#silco smut eventually

[jennithejester]

The Shadow of Zaun - Act I - Chapter 1 Introductions 

Words: 5,336 Rating: Explicit (eventual SMUT, darlings) Warnings: Violence Summary: Born of two different worlds and raised by the Lanes, you rise from the ashes and runoff of Piltover to become the Shadow of Zaun. Fanfic will have two acts, with an “intermission” chapter, that will span before and after the bridge incident between the brothers of Zaun. The whole cast of characters within the show will eventually make an appearance. Eventual SMUT, thus the rating now, kids. Relationships: Silco x F!Reader AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41675289

I can't decide,

Whether you should live or die.

Oh, you'll probably go to heaven.

Please don't hang your head and cry.

No wonder why,

My heart feels dead inside.

It's cold and hard and petrified.

Lock the doors and close the blinds.

We're going for a ride!

“I Can’t Decide” – Scissor Sisters

—-————————————

Zaun.

For a city that existed within the toxicity, filth, and runoff of the shining jewel of Runeterra otherwise known as Piltover, Zaun has always been grotesquely beautiful, alluring, and mysterious as it grew beneath the shadows of the upper level. Zaun pulsed like one’s own heart - illuminated within its smog by its vibrant, neon lights that provided an ever-glowing essence to its beating aura. This city never slept, for why would anything teeming with such life dare to sleep when it could constantly be dancing and dreaming while awake? 

While you did not love the cards that your own life had dealt you, for a variety of reasons, one thing you knew with absolute certainty from an early age:

You loved Zaun.

So this is why you find yourself on a rooftop, awaiting the group that had started calling themselves The Sons of Zaun to show after you left a not-so-subtle calling card, in the form of setting fire to one of their safehouses, squarely in their lap. Since this was to get their attention and not do harm, you had the building cleared hours before setting it ablaze as well as ensuring the fire didn’t ruin any of their supplies being stored there. A wicked grin crossed your face as you casually lit a cigarette, took a long pull, and leaned your head back to savor the nicotine and your thoughts returned to The Sons. This group and you had been dancing around each other’s paths for about a year now and, after careful spying on them for half of that time, you’d come to the sensible conclusion that you should align your efforts. They seemed genuine in their cause and held an admittedly admirable fire for fighting for the freedoms and independence of this city that had outgrown its need to be the dirt beneath Piltover’s shoes. 

Genuine, yes, but perhaps slightly unorganized. The group was mastheaded by two young men: Vander and Silco. The twosome called themselves brothers, though it was painfully obvious to anyone there was no true blood relation between both of them. You’d sized them up rather quickly after haunting their footsteps for a few weeks. Vander was the muscle and was admirably good at training the younger recruits how to defend themselves. Then there was Silco, the obvious brains of the lot of them, who had surprised you on more than one occasion with his well-organized heists as well as meticulous scheming against the Piltoverian enforcers. He’d come close once to even discovering you – a fact you found not only impressive but disturbing all the same.

Most of your life you’d spent as a ghost. Your unusual upbringing and fervor for ensuring Zaun wasn’t completely overtaken by Piltover, had you living in its shadows as a thief and, later, assassin for hire. You closed yourself purposefully off from any friends and family for many years, convincing yourself that it was much easier to deal with things with your own two hands and emotionally easier to sever any ties that might have you make a costly mistake. Piltover’s aggression and power was growing; however, every day. It was only a matter of time before a singular person such as yourself would be overtaken and thrown in Stillwater Hold or killed outright.

You weren’t sure which fate would be worse.

Your breath caught in your lungs after another long drag and you violently let out several harsh coughs before angrily flinging the half-spent cigarette over the edge and to the ground below. Must be the damned smoke from the fires aggravating things, you’d thought bitterly. Wheezing, you fumbled quickly through your pockets and pulled out a small device, pulled it to your lips, hit a button, and inhaled deeply as you closed your eyes and counted the seconds. Smoking was a habit you never should have formed with the damage to your lungs you’d had since birth, but you’d found most of the time you were able to handle it even though you realized, in time, it would eventually take its toll. Wiping the tears from coughing so hard from your face and eyes, you began to breathe again and shook your head at yourself.

“I really need a better hobby,” you croaked, your throat still raw from the harsh coughing before. 

Scanning the area once again, you suddenly froze as you caught the eyes of none other than Silco standing on the street below…staring right at you with a smirk set upon his face. Cheeky bastard, you thought as you stood up. Confident that anyone that would find themselves in this situation would surely react the same, you returned the smirk slowly, bowed in a grand fashion, and waved at him.

“Lovely weather we’re having, don’t you think? I felt it might be a bit chilly, so I decided to light a fire to help keep warm,” you said loud enough for him to hear with a wide grin that faltered a bit as his smirk only grew. “Pity it got a bit out of hand, eh?”

You heard footsteps behind you as Silco’s grin widened to match yours, reminding you a bit of a cat getting ready to eat its prey. “Pity, indeed,” he began as you pretend to be unaware of the persons creeping closer behind you. “Are you always so reckless?”

Casually, you slide your hand down the thick, long braid of hair at your side, playing along with this game, as you spun it around in your hand, as if out of habit and looking utterly bored. “No more or less than you are, I’d surmise,” you say and with that you spin on your heel and thrust the end of your braid in an arc towards the two men behind you. The two of them, younger than yourself but a bit larger in frame, give you a startled look upon being caught. You notice only one of them has quick enough eyes to spot the blade on the end of your braid, forming it into a sort of weapon, before it sliced them both.

Fools, you thought. You’re very lucky I wasn’t aiming to kill.

The two give a wounded shout as the blade slices them both across the chest, not deep enough to do more than stun and wound their pride, as you then begin your escape from them across the rooftops. You shoot a quick glace to where Silco had been standing and note that he had disappeared, likely to join the chase, as you then parkour down to the street below. Swiftly, you make your way over to stand in front of the burning building before sliding to a halt.

“Now children, play nice,” you shout as you hear the two from the rooftop stumble their way down to the ground with Silco or any others still no where in sight. “I only want to talk.”

The young boys who had attempted your capture on the rooftop now came into view as they approached you with caution. You made no attempt to run away and held your hands up.

“You have a funny way of asking for an invitation, my dear,” Silco’s voice came from your left where you found him lazily leaning against the corner of a building a short distance away.

He spun a dagger in his fingertips as he then pushed off the wall and began his way over to you with a swagger to his step, twirling the blade within his hand, and never taking his eyes off of you as he grew nearer. You’d witnessed his skill with that very blade several times from afar and could tell by the way of his approach he was sending only one very clear signal: one of warning.

“I would humbly request parlay with you gentlemen,” a request left your lips as others, presumably with this group, started revealing themselves as they also came to join Silco and the two boys.

Silco actually stopped at your words and cocked his head to the side, an action reminding you of a bird, “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but as you are well aware, we’re not on a ship, so parlay may not be an option for you.”

It was the first time you’d been this up close to really see this particular Son of Zaun. His gate gave off and air of surprising confidence for someone who had to of been no older than 30, only a few years older than yourself, you’d gauge. You found him intriguing, to say the least. The sharp angular features of his face, as only a true Zaunite would have, was complimented well with his slightly long, inky-black hair that framed it. The juxtapose of his dark hair only brought out the intensity within his oceanic colored eyes as you studied him for a moment. Strong for someone so lean you’d observed from a distance before as you now caught the peak of the muscle of his forearm as he neared you. Those blue-green eyes never leaving you, you noticed, as he seemed to be sizing you up as well. 

He was roguishly handsome, you admitted to yourself before quickly shutting that thought down in your head. Clearing your throat and your thoughts, you then retorted and lowered your voice seductively, “Come now, I’ll make it worth your while.”

Silco merely chuckled and resumed his encroachment, “I’m sure you would; however, there are consequences to be had for what you’ve done. Surely you understand?”

“Consequences? Hmm, sounds a bit kinky,” you said with a wink and a grin as a few of the younger kids in the crowd visibly blushed and/or coughed. “We don’t even know each other.”

“I beg to differ, my dear. We are well aware of who you are,” Silco began as he came to stand mere inches in front of you, purposefully invading your personal space, “though only by reputation, not in name.”

“Give me an audience. I promise I won’t waste your time. Maybe I’ll even tell you my name? Besides, I made sure your little storage shed was cleaned out of the supplies of importance and also ensured there was no one there when I set it ablaze. Just wanted your attention and, well, here we are.”

The tension in the air was shifting and everyone in the vicinity seemed to pick up on it with the space you and Silco held being its epicenter. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Silco grip his dagger harder within his hand and the others surrounding you both took that as a queue to ready themselves. His patience obviously waning, you and Silco proceeded to stare each other down for a few moments, the few inches separating the both of you electrified with every second that passed. He was the one to break the moment, but only after several minutes of palpable silence had passed.

“Why?”

You blinked. You were expecting many things. Being asked why wasn’t near the top of that list. You considered Silco for only a fraction of a second after the initial surprise of his question and decided to drop the act and answer honestly.

“Because I believe in Zaun.”

Silco took a short step back away from you, narrowed his eyes, and gave you a searing look that felt like he was peering into your very soul, as if he was searching for some proof of what you’d said being false. The smiles and your flirtatious nature had been immediately dropped with your last words as you merely arched an eyebrow back at him, daring him to question the truth in what you’d just told him. You watched as he then straightened himself to his full height above you, seeming to come to whatever conclusions he’d gleaned as he then hummed under his breath. 

Suddenly, garnering everyone in the small group’s attention, a loud whistle came a rooftop across from them. You spied what looked to be a teenage girl making some sort of large arm and hand signals to the group below. You heard a few within the group murmur the girl’s name was Sevika as they then looked to their leader in front of you with concern. Silco visibly tensed and then shook his head while the others surrounding you started to spread out. A few of them, you noted, had looks of panic set into their faces.

“Well, sweetheart,” he began as you scowled at the sarcastic term of endearment he’d used at you, “it appears you may get a chance to prove yourself a bit. Your little bonfire has drawn the attention of the Enforcers, it seems.”

Your scowl deepened. You’d gone to certain lengths to ensure that the Piltoverian guard that generally kept eyes on this part of town were, well, taken care of, before you’d started your little show here today. Something must have changed…or someone else alerted them. The latter thought had you seething, knowing it had to of been someone within the Sons’ ranks.

Damnit. 

“I’m at your service,” you state bluntly. “Oh, and if you ever call me sweetheart again, darling, don’t be surprised if you wake up to my blade in a less than pleasant location.”

Silco chuckled before raising his voice slightly to you and the group before him. “Pair up and spread out. Meet back at The Drop and be careful to avoid being followed in the process,” he began as the group almost immediately dispersed and then his eyes fell on you. “You’re with me.”

Silco went to grab your arm to lead you away as you rolled your eyes. You both; however, froze on the spot when a bullet went whizzing past your ear and lodged in the wall behind you. From behind him, you spied an Enforcer sniper on a rooftop opposite of where you’d previously seen the teenage girl that alerted you. A pit of cold settled into your stomach knowing now without a doubt that someone used your efforts today against you and the Sons of Zaun and had alerted the Enforcers well enough ahead of time to allow for them to setup at least one sniper, no less. The sniper was preparing yet another shot when you and Silco started darting out of the open and into the alleyways nearby.

You both had not made it very far in before your arm was yanked harshly from behind and you were slammed and pinned against the wall of an adjoining alley. Venom was in his gaze as Silco held you in a crushing grip.

“You have ten seconds to explain what the fuck is going on here!” he seethed thru his obvious fury while attempting to control the volume of his voice so as to not alert others to your location.

“I should be asking you the same thing!” you spat back at him as you squirmed within his grip and eyed both edges of the alleyway you were pinned within for signs of Enforcers. “I work alone, Silco. That means it’s easier to keep things secret. There’s no one to tell. Why the fuck would I come to join forces only to give you away? I’m here to help your fucking cause, not end it!”

He pushed your shoulders deeper into the wall as he lifted you with ease up and off the ground with a strength you weren’t aware his wiry frame possessed, “Then how did they know ahead of time? It’s clear—”

“It’s clear to me,” you quickly interrupted him. “That your ten seconds are up and if we’re not careful to continue this conversation at a later date, we are both going to end up dead!”

Silco let out a growl as he proceeded to immediately release his grip on you and you struggle to hold your footing as you land awkwardly and lean back against the wall to regain your balance. Without allowing you any time, he then grabbed you by the arm and pulled you forward with him to the edge of the alley way before guiding you both to scramble up a drainpipe and to the rooftops above.

You followed him at a break-neck pace across several buildings before he signaled you to halt and crouch out of sight next to him behind a wall leading up to a higher floor of the building you were on. He placed his finger to his lips as you nodded before you watched him begin to creep out into the open. Alarmed that you’d spied a few Enforcers a ways back, also atop the buildings you passed by at this level and in the fact they might see him once exposed, you hastily grabbed at the back of his shirt and pulled him back into you. Silco leveled you with an angry glare.

“You’re going to be seen in two seconds of crawling out into the open like that,” you whispered to him. “What the hell are you thinking?”

“I need to know if we’re still being tailed unless you had any better ideas,” he growled at you under his breath. “We cannot lead them back to The Drop.”

You shoved him a bit off of you and looked around before your eyes caught how high up the building you were on went. Silco watched you intently as your face took on a calculating expression as you began to chart your coarse mentally for what was to come next. You then checked over both edges of the wall you were hiding behind with him before you voiced your plan.

“There were four on either side as we were running in this direction earlier,” you began softly under your breath, still scanning the area and listening for any noises of movement surrounding you both. “Sorry to scold you, but the rooftops are my favorite territory usually and you may just not have noticed and I didn’t want you shot.”

“How kind,” Silco stated with a bitter, sarcastic tone. “I’m not new at this, you realize.”

“I do. I also realize we’re both in a bit of a mess here,” you said with a scowl. “You have someone playing both sides within your ranks.”

You watched as Silco’s eyes narrowed a bit and then looked around. “I know,” he stated with no small amount of disdain. “We’ll handle that later. I can only hope the others get back safely at this point.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m fairly certain they’re after either me or you from what I’d noticed in how they followed us out of there.”

Silco’s eyes widened at that, “Are you certain?”

“Not yet, but that’s part of my plan,” you began as you pulled your hood over your head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’m going to check to see if we’ve lost them or if they’re still following us. From a safer spot, that is, than walking out in plain view. Keep a lookout for me, will you?”

As Silco began to object, you turned, ignored him, and began to scale the wall you’d both been crouched against, still remaining in its shadow. It took a few minutes until you reached the desired height at the peak of the turret the wall formed into that you were climbing. Once there, you tested and then held onto a bracket sticking out of the stonework before you swung wide to get a glance at the area around you from this height. You blocked out the sunlight of dusk from your eyes and squinted to see if you could still tell where the four you’d passed were as well as if any other of Piltover’s finest were in your area. 

You’d expected to see a few of them had abandoned the chase. The complete lack of seeing any of them in the area made you frown. They had every intent of taking one or the other of you today with how they had chased you with fervor when you both had taken to the rooftops. While your general opinion of the enforcers were that they were lazy at best, they still were not known to abandon things so very quickly. This also seemed to be a planned effort. You grimaced. Something wasn’t right here at all.

You looked down and saw Silco watching you, several feet below you, in the shadow of the building. He made a gesture as if to ask if you saw anything. Still hanging by one arm off the bracket, you shrugged slightly with the other arm and moved to start to make your way back down. You froze when a glint of something caught your eye to your left and you snapped your view towards it only in time to realize it was sunlight shining off the barrel of a gun as it fired at you. You spun and slammed into the side of the wall off the bracket attempting to dodge the bullet and while you escaped it hitting anything vital, it still struck you across the arm that had held the bracket as you let out a yelp.

Silco watched from below as you narrowly avoided completely losing your grip on the wall. Losing control for a few seconds, you slid harshly down, the stone and wood of the building pulling up your shirt and scraping your abdomen, chest, and the ends of your fingers before you found purchase again within its cracks and molding and held tight for a few seconds as you caught your breath. Coming to your senses, you quickly looked left and right to see if you were at least out of range as you then began the somewhat painful descent downward on your raw fingertips. Your mid-section burning from the scrape as you descend the wall. 

Silco had moved to stand beneath where you were at on the wall to help you the remaining part of the way as he pulled you downward. Without realizing, he grabbed your waist to lead you to the roof below his feet and inadvertently grabbed across the scratched flesh under your shirt. You hissed in pain as he quickly released you and sat you down. “You were hit.”

“Among other things,” you deadpanned and then suck air between your teeth in a bit of pain as he looked you over for injuries. “I’ll be fine. Just nicked me, really.”

“And here I’d thought you had a plan,” he said, attempting to lighten the situation, as you just glared at him. “How many did you spot?”

“Well, no one until that fucker shot me. Maybe they paired down now that they’d narrowed their pursuit to us…or likely me, really.”

“You?”

“I was up too high for any normal person to be looking up there. With being sniped, I’m almost sure they knew to look high. Honestly, I’d thought I was far less predictable than this,” you sighed and winced as he examined the bullet wound in your arm. “Maybe you should just ditch me here and go on without me.”

Silco hummed, “Maybe…you’re just fluffing up your own ego and are out of ideas?”

You glared daggers at him, once again with a scowl as he grinned a bit.

“Or maybe I have an idea?” he started again with a shrug. “If you’re willing to listen. Tell me – where was the shooter?”

You point in the direction the bullet came from, “From this level, that direction. Must have been on someone’s balcony, perhaps? I’m not quite sure since I didn’t see the bastard until right before he shot.”

“All right,” Silco began as he reached down and squeezed at your good arm, that’d not been shot, in reassurance. You watched the motion a bit confused and jumped a bit at his touch, not having been around people this close nor having anyone try to reassure you for many years at this point. He frowned a bit before continuing, “You stay right here. I’m going to go see where our shooter might be and try to take care of him so we can sneak down and away from here.”

“Silco, they know we’re here.”

“They know you’re here, you said it yourself. They won’t see me coming, sweetheart,” he grinned and winked before moving in the shadow of the wall to the edge of the rooftop and then disappearing over the side before you could protest.

He’s going to get himself killed, you thought with a grimace and pulled yourself further out of view against the wall and waited. It was several minutes of quietly waiting there in the shadows before you started to hear sounds of a scuffle coming from the building nearby. Instinct drove you to stand and edge your way to the corner, still in hiding, as you attempted to get some view of whatever was happening that you were certain Silco was the cause of. Unable to see anything at all from this vantage point, your curiosity got the best of you as you laid down and crawled your way to the edge of the roof to see if you could obtain a better view while still out of sight. You winced as pain burned through your scratched torso as it dragged across the shingles of the rooftop and you came to the edge in order to get a view of things.

Just as you peered over to the direction you’d thought you’d seen the enforcer sniper shoot you from, you suddenly saw an individual come crashing through the window into the air and then fall harshly to the street below making an sickly, loud, crumpling noise as their body seemed to fold on top of itself as it landed. A few screams from bystanders a block or two down that witnessed the event were the only other sounds you’d heard in the vicinity as you then looked back up to the balcony edge he’d been thrown from to find a very smug Silco wiping blood from his mouth and staring straight at you. Appearing to be unharmed for the most part, you watched him wipe the blood from his dagger and hands on the side of his pants before sheathing it back in his boot and then looking back up to you.

“It was only the one,” Silco shouted up to you as you looked around in alarm and shushed him. “Don’t worry, I checked around, there’s no one in earshot that cares about us at this point. Whatever are you doing over there when I’d told you to stay put?”

You pull yourself up on all fours before sitting back on your knees as your arm held your midsection that still stung, “Maybe I’m not used to being ordered around?”

“Maybe you’ll need to if you’ll be joining us,” he stated more seriously to you in less of a shout, but loud enough for you to hear across the now relatively quiet area. When you stayed quiet for a few moments without any retort, he then followed with, “Can you climb down without hurting yourself again?”

You rolled your eyes with enough drama you were sure he could see it from across the street, flipped him a lewd gesture, and after looking around, made it over to the edge of the rooftop where Silco had previously dropped down and followed suit, albeit wincing the entire way. You met Silco down by the enforcer’s body that he was ransacking for anything of worth. Silco turned to look at you and his eyes widened instantly concerned.

“I’d thought he only hit you in the arm?” His concerned voice started as he stood and moved to touch you but seemed to catch himself, thinking better of it.

You looked down to where his hand had been moving towards to see the front of your shirt stained with blood, “Shit.” A sigh escaped your lips as you shook your head, “In my graceful attempts to dodge said hit I may have tried to slide down the building and scraped myself a bit.”

“Your entire front of your shirt is bloodied. I’d say that’s more than a bit.”

“I’m fine.”

Silco pinched between his brow with his fingers as he gave an annoyed sigh before suddenly grabbing you by the forearm and dragging you out of the middle of the street into an alleyway before stopping and waving his hand at you, “Show me.”

“What? No, I’m fine. Just – shouldn’t we get back to The Last Drop? We’ve wasted plenty of time—“

“You either show me here, with a little privacy, or you show me there amidst everyone and their mother in the Lanes that haunts that place. Now c’mon. I need to know if this is going to be an issue later on.”

Tired from the drama of the day and the drama of the man standing before you, you huffed out a, “Fine,” before pulling up the front of your shirt.

Of course this would be one of the days you decided to go without a bra as Silco got more of an eyeful than what he’d bargained for. His eyes widened briefly before you watched him swallow hard and then school his gaze to something more clinical as he observed your injuries.

“Might want to steer clear of rough walls for a bit,” he deadpanned as you shoved your shirt back down. “Sliced you up pretty good, but nothing we can’t tend to once we’re back home.”

Home, the word caught you a bit. You’d not called anywhere home since you were very, very young.

“You talk like I’m already a part of this gang of yours,” your voice came out huskier than you intended as he took a step towards you.

“Not just for me to decide, but I think you have a shot,” he said before he gave you a lopsided grin. “You know, as long as you don’t get in another fight with a wall before we get there.”

“Asshole,” you said as you swatted at his arm and he chuckled a bit.

“C’mon. We should get back before Vander starts to worry and sends someone out after us,” he said as he motioned for you to follow him as he begins to pull a cigarette from within his pockets and searches for his lighter.

Before you move, you say your name quietly out loud and you watch Silco stop dead in his tracks. Without turning around and merely angling his head back towards you, he says your name as if testing it on his lips. Only then did he turn around and offer a spare cigarette he held between his long fingertips. You consider it a few moments, having just coughed your way into being seen earlier, and then give into temptation as you take it from him, your fingers brushing against his briefly. He moves forward and ignites the lighter as you bring the hand-rolled cigarette to your lips and allow him to light it for you.

“I’d forgot to ask,” you said after a long drag and as he starts to walk out of the alley once again as you follow.

“Yes?”

“Is any of that blood on you actually yours?”

Silco huffed a bit as he took a drag before a side of his mouth quirked upwards, “He got one punch on me before he went window diving and split my lip a bit. Pretty sure I’m on the verge of dying. If I don’t make it back, let Vander know I died a hero.”

“Are you always this much of a cheeky git?” You asked with a snort.

“Always, sweetheart.”

#Silco #silco x you #silco x reader #silco smut eventually #silco smut #The Shadow of Zaun #silco simp #silco arcane #arcane silco #league of legends #arcane league of legends #young silco #Silco young #arcane fanfic #silco fanfic #silco league of legends

[silcodependent]

Sway Chapter 7

Silco x Fem!Reader

4.2k words- Mature (but not explicit) 

Warnings: Light BDSM Vibes, Smoke Play, Suggestive Everything

Additional warning: I have doubted my ability to write so much lately that I was convinced that this would never see the light of day. It's mostly unedited but please know that If if had edited it would have stayed in the drafts folder for the rest of time. I want to tell this story, I know exactly where it's going and I'm excited but sometimes I wonder if I am capable of telling it well. So I'm putting this out here to keep me from waiting until it's perfect and posting nothing. I hope you like it and that there are other people who are still as obsessed with this little rat mat as I am.

Silco was bad for business. You knew this from the start but your small number of interactions relentlessly reminded you of this information. Last night was tantalizingly fun. Your dreams after caused you to uproot your whole routine and bumping into him during your practice time was now causing you to be late. The man was infuriating. Infuriating and dangerous.

He simply cannot be forgiven for the agony of inconveniences he is responsible for.

That thought was fresh on your mind when you tossed open your dressing room door to find a surprise that stopped you in your tracks; A single red rose with a black ribbon tied around it and a note.

You should be used to gifts from adoring fans but you always found surprises to be an eerie sign of something grim to come. This was no exception.

Placing your bag down on the opposite side of the counter you inspected the gift before you with learned skepticism, tentatively picking up the note and turning it over in your hand. It was addressed to you, your name scrawled beautifully in ink from a fountain over heavy weighted stationary. Expensive. 

You had been here before. It was enough to make you want to drop the note there with no regard to whatever message lay inside and pack your things as fast as you could.

But you weren’t running. You never ran. That was half of your problem. And even though there were things in your past that wanted to chase you, the likelihood of them finding you here was so small it was next to impossible. Right?

Beating back any other intrusive thoughts, you flipped open the card to reveal a single sentence.

“Thank you for the lovely performance. -Silco”

You stared at the letter in your hand in stunned disbelief for what would have been all night if Remy knocking at the door hadn’t pulled you back to reality.

“Good crowd tonight!” He exclaimed, poking his head through the crack in the door.

Remy’s eyes landed first on the note in your hand and then on the rose on the counter.

“What’s that?” 

“It’s nothing…Just a thank you note.” You’re certain that no one would fall for that performance but it didn’t stop you from trying. You placed the note back down on the counter and proceeded to get ready with haste. Silco was distracting you--again.

“Admirers already. I just wonder what took them this long.” Remy flashed that heart winning grin before disappearing back out the way he came but not before shouting back…

“Tonight’s going to be a great show!”

Remy was wonderful. He really was. Kind, supportive, friendly and he didn’t linger. Who could ask for anything more?

And you had a feeling he was right.

Once your first costume was on and makeup perfectly done, you picked up the rose and reveled in its sweet scent. Of the many stalls lining the streets of the Undercity you had never seen any flowers. Your fingers pulled the silk ribbon from its stem and tied it carefully around your neck. This choker was the perfect finishing touch to such an ensemble. 

Tonight was going to be a great show.

And it was - regardless of how your eyes searched the audience for a particular face each number, never finding it. 

The audience loved every moment. You even managed to create a new group of regulars out of a rowdy table of gentlemen that had posted up in the front row. Your crowd working skills were now rivaling your dancing and it certainly kept things fresh. But once the curtain fell you couldn’t help but let out a little sigh of disappointment. There was no denying that when you had strung that ribbon across your neck, you’d hope to share in a silent understanding. A small nod to your own Phantom that no one else who saw it would even notice. 

It had been a small thing, a silly thing but a mistake nonetheless and one you weren’t willing to repeat. Just another piece of evidence that Silco was distracting and eliciting sentiments that were out of bounds for how you lived your life. This pang of disappointment would serve as a perfect reminder of why you kept these rules in the first place. No investments.

And it did. Days turned to weeks and there was no sign of the infamous Eye of Zaun in the club or in your dreams. He was much harder to banish from your waking thoughts as his note still sat on the counter of your dressing room, but his absence aided you in that regard as well. You had stopped looking for his handsome features in the crowd all together. Life continued. You channeled your energy and debuted a new show with aplomb that had the audience on their feet night after night. It’s amazing what you could accomplish without any unnecessary distractions.

Your focus was at an all time high but that came with some…troubling observations. Silco’s people still came in without him but there was tension growing between them and your front row regulars, a group of three brothers. It was odd. Silco’s operation seemed to be far too big to take issue with these three nobody’s but you had noticed their minute changes in clothing and demeanor over the last couple weeks. They were certainly spending more and more money in the club each night as well. You knew that meant the heart of this dispute had to be business but the less you knew the better. It had already gotten so bad that Remy almost had to call security over a disagreement between the two groups. Things were escalating. 

Remy made every effort to work with them, keep things civil and make sure everyone was welcome here but enforced peace can only last for so long.

It was a slow night Monday night at the Sweet. You had come to show some face and perhaps try out a couple of new combinations on stage with the victrola as accompaniment. It didn’t surprise you at all to see Nox Kane, the youngest of the Kane brothers, occupying his usual table beside the stage. He was already past tipsy and barreling towards drunk with every passing moment. 

Each of the Kane brothers seemed to fancy you in their own way but Nox was the least subtle. All passion and impulse, no restraint--he was a bit of a live wire and often the source of much of the trouble between the two ‘gangs’. But after spending more than one evening talking with him in the club you saw that beneath his raw edges he was sweet, ambitious, devoted to his family, and committed to living life to the fullest. Young without a doubt, and his eldest brother intended to keep it that way. 

Gabriel, the eldest, had grown up working in the mines and was determined to save either of his brothers from such a fate, pushing them into factory work or anything else that kept them out of the fissures. He had opened to you about it once when he had first started coming to the club. The two of you polished off several bottles of champagne without any trouble and completely lost track of time laughing together as the club went from crowded to nearly empty. He told you about his brother’s and how he wanted to make sure that they never had to struggle to survive like he had in the early days. He also mentioned in vague terms that he was onto something now that would make it so none of them would have to go back to the factories, let alone the mines. That they would finally be given the better life he had always hoped and worked for. Gabriel’s green eyes were a light that night with the promise of the future. A future you were sure would have had a spot in it for you had you chosen to pursue it. His hand, warm and callused, had reached for yours that night, exposing the tattoos on his forearms, maps that detailed places he dreamed of going. You traced the letters of the city you fled lightly with your fingers down the veins of his arm, noticing how much more appealing they looked on his skin. He had eyed you so tenderly that night that the memory of it was surreal even now.

In the last city you lived in, someone like Gabriel would have left a trail of broken hearts longer than the Piltover bridge. Life here seemed crueler to its people but you suspected that someone as alluring as he was didn’t stay lonesome too long. Whether his stories and smiles were intended to cast a spell for the night or for longer you never found out. Gabriel kissed your hand as you parted that night and never pressed the issue again, but eagerly brought his brothers back every week since.

And like that, the Kane brothers were front and center for every performance. You always made it a point to spend time at their table after each show, so it was easy to notice the evolution. It had started humbly, a shirt that looked so new it could still have tags on it, then the pants to match, but over time there had been a shift in tone. Where there had been new clothes, simple and not thoroughly threadbare, now there were flashy new ensembles, jackets, hats, and jewelry. The bar tab seemed to grow each time they were in too and Nox was in every night.

Spared the hardships Gabriel had described, Nox was prone to enthusiasm, impetuousness, and excess, and tonight was no exception. So far he had asked you to marry him on twelve separate occasions, with a glance at his current state you sensed unlucky number 13 was mere moments away. Without Lucas and Gabriel to reign him in you wondered just how far this little display would go.

Before you had a chance to approach Nox, a loud BANG of Remy’s office door swinging into the wall with more force than you had ever seen froze you in your tracks. 

“Gabriel-!” Remy shouted as you saw Gabriel emerge, jaw set and tense, from Remy’s office. 

Remy called after him again but Gabriel ignored him, making a B-line to his brother and roughly pulling Nox to his feet before practically dragging him away. Gabreil brushed by you in his pursuit to the exit like you weren’t even there, his eyes empty and cold, so unlike the evening you had spent in his company. So unlike him. Nox’s hands reached from you but found no purchase as he was hauled away without so much as a word, Remy still calling after them. At least that was one problem you didn’t have to deal with tonight.

The exterior door slammed closed and they were gone, an uneasy silence stilling hanging in their wake.

You couldn’t help but stare at the scene before you, your mouth comically open in complete confusion at what you had seen. Remy hated to break the atmosphere of the club, hell--hated to raise his voice unless it was over the roar of the crowd. Something was wrong.

More movement caught your eye, as you quickly turned to spot another tall figure emerge from Remy’s office. It was Silco.

He stood in the doorway and looked disinterestedly after where Gabriel had made his exit. Remy let out a heavy sigh of exasperation, running his hands through his hair. His nervous tick.  

Remy disappeared back into his office with Silco for a brief moment. You could hear hurried exchanging of words, voices tinged with distress, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then you noticed the unmistakably cool even tones of Silco, filling in the gaps of your mental picture. A moment later they both exited Remy’s office, Silco with a nearly empty glass and Remy with his keys. He proceeded to lock the door behind him and hastily out the exit after Gabriel.

Whatever peace meeting this had been had gone poorly.

You couldn’t pull your eyes off of Silco and it wasn’t long until he noticed, his bicolored eyes locking with yours sent a jolt of electricity through your body but you didn’t look away. It wasn’t long until he took a seat in one of the back booths and you retrieved a bottle of bourbon to join him.

“Do you cause trouble everywhere you go or are we special?” You asked, brandishing the bottle of liquor in a bid for an invitation to sit. 

Silco flashed a sardonic smile in response to your words, but nodded toward the empty seat opposite of him anyway as he reached into his inside coat pocket for something you couldn’t see. Hopefully not a gun. That was a terrible joke to be shot over. 

“Rough night?” You asked in a hurry to distract him from your last comment as you uncorked the bottle and poured you both two fingers of the amber alcohol.

“You could say that.” He said, placing a silver cigarette case down on the table before returning his hands to his coat to find it’s companion; the lighter. “You keep the most interesting company.”

You knew he was referring to the Kane brothers, specifically Gabriel. But this was business and that was something you left to Remy. Keeping out of business is one of the things that made you successful in this industry. Behind the scenes Remy and you worked together to keep things running like a well oiled machine, but when it came to the ins and outs of client disputes, you kept to the safety of your rules of ignorance and neutrality.

“Not really.” You responded blandly. “I haven’t had any interesting company here in weeks.” Your eyes lingered heavily on him with the weight of your insinuation. 

The corner of Silco’s lips twitched upwards, “I’ve been busy.”

“Clearly.”

Your eyes wandered back towards the door, patiently waiting for Remy to stroll in, the picture of cool confidence. But the door remained closed. 

 A sharp sound pulled your attention back to the present. Silco was holding a lighter to the end of a cigarette, his eyes freezing on you.

“Care to join me?” He asked around an inhale before exhaling the smoke above him and leaning back into the velvet of the booth. He really was a sight.

“Remy doesn’t like smoking in here.”

“Well, fortunately Remy’s not here.” Silco lifted the sleek elegant case in your direction. An offering. An invitation. 

“I’m the reason he doesn’t like it.”

This surprised Silco, he raises a curious eyebrow at you for further explanation.

“I quit a year ago. He doesn’t want me to be tempted back down that road.” Although he was making that rather difficult. If cigarettes always looked this good you would never have quit. Even the way Silco held his cigarette was refined, he was like every suave black and white movie you’d ever watched but there was something not quite right about the image. Something about it was out of place and spoiled it, something subtle but what?

Silco Indulged in another deep inhale staring lazily at the ceiling and you couldn’t help but watch as the svelt muscles in his neck moved around the smoke, fascinated by what must be happening below the knot of his tie.

“And how are you with temptation?”

Your eyes widened and you averted them into your glass as quickly as you could. If the pause wasn’t telling enough, you were sure your grip on the glass would be. 

“Well?”

Your eyes darted up to see the cigarette case, open now, in his hand again and a wave of relief fell over your body.

He was talking about the cigarettes. Wasn't he?

“Terrible.” You made no move to accept his offer. Silco’s eyes studied you, your words contrasting your actions. 

With little effort he blew his smoke across the table, meeting the skin of your face in soft swirling spirals that only aided in the clouding of your judgment. It was impossible not to drink in. Not to allow yourself this one small enjoyment from the buffet of poisonous delights. And he knew it.

The smirk lingering on his lips was just as irresistible. 

“I’ve always found a little indulgence now and then to be helpful to my mind.” Silco extended the offer of his own cigarette. And perhaps it was the nicotine that was causing your head to spin or the company but such delicious indulgence had to be tasted.

Your fingers lightly traced his as you turned his palm to face you and lowered my your lips to take a drag from the cigarette in between his fingers. It was dizzying and delicious indeed. Taking in the last of the inhale, you glanced up at him through your lashes to only find his eyes locked on you with a burning intensity. 

Releasing the cigarette from your lips, you allowed smoke to dribble out of you mouth before releasing it fully as you relaxed into the comfort of the cushions on the back of your seat. Silco stared openly, almost hungrily as you took your enjoyment and relaxation; eyes working over your mouth, your neck, your clavicle, your chest, then further down the rest of your body.

“Like my dress?” I asked, a wicked smile forming on your lips.

“You call that a dress?” 

He had a point. This dress was nude and intentionally tantalizing, covering the most interesting parts in sparkling crystals meant to allure equally as much as it obscured.

“What would you call it?”

“A trap.” 

You chuckled, reaching your hand out to his for another drag of his cigarette as he continued to study you. Silco was a mystery and there was no telling how far this game of cat and mouse would go. Your exhale came with more force this time, blowing smoke past his sharp features before offering the cigarette back. Silcos hand reached for your but instead of the cigarette you found his fingers firmly wrapped around your wrist. There was little doubt he noticed the small jolt of surprise he sent up your spine but he didn’t comment. Instead, he turned your wrist towards him and lowered his head to take a drag from your hand, exhaling his smoke inches from your face.  A perfect imitation. No, much better.

Smoke washed over your face and clouded your mind and your senses until there was only this. Only him. Pinned both literally and figuratively to spot he wanted. His instruction was clear as he held your wrist still and removed the cigarette from your hand, raising it to your lips. The fire behind his dual colored eyes was truly mesmerizing.  You held his gaze as you lowered your lips to enjoy another drag from his cigarette in sweet surrender.

“Good girl.”

Your eyes locked, breath hitching in your chest.

Danger. There was that neon sign again saying to run. --And it wasn’t the only thing turned on.

Silco is bad for business. Bad…so bad…

But it was impossible to deny the thrill that ran through you at the sound of his words. And if the sly gleam in his eyes was any indication, he knew it too.

The smoke exhaled slowly between your lips, your last tease as it swirled into the space between us. Neither of you able to look away. 

He raised the cigarette to his lips again, revealing the tail of a scar that traced its way up the left side of his face to join the others around his treacherous eye. Its glow nearly matching that of the cigarette in his hand. 

What happened to him?

No sooner had the thought occurred than it was chased away by the loud crashing of the front door into the wall of the club. It was Nox, even more intoxicated than last you’d seen him. He spoke loud and lively as he walked through the entryway, one arm heavy over Remy’s shoulder who seemed exasperated by the evening and the company. Truly a feat for someone so agreeable. One that immediately raised your concerns.

Silco was eyeing the same situation with a precise intensity that was impossible to describe or ignore. That same danger that had drawn you in earlier had sharpened somehow. That’s when it hit you: Silco was a knife. A dagger. A blade. 

He kept himself sheathed politely in most scenarios but there was no doubt about what was under the surface. You could draw it to butter your bread or slit a person's throat but the danger was there all the same. He was not soft or warm. He was sharp, cool, precise, and deadly.

Suddenly it gave you pause to interrupt whatever dark calculations he was making. 

“I probably should relieve Remy of Nox duty” You offered lightheartedly.

Slico cast that sharp look at you briefly before returning to watch Remy wiggle out from under Nox’s weight as he placed him gently into a barstool.

“Be careful with that one.”  Silco’s warning was just above a whisper and he didn’t even spare you a look as he said it. His attention was entirely focused on Nox.

“Nox is harmless” you chuckled. But the lingering look from Silco was starting to give you second thoughts. 

“We all start that way.” Silco muttered under his breath, more to himself than to you. What was it that he saw in Nox that you didn’t? The question alone sent a shiver down your spine. Did you even want to know the answer?

Before you realized it Silco had gotten up from the booth and stood at the edge of the table, still watching Nox as he harassed the last bartender on duty for another drink. 

Your fingers involuntarily gripped the velvet cushions beneath you. Was this it?

God, please, not now. You thought so loudly you were afraid you’d accidentally said the words out loud. Another conflict might actually break Remy and you certainly weren't ready to see the kind of damage Silco could inflict that had earned him such a fearsome reputation. 

You released a shuddering breath into the still air, heavy with the weight of your fear/expectation. Silco turned to you, relieving your worry and composing his features back into the perfect gentleman you knew him as.  His long slender hand reached for his whiskey and took the remainder of his drink in one go before turning back to you.

“Thank you for providing a respite from the rest of this night.” He said in low tones that only the two of you could hear as he lifted your hand to his lips.

The warmth that started in your chest spread slowly to your cheeks with a gentle blush, then to the soft smile of your lips and finally down through your core to pool in between your legs. 

“But unfortunately I cannot put off my business any longer.”

You were sure Nox was safe tonight, that Silco would leave and busy himself with other concerns. But it was the leaving part that you found harder to grapple with, even if no one knew. He’d been gone so much recently, your time together seemed to be slipping through your fingers.

“So you say.” you sighed.

“Perhaps it’s my company that’s not interesting enough for you.”

Silco’s eyes narrowed at your remark. In a flash// with out warning, his grip on your hand changed, suddenly pulling you out of your seat and into him. A startled gasp escaped your lips as your chest collided with his. Long fingers slid skillfully over your hip and along your lower back. His other hand still held your wrist firmly. Provocatively. Both a statement of control and a dare for you to defy it. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you miss me, Ms. Sweet '' Silco whispered in a near purr, his nose pressing against the shell of your ear. Silco sent chills throughout your body that rivaled surgical precision. You couldn’t see his face, but there was an aire of arrogance about the way he held you that said he knew.

“Perhaps” You melted into him, making no moves to resist him. Your fight lay in another vein.

“But I’m not sure I can remember why anymore.”

His grip on you relaxed and you withdrew, it seemed as good of time as any to make your exit. Always better to leave with the last word. It wasn’t until you had turned your back that you felt his dark presence on you again.

“Are you asking for a reminder?” He punctuated his question with the press of his body against yours. His front to your back, with an unmistakable stiffness. That felt like a win.

“I’d hate to distract you from your work. It sounds very important.” You struggled to keep the sound of your smile out of your voice. Silco’s fingers were caressing your hip, almost as though he was debating something.

Without warning a loud BANG cut through the thick atmosphere of the club, stealing your attention away from Silco’s touch. That damn door again. A long line of fresh Academy recruits staggered their way to the bar with slurred celebration on their lips. 

“Unusual crowd tonight.” You commented into the empty air beside you. Silco was gone.

#silco #arcane #eventual smut #slow burn #silco smut #silco simp #daddy silco #silco league of legends #silco fanfic #burlesque

[x-amount-verbs]

Well. I made a podfic. 😅 Or started it, at least. Full heads up that this recording WILL include OC name (Ivy!), though still second person POV. Also, super unfortunately there’s some popping in the intro, but it disappears for the actual chapter.

Title: A Helping Hand

Track: Intro + Prologue

Author: x-amount-verbs (it’s me!)

Read by: x-amount-verbs (:D)

Chapter: AO3 Link Tumblr Link

[reader x silco (eventual)] [1.5k words] [no y/n] [during time skip] [henchperson reader] [SFW] [minor body horror]

Full fic: AO3 Link Tumblr Link

#podfic #silco x reader #silco x ivy #arcane podfic #silco/reader #wip:a helping hand #a helping hand #x-amount-narrates #silco x f!reader #eventual smut

[the-lady-writes-what]

Have I ever played League of Legends? No. Do I intend to? Maybe not. Have I watched only 5 episodes of Arcane and fell in love with Silco and now I can't get this brain rot of a story out of my head? Yes.

Am I going to make you all deal with it? Also yes.

Content/Content Warnings: mentions sex work, mentions of burn scars and leg amputations

Chapter 1: Fish Out of Water

Sneaking out of the under belly of Zaun and into Piltover is always the easy part. The truly skilled and knowledgeable can scamper along pipes, climb makeshift ladders, and sprint along cobbles undetected by enforcers. If you know your way, you can scamper between cities and squeeze through the tightest places like a rat. Things become difficult when you have two metal legs. Aeroships and blimps whizzed over head even in the dark of night carrying last minute cargo or a load of drunken aristocrats back home. Fey pulled the dingy hood further down her head before sprinting between headlights of passing vehicles. The clunk and clank of metal feet barely muffled by the cloth she wrapped around them to move about without too much noise. Still, having not just one but two legs replaced with metal bits and pieces was half the struggle of getting in and out. Movement in her legs was limited thanks to the old gears getting snagged on something or worse breaking mid-step. Always breaking or in need of repairs, there was only so much money a working girl like Fey could do with her modest income.

Fey tucked the braid of white hair that had come loose from the hoodie. It was a blessing and a curse. Men seemed to fall in love with her if only for her unnatural white hair, but it made her stand out all the more. Her mother and half-siblings didn't have such hair, so it probably came from the father whose name Fey never learned. Her palms itched under the ragged bandages she'd wrapped her hands in. She could feel the old scars burning. Sometimes she couldn't feel them at all, and other times she couldn't even use her hands because of the searing pain. No matter. Fey ignored the itching and focused on sneaking past enforcers making their rounds up and down the streets.

In the far distance, Piltover nightclubs thrummed with bases one could hear all the way in the slums of Zaun if they listened closely. However, Fey sprinted in the opposite direction. Not only would she never be dressed for the occasion of crashing a party, there was another destination she had in mind. Not the many shops that lined the streets or houses where she could plunder while the inhabitants slept. Fey made a serpentine path towards the fashion district of all places. Piltover complained about the refuse and inclement air of its neighbor, Zaun, but never stopped to consider the considerable waste they created themselves. Zaun had no such place like the fashion district in Piltover. People usually wore what could be cobbled together from vintage stores, hand-me-downs, or stolen from Piltover racks. Fey ducked behind one such designing house where a dumpster was left unguarded. The building itself was of immaculate plaster and stone free of graffiti which decorated nearly every building down in the undercity. The second floor was all glass windows while the first floor was a solid brick block. Fey glanced briefly at the mannequins showing off the latest Piltover fashion before running to the side of the building, clamber over the fence, and dash for the dumpster.

The broom was left right where she found it last time, propped up against the dumpster. Streets lights illuminated the almost pristine bin. It looked ridiculously clean for a place to drop one's garbage, but then again the Piltover fashion district didn't have to worry about environmental waste being chucked inside their rubbish bins on a daily basis. Fey glanced around her to make sure the coast was clear All the lights remained off in the building behind her. She picked up the broom and nudged the lid off the dumpster. The gears in her prosthetics scrapped against the metal bin as she hauled herself up and over the dumpster's side. Her short fall was cushioned by the dozens of bolts of cloth, scrap fabric, and ribbons too short to be of use to anyone. Bags of unsold buttons and beads lay beneath the silken, velvety, or sheer layers of cloth. Fey tore off the large duffle bag she'd strapped to her back and unsheathed a pair of scissors from her belt. She let her hands do most of the work as the dumpster was filled with mostly shadow.

Fey felt up every cardboard bolt of fabric in search of her favorite kind, velvet. She knew the subtle softness and could tell the difference in quality just by running her fingertips across the fabric. The spring collections were coming out soon, so whatever winter fabric that wouldn't or couldn't be sold (by lazy, careless Piltover standards) was pitched. Fey long suspected the practice to be in use to keep the luxuries out of Zaunite hands. Their loss was her gain in spite of their best efforts. Her heart hammered against her chest as she dove and tore into the leftovers like a pack of hungry dogs. In the dim lighting, she found rich jewel tones, damask and scroll prints, and velvet embroidered with exotic flowers. She snipped away what she wanted or unfurled whole bolts and left behind the cardboard in stacks on the dumpster floor. Fey stuffed jingling bags of beads and buttons a season or two out of fashion along with her feather-soft goods. When she could fit no more into her duffle bag, Fey chucked the bag over the lip of the dumpster. She climbed out and carefully replaced the lid.

Fey dragged the bag to the fence, threw it over, and hefted herself over. She almost doubled over when she threw her loot unto her shoulders, but regained her balance. Now came the tricky part. Sneaking into Piltover was easy, getting out with a loaded bag of semi-legal loot was another story entirely. Fey was by no means as weak as she looked having to literally pull herself up by her own strength sometimes. That didn't make it any easier. Loaded down, she wasn't nearly as fast as she liked to be.

Running back to Zaun relied on sticking to the shadows and ducking into alleys. She couldn't afford to lose her goods or damage them too much. Fey couldn't readily hurl them over a fence or stash it in a random corner while waiting for an enforcer to pass her by. She weaved in between buildings until the greenish glow of Zaunite lanterns approached her horizon. Fey stopped only once to redress the bandages on her metal "feet."

She reached the harbor as a bell tolled somewhere. Three in the morning. In a short while, the enforcers would be making their rounds near the docks. The window was closing.

Fey ran alongside the reeking river that cut between the two cities, forever and irrevocably cutting them off from one another. Even on the Piltover side, the water stank of fish and bilge water, though it was more bearable when it didn't combine with the fumes of Zaun factories. Beneath dingy lamplight, Fey spotted her little dingy still tethered to the dockyard. Her small boat was covered by the shadows of the piers. She looked behind for any sign of enforcers making their way down the docks with their too-bright flashlights.

Fey just about tossed herself unto the rocky shoreline of the river. She imagined every small noise at her back to be a Piltover warden running towards her with a weapon raised. Her prosthetics struggled over the large rocks leading to the water. Her vessel bobbed on the waves slowly rising as if to meet her. Fey dumped her load first and then herself, narrowly avoiding getting her rust-prone prosthetics wet. She hurriedly untied the rope, grabbed the oars, and paddled straight across the river. She got about half way when she looked over her shoulder once more. Fey paddled harder once she saw the dim lights of enforcer lights flicker across the dockyard.

She raced to the other side as if in hot pursuit. There was no other way. Slowing down meant getting caught and that she couldn't afford. Fey forced her muscles to push past the ache threatening to make her cry out in tired agony. Sweat beaded down her brow and settled into her eyes, but she didn't stop to wipe them away. Fey glanced again to find no one there. Not a shadow of a patrol boat anywhere in sight, however at this point why tempt fate and slow down? Fey paddled harder, faster, forced her way across the competing current until the dingy boat on made a thud against the opposite shore.

Fey tied her craft to the Zaun side dock, though she didn't doubt she'd find it missing the next time she tried going out. She climbed shore, jumping from rock to rock to skip over the mud and muck lining the undercity's shore. With her haul strapped to her back, Fey started for the hazy, green-lit shadow of Piltover.

Though it was early in the morning, the party crowd still loitered in the Lanes and congregated near The Last Drop. Fey would have to make her way through the throngs of shambling drunks in the main square, but not before she passed her workplace. Babette was sitting in her usual spot waiting for customers. She smoked from her long thin pipe as Fey stopped to greet her.

"Dumpster diving again tonight?"

"Yup," answered Fey.

"You certainly smell like it." She blew a stream of smoke away from Fey. "Somebody was asking for you tonight. Told 'em you had the night off and come back. So take a bath or two before you get here tomorrow night."

A secret loathing settled in Fey's stomach. Requests were frequently men who had...unique interests as they say. One in particular she hated most of all. It made her skin crawl just thinking about him.

"Well, let's hope that the pipes work when I get home," said Fey.

"You could just live here. You're going to give me a head of gray hair walking all the way home by yourself. It would be so much easier if you kept a room where you worked."

Fey inhaled the smoke from Babette's pipe. This wasn't the first time they had this conversation, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Fey shook her head.

"It's a good offer, but I need space to work and a quiet place to think," said Fey. "Thank you for the offer though."

She shuffled the bag on her shoulder and walked away before Babette could say another word. Fey weaved through the crowd surrounding the bar and walked into the dingy streets. She let her hood down and ran fingers through her sweat-slick hair. Yes, a bath should be in order if the pipes didn't run with sewage...again. Fey walked down several streets undisturbed. Though the homeless slept in the gutters, they were too tired to bother her. Fey strode past them and walked further ahead with eyes glued forward. That's how you get fewer people to bother you, make them think you've got some place to be in a hurry. It worked, some of the time.

Fey switched her duffle bag from shoulder to shoulder three times before home sweet home appeared in sight. A former fire brigade station, Fey renovated it into a home. The property was dirt cheap with ample space. She checked the lock on the back and front door because you just never know. People will do anything including stealing from one another if they're desperate enough to survive. All the perimeters were secured though as far as she could tell. A wind chime made of broken bottle pieces whispered in the breeze. Fey crossed the threshold and sealed the outside world behind her door.

Her palms itched more fiercely. Fey unraveled the dirty bandages she wore, revealing strange markings for her eyes only. The skin seemed to sizzle in the center of her palms like she put her hands on a hot stove. Fey dumped her loot at the base of a patched-up dress form with a half-finished red project draped on it. Her body demanded sleep, but the smell of her own body started to nauseate her. The bathroom was the cleanest room in the whole building but lacked a vital thing for privacy, a door. Fey kept some semblance of it via a curtain she tacked onto the wall above the door. She didn't know where the door went, just that it wasn't there when she purchased the abandoned station.

Bottles of chemicals sat on the back of the toilet. Fey sat on the edge of the tub and turned on the faucet. Cold water gushed out with a slight murky tint. She daubed a bit of solution onto a Q-tip and put it under the running water. The cotton tip turned pink, but Fey shrugged her shoulders.

"At least it doesn't contain parasites this time." The chemical test just proved there was a bit more salt and minerals than probably should be. The pipes began to groan though they didn't shut down.

While Fey waited for her tub to fill up, she undressed, leaving her clothes in a pile on the floor. A long nightdress hung on the wall. She plucked it off the wall and a towel and laid both within reach of the tub. Next, came the daunting task of detaching her prosthetics. Chemical burns covered her upper thigh, which was all that Fey had left of her right leg. Scars from the same incident was mirrored on the other leg, but these went from the ankle up. Her left foot had been cut off. The tub filled up to where she would splash it all over her floor and get her clothes wet. With the aid of ropes hanging from the walls and ceiling, Fey could ease herself into the water and safely sink down. She grabbed a bottle from a shelf along the wall and scrubbed her hair clean.

The scent of jasmine filled the room. The bottles lining the shelf looked out of the place with the whole building, not just the bathroom. They were exquisite glass bottles that matched the frippery and exclusivity of where they came from. Perhaps no one else in Zaun had such luxuries. Fey acquired them as gifts from the Piltover men who liked to visit the slums for shits and giggles. Oh, how she hated those men who'd otherwise turn their noses up at her, but then gave her exactly what she asked for if she batted her eyelashes or sucked their cock good enough. Fey washed her hair and dunked herself beneath the cold water. Wash, rinse, repeat.

When she felt like she got the dumpster smell off of her, Fey emptied the tub and heaved herself onto the bathtub sill to dry off. She wore her nightgown with nothing beneath and reattached her prosthetics. Her "bedroom" was the loft in the mezzanine area up the metal staircase. Her queen-sized bed was courtesy of those slum-exploring rats from Piltover, but the beauty part was that none of them ever got to see it. Jokes on them. Exhaustion hit her body like a train once she crawled beneath the sheets. It took only a short while before Fey drifted off to dreamless sleep.

#arcane #arcane: league of legends #arcane show #arcane smut...? #eventually #OC #oc x canon #OC x Silco (deal with it) #brain rot #and now all of you have to deal with it too #minors begone #minors dni #fuck it i'm posting it

[medic-simp]

No Hands - Smut

Rating: Explicit || Word Count: 518 Content Warnings: gn!reader, oral sex (m. receiving), power dynamics, silco being a smug little bastard, but he's also totally going to return the favor so it's fine lolol

Masterlist || AO3 Link

Beta reader: @silcoitus

Art by: @ivyunleashed

“Don’t use your hands.”

You look up at Silco, looking for something that would suggest he’s kidding. He’s certainly not. His smirk is a tell-tale sign of how pleased he is of this particular command, taking pride in making you get a little more creative with your routine. 

You have to admit though, the idea is enticing, and you quickly find yourself locking your hands behind your back. You hug your wrists together, fingers tangling at the base of your spine and pulling your shoulders back. Silco’s smirk widens and he follows you with his eyes as you lean forward and bring your teeth over one of the buttons of his pants.

You manage to unclip two of the four buttons, keeping your eyes glued to Silco’s with every surprisingly nimble maneuver of your teeth and lips. He eventually undoes the last two for you, watching you move the flap of his pants out of the way and drag his boxers down with your teeth.

His cock springs free and he pushes his pants further down to reveal heavy balls that beg for your tongue’s lavish attention. You lick a long stripe up from his sack to the tip of him, relishing the quivering sigh that escapes him as you do.

“Good girl,” Silco hums, tangling one set of fingers into your hair. He doesn’t push you, only following your lead and praising you all the while. His other arm is still languidly laid out over the back of the sofa, his head following suit and tipping backwards as you take him into your mouth.

Your head bobs a patient rhythm and Silco is undeniably content with it, sighing and grunting your name like a dirty-sweet prayer. His fingers tangle harder, pulling slightly, and you brace yourself as his hips begin to rut up into your mouth.

The tip of him slides smooth over your tongue and your fingers wring together behind your back, itching to relieve the ache between your legs.

“Doing so well for me,” Silco grunts, his ragged voice making that ache worse as you feel the wetness growing. You moan around Silco’s cock and he looks down at you, pupils blown wide and hair hanging in his face. What was parted lips becomes a shit-eating grin as Silco approaches his orgasm.

“Hands still behind your back?” he hums, voice breathless but not missing that sinister growl, “I’ll repay you very kindly for this, sweetheart.”

You think your core might explode with every needy throb you feel, begging for some kind of stimulation, but you steel yourself and instead focus on the hollow of your cheeks, the work of your tongue, and the hum of your muffled whimpers around his cock.

Silco’s chest swells with a sudden breath, your only warning before he’s coming down your throat, throbbing and groaning with every wave of his orgasm.

Fingers loosen their grip on your hair, letting you pull off of him and swallow each drop of his release. 

Silco watches you, panting, a coy promise painted clear on his face.

“Come here and let me taste you.”

#silco #arcane #arcane silco #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco x you #smut #mdni #lilith writes #medic-simp

[silcoitus]

New Associations

Rating: Mature

Silco x f!reader, fluff, domestic fluff, modern au,

Beta readers: none, we die like Silco's dignity

I had commissioned the below beautiful piece of art by @blissfulip based on this hilarious tiktok. That naturally turned into this fic. I don't feel confident in my period romance writing skills, so I instead set it in modern times.

Word count: 1.9k

You take Silco to a secluded log cabin in the woods for a romantic weekend getaway. He has no choice but to humor you with a silly little request.

Read on AO3

A/N: Just something silly that naturally turned a little angsty and then a bit fluffy. (And if it eventually turns smutty in a future part two, who knows. No promises. But you know how I get sometimes. I get bit by the smut bug.) Thanks again @blissfulip for the beautiful art! (I might need to make this my phone wallpaper lolol)

Taglist: @averagecrastinator @mazikomo @writingmysanity @insult-2-injury @ariaud @jennrosefx @ins0mniac-whack @steponmesilco  @sherwood-forests @leave-me-alone-silco @givemebeansnow @aeryntheofficial @dreamyonahill @lostbunn @whatisafandom @violet-19999 @juicboxd @sageandberries-png @sirenofzaun @blissfulip @mutedwordz @fly-like-egyptian-musk @jennithejester @mrsdelirium @witheringblooddemon

Join my taglist!

#silcoitus #silcoitus writing #arcane silco #silco #silco x you #silco x reader #silco fanfic #x reader #reader x character #reader insert #canon x self insert #canon x reader #silco fluff

[juniper-sunny]

A Knight to Remember - Part 3

Medieval AU | Knight!Silco | Silco x Female!Reader | No (Y/N) | Romance | Slow Burn | Eventual Smut | Fluff || SFW | WC: 5.75k | art by @designfailure56 (full piece here) | beta: @deny-the-issue

ao3 || Part 1 | Part 2

Your knight is forced to draw his sword once more, a prospect which worries you greatly…

taglist (open): @sherwood-forests @ilikemymendarkandfictional @ursawastricked @quirkykaty @let-the-monster-out @ariaud @silcoitus

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

Mealtimes were always an awkward affair in your father’s hall. The discomfort was less amplified during feasts, but dining with just your lord father and lady mother was more unpleasant. It was their attitude towards the servants that you could not abide. They were treated as living furniture that your parents only acknowledged if they wanted their ale refilled or dessert brought to them. Other than that, they might as well have been as inanimate as the torches that illuminated the room.

Your knight was the sole exception, as he had been granted the cringeworthy task of tasting your meals for poison before you ate. After a bite of each dish, he would retreat to the wall behind your seat where your father could observe him closely for any signs of poor health. Besides your doubt that there were assassins in the kitchen, it bothered you that your knight was not invited to sit next to you even after the tastings. Overall, it was an injustice that he and the other servants responsible for providing such delicious food were not allowed to dine in the same comfort and excess that your family enjoyed.

In the whole span of your knight’s employment, he had never tasted any poison in your food. It did occur to you once to play a joke on your father by pretending to choke and fall to the ground, convulsing melodramatically. The likelihood of your knight landing in trouble due to your antics was unlikely. Still, he would not deserve the potential scolding your father could mete out. Although your knight might find amusement in the lecture your mother would give you on your unladylike conduct.

“Have you grown used to your knight, child?” your father asked. Of course not bothering to ask your knight if he had grown used to serving you.

“Yes, he serves me well. Thank you, father,” you said. If only you could turn in your seat to smile at your knight as you said that, but the backing of your chair was too high to do that comfortably.

“Perhaps he could accompany you during your voyage overseas,” your father said. “I may have been too hasty in forbidding you and your mother from traveling. After all, this year has passed peacefully, has it not?”

“Yes, it has,” your mother said. “I have spent entirely too much time in this hall, darling. I am only reminded how much I should appreciate you after spending time away.”

“And I love you all the more after your absences,” your father laughed. He reached out for your mother’s hand and grasped it lovingly. She smiled and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

They were often prone to such displays, as their affection had seemingly never diminished since the early days of their courtship. You and your brother had often looked upon them with comical disgust, but now you looked on with wonder. Would you ever find something like that with someone?

Could you find something like that with your knight—?

Your lord father called out your name. “I thought you would be pleased to travel again. The ship and crew are still available to escort you to your original destination.”

“I am, father, thank you,” you said hastily. The place you had hoped to visit was a week away by ship, an ocean away with foods and flora you had never seen before but only read about. The language of their people was foreign to you, and you had studied it diligently to gain a better understanding of their culture. Much time had been spent on preparations for the trip, so you were understandably quite upset when your father canceled it.

Now, though… you still could not turn to face your knight as your father was looking at you expectantly. You sipped from your cup before speaking, “Actually, I was hoping to travel north. There are forests there that remain green even through the winter. I should quite like to study a land where spring reigns eternal. There would be no need to travel by sea,” you added.

“Really?” your mother asked, looking at you skeptically.

You nodded and continued eating, keen to put an end to the conversation. If your parents questioned your true motives for changing your mind, then they might think of your knight’s fear of water as incompetence.

“Then it would please me greatly to take your place on that voyage, child,” your mother said. “It sounds like quite the adventure.”

“Is staying home not enough of an adventure for you, my dear?” your father asked.

“Of course. Being married to you is the greatest adventure one could ever have,” she teased. They both laughed. Your knight cleared his throat, which he only did when he was trying to suppress a chuckle.

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

Traveling the world was already very exciting, but having your knight’s company in a new land was another prospect you were looking forward to. The gloomy, heavy gray skies could not dampen your good mood. A week later on one of your clandestine trips into the woods, you were about to ask him if there was anywhere he would like to visit. But he spoke first before you could ask.

“My lady,” he began. His tone was cool and calm as always, but there was a gleam of anticipation in his good eye. “Would you allow me the privilege of choosing where we go today?”

Your knight had never requested anything of you before. It was quite a surprise, the nature of which piqued your curiosity. “Of course, sir knight. Please lead the way.”

He smiled at you, a soft feather of a thing, so precious that you would hold it close if you could. Then he walked off into the woods at a measured enough speed that you could keep up easily.

How strange it was to be the one following instead of leading. Cold winds blew through you as if they were eager to trail him as well, rolling clouds heavy with impending rain across the skies. Curiouser still how he lead you on a path you had not taken in over a year— east towards your favorite river. You said nothing yet. What could his intentions be? You walked carefully in the mud, exercising the utmost caution. A misplaced step could dirty your dress and lead to interrogations and scoldings on where you went, what you did, and why. All very tedious conversations you hoped to avoid.

With his sturdy boots and thick trousers, your knight had no such reservations. He forged ahead relentlessly. He did look over his shoulder at you once or twice and you smiled at him. It was an instinct now, to smile at your knight whenever he looked at you. It was a hard impulse to curb when you were surrounded by other people with watchful eyes that might turn the smallest, most innocent actions into salacious gossip.

He stopped at the edge of the river, where the rocks still lay on dry land before they disappeared under the water’s surface. He rolled a small pebble under his boot before kicking it away decisively. It bounced over other rocks before landing in the water with a splash. Then, he turned to you with a determined expression.

“My lady, would you close your eyes for a moment?” he asked.

You nodded hesitantly, the world falling dark as you raised your hands over your eyes for good measure. You held them there even as a singular raindrop landed on your shoulder, the initial herald to oncoming rains. It was more important to demonstrate compliance with your knight’s request. But the waiting dragged on in boring agony with nothing to look at and almost nothing to listen to, save for the babbling waters.

After a few more minutes by your estimation, he still had not called out to you. What was he doing? You opened one eye and peeked cautiously through a gap in your fingers—

He was standing with his back turned to you. Waist deep in the water.

“Sir knight!!” you yelled, shocked. You ran clumsily over the rocks and crashed into the water. Cursing how it impeded your speed.

He turned just as you reached him. He caught you by your elbows as you grabbed his upper arms, a look of surprise on his face. The current swayed strongly around the two of you, disturbed by your hasty charge into the river.

“My lady,” he chuckled at your panic, ever the picture of serene stillness. “Do not be afraid. All is well.”

It was true. There was no need to rescue your knight from drowning when the river only came up to his waist, his head higher above the surface than your own. In your sudden realization that he was fine, your face flared in heat from embarrassment. Burning hot enough to counter the cold of the weather and the water. You would have looked away in mortification, but the sight was too wonderous to turn away from: He was standing there unbothered and was in fact smiling at you. Such a drastic change from how he acted over a year ago when he first followed you here.

“Please do not avoid the river or traveling by sea on my account, my lady,” he said. “I am no longer afraid.”

“How— but— the water— are you alright??” you asked breathlessly, the cold and exertion robbing you of air. He gently squeezed your arms in reassurance, his thumbs rubbing the inside of your sleeves. The churning waters around you calmed, holding you both gently as if in a cupped palm, the skirts of your dress floating around you.

“I let a weak man die,” he said. “To end the fear of pain, so that it could no longer control me. I am strong now.”

“You have always been strong, sir knight,” you reminded him. “To survive everything you endured until now… there are very few who could bear it.”

“But now I am able to serve you fully.”

“You have always served me well,” you protested. “There is no need to subject yourself to undue distress.”

He shook his head. “I am now able to see the truth you speak of, my lady. There is peace in water… just as I find peace with you.” His smile was so tender, so open. 

“Sir knight…” you said, swallowing hard. Stammering as you tried to find the right words to say. He let you stew in your awkwardness, his smile never fading the whole while, his sincerity changing into teasing at your expense.

When you first met, he did not seem capable of such vulnerability, much less sharing it with you. He needed only to carry out the duties you and your lord father assigned him. But to go above and beyond to indulge your desires that you had suppressed for so long… no one had ever shown you such kindness. It was a truly moving gesture.

“Sir knight…” you started again. “I do not have the words to properly convey the depths of my gratitude… Thank you. It must have been quite the ordeal to overcome your fear.”

“You could pass a lifetime without ever facing a challenge like that,” he said. “But it changes you forever. For that, I thank you, my lady.”

You pinched his arm, frustrated at how he was deflecting credit away from himself. “I played no part in your accomplishments, sir knight. Your success belongs solely to you.”

“I believed I had already reached the peak of my strength. You showed me how much stronger I could become.”

“I never meant to give you the impression that your fear of water was a weakness, sir knight. That was not my intention,” you cringed at yourself. “I am sorry.”

“Please do not misunderstand. You did nothing wrong—” your knight was interrupted by water falling on his brow. He blinked in surprise. The scattered sprinkle turned into a consistent splatter, then heavy sheets that drenched you both. Your dress was already soaked from the river, but water was now running down your head.

He let go of you. Just as you were about to mourn the loss of his touch, his hand alighted on your wrist. Pulling you gently but firmly as he trudged out of the river, the surface now hammered by the falling rain. You grabbed a fistful of your skirts and lifted them as high as you could, following him onto land.

He never let go even as he slowed down, allowing you time to carefully navigate over the slippery riverside rocks. As soon as you were clear of them, he sped up again, heading towards the forest. Intent on finding shelter under a tree. Your knight pulled you to his side, his shoulder pressing against yours. Still keeping hold of you, no longer gripping you but just grazing the end of your sleeve, his hand a loose bracelet around your wrist.

You instinctively turned to him. Perhaps he felt the same impulse for you met each other’s eyes at exactly the same time. You laughed as water dripped off his hair to land on your face. “We have been blessed with luck, sir knight. I was afraid we would have no suitable explanation for why we are both sopping wet.”

“I am quite blessed indeed,” he murmured, looking deep into your eyes.

What on earth did he mean? Your face flushed, heat tingling in your cheeks and ears before you could compose yourself. You let the damp locks of your hair fall in front of your eyes as you looked down, busying yourself with pulling your kerchief out of your pockets. Suddenly shy from the look he was giving you.

“May I?” you held up the kerchief. He nodded, and you proceeded to dab softly at him, wiping away the trails of water that trickled down his face. He closed his good eye as you wiped his brow, his cheek, and the bridge of his nose, so gently as to not accidentally prod or poke him. Water had pooled in the bow and scar of his lip, an invitation to touch him in that most intimate of places…

It was too frightening a prospect. You quickly swiped at his mouth, flinging water off his face. He chuckled and opened his eye, but all merriment drained from his face when you made to lift his eyepatch.

“Thank you,” his grip retightened around your wrist, not painfully but in an undeniable warning. “That’s enough.”

“Are you sure? It is quite soaked through. Please, at least let me wring it dry.”

“My lady… I fear that the sight may frighten you. It is not pleasant to look at.”

“Nothing could frighten me, sir knight,” you said softly. “Not if it’s you.”

His good eye widened at your declaration, his piercing gaze returning to determine the truthfulness of your words. When you did not waver or recant, he nodded slightly, closing his eye again.

The eyepatch was large and triangular with a thick band that covered almost the entirety of his left eyebrow. He had owned this particular eyepatch long enough that it molded to the shape of his cheekbone, curving concave to end level with his nostrils. Its color was the deepest black, embroidered with smooth scarlet thread at its edges. Your family crest was embroidered on the patch itself in light gold, as beautiful as reflected sunlight on the river’s surface. The thing was too precious to manhandle, so you patted it dry as best as you could before turning to his face.

His scars were extensive enough that the accessory could not completely cover them. They crawled outwards from his eye to beyond the edge of his temple, jagging through his hairline. You had seen the scars that ended on his lip before; they were not a collection of smaller cuts as you previously wondered, but part of a long line that flowed uninterrupted down from the eye socket. Another scar parallel to it curved towards his chin. A spiderweb of cracked lines concentrated most intensely where the lower lid of his eye would have been were it not missing entirely. The skin itself was ruined, unevenly colored an ashy gray that would not wipe away to match the same, healthier pale tone of his body.

Then there was the eye itself. The upper lid was missing as well, revealing a sclera completely colored black. The shape of the iris was amorphous around the edges, shapeless clouds of ink in water. For such a thin ring, the iris was many brilliant shades of orange, bright flickering flames in a bed of coal. 

The ruin of his face was less frightening than what it represented. For such a gentle man to experience such a horrific injury at the hands of a loved one was too painful to bear. A lump in your throat arose as you resumed patting his face dry. Conscientious of starting at his hairline first before moving down to his brow. Did he experience pain when water dripped into the unprotected eye?

“It’s alright, my lady,” your knight said patiently. “You need not look at it any longer than you wish to.”

“Please do not misunderstand, sir knight,” you whispered. “I only hate to imagine how you must have endured so much pain and fear that day…” More frightening still was the irrational but not impossible prospect that your knight could face similar violence in the future. The fact that your knight’s entire tenure was peaceful did not quell the anxiety that threatened to choke you. 

“And yet I am strong now,” he repeated, voice low and soft, a whisper of wind over gravel. “Just as I am always meant to be.”

Your knight’s face was as dry as it could possibly be given the circumstances. You raised your free hand as high as you could above him, hoping to shield him from any errant raindrops that might fall from the branches above. You took an unconscious step forward as his hand glided down to your elbow, holding you close. Your hand holding the kerchief cradled his face… such a thin layer of cloth preventing you from touching him unhindered, skin-on-skin.

He was close enough to see and perhaps feel the heat of your blush on your face. Could he also hear how your heart hammered away from both anxiety and anticipation? It was a fearful excitement that would normally have you running away if you were not rooted to the ground, bound to your knight by some invisible compulsion. 

To be bound to your knight would be bliss. He was quite literally within arm’s reach. He leaned into your palm, raising his own hand towards your face—

“We should return home,” you blurted out, jumping back. You shoved your kerchief and his eyepatch into his still outstretched hand. “There is no telling if the rain will end soon.”

You turned and scurried away, pulling your dress off the ground with both hands. Not waiting for your knight to readjust his eyepatch. But the sound of his footsteps followed behind you soon enough.

Because of course he was still loyal to you. Even if you might be wedded to someone else in the future. Even if he was dedicated to you, you could not pledge the same to him.

You would do better to remember that.

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

An illness fell upon you in the days to come. It was nothing serious, only a slight cold from your time in the river and rain. However, your lord father did once again treat it as a disaster. You were confined to your bedchamber and only a select few were allowed to visit you. Unfortunately, your knight was not included among them.

He had only come into your service less than two years ago. But now you could not imagine a life without him, and the days with only your handmaidens and father for company were quite lonely indeed. But on one trip to the washroom, late at night, you found a bouquet of your favorite coneflowers at your doorstep, wrapped in your kerchief. You grabbed it and held it close, clutching it to your chest. In the morning, you placed it close to your window.

Your mother had already departed for her travels before the day you followed your knight into the river. In his haste, your father had sent word of your sickness to her, for which she came back early.

“I am sorry, mother,” you said as she sat next to you on your bed. “You needn’t have returned home for my sake. I am almost entirely recovered now.”

“That is quite alright,” she said, placing the back of her hand on your forehead. “I am only relieved that you are better. There is something I wish to share with you.

“In my time abroad, I attended a sword-fighting tournament. It was quite exciting,” your mother said, eyes bright with giddiness. “We will be hosting one soon for my birthday and I intend to have your knight participate.”

“WHAT?!?” you shouted angrily. You would have said much more but you exploded into a fit of painful, hacking coughs.

Your mother held up a cup of water for you to drink from, disregarding your outburst entirely. “I thought you would enjoy seeing one. It has been quite a while since the last one.”

The last time you attended one was years ago during some celebration you could not recall exactly. You had enjoyed it no more or less than any of the other festivities that day. It was just like your lady mother to impose what she wanted onto others without consideration for anyone’s feelings but her own.

“My knight will not join. I forbid it,” you said as sternly as possible in between your coughing.

She merely looked upon you dismissively. “I must test his capabilities, child. If he is not a worthy fighter then I shall have another join your service.”

“Has he not already proved himself to you? He did save your life, mother,” you pointed out.

“And yet my daughter deserves only the best. This is the only way to determine his competence.”

“You are only interested in watching every able-bodied man of these lands fight,” you accused. “If you are so keen to witness some swordplay, why not take up the blade yourself?”

“Why, I am much too old and delicate to take up arms, child,” she laughed good-naturedly. “And this is much more fun.”

There was nothing more you could do to sway your mother. You were still fuming when she tucked you in and kissed you goodnight.

Another week passed before you were fully well again, and then another few days dragged on when your father insisted you continue resting. You were therefore quite eager for your next chance to find some private time with your knight.

In your time apart, he had accumulated some bruises on his face and neck and moved with a stiffness that spoke of sore muscles. It had taken all your restraint not to descend upon him when you first saw him at breakfast, surrounded by your family and other attendants. 

Now in the privacy of the meadow, you fussed over him.

“Are you well now, my lady?” he asked.

“Never mind that,” you said impatiently. “Are you alright??”

“I am fine, my lady. These injuries are not serious,” he said. “I have merely resumed training. In this time that I have served you, I have not raised my sword once. I must not dishonor you with my negligence.” “You could never dishonor me, sir knight,” you protested. “And I care very little for my ‘honor’. I only wish to keep you safe from harm. If only my mother prioritized your safety over her own amusement!!”

He would have replied but was suddenly interrupted by a yawn he could not suppress.

“Are you tired? You should return home—”

“No, my lady,” he said. “I wish to stay by your side.”

He was stubborn, immune to your further attempts at persuasion. So instead you laid on your back, fully stretched out and staring into the sky. “Lie next to me, sir knight, if you insist on accompanying me.”

He raised an eyebrow at you but laid down obediently. As soon as he lay flat, his good eye began to shutter from weariness. You said nothing as he succumbed to slumber, not wishing to disturb him.

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

You seemed to be the only one who was not looking forward to the tournament. If you could magically summon rain and thunder with your bad mood, then you would have flooded the town. As it were, the sun was shining bright and merrily on the first day of celebrations. A low wooden barrier was erected in the middle of town, carving out a circle for the arena. Tents had also been set up for the participants’ use where they could prepare in privacy.

The last opportunity you had to speak with the knight was the night before. Then the morning had been filled with preparatory work of your own, imposed by your lady mother who insisted you wear your finest dress and jewelry for the occasion. Then breakfast had been a feast in and of itself, with many other lords and ladies who had traveled from afar to attend. Forced to play the part of the obedient daughter, you offered as much hospitality as you could while glancing around frantically for your knight. He was nowhere to be seen.

Now, seated next to your father outdoors on a raised wooden platform overlooking the arena, the first match of the day was about to start. At least your mother had the consideration to only have your knight participate in a singular exhibition match, the first one of the day. He would not have to fight in multiple rounds, but that did nothing to quell your uneasiness.

Your knight’s opponent stepped into the ring first. He was a younger man named Finn, just as tall and broad of shoulder as your knight, but more muscular. Brilliant green eyes shone through under his dark hair, cropped close to his ears. He seemed more of a showman than a fighter in the way he stalked around the edge of the arena, arms outstretched and soaking up cheers and applause, banging his sword against his shield to encourage more noisemaking from the audience. His wide smirk grew into a sneer as he turned and pointed his sword at your knight, who had only just entered the ring.

Your knight’s entrance was much more understated. He walked calmly towards the center of the arena in long and confident strides, with a straight back and a proud, dignified bearing. Ignoring his opponent’s attempts to mock him with words you could not make out. 

The two men circled each other a fair distance apart. Finn swaggered and jeered, feinting lunges at your knight to intimidate him. Throughout it all, your knight never flinched, stepping at a steady pace, sure and confident. Crouched low behind his shield with his sword raised level, pointing at his opponent. The tip of his weapon tracing small circles in the air.

You gasped when your knight’s shield came into view: he had painted your favorite purple coneflower on it, a dark orange seeded heart on the center disc while long straight petals unfurled outwards, filling the entire shield to touch the rim. If you could have run into the ring to pull your knight to safety, you would have.

Finn charged. Not another feint but a leap and a heavy swing of his sword at your knight’s left eye. An understandable move as the eyepatch would have fooled anyone into believing it was his blind spot.

But your knight raised his shield just in time to catch the blow. Finn’s sword glanced downwards. Quick as a flash, your knight slashed at Finn’s exposed side and jumped backwards. Almost dancelike with how quick and graceful he was on his feet.

The younger man swore and glared at your knight. Dropping all pretense of playing as he snarled, raising his sword and shield once again. Crashing his shield into your knight’s. But your knight never stumbled, still calm and unshakeable.

Another downward slash from Finn. Your knight blocked it with his sword. Then Finn slashed again and again, raining down a flurry of blows. All of them were blocked skillfully by your knight. But he was forced to walk backwards as the sheer barrage of Finn’s attacks pushed him closer and closer towards the edge of the arena.

Your knight was backed up against the barrier. He was forced to dodge Finn’s next blow by jumping sideways. Finn rammed his shield into your knight’s side, sending him tumbling to the ground. A kick to your knight’s wrist forced him to drop his sword.

Finn kicked the blade out of your knight’s reach, dropping his shield to snatch it for himself. He crossed both swords overhead, yelling in triumph. The crowd cheered along while you gasped in horror. Your knight leaped to his feet just as Finn shoved the discarded shield towards him. A surprisingly chivalrous gesture from Finn. Leaving one fighter with two swords and the other with two shields.

Your knight crouched low as he raised both shields. Peeking out over the tops of them. Finn laughed as he charged again, raising both swords high. But it was another feint— just as your knight raised the shields to block again, Finn turned and slammed his shoulder into the shields. Your knight held strong, staying on his feet.

Finn seemed to realize his mistake. Your knight was now a moving wall, made impenetrable by the second shield. He matched Finn’s speed move for move, blocking each attack perfectly. Waiting for his opponent to tire himself out.

A spinning slash from Finn. His back was exposed. Your knight charged into Finn, sending him crashing to the ground. The younger man dropped the swords and rolled onto his back. Only for your knight to pin him to the ground with a knee. Shield rim shoved under Finn’s chin.

Finn struggled but your knight did not yield. Whatever your knight was saying to his opponent was inaudible from so far away. But it seemed enough to make the younger man drop his head to the ground in frustrated defeat. Boos and cheers in equal measure exploded into the air as the victor got to his feet. Bowing in your direction before walking off.

You slipped away from your seat before anyone noticed, ducking into the tents. You passed through several, catching their occupants by surprise.

Finally, you found him. He turned to face you just as you entered.

He was shirtless, his chainmail shirt discarded on a nearby table. His eyepatch was missing as well. Leaving him the most exposed that you had ever seen him. Sweat dripped down his long neck to pool in his collarbone, then traced the contours of his thin but wiry arms. His toned chest rising and falling with each breath. Scars and bruises alike smattered irregularly under his skin. Large veined hands slinging a cloth over his shoulder. Trousers clinging to his tapered waist. Every muscle and sinew threading together to form his handsomely slender physique, tall and elegant even without clothing.

Oh. “I am so sorry—”

“My lady,” he said, surprised. “I did not expect to see you so soon.”

“I wanted to see you,” you said, squinting at the ground.

“Forgive me,” he said. A rustle of cloth, then the sound of him patting himself down. You looked up to see that he was now wearing a loose shirt. The deep V of the neckline ended above his ribs, giving you a tantalizing glimpse of his nakedness that you had so enjoyed.

“There is nothing to forgive, sir knight,” you said after clearing your throat. “I am sorry for interrupting you at such an inopportune moment.”

“All is well, my lady. I wanted to see you too. Please,” he gestured towards a wooden stool, inviting you to take a seat.

You smiled at him, finally relaxing from the stress that had built up since your mother’s announcement. “No thank you, sir knight. You need it more than myself. You fought valiantly! Are you hurt?”

“Thank you,” he smiled back. “It is nothing that a good night’s rest will not cure.”

“I am sorry my mother put you through this,” you cringed at her childishness. “I wish I could promise that she will never do so again.”

“As your father’s wife, I am obliged to serve her whims as well,” he said diplomatically, to which you snorted. “I am glad that she will allow me to remain in your service.”

“Thank goodness… you are the only one for me,” you sighed, then hastily added, “Another knight would be quite unnecessary.”

He raised an eyebrow at you in puzzlement. “Strange… your mother told me if I lost, I would be relieved of my duties entirely. If I had known they would only be halved then I should have been less afraid of defeat.”

Your jaw dropped at your mother’s audacity. Then you ground your teeth, doing your best not to cuss at your mother out loud.

“I should hate to lose the pleasure of your close company,” your knight said, even as he chuckled at your fury. “But I am glad to have your mother’s blessing.”

“Would that I could order you to give her a taste of your blade,” you grumbled. “Thank you for the flowers, sir knight. That was very kind of you.”

“Not at all,” he said simply. “I missed you.”

What a strange thing for him to say when you were standing right in front of him. But perhaps the tournament had weighed just as heavily on his mind as it did on yours, what with your mother threatening to end his employment. 

“I missed you too,” you said softly. “I hope to see you again soon, sir knight.” As much as you preferred your knight’s company over your mother’s, it was time you left to rejoin her.

“My lady,” he said by way of goodbye, nodding once. He watched you closely as you departed. Hopefully, it would not be long before you were reunited with him again.

Part 4

#Arcane #Arcane fanfic #Silco #Silco x Reader #Arcane Silco #Silco Arcane #Silco fanfic #my writing #A Knight to Remember #AKtR

[kikiiswashere]

Children of Zaun - Chapter 19

Pairing: Silco/Fem!OC

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Canon typical violence, drug use/dealing, dark themes, eventual smut

Chapter Summary: Viktor senses something is off. Grayson touches base with Bone. The Children attempt their hiest!

Chapter CW: Canon typical violence. PTSD.

Previous Chapter

Word Count: 4.5K

When Katya picked Viktor up on Friday, she barely acknowledged Ivy. Partly due to her anger, partly due to shame about her behavior the day before. She took the rucksack from the aide, her eyes downcast, hands reaching out to grab protectively at her brother’s shoulders once it was secure across her back.

Ivy watched the other woman sadly, wanting to say something, but not knowing what that would be; nor knowing if it would be wise to say anything in front of the boy.

“Have a good weekend, Viktor,” she said instead, a reassuring smile on her cherry-red lips.

“You, too, Miss – “

“Let’s go, Viktor,” Katya interjected, guiding him away.

Viktor’s brows furrowed as he began to awkwardly fall into step with her guided gait. He looked back at Ivy one last time before turning his attention toward the walk home.

He could sense something was wrong. It didn’t take an especially astute mind to see that Katya was in a foul mood. What was trickier for him was determining why. People had too many variables for his liking – it completely negated the scientific method. The backbone of chemical, biological, and physical theories and laws were their relatively controlled environments. If A, then B. If A, and C is present, then D; and so on.

People did not, as far as he could tell, live by such rules. Their feelings and actions could not be counted on to be consistent. And he found it vexing. And intimidating.

Viktor stuck close to Katya’s side as they made their way to the Bridge, his chin tucked in and eyes occasionally peering up at her, hoping he could glean any information from her stony profile.

“What is wrong?” he finally asked as they stepped into the Promenade.

Katya winced and chewed her lip. The pause scared him.

“Nothing,” she finally said, ushering him toward the Conveyor Car station. “I’ve just had a bad week.”

“Oh,” he murmured. He knew Katya didn’t lie to him, but he felt unconvinced.

“Come. Let’s get home.”

The weekend went by quickly, as it often did. But instead of feeling comforted and refreshed by time away from Piltover, he felt on edge and smothered. Whatever had happened during the week to his sister, clouded their home. It kept her irritable and clingy at the same time. She sat too close, touched him too much, didn’t really speak with him, and didn’t really listen. Despite her near-suffocating proximity, she seemed very far away, and he didn’t know how to call her back.

On Monday, when she dropped him off with Ivy, her fingers clawed at him when they hugged. Desperate and lonely.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy kindly said, “but we need to get going.”

Viktor made to pull away, ready to start his week. But Katya held on for a beat more. She touched him for as long as possible, letting her fingertips trail down his shoulders and arms as he stepped over to the aide.

“I love you, Viktor. I’ll see you Friday.”

Her voice was hollow and heavy. He didn’t understand. And he didn’t like it.

“I love you, too,” he replied. He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Grayson knocked on Councilor Bone’s office door and waited. Usually, Councilors had receptionists. Bone did not. Something the Captain took note now only because she wondered if this was another microaggression against an Undercity citizen.

“Come in.”

She stepped inside, removing her cap as she did. “Councilor, sir.”

“Ah, Captain Grayson,” Bone sighed, peering over his spectacles at her. “Please, come in. Have a seat.”

He gestured to the simple chair in front of his desk as he pocketed his glasses, and put the paper he was reading down. Grayson did as instructed, removing the folders from under her arm as she sat.

“I have looked through what you gave me,” she said heavily, placing a palm on the documents. His nod was equally somber, and he waited for her to continue. After a long moment, she added, “I see what you are saying.”

Bone nodded again, closing his eyes. He made to swallow and his throat hitched. He clasped a hand around his mouth as his lungs tried to push an angry retch up his trachea. His other hand fished out the handkerchief he kept in his breast pocket. He covered his mouth, and swiveled away from Grayson. After a few more bone-rattling hacks, a warm, slimy wad crawled its way up Bone’s throat and mouth, and landed in the cloth. Very carefully, not wanting to disturb his guest, nor let on the severity of his condition, he coolly removed the handkerchief. Carefully pinching it to contain the bloody lump, he stowed it in his pocket and turned back to the captain.

“Apologies,” he rasped.

Grayson’s eyebrows creased in concern. She’d heard that the last Assembly had been cut short because of an acute health issue of Bone’s; now she wondered just how acute it was.

“I can come back another time, Councilor,” she offered. “Perhaps you ought to go home and rest.”

“No, no,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “Rest will not help. I do not want to rest.”

That statement made the lines on Grayson’s face deepen. What he had said did not have the calming effect she suspected he wanted. However, she was not in a position to argue with a Councilor. No matter where he hailed from. Not if the work he wanted to do with her was on a time crunch.

“Thank you for taking the time to look over those files,” Bone said, genuine gratitude shining in his pale eyes. “Unfortunately, those are only a fraction of the cases – “

“I know.”

“ – and Enforcer brutality is ongoing.”

Grayson closed her eyes. “I know.”

She had never partaken, and she had never taken it as seriously as perhaps she should have, but she was well-aware of trainees and rookie Enforcers going into the Undercity and finding citizens to fight. In the name of tradition. For meaningless clout. She had recently reamed a trio for that very activity. Not only was it unprofessional and shameful, but they had had their asses handed to them by whoever they had tried to intimidate.

“I would like us to put the data together in a thorough and concise presentation format,” Bone said, “and present it at an Assembly.”

“Us?” Grayson gasped. “Shouldn’t we get LeDaird on board, too?”

“We will. Eventually.” He fixed her with a sly grin. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission, yes?”

“I suppose,” she conceded, settling back into her seat.

She knew from experience (her own and her peers’) that sometimes bending or skirting protocol was the best way to get things done, to solve cases. Even LeDaird knew that. “Hopefully after that attempted robbery at the docks a couple weeks ago, things will be relatively quiet so we can work on this.”

The first step in stealing the money, Katya found out, was sneaking across the Pilt. The airship port was on Piltover’s side of the river; built into the cliff faces on the outskirts of the city. The captain Beckett worked for was also a part of the Children, and was allowing him to use a small dinghy to ferry himself, Silco, Katya, and Annie to the opposite shore.

The night of the job, Katya met Silco at The Last Drop’s backdoor. Vander and Enyd stood behind him; the barkeep looking hopeful, but stoic. Enyd was pale, her hands continually fretting with the dark clothes her son wore. Katya was wearing dark ones, too; something that he had suggested when they had met up with Annie and Beckett to go over the plan.

“We’re meeting Beckett and Annie there,” he said, stepping away from The Drop. Enyd followed and began to fuss over Katya.

She nodded, and asked, “Are we ready?”

“Wait a moment,” Enyd breathed, her hand snaking into her satchel. She pulled a small, folded pile of cloth out and handed it to Silco. “To cover your faces with,” she explained.

He nodded and handed one of the four handkerchiefs to Katya. Taking it, she unfolded it once, a glimmer against the pitch fabric catching her eye. She squinted in the low light, and saw that there was a small ‘Z’ stitched into the corner with silver thread.

“Be safe, yeah?” Vander said, shifting restlessly. While his strong jaw remained set, his eyes shone with worry.

Silco nodded. “We will be back in a few hours.”

Enyd threw herself into him, holding on tightly. He drew her close and reassured, “It will be uneventful. In and out.”

Katya nodded; so did Vander, as he swallowed the lump in his throat. Reluctantly, Enyd pulled back from her son, only for her slim arms to reach for and hold on to the young woman. Thrown off, but grateful, Katya returned the embrace.

“In and out,” she repeated. “Like he said.”

Regardless, Enyd insisted, “Be careful.” She stepped back and gave the pair a warning look. They nodded and stole away down the alley. Vander placed a massive hand on Enyd’s shoulder as they watched them go.

Silco and Katya slipped silently through Zaun’s alleyways and to the docks. Annie and Beckett met them in the shadows of the Harbormaster’s hut, both looking uncharacteristically serious. In addition to their dark outfits, Beckett wore a black knit cap over his fire-red hair, and Annie had spun her own dark locks into a tight braid, instead of her usual loose pigtails. There were quick ‘hellos’ – Annie simply jutting her chin in Katya’s direction – and Silco handed the pair the remaining two masks.

The docks were dark and quiet as they strode for the small dinghy lazily bobbing in the water, waiting for them. Beckett took the back and readied the motor. Annie took the middle bench, while Katya and Silco sat hip-to-hip at the bow. Beckett untied the vessel and ripped the motor’s cord. It puttered to life and they began the short voyage to a small grotto just beneath the airship base. The boat would hide there while they executed their plan.

The water beneath the boat was so still; a smooth, black mirror of the sky. Beckett captained the vessel gently, leaving only a glossy ripple in their wake. None of them spoke. Katya’s knee bobbled nervously as they went. Eventually, Silco put a hand on her leg, keeping his touch light.

“It’ll be okay,” he promised. He paused, and added in a quieter whisper, “I got you. I won’t let anything happen.”

Katya gave him a thankful smile, but her heart thundered on. It was a moment before Silco realized that he had left his hand on her thigh. Slowly, so as to not draw attention to himself, he drew his hand back. His fingers tingled and he flexed them, wondering why it suddenly felt difficult to breathe.

With the pace they kept, it took a little over an hour to reach the grotto. Beckett harbored the small boat just out of sight of any prying eyes. As they exited the vessel, both Beckett and Annie swung large, empty sacks over their shoulders and handed one each to Katya and Silco. They tucked Enyd’s masks up over their noses, and they ascended the steep cliff face. The climb became easier once the natural, jagged rock gave way to the smooth stone that built up the tower of the hanger. However, the biting wind off the Pilt stung their eyes and cheeks now that the extra rock cover was beneath them.

“The third hanger,” Annie whispered as they approached the first massive cavern in the cliffs. She pointed up for good measure.

While Katya had of course seen airships and blimps far up in the sky, it was very different seeing them up close, tethered and waiting in their bays. Impressive, hulking machines made from metal, wood, glass, and fabric. She didn’t know if it was because it was so late, but they did not have to dodge as many workers as she expected. The few she spied were lazily leaned against the iron gangways that bracketed each airship, smoking and distracted by conversations they were having with one another.

The ship in the third bay up was not as large as the one beneath, a fact Katya found comforting. Less room to have to search through, fewer crew members to have to avoid. The small group huddled together at the mouth of the cavern.

“The delivery from Clapper should already be aboard,” Silco said. “Stowed in the belly of the main cabin. Time?”

Beckett checked the chrono on his wrist. “It’s 9:30.”

“The ship is supposed to sail at 10:00,” Annie supplied.

Silco nodded. “Right. We sneak in, find the delivery, get the coin, and get out.”

Katya swallowed and set her jaw. Her heart tapped and she steeled her nerves. Stealing from the mines medical supplies seemed so much less risky compared to this.

They carefully crept onto the catwalks, mindful to keep their footsteps as soft as they could. They ducked behind crates and kept careful watch of the workers above and below them. They approached the ramp that led onto the ship and paused. Silco and Beckett looked to Annie, who skirted around them and sneaked up to the door, and silently slid it open. She peered inside, and after a beat, beckoned them to follow her.

The cabin was dimly lit and full of boxes. To their right there was a door and a brighter light spilled beneath it. Muffled voices murmured behind it. At once, Beckett began silently stacking boxes in front of the door. Katya joined in and set additional crates in front of that pile.

“Here,” Annie whispered. She handed each member a chem-torch from a nearby shelf. She flicked hers on and held it beneath her chin, making a twisted face.

“Not now, Annie,” Silco admonished, turning his own on.

Annie rolled her eyes at him and began looking absently around the cabin. “Oh! Look at this!”

The other three turned, expecting to see a crate with the Clapper insignia on it. Instead, Annie enthusiastically thrusted a small, metal and glass contraption towards them.

“It’s a camera! I think,” she said excitedly, spinning the object in her hands to look at it. “I’ve never seen one.”

“Put it back, Annie,” Katya hissed. “That is not what we’re here for.”

The other woman ignored her and stuck the camera in her bag.

“Come on,” Silco insisted. “There’s a door over here. It should take us below.”

Indeed, the door opened onto a short staircase that took them below the main cabin. Larger boxes were stowed there and the group dispersed, looking for their target.

“Here,” Katya called after a minute. Her torch’s beam shone over a large, squat box with Clapper’s logo stamped across the wood. The rest of the party gathered around, and Beckett withdrew a prybar from his sack and opened the crate. They pawed through the paper confetti cushioning the delivery until they finally uncovered the curtains beneath. “Nasha said the coin would be sewn into the hems.”

Silco and Annie reached in, feeling for the ends of the fabric.

“Here,” Silco said, lifting the end of one panel up. The fabric sagged and sifted over his hands, gently clinking as it moved. He withdrew the knife from his boot and slashed the hem open. Gold hexes fell out. Katya’s mouth went dry, both Beckett and Annie’s eyes went wide.

“Fuck,” Beckett breathed. “I’ve never seen so much coin.”

“And this is only a fraction of it,” Silco said, and Katya could hear the smile in his voice.

They filled Annie and Beckett’s bags first.

“Fuckin’ Janna,” Annie complained as she slung the pack over her shoulders. “This guy must be in deep shit if he owes this much coin.”

“It’s 9:45,” Beckett announced, adjusting his partner’s bag.

Silco nodded. “You two go. Start heading back down to the boat.”

“Be careful,” Katya implored as they crawled back up the stairs.

Together, she and Silco dug through and cut open the remaining curtains, emptying the gold into their bags. Once they got to the bottom of the crate, they carefully pawed through the panels again, making sure not a coin was left behind.

Above them, a door opened and loud footsteps stomped along the floor. Both Katya and Silco froze, bodies tense like springs, hearts thundering. There wasn’t another way out. Only up, back through the main cabin – where someone was traipsing about, entirely unbothered by the amount of noise they made.

They should’ve checked how many of the crew had been in the main bridge of the airship before boxing it up . . .

“What the fuck is this?” an unfamiliar gruff voice muttered. Then the sound of him shifting boxes around.

Silco turned to say something to Katya and she jumped, knocking into the crate’s lid, and toppling it over. It wasn’t a loud sound, but noisy and unsuspected enough that it alerted the crew member above them.

“Whose down there?”

“Hide!” Silco hissed, pushing Katya into a darkened corner.

No sooner had she stumbled behind another tower of crates, did the door at the top of the stairs open, a large shadow looming down the steps and into the cargo hold. She hurriedly turned her torch off, gulping down a scared gasp. Silco sprang for the shadows. But the light pouring in caught his boot before he could slip away entirely. His own chem-torch rattled and rolled away across the floor. The man grunted an amused tone and began down the steps, each footfall heavy. Meant to intimidate.

Katya pressed her back into the wall behind her, scarcely daring to breathe. This couldn’t be happening . . . This couldn’t be happening. This was supposed to be an in-and-out job. Her skeleton wanted to crumble to the floor; her meager supper threatened to make a reappearance. She shouldn’t have agreed to this; she hadn’t been in the right state of mind when she agreed. What had she been thinking?

She’d been thinking of her brother, she knew. Of how he deserved the world, and that this was supposed to be a way of giving it to him.

She bit her lip under her mask to keep from making a sound. She had also been thinking of herself, if she was honest. She was so angry with Piltover. So, so angry that they wanted to take another thing from her. Like she didn’t deserve it. Like Viktor would be better off without her. That she was nothing, and deserved to fall into soot-covered obscurity in the Sump and die.

“What’s this?”

The man spoke and Katya started, peering out from behind a tower of crates. Her stomach curdled. The crew member – a very large man with a sneer on his face and an iron bar in one hand – had pulled Silco out of the shadows and now stood over him. Silco glared up at him, his blue eyes shards of ice that cut between the space of his hair and the mask. Next to his side, the bag of coins was open, its golden belly glittering in the light.

Suddenly, there was a rumbling. The frame of the airship thrummed and vibrated. And then it jolted forward. Katya’s stomach tumbled. The ship was leaving port! Her mind raced. She couldn’t get caught. And she couldn’t be hauled off to Bilgewater. She couldn’t abandon Viktor. She had to figure out an escape. At this point, whether or not the money made it back to Zaun didn’t concern her.

“Thieving little Sumprat,” the crew member growled at Silco, taking another step towards him. The meaty fist that held the iron bar twitched.

Katya’s hand twitched too. Toward the small revolver tucked in her trouser pocket. She had debated leaving it at home, and was now glad she hadn’t. Before the man could raise the bar over his head, she took the gun out, aimed, and fired. The pop of the gun was sharp, and rang off the metal hull of the ship. The bullet lodged itself into the back of the crew member’s knee, and he howled in anguish, crumpling to the floor. Silco lurched forward and grabbed the iron bar, and cracked him across the head.

The Enforcer fell. Katya’s father stomped on his ankles.

Bones crushing. Hollow wails.

From the ground, the Enforcer delivered one blow of his baton to Katya’s father’s head.

Katya’s mind spun and her body froze, cold terror leaching out any warmth in her. Her vision began to white out around her periphery. Silco shouting her name, and reaching for her shook her out of the memory and back into her body.

“Kat! Are you okay?” He gripped her shoulders tightly as his eyes scoured her body. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Katya took a couple shaky breaths and shook her head. “No. Are you?”

“No. We need to get moving. The other crew members will have heard that – “

“The ship is moving!” Katya suddenly cried. The floor was softly rumbling beneath her feet.

“I know,” Silco said. His hands flew from her shoulders to cup her face. “We’re going to get back home. Okay? You hear me? I got you.”

She swallowed and nodded. Her eyes flicked over to the prone man behind him. “Is he . . .?”

“No, just knocked out. I think,” Silco assured. He stepped over and quickly assessed the man. “No. He’s breathing. Come on.”

As they scrambled up the stairs, the rest of the crew was shouting and ramming into the door Beckett and Katya had blocked off. A fair amount of boxes had been knocked away, the door open enough that one of them could shove his shoulder and arm out, trying to topple some of the crates just out of reach. His eyes bulged seeing the two stow-aways skitter to a stop.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

His outburst caused the other members behind him to scuffle and fight to get looks at who he was referring to.

“Thieves!” Someone yelled.

“Move!” Another screamed, knocking the man in front aside. A gun barrel appeared in the doorway, and it fired.

The shot was not aimed at anything, and Silco and Katya ducked as the bullet hit a crate. It exploded in a burst of splinters and paper. Another shot was fired; this one ricocheting off a metal pipe, causing sparks to rain down from the ceiling in a fine mist.

“Stop wasting bullets!” Someone yelled.

The distraction was enough to let Silco and Katya throw themselves into the door and crush the people behind it. The gun went off again as the nose of it was flung up by the impact. The bullet sliced through a tube slung on the ceiling, and fluid began spraying out of it in wide swaths.

Katya screamed and leapt back. She tripped over a crate and fell. Silco went after her, grabbing her arm. As he went to pull her onto her feet, he paused, sniffing. They both looked over to the decimated crate. It was smoking, orange embers slowly licking to life, eating away at the wood and paper. Growing bigger, stronger.

“Fuck,” he whispered. For the first time, he sounded uncertain. Scared.

Behind them, the door to the bridge finally burst open, the three remaining crew members tumbling out, ready to fight. Katya’s eyes immediately picked out the woman who held the gun – a rifle, judging by its long barrel. She pulled her own gun back out and fired at her shin. The woman screamed and collapsed to the floor. Silco tackled into the man that had been trying to wedge through the door earlier, bowling both of them over back into the airship’s bridge.

The second man eyed the growing fire behind Katya with big, terrified eyes. He froze up as his counterpart on the floor yelled at him to do something. So, he did. Wrenching open the sliding door on the ship’s hull, he let a huge gush of air into the cabin. The embers sucked the sudden onslaught of oxygen up in a mighty WHOOSH. The flames ate and grew, licking up the walls and lapping at the ceiling. All three screamed, Katya scrabbling away from the fire. The heat bit at the sliver of flesh visible between her bangs and nose bridge. The smell of burning chemicals, hair, and heat filled the air. The crew member who had opened the bay door looked out at the view below him, back at the fire, to the woman on the floor, to Katya, to the gun in her hand, and jumped out.

The woman on the floor screamed and thrashed, trying to grab Katya’s revolver. Panic sluiced over her body, taking control of her limbs, as her assailant grabbed at her pant leg and attempted to pull her down. Katya’s limbs locked up a moment before exploding into action. Her free leg swung, the toe of her boot connecting with the underside of her attacker’s jaw. There was a sickening crack! and a garbled, anguished howl as the crew member was flung to the side. When she didn’t move, Katya lurched forward and grabbed the rifle before running into the airship’s bridge.

Silco had taken care of the final crew member; the man was slouched against one of the seats, blood dribbling from his lips, one of his hands pierced to the floor by a knife. Silco himself was at the consol, frantically looking over all the levers and buttons.

“The fire is spreading!” Katya cried.

Silco looked over his shoulder at her, and saw the blaze in the other room. The sweat trickling down his back was not only from the heat. Above them, there was a loud metallic groan and crash as the flames began eating away at the frame around the canvas balloon. Katya shrieked and jumped to Silco’s side. His mind raced, but no idea landed. He stared out the windshield at the expanse of black in front of them. Below, he could see the stars reflected off the Pilt, the orange fireball he and Katya were now engulfed in.

“We need to jump!” she shouted. He looked at her, eyes wide. “It’s our only option! Jump and swim to shore!”

Behind them, another gust of wind fanned the fire, and it surged up and around. Each of them could feel the thread of their clothes beginning to burn, the buckles of their boots becoming blisteringly hot. Silco agreed with her: jumping would be their only chance. He grabbed the rifle in her hand and beat it against the airships windows until they shattered. They scrambled up onto the consol and peered down below. The cool, briny air was a welcome relief from the heat and smoke. Less appealing was the very large drop between them and the water. Katya felt Silco freeze next to her, his body going rigid with fear.

“Come on!” she screamed, grabbing his hand and knocking her shoulder roughly into his. “Please!”

Silco grit his teeth, his fingers clamping down around Katya’s. “I got you,” he promised.

Katya wasn’t sure what made her say it, but she nodded and replied, “You have me.”

Together, they leapt from the airship. Plummeting down, down, down to the water below.

Notes: Cliffhanger! Cliffhanger! Wuh-oh!!!!

Coming Up Next: The Children of Zaun make their prescense known.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @dreamyonahill, @pinkrose1422, @altered-delta, @truthandadare. @sand-sea-and-fable

#children of zaun #coz #arcane #arcane fanfic #silco #vander #viktor #original characters #young silco #young viktor #young vander #my writing #silco fanfic

[insult-2-injury]

The Politics of Power - Chapter 3

Modern AU - Prof!Silco x GradStudentReader

The enigmatic Professor Silco takes you in as his student assistant. It's only one semester, just how hard could it be?

Chap 1 | Chap 2 | AO3 Link |

3.8k | Reader Insert | Eventual Smut | Slow Burn | Romance | Student/Teacher Relationship

Header by the wonderfully talented @pomegranatebat :)

Chapter 3

It had been three weeks.

You knew going in that the semester would be taxing, Professor Silco’s busy work in addition to your already immoderate classwork a challenge in itself.

You graded essays, tests, managed to teach a couple of his classes, met with students; everything you’d agreed to do over your numerous email correspondences and had been reaffirmed of on that first day.

You had been right, he was cantankerous; not old in age as much as old in manner, the stubborn refusal to adapt fully to the digital era spelled out in the piles of papers he laid on your desk each day to be graded by hand. The man owned a pricy laptop and was perfectly competent, could no doubt figure out how to move online if he so desired. He just didn’t want to.

It was who he was, you realized. A man who rejected change as if his very sanity depended on bowling through every expectation of him, flush with some rare sort of fire-eyed determination. Looked all the more as if he would burn the world over twice if it meant proving he was right.

And to the utmost misfortune of all those around him, he usually was.

Strange how you’d found you couldn’t get enough of it - something deliciously irate clawing wildly across the heated lining of your belly whenever that intelligence of his showed face. Whenever that tiny, sinister curl of his lips betrayed him, warning of an incoming putdown.

And he loved to put people in their place.

He rarely struck first but always had people marked, you’d noticed; was a cobra coiled delicately in the brush, waiting for his target to circle too close before he skewered into the only patch of exposed skin with precision and speed.

You he seemed to enjoy messing with most of all. You were certain, too, with your impregnable intuition that it had something, if not everything, to do with Vander. And if Vander and him were on the outs, then there was a chance he didn’t believe Vander wrote that glowing recommendation letter for you. So why had he hired you?

Not only that, but it was also the atypical errands you were running in conjunction with the usual work that had you speculating on whether or not he was punishing you, issuing you pointless tasks to waste what little time you had to yourself.

Once he’d had you pick up books for him at the library, a pain as the building was on the opposite side of campus. He had barely looked up when you’d piled them at the corner of his office desk, and you’d watched from your nook in the corner as they sat untouched, gathering a thin layer of dust before he bid you return them, unread. He’d had you draw out a lesson plan in detail only to scrap it last minute. Not to mention the two times he’d sent you down to the mail room to retrieve some expected parcel and you’d return empty-handed and sour, and he would chalk it up to simple oversight.

“Oh, don’t look so cross. I must have already grabbed it today, scatterbrained as I am. Simple mistake.”

But Professor Silco didn’t make mistakes.

Such small things were just innocent enough to pass over the head of a general observer, or perhaps to ascribe to a bout of forgetfulness. But out of a childhood of quiet instability grew a strong intuition, and you caught onto his scent quick.

It was late Friday, nearing the time that he’d normally force you to pack up, send you home for the weekend with a clipped word or two and a curt nod of his head. Your frustration felt a living, breathing thing today, prowling back and forth across your chest like a snarling tiger in captivity. A stack of ungraded essays sat before you, but it was hardly what you were focusing on.

Casual Friday. He wore a crisp black linen shirt, fitted snugly to his wiry frame, buttons fastened to the very top, only a slice of collarbone showing. The gold-cuffed sleeves were rolled up to his forearms as he worked. He wore pants of the same color; tailored herringbone trousers cut off just above the ankle, held at his waist by a black belt with a large, gold buckle. Glossy wingtip oxfords adorned his feet, which were crossed at the ankles.

His gaze darted up from above the hard brim of his glasses to snare your own and you stiffened, hotblooded embarrassment blooming in your chest as you swiftly looked away, hair falling blessedly to cover your expression.

It certainly wasn’t the first time you’d been caught.

Maddeningly, you’d found you couldn’t seem to keep your eyes off him for more than a few minutes, your gaze tracking unwittingly upward like clockwork, as if you and your fixation were attached to some sort of hypnotic pulley system.

Your phone buzzed and you hesitated before opening a text from your mom.

No hello. No how are you. Just a link guiding you to the University of Piltover’s Law School and a text.

Never too late to be a Piltie :)

Involuntarily, your hand clutched around the phone.

You felt the familiar sting, despite knowing there would be no payoff in attempting to please a mother who had never been satisfied with anything in her life. You could do just as she said: attend law school, become an affluent lawyer, but it still wouldn’t be enough. She would want you to be better. And there was always something better.

A prickling awareness hoisted you up from your internal strife and back into reality, your eyes ticking up from the pile of ungraded essays.

How could one ever get used to the shock of meeting that mismatched gaze? Invisible fingers gripped a tight fist of your lower abdomen.

“Yes?”

“You’re tapping your pen.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d scolded you on the matter – your aggravating little habits. Tapping your nails, bouncing your knee, chewing on your pen. Jitters only heightened by the presence of the other occupant of the room.

You turned back around, silent, unapologetic. Another minute passed.

“You’re drumming your nails.”

You hummed the affirmative.

“What has you distressed?”

“I’m not distressed.”

“You’re vibrating.”

“I’m breathing,” you said, becoming mildly annoyed by his persistence. You rolled your shoulders back. “Must have made the coffee strong today or something.”

The following long pause had your gaze flicking up once again to meet his narrowing one.

“So it was you then?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the brute who wreaked havoc in the break room this morning?”

You blinked.

“If by ‘wreaking havoc’ you mean I made coffee, then yes.”

Professor Silco exhaled, falling back into the soft plush of his desk chair, fingers propping at his temple, as if he’d been thoroughly defeated, teal eye fluttering closed briefly.

“There I was wishing on the culprit an untimely demise,” he sighed, “And it was my own TA.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“You do realize coffee is supposed to be a liquid, yes?”

“No one else seemed to have a problem with it,” you defended, but he remained unbothered, plucking the wire, rectangular frames off his face and taking his precious time searching the drawer beside for a cloth to clean them with.

“That’s because no one else was permitted the misfortune of tasting it after me.”

“You tossed the coffee I made for everyone?”

Professor Silco regarded you impassively beneath hooded lids, fingers languidly stroking the glass.

“And no doubt saved lives in the process.”

You scowled. “I’m not a barista.”

He adjusted the readers back on the bridge of his nose. “And thank goodness for that. Keep trying and you’ll make me a hero yet.”

There was something darkly amused twinkling in his eyes as he observed the annoyance tugging at the creases of your lips. But instead of allowing the moment to fade, he held it tight, and for each passing second, something pulled tauter between you as your own focus strayed, trailing to the long index finger ticking a light rhythm against his lower jaw.

Vander would be so disappointed in the way you held your tongue. Or would he? The man was a walking contradiction when it came to these things.

He loved to chant things like “Fortune favors the bold,” but the moment you dared shed that cloak of reticence and put a voice to that little flame in the pit of your stomach, you’d receive a look quite puzzling to you - one you thought spoke of an almost haunting, fearful recognition, as if for a blink of an eye he saw a ghost.

So, you just needed to keep your lid on and respect Vander for all he was - a brilliant professor and a good man, yet short-sighted.

Professor Silco shifted in his seat, crossing his legs. You thought, if it were possible, you could reach out and strum that humming connection in the air between the two of you.

You broke first, turning back to the subpar at best essay you’d been grading about the politics of warfare. And as the tension died, your thoughts drifted back to your mother.

Why couldn’t you be enough --No. You couldn’t afford to think that way. How could you ever be enough for a mother whose idea of success was an archaic set of rules, so rigid and stale, impossible to achieve.

You gnawed at the top of your pen as you stared out at the spined ridge of the Humanities building, etched with an eerie beauty against the backdrop of dusk.

Vander had so wanted you to follow in his sizeable footsteps; to mentor under him, become his little understudy. Take up that golden baton with his stamped seal of approval and climb the tallest mountain with it. He was trying. He knew where you came from. But he had his own visions for you and it was starting to feel like everyone had a pretty solid idea as to who you should be except for you.

“Do you plan on finishing tonight?” Professor Silco asked. “Or will I be forced to stay late once more on account of your musing.”

Your nose twitched in irritation as you stared out the window, contemplative before turning to him, the haughty way in which he regarded you down his nose enough to make your decision.

“Sorry, sir,” you said evenly, “I’ll be finished shortly.”

You got to work and didn’t look up until you were finished, until you’d offered nearly every student an extremely generous A.

Whatever game he was playing - if he wanted to clash at every turn, so be it.

~~~

The following Monday, you sat at your first department meeting staring so intently at the bulleted agenda in front of you that the dots began to blur together. You’d already given your little introduction speech, sighing internally when one of the more chipper professors insisted you simplify your existence down to your favorite extracurriculars and your favorite dessert.

Your gaze rose, the pen dangling in your fingers finding an absentminded home between your teeth as you watched Professor Silco lead the meeting, admiring his prowess. He wasn’t the type to open up the room, wasn’t a fan of your more Laissez-Faire approach of things.

No, he’d taken brutal hostage of the space as soon as he’d entered it, just as he always did in the classroom, a subtle but palpable hush falling as he’d prowled in like a lion on the hunt, lanky and unhurried, carrying with him a briefcase and a chilled breeze in his wake. He was in complete control at any given moment, his shoulders so taut it seemed a gale force wind couldn’t shake him. Cutting and often dismissive, but with a peculiar stroke of charisma and unmistakable competence that oddly softened the blow of his incivility.

He liked, no needed to be at the helm, that much was a given. He was stingy with his praise but positively reinforced just enough to make those below him covet those rare moments of graciousness. He was a master, a savant at wielding power to its highest effect.

And you couldn’t get enough of it, the thought of that vie for dominance sending a shock of heat slithering between your legs.

Only when he caught your eye did you realize the bite force you were impressing upon the poor pen in your mouth and you let up, tongue poking out distractedly against the top, expecting his gaze to float on. But it hung there for a moment too long, dropping to your lips almost imperceptibly before flickering away and immediately stealing another glance as he continued to speak, never breaking.

That terrible pull you felt to him - did he feel it, too?

Something dark and impulsive sunk its claws into your animal brain and delicately you pressed your lips to the side of the pen, almost as if in thought. His gaze immediately found your lips again and with a careful inexpression, you darted your tongue out lightning quick, licking a short stripe upward. Your thighs clenched just as his jaw did. And you wondered if you were the only one who heard that slight waver in his tone.

You whipped your head back to the paper in front of you, feeling dizzy suddenly as he started to close out the meeting, but the chime of your name had you jolting to attention minutes later. You stared wide-eyed at Professor Silco.

“I know you requested floor time at the end.”

You most certainly had not. You froze as chairs creaked and the full attention of the room turned upon you.

“Me?” you said stupidly, feeling a blush track across your cheeks. He allowed the moronic question to marinate in the hushed room.

“I just-“ you said, mind frantically throwing out nets to gather your wits. “Yes. I just wanted to say…” Professor Silco’s lip jerked cruelly. “Sorry- sorry, I’m not quite used to being on this side of things yet.” There was murmured laughter and you plastered what you hoped was a sheepish grin on your face. “All I wanted to say was thank you for allowing me to join you this semester. And Professor Silco,” you motioned to him, “I really appreciate the time you’ve taken thus far to accommodate me. I’m more than excited to work alongside every one of you. Thank you.”

What a load of crock, and you couldn’t appear more of a bootlicker if you tried, but it seemed to elicit a positive response.

Everybody filtering out slowly, Professor Silco scrutinized you quietly from the head of the table as you packed up, like you were some rare creature yet to be captured and studied. You stumbled in your haste to the door; grateful he didn’t call you back.

~~~

Fuck.

That had been so reckless to tempt the hands of fate like that. It was hardly anything, what you’d done; he could just as easily have not seen it at all, that brazen little tongue flick, his reaction just a making of your own imagination. And if he had seen it, well, it was nothing more than another one of your silly habits, chewing pens. But oh, had you felt it, and the feeling lingered yet, the dizzying headiness of that second glance, the tight, telling clench of his jaw.

You wanted to toy with that slice of power - couldn’t stop thinking about the way he commanded the room, how his fingers danced through the air like leaves on a breeze. His snakelike retaliation, your forced counterattack.

It had you squirming in your tiny office hours chair that day, the ache between your legs pulsing and persistent, no students showing face to offer any semblance of a distraction. Probably your own fault, tossing all those A’s out like free candy.

Office hours came to an end and you sat for a while longer, fingers tapping an impatient rhythm into the dappled desk as you contemplated.

How were you going to manage for an entire semester?

By dealing with it, sweaty and shamefaced in the privacy of your own apartment, that was how. Sighing, you made your way out of your office and down the hallway to Professor Silco’s.

Entering quietly, you hardly spared him a glance, taking a seat at your little desk and reaching for your paper tray, hand stilling when you found it empty.

“I’d hazard you’re looking for these,” Professor Silco said, lazily lifting the stack of ungraded essays. You swallowed the dryness from your throat before turning politely, fingers clasping in your lap to calm the nervous bounce of your leg. “I can give them to you.” He stood, grabbing the separate graded pile you’d laid on his desk last Friday in the other hand, giving you a pointed look. “Granted we brush up on the rubric again.”

A lazy saunter toward you might as well have been a sudden dead sprint with the paralyzing alarm you felt as he neared. A tall shadow fell across your seat and you became keenly aware of just how damp the fabric between your thighs really was and you crossed your legs, face heating as if you’d been entirely on display.

“I fear, despite our numerous correspondences predating your arrival here, you’ve already stopped pulling your fair share.” Your hands grew clammy, heart a clanging steel drum. “Did you not read these at all or have you always been so charitable?” You craned your neck up at him, hands dropping to frame the outsides of your thighs, mooring yourself. His eyebrow quirked. “A’s for everyone.”

“Not all.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right. The long-winded atonement essay apologizing for not having had the time to complete said essay you gave a B+.”

Your eyes darted between his, trying to get a read. “I thought they all did a decent job.”

“Lies.” You opened your mouth in retort. “And I think you know that,” he purred and you nearly pitched forward from the shiver that danced coolly down your spine. “How is anyone supposed to hone their critical thinking skills when they’re rewarded for such drivel.”

“It was the first essay of the semester.”

“So you were doing them a favor?” You pressed your lips together. “Did you even read these?” He tossed both stacks of papers onto your desk.

“Yes.”

“I know. I saw.”

You studied him carefully. Then why accost you? “I’ll do better,” you murmured, gingerly taking the stack of papers.

“Speak up,” he commanded with a sharp tone, and you shot him a vicious glare.

“I hope you’re not cross with me,” you said before you could put a halt to your rashness, rearranging his own words steadily back to him, “Scatterbrained as I am, simple mistake.”

The irate furrow of his brow contradicted the tilt of his scarred lips, and for just a blink of a moment he looked terribly wicked as his features darkened.

His voice grew deceptively quiet. “I believe you dropped something earlier.”

He reached into his pants pocket and your eyes widened as he revealed the pen. You must have dropped it in your haste to leave earlier. Unwarranted confidence cracking, you went to go snatch it from his hands with a muttered thanks but he held tight, stepping forward until the narrowed toes of his oxfords were inches from your boots.

You were stock still, focus falling to the laces of his shoes before dragging back up to meet his shrewd gaze above you, his eyes glittering as bright and sharp as swords. He was so close – close enough you could stretch out your arm to run it across that shining brass buckle.

“Let go,” he coaxed, your tight-knuckled grip loosening on the pen until your hand hovered uselessly in the air. He offered you a tiny smirk of amusement.

“You know your Gods and monsters. Tell me, do you know of Proteus?”

Your free hand dropped to dig its fingers into your knee. Old man of the sea. Yes, yes of course you did, but you couldn’t free the words from your throat, trying in vain to speak as your jaw worked. You nearly choked when the pen in his hand found a starting point at the hinge of your jaw before dragging down the soft curve, descending beneath your chin to lever it upward in a slow nod.

“Smart girl, of course you do.”

A sharp burst of an exhale at the unexpected praise and he slid the pen across the smooth, sensitive curve of your jawbone – up to tickle beneath your earlobe then down to the point of your chin, swapping sides.

“Proteus’ power came from his ability to change shape at will, to be precisely what a moment required him to be. He knew all – past, present, future. The answers to life’s most poignant questions. Yet he answered to no one. Why is that?”

The capped pen traveled upward to settle briefly into the divot between your chin and bottom lip as he waited patiently for an answer, regarding you as a hawk would a mouse in the grass.

You worked your jaw, waiting for your throat to unstick before you spoke. “You had to capture him first.”

He hummed approvingly. “A difficult conquest. Whenever anyone would attempt to seize him, he could simply change form. Lion, butterfly, a serpent, he could become water to elude grasp. He was wise – knew which form to take in order to fool.”

You gazed up at him, utterly lost within the low timbre of his voice, every satin word slithering down to the growing, aching wetness between your thighs.

“Unless," he continued, "As you said, you captured him. Held him fast.” Your eyes fluttered as he slid the pen up to move around the border of your lips as he went on, tracing the two mountain peaks of your cupids bow lightly before swooping an arc around the bottom.

“If anyone succeeded, and only one ever did - he’d grant them profound insight, answer any questions they asked of him. Even the simplest of truths.”  The pen slid up to press against the plushness of your lips in the same gesture you’d performed earlier, effectively shushing you.

“Tell me. Who was it that wrote that letter?”

You dug your fingers painfully into your knee, mouth unconsciously parting against the pen as your eyes darted between his, the accusation fully in the open. And you weren't normally one to fight when the tides had turned so clearly against you, but a wicked excitement was growing steadily, a snaking suspicion gaining tread as his eyes glittered dangerously down on you from above. That he was enjoying this little game of yours.

So, with a tiny quirk of your lips, you finally answered.

“Vander.”

<3

Everyone PLEASE go check out this amazing art of Professor Silco that my darling @deny-the-issue did for this fic. I am losing my absolute marbles over it and they are so incredibly talented. Give them all the love! Fellow ratfolk, I hope you enjoyed! This chapter was a grueling one to write so please, if you feel so inclined - reblog, like, leave a comment or some nice tags. It really does mean the world to know people are enjoying.

Thank you to my wonderful beta readers @sherwood-forests and @x-amount-verbs for talking me through my anxieties surrounding this chapter and for the numerous others who put up with my chaos. I love you all so much and couldn't be more grateful for you.

Yours Truly, Sulty

Click here to be added to taglist!

@steponmesilco @truthandadare @silcoitus @pomegranatebat @rosegirl73 @givemebeansnow @soullessbody @yudunnomelmao @suelemrhoden @artwithvivien @silcossugarbabyy @tweek-tweak22 @lunaoticworld @deny-the-issue @gobletoffables @dogantlers @skidebapp @mazikomo @x-amount-verbs @sweatandwoe

#TPOP #the politics of power #silco #silco arcane #silco x reader #arcane #silco x you #reader insert #vander

[faegramme]

𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 <𝟛 (updated 8/10/22)

𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔬 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔢:

- smut - x reader, some character x character - death/major character death - angst - fluff - specific headcanons - prompts of characters OR [reader] with specific features/personalities etc. (for example; a plus sized reader with a love interest character of your choosing, writing a main character as transgender, etc.) - SOME longer story ideas - yandere/dead dove/darker prompts - age-gaps (LEGAL ONES) - multiple love interests - gendered reader (usually i write an androgynous reader, but if you're looking for anything specific i don't mind delivering on that one ^^)

𝔲𝔫𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔬 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔢:

- underage smut - incest of any kind - heavy, heavy gore - zoophilia - fetishization - physically abusive romantic relationships (meaning i won't write an entire one-shot of someone b34t1ng you to d34th)

𝔲𝔭𝔬𝔫 𝔯𝔢𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤…

please specify a detailed prompt, which fandom, which character(s), details of [reader] if needed, what topics, and any other detail i might need to know for your prompt. i will always try my best to have them pumped out fast, but i both work and have school, and lack of detail may hinder the timing of your request! if i am not provided enough detail, i may abandon the request unless i ask for follow up. i also reserve the right to refuse anything i am not comfortable with. please do not spam my inbox with your request, if it isn't eventually uploaded, it's possible that i wasn't comfy with that particular request. please always feel free to revise and resend or submit a new prompt, no judgement here whatsoever.

*.~Fandoms~.*

꧁༒☬𝔧𝔬𝔧𝔬'𝔰 𝔟𝔦𝔷𝔞𝔯𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔡𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢 ☬༒꧂

phantom blood: - johnathan joestar - dio brando (more upon request...)

battle tendency: - joseph joestar - caesar zeppeli - kars (more upon request...)

stardust crusaders: - jotaro kujo - oldseph joestar ᴍɪꜱᴄᴇʟʟᴀɴᴇᴏᴜꜱ ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛꜱ: ~ one ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ ᴏɴᴇ-ꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

- noriaki kakyoin - jean pierre polnareff - muhammad avdol - 3io brando (more upon request...)

꧁༒☬𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔢 ☬༒꧂

vi jinx caitlyn kiramman jayce talis vikor mel medarda silco vander sevika ekko

꧁༒☬𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔯𝔢𝔡𝔢𝔪𝔭𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝟚 ☬༒꧂

arthur morgan john marston charles smith javier escuella sean macguire (more upon request...)

꧁༒☬𝔰𝓀𝔶𝔯𝔦𝔪 ☬༒꧂

!all characters requested must derive from a faction or hold significant story value! validating factions include: - companions - dark brotherhood - imperial legion - stormcloaks - thieves guild - dawnguard not a faction, but characters with defining personalities and story value in the dragonborn DLC also validate to be requested.

꧁༒☬𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔢𝔳𝔦𝔩 𝔳𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔞𝔤𝔢 ☬༒꧂

- ethan winters - lady dimitrescu - karl heisenberg - donna beneviento - mother miranda

꧁༒☬𝔰𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶 𝔣𝔞𝔠𝔢 ☬༒꧂

- sal fisher - larry johnson - todd morrison - ashley campbell - travis phelps - maple cohen - chug cohen - robert silva

꧁༒☬𝔯𝔦𝔠𝓀 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔶 ☬༒꧂

- rick sanchez - bird person (more upon request...)

꧁༒☬𝔣𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰 𝔞𝔱 𝔣𝔯𝔢𝔡𝔡𝔶'𝔰 ☬༒꧂

any animatronic from the previous games can be done, just outline what type of plot and/or personality you'd like me to execute, or i can write them based off of my own headcanons ^^ - glamrock freddy - glamrock chica - montgomery gator - roxanne wolf - vanny - vanessa - sun and/or moon - any variation of william afton, dave miller (pre-springlock failure, springtrap, glitchtrap, burntrap, etc.) - any variation of michael afton (OF AGE, security guard mike, post-scoop michael, scooped micahel, etc.)

꧁༒☬𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔞𝔯𝔠𝔞𝔫𝔞 ☬༒꧂

- asra alnazar - julian devorak - nadia satrinava - portia devorak - count lucio - muriel (more upon request...)

꧁༒☬𝔣𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝟜 ☬༒꧂

!all characters requested must be a valid romanceable character, or hold significant story value! validating characters include: - nick valentine - preston garvey - john hancock - cait - piper wright - maccready - curie - paladin danse - deacon (more upon request...)

#jjba x reader #arcane x reader #rdr2 x reader #skyrim x reader #re8 x reader #sally face x reader #fnaf x reader #the arcana x reader #faegramme #fanfiction #headcanons #oneshots #x reader #character x character

[silcodependent]

Sway

Silco x Fem!Reader 

This takes place shortly after the events in episode 3 and blends a lot of our world's retro glamor and art with the world of Arcane! 

You’ve been given an offer that’s too good to be true: A partnership and role as lead dancer in a new burlesque club opening in Piltover’s Undercity.

Leaving your own life behind in the city you’ve danced in for 3 years wasn’t difficult but adjusting to life in Undercity on the other hand is proving to be more challenging, especially with the handsome stranger who seems to linger in your peripheral vision, not to mention in your mind.

Charming and dangerous, Silco just might have you breaking all your own rules. But there’s something about him that draws you in and makes the temptation difficult to resist.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 (NSFW)

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

#silco #arcane silco #daddy silco #silco x reader #silco x you #silco x oc #burlesque #slow burn #eventual smut #silco smut #silco fanfic #fanfic #sway #arcane

[sweatandwoe]

Silco after passtionatly kissing SI!reader takes her into his office, sits her on his desk, and begins to eat her out like he's starved.

There's gonna be possibly two smut fics in one day here. Happy Sinday ya'll

Pairing: Silco x F!Reader (Secret Ingredient Reader) MDNI Warnings: Silco being a dirty man, pre-chapter 8 of SI (No yearning/Silco just thinks reader is hot), masturbation, jerking off to your future S/O,

-

You were beautiful. There was no denying that. It had been one of the first things he had noticed when Jinx had introduced the two of you. Sweet as well, your voice soft and kind even when speaking with him.

Silco wasn't a fool to himself. He kept his distance, better to think of you as an employee or at the very least off-limits. Still, he called you 'Darling' and watched as you grew all flushed.

Gorgeous.

Alone now in his office, finally not busy, he can let those thoughts grow. Flicking open the button of his pants, he thinks of your mouth. Soft lips, perfect for him to kiss. Soft kisses at first, tender. A barely lit flame growing into a full on blaze. You would nip at his lip, and he'd devour your own. Tongue going over every spot of your mouth.

Eventually picking you up, carrying you into his office, clearing his desk with a swipe of his arm. Resting your back against the wood, he kept kissing you. Head-turning to kiss at your neck next, listening to the soft moans rising from your freed lips.

Pausing his thoughts, Silco draws his cock out of his trousers, already half-hard. Working his tongue against his cheek before he spits down on it, letting his head roll back as he begins to flick his wrist.

Where had he been? Ah yes, at your neck.

He'd leave marks in this fantasy. Even if you weren't his, you could be for a time. You never wore a high collar, so he can imagine the sight of them as you work and attend to your duties. Maybe you would end up covering them up, drawing a cloth over your neck to hide what he had left.

"Silco."

You always said his name so nicely, he was sure the sound of you moaning it would be even better.

Hands rest on your thighs, such perfect thighs. Soft and plump, that fit snugly against his shoulders. Lifting your skirt, to find you in this fantasy be wearing nothing underneath. Perfect.

He presses you further back, so he can hold you by the back of your knees, pushing your legs forward to your chest, framing your pretty face.

All he can do is stare, take you in so fully exposed. Looking still almost shy as you gaze up at him. Such pretty eyes.

He wonders how they'll look filled with tears before he leans down. The flat of his tongue to run over you once, and then twice. The tip of his tongue flicking at your clit.

"Silco, please."

Gods, you would sound so pretty when you beg. Pleading with him to continue, or to stop once you were overstimulated, tears on your cheeks as he finally did stop.

His nose bumps against your clit as his tongue works slowly over your entrance. Eyes on you, just barely seeing your face. Eyes half-lidded in pleasure. So pretty, so beautiful.

Far too nice for him. Not just with the scars, but the fact of how he was thinking of you now. A dirty old man.

He can hear you now, clearer as his tongue slips into you. Curling inside of you, he rubs his nose against your clit. Fingers leaving bruises against the back of your knees, before he draws them down to run down your thighs. Letting you drape them over his back, while his hands move to your ass, gripping it.

Letting himself devour you now, tongue working deeply as he tries to imprint your taste in his memory.

Your thighs shake, and your ankles lock on his back. Hands grasp his hair, tugging as he keeps lapping at your cunt, drawing out your orgasm for as long as he can. Hearing the soft whimpers of his name.

Once it's done, he pulls up. Lining up with your entrance, he slides in fully.

His release comes suddenly, as he imagines sliding into your wet heat. A groan leaves him, as he catches his release. Cumming quickly, but here he doesn't mind. It was just a fantasy.

If he ever did the real thing, he'd want you to have you multiple times.

He takes a moment to recuperate, wiping his hands on a spare cloth before tossing it away. Tucking himself back away, before bringing a cigar to his mouth.

It's lit and he takes a deep breath in before letting the smoke curl out of his smoke. He can still see your pretty eyes, wide and wanted. "Warren."

The guard opens the door, brow furrowed. "Yes boss?"

"Call Sevika in. I have a task for her."

#silco x reader #silco #arcane #secret ingredient #sweaty asks #mdni

[medic-simp]

Just Go To Sleep - MASTERLIST

Running Word Count: 4.3k

Story Tags: boss/employee relationship, friends to lovers, sharing a bed trope, pillow wall trope, sharing clothes trope, romantic tension, emotional constipation, angst, slow burn, eventual smut

Summary:

Hard times fall upon you and your apartment is unlivable. You have no one to ask for help other than your boss, Silco. Luckily, he's got some space for you.

AO3 Work Link

Chapters

First Night

Second Night

Third Night

Fourth Night

The next morning... and the next...

#silco x reader #silco x you #silco arcane #just go to sleep #JGTS #medic-simp #lilith writes #MDNI

[silcoitus]

OK ok ok hear me out: Silco and f!reader but the reader is actually (a vampire) much older than Silco and is not a lil /young girl who needs protecting. Preferably smut, maybe with fluff, would love to see you doing smth with that, but it's ok if you won't :3

Have a nice day!

Thank you anon for this prompt and my sincerest apologies for how tardy (not to mention incomplete) this is! This will likely end up as multiple parts but I don't know when I'll be able to do them. (Maybe 3? At the very least 2.) But I thought I'd post it since you've been waiting since before Halloween for this!

Borrowed Time

Word count: 1.9k

Beta reader: none

Tags: Silco x f!reader, young Silco, vampire reader, older woman/younger man, eventual smut

As a vampire living in Zaun, you've watched the Undercity since its infancy. Leaders have come and gone, risen and fallen, but always following the same pattern. It's not until a young man with a disfigured face and the scent of death in his veins finds you that you think: Maybe this time will be different.

Chapter 1—Intoxicating Aroma on AO3

Chapter 2 coming ??? TBD

Tagllist: @averagecrastinator @mazikomo @writingmysanity @insult-2-injury @ariaud @jennrosefx @ins0mniac-whack @steponmesilco  @sherwood-forests @leave-me-alone-silco @givemebeansnow @aeryntheofficial @dreamyonahill @lostbunn @eurydicethesage @thepineapplesimp @whatisafandom @violet-19999 @juicboxd @sageandberries-png @delta-is-here @sirenofzaun

Join my taglist!

#silcoitus #silcoitus writing #arcane silco #silco #silco x you #silco x reader #silco fanfic #x reader #reader x #reader insert

[juniper-sunny]

A Knight to Remember - Part 1

Medieval AU | Knight!Silco | Silco x Female!Reader | No (Y/N) | Romance | Slow Burn | Eventual Smut | Fluff || SFW | WC: 5.50k | art by @designfailure56 (full piece here)

ao3 | betas: @deny-the-issue @silcoitus <3

A mysterious stranger is sworn into your retinue as your own personal guard. You have no need for his service, and he seems less than eager to take on his new duties. But he soon endears himself to you in ways you are not prepared for— only for you to surprise him as well…

taglist (open): @sherwood-forests @ilikemymendarkandfictional @ursawastricked @quirkykaty @let-the-monster-out @ariaud

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

The rumors came first, that a stranger was to join your household staff for the first time in nearly a decade. A peculiar occurrence in and of itself, as all of your servants came from families that had served yours for generations. Stranger still how he was assigned to be your personal guard when your lord father had previously seen no need for you to have one.

Your mother came upon this man in a rather unfortunate circumstance. On her twice-annual voyages abroad, her retinue had been beset by bandits on her journey home. At first she thought the man one of the bandits until he turned his own sword upon them. Her companions emerged from the struggle with minor injuries and your lady mother herself was entirely unscathed, not shaken with fear but exhilarated by the battle. It was with great enthusiasm, then, that she requested the stranger come to your home so she could properly reward him. As thankful as your father was for the intervention, it triggered an overreaction in him: you and your mother were forbidden from leaving his lands until he deemed it safe, and your new guard was to accompany you everywhere apart from your personal quarters and the washroom.

It was with great reluctance and resentment that you attended the stranger’s swearing, a sentiment you had expressed in no mild terms to your father. After all, your preference was to leave and join your elder brother on his travels. Your father regretfully and kindly acknowledged your frustration, but his word was firm: you were to accept the man’s service as if it were a souvenir from your mother, equivalent to a new scroll or dress. As if it were adequate recompense for being forced to stay home.

Still, you could not help but observe the man with curiosity. He was tall, dark-haired, and slender, carrying himself with a noble dignity more befitting a lord than an attendant. Armored with a severe and solemn manner that made you feel like you should be bowing to him instead of the other way around. His posture was ramrod straight even as he went to his knees, his eyes lowered to the ground as he raised his chipped, battle-worn sword for you to touch. Despite its appearance, the blade was cold and sharp underneath your fingers, as piercing as the look he gave you with his singular, uncovered eye. Turned upon you as he pledged his sword to you.

“Silco,” you declared his name for him and witnesses to hear. A strange name to be sure, the first sibilant syllable flowing smoothly into the next, unhindered by the tip of your tongue touching the back of your teeth. He stared at you throughout his rehearsed speech, swearing himself into service. It was only your training in genteel conduct that enabled you to return his gaze, sure that he could sense how uncomfortable you were with his silent appraisal of you.

After all the pomp and circumstance, your daily life continued mostly unchanged. He was a quiet shadow who escorted your every step. Your attempts to make him feel welcome and become better acquainted were politely but undeniably rebuffed with his short, avoidant answers. Soon the novelty of introducing him to your other attendants wore off, their attempts at engaging you in gossip buffeted by your genuine ignorance of his character, notwithstanding what your lord and lady parents had already shared with everyone.

(Your maids’ hushed giggles at his supposed good looks were especially bewildering, what with his large eyepatch covering almost the entire left side of his face. Perhaps they could glean his handsomeness from what little was visible— a long, distinctively pointed nose; sharply slanted high cheekbones; lined scars carved from his temple to the edges of his thin lips— but any attraction to him was beyond your own reckoning.)

So you ended your attempts at engaging him, speaking to him solely to wish him “good morning” or “good night”, or inform him of your intended plans for the day. He acknowledged all of these with impassive expressions and minute nods.

He navigated the corridors of your home with ease, but the first true test of his capabilities was escorting you through your father’s lands, through crowds of commonfolk and the cluttered arrangement of edifices. You dismissed your father’s concerns that assassins were lying in wait and resumed your thrice-weekly ventures into town. If you were to be caged to his estate, you refused to be confined to your father’s hall. At least the fresh air and sunshine still tasted of freedom.

The knight kept two paces behind you, closer to you than your other attendants who followed at five. You tried to ignore how claustrophobic his proximity made you feel, focusing instead on your usual duties of greeting the townspeople. Only acknowledging his presence when courtesy demanded you provide introductions before turning your back on him entirely. He watched you with a bored but observant eye as you conversed with others. Listening indifferently as you comforted a farmer’s worries about his harvest, gave a tonic to a woman whose husband was sick with fever, or offered honeyed candies to children who hailed you. His lips thinned with some indiscernible emotion when you freely offered silver to a young bride-to-be as a wedding present, but he voiced no remark on it.

All of these passed on the way to your first proper destination of the day, the town blacksmith. As you approached the smithy, you asked the knight a direct question for the first time in so many days.

“Did my father offer to have your sword repaired? Or are you to receive a replacement?” you inquired politely.

“He said that I am to receive a newly forged sword,” Silco said nonchalantly.

“Then perhaps it should please you to meet the blacksmith Talis; he will be responsible for crafting it,” you offered, greeting the artisan in question with a smile as your party arrived at his station. The two men exchanged pleasantries, and for the first time, the knight’s eye lit with feeling, albeit a subtle one: curiosity at what the craftsman was capable of, shining through while he studied the small armory critically.

Talis allowed the knight to handle a sword. The weapon was of an average caliber, a well-used short blade meant more for a soldier’s training than actual battle. Still, he examined it carefully, holding the blade close to observe the quality of the metalwork. It seemed to pass muster, as he next held it in a strong grip, passing it easily from one hand to the other. He handled it gracefully, slow thrusts and circular spins painting a hypnotic dance in the air, not a tool but an extension of his own body. It did satisfy you to see the knight return the weapon and offer his sincere gratitude to the smith, departing with a handshake and a tiny, upward quirk of his lips.

“Thank you,” he said to you, infused with a modicum of warmth. You would have liked to respond with a chuckle, but you restrained yourself.

“It was my pleasure—” the clamoring of church bells interrupted you, a sonorous rally calling everyone to daily prayers. Your party joined the slow surge of peoples making their way towards the church. Deep breaths helped calm you as swarms of bodies pressed in around you, meaningless chatter and thundering footsteps on the stone floor reverberating into an almost overwhelming cacophony.

After entering the church, you peered between heads and shoulders, seeking out the priest. It excited you to see Father Hoskel, one of your favorites. You peeled away on your own, heading straight to him while your retainers looked for seats in the pews. As you hoped, the knight chose not to sit with the congregation but stationed himself next to the only exit, his gaze following you dutifully as you reached the priest.

“Good day, child,” Hoskel received you with a mischievous smirk. Casually stepping aside as you walked around the pulpit to stand in front of him. Maneuvering himself so his back was to the room, his plump form shielding you from view.

“Good day, Father,” you replied cordially. Smiling as you clasped his wrinkled hands in yours, surreptitiously slipping a coin of silver into his grasp. “I trust that all is well with the church and your health?”

“All the better for having seen you today,” he beamed at you. Squeezing your hands in appreciation as he clumsily palmed the coin, tucking it into a pocket inside his habit. 

Continuing to chat about insignificant matters, your own impatience rose as the other churchgoers settled down. As their movements quieted, you bade farewell to the priest and left him, not heading back into the aisles but out a backdoor used only by the clergy, your exit concealed by the priest swishing his voluminous robe.

You were careful to keep your steps quick but quiet, exercising the utmost caution lest a careless echo gave away your escape. When you left the church threshold back outside where paved stone met dirt, exhilaration mounted in your heart. A deep breath of fresh air reinvigorated you as you turned towards the woods and hurried—

“Are you not meant to join the others in prayer?” a low, smooth tenor of a voice materialized behind you, startling you. It was the knight, standing formally straight, his hands clasped behind his back in bored ceremony. Questioning you condescendingly as if he were a nursemaid guiding a forgetful child.

Of all the people to be caught by, the knight was perhaps the least desirable one. You hid your irritation with a bright tone, “I prefer to meditate in private, in quiet contemplation where I might not be disturbed by others.”

He nodded in acknowledgement. But when you continued your way out of town, he persisted in following you. His footsteps were so silent, you were only alerted to his presence when an instinct nagged you to look over your shoulder.

“My apologies for not making myself clearer,” you faced him with gritted teeth bared in a false smile, still walking at a brisk pace. “I will offer my prayers in solitary contemplation.”

“Surely the church has a quiet vestry available for use,” he pointed out. “Will your prayers be heard in the woods?”

“Is nature not a part of God’s domain? He shall hear me no matter where I pray.”

“So why pray in the woods and not the church if they are one and the same?” he countered.

You huffed in annoyance, coming to a halt. He stopped as well, and his perfect imitation of your trajectory only served to provoke you even further.

“Please tell me, sir knight, do you answer to my father or myself?” you asked.

“Your father pays me with his silver but I am entirely at your disposal,” he answered with a small smirk, seemingly finding amusement in your exasperation.

“Then I would have you dispose yourself of my company and return to the church.”

“I’m afraid I cannot,” he said. “Your father’s orders were to never leave your side and they supersede your own.”

Does he only offer half his loyalty because he is in possession of only half a brain? You bit your tongue, holding back the retort. “What else did my father command of you?”

“To keep you safe from harm.”

“I assure you, there are no dangers in these woods. He has not compelled you to report on my every movement?”

“No. He will allow you a certain measure of privacy.” 

“If you take my silver, would that ensure your obedience to my request?” You flipped him a coin, which flew in the air towards his face before he caught it with a smooth, lazy sweep of his hand.

“Yes.”

“Then I ask that you keep your silence around my father regarding this outing,” you told him curtly, turning briskly on your heel to stride into the forest.

“As you wish, my lady,” he said mockingly. 

His unpleasant attitude normally would have chafed you, but it was overshadowed by your delight at his concession. You resumed your journey at a near-sprint, determined to make up for wasted time. A part of you hoped to outpace the knight but he matched your haste with seemingly no effort on his part, his long legs easily keeping up with your smaller stride. 

Neither of you made any further attempts at conversation. Your footsteps crunched dead leaves on the forest floor, seemingly amplified by the tension between you. It was entirely one-sided on your part, as you came to the gradual understanding that the knight was merely attempting to adhere to his duties in following you. You might have offered him an apology for your terseness, but there was the thought that he might be annoying you on purpose. After all, he did speak with a humor that was lost on you. If he took some enjoyment out of your sour mood it made you less inclined to ask for forgiveness.

The foliage gave way to wild stones, small pebbles rolling underfoot before lodging into the muddy ground. You were careful to lift the skirts of your dress out of a puddle. Mud sloped downwards into larger, blocky stones bordering a deep lake of clear cold water, shards of sunlight dancing on the surface ripples. An osprey shot down from the sky, diving and reemerging with a struggling fish in its talons.

You sighed as you perched on an especially large rock on the edge of the lake, letting your feet dangle above the water. If you were a free woman you would have liked to go swimming. As it were, stripping all the layers of your clothing would have been too much of a nuisance and you would have no way of drying yourself off. Returning home with your couture soaking wet would disappoint your lady mother and perhaps convince her to forbid any future excursions. But you could enjoy the view, a quiet forest oasis at the end of a river.

“What is your homeland like, sir knight?” you asked by way of making polite conversation. You turned around, expecting to see him standing behind you. It surprised you to find him standing quite a distance away from the riverbank, much too far to have heard your question. He seemed to have shrunken in on himself, not standing with his usual impeccable posture but hunched inwards, arms crossed and hands fisting his sleeves. His eye darted around erratically, looking at the ground, the sky, the trees… anywhere but the water.

You frowned and hopped down from your seat, carefully stepping between stones as you walked towards the knight, calling out to him, “Is something wrong?”

“There was a bear,” he mutters. “We should leave before it returns.”

He spun on his heel and stalked away without another word. Perplexed, you hurried to follow in his wake. You had never seen a bear in this part of the forest, a fact you keenly wanted to point out to him. As upsetting as it was to have your time in nature cut short, the knight was clearly troubled by… something. The exact nature of it was unknown to you, but he seemed to believe that it was in the woods. So determined he was to make his escape that he was indifferent to you lagging behind him, struggling to keep up with his quickened pace.

It was all for the better that the two of you left when you did; you passed the church just as the townsfolk were exiting it, allowing you to mingle in the exodus. No one was any the wiser that you had not attended the sermon. By the time you reunited with your entourage, the knight had regained his stoic composure, giving no indication that he had been so unduly disturbed. You had no opportunity to privately ask if he was well until later that evening when you were about to prepare for sleep. He outright ignored your inquiry— which he had never done before— and instead wished you a perfunctory goodnight.

It was another fortnight until Father Hoskel hosted daily prayers again. Seeing as he was the only priest who allowed you to bribe him and sneak away, you were quite ready for some much-needed alone time. 

Well, almost entirely alone— except for the knight.

“Worry not, sir knight,” you addressed him dryly, as the two of you once again traveled into the woods. “I shall not be heading for the river today. Who knows if another bear will arrive to disturb the peace?”

The remark was meant as a weak joke, so it surprised you to hear the knight let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief through slightly parted lips. His tightened, white-knuckled fist released from the hilt of his new sword to drift to his side, loose and relaxed. A curious reaction indeed… but you steered in a direction away from the river, onto a less traveled but still familiar path. It was a longer route, headed southwest instead of east, a carpet of fallen leaves growing ever thicker as you ventured deeper into the forest. Placing your hands on the thin birch trees, flecked with spots and stripes of dark wood underneath their ivory bark, rough and bumpy to the touch. The knight eased his way between them as if they were living creatures who parted to make room for him, such was the grace with which he carried himself.

You arrived at a clearing, a grassy meadow of wildflowers surrounded by a half-circle of trees. Skinny green stems ending in dotted blossoms of yellow, orange, pink, and purple, stretched towards the sky to soak up the sparse autumn sun. You would miss them dearly when they succumbed to the winter frost. For now, you watched a lone bumblebee alight on a golden coneflower, crawling onto a petal toward its seeded heart.

If you had been alone you would have plopped down onto your back, the grass tickling your ears as you studied the sky, framed by flower stems in your periphery. But in your present company, that would be unbecoming conduct of a lady. 

As you slowly sank to your knees, you tossed a coin in the knight’s direction. You had hoped to catch him unawares but he snatched it out of the air, rolling it over his knuckles before pocketing it.

“Payment for your continued silence and protection, sir knight. The bumblebees can pose quite a danger to a helpless maiden such as I,” you chuckled. He made no response, but you could swear the end of his lips twitched upward before sliding back into place, a downward tilted line bordering on a frown. As the bee flew towards your face, you held up a finger for it. The insect landed on your knuckle. Its face was cute, with large shiny black eyes surrounded by equally dark fuzz. Just as quickly as it landed, it buzzed away, sunlight shining through the delicate webbing on its wings.

“Winter will soon be upon us,” you said idly. “I hope to return to the river by then, as the bears will be in hibernation. It will be safe to visit.”

“Bears are unpredictable creatures. Surely you know of safer hideaways than the river,” a scowl briefly flitted across his face before it disappeared, but the notch between his eyebrows deepened, harsh enough to be seen under the strap of his eyepatch.

“The riverside is my favorite,” you said quietly, unable to keep the wistfulness from your voice. “There is peace in water.”

“Water is not peaceful,” he snarled. The vitriol in his voice startled you, his composure melting in the heat of his anger, radiating out and poisoning the air. The flowers leaned away in the wind as if they were frightened of him. “You play in the woods with such ignorance, knowing nothing of the dangers of the world.”

“I will not deny that you may have seen more of the world than I have, sir knight,” you said patiently. “But do not presume that you— an interloper— know more of my father’s lands than I. When I say the river is safe, it is safe. You will see the truth I speak of in time.”

He clenched his jaw, a tendon in his cheek tightening, making no effort this time to hide his grimace. Glaring at you before he turned away forcefully. But he did not disagree, as if he remembered to hold his tongue around you, the daughter of his lord.

You folded your hands in your lap, watching him closely. He seemed keen to storm off, and perhaps you would have let him. But you had seen this wild rage in a caged hound before when your brother rescued it from an abusive master. It would not let anyone approach it, threatening to bite those who came too close, unable to distinguish between those with good or malicious intent. The knight may not have barked at you with the same frothing wrath as the hound, but it was clear that he was in a similar state of distress.

“How do you bathe, sir knight?”

He swung to face you, his fury transformed into bafflement, blinking confusedly. Raised eyebrows rising above the strap of his eyepatch.

“It is a simple question,” you maintained calmly. “How do you bathe if you have such distaste for water?”

He continued staring at you before closing his eye. His posture relaxed minutely, his stiffened shoulders lowering as he exhaled a long, low sigh. Turning upwards to face the sky as he took another deep breath. This time, it was not to unleash some more barbed words but in anticipation. Steeling himself for whatever truths he was preparing to speak.

“You need not speak of your troubles if they are too painful to recall,” you added belatedly, berating yourself for your nosiness. “It is no one else’s business but your own.” 

“No… I ought to tell you. I have already told your lord and lady parents of it, and it is only natural that you should come to know as well.” 

You waited in patient silence as the knight swallowed apprehensively, his throat bobbing. His tongue darted out to lick his upper lip. All throughout, his gaze latched onto something far off in the distance, not quite beholding the nature around him. 

“I had a brother once, not long ago,” he began slowly, voice low, spoken towards the flowers under his feet instead of you. You scooted forwards surreptitiously, keen to pick up on his words. “We were born into the lowest of poverty. Every meal we had was stolen or begged for or sometimes won with crude but necessary violence.

“I was a much weaker fighter then, an unworthy burden on my brother. But he never minded, or claimed not to mind. It was very generous of him to care for me the way he did. I would not blame him if he left to seek out his own fortune, but he stayed.”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips now, but his eye remained downcast and sorrowful. Struggling not to lose himself in whatever nostalgia was left of better times. When you patted the ground next to you, he either did not notice or declined your invitation to be seated next to you. 

“We had a shared dream, not of living richly but of living well. Some days it seemed more futile than others; some days we came close to dying. But through it all, we had each other. And it should have been that way until the very end…”

His eye shone, a tear on the verge of spilling out. You were loath to look away, so captivated you were by his history and display of emotion. He clearly needed comfort but you were afraid to prematurely interrupt his telling. Still, he showed no inclination to move closer to you, so lost in his memories that he seemed to forget you were there. 

“We often supplemented our meager diet with fishing. I thought nothing of it when he asked me to accompany him to a river… but his intent was to kill me. If not with his knife then to drown me like a witch,” he laughed bitterly.

You stifled a gasp as your hands flew to your mouth. The horrors paralyzed you, legs frozen and rooted to the ground. Heart aching with sympathy for his pain. For there was no denying that he was in pain, and perhaps had been for as long as you had known him or even longer. 

“He is the reason why I have such ‘distaste’ for water, and why I only have one good eye,” a snarl burned the edges of his voice, his mourning turning into a jagged hatred for the brother he once loved. The knight raised a hand to his face, fingers trailing over his eyepatch. 

“Where is he now?”

“Dead,” he said simply, his tone of voice fell flat and sullen. “What an irony— the only fight I won on my own was against my very own brother.”

He sagged, arms rising from his sides to hold himself. Protection against whatever demons were plaguing him. The sky grayed overhead as if it mirrored the darkness consuming him.

You rose to your feet, taking a testing step forward. Not wishing to crowd the knight but to offer whatever consolation he might find in your presence.

“I— I only wish—” the knight whispered, “Why did you do it, brother…?” A soft, heartbroken plea to a dead man who would never hear him.

It was essential that your next words be spoken carefully. So you spoke, slow and quiet, attempting at compassion and not pity, “You could never be a burden, sir knight. We all must rely on others for our own needs. I am only sorry that your brother and your country could not rise to the task—”

“He was a good man,” the knight spat, the flare of his temper once again threatening to burn you. “Do not presume to speak as if you knew him.”

“He was a good man who tried to maim and kill you? Are good men forced to perform such atrocities where you come from?” you pointed out.

The knight glared at you, but you did not wither. He forcefully turned away from you again. Perhaps your queries had crossed a line, but they needed to be said. This time, there would be no getting him to look at you again.

“I am sorry,” you said again. “But it was a terrible thing he did to you that you did not deserve.”

Would that your sentiments were enough to heal his wounds… but he did not round on you again to shout. He fell to his knees, still facing away from you. A slow stumble like a column of snow collapsing under its own weight.

“Please… leave me,” the knight asked, low and brokenly.

“Do you remember the way back?”

He nodded, a miniscule motion of his head that you almost missed.

You spoke out to him one last time before departing, “I will not tell you to cease mourning your brother. Would that he loved you the way you loved him… But you deserve to live, sir knight; you are worthy of life and good health. I hope that in time, you will accept it as truth.”

───────────────── ●◉◎⚜◎◉● ─────────────────

At the time, you were reluctant to tell the knight that he was excused from his duties for the rest of the day if he so wished it. As it were, he should not have been bothered with such mundane affairs amidst his suffering.

No doubt his heart was heavy enough without the additional burden of work.

When your handmaidens joined you outside the church, they inquired as to his whereabouts. You were about to tell them he had returned to his quarters, struck by a sudden illness. But the knight himself reappeared at your shoulder, so stealthily it was almost a miracle. His eye and his nose were reddened but he seemed no worse for the wear. The armor of his impenetrable composure locked back into place. In fact, he thanked you for your patience and divulged nothing further.

For the entirety of the walk back to your father’s hall, you fought the temptation to look back at the knight or pull him aside to speak to him. Such an opportunity did not arise until late into the evening when he escorted you to the staircase leading to your private chambers.

“Sir knight,” you addressed him. He had steered his gaze away from you all day. It was a customary standoffish practice you were familiar with, but he seemed to do it today out of embarrassment for his earlier display of emotion. A man like the knight would have seen it as weakness and preferred that you did not speak of it again.

But you were determined to help him in whatever way he would accept.

“Yes?” he said formally.

“We may part company tomorrow if you wish,” you offered. “An ailment of the heart should be tended to the same as any other sickness, with rest and recuperation.”

He blinked at you, puzzled. Opening his mouth to speak before he cleared his throat, “There’s no need. I will be fully capable of attending to you.”

“Be that as it may, the day is yours to do with as you please. Rest well, sir knight.”

“…rest well, my lady,” he said slowly. Returning your nod with a lower bow of his head.

The knight did not attend to you the next day, sending word of how he felt unwell. You felt sorrow for his pain but were a little gladdened that he was taking the time to grieve. It was unlikely that he would heal overnight from the wounds his brother inflicted, but with time, you were hopeful that the pain would become less overwhelming.

You did not breach the topic of his past again, but on your future outings you were keen to avoid the river. Showing him other places that you liked to visit, more determined than ever to make him feel at home in your father’s lands.

The meadow was home to your favorite bloom, the purple coneflower, with a heart of dark orange and warm pinkish-purple petals, long and straight, a plain beauty but still pleasing to the eye. As a child, you liked to pick them to sneak into your room. But they were hard to preserve as they often got squashed in the small pockets of your dress. At your current age, you were happy to observe them in nature in all their wild glory.

Farther into the woods, there were rings of mushrooms where the air hung still and quiet, with a fog that never seemed to disappear even on the sunniest of days, and no birds dared to sing. The less godly peasants whispered of fae that would snatch away any person who dared disrupt the circles. The clergy heartily disavowed such tales as frivolous. Still, it brought you great amusement to speculate if such otherworldly creatures were real. The knight himself could not be bothered to form an opinion on the matter, but you noticed him keeping his distance from the mushrooms.

To the east of the mushrooms was a wild apple orchard. They dotted both the ground and branches with yellow and red, so ripe and ready to fall without needing to be plucked. You polished one with your sleeve, glad to not be in the company of a handmaiden who would scold you for your indelicate manner. When you encouraged the knight to partake in a fruit, it surprised you that he obliged. He reacted swiftly when you shrieked. But it was only a green worm that alarmed you, skinny and wriggling on the skin of an apple you held. 

It was hard to gauge which sites he liked the best, or if he liked them at all. His impassivity never changed. The only exception was when he smiled at the fright the insect gave you. Still, his manner towards you did seem warmer, his voice less frostbitten when he greeted you at dawn’s beginning and dusk’s end. 

The times were peaceful, much to your satisfaction. It was proof that your father’s fears were uncalled for. But more importantly, the knight needed peace. His homeland was the sort of place where people could not sleep soundly, but had to guard themselves with one eye open and a knife under their pillow. Your family’s estate was much safer. With the exception of the day you introduced him to the blacksmith, the knight had seen no need to draw his sword while you were under his care.

The day when he unsheathed it to protect you was a frightful one indeed.

Part 2

#Arcane #Arcane fanfic #Silco #Silco x Reader #Arcane Silco #Silco Arcane #Silco fanfic #my writing #A Knight to Remember #AKtR

[kikiiswashere]

Children of Zaun - Chapter 20

Pairing: Silco/Fem!OC

Rating: Explicit

Story Warnings: Canon typical violence, drug use/dealing, dark themes, eventual smut

Chapter Summary: Katya and Silco escape - with varying levels of finesse. Piltover is SHOOK. And The Children send a letter to Sheriff LeDaird.

Previous Chapter

Word Count: 5.6K

Down.

Down.

Down.

The wind and mist whistled and screamed past Katya and Silco’s ears as they fell toward the water. Both their voices were caught in their throats, fear gripping too tight to allow for screams. Cold cut their cheeks and their eyes watered as they neared the river’s surface. It had been fortunate that the airship had not been able to gain much altitude during their time onboard. Otherwise hitting the water would’ve been a fatal affair; now, it would only hurt.

Katya maneuvered in the air, letting go of Silco’s hand to adjust her pack and to get into a diving position. She didn’t see if Silco did the same. Her heart leapt to her throat as the Pilt’s black surface approached quickly. She closed her eyes and felt the cold, hard slap of water as she dove beneath the surface. The river rushed in her ears and sliced at her skin as it swallowed her up. Next to her, she felt the pull of a current as Silco’s body was drawn under. It was utterly disorienting, and her hands thrashed out, reaching for him. It seems he had the same thought, as his own fingers scrabbled at her clothes. They found each other in the murk, and swam furiously for the surface.

They broke through the water, gasping. The soaked masks made breathing even harder and Katya ripped hers from her face, gulping in the glorious night air. She spun around and found Silco treading water in a panic, his eyes wide. Katya reached over and pulled his mask down. He gasped and splashed. They spun in the river and looked up. The airship was fully engulfed in flames and descending rapidly. Debris fell off it as it crashed toward the Piltovan shoreline. Shards of burning wood and metal raining from the sky. Suddenly, something on the back end exploded. Both Katya and Silco jumped.

“We need to get to shore!” she yelled. “Come on!”

Without waiting for a response, she began swimming as fast as she could toward the Undercity’s side of the Pilt. Her heart pounded as she cut through the water, throwing her arms over her head in strong strokes. The water sluiced over her, smooth and chilled. She turned her head to one side and sucked in a breath. Stroke. Turn. Breathe. Stroke. Turn. Breathe.

Belatedly, she realized she no longer sensed Silco beside her. She couldn’t feel his movements through the water. Stopping, she turned and looked for him. It would’ve been funny if the situation wasn’t so dire. Silco paddled after her, a splashing mess. His neck jut out over the surface, his chin tilted up to avoid water getting in his face. His hands clawed inefficiently forward, and his short, flailing kicks did little to propel him.

In three, smooth strokes, Katya darted back to him.

“Give me your bag.”

Without arguing, Silco unslung it from around his neck and handed it to her. She hurriedly secured it around her back, both bags packed tightly to her hips like a bustle. She began to swim again, her form made awkward by the additional bag. She still swam faster and better than Silco, although he did not fall as far behind.

Katya did not let herself look at the shoreline in front of her, fearing that if she did, her body would lock up in fear at the distance. She waited until her hands dug through mud, rocks, and silt before looking up. A relieved cry exploded from her lungs, and brackish water filled her mouth. She coughed and sputtered as she threw herself onto the shore. With the safety of earth beneath her, Katya’s body finally let the pain of the fall and ache of the sprint register. Her skin, lungs, and limbs burned. Her arms and legs trembled as she tried to clamber across slick rocks.

Behind her, Silco scrambled ashore. His hands slid underneath Katya’s armpits and he hauled her up the bank.

“I got you,” he wheezed. “Come on. We need to get away from the river.”

Katya nearly cried as she was lifted to her feet. She staggered after him, her hand squeezed tightly in his. They climbed up the embankment, finally stopping when the rocks grew tall and could hide them from view. The pair flopped to the ground, resting their backs against a boulder as they panted and gasped for air, their ribcages swinging wildly.

“You’re not hurt are you?” Silco finally asked once his lungs no longer burned.

Katya gulped and shook her head. She placed a hand over her heart. It thundered beneath her palm. Both from exertion and panic. “Are you hurt?”

“Hitting the water hurt, but I think I’m okay.”

Katya nodded. After a beat, she unlooped the bag straps from her torso and opened them. Gold glittered up at her, and relief wracked through her soaked frame. At least they had gotten their boon.

“I’m impressed that you were able to swim so quickly weighed down like that,” Silco mused.

Katya sniffed and pushed her dripping bangs off her forehead. Next to her, he had unbuckled and unlaced his boots. He turned them over in his hands and dumped river water onto the sand. He took his socks off next and wrung them out.

“My parents taught me how to swim when I was little,” she explained between breaths. She glanced sideways at him, thinking of his furious but inefficient paddling. “Do you not know how to swim, Silco?”

Even in the dark, she could see an embarrassed red flush color his cheeks, complimenting the chilled pink tips of his ears.

“I suppose it depends on what you mean by swim,” he grumbled. “I can not drown.”

“How can you not know how to swim?” Katya asked, bypassing his technicalities. “You live in a port city.”

“I live underground,” growled Silco, his brows dropping unamused.

Before Katya could respond, there was a crash of metal, splintering of wood, and roar of fire. They both ducked toward one another, Silco throwing his arms over both of their heads. When nothing happened, they slowly drew apart and peeked over the boulder.

Across the River, the airship had finally crashed into the cliffs of Piltover. A bright, hot orange ball of fire was snagged between a split of rocks, charcoal-black smoke billowing up toward the starry sky. Beneath the sound of screeching metal and screaming flames, the deep, repetitive drones of Piltover’s sirens bled into the air.

“We need to get moving,” Silco whispered.

Katya nodded in agreement as he slipped his socks and shoes back on. They hurriedly squeezed out their hair and clothes the best they could, before slinging the bags of Hexes back around their bodies, and stealing into the night.

It took a long time to get back to The Last Drop. While the airship had not gotten high, it had gotten a ways from port. Carefully, they climbed and hiked over rocks and through tidepools. Now that the adrenaline of the heist and escape was wearing off, both Silco and Katya’s teeth chattered against the chilled whips of night air. Their wet clothes clung to their skin as if glued, and they shivered fiercely, rattling the coins in their bags. It took nearly an hour to get back to the docks. The dinghy they had sailed in was tied back to its pier. Relief settled over Katya’s heart.

“They made it back,” she breathed. Her lips were going numb.

Silco nodded. “Good. They had instructions to get back to The Drop. Regardless of what happened.”

“We should get there, too. Make sure everyone knows we are okay,” Katya chattered. Silco’s stomach knotted, wondering how his mother was doing. “Plus, I am freezing.”

“Me too. Let’s go.”

News of the airship crash seemed to have already crossed the Bridge. Even though Katya and Silco kept to the alleyways and darker streets, they still heard the Lanes talk. Trenchers in squares, marketplaces, in front of brothels, and leaning across balconies all sharing the rumor that an airship over in Piltover had caught fire and had crashed on their side of the River. Voices ranged from disbelieving, to fearful, to righteous.

It was after midnight before the lights of The Last Drop appeared. The sight, the promise of warmth and friends renewed their vigor and they rushed around the building for the back door. Silco forewent the special coded knock and simply threw the door open, ushering Katya inside.

He slammed the door shut, and cried out, “Mum! Vander!”

At once, the sound of chair legs screeching across the floor and shocked voices filled the backrooms. The door to Vander’s apartment burst open and Enyd rushed out. She was pale, her eyes puffy and red; she threw herself at them both.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she chanted in a weepy voice. She pulled back and took Silco’s face in her hands. “You’re not hurt?”

Behind her, Annie and Beckett followed, their eyes wide and faces ashen.

“Go get Vander,” Annie ordered, and Beckett turned heel and ran for the bar.

“I’m fine. We’re both fine,” Silco promised, grabbing his mother’s thin wrists. “We got the coin.”

“I don’t give a shit about that,” she hissed fervently. “You’re safe.”

Enyd removed one hand from her son’s face, and cupped Katya’s cheek. “You’re both freezing,” she said, eying their blue lips and wobbling jaws. “Come. Come. We’ll put more wood in Vander’s stove.”

As she began to guide them towards the apartment, Annie threw her arms around Katya’s neck.

“I was so scared!” she cried. “I’m so sorry I was a jerk. I’m glad you’re okay!”

Katya was stunned, unsure of what to do besides gently hold the young woman back.

“It’s okay, Annie,” she said.

“I can’t believe what an ass I was! I’m so sorry – “

“Annie,” Enyd called, kindly but firmly, “they need to get dry and warm. Come on.”

Annie kept her hands on Katya as she ushered her and Silco along. They entered Vander’s kitchenette, with the dining table they had sat around not all that long ago, when they had tried to convince Katya to join their cause. She hadn’t noticed it then, but there was a small wood-burning stove tucked into a corner. Enyd dragged two chairs near it and gestured them over. All too happily, they both plopped into the offered seats, teeth chattering, limbs quaking.

“Annie, go grab some blankets from Vander’s bedroom,” Enyd ordered as she gathered an armful of split wood that sat in a basket near the door. “And some towels.”

In a flash, Annie disappeared down an adjoining hall. Enyd opened the stove and tossed the wood inside. She fussed at it with an iron poker until the existing embers caught and flames began to lick their way up the sticks. She blew on the fire a few times, before coughing over took her and she closed the grate.

“Mum,” Silco croaked. While continuing to cough, she had dropped to her knees and had begun to undo his boots. “Mum, just wait a moment.”

He took a hold of her shoulders and she stopped her single-minded attentions, allowing her body to work through the fit. When it past, she shot forward and enveloped her boy in a tight embrace.

“I was so scared, so worried,” she cried. “When Annie and Beckett came back without you. Without both of you – “

She peeled away from Silco enough to turn, and extended an arm toward Katya. The young woman reached forward and grasped at the connection offered to her, her youthful fingers wrapping around Enyd’s cool and slightly gnarled ones.

Suddenly, Vander burst into the room, Beckett close behind. His silver eyes were wide and wild as they landed on Silco. He rushed forward – Enyd barely getting out of the way – scooping Silco up in a tight hold. The smaller man grunted as the air was pressed out of him.

“Fer fuck’s sake, Silco!” Vander hissed into his neck. “You fuckin’ scared us.”

“Vander . . . this hurts,” Silco wheezed, craning his head up and out of the embrace.

“Oh geez, ‘M sorry.”

Vander carefully lowered Silco back on his chair, his eyes roving over his Brother worriedly. Annie reappeared, her thin arms loaded with blankets and towels.

“We – we had to jump from the airship into the Pilt,” Silco explained.

“Oh Janna,” Enyd murmured, bringing a hand to her forehead.

“The landing hurt.”

“We will probably be bruised tomorrow,” Katya commented, gratefully taking a blanket from Annie.

“You two got back okay,” Silco said, looking at Beckett.

The redhead nodded, his expression aggrieved. “We shoulda stayed. We shouldn’t have left you guys alone – “

“You did exactly as I told you to do,” Silco firmly said in a tone meant to wipe away any guilt the other felt.

“When we saw the airship catch fire,” Annie whispered, her chin wobbling.

“We are fine,” Katya insisted, grabbing her hand. Tears streamed down Annie’s cheeks regardless. “We are fine. And we got what we set out for.” She jerked her head toward the sodden bags left by the door.

“Vander, get them hot tea,” Enyd ordered, dipping down to finish taking off their shoes and wet socks.

He did so, and Annie handed a blanket to Silco. He wrapped it around his shoulders, shivering. The heat pouring from the little stove was mighty, but had yet to touch the bone-chilling cold that wrapped both him and Katya up. His mother laid their socks in front of the hot iron, and stood, grabbing for the towels Annie brought. She covered each of their heads with them.

“Dry your heads.”

“Becks, take the bags downstairs,” Vander called over his shoulder as he readied the kettle.

“Right. C’mon Annie.” He grabbed her hand, and the each took one of the bags and disappeared toward the basement.

Quiet fell onto the space, the only sound being the chattering of teeth, crackling flames, and the hiss of the stove as Vander set the kettle over a small, blue flame. Both Katya and Silco turned in, tucking themselves as tightly as they could toward the stove. Enyd fussed and fidgeted at her son’s shoulder.

“Vander, do you have spare clothes for them? They will need to get out of these wet ones.”

“Er – yeah. Yeah. On sec.”

He seemed reluctant to pull himself out of the kitchen space, but he quickly trudged down the hall Annie had disappeared to get the blankets. He returned moments later with an armful of clothes. The kettle began to sing and he handed the items to Enyd before rushing back to the stove.

“Once you two are warmer, you’ll put these on,” Enyd said, shaking the large shirts and pants out. Her voice was quiet, as if she were mostly speaking to herself; to remind her that Silco and Katya were, in fact, here. That they were alive and needed tending to.

“Here,” Vander said, coming around and handing each of them cups of steaming tea.

Katya groaned in relief at the feel of the warm ceramic under her numb fingers. She lifted the lip of the cup under her nose and let the heat of the beverage waft over her lips.

“I don’ have any lemon right now,” Vander apologized, a weak grin on his stubbled face.

“It is fine.”

She took her first sip and shuddered at the juxtaposition of the hot liquid against her cold tongue. Silco did the same.

A while later, they decided they were warm enough to change out of their damp clothes. However, neither wanted to move too far from the fire. Katya decided to change first. Vander left the room and Silco ducked his head down, squeezing his eyes shut as she changed as quickly as she could. But her hands were still shaking, and it took longer to peel out of her clothes. Enyd held up a blanket around her, like a screen, to protect her modesty and ease her mind.

Once Katya was wrapped up in Vander’s comfy, but too-big, clothes, she wrapped herself back up in her blanket.  She called Vander back in as she closed her eyes and tucked her chin down. Enyd handed him the blanket and gathered up the empty teacups. Stomach tumbling and blush furiously creeping up the back of his neck, he held the blanket up for Silco to change behind, doing his best to keep his own gaze averted. However, his eyes betrayed him a couple times, and spied over the tattered hem of the blanket at the willowy cut of his Brother’s body.

When Silco was dressed again and had sat back down, Vander cloaked him in the blanket and announced that he was going to head back to the bar for a bit. He shuffled out of his apartment, giving the three one last look before closing the door behind him. Enyd had taken to rustling through the kitchen, obviously still in need of something to do, lest she let her emotions run away with her. She settled on making soup. She had found a can in Vander’s cabinets, along with a small, dented pot, and she set up shop in front of the cooktop. Katya and Silco remained huddled tightly against the small fire burning merrily.

After a few minutes, once it seemed the shivering and chattering had finally passed, once it felt like being warm again wasn’t so far away, Katya’s eyes tracked to Silco’s sharp profile. He looked so serious and thoughtful now, the light and shadows of the fire jumping across his high cheekbones and blade-sharp nose. How different he looked now compared to when he had been struggling in the water.

“Silco,” she whispered. His eyes cut to hers, the orange flame having eaten all the green ice out of them. “Would you like me to teach you how to swim?”

Several seconds passed as he carefully searched over her face. What he was looking for, she wasn’t sure.

“Yes. I would like that.”

Unsurprisingly, both Silco and Katya came down with colds the following day. Neither went home, Vander and Enyd setting up makeshift cots by the small stove that they kept hot and burning all night long. They packed the pairs’ blankets with hot water bottles, and put many pairs of socks on their feet – but not before Enyd slathered their soles with a sharp smelling salve.

They sent tubes to the mines saying they would not be in due to illness. They received no push back, which was simultaneously relieving and worrying. Relieving so they could rest after their tumultuous night; and worrying because it meant that everyone’s attention was elsewhere. On the airship crash. Katya, Silco, Vander, and Enyd all silently wondered how this accident would color the next movements of the revolution.

Instead of ruminating on that, the small woman ordered Beckett and Annie – who showed up to check on their friends the following day – to go to the market and fetch a sack of onions. When they returned with a twenty-pound bag of the dirty roots, Enyd snatched it up with strength that surprised them all and dumped about half of the onions into a large stock pot on Vander’s stove. She filled it with water and set it to boil. Within the hour, the room smelled sharp and earthy. Everyone’s eyes watered mildly, and the mucus clogging Katya and Silco’s throats and noses began to loosen.

Through a hoarse voice, Katya instructed Annie on what medicines and tools to bring up from the basement. Silco stayed mostly quiet, every now and again mumbling about wanting a cigarette; something both Katya and Enyd chided him about.

Luckily, Katya and Silco’s illnesses were quick to work their way through their bodies, and by the end of the week both were upright and mostly well. The Children gathered at The Last Drop a couple days later, everyone reporting news to each other of what was being said about the airship crash, and rumors of what was transpiring across the River.

Enforcers in the Lanes seemed distracted and more irritable.

“Bet they’re not talking to them ‘bout what’s goin’ on,” an old miner said.

“Or,” Sevika butt in, “they have a whiff of what’s going on and their agitated that a Piltie committed a crime.”

“We can’ be worryin’ too much about what-ifs n’ speculation right now,” Vander declared, his voice booming across the filled bar. “We hafta focus on what we can do next. We got the coin, n’ have distributed it amongst a few trusted sources fer safekeeping ‘til we can get our trade relationships goin’, but the ship crashin’ was not part of the plan.”

“Even if it wasn’t,” Tolder guffawed, bouncing Lu on his knee, “seems fair for the Topside ship to go down. Too bad about the survivors.”

Some of the crowd murmured and chuckled in agreement. Vander grimaced and looked off to the side where Silco and Katya stood. Silco’s voice and throat were still on the mend, so he had opted to allow Vander and Benzo to handle the talking points. His thin face pinched at Tolder’s comment. The crash had been an accident, and despite his distain for Topside, knowing that one of the crew members perished left him feeling . . . odd. Not wholly like himself. But satisfied.

Like the scales had tipped ever so slightly in Zaun’s favor.

“Regardless,” Benzo piped in, “we’re atta crossroads here. We can’t do this sneakily fer much longer.”

Vander looked out at the sea of faces and felt a heavy wave crash over him. Perhaps for the first time, he truly understood the weight of what he and Silco had started. All of these faces looking to him for guidance, direction, answers; all of these faces – young, old, angry, hopeful, desperate – looking to him. His stomach swooped at the realization. All had been fine and doable when it was just him and Silco dreaming as youths behind a mine cart. It had even been okay when Benzo joined in, and a few others soon after. It seemed strangely unserious before that initial botched robbery. Vander felt his face beginning to flush. What a fool he’d been; he knew what this endeavor would entail, and he had not known at the same time. He supposed a part of him hoped that peace could exist in a vacuum; that they could achieve it with minimal trouble.

“When people look up to you, you do not get to be selfish. You do not get to speak so candidly. If you say run, they will. If you say swim, they will dive into the River. If you say you want a fire, they will show up with oil. Leading the fight for Zaun’s independence is a heavy mantle and should not be taken lightly. Whatever happens, it is on you.”

Katya’s voice rung in his ears. He looked back at Silco. And the woman at his side. His Brother gave him a small encouraging nod. They had discussed strategy before this meeting. Vander steeled his nerves and turned back to the crowd.

“Then we tell Piltover. We send ‘em a message ‘bout the airship. An’ include the forged curtain documents just’a stick to them sum’more.” He swallowed, “We tell ‘em Zaun demands freedom. Peace n’ opportunity.”

There was a hush, then murmuring. The murmuring grew and gave way to louder agreements, then some clapping, and finally the tavern erupted in full-blown applause. Benzo beat the bottom of his tankard down on the bar top; others followed with their own drinks. Those who did not have beverages stomped their boots on the floorboards. The building rumbled and shook with the sound, and soon – no one could be sure who started it – a chant joined, and soon overtook the beating of cups and stamping of feet.

“Here comes The Storm’s Fury! Here comes The Storm’s Fury!”

Katya tensed at the cacophony. Silco grabbed her hand and squeezed it. She could feel his excitement buzzing through his fingertips, and she laced her fingers through his.

Somehow Annie’s trill of a voice rang above the din and cried, “Let’s commemorate this occasion!”

She waved the camera she’d stolen above her indigo head. The crowd agreed, and everyone shuffled and moved toward the bar as Beckett set up the camera on a high-top table. He fussed with the knobs atop the camera and peered through the viewfinder, before pressing a button. He raced towards the massive group and slid into the front row just in time for the lens to click and the light to flash. A photo on thick glossy paper slid out from the camera’s slot, and the crowd cheered and laughed.

“Let’s celebrate!” Benzo crowed, his wide face ruddy.

He hobbled behind the bar and poured himself another ale. The rest of the Children agreed. More drinks were poured, the jukebox received no rest, and Annie flitted about the room snapping photo after photo of the excited revelers.

“Katya! Silco! Smile!” she yelled, rushing up to the pair.

Both were flummoxed by her sudden appearance. Normally, they would’ve rescinded (with varying degrees of politeness), but the joy in the tavern and the young woman’s guerilla tactics left them off-kilter and clumsily agreeable. Without thinking, Silco wrapped his arm around her waist, and Katya’s around his, as they leaned into each other. They both winced at the bright flash, and Annie cackled in delight as she pulled the photo from the camera and waved it in the air.

“Here!” she said, thrusting the photo at them.

Silco snatched it up before she whisked away, chasing after Sevika and Nasha. Katya reached over to look at the developing photo. Slowly, her and Silco’s silhouettes appeared. Details filled in the them-shaped holes next. She snorted. Neither looked especially happy – they looked awkward and unprepared. Silco was barely smiling, while she veered toward a grimace. A wince pinched at Silco’s eyes, while her eyebrows pitched up in concern. However, she couldn’t deny the ease with which their bodies leaned in towards each other. Something about it brought her immense comfort.

“Maybe your mother would like to put that on the icebox.”

Silco snorted, but he tucked the photo in his trouser pocket all the same.

“Where is she?” Katya asked.

“At home. Her cough was especially bad today.”

She watched grief and worry gutter in his eyes briefly before he tucked it back inside him. A heavy, empathetic weight blanketed her heart and she leaned against him. She felt him lean back in gratitude.

“Oi, Sil!” Vander barked from across the room.

Both looked up to see the barkeep waving his Brother over. Benzo was at his side, Annie standing in front of the pair, her camera at the ready.

“Someone needs to take that thing away from her,” Silco grumbled as he trudged toward Vander.

Katya chuckled at his sour mood as he went.

The days following the airship crash were chaotic.

The crash site was far enough away from Piltover proper that city structures were not impacted; however, the distance did keep emergency services from arriving quickly. It was not until dawn before water wagons and ambulances were able to reach the charred shell of the airship. By the time aid arrived, the canvas balloon was gone, long since eaten away by the flames – dispersed into thousands of ashy embers on the salty wind. The hull was a charred, smoking skeleton; small pockets of flames still licked at beams and seat coverings, greedily eating the little that was left. Luckily, the cliff side where the ship had crashed was barren, preventing the fire from expanding to the surrounding wildlife.

The destruction was so complete that the Enforcers and emergency personnel who arrived on the scene were shocked to find two survivors near the crash. Bruised and bloody, but alive. A female with a bullet hole in her leg; a male with a puncture wound through his hand. Both stunk of singed hair and burnt flesh. Another survivor – a male – was picked up along the rocky shoreline below. He suffered a broken leg and hypothermia from having been left in the water. One victim was discovered. A male, charred and burned beyond recognition, in what had been the airship’s cargo hold. The three survivors were taken to the sanitarium in Piltover. It was a couple days before physicians cleared them to be interviewed by Enforcers.

An investigation had already begun prior to meeting with the crash survivors, and Sheriff LeDaird was very keen on knowing what had happened. A preliminary inspection of the airship remains revealed that the fire had been started by a firearm going off. A hydraulic line had been severed as well. The front windshield of the hull had been smashed open from the inside. And, of course, the dead body in the cargo hold.

When he and Captain Grayson visited the survivors in the sanitarium, they got a story they were not expecting.

The man who had a broken leg, rattled and broke immediately. Rambling off a story that seemed too outlandish to be true: He and the other three crew members had been paid off by a teller from Clockwork Vault to ferry a large sum of money from Piltover to Bilgewater, where the bankman apparently had large outstanding debts with some nefarious crew. He had stolen the money from a few accounts in the vault, and had commissioned curtains to hide the coin in. As they left port, two stowaways attacked them and caused the airship to catch flame and crash.

LeDaird didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he and Grayson both noticed how his cohorts had turned various shades of red and green, and when they tried to dispute the story, their own tales did not line up, nor could they keep their facts straight.

“If this is true,” Grayson muttered as they left the sanitarium, “then this Vault teller did not get what he paid for.”

“We will look into that next. Follow this trail until it runs cold,” LeDaird grumbled, jamming his Sheriff’s hat on his head.

The trail, however, did not run cold. It only heated up when Grayson and a few Enforcers went to Clockwork Vault and began asking questions. They found the teller the man with the broken leg had mentioned, and he stammered and sweat profusely as they spoke with him. When they asked for records of accounts, both Enforcers and Vault managers alike were shocked to find glaring discrepancies in the numbers.

Angry and baffled, the managers ordered hand-counting of the accounts effected – certain that it was only a clerical error. A gross, inexcusable clerical error. Alas, when the parttime grunts returned from the laborious task, their fingers blackened and numb, they confirmed that money was missing from those accounts. Lucky for Grayson, the teller in charge of those accounts was the very same man who the three airship crash survivors had pinned. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and a team of Enforcers stormed his home, finding him and his family in the process of packing to leave Piltover.

Obviously, this scandalous crime grabbed the interest of nearly every Topsider. Very rarely was there anything ever of this scope on their side of the River. It was outrageous, irreprehensible, and barely conceivable – that a fellow Piltovan would take advantage of his position and steal from some of the wealthiest families in the city. The list of accounts effected was long, including the Rynweavers, Ferros’, and Kirammans.

What was even more maddening – for the Enforcers as well as the families – was the fact that there was no coin recovered at the crash site. Investigators scoured the land nearby; dive teams were called out to comb the riverbed, and still no money turned up.

Grayson and LeDaird revisited the three injured crew members and questioned them further about the alleged stowaways. The answers given to them were few and frustrating. The pair had worn masks and non-descript dark clothing; one man, one woman – judging by their builds; they had bags with them, but none knew if coin was in them; one had a gun, the other a knife – they both used their weapons to assault the crew. The stowaways didn’t speak, didn’t declare why they were there.

LeDaird rubbed at his brow as he poured over the notes on his desk. Captain Grayson sat before him, looking uncharacteristically ruffled, her wide mouth down turned and her eyes distant. A couple other high-ranking Enforcers milled around his office, discussing theories and scrutinizing the bulletin board they’d adorned with facts, leads (few and dead that there were), and questions about the Clockwork Vault case.

They were talking in circles, and LeDaird felt a migraine coming on when a receptionist knocked on his door before letting herself in.

“For you, Sheriff,” she said quietly, handing him a rumpled envelope.

It was unusual, but his mind was so knotted up that he didn’t think to question it before opening the paper. He pulled out the letter, his mind barely noting the raggedness of the parchment paper. His eyes skirted over the message. And then again. And again, as the words began to settle themselves in his brain. His eyes cleared and his heavy brow dropped.

“Sir?” Grayson asked, as he slowly rose from his desk.

He walked slowly toward the bulletin board, eyes still glued to the letter. The two Enforcers stepped aside as he approached. LeDaird snatched an available pin from the cork and pierced the paper to the center of the board.

We are the Children of Zaun Consider the coin the beginning of your reparations We are the Children of Zaun We are The Storm’s Fury And we demand freedom.

Notes: OOOoooh man! Here we go, babyyyyyyyy!!! How are we doing?? What're we thinking??

If you've made it this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please comment/reblog! I'm really excited to get the next chapter up, because . . .

Coming Up Next: Katya teaches Silco to swim. It goes well, and is enlightening for both of them. In more ways than one. And they may each have to rub one out over it.

Next Chapter

Taglist: @pinkrose1422 @dreamyonahill @sand-sea-and-fable @truthandadare @altered-delta

If you're interested in being added to the taglist, just message me 😘

#children of zaun #coz #arcane #arcane fanfic #silco #young silco #vander #young vander #sevika #young sevika #grayson #orginal characters #silco x oc #silco fanfic