imalwaystiredzzzz

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Penance IX (redux)

Priest!Silco x Fem!Reader AU (nsfw)

A/N: Its my birthday! Last year everyone in this fandom and all the friends I have made because of it made today one of the most special birthdays I have had in a long time. I felt more loved and surrounded in celebration with sweet friends then I had in years, and the cup of that happiness has not stopped running over. There are not enough ways to express my love and gratitude for everyone I've had the joy of meeting here.

So this year, I wanted to offer a gift to all of you. Everyone has been exceedingly patient about my writing struggles to continue Penance, so I'd like to give you the alternate Penance XI chapter- blood I have managed to wring from that stone of writers block. The fate of the continuation of this story may still be up in the air until inspiration comes knocking again, but at least I can share this with you today.

To all my fandom friends, and everyone who has been so supportive of this silly little smutty story. You have my heart.

This picks up after Chapter VIII

“Girl, are you listening?”

Sister Marta’s sharply scolding voice brought you back down to earth with a little jerk, blinking as you turned attention back to the tall, thin, sallow faced nun to meet the exasperated gaze of her cataract-hazed grey eyes.

“Sorry Sister.”  You mumbled, casting about for a context clue of whatever it was she might have been speaking about while you’d been off daydreaming about the priest of her parish.  Nothing jumped out at you in the dusty old store room of the basement where you both stood in the dim light of one naked and straining lightbulb still swinging gently upon its cord from the nun’s yank of its chain a moment before.

You hadn’t meant to drift off, but it had been four days since you’d seen Father Silco last and that painful, sweet contrition you’d done across the desk of his office was still fresh in your mind as if it had just happened.  You ought to have been angry at the fact he’d left you such an unsatisfied mess, and the fact he’d spanked you like a wicked child, in spite of his promise he’d never hurt you as they had back in school.

Truly, he had not.  Those sharp little slaps of his open hand were nothing compared to the cruelty of a sharp ruler across knuckles or the backs of thighs delivered by an angry, bitter nun.  You smiled faintly at Sister Marta’s increasingly irritated, withered old face and privately thought perhaps she could teach the Father a few things about corporal punishment.

“The candles, girl!”  Sister Marta exhorted at last, the thin limit of her patience snapping.

Unlike the ‘my child’ diminutive that the other nuns like Sister Eleanor or Sister Angelica were so fond of using with you and other parishioners, Sister Marta had no use for any such hollow faithful endearments.  You hadn’t yet made up your mind if it was an honest gruffness about her you liked, or an insulting mein you did not.  You had the notion it would have hardly mattered to the old woman either way.

She nudged one of the pair of low boxes with the toe of her sensible black shoe from under her long, dark habit.

“Take them to the Father to be blessed and then kindly refill the votive stands.  You can remove the spent ones and toss them.”  She explained, slower this time as if she was speaking to a simpleton.

You bore it with a tight little smile and bent to lift the box on top, surprised by the weight of it, staggering a bit upon rising only to catch a smugly satisfied look on the wrinkled old pucker of a face before Sister Marta reached up to pull the chain of the light and leave you to struggle out the door of the closet and back up the rickety old stairs of the basement in the dark, save for the light from the open door at the top of the steps.

Quietly you wondered if you accidentally fell and broke your neck, if the church would have their endowment free of the burden of your presence that came with it.

Cold comfort, knowing you’d crush the brittle bird-boned old woman climbing up, wheezing softly behind you, and take her with you if you did pitch backward down the steps.

The real trial wasn’t making it to the top of the stairs with the heavy box full of candles, though.  No, that one still lay ahead once you’d reached the top without incident.  The real trial lay in taking that armload into the rectory to face Father Silco once more and ask his blessing.

You’d thought you’d be safe if you came on a Thursday.  You’d avoided the parish planning committee on Monday, as well as your usual Wednesday session with the Father.  You’d hardly doubted you’d be missed at the planning meeting, and Wednesday, well.  You’d chosen to skip it half in a little act of spite, half just to see what might happen.  When no scolding phone call or visit had been forthcoming after shirking both of those commitments the victory felt hollow.  

Turning up to make yourself useful to the nuns on Thursday seemed like a good way to cover for your failed gambit and to keep from looking as if you were avoiding the church.  Foolishly, you’d thought perhaps you’d manage to skim by with just catching a glimpse of Father Silco in passing.  

Unsure if it was because you wanted to see him, or wanted him to see you.

You’d been on rocky footing ever since your little transgression in the confessional, and you knew it.  

The door to the rectory lay open just across from the basement door in the open nave of the large narthex, and you waited until Sister Marta crested the steps behind you and shut the basement door to hobble off heavily upon her cane, before you started the slow walk toward his office.  You didn’t let yourself hesitate in the doorway, and didn’t have a free hand to knock on the open door with anyway.  Instead, summoning all the calm composure you could muster, you simply walked in and paused before his desk.

He sat there, scribbling away in an open book, papers and letters and other books opened in a slightly scattered mess about his work, dark head bent and eyepatch on.  He left you standing there until he’d finished what he was writing. Until your elbows and wrists had begun to ache a little from the weight of the box you held.  Only then he sat back, letting his pen drop upon the desk as elbows found the armrests of his tall-backed chair and he turned the cool glint of that duplicitously calm ocean colored eye upward.

The thin, scarred cut of his mouth tugged a hint of a smile at one corner.

“Lamb.”  He stated mildly, as if unsurprised in the least to see you there and only half interested as to what you might want with him.

Infuriating, how badly you liked hearing that little endearment again.  How flustered it made you feel to get hooked on the edge of that smile.

The box shifted heavily in your hands as you juggled its weight and stepped forward to set it upon his desk.  Damn his paperwork.  

“Sister Marta asked if you’d bless these candles so I could put them in the votive holders.”  Your attempt to keep your voice as even and disaffected as possible only resulted in it coming out far softer than you’d meant for it to be.

Leaning forward a touch, Silco flipped one of the flaps of the cardboard lid back to glance at the candles inside with a little hum.  One by one he folded each of the other three flaps back and rose to his feet.  Elegant fingers stroked absently along the edge of one packaging dividers hashed between the votives within before he plucked a single candle out and set it aside.

Letting that cool eye of his drift shut he made the sign of the cross over the open box of remaining candles before opening both hands before himself, palms cupped upward.

“Lord Jesus Christ, true light that enlightens every man who comes into this world, bestow thy blessing upon these candles, and sanctify them with the light of thy grace. As these tapers burn with visible fire and dispel the darkness of night, so may our hearts with the help of thy grace be enlightened by the invisible fire of the splendor of the Holy Ghost, and may be free from all blindness of sin.”  

His eye opened and fell upon you, and suddenly you were profoundly aware of how you just stood there, staring at the tall, lean lines of him in that dark cassock, soaking in the sound of his voice and very obviously not with your hands folded in reverent prayer or eyes downcast as they ought to have been. Something entirely ungodly flickered at the edge of Father Silco’s mouth as he continued on, holding your immobilized gaze. 

“Clarify the eyes of our minds that we may see what is pleasing to thee and conducive to our salvation. After the dark perils of this life let us be worthy to reach the eternal light.”  His eye closed once more and again he made the sign of the cross over the box as he finished, “Through thee, Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, who in perfect Trinity livest and reignest, God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

His hands lowered, one coming to settle over the glass edge of the candle he’d set to one side, and he considered you as you crossed yourself hastily and reached forward to gather the box back up again.  He stopped you lifting it with a touch of the fingertips to its lid.

“When you are through with these, perhaps you’d come back here?”  Couched so carefully as a question, yet all you could hear was the quiet order in it.  Come back here.  Your head was nodding before he even finished speaking and the thin, dark brow not covered by his eyepatch quirked slightly.

“Yes, Father.” Your correction of yourself came nearly automatically.

Another little humming assent and with a slow blink he removed the touch that had stopped you lifting the box, resuming his seat.  You hoped he’d resume his work as well, but instead he sat there, watching you go, fingertips drumming thoughtfully upon the little glass votive.

You took your time with the candles, mostly because your hands were shaking and the very last thing you wanted to do was drop one of the blessed things and have it shatter across the church floor.  But also, to give you time to scrape yourself together, collect calm and poise.  It was no good, heart hammering anticipation equal parts nervousness and excitement.  The part of yourself that had wanted so badly to keep up this little charade of wishing to avoid him had succumbed without so much as a whimper.

Again thoughts drifted back to Sunday.  To the stinging warmth of skin under his hand, to how he’d teased you to a sodden mess without once slipping fingers beneath the barrier of cotton that had separated you.  To how he’d left you wanting and writhing and nearly in tears.  A perfect act of contrition, indeed.

It was a struggle not to let yourself wonder what next punishment he could possibly have in store for you.

Spent votives replaced with fresh ones, and the box filled with the clatter of the empty candleholders, you made your way back to his office.  Dropping the detritus of other people’s prayers off in the dumpster out back could wait.  You had your own worship to attend to.  

Father Silco’s desk was far less littered with papers when you returned, open books stacked neatly to one side now and everything else put away save for the book he was still writing in.  And that little candle he’d taken.  His dark head didn’t even lift as you set the softly clattering box down upon the settee against the wall.

“Office hours are over.”  He intoned flatly as you wiped palms nervously over the skirt of the dress covering your thighs.  

It froze you, cold like ice water suddenly filling the pit of your belly.  Had he just dismissed you after ordering you to return?  

“...Father?”  It came out a strangled little question and you almost hated how needy the note of your voice made that singular word.

He glanced up and you realized with a start that he’d removed that eyepatch, the hellish orange-red fire of his darkened eye a constant little shock every single time.  Ruined eye and teal flicked from you to the door and back again as if in blatant explanation.

“Lock the door.”  He elaborated.

It should not have been a matter of pride that you managed to turn and do his bidding without falling all over yourself or scrambling in an embarrassing rush of eagerness, and yet.  Far more collected than you felt within, you managed to push the door shut soundlessly and throw the latch, pausing for a moment with your back to him, safely sheltered in the little alcove of the doorway, to breathe through the easing of that sudden cold panic that had surfaced at your earlier misunderstanding.

When you returned to him he’d shut his notebook and set it aside atop the others, and reached to slide that pilfered votive candle before himself as he watched you sidle up to his desk.  Watched you stop, smooth the skirt of your dress only to fist it again in fitful hands, watched the tight little press of thighs as he drew out the silence.

“Do you know what these are called?”  He asked, nudging the little candle forward with the press of one elegant fingertip before rising from his seat.

“Devotionaries.”  You answered, and watched him cross to the wall to the right of you, to a tall coat stand that stood near the door to his quarters.  

“Very good.”  

A child could have answered that question, but it did not stop the little smile of pleasure that tugged at the corners of your mouth.  His praise as euphoric as a drug and twice as addictive, even for the smallest of successes.

Your mouth went dry however, as he turned profile to you, tugged a button or two open upon the throat of his cassock, and then turned his back to undo the rest before shrugging out of the long, dark cloth to hang it upon the coat stand.  The black fabric fell in a long and shapeless mass without him, hem puddling ever so slightly on the floor.  

It put you in mind of Peter Pan hanging up his shadow, or it would have done, had you not been so preoccupied with the shape of him divested of the dark habit.  Of that petulant posture and taut lovely lines, proud set of shoulders and careless, dangerous beauty in how he moved.  It was patently unfair that a man sporting licks of sliver at his temples and etched crows feet at the outset edges of his eye should have the lithe shape of youth the way he did.  

Devoid of the cassock, he was left instead in the black roman-collared linen shirt and dark, sharply pleated trousers he wore beneath. 

He turned back to you and came wandering back toward the desk, unbuttoning the cuffs at his wrists.

“Do you have a lighter?”  The question was so casual it caught you off guard and you had to shake your head, tugging at the pocketless skirt of your dress on either side of thighs by way of explanation.  

His mouth twisted the merest fraction of a smile as he tucked the cuff of one of his sleeves back, began rolling it neatly toward his elbow.  Lean hips turned a fraction as he stepped closer.

“Left pocket.”  He instructed, helpfully.

Hesitation grasped you but a moment before you inched forward, stepped into his space and paused.  Glancing upward, you found his attention fixed upon meticulously still folding his sleeves back, crisp turn by turn.  The focus of those mismatched eyes not even flickering to you, to how every fine hair upon your bare arms stood on end like they were aching toward him, toward that magnetic draw of snapping static thrumming in the air between you both.

Easing half behind him, you reached for the little gap of the pocket and slowly slid fingers into the warmth of its silken confines.  Over the bone of his hip and down, wrist deep until you hit the bottom of the pocket and touched the smooth, rectangular shape of the lighter within.  Metal heated to body temperature from where it nestled.  

Fingers curled around it before you stopped.  Let it go, and moved just a little closer, pressed fingers flat to that join between hip and thigh his pocket lay against.  Pushed the delve of that pocket just a little deeper and felt his stomach tense beneath your fingertips as your cheek brushed the outside of his upper arm.

“The lighter, lamb.  If you please.”  His tone was darkly amused at least, though if you kept pushing your luck it would be at your own cost.  That much was clear.

You scooped up the lighter once more, but withdrew your hand slow, knuckles grazing softly along the cut of muscle you could feel running from his hip inward and down.  Air felt unwelcomely cold against your skin once you pulled your hand free, and before you could step back, he moved away for you.  Walked away to resume his seat behind the desk as he finished doing up his other cuff to just below his right elbow.

A small push of his foot made space between the seat and the desk, and you only needed the flick of his eyes from you to the room he’d made to set you in motion to come and stand before him, his lighter clenched tight in your closed fist, unwilling to relinquish the little bit of his heat you held in your palm.

Gazing up at you, his attention licked over the details of your dress, your posture, your hesitant composure, as he tugged at the give of trousers a little at the bend of thigh and hip and settled himself more comfortably.

“You weren’t here yesterday.”  He observed as he relaxed back against the tall chair, a flicker of a blink over that oceanic eye.  You held your tongue and his gaze fell to the candle upon the desk just beside where you stood, and you wondered if your absence had made him angry, filled him with regret, or perhaps just left him lonesome.  You wished there was a way to tell, any little crack in that stoic mask of scarred features and sharpness to let the truth of what he was thinking seep out.  Nothing there though but that calculating, penetrating gaze and a subtle shrug of broad, lean shoulders,  “I suppose we might make up for lost time, then.  Contrition may be an important facet of faith, but so is devotion.”

He reached forward to scoop into fingers the loose end of the bow that tied the wrap of your dress shut beside your waist.  His good eye narrowed, the fine lines of crowsfoot deepening.  He’d seen that dress before, yes– the same one you’d worn to catch him by surprise in the confessional.  

You allowed yourself the most innocent little smile you could manage when those mismatched eyes flicked sharply to your face, and willed breath to stay even, slow, no matter how skin had begun to sing his name in soft coursing waves of prickling goosebumps.

“I don’t suppose you have your rosary?”  He asked archly, letting the ribbon of the bow drop from his open hand as he sat back once more.

He’d every right to ask it of you so dryly, given your lack of pockets.  And you had every right to feel as smug as you did when you lifted a hand, reached into the low, criss-crossed neckline of your dress and drew out the strand of little purple beads from the nestle of your bra.  

The war between shock, dark delight, the struggle to keep his poker face, and perhaps even a hint of righteous outrage that overtook the sharply handsome ruin of his features was nothing short of spectacular.  You’d replay it, over and over again at night.  Reveling in how well you toppled the high and mighty cold ivory pillar he so often perched upon.

Out and out you drew the beads until the little cross popped free and the rosary hung, swinging, upon your forefinger.

His hand, resting upon his knee, tightened, fingers twitching slightly, before it stilled, then lifted, palm open in demand.

You dropped that little holy object into his hand and watched his fist close around it, knowing full well he now held a little piece of your heat as surely as you held his within your other hand.  There was a slight softening to the creases where thin brows met over that sharp nose that told you he felt it, too.

“Good girl.”  He murmured, and the flush that crept up to warm your ears was nearly as delicious as the thrill that both chased up your spine and tugged at the backs of your knees to fold, to kneel.  You rested the heel of your palm upon the desk behind you and let it take your weight so that you did not cave.

By the time he turned his face back up to you he’d mastered his expression once more, beatific calm singed at its hard edges.

“Turn around,”  He instructed, making the simple order sound heavy, dangerous.  Bringing thighs together from their slight sprawl, he patted the top of one, “Have a seat.”

Heart thudded hard in your ears as you did as you were bade, turning to sink onto his lap carefully, perched upon his knees.  He sucked chipped teeth softly at it.

“Have a seat,”  That grit velvet voice scolded gently from behind you as both his hands curled about your waist and urged you backward, until you sat comfortably fully upon him, back fitted to his front.  

A hand upon your hip skimmed over stomach and waist, back to the bow of your dress.

“Why do we say devotions?”  He asked, and you could feel the question purring through his chest against your back as he claimed the thick ribbon of the bow and tugged.  The knot gave with no resistance, and the part of it he held served nicely to pull the cross of your dress open, just enough to part the skirt of it and leave you bare from stomach to thighs.  

The shudder that overtook you was sweet and slow, wringing from core to limbs, leaving a little shivering tingle rising over scalp and curling toes, that familiar little throbbing ache back with a hot and hungry vengeance.  Hips shifted in your seat as his fingertips ghosted skin to part fabric and push it aside, leaving your lower half bare save for the dark, smooth satin of underwear in the same shade of inky black as his habit.

“To remember the dead?”  You chanced, feeling halfway there yourself, pulse racing erratically.

“Sometimes,” He agreed, and you swore you felt the whisper of scarred lips at your neck.  Certainly felt the wash of warm breath plume over skin, “More generally devotions are an act of prayer or private worship.  Remembrance is one act, as are service, reflection, beseeching, prostration… your rosary, for example, is considered a devotion.”

His hands slid along your arms, touch warm, bringing your hands together to press in prayer before he began to wind the beaded strings around your wrists again to bind them together.

“I thought that was a penance.”  You exhaled in a shuddering little rasp.

“It can be, but not today.”  The tip of his sharp nose drew a long, slow line against the rise of your spine, above the neckline of your dress between shoulder blades and to the base of your skull, “although that can be a devotion too.”

The heel of his foot caught the floor and pulled the seat with you both in it forward towards his desk, so that he could reach around you and lift the candle from where it sat before pushing you both back again.  He held the votive before you.

“Light it,” he asked, free arm curling about you, fingers trailing the soft of your stomach from navel on down, “I owe you a devotion, lamb.”

Fingers bound in prayer fumbled with the thick golden rectangle of the lighter as you struggled not to simply sink back against him with a little shiver and beg that he stroke that little path across vulnerable skin once more.  A flick of your thumb sent the hinged lid open and the circular little flint struck on the second attempt, hot flame bursting to life.  Silco turned the candle so that you could light it and then pulled it away as you flicked the lighter shut and slipped it back between folded hands.

“Do you know the devotional prayer?” He asked, hand holding the candle coming to settle upon an armrest as his lap shifted beneath you, lean legs pressing together beneath your own and lifting before spreading wide, the hook of his knees beneath your thighs opening them in an indecent slow splay.  

It set you writhing; the kissing chill of the air of the room contrasting sharply with the heat of him beneath you, so very bare, bound in his lap, spread open like an invitation.  The door was locked, yes, you’d made sure of it but what if you were wrong?  What if someone had a key?  There’d be no explanation for the position you found yourself in, no way to hide.

The thrill of that little licking fear warred with the light caress of his free hand as it curled over the top of one thigh and smoothed toward your knee, only to hook it better in its drape over his own before it began the slow teasing, lazy circles that drew it back toward the little throbbing want hidden beneath the black satin gusset of thin panties.

“Bare legs.”  He murmured, and you gave another little squirm, folded hands pressing together tighter.  You’d not worn what you were coming to suspect was his favorite item of your clothing because you’d not expected to see him, and also to spite him if you did.  The move seemed to have backfired spectacularly.  When you had no excuse or answer, Father Silco simply carried on, a note of pleased amusement in his tone, “The prayer?”

“N-no.  That is, no I don’t know it.”

“Hmn.”  His little hum of disapproval at the gaps still existing in your liturgical knowledge colored your cheeks, and you could only hope that from his position he could not see the frustration that joined the embarrassment upon your face.  

You watched him lift the candle slowly from where he’d held it at your side, bring it to hover over your open lap.  His hand upon your thigh stilled its toying little strokes and instead closed in a taut grip of your leg, soft skin denting tenderly beneath his fingers.

“That’s alright,” he reassured you quietly, and you could hear the dark little smile in it, “This is my devotion anyhow.”

The flickering little candle he held hovering before you began to tilt, turn, and the inward gasp of breath caught in your throat as the clear melted wax welled at the lip of the red glass before spilling over, heat spattering in a little drip against the sensitive skin of your knee.  

He paused, and you could feel him shift under your restless hips, feel the little roll of his own and the way his breath strained ever so slightly for just a moment.

“Does that hurt?”  Low and velvet that voice mumbled up against the skin behind the fold of your ear and again he tipped a little burning drop of wax onto waiting skin.  

Your knee jumped the barest fraction, reflexive little jerk at the soft scalding that faded quickly into gentle warmth, and you nodded, folded hands pressing the knuckles of forefingers tight to your lips.

“A little.”  You breathed, raggedly.

“Enough to stop?”  He pressed, and the soft moan of a sigh that broke from you when the warmth of his mouth touched to the hard thrum of your pulse answered well enough for you before your shattered little ‘no’ eked out.

His fingers had strayed far up the leg they’d been casually toying across, toward the heat that he had to feel absolutely radiating from the apex of thighs.  One long forefinger drew a tracing line around the triangle of slippery black satin, up both edges and across your lower stomach slowly.

Air seized in your throat as his fingertips plucked at the smooth waistband.

“Lord, may this candle which I light illuminate all my difficulties and decisions.”  Silco began, waiting to feel the tension stringing through you begin to ease before he spilled another dollop of wax, and then a second and third a bit further up each time.  The soft sting of it had you writhing, the little shock of burning heat fading to a warm tickle as the wax rolled down in heavy drips, cooling against your skin.

Behind you, Silco’s breath caught in a little huff once more, a soft whistle between clenched chipped teeth on the inhale.

“May this candle be a fire,”  He continued after a beat, spreading the warm little shocks and sudden pinching stings to the tender inner thigh of your other leg, “that burns away all my pride, selfishness…” 

Writhing and shifting, you struggled in his lap, not wanting to escape yet fighting the way every fibre of you recoiled from the spattering searing sting of the wax in a reflexive, uncontrollable urge.  Several of these squirming jerks of your hips and the hand teasing at the edge of your panties caught suddenly in a taut cup between your legs as you felt Silco’s own hips give a hard little shove upward.  

Stilling breathlessly, he kept you waiting a long moment while he seemed to struggle to master himself, the fingers cupping you picking up an almost absent little up and down stroke over the satin covering the shape of your sex, unerringly finding the cleft between lips.  

Cooling wax flexed and tugged at skin as you tried to spread a bit further for him, to press into his touch, scared if you were to beg for more with words that it might stop the tease entirely, as it had the last time he’d had his hand between your thighs.  God, how he’d tormented you, brought you so terribly close… Hips rolled hard and slow against him in retaliation as you relived your humiliation.

As if reading your mind, his touch skimmed higher, and fingertips tucked themselves beneath the satin confines of the upper edge of panties, teasing little strokes at skin that tensed and trembled beneath his touch before they began to slip lower, “and all my other sins.” 

Wax was flowing freely, dripping to punctuate each word, taking his sweet time as you wriggled and bucked in his lap, swallowing little gasps and hisses as your skin sang.

At least one shift of your hips must have caught him just right because for a moment you could hear him choke on his words, feel him tense beneath you again.  Determined to give as good as you got you did it again and felt the rush of his breath fan against your neck.

His free hand tensed where it lay, fingertips so tremulously close to the cleft of lips, and delved to catch a second taut grip over the shape of your bare sex.  The sudden hard grasp of naked contact had you spiraling, arching hard back against him.  He was hard beneath you, you could feel it, and caught between his hand and that hint of hardness digging into the soft of your bottom you rocked slowly, only to be rewarded with a long pour of hot wax up your thigh that turned the gentle motion of hips to a wild little ride.

“May this candle be a flame,” He continued, and the broken rasp of his voice was nearly, nearly as sweet as the single slow caress of his finger that found the slick part of your folds and pressed between slippery skin to drag upward.  Unerringly found the proud, eager little swell of your clit and sent your lower back into a hard strung arch with one little nudge, “that warms my heart and incites me to love.”  He concluded, raggedly, and you swore you felt the graze of chipped teeth scrape over your shoulder.

Riding the light touch of his fingertip and behind you, the hard press of his cock through his pants and your open dress, you sprawled redolently back against him, let your neck find a home in a comfortable arch over his shoulder before turning your head, nestling forehead in the hollow of his throat before shifting to tuck a begging little kiss to the sharp of his jaw.

“Amen.”  You finished for him, and felt the sting of wax hit your hip and then your stomach that made you hiss and buck hips once more.  Your reward a groan of breath from him and another lingering stroke of his fingertips through soaked folds to flick caressingly at the sweet throbbing ache of your clit.

How long, how many bitter nights now had you wished for this, how many feverish and filthy dreams had you endured, just longing to feel his bare touch?  It had become so much worse after your last meeting, all that sharp longing redoubled after his heartless punishing teasing.

No more, no more thin cotton or sheer lace or anything at all between his touch and you.  The heat of his hand was nothing to the splashes of searing wax you’d endured, yet it was so much sweeter.  That little flicking touch came ghosting over the sensitive little nub of your clit and you writhed unashamedly, trying every which way to force his touch more, closer, deeper.

The prayer was far too short for your liking.  What good were hollow words meant to convey something as strong and fervent an ideal as devotion if they were over in mere minutes?  Grumbling a little whinging protest you pushed back against him with a hard roll of hips.

“Father…” You objected, voice cracked with pleading.

“Who?”  The grit dark velvet of his voice asked at your ear, delighted and tormented as the devil himself.

“Daddy.”  The word was out before you could even think it, like it teetered perpetually on the edge of your teeth ever since the first time he prised it out of you,  “P-please, please, daddy…”

The sharp blade of his nose shoved hard behind your ear, his ragged breathing a hushed tickling whuffle from narrow nostrils, and any further pleading you were on the verge of was stifled with a squealed little gasp as he spread the sodden petals of your pussy with the splay of three fingers, and the center one of those long, elegant digits found its way down between slicking folds, delving deep into the welcoming clenching grip of your want… only to withdraw his entire hand in a long, slow drag, tracing a line of accusatory wet all the way up to the dip of your navel.

It left you sobbing tearlessly, gasping and gulping and lifting hips in a wordless eagerness that only earned you another splattering of scalding wax across the strain of thighs.

Father Silco ignored your plight as steadfastly as any man of the cloth could ignore temptation, and began a new prayer.

“Earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,

    my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land

    where there is no water.”

The psalm he recited washed over you like a slow caress while you squirmed fitfully on his lap and watched his hand lift, middle finger glossed to its base with your wet.  Vanishing in your periphery, the sound of him sucking that long digit thoughtfully clean acted perfect punctuation to the sacrilege of his misappropriated prayer.  

Guilt spiced the edge of half-denied pleasure and soft pain.  As his hand slid back down your skin and toward the clenching, shivering yearning of your core, you’d never felt so debased, so deeply wicked and wrong.  Burning wax hit your thigh once more in heavy, rolling drops and you arched, straining, hissing between clenched teeth; become more serpent in the garden of Eden than Eve.

“I have seen you in the sanctuary

    and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life,

    my lips will glorify you.”

He teased the upper edge of soaked panties once more, tracing the pucker of their hem, slipping fingertips just beneath them, savoring the softness of skin and the way the taut of your stomach quivered beneath his touch.  Desire welled like a dark stone filling your throat, heart coated in the sticky sap of filthy blasphemous sin as his scarred mouth tickled at the hook of your jaw and tender line of your throat.  This was wrong, so wrong, so deliciously perfectly throbbingly wrong.

Heat flooded your face as you crushed the press of prayer folded hands to your forehead, eyes shut tight against the rushing high of mortifying lust.  Forbidden, taboo, illicit; whatever you wanted to call that gut-deep and undisputed knowledge that this was unforgivably wrong, it excited you in a way nothing else ever had.

He could see it in you, you knew he could.  He saw how horrible your deepest darkest thoughts could be and he just kept dragging them out into the light, smiling as he let you dirty yourself with the honesty of your predilections.  

The line of his arm tightened against your side as he reached to slip fingers back into your heat, another lazy circling tease to against clit that left you wrung out and breathless before he delved back inside of you and let you ride the slow pumping slide of one long finger.

“I will praise you as long as I live,

    and in your name I will lift up my hands.

 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;

    with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”

Your head rocked as he butted his forehead gently to your temple, words a warm, seeping whisper at your cheek, that stern, gravel worn seduction of his voice undoing you, taking you apart at the seams until you felt sure you’d fall open there in his lap like a ragdoll with the sin-like sawdust spilled out.

Inside of you, he was inside of you- and just that knowledge, just the wretchedly wonderful wrongness of it made the whole of you jerk in a taut little shiver of surrender.  That slender artful finger kept up its torment like he had no notion of your mortal struggle; curling, thrusting, buried deep.  It had you in a tailspin, hips working devoid of conscious thought, all sensation dialed down to the hard, hot, fluttering building to a crescendo within.  Greed, gluttony, lust… were they called deadly sins because you felt fit to die if you did not satisfy each one right this moment?  

The stinging pain of the wax he kept dripping in erratic little patterns jerked you from the sinking, seeping pit of ecstatic bliss over and over again, a cruel and wonderful see-saw that kept you gripping white-knuckled on the sharp edge of insensible pleasure.

“On my bed I remember you;

    I think of you through the watches of the night.

Because you are my help,

    I sing in the shadow of your wings.

I cling to you;

    your right hand upholds me.”

His right hand was all that stood between you and heaven; the grinding press of the heel of his palm to the throb of your clit, the smooth slow fucking his single finger was giving you, all of it an overwhelming agony of delight but just shy of what you needed to crest the rising wave of tense bliss he was intent on drowning you with.

Head tossed back, you groaned that little, broken, sordid version of his holy title once more, hands bound at the wrists with your rosary clenched in fervent prayer to your chest that he’d let you come, please God just let you come... 

And with that one word, beneath you Father Silco went suddenly still and rigid, something like a strangled gasp caught in his throat as hips pinned under your writhing ones jerked their own stilted thrust upward… and held for a long and breathless moment before you felt him sag with a rushing, panting release.  His hand cupped to you had gone quite still, and you could feel the ragged rise and fall of his chest against your back.

Had he… had he just…?  You shifted hips experimentally and heard him hiss a wordless scolding as his hand gripped the shape of your pussy hard.  Stilling obediently, you had to struggle not to smile sinful bliss.  

Just a little touch of you combined with the friction of your hips working in his lap and he’d cum those dark, well tailored pants of his.

In spite of being robbed of your own relief, for the moment you felt nothing but powerful, smug and heady with the evidence of how your infatuation was not one-sided, just as you had in the confessional, and it made you foolishly proud.

Proud, right up to the point when he withdrew his finger from within you and in the space of a half second, just before your mouth could open in complaint, caught a little pinch of your clit between thumb and middle finger only to assault that overstimulated cluster of slick nerves with his forefinger in such lashing that you pitched clean into the waiting arms of your release.  

It was hard and fast, unmerciful, the lovely strain nearly ruined by how long he’d kept you waiting and how hard he’d teased you up to it.  

“Amen.”  He was purring in your ear, voice near drowned out by the hard thrumming pound of blood rushing in your brain.  Thighs shivered in their hook over top of his own, gone weak as every ounce of tension bled out of you, leaving you lolling, warmly pliant and sighing devoutness far more fervent than any stale saint could have possibly understood. 

There was a little click of glass as he set the remains of the candle back upon his desk and turned your face toward himself where your head lay back upon his shoulder.  Fingers traced the curve of your cheek, and when he licked at the open part of your lips the faint taste of yourself mingled with him lingered.  Bless me father, for I have sinned.  

Profane and perfect, you felt his smile stretch against your mouth.  

“Do you doubt my devotion, lamb?”  He asked quietly, hands smoothing away the cooled and peeling wax in long strokes that left gently welted and red splotched skin stinging sweetly.  

Your head shook infinitesimally, not wanting to break the scant contact of his mouth to your own.

“Do you pray for me, Father?”  The urge to know felt crushing, the weight of guilt creeping in to gnaw at the edges of sordid bliss.

“Oh lamb.  You’re the only thing I pray for anymore.”

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Hello today i was collecting references for sketching purposes and,,, i just-

Look

Look at his face… in such a short moment you can see so so much, the abject terror of the moment, the desperation of breah and what gets me the most is like,, to me at least, he looks heartbroken.

God and the fact you can see the nerve damage has already set in where his face is injured bc his eyebrow isnt moving. The detail of that is insaaaane, like they rlly dont miss a trick with the animation.

this is genuinely one of the reasons i struggle to characterise Vander because how can you see this!!! ^^^

And go back and grab him again

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Posted this on my instagram (@alofia_illustration) but forgot to post here. Loved Arcane s2, maybe more than s1. Stunning, incredible, phenomenal, showstopping.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Postliminary Conversations

always thought that Silco became a council member in the ep 7 AU... I would've loved to see him interact w/ Mel or Cassandra 🥹🥹🥹

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Chembarons: fighting for their lives

Silco: good meeting😌🤭🤭

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

𝐒𝐨 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫. 𝐒𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫.

Ah yes, my favorite trope. When even the Calm and Calculated™ character fucking loses it due to insane circumstances.

I'm back on my 'Silco in the hours just after he's been betrayed' shenanigans. We love ourselves some shock and disbelief.

The Undercity is a cruel and frightening place at the best of times. I imagine it's an altogether different kind of nightmare to have to face it alone.

Alone, outcast and wounded. And likely believing you are being hunted.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Happy Holidays!! 😊🎼🎹🎻

A step by step process of this will be available on my Patreon on december 1st!

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

There's something so perverse about how Jayce is paraded around in white and red and gold when his House colors are clearly shades of blues and browns.

Especially because the more he is used and controlled by the council as a whole, the more he is plastered about as some figurehead or poster boy of Piltover's progresses, the more he is draped in the gilding of false colors.

We actually never get to see him wearing his own House colors past his flashback with the mage, in which the majority of his little outfit is made up of the more humble color scheme.

The only thing he actually still owns in his house colors is the blanket he gives to Viktor, which can be seen in his childhood room and is made of the same material his mother wore during the blizzard for warmth.

Edit to add:

I'm adding this to the original post so y'all don't assume I just didn't analyze the literal BEST Jayce outfit in the whole series.

It's a mourning shroud.

While the highlights may have some blue to them (blue highlighting is very common in animation to keep things from looking dull or muddy) the midtone on his shirt is actually in the yellow field.

Also, no. The Talis House symbol is not red. It's brown and gold (sometimes with white).

Any red relating to the Talis symbol is BECAUSE of the color corruption of Jayce, not in spite of it.

The outfit still has meaning, but as I said in the post, he NEVER goes back to his family colors after being paraded around in the red, gold, and white.

This outfit is black, red, and silver. His armor is black and gold with an off white coat (to show that he's still doing this in a way for Piltover as well, probably.)

It's and end and new beginning. It's a rebirth.

Not a return.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Betrayal.

That pain that feels like it'll eat you from the inside out, can either break you or forge you into something greater.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Oh yeah I forgot that there's this opinion that Silco "was blindsided by power and wealth" and "lost his way" and "he only did what he did to benefit himself all along" etc etc. Uh. Where- where did you get that from? I'm not even being sarcastic or something, I'm genuinely curious how you can come to this conclusion.

He operates from a crappy office in The Last Drop and the only attributes of wealth he has are cigars and whiskey(?). My man had one pair of pants for 10+ years and only got a fancy coat to look more intimidating. Besides, when chembarons proposed to give back the gemstone to Piltover so their sales don't drop even harder Silco refused. Also he was ready to give up his power when Jayce made imprisoning Jinx a requirement for Zaun to gain independence. Sure, he IS motivated to keep his daughter safe, but it would also mean that his goal will finally be achieved, so there's nothing left for him to do. Both wealth and power are only means to achieve a goal to him. He also doesn't really display that he gets the kick out of it, unlike councilors in Piltover.

"Well yes he wants Zaun to be independent, but only as he personally sees it" when did he EVER say that??😭😭😭😭 Every time he speaks on the topic he only mentions how he wants Zaunites to have opportunities, respect, "more than (Piltover's) runoff". Like- that's literally everything he ever said about this. All that matters to him is independence, he couldn't care less about everything else.

As to "losing his way"...idk I think this can only be attributed to pre-drowning Silco. Because after it he pretty much decided to stick to what he now believed in forever, and at no point except the finale he went south from his beliefs.

Silco isn't "misguided" or "corrupt" or any other similar definition. He's a character who chose to become a monster to bring change to his people. And as s2 didn't do anything about resolving this conflict, he was never really proven wrong.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

OKAY CHAT I DIDN'T INTEND IT TO BE THIS WAY BUT THIS POST IS SUPER-HUGE. Read at your own risk lol

*taps the mic* Uh, welcome to Chili's. So, I mustered up the courage to finally make a post about how I view Silco and Jinx's relationship and why I think it is actually a lot better than it's commonly perceived. Please please please do not assume that I do this to specifically whitewash Silco or make him less morally gray, this is my genuine read on them based on my own experience and views. I do not claim that I don't have any bias at all, but I think that it didn't influence my opinion that much.

I am going to say this from the start: I don't have much negative to say about them and I don't think of their relationship as toxic. If this point of view is unacceptable to you, please disregard this post. However, if you want to discuss this topic with me and challenge my points, please be civil about it and don't insult me. I don't have any ill intentions, nor am I trying to normalize unhealthy behavior.

Okay, from this preamble to another. This analysis is going to be based entirely on season 1 and nothing else. Some of my points will address common perceptions about them in the fandom, some I'll write as a regular analysis.

Now let's start shall we (yes, this is going to be a one long post because they're so so important to me). In the second paragraph I said that I don't view their relationship as toxic. Let me explain. I think this is a very complex topic and opinions will vary from person to person. Considering that both Silco and Jinx are mentally ill this adds another layer to our already complicated cake. So, for me toxic relationships are those where at least one person almost always behaves in the way they see is right, disregarding other person's wants or needs. It also must include unhealthy/toxic behaviors, i. e. manipulation, gaslighting, possessiveness, control over other person's decisions, physical and/or emotional abuse etc etc. These behaviors must be routinely occurrences and not happen only once or twice. You can say: "But a lot of things you listed exactly describe how Silco behaves towards Jinx!" well. No but I'll get to this later.

There's also an elephant in the room we need to deal with: codependency. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on the topic or even well-informed, but I have a feeling that this term is a Bit overused. Terms, especially medical ones, are very useful for describing one specific thing. But as of late a lot of terms are used on things that are not. Well. The thing the term is describing. You don't need to go far for examples: hyperfixation, depression, panic attack, etc. When knowledge becomes widespread, things like that are inevitable, unfortunately. But back to the topic. Are Jinx and Silco's relationship codependent? I personally don't think so. One of the key characteristics of a codependent relationship is losing a sense of self and disregarding your wants/needs, and Jinx and Silco never display that. They are very self-driven characters. And while Jinx did do some things to impress Silco, it's not necessarily a symptom of a codependent relationship specifically. Again, I'll compare it to medical symptoms. If your right side hurts it doesn't mean you have appendicitis, if you have a short attention span it doesn't mean you have ADHD. Mental health problems Jinx and Silco have can be just that: mental health problems. Trust issues, low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, etc. They don't need to be a part of a bigger problem, even if there are some similarities. (Also just a side note: I got misdiagnosed with OCD this year, so I take correct descriptions and understanding of conditions/words very personally).

MAN THAT WAS TOO LONG. GET TO THE ACTUAL POINTS.

Alright. So first of all, Jinx and Silco are VERY trusting of each other. They both allow each other to enter their personal spaces, and feel comfortable and free in each other's presence. Silco allows Jinx to do his eye injections, to show him physical affection, he also trusts her with missions for his job, even when everyone else is against it. When Jinx in ep4 tells him that "(her screw up) won't happen again", he simply answers "I know". Despite Jinx's own insecurities Silco fully trusts her (sometimes even to his own detriment). And she fully trusts him as well (until the whole Vi shenanigans anyway), what can be seen in a way she's not afraid of his emotions or even to hurt him, because she knows perfectly well that he'll never harm her in any way (physical, I mean). And although there is a clear miscommunication between them in ep4 I don't think it's a common thing between them, and this specific case was caused by Jinx's deeply rooted trauma and low self-esteem, which Silco is unfortunately unable to fix.

Now onto the probably most common criticism of Silco specifically: that he made Jinx his weapon and raised her to be this bloodthirsty on purpose. And to this I say - no way. Silco DOES love Jinx and DOES trust her, but he's not blind and not an idiot. He perfectly knows that Jinx can cause a huge mess and potential troubles on the missions, his subordinates hate her, her mental state is unstable and therefore she's not the most reliable asset in the slightest, nor a necessary one. At no point do we get actual proof that Silco needs Jinx specifically for his operations, he seems to allow her to participate in them out of her own volition. After all, she does like being needed and included in the family business. You could argue that he needs Jinx for her gadgets and weapons, but nobody besides her uses them, so this option doesn't fit. "But he did request her to build Fishbones!" yeah. After Jinx stole the gemstone, again, out of her own choice. Silco is a swift strategist, if he sees an opportunity somewhere he takes it immediately. So there's nothing actually wrong with him asking Jinx to build a weapon with the use of gemstone. She didn't steal it for it to just. Lie there, after all. As to her bloodthirsty-ness I think he only nurtured what was already there. If you remember, in the very first episode Jinx made a bomb with NAILS in it. I don't think I need to tell you that it's just a horrible idea for a bomb, and she was only 9 at the time. As to Silco's "become what they fear" line. I don't think it indicates that he specifically raised Jinx to be a weapon, because he applied the same phrase to himself and we don't see him running around throwing glitter bombs at everyone (although it would've been cool to see ngl).

Next - Silco is very supportive of Jinx. His office is filled with things she drew all over, her inventions are tied to the ceiling. When Jinx is overwhelmed and upset about the failed mission he tells her to "focus on her gadgetry" and to "take some time". He clearly knows what she likes and what would put her in a better mood. He also doesn't restrict her self-expression, which can be seen in the way Jinx looks. I mean, you'd think that Silco would probably want for her to wear something more...classy? But he doesn't mind even one bit.

Another point I see a lot - that Silco loves Jinx but not Powder. I actually kiiinda understand where this point of view comes from, because the show does frame Vi and Silco as representatives of her Powder and Jinx persona respectively, but I don't think the text itself supports this. Let's take the river scene because it is the cause of this discussion in the first place after all. Silco tells Jinx that she needs "to let Powder die" and that "Jinx is perfect", but I don't necessarily agree that he meant it in a "choose between two of your personas" kind of way, because this conflict never existed between them in the first place. Vi does want "Powder" to come back, but Silco didn't show anything that would indicate of him disliking young Jinx in any way. He did adopt her when she was still Powder, after all. And even if she changed her name on the same night, her personality didn't, because that's not how humans work. So, he NEEDED to love Powder to raise her. Back to the river scene, he tells Jinx that she needs to let Powder die so "the fear of pain would no longer control (her)". "Powder" is tightly connected to Jinx's trauma of killing her entire family and Vi leaving her, i. e. the fear of pain of being betrayed again and the fear of messing up. In terms of psychology she really does need to live through this moment and properly process it, but unfortunately there's no psychologists in neither Piltover or Zaun, and Silco being mentally ill and not knowing better himself can only help her this way. "Jinx is perfect" also doesn't mean that he prefers Jinx over Powder, but rather "Jinx, the person you are right now, is perfect and strong. You need to let that weak part of you (Powder) die, so you can move on and become something greater". Jinx might've interpreted his line in the wrong way herself, but again, there's no actual evidence of Silco liking "Powder" less and only ever wanting "Jinx". And if we hop further into the finale, he literally says "YOU are perfect". Whatever seat she chooses, she will always be perfect to him. Even if she turns against him and everything he fights for, even if she kills him, even if she hates him, she remains perfect in his eyes. He might differentiate "Powder" and "Jinx" and a weaker/stronger part of her, but despite all that she's still his daughter.

Also. He's dealing with her mental health SOOOO great chat it's not even funny. I mean obviously he can't take care of it perfectly because again, psychology is non-existent in this world, but everything he CAN do he does just sooo good. He never lets other people berate or insult her, if he scolds her he only ever does this in private, he always tries to be patient and gentle with her, and the only time we seem him lash out at her is after Jinx stole the gemstone. He also seems to know what causes her psychosis and how to stop it, because he yells "Don't listen to her!" to Jinx when Vi triggers her, and then proceeds to try and shoot in Vi's direction to shut her up. We now know that this wasn't the best decision at all, but he literally goes feral when Jinx is hurt, so can you really blame him? There is of course an issue of him enabling her violence and letting her do everything she wants, but to cut Silco some slack he deals with a very mentally ill child, and as we saw in ep3 cutting Jinx off of something can easily cause her to have a mental breakdown. So I think partly his enabling was caused by his want not to hurt her.

Phew. I think we only need to get through the minor points now.

Manipulation: we only ever see Silco manipulate Jinx once, when he lied to her about Cait and Vi's reason for being in the Underground. Nothing indicates that he regularly manipulated her before.

Possessivness: I think this claim also doesn't have substantial evidence to back it up. We only see Silco being possessive of Jinx because of Vi, and even then it's not pure possessiveness. He literally doesn't want Jinx to be betrayed and possibly even killed like him. I think if Jinx just wanted to leave him on her own he would be a-okay with that. Also he doesn't watch over what she does/where she goes, which again reinforces his trust in her and him respecting her privacy.

Silco isolated Jinx from others: uhhh. See the end of the previous paragraph. If Jinx wanted to befriend someone she could've easily done that, and Silco wouldn't even know. The only person she couldn't befriend because of him is Ekko, but even he says to Vi that Jinx chose to be on Silco's side herself, so *shrugs*

And with that, I think I covered everything I wanted about their relationship. It's not perfect, but it's not bad either. Personally, I don't want to label it as anything, because minus the drug mafia and murders aspects they're just a regular father and daughter. There are no perfect parents, there are no perfect children, but if they try their hardest to love each other in a way they're both happy with, they're great in my book.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

SINCO SINCOSINCO ITS BEEN IN MY HEAD AND SCRAPING AT MY SKULL FOR THE PAST I DONTKNOWWWW AAAAAAAAAA

all the brainrot was actually them

they're melting my mind with shimmer and words of wisdom

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

a victim of great tragedy

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

I like to think they were friends once upon a time

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

Me? A Silco sympathizer? Well, yes. Yes actually I am because the more I think about the more I think I have to be.

Silco was a young man who grew up with so much pain and suffering around him. All he ever knew was hardship, but despite it all he managed to live the best life he could have possibly managed for himself. He had community, family, and friendship. He had respect for others and the respect of others. He had a dream, people worth fighting for, people that loved him and people he in return loved. And he lost everything. He lost the very people he was fighting for, the ones that cared about him. He lost his humanity at the hands of Vander, his own brother who brutally betrayed him. Vander seemingly blindsided Silco at the river. He blamed him for something that was nowhere near his fault. He gave up on their dream, their home, at the first sign of trouble. He seemingly got Silco's peers and neighbors to turn on him and see him as nothing more than a monster. Can you imagine the confusion and hurt Silco must have felt in that moment? Or even the years afterwards? From Silco's perspective, he has no idea why Vander did what he did, and Vander never made any attempt to try to make amends. Vander was going to kill him that night. How do you think Silco felt, raising a knife against his kin just to save his own life? How do you think Silco felt looking the mirror every day after, knowing that a person he loved so deeply had became a monster and turned Silco into a literal monster? How do you think Silco felt when he walked the streets of Zaun and saw the way people recoiled away from him, because of his eye and reputation?

Silco was a good person. He had hopes and desires and a capacity to be kind. And all that, everything that made him him, everything that made him a human in his own eyes and the eyes of society was ripped away from him. He lost it all and he had to do it alone. Silco seemingly had no one outside of Vander and Felicia and he lost both of them. How do you think Silco reconciled that? Do you think he blamed himself for everything? Did he search his memories trying to find the exact moment where things went wrong? Did he think it was his fault that Vander betrayed him, that he deserved it in some way? Or did he know that he didn't deserve it, did he know that night was all on Vander? Did Silco hate himself for Felicia's death? Did he see himself responsible for her the same way Silco did? Did he ever wonder what became of her body, of her children? Or could he not bear the thought?

Silco had zero tools to help himself process his trauma and he didn't have a single person to comfort him. So what did Silco do? He accepted what happened to him in the only way he knew how. He completely abandoned the man he used to be, the man that knew love and affection and paid the price for it. He became the monster Vander saw him as. He dedicated his existence to the cause Felicia died for, the cause Vander was willing to kill him for. He didn't care about the costs and consequences and why should he have? Everything, literally everything he had and cared about was gone. The only thing Silco had left to lose was his own life, so he may as well try his hardest to get independence for his city, for his people, for himself, for Felicia's memory. And in the process he completely damned himself to a miserable and bitter life without humanity. And despite it all, despite how much he tried to put things in the past, to completely reinvent himself, he couldn't do it. The pain was still there. The man he used to be lived, even if it was in the smallest way.

There are a few moments where you can see his vulnerability. For example, the scene where he and Vander talk for the first time since the betrayal. Despite everything that Vander did to him, Silco still wanted Vander to work with him. He still saw Vander as his brother, and he still loved him. "I trusted you...and you betrayed me." You can see the pain in his eye when he says those words, how much he wishes things were different. We see how lonely he is, how he has no one except Jinx and Sevika, how he's isolated himself from any possible connection. We see how stressed he is all the time, how he's so tired of it all.

But the clearest way to see Silco's humanity is with Jinx. We can see a clear switch in him when he comes across Jinx as a child. He has no reason to take her in, to comfort her, and yet he does it anyway. He holds her with all the gentleness he has and whispers words of solidarity and understanding. Silco is always at his weakest when he's with Jinx, because Jinx makes him human again. Jinx makes him loving and warm and himself again. Jinx is healing him and he cares so much for her. He's so afraid to lose her, so afraid that she'll leave him like Vander did. His manipulation comes from a place of insecurity and fear. He tells her things that aren't true because he wants them to be true so desperately. He wants to be Jinx's family. He wants Jinx to stay with him. Jinx is the only person that is able to do this to him, to show him this softness he hasn't had in so long. Only with her does he talk softly. Only with her does he open up and share his own struggles. She's the only person who he fully trusts. She's the only person he ever engages in affection with and she's the only person he accepts affection from. And when he does touch her, it's always like she's delicate. Like she's something to be treated with care and the utmost preciousness. By having a trauma similar to his own she gives him someone to relate and confide him. Jinx is the only person who can possibly understand Silco and look past his actions to see the real him. A man who was hurt and abandoned so long ago that now all he knows is that hurt. A man who forgot what it was like to have family, to have people that care about you and want you around. Silco let's Jinx hurt him all the time, physically and emotionally, because he's terrified of the idea of being alone again. As long as she doesn't leave him he's fine with the pain, he can take it. He just doesn't want to go back to the way his life was before her. He wants it so much he willingly gives up his goal for it, he willingly DIES for it. Even when she does the thing that traumatized him, even when she kills him in cold blood and seemingly betrays him, he still loves her. He still can't find it in himself to hate her for all the pain she's caused him. She means so much to him that he uses his final breath, his last words, on her. To comfort her, like he's not the one with bullets in his chest. It's so important to him that she knows he loved her with everything he possibly had to offer.

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

I bet Silco could reach Vander inside Warwick. I bet Silco would trust to remember him ad not fight back.

In my restless dreams, Silco and Vander!Warwick got to meet

In this scenario Silco would have to survive being shot and would go into hiding aka go back to their little hideout. He did not see this one coming, though

[imalwaystiredzzzz]

No because Silco’s parenting being queer in Zaun is reflective of how bad the living conditions truly is in there BUT ALSO brings to discussion how parent-child relationships works for a normal citizen of Zaun.

I remember Silco’s entry for Felicia. “Felicia’s courage inspires me. To raise a child in our world is an act of defiance…it takes strength a few poses”

Something I find really interesting in Arcane is what is and is not normalized among the setting and characters, especially Silco.

In 1x08 "Oil and Water" Jayce and Vi raid one of Silco's Shimmer manufacturing plants, which Jayce is rightfully horrified to find staffed with child laborers who are caught in the crossfire. To Piltovan, and probably audience eyes, this is barbaric and a moral event horizon for a villain who would use children this way.

But none of the Zaunites are horrified, or even fazed. Even Vi, who loathes Silco and certainly wouldn't hesitate to blame him, sees nothing amiss. Child labor, even criminal child labor, is not considered a failing in Zaun. Vander and Benzo lovingly raised their children, but involved them in their burglary and fencing. What other life skills could they offer them? There do not appear to be any schools in Zaun and any economy is grey at best. It’s a neglectful parent who leaves their child alone on the streets of Zaun. As sick as it is, these children were comparatively privileged. Renni’s son was the child of a Chembaroness, and when Renni finds his body, she blames Silco not for placing him in harm's way, but for refusing to avenge him. And her rage brings to light the massive double standard Silco holds with parenting Jinx.

Silco is unusual among Zaunite parents in that he doesn’t use his child for any sort of work. The only "labor" Jinx does for Silco is nursing and in-house graphic design, and any involvement she has in his operation is at her own behest. Albeit in a very twisted way, it’s traits that could make Silco a “good” parent that draw confusion and resentment in Zaun. He takes note of his daughter’s interests and gets her the resources to explore them. He goes out of his way to nurture the talents she chooses and tries to guide her to a path he thinks will be fulfilling. And when she struggles, he puts her first, before business, politics, or even others’ well-being and safety.

Many things about Silco make him a typical Zaunite man. He employs child labor. He wears makeup. He’s disabled from some aspect of hard living with few resources. He chain-smokes in self-destructive defiance of every other toxin in his environment. He hates Piltover.

But for all his hatred, Silco dresses Piltovan, in sharp clothes lacking Zaun’s asymmetry motif. He’s unusual not for wearing makeup or being disabled, but for using makeup to try and hide his disfigurement, his Zaunite asymmetry. And his treatment of people, good and bad, is very Piltovan in Zaunite eyes.