inmergo

[inmergo]

Become what they fear most; it plays on repeat in the back of his mind like a spinning vinyl record. And he knew — he knew — shoving the desk would do next to nothing, but what else was he meant to do? And what was he trying to do? Again — truly? He knew the man across from him too well; two sides of the same coin and all that shit Benzo shot at them for looking at one another 0.5 seconds too long; or when they’d covered up for the kids whenever—

Vander’s staring at him for one moment, and the next — he’s looking away. And he knows. He knows what to do so that the blood that boils deep in his gut might just be satisfied. So, he lays a hand down flat on the desk and swings long legs over, full bodied and in Vander’s space; leans to the side, forces him to — “Look at me!” It’s a growl, nothing less than near to a roar, even as his hands dare not lash out, to touch Vander. And maybe he sees the saltwater gathering at the lining of the other man’s eyes here, in the dark of a few flickering lamplights as he’s leant over, forcing himself into his space, his face — but maybe that’s what he wants. The fire in his gut demanding to be put out with something more than trepidation — sorry and woe that simply wouldn’t cut it. Reaching, swift, he yanks the bandages off to reveal what truly had been done to him — mutilation, as far as his fury was concerned. And was it safe, deep in the mines, to unveil an open wound? Fuck, no. But did the anger that singed his belly demand some sort of recompense? Would he see it in Vander’s eyes?

But even then, he can’t convince himself to stay too long, the fight or flight flickering like a broken light in his mind’s eye.

“Fuck!” And it has him spinning away on the heel of his boot, pushing his slick black hair back with both hands, fingers curling tight. One, to try to keep it from his wound and two; to turn his back on Vander. A statement, if nothing else in this horrid thirty possible minutes the moment’s been. But when he takes another step, a step away, the step… crinkles. Curiosity horridly in his nature, he takes a second to look down and sees paper; snatches it from under his foot as swiftly as a snake in the grass. Silco swipes away the dirt and dust. A letter.

Addressed to him.

And he pauses for a tick tock moment of shock — that same horrid natural curiosity pressing him on even if that blood boiling in his veins tells him to turn his eyes away. His eyes scour every inch of the page. Over and over, as he takes another step away — and another. Until, finally, he turns and leans his elbow against one of the cabinets, the paper held out in front of him; blue eyes blossoming green beneath the lamplight. They scan over every line, again and again, and a fist — once so tight the paper was in danger of tearing — loosens.

Silco stares at the page for longer than any one moment that might have passed between them in the interim since he stepped foot in the room. And then, finally, his eyes flicker up; one still half hidden now only by the wavy curl of his hair. And he can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, but, “By god, you are shit at this.”

The anger wasn't surprising, not really. Better that than the man who had tried to flee at the very sight of him. Anger Vander understood, he could deal with. Because this was what he deserved; the backlash of his own rage, delayed as it might be, mirrored now through Silco -- perhaps as wild to behold as he, himself, had been when he had inflicted brutality upon his best friend.

Vander doesn't flinch as fists hammer upon the desk though his eyes flicker upward to witness the beauty, yes even now like this, that Silco manifests. In his rage, in his beliefs, in his very nature. Beautiful and devastating all in one small body, focusing his full attention upon the large oaf that he had once called friend.

A deep "OOF!" punches from his lips as the desk connects with his stomach, and he steps backward from the impact to absorb it but returns to where he had been standing just the same, ready to accept whatever anger Silco could aim at him next. He would take it.

------ "Look at my face!"

Those words cause more damage than any physical force ever could. He's looking now; staring into the same eyes that he had met so many times before, one flashing with rage and the other badly bandaged. Was the horror of those words mirrored on Vander's face? Or in his own eyes? Had Silco slashed out at his chest too? If someone had said he had a fatal wound and was bleeding out, he'd have believed it.

I am looking.

He couldn't have said it even if he'd tried.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

He didn't shed a tear but he had to turn his face away to stop himself, heaving great breaths as if he had been throwing furniture instead. Hands clenched and his right wrist throbbed, bandaged in a matching pair to Silco's own bandaged face, not that he paid the wound any attention. He deserved it, after all.

My fault.

"I'm sorry." It would never be enough. Never. "I didn't- I was..." He paused to try again, remembering what he had put in the letter, now strewn somewhere around the room. His own shame and grief had his voice gruff with emotion. "She died and I lost my head."

[inmergo]

The reaction is quick and it is simple, a viper striking in the dark; from ash and ruin. The scrape of the chair sparks an immediate from shift from flight to fight — but he knows nothing about fighting, especially not Vander’s way, if the incident at the bridge had taught him anything. And had it? Truly?

Still, he goes from being a broken thing on the bedrock to whiplashing; upright, closed fists hammering down on the other side of the desk. A mirror, in many ways, just as they’d always been — or perhaps the very vision of him a nightmare Vander would have to face, head on. Yet he seemed hesitant — and how unlike the brutish bear Silco had always known. But still a voice in the back of his mind, blurred and rippling in silence as if underwater spoke: become what they fear most. And, at present, from what he could deduce in this nightmare of a situation, what Vander feared most was the very sight of him; busted, beaten, and bruised with the blood on his own hands.

God, he must need to wash his fucking hair.

Yet in that moment, a wild, flash of a moment, from cinder and ash is birthed a phoenix that bursts so hot within his chest that he can feel his heart beating through the fire. Again it is a primal, angry thing — the purest of rage; a wish for revenge, and a hatred that burns so hot the smoke clogs his throat as he tries to draw in a breath, ragged and so miserably unlike himself. “You—!” But it turns to a growl from deep within his belly that turns his throat raw as he grips his half of the desk and shoves, right into Vander’s gut; half its things rustled or falling; the sound of shattered glass. “Sorry? A simple sorry?” It’s inconceivable, preposterous, downright insulting. “Look at my face!”

For the first time, he drops the desk, the rattle of it’s heavy thud heard as the fire begins to burn out, and he stares at Vander with one eye — waves of black hair still barely half hiding the other side. “Look at my face,” he says, but his voice too is ragged, worn out by his own screaming. A moment of calm in the eye of the storm, perhaps. Or exhaustion wearing through sinew, bone, and skin.

The stumble of feet against the hard floor and the resounding bang has the large man sucking in a surprised breath. Maybe if he hadn't been as tired, he would have noticed the approaching scuff of shoes against tunnel ground, or maybe he had just become too accustomed to the sound itself to associate it with anything alarming.

His head lifts from his hands, eyes snapping upward as the coat rack rattles with the force of impact, leaving Vander gaping momentarily, wondering whether he had fallen asleep with his head in his hands, finally succumbing to dreams that for once didn't consist of his own anger and the fear, the panic, that had been on a face that he had grown loving. A constant within in own life. One he had marked with his own grief and resounding fury.

He blinked, and when the man that he had been yearning to see didn't disappear or warp into the moment that he hated himself for, the large man's face changed from surprise, to pain, then a mask of regret and grief that seemed to plead in a way that even his own actions couldn't. Even with him standing, chair scraping against the floor, and a large hand reaching out somewhat desperately. A broken, "Wait!" falling from his lips in a bid to still scrambling limbs.

His mind was still processing the sight in front of him; the bandages that slim hands were trying to hide, dirty hair, the deep rings below one visible eye. Silco looked so unlike himself.

My fault.

The lead weight that he had been carrying in his chest, since cinder and ash, only seemed to grow heavier as he processed the sight of the person that he trusted most, loved most, trying to flee at the mere sight of him. It's devastating in every way possible; his own actions, the visible outcome of it, and the bone deep understanding that there might not be any coming back from what he has done.

"Please." The gruff tone of his voice is laced with regret. Sadness. Pain. Vander's large brows furrow, his gaze dropping down to his own hands which had fallen open at his sides to show that he didn't mean Silco any harm. Not any more.

"I understand if you can't forgive me." He didn't think he'd forgive himself, after all. "I'm sorry."

[inmergo]

Five days? Three? A week — perhaps — tireless in the shadow; he can’t, in utter honestly, remember the last time he’d slept since, well… before. Regardless, his walk through the mines, presently abandoned, was like a simple stroll through the park. In the dark. He knew these passages like he knew his own mind. Though a loose screw and an unhinged slate of wood had him tripped up. Catching himself on the stone, the entire tunnel lit up, blisters bursting under his hand. He chuckles, picking the nearest one lit and tossing it to chomp between his teeth; his entire mouth lighting up as if it were a blue firelight.

Still, shadows had their uses. When the blisters all fade to nothing, he turns a corner to continue on the known path. The last thing he expects, however, when swinging open the door without a second thought, is for the lamplight to be lit.

Silco realizes, in this moment, that fight or flight isn’t that easy; that maybe it never was, and that it certainly never would be again. But the deep, easy breathing he’d once enjoyed turns to quick, short draws of the thick air all around them at the very sight of him; and he knows what this is, at least — panic. Raw, primal: fight or flight. Decisions that used to have a second opinion, blur his vision; an ache in his chest that he hasn’t been able to let go of for weeks— days? Two? God, he doesn’t know anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be like this — they were never supposed to be like this.

There is a circle under one eye deep and dark as a bruise over pallid skin — the other is covered not only by layer upon layer of bandages, but ink black locks of his hair, unwashed for as long as it’d been since cinder and ash. He’d washed what he could in the cleanest place a slick eel in the underground could find without being found. A thought occurs to him in the quick, swift draws of breath: But was it enough?

And then panic demands a first response: flight. Hide. It’s immediate, it’s uncoordinated — turning from the man sitting at the desk before him, a hand coming up as a third endeavor to hide the left half of his face from the light. He turns, but the out isn’t as easy as the in. Silco stumbles back, crashes into one side of the doorframe and rattles the coats still hanging there, one within the other.

FOREHEAD FALLS INTO HAND, elbow rests upon the desks surface, as words move from his head - or perhaps his heart - and travel through his hand that is wielding only a pen. his gauntlets are gone, he didn't even think of bringing them with him in an attempt to find his best friend, the very same that he had raised his own hands against in anger.

orphans that he had taken under his wing were somewhat settled in back in his bar, and vander isn't sure that he has slept for even a moment despite the exhaustion that shows upon his face. it was too important for him to apologise, the children all finally sleeping in their new beds, allowing him a little time to seek out silco. of course he wasn't there -- vander didn't blame him, wouldn't blame him if he never spoke to him again -- but he had to try. he would leave a letter, lay himself bear, and hope that silco came. hope that his closest friend could forgive him for his own actions.

could he do any of this on his own? when he had always had someone beside him?

the letter is signed ' blisters and bedrock ', just as they have always toasted. a promise. a prayer. an oath.

vander discards the pen and scrubs at his face with his own large palms in some attempt at scrubbing away all that had happened and allow them to go back to before.

---- @inmergo

[inmergo]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x07 - “Pretend Like It's the First Time” ↳ "Didn't you try to kill him?" "Greatest thing we can do in life is find the power to forgive."

[inmergo]

Despite her often brash outward appearance, there was only so much her mind could take before everything felt like it was beginning to drown her. Jinx wasn’t the type of girl who let people close to her; she only needed one finger to count the people who knew her. Everyone else thought she was reckless, which she was in many ways. People insisted she was crazy, more than once she’d overheard comments that people had said. ‘You should do something about her, Silco.’ ‘She’ll ruin everything, Silco.’ And as much as she acted like those words didn’t bother her, they still stayed in her mind. Just another thing to weigh her down in times of weakness.

Yet, as she stood waist deep in the water with her hair loose, floating on the soft ripples. Her fingers skimming lightly over the surface, humming a tune. She knew that in all this messed up world; one person wouldn’t abandon her. He wouldn’t leave her behind. Jinx didn’t need to turn around to know he’d found her, he’d always find her. He always knew.

“Do you think this new world of yours will fix everything wrong with it?” Will it fix me?

Jinx turned and walked through the water towards him, not caring one bit that she was soaked through to the bone. Jinx threw her arms around him and buried her face into his waistcoat. She was safe, safe so long as he was around. Letting go, she took hold of her hair and pushed it into his arms before sitting on one of the crates and looking out to the water. Silco would know, a father’s instinct was never wrong.

"Silly girl," still, after all this time. "Found as ever where her father might be in seeking solitude. I'm afraid you're becoming predictable, Jinx," said in a light, teasing tone that lilts softly with the ripple and rush of the river. His footsteps in his approach had been just as light, if not lighter and barely to be heard; but there was no malice wrapped within the withered, weathered leather of his bootstraps. He'd seen only a girl — his girl, with blue hair far too long and drifting in the gentle tides. This, he knew, was not the first time he'd found her here; nor, he feared, would it be the last. For this he knew he had only himself to blame, as he watched the water splash up against the concrete and steel as she turned to wade toward him. What lurked in their depths was a mystery to most, but what lessons could be learned where the bridge met the shore, and, well — again, he only had himself to blame.

Blame, he pondered, was a self-righteous endeavor that often buried itself in these exact waters. Or so he had learned.

"Suffice to say your question is a hard one to answer." The first suh— had been blown out of his lungs on a gust into the crisp air of the night by her billowing into him. A freight train wrapped in the body of a porcelain doll — and, again, he knew he had only himself to fault for it as he wrapped his arms around her; an instinct from day one — warmth, a message. Fine, long fingers furrowed into the loose locks if only for a moment before she turned her back. Ah, he thought, this too was a familiar scene. Predictable, but never unwelcome. "In this world, we are outsiders from the day we are born." He steps forward, taking the long lines of her loose hair; running his fingers first to evenly pull it all apart into two halves. "It is my hope that our freedom will allow us the integrity and ability to no longer suffer such—” But he stops, a pause. Silco runs three fingers down one side, and begins to braid. "—to suffer." And that alone, will suffice.

[inmergo]

this is a private, independent & selective portrayal of silco exclusively from riot games' arcane. i want to make it full well clear that this blog may contain triggering content. a) because of... well, arcane being the way it is and b) silco is... silco. whether he is the kingpin in what we could call the "og" timeline, or in the alternate timeline introduced in the canon — he's a character that can be hard to digest due to the trauma he's experienced or the trauma he's caused. all that said: written and loved deeply by mika. 25+, GMT-7 !

  ❛ 𝑰𝑺 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝑹𝑬 𝑨𝑵𝒀𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑺𝑶 𝑼𝑵𝑫𝑶𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑨𝑺 𝑨 𝑫𝑨𝑼𝑮𝑯𝑻𝑬𝑹? ❜   arcane, the monster you created ( season 01, episode 09 )

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 — general etiquette applies. we all know how to act right. if you don't agree with the term fiction =/= reality, please turn around post haste! we don't participate in cancel culture here, nor social politics. i'm here to have fun with friends and cry over people that aren't real. and probably do meta analysis here and there because i can't help myself.

𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 — vander bc zaundads4ever. which is presently exclusive to @castiirons. 2x07 confirmed some suspicions and that was enough for me. also powder / jinx is silco's daughter and if anyone disagrees i will literally throw hands.

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 / 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 — if i have an exclusive (affiliate), i will not write with a duplicate muse. in this case i do expect it reciprocated. however, this doesn't mean that we can't follow each other and enjoy content on the dash! that said, mains don't hold that exclusivity. yours may not be the only one i write with, just as i would not expect the same. i would / will however prioritize that main over other possible writing partners. please also note that to be considered an affiliate / exclusive there's gotta be the same level of !!!!!!!!!! on both sides. gotta work. gotta make that money make purse™. which, really just means i expect us to both be invested nutjobs in the dynamic itself.

exclusives: @hextechwonderboy (jayce), @violetandviolent (vi), @getjinnxd (jinx), & @castiirons (vander)

sidenote: this is the sideblog for any arcane silly goosery. so, for anyone that follows silco ( @inmergo ), you will be followed back from @veniremortem, where any asks from silco will come from, though i will do my best to make sure to remember to specify, etc. !

[inmergo]

tag drop 02 //

[inmergo]

tag drop 01 //