AN: I haven't written anything in a quite a while, but I watched Arcane for the first time recently and I feel like it changed my brain chemistry. The Silco/Jinx ship is living rent free in my head right now, so I just had to write something about my two favorite disasters.
So, anyways, I hope you enjoy.
Entropy
Three figures traveled a well-worn path marked with potholes and puddles of oily liquids which cast iridescent sheens. Leading the group was a man, whose silhouette was known throughout the undercity. He was flanked by a woman with dark, short-cropped hair and a girl with cobalt braids. The air was heavy laden with dust and acrid fumes from the nearby factory.
Those who lived down here did so in misery. Pale, misshapen things that moved in hobbled steps and took bitter refuge in the false night of the Sump. From underneath their black sackcloth hoods, their eyes peered out, cloudy like skimmed milk. Huddled masses parted to give the three free passage and shuffled off into the shadows, so as not to draw their eye. An occasional lone beggar would prostrate themself and stretch out their upturned palms, pleading the intercession of their patron.
Wordlessly, they continued on until they reached a high iron gate, lined with razor wire. There was a sentry post rising above the gate that was manned by a stocky guard and his rifle. He had seen their approach from a distance and called for the gate to be opened. It screeched with the sound of metal scraping over metal.
Inside the factory the line workers had their chins tucked into their chests and were busying themselves with compounding. Silco passed them by without a glance, followed closely by Ran and Jinx. No worker uttered a word, or slowed their pace, but Jinx saw how their eyes skittered amongst each other. A couple of floor guards stood on either side of an open hatch window, as if they had been caught mid smoke break. They were ignored, as the three had more pressing business.
The main control room was housed in the rear of the factory and manned by two operators. They had, no doubt, been alerted to Silco's arrival by now, but they both still looked startled as they filed into the control room.
Silco pointed to one of the operators and signaled for him to leave. He was a short, stocky man but he moved with unexpected haste. When he left, the down swung shut behind him. The remaining operator shifted on feet; a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. He was a thin man, with a wisp of a mustache that clung to his lips. He stood a head taller than Ran, but his hands looked soft, unblemished.
Ran and Jinx circled him on either side, like two Panthera. Fear, Jinx learned, is and all-consuming. And inflicting fear, is the most powerful feeling in the world. She watched the slow, deliberate pace of Silco as he crossed in front of the operator. His eyes were cast downward, as if contemplating the dirt upon the floor. Suddenly Ran rushed forward, acting on some silent cue, and threw her alloyed fist into the soft flesh of the man's stomach. The man doubled over as the wind was knocked out of him. He staggered like a newborn foal and then fell to his knees.
Silco hadn't moved, as the man fell into his eyeline, "Even a dog knows not to bite the hand that feeds it."
"I swear to you, I don't know what you're talking about." The man shook his head.
Silco glanced up at Jinx. "Jog his memory."
She grinned with malice and drove her steel toed boot into his ribs. He wheezed and crumpled to the ground. She kicked again, harder, and felt something give way. Ran joined in as well, striking the man in the nose. The two lashed out wildly, feeling a shared frenzy build between them. What one gave out; the other echoed two-fold.
He raised a hand to shield himself from another blow to his head, but Ran grabbed his wrist in her iron grip. With her left hand she bent back each finger, one by one, until they snapped like dry sorghum stalks. The man howled in delirium and his left eye reminded Jinx of a cherry sitting in the socket.
"Please…" The man coughed and spat blood upon the ground. His jaw was swollen and he spoke through gritted teeth. "I'll tell you every… everything. I'll give you the name of my buyer-"
"Your fatal was error was assuming that they were as foolish as you. Your buyer came to me. He was so eager to give you up, to prove his loyalty. You have nothing to bargain with, I'm afraid." Silco turned his ruined eye upon him and seemed to look through the man, to his weak and pitiful core.
The man let out a low keening sound. Jinx had once heard an ewe make a similar sound, when an apprentice butcher had mispositioned the bolt gun on its head and fired.
"Let me leave Zaun tonight… you'll never see me again."
"Of that I'm certain." Silco smiled.
The man trembled and quaked. In vain, he tried to crawl away, but Ran seized him and hauled him to his knees. Jinx yanked his head back by the hair. From the folds of his coat, Silco withdrew a flick knife. In one fell motion, he brought the blade across the man's neck, opening his windpipe. And blood poured out like a wellspring.
Ran and Jinx released him and he fell forward. He brought one hand up to his throat, but the wound was too great to staunch. He began to seize, flailing around in his own blood and filth. After a few minutes, it was done. Ran walked past him and opened the door. She let out a whistle as loud and sharp as a boiler. Two guards that had been walking the lines jumped at her call and ran to the control room.
Silco knelt over the body and wiped his knife clean on the man's sleeve. He stood and tucked the blade back into the folds of his coat. The only blood was on the soles of his shoes.
"Put him in the incinerator, with the rest of the waste."
The guards gave short little nods and worked quickly. One gripped the body under the arm, while the other grabbed its feet. They shuffled out of the room, the dead man's head lolling back and forth, a marionette off its string. The lone remaining operator, returned to his station, stepping over the runnel of blood.
As the three left the factory, Jinx drew up beside Silco and looped her arm through his. He turned and looked at her warmly, proudly. She willed everything and everyone to fade from the edges of her peripheral, narrowing it all to a pinpoint. There was only this trodden path ahead. The only sight, was the two of them with arms interlocked. The only sounds were their steps upon the dusty stones and their breath mixing with the night air.
There were no men like Silco. A thousand years she could wander, travel Runeterra from end to end, and never find his equal. She knew it in her bones. He had true power, and he wielded it like he had been born to it. But it was a costly-learned trait, because no one in Zaun was born to anything. They were birthed in refuse and carrion, and their lot was that of kindling; born to fuel the machinations of some ever-turning wheel and to smother in the shadow of a great giant.
They walked on and soon left the shadowed streets of the Sump and wound their way upwards to the Entresol. They passed by the pier, gap-toothed with rotting wood. A ferryman was guiding his barge down the river. He was an old, wrinkled man who had lived his life between the banks. In the distance there was a yellow light that flickered over the water. The old man held up a lantern and returned the signal, the shutters of his lantern opening and closing like a rapid blinking eye.
It was still early evening when the three return to the Last Drop. Dustin and a few of the other men were playing baccarat with Sevika, seemingly trying to recoup their losses from their previous game. Silco dismissed Ran to her vices, and took his leave to his office. Jinx, unwilling to bide this departure, trailed him up the stairs.
She could tell his eye was bothering him again from the way his gait changed. They continued in silence until they entered his office and closed the door. He took a seat behind his desk and brought a hand to his left temple to press against the skin there.
He never let anyone see him like this, only her, and she reveled in the feeling of being needed by him. She was older now, but not old enough. She noticed things she never used to notice; her eyes lingering when his attention was elsewhere. There had always been something twisting within her, below her sternum, long repressed and misinterpreted. But now she could accept the open pull of it, like a tether between them.
He rifled through the top drawer of his desk and retrieved the injector. Jinx was already at his side with her waiting hand. His calloused fingers brushed against hers, as he handed her the device, and Jinx felt her skin flare with warmth. She moved quickly, slipping onto his lap and pressing her knees to his sides. For a fraction of a second, she felt his breathing halt but he said nothing.
He smelled like smoke, like hewn wood and dying embers in the dark.
Her left hand held his jaw although it was unnecessary, as he never moved or anticipated the pain. Jinx brought her right hand up and aligned the device. The needle pricked the lens of his onyx eye and Silco hissed. A tremor ran through his body. Her left hand had fallen from his jaw, and she let it rest gently on the sinew of his thigh.
"Thank you, my dear," he murmured, in a voice like shifting gravel.
Something about the timbre of his voice, made her prickle with gooseflesh. She wanted to lean forward and press her body deeply into his. To pull loose his cravat and deftly open his collar. To trace the inlays of his scars with her mouth.
Do it now. Ruin everything you have.
Take the one good thing in your life and dash it on the ground.
Make him hate you.
Her mind rang out with rebuke and she froze. There was enough, just enough truth in their words to make her fear it. A granule of sand that broke her skin and embedded itself within her. She feared his disgust and disapproval, but more than anything, she feared losing him.
Would it be better not knowing?
Jinx felt herself pulling away, weightless and unmoored. She withdrew from his lap, and her limbs moved without her direction. There was a lethargy to her being, as if she had awoken from a season-long slumber.
She placed the device back in Silco's hand and he returned it to the desk drawer. Everything felt too quiet. She was certain he could hear the sound of her pulse, like a metronomic cadence that spoiled the silence.
"I'll see you in the morning." Her voice sounded miles away to her own ears.
Years ago, Silco had walked with her down by the waterfront. She had collected up a clam shell, bleached white by the sun and Silco had stopped beside her and told her to hold it to her ear. She had done so and heard, from somewhere deep within the shell, a faint susurration.
What is that, she had asked him.
The memory of the ocean, he told her.
She had put the shell in her pocket and brought it home. Many nights she would take it from her bedside table and cup it over her ear in the dark, hearing its lamentations in a language she did not know.
The eastern horizon heralded the coming day awash in crimson. It crept higher and higher until finally, the sun breached the distant mountains and made envious all other fires.
Jinx awoke and listened to the near quiet of the Drop. She cast her mind back to the previous evening, recalling the warmth of his body between her thighs.
Her blood ran hot, pyretic, and she cursed herself, again and again. There would be no harm, she decided. No harm in just her thoughts.
She rolled onto her stomach, and drew her bedsheets up to her ears. Her right hand dipped into the waistband of her underwear. Jinx bit her lip and imagined a hand larger than hers and more calloused and weathered, ghosting over her flesh. Her fingers dipped into the valley between her thighs and drew her middle finger in slow circles around her bud.
She conjured the weight of his chest pressed against her back; his body spread over hers, pushing her down into the mattress. He would tug her braids to the side before pressing his mouth to her bare neck. Sucking deeply on her pale flesh, hard enough to bruise. Perhaps, even using his teeth. And when he parts, she would feel the cold of the air sweeping over where he had been.
How would he take her? On her stomach? Or would he flip her over, so he could run his hands from throat to thigh? Would he grab her breasts, roll his thumb over the rise of her nipples?
Yes.
Yes. And more.
How would he feel inside of her? Jinx's fingers quickened their pace, plucking some discordant harp, that reverberated throughout her body.
But how did she want it to be? His reverence at her altar or his profane defilement? The eye of her mind saw both and she feverishly passed between the two. He would move within her slow and steady, like a wave upon the sea. He would rut into her like a beast of the field. He would kiss her lips; he would hold her by the throat. He would spill his seed upon her stomach; He would empty himself inside her.
Jinx felt it building, and then, the striking of something deep within her. A great racking shudder passed through her body. Like the earth, releasing pressure from some underground reservoir.
Again and again, she returned to the well. Until it ran dry.
When she was finally sated, she sighed and withdrew her hand. The nerves at her core were numb and burnt out. Jinx didn't know how long she had been lying in bed. Her sheets were soaked with sweat and smelled sharply.
Jinx rose; she needed to bathe. Stripping her sheets off her bed, she wound them into a bundle and took them to the laundry room.
She spent the rest of her day in her lab testing new prototypes. She rifled through stacks upon stacks of looseleaf paper with sketches and scribbled notes in the margins, shorthand that only she could decipher. She idly worked on a new incendiary device that would produce toxic smoke, but her heart wasn't in it today. Her thoughts kept slipping away to daydreams.
The sun had declined below the horizon. She had been sitting for too long, her muscles badly needed to stretch. Jinx leapt from her chair and shut off the fluorescent lights. She activated her lab security system on the way out, lest some wayward soul trespass.
She wandered in a haze of static thoughts, her feet instinctively guiding her back to the Last Drop. At the door stood two men, tall and wide. They both had metal implants for knuckles and were marred with puckered, white scar flesh on their face and arms. A fair deterrent for most looking to stir up trouble. They both nodded to her and moved aside to let her pass.
She stepped inside, and the music hit her like a wave. Jinx could feel it resonate deep within the cavity of her chest, the vibrations moving through her tissues like some possessing spirit. She started forward, towards the bar, when she heard a familiar voice call her name.
Tucked into a side booth were two of Babette's girls, Ysolt and Saphira. They were sharing a hookah and beckoning her. The two were regular fixtures at tippling houses and dens along the Lanes. Not bad company either, although truthfully, she only took a shine to the pair because Sevika seemed to dislike them greatly. Jinx walked over to their table, grateful for the opportune encounter.
Ysolt shuffled down in the booth to make room for their new arrival and Jinx took a seat beside her. Ysolt was a loyal informant. Several of her clients were enforcers. They liked to sneak to Babette's for something they couldn't get topside, and Ysolt was always happy to entertain. Any useful pillow talk she heard, or compromising material she obtained, she would always bring to Silco's desk. In exchange for some coin, or to pay off her tab.
"What's up? You got business with the boss or you just hanging out?"
"Yeah, I came by to tell Sevika some leads. She barely even thanked me, craggy-ass lookin' face," Ysolt exhaled a cloud of sickly-sweet smoke and tucked her clay red hair behind her ears.
"Ehhh, she always looks that way," Saphira shrugged.
Saphira was nearly opposite in appearance to Ysolt. She had hair the color of ebony wood and she lined her eyes with kohl, in a wide black wing. She claimed it made her look more exotic, even though she was born and raised in Zaun.
The two women signaled for the server bring Jinx a drink, and when it arrived, they regaled her with gossip from Babette's, along with a few lewd stories.
"He didn't even want sex," The raven-haired woman recounted, "He just wanted to rub and kiss my toes. Then he took a notebook out of his bag and sketched my feet for the rest of the hour. Definitely one of the weirdest requests I've ever had."
"No way!" Jinx stifled a howl of laughter.
"It's true. Some clients can look all put together and gentleman-like, but then you find out they got their wires crossed in their brain or something."
Jinx's mirth faded. She wondered if maybe her wires were crossed too.
Of course they are.
She weighed in her mind if she could trust the two of them. Maybe not. But she didn't need to get specific, just to ask for advice. They would be the best resource, perhaps her only resource on that front.
"I, uh…hmmm… I got a hypothetical, uh, situation for ya both." Jinx studied her empty glass, running her fingers over the rim.
Saphira was watching her closely and taking steady puffs from the hose. She appeared almost serpentine as the smoke curled around her head.
All at once, Jinx felt very young. She fidgeted with one of her blue braids, running her fingers over the intertwining pattern.
"Okay, so… like, totally hypothetical. Let's say there was a guy you wanted but you didn't know if he wanted you in the same way. He's good to ya, but he's never made move. How do you… like, ya know, get him to see ya that way."
"Well, shit, never thought you'd be down bad." Ysolt grinned. Two of her incisors were crowned in gold, which glinted in the neon light. Years ago, a client had cracked her across the mouth, knocking them out and leaving a small scar on her lip.
Jinx knitted her brow. "Why?"
A knowing look passed between the two women.
"Because you're… you. You never hesitate, you always go for what you want… so it's kind of strange that you're unsure of yourself now."
"Unless…" Saphira wondered aloud, "This guy is someone that you know you shouldn't be messing with…"
Jinx felt the heat creeping up on her face. She steeled her expression to reveal nothing, but she felt like the two older women could see right through her.
Saphira pitched her voice low, "Is he some Piltie?"
"Fuck no." Jinx recoiled in disgust.
Saphira's eyes traveled around the bar, from patron to patron, as if she would be able to divine the man's identity. Her eyes rested on Chuck, who was busy pouring shots, and narrowed. She looked at Ysolt and then quickly back at Chuck. Jinx ignored it. It would be better to let them think what they wanted.
...but seriously, him?!
"It's good it's not a Piltie," Ysolt remarked, "Pilties are terrible in bed."
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah. Worst lays in my life; they only know missionary."
The two women laughed garishly, like hyenas over a shared kill, and Jinx found herself snickering along with them. Saphira adjusted her bodice, which had shifted during their conversation to reveal her tan areolae.
"If this guy hasn't made the first move, then you're going to have to do it. Maybe he's bein' respectable and not sure about your feelings or-"
"Maybe he's just chickenshit," Ysolt cut in dryly.
"That too. The real question is, do you just want to seduce him? Or do you want something more long term?"
Jinx chewed at her bottom lip. She wanted Silco. She wanted his taciturn silence and his rage, his devotion and his jealousy. She wanted to give herself fully to him and to have the whole of him in return.
You think he'd want you?
"I don't want a one-time thing… I want it to mean something."
She felt ridiculous saying it out loud and she knew for certain that Ysolt and Saphira would mock her saccharine words, but they didn't. They looked upon her softly. Their eyes were a deep and wide reservoir, nearly black in the low light, and from their depths dragged recollections seldom brought to the surface.
Ysolt blinked, and when her eyes opened again, they were bright and sharp, like a harrier's.
"Well, I was gonna say that if you just wanted to fuck him, then get him drunk, and yourself too. Lowered inhibitions work like a charm. But if you're looking for something more… then you have to have a little finesse to it. You gotta make him crave you, see you as something he can't live without. Then keep him on a tight lead. You're young Jinx, but you can work that to your advantage. Play all innocent. Act like you need him to teach you everything, like you don't even know your own body. Guys eat that shit up. They love thinking they're the first surveyor on new lands."
The crowd had begun to thin out and the company at the Drop was a quieter sort now, resigned to their nature. The music had mellowed to something less brackish and it faded against the backdrop of murmured conversations.
"She's right. That's a good hook to use- if you can," Saphira nodded. The smoke from the hookah had turned harsh, she set the hose on the table between them. For the first time, Jinx noticed that her hazel eyes had little flecks of gold.
"I'll tell you something, Jinx. Men like to talk a big game, like to act like they all hard. And those big bad men- what they really like- they like a good girl. They like something a lil' soft, a lil' gentle. They'll never say it. Never ask for it. But that's what they want. I get men in here all the time like that, big and mean motherfuckers. They look ugly as sin but I tell 'em how handsome they are. They brag about making moves in the Lanes and I tell what a big strong man they are. I hold them after and run my fingers through their hair, if they have any. And they love it. It feeds something in them that's been starved. Some of them never had that before, that little bit of softness. Trust me, you'll see the hardest men bend and break for it."
The woman had spoken with conviction, as if she beheld a foundational pillar of the world and all its workings. And Jinx sat before her as an acolyte, rapt and silent.
Would you really do it? Isn't it enough, how things are now?
Jinx knew the answer. She had always known.
They talked at great length of what she should expect, of precautions. Jinx had known some of this conversation, but not all. She committed into memory every bit of advice, every gesture and tone.
Soon the conversation moved on to other subjects, to work and money and old debts and the speculation of shifting hierarchies in other territories. Jinx stayed with them and listened and laughed at their stories. It was late when the two women finally retired from the Last Drop, the smell of smoke and liquor clinging to them as they traveled back to Babette's, conjoined arm in arm.
Most patrons had cleared out, the stragglers were junkies that would stay until they got tossed out into the street. Jinx waved good night to Chuck, who was wiping down the bar. He waved back with a relived look on his face.
Jinx headed to the back and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her room lay at the end of the hallway, which was mostly dark, except for the light spilling out under the door to Silco's office. Jinx paused in front of his door and a sudden impulsiveness seized her.
She placed her hand upon the doorknob and felt the seconds stretch into minutes and hours and days. She stood before the door as a porcelain statue, her blood and bone changed for flint and feldspar. The rotation of the world stopped and the heavens in their eternal blazing watched the natural order suspend.
In the darkness of the hall, she willed herself to move, and with it, set the world in motion once again.
She opened the door. Silco was sitting at his desk reading over paperwork, while the glow of the lamplight cast a soft yellow hue over the room. Jinx stepped forward and gently closed the door behind her.
"What's got you up so late?" Jinx came to his desk and looked over the papers spread out before him.
There were several pages on a fancy letterhead written in a hand so fine and delicate that she couldn't read the calligraphic script. Off to the side sat a dog-eared ledger and a few pneumatic tubes.
"Just ironing out the finer details of a new distributor." Silco glanced up at her before returning to his work. "It's late for you too."
"Yeah, well, I was on my way to bed but I thought I'd check on you first. Make sure you hadn't worked yourself to death."
"Thank you for your concern," he said in a droll tone, but Jinx could see a slight smirk on his lips.
She noticed his glass was empty. She picked it up and carried it over to the serving tray, pouring him another from the crystal decanter. The amber liquid swirled gently in the glass. It smelled like rye. She inhaled deeply. When she turned around, Jinx saw that he wasn't looking at his papers anymore, his eyes were on her.
"Why don't you take a little break?" She tried not to smile too broadly, too eagerly. She could be a good girl. It was easy.
Jinx sauntered across the room, towards the sofa, glass in tow. She circled behind it, and with her right hand she patted the red velvet upholstery invitingly.
"Riiiiiight here."
Jinx waited expectantly. The lure was set and it glimmered in the golden light, a fractal beauty. Silco set the letter down upon his desk and stood.
"Very well."
Slowly, slowly, the line reeled in.
He took a seat on the sofa in front of her and she pressed the drink into his hand. The line of his shoulders was always rigid, burdened. She set her hands upon them and began to knead her fingers into his muscles. Working thoroughly, letting herself trace every curve of flesh and bone, while he sipped intermittently at his drink. Slowly the knotted tension in his shoulders unraveled under her touch. She placed her thumbs over the ridges of his spine and pressed deeply, letting them travel its length notch by notch.
After a while, Jinx stilled her hands and brought her nails to rest on the back of his neck. She dragged them tenderly across his skin, just below his hairline, and he shivered under her touch. Silco leaned forward suddenly, out of her reach, and placed his empty glass on the short table in front of him.
Jinx moved from behind the sofa and sat beside him. He turned to her; his blue eye amused.
"Now, tell me what this is all about, my dear."
"Hmmmm? What do you mean?" She did her best to look demure; tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and looking up at him through her lashes. She didn't have the practiced movements and grace of a courtesan, but she hoped it was enough.
"You're always on your best behavior when you want something."
"Well… there is one thing…" She scooted closer, pressing her thigh against his.
Go ahead; show your hand.
She looked at him openly, at the man who had raised her from the dirt. Surely, he could feel it too. She was close, so close now. Close enough to smell the drink on his breath. Close enough to see every ridge and channel carved upon his face.
She had waited long enough.
"I wanna be your girl."
A beat. Then,
"You are my girl," Silco replied.
The words pierced her heart and nestled themselves in some deep chamber therein. His tenderness is reserved only for her, but the tone was all wrong. Paternal.
"No, not like that." Jinx let out a half little snort, "I want you to be my man. And I want to be yours, only yours, Silco."
She leaned in and splayed her fingers out on his chest, over his heart. Her too-wide eyes were shining in the half dark, the color of wild orchids. Saying the words aloud, she felt an ecclesiastical spasm in her core, like adrenaline seeping into the bloodstream. How perfectly they would fit together. Here. Now. He would lay her back against the soft plush of the sofa and he would cover her body with his and spread open her legs with his hands upon her thighs and she would unbutton his vest and shirt and tear open any barrier between them and-
His expression was unreadable. He hadn't moved his body, but she could feel it, feel him pulling away from her. A ribbon of panic knotted in her stomach, tightening tightening… She felt like she was losing control. His silence was agony; needles on her skin. She had to make him understand, make him see how very good it could be.
Jinx's right hand shot out to grip the back of Silco's neck. She lunged forward, smashing her open mouth to his. She forced her tongue past his scarred lips, and ran it across his jagged front teeth. His mouth tasted like rye, like black licorice and tobacco. It was good. Desperately, she sought the warmth of his tongue against hers, but his teeth remained clenched.
Silco broke away from her wanting mouth and pulled her hand from his neck, gripping it tightly at her wrist. Jinx saw the pupil of his onyx eye had gone all wide and black, the iris was just a thin rim of copper, like an eclipse. She tried in vain to twist from his grasp, but he held fast.
She realized then, all those times she had gripped and pushed and pulled him, that he had being letting her do so. He had never truly raised a hand against her, or even put much force into stopping her. Until now.
You fucked up. You fucked up real bad this time.
Silco was staring at her, and Jinx realized she had spoken aloud.
"I th-thought you would like this…" she trembled and felt the water welling up in her eyes.
Why would he want you? When he could have anyone? He thinks you're pathetic.
"Jinx, stop." Silco's voice was low, nearly a whisper. He released her arm and drew back from her. It felt as if a stone had dropped through her stomach, heavy as lead.
"Silco, please…"
"You do not know what you ask of me," he said, as his jade-blue eye turned from her gaze.
But for his all-seeing eye he couldn't see the heart of her. She was standing on the shoreline and he upon the far side. The gap between them too wide to cross, the abyss to unknowable. She was standing there, with her hands outstretched before her, her palms raised up in submission. If only he would reach toward her grasp, cast his hand across that divide, to hers. They could wrest the other to their side. She was waiting, waiting.
"I know what I ask- I'm asking for you to want me the way I want you. The way I've always wanted you."
The dam broke and tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away quickly with the back of her hand. She hated crying in front of him, she hated looking weak in front of him.
She wanted to curl into a little ball and disappear into the couch. She wanted to blow herself up and splatter the room with her innards. She wanted to throw herself against Silco. She wanted to slap his cheek. Jinx wrapped her arms around herself to contain it all and screwed her eyes shut. She couldn't stop crying. She bit down on her tongue, hard enough to taste copper, and her nails dug into the flesh of her arms.
Jinx heard Silco shift on the couch and she felt his arms gently encircle her own. She turned her head into his shoulder and he brought one hand up to stroke her hair. They sat in silence for a while, until Jinx felt it pass over her. She had stopped crying and now there was a dull hollowness in her head.
"It is late." He remarked.
She didn't know how long they had been sitting there. Jinx thought he would ask her to leave him, but he didn't. Instead, he gathered her up in his arms, as he had done many times before, and he carried her out of his office and down the hall to her bedroom. He laid her gently upon her bed and Jinx shuffled off her boots. As he drew the comforter over her, she turned her face to him.
"Silco… have you ever, even once, desired me?"
Careful, careful now.
Silco brought his right hand up to her cheek and gently brushed his thumb across the pale expanse. Strife had weathered it coarse but it moved delicately. He looked into her eyes and his left pupil was the pure black of space; a hole that swallowed even stars.
"My beautiful Jinx, you are blood of my blood; most dear. Know that none are your equal. And all that I am, is because you are at my side." He spoke softly, threading a fine-eyed needle with his words.
Most dear… most dear… most dear…
The voices swelled within her head and a fatal sort of hope took root within her, like a sanguivorous creature burrowing deep in her veins. She could scarcely keep her hands from reaching out, instinctively, to him.
"Promise me," she whispered, her eyes still glassy and red, "That I am yours, and you mine."
In the dark his voice seemed to fill the room, washing over her, "I am yours, Jinx, as you are mine."
She smiled radiantly and raised up, but Silco gently gathered her head in his hands before she could reach him. He turned her head from its mark and kissed the corners of her eyes, over dried salt tracks. Jinx sighed softly and he guided her head back to her pillow.
"Good night."
Sleep came swiftly.
In her dream she followed a long road. The path was barren, devoid of all landmarks and living creatures. She traveled in an endless night on her pilgrimage, with only the light of a blood red moon looming large and heavy.
At last, she crested a small hill and stood before a deep valley, of which no light penetrated. On the other side, rising high above the surrounding prominence was a great tower.
"Come and see," the wind whispered in her ear.
Above her dark clouds formed and from them came a terrible noise, a crack that split the heavens and shook her body, as if it was issued forth from her very ions. A bolt of lightning, like blue fire, arced through the sky and struck the summit, crumbling stone and setting it ablaze.
Flames rose in the night, and against the brightness she could see humanoid shapes dancing wildly. A figure leapt from the ramparts and disappeared into the dark. The tower burned for a long time, retching up thick black clouds that spread and covered the light of the moon.
Upon waking the dream would pass out of her mind's reach into some unknown void where it could not be recalled.
He needed to think.
Returning to his office, Silco locked the door behind him. He grabbed the decanter and his empty glass on the way to his desk and he took a seat in his familiar chair. Silco was not a rash man; sufferance and sacrifice were old kin. A union forged after years of lying on his belly, coiled in the dust, awaiting Vander's heel. He refilled his drink and refilled it again after it was gone.
He turned her words over and over again in his mind. Brilliance and madness often cleaved together in one flesh. Throughout the years he had seen that all-consuming flame burning bright in her, but he could never bring himself to temper it.
There were no half-measures with Jinx, it was all and nothing. Feast and famine.
His mouth was still scorched from where she had kissed him. The weight of her touch still heavy upon his shoulders, his neck, his chest. Her proposal was too unguarded, too forthright, too clumsy. No thought given for self-preservation. If he were a lesser man… he would-
No.
The balance between them had been shifting for a long time, an ebb and flow that was unremarked, until… Until she spoke it into being, gave name to that iniquity.
He withdrew a cigar from its tin, sliced the cap off with a guillotine cutter and placed it in his mouth. Silco withdrew his lighter from his pocket and flicked open the cap. Absently, his thumb stroked the flint wheel and a flame danced to life. He gazed upon it, incandescent and divine; a primordial god, the mastery over which sired all other discoveries of humanity. He lit the foot of his cigar and bore witness to the breaking of bonds and the formation of new. The lid closed and the fire starved and died within his hand.
At some point, the night had passed into early morning. The moon had faded, and was now obscured by some errant cloud. Before long, the denizens of the market below would begin to stir. The stall men and hawkers would be carving out their territory for the day. The fishmongers and butchers, adorned in their linen aprons, would prepare their game while stray hounds skittered in their shadows for scraps of silverskin and entrails.
In his ears was the roaring din of a churning river. He closed his eyes and pulled deeply on his cigar. Around him pooled dark and roiling water. He could see the stars reflected on the surface, like distant fires in the blackness of eternity that observed the creation and terminus of all matter below. He turned away from their reckoning, but he felt the undertow already dragging his heel.