Chapter Text
When Sevika barged into his office with Jinx slung over her shoulder, Silco cycled through different degrees of panic. Taking in the sudden scene, he focused on the way the girl’s legs hung limp, the vexed look on Sevika’s face; observations that offered no answers for the only question screaming in his head:
Will she be alright?
Sevika set the girl down into a chair, her arms splayed, eyes closed - out cold. Silco dropped his cigar, stomping it under his feet as he rushed to the other side of the desk, looking her over for wounds, laying his hands on her bare shoulders.
She’s burning. He looked up at Sevika, the demand for what happened communicated through his mismatched eyes alone.
”I found her in the hall not far from here. I’m not sure if there was foul play involved, but I don’t think she’s been poisoned.”
Silco felt thin relief wash over him when he pressed his wrist to her forehead, hearing her groan softly. He knew her, and he knew what this was.
“I can start asking around -“
”No need,” Silco cut her off; he recognized this look on her. “She’s sick, and pushed herself too hard. I can handle this, just bring back medication when you return from your rounds.”
”Fine.” Sevika nodded, looking at the blue haired girl, a dormant menace. “I’m just surprised to see something that can lay her low.”
He shot her a look of warning, but the woman just shrugged her shoulders before leaving his office.
He hadn’t seen Jinx this sick since she was a child; her fever burning against his fingertips as he traced her flushed cheeks down to her pale, chapped lips. It made her eyelids flutter, but little else.
Gathering her up into his arms, he carried her to his quarters where he could keep a closer eye on her. It felt like retracing his steps from so many years ago, when she was lighter in his arms, before her hair had grown long enough to trail on the floor behind them.
-
Silco’s private chambers were windowless, and dark. He couldn’t risk having obvious points of egress, which came at the cost of being able to look at the sunken skyline of the flawed Zaun he loved. It was out there, growing taller within the fissures, clawing meager victories, but it was hungry and deserving of so much more.
He walked across his sitting room, the smell of smoke hanging heavy in the air. He’d left his empty glass next to a near empty bottle, a book resting face down on the burgundy couch that had seen better days, cracks running through the leather into noticeably threadbare patches, flakes on the ground serving as evidence of Jinx pulling them loose. A habit she indulged in whenever she was there.
“Stop picking at it,” Silco would mutter as he leafed through the daily papers, and she would only grin as she peeled back another piece.
That was so long ago. In the present, he missed her smile. Her lips were parted and lifeless as he brought her into his room, laying her onto his sprawling bed.
It was too big, he thought, before Jinx had started taking up space in it. A child plagued by nightmares with a tendency to sleep with as much chaos as she contained while awake. He thought about the amount of times he woke to a foot in the stomach, a fist smashing into his jaw.
The hazards of loving someone.
He pulled off her boots, setting them on the ground before he disappeared into his bathroom, returning with a cold cloth to lay on her head before tucking her under the blankets. Everything took more effort now that she’d grown into the perfect weapon, his perfect Jinx. But still he managed, despite how sore his arms felt after holding her for so long.
I’m not what I used to be. He remembered when his rage made anything possible, no matter the size of his target. He’d always been wiry, even in his youth, but that only gave him speed to strike first, fast, and better with a blade in his hands. When he looked at her, he wondered briefly when he’d started to dull.
He knew it was the moment he’d met her, felt what it was like to have someone look at him and think to hold him instead of running away, or trying to kill him. Of all the violent first impressions made upon him, a loving one was rare. And often turned violent sooner or later.
Switching out the cloth, sitting beside her with his hand on her sweat glossed shoulder, he wondered if she would ever hurt him, running fingers over the scars on his face.
When, not if, you fool.
-
Hours passed before Sevika knocked on his door to pass him a glass bottle filled with a dark green liquid, and a stack of ledgers for him to review. He laid the heap on the table near the drink he would need while he did his work, but first Jinx.
”Wake up,” he said softly, running fingers through her hair. When she still didn’t stir, he kissed her forehead and it felt like pressing his lips to an open lighter.
She groaned again before her hand shot forward, grabbing his shirt collar with enough force to make his good eye widen with shock before putting a hand over hers.
“It’s just me,” He reassured her, looking into her blue eyes with relief. “You’re not feeling well; you collapsed.”
”No kiddin’,” She coughed as her grip went slack, her hand falling hard back into the bed.
He helped her sit up, her bangs hanging damp and limp on the sides of her face, her eyes glassy, reflecting the low lights of his room like sparklers.
“Drink this,” He tipped the bottle into her mouth and she grimaced, retching as he pulled it away and gave her water in exchange.
“I deserve better chase after that,” She protested, “Bet they gave you the good stuff when you were sick as a kid. Bet they gave you all kinds of stuff.”
“That was a long time ago.”
She barked a laugh that turned into a fresh coughing fit, her nose dripping as she wiped it against her bare arms, then hung those arms around him.
“Thanks for the drink anyway, boss. I’ll get you next time, promise.” Her voice was thick with phlegm, her breath warm in his neck.
He removed her arms delicately, setting her back down into the pillows, which she did without protest, indicating that she was very ill.
He walked across the expanse of his room, boots thudding differently when striking the exposed wooden boards, then the various woven throw rugs. He pulled open his wardrobe, rifling through the disorganized section that contained Jinx’s clothes; because nothing belonged to him alone ever since she came home with him, even if she’d never officially lived in his apartment. She’d always preferred her own workshop.
He pulled out a mismatched pair of pajamas, folding them before setting them on the bed for her.
“So you can be more comfortable.”
“Not gonna change me yourself? For old time’s sake?” She grinned at him, but it was weak.
“You know where the shower is if you want one. Get some rest, I have work to do.” He shrugged off the comment before closing his bedroom door behind him, and then let her words burrow under his skin.
He was trying. Trying so hard to be a good guardian, a good father. He poured himself two fingers of whiskey, leafing through the stack of papers laden with so many numbers that he could barely bring himself to skim them.
He was mostly consumed with his own sickness. Where had it all gone wrong for him, the wiring of his mind?
Was it while I was drowning, being murdered by the person I loved most?
He had come back different. Sharper, more focused; only one eye open through a scope, sights set on the barriers preventing Zaun’s greatness. Vander made me this way, made the monster I’ve become.
He’d participated in many desperate, unspeakable acts in service of delivering a better future for his beloved undercity. The sacrifices he made for that were not what he believed made him a monster, though. It was his warped sense of love, the way it twisted up in his mind, curling around the one person who tripped every wire, lighting up everything inside his head. Because she was everything to him.
When did she stop being your ‘daughter’? He asked himself this question the most, and hated that an answer bubbled up to the surface, grabbing the memory by the neck, plunging it back into the depths, and praying that it wouldn’t survive into tomorrow.
But every morning he found it did. He’d wake up and love her all over again, no matter how much he fought against it.
It isn’t right. She was supposed to be something different, I was supposed to be different.
Instead they were two people missing the same man, hollowed out by the shape of him. Both just doing their best within a world that kept moving forward regardless of who was lost.
For so long, Silco thought the worst pain was in longing for the past, to remember what it felt like to be wrapped in Vander’s arms, to have all his drinks poured for him and served with a smile. For a time, it had been good, a map laid out for a future they would build together, growing old, being good uncles. He realized now that was naïve.
Real suffering was in longing for a future he shouldn’t want; the sweetest, the most vile. Looking at Jinx and wanting to make her feel that same safety and adoration, to be her everything. Before her, he was a dead man walking forward trailed by ghosts, powered by ambition.
She was life, full of colour, unpredictable. For her, no pain could ever be enough.
