel that Jinx’s eyes never left you, her grin blooming wider by the second. “Oooooooh,” she croons. “He wants you. Just you.”

You point a half-hearted warning finger at her as you pass as if she would ever take the severe expression on your face seriously. She mimes zipping her lips, but she keeps giggling the whole path you take out of the room. You can still hear her laughter down the hall, her apparent joy popping after you like fireworks.

                  “Something happen I should know about?” She asks, turning her head to the side slightly, just enough for you to catch a glimpse of her frustrated, taut lips over her shoulder. Jinx’s attitude doesn’t help to dispel the lie, of course, her giddiness only fuels it.

                  Knowing it’s not any business of hers, you happily say, “No.”

                  “Sure,” she says dryly, her tone making it clear she doesn’t believe you. But she leaves it at that, the invisible boundary drawn by Silco recognized but sure to never be verbally acknowledged. You kind of loathe that part – the way she feels like a dog on a leash, and the way you feel like a porcelain doll kept high up in a tower. You’d almost prefer to be the dog. At least you would still be vicious, and not just precious. It’s something you’ve lamented to Silco before, back in the early days, the pressing feeling of having somehow lost your identity. You know how tightly you bound your identity to the Engineer, but you’re still lost on what to tether it to instead. Is that even how you should go about it? Or are you supposed to ebb and flow, a floating personality?

                  You feel halfway like you’ve latched onto Jinx and realize it probably can’t be healthy. For her to be emotionally dependent on you, fine. But it shouldn’t be reciprocated. You have a responsibility to reign yourself in as an adult and as her caretaker. Yet, it’s like once you started to feel things, you couldn’t help but bleed them. You can’t staunch the flow, and the blood is getting everywhere. You bleed on her, and Silco, too. You just bleed.

                  Sevika seems to register that you were deep in thought about something and bristles, rolling her shoulders as she walks like her back is sore.

                  You can’t help but be acutely annoyed by her presence. She makes you feel belittled without speaking a word, naked without your mech suit from the past. “Do you really have to escort me? I know where his office is,” you huff.

                  “You wanna bitch about it, tell Silco.” She barks back, continuing her long strides straight ahead. “He’s paranoid. Thinks you and the girl could be next.”

You already knew that. You’d have to be blind to have missed the towering ogres he’d stationed to loom over you and Jinx at every turn. A house full of silent sentries that filled the room with their stature and dread like armed elephants.

                  You feel the same cold pinpricks on the back of your neck and the same taste of blood in your mouth you always feel when something deeply disturbs you. You feel a bit nauseated. It gets old quickly, having a constant threat looming over you and the two people you care about most.

                  You try to brush it off. You reach the office and Sevika knocks, then opening the door before you have a chance to decide on who you’ll be this time, what mask to where for this encounter.

The more your feelings intensify, the more off-balance you are. And it feels dangerous to be shaken around Silco. In your sick mind, you think that might be part of the appeal. All you know is uncertainty, instability, a constant push-and-pull, a waxing and waning of your sanity – and that’s exactly what he provides.

He feeds the worst parts of you sometimes.

But it feels better to rot than to starve.

You step inside and are frustrated by how you can feel your cheeks flush with heat. It feels risky to have your emotions conquer you so quickly when you’re almost certain he’s reverted into himself and quashed his yet again.

The room is dim, the lamplight pooled in familiar islands: the wheelchair, the desk, the bookshelf. He is there, as you knew he would be, angled toward the sickly green window that is the unsettling focal point of the room. He’s stable as he stands, but you know his steps would still be jumbled and wavering if he tried to take them. The celadon aura of the window casts his pale skin into ghoulishness. But his gaze is not outside. It’s on you – watching you enter. He blinks, and the light hits in a way that you can see his eyelashes fanning out over his good eye. It might be the only delicate feature about him. The only one that doesn’t remind you of thunderstorms and wrought iron.

You walk across the room and stop where you usually stop, behind where he stands now near the arm of his throne of a desk chair. Where you stop whenever you’ve been summoned. Beckoned. That aspect made you akin to Sevika, at least – always being called on like a dog. And like a dog, loyal despite gnashed teeth, you always come.

You blink hard for a second, wondering why you’re suddenly so angry when butterflies swooned circles around your insides only moments ago. It’s almost a pleasant trade-off from being afraid all the time, but you have to consider that the anger could be your fear all the same. It dons many faces within you.

                  “You came,” he says. His voice is airy, like he wouldn’t have cared either way. But you know otherwise. Maybe he feared you’d run off in the night, unable to bear the weight of his attentions encroaching upon you.

                  “You asked for me.” You reply softly.

                  He looks at you earnestly now and wordlessly nods in a controlled, measured way. A robotic flick of his chin.

                  This is precisely what you anticipated might happen. Silco would inevitably experience discomfort, having allowed himself to experience any kind of closeness with you. The closeness you crave.

                  The closeness he craves.

                  But it contradicts everything he believes about himself, and now he retreats into his stifled, haughty awkwardness. Another icy cycle to endure. No matter how much you assure him, you’ll never wear him down enough to do it. To let you hold his heart in your hand – even if you rip yours from your ribcage first.

                  You search his face for the signs of the next avalanche. You wait for the first rocks to come cascading down before the whole foundation collapses in on itself. You wait for him to feel far away again, all fuzzy and fabled, his humanity the myth and his monstrosity the reality.

                  But, repetitive as this all is, it feels different this time. You look at him and feel like he’d melt if you just so carefully and diligently cranked up the heat.

                  “I’d like you to help me with something.” He says in a low voice. Then he squints in a way that you’d almost think was playful. “Though you didn’t seem to find it appealing last time.”

                  You freeze, dumbly, asking yourself what the hell he could mean. You can’t shake that this is all a concerted effort to make you feel like a pawn again. Like you never cradled his hand. Like you never knew his want. Renewed and reinforced square one.

                  His fear may endure long past your heart.

                  You watch him slide open a drawer in his desk and withdraw the unmistakable purple vial. The puzzle clicks into place, a picture of what he asks of you now crystal clear.

                  He holds it up between pointer finger and thumb, and you think he’s feigning how scrupulously he inspects it. Then you think yourself stupid for even conjuring up that thought, considering it was altered Shimmer that tortured and nearly killed him.

Is it really such a stretch that he could be genuine two times in a row? Do you dare think he won’t push you away again immediately?

                  You’re growing more like him by the moment – so defensive, so accusative and blind.

                  Your breath catches in your throat as he turns in the vial in his fingers, the liquid glinting its unnatural purple shrouded in cascading green light. It looks sinister in his hand – because it is, you suppose – and yet delicate, too, like even the glass is aware of what festers inside.

                  He doesn’t look at you yet. He lifts the vial slightly, then sets it carefully on the desk with a soft click. The scene is ritualistic.

                  “It must be administered now,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “I am…overdue.”

                  You nod slowly, unsure if he means medically or emotionally. Likely both.

                  He reaches into the drawer again, withdrawing the syringe now. He holds it in his palm like it disgusts him, and you recognize it as the same loathing look he’s given you on occasion. The disdain he has for dependence.

                  Then he finally lifts his gaze.

                  It hits you like a blow – the way his eye, the ruined, storming one already looks inflamed. It’s strain and irritation match his. And adjacently, his good eye watches you coldly, an assessment of you that’s cutthroat and clinical.

                  His gaze is so hardened and yet you start to realize what a risk he thinks he’s taking. To expose himself, to let you do this to him. It’s a leagues-different magnitude than just having let you witness it.

                  This is his closeness. The anger he bottles up and then draws you in to skate on like a razor’s edge.

                  “Jinx won’t do it anymore,” he says, voice unusually soft. “Not since the incident.” His jaw tenses. “She can’t.” He hesitates. “I won’t make her.”

                  You blink, surprised by the fleeting gentleness. The restraint.

                  He clicks the vial into place.

                  He sighs. “You will do it. You have steady hands.” He glances down at them, as do you. They’re covered in scars and mottled, burn-bludgeoned sleeves of skin. They look explosive, not steady.

                  “And,” he adds, quieter, eyes flicking away, “because…you don’t look at me like – “

                  He cuts himself off abruptly. But the unfinished thought lingers between you, heavy and warm and terrifying. It fills you.

                  You nod, almost solemnly, leaping past the moment before he can dwell on whether or not he’s confessed too much to you and punish himself – by punishing you.

“Give it to me,” you say calmly. Outstretched hand, truce.

He does, and it sends chills down your spine again when your fingers brush, just like the other night. Then he gives you a stiff, reluctant look before resigning himself to sinking down into the desk chair.

“How do you know this one is safe?” You ask. The question is genuine, but you can’t help but feel like you’re stalling.

“It hasn’t been pulled from one of my factories, like the other was. My dosages are now made privately, under the doctor’s direct supervision.” He answers, and while you don’t trust Singed all that much, you trust the confidence in Silco’s response.

The positioning is a bit awkward – you step in between his legs to get close enough. You peer into his face and he angles it up towards you but determinedly averts his eyes from yours, choosing instead to look at some obscure spot past you.

You start to angle the syringe toward him, summoning up the courage and some other feeling you can’t name. You think you might be trying to conjure up some more of the anger that was so plentiful before, because you know this will hurt him. Silco starts to brace himself. He clears his throat – soft, almost imperceptible, but it’s enough to betray his unease.

You hesitate for too long, and he castigates you, “Do it now.” His voice is so low and hushed and yet it leaves you more terror-stricken than if he had screamed in your face. His grip is white-knuckle on the arms of the chair, and you wonder if he’ll reflexively shove you away when you do it. But he would never have put Jinx in such a position, right?

You steel your resolve and tighten your grip on the syringe. Your left hand floats up to his face, and your thumb does a single caress above the line of his jaw. You swear you saw him suck in a breath at this. You hold him gently like an apology.

Then, you lower in the syringe and inject it in a single, swift motion before you can draw this out any longer.

His head jerks back like he’s been electrocuted, a single strangled, guttural sound escaping parted, curling lips. His body tenses and contracts in a manner so unnatural that you previously would have thought it impossible.

And then, as quickly as it came, it subsides. His shoulders restore themselves, sliding back down, and his fingers loosen their grip on the arms of the chair. His chest puffs, and he pants as his control returns.

He glides a hand through his hair, slicking it back into place, then pushes himself against the arms of the chair to straighten himself in it, grunting.

He swallows half of a heavy breath, almost gulping before he speaks, “You should…” His voice falters before he corrals it back into something more measured. “You should sit.”

You almost laugh at the absurdity. You should sit? After he just took a needle to the eye?

He pulls a command from thin air for you just so he can halter some authority. He’s back in charge, now.

You obey, lowering yourself into the chair opposite his desk, chucking the syringe onto the desk with no small amount of relief that it’s over. But it rolls across the desk and falls off, hitting the floor with a thud.

Silco makes no effort to hide his annoyance, looking up at you from the tops of his eyes like an owl about to swoop down onto you. And even though it landed right by his feet, he makes no effort to pick it up, either.

You sigh, pushing yourself up off the desk and walking around it to retrieve the syringe – along with the empty vial that popped out. You set it back on the desk, gentler this time, before sitting down again with added chagrin.

He wordlessly opens the desk drawer and sweeps the syringe inside. Then shuts it hard enough to make the chain on the desk lamp shake. For every clang the bobble on the end of the chain makes against the metallic stem of the lamp, your heart beats probably a hundred times each.

The room is unbearably quiet.

You puff out a long string of air impatiently, wanting desperately to return to Jinx now. In the hopes of understanding what the hell egg-y means, perhaps you’ll ask her if she finds you more egg now, or if you were more of an egg before. If your egg-ness has gone up, then surely egg is a bad thing.

                  Silco’s breathing eventually returns to a baseline right in time with the stilling of the chain. Though you know it’s not clanking anymore, you can still hear it pinging in your head. He exhales, slow and cutting. Not in pain – at least not anymore. In restraint.

                  He drags his fingertips along the edge of the desk, grounding himself, smoothing over whatever jagged piece of himself the pain unearthed. When he looks up at you, his face is polished stone. Hardened even when he flinches, smoothly wiping away a streaming purple rivulet from his cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’re dismissed.” He says suddenly, cutting the quiet.

You frown. “You told me to sit down.”

He practically snarls. “You seemed as though you might faint.”

Oh, fuck you.

“How considerate,” you mutter under your breath, because you don’t remember how to bite back your words anymore. Then, defensively, “I don’t remember you reacting so strongly the last time.”

He shakes his head, turning away from you. “My tolerance was altered by the poison.”

His fingers twitch on the desk, the slightest giveaway that your tone landed somewhere deeper than he wanted it to. He turns back to you to level you with a long, searching stare. The one he resorts to too often, as though he could peel back your skull and rifle through your thoughts just to make sure he has you where he wants you.

“You’re dismissed.” He says. Again.

                  You bite your lip before rising. This isn’t enough. Are you supposed to go about the rest of your day, and then go to bed alone again? Lay awake with nothing but him on your mind and not even be certain he has the capacity to so swallowed up by thoughts of you to do the same?

                  Maybe there’s only room enough in his soul for his daughter Zaun and his daughter saved.

                  “Will you come tonight? To the library?” You hear yourself asking before you can think it through.

                  He pauses mid-straightening a stack of papers. He doesn’t answer, but you see the fire that was ignited in his eyes and know that he will.

Chapter Text

                  You take a deep breath, and the familiar scent of old paper and wax fills your lungs. The Drop is quiet in the way only the late night can allow. You hear nothing besides the occasional muffled voice bleeding through the walls. You wish they would shut up. You need to think. But the Drop is seemingly always filled with throngs of people nowadays, and not just the drunks and the partygoers – new security detail, new assassins – even, you heard, a Pilty cop. Silco’s apparently been making calls on the Sheriff, whom he’s rumored to have no qualms about twisting the arm of.

                  Poor, poor Sheriff in the hot seat. But you don’t feel particularly sorry for a Pilty, especially a Pilty cop. Besides, there are worse fates. The other rumors you hear about Silco involve less twisting of arms and more crude amputating of them.

                  Sometimes, during periods when Jinx is exceptionally upset and unstable, you try to envision what it was like when Silco got hold of Pimor. The person you become when you’re exceptionally angry and defensive of her relishes the macabre imaginations. You regret having missed that whole ordeal, having nearly been blown to bits and all. A darker side of you wishes you could have participated. Getting your lick in, your mother would have called it.

                  You would have hurt him for Jinx, and you would have hurt him for your own interests, too. You’d have wanted to try and make him feel the pain you did – your skin scorched, your ribs broken, your body having to forge a new half of itself from pink, blistering nebula.

                  Practically everything about you was erased that night. You lost your career, your suit, your old face, your way of living, everything.

                  You’re not sure why you find yourself lamenting it now; you were miserable as the Engineer. But you suppose you do mourn a time when you felt strong and sure of what you were doing. Killing was elementary, it came like second-nature, and you gave no damns about blue-haired little girls or their angular, venomous fathers.

                  Gods, you’ve had these thoughts a thousand times. You get stuck ruminating on the same things, over and over. Before, you would have just drank these thoughts away.

                  Maybe, when Silco comes, he’ll have ventured to bring whiskey with him this time and not scotch. This makes you laugh a little bit, a forceful exhale through your nose. Then your smile deletes itself.

                  If Silco comes.

                  You were quite sure before, your excitement almost childlike. But if Silco follows his pattern, he’ll avoid you like a boxer dodging a punch.

                  You sink lower into the couch, your posture slumped. You splay your hands in your lap. You can’t help but scrutinize them severly. Purple, shining, gnarled-looking skin. It was only fitting that hands as fucked up as these were to deliver a serum so devious and debilitating as Shimmer.

                  The skin that pulls taut at your eye starts to tingle. You think your scars can sense when something big and precipitous is going to happen.

                  “May I come in?”

                  You jump, your shoulders flying up to your ears. “How do you move so silently?”

                  Silco stands in the doorway, the corner of his lip twitching upwards. “Hm. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

                  You hate the way the smug look on his face makes your heart stutter. “Yeah, whatever.”

                  You’re a bit shocked to realize he came without the wheelchair. Not much time has passed since he even acquiesced to its usefulness. His elbow is straightened out, his right hand – the one that doesn’t tremble – locked onto the derby handle of a cane. Wooden mahogany, golden tip. Exceedingly elegant, of course. He wouldn’t settle for anything less.

                  “Get that custom made, did you?” You ask as he starts to hobble across the room.

                  “There’s a rather competent carpenter not far from here,” he answers plainly.

You’re pleasantly surprised by how uninhibited he seems. And even if his strides are a bit awkward, he doesn’t seem to care. He’s come a long way. This is a man completely different from that one that threw a tantrum over a wheelchair. One that was a gift from the single person he loves most, no less.

                  You let out a long breath you didn’t realize you were holding, your pulse drumming its way up your neck behind the crook in your ear. It mutes him as he walks closer to you still, each footfall sharp and deliberate. You try to regain your composure.

                  His gaze flickers briefly to your hands in your lap – tense, calloused palms turned upward like you’re pleading with some higher power. “What were you thinking about?”

                  You blink. “What?”

                  He lowers himself slowly and deliberately, still reliant on the cane for support, still probably in pain, onto the couch besides you. The proximity makes your cheeks burn. “You seemed like you were deep in thought,” he clarifies.

                  You readjust yourself in your seat, straightening your spine. You waver for a moment before deciding to tell the truth. “My burns,” you answer quietly.

                  “Mm.” A soft nod. He pauses like he might inquire more about it, but abandons the idea, probably recognizing the loathing with which he would meet probing about his scars.

                  He must have been out and about before this – perhaps picking up the very cane he entered with – because he’s fully dressed, coat and all. He takes a moment to shed it, refusing your help even though he’s yet to recover full range of motion in his shoulders. You can tell he starts to get angry trying to shrug it off his shoulders, but it dissipates. He peels off his gloves. He scans his own hands for a moment before his eyes flick back to yours.

                  He reaches over and grabs one of them, holding it in his own lap. He looks at your hand with a kind of reverence as you try and fail to recall how to breathe.

                  “Almost miraculous, isn’t it?” He asks, unfurling your pointer finger from your palm and straightening it, before gently folding it back in.

                  “What is?” You can hardly spit out the question.

                  He ducks his chin in the slightest bit, plucking his hand from your lap and placing it on the cushion between you. “That you survived.”

                  Something in him in stutters. But he hides it by leaning back, crossing one leg over the other with practiced indifference. He looks absorbed now by the bookcase across the room, and his eyes darken.

                  You rub at your eye like you’re tired, but it’s really just an idling gesture. “The suit saved me, I suppose.”

                  He raises an eyebrow for a moment, considering it. “Pity it was lost.”

                  A beat. “And it’s true you had constructed yourself?’

                  You shift uncomfortably. “Yes. Do you doubt it?” You say it with more indignation than you had intended.

                  He balls up a fist and then releases it. “I don’t make a habit of doubting you. But it was a massive undertaking, I assume.”

                  “It took a long time. Lots of improvements, lots of repairs. Lot of time spent scavenging for parts.” You shrug like it’s nothing, though some naïve part of you still likes the idea of impressing him. “It wasn’t pretty.”

                  “We’re Trenchers,” he murmurs. “Function over form, always.”

                  You look over at his vest, unable to help admiring the leather, the buckles, the striping, the gold detailing. You huff a laugh. “Rich, coming from you.”

                  He rolls his eyes, uncrossing his legs, straightening a pant leg out where it had bunched up. “Sometimes the form is the function.”

                  You wonder what your look tells people. “Does my form have a function?”

                  At this he looks at you and blankly delivers, “You want to know what people see when they look at you.” A question posed like a statement. He seems to pick up on your insecurity, finds it questionable, annoying even, that you would care to know the thoughts of others. It makes sense, given that he deems nearly everyone he meets to be revoltingly unimportant. No one is anything if they’re not tied to the cause. Not even brothers.

                  You roll your eyes up from the detailing on his chest up to his lips, his eyes. You stare deeply. “Not people.” You say quietly, but not timidly. Words that corner him more than they feed off him.

                  This halts him. His good eye narrows, a suspicious sliver of blue. “Me.”

                  Your eyes slide back down to his lips. They’re so hauntingly close, taunting you in all their treachery and salaciousness. You want to trace a finger along his top lip, where the scar running from his eye bolts down and splits it. That crest both startles and calls to you.

                  You’ve leaned forward without even meaning to, and he stiffens in response. His lips part like he might speak, but he doesn’t. Your eyes flick up to realize he’s looking down at your lips, too. You both hesitate, reluctant knowing there’s no going back, but your breaths quicken in time as though the air fuels you both towards a single destination. A signal that you’re hurtling towards it – it’s inevitable. All you can do is stare at his mouth and watch his breath grow more ragged until his hand reaches up and cups one side of your face, tilting your gaze up towards him. His hand is rough, but so warm. So, so warm.

                  His eyes bore into you and are almost pleading as they ask you for confirmation. A promise of your permission to let him ruin you. An assurance that you will ruin him in return. You spot the guilt inside him and shrouded in it, an immutable hunger. It mirrors your own. A tiny nod, once, and then your nods grow ever slightly more fervid the closer he gets.

                  But everything stills the moment your lips meet.

                  They’re soft. They’re so, so soft.

It could have made you gasp if your lungs hadn’t lost all their function. He presses into you, gently, kissing you again and scooping your bottom lip inside his. The hand that had held the side of your face lowers towards your neck, his fingers as tendrils venturing behind your ear, his thumb stroking your jaw.

You kiss him back, but with the trepidation carried from savoring it. You have to think to keep your eyes from being shut too tightly, like this is a dream you might be snatched from.

                  Your lips both part at the same time, just like you’d rehearsed it in a hundred dreams you never dared to acknowledge having. His breath mingles with yours – warm, bearing the memory for a cigar – and for a terrifying moment you think you might cry. Not because kissing him is held in some perfect sphere of romance, but because it feels real. Real in a way that practically nothing else in your life ever has.

                  Silco kisses like a man expecting to be shoved away at any second.

                  Controlled, holding himself at bay with what fraying strands of discipline he still contains within himself. You feel him shiver – just once, but it’s enough to punch heat low into your stomach. And beyond his shaking you’re pretty sure you’re fully trembling, feeling unsteady when you shift yourself closer, needing to be closer.

                  He leans in harder, his restraints crumbling. His fingers feel rough and possessive as his hand slides beneath your jaw, kneading at the back of your neck. The kiss deepens, and you find yourself opening your mouth wider, sloppier to allow, no beg, for more.  He lips still press against yours softly, but they’re now tinged with something more urgent. Something long repressed. Something that was curled tight within him and finally cut loose.

                  Your hand rises, slow and unsure of itself, to the front of his vest. Silco’s hand tightens at the nape of your neck with a firmness that tells you he’s stopped pretending to be able to deny himself of you. You try to shift closer again, your knee brushing against his. He exhales sharply in response, sending his other hand sliding up your leg to your waist. He glides over the fabric as though expecting it to delicately evaporate under his touch before clenching it in his fist.

                  Then he releases it. His lips break away from yours. He doesn’t pull away entirely, just enough for his forehead to press to yours, the tip of his nose almost brushing against your cheek.

                  He closes his eyes before pulling away from you an inch further, but his hand still cradles your face. He looks torn.

                  Something in him fractures when he looks at you. He brushes a strand of hair from your face.

                  “Don’t -” he swallows. “Don’t look at me like that.”

                  Your breath catches and then bursts in your throat like glass. “Like what?”

                  He blinks somewhat rapidly, the muscles in his jaw roiling. “Like I’m…something you want.”

                  You huff a tiny, shaky laugh because – gods,  you can’t even fathom the opposite.

                  “But you are,” you whisper.

                  His grip on your face tightens almost imperceptibly – not enough to hurt, but enough to betray tangible panicked desire. He collapses into a singular sharp breath, shaking his head once, as though fighting something off. You hook your fingers behind the front of his vest, wanting to yank him back towards you or maybe shake some sense into him.

                  “You don’t understand what you’re inviting,” he murmurs. His breath ghosts across your lips, torturously close.

                  You ease forwards, the tip of your nose brushing against his. “You think I don’t know? I do. All of it.” Even the worst, most depraved parts that are all the more tantalizing to you now.

                  A whisper so soft and yet so burdened, “I want you. I want you, Silco.”

                  He closes his eyes again, pressing his forehead into yours like he’s exhausted, leaning into you for support. You can practically witness his conflicting instincts raging beneath his ribs with each quaking breath. Pull you closer or shove you away. Claim or retreat. Trust or damn.

                  “Silco…” you murmur, so close that your lips graze his as you speak in hushed, sacred tones. “I’m not going anywhere.”

                  It feels good to do this. It feels good to pluck pieces of him up and put him back together. It feels good to trace the most jagged pieces of him and then smooth him over.

                  He breaths your name like a prayer. Or a curse.

                  You don’t know which. But you know that it sets your chest alight, a burning heat pooling inside of you and emanating to your farthest reaches.

                  And then his lips find yours again as though they were surrendering to gravity. It’s less cautious this time, more certain, more devouring. The kiss is slow but consuming, meant to be memorized, meant to be paid for later in guilt or longing or both. You find yourself more than willing to pay that price if it can be like this, always like this.

                  His cane clatters to the floor, and you feel him flinch under your touch, but you both continue just the same.

                  His mouth moves against yours with uncharacteristic desperation, like he’s trying to carve the shape of your mouth into his memory. Like he wants your name on his tongue, his teeth, his spit.

                  You breathe into him, sliding your hands up his arms and feeling the wiry muscles beneath. You can hardly handle it.

                  Suddenly, he’s dragging his lips along the corner of your mouth, then your cheekbone, then just below your ear. His breath is warm, trembling. You feel the faintest brush of his teeth, not biting – just testing. Asking. Wanting.

                  His voice is gravel. “Where? Here?” He asks.

                  You want him so, so badly. This is everything you’ve been longing for.

                  And yet, you don’t feel ready. The prospect scares you to death. All the bad experiences borne of being a vulnerable girl growing up a Trencher crowd your mind mercilessly.

                  Silco retreats from you for a glimpse of your face, awaiting your answer, then pauses once he realizes you’ve frozen. You’ve quieted. You’ve tensed up without even really meaning to. The shift is so slight you almost don’t notice you’ve stopped breathing. But he does. He notices everything.

He stills, the lines of his face sharpening with clarity.

                  He eases himself backwards. “What is it?”

                  You open your mouth to speak, explain everything, but no words come out. You choke on the grief of ruining this moment.

                  His brows knit together to form a deep crease in between them. You worry for a moment that what you make of it is agitation. But it’s concern his voice is laced with when he tells you, “You don’t have to. You’ll never have to.”

                  You push past the way the backs of your eyes sting to nod silently.

                  He studies your face, searching it not for weakness, but direction. Diligently looking for the line and where you’ve drawn it, fearing he’s crossed it.

                  You inhale a shaky breath. “It’s just hard to put myself in that position, willingly, when I, I wasn’t always…you know, willing. It’s not something I handle well.”

                  His eyes darken, the orange embers a swirling thunderstorm. A tightening at the corner of his mouth, a tiny flare of his nostrils, like he’s absorbing a blow. Everything you say registers with him on a scale that makes it feel like the earth is shifting beneath your feet.

“I understand. You don’t have to explain the past to me.” He says firmly. A firmness that communicates a surging affirmation that he would never dare do the same to you. A firmness that recalls with disdain what he’s witnessed himself, having too lived his entire life in the Undercity. Maybe the full purpose of your old suit and its conception start to bloom a deep blue in his mind.

A moment passes. You appreciate the space he gives you to ground you and stabilize you after such a confession. His calm bolsters your scars. No overwhelming swell of pity and recompense spilling from him in jaunt grasps and apologies. Just the quiet hum of lamplight, and Silco a sitting sculpture, almost austere, next to you.

Eventually, he says in a voice you could only describe as lethal, “You know, surely, that I could pluck any man from the dregs and make him suffer in a manner I’d care so much as to call creative. At your request. No questions…only the answer of a body found in the mire.”

You feel your heart blacken a bit. And you don’t mind it in the slightest. “I might take you up on that someday.”

“You would always be welcome to.”

You meditate for a moment on what that means, the fact that that was what filled his mind for the duration of the gap between your dialogue. You wish you could peer behind his eyes and visualize exactly what measure of brutality he was internally exalting.

More time passes, a balloon deflating. The atmosphere is almost mournful, but that could be only your sentiment alone.

You sigh, your mind drifting off to Jinx as the heat of the moments beforehand wane. “She’s lucky to have your protection,” you say earnestly.

His pupils shrink like some rare rogue emotion flared up inside of him. Deviant evidence of his heart that glitched past his walls of apathy. A brief flash of rage at the thought of someone laying a finger on her, you suppose. His reaction is so minute, but you study him so intensely that every flicker and turn feels like birth and death. Then, you watch him cool, emotions of the day stacking lazily on top of each other, weighing and slanting and slagging like magma.

“And yours.” He replies, finally. A brief eclipse of shame grays his skin. “I lost her – it was you who recovered her.”

You shake your head. “You didn’t lose her; she was stolen out from under you.”

He looks away, a muscle in his temple working. “That distinction hardly absolves me.”

Your hand twitches – an instinct to reach for him – but you stop yourself. The air between you is tender, unsettled dust suspended in air. You’re afraid of overwhelming him. Become too close too fast, and he’ll sever himself from you indefinitely.

Silco’s stare is a laser shooting across the room, fixed on the wall where he undoubtedly is dwelling strategically on past mistakes and future revenges. It takes him a long time to snap out of it, at which he somewhat curtly offers, “Shall I stay here or retire for the night?”

You tilt your head, the smell of smoke and oil and cologne still faintly emanating from him and making you feel like you’re floating above your own body. “Won’t you stay here for a bit longer?”

A stream of air flows languidly from his nose. He bristles. “If that is…your desire.”

You suppress a smirk as he eases himself back comfortably into the couch, one arm resting along the top of it. You get the impression that he’s putting no small amount of effort into being composed.

It’s almost endearing.

Almost painful.

You lean forward, reaching for the book on the coffee table you had tried and failed to lose yourself in while you’d been waiting. Some brittle, tattered, water-damaged story probably meant for kids, about a boy selling bread on the street. You inhale the sweet scent of mildew cracking its spine back open.

It catches Silco’s attention and he peers over your shoulder, assessing it. “That one ought to be thrown out.”

“Just let me read it, for now.” You whisper.

You feel him shift back.

Time passes. You graduate to a third of the book completed, but you couldn’t tell anyone the plot if your life depended on it. The entire time, you remain acutely aware of Silco’s adjacent presence. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Sometimes, you feel his eyes on you. Then, like he senses that you’re aware, you feel the prying sensation shift away.

While you scan lines like a whale wading through syrup, you spend more time thinking of him than comprehending what you’ve read. Is he happy? Is he irritated? Is he embarrassed to have shown himself to you? Is he replaying the way he melted into you?

You imagine if you turned to look at him, you’d get your answer. But you can’t help but feel sensitive now, afraid of it.

Are you embarrassed?

Yes, you think so. But not regretful. His lips were too soft to be sorry.

You try to concentrate on the paragraphs before you, but the letters blur. The exhaustion from the day and its events settle into your bones, heavy and unforgiving. Indifferent of the excitement that blossomed in your heart. It slurs your spine, your eyelids, your soft and weary smile, all of you into a soup of the most daft and insipid but joyous woman.

Just sitting there next to you, he makes you feel drunk. Warmly, properly, incandescently…drunk.

You probably need to lay down and process what’s happened. It was late when he arrived, and it’s only getting later with each dull blink.

Stubbornly, you blink hard at the blurred ink. You try to will it to behave, stay still, stop bleeding together and slipping from the page. Your head dips once, and you snap it back up, scrunching your nose as though that might anchor you to the present.

It doesn’t.

Silco’s voice cuts through the haze, low and unimpressed. “You should rest.”

You sniff dejectedly, your fingers like crab pincers as you try to delicately flip the fragile page. “I’m fine, really.”

A soft huff – so faint it could almost be imagined. “Sure, you are. And I’m a council member.”

Even his feigned annoyance, his lilting sarcasm, feels like an embrace. You are ruined. Decidedly and irreversibly ruined.

You try to glare at him, but your face won’t cooperate – no frown appears, you feel your lips twitch into a smile.

The corner of his lip flails like he fought not to smile back at you. Your body musters up enough energy to send your stomach into somersaults.

His gaze upon you is heavy and deliberate, tracing the slump in your shoulders, the slow draw of your breaths. You don’t dare meet his eye directly. Not after everything that’s just transpired, or else you’ll come undone all over again.

The book tilts precariously in your hands, and before it can fall, long, elegant fingers catch the corner of it. Silco’s hand lingers over yours for one heartbeat longer than necessary.

“Careful,” he murmurs.

You close the book, yawning. “I’m fine.”

He levels you with a dry, razor-thin look.

There’s something strangely comforting about his pompous, doting irritation. Like a rubber band you can snap to soothe yourself. And laugh at.

He adjusts slightly, his arm still draped over the back of the couch, posture still deceptively relaxed. But every inch of him is coiled tight with focused attention like you’re an egg in his nest.

“Come here,” he says quietly.

Your heart thrashes.

You shift sideways, inching closer, letting your shoulder brush his chest. He stiffens for a moment, like he’s bracing himself, then he exhales. His body angles towards you. A barrier lowered.

You let your head rest against him.

He’s still so warm. Almost feverish. He makes you think of a hearth in winter, smoke curling upwards from hot coals.

 His chin comes to rest lightly atop your head – tentative, unsure.

The room goes still.

Your breathing evens out, steadying with the rise and fall of his chest. His heartbeat thrums under your ear, and it’s amusingly fast. Pounding. It makes your own heart improve upon its pace.

His hand – resting on the back of the couch – drops an inch, then two, then three. It slides down slowly until his fingertips brush against your shoulder like a ghost’s reluctant touch.

You close your eyes. The action isn’t voluntary, but the decision not to fight it is.

“You should go rest,” he says again. Weaker this time. His arm moves in contradiction of him, curling around you with a slowness that suggests he’s giving you every chance to refuse him. You don’t.

Another stillness, sharp and profound.

You want to confess to him that you don’t like sleeping in that room by yourself. That while you’ve been dwelling here for months, the bed still feels like foreign charity and not your own. You want to tell him that while Jinx’s art that’s been added over time helps to brighten the room, the nights still impress on you that you’re achingly, terribly alone. The little Lanes girl bereft of hope and sworn to solitude.

But you’re terrified you’ll tip the scales, and he’ll catapult you back to shifty employment. Or the streets.

You find your lips operating without your consent. There you go bleeding again, the steady flow of a child’s confession.

I don’t like sleeping in that room, Silco. Alone.

He doesn’t answer.

It makes you sad until the sleep cradles you soundly.