Silco grunts as a weight lands on his shoulders, blowing a plume of smoke up towards the smudgy grey of the winter sky above. He holds the cigarette out to his left without looking, and larger, warmer fingers pluck it from his hand with deceptive delicacy.
Silco has seen those hands pick locks no bigger than his own thumbnail, so the dexterity comes as no surprise.
He shifts under the weight of Vander’s jacket, pulling it subtly closer about himself. It smells of sweat and overproof moonshine and coal dust, comforting in its familiarity.
“Who are we avoiding in there?” Vander asks, jerking his head towards the warm glow of the crowded pub Silco slinked out of five minutes ago. He passes the cigarette back.
Silco huffs, accepting it and taking another drag, letting it make him cough as he exhales before handing it to Vander again.
ok uuuh i had deleted this because i got self-conscious but a couple friends liked it so i figured. maybe i try and leave this here again. once again english is not my first language so there might be mistakes or it might be weird or not good
anyway. and worst of all for me to live i had to kill the part of me that saw
that i needed you more
Silco lays the scissors on the washbasin counter and looks at his reflection. It appears slightly chipped around the edges in the old mirror, stained with a few gunky spots that cloud his good eye. He scratches them away with his nail and runs a hand through his freshly cut hair.
Doing the job himself admittedly hasn't yielded the result he was hoping for, but it would have to do this time. He wonders if he should spend some of his savings on a visit to the shady barber around the corner next time, although he'd much rather invest money in hiring someone who's proficient in all kinds of blades for all the purposes he may need in the future.
At least the juvenile mane that still gave him the looks of a street urchin freshly out of the mines is gone.
He turns his face this way and that: it has never been so rid of unruly strands, so much so that his hard-edged features and hollow cheeks are showing completely, the left one marked by the now fully healed scar.
He finds himself lightly stroking it with the tips of his fingers. The shimmer treatment has been working quite efficiently, the Doctor had said: his eye now looks like a small, glowing ember at the bottom of a coal pit tunnel. Whether it's about to die or to set the whole thing ablaze, he still doesn't know.
But he is going to fight with his bare teeth to keep the flame alive.
For the fraction of a second, his mind turns to Vander, to what his life must be like right now. But his brain isn't willing to linger on the thought enough for it to take full shape in his head. It remains a blurry image, quickly erased by the sight of an unfastened clasp on his new vest. He fixes it and adjusts the hem on his hips.
Clothing. It was a perhaps secondary investment, but an investment nonetheless. His old deep red shirt takes on a new guise paired with the sharp lines, the fine leather, the bright golden edging, the silk cravat around the neck. Sleek. Powerful. The full piltie garb, taken and moulded to suit his new, reborn self.
The ways of the street urchin freshly out of the mine didn't work out for his goals. This time, he'd try a different way - their own way.
He'd use their weapons against them. Money. Control. Smiles and handshakes.
Build a bridge on the surface while its very foundations would be corroded by his unrelenting, poisonous will to give Zaun its rightful freedom.
The one Vander had forsaken in favor of cowering behind the counter of The Last Drop.
He takes another look in the mirror, slicks one rogue strand of hair back behind his ear. Firmly tugs at his collar so it stands upright and perfectly symmetrical.
Topsiders will respect you only if you look like you deserve it.
anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful
reblogging cause i'd like to believe this but my brain is always telling me "this is true for everyone except you" "everyone else can and you can't" but i'd like to start believing this
I had planned to post the whole first chapter of this but I am foiled by not having a title so for @zaundads-week day 4 pls accept this (long) single dads AU sneak peek:
There was a time when, faced with an enforcer, Vander’s go-to attitude would have been abject belligerence. That, however, was a long time ago.
And this isn’t about him. This is about Vi. It’s not himself he’s putting at risk, if he fucks this up. It’s his daughter.
“I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding,” he says.
It’s weak. It sounds pathetic. He’s pathetic, cowering like a kicked dog in front of a man young half his age who he could break across his knee. Just because the bastard carries a badge.
Vi’s got the right idea, if she really did hit one of them. Except for the consequences.
“My officer tells me—”
The sound of the door opening cuts him off. The flimsy chair Vander’s sitting on creaks ominously as he twists around.
Closing the door behind him with a soft click that still fills the room is the most beautiful man Vander’s ever seen. Everything about him is razor sharp, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his boots and every other angle in between. Aristocratic, with his jet black, slicked-back, close-cropped hair, shot through with a streak of silver. Every inch of him neat as a pin. Head held high, shoulders narrow but squared.
One eye is a colour that could easily be blue, green, or grey. The other is milky white. Blind, Vander assumes, with a network of jagged scars around it.
He still fixes the enforcer with an even, unflinching stare.
Without so much as acknowledging Vander’s presence, he strides over to the desk, pulls out the other chair, and folds himself neatly into it. It’s sized a little better for him, and he sits on it like it’s a throne.
There’s something familiar about him, but Vander can’t place him. Maybe he’s imagining it.
The dynamic in the room shifts, subtly but decisively. The power’s suddenly on Vander’s side of the desk, and this man is holding it as easily as Vander would an apple.
Vander continues his lifelong bad habit of falling in love with strangers by doing just that.
“Hello, Marcus,” the regal newcomer says, as though they do this every week and he's bored of it. “Would you care to explain why you've arrested my daughter? Bearing in mind that I already have footage of the entire incident.”
Vander might as well not be in the room, for all the attention either of them pay to him as he sits up straighter. This is, all told, not the worst scenario.
“With all due respect, Councillor Silco,” the enforcer—Marcus, apparently, begins. Only to be stopped dead.
Not by a raised hand. Just two fingers, barely twitching away from the arm of Councillor Silco’s throne.
Vander is, if he’s being honest, a little turned on. Anyone who can shut an enforcer up like that is exactly his type.
Councillor Silco. That’ll explain the familiarity, then. He must’ve seen pictures. The man is councillor for the Lanes, after all.
He’s gotten out of politics, of late, is the thing. For the last sixteen years or so. He hasn’t been paying attention.
But he has noticed the way things have improved over the last handful of years. Cleaner streets. Better schooling. Less desperation, less misery. Things are getting better.
That’s thanks to the councillor, he suspects.
“You’re about to tell me she bit one of your men,” Councillor Silco says. “I am about to tell you that this was through the layers of his uniform and will not have left a mark, which will make it quite difficult to argue that any sort of meaningful assault occurred.”
Marcus, because he is apparently a bit thick—par for the course with enforcers, Vander supposes—opens his mouth again. Silco stops him, again.
“What I am about to tell you is that she did this in an attempt to prevent that venerable gentleman’s fellow officer from breaking the neck of her friend. A fellow officer who had said friend pinned in what is very clearly captured as an illegal hold. One your department has been in trouble for using before. Do you begin to see, Marcus, your position?”
Marcus, evidently not completely without critical thinking skills, swallows. Mouth shut.
“Additionally, as I’m sure you’re aware, the two young ladies you have chosen to arrest were not the aggressors in the fight your officers were called to intervene in. Those were allowed to escape,” Silco continues, still calm and even, examining his nails.
Vander’s never wanted to suck someone’s cock so badly in his entire life.
“This does not look good for you, Marcus. Leaving aside entirely the things I know about you, and the damage those might do to an otherwise promising career.”
Marcus slumps back in his chair like a man wounded. There is a brain somewhere inside that unbelievably square skull of his, then.
“Don’t worry, dear boy,” Silco says, glancing up at him again. “This can all go away. Provided there is an immediate release of both girls, to be followed by a formal apology from the officers involved. In writing.”
Marcus swallows again. He doesn’t so much nod as twitch, but the capitulation is as obvious as it is total.
“Smart boy,” Silco says.
Then he turns his attention to Vander. A quick up-and-down glance that turns Vander’s spine to molten slag. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance…?”
“Vander,” Vander says. That is, he thinks, his name.
He’s only not rock hard because he’s over forty and it takes a little more than a glance these days. It’s a close-run thing, though.
Silco’s lips twitch the barest fraction. He looks Vander up and down again, slower this time.
Vander’s nearly certain he’ll remember how to breathe when that stops.
“Vander,” Silco repeats, voice curling around the word. “Please convey my thanks to your daughter for defending mine. She has been raised well.”
Vander nods, since, unlike Marcus, he hasn’t just been skinned alive.
“Well,” Silco says, standing. “This has been productive. Thank you, gentlemen. Until next time, Marcus.”
And then he leaves without another word. Taking a chunk of Vander’s heart with him.
For the @fluffbruary day 10 prompt: paper — Vander/Silco (baby editions), fluff, teaching your giant boyfriend to read as a metaphor for love | Also on Ao3
He’d expected Silco to be casually cruel about it, to be honest. The moment he’d had to confess, he’d been braced for that dismissive snort. He’d been braced to be abandoned. Declared not good enough, too flawed to make anything of.
Not that he was much different from the rest of the undercity, but Silco was. Sharp and aristocratic, beautiful, and clever. On a higher plane than mere mortals like Vander.
But no. No, what had actually happened, when it’d come down to it and Vander had been forced to confess he could neither read nor write, was a moment of surprise. Then an easy promise: I’ll teach you.
And here they were. Alone, for once. Vander sitting with his knees barely tucked under the bar. Silco plastered to his back, chin hooked over his shoulder. Elegant hand guiding his clumsy one as he makes shaky shapes on the paper in front of him, pencil lines smudging under his unpracticed technique.
The fact that Silco’s presence is just as distracting as it is necessary to the process is simply one of the things Vander has to hold in the balance to get along in life. It’s probably the nicest one.
“Read it back to me,” Silco murmurs by his ear, free fingers toying with the hair at the nape of Vander’s neck.
“Vander,” he says, smiling. It’s nice to recognise his own name.
“You know why I keep making you write that?” Silco asks.
Vander shakes his head. He suspects because, under the current circumstances, it’s the thing he’s most likely to have to write. He’s been signing papers with an X. He’ll be able to do it with a name, now.
It’s one hell of a gift. He’s not sure he could ever give Silco anything worth this in return.
“Because it’s one of my favourite words,” Silco says, nuzzling his ear.
Vander squirms on the bar stool. Silco laughs. Not cruel. Soft, light.
“Relax your hand,” he encourages. “You’re holding it too tight.”
Vander eases his vice grip on the pencil to a firm hold. His fingers already ache, but he’s seen Silco write without pause for twenty minutes at a time. Practice, he supposes.
“Let me move your hand,” Silco says. “To get it used to the motions.”
Vander relaxes as much as he can, letting Silco guide him without resistance. Letters form on the page in front of him, one at a time. It’s not quite Silco’s flowing, elegant script—Vander’s probably never going to manage that—but it’s much neater and more even.
“You’ll get there,” Silco says, still writing with Vander’s hand. “Look at the progress you’ve already made.”
Vander huffs. It feels so slow.
“You’ll be reading me to sleep soon enough,” Silco promises, light, easy. As though he really does have perfect confidence that Vander can learn. That he’s worth teaching. That he’s worth something.
“Read it back to me,” Silco adds, when he’s done with the line.
“You,” Vander reads. “Are. Be—um…” he squints at the last few letters. “Beautiful,” he remembers with a grin.
“Thank you,” Silco says. Vander doesn’t need to see him to know the way his eyes glint as he says it. “One more? I know you’re tired.”
He is. He’s exhausted. Nothing else is going to filter through his thick skull tonight.
All the same. Silco’s still pressed to him, warm and solid, so close Vander fancies he can feel a heartbeat against his back. Being able to read and write is obviously a good thing in its own right, but he’ll be disappointed when he’s done learning.
“One more,” he agrees. All good things must come to an end.
The words appear again, as though by magic, under his hand.
“Read them to me,” Silco says.
These ones are a little easier. Vander smiles.
“Come to bed?”
Silco plucks the pencil from his hand, and closes the notebook they’ve been working in before linking their fingers together.
For the @fluffbruary day 10 prompt: paper — Vander/Silco (baby editions), fluff, teaching your giant boyfriend to read as a metaphor for love | Also on Ao3
He’d expected Silco to be casually cruel about it, to be honest. The moment he’d had to confess, he’d been braced for that dismissive snort. He’d been braced to be abandoned. Declared not good enough, too flawed to make anything of.
Not that he was much different from the rest of the undercity, but Silco was. Sharp and aristocratic, beautiful, and clever. On a higher plane than mere mortals like Vander.
But no. No, what had actually happened, when it’d come down to it and Vander had been forced to confess he could neither read nor write, was a moment of surprise. Then an easy promise: I’ll teach you.
And here they were. Alone, for once. Vander sitting with his knees barely tucked under the bar. Silco plastered to his back, chin hooked over his shoulder. Elegant hand guiding his clumsy one as he makes shaky shapes on the paper in front of him, pencil lines smudging under his unpracticed technique.
The fact that Silco’s presence is just as distracting as it is necessary to the process is simply one of the things Vander has to hold in the balance to get along in life. It’s probably the nicest one.
“Read it back to me,” Silco murmurs by his ear, free fingers toying with the hair at the nape of Vander’s neck.
“Vander,” he says, smiling. It’s nice to recognise his own name.
“You know why I keep making you write that?” Silco asks.
Vander shakes his head. He suspects because, under the current circumstances, it’s the thing he’s most likely to have to write. He’s been signing papers with an X. He’ll be able to do it with a name, now.
It’s one hell of a gift. He’s not sure he could ever give Silco anything worth this in return.
“Because it’s one of my favourite words,” Silco says, nuzzling his ear.
Vander squirms on the bar stool. Silco laughs. Not cruel. Soft, light.
“Relax your hand,” he encourages. “You’re holding it too tight.”
Vander eases his vice grip on the pencil to a firm hold. His fingers already ache, but he’s seen Silco write without pause for twenty minutes at a time. Practice, he supposes.
“Let me move your hand,” Silco says. “To get it used to the motions.”
Vander relaxes as much as he can, letting Silco guide him without resistance. Letters form on the page in front of him, one at a time. It’s not quite Silco’s flowing, elegant script—Vander’s probably never going to manage that—but it’s much neater and more even.
“You’ll get there,” Silco says, still writing with Vander’s hand. “Look at the progress you’ve already made.”
Vander huffs. It feels so slow.
“You’ll be reading me to sleep soon enough,” Silco promises, light, easy. As though he really does have perfect confidence that Vander can learn. That he’s worth teaching. That he’s worth something.
“Read it back to me,” Silco adds, when he’s done with the line.
“You,” Vander reads. “Are. Be—um…” he squints at the last few letters. “Beautiful,” he remembers with a grin.
“Thank you,” Silco says. Vander doesn’t need to see him to know the way his eyes glint as he says it. “One more? I know you’re tired.”
He is. He’s exhausted. Nothing else is going to filter through his thick skull tonight.
All the same. Silco’s still pressed to him, warm and solid, so close Vander fancies he can feel a heartbeat against his back. Being able to read and write is obviously a good thing in its own right, but he’ll be disappointed when he’s done learning.
“One more,” he agrees. All good things must come to an end.
The words appear again, as though by magic, under his hand.
“Read them to me,” Silco says.
These ones are a little easier. Vander smiles.
“Come to bed?”
Silco plucks the pencil from his hand, and closes the notebook they’ve been working in before linking their fingers together.
romaincrisis
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