#didn't think i'd fall this hard down the silco simp hole but here we ARE - a new tumblr acct and my first fanfic

[juicednewt]

Strangers in the Night (1/?)

Pairing: GN!Reader x Silco

Summary: Despite the long work days, you have trouble sleeping at night. Some restless nights you head over to a river bridge in the undercity to smoke and clear your head. Little did you know that this river was of particular significance to an intimidating and stoic man with a glowing black and red eye.

Word count: 1k

Note: Didn’t think I would fall down this Silco simp hole but here we are folks - a new tumblr simp account and my first fanfic. This bit is mostly ~vibes~ and introduction of the reader. The other chapters if I get to them will have smut hehe. Hope ya’ll enjoy!

Chapter 2 Link

Chapter One

It was past midnight when you reached your smoking spot on the bridge. It was another sleepless night, and you’ve resigned to the understanding that a full night’s rest was becoming less and less possible.

Cupping your hands, you lit your first cigarette of the night and relished the feeling as the rough smoke filled your lungs. Years ago, you had told your sister that you would quit, but she knew upon seeing you return day after day with your body brutalized from working in the mines, that smoking was a small pleasure you could return to with little cost. She hadn’t pressed you further on it, but now in her complete absence, you missed everything about her — her gentle admonitions, her smile, her impressively filthy jokes.

The smoke curled around your fingers as you exhaled, and your shoulders loosened with a tired kind of satisfaction. You watched from your place on the bridge as chemical waste flowed out of the hive of chemtech factories embedded in the cliff walls of the undercity. Waste streams merged to pour into the ill-smelling river below you. And all this, you thought, will empty into some sea beyond the undercity.

Cerulean blue, you had learned from an old children's book, was the color of the sea. It was blue like the neon lights of the undercity except more peaceful. Calmer. It was blue like the Piltover sky on that one rare day when your sister took you topside to look at toys and white birds.

Is the sea still blue? You wondered. With all this sludge flowing into it, it might be green now, and toxic, with the fish floating up to the surface like it did here every summer. But then you shook your head, smoke escaping your lips as you gave a bitter laugh. No, topside wouldn’t let the undercity pollute its beautiful view. The outside world would’ve already barged down here to shut down the factories if anything drastic like that had happened.

Instead, everything is still the same.

Even after all that fighting and all that death, for the sake of independence, nothing has changed for the better even with Vander in charge. And perhaps, things will never change. The lucky few will be able to move topside and swim in the blue Piltover ocean, and the others will always breathe these chem fumes for the rest of their life.

Your hands gripped the railing of the bridge. You had made a promise to yourself years ago and you intended to keep it. You were going to get out of here, away from the undercity and away from Piltover and make a new life. A quiet and safe home by the blue sea where you wouldn’t have to worry about getting evicted or shot by a random goon in the street. Some place with bounties of silver, healthy fish and cool, crisp air.

And to get that, to manifest it, you needed money, you thought, as you eyed the river. In the floorboard underneath your bed was your key out of here — a map of the old ruins below the undercity. Ancient treasure and old tech lay beneath your feet, just out of reach, and you just needed time to plan and find people you could trust. And then, you thought, grasping the railing until your knuckles were white, and then maybe you could finally be happy.

“May I use your light?,” said a low, smooth voice to your right. The tone suggested it was not a request but a polite order.

You gave a jolt, your hand immediately flying to the knife tied to your side. As the man straightened himself from where he leaned on the railing next to you, your breath hitched in your throat. He was not much taller than you but he was slender and jagged like a knife. With slow, measured movements, he pulled a partial cigar from his vest pocket and brought it to his lips. Set in the left side of his face was an unblinking black eye with a glowing red iris.

After some silence, when he doesn't shake you down for money or try to shiv you in the ribs, you pulled your lighter out from your pocket, your other hand still resting on the handle of your knife. The flame flickered alive to illuminate the gap between you and the stranger. Under that orange glow, you took a long look at the sharp angles of his face, the blackened, cracked skin under his left eye. Your gaze trailed up to meet his own. His eyes were calculating, piercing as they watched you look and you hastened to flip the lighter shut and turn away before he caught the warmth that colored your cheeks. Does he have to be so intense?

You both smoked in silence. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw that the stranger was back to watching the river as well. You found it hard at first to continue enjoying your smoke but eventually you made yourself forget he was there. Living in the undercity, working in the factories everyday, there was always a threat you wouldn’t make it to the next day. Whether it was getting crushed under the machinery or being shot on a bridge by some well dressed, cryptic asshole, the end result was the same so you might as well have enjoyed your damn smoke.

You exhaled, the smoke cleaner than the fumes you inhaled everyday at work. When you finally turned to look, you saw that the man was gone. Finished with your smoke and with your hand still on your knife, you walked home, thinking of how perhaps you were lucky to have just walked away with your life, how there was still work to do tomorrow and still rent to pay.

As you laid in bed and drifted finally to sleep, you found yourself thinking lastly not of the strange man's swirling black eye but of his other eye — the one you had seen clearly above the lighter's flame — the eye that was clear and blue just like the sea.