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.
What matters most is not what happens, but what is remembered.
Read at your own risk.
*Snippets will be posted on TikTok and Tumblr so that anyone without AO3 access can follow along. Due to the character limit, the chapters are significantly reduced when posted on these platforms.
Fire Of Zaun - Chapter 1 - BeTheGusto - Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021) [Archive of Our Own]
“There are things I should have told you,” Silco says. “Though time has a rather cruel way of establishing its value once you’ve wasted enough of it.”
A violin rises within the melody, and for the first time the two instruments play together.
“When I found you…”
His voice begins to slip away as fire flashes through your mind, vivid enough to make your body believe you’re there again.
“Let me show you.”
Your eyes flick to the orange window.
“I—” Your voice catches. “I can’t.”
The moment the words leave you, pressure cinches beneath your sternum, forcing your hand to your chest.
You look to Silco. Panic shoots through you at the sight of his outline already wavering, erasing sections of his body before the darkness relinquishes him again.
“Not yet…” you say, barely managing the sound. “I’m not ready for you to go.”
The strain in your tone tightens his features. With visible reluctance, he turns toward the second window. Tears gather with every step he takes farther away, blurring the figure you’re already struggling to keep.
“Don’t leave me here,” you plead.
A long silence passes before he faces you fully and extends his hand.
“Come with me.”
His voice reaches through the fear. The tenderness in his expression is so raw that you can almost hear the question he never speaks aloud.
Will you trust me?
Before you realize it, your body has already answered. Your heartbeat races as you cross the distance between you, the music growing more urgent as though willing you to reach him before it’s too late.
The instant your fingers close around his, the piano and violin erupt together.
Amber light tears through the frame so searingly bright that it sends you into a blinding fog.
Memories rush past. You witness your first meeting with Silco and finally understand his demeanor when you mention your last name. The balcony overlooking The Last Drop rises beneath your feet as Silco signals the guard the instant a stranger’s hand settles against your back. The image shifts, placing you beside him in the alley while he watches the man who touched you suffer for it. Then Sevika’s voice reaches him, telling him what Marcus had done to you. Moments later, Marcus lies beneath Silco’s bloodied boot as he crushes the same hands that had hurt you. The stone gives way beneath the final blow, and the memory collapses with it.
Slowly, the laboratory comes into focus. You’re standing beside Silco, listening as the other version of you explains why Finn had been the necessary sacrifice.
“I did it to protect you.”
The hard edge you remembered from that night is still there, but you catch something you had missed from where you stood. His scarred iris flares, and for the first time you understand the weight those words carried.
Every moment you had fought to hold finally falls into place. You had offered Silco a ruinous degree of loyalty first, and everything that followed had been his answer to it.
The corner of his mouth begins to curve, and you see now that what you had given him would never belong to anyone else. He would make certain of it.
The realization draws a small smile from you just as the room begins to flicker. The pull returns with a force you can no longer resist, drawing you away as the laboratory starts to disappear around you.
Whether an instant passes or an eternity, you have no way of knowing.
Feeling returns gradually. Pressure beneath your back is the first thing you become aware of. When your eyes open, light floods your vision so fiercely that you squeeze them shut again. Darkness has blotted out the light when you open them a second time, and your throat tightens when you see them.
Teal and amber.
Only now, they are suspended directly above you.
One disappears for a fraction of a second before returning, leaving you unsure whether you had imagined it. You blink once, then again, until the colors slowly resolve.
Silco pushes the door open, then steps aside, leaving you to enter first.
Beyond the opening, darkness stretches outward in every direction. The black clouds you watched from the bridge hang above two suspended windows. The one on your right tapers to a point around a saffron light. Beside it, the circular window from Silco’s office floats upside down in a blue-green glow.
A piano progression rises, and the melancholy chords gather around the circular frame. You move toward it, glancing back to make sure Silco hasn’t left.
On the other side, an argument is underway.
“They were selling to Topsiders right under your nose for months,” Jinx says.
Silco’s composure is worn thin. “How many times do I need to tell you not to interfere?”
“It was just one shipment. If I hadn’t rigged it, the Enforcers would’ve taken it.” She drops her cheek onto her folded arm with a grin.
“They were meant to,” he snaps. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Her head lifts.
“…You’re working with them?”
His hands clench at his sides.
“Stay out of it.”
Without another word, he turns and walks out.
You find your own fingers curled into your palms. When you look back up, Jinx sits across from him in the office.
“Still giving me the silent treatment, huh?”
Silco reaches for a cigar, barely hearing her until her tone grows impatient.
“If you care so much about me playing your stupid revolution game, speak up now.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’ve had enough headaches.”
Her anger begins to waver.
“If it’s some sort of trap…” she says, her voice small. “Just tell me what I did wrong. I can fix it.”
“You’re not a part of this, Jinx. And you never will be.”
You watch the fight drain from her face before she disappears out the door. Silco overturns the sheet of paper on his desk.
It’s a contract.
Twelve consecutive shipments are to be made in good faith.
Each shipment is to be received by six o’clock on the final day of each month.
Failure to deliver constitutes a breach of the arrangement and restarts the twelve-month term.
Upon completion, Violet will be released from Stillwater.
Your father’s signature sits at the bottom.
Long after the delivery has been made, Silco is still waiting. When Jinx doesn’t come back, he grabs his coat and leaves the office, checking her workshop first and the old arcade after that. His pace quickens after finding each space empty, and with every step, your own pulse climbs.
The bridge comes into view ahead. Near the railing, Jinx stands with her shoulders slumped, staring out at the water. Relief hits first.
“Jinx.”
She turns her head just enough to glance back, and his heart sinks when he sees her face.
Smudged makeup trails beneath her eyes, but it isn’t the tears that break him. It’s that they’ve already dried.
He takes a step toward her.
“Let me explain.”
She meets his eyes, but something in them has changed. His little girl, who had always looked at him with the certainty that her father would come, now looks at him as though she already accepted he wasn’t going to.
Her voice comes out tired.
“You’re too late.”
Her gaze falls away and her arm shifts. A small metal pin slips from her hand. Your breath hitches as a white flash erupts in front of her, swallowing her silhouette before overtaking everything else.
When you finally turn to face Silco, the same man is looking back at you. Only now, you understand some of what it cost to make him this way.
Before you can find the words, another piano melody begins, and your gaze seeks out the second window. It’s the cathedral-like window overlooking the alley behind The Last Drop, the back route you always took because it was discreet.
Its amber light no longer looks warm. It burns against the darkness until fire is the only thing your mind can make of it. Your stomach drops, and you turn to Silco, shaking your head.
“I don’t want to look.”
Silco watches you, the hurt in his expression deepening as you take a step back.
Dark clouds had sealed the sky from horizon to horizon, and you could no longer remember the last time you saw one of the white flashes. Walking the city blind lost its appeal, and eventually, you stopped venturing away from The Last Drop.
You pour yourself another drink in an effort to break the monotony, and after a time, you become aware of music seeping through the walls. You search for where it’s coming from, but never find it.
When the awful song finally stops, another begins just as discordantly. After enduring enough of them, you’re forced to conclude that you actually are in hell.
The songs continue to come and go, their timing as mysterious as their source. Some carry an inexplicable sense of nostalgia, and sometimes images come with them. The visions are never clear, but they make the room feel less empty while they last.
The building begins to feel colder than it used to, and before long, the green blanket rarely leaves your shoulders. But the cold becomes the least of it...
A debilitating rigidity takes hold in your arms and legs, making even the smallest of movements feel punitive. You keep to the couch, but when you do rise, it’s always for the same reason. Your fingers find the handle to the second door, and when it doesn’t give, the ache in your chest worsens. The pain behind your eyes burns badly enough that you slide down the wall, one hand resting near the thin sliver of warmth emanating from beneath the door.
When you wake, it’s to the sound of a piano ballad drifting through the hall. The pain that had plagued your head has melted away. You stand, letting the blanket fall to the floor, and walk toward the front door. Outside, the black clouds remain overhead, but farther off, a break has opened where light barely shines through. Without questioning why, you head toward it until the empty streets lead you to the bridge. High above, light flickers in soundless pulses, like a storm too distant to be heard. You stand there without understanding why you came, unsure what you expected to find.
Then you hear a voice.
Silco is standing in the river with his back to you, the water placid around him.
“There’s this thing,” you hear him say. “Whispering in low tones to let it in.” His fingertips skim the surface of the water before lifting to his face. “Like it’s holding you.”
His gaze remains fixed on the Piltover skyline.
“And it feels as though every problem in the world will fade away.”
The melody carries through the haze until the final notes disappear into the quiet. The clouds overhead thicken, closing around the last of the remaining light. Even standing there, Silco already seems more distant. Involuntarily, you take a step toward him, then stop, remembering the pain that came the last time he was close.
And yet, that wasn’t what frightened you most.
It was the endless hours you’d spent at the bar, cold and aching, setting out a glass for no one, consumed by a desolation that had nearly broken you. Returning to that feels far more harrowing than anything else.
You take another step.
“Silco—“
He turns his head at the sound of your voice. When his gaze finds yours, you don’t look away. It has been so long since you’ve seen those eyes looking back at you, and you realize, devastatingly, that you could endure the pain if it meant being spared the loneliness for even another second.
“…can you stay a little longer?” you ask quietly.
An unexpected softness crosses his expression.
“As long as you need.”
Before you can second-guess yourself, you walk slowly toward him, bracing for the crushing pressure inside your skull. But it never comes. Instead, the water recedes and the fog begins to dissipate, revealing a staircase ascending into the darkness one illuminated step at a time.
Together, you begin to climb. At the top, the familiar hallway stretches ahead, and you move past the office until the second door stands before you once more. This time, you aren’t the one who reaches for it. Silco steps forward and rests his hand on the lever.
After a moment, he takes a deep breath, presses it down, and pushes the door open.
Over the last couple of weeks me and some of my good friends from silcotwt and tumblr have been working on this collab to celebrate one year of community! Enjoy our Silco’s and all of their various crimes <3
(from left to right: @bethegusto, @mauvedraws, @rcntlydcccased, @skale93, @/doctorstrcnge, @/silcohuspat, @nxarrt, @/_abikore, @/_voodoodles, @olethrus-arts, @whiskikistudio, @/arty_the_ninth)
When Sevika reaches the laboratory that morning, Singed informs her that you’ve suffered unusual neurological episodes, and that the latest one nearly killed you. Every incident occurred while Silco was in the room.
For several days Silco doesn’t visit you and asks for written updates instead. You show no response to visual stimuli, but music remains effective. Silco acquires dozens of records and instructs Sevika to bring them to the lab.
Then one morning the latest note states that your body temperature has begun dropping faster than before. Silco tells Sevika to take the blanket from his couch.
Two days later, another report arrives. Your autonomic stress was escalating. Silco’s voice elicited the strongest measurable neural activity observed to date, and controlled vocal exposure was required.
That night, the flask is nearly empty by the time Silco reaches Vander’s statue. He wants to see Piltover burn for what it’s done, and part of him still wants to believe there’s justice in what happened to you. The thought turns his stomach and he shuts his eyes. Vander would’ve seen through it, no matter how hard Silco tried to justify it.
I know you want to hurt the Topsiders for what they’ve done to us. But who are you willing to lose?
By every rule he had built his life around, hating you should’ve been easy. Yet sooner or later he always found himself looking forward to seeing you again, and each time that feeling was followed by shame.
She’s just some stupid Topsider.
He had placed those words in Jinx’s mouth, as though what he felt for you somehow came at her expense. But he knows now that they were never her words. His daughter had loved him too much to hold that against him.
In his mind, her voice comes quietly.
You don’t need to feel guilty about being happy.
You deserve to be with her.
He rises to his feet, barely able to stand. By the time he reaches the laboratory, he has already chosen where to place the blame. Seconds later, Singed is pinned against the counter with a scalpel at his throat.
“What have you done?”
Singed’s eyes flick between Silco’s hand and his face.
“I saved her life.”
He presses it harder against his skin.
“You are the only one she responds to.”
Silco lowers the blade and crosses to your side, the fury dissipating the moment he sees you.
“There is a reason your voice provoked a reaction,” Singed explains.
“Increase the shimmer dosage.”
“It may alter the response,” he says. “I’m not convinced it will solve the problem.”
“Do it.”
The following afternoon, Sevika lets herself in and Silco can tell from her expression that this has nothing to do with the reports.
“How long are you gonna keep this up?”
He doesn’t dignify her with a response.
“You haven’t slept. You’re drunk every other night. And you still can’t stay away from that lab. How many more chemicals are you gonna let him pump into her?”
“As many as it takes.”
Sevika looks at him as though it only confirms what she expected.
“I changed the locks,” she says. “You’ll compromise every one of us if you keep going like this.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
She takes a step toward him, and he yells her name so loudly it stops her mid-motion. What keeps her there is what he’s holding.
“Give me the keys.”
Sevika’s eyes drop to the gun in his hands before lifting again.
“Look at yourself. You’d rather point that at me than admit the truth.”
He bares his teeth and the hammer clicks into place, but she doesn’t move. He waits for some reaction that would make the threat feel real. She gives him nothing.
His anger gives before his grip does.
“They would never forgive me.”
The words leave him raw.
Sevika holds his gaze, the argument draining from her face.
“They wouldn’t need to.”
The barrel lowers an inch. Instead of condemnation, Sevika offers the one mercy he had denied himself. Slowly, the gun comes to rest against the desk. Only then does she step closer and set the keys in front of him.
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.
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]]
On 15th May it was brought to my attention that my Silco fanfic Drink With Me had been plagiarised, and was being monetised by an erotic audio company called Best Kept Secret.
The full audio story was locked behind a subscription paywall on Patreon, but I was able to access the free SFW sample via their YouTube channel. I listened to a few random snippets at various different points in the audio — it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds worth in total — and this, along with the story description, was more than enough to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Drink With Me had been plagiarised in its entirety. Even the story title, In The Dark With Me, was a poorly veiled appropriation.
It was late, I was tired, I had just finished watching Project Hail Mary on discord with some buddies and was feeling some type of way about Rocky, and the realisation that my beloved fic had been stolen sent my brain into a weird sort of frozen state between fight or flight. I left a number of comments on the YouTube video calling them out, and went to bed feeling sick to my stomach. In the morning, I checked again, but none of my comments had been responded to. After attempting and failing to find a method of communication via Patreon, I was able to locate the company's website and submitted a message via their contact page form, providing them with my email address and urging them to contact me as a matter of urgency.
Maybe I could have given them a little longer to respond, but by this point I was completely gutted and felt utterly helpless. My words had been stolen, and now my words were being ignored, and it made me feel voiceless. So, by lunchtime, I sent a message to a few Silco friends to ask for their help, hoping that if a few other accounts were to leave comments under the YouTube video it might help to get BKS's attention and put some pressure on them to respond...
Boy howdy did y'all cause a ruckus. Their YouTube video was flooded with angry comments calling them out, and within 12 hours it had been privated. Big shout out to @bethegusto and @silcozaunite for making awareness posts on TikTok, Twitter and Tumblr – thank you for leading the charge whilst I was incapacitated by my bum-ass nervous system <3
That evening, an employee of BKS (Ellie) reached out to me directly via Tumblr dm to initiate conversation. She informed me that this audio script had been licensed to them by an external author claiming it as their own original work. So, not only did this author steal my words, they got paid for them. We then moved the conversation over to email, and Ellie asked me to send her the link to Drink With Me so that she could check the source material against their audio. I have to say, I felt very vindicated that it only took her a few minutes to confirm blatant plagiarism, and that the matter would be immediately escalated to their CEO.
I went to sleep that night feeling cautiously optimistic, but also incredibly moved and loved by the Silco fandom.
The next morning I woke to an email from Rob, the founder and CEO of Best Kept Secret. He offered his sympathies and apologised for what had happened, and corroborated what Ellie had said previously; that this audio script had been submitted to them by an external writer claiming it as their own original work, and that they had paid that author a license fee to use it. He confirmed that they will be blacklisting this author from any future projects, and that their new Head of Writing is looking into implementing plagiarism protections going forward.
He then offered me two options for resolution:
1.) They change the writing credit to my name, and pay me a license fee for the continued use of the audio across their platforms
2.) They remove the audio from their platforms entirely
I chose the latter, and responded with the below on 17th May:
[Quick interjection here to say that this email is exempt from the whole 'hey don't fucking steal my words' thing — if anyone ever needs to use it or any part of it as a template or verbatim to battle their own case of plagiarism then please do so]
During the time in which I was waiting for a reply from Rob, I decided to reach out directly to the author who had plagiarised my work. I don't know why exactly, or what I was hoping to achieve, I just felt that it was right they should face the person they hurt.
I'm not going to share any screenshots from that interaction, because at least one of us knows it's wrong to share another person's words without their permission, but it was a brief conversation, and not particularly dramatic. They had the grace to be ashamed of their actions, and apologised for the hurt they caused. They also confirmed that they will be paying BKS back the money they took as a license fee.
On 19th May Rob replied to my email to confirm that they have deleted the audio from their Patreon and website, and that their social media team have removed any content related to it from Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. And that if any instances of it appear again on any of their platforms, in any capacity, to let them know so that they can remove it as fast as possible. Additionally, they ran the author's other BKS works through a plagiarism checker and manually looked through those results, and were able to confirm that the rest of their scripts were at least their own original works.
They also posted the following public announcement on their Patreon:
[[Direct link to the Patreon post here]]
Finally, Rob thanked me for raising those other points regarding genAI usage and a donation to AO3, and said they will feed these back to their marketing and tech teams which in my opinion is corporate slang for "lmfao we definitely aren't going to do that"
From the sounds of it, this isn't the first time this company has had an issue with stolen works, and despite their assurances that plagiarism protections are being put in place, I would urge writers and creatives to keep an eye out regardless. If anyone ever finds themselves needing to reach out to BKS to contest their own cases of plagiarism then please don't hesitate to DM me and I will happily supply the relevant email details.
So that's all folks. I'm pleased to be wrapping this whole mess up so I can get back to what's important; daydreaming about crusty old men. Thank you all, once again, for your incredible fighting support. Silco would be so proud of his fandom. And I also want to thank @dudewithastick for bringing this to my attention in the first place. You the MVP for real <3
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.
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 gaze moves 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.”
His brow furrows. “Would you rather I had killed him?”
You stare at him in disbelief. He treats 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 replies. “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. 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—
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 resent, 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 in so deeply it feels physical. You had always known there would be sacrifices.
You just hadn’t expected to care this much when he became one of them.
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.
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.
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. Alongside the fear, another thought presses just as hard: 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.
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—
