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ace-of-zaun · 2 years

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‘I love him’ (One-shot):

Silco x gn!reader - SFW

CW: drunk!reader, fluff, confessions, self-doubt/low self-esteem, swears, established relationship, soft silco my beloved, silco POV

1.8k words

Summary: Silco can’t quite believe his eyes when you stumble into his office at the end of the evening, drunk out of your mind. But as he worriedly helps you get into bed, it’s your drunken confession that truly astounds the disconcerted kingpin.

A/N: anyone else in need of some silco fluff with an extra dose of softness?? -elsie x

Of all the ways Silco had expected the evening to end, you stumbling into his office in the drunkest state he’d ever seen you in, would not have been his first guess. Or his second. Or third. Or even fourth, considering you’d told him you were going down to the club to double-check the stockroom matched the inventory list, filled out by the bar staff the night before.

Evidently, you had gotten side-tracked, (or perhaps indulged in most of said stock, he mused), as you pushed open the door to his office two hours later, putting far too much of your weight onto it and nearly tripping yourself up in the process.

You looked an absolute mess. Your hair was tussled, your eyes were bloodshot, and your jaw lay slack as you gazed blankly at the large, ornate window behind his desk.

Silco thinks he’s in shock. In fact, he’s so astonished at the spectacle before him that for the first time in years, he can’t produce a single word in response to the situation. Instead, his eyes widen in disbelief as he watches you stumble your way towards him, your head lulling as you try not to trip over the edges of the rug.

His pen and paperwork now entirely forgotten, Silco quickly pushes himself to stand as you unsteadily approach the desk, ready to rush to your side if you were to fall. But instead, you by-pass his desk entirely and make your way towards the door to your shared bedroom, wobbling the whole of the (admittedly short) journey.

What?

Okay, now Silco is confused. His mismatched eyes follow you in disbelief as you shuffle away from him and into the bedroom. And it was only as your unstable form disappeared into the darkness of the room, that he realised you hadn’t even looked at him once since entering his office.

Silco frowns. Were you mad at him? He hopes not. He doesn’t think he could handle you being upset with him, even if he was certain he hadn’t done anything wrong (well, to you, that is).

You’d only been dating for just short of a year, but Silco knew without a shadow of a doubt that he absolutely adored you. You were sweet, kind, and infinitely understanding, but also passionate, and willing to fight for what you believed was right. Everything he’d been missing in his life.

He is pretty sure he’d do anything for you at this point. And honestly, it terrified him.

At the sound of the wardrobe door being slammed open, and a grumbled curse following shortly after, Silco rushes into the room to find you miserably failing to wrestle your shirt off of your torso.

“Darling?” he asks quietly.

You put one finger up to your lips, swaying unsteadily on your feet as you whisper in his general direction.

“Shhhhhh, Silco is working and I don’t want to disturb him.”

Oh. So that’s why you hadn’t looked or spoken to him on your way through his office. You weren’t mad at him; you were so drunk you thought he hadn’t seen you.

Part of him is quietly amused at your disorderly conduct, but the other part of him is really quite concerned. You’d never got yourself in such a state that you could barely make out your surroundings. Frankly, Silco is relieved you managed to get yourself up to his office in one piece.

“Here, let me help you,” he says, moving swiftly across the room to where you were clutching onto the wardrobe door.

He helps you pull a large, comfy shirt over your head and sighs deeply when you get trapped in it. Is this what it was like when he got drunk?

No. Not only could he hold his liquor better than you, there was no way he’d require this level of babysitting. And even if he did, he’d fervently deny it the next morning.

Pyjamas on, Silco decides to do some detective work as he leads you over to the bed. He gently holds your body close as you walk and to his quiet delight, you automatically lean into the motion, like you were inexplicably drawn to him.

“Why are you so intoxicated, my lovely? I thought you were supposed to be doing an inventory check,” Silco asks.

“I was, but I bumped into Sevika…and she convinced me to, uh… to take a shot everytime she got a woman to sit on her lap,” you grind out. It’s slow and slurred and takes a bit of effort to understand.

Silco rolls his eyes. Of course this was Sevika’s doing.

“And how many did she… manage to convince?”

“Uh… I lost count.”

He exhales through his nose sharply, owing to his steadily growing exasperation.

Silco manages to pull back the covers and help you into bed, but not before you gracelessly smack your head into his shoulder. Ouch. If it had hurt you as much as it hurt him, you don’t seem to notice.

“I think she must have paid some of them, nobody can be that attractive,” you mumble, mostly to yourself, as you slump down onto the bed, laying on your side.

‘You are’ Silco thinks automatically, but thankfully holds it back before he can voice it outloud. Truthfully, he doesn’t like you being in the bar during opening hours because he’s worried that you’ll catch the wrong person’s attention. Or worse, (and it's this thought he always squashes down the instant it pops into his head), they’ll catch yours.

Silco makes a mental note to reprimand Sevika later for leaving you by yourself in such a state, but for now, he’s preoccupied with making sure you’re safe and sound in your shared bed.

Finally under the covers, Silco feels content enough to leave your side just long enough to fetch you a glass of water from the adjoining bathroom, and a bucket to place at the side of the bed. Despite the mountain of work he knows he should be doing, Silco has already resigned himself to the fact that he’ll be watching over you for most of the night. He doesn’t really mind.

When he returns to you a few minutes later, you’re quietly mumbling to yourself.

“...just wish…. so goddamn… deserves a break… gorgeous little…”

It’s really rather endearing. Silco can’t help but smile as he gazes down at the sight of you, his sweetheart, all soft and sleepy in his bed.

He sits down beside you and reaches out to gently smooth your hair down from its unruly condition.

“Get some sleep, my love,” Silco croons, openly admiring your flushed face, as his thumb trails lightly across your cheekbone.

And it’s as he’s pulling the covers to fit more snugly over your shoulders that you mumble something that makes his blood run cold.

“I love him.”

Silco’s face drops.

What did you just say?

He’s lost for words yet again. It’s almost scary how easily you can halt him in his tracks. Silco had never struggled to know what to say in a tricky situation, that is, of course, until he’d met you.

Despite him not saying anything in response to your statement, you continue on as if he had.

“You don’t understand, I really love him,” you emphasise, your voice thick with a mixture of sleep and liquor.

Silco is really frowning now. Who the hell were you talking about? It ignites a rage within him. A terrible, ugly, green monster that is threatening to burst out at any moment. He doesn’t think he can handle the thought of you loving someone else. It would irrevocably break his already fragile heart. Even thinking that your love could be held by another makes him irrationally grief-stricken.

His face and voice hardens as he quietly demands his next question.

“Who?”

Your response is so quick and certain, it could only be the gods’ honest truth.

“Silco.”

He feels like he’s just been shocked. Electrocuted. Eliminated. His pupils widen in pure amazement.

This was the first time either of you had ever used that word before. Silco can’t quite remember the last time someone had used it in reference to him.

But he’d be damned if it didn’t feel right.

The feeling that is rapidly flooding his chest is entirely foreign to him. Entirely too much and yet surprisingly not enough at the very same time.

“Really?” he asks, his voice low and almost embarrassingly full of hope.

“Yeah, I mean, have you seen him? He’s absolutely fucking adorable,” you begin to ramble, “I know everyone thinks he’s this super scary villain guy, but he’s so sweet and protective and so goddamn hot.”

A blush settles across Silco’s cheeks and ears.

As he’s still processing your many, many words, you pull your hand from under the warmth of the covers and reach out towards him. Unfortunately, you’re still not really able to focus on anything properly, so Silco has to grab your hand, just in time to stop you from accidentally smacking him in the face.

“You have to promise me you won’t tell him though, he’ll get all huffy about it,” you say emphatically.

Huffy? … Huffy??

What are you talking about? He’s always perfectly lovely, and never huffy, he thinks with a hint of offence. Honestly, the cheek.

Silco raises an eyebrow.

“Will he now?”

“Yeah, and I don’t want to ruin everything with him, you know? He means the world to me.”

Silco doesn’t know how to respond (yet again), so he favours tracing the outline of your delicate features with his eyes. He’d be lying if he said he was disappointed that this was the way he’d found out you loved him, because he honestly never expected you to say it in the first place.

After everything that had happened, Silco had resigned himself to the fact that he was unlovable many years ago. And he certainly didn’t feel like he deserved your love. Your unending, ethereal love.

But maybe it was enough to heal his cold, broken heart.

You finish your impassioned speech while Silco carefully puts your hand back under the covers.

“I know we haven’t been dating that long, but gods, I fucking love him.”

He stares down at you in pure disbelief, only broken out of his reverie when your eyelids finally stop fluttering as they close fully. You’re exhausted.

Silco strokes your hair, as if you were the most precious thing in the world, and leans over you.

A quiet, questioning breath of your name dances across your cheek.

“Mhmm?” you vocalise so reticently, he almost misses it.

“He loves you too,” Silco tells you quietly, in the softest voice he’s ever spoken in.

Then, he kisses your forehead before sitting back up to watch you slowly drift into a peaceful sleep.

Silco knows that when you wake, you’ll have an interesting conversation ahead of you, depending on just how much you remember from the night before.

But for now, he’s more than comfortable just basking in the knowledge that you love him and he desperately loves you, because you’re by far the best thing that has ever happened to him. And he wouldn’t trade you for the world.

A/N:

reader: i love him

Silco: *gasp* they loooove me so, that funny honey of miiiine

#silco #silco x reader #silco x you #silco x gn!reader #silco x f!reader #silco x m!reader #silco fic #silco arcane #one shot

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astudyincontrasts · 2 years

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Fall Fires

A Here Be Dragons/Hic Sunt Dracones Gift Fic

Dragon!Silco x Fem!Reader NSFW

Rocking up to the party again a month late with starbucks for @sherwood-forests birthday! This is just a sweet little drabble for our beloved Sher to celebrate what a joyous light she is in this fandom. There is no one who is more ready to spread love and kindness than Sher, no one sweeter or more thoughtful or enthusiastic to celebrate the talents and creations of everyone she meets. Most beloved Sher, I hope for all good things in life for you always🖤

In the theme of Sher’s absolutely epic dragon!Silco fic HBD, this is just a little additional treat following Silco and his Feral Consort through the autumn traditions of dragonkind. Sweet and occasionally a little smutty, no real warnings apply unless you’re allergic to fluff, love, or dragon dicks.

It was the final night of the conclave, the bonfires bigger than you’d ever seen them as evening crept in across the sky in bruising plums and a lapping sea of infinite black, stealing the hue from a twilight painted a violent riot of brilliant oranges and sculpted pink clouds. Some of the main fires were bigger than houses in your village had been, heat rolling off them in licking waves that sent the chill of the autumn air scuttling back into the shadows under the massive pine trees that ringed the sacred hilltops like silent sentinels.

The summer months had stretched long and warm at the dragon’s keep in the Northern Pass. Time spent alone with your dragon in the blissful newness of each other, in his near fawning devotion and eager appetite for you, all of you. But as the nights began to lengthen and the heat of the days replaced with the promise of cool, crisp air off the mountains, Silco had grown distant.

At first you’d only noticed it when he took a little longer to join you in the gathered pile of furs that made the bedding nest of the massive bedchamber each evening. But more and more you’d caught him standing alone upon the parapets, staring westward toward the horizon and the sky as if it were speaking, holding silent counsel that only he could discern.

He’d break from the reverie with a touch of your hand, smiling down at you as he came back to himself, even once wrapping arms around you and tumbling backward off the wall into the waiting maw of oblivion, only to delight in your shrieks as he transformed and lifted you high up into the sky, letting you ride until your face was wet from the soft buffeting through the clouds and your teeth chattered as the night set in. It had allayed your concern, if only for a few hours.

Later that night you’d lain awake on his chest, cheek riding the rise and fall of his deep purring, wondering what call it was that your dragon stood heeding, yet would not share with you.

When you caught him at it once more the following evening this time you stopped him trying to distract you with a peppering of kisses, fingers coming to rest gently over his scarred mouth.

“Why won’t my dragon tell me what is weighing on him?” You asked, as he grumbled, submitting in a deep lean to your reach for one of his curling horns, teal eye slanting to a shining turquoise slice as your fingertips went playing along sensitive ridges and griped, tugging at the crest of it, nearly lifting you off your feet by your grasp with a slight roll of his head.

“I will tell you, mousling, but it is a conversation to be had over supper… and perhaps some of that accursed wine you so enjoy.”

With the promise of an explanation at last, you allowed him the delay of roasting dinner, and enjoyed the cups of wine from the pilfered barrels in his hoard that he had no taste or use for. It was a delicious vintage, and while he seemed to enjoy the loosening of your restraints whenever you indulged, could not stomach the taste of it himself. It felt very much a ploy to either distract you or else ease the sting of whatever news he had to share, the way he kept your goblet filled as the evening’s quarry turned on the spit before the great fire within the hall while you both sat listening to the hiss and spit of fat sizzle and crisp.

Silco was long silent before he finally released a rumbling quiet groan of resignation and began.

“You know what season comes?” He asked, the mismatch of eyes sliding your way at last, away from the intent study of his own clawed hands.

“Autumn, yes.”

“Tell me mousling, what the fall brought with it where you come from?”

No need to think too hard on that, the memories were pleasant enough and the question simply answered.

“Harvest, gatherings. Moon celebrations and feasts before the dark of winter came if the summer season was a plentiful one.”

Silco nodded and reached over the flames to pull a hunk of meat from the roasting haunch of venison to lay it upon your trencher before tearing himself a massive handful as well, as mindless of the licking flames and searing heat as if it were but a show of light instead of scalding.

“And the wild things?”

You thought on the question for a moment, sipping at the wine as your meat cooled.

“The squirrels prepared for winter with their own harvest, the deer grew fat, some animals made nests for winter sleep, and many of the birds flew away.”

Silco hummed quietly.

“Autumn is a time for gathering. For migration. And it is also the small death throes of the world, a thinning between the fabric that lies between us and beyond. Magic lies heavy, and there are dead to be honored.” He explained, picking at his dinner to spare you the weight of his glance until he could no longer avoid it, and dragged eyes to your curious gaze once more.

“The dragons gather soon. The conclave will meet. I have not been to a conclave since I was introduced there after my first flight. We dragon are solitary, territorial, but we keep the oldest ways and honor the magic that birthed us. We gather only this once each year, and only if we have need to. I have never had cause to return to a conclave… save now.”

He dropped his unwanted meal upon your trencher and dug claws into the flagstones as he leant forward, demanding your full attention, clearly at odds with the demands of his kind and the insistent pull of nature herself toward what he knew he must do.

“We are joined, mousling. We must present ourselves.”

The scrape of the long, clawed nail of one forefinger etched a line across the stone before it and then a second, parallel line alongside.

“I must present you.”

His trepidation on your behalf warmed your heart nearly as well as the wine had warmed your stomach, and you set goblet aside to come crawling into his lap, much to Silco’s surprise, as he sat back, hands closing upon your hips as you settled arms round his neck and pressed forehead hard to his, so that nothing but the hot coal and cool blue of his eyes filled your vision.

“Does my dragon fret for me? Is that why you’ve been so distant? I’m not afraid of a little harvest gathering.” Not afraid of anything, not with him.

Silco rumbled, groused. Displeased to be humbled before you only to have you flick his concerns aside as easily as flies.

“It has been centuries since I’ve seen another of my kind,” he admitted lowly, “And I do not know if a human mate has ever been welcomed at conclave.”

The admission hung heavy in the air before his grip tightened upon you and he spun you to the floor, pinning you beneath his weight as he gazed down at you fiercely.

“No h-”

“No harm will come to me at your side.” You finished and he nodded slowly before stopping any further interruptions or questions with the hunger of a kiss.

You had anticipated a desperate lovemaking that evening, with him eager to drown his fears and sate your wants, but instead he’d just curled tightly around you and held you in his sleep as if something might come and snatch you from his arms should his grip loosen but a moment. It sparked a small lick of apprehension in you, that a creature you knew to be so fearless should be so stricken. Yet, there was the glow of curiosity, of that adventure you so longed for, and the spice of the unknown that all kept that spark from catching conflagration and consuming you.

A half a week later you’d set off together to join the conclave.

It had been a long flight there, into the west, a journey of several days even with the ground slipping away beneath you as you rode among the clouds. Very glad indeed that Silco had insisted on your dressing warmly, insisted on the fur-lined cloak he’d draped over your shoulders and the warm, sturdy boots laced well up to mid-thigh. He’d grinned when you’d tucked your dagger into your belt but did not argue.

The wind whipped cold around you as you watched the countryside go by beneath, more of the land than you’d ever seen in your brief lifetime, and so beautiful from up above. Everything smaller, simpler looking, and the gorgeous palette of fall colors painting everything as far as the eye could see in lush reds, deep burgundys, brilliant yellows and crisp browns. The fields of wheat moved like great seas of gold, blowing wave after billowing wave against the winds, and the scent of hearthfires from farms and towns wafted enticingly on the breeze.

Silco had allowed that you both stay the evening in a town one night, not sleeping rough in the fields, but rather at an inn and tavern in one of the small villages. He garnered many looks; tall, cowled form nearly brushing his head against the rafters as he towered silently behind you, glowering at all the befuddled locals and their curious stares as you negotiated dinner and a bed.

None dared bother you though, and the warm food was delicious, the simple pleasure of buttered hot bread one you’d forgotten how much you longed for, and welcome indeed alongside the salty brine of hard cheese and the sweet crisp bite of ripe, rosy apples. The meat came in deep trenchers, dripping in a rich, glossy brown sauce alongside roasted whole onions, pale turnips and sweet, thick slices of carrots. Silco devoured it, save for the turnips, and you grinned over a mug of spiced ale as the bar wench jumped at the sound of his voice when he requested seconds be brought.

Well fed and tired from the long flight, Silco was nearly out cold the second he stretched on the straw-stuffed pallet in the small room you’d been given. He barely fit on the bed, legs hanging a good portion off the end, but it hardly seemed to bother him, nearly snoring by the time you climbed atop him, only to roll that flaming red eye down himself to watch you trail a lazy pattern of licking kisses along his chest and stomach as you pushed his shirt up.

“Mousling…”

“Shhhh. You may have eaten your fill, but I still hunger.” You hushed him, only to be rewarded with a low rumbling as your tongue traced teasing little licks above his navel and you buried your face in the soft divot of muscle that ran from hip down into the waist of his pants. Fingers made short work of his stays as one large clawed hand came to rest atop your head, nails fitfully, gently raking at hair, and tail curling up around your thigh to rub lazy soft enticement between your legs as you pulled the twisting mass of his cocks free and set to exploring the texture and taste of them.

“Ahn! M-mousling…!” He huffed breathlessly, the backward toss of his head rending twin tears in the pillow beneath him as you traced little licking passes over the crested pointed heads of his cocks and then up over and over again at the fused corkscrew twist of them until he was stiff and hot to the touch as if you’d pulled him from the fire like a branding iron.

Hands and mouth, wet tongue and hot, slow friction, you worked him as he arched under you, purring, snarling, gasping your name and growling out bliss until he came for you, a hot spill you lapped from his skin before settling over him, warmly exhausted and he already dropped back to sleeping, his trepidation of the coming meeting and distrust of the town around you forgotten for the evening. Your jaw ached and tongue felt raw and new as if it had been scrubbed in sand, but it was a small price for both the satisfaction of his release and the peaceful slumber that welcomed you both.

The next dawn saw you both back in the air before the town had awoken, payment left richly upon the bedside, that they might continue to welcome strangers as peacefully as they had done for you.

The following dawn after that brought the conclave.

The hills you’d flown over were rising steadily, the mountain range they lay at the foot of growing upward into the sky with each passing minute, a massive and long scar of jagged dark rocks and peaks that dwarfed the range of the Northern Pass where Silco had made his home. These were ancient lands, the very roots of the earth disemboweled sometime long ago and thrust as black pillars to the sky. A land shaped by fire deep and hot as any that ever poured from the mouths of dragons, now full of life, and wild as the beasts who gathered there this season to unite for three days and nights.

The clearing spanned several hilltops pressed together, and in the shallow basin of their meeting a stone circle of standing rocks shimmering and black as obsidian. You could see shapes moving below, large shapes, and in the clouds with you were others, circling.

The cries were already lifting as you descended, hands a tightening grip upon the ridges of Silco’s back against the way the wind buffeted and tugged at you as the ground rushed up to meet you both. Silco landed heavily, tossing you bodily forward upon his back. Quickly, you regained your seat, though, the ground trembling under you both as heavy bodies landed all around or came thundering up. Not that you could see much, with how Silco kept his wings lifted, kept you shielded from sight and so blocked off much of your view as well, the length of his neck effectively limiting your vision directly before you too.

Hands slapped to your ears as the deafening chorus rose around you, earsplitting shrieks and piercing, rumbling bellows all around until you too were screaming, shouting loud and long as you could. It was not fear, though it may have begun as some kind of primal noise akin to that. No, this came bubbling up from somewhere deep, just another voice longing for that chorus.

So lost in it, and so determined to dampen the cacophony surrounding you that you failed to notice when all voices had ceased save your own, left alone screaming to the sun and the mountains… until you opened eyes and found Silco’s wings lowering and every gathered dragon staring straight at you.

Voice died in your throat as hands slipped from where you’d pressed them to the sides of your head as you stared back at more dragons than you could have expected in as many and more variety and color as you could have possibly imagined, like a gathering of dark jewels upon the crown of the hilltops. How silly it seemed now, that you had suggested once to Silco that dragons were extinct.

All eyes rested upon you as you slid from Silco’s back with a dip of his wing, only to find him transformed beside you once feet hit the ground, cowl of his cloak pushed back and the curve of his horns jutting proudly to the sky.

Many dragons remained as they were, but many more also took that mind-bending path into human form. Three of the tallest approached, the eldest among them in their center, a proud and wizened creature, no less fiercely strong looking for his long hair shot through with pale whites and silvers and the deep furrowed crinkling at the outer edges of brilliantly pale blue eyes the color of glacial ice.

Beside you Silco shifted tensely, edging closer to you possessively, protectively.

“...Silco?” The tallest dragon asked, squinting, before recognition and Silco’s own dip of a nod confirmed suspicions. A broad, sharp smile broke over the old dragon’s stern face, “It has been many, many years. We welcome you back.”

The tall creature spread open arms and Silco stepped forward, away from you as you stood watching the exchange curiously, feeling very self conscious indeed with so many eyes upon the pair of you. He approached the trio of elders and canted head in a stiff bow that probably ought to have been lower and more deferential, but your proud dragon only offered what he could stomach. The elders accepted and inclined heads back to him in unison, the tallest reaching forth to place a hand upon Silco’s shoulder that you could see him stiffen at, but permit.

“What brings you to conclave at last?” The elder asked, glancing past Silco toward you meaningfully. Silco turned to cast a look over his shoulder with the softness of that teal eye at you.

“I have a mate. We’ve come to have the binding blessed.”

Murmurs kicked up from the gathering, and while you could hear surprise and even delight in their tone, Silco could not, or did not, and you watched him bristle, casting hot glances to and fro around his gathered kin.

Beside you a woman had crept up, and you startled as she slid a hand under your own, glancing up into her face to find a sweet, sharp smile and hair flowing down over shoulders to her waist in strawberry-golden waves, eyes like amber with sun streaming through them.

Silco lurched toward you both with a snarl, only to be stopped by the grip the elder tightened upon his shoulder.

“Welcome, dragon-bound.” The woman purred, stroking a glittering greenish claw of a hand atop your fingers that she held.

“T-Thank you.” You managed, eyes flicking from her to Silco to the elders and back again to the radiant creature that stroked your knuckles so gently. You dipped a curtsey, unsure of what tradition or circumstance demanded, yet it seemed the right thing to do. The elder smiled gently and the woman drew you to herself. Though you could see Silco straining at the grip upon him, struggling to contain his anxious tension, you felt no fear.

“Silco.” The elder murmured, tone not scolding, merely gently walking the line toward reproachful. “I know it has been many years since you joined conclave, but no harm will come to your chosen here. Nor you. Your binding shall be honored.”

The elder turned, letting his hand slide from Silco’s shoulder as he opened the hematite glitter of clawed hands and addressed the gathering in a booming voice.

“We have much to celebrate, and some to mourn. We gather to honor all, to offer gratitude and pay homage in the old ways. THE CONCLAVE IS GATHERED!”

Around you the hilltops rang with dragon song, the towering mountains echoing back the sound like the old roots of the earth recognized the children it had birthed of fire and stone and sang to their return.

Each night passed in ceremony and celebration, in feast and dance and song and fire. Fires built big and burning brightly through the night to dawn and through each day, never extinguished, only heaped higher and brighter until the final night when they burned big as houses, flames leaping and dancing.

The first night had been for mourning the passing of those who had gone before or recently passed, solemn and so beautifully poignant in story and song, in offering and recollection that you could not help but weep for times and creatures passed that you had never known. The second night welcomed the younglings from their first flights, a warm and joyous thankfulness for new life to carry forth the flame of the past, fun and light hearted with the frolickings of the little ones brought to be introduced to all and welcomed to the fold. The third and final night was your own; the blessing of unions, fruit of the future and vine of the past joined together.

Silco had kept you close, regardless of the assurances of the elders, though his wariness seemed to have ebbed as the nights went on and you remained unaccosted and well cared for, even if he seemed to dislike how the pair of you were a novelty, a curiosity among the ranks, and how others flocked in cautious droves to meet the feral consort of their lonesome brethren.

You were enchanted, however, as one beautiful, terrible beast after another came to share your fire, share food or gift you trinkets, as the younglings stole you away to play games in the daylight, and delighted in your gifts of autumn wildflowers as you crowned their little horns with yarrow and goldenrod, thistle and ironweed, and as they squealed at your ghost stories around the feasts at night. All the while your dragon, dark and silent and determinedly protective by your side, gathering you to him each night to kiss your face and tuck you to himself, as hoarded and treasured as gold.

The final night, however, you were separated.

Silco looked distraught as you were led away, folded into a group of dragon mates that surrounded you like tall, kind sentinels. Each eager to meet the human dragon-bound, to welcome you. They descended upon you like a gentle flock of enormous beautiful birds. Passing you hand to hand as you were gently disrobed, bathed and dried, as your hair was brushed out and dried to a lustrous sheen. They spoke in hushed voices, that enchanting golden woman who had greeted you first chief among them as you were prepared.

“We paint you for the blessing, little one.” She explained as your hands and arms were taken and they began the slow process of drawing beautiful patterns and shapes from your wrists up past your elbows. “Tales of your mate’s kin and his past upon your skin. That your story becomes one.”

Fingertips were dipped in the same dark red henna paint and palms, fingers and knuckles carefully traced with your own exquisite pattern of scales. Across your bare back the cool paint was drawn as well.

“Wings for you, consort, may you touch the heavens in love.” The golden-green woman explained the painting upon your back as she wrapped your waist in a fold of a deep plum-colored rich silk that was long enough to trail behind you as you walked, shot through here and there with golden threads that caught the firelight with each movement and gave the slithering, soft fabric a life of its own.

Your eyes were darkened with kohl, lips stained with berries as the lines of the paints dried and hardened and then were wiped away to reveal the beautiful art left behind to saturate skin for many weeks to come in a rich red-brown hue that sang against the color of your complexion.

Your bare chest was adorned with a jingling treasure of gold coins fashioned almost to a loose and light chainmail breastplate, split in twain from sternum down, fastened round your neck and down behind the small of your back with thin gold chains. Every motion sang softly and the loose hanging scales of coins tickled at your skin and stiffened nipples.

“A dowry for your love, from the gathered.” The golden woman explained, as you were fitted with other little trinkets until you shone wrist to ankle, “In welcome and blessing.”

When at last you were adorned to their satisfaction, the coterie drew you forth from where they had sequestered you beneath the pines and followed you in retinue back up the sloping hill toward the largest fire and the stone circle it burned and danced within. Silco waited before the flames, bare to his waist, tail flicking nervously, crowned gloriously with an autumn wreath of leaves and pale birch among the curling reach of his horns He had been painted in licks of gold, traced outline to the shape of each scale running up his arms and whorls of it etched like shining epaulets across shoulders and collarbone. The elder stood beside him, both of them watching your ascent as the other dragons gathered and drew near with your approach, a keening, haunting cry going up, a beautiful low bellowing beneath, as voices raised around you.

Silco was gazing at you as you drew near as if he could not find air to fill his lungs, an ecstatic joy close to pain upon his face, unspeakable in its infatuation. He reached out as you neared, and your hand fitted to the folding grasp of his long clawed hand, always so terribly gentle. The elder took your other hand and both drew you to the edge of the fire, where heat rolled off in heavy waves, brushing back the strands of your hair and gently singeing darkened lashes.

“We join this eve to bless the unions made this year.” Began the elder, “To celebrate the binding of souls. In this we persist. In this our kind is made stronger. You have danced, you have become one, you have shared a flame and food. Tonight, we share blood, and bring you not only to the blessing of your binding, but also to ourselves.”

From around the fire, the two other elders came, one bearing a cup, and the other a glittering blade. The elder dropped your hand as he accepted the blade, and for a heartstopping moment you shied close to Silco as he raised the knife, only to watch him slice open his own arm and hold it over the cup. The blade passed to the other two elders, who did the same, as the tallest of them took the cup in exchange, each bleeding a little into the chalice. Around the gathering it went, until at least ten of the dragons had given their blood, ending with your own. Silco, releasing his gentle grip on you, to bleed himself into the cup before the elder took the knife and gave the chalice to him.

Silco held it out in offering, brows knit and upturned at their center, like he held his heart in his hands for you to devour.

“Drink, dragon-bound, and join our fire.” Intoned the elder, behind you.

Fingers trembled as they closed over Silco’s grasp of the proffered cup, and let him tilt it gently. The fiery liquid lapped at your lips before it filled your mouth, searing and copper as stone, thick and cloying as dripping honey, hot as any pepper spice you’d ever known and indescribable in taste as it flowed down your throat with each thick swallow. It burned like whiskey and lit through your veins the second it hit the pit of your stomach.

Rocking on your feet, your arm was caught by the elder as Silco withdrew the cup. Distantly, you were aware you were being drawn away from him, closer to the flames, watching his face as the heat grew and grew… until you turned to find that the elder held your hand out into the very fire itself, that you had your fingers splayed to the searing soft lick of the brilliant light and yet you did not burn. He released your hand as you reached to toy with the kiss of the flames, fascinated and bewitched.

Among you, that cry went up again, filling the hills and mountains.

“Go to your beloved.” The elder murmured, breaking the reverie as you stared at skin unburnt and felt no fear of the searing heat. No need to be told twice as you glanced up at him and then to Silco waiting, looking for all the world like his heart might burst as you spun from the flames and launched yourself into his arms. He caught you up; his feral, wild, unburnt adored, and devoured the kiss you offered. If the elder had more words of blessing to say they were lost to you as you pressed your forehead to Silco’s, arms wound round his neck and the song of dragons ringing in your ears.

The moon hung full and heavy above, nearly as richly orange as if it had been plucked from one of the fields of ripe pumpkins you’d flown over in your journey here. Beneath you the bed of soft moss and leaves cradled you under the spill of the silk that had been gathered round your waist, now spread bedroll to your joined bodies under the shadows of the dark pines and golden birch, tucked in a private nook of the hills. The scent of bonfires joined the distant joyous ruckus of the gathering, of dancing and song and laughter by the firesides, a chorus mingling with the crickets and the hymn of the late evening forest that lay down beyond the hills. Here you made your own music, soft urgent moans to his deep rumbling, sweet laughter at a tickle and sweeter still a whine of pleasure.

Silco took you slow, though he’d been in a terrible hurry when you’d left the blessing fire together to come here, to finally be alone at last again.

You stood, breathing hard as he circled you with deliberate steps, as if he’d memorize every inch of the beauty the other dragons had wrought you in for him, as if he’d finally quarried the prize he wished and now would take his time at the feast. Heart hammered eager anticipation as he circled, pausing to trace a painted line here or toy with a tendril of coiled hair there, sparking soft little arcs of excitement rushing along skin with each small, teasing touch. Breath leaving you in little sighs as he closed in to brush a kiss to your shoulder, heat of his mouth a welcome reprieve from the goosebumps rising against the chill night air. You held perfectly still, save for the occasional delicious little shiver as he bent to scrape a tender bite to your jaw, to whuffle breath warmly in your hair, sharp blade of his nose crushed to you, drinking in the scent of you.

“Is my dragon pleased?” You asked slyly, the words hitching in your throat as his hips pressed to the back of you, heat of him inviting as large hands splayed along your hips.

Silco hummed approval, agreement, rumbling against you in a way that had you melting back against him.

Clawed hands pulled the silk at your hips loose, let it spread out upon the ground, before running nails lightly over the loose draped shirt of coins you wore. Shirt was a generous term for it, truly it was but a necklace that draped tapering in twin sheets of glittering gold to your waist, two waterfalls of gleaming metal that shone like burnished scales when you moved, concealing breasts alone. It tickled and warmed against the skin, had you gasping as he toyed with it and blushing hot pleasure to hear him purr another deep noise of satisfaction as a clawed hand dipped beneath the golden shimmer to cradle up the soft of one breast.

“They dower you as a princess, my little beauty.” Breath washed a ticklish hot sheet over cheek and chest as he lowered his head to drag his tongue a slow lick along the rise of your cheekbone.

“Mmn, am I glittering enough to add to your hoard?” You teased back with a smile, fingertips running along his gold painted forearms lightly.

“You are the treasure of my heart, mousling.” He murmured low, “If all I had were you, I would still be rich beyond dreams.”

It had your heart clench with pleasant pain within, had you spinning slow to face him, the gentle drag of claws teasing the rise of a nipple as they slid out from under the coined mail.

Mouth pressed tenderly to the heat of his chest, head dipping to press a kiss to the silvery grey scar the spear you had wrenched from him had left behind. Fingers tugged at the stays of his pants, impatient hands slipping over lean hips, progress only halted when he came to his knees before you, putting you nearly face to face with his height, the cool of his touch sliding down to take a possessive, delighted grasp of the curve of your of your bottom, the mismatched sheen of ruby and teal sapphire watching you suck a gasp as he got a cheek in each hand and the prickled points of claws sunk harmlessly into giving flesh.

“You do look beautiful, beloved. Though I like you best in nothing at all.”

It had you raise hands back behind your neck to unfasten the delicate clasp of the necklace and let it slide, tinkling softly, to the forest floor, only to cradle fingers around the sharp angles of his face as the heat of his mouth nuzzled against your collarbone. He drew back just enough to regard the small array of scars he’d left upon your chest; little pale pink weals where his claws had sunk in over your heart, months and months ago. They were not the only scars you’d been left with in your adventure across the Northern Pass with him. Across your upper lip, your cheekbone and through one brow, along with a smattering of others, your early days were written across your skin. Perhaps not as prominently as the grey, deep furrows that marked his left side, but there nonetheless.

“Do you know,” you asked softly, one hand coming to rest upon the broad span of his bare shoulders, as you slid fingertips of the other under his chin to tilt it to you, “If you had torn the heart from me that day, I would still have been happy?”

“What? Why?” He rumbled, dark brows furrowing tightly.

“Because it would have been with you, where it belonged.”

The distant sounds of revelry echoed across the hills behind you as Silco stared up at you in stunned awe, a pained look of exquisite adoration twisting the sharp, darkly handsome marred features of his, so unused to such deep gluts of emotion.

He brushed a kiss featherlight to each of the five little scars he’d left over your heart, eyes turned upward to hold your own. The warmth of your hands had just lifted to cradle his face when he slipped lower, the impossible heat of his tongue coiled round a nipple. Neck arched hard as your face turned to the open heavens above as he sucked slow before the tender pinch of fanged teeth came down and had you rocking into him.

Inch by inch, he took his time, tasting, laving at the softness of you, between breasts and over the gentle slope of stomach, kissing ribs one by one where ragged breath brought them to the surface, tongue dipping, dragging through the indent of your navel before his face pushed hard to the crux of your thighs and the delicious wet heat of his licks slicked along the part of your sex in teasing slow laps.

Clawed hand released it grasp of one soft cheek of your behind to drag the promise of claws along the back of your thigh before he caught your knee and hooked it up over his shoulder, tongue redoubling its efforts as he licked through the soft cleft of your sex, delving between sweet folds, leaving you no choice but to take desperate grasp of his horns and hang on for dear life itself as he devoured you.

Braced on one foot, back arched hard to offer him what was his, you sucked a sharp breath as large hands raked over the soft curves of your backside, as the melting silken heat of his tongue spread you and delved into your wetness, sweet heat slicking through soft folds, teasing every so often at the eager little ache of your clit as he drank you in, rumbling chuckles at the stifled little moaning gasp you made each time he’d let his tongue slide out of you and up, as his hands parted the cleft of your cheeks until you were writhing, fisting the hard, knobbled curl of his horns beneath your fingers and nearly begging he take you already as his tail caressed up the length of your stomach and between the weight of breasts to coil round your throat. Not happy until you were mewling, pressing into him and dripping down your thighs with the teasing.

Each renewed grasp of his horns or trembling stroke of fingers had him grumbling and groaning his own delighted satisfaction. Paying no mind at all to the crown of leaves you were dislodging one by one with your caress, golden and red bits of them falling to flutter across his shoulders to the ground.

“Silco! Please…” You were panting, rocking, standing leg ready to give out before he lifted his head to watch you with a devious, sharp glinting smile. And thank whatever gods held sway over the dark mountains and their dragon gathering that he took pity on you at last and laid you down, gently.

So far gone you barely registered it when he lifted you, laid you on your back against the silk, save for the dizzy change in the pull of gravity. You watched through heavy lids as he shed pants and settled between the welcome splay of your thighs upon his knees, hands coming to brace over you as he bent to nuzzle the warm wash of nipping kisses up your throat.

For all his teasing, he took you so slowly. The smoke and ash taste of him mingled with your own salt-sweet on his mouth as it closed over yours as he spread you, worked you gently with thrusts so tenderly careful you could feel his hips shivering, feel the stringing tension coursing through each line of him as he held himself in check while you rocked up against him, inviting him into the welcoming heat, savoring each ridged rise and thick, pressing texture as he sank within you.

It was Silco this time who was gasping for air once he lay fully seated, hips rocking as if he could not stop the mind numbing, overwhelming urge to move against you. The blade of his nose pressed to your cheek, fanged mouth open over yours, stealing breath and air as you whispered and moaned soft encouragement and adoration up at him. Until he was gazing down at you, laying in his arms, the backs of his dark knuckles caressing your jaw.

When the pair of you moved again, you moved as one.

Entwined, you arched under him to each slow roll of his hips. Etched against the night sky above you he was a glorious, terrible beauty, the searing glow of that burning ruby eye and the crowning glory of his dark horns singing to something wild within you. Had you biting tenderly at his lower lip, tugging, licking at his sharp teeth and hot slide of his tongue. Yours, your dragon, your heart, like he had actually torn it from you that day and ate it all up and now went walking the earth and flying through the clouds with it still caught, stuck a tender beating thing behind his fiery maw, still aching for him within the furnace of his own chest.

Your fingers could not drink enough of him, could not seek enough of his heat and the texture of his skin, from face to throat, shoulders to ribs to the slow roll of his hips. He sighed into your touch and shoved his face hard into the crux of your neck and shoulder, sucking shivering, deep gulps of breath as if he’d imprint the very scent of you this night into an indelible stain of perfection on his memory.

“Silco… Silco…” Thick and sweet as the rich butter you’d had on hot bread back at the tavern days ago, his name slid from your throat, filling your mouth, more heady than any wine or ale, tasing better than any luscious fruit. You made a song of your desire for him, pitch lifting as he moved all the faster within you. Always fit to break for him, always a wonder at how deep, how full, how perfect he took you. Dragon-bound, his, made together on some strange forge.

He was snarling, groaning, the deep rumblings of his chest crushed to yours only heightening each exquisite sensation. He stopped your voice with a slow, deep kiss, followed by a thrust just as agonizingly deep and gradual. Breaking the sweet, suckling languor of his devotion to your mouth to gaze down at you.

And for a moment, just for a breath, he was that broken, lonesome boy on the side of the mountain pass again; touched by a terrified tenderness and longing and fear that had seasoned over centuries to a knife’s blade of emotion.

“I love you.” The whisper of it caught in his throat, hitched and broke.

And in that tidal pull of his breaking dam you rushed up to meet him, to tug him under into your waves, to show him, tell him, let him eat the love, the heart right out of you again. His; beating to the rhythm of dark wings across a harvest moon, where the lifting sparks of fire and the brilliant glow of stars all became one drifting constellation.

#gift fic #dragon!silco #silco x f!reader #Silco x reader #hbd/hsd #silco #arcane #silco au #dragon au

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piggycyberwarrior · 1 year

Text

What nicknames the Arcane characters would give you //HC

Summary: What nicknames the Arcane Characters would give you. And what nicknames you would give them

Includes: Ekko, Vi, Silco, Jinx

a/n: Jinx’ is a little short. Daily reminder that your special and I love youu

Warnings: none

Ekko:

I think he would stick with the normal couple names like babe, baby ect.

but he would also call you "firefly" or "sunshine" when you are alone.

You on the other hand.... hehehe.....

“Hey Mister Man! Do you need anything? I'm going grocery shopping now."

“What?”

“I. Am. going. grocery. shopping. do. you. need. something, cookie kiss?”

you call him names like: “Macho Mack”, “Noodle doodle”, “Nutter butter” “cutie patootie” (last ones my fav)

Sometimes he just chuckles from the hilarious nicknames, but he loves them. Also that you are so creative about that.

Vi:

it is logical that vi calls you cupcake or sweet cheeks.

that's what she had called you even before you were together

i think vi is with someone who holds her back when she gets into another fight

like a mother figure (my opinion...)

So I think that she likes it when you call her nicknames like: “sweetie”, “Blub”, or “Pumpkin”

“Hey Love, could you pass me the salt please?” “mhmmm, if I get a kiss.” she slyly said. you chuckled. “Of course sweetie.”

Silco:

Silco, silco, silco.

He would definitely call you names like: beloved, darling or love (i want thaattttt!!)

he started it when you accidentally hurt yourself once and he patched you up-

"this is going to hurt a little bit, darling." "What, what did you call me?" “Darling?”

Y/n EXE. has stopped working.

“Love why is your nose bleeding? Here, a tissue.” silco said concerned

;)

until then, you didn't think he would use nicknames. he was always so serious. So you started doing that too

“Mhmmm.” groaned silco pleasantly as you played with his hair.

“I love you, Handsome.” God you dont know how much he loves hearing that from you.

Jinx:

jinx would give you some crazy nicknames

Pudding Pop, cuddly-wuddly, snookums everything out of the ordinary

“Snookums? Ah here you are! Look what I found!!” she giggled as she showed you what she found on a mission.

“Mhm? Oh thats cool, Ducky!”

you, on the other hand, like to call her names like: Ducky, Bee, Birdie.

She really likes them and is deeply offended when you call her by her real name.

No shit, She then sulks like a toddler

#arcane imagines #arcane Vi #arcane jinx #arcane silco #arcane ekko #arcane headcanons #arcane fluff #leauge of legends imagine #leauge of legends headcanons #ekko x reader nicknames #vi x reader nicknames #silco x reader nicknames #jinx x reader nicknames

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sweatandwoe · 2 years

Text

Keep the hat on

Pairing: Cowboy!Silco x F!Reader (3.4K Words)

Rating: Explicit (seriously this is all smut)

Summary: Dragging the rope further and further, slowly. Tugging at your waist with each new fold around his hand, until you were almost in his arms.

Red and blue gazed down, taking you in fully. “I believe that’s my hat, ma’am.”

Warnings: MDNI - SMUT, ropeplay (he is a cowboy), bondage, f naked m fully clothed, dirty talk, vaginal fingering, p in v, very domestic, very fluffy, fluff in the spice

Note: I wrote smut! As part of a trade with @thespicybuns (actually the sweetest buns) who drew this amazing, Singed art (NSFW...ish, he’s covered. LOOK AT THOSE LEGGIES)

Now enjoy some cowboy!Silco being way... way too sweet with his wife

It was a bit silly to do this. But it was his fault really, leaving his hat here for over a week while he was gone for the road. Your husband really had made it far too easy for you to decide just how to welcome him home.

He always did adore this hat. Especially when you wore it. So you figured he’d appreciate you in only his beloved hat. And his lasso if that counted as clothing, tight around your waist and binding your arms at your sides.

You knew his regular time to be home, so you had given yourself that schedule to prepare. Hear thumping in your chest, as you heard the clicking of his steps, spurs creating the noise as he approached the slightly open door. A pause, before you watched the rope wiggle, the door opening to reveal him.

Blue and red gazed down at you, the blue widening in surprise to match the red. The rope tightened in his gloved hand.

The lasso had always looked so nice in his hands. Perfectly curled around the covered palm, as he wound it up slowly. Dragging the rope further and further, slowly. Tugging at your waist with each new fold around his hand, until you were almost in his arms.

Red and blue gazed down, taking you in fully. “I believe that’s my hat, ma’am.”

You peered up at him, lifting your head to see past the rim of the cap. Silco was smiling, a soft private thing just for you. With his hair fully tussled, probably from the wind on the ride home. “Oh no, it’s my husband’s, sir. He left it when he went to do business.”

One eyebrow quirked up, and there’s a sharp tug of the rope that has you almost tumbling. Then glaring at his growing smirk. “Oh? And he left you all alone with just a hat to wear?”

You smile, as he pulls you a step closer until there’s a leather brush against your waist. Gloved hands tracing the rope there, as you lean forward to press your bare chest against his covered one. “No, I just thought he might like the sight of it.”

Silco’s smile is like a knife, slicing past the rope, spilling heat into your core. The game is done just as it had started, while he leans in, meeting you halfway. “I do.”

The kiss he gives you next is sweet and soft that you return with equal pressure. The hat is removed when you’ve parted, the rope he leaves on. A frown as you glance down at it, your arms still bound at your side. “Aren’t you going to release me, dear?”

There’s a hum, followed by a pop of his lips together as he settles the hat onto his head, resting rightfully there. Another tug of the rope, to press you fully to him, a gasp leaving your throat that he breathes in. “No, sweetheart.”

The hand on your waist snakes around your back, moving to squeeze your ass, the other hand twists the rope further around his palm while gloved fingers come up to grab hold of your chin. Tilting your head back, before those fingers drag down the columns of your throat, curling around it when they rise back up. The rope digs into your skin as much as the digits.

“All tied up. I can choose just how much I want to unwrap my gift. And right now, my dear, I don’t think I want to unwrap you at all. Leave you like this,” Fingers slip down, moving over the tops of your breasts, before raising trailing back up, smirking at the soft little gasp you gave. “At my mercy.”

A soft-strangled noise leaves your throat, not quite a moan yet as he gives a delicate squeeze. From this angle, you can really see his face. The circles under his good eye cool the fire in your belly a little bit, eliciting a more tender feeling, as your hands flex against your bonds. “I know you probably didn’t have a good time on the road-”

Fingers cut off breath, a harder squeeze before it releases and he’s leaning down. Mouth hovering above your own, but not moving an inch closer. “We can discuss that after we’re done here. Or tomorrow. Whichever comes first.“ The hand on your ass moves, sliding up to your hip before removing completely.

He takes the glove between his teeth, the chipped teeth punching the leather as he drags it off. The bare hand then touches your skin, sliding down your front until he’s cupping you. Lips brush over the corner of your mouth, as your breath is already quickening from just the motion.

“You’re already so wet. How long have you wanted me to see you tied up, Darling?”

You mean to answer, you do, but then he slides two bare fingers into you, and a moan escapes instead. He gives you a moment, but when you open your mouth again, he starts to pump them into you, a moan sliding from your lips without any words. There’s another squeeze around your throat, hard enough to make the edges of your gaze turn black before he releases completely. Hand moving to pull at the rope around your waist, drawing it tighter around your arms.

“Come on, sweetheart, I know you can say it.” His mouth is hovering again, eyes meeting down into your own. “Tell me how long you’ve wanted me to do this.”

There’s a shudder because he won’t stop fucking his fingers into you, using the palm of his hand to rub against your clit. “A l-long time!” It is finally gasped out, and you’re rewarded with his fingers going all the way to the knuckle.

A click of his tongue. “How long?”

Another deep thrust that has your thighs starting to tremble. Can hear the wet noise as he fucks his fingers into you, filling the sound of the entryway. A glance up and you realize he hadn’t shut the front door, and the sight of it has you squealing out your answer. “Since before we got married.”

He freezes, staring down at you, brow furrowing. “Since before we got married?” Fingers start to move again, as your hips do, but his brow is still furrowed. “And you didn’t say anything, Darling? I could’ve been able to have you like this for that long?”

“I know!” You cut him off, feeling how warm your body feels while he keeps going, faster now. Fingers deep, and going on long enough you can feel the wetness gathering against your inner thighs. “I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you about-”

A mouth meets your own next, devouring your next few words. Tongue pressing roughly against your own, as his free hand slides into your hair, nails scraping along the scalp delightfully. Fingers slip from you, moving to wrap around your waist instead, leaving you helpless to stop him from lifting you as he pressed his arm around you, far too focused on your mouth than to care that your toes were just brushing over the floor.

When he does pull away, his lips are swollen, cheeks red and his left eye almost matches the right with how black it’s gotten. And you almost laugh when you see that his hat is crooked, but then he’s leaning down. Eyes close as you wait for a second kiss, only to feel breath against your middle. “What are you-”

And the next thing you saw was the view of the still open front as you were thrown over his shoulder.

“Silco!”

There’s a slap to your ass then before the leather-covered hand smooths over the curve of it, as he travels up the stairs. Two at a time you think, with how fast he reaches the top. “I have some more rope for you, sweetheart. I need to make up for the lost time.”

Reaching the bedroom he simply drops you onto the bed, leaving you tied, vulnerable, and alone for a moment. There’s rummaging as he goes through the closet, that has your gaze flick over to it. While he’s busy looking for the spare rope he keeps near his jeans, you took the time to admire your husband.

Usually what everyone first saw was the eye, followed by the scars. And though they were always present, they were quite easy to get used to and easier to love. Tall and lithe body, skinny besides the shield of muscle over everything. Hands, now both free of gloves, that were well-maintained but rough from years of hard work.

A burgundy dress shirt, with a matching black and gold vest laid over top. His hat is still on, black and brimmed, with a golden chain around the crown. Dark jeans, with a pair of darker boots, with spurs that clicked when he walked. A sound you had long gone used to, while he walks back into your bedroom.

When he turns, two sets of ropes in his hands, there’s a slight redness to his cheeks as he realizes you had been just staring at him. “Do I have to blindfold you too, darling?”

You hum, as he settles onto the bed, one hand grazing over your side, stopping to curl over the curve of your hip. “Can’t help but look at an amazing view.”

Heated eyes run over your naked body and he hums in return, and you realize he hasn’t stopped smiling since he got home. It softens his face even more with the blush still on his cheeks. “I can understand that testament.” The next kiss is brief before he’s pulling you into a sitting position. “Now stay still, or I’ll bend you over my knee.”

Despite how good that idea sounds, there’s an eagerness to see what he’s going to do that wins over being a brat for the time being, so you give him a small nod before stilling to let him work.

The rope already around you is removed first, letting your hands be free for a few moments. (“How did you even get it around you in the first place?” Which was only answered with a smile.) But then he loops the rope around your torso in patterns, over each shoulder, curling with enough pressure around your breasts to make them lift.

“Too tight?”

You can’t help it, as you grin up at him. “Not tight enough.”

The slap to your thigh is the only warning you get, and it goes straight to your core. Your arms are next, rope ends looping around each of them, and then twice to keep your hands together. At the third rope, he draws a knife from his belt. It glimmers in the evening sun that’s peaking into your bedroom, as he cuts the rope short. Using it as binding to keep your hands tied to the rope at your sternum, making sure not to block out your breasts from view.

Soft metal curls against the meat of your forearm, as he delicately slides it under the rope. Testing, you realize after a moment when he doesn’t cut the thick strand. “I’ll ask one more time. Any of it too tight?”

You shake your head, “I don’t think so.” Gasping at a second, harsher, slap against your thigh. His blue is narrowing at you, while his fingers dig into the warming skin. “No. None of it’s too tight.”

“Good girl.”

Rough hands promptly follow his words, shoving you onto your back. Upper body stiff with the rope, it feels odd at the lack of bounce when you land with a grunt. He’s quick to not leave you, depositing the knife on the nightstand before returning to you, knees nudging your legs open as he settles between them. Hands move to roll up his sleeves to the elbow to reveal well-muscled forearms, with a few lines of hair running over the top of that exposed skin, tugging his vest off so his shirt is the only upper layer. A hand on either side of your head, caging you in.

For a moment, you both just stare. Taking in each other's faces, he leans down. You think he’s going to kiss you again, but he hovers once more. Letting the tip of his nose brush over your own, but not going any further. Drawing away when you lift your head, eyes sparkling. “Say it.”

Warm pressure is hidden away in his jeans, rubbing roughly against you as he stays on his knees, each leg hooking over his hip. “Silco, please.”

He grinds his crotch against your own, gasping himself as he keeps his distance from your mouth still. One hand moves, sliding under your head to your neck, nose brushing over your own. His lips are so close, as he keeps a strong hand against the back of your neck. “Please what?”

“Kiss me, you fucking-”

When he brings his mouth down, it’s with muffled laughter. This kiss isn’t quite as fierce as the earlier one, but he’s kissing you deeply in moments. Nipping at your bottom lip, he pulls away to place a kiss on your cheek. Another at your jaw. Moving down to suck a mark into your neck on one side before biting a match onto the other side.

Lips and hands move down further, eyes on you, as he settles his mouth against the upper curve of your breast. Letting his teeth slide against the soft skin before he moved lower. Chipped teeth surrounding your nipple perfectly, as his cheeks hollow when he sucks. The crown of your head meets the mattress as you arch your head at the feeling, unable to encourage him with your hands.

Even though he seems to admire the way your fingers stretch to reach for him.

His mouth pulls away from your nipple with a pop, before running his tongue over it. Both hands move lower, while his mouth works against your tit. One hand spreads you open, with the other he slides two fingers in again, thumb on your clit this time, rubbing circles as he pumps them into you.

Your husband’s name is a mantra of your lips, hips grinding into his hand. He adds a third finger, grinning against your breast. “That’s it. Take your pleasure, darling. My perfect. Little. Whore.” The last three words are emphasized with the hard, deep thrusts of his fingers. Curling perfectly into you.

It only takes a few more to follow to bring on your first orgasm of the night, drawn out from his current full attention and Fingers clenching around him, he just fucks you through it with a few more kisses against your throat. Soft words of praise as you do just as you’ve been told and roll your hips to chase the pleasure he’s giving you.

He doesn’t stop.

Not even as you’re panting, a sheen of sweat starting to glow along your skin, he doesn’t stop. Not even as you whine incoherently, as you feel him building a second one up to follow the first. “Silco.”

There’s a coy noise to his tone but heat carries in it too. “Yes?”

You aren’t sure if you can use your words in this state, but you do your best to focus on his face instead of his hand. And it works, enough to say some words. Even if they’re not fully coherent. “Cock, love. Your cock, please.” It’s babbled out, rather quickly, but his hand is quicker to leave your cunt. Licking his fingers before reaching down on his person.

There’s the clasp of his belt buckle, and you can hear the shuffle of his pants, the zipper of his jeans. The fat head of his cock, rubbing against your entrance. A pause, before he lifts a hand up to your mouth. Blue eye is dark as his fingers move into a scooping motion and you can see the glistening fingers. “Spit.”

You do, landing a glob in his hand. Followed by a second one, before he lowers it with another ‘Good Girl’. Fisting his own cock, you can hear the wet sound of your spit and fluids over his cock, getting it ready for you. A low moan left his throat, neck-craning upwards and exposing the adam’s apple, bobbing as his panted. His collar is open enough to expose the bone, and the love bite you had given it earlier in the week, is barely there.

It would be replaced later, you think, as he grips the base of his dick in one hand and the other hand on your thigh. Pressing his cock in, you both moan as he slides home in one thrust. The pace is set without a moment of rest, hips drawing back just enough to slam back. Filing you up each time, just as deep and just as hard.

The sound it gives as he thrusts into you, is so wet, that it’s almost jarring to know it’s coming from you.

His name is a cry that leaves your mouth, wishing your hands were freed. You could cling to him, ground yourself against him. But here now, you simply had to lay back and take it.

“That’s my good girl.” He praises, with a hard thrust. “So fucking g-good for me. Look at you. Taking it all.” Hips press against you, grinding in place while he’s fully inside of you, and you clench around him, eyelids fluttering.

Both hands come off your body while he falls backward, hat toppling off and taking you with him, his cock still buried deep. Arms lopping around your waist, as he admires his rope work, then raises his gaze over your throat and then your face. Whispering so lowly, you’re sure you aren’t meant to hear the soft ‘Beautiful’ that falls from his mouth.

“Your hat.” You whisper, trying to calm your heart. But he only smiles, reaching for it to settle on your head.

“It does look really good on you, darling.”

A kiss then, soft and brief, before he’s lifting you off just to turn you. His chest to your back, sliding his cock in before looping his arms under your thighs until his hands grip your shoulders. Nails digging into the skin, as he fucks you deeply, mouth giving ragged breaths next to your ear.

“Does that feel good, my lovely?” A harsh thrust up into your soaked cunt. The wet sound carried through the room, as he continued those deep thrusts.

“Yes, but S-Silco, dear-,” you aren’t even sure what you’re begging for, but he seems to understand your body’s needs better than you do. A shift of his hips, and then the angle is enough to have you crying out his name, over and over.

Clenching around him, thighs shaking against his arms as he keeps fucking up into you. Praise against your ear, as his thrusts grow erratic before he keeps you so deeply it hurts, before he finally gives in to his own pleasure. Holding you tight enough to bruise, shallowly thrusting into you as he spills into your cunt.

Neither of you moves for a moment, both just panting. He turns you over onto the bed after a moment, slipping from you only once he’s softened. The knife is drawn from the nightstand, cutting into your bonds free and the hat is placed with the knife back on the stand.

A brush of lips against your forehead, before he gets up. On slightly wobbling legs you admire with a burst of pride in your chest, and try not to think of how his legs probably ached from the hours-long ride back home. He slips into the bathroom, the sinking running for a moment before he returns, a glass full of water. Taking a few sips for himself, before drawing you into sitting up and placing the glass to your lips. Encouraging you to drink the rest.

“How was that, sweetheart?” The soft words float over your skin, as he draws you into his arms. Another kiss this time to the side of your head.

“Good.” You murmur, moving to bury yourself in his arms. A bath is needed, but that can wait. For now, this is fine.

Chest vibrating with his lift of soft laughter. “Just good?”

You hum, gazing up at him. Thigh raising over slightly over his knee, that has his gaze whipping to it, before snapping back at you. “Could’ve had one thing to make it even better.”

“Oh?” His hand smooths along your back, fingers drawing soft circles up against your shoulders. “ And what would that be?”

You kiss his jaw, letting him feel your smile against it. “Keep your hat on next time.”

#silco x reader #silco #arcane #mdni

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a-gal-with-taste · 2 years

Text

Flawed Favorite (Kinktober Day 11)

His favorite; as if you couldn't possibly know why.

807 WC - Silco X F!Reader

Lingerie, garters, teasing, established relationship, oral (F!Recieving), Silco POV, extra scene from main-fic, Flawed (everyone say thank-you to @ink-and-dagger for the inspiration)

"I do believe this is my favorite of your wears, darling."

"How so, beloved?"

A smile, gentle in comparison with the lustful rasp of her voice, and it's enough for his knuckles to ache. The stain of tendons, muscle and sinew is enough to bring a certain pain, one that indeed stings in the deepest of ways, but also rouses the most unique sense of pleasure.

Just as she does, simply with a smile.

Helped, by the tight mix of lace and straps that adorn her legs, in which he traces with the backs of his fingers as he hums. Silco runs his blunt-nails along the flesh, causing her own amused hum to weaken, soon breathing into a breathless exhale as he drags the faint, but unmissable touch, further along towards her upper-thigh.

"Does it... enhance the wearer, by chance?" She comments, gazes slightly hooded as the sight before her: the Eye of Zaun, on his knees. Impossible, and incredible to witness. "The tailor told me such a piece would enhance the wearer's beauty-"

Eyes flashing, both in dueling-shades of fire, Silco wraps a knuckle around one of the taunt garter-straps, tugging it away from the skin, and releasing it shortly thereafter.

The impact of the sting is nothing compared to the sweet, sudden gasp that leaves his lover, and it's only a lifetime of control that keeps the majority of the satisfied, potentially smug smirk on his face at bay, as he gazes up at her sternly, "You say that as if you don't know, dear. As if you can't possibly know how it makes you look."

The next breath comes out quiet, but heavy as she gazes down at him, her own fingers snaking down to cover his own. Not necessarily out of a serial appetite, but a hunger nonetheless for the physical-contact - for him.

Impossible, and incredible to witness. It makes the corner of his eyes soften, the sneer of his bared teeth to loosen minutely in their ferocity, even as she murmurs, soft and almost innocently:

"If I had to guess, I imagine that it makes me look good enough to eat, beloved."

The next snap, sharper than the one before, shouldn't come as a surpise... in some ways, it doesn't, as his lover barely jerks at the sting, but then let's out a low, deep breath as his growl cuts through the pleasurable pain, in a single agreement, "Indeed."

A tug, more on the material than on her flesh, drags her ever closer, leaving her hands to flee his in order to prevent falling-back on the bed. The tips of his fingers are only momentarily cold at the lost of her touch, but warmth flares through every part of him at the sound of her chuckle, low and giddy, at his utter eagerness of her.

He can't get enough.

It used to be a point of concern, of absurdity, how a single human-being could be the singularity to make him want - nay, need - another. Had it really been the same lifetime, in which this man of Zaun saw what he felt for this woman as a threat, a weakness onto his very character?

In some ways, she does make him so weak.

This woman, in union with her ability to weaken every iron-clad wall within him with the smallest of smiles, twinkle in her dark eyes, also makes has the habit of making him utterly ravenous for her.

Something proven, as Silco barely affords her a smirk while nudging those beautifully-clad legs over his shoulder, roving his fingers along intricate designs and straps, as he moves ever closer-

And of course, the clearest evidence that she knows exactly what she does to the Eye of Zaun is extraordinarily made-clear.

"Didn't want there to be anything in your way, beloved," She murmured, again, oh-so innocent.

Silco gives her another glance, another faint smirk as he taps his fingers along her stocking-clad legs. "I believe you."

There isn't even a pretense of a boundary between Silco and her, and that's only to both their benefits as he slots himself between her thighs, earning a groan from him, a sigh of his name from her.

Both giddy, in their own right. Appreciative, no doubt, as though the risqué lingerie is very-much his favorite of her wears, there's a more powerful enjoyment found in the way of her laying bare, open fully to him, in a way that dares near coaxed him to do the same in far-less physical ways...

His destruction, in a sense.

The way she whimpers out beloved in the place of his name, the way her touch sparks fire to every nerve-ending she grazes, the way her legs hug around his skull, Gods, the way she tastes...

His destruction.

And Silco fears that he already loves her for it.

#arcane #arcane silco #silco x reader #kinktober #kinktober 2022 #mdni #arcane fic #silco #silco fic

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dad-dumpster · 1 year

Note

silco eating cereal?

shereal

#his toes dont reach the floor #too small #silco #silco my sweet my beloved #arcane #my art #ask★彡

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lullabyes22-blog · 1 year

Text

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 9 - Powder

Summary: Zaun is free—and must grow into its unfamiliar new dimensions. So must Silco and Jinx. A what-if that diverges midway through the events of episode 8. Found family and fluff, politics and power, smut and slice-of-life, villainy and vengeance.

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

Playlist on Youtube

Chapters: 1| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48

CH 9: Vi and Caitlyn bite off more than they can chew.

Tw: aftermath of war, violence, police brutality, hazing, parentification, implications of sexual abuse.

Gonna get my pound of flesh Burn it 'til there's nothing left Think you you can handle this? Yeah, you wanna bet?

~ "Mutiny" – Neoni

It smells like rotting rainfall.

Exiting the air-conditioned oasis of the Hexadraulic Elevator, Vi is engulfed in the stench. It is one she'd always associated with the Undercity. The smell of home. The first thing that hits is the humidity: like being folded into a sodden body-bag. The second is the texture in the air: slick and gritty at once.

Above, there is a scudding of storm-clouds. A hazy ring of green smog traces the skyline.

For a moment, Vi just—breathes. Her heart is beating fast; she'd put it down as nerves. Her gait feels unsteady; she'd dismissed it at the same. Now she realizes it's the change in the atmosphere. In Piltover, she'd been caught off-guard by the cleanness. Or better put: the absence.

The Undercity is different. A presence, so palpable she can feel its foul density pushing into her lungs.

Vi takes a slow breath, and exhales.

It's just air. She'll get used to it.

Six months since she's been down here. Things have changed. The aftermath of the Undercity's standoff with Piltover still irradiates the atmosphere. It stains each surface, from the crumbling old mortar buildings at the Promenade, to the patched-up neon casinos piled gaudily along the Riverside harbor, right down to the construction cranes and cyclone fencing beneath the shadow of the Old Hungry. Here and there, Vi glimpses bombsites, unnerving in their emptiness; like holes blasted into a beloved face.

Life is already creeping through their cracks. Catastrophe robs Fissurefolk of everything but their will to keep living.

Vi nearly smiles. But sorrow has calcified her muscles. Her lips barely twitch.

Her two Enforcer escorts—big of muscle and stupid of eye—step beyond the checkpoint. One coughs and fishes for a gas mask. The other breathes audibly through his sleeve.

“Cho'Gath on a cracker,” he grunts. “It’s bad as ever.”

“Like raw sewage.” Jerome wheezes into his mask. “With potato fries.”

Vi scoffs. "You'd eat 'em anyhow."

They crack into laughter. Not because they have a sense of humor. Their laughter is just a way to prove their manliness. Or whatever the hell passes for pride with Piltie menfolk. They try too hard. It makes them easy marks.

Thank Janna Vi is making the trip alone.

"You must be happy," Jerome sneers. "Home sweet home, eh?"

"Home stinky home, you mean," Timothy sniggers.

Vi deadpans, "Yep. I'm all choked up."

They burst into laughter again. She lets them. She doesn't care what they think. She never cares about the opinions of people who look down on others for being different. And these men are soft, on top of stupid. None of them would survive a night in Stillwater, or a bare-knuckled brawl in the Lanes.

Or, let's face it, a sip of the tapwater.

"Now remember," Jerome says, wagging a finger. "No insubordination."

"Right."

"You follow the rules down here. Ours. Not theirs."

"Uh-huh."

"Go straight to the local liaison. Like the Council ordered. No detours. No delays. Got me?"

"Got it."

Timothy sets a hand on Vi's shoulder. "Be a good girl, Vi-pie"

Vi meets his eyes, and congratulates herself for not decking him. There's no friendliness in the gesture. Just another attempt to assert dominance. Play the big man to the little woman. The high and mighty Piltie lording it over the lowborn Sumpsnipe.

She pastes on a false smile. "Sure." A beat. "Timmy-Wimmy"

His face flushes an ugly color of purple. Vi's smile turns real.

Shoving her hands deep in her pockets, she shoulders past them. Their angry stares burn into the back of her neck.

She doesn’t care.

Nothing matters except why she came here.

Beyond the steel barricade sit the Boundary Markets. Late evening, and the city throbs with life. To the left, the bright-glassed storefronts and festooned awnings of bazaars. To the right, the green-gray slice of the Pilt between monochrome office buildings. Practically anything of value—iron, glass, wood, leather, wire—has been salvaged from the disaster sites for resale. The sidewalks are crowded with pedestrians: clerks spilling outdoors after work with loosened ties and unbuckled galoshes, shopgirls collecting their laundry in brown paper parcels, families on trips to the grocer with children squabbling at their heels.

Language is a familiar medley. Vi shuffles through the voices like a deck of cards: Standard, Shuriman, Ionian, Va-Nox. High on variety, low on content. Just the usual brays of, "How much?" "D'you want to get a drink?" "Shit—there's gunk on my shoe!" "Is this a good club?"

The anthem of post-apocalypse.

All the hurly-burly can't conceal a haze of shellshock in the air. Or maybe the shellshock is all Vi's? She'd barely slept the night before. Her dreams were disorienting—a hellish redness like at the Bridge. She'd turned her head to where Mom lay crumpled on the cobblestones, her eyes staring glassily. Except it was Vander, his hulking coat of muscle unzipped into spoiling purple meat.

Powder was crouched beside him. Everything about her was misshapen—her braids too long, her skin etched with tattoos, her smile too wide. She'd been whispering as she played with something. Vi couldn't see what. Maybe a gadget? A toy? Pow was always talking to her toys, remarks that used to crack Vi up. Sometimes, she'd stand outside their shared room at the Drop’s basement, listening in. Sometimes Vander would be there, his eyes shining as he mouthed, Where's she come up with this stuff?

Then Silco stole everything.

Stole Powder, and broke her, so now whenever Vi remembers her sister, it's from inside the eerie glittering shell of Jinx.

The rage builds in Vi like a strangling scream. At the Bridge, she'd seen Jinx's carnage unfold. The firelights. The bombs. The bodies. She'd let Ekko handle Jinx—I’m so sorry Ekko—and crossed with Caitlyn to the other side. She'd felt the rumble of the grenade blast in her bones. She'd stood trapped behind bars of striped shadow while the smoke faded. She'd watched Enforcers swarm the scene.

She'd done nothing.

Meanwhile Silco took her sister, and she'd let it happen. Again. She'd failed to protect Powder, and failed Ekko, and Vander, and everyone in the Lanes, and she could never take it back. She couldn't take back the past, but she could change the present, the same way the past had changed hers.

She wasn't the girl thrown into Stillwater. The girl whose family was devoured by a monster. The girl who ran away when she should've fought. That girl is gone, and she'd grown into someone who has survived, and bided her time, and grown stronger. She won't run this time. She'll face the monster.

No.

Scratch that.

The monster will face her.

In the sky, the clouds thicken and the green drains into gray. Raindrops begin pattering the pavement. Within moments, like a bucket upending, it becomes a downpour.

Vi ducks under an awning. There is a pocket umbrella stowed inside her jacket, but she doesn't fish it out. She uses the moment to catalogue her surroundings. A sumpsnipe's reflex that the Peacekeeper Academy has layered with more sophisticated tricks. Evasive maneuvers. Vigilance. Stealth.

The Peacekeeper Academy.

Vi would never have set foot inside the place. Not unless handcuffed. And yet violent circumstances belowground had compelled Vi to make a choice once unthinkable.

She'd joined the Enforcers.

The Enforcers, who'd amputated her and Powder from their parents. The Enforcers, who'd spread brutality in the Lanes. The Enforcers, who'd kept the Undercity in squalor for the sake of safeguarding Piltover.

The Enforcers, who had access to Piltie funds, government databases, and legal resources. The department was mired in corruption—but the Council, under the pretty-boy Talis, was finally doing something about it. The Peacekeepers were a newly formed division, meant to serve as both liaisons and buffers between Piltover and neighboring territories. They could act with a measure of diplomatic immunity, and had clearance to pass between nation states.

Including Zaun.

Vi could say her reasons for enlisting were rational. Pragmatic, even. She knows better. The weeks of carnage between Piltover and the Undercity were horrific. She'd seen bystanders blown apart by shelling. She'd seen an old man twitching in death throes at the Bridge. She'd seen a little girl floating facedown in the bloodied Pilt. So much death and suffering. She needed to protect people, people like Powder, and she felt diminished, powerless, by what she couldn't do for them.

During the conflict between Piltover and the Fissures.

During the reunion with her sister.

During the disaster at the cannery.

None of those events transpired in a vacuum. A monster created them. The same monster who sat at Zaun's pinnacle, ready to hurt more people. Ruin more lives. She hated him. She needed to stop him. Not just his schemes and stratagems. She needed to take down his empire.

And save her sister.

The Peacekeepers were a means to an end. But Vi never expected to land the position. Sometimes she wonders if Caitlyn's mom pulled strings. Something to get Vi standing on her own feet, with a salaried job and a place of her own. Her two-week layover chez Kirraman had already stretched to a month. Caitlyn would have let Vi stay longer. She'd told her plenty of times, with that sweet confiding smile that could've melted chocolate.

But Vi refused to survive off charity. She'd survived off worse.

So she'd applied with the Peacekeepers. She'd endured a battery of interviews. Then came the tests: physical fitness, background checks, polygraphs. Her criminal record had been expunged by the Council for information on Silco, and an insider's view into the Undercity. Caitlyn had pulled all-nighters with Vi to prep her for the written portion. The physical, she'd passed without breaking a sweat. There was nobody she couldn't crush on the mat or outpace in the obstacle courses.

The polygraph gave her a little trouble. She'd practiced saying the right things. She'd done a trial run with Caitlyn on equipment that they'd… borrowed… from the office's interrogation unit. She'd passed with flying colors. During the real interview though, she'd had blips on a few questions: Have you committed any major crimes? and Have you ever inflicted physical injury to a child in your care?

The indicia weren't enough to trigger alarms. But the interviewer brought them to Vi's attention. She'd stuck to her answers: No, on both counts.

Afterward, she'd broken down sobbing in an empty alleyway, and cracked the wall with her bare fist.

The rainfall skitters off the awning like marbles. Vi takes a slow breath, and leans against the wall. She observes the oily froth of traffic, attuning herself to the rhythms of the Undercity.

Zaun.

To look at her, you might believe she was still a local. Her street clothes are nondescript: red-striped jacket, white undershirt and jeans, the labels cut away. Her boots are the same: plain, but with strong grip. Good for staying on her feet during 12-hour patrols in downtown Piltover, but also for vaulting to the closest rooftop in an emergency belowground.

Low-key in all but one respect: she is armed to the teeth.

Beneath her untucked shirt, clipped with a belt at her spine, she carries a spool of grappling wire. A switchblade is tucked into the specially-stitched pocket of her pants, and an Emerson folder is concealed in her wallet.

Hardly her full freight. But the precautions are necessary.

She wasn't allowed to take the Hexgauntlets. She didn't have the clearance with the Wardens. Even if she did, she was less concerned with administrative crap than with personal headaches. It already took a month of back-and-forth bullshitting—oops, her bad, diplomacy—between Councilor Medarda and Silco to let her set foot belowground. Next they'd taken forever on the regulations for Piltovan firearms within Zaun's borders.

In the end, Vi was allowed a pen-sized canister of mace. Not Academy-issue. The kind of crap a tourist would carry.

Well, Vi thought, Fuck you too.

At the final checkpoint, Zaun's blackguards had searched her top-to-toe. But she'd still managed to smuggle the contraband inside. A security guard—a schoolmate of Caitlyn's—had stashed the weapons in the Hexadraulic Lift. Vi had collected them during the last leg of her journey. Zaun's security was none the wiser.

It might blow up in her face later. But she doesn't care. She doesn't care about anything except getting to Powder.

Raindrops hit the bridge of Vi's nose and trickle down her cheekbone. On a surge of bitter nostalgia, she shuts her eyes.

(Soon, Pow-Pow.)

(I'll get you out of here.)

The rain softens to a luminous mizzle. Vi takes her cue. She palms a cherry-sized gizmo from out of her pocket. And tosses it into the air.

It leaps high—and flits off.

Likewise, Vi pushes off the wall and takes off. In her ear, Caitlyn's voice thrums. "All clear."

"Okay," Vi says.

They are keeping touch with a tiny pair of microprocessor earpieces. A Hex-technology that hasn't yet gone public. Each earpiece operates in burst transmissions to preclude eavesdropping by a surveillance team. The equipment is a convenient proxy for other methods of communication, like radios, which can be jammed.

Vi can't ignore the prickling paranoia that this is an elaborate setup on Silco's part. Nor, apparently, can Caitlyn. To preempt the possibility, Caitlyn is currently dawdling at the vibrant night-markets by the Boundary. She has a video-fed controller wired to a cherry-sized Hex-drone. The same one that Vi just tossed skyward. Through it, Caitlyn can observe the periphery.

For tails.

Or threats.

Vi moves smoothly, fitting through the small spaces in the crowd. So far, no one has set off her radar. But that means nothing in and of itself. If Silco is having her shadowed, his crew will be pros. They won't favor the soft-target strategy. Most likely, one half will handle recon, the other half action. The last few will stay back, potentially with reinforcements, and serve as a makeshift mission-control.

The natural question is, Will they hurt me?

Vi ignores it in favor of what's more relevant to her survival, How do I get rid of 'em?

She knows, if she puts her mind to it, she could evade them as long as need be. She knows the terrain. But why bother? She's not interested in a game of cat-and-mouse, always looking over her shoulder and second-guessing. Nor is she interested in politely contacting the Zaunite liaison.

She's not here to play by Piltover's rules. Or Silco's.

If there are tails, she's ready to disorient them. If there are threats, she's ready to trounce them.

Vi passes beneath the colorful awnings and smoking chimneypots of Nosh Avenue. It was named after the coffee-stalls, patisseries, delicatessens and tea houses glowing through its hivelike streets. Nothing fancy. The poky little establishments would've appalled any Topsider daring a closer look. But for Vi they always held the powerful allure.

She remembers wandering the jumbled paradise with Mylo and Claggor. Sometimes Powder would tag along, little fingers folded through Vi', her eyes aglow with childish glee. They'd laugh together, boiling over with restless energy: Mylo and Claggor jostling, Powder making cute little wisecracks, Vi keeping her eyes peeled for a spot they'd liked the last time.

Shops popped up and vanished so quickly in Vander's heyday. Most were driven out of business by gangs. Others lost custom because Enforcers prowled the streets, regularly stopping and frisking anyone who looked at them cross-eyed.

Nosh Avenue looks so different now. The hodgepodge of stalls have been swept clear as if by a gale. Instead, there is a glossy honeycomb of dinettes and cafes, tier upon tier, festooned in neon and brightly glassed. A declaration of a different future, one where the grime of the Undercity will be replaced by a Zaun that's no different from Piltover: posh, paved and pristine.

It would be almost attractive. Except, of course, it's Silco's handiwork

Vi wends her way through the increasingly dense crowds. Stopping to eye the barbecued wares behind the soot-flecked glass, and the reflections of the moving pedestrians, she says, "Nothing so far."

"Stay alert."

Vi drifts on, her gait steady, while a small piece of her gut chews itself to pieces. She doesn't like to think of Caitlyn, alone, her unarmed body at the Boundary like a living vein of vulnerability. She's taking risks on Vi's behalf. Too many risks. If something happens to her—

Vi pulls the plug on the thoughts. She has to stay focused.

She has to get to Powder.

She is near the intersection when she spots the first tail. A long-boned male, with a bald head and an intricate geometric tattoo on one sinewy arm. The man is at a noodle stand, the semi-shaded booth offering both privacy and an unobstructed view of the streets.

Vi thinks, That's #1.

Outwardly, she stays relaxed, offering no sign that the man has even registered on her radar. Her tail is similarly discreet. When Vi stops at the traffic light with the other pedestrians, the man maintains a safe distance. Once the light goes green, he doesn't follow Vi so much as bob in and out of the margins, a cork in the tide of the crowd.

Halfway down the street, Vi spots the second tail. A woman, in a brightly-patterned caftan, her hair gelled into green cornrows. She lounges at the outdoor dining patio of a café. She meets Vi's eyes only in passing, exhales something under her breath, and looks away.

On the mental tallyboard, Vi marks, That's #2.

Her heart judders in her fingertips and temples: the first lick of adrenaline.

Casually, she strolls along the glossy shopping district, where sleekly-groomed women and sharp-dressed men spill in and out of an emporium's revolving doors with oversized bags. Watching them gives Vi a pang. Following the war, there were rumors of riots and curfews in the Fissures. Piltover's border patrol, from their vantage at the arrow-headed promontory, reported bursts of flame from the darkened city stretching below.

Now it’s like nothing happened. The meandering strip of the Promenade is contoured in neon and flush with trade. And yet there is still so much poverty—beggars, homeless bums, children practically in rags, some toiling away as slop-cleaners, others as bootblacks.

They were around in Vander's tenure too. But the fancy shops and flashing lights make their presence that much starker.

Silco may have brought more money to the Undercity. But it's only for a special few.

Vi pretends to browse the luxury goods on display in the storefronts. She pops in and out of a few more downscale shops, before reemerging with a blue shopping tote in one hand. To onlookers, it seems as if she's picked up a last-minute gift.

In the periphery, her pursuers keep pace. She pegs them as the reconnaissance unit: logging her routes and giving their counterparts the run-down. The latter won't converge until she is well clear of the tourist district. They are still too close to Piltover. The number of uniformed Piltie patrolmen at the Boundaries would inhibit even the ballsiest hit-team—no matter how Silco spins it afterward.

From a vending machine, Vi buys a bottle of cherry soda. Popping the top, she takes a sip, and murmurs, "Just made two tails."

In her ear, Caitlyin says, "All clear on your left and right."

"I'm crossing into Entresol. Can you gimme a visual at the next chokepoint?"

"I can, and will."

"Thanks, Cupcake."

Gradually, the seething crowds grow sparser. The street cuts sharply south, spanning a narrow incline that splits into a spider's web of alleys. In the distance, Janna’s Temple looms. Vi remembers it as a bare stone façade with leftover scorch-marks from Bloody Sunday—the night Enforcers flung grenades at six-dozen worshipers, killing mostly women and children. The bloodbath had triggered riots and culminated in the Day of Ash.

The night Vi lost Mom and Dad.

The Temple isn’t bare now. It is a world of mirrored lanterns and brightly colored smoke against a darkening sky. In the small courtyard, worshipers throng, hands reaching toward the painted golden gates in invocation. Drumbeats stir the air in a hypnotic rhythm. Vi catches the sweet whiff of hashish and the more savory aroma of stew bubbling in the open kitchens.

The goddess’ maxim, Janna Omnia Amat—Janna Loves All—glitters on a plaque festooned in cavern-blossoms.

Janna can afford to love all. She’s a damn goddess.

Vi’s own life hinges on nastier choices.

As her route progresses, she switches tacks—from nonchalant strides to increasingly aggressive twists and turns, no longer luring her tails, but forcing them to either retreat or come out in the open.

Within minutes, her two pursuers fall back. It signals no relief. Now the secondary team—the bone-breakers—will come out to play.

Sure enough, once Vi turns a corner, footfalls echo after her.

Vi doesn't glance around. She moves down a narrow potholed alley. In the late-evening hours, it is a remote green-lit dreamscape, lined on each side by ashen buildings. They give off the dank, weeping smell of old gravestones. There is no other sign of life anywhere.

Then, in the puddles along the cobblestones, Vi glimpses the reflection of a flitting shape.

The Hex-drone.

In her ear, Caitlyn says, "Two targets spotted. One behind you at thirty meters, one ahead at fifty meters."

"How long 'till they converge?"

"One minute and ten seconds."

"I'm signing off," Vi says.

"Vi—please be careful."

"I will."

She sips her soda, the adrenaline icing up her spine. At the same time, she makes her first offensive move, finesse inverting to speed. Breaking rhythm with the footsteps behind her, Vi darts to the right. There are a cluster of neon signboards below an old-fashioned alcove in the alleyway, half-enveloped in darkness. Eye-blink fast, Vi vaults the farthest one, and climbs the gritty walls, using the crevasse of pipes as footholds.

There, she crouches in darkness, balanced on a dusty overhang. An aluminum vent bellows on her left, its outline a hellish orange. A heat exchange whooshes to her right, sucking air into the brickwork building. The sounds, like the wings of monstrous metal birds, muffle the crinkling from Vi's shopping tote.

From inside, she fishes out a pair of pantyhose, in black nylon. Into each toe, she slips two identical souvenirs, heavy-duty metal and shaped like oversized dice, then ties the material above the ankles, so their weight clacks solidly together. Then she takes another sip of her soda.

Below, her first pursuer passes the jumble of signboards. Vi listens to his footsteps, clattering in the dark, then fading as he crosses Vi's hiding spot. Taking a steadying breath, Vi gives the man five seconds to realize that he's lost his target. At the opposite end of the alleyway, the other goon—now face-to-face with his counterpart—will come to the same conclusion.

Their surprise offers Vi a critical window.

Now.

Vi drops like a shadow. The moment her boots touch the cobblestones, she charges.

Her periphery blurs into blackness. There is only her unstoppable momentum and the whistling wind and the red-lit halo of the alley's mouth where the two heavyset goons stand below a neon wire artwork—a pair of red boxing-gloves—in featureless silhouettes.

They turn towards Vi as one. The first goon's mouth drops on a ragged, "Oh fu—" while the second, with better reflexes, lifts his right arm up and out. A snub-nosed chem-taser glints in his fist. He flicks the switch.

A whorl of purplish energy punches through the air, streaking towards Vi.

Vi dodges left, feeling the blast buzzsaw millimeters from her ear. It slams into the wall behind her, shards exploding in all directions. Vi doesn't falter or slow, but leaps forward in the same path of movement.

Before the goon can fire off another shot, Vi lashes out with the weighted ends of the pantyhose. They collide with the side of the man's jaw, a satisfying crunch. The goon staggers back in shock, his eyes losing focus, and his lapse buys Vi enough time to whirl in the same movement, kicking out at the second goon's knee. The man howls and lurches forward, his head at an angle for Vi to spit a mouthful of tepid cherry soda right into his eyes.

With a cry of pained disgust, the goon lifts a hand to swipe at his face. Vi's own hand is faster. Her fist slams against the man's nose, and tendrils of blood pop off her knuckles. The K.O. is instantaneous. The man jerks like a marionette, eyes rolling back, then drops as if his strings were cut off.

Blam.

A second walloping of energy nearly catches Vi's left shoulder with enough force to shove her sideways. She feels the fabric of her shirt singe, feels a streak of blood spread hot and slick against her skin. She rolls, drops down sideways, her stance low and narrow.

The first goon has recovered from the blow with the dice. Now he braces his chem-taser like a beretta fired straight from the hip. The energy blast shoots out with a strobelike flash. Vi evades, and a hole punches through the wall behind her, plaster flying to reveal corroded metal undergirding.

The goon torques his torso to fire off a third shot. By then, Vi has already struck, lightning-fast and going for broke, her grappling wire whipping out to wrap itself around her opponent's upraised arm. She yanks, and he stumbles face-first.

Right into her slamming kneecap.

The impact drives itself so deep into the man's face that it nearly inverts itself inside-out. In the next breath, his head caroms off her knee and he stumbles backward. His expression is dazed, as if he has utterly no frame of reference for the magnitude of pain he is experiencing.

Tough shit.

Vi hits him with a rapid-fire one-two. The man drops to the pavement with a boneless thud. Out cold. Meanwhile, his partner twitches to life. Vi steps over the first body and goes to him. He is stirring feebly, his shallow breaths intermixed with retching sounds. When Vi approaches, he tries to crawl away. Vi plants a foot between his shoulderblades and slams him back to the ground.

Time is short. In the next five minutes, the recon duo will notice their teammates' radio silence. Alarms will be raised, and back-up deployed.

Vi needs to complete her interrogation in that time-frame.

Five minutes in total.

With a quick efficiency, Vi pats the man down for hidden weapons or wires or wallets—something she'd never have considered before the Academy. He's unarmed. But from the pocket of his trousers, she retrieves the wallet. She flips it open. No ID, but a business card. Kieran Marshall, a captain of Zaun's blackguards.

Beneath Vi, the man croaks, "Wait—you—you—"

Vi comes down hard on top of him, knees pinned to his hips. Snatching up a fistful of damp hair, she yanks the man's head up and back, throat bared to the enfolding vise of her elbow.

"Any special reason you guys were following me?" she asks.

The man makes a wheezing sound, working his jaw back and forth. Vi's attack probably dislocated it. Still, it's hardly an excuse to turn shy. He is just stalling for time.

Keeping arm around his throat, Vi makes a wedge of three fingers in her other hand, jabbing them hard into the man's side. There is a burbling noise like someone flailing in the deep-end of the pool. The blackguard spasms, then forces himself to still.

"All right," he pants, "All right. We—we work for the head of War and Treasury—"

"Who?"

"Sevika," he groans.

Vi cocks her head.

Sevika? In charge of war and treasury?

Shit—Silco really is turning nepotism into an art form. What's next? Will that tatted-up henchman from Stillwater be Minister of Education? This entire business—Zaun—is as rotten as Silco, and the stink will seep into every square inch of her home unless she can stop him.

Conversationally, Vi says, "You still haven't explained why you're following me?"

"We're s'posed—to keep an eye on you."

"Why?"

"I d-don't know. My orders were to—"

Vi slams the blackguard's chin to the cobblestones, his teeth colliding with a brittle crack. The man yowls and struggles, but with his arms pinned, he's like a fish flopping furiously towards the water's surface.

"You got three minutes left," Vi says. "Make 'em count."

"Okay, okay." A rivulet of blood pools the corner of the blackguard's mouth. "We're here on Sevika's orders. To keep you busy. Keep you away from Jinx."

"Jinx." The name sours in Vi's mouth. "You mean Powder."

"Whichever. Look, I'm just—"

"Shut up." She digs her knee pointedly into his kidney. "Listen."

He obliges.

"You're gonna tell me where Silco's keeping my sister. You're gonna tell me fast."

The blackguard works his jaw. Either testing the damage, or anticipating worse.

Finally, he nods.

"She's at Bridgewaltz. The Lodging Project. Top floor."

"What? The Last Drop didn't cut it anymore?"

The blackguard gives Vi a blank, blindish look. "Well—yeah. It blew up."

Vi absorbs this in shocked silence. An unpronounceable feeling bubbles in her chest. No. Please no. Bad enough Silco had stolen their home like he'd stolen her sister. Yet Vi had still counted on the Drop being there, as if it was part of some potential future that she didn't halfway believe in anymore, but clearly hadn't rejected either.

Now that's gone.

Like Vander. Like Benzo. Like Ekko.

Fuck.

Must Silco destroy everything he touches? He's like a wasting illness. Just when you believe you're in the clear, the next bout hits you, worse than before, a paroxysmal sucker-punch right to the guts.

Worse, it spreads to everyone in your life.

Vi stares down at the blackguard, weighing her options. She needs to knock him out. Then she needs to haul ass to Bridgewaltz. Reinforcements will arrive soon. Then it's only a matter of time before they realize Vi's up to no good. To assume otherwise would be stupid.

Powder. The name is a pulsebeat in the aching debris of Vi's heart. I need to get to her.

To the blackguard, Vi says, "Tell Silco I said Hey."

His eyes bulge. "Wait—don't—"

Matter-of-factly, Vi squeezes her elbow around his throat. The man's liquid gurgles fill the alleyway. Once she feels the barest thrum of pulse, Vi lets his unconscious body fall.

Dusting off her hands, she rises. Scattershot plans gather at the edges of her mind. Bridgewaltz. She needs to get there before the inevitable secondary attack. She needs to cover her tracks so the reinforcements can't trace her. She needs to reach Powder, and convince her to escape. She needs to—

A little voice, the same pitch as Vander's, pops into her mind:

Steady, girl.

One thing at a time.

Vi turns and starts walking. The further she gets, the faster the adrenaline leaks out of her body. Suddenly, she feels the heaviness of moisture in her jacket. A rivulet of sweat runs down her spine. She takes a moment to drag in a breath and wipe her face. Then she presses her fingertips to her temples, to clear them of the high-pitched buzz.

The same sensation she grew up with in the Undercity—breaking bones and winning brawls and yet so fucking scared of losing herself.

The sensation she never wants to feel again.

(Soon, we won't have to.)

(Neither of us will, Powder.)

(I promise.)

Nightfall.

The rainfall has slowed. There is barely a smattering of isolated water-drops, the neon striking off them. The street-lit world is no longer dominated by brilliant marketplaces, or the background clamor of hundreds of people eddying in and out.

The Entresol block is quietly lantern-shaded, with a maze of high-arched rowhouses and cobbled streets that are reminiscent of Piltover's upscale neighborhoods—except they are stained black with decades of soot. At the corner glow a modest collection of shops, their signboards flashing in the gloom. A chop-house serving sump-vole flanks with river herbs. A tavern exuding gin fumes and piano skirls. A respectable-looking dry-goods store, the kind of place where you can buy loose cigarettes with a carton of milk. In the periphery is a rusted playground, where children are playing keep-away beneath the sprawling branches of a neon-wire tree that throws a surreally blue glow over the space.

It's cleaner than Vi remembers. But why wouldn't it be? This is the milieu of Silco's headquarters. All of Zaun's big-wigs have probably congregated here. They like things to be nice for themselves. But in the lower reaches, there are likely still shabbier neighborhoods and poorer Fissurefolk, grubbing for scraps.

Silco can pretty up the façade to his heart's content.

Inside, it's as hollow as he is.

Vi keeps to the shadows. At intervals, she carries out countersurveillance moves. In semi-private spots, she checks in with Caitlyn for a visual via the Hex-drone—and for a morale booster. She can hear the stress-notes in Caitlyn's voice the deeper Vi travels into Zaun. But her steadiness never wavers. Talking to her always steadies Vi in turn.

It had scared Vi at first; tried to make her keep Caitlyn at an arm's length. It didn't last long. The first time she'd kissed Vi, something unfurled with the slide of Cait's lips against her own: soft, sweet, breathless. It was like the first time Vi had seen sunlight at the blue skies of the Boundary, its glow limning Piltover's cityscape.

A dizzying sensation of flight.

Sex would've made their dynamic easy to nail down. Or not nail down. Even as a teenager, Vi was used to wielding the physical stuff as a shorthand for no strings attached. But with Caitlyn, it was more than that. They both knew it. Sometimes, tangled together in the cool cotton of bedsheets, Vi joked that Caitlyn must've reincarnated from a past life as a turd-polisher. Caitlyn would shush her with good-natured impatience.

From the start, she'd say, kiss-shaped against Vi's shoulderblade, There was something about you.

Oh yeah?

Your eyes. A softening sigh. They didn't match the rest of you. There was this… hurt in them. It was like a puzzle that didn't fit.

You like puzzles, huh?

I like you.

Just a little?

Yes. A thumb tracing the ridge of Vi's knuckles. Or a lot.

The memory makes Vi smile.

She needs it. She's too keyed up. She needs something positive to focus on. As the hours wax, she wonders if this is a rescue mission—or a suicide run. She remembers the carnage at the Bridge. She remembers her sister's crazed laughter. She remembers Ekko's warning: All that's left is Jinx and she belongs to Silco.

What if Powder is upset to see her? What if she lashes out? What if Vi can't convince her to come back?

Vi grits her teeth. She realizes that something about being in the Undercity, its gloom and grit, is draining away the hopefulness she'd felt in Piltover. It's making her feel like her old self, the teenager who'd lost everything. She'd thought that girl was gone, and lived on only as a lesson, a warning to do better.

She'd been wrong. That girl is still there.

But if she is, then maybe Powder is too?

Vi can still reach her.

Silco's headquarters loom in a glittering twist above the cityscape. A skyscraper shaped like a helixing braid of burnished metal. The chrome surface is new; there is no tarnishing of soot. At its zenith, a glowing green triangle, like a shark's fin, slices through the clouds. The effect is both surreal and unnerving. The building might as well be its own insignia, like the tacky Eye of Zaun.

A message to the masses: If you cross me, I will cut you.

The headquarters are fringed by a neighborhood of low-slung architecture. Vi scans them, first with a sumpsnipe's eyes, then with a Peacekeeper's. One of the primary attractions of this spot for Silco’s security team must be the multiple points of egress: through the main roads, through the side-streets, through the alleys. The second is that the narrowness of the district obstructs any attempts at large-scale ambush. Third, there is a refreshing absence of the electrical wires otherwise tangled across the Undercity's rooftops, thus curbing any acrobatic hijinks.

Vi's heart sinks a little. She'd hoped Powder would be somewhere out in the open. Except Silco wouldn't let his prized prisoner loose. Not as Zaun's First Chancellor. He'd keep her close—and closely hidden.

But nobody is unreachable.

Vi squeezes through an arterial-thin alleyway—a ginnel, Vander used to call them—between two buildings. Her senses stay tuned to sounds. It is harder than it seems. The airwaves of the Undercity are different from Piltover. In the latter, residential districts are so hushed you can hear the leaves dropping from the trees. Here, there is an ambient tide of generators and music and motorcars, rolling in and out in waves.

Vi had grown up memorizing this soundtrack. Once, she'd barely paid it mind. Now, every little noise makes her jumpy.

Easy.

You can do this.

Vi takes a deep breath. Fixes on the building that is tallest and closest to the skyscraper. Then she catches hold of its piping, and climbs. It's a slow ascent. Blackguards are roaming the streets. She'd glimpsed their shadows as she'd woven in between the buildings. She'd heard their footsteps, so sickeningly similar to the marching boots of Enforcers from her childhood. Like an army of darkness, they flooded the area, so nothing felt safe.

Nothing was safe. Not in Silco's nation.

(I won’t lose you to him, Powder.)

By degrees, Vi hauls herself up and across the roof's edge. She crouches low, chest heaving. The humidity is suffocating. Her body is lathered in sweat. She hasn't realized how accustomed she's grown to the pleasant climes aboveground. Her past had toughened her to a different world; oppressive and violent and dark. A ration on food. No hot water. Threadbare sheets and summer blackouts. She'd never forgotten it. Certainly not in Stillwater—which was barely a cut above, and in some ways, a cut below.

Now she realizes staying in Piltover has unfitted her from her old life. Her real life?

She'd expected everything to click seamlessly back into place. Instead, it takes effort. Like a conversation with someone you no longer have much in common with.

Focus.

The discomfort doesn't matter. Her insecurity doesn't matter.

Nothing matters but Powder.

Vi slinks toward a good vantagepoint. A sniper's aerie, but that's Caitlyn's expertise. Vi isn't here to shoot anyone. She just needs the elevation, so she has a perfect line-of-sight to Silco's headquarters.

And the top floor.

The blackguard said it's where Powder was kept. But Vi isn't going to take his word for it. She needs to check. Her location is ideal: near-total darkness, with just a little secondhand radiance from the shops below. The air is perfectly still. She wipes her face with a shirtsleeve, then fetches a narrow tube from her jacket.

A monocular telescope.

Vi kneels, perfectly balanced, elbow braced on one thigh. She aligns her eye to the scope, and sights along the cityscape. It takes a moment to zoom in on the skyscraper's top floor. Its triangular peak is distinctive. The eye-popping green. Vi flicks the switch to magnify the lens. For a moment her vision is studded in pixelated dots. Then the images sharpen. The headquarters' top floor is an atrium, she realizes. More than that. A penthouse suite. She can see the intricate scrollwork of stone masonry. She can see tall casement windows covered in heavy swagged billows. She can see the elegant curling banister of a balcony.

Vi's pulse skips.

Was the blackguard telling the truth? Is Powder there? In the highest tower?

She flicks the magnification switch again. Her view enlarges. The balcony has a smooth-tiled patio set into it. Fancy. The kind of thing she'd see in a Councilor’s digs. There is an oblong-shaped pool, its underwater lights casting a dreamy undulation of blues. The water looks so pure. A glittering temptation in the nighttime boil.

Vi sees someone there.

A girl.

Vi's pulse doesn't skip. It stutters wildly. Her breath rasps through her nostrils.

In her ear, Caitlyn's voice crackles: "Vi—what's happening?"

Vi can't answer.

Powder is there.

Right there, miles away and yet up-close. She is perched on the diving board, legs dangling playfully. Her small body is clad in a black two-piece swimsuit. The lens is so sharp that Vi can see each detail. The underwater ambience throwing eerie ripples across the tattoos on Powder's arm and torso and thigh. Her skin glowing-white and gleaming-wet. The insanely long blue braids undone and dripping around her face.

Oh, Vi thinks.

A tsunami of love and grief and pride engulfs her. She forgets her surroundings. She forgets the last time she and Powder squared off on the Bridge. She forgets the brutality and bloodshed. She forgets Jinx, and Silco's tainted darkness oozing from her pores.

She just sees Powder.

Gods, she looks so grown up. Seventeen now, right? Same age Vi was when she'd gotten sent to Stillwater. Except Powder has none of Vi's scruffiness. In the fall of her loose hair, her graceful profile, Vi sees their Mom. She is the replica of her, but daintier. It's crazy. Her smart, funny, amazing little sister, who has grown up in six short months into such a—

In her ear, Caitlyn says, "Vi?"

She jerks back to the moment. "I'm here."

"What's happening?"

"I—I've got a visual. On the headquarters. Top floor." She swallows dryly. "Cait—she's there."

"She?"

"Powder. She's right there. Now I just need to—"

"Vi. Hold on." Caitlyn's voice is rigid with strain. "You have a clear view?"

"Right into Silco's bougie-ass balcony."

There is a beat. Then Caitlyn says, "I'm circling the drone across your location. Don't move."

Her stressed-out tone cuts through Vi's euphoric fog. "What's wrong?"

"Stay put." She hears Caitlyn's forcible calm. "I need to check for sentinels nearby."

"Caitlyn—"

"You shouldn't have an unobstructed view into Silco's balcony. Not unless your location is also a guardpost for his network."

Despite the heat, a chill crawls across Vi's scalp. "What're you saying?"

"I'm saying it's too easy. Practically an open invitation to snipe your sister."

"Maybe I got lucky?"

It's a joke, and a poor one. It's also a stalling tactic. Vi knows she should hightail it. Except her eye is still glued to the telescope. She can't help it.

Powder is there.

Right fucking there.

As Vi watches, she slithers off the diving board and into the water with barely a ripple. Cuts across the pool in smooth strokes, then climbs out, dripping wet. She shakes herself like a cat coming out from the downpour, her hair shimmying around her body. Vi recognizes the motion from their childhood, when she'd haul Powder out of the old metal wash-tub as a kid, then bundle her into a towel.

Someone is waiting with a towel.

Vi's equilibrium crashes like a freight train. Shock—then rage.

Silco.

The shuttered balcony doors have swung open. He stalks out. Fully-dressed, in a three-piece suit, a towel slung over his arm. He moves in the same prowl Vi remembers: loose-limbed and languid. Predatory. The nightmare shape she'd seen from the casement window at Benzo's, coalescing out of green fog to wreck her world. Take Vander away.

Take everything away.

Powder doesn't shy from him. She walks over to him. Not just a walk—a—a fucking sashay. Like a showgirl across a stage. Like the girls at Babette's beneath the blacklights. Vi remembers one girl saying that the trick was to pick a spot above the crowd's heads and focus there—so they wouldn't have to look at all that sick crawling greed oozing everywhere.

The same greed in Silco's eyes.

Vi's mind spins. She watches as Powder takes Silo's hand. She lifts it high over her head and turns a playful pirouette, like a ballerina in the music box from Caitlyn's dressing table. She radiates the innocence of a little girl. Except nothing about her and Silco together seems innocent. Not the way he drapes the towel around her shoulders and pulls it closed over her near nakedness. Not the way he takes her wrist and tugs her back indoors. Not the way she clings to his side, rubbing her cheek against his arm.

Nausea bubbles in Vi's gut.

Sevika had called Jinx Silco's daughter. Yet as far back as Stillwater, pounding Silco's goons into mincemeat, Vi remembers rumors. The kingpin and his loose cannon. The girl he'd taken off the streets. Someone he'd groomed into an asset in more ways than one. Someone who rested her bones in Silco's lap, and broke bones at his command.

They'd called her Jinx.

Big deal, Vi had thought. Just another of Silco's mad dogs.

She'd never fathomed who the girl would be.

Powder.

Fuck—there is no way. Powder wouldn't let that monster touch her. Not that way. It is obscene to imagine it, when he's already brutalized her into becoming Jinx.

Brutalized them all. Their family. Their home.

Suddenly, Vi wishes the telescope was a sniper's scope. Wishes she could put a bullet right between Silco's freakish eyes. Wishes she'd brought her Hex-gauntlets, so she could smash through his headquarters and pulverize him into a smear on the balcony.

It's the least of what he deserves.

"—Vi!"

She snaps back to reality. "Wha—?"

"Vi—something's wrong!"

"What is it? Is there someone nearby?"

"Blackguards."

"Where? Above me, or below?"

"No—they're here. Where I am. At the Boundary."

Adrenaline cranks up Vi's body like a furnace. "That's—that's impossible. That's Piltover's territory."

"They're with Enforcers. They're all heading my way. Shit. Vi—get out of there!"

"Caitlyn—"

"We've been made! Silco knows you're there!"

"I—"

"Run."

It sounds like Caitlyn says something else. But the words are strangled off into static. The connection cuts off.

Vi stays frozen. Staring into the scope, into her sister's sweet smiling face.

Then Silco shuts the balcony door.

The effect is like being clubbed with a two-by-four. Suddenly she is hyperventilating. Something splits down her center: terror for Caitlyn, terror for Powder. Worse is the sickening déjà vu. Her memory rewinds so she's back at the old cannery, eye-to-eye with Vander. She still remembers the way his body, strapped in the chair, went completely still, his face ashen where it wasn't streaked with blood.

"Oh Gods. You have to get out. Now."

Spots dance in front of Vi's eyes. She'd done it again. She'd been reckless, an idiot; she should have planned all the way through. Now Caitlyn is in danger, and Vi needs to get to her, get moving, before—

Something glitters on Vi's wrist. Something alive. A firelight? No, it is too big for that. A dragonfly, or something resembling a dragonfly. How long has been clinging to her? Vi squints in the half-dark. Then she gasps. The creature's shimmering thorax with its shroud of translucent wings is all copperplate and gears. A machine. Something Powder would design.

No—not Powder.

Jinx.

Vi jerks her wrist. The creature skitters off. She braces herself for an explosion. Instead, the contraption's wings flicker. In an eyeblink, it vanishes. Maybe it's jumped off the roof. Or flown off into the muggy atmosphere. Whatever: it's gone.

Vi needs to get gone too.

She stashes the telescope away. Keeping low, she creeps along the ledge, and over it. The climb up the building hadn't felt long. She was so juiced on adrenaline. Now, the adrenaline is replaced by a clammy dread. The Undercity throbs around her, no longer a familiar presence but a sinister one. In the variegated neon glow, the streets seem alien: the air itself seems to whisper about the interloper in their midst.

Vi's boots hit the concrete. The alleyway is empty. She hears no footsteps of prowling blackguards. It's thirty minutes from Entresol to the Boundary.

If she redlines on the last of her endurance, she can—

A rustle in the background.

Vi turns, and comes face-to-face with Sevika. Her muscled shape is folded into a form-fitting black suit, jacket wide open, pimping d-cups and a hardbelly in a tight maroon crop top. She radiates a tough sleekness, hair cut short and shiny, lips licked a nasty shade of red that matches the sharp twist of her smile.

Seeing her, Vi glowers her old defiance before falling perfectly still.

Fanned around Sevika in a semi-circle are six blackguards, their tac-suits contoured by the stark red neon of the streetside signs. Their guns are out and ready.

Aimed right at Vi.

"Officer," Sevika greets.

Then she punches Vi.

It is a brutal overhand fired straight from her hip. It connects with Vi's solar plexus, sending her sailing back several feet. She hits the alleyside wall and slumps in a heap. Pain rebounds through her ribcage. Sevika had used the mechanical arm. The kickback is like taking a shot from an elephant gun.

Sevika struts closer. Her steel-toed boot prods Vi's shoulder. Reflecting the red neon lights, her eyes seem to be the color of blood.

"Get your ass up," she says. "Silco wants a word."

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane fanfic #arcane netflix #arcane silco #arcane sevika #arcane jinx #arcane vi #arcane caitlyn #silco #sevika #jinx #caitlyn #vi #caitvi #vi x caitlyn #fanfic #forward (never forget)/xoxo #forward but never forget/xoxo

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ladykatakuri · 2 years

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Stardust Reblog Challenge Master List

Participating in this challenge, I am making this master list and hope it may guide you to stories not yet read that you can now discover and enjoy or re discover. You can also find the stories of all others who make these lists etc under the tag #stardust reblog challenge.

September 2022:

September 1:

The Gym Membership Part 13 ( Echo ) by @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

Clone Trooper Rambles: Routine by @wanderinginksplot SFW

All in Favor of You Poe Dameron x F! Reader by @princessxkenobi SFW

All Around Me Savage Opress x Reader by @eyecandyeoz NSFW

September 2:

The Bad Batch: Just Curious TBB x Reader and with Omega by @rainydaydream-gal18 SFW

Kindred: Prologue Hunter x F! OC by @clonecyaree eventual 18+

12th:

Sins of the Father ch. 34 by @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

TBB + Rex x Tall Reader HCs by @zoeykallus SFW

Truth or Dare TBB x F! Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Celebrating Together Frankie Morales x F. Reader x Benny Miller by @wardenparker NSFW

Traveler of the Night Khonshu x Fem. Reader by @interstellarwraith NSFW

13th:

Dirty Little Thief ch. 12 Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Boinsoir ch.5 Gregor x OC Cassia Nu by @kaminocasey SFW

Rex - In Love and War 8 Rex x F!Reader by @zoeykallus SFW ( slightly suggestive )

Bruises and Scrapes 2 GN!Reader x Silco by @a-gal-with-taste SFW

Wild Abandon part5 Ezra x F!Reader by@starlightmornings NSFW

TBB x S/O Born with 2 fingers on their right hand by @zoeykallus SFW

Echo and Fives ficlet from asks by @wild-karrde SFW

TBB x F!Reader - First date HC`s by @zoeykallus SFW

Howzer x Medic!Reader by @wild-karrde SFW

Hotel Sanguine Max Phillips x F!Reader by @absurdthirst NSFW

The Cottage part 2 Rebels!Rex x Wife!Reader by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Love me Gently Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

14th:

Veman`alor ch.24 Boba Fett x Reader - Din Djarin x Reader by: @galacticgraffiti NSFW

TBB x Fem!Reader - Hurt HC`s, She loves me not by @zoeykallus SFW

A Glimpse of Us part 3C Rex x Reader x Hunter by @kaminocasey NSFW

Gar Cyare Chapter 2, Alpha17 x F!Reader by @wanderinginksplot SFW

Late Night Feelings, Crosshair x F!Reader by : @kaminocasey NSFW

TBB x Reader Soft HC`s - Tall Guys by: @zoeykallus SFW

All in Favor of You, Poe Dameron x F!Reader by: @princessxkenobi SFW (ish)

The Cottage Part 3, Rebels!Rex x F!Reader by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Hunter: Enemy Mine 4 and 5, Hunter x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

Moving On part.10 Wolffe x F!OC Jirli by: @imabeautifulbutterfly SFW

The Hand that Feeds, Boba Fett x F!Reader Ch. 11 & 12 ( Finale and Epilogue ) by: @interstellarwraith SFW

TBB x F!Reader Spicey HC`s-Needing your attention by @zoeykallus NSFW

Tender Hearts 2/2 Dogma x F!Reader by: @nahoney22 NSFW

What Blooms in Thunder Final Chapter, Rex x F!Reader, Fives x Male OC, Lieutenant Rose x F! Reader by: @rowansparrow-writing NSFW

15th:

The Riders, Silco/Reader by: @a-gal-with-taste SFW

There for You 21, Echo x F!Reader by: @zoeykallus SFW

In Perfect Light Ch.30 Crosshair x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

TBB x F!Reader HC`s - Holding a Baby by: @zoeykallus SFW

You`re Worlds Away, Din Djarin x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

Do You Hear The People Sing, Fox x Reader, Thorn x Reader ( kinda ) by: @kaminocasey NSFW

Crosshair - My Beloved Enemy 39, Crosshair x F!Reader by: @zoeykallus NSFW

PAMARTHE ARC 3: HIREACH (HIGH-RAWK), Din Djarin x F!Reader by: @djarinsbeskar NSFW

TBB x F!Reader HCs - A Soldiers Love by @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x Reader HC`s - Get Rid of a Toxic Friend by: @zoeykallus SFW

Rex - In Love and War 9, Rex x F!Reader by @zoeykallus NSFW

TBB x Reader with coily hair by: @zoeykallus SFW

TBB, Maul, Kit Fisto, Fox x F!Reader HC`s - Adopting a Pet by: @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x F!Reader HC`s - To Be Heard by: @zoeykallus SFW

My Sweet Traitor, Imp!Crosshair x F!Reader 1/? by @zoeykallus SFW

TBB x Reader HC`s - Kitchen Dancing by: @zoeykallus Partly Suggestive

Always, Forever - Crosshair x F!Reader by: @interstellarwraith SFW

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

Tagging: @imabeautifulbutterfly@chaoticvampirejedi@hellothere-generalangsty@cyroku@reluctant-mandalore@uponrightful@zinzinina@saradika@galacticgraffiti@ashotofspotchka@dindjarindiaries@dinbeskarbaby@djarrex@djarinsbeskar@rowansparrow@photogirl894@rigelmoonshine@rigel-the-moonstrider@nahoney22@loth-wolffe@neon-junkie@bobafetts-princess@cyarbika@charnelhouse@zoeykallus@kin-rokku@jgvfhl@honestly-shite@here-comes-the-moose@dindjarindiaries@firstofficerwiggles@fictional-men-ruin-lives @ladysongmaster @lozalot @moonstrider9904@lorjukka@m-o-o-n-s-g-o-o-n-s @rain-on-kamino @monako-jinn-stories

#stardust reblog challenge

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therevengeoffrankenstein · 2 years

Text

*blubbering* that really is his daughter holy shit :''')

#liveblog #i guess lmao #bro i Know he's toxic but my god. that's his fucking daughter and he genuinely cares about her.#silco my beloved wahhhh #yes king. i love seeing a cold hearted bitch lose it over their loved ones ❤#like. ya know when he's playing with marcus's daughter n being all sweet n making her laugh. i'm crying your honor. the mean man is good #with kids. and fuck. now with jinx. his daughter. he's so fucking broken up i love him #'my daughter got hurt so i'm showing genuine emotion' :'')#crying sobbing my poor little meow meow.#i loooooovveeee dilfs i love them So Much.#arcane #arcane spoilers #silco

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akinumi · 2 years

Text

Nicknames for their s/o with Ekko, Marcus, Viktor, and Silco

Ekko

What he calls you; “Sunshine”, “Babe”, and “Princess”

Ekko calls you ‘Sunshine’ is because you’re the light of his life in Zaun. He’s glad to have you around when the current situation wasn’t that positive; you’re not only his light but also the firelights. You are the most positive. ‘Babe’ and ‘Princess’ are casual names; he treats you as his princess and he thinks the nickname suits you a lot!

What you call him; “Babe/Baby”, and “My knight (in shining armor)”

Your nicknames to him is to reciprocate the nicknames he gave you. You’re his princess? He’s your knight in shining armor. Him throwing around ‘babe’ you will be throwing around ‘babe’ AND ‘baby’.

Marcus

What he calls you; “Dear”, “Sweetheart”, and “Honey”

Marcus never really calls you any other nickname besides the ones he currently uses. There are rare occasions where he does say a different name. It differs from something cheesy or something loveable.

What you call him; “My love”, “Handsome”, and “Babe”

These nicknames are, for the most part, to make him embarrassed. They do work and it seems he cannot get used to them just yet. Once he does get used to your nicknames, Marcus will just smile and firmly press a kiss to your temple.

Silco

What he calls you; “Doll”, and “Little Dove”

Silco doesn’t call you by nickname often, but from time to time he would softly call for you with his given nicknames. A white dove represents love and is sometimes released during weddings; hence the name “Little dove” as you are someone he loves significantly.

What you call him; “Beloved”, and “Luv”

As he doesn’t call you by nickname frequently, you too, don’t call him by nicknames that much either. He prefers for you to call him by name in front of others but when it’s just the two of you, nicknames are thrown around a bit more.

Viktor

What he calls you; “My love”, “Angel”, and “Darling”

Viktor being sweet, gives you sweet nicknames. You think the names are cute and really enjoy how he calls for you with one of the nicknames he gave you. He does not get embarrassed for calling you nicknames. If anything, it comes out casually and never thought about twice.

What you call him; “Honey”, “Dearest”, and “Pooh bear” (to annoy and embarrass him)

Viktor likes every other nickname BUT ‘pooh bear’ it’s too embarrassing! Where’d you even come up with that? He likes it when you softly call him honey or dearest, his heart just melts.

#arcane x reader #arcane imagines #arcane ekko x reader #arcane ekko imagines #arcane marcus x reader #arcane marcus imagines #arcane viktor x reader #arcane viktor imagines #arcane silco x reader #arcane silco imagines

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ace-of-zaun · 1 year

Text

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time: Pt. 6

Silco x f!reader - SFW

6.4k words

CW: angst, fluff, threats, feelings, crack treated seriously, the author is an actual idiot, seriously someone take away my laptop this is getting out of hand

A/N: my sincerest apologies for the hiatus, my life may as well be called Vander with the way it’s trying to drown me…

Also, my sincerest apologies for how daft this chapter is… i honestly didn’t think it was possible to get any dafter but alas, here we are

-el x

Since that quiet night on the pier, where Silco had eased your worries and ensured you that he would always be there for you, things had been better than ever.

Finally back in the warmth of his office, the both of you nursing a hot drink to chase away the chills of the night, Silco had talked through what had happened to you when you’d passed out in the warehouse. And while he didn’t go into detail about your injuries, he’d reassured you that he wouldn’t give you shimmer again unless it was an emergency.

It was exactly the reassurance you needed.

Now, you were both back to work as normal and more importantly, back to sharing that playful banter with him that you’d come to love.

In public, Silco was as terrifying and stoic as ever, whilst you were the professional negotiator, both of you working tirelessly to bring Zaun ever closer to that independent status it deserved.

But behind closed doors, every moment felt like you were truly home.

And of course, the more time you spent with him, the more you got to know him. Like how he hated working in silence, but couldn’t work if there were words in the song he was listening to, or if people were talking close-by.

Or how he kept a jar of sweets in the bottom drawer of his desk that he always insists are for Jinx, but you’ve caught him chewing on them more than enough times for it to just be a coincidence.

Who knew the Eye of Zaun had such a sweet tooth?

Not to mention that the closer you got to Silco, the closer your relationship with Jinx became.

You cherished those increasingly regular evenings where the three of you would share a meal, talk about how your days had gone, and play games until Jinx fell asleep on your lap after spending most of the evening in a fit of giggles.

It really was starting to feel like the family you’d never had.

Much to Silco’s obvious annoyance, Jinx had also taken to responding to just about everything he said to her with your beloved phrase: ‘What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?’, which was, in your humble opinion, hilariously adorable.

In fact, she’s just asked it again in response to Silco’s genuine question of whether or not she’s studying for the chemistry test that her tutor had set for her.

Silco gives you an unimpressed glare from where he’s sitting behind his desk, his fingers steepled in exasperation, whilst you are leaning against the side of the mahogany furniture.

Jinx is very helpfully splayed across the top of the desk, somehow managing to crumple just about every piece of paper on it, in a most remarkable manner.

You refrain from blowing a cheeky kiss to Silco, instead choosing to grin mischievously at him, which only makes him scowl more.

“Whatever am I going to do with the pair of you?” Silco says, shaking his head at the ceiling, like he’s been saddled with the two most exasperating people in the whole of Zaun.

To be fair to him… he’s probably not wrong…

But only because he easily wins the role of Most Exasperating Person #3.

Your mouth opens as you instantly begin to respond with ‘Aw, you love us really’, but your eyes widen half-way through when you realise exactly what it is you’re saying, so instead it comes out as a rather awkward:

“Aw, you l-urrrrr…”

Trailing off into silence, your gaze snaps to Silco’s, hoping he hasn’t suddenly gained the power to read your mind.

Gods, that’d be just awful. Then he’d know just how often you think about his flat arse…

Silco immediately latches onto your hesitation and his brow twitches as he stares you down.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks.

“Um… nothing. Never mind.”

Your response is far too quick to be anything but a cover-up and his good eye narrows in full-blown suspicion.

For the first time since meeting him, you begin to see why everybody else squirms under his gaze as you’re treated to the Eye of Zaun Special™.

And you’d be lying if it wasn’t downright electrifying.

Your breath catches in your chest and your eyes widen.

It flicks a switch inside you, which you’re pretty sure is an activation of your fight or flight response and not for the reason everybody else might find when faced with Mr Intimidating.

Luckily for you, you’re not ‘everybody else’, which means you’re allowed to do the one thing he’d never allow another to do.

You choose flight.

Swiftly turning your attention to Jinx, who is also peering down at you curiously from atop the desk, you tap her on the arm lightly before making a dash for the door.

“Tag you’re it!” you yell over your shoulder, heaving the office door open as quickly as you can without slamming it against the wall.

Behind you, you hear Jinx squeal in delight and hastily scramble off the desk.

As you round the door and sprint down the hallway, you hear Silco call out an exasperated, “Jinx, be careful!” but you’re too far gone to see his expression.

You’re pretty sure he’ll already be lighting another cigar and rolling his eyes by now.

Bolting through your home from the young girl gleefully chasing you, you try to ignore all those wriggling thoughts about just why you’re running away from almost saying a ‘certain word’ to a ‘certain man’.

Perhaps it was your body’s way of keeping you from saying something that was far too early to be saying, or even thinking, for that matter…

Wasn’t it?

You quickly decide that it’s not petty at all to take your revenge on Silco for making you feel flustered for days on end.

Honestly, spending half a week tossing and turning because of feelings that a simple comment had brought up was nothing short of absurd.

How he managed to turn you to jelly with just a look was beyond your comprehension.

So, naturally, revenge was your only option.

Your method of vengeance? Teaching Jinx more ridiculous phrases to slowly drive him mad with, of course.

Quite frankly, he deserves it. Him and his stupid, gorgeous self. It’s his own fault for being so goddamn fine.

By a stroke of luck, it’s one of those rare times where you’re alone with Jinx in his office, whilst he and Sevika have gone to make the rounds in the numerous shimmer factories spread across the city. They’d been gone a while now, which meant you didn’t have much time to complete your secret mission.

Jinx balances precariously on your shoulders, as you responsibly hold onto her legs to stop her from falling.

“And what do we say to your Dad when he’s in a meeting with Marcus?” you quiz her, as she precariously reaches upwards, stretching her small body to its very limit.

“Well, he looks a few sandwiches short of a picnic,” she flawlessly mimics your delivery, complete with sarcastic eyebrow raising and a head tilt. If she wasn’t currently balancing on your shoulders, she’d probably throw a sassy little hand on her hip as well.

“The apprentice has become the master,” you tell her dramatically.

She giggles and the sound instantly lights up your heart.

Janna, this girl was just wonderful.

More recently, she’d begun to call Silco ‘Dad’ pretty much all the time, which was a big step considering when you’d first met her only a few months ago, she’d been visibly uncomfortable at using the term.

It just went to show how attached she felt to him. And honestly, you were glad. You only knew wisps of what this poor girl had gone through and you’d do anything, trade anything to take it back.

Over the short time you’d known her, she’d become so much more full of life, so much more confident.

And it was all thanks to Silco.

Another way you knew that she was more comfortable in Silco’s care was when she’d playfully brought up the idea of pranking him one morning, when you’d been pouring milk into a bowl of breakfast cereal.

Of course, you’d agreed because what could be funnier than pranking the scariest man in Zaun? (Who wasn’t actually that scary if you were a former kitchen utensil salesperson…)

But also the adult part of your brain had decided that it was probably a smart idea to be involved in the prank, to ensure the one she chose was harmless. This intervention soon turned out to be a good one when she’d immediately suggested glitter or paint-filled explosive traps in his office…

No chance.

Not even your natural affinity for charming Silco could rescue her from that kind of wrath.

Luckily she’d been easily convinced of your infinitely less destructive plan and that was the plan you were currently putting into action.

Jinx wobbles a bit on your shoulders as she reaches up even higher. Carefully, you let go of one of her legs to hold the door steady as she places the bucket on top of it, concentrating fiercely on not dropping the child or the bucket.

When she’s certain that it is secure, you slowly back away from the door and carefully lower her to the ground.

You hold your breath and wait, but nothing falls.

Phew.

You take a second to admire your handiwork and turn to Jinx

“Is everything to your liking, my hilarious little court jester?” you ask, with a little bow and flourish of one hand.

She giggles again and nods, throwing her arms around your waist in a tight hug.

You just manage to wrap your own arms around her when she speaks again, directing the words into your shirt instead of looking at you.

“I love you,” she mumbles into the fabric.

You freeze.

Did she actually just say that or were you imagining it?

Her head turns to look up at you, a hopeful expression painted across her features, and you know without a doubt that she both said it and meant it.

You don’t hesitate any longer.

“I love you too, pumpkin,” you tell her ardently, feeling tears welling at the corner of your eyes.

Fuck, you haven’t felt this full of love in so long. It’s almost a bit too overwhelming.

She smiles like her whole world has just lit up, but before you can say anything else, you hear footsteps in the corridor outside the office.

Both of your heads snap in meerkat fashion to look at the door.

“Go, go, go,” you whisper after a moment of listening, carefully directing her to your agreed hiding place.

You sprint to hide behind Silco’s desk and manage to crouch behind it just before the handle turns, both of your heads peeking up to get the best view of what was about to be, The Most Classic Prank in The History of Pranks.

You watch, like it’s happening in slow motion, as the door is finally pushed open and the bucket easily falls off its perch.

Sevika comes into view and with the speed of a cheetah, manages to smack the bucket away from her, meaning that whilst she doesn’t get hit on the head with the bucket… she does get covered in reams of shredded paper.

The bucket lands a few feet away from her and paper spills in every direction, all across the floorboards of the office.

There’s a few seconds of stunned silence before you and Jinx begin to cackle at the sight of Sevika absolutely covered in little bits of paper.

Her gaze sharpens on you immediately, her eyes filled with rage. Oh, if looks could kill, you’d have been dead and buried within milliseconds.

Silco appears behind her and pushes his way into the office, glancing at the scene before him. For a brief moment, you worry that he’s going to be angry at the mess you’ve made of his office.

But the worry is quickly dispersed when Jinx emerges from her hiding place and runs over to Silco, throwing her arms around his waist. She giggles and Silco’s lips instantly quirk into a little smile as he looks down at her.

“Sevika, you’re making a mess,” he drawls, choosing to join your side of the game as he walks over to his desk with Jinx holding his hand.

You laugh and he gives you a knowing smirk when you stand up from behind the desk and let him sit down in his chair.

“Did you see that, Dad?” Jinx says excitedly, bouncing up and down at his side.

“I did, pumpkin. That was very sneaky of you, I certainly was not expecting it,” he tells her proudly.

You make your way over to Sevika, part of you feeling bad that she’s taken the brunt of the little prank. Reaching out a hand to help her pick out the paper from her hair, she all but growls at you, slapping your hand away roughly.

“Get off me.”

You manage to squeak out a “Sorry,” but it’s entirely discredited by the fact that you’re still chuckling at her.

She does not look impressed.

Banned from helping Sevika (who has already left the room in a disgruntled manner), you decide to start picking up the paper that has dropped to the floor when you hear Silco tell Jinx that it’s time for bed.

Predictably, she whines, but after a pointed silence (and more than likely, a pointed look to accompany it), she assents and passes you on her way out of the room.

You tell her you’ll come and say goodnight to her when you’ve finished picking up the paper, and give her a kiss on the cheek before she goes, closing the door behind her.

Smiling to yourself, you continue to crawl on your hands and knees, picking up the tiny shreds of paper, when you become acutely aware that you can no longer hear the sound of pen scratching on paper.

Turning to look over your shoulder, you find Silco unabashedly staring at your ass.

You scoff. The nerve of this man.

“Are you just going to sit there and watch?” you ask affrontedly.

He smirks.

“It was you who made the mess,” he counters.

“I think you’ll find it was Sevika’s fault for opening the door,” you say, mimicking his dry tone.

“Whose idea was it?”

“Jinx’s.”

“Yet you were the one who assisted her,” he says, with an amused wave of his hand.

“Uh, have you seen her puppy eyes? It’s impossible to say no to her,” you state, shaking your head.

Silco gives a non-committed little hum, which you recognise as being his way of conceding without actually giving you the satisfaction.

You laugh and continue picking up the paper, ignoring Silco’s gaze burning into your back.

It’s not exactly a secret to anyone close to Silco that Jinx has him wrapped around her little finger, just like you are now.

Honestly, the both of you would probably do anything for her at this point.

A quiet voice in the back of your head wonders if you’d also do anything for Silco.

And would he do anything for you?

A few days later, you find yourself leaning against a grand, marble building on a perfectly cobbled street in Piltover, your eyes closed as you bask in the warmth of the sun.

Beside you, you can practically hear Silco’s thoughts running through his head, as he angrily smokes a cigarette.

You open your eyes and turn to peer at him, adjusting your sunglasses that you’d bought from the market especially for your trip Topside. Truth be told, there wasn’t much need for sunglasses in Zaun, but that didn’t stop you from picking the most garish ones on the stall.

Zaun was big enough for two fashionistas and you weren’t about to let Silco completely steal the limelight.

Your meeting with an important Councillor had been cancelled, but you’d only found out after you’d arrived at the meeting location, meaning you’d both wasted a trip when you could have been at home working on other deals.

Silco was unhappy to say the least.

In fact, he only stopped irritably ranting about how selfish and egotistical all Piltovians were when you’d found a spare cigarette in your coat pocket and practically thrown it at him.

Honestly, sometimes living with Silco was like living with (another) child… bribery was a sure-fire way to get him to shut up when he was spiralling into a never-ending monologue.

But despite the bribe, he’s still undoubtedly in a foul mood, so you decide to employ your best tactic in your foolproof strategy named ‘Cheer Silco Up’...

Distraction.

“Do you think I look good in these?” you ask him, posing with your outlandish sunglasses by holding the frames coyly and tilting your head.

Silco turns his head slowly, and his eyes begin a slow sweep up and down your whole body, his expression entirely unreadable.

He finally meets your gaze and delivers his verdict.

“You look ridiculous.”

You frown, your lips jutting out in a pout when you spot his lip quirking - a tell-tale sign that he’s teasing you.

Of course, he doesn’t actually mean it, he’s probably just getting you back for the time you’d jokingly told him his coat made him look like a velociraptor… a whole month ago.

The man has a freakishly good memory (and an impressive ability to hold a grudge, it would seem…)

But despite the fact he’s only teasing, you’re still not going to let him get away with it.

“Um, respect the drip, Brenda,” you say with fake indignation.

He almost drops his cigarette in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused,” you tell him snarkily, with a nonchalant flip of your hand.

Silco looks thoroughly taken aback, his good eye widening in pure shock.

It takes you a second to realise what you just said.

“Sorry, I think the sunglasses are making me sassy,” you say meekly, taking them off and giving them a suspicious look.

It had to be the sunglasses, right?

“I somehow doubt that,” Silco says, rolling his eyes.

You give him a look of fake offence before an idea pops into your head.

“Hey, do you wanna wear them? You know, just to test my hypothesis. I might be onto something here. Could make us millions,” you suggest, holding them out towards him.

He huffs a laugh and stubs his cigarette out on the side of the marble building, no doubt another little ‘fuck you’ to Piltover.

“Let’s go home,” he says with a smirk, setting off back towards the bridge, where the carriage is parked.

You laugh, glad that his bad mood seems to have dissipated, and put the sunglasses in your pocket, catching up to him so you can walk side-by-side through the bright streets.

As much as you hate Piltover for what they’d done to your city, you couldn’t help feeling a little bit awestruck by how much cleaner and grander it was than Zaun.

It only made you more desperate to achieve yours and Silco’s goals.

The people of Zaun deserved to live like this, to live like actual human beings, and not the overflow they were treated as.

You try not to look like you’re ogling the magnificent buildings as you walk, knowing how much Silco hated seeing it all, when you pass a sign that makes you grab Silco’s hand in excitement.

“Silco!” you gasp.

“What?!” he exclaims roughly, obviously startled, his hand squeezing yours tightly.

You excitedly re-read the sign clearly stating that the building in front of you is an art studio open to the public, meaning you can just go in and use their resources for free.

A quick glance through the window reveals that it’s empty of other people, but full of art supplies.

Bingo.

You drop Silco’s hand and run through the open front door like a child entering a toy store on Snowdown Day.

“What’s wrong? Where are you going?” Silco calls after you confusedly.

“I need to paint, it’s a matter of life or death!”

“What?”

“Come on, you grumpy old sod, it’ll be fun,” you yell over your shoulder, spotting him standing by the door looking utterly baffled.

Honestly, if you had a cog for every time you made Silco look completely bewildered, you’d be a very rich woman indeed. You were starting to think it was your secret superpower.

“Darling, we don’t really have time for this,” he says, following you into the art studio.

“We don’t have any more meetings today and you need a break from paperwork,” you tell him as you sit down at an empty canvas, “You’re going to need a chiropractor if you hunch over that desk any longer.”

He huffs in annoyance.

“Come on, I thought you used to be a rebel,” you taunt him with a cheeky grin, “And what could be more rebellious than using all of Piltover’s precious resources for our own nefarious purposes?”

That succeeds in making him smirk and he finally sits down opposite you, behind another empty canvas on an easel.

You waste no more time and eagerly start to mix together some paint with a paintbrush, knowing instantly what you want to paint.

Lost in your own world for a few silent minutes, you eventually look up to find Silco just staring at you, seemingly drinking in all your features.

You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Oi, you’re not painting anything,” you inform him helpfully when he just continues staring.

“What are you painting?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Now get painting,” you instruct, waving your brush at him like you’re casting a spell.

Silco visibly scowls at being told what to do but he follows your instructions and picks up a brush, getting to work mixing the colours he needed.

You both paint for a good twenty minutes, enjoying the soothing sounds of the bristles on the canvas and the birds chirping outside.

It’s almost idyllic.

Scratch that, it is idyllic. It’s absolutely perfect and you wish you could stay like this forever with him.

When you’re not glancing up at Silco to paint all his striking features, you’re admiring how beautiful he looks when he’s lost in thought.

It’s the most relaxed you’ve seen him in a long time, his worry lines softened in the warm glow of the sunlight pouring in through the window.

A part of you wishes that he could live like this full time - completely unburdened, completely care-free. Like he deserves after a lifetime of suffering.

You make a mental note to buy him a set of paints to help him relax at home. It would sure as hell be a healthier option than the ungodly amount of whiskey and cigars he consumes on a daily basis.

By the time you’ve finished your painting, Silco is still concentrating on his, so you take the opportunity to turn your masterpiece into a cheeky little wanted poster with a felt tip pen.

‘Wanted: Silco - for being too darn cute’

Reward: Brand new, hardly been used chess set’

You giggle to yourself and the sound breaks him from his reverie, setting down his paintbrush next to the palette.

“Are you done?” you ask him brightly.

He smiles at you like you’ve just brought him the moon.

“Yes, are you?”

“Yes. Ooh, I know! Let’s reveal them at the same time!”

You grab your canvas and hold it in front of you, ready to turn around for the big reveal. Silco copies you, albeit less eagerly than you.

With your three second countdown, you both turn your paintings to show the other.

And at the sight of Silco’s painting, you’re absolutely gobsmacked.

It’s stunning.

He’s painted a portrait of you, somehow capturing you perfectly despite its abstract style.

The strokes of colour and shade that all come together to illustrate your likeness are nothing short of masterful.

“What the actual fuck?” you deadpan, your entire expression dropping.

“I beg your pardon?” he frowns.

“That is the most beautiful painting I have ever seen. Who the hell are you? I thought you were a scary crime lord, not a mysterious artist,” you ramble, stunned at how he’d managed to paint something so impeccable in such a short time.

He rolls his eyes at your candour and sets the painting carefully on the desk.

Caught up in your shock at Silco’s hidden talent, you’d completely forgotten to observe his reaction to your own painting.

You look down at it, now slightly embarrassed at how much more skilled he was.

Luckily for you though, you’re not that embarrassed. Besides you had other, much more important skills in your toolbelt. You know, like being able to sell a second-hand spatula to an accomplished chef.

You awkwardly hold out your painting to him as a gift and he takes it from you slowly, his lips thinning ever so slightly as he does.

“This is… lovely, darling… thank you,” he says, struggling to keep a straight face as he looks at the painting closely.

It’s a good thing you adore this man, because otherwise you’d be secretly emptying all the ink from his pens in retaliation.

“Oh, piss off,” you smack his arm lightly, annoyed because he never speaks to Jinx this patronisingly.

One more glance at his ridiculous expression and you burst out laughing, which Silco joins in with straight away.

Okay, maybe your painting skills needed a bit of practice…

And you know just the teacher.

“Where’d you learn to paint like that?” you ask, when you’ve finally stopped giggling, gesturing to the canvas.

“I spent many a night defacing Topside buildings in my youth and discovered that I have a knack for it,” he explains with a wistful look.

“Well, it’s gorgeous,” you tell him genuinely, secretly hoping he’ll give it to you.

You want to put it up where you can look at it everyday, even if some would consider it a little bit narcissistic to admire a portrait of yourself.

“I had a gorgeous muse,” he responds coyly, his lips curling into a smug grin.

A deep red blush spreads across your cheeks at his obvious flirting.

Damn, when did this bitch get so smooth?

Silco begins to gather up the paintings, ready to leave, and you let him, lost in thought.

Truthfully, you’re not sure how much longer you can ignore this overwhelming feeling inside your chest every time you interact with Silco like this.

It’s not like you can use your typical method of throwing yourself into work to distract yourself because he was both your boss and your housemate.

And what’s worse is that you’re not sure if you even want to distract yourself any longer…

Not when life feels this good in his presence.

You don’t have to wait long to find a solution to your growing feelings and it comes out of an entirely unexpected situation, to say the least.

Standing in the middle of a cold warehouse, you listen with growing apathy to a rude client as he begins to rant and rave when he suddenly realises the deal isn’t going his way.

I mean, it’s not your fault he wants to pay next to nothing for the, quite frankly, excellent protection he’d be receiving in exchange for the job Silco needs doing.

Fortunately for you, you’re not alone in this meeting, grateful to have Silco standing right next to you.

You think you might have already gone mad by now if you couldn’t feel his warmth beside you.

The client soon begins to graduate from ranting about the price, to openly insulting you, perhaps in a strange attempt to neg you into reducing the cost?

But being used to insults after working for so long in customer service, you ignore it, instead focusing on the infinitely more important train of thought presiding in your mind…

What you’re going to have for dinner when you get home.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can tell that Silco is getting more and more enraged at the man’s words, but it’s only visible to you because you know him so well. To anyone else, he looks just as bored and disinterested as ever.

His hands are clasped a little too tightly behind his back and you can tell by the slight twitch in his cheek that he’s biting the inside of his lip. All the signature tells of Silco’s growing ire.

You begin to wonder what’s making him so irate. Surely, he’s used to people trying to take advantage of a good deal by now?

With a sigh, you open your mouth to make an attempt to placate the client, when the man rudely cuts you off, choosing instead to turn his attention to Silco.

“You know, I could run this city much better than you, you scrawny little bastard,” he says with a sneer, “You’re no better than a cockroach.”

And with that one little comment, you see red.

When you think about it later, you find it really quite funny that you couldn’t care less when the man was insulting you, but the very second he’d decided to verbally attack Silco, you absolutely lost it.

You don’t even fully realise what you’re doing as you reach your hand under Silco’s coat, your fingertips grazing his thigh as you grab the knife strapped there and pull it from its holder.

Now brandishing the knife out towards the man, you briefly remember that you don’t even know how to fight, let alone use a knife, but you reason that it couldn’t be that difficult…

I mean, you were pretty proficient at cutting slices of cheese at 2am in the kitchen, so it couldn’t be that much different… right?

Just, you know… more stabby stab than slicey slice?

You prowl closer to the man, holding out the knife threateningly.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the intended effect (ie: making the man wet himself like a little boy).

He smirks.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” the man laughs cruelly, before looking over to Silco in amusement, “Where’d you find this pissy little bitch?”

In a flash, Silco kicks him in the stomach hard, and before you know it, guards have surrounded you both, and are holding the man down as he tries to break free from their grasp.

Within seconds, he manages to twist out of their hold and he lunges towards you, forcing you to take a few startled steps back, clutching the knife handle until your knuckles go white.

Luckily, the guards manage to tackle him again before he can get any closer to you, and the goons who were guarding the entrance join them in detaining him, ensuring he couldn’t get free again.

You stare at the man’s feral expression in absolute terror.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into? you think as you watch the man scream out, like he’d suddenly been possessed.

You used to work at a relatively peaceful market and now you’re getting threatened and attacked meeting after meeting.

Is this really what you signed up for?

Vaguely, you think you hear Silco barking out orders, but you can’t hear what he’s saying over the deafening sound of the blood pumping in your ears.

You stand there breathlessly, allowing the adrenaline to rush through you.

Truthfully, you’re not sure how long you stay in that frozen position. To you, it could have been minutes, or it could have been hours.

In the distance, you begin to tune into the sound of somebody repeatedly saying your name, until you realise that it’s not in the distance at all.

It’s Silco. And he’s right in front of you, looking terribly concerned.

It’s enough to snap you out of it, but all you can do is stare blankly at the intricate details on his waistcoat, bewildered.

A quick glance around the room reveals that you’re alone, sans guards and rude client.

You hadn’t even noticed them leaving.

“Darling,” Silco says gently and you look up at him, your eyes wide.

His hand carefully covers yours and his thumb rubs soothing circles against your skin.

“Sweetheart, let go of the knife,” he tells you softly.

You realise you’re still clutching it, hard enough that it’s starting to hurt, so you slowly let him take it from your grasp.

Once it’s gone, your knees almost buckle in relief.

It’s only after you’ve taken a few deep breaths that you realise just how concerned Silco looks as he visibly examines your trembling form.

“Let’s get you home,” Silco says quietly, after he’s tucked the knife away safely in his pocket.

He carefully wraps an arm around your waist and your shoulders, and leads you out of the warehouse and into the carriage.

Less than half an hour later, you’re both sitting on the sofa in his office, trying to calm down after the events of the disastrous meeting.

But despite being completely out of danger, your body is still coursing with adrenaline. In fact, it’s probably worse now because the shock has worn off and all you want to do is run a mile or beat up a whole gang or repeatedly kick a toy poro across the room.

You’re so fired up, you’re barely listening to Silco ramble as he sits beside you, running a hand through his now messy hair.

“Darling, you must realise that you can’t just take my knives like that; do you even know how to properly wield one?”

He doesn’t pause to let you answer.

“Of course you don’t. Tell me, what do you think would have happened if he’d disarmed you and turned the knife on you?”

If you were thinking properly, you would have realised by his tone and body language that he wasn’t upset with you, but rather himself.

But you’re far too worked up to pick up on any nuanced social cues like that.

“I could have taken him!” you exclaim, “I had to do something, he was insulting you!”

Even thinking about the abusive way the man had spoken to Silco makes your blood boil again.

“You know what, where is he? Is he in the basement? I’m going to teach him a lesson,” you rant, shuffling your body to the edge of the sofa so you can storm out, but Silco grabs you and pulls you back before you can.

You barely take any notice.

“I don’t care if I get injured, I can handle it,” you ramble, your hands gesturing wildly as you begin to rival Silco in his monologuing abilities.

“You know, one time I caught a guy stealing from my market stall and I chased him all through the market and I tackled him to the ground and yes, maybe I twisted my ankle doing it, but I still got the measuring scales back, because you know what, I’m That Bitch and I could-”

You’re cut off by Silco grabbing your face, pulling you towards him, and pressing his lips onto yours desperately.

You freeze and a dial tone replaces any thought in your brain.

…Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck.

Silco is kissing you.

Like, right now.

And you know what, he’s damn good at it.

You’re immediately struck by how wonderful it feels to finally have his lips on yours, a warm, fluttery feeling spreading through your chest.

In fact, it’s even better than the feeling you got the first time you sold a pair of pizza scissors on the market stall, which felt phenomenal because literally nobody buys pizza scissors.

And if that felt phenomenal, then this definitely feels celestial.

You suddenly realise that your brain had gotten a little bit sidetracked when Silco pulls away from you, frowning at your lack of response.

Shit, did you forget to kiss him back?

He scans your face, his own beginning to drain of colour as he tries to stutter out an apology.

“I- I apologise, I was-”

Ignoring his words, you grab the back of his head and pull him back towards you, capturing his lips in your own passionate kiss. Silco responds immediately, his hands deftly weaving through your hair to keep you close as he matches you move for move.

And by the way he harmonises with every shift of your lips and your tongue, you’re almost convinced that you were made for each other.

Fuck, he’s absolutely perfect.

When you finally begin to run out of air, you both pull back, staring at one another breathlessly.

Unfortunately for him, you recover first.

“Well, who knew the Eye of Zaun was such a good kisser?”

You expect him to frown, acting stern as a mechanism for concealing his embarrassment, but he surprises you by smirking knowingly at you.

“I’ve also been told that I have lovely hands,” he drawls, his eyes lingering on your kiss-bruised lips.

It takes you half a second to recall just where you’d heard those words before and your expression drops into one of indignance.

“Hey! That’s not fair, I had a double concussion, which is like, ten times worse than a regular concussion,” you exclaim, smacking his arm lightly.

Silco gives you a pointed, almost incredulous look.

“Your math is atrocious.”

You have to bite your lip to keep yourself from grinning.

“Stop it! I’m all flustered because you just kissed me!” you say exaggeratedly, crossing your arms in a pretend huff, “And I only said that thing about your hands because I’d just been through the traumatic experience of meeting you.”

“If I recall correctly, you quite literally fell for me,” he smirks, his hands beginning to draw circles on your hips in a way that was far from innocent.

Of course he was implying that you collapsing onto him in the warehouse happened because you were swooning over him. And not, you know, the head trauma.

“Oh, shut up, you little-”

You finish your insult by climbing onto his lap and pressing your lips against his once more, grumbling into the kiss.

You quickly decide that this new distraction technique was much more efficient than bribing him with nicotine, that’s for sure.

And even as he tries to deepen the kiss, pulling you closer than ever, you can feel Silco smiling against your lips.

It’s everything you’d been waiting for and more.

PART 7

A/N: they finally did it!!! They kithed!!!!

i hope this chapter was okay, pls don’t march down my street with pitchforks and torches if you hated it…i’m just a lowly little goblin writer, my diet consists solely of comments and consistently disappointing my parents

Okay, i love you, see ya later

-el x

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#silco #silco x reader #silco x f!reader #silco x you #silco fic #silco arcane #part 6

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