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irabelaswriting · 2 years ago

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incentive

chapter 16: pay the boat fare

pairing: silco x f!reader | rating: M | words: 7.0k | ao3

After several, motionless seconds, Silco stiffened, his good eye widening slowly.

Then, it sharpens towards you. “She doesn’t. Not anymore.”

That– that wasn’t even an answer to your question.

The scoff that leaves you is perhaps a bit too derisive. “Right. As if that doesn’t play a part in this.”

Silco visibly bristles – at your tone or your words, you don’t know – perhaps a bit of both, you think, as his brow furrows, hackles rising like a street cat ready to fight for turf. “And what, precisely, is this?”

Before fear of Silco’s ire has time to really take root inside your already hammering ribcage, you go on, willing your voice to be steady. “This being fact that Jinx was so afraid of missing out that she bends to every whim. You said she had no friends, ever. She had a sister – other kids, friends close enough to be brothers–”

Silco cuts you off, a dry lilt to his voice as if he’s feigning boredom. “If you’d been more observant, you would know that this isn’t some well kept secret.”

Familiar heat rises in your veins, catalyzing every pent up emotion all at once, releasing the same cathartic heat from back down in the bar, just mere days ago.

“Then why lie about it?”

The two of you were dancing on a tightrope now.

Silco is still very much your boss, still very much a dangerous criminal who could have you weighed down and thrown in the deepest parts of the river Pilt should he feel inclined to do so. You’d be nothing but a skeleton at the bottom of the river, bones turned to coral, by the time anyone would come looking for you.

And going by the way he was gearing up to fume at you now, you considered that he was, indeed, feeling inclined.

As Silco speaks this time, the words are cold like steel, armed with a sharp point that delivers the words with medical precision. “Did I misjudge your ability to think as well as your ability to look any further than your nose?”

Insulting and demeaning you all in one breath – you’d almost been worried the two of you were past that stage.

Holding back the urge to question if he has early onset dementia, among other things, your knuckles lighten around the tray still pressed tightly against your front as you scowl up at him.

Still, it doesn’t stop the way your heart sinks at his words, making you falter for just a moment. You shake that off– no, you weren’t the one in the wrong here.

“I specifically asked and you still didn’t tell me.”

Sure, it might not have been the best time and place for such questions, with Jinx being in the room and what not, but then again – you had spent the rest of the evening in his company, giving him ample time to broach the subject again.

Half the night, too.

Don’t think about that. Not now.

“Tell me, did you find it entertaining to uncover this?” The question is followed by a predatory tilt of his head, as if he’s caught you gossiping behind his back.

The memory of his hands on you, the way he’d spoken to you just mere minutes beforehand, dissipates instantly.

That wasn’t what you’d meant–

“N-no,” you start, blinking up at him – this wasn’t a game to get him to slip up, to catch him in a lie or make a fool out of him, honestly, that was more his game than yours, “I just–”

“Then why do you insist?” Silco said, a hard scowl etched across his face. A low rumble of anger is present there too, reminding you of the imminent danger that you naturally associate with Silco, unmistakable in your mind.

Mouth opening and closing – a sentence starts to form on the tip of your tongue but it dies there as well. The need to defend yourself at his particularly derisive and accusing tone is still there, as present as the heart banging behind your ribcage.

He wants you to argue – to offer him something he can shut down, you know, but it’s hard to utter the many thoughts that pass through your still slightly sore head.

Shifting on your feet, fingernails digging into the tray even harder as you say nothing for a moment.

Wasn’t it obvious?

It comes much more naturally, to think of Jinx, the girl you’ve grown to care so much for during your short time together; the in-much-need-of-a-trim-bangs, the gap-toothed smile, the pretty freckles strewn across her complexion. The inherent sadness in her eyes, pools of blue that swam with endless guilt, the fat tears that would roll down from her eyes onto blotchy cheeks in the dead of night.

It had felt like a failure – crushing her expectations, making her feel left out when it really had been all for her.

Was it so terrible that you wished something other than the worst for her?

In the end, you found that sincerity could be a harsh weapon.

You meet his mismatched gaze head on, willing your voice not to waver. “Jinx doesn’t deserve to go through that again.”

Silco’s lip curls unpleasantly as you speak. The singe of his scarlet sclera moves across your face – evaluating and calculating, weighing your words – leaving an almost pantomime burn in its wake.

Fleetingly, you notice how the hands by Silco’s sides have clenched into fists.

“Like so many other children of Zaun, Jinx has a past unimaginable to you. And it is not up for debate like some spectacle.” He finally says. All of the former wry, teasing lilt that filled his voice is gone now, replaced with a cold, disregarding tone.

It is your turn to glower, hotness in your veins soaring. Was that an excuse to not speak of what had been before all of this? That it was information that could’ve been easily obtained, figured out on your own. Yet you had asked–

The tray still pressed tightly against your front is the only thing keeping you from throwing your hands up at how obtuse he’s being. Was he taking this disingenuously on purpose?

“That isn’t what I’m saying.” You scoff back at him, despite all the obvious tells on his face ordering you to drop this, now. You could almost hear him in the back of your mind, a patronizing girl attached to the end of it. Silco’s obvious annoyance is easy to replicate – it spurns you on too, riles you up like all the alarm clocks in the back of your mind were set off all at once. “Not trusting me with this kind of information, information that hasn’t even been confidential, that you just omitted due to some whim on your part,” you know better, you do, but the words keep coming, like you can’t stop, “is so– stupid.”

A tremor tugged on the good side of his face at the word – stupid.

“It’s backwards, isn’t it? You– you expect me to do this, to help her, but you won’t tell me who it is she cries for.”

A moment passes. A single, silent moment – carrying the weight of all you truly want to say, want to ask.

How much more could you have done for Jinx if you’d known?

“It’s just like what you told Jinx – that you need to see the consequences of your actions before doing them.” You shake your head, dismay breaking through your voice. What other solace could you have provided for her? What words of comfort would have come naturally? What other ways could you have found to stop her from falling apart at the seams? “If I had just known the extent of it, that she once had a family and friends who loved her–”

“Enough.”

If his anger had been the low rumble of thunder in the far distance before – now, it was as if lightning struck.

“They weren't her friends.” Silco sneered, rage flicking in his bright eye. It reminds you all too well of the carefully curated contempt you’d witnessed at the boathouse, the quiet harsh tone he’d used on the Sheriff.

It’s so hard to not cower away from him, from the anger that’s almost palpable in the air, to lower your eyes and stare down at his feet, be the epitome of obedience.

“They shunned her. Abandoned her. Left her to fend for herself. If you only knew half of what she has told me of them you’d be reconsidering this pitiful attempt at discrediting–”

“I don’t and that’s reason enough to tell me–”

“Watch your tongue,” Silco cuts you off, wielding a tone that offers no argument, “I’ve been lenient enough with you, girl. I’ve looked past your misdoings more times than I can count.”

It’s hyperbole, but effective in making anger rear its ugly head nonetheless.

You scoff, taking a step back from him. “And I should look past yours because of it?”

“It means you should know your place.” Silco follows, stepping into your personal space again, bending until his nose almost touched yours. “I would be happy to remind you of it, since you so obviously need it.”

Exactly how he meant to remind you is suddenly on the forefront of your mind – Silco could turn you out to the streets, leave you to fend for yourself. Unbidden, the possibility that he very much still could cash in on his win from your wager, enters your mind. Make it more pain and punishment than… whatever it was that he had hinted at earlier.

The obvious unease you suddenly feel must show, because the corner of his mouth ticks upwards ever so slightly.

Worse, he could do worse.

Memories of blood covered cobblestones, fingernails splitting up over stone edges during the last throes of death–

No, you decide almost as soon as the thought reaches you, Silco wouldn’t do that.

Despite it all, he’s not bad to you.

Never to you.

Finally, you break the stare he’s all but forced you into, seeing knuckles bending over the edge of the tray, his pointed boots still so incredibly close to your own.

He must take it for submission – the instinct telling you that he actually wouldn’t hurt you – because Silco’s voice lowers back into the smooth drawl you’re used to.

“What you’re asking for– no, demanding, is trust,” he says, a hand pushing hair back into place smoothly as he straightens up, almost as if he’s physically reining in his anger and breathing back under careful control, “and that, just like coin, is earned.”

Then, he looks down at you with a scoff, as if the mere idea of that being the case offends him. “As if you have.”

So you were back to this again.

“When could you have managed that? Was it when you left the premises without my permission? When you endangered both Jinx and yourself?”

Speaking to you as if you, doing your assigned tasks, your job, were just one big inconvenience towards him, more than anything. A mere thorn in his side.

What did he know?

ba-thump

The dull sound barely registers in the back of your mind as Silco continues to berate you. It’s as if he’s no longer within reach – putting distance between the two of you in more ways than just one.

“It is not in my notion to allow backtalk from a spoiled, sheltered, Piltover whelp.” Silco moves away from you, hands behind his back, straightening out to his full length. He expects you to take this – to dutifully keep quiet, not raise your voice in turn, not to burn any more bridges than you already have managed to.

And perhaps that is your role. You’re just an employee – not a confidant, or friend or even–

No.

He doesn’t think of you like you think of him.

Your eyes flick up back to Silco. His sharp features are strained – a vein popping in his temple, a sharp breath exhaled as he meets your stare.

ba-thump-thump

Maybe the fact that Silco has been letting you speak should worry you more than it has; his compliance in your critique of him has been… too allowed. A mere quip of disagreement before and you’d be on the receiving end of threats far less vague than merely reinstating and reminding you of your role.

Perhaps, the fact is that you are slowly chipping away at his parenting with your too involved inquiries and words. And, at the same time, letting those questions dig your own water-filled grave.

ba-thump-thump

Mouth drying up at that thought – you search for resolve that you know is still there, heart racing along to the steady thrumming, willing yourself to keep afloat and not give into the deep, the dark shark infested waters.

ba-thump-thump

The man in front of you was a shark.

Silco would swallow you whole if you let him, you knew.

thump-thump-thump-thump–

“If you would’ve just told me about it–,” about everything, “the bloodmoney, after what happened at the markets.” Your lips move as if on their own accord – the steady thump-thump-thump egging you on, a sudden boost to the urgency of your words, like the claps of a crowd reaching a climax.

thump-thump-thump-thump-thump–

“I would’ve done a better job if I’d known, if you’d just told me, you have to see that. I would’ve never taken her out with me, after what happened, I never would have–”

Silco holds up a finger between you, effectively silencing you.

thump-thump-thump-thump-thump–

It developed into a constant rhythmic sound, rapidly building in speed, noise, force. You feel the pulsing vibrations below your feet now, hear the clattering of the empty crystal decanters jostling around in the globe.

Both you and Silco look down at your feet simultaneously, source of the sound clear now as it only increases in every aspect.

thump-thump-thump-thump-thump–

It only surges in force – enough so that the paintings on the wall start to shake, furniture almost bouncing. The desk screeches slightly; the ice not fully melted in the drink clinking as the glass moves with every jump. The glass moves closer and closer to the edge of the stacked books–

Both of you move towards it. Silco, quick as a cat, reaches it before you do, long legs and all, grabbing it just as it’s about to tip over the edge.

Still, the sound gets louder, even as you let out an exhale of relief. Only to wince as one of the paintings actually falls off the wall behind you.

It’s not an outside threat – no, Silco’s acting far too tepid for that, you note with a grimace – but rather, from the bar you’d just left what felt like mere moments earlier.

It’s why it’s not surprising when Silco turns back to you, voice just barely carrying over the noise.

“What,” one good eye trails over to you, iron grip on the drink still, “is that?”

The entire building shakes, rattling the iron and glass keeping the structure together. A high pitched whine resonating from everywhere, making your teeth grind together.

“I d-don’t–”

The words are left hanging on the tip of your tongue, realization surging over you as if someone had poured ice cold water over your head.

“Jinx.”

You’re down the stairs before Silco has a moment to grab you.

–X–

Jinx, Jinx, Jinx–

You’d left her all alone down in the bar – it had been all wrong in trusting Sevika to look after her, with her already being predisposed to disliking the girl–

You take the last steps of the stairs with a jump that rattles your bones, a soft oof swallowed by the blasting noise that pours out from the bar, effectively pushing away the tense bubble that was steadily rising in your throat.

With every thumping beat of heavy bass, the door swings on its hinges, the sound already pushing at your eardrums as you rush into the bar.

The noise hits you, a soundwave that makes you almost physically recoil. At once, you cover your ears.

Broken glass and knocked over chairs litter across the room. The lights are on again – bright and showing every crooked and ugly detail; the folded pieces of paper you’ve stuck under some of the table legs to make them stop wobbling, the messes and half drunken drinks abandoned as the chaos had ensued.

Splinters fly across the room.

Sevika wields a chair against the offender – the jukebox you’d left Jinx to take care of.

Ran and Mek are taking refuge in one of the booths as Sevika hammers the machine up like she has a personal vendetta against it. The cape is thrown off her shoulder, showing off cogs and machinery that glow from the telltale magenta luminessence of Shimmer, cogs turning to work as she smashes the jukebox with a chair.

Soon, she’s holding nothing but two splintery pieces of wood in her hands.

The machine whines and whirs, dramatically.

Then, silence.

The only thing that fills the bar is the slow pour of broken bottles of liquor, the hum of electricity coming from the harsh light, Sevika’s hard breathing. And, the inhale of a breath you take, the state of the bar finally settling on your shoulders.

Sevika stiffens.

Slowly, she turns around towards you.

Her mouth is downturned, the seemingly permanent harsh scowl increasing in intensity. Eyes hard and unforgiving, hitting you like a spotlight.

The back of your neck tingles as if you’re in mortal peril.

You inch backwards, like it’ll stop Sevika from fully seeing you if you make yourself as small as possible.

“You.”

Stealth never was your forte, however.

Just as your flight and fight senses are about to kick in, she rushes towards you, long legs taking the distance in just a couple of strides. Instead, you freeze like you’ve been glued to the spot.

Words bubble from your lips, but don’t actually form anything coherent, ending in a yelp as a large hand fist in your collar.

“This,” Sevika grits out, dragging you up on your tiptoes, “is on you.”

Sevika’s face is contorted into a snarl, and you try pulling away as she huffs through her nose. A vein is popping by her temple, you notice this up close, swallowing uncomfortably around something large and unspeakable in your throat.

This had been a mistake. It had all been a mistake – what had you been doing up there in the first place? Entertaining the thought that perhaps he’d–

“All you had to do was deliver a drink up there,” she seethes at you, bringing you even impossibly closer, so close that your noses almost touch. Halfly, you expect her to throw you across the room, send you smashing into what little of the alcohol reserves that still existed. She had done that once, when the bar got too rowdy, or when she got caught cheating at dice by some drunkards. “Did you get what you wanted? What you came for?”

The need to explain yourself comes naturally at her accusing tone.

“Eh,” you throw a hasty look around you, trying to give yourself more time, “technically i-it is fixed, I m-mean, that was definitely an improvement, wasn’t—“

A twitch in Sevika’s face makes you stop abruptly.

Not the right answer then.

The feeling that you couldn’t slither out of this one grows on you. You swallow thick and hard, eyes darting across the torn up bar.

“Don’t.” As if she can read your mind, as if she can literally see the escape plan taking shape in your mind, Sevika gives another hard tug at your collar. “If you think I’m going to let you walk away from this you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”

Shit. Right. Suddenly, you’re aware of exactly how tall and towering and imposing Sevika truly was.

You’d never doubted that, but as she snarls above you, you feel infinitely small.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that a wrench is still propped against the wall, one with scribble of neon on it and you blink, one, twice–

Bottlecaps litter the bar – strewn about as haphazardly as if someone had been throwing them like roses into a crowd. Caps in a bar? Not out of the ordinary, no, but you could see the line of trajectory from some of them, the jagged rifts in the wooden tables where they’d sliced through the material.

Ice cold, the realization hits you.

“Where’s Jinx?” Worry tinges your voice, more than you’re able to conceal at this moment.

Unceremoniously, Sevika lets you go with a scoff. “Licking her wounds, probably.”

Shrinking back further, you rub a hand against the nape of your neck, where the material of your collar has indented into the soft skin, gravity doing its part in your discomfort. The image of caps flying through the air, slicing up skin like a warm knife through butter, enters your mind. If Jinx was hurt by any of this…

Beneath the fabric burn, your throat constricts.

“This isn’t funny, Sevika.”

The sudden mean twist to Sevika’s mouth tells you more than it should.

Her breath smells acrid – cigarettes and alcohol, as bitter as her words against your senses. “Are you happy with this? What the runt managed to do?”

“Could've done worse.” You’d seen Jinx do worse with less. Sevika had, too, you knew. “She’s a teenager. A kid.”

A sudden mean twist to Sevika’s mouth that tells you more than it should.

“She’s a burden. An expense, most of the time– don’t give me that look. Silco knows what I think, what everyone thinks. What do you think you’re here for in the first place?”

You narrow your eyes, sharpen them towards her.

“If you– if you said that to her–”

“Then that’s nothing she hasn’t heard before.” Sevika grumbled, with an uncommitted shrug, eyes no longer focused on you.

That did not bode well.

The hurtle into concern comes alarmingly fast. “Where is she?”

Another scoff, this one more mean-spirited than before. “I said, not here. Ran off to Janna knows where–”

“Sevika.”

A heavy hand settled on your shoulder, pushing down the hackles you’ve unconsciously raised. Behind you, the door oscillates on its hinges, a dull sound, much less apparent in your mind than Silco’s deep timbre.

Only the merest turn of your head is needed to reveal the scarlet iris searing through you, the nasty sneer spreading across his lips, teeth bared. You hadn’t even gotten the chance to consider if he was going to be trailing in your wake, that Silco would follow you. When your eyes flick back to Sevika, her expression mirrors Silco’s.

It’s like an angry sandwich.

Sevika on one side, Silco on the other.

You, being the condiment between two very angry slices of bread.

Sweat starts beading at your brow.

“What did you do?” Silco hisses and it’s clear who he’s asking.

“I– uh…” You start, eyes darting between the two very intimidating people looming over you, hesitating on your words. “Let– let Jinx fix the jukebox.”

Sheepishly, you shrug. Well, as much as Silco’s hold on you allows.

First, Silco blinks. It’s then followed by a heavy sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Told you!” Mek shouts from a well-hidden spot in one of the booths. Lights flicker above you, painting the scene in too happy neons.

The jukebox gives a whirr and metallic groan, as if in agreement with Mek.

“Jinx hotwired the damn thing,” Sevika shoves a thumb towards the general vicinity of the jukebox, and it whines dramatically, again. She lights up a cigarette, huffing on it and letting it take, the nicotine buzz maybe helping in keeping her mood from souring any further. “It wouldn’t turn off until that happened.”

That being Sevika massacring it with a chair.

So far, the loss for the night had been the jukebox (probably beyond repair now), a chair, multiple surface scratches across tables and walls that would need to be sanded down or even replaced, dozens of liquor bottles wasted and still dripping down the side of the bar. Ralph was hiding behind the varnished countertop, doing a terrible job at hiding the fact that he was crying. All because you’d gone upstairs to–

A keen sense of guilt washes over you. It’s so intense that you barely notice just how quiet it has gotten once again.

“And you didn’t stop her?” The question is grit out between clenched teeth, low and harsh, a blow to the most tender of parts.

You stay frozen between them. Maybe if you didn’t move they wouldn’t notice you, wouldn’t turn their ire back on you.

The cigarette that hung from the corner of Sevika’s mouth falls, her sneer only increasing.

Over your head, the two of them exchange a long look, the silence conveying more than words could. The hold Silco has on your shoulder only increases, pressure added like he wants you to falter to your knees.

For a second, you think the tension might snap, that you’d need to crouch down in a moment's notice, make yourself as small as possible to avoid an missguided uppercut from Sevika’s mechanical arm.

After what feels like an eternity, Sevika finally scoffs, shaking her head. “No. Abso-fucking-lutely not. That’s her fucking job. Not mine.” The jab of her finger into your sternum makes you yelp. “All of my dues are paid for. I’ve done enough already.” Smoke still billows from the burning cigarette – and Sevika stomps it out, with a bit more force than needed, her voice a low growl as she speaks. Harsh eyes dart down to you. “I indulged you and all of your little games last night.”

Silco clicks his teeth, biting off the words as they leave his lips. “That is inconsequential to what we’re dealing with–”

“No. What you’re dealing with.”

Silco’s jaw tightens, as does the hold on your shoulder.

“Figure it out on your own. I’m going to Babettes’. Don’t even think of bothering me.” Sevika stomps away, kicking up the front door. Mutterings of not a fucking babysitter and other, more unsavoury curses follow in her wake.

Exactly who she’s addressing is unclear – maybe it’s targeted towards Silco, or even towards you, or just about anyone in the closest vicinity. Would anyone be fool enough to jump Sevika this particular evening they might lose a limb or two.

You cast a glance backwards at Silco, only to find him looking… ruffled. Probably, this was more bite than what he had experienced in years from his employees. You note the way his jowls twitch, the tightness in his shoulders, as if he’s wound up like one of Jinx’s many toys.

With a hard swallow, you start, “I– Jinx is still probably around–” the tension laying thick in the air like a duvet on a winter evening, as you make a motion to leave, to untangle yourself from him, “I should go–“

You don’t make it very far.

“I am not done with you yet.” Silco snarls, his broad hand almost slamming into the doorframe as he looms over you, stopping your advancement. He’s all but pinning you to the doorframe, leaning over you, just like he’d done a few days ago, in that same spot just a few feet away.

This time, you don’t lose your composure because of the closeness. This time, you don’t break the stare. Even if you do eye the very tempting space below his arm that would allow you to slip out into the hallway. Silco lowers his arm there, blocking your escape route with one easy gesture and an even more sour look.

As if on cue, the twins start carrying out the still softly groaning jukebox through the front door, and Silco’s attention turns elsewhere.

It’s all you need.

You slither under his arm, brushing against his side as you go.

Emboldened by Sevika’s defiance, you twist back in time to stick your tongue at him. “Save it! You were the one who gave me the night off.”

Halfly, you expect him to pull you back, to follow, press you against the door and tell you off more, or worse. Instead, he lets you slink off with nothing more than a dirty look and an imminent air of danger steaming off of him.

You’d reap what you’ve sown another time, the harsh downwards tug on his mouth tells you.

The seething glare makes your feet skip several rows of steps as you flee the scene, decidedly moving towards the lower levels. Only to find both your own assigned lodge and Jinx’s bedroom eerily empty.

And sure, Jinx had a knack for getting round in the rafters, keeping away if she didn’t want to be found. Which made the current task of finding her at least ten times harder.

But this was your job, right? Reinforcement should Jinx go off the rails.

And now you’d failed that, given her too much to handle, not been present when she needed you. It feels a lot like the same thing that had happened just the previous evening. Inwardly, you curse yourself. You weren’t here to serve drinks, to be Silco’s little pawn to shove around as he saw fit.

Those things – what had happened yesterday – were just… extras.

Things that shouldn’t occur between an employee and their boss.

Yet he isn’t like that with everyone, is he? Not even Sevika.

Even this far below, you hear commotion coming from the bar. More glass shattering, the screeching of a chair being kicked across the room.

After thoroughly conducting a sweep of all the usual spots Jinx could possibly hide in, you turn your sights on the only place left.

Gingerly, you open the door to the workshop, immediately greeted by soft sobs echoing through the cavernous hold.

The lowest level of the Last Drop is deep below ground; down there, the quiet that could settle is nothing but eerie. Usually, it’s filled with the soft clanging of steel, the hiss and crackle of heat and metal welding together, the whirrs and clicks as cogs work, the gramophone playing a record Jinx surely pilfered from Silco’s own private collection. He always did turn a blind eye to her thievery, letting her collect trinkets and shiny baubles down in her workshop like a tiny treasure hoarding dragon.

The workshop itself is rather contained; but the room is large, moist and cavernous, a place both for safekeeping and for testing whatever it was that Jinx worked away at. With its size also came the echoes; sound carried through the room easily, announcing your arrival as soon as the door closed behind you.

You call out into the emptiness. “Jinx?”

Sniffles stop abruptly.

Both wary and worried at the sudden recordhalt, you move further into the room.

The half finished prototype sits on her workbench, a soft hum coming from the mechanics, adding ambience to the room. The sound is… unnerving, foreboding in every sense. Like the purr from a cat, soft and constant like a motor hidden beneath layers of blankets. As you get closer, your eyes travel towards the object instinctively.

She’d managed to get that far before getting zapped? Jinx seems to have made it a bit further than halfway when working on it. It’s a lot like the blueprint she showed you; the differences, the discrepancies, all seemed like easy fixes. Even if your eyes only swept over the blueprints fleetingly, you gather that much. You fight off the urge to go over and inspect the damned thing, opting to instead push further into the room.

Besides the dim sound emitted from the prototype, there’s also another, rhythmic sound you can’t pinpoint the location of. It comes and goes. Tick, tock. Almost like a bomb.

Knowing Jinx, it probably was.

That– that didn’t matter as much as Jinx did at the moment though, and with a hard swallow, you press into the workshop, shaking that particular feeling off. Once again, the tiny sounds of sniffling pick up.

Even if it’s rather dim down here, with the exception of the bright light by the workbench, you spot her once your eyes adjust to the darkness of the overhanging abyss.

Jinx sits on the edge of a platform a bit higher up, where the makeshift dolls she’s fashioned herself reside, arms wrapped around her legs. Huddled together like she doesn’t want to be found. Blue braids hang off the ledge, rustling as her shoulders shake with the force of her cries.

You want to rush forward to her – seek out her arms and face and see if there’s been any damage done, if she’s okay – but you know that would only spook her now. Make her uproot herself from the one place she feels safe in, scrambling out of sight and reach like how a spooked street cat would when you took out the trash from the bar late at night.

And so, slowly, you start to approach her, eyeing her up from a distance – there’s no obvious cuts, no bleeding from her arms or legs, no tethered material hanging off her body. Well, more than usual, she did work in a workshop filled to the brim with tools and explosions on the daily so–

“Hey,” you start, hand reaching out, “Sevika wouldn’t say where you went, so I went looking for you. It’s– it’s alright, Jinx, I talked with both of them…”

You trail off as you inch closer, to see that Jinx is still crying, is curling together tighter.

Cautiously, you stop a few feet from her. “Jinx?”

“I messed up again– Sevika said—“Jinx speaks, voice warbled, snot and tears clogging up her sinuses, “that I was bad luck.”

“No,” you start, shaking your head, “not at all Jinx, I–”

“That everything everyone says is true–” the words stutter out her mouth, red rimmed eyes finally daring to steal a look at you.

I hear everything, though.

Her words from so long ago ring through your mind, and you let the recoil of them hit you.

What an immense toll it has to be, the willful ignorance everyone in the Last Drop has adopted towards her in favor of keeping out of harm’s way. It’s more insidious than outright distaste, doing more harm than sticks and stones ever could.

For a long moment, everything’s quiet. Except for the hiccuping inhales Jinx takes, the dim whirr of the prototype far off, the echoes of water droplets hitting stone.

Then, she starts, slowly. “She said you left because she told you what– what I did.” Jinx pauses, a full body shiver running through her at the thought, the merest mention of it. “When I was younger… I did something I didn’t mean to and then– then they were gone. Vi was gone, and she blamed me– called me a jinx, and so–”

The palm of her hand pushed away the tears that wouldn’t stop falling, her mouth quivering, shoulders shaking. “I am a jinx. Everyone says so, I know so. I’m bad luck.”

Then, in a suddenly much smaller voice: “I only wanted to help.”

“Oh,” your heart twangs, moving in to touch her shoulder, to bring yourself closer and give her some small relief, “no, no… no, Ji–”

You start to say her name, Jinx, but stop yourself.

She’s curled in on herself, hugging her knees to her chest as she sits on the edge of the platform, blue eyes bloodshot from crying. Practically wincing as you touch her. As if it bites, as if the touch is going to hurt her.

So much of what you want to say lies on the tip of your tongue, that you now know who it is she cries for, and the words rest there as she cries harder, inches away from the edge.

And you think of shame and guilt and grief.

How was it that old tale went? The one you had read so many times as a young child, the one that gave reason as to why the people of old were buried with coins in their hands?

Pay the boat fare or be left stranded on the beaches.

A toll to be paid to whoever it was that brought the dead over the currents to reach salvation on the other shore.

When would the toll be paid for Jinx? When would she find herself able to cross those rapids instead of drowning in them?

The pain isn’t optional – there’s no easy way out of this. No way to make it go away. There’s nothing to do to stop it and isn’t that sad? The inherentness of having to deal with it, feeling like she does. When would it end? Could it even?

Healing meant reliving. It meant knowing. It meant digging up the past just to bury it again.

Even now, you’d find your own hands guided by the past – years after it was all over, when it was all long forgotten dreams and connections. Even now, you’d still find yourself worried about letting them down.

You want to press the coin into her hand, ensure her safe passage over the rapids that had been denied to so many before her. Give her something just as tangible, just as worthy as making amends, pay for her fare.

Jinx’s hand is heavy in yours as you settle down beside her on the edge of the platform. Her blue eyes watch you with a guarded expression, reading your face.

Tentatively, slowly, you start speaking.

“Losing someone dear to you is– it’s… disorienting. Things don’t make sense the way they used to. The people you thought would always be there are just gone one day. But they’re still with you, in a sense. You find pieces of them surrounding you, reminding you that they were once here.”

You look up at the makeshift friends– no, family, she’s built herself with leftover scrap, as if she doesn’t allow herself to use anything new for constructing them.

“You set out an extra plate, or cook that meal because it was their favorite. You see something in a shop window and you find yourself thinking about them, excited to show them–”

A tearfilled sob cuts you off.

“And still… you end up worrying that you’ve wronged them. Trying to make amends for the fact that you’re here and they’re not.” You swallow the lump in your throat, voice only kept steady by trying to channel all of your sadness and underlying grief, into words.

You take Jinx’s head in your hands, thumbs brushing away the distinct lines of tears along her cheeks. “So you do anything to honor them, to get back their good graces. And sometimes… that thought, it hinders you from moving on, it keeps you stuck in the same patterns as always.”

A limbo like state.

The grip on your hand turns steely, rage simmering in her eyes, on the verge of boiling over.

“You don’t know,” Jinx’s voice hardened, the teeth that worried her lower lip suddenly gnashing and on display like an angry dog, blinking away the tears with ferocity. “I don’t deserve to feel better! Not after what happened–”

“You do, Jinx.”

Slender arms shove you down on the platform with a snarl. The force of it pushes all the air out of your lungs, only to be tugged up harshly by the collar of your apron as Jinx straddles your middle. “You don’t know– you don’t know what happened– what I did–”

Biting the hand reached out towards her – only to see if it’d come back again.

Your hand touches the top of her head – and Jinx flinches.

Slowly, you slip down onto the hard concrete again as her grip lessens.

Tears fill the brim of her lashes, until they finally tip over and land on the dark cotton of your apron.

“They’re never coming back because of me.”

Broken sobs start up again.

Jinx shoves her head into your sternum, bawling her eyes out. She gives a cry, convulsing in your arms, and you keep her there, arms wrapping around her lithe form. With her there, in your arms, the obvious becomes so clear. That the person you're cradling is a child – one who deserved better.

“I miss– I miss them–”

And she cries and cries, fingers digging into your apron, grounding herself to you with teeth and claws.

They abandoned her. Shunned her. Left her to fend for herself.

All in one evening.

You bite your lip, willing the treacherous wobble to go away.

Some part of Jinx would always be scarred. Deep inside, the bumpy, jagged texture of a scar would sit, would twitch and hurt and burn at the merest mention.

But that’s alright. That’s just what happens when you survive something you didn’t think you would.

It wasn’t, no– couldn’t be a weakness, those scars, not when so many others carried them too.

Despite it all, you found yourself trying your hardest to bury the feelings that were inexplicably simmering under the shallow surface. The heel of your palm rubs away the unbidden tears that sit on your lower lashline.

“You think that it’ll make you strong, toughing it out. In the end, it only makes you brittle. And brittle things shatter so, so easily.“ You whisper into the unruly mess of blue hair.

Heal the hurt. Put the old knife away.

“You are trying. That is enough.”

It was more than most would in this world, was it not?

You draw soothing circles over her back, resting your chin atop her head, letting the hiccuping breaths slow down.

Your fingers wipe away the tears that are steadily rolling down round cheeks.

No matter how many there were, no matter how many there would be.

Slowly, and almost soundlessly, the door opens, letting in light from the hallway outside.

Cutting through the darkness like a knife, a red eye stares back at you.

Instinctively, you hug the child in your arms closer.

–X–

on the 13th of december 2021 i first started writing incentive. it wasn’t what it was called in my mind back then, but it is what ended up becoming incentive. i hadn’t finish watching the entirety of season one of arcane then, and was writing what came to me intuitively because silco and jinx intrigued me so. imagine my surprise when he croaked it in the last ep lmaoooo

anyways, it felt appropriate to post this chapter on the one year anniversary of starting this fic. and y’know. life happens sometimes. sometimes, it keeps you from updating ur fics for like +6 months. and life is so, so fragile.

thank you for waiting for me. thank you for reading this chapter. please, let me know what worked and what didn’t. ilu. <3

also! back in june i posted a lil non-canon pwp for incentive, called redux. it's an au that i so eloquently describe as "what if they bumped uglies earlier au". give that a read if you wanna!

#silco x reader #silco arcane #arcane fanfic #reader insert #silco #posting this then crawling under a rock til morning don't mind meeee #incentive #chap 16 #my writing #tags are for secrets; if u read this on ao3 u got the special version with a note before the fic too ;-))#also sorry if any of you feel very strongly about bastardizing greek mythology but it's happening #mdni

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