Hm. I'll make sure you have a front-row seat during the next fight, to see it in action. Maybe you'll change your mind then.
But, until then, we can come to another arrangement. [ this is so yaoi ] What could you want in exchange, hm? [ This is audio, but it's the audio version of him dragging his fingers down his lips and swiveling that eye at him. ]
I killed her as a part of the war, yes. I would have done anything to get to the end of it and win. Anything, and if that meant killing a god, then I would do it again.
...You know. I want for nothing much. Perhaps you can figure something out, with that big brain of yours.
[A little sardonic, here, but his answer is sincere. He's a creature who has eliminated most of his desire, listlessly moving through life for a singular purpose. Things have changed slightly, since coming to Synflux, but...]
[What form would any form of payment come in?]
[He's silent at the mention of the war. Of a vicious fight, and little to no regrets.]
[ Good thing he was already thinking of something, but he wanted to hear him say it. ]
You think my brain is big, do you? [ like his fucking ego. ] How about this, then. No payment to you, but perhaps what I would pay you gets donated to those kids orphanages instead?
[ the war, the scab opened... ]
I don't know. I woke up here before we could even learn. I assume, that without some of us there, it will collapse in on itself.
Well, you actually look like you have thoughts. [And.........he's pausing, a litle surprised at the next part. Ah. Well. He would like that, actually.] Mm. You would confirm it? How much?
[Another moment of silence, thoughtful.]
Was it worth it? The war. I assume...it was all for her, wasn't it?
[ See? He pays attention!! ] I would confirm it. A Hundred-thousand Kryptos whenever I need to call on you. More if it's a more... long-term arrangement. I suspect I may need to call on you in the coming months, so working out the details now is for the best.
[ or maybe this is just a way to keep him close, and to nudge him closer in that direction he wants to see him in.
But, Silco hisses, something sharp, with that fervency that always dipped into his voice, when he talked about his daughter, a rare thing, but Vergilius is one of the few who knew. ]
Of course it was for her! It has always been for her. I would do anything I needed to, there's nothing that can get in my way, if it meant she would live.
[ WELL??? it's safer if it's transactional right??? ]
Possibly. I don't doubt that he'll make an attempt again. Even intervening if there's a repeat of yesterday. Though, obviously, just being intimidating will do the trick. More importantly, I suspect the locals may make an attempt or two, if things go my way in the next few months.
[ What does THAT mean???
More importantly, though, Silco's favorite subject that isn't revenge and drugs: ]
Hm. Some thought me mad, there, for how I fought. I don't think most of them ever understood why I did what I did.
[ How could they? Silco had been so careful, because he knew the moment someone found out, they would have utterly destroyed her. It left him looking crazed, isolated, and dangerous. ]
Why, I'm helping to take down the seedy underbelly that rots at the center of Neo-Tokyo. Didn't you know? [ It's also.
It's Silco. There is no way on any planet that he wasn't planning to use this for himself. He literally just admitted to having drugs handy. ]
See, this is why you and I understand each other. That is precisely why I didn't share it. [ Set knew, of course, but the small Canopic Jars in his own room were a testament to why Silco and Set knew about Jinx and Anubis, respectively. They had made a promise, after all, to save each others' children at the end of it. Silco had done everything to save her, down to coordinating her survival even if he failed. ]
I had her soul with me, on my person. The one time I didn't, I nearly lost her to chance.
Aren't you also the seedy underbelly? Just a different one.
[Like.]
[Let's be real.]
[They understand each other. Yes, they do. Though he wonders what Silco would have to think about the man who barely moved a muscle after the tragedy at the orphanage, who wallowed in his own stagnation and sorrow. He would probably pull him by the ear and tell him he was a failure. In a way, he was. He could've done more. He should've done more.]
[And now, all that's left, is...a young lady, and a gem.]
[ The smile in his voice says it all, doesn't it? Of course he is. That's why he'll need his help. ]
Ah... though.
[ He may have, but he may not have. He'd been powerless to stop his daughter from nearly dying too. Too busy bullying chembarons and choking them with the gray to even bother knowing what she was up to, while she'd dealt with enforcers and who knew what else?
She'd been dying in his arms, and he had been desperate. Would Vergilius think less of him, for desperately fighting to end every world out there because none of them would have his daughter in them? Or the fact that apparently, she lives but for the injections of said drug he'd just offered him? ]
It was in a gemstone. Was. Now, I suppose, it is where it belongs.
[ He still keeps it, though. The gemstone. In his room, where it stays safe. ]
[He's silent for a good long, while. A gemstone. It really can't be. It feels like a slap of fate. A joke of coincidence. He can't find the words to say anything, just yet, but when he does, he sounds hoarse.]
...A child I knew was turned...into a gem. [It feels like he's speaking from a million miles away, lost in time.] At least you...have her back.
[ In the quiet silence, he stepped over to his bedside, to pick up that gem that had meant everything a world away. In Kenos, Jinx had been everything. His only guiding star, the only thing he knew was real. Powers, destruction, none of it mattered. Some believed their worlds had still been out there, but Silco's whole world was right in his hand. Had been in his hand. Now it was inert, and cold. Not even body-temperature like it had been. It still glows, of course, like there was still a spark of life in it.
Isn't it funny? That things seem so cyclical? Day in, and day out? It's always around, and around, and around. ]
They are so fragile, like this. Easy to destroy. [ A soft scoff. ] Was yours safe? Jinx never was like this. I had to flay my very soul to protect her, and it wasn't ever enough.
Now, I don't even truly have her back. She's still β
[ In danger? Manic? Struggling with a sister they'd both thought was gone; a specter that cast an even larger shadow. ]
I don't know if I do.
[ He doesn't even know that he really won't. But maudlin honesty feels appropriate now. It's with a heavy sigh β it's too honest, too dangerous β that he tries to divert. ]
[He handed that young man his sword. He hoped to find him again, and the young man would return his sword back to him. But instead, he came upon that room, and that sword was on the ground.]
[And instead of a young man, there was a gem. A gem called-]
Garnet. [He starts, stops.] That was his name. Many of the children were...named after jewels. And fate seems to like its little jokes.
[The jewel, as blood-red as his eyes, shattered in but a moment. Silco's pain, that desperation, echoes with his.]
I was told there...is a chance to return him back. I entered a contract for it. [Again, feeling distant, though the pain feels just as real as it did so long ago.] I can only...hope. I can only hope.
Garnet. Did you name them? [ there's something about naming them after something precious, but he understood the power of names, of what they meant. Just as he'd let Jinx become herself -- used the derogatory name to twist it to power -- a kid named Garnet... Must have felt... Special? Or like he was one of many?
Fate always seemed to intervene. Make something worthwhile, and precious, only to smatch it away. How many times had that happened? For either of them?]
I'm apparently not the only fool who contracted for their children.
[ Well. Silco's odd desperation had warped him, made it all bleed together. Had it been that, or had it been the hands around his neck, choking the life out of him yet again? ]
What was the price? What do you have to give up, for them to live again?
No, I...there were caretakers at the orphanage. I handed them off to them.
[He tried to not be in their lives, but...]
[Failed. He failed at that. He brought groceries. He played games. He read them stories. They looked up to him. And no matter what he did, he couldn't stay away.]
Children are...everything. The light, the roots, to...bring change to a wretched, unforgiving world. [But that world ate them alive. In the end, that world couldn't exist anymore.] The price was...subservience. It's complicated. But I am made to act as a guide, now, for a certain Company. I cannot act as I wish to.
[ Handing them off? Maybe that's why he had so many, but Silco couldn't imagine not raising his daughter. She had been his, after... everything that had happened. Every loss had led him to her. Everything. ]
Are you forced to continue your work in their name here?
[ He would hate it. Working for someone else, subservience. Though...
I tried not to be. I was the cause of their misfortune, after all.
[The key word is "tried". In the end, he failed. He always fails. In the end, a monster can have a bleeding heart that still aches with guilt.]
Mm. Well, they aren't breathing down my necks. I suppose I still have some insights to share with my subordinates in my role as guide. [But....] ...I'm...glad you understand.
You were the cause? Because of what happened? Or before...
[ before the great gem-ening? Was he truly the cause? Did he blame himself? Did he know that even in this, Silco understood him? ]
Vergilius, of everything, I do understand that. A contract? To get them back? [ He had done just that. More than just the one with Sebastian, really. Over and over, and over. He would do it as many times as he had to. ] There is no choice, is there?
[A long, long pause. And then, he recites his truth dully. His terrible truth.]
In the line of my work, I have killed many people. Those people were not simply...standalone evildoers. Many had families. Some...left behind children.
[...]
I, who sliced their parent's throats, ripped them away whatever life they had, brought them to the orphanage and gave them my care. As if that could...make up for anything. As if that could repay a lifetime of sin.
[And now, another haggard sigh, but its pained - this is his bleeding heart, exposed, the very thing that drowns in its own misery. Why did he, a killer, have this much regret? This much guilt? He shouldn't. And yet he does.]
In the end...there is no choice. I will do what has to be done. Come hell, or high water.
Silco shakes a little bit on his end, because it's almost funny. It's almost painfully, heinously funny. Of all the people, of all the things to hear, it's this? ]
There is no such thing as a standalone evildoer, neither is there such a thing as a true saint. If you hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would your hand be the only one on the blade, or was yours the better option? If not for the parents, then for their children? Did they resent you for it? It sounds like they did not.
[ He sees his guilt for what it is. (Silco no...) It nestles in his heart, a killer's heart, and it makes him feel bad for doing what was necessary. How much does he punish himself for this? How much should he punish himself for it? What good was guilt in a cruel world that took no matter who twisted the blade?
And does he know? Does he know just how similar this is? That... ]
Have I told you how she became my daughter? [ The soft chuff of his laugh is bitter. This is not a funny matter, but... If he didn't laugh, what was there left? ] It's soaked in as much blood as each of yours.
...They didn't know. To them, I was simply...me. They should've known.
[And yet he, coward, kept on his little precious life with them even as his own internal axe constantly asked for his own head for it. In one of those visions of another version of their world he had back then, one of those "dots", Lapis had stabbed him in the back. And he had welcomed it.]
[Silco laughs, and it comes from a bitter, sunken place. He draws towards it instinctively, so wondering of more similarities.]
[Its like Silco is fated to slot with him like a puzzle piece no matter what.]
[ It's a bit too... direct, perhaps. Though he knew that children were... irrational little creatures as a whole. (Silco, your daughter is Jinx.) How much did he feel guilt for something that was inevitable? Could he teach him to stop this? To learn to love the spark of violence that lurks in the hearts of all men? Could he help him slough it off, to be the monster that he should be? He wants to.
More than that, he wants to tell him this secret, something so few knew about β a deep, sharp little thing. That thing under his skin, the secret drowned at the bottom of the river β would he listen? Would he hate him for it like he had been before? Could he be understood? Could there be a beast as cruel as he was? That could understand him, his desperate clawing?
Does he want to be?
He opens his mouth, to continue. His eyes snap to the shadows.
He cannot hear anything in his rooms. The shadows are too long. They are too dark. He could turn on his lights, but then the shadows will be harder to find. Conceal what's still there. What if he's still here? He didn't doubt the power of β ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[Perhaps, perhaps...while he, himself, hasn't believed in such luck for ages.]
Haaah. I'll believe it when I see it. I'll go without it for now. Find another payment.
[For now...]
...Mm. Yes, of course I do. It was in regards to that?
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But, until then, we can come to another arrangement. [ this is so yaoi ] What could you want in exchange, hm? [ This is audio, but it's the audio version of him dragging his fingers down his lips and swiveling that eye at him. ]
I killed her as a part of the war, yes. I would have done anything to get to the end of it and win. Anything, and if that meant killing a god, then I would do it again.
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[A little sardonic, here, but his answer is sincere. He's a creature who has eliminated most of his desire, listlessly moving through life for a singular purpose. Things have changed slightly, since coming to Synflux, but...]
[What form would any form of payment come in?]
[He's silent at the mention of the war. Of a vicious fight, and little to no regrets.]
Did you win, though?
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You think my brain is big, do you? [ like his fucking ego. ] How about this, then. No payment to you, but perhaps what I would pay you gets donated to those kids orphanages instead?
[ the war, the scab opened... ]
I don't know. I woke up here before we could even learn. I assume, that without some of us there, it will collapse in on itself.
[ And he isn't sure what to think about that. ]
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[Another moment of silence, thoughtful.]
Was it worth it? The war. I assume...it was all for her, wasn't it?
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[ or maybe this is just a way to keep him close, and to nudge him closer in that direction he wants to see him in.
But, Silco hisses, something sharp, with that fervency that always dipped into his voice, when he talked about his daughter, a rare thing, but Vergilius is one of the few who knew. ]
Of course it was for her! It has always been for her. I would do anything I needed to, there's nothing that can get in my way, if it meant she would live.
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can't believe he's paying to be his boyfriend what is his life]One hundred thousand...and a long-term, you say. Depends on what you need me to be called in for. Fighting off your favorite butler?
[And...of course, of course, Silco would react that way. He would react that way, which is why his voice is quieter, softer now.]
I wouldn't doubt your devotion. I would do the same, you know.
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WELL??? it's safer if it's transactional right???]Possibly. I don't doubt that he'll make an attempt again. Even intervening if there's a repeat of yesterday. Though, obviously, just being intimidating will do the trick. More importantly, I suspect the locals may make an attempt or two, if things go my way in the next few months.
[ What does THAT mean???
More importantly, though, Silco's favorite subject that isn't revenge and drugs: ]
Hm. Some thought me mad, there, for how I fought. I don't think most of them ever understood why I did what I did.
[ How could they? Silco had been so careful, because he knew the moment someone found out, they would have utterly destroyed her. It left him looking crazed, isolated, and dangerous. ]
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[WHAT SHIT ARE YOU GETTING YOURSELF INTO. SIR]
Then again, you probably didn't tell a soul, did you. I know...I haven't. Not when that can be used.
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It's Silco. There is no way on any planet that he wasn't planning to use this for himself. He literally just admitted to having drugs handy. ]
See, this is why you and I understand each other. That is precisely why I didn't share it. [ Set knew, of course, but the small Canopic Jars in his own room were a testament to why Silco and Set knew about Jinx and Anubis, respectively. They had made a promise, after all, to save each others' children at the end of it. Silco had done everything to save her, down to coordinating her survival even if he failed. ]
I had her soul with me, on my person. The one time I didn't, I nearly lost her to chance.
[ On the day he'd killed a god. ]
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[Like.]
[Let's be real.]
[They understand each other. Yes, they do. Though he wonders what Silco would have to think about the man who barely moved a muscle after the tragedy at the orphanage, who wallowed in his own stagnation and sorrow. He would probably pull him by the ear and tell him he was a failure. In a way, he was. He could've done more. He should've done more.]
[And now, all that's left, is...a young lady, and a gem.]
Her soul? Where did it go?
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[ The smile in his voice says it all, doesn't it? Of course he is. That's why he'll need his help. ]
Ah... though.
[ He may have, but he may not have. He'd been powerless to stop his daughter from nearly dying too. Too busy bullying chembarons and choking them with the gray to even bother knowing what she was up to, while she'd dealt with enforcers and who knew what else?
She'd been dying in his arms, and he had been desperate. Would Vergilius think less of him, for desperately fighting to end every world out there because none of them would have his daughter in them? Or the fact that apparently, she lives but for the injections of said drug he'd just offered him? ]
It was in a gemstone. Was. Now, I suppose, it is where it belongs.
[ He still keeps it, though. The gemstone. In his room, where it stays safe. ]
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[He's silent for a good long, while. A gemstone. It really can't be. It feels like a slap of fate. A joke of coincidence. He can't find the words to say anything, just yet, but when he does, he sounds hoarse.]
...A child I knew was turned...into a gem. [It feels like he's speaking from a million miles away, lost in time.] At least you...have her back.
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Isn't it funny? That things seem so cyclical? Day in, and day out? It's always around, and around, and around. ]
They are so fragile, like this. Easy to destroy. [ A soft scoff. ] Was yours safe? Jinx never was like this. I had to flay my very soul to protect her, and it wasn't ever enough.
Now, I don't even truly have her back. She's still β
[ In danger? Manic? Struggling with a sister they'd both thought was gone; a specter that cast an even larger shadow. ]
I don't know if I do.
[ He doesn't even know that he really won't. But maudlin honesty feels appropriate now. It's with a heavy sigh β it's too honest, too dangerous β that he tries to divert. ]
Do you have a chance for yours?
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[Was yours safe?]
[He handed that young man his sword. He hoped to find him again, and the young man would return his sword back to him. But instead, he came upon that room, and that sword was on the ground.]
[And instead of a young man, there was a gem. A gem called-]
Garnet. [He starts, stops.] That was his name. Many of the children were...named after jewels. And fate seems to like its little jokes.
[The jewel, as blood-red as his eyes, shattered in but a moment. Silco's pain, that desperation, echoes with his.]
I was told there...is a chance to return him back. I entered a contract for it. [Again, feeling distant, though the pain feels just as real as it did so long ago.] I can only...hope. I can only hope.
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Fate always seemed to intervene. Make something worthwhile, and precious, only to smatch it away. How many times had that happened? For either of them?]
I'm apparently not the only fool who contracted for their children.
[ Well. Silco's odd desperation had warped him, made it all bleed together. Had it been that, or had it been the hands around his neck, choking the life out of him yet again? ]
What was the price? What do you have to give up, for them to live again?
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[He tried to not be in their lives, but...]
[Failed. He failed at that. He brought groceries. He played games. He read them stories. They looked up to him. And no matter what he did, he couldn't stay away.]
Children are...everything. The light, the roots, to...bring change to a wretched, unforgiving world. [But that world ate them alive. In the end, that world couldn't exist anymore.] The price was...subservience. It's complicated. But I am made to act as a guide, now, for a certain Company. I cannot act as I wish to.
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[ Handing them off? Maybe that's why he had so many, but Silco couldn't imagine not raising his daughter. She had been his, after... everything that had happened. Every loss had led him to her. Everything. ]
Are you forced to continue your work in their name here?
[ He would hate it. Working for someone else, subservience. Though...
If it was required? ]
I would do the same if I had to.
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[The key word is "tried". In the end, he failed. He always fails. In the end, a monster can have a bleeding heart that still aches with guilt.]
Mm. Well, they aren't breathing down my necks. I suppose I still have some insights to share with my subordinates in my role as guide. [But....] ...I'm...glad you understand.
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[ before the great gem-ening? Was he truly the cause? Did he blame himself? Did he know that even in this, Silco understood him? ]
Vergilius, of everything, I do understand that. A contract? To get them back? [ He had done just that. More than just the one with Sebastian, really. Over and over, and over. He would do it as many times as he had to. ] There is no choice, is there?
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[A long, long pause. And then, he recites his truth dully. His terrible truth.]
In the line of my work, I have killed many people. Those people were not simply...standalone evildoers. Many had families. Some...left behind children.
[...]
I, who sliced their parent's throats, ripped them away whatever life they had, brought them to the orphanage and gave them my care. As if that could...make up for anything. As if that could repay a lifetime of sin.
[And now, another haggard sigh, but its pained - this is his bleeding heart, exposed, the very thing that drowns in its own misery. Why did he, a killer, have this much regret? This much guilt? He shouldn't. And yet he does.]
In the end...there is no choice. I will do what has to be done. Come hell, or high water.
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Silco shakes a little bit on his end, because it's almost funny. It's almost painfully, heinously funny. Of all the people, of all the things to hear, it's this? ]
There is no such thing as a standalone evildoer, neither is there such a thing as a true saint. If you hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would your hand be the only one on the blade, or was yours the better option? If not for the parents, then for their children? Did they resent you for it? It sounds like they did not.
[ He sees his guilt for what it is. (Silco no...) It nestles in his heart, a killer's heart, and it makes him feel bad for doing what was necessary. How much does he punish himself for this? How much should he punish himself for it? What good was guilt in a cruel world that took no matter who twisted the blade?
And does he know? Does he know just how similar this is? That... ]
Have I told you how she became my daughter? [ The soft chuff of his laugh is bitter. This is not a funny matter, but... If he didn't laugh, what was there left? ] It's soaked in as much blood as each of yours.
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[And yet he, coward, kept on his little precious life with them even as his own internal axe constantly asked for his own head for it. In one of those visions of another version of their world he had back then, one of those "dots", Lapis had stabbed him in the back. And he had welcomed it.]
[Silco laughs, and it comes from a bitter, sunken place. He draws towards it instinctively, so wondering of more similarities.]
[Its like Silco is fated to slot with him like a puzzle piece no matter what.]
No. You didn't.
1/2
[ It's a bit too... direct, perhaps. Though he knew that children were... irrational little creatures as a whole. (Silco, your daughter is Jinx.) How much did he feel guilt for something that was inevitable? Could he teach him to stop this? To learn to love the spark of violence that lurks in the hearts of all men? Could he help him slough it off, to be the monster that he should be? He wants to.
More than that, he wants to tell him this secret, something so few knew about β a deep, sharp little thing. That thing under his skin, the secret drowned at the bottom of the river β would he listen? Would he hate him for it like he had been before? Could he be understood? Could there be a beast as cruel as he was? That could understand him, his desperate clawing?
Does he want to be?
He opens his mouth, to continue. His eyes snap to the shadows.
He cannot hear anything in his rooms. The shadows are too long. They are too dark. He could turn on his lights, but then the shadows will be harder to find. Conceal what's still there. What if he's still here? He didn't doubt the power of β ]
Hm. This isn't...
2/2
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normal...........................
so Normal
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π
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