[ Oh. Oh no. There's a certain fury, with knowing that... that... that everything he'd believed was wrong? That what he had so meticulously planned had been undone. That in the end...
In the end, had it mattered? The Doctor, that lunatic, had Taken the body? And done what with it? Kept it alive?
and more importantly... why Vander, and not him? ]
What do you mean he's alive but not all there? Jinx, don't talk around it, tell me what you're trying to tell me. I deserve to know if experiments were happening right under my nose.
[ baby girl, he doesn't care how bad it was for vander
He does care about Jinx. He'd never gotten to ask her. He'd been... out during the procedure. For the best, really, given even this. This is the first time he's heard anything about it. The first time he's known anything about what happened. The Doctor was likely a monster, they both knew that. He'd always known that.
He thought he knew a little of why, though. The echo of his admission in his mind, that he'd once had a daughter too.
He'd done this for him because... Because... Silco could do nothing but try and save her. He'd had no choice. ]
(she never blamed him. ultimately, horrible of an experience it had been, she's here. she took it, and she's... different, but she's always been different. it certainly did not help her state of mind for the horrors to come, but...
it's in the past now. it's hardly the only wound she has to lick.)
i know. i'm... not angry at you for it or anything. you always do what you can
[ It's humbling, a little bit, to see the consequences of his actions in her. To know that he'd tried, desperately, gone to the only person he thought could do it, and even still. It had broken her a little bit. She'd already hated him β resented him β for trying to keep Vi away, for lying.
He can feel it, that crystaline, delicate thing that was the bond between them. It's fractured, but holding.
A part of him, that secret, worrying part knows, that there is only so long that either of them can maintain it.
How long until he messes up again, and breaks it? Shattered. Would she go to Vander then? Would he do all of the things that Silco couldn't, and remind her why he'd been the superior man? Why it had been him that lived, while Silco cowered in the fissures? Remind her that he had been interested in protecting the kids, while Silco...
He'd only wanted Zaun. That's all he's always wanted. Jinx was... unexpected. Now he only wanted her to thrive. ]
You were gone when I woke up. [ A beat. ] I meant what I said, Jinx. I wouldn't have given you up for anything. They, the Council, the rest of them, deserved everything you gave them.
i know. you gotta trust that. you were-- are were? are. you tried. everything you did you did because you tried and sometimes you were right sometimes it didn't work but you tried
i know that now.
(because she has a person now, so small and delicate, and yet so brave. a tiny human being who stuck to her when she least expected it, in the worst time possible, and it made her think all sorts of things about her own life.
how silco, just like her, probably had the same anxiety she has. the fear of messing up, not being enough, of needing to protect this thing that can't survive without you. even she can't care about zaun, or anything else, when she has that same responsibility now.
it's what keeps her going.)
yeah, but the headache. i don't know how you did it people were calling me a HERO it's fucked up, silco. its ridiculous
You don't always get to choose what people latch onto, Jinx.
[ He tried, she says, but he'd wanted more than just to try. He was a greedy maw, wanting to make it happen, he'd done everything he could, his fingers tightening into Zaun like he could play them all like a piano, like if he just took control of it all, he could make it happen. Shimmer running in the streets was the necessary byproduct, but...
But he'd been getting there. He'd scared them, spooked them. He'd thought that this was it, that he would finally have everything that they'd fought for β this promise he'd made all those years ago finally concluded β but no. No, he'd never even had a chance.
It was all stillborn, his plans. All of it.
Because of them. ]
If you took it to the council, are you surprised by this? We are Zaunites, what do we respect? What have we been fighting for since before you were born? They recognize what I do, that you are perfect. That you've always been what we needed, to see our dreams light fire over their sky.
To teach them what they needed to learn.
Are you so surprised? None of them could do what you do. That's what heroes do.
(there is the answer she had asked an empty chair not too long ago, only to be met with deafening silence and a sense of failure. if she wondered if he wanted her to play the revolution game that much, she wouldn't do so anymore - clear as day, bright as the sun, that's all wished for, after all.
and she didn't want to. it's overwhelming, irritating, and she has... hope. hope for her life, for once, a miracle that comes ever so rarely that it left zaun in the backburner for her as she tries to get her shit together.
her family together.
she doesn't find the strength to say anything, to lash out against something she doesn't want to do. she owes it to him.)
surprised is not the word it's more overwhelming.
people with my hair color my colors my style murals of me
[ It's the way of things. The way they all fall apart. The way that things have always gone. Everyone in Zaun falls to this trap. Vander did as well, once he recognized the cost. That had been their point of contention, after all, that Silco wanted to keep going, and Vander had found a little bit of something that relied on him, and had softened for it.
Silco, too, in his own way, had done the same. He... hated it, but he understood it.
Why had he been so weak too?
He would hate it for her, as well. Hate that she is falling to this very same trap. ]
You've inspired them, of course they look to you.
Do you want us to be free? Do you want us to no longer be under Piltover's boot? Getting only their scraps and runoff?
The people need something to inspire them. Shimmer was power, but then Hextech came along, and our power looks meager by comparison.
(if only he knew. if only he knew about isha, about what her life is like now, would he loathe it, or be proud of her? disappointed? irritated?
she doesn't want to know. not now, can't bear it right now.)
i
i know. it's just you aren't there. everything is just so complicated and it's just like when vander buzzed off and you're not there silco it's all just a cluster of little shards. and they form a coherent picture from afar, but make no sense when you put them together and you are not there to do that and you are not here because someone shot you a billion times
im so sorry, silco.
(he can think it's just on account of the murdering, but really, it's so much more than that. she feels it.)
(blue - that's all one can see once the door opens. her hair is loose, so she can rebraid it, and it's a sea of strands and somewhere, lying in it, is jinx with a gun to her hand pointed at the door.
she doesn't know who it is, so it was instinct over thought, until she realizes it's him. it spins around her finger before it goes to the nightstand.
shit.)
See, that's... That's what I was apologizing about.
[ Involuntarily, a flutter of his heart, a beat where he can't control the fear. It's mapped across his face, plain as day. He can't stop it, because he hardly realizes he's doing it, before it's wiped clean. Drug back down underneath the surface of cold water. ]
Come now.
[ He chides, his tone more level than his heartrate. He stepped in, and closed the door behind him. Nobody needed to see that Silco would sit down and braid his daughter's hair (badly) or hug her.
What would that do to a reputation he'd hardly been able to build? ]
You have your instincts for a reason, Jinx. [ It's maybe softer than anyone would ever hear him. Even Jinx rarely gets this tone. ]
Come on, do you want to get cleaned up?
[ Do you want to; a tactic Jinx has heard before. He'd learned early on that he couldn't just tell her to quiet down, he needed to ask her, cajole her. ] I'll help.
(he is right, it's instinctual and by no means unwarranted. like any other zaunite, she has to be tough, to not be weaken, and if someone she doesn't know about enters her personal space, they are met with what makes her a zaunite in the first place.
but she puts the gun down, replaces it with a brush that she just offers him instead. once he sits on the bed, she climbs to his lap, body horizontal to it so her side can rest against his chest.
[ It's all so routine in its own way. They'd done this a million times. It was a different brush, but it didn't matter. It was a different place, but it didn't matter. They were different, but did it matter? She leaned against his chest like she always had β there is no lead in his belly β and her long, long hair is out in waves. ]
We won't talk about home. Tell me something you've seen so far here.
[ He coaxed her into talking, his fingers already cording through her hair, before he started to take the brush to the ends, to start to work his way up. Jinx had always had so much hair, since she was little. It's like a blanket of it, getting all over everything.
Stupid robots, mostly. I've been... Preoccupied, with the whole thing. Do you think we can do it, Silco? Save everything, with them. And don't-- don't get all political here, alright? I know what you think, but we're not talking about home.
(her face sinks a little further into his chest as she speaks, it's another way to ask him to focus. if there's anyone who knows how silco feels about piltover, it's jinx - and her views are not unbiased, she grew up hearing it, she reproduces it. she knows, because she stood by it, even after silco was no longer there to tell her about it.
so, she relaxes into his hold, arms loosely wrapped around him as he deals with the ocean of blue that sprouts from her head.)
[ He opened his mouth automatically, and then closed it.
Well, she knew him, because of course she did.
So he took his time, a few moments of thought, actually stopping and considering. Silco has all of his scripts, after all. The things that he likes to say, the things he does say to manipulate, to cajole, all of that nearly-fifty years of practice in convincing people to actually step up for once in their horrid little lives. ]
I think it will be difficult.
[ He won't lie to her. Not... not about this. He brushes her hair. It's slow and methodical. ]
I think everyone will have to give up something. Even you. [ A sour note. ] Even me. It will require us to put things aside. You know how people are, how we are. They want us to restore the world as it was, and whether it has value or not...
[ He doesn't know what his answer would be, if he was on his own. (i do) Is it worth saving? All of it? The misery, the pain, the suffering? The early deaths and the fact that they had only recently been able to breathe? Even still, the enforcers won't come down without masks. He hates them. He recognizes that at some level, the fact that they are all here together is a feature of what they are trying to do. ]
If we're even saving it. [ He still... there will always be doubt. ] They chose the lot of us on purpose. Likely because it would be hard.
(she wasn't sure what she was waiting for, but definitely not this. perhaps a jab he would give in between crooked lines, a way to slide some snark comment on the type of people they're working with, all things she could recite by heart, eyes closed, no cues.
it doesn't come. in a way, this is as honest and focused as she can get, considering the subject, and the people surrounding it. she'll let him talk, taking in each word, letting his voice fill the air with the sound of bristles through hair as her eyes close in full relaxation.)
... We have to do it, Silco. I'll give up, but if I find out it's bullshit, then I'm taking it back. But, until then, that means we can't kill each other, either.
(if he knows, he knows. stop stabbing vander, sir.)
[ She told him not to get all political... or else he would. ]
We may be forced to. You saw how the Pilties acted in the same room. All the moral high ground, none of the compromise.
[ A sneer, but still he brushes. This was at least normal. ]
As for me, I've been keeping my head down. You should, too, if we want this to work. I'm working on my plans to make this work. I could use your capabilities.
[ He'd always look to her, for that. Does it matter that she shot him with her own inventions? No, he would always forgive it from her, and her only. ]
Don't worry about me, Jinx. I've only been as violent as has been thrown at me. I do not intend to go further.
[ Which means: hey he'll only stab if Vander's attacking him.
... They can't do it without us, so I don't think it will last too long. We got the numbers, anyway. What do you need me to do?
(it's guilt that drives her to ask. the guilt that she didn't follow their plans, the guilt that he wasn't there to guide her through this uprising... and yet, there is no regret. she did what she could, for those who she could still do it for.)
... Don't let me catch you two squabbling like two idiots. Do not.
I need you to be yourself. You're the one who can throw the wrench into the entire thing, challenge them. They don't expect you, so you must continue to be unpredictable. Adept.
[ He pauses in his brushing, only to reach out for her, and hold his hand to her cheek. ] You're perfect, Jinx. Let them see that, and understand that we are the ones that they need. They need to come to our table now.
[ don't get political, she says, but it is as easy as breathing for silco ]
I have been avoiding him, Jinx. I have no interest in it. [ As if he isn't going to give as good as he got. ] Maybe you should be leveling this at the person starting them, instead of me.
[ HE would just as soon ignore him. (he would NOT) ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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In the end, had it mattered? The Doctor, that lunatic, had Taken the body? And done what with it? Kept it alive?
and more importantly... why Vander, and not him? ]
What do you mean he's alive but not all there? Jinx, don't talk around it, tell me what you're trying to tell me. I deserve to know if experiments were happening right under my nose.
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i don't know if it was him
i just think it was because i don't know
anyone else who would
he's like this giant unstoppable wolf now.
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[ what ]
We always used to call him hound, but this seems to be a step too far. Why do you think it's him?
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for powder. it's him, silco
it's. it's been
it's a lot.
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Even in madness, as a creature, he wants to try to undo everything he helped her do. Every bit of strength she'd gained, he wants to topple it over. ]
If I had known, Jinx. I would have made sure that the Doctor's experiments were ended. This was senseless.
[ If he'd known, he would have, because the fact that he is alive makes him angry. ]
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still. if he had, she wouldn't have
she wouldn't.)
its
worse than it was
for me
(when she died.)
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He does care about Jinx. He'd never gotten to ask her. He'd been... out during the procedure. For the best, really, given even this. This is the first time he's heard anything about it. The first time he's known anything about what happened. The Doctor was likely a monster, they both knew that. He'd always known that.
He thought he knew a little of why, though. The echo of his admission in his mind, that he'd once had a daughter too.
He'd done this for him because... Because... Silco could do nothing but try and save her. He'd had no choice. ]
I didn't know what else to do, Jinx.
I couldn't let you go.
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it's in the past now. it's hardly the only wound she has to lick.)
i know. i'm... not angry at you for it or anything. you always do what you can
it was horrible, though. glad he knocked you out
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[ It's humbling, a little bit, to see the consequences of his actions in her. To know that he'd tried, desperately, gone to the only person he thought could do it, and even still. It had broken her a little bit. She'd already hated him β resented him β for trying to keep Vi away, for lying.
He can feel it, that crystaline, delicate thing that was the bond between them. It's fractured, but holding.
A part of him, that secret, worrying part knows, that there is only so long that either of them can maintain it.
How long until he messes up again, and breaks it? Shattered. Would she go to Vander then? Would he do all of the things that Silco couldn't, and remind her why he'd been the superior man? Why it had been him that lived, while Silco cowered in the fissures? Remind her that he had been interested in protecting the kids, while Silco...
He'd only wanted Zaun. That's all he's always wanted. Jinx was... unexpected. Now he only wanted her to thrive. ]
You were gone when I woke up. [ A beat. ] I meant what I said, Jinx. I wouldn't have given you up for anything. They, the Council, the rest of them, deserved everything you gave them.
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i know. you gotta trust that. you were-- are
were?
are.
you tried. everything you did
you did because you tried
and sometimes you were right
sometimes it didn't work
but you tried
i know that now.
(because she has a person now, so small and delicate, and yet so brave. a tiny human being who stuck to her when she least expected it, in the worst time possible, and it made her think all sorts of things about her own life.
how silco, just like her, probably had the same anxiety she has. the fear of messing up, not being enough, of needing to protect this thing that can't survive without you. even she can't care about zaun, or anything else, when she has that same responsibility now.
it's what keeps her going.)
yeah, but the headache. i don't know how you did it
people were calling me a HERO
it's fucked up, silco. its ridiculous
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[ He tried, she says, but he'd wanted more than just to try. He was a greedy maw, wanting to make it happen, he'd done everything he could, his fingers tightening into Zaun like he could play them all like a piano, like if he just took control of it all, he could make it happen. Shimmer running in the streets was the necessary byproduct, but...
But he'd been getting there. He'd scared them, spooked them. He'd thought that this was it, that he would finally have everything that they'd fought for β this promise he'd made all those years ago finally concluded β but no. No, he'd never even had a chance.
It was all stillborn, his plans. All of it.
Because of them. ]
If you took it to the council, are you surprised by this? We are Zaunites, what do we respect? What have we been fighting for since before you were born? They recognize what I do, that you are perfect. That you've always been what we needed, to see our dreams light fire over their sky.
To teach them what they needed to learn.
Are you so surprised? None of them could do what you do. That's what heroes do.
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and she didn't want to. it's overwhelming, irritating, and she has... hope. hope for her life, for once, a miracle that comes ever so rarely that it left zaun in the backburner for her as she tries to get her shit together.
her family together.
she doesn't find the strength to say anything, to lash out against something she doesn't want to do. she owes it to him.)
surprised is not the word
it's more
overwhelming.
people with my hair color
my colors
my style
murals of me
it's... too much, silco
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Silco, too, in his own way, had done the same. He... hated it, but he understood it.
Why had he been so weak too?
He would hate it for her, as well. Hate that she is falling to this very same trap. ]
You've inspired them, of course they look to you.
Do you want us to be free? Do you want us to no longer be under Piltover's boot? Getting only their scraps and runoff?
The people need something to inspire them. Shimmer was power, but then Hextech came along, and our power looks meager by comparison.
Do you not see it? What you did for them?
s2 spoilers i forgot to mark it
she doesn't want to know. not now, can't bear it right now.)
i
i know. it's just
you aren't there. everything is just so complicated and it's just like when vander buzzed off
and you're not there silco
it's all just a cluster of little shards. and they form a coherent picture from afar, but make no sense when you put them together
and you are not there to do that
and you are not here because someone
shot you a billion times
im so sorry, silco.
(he can think it's just on account of the murdering, but really, it's so much more than that. she feels it.)
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He is glad for the distance, to hide the Truth of who he is, but now...
Silco's quick to move, since Jinx isn't far. He can't handle it if she is too far.
He knocks on her door, but doesn't wait, just tries the handle anyway ]
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she doesn't know who it is, so it was instinct over thought, until she realizes it's him. it spins around her finger before it goes to the nightstand.
shit.)
See, that's... That's what I was apologizing about.
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Come now.
[ He chides, his tone more level than his heartrate. He stepped in, and closed the door behind him. Nobody needed to see that Silco would sit down and braid his daughter's hair (badly) or hug her.
What would that do to a reputation he'd hardly been able to build? ]
You have your instincts for a reason, Jinx. [ It's maybe softer than anyone would ever hear him. Even Jinx rarely gets this tone. ]
Come on, do you want to get cleaned up?
[ Do you want to; a tactic Jinx has heard before. He'd learned early on that he couldn't just tell her to quiet down, he needed to ask her, cajole her. ] I'll help.
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but she puts the gun down, replaces it with a brush that she just offers him instead. once he sits on the bed, she climbs to his lap, body horizontal to it so her side can rest against his chest.
unharmed chest.)
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We won't talk about home. Tell me something you've seen so far here.
[ He coaxed her into talking, his fingers already cording through her hair, before he started to take the brush to the ends, to start to work his way up. Jinx had always had so much hair, since she was little. It's like a blanket of it, getting all over everything.
He doesn't mind that. He never has. ]
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(her face sinks a little further into his chest as she speaks, it's another way to ask him to focus. if there's anyone who knows how silco feels about piltover, it's jinx - and her views are not unbiased, she grew up hearing it, she reproduces it. she knows, because she stood by it, even after silco was no longer there to tell her about it.
so, she relaxes into his hold, arms loosely wrapped around him as he deals with the ocean of blue that sprouts from her head.)
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Well, she knew him, because of course she did.
So he took his time, a few moments of thought, actually stopping and considering. Silco has all of his scripts, after all. The things that he likes to say, the things he does say to manipulate, to cajole, all of that nearly-fifty years of practice in convincing people to actually step up for once in their horrid little lives. ]
I think it will be difficult.
[ He won't lie to her. Not... not about this. He brushes her hair. It's slow and methodical. ]
I think everyone will have to give up something. Even you. [ A sour note. ] Even me. It will require us to put things aside. You know how people are, how we are. They want us to restore the world as it was, and whether it has value or not...
[ He doesn't know what his answer would be, if he was on his own. (i do) Is it worth saving? All of it? The misery, the pain, the suffering? The early deaths and the fact that they had only recently been able to breathe? Even still, the enforcers won't come down without masks. He hates them. He recognizes that at some level, the fact that they are all here together is a feature of what they are trying to do. ]
If we're even saving it. [ He still... there will always be doubt. ] They chose the lot of us on purpose. Likely because it would be hard.
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it doesn't come. in a way, this is as honest and focused as she can get, considering the subject, and the people surrounding it. she'll let him talk, taking in each word, letting his voice fill the air with the sound of bristles through hair as her eyes close in full relaxation.)
... We have to do it, Silco. I'll give up, but if I find out it's bullshit, then I'm taking it back. But, until then, that means we can't kill each other, either.
(if he knows, he knows. stop stabbing vander, sir.)
At least for now.
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We may be forced to. You saw how the Pilties acted in the same room. All the moral high ground, none of the compromise.
[ A sneer, but still he brushes. This was at least normal. ]
As for me, I've been keeping my head down. You should, too, if we want this to work. I'm working on my plans to make this work. I could use your capabilities.
[ He'd always look to her, for that. Does it matter that she shot him with her own inventions? No, he would always forgive it from her, and her only. ]
Don't worry about me, Jinx. I've only been as violent as has been thrown at me. I do not intend to go further.
[ Which means: hey he'll only stab if Vander's attacking him.
Unfortunately, they WILL fight again. ]
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(it's guilt that drives her to ask. the guilt that she didn't follow their plans, the guilt that he wasn't there to guide her through this uprising... and yet, there is no regret. she did what she could, for those who she could still do it for.)
... Don't let me catch you two squabbling like two idiots. Do not.
(because she knows. they will fight again.)
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[ He pauses in his brushing, only to reach out for her, and hold his hand to her cheek. ] You're perfect, Jinx. Let them see that, and understand that we are the ones that they need. They need to come to our table now.
[ don't get political, she says, but it is as easy as breathing for silco ]
I have been avoiding him, Jinx. I have no interest in it. [ As if he isn't going to give as good as he got. ] Maybe you should be leveling this at the person starting them, instead of me.
[ HE would just as soon ignore him. (he would NOT) ]
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