Author's Note: This story doesn't take place in any particular country/city, so I have a generic US/European mental reference for stuff like suburbs, laws, corruption etc.
Warning: crime conversations, teenage sexuality conversations and drug use involving a minor with its respective needle descriptions, codependency, uncomfortable father-daughter dynamics with no boundaries.
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Silco was standing in the living room with his hands on his hips, and he looked just as displeased as Jinx imagined. She smiled, pulling Ekko behind her out of the bedroom.
"Hi, Dad!" she greeted him way too enthusiastically, and the 'dad card'was a stretch but worth the shot. Didn't seem to land too well, or at least didn't change his expression much.
Ekko was a split between tension and aggressiveness. "Hey, Silco."
There was a scoff and Jinx turned to the side, realizing Sevika was there too, the ogre. She sat down on the couch looking amused, like she was gonna watch a show. Jinx frowned. Silco was still just staring.
"So. Ekko was just leaving. I thought you were gonna take longer," Jinx clarified needlessly. Sevika scoffed louder, or just grinned, it was hard to tell, but it irked Jinx all the same. She fulminated the woman with her eyes, getting a mere look of amusement from her in return.
"We need to talk. Your friend-"
"He's my boyfriend, actually," Jinx said, snapping her head back to Silco, and she could feel Ekko flinching from the invisible punch to the gut again. Well, so much for not being official. But it was kinda stupid to walk around it, wasn't it?
Silco inhaled. "...that. It's way past his time to leave."
"She said I was going," Ekko grumbled, eyeing the man with a scowl. The look Silco gave him back was of such mild disdain that it'd push anyone's buttons, even if they didn't know shit on him, let alone Ekko who did know. Just because he didn't understand all that went down between him and Vander way back when and then the splitting up of the kids years later, he still had plenty to go around, like the fact Vi loathed him for breaking her family, or how he had pulled Jinx out of their school to a different one in a futile attempt to separate her from her siblings and friends further, or how he tried to alienate Jinx from any semblance of love and care whenever he could. Not to mention it was an open secret that Silco was a drug dealer of the worst kind. They had no real proof to show a cop and Jinx wouldn't admit to anything ever, but Ekko knew enough word from the street and he knew the man. His façade of freelance worker didn't fool anyone, certainly not Ekko. He was dangerous. He looked dangerous, with that gnarly scar on his face and his fucked up eye to go along with what he really was, a criminal. Nothing he did or could do was a good influence on Jinx.
It was an ongoing silent battle between Silco and Vander's side, with Jinx caught in the middle. It fucking sucked, but Ekko couldn't win it alone, especially not in the shark's den.
Ekko stepped past Jinx but she tugged at him, making him look back and she pecked him on the lips. Ekko stared at her in disbelief. Rubbing it in, Jinx, seriously?
"Don't push it," he said under his breath, but Jinx just gave him a confident smile. What had happened to all the don't-go-teenage-rebellious-on-him?
Silco sighed not too covertly and turned to the door, opening it with a poignant click of the lock.
"See yourself out."
Ekko scoffed, eyeing the henchwoman Sevika lighting herself a cig. "Sure thing."
Silco walked to the kitchen, leaving the implicit threat that he expected to not find him when he came back. Ekko might've had reasons to want to stay, for Jinx's sake, but he left anyway. When Silco returned with a glass, they could hear his heavy steps down the stairs outside. Jinx was pretty sure Silco was itching to lock the door behind him.
"Really know how to pick 'em, huh, Jinx?" Sevika grunted with a scoff.
"So! What d'you need to talk about?" she ignored Sevika and asked Silco cheerfully, hoping to move on effortlessly from the awkwardness, and fast. There was the very tiny (non existent) chance she could make Silco forget about the whole scene if she focused his mind elsewhere.
Silco sighed again and tapped the glass on the table, opening a whiskey bottle he always had at hand and pouring himself a drink. He pulled a chair and sat down. His movements were all looking very suspiciously serious and Jinx frowned. Had she done something wrong? It couldn't be because of Ekko, could it?
"Did he wander around the house?" Silco asked her, and that edge of irritation in his voice made Jinx's chest tighten slightly.
"No, we went straight to my room. He didn't even go to the bathroom."
Silco hummed. He then eyed Sevika sitting on the couch. "This is a business discussion, not a friendly brunch."
Sevika had the decency of clearing her throat, standing up with her cigarette stuck between her teeth and trotting to a chair on the table. Jinx appreciated to see the woman chastised like a kid. Suited her well from time to time.
"What's going on?"
"Has Finn approached you?" Silco asked her, fishing out a pack of smokes and lighting himself one. Jinx frown deepened.
"Finn? That idiot?" She twisted her face at the thought of the thug. "No, why would I be talkin' with him?"
"Good," Silco said curtly. "When he does, let me know."
"Why would he approach me?" Jinx asked, eyeing both Silco and Sevika. Sevika dropped the ash from her cig in the ashtray Silco had placed in between them, using that as an excuse to not reply her, so Jinx pulled a chair for herself. "What happened?"
"He's trying to test the waters," Silco replied. "And he'll soon see they're too deep for him."
"He never was too smart," Sevika added in with a shrug, to which both Jinx and Silco gave a mirrored scoff of agreement.
"What's he done? What happened to make you come home early?"
"They want to expand," Silco explained her, the tip of his cigarette burning.
"Pff, owning the whole town's market isn't enough for them?"
"Not when the only thing they care for is money. Finn suggested we should focus the Doctor's new strand on more 'susceptable' target audience. The barons are considering it."
"What's that supposed to mean? Teenagers? There's already enough buyers at the parties, I hear about it all the time."
"He wants to make it widespread amongst school ages, starting with elementary years."
"Elementary school?" Jinx repeated. "So he wants like, kid kids?"
Jinx knew all about Shimmer and its different varients. It was a stimulant drug that had been introduce in the market a handful of years back, by Silco and the Doctor. And besides being highly addictive, it was also very adaptable. So not only it was a party drug, it also started to compete with cocaine pretty easily, and its first year of easy cheap access had pumped up the subsequent sales when it started to branch out. You could mix Shimmer with pretty much everything and it'd work, so you had students using diluted versions of the weaker strands in exam seasons, to gym folks mixing it up with their protein formulas, to regular addicts who went into more and more raw product until they'd finally give themselves overdoses and basically short-circuiting their organs. You could even find strands that had subsided the unpleasant first kick it used to have in the beginning - she'd only been told, of course, because Silco forbade her from ever trying any form of Shimmer, but she knew from addicts and stuff. The Doctor had created a strand that had been inserted into the medical field's black market and was making a fast profit for its effectiveness in controlling infections. Not that it had surprised her, because Silco was the primary user of that strand and she could see the effects of it first hand. So it wasn't as if the business was low. On the contrary. Wanting to give it to kids was not only stupid, it was unnecessary profit-wise.
"That doesn't make sense," Jinx said, summing up her train of thought. "There's no shortage of clients. Why's the new strand so special for kids?"
"He just wants an excuse to get that market," Sevika said. "What's easier than putting a candy in a kid's hand? Want anything more effective? Loads of new clientele."
"And it's effective enough if it gets the barons to turn against me," Silco added, sipping his drink. "He'll say I'm losing vision and not seeing things as a business anymore."
"Because you said no to this whole kid version of Shimmer?" Jinx said with a scoff.
"I don't need children to expand," Silco replied simply. "The police will be over this fast. Not to mention that's an angle that can bring him other benefits, too."
"I think you're overreaching with that one, Boss," Sevika commented. Silco looked at her over the brim of his glass and didn't grace her with an answer.
"Uh? Whaddya mean? Like, self-sabotage?" Jinx gave it some thought. "Well, yeah, he would be stupid enough to do that, but..."
"He might be stupid, but not that stupid," Sevika insisted. "What would he gain from getting the cops involved?"
"He needs to cut me off the equation eventually," Silco replied with the same simplicity from before, and Jinx furrowed her brows.
"And he'd use the kiddies' route for that? There's no proof against you as it is, why would that be a factor? You think he can even plan that far ahead? 'Cause that's a long shot in the dark" Jinx asked skeptically. It was tough to have to agree with Sevika, but she had to do it here. "Finn's an idiot with two brain cells. I don't think he can cook up something so elaborate."
Silco sucked the end of his smoke and put it out in the ashtray. Even Jinx was with Sevika on this one, so maybe Silco was giving the punk too much credit. Suggesting to expand the market to children when the business was already booming was just so luducrous it had to have some other endgame, and in no scenario could there be another goal than to have Silco out of the picture. Finn had always been an insubordinate little shit from the very first moment he joined the organization, a low-level dealer who'd managed to cut enough deals to be in a position of semi-power and thought himself a business expert. He did know how to wave money around though, and what language did any of the barons speak but that one? It's not like any of them really shared Silco's vision of chokeholding the system with its own tail, to get so engrained into its corruption that he could run it inside out. Getting kids addicted might work for that goal in the long run, but it wasn't a step worth the risk, not with the liability it'd cause the whole organization.
So if it wasn't this business venture getting Silco's veto, it would be something else. Finn would keep looking for cards and eventually he'd land on a trump one. Normally, Silco wouldn't be so irritated by this, but there was the chance he wasn't seeing the whole picture, and it greatly displeased him.
"So he's after you, pretty much," Jinx said, and Silco hummed. "It's not like that's something new."
"It won't be long until he gets more barons on his side."
"You can deal with him easy," Jinx said cheerfully. She looked at Sevika for support. "Put him in his place. Right?"
"You already know my opinion, Boss," Sevika looked back at Jinx for emphasis. "You'd be surprised how effective a good spanking at the right time is."
"Ha ha," Jinx mocked, giving a big fake smile before flipping the woman off. Silco sighed, drinking the last of his whiskey and pouring himself a another finger.
"Wait, so why were you worried he could've approached me?" Jinx recalled. "You think he'd want me to deal Shimmer at school behind your back?"
"Pretty much," Sevika replied, exhaling smoke through her nose as she put out her cig.
"Should start with Renni's kid, new generation of dealers in town?" she joked, remembering all of a sudden: "I actually did see him this week near my school. Pretty off his usual lane."
Silco and Sevika exchanged looks. They did that thing where they had a whole conversation without saying a word. Jinx looked at them both.
"What, you think he's already started the kiddies route?"
Silco sighed and stood up. "I'm sure he'll try to reach you somehow. If I need any excuse to deal with him, it'll be that one."
"Why don't you cut him out now?" Jinx asked, but Sevika had taken the cue from Silco and stood up from her seat.
"Need anything else, Boss?"
"Just have Mek go collect from some of the bouncers," Silco instructed her. "Then call it a day. We all need to rest."
Sevika nodded. She sent a side look at Jinx before heading to the door. After she had left and her steps had vanished on the stairs, Jinx turned to Silco.
"Why don't you get rid of Finn now?" she asked again. "I mean, what's stopping you?"
"Finn brought a lot of contacts with him when he joined," Silco answered curtly. "And the other barons have that in consideration. I can't remove him without causing some waves."
"But you will remove him," Jinx emphasized. "What if you do get another dealer to take his place then? Not for kids' stuff, but to take a chunk of the teenager demographic?" She grinned. "I mean, I think I can be a charmer."
"No," Silco said simply. Jinx huffed in protest.
"Why not? I wanna help!"
"You help in other ways."
"Yeah, by being a damsel in distress just waitin' for Finn to come to me so you can tell him what's good?"
"I don't want him to approach you."
"So you don't even want me to be helpful that way! I already know a bunch of people at school who use soft versions of Shimmer, I could introduce new stuff to them and-"
"Putting my daughter in Finn's place would be as bad for the barons as removing him right now," Silco explained, putting on a chastising tone. "Plus you should know by now that the places you frequent - school, home - are not to have business deals."
"You bring Sevika here..." she noted through gritted teeth.
"You don't see the Doctor or any of the barons, much less buyers, here," Silco replied.
"So I'm just a liability, huh?" Jinx said, feeling her chest suddenly collapse.
You're a jinx!
She shook her head sharply in time to hear Silco say: "Of course not. But there are-"
"If I'm not a liability, then I'm an asset," Jinx replied firmly, forcing herself against the pressure in her lungs that wanted to clog her voice.
He pulled and lit a second cigarette, exhaling sharply. "You want to help? Then it is as you say; you'll be on the lookout for when Finn approaches you and tell me. I'll deal with it accordingly."
"But I don't wanna help like that!"
Silco sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a throbbing headache from since before the meeting had even begun, and it hadn't improved in the slightest. Nor were there prospects for that in the next few minutes, with the follow-up conversation.
"That's enough of Finn. As for your friend..."
Jinx cringed like she had been stung, pulling her knees against her chest. Shit, should've known she wouldn't be walking so easily outta that one.
"I'm sorry, okay? I thought you were gonna take longer."
"You know I don't like him hanging around in the house," Silco repeated for the millionth time.
"We only stay in my room, seriously!"
"It would be best if you just didn't..."
"Don't say it'd be best if we didn't hang out." Silco closed his lips. Jinx pouted. "I really like Ekko, okay."
"And I will never understand the reason why."
"Why not? We have a lot in common!"
"Don't insult yourself, please."
"Come on," Jinx groaned while Silco took his glass to the kitchen. She heard him put it in the sink before he returned with a trail of smoke behind him. "Ekko writes music. I write music..."
"That trash he does isn't called music," Silco complained, going to the record player (because of course he had a record player, he was a music appreciator) and putting on some background song. A familar piano melody started before a riff and angry growls took over as Jinx groaned louder.
"Aren't metalheads supposed to have an open mind about music?" she complained back, standing up from the chair as Silco sat down on the couch. "There's actually a bunch of prejudices rap and metal share, if you think about it. And have you tried reading rap lyrics? They have pretty impressive word play."
"I'm sure," he said utterly unimpressed. Jinx brought the ashtray with her, placing it on the coffee table before she jumped next to him, pulling her knees to her chest again.
"He's an artist," she continued. "He does these amazing grafitti, you should see 'em."
"I see them. Even our building is littered with that nonsense."
"He does actual masterpieces, alright," Jinx insisted. "He's inspired me a lot! He also helps around his neighbourhood with his rap crew, you know, doing community stuff and volunteering work and the likes."
"He helps recover drug addicts," Silco summarized. Jinx pretended not to hear him.
"And he's also really smart. We talk about pretty much everything."
"Then be practical," Silco replied. He didn't want to pressure her this way, but there was no walking around it. "What's stopping him from bugging the house? From planting some fake evidence to prompt an arrest?"
"He wouldn't do that," Jinx replied firmly. She stood her ground when Silco sighed. "He wouldn't do that. Why don't you trust me?"
"I trust you. I don't trust him nor anything that comes from that side."
"He doesn't know about the organization," Jinx said, but she couldn't hide the fact she wasn't sure of that and her voice betrayed her uncertainty. Ekko was no fool. Mylo and Claggor might not care much for her, but they were no fools either. Vi was no fool. She had a police girlfriend now. Vander was far from being stupid too. They might not know the details, but they knew Silco had some sort of illegal dealings. What they didn't know for sure was how high up Silco was in the drug business of the city, and they wouldn't know nor get proof of. Certainly not from Jinx.
"He can easily use you, and you know that," Silco said, making Jinx snap.
"No! Of course not. He doesn't have any reason to want to bug the house or put anything here. We don't talk about that. He's never asked me anything about you or your business, you know?"
Silco sighed again, blowing out the smoke in his lungs and pinching the spot between his eyebrows. He knew having a teenage daughter would upgrade the challenges that having a child already had, but having to actually deal with those challenges was often proving to be daunting. Especially when he had to deal with a criminal empire on the sidelines. And try as he might, there were many ways where he couldn't separate the two worlds and stop them from overlapping and exploiting each other. He had tried to place Jinx as comfortably in both as possible, but it wasn't ideal. He wouldn't have said it in front of Sevika - for all the trust he might have in her, she was still a henchwoman - but he would now that he was alone with Jinx.
She could be taken advantage of for the sole purpose of getting him.
Finn could play that game and easily think about that card. And he was stupid enough to actually try to use it. Jinx wasn't defenceless, but Silco wanted the punk away from her for every reason imaginable, even if she was right that it'd give him a good motive to get rid of the problem.
And much more problematic was that wretched boy Ekko, an acolyte of Vander and a puppy of that insufferable sister of hers. They were the ones that worried him. Finn was a nobody. They were the root of Jinx's pain, with the boy a bridge between that side and his own house. Nothing good could ever come from him or be a good influence on Jinx.
But he didn't control his daughter. Best proof of that was he didn't stop her from picking the worst... boyfriend she could, or going to visit the rest of her ungrateful previous family whenever she wanted. He strongly advised her against it, but she was free to make her choices. And she was at the age to contest everything he said anyway.
What he could do was control the circumstances around her with her best interest in mind, and help her deal with the consequences.
"At least have him over when I'm also at home," Silco suggested, to which Jinx cringed harder.
"Uh, no." Holy shit. Making out while your dad is at home was not the thing at all. She shuddered at the thought.
He seemed to read her thoughts, because he gave a very particular sigh. "Not to mention that. I don't need to tell you I don't think you should be with a boy yet."
"Are we seriously having this conversation now? Don't you have much more important work stuff to think about?"
"You are more important than work, Jinx."
Jinx huffed quietly. "I know what a condom and birth control are, don't worry about it."
"Good."
"I'm seventeen, Silco! I'm not a child."
"Precisely. You're seventeen. You have plenty of time to fool around with a boy."
"Come on! You'd've done the same at my age! And don't even try to tell me it's because I'm a girl!"
"It's because you're my daughter."
"I'm probably the only one from my class that hasn't fu- ugh, had sex yet!" she burst out. "Are you gonna tell me you were seventeen on your first time?"
Silco sighed again and looked away, sucking his smoke.
"No, I wasn't," he admitted.
"See? Hypocrit."
"Jinx," he chastised. She crossed her arms.
"Plus we've had this conversation when I was like, thirteen? The world isn't the same as it was when you were young, everyone knows about sex and the to-do's, okay. Relax."
"Oh, your generation does know quite a lot, and you still do every bad choice you can."
"Well I didn't hide him under the bed and lied to you. That's what your generation would've done. Plus he'd still have to get out eventually," Jinx mumbled, hopping up and making Silco look at her. "Why do we live in a third floor with no service stairs? That's not very helpful if something happens."
"You can jump from the balcony to the next building. They have service stairs going to a parking lot where I have a car stopped for emergencies."
"Oh!" Jinx blinked, impressed. "Why didn't we just move to the next door building then?"
"I liked this house better."
"Huh." She would've expected something more exciting than that.
With very few exceptions, Silco didn't engage in luxury, and he considered that living in a regular sized apartment was more than enough to live comfortably. Maybe it came from his band days, started up broke and didn't fully leave their roots of political and capitalism criticism and stuff even as they rose to fame, Jinx mused. They did move several times throughout the years Jinx had lived with him, but always in the same style of place, suburban, nothing fancy or attention seeking. Their apartment building had families, young couples, old people with tiny dogs. He subscribed to the idea that the whole normal-looking house thing was better, and after all, you want to keep your area free of trouble and business deals.
She knew many of the other barons, Finn included, flashed their illicit wealth with small mansions, big cars, fancy clothes, expensive vices. Jinx honestly would probably do the same if it were her, she was much more extravagant and theatrical about everything in life, and Silco indulged her whims despite it. Silco himself laid low enough that he could go by inconspicuously, save for probably his leather longcoat. And for his scar, of course, which did advertise the actual true dangerous nature of his personality and life, but Jinx had been helping him cover it up with make-up since pretty much the beginning.
As for getting recognized from his band days, it had been over a decade since they'd disbanded. He had aged and lost the long hair, and the scar helped him stay unrecognizable. Jinx always thought it would've been pretty metal to have a scar like that during his band years, but it happened after the break up. And she hadn't found many news articles about the surviving members' lives afterwards, their whereabouts or new projects, which Silco of course appreciated, so not many people would see him in the street and go that's the Shark from Rat Nation!
"I'm surprised you hadn't noticed our neighbours' stairs before," Silco said, bringing her back down to earth.
"Huh. Really should have," Jinx admitted.
"I suppose you've not had enough boyfriends wanting to flee."
"I suppose." Back to the topic, huh. Jinx sulked a bit. "You can relax. I just told you, I haven't had sex with Ekko yet. We just fool around, alright? I just need to flash my boobs and his brain freezes, so-"
Silco visibly shivered next to her and Jinx pressed her lips, trying to keep them from pulling up to a smirk.
"Too much information?"
"Too much information."
Jinx giggled, apologizing sheepishly by shuffing over to him and hugging his arm tight, her head over his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and leaned his over hers, smoking quietly. They stayed like that for a while, the relaxing music playing guitars and growls in the background.
"I know you're growing up," Silco said eventually. Jinx snuggled against him. "It's not easy. I don't want you to get hurt, and as much as I hate it, there's no way around the fact people like him can try to take you away from me. Can even go as low as use you against me."
"I can protect myself," Jinx said at once, and Silco smiled.
"I know."
"But, I'm not so grown up that I can't sleep in your bed when I have a nightmare, right?" she asked with a pleading tone and puppy eyes. Silco breathed out a laugh and Jinx grinned widely.
"Of course not."
"Yay!"
Silco smiled, but his expression twitched when a sharp sting on his head forced a groan out of his lips, and he rubbed at his face, near his bad eye. That made Jinx jump up.
"It's time for your shot, isn't it? I forgot."
"It's not your obligation to know," Silco said, but she had already gone off to his bedroom to fetch the things. She came back with the med kit that had the syringes and disposable needles, plus the small box with individual Shimmer doses. She assembled everything with the expertise of a trained nurse; it'd been so long since he'd done it himself that he doubted he'd manage at first try, but Jinx could do it with her eyes closed.
"It's stabbing time," she announced with a happy grin.
After Silco had leaned back on the couch, Jinx hoisted herself over his lap, knees and braids on each side of his thighs, now tall enough to almost sit down and still reach his raised face comfortably. It had been a way to restrain him at first, with how the kick of Shimmer felt like a burning electrical shock, but Jinx kept applying it that way even when it proved useless to keep him from jerking or after the Doctor had improved the formula. She brushed away any hair from over his make-up drawn eyebrow and carefully positioned his face, her hand on his cheek keeping it in place. They had years of practice, but Jinx was always extra careful during the whole process, keeping the syringe steady.
"Breathe in now," she instructed calmly. She plunged the needle into the pupil in one fluid motion. Silco shut his fists and sucked his breath in a hiss, trying to not blink his other eye and keeping the pain as a low grunt that turned into a gasp when the drug was injected and fucking burned. "There. Done."
Jinx pulled the needle out at once and Silco moved his head away involuntarily, biting down the pain so only a sound of discomfort came out. The leftover drug trailed from his eye when he crumpled his face and lowered his head, hair strands spilling over his forehead.
"All done," she repeated in a soothing voice, brushing back the hairs to their place and kissing the tear of Shimmer away from his cheek before she wiped the remnants with her thumb as he leaned to the touch. She licked her lips quickly; it had no particular taste but felt like a little sting on the tip of her tongue. She rested her weight on his lap while he recovered his breath, placing the syringe away.
Silco leaned his head back on the couch, looking at Jinx while she mouthed the lyrics of the song playing absentmindedly. She picked one of his hands and turned it between hers quietly, like she was studying it. Guitarist hands, she'd say when she was little, with prominent veins she had always seemed fascinated by. She used to come running after a play session to show him how hers were getting visible too, all pride and joy.
"You have anything you want for dinner?"
"We could eat pizza," she suggested cheerfully. Silco smiled and agreed.
Jinx hopped off his lap and took the things back to his room while Silco disposed of the used syringe and went to take a shower. Jinx went looking for her phone to order the pizza, and saw she had a bunch of messages from everyone.
Vi: Hey sis, good day at school?
Vander: Hello Pow Pow, have a good lunch
Vander, a few hours after that: Don't eat junk food for dinner! She giggled in mischief.
Claggor had sent her a meme.
Ekko's messages were more recent:
Why'd you kiss me in front of him?
Are you still alive?
Was the scolding too bad?
Jinx grinned and quickly typed back.
Cause why not?
Still alive
Nah, all good
He was online, and she waited for his reply.
Seriously? He didn't make a scene?
Nope
You shark whisperer
One of my many talents xD
That's a life saver skill is what it is
I just know how to distract him :P
She ordered the pizza with Silco's credit card before she forgot and then proceeded to reply to everyone else. Vi invited her to go there tomorrow as it was saturday and she agreed. She texted her and Ekko some more and scrolled around on her socials for a bit before Silco returned, already wearing pajamas and his pair of devil goat slippers Jinx had gifted him last birthday, damp hair fallen over his forehead before he slicked it back. He had removed the make-up, and the dark damaged skin around his eye stood out loudly against the rest of his face and the scarred tissue of his cheek. It made him seem older and more tired. Jinx was used to seeing that (actually, was the only one who did) and it always made her feel sad somehow.
They watched and discussed the news on the TV while they ate, Jinx slurping her soda happily and delighting herself with her pizza.
"That's your logo, isn't it?" Silco asked while smoking a cigarette, pointing to her crop top. Jinx chirped and swallowed the mouthful of pizza.
"Yeah! My EP's finished."
"Really? Can I listen?"
"Of course!" she said at once, but then she remembered Ekko's reaction and her enthusiam dwindled. "It's not... mean, it's finished, but it's not... I don't know."
"Did you get bad reviews?"
"I haven't uploaded it anywhere yet. I wanted to get everyone's opinion first." She suddenly realized she didn't want to tell him Ekko had already listened to it. What if he got mad, or sad?
"Good. Don't get disencouraged by online reviews. People are idiots."
Jinx smiled, slurping the rest of her soda and bouncing her feet happily. When she fetched her laptop and went to his bedroom while he cleared the dinner off the table, she blurped out in self-defence before he could ask her anything:
"I had a nightmare today! My dad almost found me making out with my boyfriend, can you believe? How will I be able to fall asleep now if I don't have company?"
Silco scoffed and rolled his eyes, quickly turning around when Jinx started undressing midway in the corridor between their bedrooms, too busy in her head to care or realize she could stop and do it in her room privately. She should've showered, but just did a quick make-up wash and soon she was in her nightshirt hopping on Silco's bed, bouncing up and down a few times for fun while he had to take some work calls. She loved his bed, it was super ubber comfy, it was one of the luxuries he spent money in, and as far as she was aware he didn't really have a lot of company to use it with, which she supposed was a shame. But hey, she wasn't gonna complain about that. She wouldn't really like to share him with anyone else anyway, and this way she had the whole bed just for them.
She thought Vi and her girlfriend. An ugly sound came out of her mouth. Yeah. Silco wouldn't do that to her, wouldn't exchange her for someone better.
Did Silco think the same way about Ekko? That she was replacing him?
No, of course not. It was different. She had known Ekko since forever. Since before she even moved in with Silco. She loved them both differently, it wasn't mutually exclusive.
...so wouldn't Silco be able to do the same exact thing? Why didn't she want to share him? Why didn't she want to share Vi?
Jinx shuddered and pulled herself close.
No. She was replacing her. Caitlyn wasn't the same thing. She just came out of nowhere in Vi's life and forced her presence, demanded time and attention and took Vi away from them.
Silco wasn't afraid to be replaced, right? He was afraid to be separated from her, that Ekko might help do that. That Vander would take Jinx away. So, was it the same thing?
Jinx thought to ask him when he finally came to the bedroom, but the little courage she had mustered yielded when she saw the tired but content expression of someone who had had a long day finally going to bed.
"Put on your EP while we brush your hair," he told her as he gave her one of two hair combs he brought with him. Jinx gaped at first, then wailed.
"Now? But we're gonna take ages! Besides, I haven't washed it!"
"Precisely. And I need to relax a little. It was a long day."
"Ugh, okay."
He started unbraiding her hair while she got the files ready and put on the EP. For once, he didn't complain about the inferior sound quality of the laptop, and just calmly listened while he kept his hands busy. Jinx joined him, untwirling the hair as she listened to the songs again and thought on the faults, the missed notes, the anger and frustration behind the lyrics.
Silco was much more used to hear screams and growls, so he could decipher most of the lyrics with an ease Ekko could never match. She peeked casually at him from time to time, hoping to gauge a reaction without constantly interrupting the experience like she'd done with Ekko. Somehow, she didn't feel like she had to justify herself, her music choices, to him. He understood.
When the last song started playing, she checked for a reaction again. He just continued to comb her hair, now beginning to tie it in a single long braid.
"You're not mad?" she asked before the song finished.
"No," he answered. He understood her question. "You wrote a great song. I'm glad I'm in it."
No comment on Vander, or what could be considered a Rat Nation reunion track. Because there was no comment to make. The band was dead, for all intents and purposes, an ugly scar of the past that festers and doesn't really fade. Jinx had picked and twinked it, twisted and turned it effortlessly by simply existing in her own unique way, and she'd taken something damaged and broken and made it whole and good. In both her music and in her life.
So he stopped when he heard her say under her breath: "I think I'm gonna scrap the whole thing."
"What? But you've worked so hard on it."
"It's a mashed potato. There's no flow in the track list, it's just a bunch of misjointed screaming songs."
"Even if it was, what's wrong with that? You're not one dimensional. You wanted to exorcise your thoughts, didn't you?"
Jinx turned back at him, feeling a pang in her chest. "Yeah. But... what's the point of it? I'm just complaining, 'woe is me'. Why would anyone want to listen to this?"
"Because it's good. There doesn't need to be another reason beyond that." Silco said resolutely, holding her shoulder and signalling her to turn towards him. He took her hand in his and squeezed to make her look up. "And as for you, every song you make is a part of you that needs to get out and be heard, to be seen. So you can look at it, purge it, control it, so it won't hurt you as much as before. Doesn't matter if the songs have different styles. It's a journey through your pain and you keep overcoming it in each new step. Do you want better art than that? Do you want a better recovery than that?"
Jinx nodded in agreement.
"I suppose it's not for everyone's taste."
"Doesn't have to be. The logo is a warning already. Why would you want some basic normie listening to your music?"
Jinx cackled at the comment. "Holy shit, savage. Where'd you hear that from?"
"I'm not as old as you think I am. I use the internet," Silco replied with a smirk.
"Ah, it's awesome that it's no longer black and white, huh?"
"Jinx, not even television was black and white anymore when I was born."
"Ah! Who's knew?!"
"Your generation wouldn't even have internet if mine didn't create it."
"Says the cassette guy!"
"And look at that, now it's trendy again."
He repositioned her so he could resume his work. "Play it again."
Jinx smiled and pressed play. He liked it. He really liked it.
The music had such a relaxing effect on the second run that she was fighting to keep her head up by the time Silco finished the braid. She left the laptop on stand-by and just crawled under the covers, clamping herself around Silco's chest as soon as he laid on his back with his eye cover in place and nuzzling in the aroma of his shampoo for comfort. He rested his hand over her arm, keeping her close too. They both fell asleep shortly afterward.
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to be continued
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Author's note: Next chapter - here comes Vi.
- a recommendation for the song Silco plays: "Of Fury" by Shadow of Intent. Man this song.
- the first time I realized I was so used to screams I could discern lyrics by myself felt like a triumph. So there's a nod to that.
- "Stabbing time" comes from Lullabyes's fic "From the Ashes (I Rise)" on ao3. I cannot recommend this fic enough.
- I love all his videos but Schnee's the 1-minute short about Silco and Jinx eye drops scene is one of my favorites and I wanted to give emphasis to the messed-up father-daughter bonding experience here
- the generations thing at the end is obviously inspired by bmotheprince shorts. I can't find the exact one but they're all good, so.
- Silco was born in 1978 in this verse, and in my country it seems color tv started in 1980 but it seems it was sooner in the US for instance, so you know, he'd have grown up in color tv.
Thanks for reading.