#nao/maven

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Undercurrents - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Dark dynamics, old resentments and shifting allegiances begin to cohere...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

tw: mentions of child prostitution and unhealthy dynamics between mentor and student.

After, Sevika dragged her clothes back on. Her trousers were threadbare at the knees. Her vest was patched thrice-over. Her jacket was a cast-off of cracked leather and faded stripes. But with her baton holstered to her hip and her knife strapped to her calf, she was no less than a warrior-queen: aglow with anticipation at the blood-red sunset, and the battle-cry that'd call their city to arms. Transform it into something it had never been.

Something shining.

She grinned. The gleam cut him, deep.

"Ready to roll, Sil?"

He kissed her. Long, lingering, not a little possessive. He tasted sex, smoke, spirits, and underneath: a sweetness that was all her own. He wanted her again. He'd always want her, in one way or another: carnally, calculatedly, constantly. His flesh would cry out, even after it'd been pared down to the marrow.

Even after he'd been scarred past recognition, or resurrected into an altogether different shape, or rendered a ghost in his own story.

"It's time," he said.

She slipped from the backroom first, leaving the door open a crack, its glow beckoning. He lingered by the threshold, listening, not without fondness, as her solid footsteps faded. Smoked a quick one, relishing the smolder of tobacco at his throat. Then he extinguished his cigarillo, unfolded to his feet, and re-entered the fray.

In the corridor, he wasn't alone.

Nao, the young runner, was loitering in the hallway with a coy tilt to her head. A pitcher—midway to making its rounds upstairs between refills—was cradled in her arms.

Spotting Silco, she offered him a cool sluicing of water poured into a steel cup.

Silco accepted gratefully. Nao smiled, that hard, ingratiating smile he'd always deplored in scrappers. She'd been a teenager then, pretty in that soft unformed way that often invited roughing up from the wrong quarters.

Vander had, more often than not, wiped the floors with punters who'd gotten too handsy with the girl. Silco, typically, oversaw the aftermath: sending the malefactors packing with a smoldering cigarette stubbed out into their foreheads.

The two-punch combination was both a warning and a ritual. To discourage further transgression—and instill terror at its memory.

Lately, though, Silco had begun seeing more than fear in Nao's eyes. There was flint. Hunger, verging on bottomless, that spoke of some deep well within. He'd caught the girl, on more than one occasion, eyeing him intently as he passed.

The attention made his hackles rise, and he knew why.

She was a bit like him, Nao. Opportunistic, capable of great feats of cleverness. Already, she sensed that if tonight went as planned, Silco and Vander would take their place at the apex of Zaun's power structure. And Nao, budding gamester that she was, meant to capitalize on future gains. She couldn't ply her favors for coin just yet. Instead, she prostrated herself in smaller ways: topping up cups, offering cigarettes, dropping choice secrets.

She wanted Silco to see her. Recognize her worth. And, perhaps, reward it.

Ambition, Silco thinks in retrospect.

Is any monster more insidious?

"I iced it," Nao said in Va-Nox, as he tipped the glass back. "I knew you'd be thirsty."

"Because you were listening through the door." Silco made the accusation mildly in the same tongue. But his tone brooked no argument. He was fond of the girl, but she was just that: a girl. Too green, too rash. Too likely to find herself in the wrong pair of hands. "Don't do that again, Nao. It won't end well for you."

Her cheeks, darkly flushed, belied her nonchalant shrug. "I was curious, is all. Wanted to see what you two had going on."

"That's grown-up business. No affair of yours."

"How would you know?" The smile sat strangely on her features; it didn't suit. She was angling for bravado, but underneath, a rawboned woundedness bled through. "I've seen plenty. Endured plenty, too. My affairs would make yours blush."

"I don't doubt it."

"No?"

"But, doubt or no, you're a child." It was a flat summation of fact. "Your only affair ought to be your schooling. Are you still taking those classes? Math and reading?"

"A waste of time."

"On the contrary. Unless you'd like to be running these streets forever."

That earned him another look: sly, oddly calculating. "Who's to say I don't plan on it? Running these streets, I mean."

"Don't joke. The Lanes aren't a playground."

"No, they're a wolf-den." She sidled close, intimate in the narrow space. "And the only way out of a wolf-den is by kissing the one with the biggest teeth."

"You give Vander an earful of that, and he'll knock yours out."

"Not Vander." Her fingertip alighted on Silco's jugular notch. "You."

"Me?"

"I keep my ear to more than doors. I hear things. I know things." She tipped her face up: all smooth unblemished skin that, yet, stirred nothing but pity in Silco's gut. Her youth was precious, and she was ready to squander it for a penny's worth of promise. At her age, he'd done the same for less. "When Zaun is free, there will be a split. Right down the middle. One side: Vander's. The other side: yours. Which one, d'you think, will prove the winner's side?"

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Do you take me for a fool?" She tiptoed closer, pitcher resting on one shapely hip. The effect was spoiled by her gangling bones: too much child left to offset her burgeoning maturity. "Or are you the one who's fooling himself? There are whispers of what you did, to kickstart this fight. The Enforcers, dead in alleys, strung up in the rafters, floating in the river. They say you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. That you'll sacrifice anything to get what you want. That Vander leads the charge, but doesn't play the long game. Not the way you do."

"I'd put no stock in rumors," Silco warned. "They make fools of men and meat of little girls."

"I'm not a little girl." Her recalcitrant hand, approximating seduction through mimicry, veered south. "I can prove it."

He caught her wrist before it wandered off-course. Nao stilled.

She knew she was taking liberties where none were permitted. Yet she stood her ground. Defiant; hopeful. He saw, in her bold gaze, someone whose value system had been upended, and utterly shattered: like a porcelain vase smashed on the cobblestones.

He recognized the feeling. That broken-in emptiness. He'd lived it: a boy from the orphanages and mines, a lifetime's share of degradation buried in his young bones.

They deserved better, these children. Each and every one of them. Otherwise, the future mirrored in Nao's eyes—that warped amalgamation of ambition and avarice—would be Zaun's sole inheritance.

"I believe you," Silco told her, not unkindly. "You're growing up. Getting ideas about yourself. Nothing wrong with that. Same way there's nothing wrong with wanting more. But these games—they're not for you, Nao. Not yet. And if you're not careful, they'll lead you straight to an early grave."

Nao's lower-lip quivered; young pride, smote by rejection. But her spine held steady.

"Or lead me straight to you," she purred. "Isn't that the hand Sevika played?"

Anger cut cold through Silco's bones. His grip tightened fractionally; Nao flinched.

"Sevika," he said, "is a grown woman. You're a chit of a girl with ambitions beyond her scope. Learn your limits, before you break your neck stepping outside of them."

"But—"

He dropped her hand, done with her and every bit of this sordid business.

“Get back upstairs," he ordered. "If I catch you propositioning me, or any man again, I'll tell Vander. How d'you think he'll take to a scrap such as you peddling herself under his roof? Mark me, he'll thrash your backside raw. And, right after, I'll tell Sevika, and watch as she rips you a new one."

The threat, paired with the glint of permafrosted steel, did the trick.

Tears sprang to Nao’s eyes. She jerked away as if scalded.

"You're cruel!" she cried. "Heartless! I hate you!"

She fled back upstairs. In her hurry, she knocked over the pitcher: the steel clattering, water splashing everywhere. Bad luck, in the Fissures. A portent of disaster.

The echo, blending with Nao's receding footsteps, would linger: in the here-and-now, and in Silco's memory, for decades to come.

Irony, the bitch, was an inveterate houseguest.

On the stairwell, Silco scooped up the fallen pitcher. Rounding the landing, he encountered a presence blocking his path.

Vander.

The Hound's silhouette loomed darkly. A towering bulk encased in metal and leather. The gauntlets, hanging from his belt, caught the red lamplight, and turned to brimming cups of blood.

He must've spotted Nao fleeing upstairs. Spotted Silco, still radiating the postcoital languor from Sevika, on her heels. Whatever conclusions Vander drew in the interval stayed sequestered beneath his shadowed eye-sockets.

But, for a moment, he looked every inch the behemoth. Hardened. Brutal. Uncompromising.

A monster of mythological proportions.

"Trouble?" Vander rumbled quietly.

"Just a spill." Silco hefted the pitcher, tipping it upside down. The drips pattered in his footsteps. "Mind the puddle in the corridor."

"Tears? Or blood?"

Vander seemed mellow enough. His eyes told a different story.

When, Silco wondered, had it come to this? How and where had they fallen into this tarpit of mutual suspicion? Vander should be his staunchest ally; the most stalwart of his defenders. When had he become the man who'd imagine Silco would corner little chits in shadowy corridors, and coerce them into shameful acts?

Yet he could read between the lines.

Vander had always been primed for Silco's corruption. Always seeking evidence of the irredeemable. The boy with the outsized ambitions of outsized vengeance, flaunting his mockery at The Sprout to the miners' cheers. The young man with the barbed teeth and seething eyes, stalking Vander and Lika through the dancefloor of the Blue Lantern, as loneliness hung off him like miasma. The two-faced punisher prowling the tunnels at night, his blade slicing across Enforcers' throats, the cold scales of his ire encircling the heart of a city until it burst.

To Vander, Silco had become a subterranean spook, haunting every nook and crevice of portent.

Waiting. Watching. Wanting.

Until the monster had its fill.

And, it struck Silco then: a revelation far too late. Someday, a reckoning would come. Between himself and the monster inside Vander: the one that held apart, teeth bared, and meted out judgment on the transgressor who'd wandered too far beyond the pack. The beastly instinct that demanded honor as its due; obedience as recompense.

Someday, sooner or later, they'd both come to blows. Only one would survive. And it would be either him, or everything they'd built.

Tonight wasn't that night.

"Neither," Silco said, flatly. "Little brat fancies herself the lady of the manor. I set her straight."

"Did you?"

Silco ignored the pinch between his shoulderblades: a sharpness, reminiscent of a knife, sinking deep.

"Caught her skulking in the corridors," he elaborated, "while Sevika and I were occupied. Thought she'd pull a similar act, and I'd be enticed." He scoffed, shoulders rolling back. "As if anyone, least of all a half-pint still wet-behind-the-ears, has a snowball's chance in hell of warming my sheets while Sevika walks and breathes. Not to mention: she'd tear me limb from limb. Nail my cock above the door like a hunting trophy."

Vander's silence weighed. Then a tiny smirk cracked his stony demeanor.

"That," he conceded, "is good incentive for fidelity."

"Have a word with Nao, will you? She'll get herself hurt, at this rate."

"I will." The smirk dimmed, tempered by seriousness. "Look. Sorry, all right? Just, saw her hurrying away. Crying. Thought—"

"I know." Silco exhaled through his teeth. "It's my own damn fault. I keep things from you because I don't want us at odds. And because I do, you start jumping at shadows. Next you're suspecting me of every debauchery under the sun. You ask questions; I get defensive. And round and round we go."

"Not forever." Vander closed the space between them. The anger receded, replaced by quiet regret. "Look, Blut. I get it, yeah? Folks know you get shit done. That's why they come to you with their grievances. Why they ask things of you that they won't from me. But I've said it before. Ain't going to stop saying it till it sticks. These wildcards you keep close—they're bad news. Sevika's got more sense than most, but the rest're trouble. Reckless trouble. Small wonder whelps like Nao are followin' in their footsteps."

Wryly, Silco said, "There is a certain moral flexibility in our line of work."

"That 'moral flexibility' makes you a prime target." A big hand reached out, settling on Silco's nape. Like an ironclad collar. Or a stranglehold disguised as a caress. "Gives you a reputation you don't need. I don't want the Lanes rememberin' you as the chancer who made his own bed."

"No?" Silco drawled, half-jibe, half-challenge. "How do you want me remembered?"

Vander didn't let go. His palm rested in the jut of Silco's vertebra, where a pulse ticked.

Beneath the skin: a love burning restless.

"As the best man I know," Vander said simply. "Smartest, bravest, most loyal. A man who'd walk through fire, if it meant giving us a future without chains. Who'd do anything for those he calls family."

His thumb smoothed Silco's jugular. His gray eyes crinkled, almost in pain.

"A champion of Zaun."

Emotion seared the corners of Silco's eyes. Rarely did he cherish the handspan of inches that put Vander at an advantage. Yet he savored this vantagepoint: the width of Vander's shoulders against the doorway, and the sheer physicality of him attuned to Silco's shadow.

Right then, there was no world, not anymore, where Silco had any right to feel small.

"Always," Silco said hoarsely. "No matter what comes."

They stood there, rooted in place. Upstairs, the revelry raged on. A woman's laugh—husky-edged—rolled through the gloom.

"She's waiting for me," Silco asked quietly.

"Nao?"

"Sevika."

Vander nodded, and unslung his hand off Silco's shoulder. A concession, grudgingly bestowed. It made Silco realize, with no small sense of wonderment, that Vander hadn't fully let go of him. That, in his own way, he envied Silco this small bedrock of physical intimacy.

Sevika, a constant presence: guarding his flank, stoking his fire, warding off foes.

Silco had been that for Vander, once. Through thick and thin, against all odds. But that'd changed, somewhere along the line. Changed in ways boys could hash out with bareknuckled brawls or confessions slurred through liquor-fumes.

Not grown men. Not leaders-in-arms.

Them, they kept their grievances hidden. Tucked like blades beneath their sleeves.

"Can't believe," Vander gruffed, "that in all the years I've known you, I've never imagine asking. But... d'you love her?"

Irritation, fleeting, winged through Silco. Vander would be the kind of sap to throw the word around so easily. As though he owned its exclusive license.

Still, Silco answered. What else could he do?

"I think," he said, with a plainspoken pragmatism that, yet, hid a bedrock of rawness, "if she ever stopped looking at me with that fire in her eyes, I'd die."

"An' that's enough?"

"Should there be more?"

"You tell me."

Silco didn't prevaricate. There was no room left: not tonight.

Instead, swiveling, he stood to face the flecked hallway mirror, smoothing his shirt-collar and buttoning up his cuffs. His hair was slipping loose from its tie; deep waves spilling over his forehead.

He thought of Sevika's hand fisted there, her teeth sunk into his throat, those strong sweet thighs cinching down on him like destiny...

Silco smiled. The light cut half his face into a patchwork of shadows. For one fleeting instant, he saw something there—something other. A vision of himself years down the track, irrevocably altered, irremediably destroyed.

And, beneath that, something that could never be erased.

"No," he said softly. "It's not enough. But the rest, we'll seize. Build for ourselves. Make it whatever we need it to be."

"Happily ever after?"

"Choice." Silco turned, and met Vander squarely, chin to chest. "And whatever choice I make will be mine to answer to."

"An' mine."

"Already crowned yourself king, eh?"

"Please. Throne's just another name for a chopping block." Vander shook his head. "Only kingdom I want's this."

"This?"

"The Drop tonight. Where everyone has a full plate, an' a warm hearth, an' hope." His smile spread; tender despite the bitterness spreading its stains between them. "What more d'we need?"

The right answer—the only answer—was nothing.

Nothing, except the freedom to keep it forever.

In the shadows, they embraced. The way men who've loved each other their whole lives would, at the crossroads of Fate. Not knowing if their paths were diverging, or colliding, but understanding that no matter what came, they'd walk out changed to the marrow.

They had no inkling of how far the change would span. That they'd die and live again: reborn in shapes less than whole. That the cost of tomorrow would be the past itself.

Riven in two; never to be remade.

This, Silco knows now, was the last night they'd hold each other not as enemies, but as brothers-in-arms.

For when dawn broke, everything would fall apart.

[lullabyes22-blog]

GGFSSDSs

LEGIT

And then she blackmails him because he offended her

[megmoonlightmeg]

Thank you to @empyreanevents bc it’s mega helping spur me to think and forcing me to progress plotline for What Remains

Day 5: Reunion - “Still the Same"

Forever is a lot longer than anyone told me—no one could have. It’s not something parents can teach, nor can you read about it in a book. No love song truly captures the uniquely human phenomenon—what it’s like to impossibly find the other half of your soul, only to turn around and freely offer up your half to that person. It has to be experienced personally—body, mind and soul. It’s not like my parent's relationship was clearly passionate, per se. I mean we knew they loved each other, they would do little things for each other. 

Mom would buy dad a book, and I’d find it in her things…she’d pretend she didn’t know what it was. Violet and dad would sneak up on mom and she’d startle and nearly freeze us all to death. It would have been funnier if I wasn’t too cold to laugh. I caught mom once, staring at dad with a fascinating longing, during one of the nights he’d read fairy tales to us by the fire. Only—now I know mom knew just how very real those stories were. Dad was teaching us in the only way they thought safe—telling us in his way about the war. Telling us about the venin that would eventually come for us all. Grief starts to overpower me, remembering the two of them. I feel it deeper today, knowing I can’t have even one more moment with either of them ever again. 

And then when my body was broken beyond repair by those very venin, my Nao broke his soul apart for me, and our forever didn’t stop. 

The days following his turning, I recovered under Naolin’s careful care. He kept telling me off for using my powers as I healed, but I broke my promises over and over—mending his red-ringed eyes, mending his urges, mending the darkness away little by little. 

We hid very well, and very easily, actually. Climbing deeper into the treacherous passes of the Aretian mountains, it was truly home territory for Naolin and other Aretians. It was an easy choice: hide from the world, hide from the venin. We bathed naked in clear alpine streams by day, and made love on the hard earth next to fire by night. Naolin slowly mourned the loss of Tairn, and practiced withholding—never channeling again. 

He and I both thought that everyone would have thought us dead, Tairn had said that Naolin and Brennan were both dead to him before severing the bond. We assumed that he’d tell the same story to the Empyrean, and that’s pretty much what happened. Naolin kept himself, despite it all, in my arms. We actively ignored the fallout of our disappearance. Facing it meant acknowledging other consequences, other demands. For a few weeks, it was only us. 

But as the days went on, a silence grew between us and the call to his maven was undeniable. Naolin grew agitated and fearful. He stopped sleeping. We could no longer deny the shift that would eventually physically and emotionally rip Naolin’s soul from me. 

And yet, here he is standing right in front of me. 

My skin is covered in goosebumps. There’s a real static in the air, like magic itself is holding its breath. 

Naolin’s gaze is fixed on me, and from his expression, he’s definitely here on purpose. He’s got that same expression he had when he first was fully naked in front of me. He wants to expose himself. He knows exactly what he is, and how he looks. He wants to be here, but he’s making himself vulnerable in doing so. 

I suddenly feel exposed myself, I hear the absence of birdsong—we are utterly alone. No one would even hear me scream. The shocking amount of adrenaline in my system is only slightly overpowered by my need. 

“How?” Is all I get out. I’m breathing very shallow, fearful sweat is beading on my brow, my forearms flex. He takes an almost imperceptibly small step toward me and the fight part of my “fight-or-flight” alert draws my eyes across every part of him, assessing. He’s the same, the exact fucking same. READ THE REST HERE on AO3!

[63rdfret]

oc dump ft. Ruby Maven and Nao... such is life

[lullabyes22-blog]

Good LORD, Brom! This is so gorgeously psychedelic 💫 It's giving antique hardcovers from the back shelf of the library - and you crack it open and there are pressed flowers inside from somewhere long ago 💔

Thank you so much for turning my little random comments into absolute beauties 😭💕

The Maven's Diary

Collab @lipsticksandmolotovs

Inspo: Ufomammut

[kangacav69]

Beer Garden Solo Harga

Banyak anak muda yang menghabiskan waktunya untuk sekadar nongkrong di toko bir hingga larut malam. Tempat yang nyaman dan sangat cocok untuk nongkrong bersama kerabat maupun keluarga.

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Minum bir & kongkow di reruntuhan rumah lama: Destinasi keluarga indonesia untuk belanja, bersantap, bermain dan menonton dengan konsep modern, terjangkau dan lengkap. Menu (termasuk harga) untuk beer garden dapat berubah sejak terakhir kali situs diperbarui.

Makanan dan minumannya punya harga yang wajar, dan suasananya pun mendukung. Known for botomless supersized beer mugs. Popeyes chicken & seafood, jakarta:

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House of beer the park mall solo baru tak cuma menyediakan bir, ada mocktail, pasta, dan piza juga hob by stark menawarkan berbagai menu minuman beralkohol yang variatif, dengan kadar alkohol tak sampai 5 persen. Kamis (29/10/2015) malam saat kompastravel menanyakan bir yang ditawarkan, untuk saat ini trotoart mendediakan prost dan beberapa minuman alkohol seperti mixmax. Jika datang tak perlu tanya sudah buka atau belum, tempat ini bahkan tak pernah terlihat seperti beroperasi, kecuali saat ramai pengunjung.

Lawar gurita semawang yang terdiri dari campuran sayuran, minced octopus meat, dan berbagai bahan lainnya ini pastinya akan memberikan sensasi tersendiri bagi anda yang memang penggemar masakan lawar. 11 12 beer garden merupakan beer garden yang berjarak 3.05 km dari kartasura, lebih tepatnya bertempat di jl. Waroeng ss awan bengi resto and cafe

Blog, food for fun, highlight, restaurants january 26, 2016 mengunjungi bandung udah jadi kebiasaan banyak orang di jakarta. Langit seduh by dapoer nona. Waw kisaran harga yang cukup terjangkau serta intelktual muda sudah bisa mencicipi cita rasa masakan di grandis barn ini.

Mr k cafe dan beer garden. Sakapatat merupakan beer garden yang paling baik di kota semarang. Waroeng solo is located at madrasah street, just beside jeruk purut cemetery to be exact.

Info lengkap jadwal dan harga tiket ka joglosemarkerto. Hours, address, sakapatat beer garden & resto reviews: Bisa nongkrong sambil memandangi cityscape kota semarang.

Selain itu, beer garden juga menyiapkan snacks dan makanan berat untuk menemani kita minum disana. Tepatnya di kedai kopi kultur sanur dan teras gandum beer garden & kitchen ini, berbagai menu istimewa serta unik ditawarkan ditempat ini. Format gambar menu beer garden di situs ini telah didigitalisasi oleh zomato.com.

Di sini tersedia berbagai pilihan moctail,, cocktail dan beer. The restaurant is nicely designed like rumah joglo (traditional central javanese house) complete with serene trees, beautiful garden and also coffeeshop and beer house. Taman kebon sirih 1, jakarta pusat.

0812 9038 9038, mug unik untuk souvenir,souvenir murah wilayah palembang,asemka souvenir rusia,bisnis souvenir nikah,toko souvenir pernikahan online Harga sebotol bir prost rp 45.000, sementara seporsi french fries buatan sendiri rp 25.000. Overall tempat ini worth it untuk diantriin karena masuknya aja waiting list.

Anda akan membayar sekitar rp 747.237 untuk menginap di hotel bintang 4 malam ini, dan sekitar rp 1.019.897 untuk hotel bintang 5 di yogyakarta (berdasarkan harga di booking.com). Zomato.com tidak menjamin harga atau ketersediaan menu di beer garden. Cost rp300.000 for two people (approx.) 

48 colomadu surakarta jawa tengah. Cendrawasih no.8, ruko cdf, semarang, jawa tengah telepon : Buat kamu ingin kongkow sambil minum beer di solo, kamu dapat meluncur ke the park mall solo baru untuk menemukan cafe house of beer yang nyaman.

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Cukup worth it dengan cita rasa dan suasana tempat yang nyaman sekaligus instagramable. Pembayaran mudah, pengiriman cepat & bisa cicil 0%. Lihat 3 ulasan objektif tentang popeyes chicken & seafood, yang diberi peringkat 3,5 dari 5 di tripadvisor dan yang diberi peringkat no.5.228 dari 9.679 restoran di jakarta.

Baca juga 40 tempat kulineran solo versi wisata indonesia. See 4 unbiased reviews of agrotek garden resort, rated 1.5 of 5 on tripadvisor and ranked #91 of 129 restaurants in kajang. Tempat inipun tampil unik dengan kitchen bar dan beer garden ala.

11 12 beer garden merupakan beer garden yang berjarak 3.05 km dari kartasura, lebih tepatnya bertempat di jl.

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Wedang Uwuh Itu Apa, Wedang Uwuh Jakarta, Wedang Uwuh

[lullabyes22-blog]

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 31 - Cost & Reward

Snippet:

"Pet."

Vi blinks. The server's set a bottle of claret at the table. The blacklights strike a bright vein through the red. Vi imagines the taste: bold as blood.

"Pet," Silco says. "Pour."

Vi's reflexes tug the rest of her into motion. She complies. Wine sluices like blood into the crystal.

It's her duty to taste each bottle for poison. The first time, she'd refused flat-out. She wasn't Silco's sponge. Silco's half-smile had only hardened her resolve. She'd held his stare, and spat a thick wad of phlegm right into the wineglass.

She'd expected him to explode with temper. He did nothing. Just sat back, hands steepled in his lap. A moment later, Sevika had seized Vi by the hair, yanked her head back, and poured the contents of the glass down her throat.

Vi had been forced to swallow, or choke.

Later that week, she'd learnt that Jinx would not be dropping by to visit Hotel Muse. Her sister was busy with a project. Top secret. And no, Vi couldn't visit.

Not until she proved herself willing to play the game.

So, she plays. Sullenly—but she plays. Silco likes his spirits the way he likes his cigars: top-notch. By now, Vi has tasted everything from gin-soaked cocktails in highballs to smoky bourbon sipped from cut-crystal tumblers. Each time, she waits for her tongue to turn toad-green and her body to convulse into death-throes.

So far, the only aftereffect is the urge to piss.

Taking the tiniest sip, Vi swishes it around her mouth. Her palate is attuned to the subtleties: the acidic burn of arsenic, the alkaloid bitterness of mercury; the murky tang of belladonna.

This wine is virgin. And, Vi admits, first-rate. Rich, full-bodied, and smooth on the tongue.

Like Nao.

Vi's cheeks burn. She hopes the blacklights hide it.

"All good," she says, and slides the glass to Silco.

"Ta." He lifts the glass to the light. The rays refracts through the wine, striking broken shards across a broken face. "Pour one for yourself."

"Rather not."

"No?" A ghost of a smile. "Not in the mood to toast your handiwork?"

"Or get toasted."

"Diligent as always." He tips the wineglass in salute, then sips. "But, Violet. Did I not warn you about the wolves?"

It's the Eye's voice: iron threat veiled in velvet consonants. But there's something nearly familial to it. It resembles the way Vander used to speak to her when she'd crossed a line, and there'd be no fighting her way out of it.

Only the consequences, and the hard lesson learned.

Vi feigns calm. "Better a wolf, than a donkey's ass."

For a moment, she swears Silco's lip twitches. The impulse, stymied, does not break the surface.

The Eye is back, and he's all business.

"There's dying a hero," he says, "and there's living a liar."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me, Pet. Do little girls with big mouths always get the storybook ending? Or does the Wolf bite their hands off, when he learn they've stolen from his table?" A heartbeat's silence, savorless. "Especially his favorite vintage."

"I don't know what you—"

He leans in. The timbre of his voice dips intimately low. The patrician polish is gone. Only a raw-edged gravel remains.

"Do not," he warns, "take me for a fool."

A bead of sweat trickles down Vi's spine. The room's shadows grow teeth. At their heart, Silco's shark-eye burns. She feels it scoring through her clothes, straight to the skin.

Everywhere Nao's fingerprints linger.

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

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[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Pining - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Jinx and Silco differ on certain subjects...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Silco knew that better than anyone. He'd always had a taste for collecting broken things. His way of preserving a piece of himself in others.

But preservation didn't always equal protection. It didn't equate to care. And every so often, when the night was at its deepest and the party was in full-swing, Jinx would catch Silco's eyes wandering past the roomful of bodies decked in sequins and satin. Past Maven, working her wiles on some unsuspecting big-shot.  Past Medarda, gliding with languid elegance toward him with two champagne flutes in her hands, and a scheme spinning behind her smile.

He looked past them all—up, up and beyond, to an unseen realm where the sky rose high above the rooftops and the stars burned bright in a vaulted blue that gained luminosity with every passing month.

Plotting, Jinx sometimes thought.

Other times:  

Pining.

His expression would drift into a dull state of dissatisfaction, and his hand would tighten, ever-so-slightly, around the stem of his wineglass. Jinx knew that look, though it wasn't one she saw often. Certainly not on Silco.

She'd seen it on her own face, though. In the mirror, in the aftermath of a first kiss. Her eyes glazed-out, the glow dimmer, yet somehow more focused.

Lost, then found.

Was her old man grieving for a love long-gone? Vander? Nandi?

Or was the pining closer to home?

On those occasions, Jinx would finish her dessert in two bites, then trill a cheerful 'Excusez Moi' to any nearby dignitaries. Then, she'd grab Silco's wrist and haul him out to the dancefloor, a blur of sapphire chiffon skirts and black serge suit, until the strange sheen faded from his eyes and they snapped front-and-center.

Back to the moment where they Daddy and Daughter, in love with a dream that'd come true in spite the odds.

Together, they'd been to hell and back. They'd dragged their city from a bloodied maw. They'd changed the rules of the game. And those rules had changed them, the pressure diamondizing their hearts, transmuting them from sump-scum to starstuff.

Two Zaunites who'd seized their rightful claim to their city's crown-jewels: power, promise, progress.

But there was a price.

Secrets piled so high between them it felt sometimes as if they weren't balanced on a karmic scale, but a powderkeg. Both waiting, for a single mistimed move, to blast it all to kingdom come. His dealings with Maven; his dealings with Medarda; his dealings in general.

And Jinx, his double, laying her own cards, one after another, in an endless cascade that could topple the whole operation, and Zaun with it, if he ever caught a glimpse of her hand.

If he knew of her agenda: separate from his, yet, not.

Two Truths and a Lie.

"Silly?"

"Hm?"

"Tell me a secret?"

"A secret?"

"Is there anything goin' on between you and the Queen Bee?"

They were in the limo after a gala. The nightscape unfolded in technicolor through the opera window. A Daddy-daughter driveby, just like old times. Jinx drowsed, her head nestled in her favorite spot between Silco's ribs.

A rarity: he so seldom indulged her cuddlesome moods lately.  To be granted permission meant she must've pleased him greatly tonight.

Well, a twenty-million Hex threshold of high-rolling investments would please the most stone-cold critic. 

Burrowed up against his breastbone, Jinx stared from under her lashes at the scenery through the window. A cityscape unraveling into deeper dimensions of twilight.

Changing, Jinx thought, her cheek warm against Silco's black heart. Like me.

Like us.

Silco's heart beat through the suit fabric. The old wonky tune. Thumpity-thump.

"Queen Bee?" Silco murmured idly.

"Medar-la-dee-da."

"She's a businesswoman. I've no patience for queens."

"Answer the question."

"Why the interest?"

"Just wonderin'." She nuzzled her cheek harder into his ribs, and closed her fist over his heart. "You smile a lot when she's around. She smiles a lot too."

"I smile a good deal more with you."

"Answer the question."

"Jinx... "

"You keepin' secrets, Silly?"

Silco rubbed his left temple with two fingertips. His bad eye, at this bell, often throbbed. Like it was lined in burning grit.

Once they got home, she'd give it a triple-shot of synthetic Shimmer to soothe the ache.

It was near the Equinox: the burnt-over Shimmer fields had shown the first fragile saplings of blackflower. In time, they'd be able to harvest the fresh crop, and replenish the supply with the real-deal.  Meantime, the stockpile, each petal carefully rationed, had been holding steady for research in the F12 lab. 

They were in the final stage of development for medicinal Shimmer, and its corollary: a treatment for Gray Lung. 

Tonight, Singed would put the final touches on the formula. The subjects in the floating shanties—once mass graves on water—were showing signs of recovery. The ones in the early stages of infection had kicked the lung-rot nearly overnight. Even a few in the advanced stages had begun acquiring a rosier bloom to the cheek.

Not all the damage was irreversible: organ failure could be slowed to a halt, but the damage sustained would remain.

Still: if nothing else, it was a fighting chance.

Soon, the official announcement would hit the airwaves. A miracle elixir for the masses, halfway through production, with enough supplies to treat even the ugliest cases. A cure—not an illusory fix—and free of charge.

Once the patent was de facto, the Safeguard Act's rollout would begin. Shots distributed everywhere from public health offices to back-alley chemist's stalls. Every Zaunite would have equal access to a remedy that'd once been as distant as the stars.

Soon, Zaun would heal from festering sickness. Soon, the vaccines would eradicate Gray Lung altogether. Soon, other ills and ailments would follow.

Soon.

But Silco's Devil-eye, Jinx knew, would never fully heal. The sclera would stay ichor-black. The damaged optic nerves would never regenerate. He'd stay permanently half-blind: able to discern shapes, and identify light sources, but little else.

And the scarring? Maybe a cosmetic procedure could smooth out a majority of the physical pitting, if only he'd permit it. Except Silco refused any procedure involving sedation.

Too much like drowning, Jinx guessed.

And too much vanity, for a man who'd learnt to revel in monstrosity.

Jinx didn't mind. That Devil-eye was half hers. And the rest of him?

Stock, lock, and barrel.

"Why," Silco murmured now, "the sudden interest in my private affairs?"

"Just keepin' my facts straight." Jinx tapped Silco's shoulder like a door-to-door census-taker. "You get... kinda drifty during our outings. Like you're thinking 'bout stuff. People."

"People?"

"One person in particular." She went on tapping a bouncy drumbeat. One-two-three, one-two-three. A Sumpside Waltz. "C’mon, fess up. Who is it? Man, maid, mutant?"

"You're a riot, child."

"You get that stare, Silly. I recognize it."

"Do you now?"

"The special stare for somebody who matters."

Silence slipped between them: a gauzy interstitial layer between tension and ease. Jinx was certain he'd disengage, or worse: shut her out. That'd become his go-to, whenever Jinx pried too deep on too short notice.  She was beginning to wonder if he no longer saw her as his equal—merely another lackey, expected to fall in line.

Or maybe he'd stopped seeing her at all. Only the woman she was becoming. An endgame glimpsed at the horizon; beyond reach yet impinging closer everyday. The gulf between them growing: a distance accrued by time's march and the secrets they each hoarded.

So she was startled when he reached for her hand. He imparted a brief squeeze, withdrawing before she could twine their fingers together.

It was the closest to closeness he'd shown in weeks, and she latched on: figuratively if not literally,

"What," he said, mildly, "is so special about this stare?"

"Sorta soft. Kinda sad. Makes your left eye go all smoldery."

"Pity I can't see it."

"Pity’s right. You look like something carved outta cremation ash."

"Somebody's a poet."

"Somebody's avoiding the question."

Silence again. No gauze between them, now. Just stripped-down stillness.  The cityscape wheeled by in a jewel-toned carousel.

Until:

"Let me put your mind to rest," said Silco. "There is no special someone. Man, maid or mutant."

"Not even Maven."

"Maven is special the way an eel is a good bedtime companion. An acquired taste."

"Spoilsport. What about Medarda?"

"You know full-well my relationship with Mel is strictly business."

"Mel, hm?"

"We are on a first-name basis."

"'Cuz you're buddies?"

"'Cuz—" the mimicry was dead-on; Silco delivered it so drily Jinx couldn't help snort, "—our interests align. She is well-connected in her sphere. Therefore: useful in achieving Zaun's political goals. To say nothing of the coin her endorsement lends our coffers."

"What if your interests stopped aligning? What then?"

"Then our relationship would conclude. Without a pang of regret."

"Wow."

"Is that sarcasm?"

"More like a healthy dose of skepticism. I mean—yowser. No love lost at all?"

Silco's profile, darkening and brightening between each sweep of the streetlamps, grew remote. All of him, in Jinx's arms, but none of him within reach.

Where did he go, when he sank into himself like that?

"Love," Silco said quietly, "is never a factor in the equation."

"I think," Jinx retorted, equally quiet, "we both know it's not that simple."

"In a philosophical vacuum, no." Silco was nothing if not proficient at turning a conversation inside-out: subversion, deflection. He never answered a question directly, least of all concerning the nature of his true desires. "Real life's different. Private impulse is anathema to practical governance. And I gave myself to Zaun long ago."

"So there isn't any space in-between? Y'know. Between impulse, governance, and everyone else."

His pause was a pinched nerve.

"A sliver," he said carefully, "I grant you that. But in matters of the heart—"

"Which you don't have."

"I do." Unexpectedly, he reached down, palm curving over her shoulder. His cool fingers imparted a squeeze. "You, Jinx."

Jinx caught her lower-lip between her teeth. The flush of little-girl pleasure caught her off-guard. To dispel the feeling, she mocked it with a hard nudge, half play-fighting, half-hiding her face in his suit.

She should've outgrown her silly tells by now. But Silco, even at his most distant, still treated her as a little girl. And sometimes, try as she might, she couldn't be anything but that girl, even as the double-edged blade of grown-upness cut deeper and deeper.

Maybe it'd hurt less, if there was nowhere else for her to run, except straight back to him?

"Aww," she drawled, flippant despite her smarting cheeks, "you sure know how to sweet-talk a gal."

"Sarcasm again?"

"More like proof. Try as we might to keep our eye on the big-picture, the heart wants what it wants."

Silco's fingertips rested, light as a blade's tip, between her shoulderblades.

"The heart always wants," he said. "It's the nature of the beast. But to conflate want with need is folly."

"That's not what I'm saying."

"Oh?"

"I just... it seems a shame, doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"For us—for Zaun—to suffer for suffering's sake. Solitude makes you strong, sure. But does it always have to be a zero-sum game?"

Jinx chose her words with a rare precision. There were many things Silco found intolerable: one was sloppy word-choice. She'd used to bristle at his fixation on semantics—until she realized how easily Silco caught the tail-end of the argument and bent it to his terms. Clear word-choice kept him from seeking an entrypoint into a rebuttal.

"If loneliness can make us stronger," she went on, "shouldn't love—real love—make us invincible?"

He smiled, one-sided.  Because semantics or not, she'd still be a little girl. Little enough that he stared at her now from the distance of nearly twenty-five years, the tunnel dark with the difference of a lifetime of heartbreaks endured and trust betrayed, all so he could give her this: a city of neon and witchfire, where her own innocence would not flourish, but sharpen into the acumen essential for survival.

Jinx was a little girl. But she was also Zaun's champion. A symbol of revolution.

Symbols didn't get the luxury of growing pains.

"Real love," Silco rasped, "is what you deserve, Jinx. And there will always be someone worth falling in love with. But..."

"But?"

"But love, too often, becomes the raison d'etre for abrogating all else.  A fairytale framed as fact: love redeems, love is pure, love conquers all."

"You don't think so?"

She didn't quite understand his smile. It was softer, almost sorrowful. The shadows, so often cloaking him in enigma, seemed briefly to chip away the topography of long-lived violence to bare the tired bones beneath.

Her mind flashed to the car-wreck on the cliffside beneath the Bridge. The Wishing Wagon, an old jalopy whittled bare by decades of the time's buffeting tides.

"Love," Silco said, "is self-consumptive. It has only one true purpose."

"To make us happy?"

"To propagate a legacy."

"Yeesh. That's romantic."

"I've little room left for romance, Jinx."

"Because of me?"

Silco's palm sealed over her nape. The squeeze was tender, and very, very tight.  Was it because they were monsters, she wondered, that he clung until it hurt, even when he held her at arm's length?

Or because the real monsters of the world had done their level best to rip them apart?

"Yes," Silco said simply, "because of you. Because you have already given me everything. Every purpose, every dream, every breath."

The cicatrix between her ribs gave a familiar twinge. Gratitude—or grief?

"What if you could do it over?" she whispered. "If, instead of starting Zaun, you'd let yourself...?"

"Have the life another man might've lived?" There it was again: that shadow-smile, fading now as the darkness returned to engulf him like teeth. "That man wouldn't be me, Jinx. He'd be Vander."

She didn't shiver. But the chill that catwalked over her spine was kissing-kin to premonition.

"D'you ever think," she murmured, "he made the right choice?"

"No."

"Never?"

"He took his path, and I took mine."

"What if you'd... deviated? Shared that path with someone else? Like... if Nandi had lived? If..."

She stopped. This landscape of shared history bore a perimeter of barbed wire: memories that could gut a man. Silco seldom mentioned Nandi, or the possible future he might've shared with her. Never once summoned the specter of family—flesh-and-blood, not borrowed and blue.

Perhaps he couldn't bear to, any more than Vi could mention Caitlyn without a muddy film creeping into her eyes. Any more than Ekko could, without a crack in his voice like broken knuckles, and eyes that sought Jinx's in hopes of someone else looking back.

Grief was like that. It meant always looking backward.

Whereas in Zaun, forward was the only path worth taking.

"An exercise in futility," Silco said, though not cruelly. "And dull in the extreme. Why does it even matter, Jinx? You can't possibly believe I would trade everything that's come to pass—everything we have fought for, together—for a shot at a fairy-tale?"

"I dunno," she mumbled. "I guess... I just wondered."

"Wondered, what?"

"If you didn't miss your shot at a happily-ever-after? If, here and now, there could be a second chance?"

Unexpectedly, Silco caught her chin, tipping her face to his. His fingertips held a chill, but there was warmth, too, in his mismatched eyes. A bitter warmth, like blood between the chinks of teeth.

"Happily ever after, Jinx?"

She shrugged, but there was no evading his grasp.

"Is it...I dunno... so impossible? I mean, sure. The Pilties are uptight shits with sticks up their bums. But there's been so many milestones. So many strides forward. There must be folks out there—good, strong, trustworthy types—who'd be worthy of letting in?"

"Good," Silco echoed tonelessly. "Trustworthy."

"Look, I know. They're stupid adjectives. But action's what counts, right? Anyone can pay lip service to Progress. But the ones who make it happen...who believe in what we're building..." Jinx's tongue, so adept at quips, tripped over the unaccustomed tangle of sincerity, "...the ones who wanna be part of the process—couldn't they be good company, too?"

Something shifted in Silco's countenance. A rearrangement of bone and muscle.

"What," he said, "are you asking me, Jinx?"

"I'm just asking: would you? Could you, ever?"

"Could I, what?"

"Love somebody." The limo's temperature was chilly. But sweat broke across Jinx's hairline. "Else."

"Why?"

"Why not?" In a rare fit of discomfiture, she dropped her eyes. "D'you ever feel like—you're being unfair? Denying yourself? I mean—you're the Eye of Zaun. You see all. But who...looks out for you? Sees you, as you really are?"

"Sees an opening to stick a dagger in my back?"

"Sees you, and has your back when shit hits the fan. Because—" A sneak-peek. She didn't mean to bring specifics into the equation. She'd meant this conversation to remain unclouded by detail, theoretical in the extreme. And yet, her instincts compelled her onward.. "—Because that's what love means, Silco. Or could, if you let it."

A prolonged quiet stretched between them: filled only with the crunch of wheels against slick asphalt.

On Silco’s face, another rearrangement: slower, colder. The grinding of glaciers.

The hand cradling her jaw stayed gentle.

"Since," Silco said at last, "you insist on putting me to the hot-seat: shall I be honest, Jinx?"

"You know you can."

"You wish me to be?"

"Duh."

"Then listen closely. If you think love will patch over decades of inequity and strife between cities; that it can fill the hole left in Zaun's belly after a lifetime's starvation; if you think, above all, that my choosing to let someone 'into my life', as it were, would not be tantamount to cutting a vein and offering Topside free reign to drain us dry? Then Jinx: you have not learnt a single lesson, and I have failed you utterly." 

She flinched, but he held fast.

"Love," Silco went on, a soft sibilation slithering through his tone, "didn't save Vander. It killed him. It killed Nandi. Nearly killed Zaun in its cradle, before she drew her first breath. Now she lives, under our auspices. By our willingness to commit the worst sins, and bleed ourselves dry for her survival. Love did nothing for Zaun, because nothing changes the fundamental truth: the Council will bury us alive if we falter."

"The Council can try," Jinx shot back, "but there are plenty of folks willing to stand in its way."

"For survival. For profit. For progress." Silco's grip tightened imperceptibly. A tacit threat, telegraphed in tactile language. "Love has nothing to do with it."

"One day," Jinx returned, undaunted, "we'll win. But winning won't be enough, Silco. Zaun'll need more than survival, or profit, or progress. She'll need love. Because without it, what's left to hold onto?"

"Do not lecture me on future scenarios, Jinx. I've lived decades to earn my dues as an augur." A ghost of black humor crossed Silco's face. "Leave the divination to me."

"It ain't divination, Silly. It's fact. Everything needs love to grow."

"What lets a city grow, Jinx, is cold currency and hard power. You forget that every day on the edge of annihilation is an act of war. And in wartime, sentiment gets the first axe."  His notched lip bridled to bare jagged teeth. "My mistake—and Vander's—was forgetting that lesson. I learnt it at Vander's hands, at the bottom of the Pilt. He relearnt it at mine, when I drove his knife into his back. All I've done since is to make sure I'd never forget."

His grip, gentle, hardened. But the eyes, grim-set, held an undertow of tenderness.

"Love's a fool's errand, Jinx. It didn't birth Zaun." His thumb described a tear's burning arc down her cheekbone. "You did."

Jinx's eyes were bone-dry. But there was a strange stricture in her throat. When, she wondered, had the accolade begun to feel like a strangulation?

"I'd do it again," she said hoarsely. "Again and again."

"I know."

"Because I did it for you." Her hand, trembling, lifted to curl over the hard knob of his wrist. "Because I love you."

The gentleness, in both eyes, deepened into a peculiar gleam: half-pride, half-sorrow.

"I know that, too."

"So why not risk it?" she said, trying to smile. "I gave you Zaun. And you gave me almost everything."

"Almost, hm?"

"We could have it all, Silco. We didn't before. But we could, now. If we tried. If we were brave. If—"

Silco tipped her head back to kiss her crown. The gesture felt strange. Out of context. As if she were a child seeking reassurance, not an adult making an impassioned case for the future.

His lips were soft as snowfall. The cold imprint burned on her forehead.

A bullseye as indelible as her scar. 

"If Topside believed as deeply as you do," Silco said quietly, "we would not be here now."

"But—"

Implacable, he cut in, "We are alone, Jinx, because we earned our power. No shortcuts. No middle-ground. Nothing can bridge that gap. Especially not love."

"What if they surprised you? If you gave 'em half a chance?"

"That," Silco said with a deathly calm, "is a betrayal brewing on the horizon."

Jinx, lip bit, fell silent.

Silco kissed her again: forehead, nose, eyelids. Brands of frostbite, doubly cold in the absence of her tears. She didn't cry much, these days. Maybe because when she did, her tears were the other sort. The dangerous sort. Spilling free between kisses that tasted, not of despair, but a hopeful refraction of light.

The glow of a star before it went supernova.

"You're right," Jinx lied. Her voice came steady, scraped clean of all girlish lilt. "Love's a song best skipped."

She thought Silco might smile. He didn't. Only held her in his single-eyed scrutiny.  He seemed to be waiting, for her to reveal some hidden hand; a dark truth, held in reserve. 

Jinx didn't. Only curled herself closer to his side, and shut her eyes.

After a beat, she heard Silco exhale. The tension passed.

"I hope," he said, in his ordinary timbre, "you know that I love you, Jinx. Always. You are the one weakness I wear on my sleeve: in plain sight. Except you are not a weakness. You are strength untold. And you made yourself that way—not with fairytales or false pretenses. Just by being you: bloody-minded and brave as hell."

"I didn't have a choice," Jinx whispered. "At the Cannery, if you hadn't found me..."

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that I did. I found you. I chose you. And I'll always choose you. No matter the passels of pretty faces who come and go. No matter if it's a Medarda shining in gold, or some other bored blueblood flaunting their wares. It's only us, and it will always be us." His arm, encircling her narrow ribcage, squeezed. "Remember that, even if you forget all else."

The little-girl flush was back, riding the coattails of ghost-tears. Jinx burrowed closer. Her heart burned with secrets, but the rest of her was a steel trap of silence.  Two truths for every lie, just the way Silco had taught her.

Taught her well, because even as she stayed a little girl nestled in his arms, she knew how rapidly she was outgrowing the nest.

Change was due full-throttle: Jinx could sense the countdown in her bones.