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Fire Of Zaun Masterlist

Fire of Zaun is an Arcane alternate universe that revolves around Silco x Reader. It started as a way to give my artwork some context, and it slowly spiraled into a fully intertwined story featuring most of the Arcane characters.

The story unfolds through prose, video edits, and original artwork, where text, lyrics, and visual motifs carry equal narrative weight.

Fire Of Zaun - Chapter 1 - BeTheGusto - Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021) [Archive of Our Own]

SEASON 1

Episodes 1-17

ARTWORK

FOZ Drawings

BeTheGustoArt on Etsy

Updated 5/31/26

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco x reader #caitlyn kiramman #vi arcane #singed arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika #ao3 fanfic #arcane fanart #read at your own risk

More Silco Art 😛

✍🏼🎨: Colored Pencils & Acrylic Markers

#silco art #arcane #silco #silco arcane #vampire Silco #fire of zaun #arcane au #smoking Silco #sleeping silco #traditional art #colored pencil drawing #acrylic markers

Fire Of Zaun S1E17

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 20)

By morning, waiting had become the only remaining option.

The initial shimmer injections had been aggressive enough to stop the internal bleeding, but injuries involving the head presented different complications. Singed placed you under an induced sedation immediately after the first dosage.

Silco stayed at the lab, his attention never straying far from the table. When Singed started cutting away your blood-soaked clothes, Silco allowed it for all of a second before his hand shot out and clamped around the doctor’s wrist so hard the shears slipped from his grip.

After several similar interruptions, a tranquilizer was eventually administered, subduing him without forcing him from the room entirely.

When Sevika came back at dawn, she delivered her report. She figured a gas line must’ve been leaking in the bar for hours before anyone noticed. One cigarette was all it would’ve taken after that.

Word had already started spreading about the body found in the ruins. Sevika made it clear: the longer Silco remained underground, the more dangerous his absence became.

So now, he redirects his focus toward the reconstruction, though it only takes a few hours before he returns to the lab looking for an update.

Singed outlines what the procedure will require. Your blood would need to be exchanged in stages, lowering the shimmer concentration before the next dose could be introduced.

The following days wear on. He watches the office door, waiting for Sevika to appear with new information. Usually, he knows the answer before she even speaks. Sometimes it’s written across her face, other times it’s the bottle already in her hand.

By the fourth day, he spends his time drinking at Vander’s statue. He knows better than to visit the you. But as the flask empties, his restraint goes with it.

After that, he finds himself outside Singed’s door night after night, knowing exactly how reckless it is and unable to make himself stop.

—

You no longer remember when you first arrived here.

The earliest memory you have is walking toward the front door of The Last Drop. Only after you stepped outside did you realize something was wrong. A blue haze hung over everything like smoke that never fully dissipated.

Eventually, you found your way to the lab. As you drew closer, you saw Silco standing in the doorway. His mouth moved—but nothing came out. You were convinced your mind had fabricated him just to punish you.

It wasn’t until the third sighting that you began to believe you were trapped inside your own personal hell. Silco emerged slowly through the cerulean fog. This time, when his mouth moved, sound came with it. You couldn’t understand what he was saying. Your eyes began to sting as your mind filled in the only memory it could find.

Your father already taught you what you’re worth.

You tried to walk away, but the pressure inside your head mounted. You pressed your hands to your temples and dropped to the floor.

“Haven’t you said enough?” you shouted.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the pain receded. When you looked back up, Silco was gone.

It’s been seven days now, and Zaun’s layout has changed again. You come across a colossal stone gateway rising from the middle of the road.

“Don’t go.”

Silco’s voice comes through clearly, and your entire body stills around the command.

“Come with me.”

You hear the words, but they blur together with an older memory.

Did you think this was for you?

You begin to walk backward.

“Leave me alone,” you plead.

He moves closer, and the pressure intensifies until it feels like your skull is about to split open.

“Please,” you cry out. “It hurts.”

Silco stops.

Then, slowly, he steps back. You watch him turn and disappear into the haze until there’s nothing left of him. You keep staring at the place where he vanished, a strange ache spreading in your chest where the pain had been.

Only when he doesn’t return do you begin walking again, the echo of his voice following you long after it should have faded.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika arcane #sevika #singed #singed arcane

ink-and-dagger

Drink With Me Plagiarism - Best Kept Secret

Dearest Darlings,

As some of you know, I was recently made aware that my fic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised as an erotic audio by a company called Best Kept Secret (BKS).

I'm relieved to confirm that this has now been resolved, and I cannot express how grateful I am to each and every person who rallied behind me on this — those who left comments under the audio, those who filed reports on YouTube and Patreon, those who reached out to me to offer condolences and advice, those who helped spread awareness to get the word out further, those who were simply enraged on my behalf — you have no idea how much it meant to me to have a community of people at my back during what was an extremely upsetting and stressful time. I truly don't think this would have been resolved (or at least not nearly as quickly) without your help. Thank you. And I hope you know that I am always ready to throw a molotov for any one of you too <3

Now, because I'm a propa Brit who loves a cuppa, I'm going to spill the tea (Jokes aside – I'm sharing this because I think it's important to have an open record incase anyone else finds themselves facing a similar situation in the future, god forbid).

[[OG tumblr post for context if needed]]

Fire Of Zaun S1E16

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 19)

There’s no sound at first, only a high-pitched ringing that drowns out everything else.

The floor beneath your face is wet. The moment you try to lift your head, a shock shoots down your neck. Overturned furniture blurs together around you. You brace one shaking arm beneath yourself and try to push up.

Pain detonates through the back of your skull.

Then nothing.

—

The heat brings you back.

Black smoke gathers near the ceiling while half the room burns around you. Broken glass glitters across the floorboards and flames race along the bar where spilled alcohol feeds them.

A door slams open in the distance. Through the haze, you catch sight of someone reaching for the wall to steady themself. Higher up, another shadow moves down the stairs toward them.

Fire spreads along the rafters above you until the wood gives with a splintering crack. Debris crashes down across your legs, the impact tearing an agonized groan from your throat.

The figure by the wall shoves off immediately and fights through the wreckage, lowering beside you before calling back toward the door.

“Over here.”

Everything goes still, and your eyes start to close again. Fingers press quickly against your throat.

“She’s breathing.”

Then another presence moves in close. An arm slides beneath your shoulders, trying to pull you free, but the shift draws a faint, broken whimper from you. The arm withdraws at once.

“Careful,” the voice says, lower now. “With me.”

—

You’re no longer on the floor.

Each hurried step jars through you hard enough that your body tries to curl inward. Soft fabric rests beneath your cheek. Tobacco fills your next shallow breath, and your head sinks heavier against it.

“Stay awake.”

Then the voice turns away from you.

“What the hell was she even doing down there?”

You manage to force your eyes open long enough to catch the face carrying you.

“Wanted to say goodbye,” you murmur.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Sevika says.

Another set of footsteps keeps pace beside you. You try to turn toward them, but your neck refuses the motion.

“…leave.”

The word barely forms, and your head falls against Sevika’s shoulder before darkness drags you under again.

—

The surface under your back feels freezing compared to the warmth you left behind.

Hands move near your ribs, gentle at first, then firmer. One presses higher, and your teeth grit as pain snaps through you. Fingers move slowly through the tangled hair at the back of your head, searching until they find the place that makes you flinch.

“Shimmer may stabilize the body.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

You’re guided back toward the light. Nausea rolls through your stomach as though the whole room has tilted.

“… internal swelling… the mind may not come back intact.”

One eyelid is lifted halfway, bright white burning through your vision before disappearing and returning against the other.

“Consciousness will need to be suppressed.”

Someone else cuts in.

“Stop talking around it.”

You lose the next words trying to place the voice.

“… the process will be demanding.”

Footsteps move away from the table.

“Sometimes death is a mercy.”

The response comes from beside you.

“She can take it.”

Only the end of the next question makes it through.

“…are you prepared to lose her?”

Your breathing turns ragged as you fight to stay awake. With every quick inhale, more of the room slips away.

—

A sharp sting comes first.

Then heat tears through your arm. You try instinctively to turn away, but hands steady you against the table. Your body jerks violently as the burn spreads beneath your skin.

Above you, the lights burst white.

Then a second injection.

Cold travels up your veins, over your shoulder, then across your chest. The pain begins to fall away, and that frightens you more than feeling it did. You try to lift your head, but only your lips move.

“…should’ve left.”

The dark finds you again, and this time, it doesn’t seem like sleep.

The last thing you feel before it takes you completely is something wrapped tightly around your hand.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika arcane #sevika #ao3 fanfic

Fire Of Zaun S1E15

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 18)

The next morning, you try to occupy yourself with anything other than the investigation, but your thoughts keep returning to the briefing Caitlyn mentioned the day before. If it required full attendance, the bridge would be unmanned long enough to cross unnoticed, see Silco for yourself, and make it back before anyone realized you were gone.

You wait in a cafe overlooking the bridge until the patrol leaves and no one comes to relieve them. When the clocktower tolls six, you know that they’re heading to the meeting.

You move quickly, taking the direct route to The Last Drop. The added security outside only confirms what you suspected. Once inside, you head upstairs and push open Silco’s office door. He stands behind his desk facing the window.

“Leave it on the table.”

You remain where you are.

“I don’t have much time,” you say.

At the sound of your voice, he turns a little too quickly. He moves toward the couch, the place the two of you have spent weeks treating like neutral ground. Your eyes move over him slowly, searching for any indication he had gone to Piltover himself.

“Did you do it?” you ask.

“It was a necessary correction to a problem that has persisted longer than it should have.”

“Do you have any idea what they’ll do if they trace this back to you?”

“They won’t.”

You can’t tell whether he believes that or simply prefers it to the alternative.

“Marcus is awake,” you tell him. “Do you honestly think he won’t talk?”

“I know the sheriff,” he says calmly. “And I know what men like him will and will not admit.”

“Do you even hear yourself?”

“You involve yourself in this world, and now the cost disturbs you?”

“I went to Marcus to get information,” you say quietly. “You must know by now what that cost me.”

He goes still. “Would you rather I had killed him?”

You stare at him in disbelief. He says it like the line between broken hands and murder is little more than a question of preference. Yours, specifically.

“This has to stop.”

“We’ve accomplished a lot together,” he says slowly. “I hope you can remain a part of it.”

You sit there, thrown less by the threat beneath the words than by the fact that this is where his mind went.

“What is wrong with you?”

His expression closes off. “You knew involvement came with consequences.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about.” The answer comes too quickly. “I didn’t think you’d be this reckless with yourself.”

“You’re allowing personal sentiment to interfere with your ability to assess the situation.”

“Then tell me why you risked everything we’ve been building over a single Enforcer?”

Something darker enters his tone. “Because leaving him intact would have taught him he could do it again.”

“Do what again?”

You hold his gaze, forcing him to confront what this was really about.

“Tell me why you really did it,” you press.

The challenge seems to strike somewhere he doesn’t want exposed, and the look he gives you afterward is colder than anything he’s shown you so far.

“Did you think this was for you?” His voice drops. “Your father already taught you what you’re worth. I’m surprised you need reminding.”

You stand slowly, giving him the chance to correct it, to say something, anything. But he only watches you, and the silence that follows feels crueler than if he’d kept talking.

His attention stays on you all the way to the door, but he doesn’t stop you. Downstairs, you pause near the card table. Sevika would be back soon, and leaving without saying goodbye feels wrong, so you sit despite every instinct urging you toward the door.

The clock ticks through the silence.

Leave.

You tell yourself it’s only nerves, but your eyes keep drifting back toward the stairs, still expecting Silco to appear and make the conversation upstairs less final. The longer you stay, the less sense it makes. You should’ve left already. You can’t understand why you haven’t.

Then the thought comes again.

Leave.

This time, you finally push back your chair. Just as you do, the door opens and you lo—

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika arcane #ao3 #sevika

Fire Of Zaun S1E14

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 17)

At this hour, the streets outside the planning halls are usually crowded. Tonight, most of the windows are dark. You keep walking, heading toward the man whose name has been at the center of your thoughts since you first heard what happened.

Your pace falters when the bridge comes into view. Enforcers are stationed before it, stopping people and recording each passage as though anyone crossing might be a suspect.

You stay where you are until the first rush of panic turns to observation. There’s a difference between a city searching and a city pursuing. If Marcus had given them a name, they wouldn’t be wasting manpower here. They’d be tearing through the Undercity looking for Silco.

Which means they don’t know.

Not yet.

You force yourself to leave the bridge, accepting that waiting is the safer choice.

When you get home, you lie down and begin to wonder if Marcus was even awake. If he wasn’t, you still had time to plan. If he was, then the Enforcers posted at the bridge meant one of two things: either he didn’t remember what happened, or Silco had never been there at all.

You let out a slow breath, trying to arrange what little information you have. You told Silco that Marcus had played a role in the attempt to arrest him. Retaliation is the simplest explanation. But if the Enforcers weren’t breaking down the door to The Last Drop, then perhaps Silco had sent someone in his place.

That theory doesn’t hold for long.

Last night, you told him that Marcus entered your home and put his hands on you. The last man in his bar who crossed that line had been made into an example. And if Sevika spoke to Silco after you left, if she told him about your history, then it’s harder to imagine him allowing anyone else to deliver the message.

It feels personal in a way you can’t bring yourself to condemn, and the part of you that should know better wants to believe he did it for you.

Your eyes close, and you imagine Marcus coming home to find the house already broken into, prepared to remind whoever is waiting that he’s not a man to be tested. Silco steps out of the shadows, the blow coming before Marcus can finish speaking. In your mind, he’s on the ground begging, trying to bargain his way out of pain that was never offered as a negotiation. His wrists are pinned down, and then comes the sharp crack of bone beneath Silco’s boot.

“A strange thing,” he says, “when someone puts their hands on you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

His heel bears down again, and Marcus screams.

“Disappointing, isn’t it?”

The corner of your mouth lifts in the dark. You replay it until the house feels like yours again. Only then does sleep come.

Caitlyn arrives the following day with news. Marcus is awake, his skull fracture minor, but his hands kept him in surgery most of the night. He claims not to remember what happened. No witnesses, no forced entry, and whoever attacked him knew how to get in and out unseen.

She knows you asked for his schedule, arranged drinks with him, and let him believe he had power over you at the party. When she presses, you deflect, refusing to lie but unwilling to tell her the truth. She warns you the council won’t let this go. If they find whoever attacked the sheriff, they’ll make an example of them.

That night, sleep doesn’t come as easily. You wonder if Silco expected you last night. If he noticed when today passed and you still didn’t come. More than anything, you wonder why any of it matters enough to keep you awake.

You had imagined Silco’s violence as protective, almost intoxicating. Now all you can think about is how exposed it left him. If Piltover discovers he was responsible, they’ll drag him through every square as proof that even the Eye of Zaun can be brought to heel.

Dread sinks deep enough to feel physical.

You had always known there would be sacrifices.

You just hadn’t expected to care this much when he became one of them.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika arcane #sevika

Fire Of Zaun S1E13

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 15)

You don’t remember much of the walk back from The Last Drop, only that your mind keeps circling the same few things: the edge in Silco’s voice, the look on his face, the way the conversation slipped out of your control before you understood it was happening. Your thoughts turn to Sevika and whatever may have passed between them after you were gone. Whether she told him the truth. Whether it would have changed anything if she had. It stays with you all the way home.

You let yourself in and close the door behind you, but for a moment you don’t move. When you finally force yourself upstairs, your bedroom is empty.

Marcus is gone.

You fall asleep on the couch that night. When you wake the next morning, sunlight is already filling the room and you realize you’re three hours late for work.

By the time you arrive, half the morning is already gone. Work keeps your mind occupied for most of the day until the office begins to empty and the building grows quiet. With nothing left to distract you, your thoughts return to Silco.

Some level of trust had existed between you and him, even when neither of you seemed willing to admit it. Yet yesterday, the honesty you offered only made the situation worse. From the outside, it’s easy to tell yourself that if the positions had been reversed, you would’ve understood what he was trying to say.

You imagine a woman sitting across from Silco, a drink in her hand, information passing between them. Another drink is poured. She begins speaking more freely as she leans closer. He allows it, not because he wants her, but because it serves him to let her believe she has the upper hand.

She moves into his space more boldly, pressing him back against the edge of the desk the way Marcus had done to you. His face moves closer to hers, his hand settling at her wrist as he redirects the moment exactly where he wants it. You can hear him saying something in that low, velvet voice before leading her down the hall.

Into the room you’ve never seen.

Your grip tightens around the pencil as you picture her stepping inside, looking around with the kind of curiosity she hasn’t earned. Her fingers move to the buttons of her blouse, undoing them one by one while he watches. The subtle flare of his iris when the fabric falls from her shoulders. The smug satisfaction on her face when she realizes he hasn’t looked away.

Then she slips beneath his sheets.

And he follows—

The tip of your pencil snaps against the desk. You force your attention back to the paperwork in front of you. When you look up again, you find one of the older women from municipal records standing in the doorway.

“You’re still here?” she asks.

“I must’ve lost track of time.”

“You shouldn’t be going home alone this late.”

The corner of your mouth lifts slightly. “Since when does Piltover become dangerous after dark?”

She looks at you with surprise. “You haven’t heard?”

“About what?”

“They found the sheriff outside of his house earlier. Unconscious.”

The smile fades from your face.

“…What happened to him?”

“I was told it was a fractured skull. At first I thought maybe he’d fallen, but then I heard about his hands.”

“What about them?”

“They were crushed. Both of them. The guard said his bones were broken so badly they’d have to be set properly in surgery.”

You lower your eyes. “Did they find the person who did it?”

“They’re still looking,” she says. “You should stay at your father’s tonight, or at least until they know who’s responsible.”

You nod. “I will. I just need to finish this report.”

She hesitates in the doorway as if still deciding whether to press the point.

“It isn’t far,” you add, gentler now. “I’ll be safe.”

Her hand brushes the frame before she relents.

“Don’t stay too late.”

You remain where you are until her footsteps disappear completely down the corridor. Only then do you rise and begin to gather your things.

You won’t be going to your father’s house tonight.

You already know exactly who’s responsible.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #ao3 #possessive Silco

Fire Of Zaun S1E12

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 16)

Marcus moves through your house with the kind of entitlement that makes its generous size feel too small. You retreat to your bedroom under the pretense of changing, but the moment the door closes behind you, the reality of the night becomes unavoidable. You stare at the bed, the expectation of it, before your gaze drifts to the nightstand, then the dresser.

When you head back downstairs, the decision has been made.

You give Marcus exactly what he expects: revealing clothes, easy flirtation, decent whiskey. You drink with him, guiding the conversation where you need it.

By the time he corners you, he’s already unsteady. You redirect him upstairs, keeping the illusion intact long enough to get him where you need him. You tell him you’re going to shower first and wait it out in the bathroom. When you finally open the door, he’s half-undressed and unconscious.

You let your clothes fall beside the bed in a way that will suggest something that never happened. Downstairs, you stage the room into something believable. You reach behind the whiskey bottle for what you tucked there earlier. The vial, now half-empty, was something your father had given you after your mother passed to help quiet the mind and force the body into rest whether it welcomed it or not.

Every small choice was orchestrated to keep Marcus’s attention exactly where you wanted it—anywhere but your hands.

Two drops would’ve been enough.

You didn’t take the chance.

Morning comes without sleep. You go straight to Silco’s office after work, warning him that the Enforcers are starting to lean on his inner circle. It doesn’t take long for him to piece together more than you meant to reveal: that Marcus was your informant, that he was in your house, that you drank with him. Every answer you give only seems to confirm the version of events he’s already building.

“I did it to bring you information,” you say.

“And what exactly did you offer him in order to get it?”

You struggle to find the words, and he takes your silence as confirmation.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he continues. “You can be very convincing when you need something from a man. I simply had the sense to stop indulging you.”

What cuts is the certainty behind it, like whatever passed between you had been nothing more than a performance he was too clever to mistake for anything real. There’s no way to tell the truth now without sounding half out of your mind, but the thought of leaving it there is worse.

“I slipped something into his drink,” you say. “A sleeping medication. He passed out in my bed and I left him there.”

When he speaks, his voice is low in a way that feels more threatening than if he had raised it.

“Why was he in your bed?”

“When he got bored with talking, he trapped me against the counter and put his hands on me.”

There’s something unstable beneath Silco’s expression now, something darker than anger and closer to revulsion.

“I took him upstairs because it had to look right,” you say, the words coming faster now. “He started taking off his clothes, so I—”

His glass hits the desk hard enough to make you flinch.

“Get out.”

The humiliation tears through you. It’s clear he’d rather believe the worst of you than hear the rest. You pull the door open hard enough that it swings wide behind you. You hit the stairs and almost make it outside before you walk straight into Sevika on her way in.

“That’s a hell of a way to say hello.”

“Don’t,” you bite out.

The humor drops out of her face, and her hand closes around your arm before you can slip by.

“What happened?”

“The Enforcer showed up at my place last night.”

“Did he—”

“No,” you cut in. “I drugged him before he had the chance.”

“What’d Silco say?”

“He threw me out.”

Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t tell him what he did to you?”

“No,” you say, jerking your arm free. “It would’ve sounded like a lie.”

You push past her and she lets you go. You walk out the front door, and for the first time, you’re not sure any of this is worth it anymore.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #silco #fanfic #arcane #sevika arcane #arcane fanfic #sevika #jealous Silco

Fire Of Zaun: Tattoo Silco Progress & Design Lore

Thank you for listening to me ramble about this. 😅

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #fanfic #arcane #arcane fanfic #Silco tattoo #ao3 fanfic

Fire Of Zaun S1E11

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapter 14)

The next day, you return to The Last Drop at seven. You finish the remaining business, then make the mistake of asking about the blanket thrown over the couch. The question lands somewhere more personal than you intended, and Silco answers with open contempt. A moment later, he pours two drinks as though that might take the edge off what he’d said. You don’t stay to let it.

The following evening, he’s back on the couch when you arrive, drinks already poured. When work runs out, he shifts the conversation to loyalty. Only after you answer do you see what he’s done. He framed the question around your father because he knew that was the ground on which you’d speak most freely, all while steering you toward the subject he actually wanted: your mother.

You turn the focus back on him by asking why he smokes. He answers simply, then indulges you when you ask whether he can make smoke rings. He lights the cigar, tips his head back, and exhales a perfect ring.

“Did you take me for a liar?”

“No,” you say casually. “I was trying to determine how much free time you had.”

That earns a pause.

“And I find the thought of you sitting here practicing surprisingly entertaining.”

A smirk touches your mouth before you can stop it.

From there, your meetings settle into a rhythm of business, sideways questions and careful evasions. Some nights he’s easier to talk to. Other nights, he’s cold from the moment you walk in.

On those nights, you don’t stay.

Before long, he seems to understand the pattern. Then one Friday he’s back behind the desk, makeup slightly disturbed, something clearly weighing on him. When you ask whether he ever gets tired of bothering with it, he admits it spares other people the discomfort of looking too closely. You ask if you can see anyway, then stop when it becomes clear that whatever is troubling him has nothing to do with you. He takes your leaving as rejection, and you let him.

The next Monday, Silco arranges the room so he can show you his bare face with as much control as possible: standing instead of sitting, the desk between you, no drink waiting. But you don’t look away. When he admits the eye is the one part he’s never been able to make easier to look at, you tell him it’s the part you like best.

The corrupted iris flares.

The moment turns charged enough that you have to pull yourself back from it, and Silco mistakes that for disgust. Instead of leaving, you ask for a drink. He makes you one, and when your hands meet over the glass, you deliberately brush his fingers. He pulls back the instant he understands. The silence breaks when your attention catches on the shimmer injector he uses on his eye. He explains what it is, and when you ask to see it used, he agrees to show you tomorrow.

The following night, that anticipation is cut short almost immediately. Silco informs you that the daily meetings are no longer necessary, reducing everything between you back to logistics and necessity.

“Of course.”

You offer him nothing more and leave.

The days that follow settle into a tense kind of quiet. You keep your distance from Zaun, waiting for any sign that the raid has finally happened. Nothing comes. So when a knock sounds at your door late one night, you open it without much thought—and immediately wish you hadn’t.

It’s Marcus, and he’s been drinking. The moment he mentions the Undercity, you understand: they hit the factory, found nothing, and he’s come here with failure still burning under his skin. He pushes his way inside, and panic follows. You can’t force him back out, and you don’t know how far he’ll go if you refuse him outright. If you play along, you keep your informant, but you’ll be the one paying for it. Worse, whatever he says tonight could matter to Silco and to everything you’ve been trying to build against your father.

You stand there, listening to your own heartbeat, knowing the night will take something before it’s done.

You close the door and follow him deeper into the house.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #fanfic #arcane #sevika arcane #arcane fanfic #ao3 fanfic

Fire Of Zaun S1E10

Full chapter on AO3 (Chapters 12 & 13)

You attend the Enforcer party already on edge. Before your father pulls you away, Marcus lets something crucial slip: he had already raided Silco’s shipments that morning, and the factory is next.

After the party, you go to Silco’s office expecting the worst. He tells you to close the door and offers you a drink. You refuse, taking every part of it as a threat. But then he reveals the shipments had been decoys and that they were meant to be found. You leave humiliated by how badly you had misread both him and Marcus’s posturing.

Downstairs, Thieram convinces you to stay for a drink. You begin to unwind up until a stranger puts his hands on you. You shove him off, and to your surprise, the guard from the stairs removes the man instead of you.

The next morning, sleep has done little to calm you. Your mind keeps returning to Silco’s office. Knowing the truth about the decoy shipments, the scene begins to change shape. Closing the door had not been about trapping you in the room with him, but giving you privacy. The drink had not been a threat, but something meant to settle your nerves. Even the silence, which you had taken for punishment, had been space to breathe.

He had been trying to steady you.

That thought sends you back through everything Sevika and Singed have ever implied about him. Neither of them ever spoke of Silco like a man to be endured, only one more complicated than he first appeared.

At work, another piece of the night returns. Silco had asked if you drank at the Enforcer event. You had heard it as a provocation.

Your answer comes back to you:

I prefer to keep a clear head around men like that.

The sting is immediate. You had not just turned him down. You had reduced him to the kind of men you’d spent years protecting yourself from.

Then the final realization clicks into place. When the night went wrong, the man beside you had been taken away, not you. But that leaves one question: how had Silco known to intervene at all?

Sevika’s glances toward the balcony, Silco’s comment about the bartender, and his knowledge of the Enforcer party suddenly align. He had been watching you more closely than you realized.

You return to The Last Drop early and go straight to Silco’s office. You warn him that the Enforcers are going after his factory next.

Once that danger is handled, you force the other conversation. You ask what keeps men like the one from last night from returning. Silco refuses to explain directly, so you bait him another way, saying you won’t be staying for drinks with Sevika anymore. When he asks why, you tell him plainly that you don’t return to places where men feel entitled to put their hands on you. That’s when his restraint slips just enough for the truth to show: they won’t, not unless they intend to leave without the use of their legs.

The answer disorients you for all the wrong reasons. When you stand, Silco assumes he has said too much. But instead of leaving, you turn to the bar cart. You ask if you can make yourself a drink. He allows it, and at the cart you open the small container you once suspected held poison—only to find cherries.

With that last uncertainty gone, you offer a strategy of your own. You tell him not to leave the factory empty. Replace the shimmer with decoy compound so that when the Enforcers raid it, they won’t suspect he was warned. They’ll think they acted on bad intel, and anything Finn says after that will be written off.

Silco agrees to make the exchange, and only when the last of it has been arranged do you finally take a sip of your drink. When you lower the glass, Silco’s gaze is waiting.

Your eyes move over him slowly now, reading the same composure differently. All evening, it’s been at the back of your mind: what he’d done to that man.

The troubling part isn’t imagining what he did.

It’s how quickly your mind reaches for the far more dangerous question of what else he would do for you—

and how much of you wants to see it.

#fire of zaun #silco fanfic #arcane au #silco arcane #silco x reader #sevika arcane #arcane fanfic #arcane #sevika #ao3 fanfic

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