Loyalty, [ he repeats, again, a whisper that dissolves in the still air of the tunnels — just like any loyalties he's ever professed, before this place, disintegrating into nothing, promises falling to pieces, over his only real loyalty: that which is only to himself.
but here —
(no, not just here; he'd sacrificed his leg, in the end, for the crew. had chosen them over an easy escape, loyalty seeping into his blood when before it had run free of any.)
— here, he knows he can't survive alone. and there are those he finds he trusts, who he doesn't want to betray. whose good opinion means something to him. and those are muddled waters — easier, then, for him to look as silco taps at his eye, and the question spills from his lips unbidden, ]
What happened? [ to you, he doesn't say, but it is obvious. ]
[ He asks it simply, as if John didn't already know. ]
I made a mistake once. [ Was it what he'd done? Throwing a cocktail trying to save his friend? No, no. Yes, it was a mistake, but that wasn't the mistake. ]
I Trusted, Silver. I know the cost of caring too much, of trusting that someone would always be by your side. I believed in loyalty, but loyalty borne from closeness and not towards something bigger than any one person.
I thought I could trust someone with my life, my thoughts, and even my dreams. [ Again, he taps at it. ]
I was betrayed for that trust. By a person that before that moment... I would have been in your very seat, if something had happened.
That is how I know what you must do. How I can tell you what the cost is, if you do not harden yourself. How long will you have, before you feel the sting as well? Of that betrayal?
[ there's the breath of a laugh that leaves his lips like smoke from a pipe, slow and curling in the air between them — isn't it obvious? yes, he supposes it is. it is what has been hiding in silco's words, his actions, the driving force behind them all.
the line between silco and him is this, here: that silco had trusted and been betrayed, when silver had only ever trusted himself. he doesn't know the sting of betrayal, the slow poison it leaves in your veins, the kind of burn he sees in silco's ruined eye evey time he looks at him. ]
I don't know, [ he says, and for once there is nothing but honesty in his tone. slowly, he drags himself out of his chair, drags himself until he sits on the ground by silco's feet, leans his head against his knee — careful, ever so, because silco isn't a man to be touched lightly. and yet, there is some comfort here; in this vulnerability he would think twice to show most others. ]
I never used to trust anyone but myself. I didn't care what people thought of me, as long as I got what I wanted. But you, and Flint... you've both been betrayed so badly it almost burns to look at you, and yet you've turned that fire into something that matters. By becoming something... more. And I never thought that'd matter to me, but — I do believe in what he says. What you say. And I don't want to betray him... or you. Do you think I have that, in me?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
but here —
(no, not just here; he'd sacrificed his leg, in the end, for the crew. had chosen them over an easy escape, loyalty seeping into his blood when before it had run free of any.)
— here, he knows he can't survive alone. and there are those he finds he trusts, who he doesn't want to betray. whose good opinion means something to him. and those are muddled waters — easier, then, for him to look as silco taps at his eye, and the question spills from his lips unbidden, ]
What happened? [ to you, he doesn't say, but it is obvious. ]
no subject
[ He asks it simply, as if John didn't already know. ]
I made a mistake once. [ Was it what he'd done? Throwing a cocktail trying to save his friend? No, no. Yes, it was a mistake, but that wasn't the mistake. ]
I Trusted, Silver. I know the cost of caring too much, of trusting that someone would always be by your side. I believed in loyalty, but loyalty borne from closeness and not towards something bigger than any one person.
I thought I could trust someone with my life, my thoughts, and even my dreams. [ Again, he taps at it. ]
I was betrayed for that trust. By a person that before that moment... I would have been in your very seat, if something had happened.
That is how I know what you must do. How I can tell you what the cost is, if you do not harden yourself. How long will you have, before you feel the sting as well? Of that betrayal?
no subject
the line between silco and him is this, here: that silco had trusted and been betrayed, when silver had only ever trusted himself. he doesn't know the sting of betrayal, the slow poison it leaves in your veins, the kind of burn he sees in silco's ruined eye evey time he looks at him. ]
I don't know, [ he says, and for once there is nothing but honesty in his tone. slowly, he drags himself out of his chair, drags himself until he sits on the ground by silco's feet, leans his head against his knee — careful, ever so, because silco isn't a man to be touched lightly. and yet, there is some comfort here; in this vulnerability he would think twice to show most others. ]
I never used to trust anyone but myself. I didn't care what people thought of me, as long as I got what I wanted. But you, and Flint... you've both been betrayed so badly it almost burns to look at you, and yet you've turned that fire into something that matters. By becoming something... more. And I never thought that'd matter to me, but — I do believe in what he says. What you say. And I don't want to betray him... or you. Do you think I have that, in me?