A/N: This started as a scene in a Silco/OFC fic with bodyguard romance vibes that I might write one day. If I do, I'll probably end up stealing the title of this one-shot, because I love "Providence by" Poor Man's Poison, and that line just suits a Silco fic so well.
POV character is a hitman for Silco, known for wearing a black mask and having a folding sword (a nod to the Dishonored video games by Arkane Studios, which aren't actually connected by anything but the name Arcane and the fact I like them).
The day had taken one of the sharpest nose-dives Vivian had ever experienced.
When the morning had dawned, Viv had been looking forward to collecting her pay and rejoining the world of the living. She had been entrenched in the clinical, isolating depths of the job for weeks, and desperately needed to spend time with good food, better alcohol, and people who weren't dead men walking. That high mood had started on a sharp downhill slide after Silco had tried to set her on yet another target, and they yet again fought about her schedule. This time, she had finally said a flat No. No matter the bonus to pay, no matter how quick a job it would be, her answer was no. After how happily she had begun the morning, she thought that storming out of the Last Drop was going to be the worst the day got.
Then it dropped straight into the pits of hell when she rounded the corner to her safehouse, wanting nothing more than to change out of the mask and overcoat of the Wraith and into her civilian clothes, and found four men waiting in the alley for her.
"That's the Wraith?" One of them asked, face unimpressed as he drew a short knife from his pocket. The others said nothing, so Vivian marked him as the chatterbox of the group as her hand slowly inched toward her folding blade.
The fight went about as she expected. It wasn't the first time she'd been jumped, but it was the first time since entering the Eye of Zaun's employ, and the first time the safehouse he'd provided had been compromised. That would have been enough to rattle her on it's own, but what cut her to her very core was the name that the talkative one- she'd saved him for last - put forth as his employer.
"What did you say?" The Wraith asked, sure she had misunderstood. It wouldn't stick in her head. It could be the blood loss, but somehow Vivian thought that the cold shock would remain even if she were unscathed. Something in the depths of her mind suspected that the pain would remain, too, stabbing through her chest if it weren't stabbing across her bloodied torso.
The man on the ground beneath her spat out a mouthful of blood and a tooth as he rolled to his back, cradling his leg and staring up the length of her sword. "Do the math, doll. How many people knew where you were gonna be tonight?"
He was right, and Viv wished she didn't believe him, wished there was a world where she couldn't believe him, but it all fit into place so well. The requests for time off, the tension, the arguments. Of course this was the next step. Silco's control was slipping- whether it be the control over himself or her or both- and she was too dangerous to just let go.
All it took was a few words and a cut that wasn't nearly enough to kill her- yet- and she felt like a hole had been punched clean through her chest. She wanted to scream, to howl her pain to the not-so-empty streets around them, but she only gritted her teeth, swallowed the lump in her throat, and pressed the lever on her sword's handle to flip the blade closed.
As the wave of grief retreated to a dull ache, anger started to bubble up in its place, filling her empty chest with righteous fury and dampening the pain- both metaphorically and literally, as a fresh surge of adrenaline flowed into her veins to accompany it. Her mouth set into a determined line behind her mask, and she turned and staggered away, leaving one man alive but hamstrung in an alley strewn with bodies. She paused just around the corner and stabbed a battle-stim into her upper thigh to temporarily dull the pain and slow the bleeding.
It's amazing what the human body can do with adrenaline and indignant rage and a microdose of stimulants at its disposal. Hell hath no fury, indeed. The slow, staggering trip back to the Last Drop blurred together, guided only by the bright pain of body and soul. People ducked out of her way when they saw the black mask of the Wraith and the handle of her folded blade and the blood splashed across her clothes, and even the guards on the side door into the Drop, who usually at least nodded in greeting, only stared as she climbed the stairs and stalked inside.
The professional part of her began counting down how long it would take one of them to run and grab Sevika from Anne's. Too long, if Viv was quick about it. She gritted her teeth at the base of the stairs, pressing her free hand to the long gash across her ribs. The battlestim was already wearing off; blood was starting to flow down her side again. She briefly considered using the second one, but then it wouldn't be there when she…
When she what? Escaped? All her plans for the future had died in the alley. She'd had safety and stability for so short a time, but already she had no idea how she could stand to go back to life without it. She left the stim in her coat, and wasn't sure if that was to improve her odds of survival later or to decrease them now. She took the stairs one heavy step at a time, leaving a bloody smear along the handrail, and the cacophony of pain in her body immediately served to remind her that there was only so much longer she could go before her body gave out.
If I pass out, will I wake up? She distantly wondered. She found the thought ironically funny. She had warned Silco that to call on the services of the Wraith was to make her walk the land of the dead, that she would become a ghost if he didn't give her more time with the living. Now here she was, not far from making that idea more literal than metaphor.
Viv opened the door to his office and stepped through without knocking. And there he was, lounging behind his desk and reading a report as though it were any other night. A year they'd worked together, and he couldn't even scrounge up the decency to be half-drunk and depressed after he'd sent her to her death? She closed the door without turning back, and he finally looked up, taking in the black mask and the blood-soaked clothes with lazy disinterest.
"You're making a mess." He pointed out cooly. Vivian didn't respond; in truth, she barely heard him. "Whose blood is it this time?"
She reached behind her and turned the deadbolt. His eyes flickered to the door, suddenly keen and alert. Viv started forward, one slow step after the other to make sure that, despite the way her legs trembled with the effort, her gait appeared even and confident and let slip no evidence of her weakened state. Silco slowly set the report down and sat up in his chair, tracking her approach, no doubt noting the aggression in her body and the fact that she had not removed the black mask. He was wary, but not yet alarmed. She reached the front of his desk and began to circle it, and he pushed his chair back slightly and swiveled to face her, on edge, braced to stand.
"Vivian." He warned lowly, sharply. He doesn't know I know, she realized. If he had, he would have reacted to her intent, aggressive focus long before they were this close, before he was nearly in arms reach.
Or perhaps he just knew what he was doing, because Viv's body started to fail almost at the moment. She staggered at the corner of his desk as one knee finally buckled, and caught herself with a hand that left a smear of blood on the wood. Silco surged to his feet as though to catch her, and was stopped as her folding blade snapped out and rested against his chest.
He stood frozen for a second, looking down at the sword point on his chest, and then following the blade back up to the assassin that held it. By the time his gaze met hers again, his face was as icy as the black mask staring back at him. "Vivian," He said in that same warning tone, "Think very carefully about what you're doing."
"About what I'm doing?" She snarled back, voice ragged and distorted behind the mask. She stepped forward and around the desk, still leaning against it with one hand, and used the point of her sword to shove him back down into his chair. Anger began to simmer in his expression at the irrevocable proof that they were no longer on the same side. Viv stepped up next to his chair, towering over him and swaying almost imperceptibly in place, skimming her swordpoint up his chest until it rested just above the junction of shoulder and neck, ready to sever the left external jugular.
His hands tightened on the arms of his chair, anger and betrayal and the smallest twinge of fear playing nearly openly across his face. "After all we have accomplished together-"
"Why should that matter now?" Viv cut in harshly. "It didn't an hour ago. You motherfucking traitor. 'After all that we've accomplished', you couldn't even come yourself. But I guess the Eye of Zaun doesn't dirty his own hands anymore, does he?"
"What are you talking about?" Silco demanded, voice impressively level, eyes already darting over her again, calculating and recalculating. Viv's head was starting to feel light, unmoored. Her swaying, for as much as she tried to still her body, must be noticeable by now.
"Don't lie." She growled. She didn't have time for this. She was going to pass out soon, and she wouldn't do it before- well, she actually wasn't sure what she wanted. Confession? Apology? To see him bleeding body and soul like she was? Beggars can't be choosers, she decided.
The calculating look in his eyes was melting into a cold, visceral anger. "Put the blade down and tell me what happened."
Her mocking smile was hidden by the mask, but showed clearly in her voice. "Haven't figured it out? I killed your wet squad. Gonna be a pain to replace all of us."
"I don't have a wet squad. I have you." He was trying to reason with her, she knew, but she didn't care to hear it.
"Now you have neither."
"Vivian, think!" He barked, his patience apparently as thin as hers. "Why would I want to harm you?"
"Y'know, Silco," She began conversationally, sitting- falling- back against the desk and leaning forward to grab him by the collar and yank him closer. The smallest cut opened on his neck as it slid against her blade. "I am just dying to know the answer to that."
"I didn't." He snarled, knuckles white where his hands braced against the chair arms. Gentler, more imploringly, he added, "Vivian, I didn't."
Her hand fisted in his collar and pressed into his shoulder; she was as much holding her weight up on the arm as she was holding him in place. "You thought I wanted out. You knew exactly where I'd be. Janna, I knew you were a cold motherfucker, I should've seen it coming…" Viv wasn't entirely sure what parts she was saying out loud, but she got the distinct impression she wasn't making much sense anymore, that she was just babbling whatever came through her head because he owed it to her to fucking listen to whatever she had to say.
There were thundering footsteps outside the door, and Viv and Silco both looked up. The person outside tried the handle once, and in the next second the door frame was splintering with a loud crack as it was kicked in. Sevika stood in the doorway, shock just briefly flashing across her face, and in that second Viv dropped her hold on Silco's shirt to shift sideways, draw her stacked-barrelled pistol from her hip, and level it at the bigger woman. She'd used both shots to survive the ambush, but they had no way of knowing that.
"Stop!" Silco commanded. Viv couldn't be sure for which of them the command was meant, but both of them froze on hard-wired instinct. Viv's eyes darted between the person on the end of her blade and the one on the end of her gun in an attempt to keep an eye on both of them, something that only worsened the spinning in her head.
There was silence for one long second before Sevika began, "Viv, whatever he's done-"
"He put a fucking hit out on me."
Sevika paused and slowly lifted her gaze to Silco. "I didn't." He growled out.
She didn't look like she believed it any more than Viv had, and looked back at the Wraith to clarify, "You got jumped?"
"Outside my safehouse." Viv replied, and Sevika's eyes snapped back to Silco with a you've done it now look, because the only people who knew where that safehouse was were the three in the room. Viv's hand began to shake with the effort of holding the gun out.
Silco's eyes darted from her shaking arm to her blood-splattered torso, and the full reality of the situation finally clicked into place. "Whose blood, Vivian?" He asked again, shifting forward, an entirely different kind of fear beginning to eclipse everything else on his face.
"Don't worry your pretty little head 'bout it." Her speech was slurring now, darkness creeping in on the edges of her vision. She hadn't even gotten an apology or a confession out of him. Nothing to be done about it now. She glanced back to the woman in the doorway. Maybe it'll teach Sevika not to make my same mistakes.
Silco stood abruptly, and on instinct Viv let her arm move with him instead of holding the sword in place, or he would have cut himself on the blade. Her head snapped back to him, snarling behind the mask.
"Sit down." She commanded, pressing the sword into the small cut on his neck. A drop of blood ran down the steel, but she didn't open it any further. He paused, waited. There was an intense focus and, just beneath the surface, a bone-deep worry on his face. When she did nothing further, he slowly raised his hand to close around her wrist, and again paused. The motherfucker is calling my bluff. She wasn't sure if the shaking in her arm was all physical, or if a part of it was driven by the spike of pain and rage that came from him being right.
His pattern of slow and methodical movements was broken when he violently twisted her wrist, but Viv's folding blade hadn't even hit the floor by the time she'd swung the pistol around to point at him. She was slower than she was used to, though, and Silco's other hand was waiting to wrap around the barrels.
He could have easily twisted it out of her hand, but he glanced down and said, almost in disbelief, "It isn't even cocked."
"It isn't even loaded." Vivian retorted, vision swimming.
He yanked it from her hand and tossed it aside. She threw the world's most pathetic right hook, and he put up one arm to block it, unconcerned. His other hand slipped into her overcoat and began methodically patting down one side of her torso, searching for- what? Other weapons? He should know by now that the only other weapon she normally carried was the small knife in her belt.
"Get off me," Viv snarled, trying to shove him off, but she might as well have pushed against a brick wall, because suddenly she was the one falling back. Silco grabbed her by the collar of the coat with one hand to keep her from toppling backwards across the desk.
His other hand resumed the pat-down on the other side of her body, but found the long gash almost immediately, and Viv gasped and recoiled from the shot of blinding pain. Even Silco jumped slightly at her sudden reaction, looking to her face- mask- with wide-eyed concern that morphed into wide-eyed panic when he looked down and saw the bright-red arterial blood on his hand.
"Get the doctor." He barked over Viv's shoulder to Sevika. There was only a second of hesitation before Viv heard her leave at a run. She knew she was well and truly screwed then, because she wasn't enough of a threat for Sevika to even argue against leaving them alone together. Silco's hand pressed into the wound again, and Viv yelped, darkness fully enveloped her for just a second. When she blinked awake in the next second, her forehead was resting on his shoulder, her body slumped into his chest. He was saying something, and it took laborious focus to make out the words.
"-stay awake. Stay with me, Vivian. You're going to be alright."
She rolled her head to look up at him with one unfocused eye, mouth opening and closing several times before she found her voice. "Silco, why? Tell me why…"
"I didn't, Viv." His free hand, the one not desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood, gently slid the mask back from her face and tossed it onto the desk. The hand, shaking slightly, returned to cradle her skull and keep her eyes on him. "I swear I didn't. On my life. On Jinx's."
"On Jinx's." She echoed, not quite processing it, but no longer having the energy to argue. His body was pleasantly warm, her own too cold, and she was willing to ignore the truth if it gave her these last few seconds of comfort. He was looking so scared, though… "Battlestims. In my coat. T'slow the bleeding…"
Not that it would do much, but it would make him feel like he was helping. His hand left her head to feel around in the inside pockets of her coat. He held up a syringe- she carried too many poisons to administer something without checking- and when she nodded, he injected it into her thigh. Viv barely felt the pinch.
She turned her face back into the crook of his neck and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the pain lancing across her ribs and stomach and instead focus on the warmth of his body. In some ways she felt like she was floating, like the sensations were coming from a mile away. Time was moving strangely around her; when her eyelids would occasionally flutter open, she had no way of telling if seconds or minutes had passed while they'd been closed.
She did know that Silco's hand had returned to the back of her head, cradling her to his chest as he murmured inconsequential things about revenge and finding the people responsible and the like into her ear. The words were no comfort, but she liked the timbre of his voice as it slid over the threats. She remembered with fondness all the time's she called him pretty boy in jest, and his small, begrudgingly-amused smile in return.
"Silco," She mumbled against his neck, and he paused mid-sentence, "Wasn't joking. Got… pretty eyes…" He made a surprised, almost strangled sound at that interjection, and Viv smiled against his neck. Sometime later, whether seconds or minutes, she added, "M'sorry. 'Bout trying to kill you."
"You wouldn't have killed me."
She hummed, half in annoyance and half in agreement. "Woulda hurt you, though. Woulda… I dunno. Didn't really have a plan. Wanted to hurt you."
"I know." He rested his cheek against her head and held her tighter. "I know."
Sevika and that doctor- Singed- burst back into the room some amount of time later. Viv tried to lift her head to look over her shoulder, but only got the barest glance before it was falling back onto Silco's shoulder. They were talking too fast and too loud for her to fully understand, arguing about moving her and Shimmer and sterile environments.
Viv didn't comprehend what was happening until everything came off Silco's desk with a crash and she was suddenly laying across it. Silco was sitting at her side and leaning across her, his hip pressed into one side of her body and his arm propping him up on the other. His other hand, still covered in her blood, was holding both of her hands to his chest. His body blocked her view of what was happening further down her own, but the cold air on her skin told her that someone had rolled up her shirt to expose the cut that began a little below her left armpit and curved down and then across her ribs in a J that ended not far above her navel. Unfamiliar hands probed along the wound.
"Silco-?!" Viv demanded, eyes locking onto his face, fear momentarily anchoring her into as much alertness as she was capable of.
"You're going to be alright, Vivian. Breath. Focus on me."
Why?, she began to wonder, but then the pain started, and she had her answer.
Viv was on the couch in his office when she woke, shivering slightly despite the blanket on top of her. Sunlight poured in through the windows. She blinked dully up at the ceiling, trying to shake off her bone-deep exhaustion and recall the last thing she remembered. White-hot agony across her torso, Silco's weight pinning her upper body down as her hands clawed into his vest… She shuddered and tried to sit up, and groaned at the fresh pain lancing down her ribs. Janna, how did I manage to walk here? Movement next to her drew her eyes, and she realized that Silco had pulled his desk chair up next to the couch. He jolted awake at the sound, eyes instantly seeking her out.
"Easy. Don't try to move." He instructed gently, hauling himself to his feet and settling on the coffee table next to her. He felt her forehead with the back of his hand, reached for some medical supplies sitting on the opposite corner of the coffee table, and then wrapped his fingers around the blanket covering her. "I'm going to have a look." He warned, and when she nodded he pulled the blanket down.
Her overcoat and shirt were gone, but her sports bra had survived almost entirely intact. Most of the rest of her torso was wrapped in bandages to keep firm pressure on the gauze that lay underneath. Silco helped sit her up just enough that he could pass a hand between her back and the couch, and began to unwind the bandages.
"How long was I out?" Viv asked, voice thin and ragged.
"Ten hours."
She processed that for several seconds. "Why am I still in your office?"
"Singed was worried about moving you. Didn't want to rip his stitches."
The bandages were off now, and the gauze below them was lightly stained with dried blood. Silco gently peeled it off, revealing the scabbed, stitched wound underneath. Blood seeped through in some places, but so did a bright pink liquid.
"Janna. He pumped me full of Shimmer?" Viv asked, tone more disgruntled than horrified. Silco glanced up, eyes sad and perhaps slightly guilty.
"You'd lost a lot of blood." He explained quietly.
"I'm aware."
He began to redress the wound, and goosebumps broke across her skin wherever his fingers brushed against her. A strand of hair fell across his forehead as he bent over her, giving him an endearingly disheveled look.
Light-heartedly, Viv said, "I guess I'm finally getting that time off, huh?" He paused, hands hovering over her, intently staring down at his work as his face was washed with guilt. Viv huffed and brushed his errant strand of hair back into place, and he tensed for the barest second before relaxing. "That was a joke, Silco."
"This never should have happened." He said quietly, a cold, controlled anger making his eyes blaze.
"Not the first time I've been jumped. Probably won't be the last." Vivian paused, gathering the courage to properly apologize. "I'm sorry I doubted you. One of the guys said it was you, and they were waiting for me at the safehouse…"
She trailed off, and Silco only shook his head. "I gave you every reason to doubt me. I would have thought the same."
She reached for him again, this time using her thumb to trace the small scabbed-over cut on the side of his neck. Her jaw clenched as shame spiked through her. "We both made mistakes."
She pulled her hand back, but Silco caught it in one of his own and gave it a gentle squeeze. You're forgiven were not words in his vocabulary, but Viv took it to mean the same.
"Do you need anything?"
"Water. And a heavier blanket." She cracked a grin to add, with infinite fondness, "And a promise that Jinx won't draw on me in my sleep."
A small, warm smile finally broke through Silco's worried expression. "That's one thing I can't give."
Viv let out a small huff of a laugh, and pain spiked across her stomach and stretched her lips into a grimace. "Damn, even laughing hurts. The kid's really gonna have to go easy on me."
"I'll talk to her." He leaned forward to pull the blanket back over her, hands lingering just briefly on her shoulders. Viv caught his hand before he could fully retreat, the good humor falling from her face.
"How long does the doc want me down for?" She asked, quiet and grim.
"Three weeks to light duty. Triple that for wet work."
Nine weeks. She closed her eyes for a second. "Fuck me." She opened them to fix the crime lord with a serious look. "I'm going to ask you do something you won't like."
"And what would that be?"
"If you find out who did this, do nothing." It took a second for him to process that, but when he did, his hand tightened around hers, lips twitching back towards a snarl. "I'm serious, Silco."
"I can't let an attack on my people go unpunished. If the other Chem Barons smell weakness-" That was the answer of a businessman, but the visceral anger on his face betrayed just how personal it was.
"I know. I'm not asking you to let it go, Silco, I'm just asking you to wait until I can be there. Please."
She so very rarely said 'please' genuinely; she knew it would get to him. He hesitated for a second, his own anger and the brutal calculus required to run a syndicate battling across his face with something warm, almost compassionate. Viv supposed that he, of all people, knew how important revenge could be to a person.
"I'll try." He finally said.
She flashed a rare, bright smile. "Thank you."
Then, without conscious thought, she lifted the hand she held and kissed the back of it. Silco went stock-still next to her, and she blinked twice in shock before she fully registered what she'd done, and hastily dropped his hand as her cheeks flushed.
A small smile, almost a smirk, broke across his face at her embarrassment. Viv counted herself lucky that he'd found it amusing instead of presumptive. "Blanket. Water." She reminded him, hunkering further under the blanket and refusing to look at him.
"So the Wraith has a soft side after all." He said as he stood. He wasn't exactly teasing- Silco didn't tease, did he?- but he was happy to prod at her embarrassment.
"The Wraith is half dead and not in her right mind." Viv muttered after him.
When he stepped out of the room, she sunk back into the couch and let out a deep, shaky breath as relief swept through her. The previous day felt like a nightmare compared to the reality she had woken to. He hadn't wanted her dead, and somehow, that realization alone was sweeter than the fact that she had lived.